Charity and its fruits - Edwards - XVI - Lecture XV

Required reading
Charity and its fruits by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Lecture XV (The Holy Spirit for ever to be communicated to the saints, in the grace of charity, or divine love).

My summary
Now Edwards examines 1 Corinthians 13:8 'Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away'.  Edwards explains that the great fruit of the Spirit, in which the Holy Ghost shall, not only for a season, but ever-lastingly, be communicated to the church of Christ, is charity, or divine love.

Thus firstly Edwards teaches us that the spirit of Christ is given to his church and people everlastingly, to influence and dwell in them.

Secondly Edwards observes that there are other fruits of the Spirit besides that which summarily consists in love, wherein the Spirit of God is communicated to his church.  This is seen in the fact that:
(i) the Spirit of God has been communicated to his church in extraordinary gifts, such as the gift of miracles, the gift of inspiration;
(ii) there are common and ordinary gifts of the Spirit of God.

Thirdly we learn that all these other fruits of the Spirit are but for a season, and either have already ceased, or at some time will cease.

Fourthly Edwards explains that love is that great fruit of the Spirit, that never fails and in which his continued and everlasting influence and indwelling in his church shall appear and be manifest.  This may be considered in the church of Christ:
(i) with respect to the particular members of which it consists;
(ii) collectively, or as a body.

Then in application Edwards remarks:
(i) that there seems to be no reason to think, as some have thought, that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are to be restored to the church in the future and glorious times of her latter-day prosperity and blessedness;
(ii) the subject we have been considering should make persons exceedingly cautious how they give heed to anything that may claim to be any extraordinary gift of the Spirit;
(iii) the subject teaches how greatly we should value those influences and fruits of the Spirit which are evidences of true grace in the soul, and which are all summarily included in charity, or divine love.

What grabbed me
Edwards was definitely teaching on a controversial verse today.  And I don't think I agree with some of Edwards cessationist arguments.

But I did like this closing statement: 'This grace is the most excellent fruit of the Spirit, without which the most extraordinary and miraculous gifts are nothing. This is the great end to which they are but the means ; and which is, of course, more excellent than all these means. Let us all therefore earnestly seek this blessed fruit of the Spirit, and let us seek that it may abound in our souls; that the love of God may more and more be shed abroad in our hearts ; and that we may love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and love one another as Christ hath loved us. Thus we shall possess the richest of all treasures, and the highest and most excellent of all graces. Having within us that love which is immortal in its nature, we shall have the surest evidence that our immortality will be blessed, and that our hope of eternal life is that good hope which shall never disappoint us. Love cherished in the soul on earth, will be to us the foretaste of, and the preparation for that world which is a world of love, and where the Spirit of love reigns and blesses forever. '

Hunger after love - it is a foretaste of heaven!

Next week's reading
Commence Lecture XVI (Heaven, a world of charity or love) by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'IV. Of the principle of love in heaven.'

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.