Language and Metaphor Theme Analysis

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is a sermon: it’s a message about God delivered through the spoken word. As sermons and the Bible (a written text, whose words are “the words of the great God”) are the primary modes by which a person can understand and relate to God, language should be understood as having a special role in religion and faith. In this instance, in order for language to do its job of propelling the congregation towards Christ, Edwards places extra emphasis on the power and limits of language and metaphor. He uses extreme and evocative metaphors to try to help the congregation understand religious ideas, such as their own precariousness and the wrath of God, but he also acknowledges that these metaphors can only say so much: he occasionally gestures towards the things that language cannot express.

The great variety and creativity of Edwards’ metaphors is one of the most notable aspects of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Were Edwards simply to say that “God is full of wrath,” the congregation would understand what he meant, but the statement would likely remain fairly abstract. By comparing God’s wrath to familiar situations on Earth, however, the congregation is able to feel the force and meaning of the phrase “God is full of wrath” more viscerally. For example, when Edwards tries to communicate how powerless sinners are, he doesn’t simply state that they are weak compared to God; instead, he says that God’s enemies are “as great heaps of light chaff [cornhusks] before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames.” By using these images of a powerful wind carrying cornhusks or of kindling thrown into a raging fire, Edwards gives the congregation a concrete way to understand the magnitude (and violence) of God’s power compared to theirs. Metaphor, in other words, helps Edwards to make spiritual principles personal to the congregation, thereby communicating the necessity of finding Christ.

However, not wanting the congregation to get the wrong idea, Edwards is also careful to underscore that, though his metaphors give a sense of abstract spiritual ideas, they cannot adequately communicate the truth of those ideas. In fact, Edwards suggests that despite his best efforts to be brutal and extreme, his metaphors paint a rosier spiritual picture than his congregation should expect. This is most apparent in the section in which Edwards attempts to describe the abject horror that awaits sinners during an eternity of torture in hell. Edwards makes such threats as, “you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all; you will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance,” but he then goes on to remind the congregation that, “Oh who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; ‘tis inexpressible and inconceivable: for who knows the power of God's anger?” Edwards makes a similar statement about his attempts to explain the fierceness of the wrath of God: “Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! But it is not only said so, but the fierceness and wrath of almighty God.” In other words, despite the fact that Edwards’ words are inadequate to communicate reality, they are not just words: they stand for something real, which is the unimaginable wrath of God.

Thus, for Edwards, language is the primary tool through which sinners can be brought to Christ and saved, and this is unfortunate, since language cannot approach the truth of God. Edwards does his best to use the power, variety, and limits of language to communicate his message. He quotes often from the Bible (God’s own words), he uses florid and brutal metaphors to personalize abstract concepts, and, in case that wasn’t enough, he reminds the congregation that his metaphors are underwhelming in comparison to the inexpressible truth. It’s worth noting that this combination of linguistic tactics was persuasive: members of the congregation were reported to have wept and moaned and even fainted, with some crying out to Edwards asking what they needed to do to be saved.