Formed for the Glory of God: Learning from the Spiritual Practices of Jonathan Edwards

by Kyle Strobel

While our sight is limited, so is our formation. While salvation entails many things (forgiveness, imputation of righteousness and so on), ultimately, it entails a new relationship. The sinner, cut off from the Father by his wrath now stands before him as child. She who was once rejected before God is now the beloved before him. By standing in a negative relation to God she was not beautiful—she was like a discordant note in a song. In salvation, she is united to the Son by the Holy Spirit and is now in harmony with God and his life of love, delight and glory. Therefore, as God gives himself to his people in redemption, so he opens up his own beauty: “as God delights in his own beauty, he must necessarily delight in the creature’s holiness; which is a conformity to, and participation of it, as truly as the brightness of a jewel, held in the sun’s beams, is a participation, or derivation of the sun’s brightness.”[24] God shines forth to his creatures. Those who receive this light receive the Son and the Spirit. By receiving this light, they are made beautiful—they shine with the beauty and glory of God.