The Resolutions

(This article first appeared in the Loch a Tuath News paper for January 2003.)

For lovers of the Puritan and Reformed faith, this year will mark an important anniversary -- the 300th anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Edwards in 1703. I am planning to mark it in a small way in our own congregation, because Edwards was one of the greatest men ever to have graced the church. He was born in October -- so watch this space for some news of the anniversary.

My purpose in drawing attention to Edwards at the beginning of the year is because of his Resolutions. While justly famed for some of his other works, his Resolutions deserve to be studied, not least because this is a time for resolutions. Although we can do things differently (or better) at any time, we find the beginning of a new year an appropriate time to resolve that our lives will be much improved. I wonder how many resolutions you made this year? Two? Three? Broken any yet?

When Jonathan Edwards was 19 years old, he wrote 70 resolutions over the course of a year. These he resolved to read over each week, and to keep by God's grace. They were the product of a young and zealous faith, but they were also the product of a deep determination to keep God's glory as the priority in his life. For Jonathan Edwards, the new birth -- his conversion to Christ -- was the most important threshold he, or anyone else, could cross. Consequently, the life that he lived afterwards he determined to live for God alone.

The following excerpts will give a flavour of Edwards' resolutions:

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God...

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can...

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live...

7. Resolved, never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life...

36. Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call to it...

41. Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better...

56. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be...

Were yours anything like that this new year? To read Edwards' resolutions is to realise that the secret of living well is to look high to Heaven and to look deep into our own souls. A good life is not just a matter of changing one or two bad or questionable habits -- it is to become holy.

I know that holiness is not part of the everyday vocabulary of most people. People equate it with self-denial and with a lack of joy and pleasure. But Edwards was no killjoy. He knew that if God created the world for his own glory, then man's highest good, and highest happiness, was to be found in pursuing God's glory. And he knew that the only way to find that happiness was to shape his life according to God's Word, the Bible, and to live the most Christ-like life possible.

You will hear more about Jonathan Edwards this year. He is one of my heroes. But I cannot read him without hanging my head in shame at the lack of resolve on my part so often to do the right thing -- to do the God-glorifying thing in every situation. May Edwards' God keep you and guide you this year, and may Edwards' example produce in us the same spiritual resolutions, that we may truly glorify God and enjoy him for ever!