In his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” the revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards famously compared mankind to repulsive creatures in the hands of a repulsed God.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes, as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.
Jonathan Edwards
While Edwards certainly wasn’t the only one to champion a loathsome view of humanity in God’s eyes, he was certainly a strong contributor to this belief. Even though he lived in the 1700’s, this view of God and humanity still carries weight in many Protestant Christian circles today.
But is it Biblical? Is that really the God Scripture describes—One Who loathes sinners and holds them over the pit of hell, a red-faced angry God Who is only held back from instantly casting men into fiery torment by His inexplicable mercy? Does God think of your friend who isn’t a follower of Jesus as a “spider or some loathsome insect?”
Before we get to how God views “sinners” specifically (those held “over the pit of hell” in Edward’s sermon), let’s start with how God thought of humanity when He created us. Grasping God’s pre-Fall view of humans is critical for understanding His view of us after sin entered the picture.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them…
Genesis 1:26-28 ESV
Humans are created in the “image” of God. The Hebrew word translated “image” in Genesis 1 is primarily used throughout the Old Testament in reference to idols of other gods. Idols were a visible representation of the invisible god. And in the pagan mind, an idol was not merely some inanimate 3D sculpture of the deity. For an idol worshipper, the god’s very presence came to indwell the idol. At least in some ancient civilizations, a special ceremony was held after the idol’s construction to enable this. (Look up “washing of the mouth” in ancient Mesopotamia.)
Side note: while we know that “an idol has no real existence” (1 Cor. 8:4), “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons” (1 Cor. 10:20 ESV). Although idols were just inanimate, lifeless objects, real demonic forces were behind idol worship.
Interestingly, this concept of the idol being indwelt by the god is not far afield from how God created humans. He formed Adam from the dirt and then animated this dirt sculpture with His own breath, the “breath of life” (Gen. 2:7). For an ancient Israelite listening to the Creation story being read, the most tangible analogy to humans as “images” were the idols of their pagan neighbors.
Just as an idol was made to be the localized presence of the god, humans were made to be manifestations of God’s own divine presence. This is not to be confused with humans being God (or gods), which is why Satan could tempt Adam and Eve with being “like gods” (Gen. 3:5 LEB). However, it does mean that humans were created to be the visible representations of God Himself.
The rest of Genesis 1:26-28 associates being created in God’s image with rulership. Humans rule over creation because we are made as God’s “idols.” Just as the idol of a pagan god represented the god’s presence and rule, so humans were made to be the visible representatives of God and His rule on the earth.
As the first human ruler of earth, Adam is called the “son of God” (Luke 3:38). Interestingly, this is the same title ascribed to Jesus, to a group of divine beings in the Old Testament (the “sons of God”—e.g. Gen. 6:1-4, Job 1:6, 2:1, and a few others), to the Davidic King (2 Sam. 7:14), to the nation of Israel (Ex. 4:22), and then also to believers in Jesus in the New Testament. All of these references to sonship have rulership connotations. In association with being made in the image (e.g. idol) of God, humans were created to be the royal children of God, bearing His image in a manner comparable to how a prince bears a resemblance to his father, the king.
God’s viewpoint of humanity in Genesis 1:26-28 is a million miles away from Jonathan Edward’s view. Although humans were fashioned similarly to animals—out of the dust, being created as God’s children in His image sets humans apart from every “loathsome insect,” as Edwards put it. Unlike the animals, humans were created to be the royal family of God, the kings and queens of earth, and given explicit instructions to rule over the animals (Gen. 1:26).
Now, to be fair to Edwards, his sermon was entitled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” If mankind was created to be the animate idols of God and the royal children of God, representing His presence and rule over creation, did God’s viewpoint change after Adam and Eve sinned? Are sinners really “ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes,” or was Edward’s portrayal of God a caricature or worse?
Epic Gospel 