Jonathan Edwards and World Mission

"NOW THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST shall in the most strict and literal sense extend to all nations and the whole earth." Jonathan Edwards's bold assertion envisioned a future in which the gospel of Jesus Christ would progress into non-Christian lands and eventually the glory of God would encompass the entire earth. The gospel will make steady progress out in the world, as the world would "look to Christ and be saved." The telos of human history will be God's glorification in the redemption of the world. Just as the waters cover the seas, God will communicate his glory to the nations by the advancement of Christ's kingdom. Edwards wrote, "There shall be no part of the world of mankind but that shall be covered with the knowledge of God." This abiding hope of the advancement of the Christian religion proved to be a major facet of Edwards's theology. This hope has inspired countless pastors, missionaries, and theologians throughout church history. Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott note that Edwards's massive influence has led some to call him the "grandfather of modern Protestant missions."

While numerous projects have shed light on related areas, this book seeks to fill a lacuna in Edwards studies by presenting a historical-theological construction of Jonathan Edwards's theology of world mission. The major weakness of the current research is that most of the studies have not seen Edwards as a theologian of mission. They have merely presented him as a missionary or as a theologian. While these studies are extraordinarily helpful, they have not taken up extensive historical-theological analyses of the theme of world mission within Edwards's wider theology. But what was Edwards's theology of mission? How can it be identified? This book argues that upon a reading of key texts within the Edwardsian corpus, a coherent theology of mission emerges.