David Brainerd
Born to a farming family in Haddam, Connecticut, Brainerd soon turned his aspirations to the clergy and a life of study. The early death of his parents, combined with a naturally melancholy personality, caused him to be morose and to fixate on the brevity of life, so that his religious life was characterized by prolonged depressions punctuated by ecstatic experiences of God. He began to study for the ministry at Yale College in 1739. During his first year he showed signs of the tuberculosis that was to end his life prematurely. During the following year, the New Light preaching of George Whitefield and other itinerants such as Gilbert Tennent and James Davenport gained many adherents at the college, including Brainerd, and he became involved in a separate church founded by students. In November 1741 he was reported as saying that one of the local ministers who was a college tutor had āno more grace than a chair.ā Determined to snuff out the New Light among the students, the Yale Corporation, led by its rector, Thomas Clap, expelled Brainerd for refusing to make a public confession.
Officially barred from the ministry, Brainerd nonetheless became an itinerant preacher, filling pulpits of New Light sympathizers throughout New England and New York. In the process he gained the admiration of many clergymen, including Jonathan Dickinson, a Presbyterian minister of New Jersey and commissioner of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Dickinson in 1742 first proposed that Brainerd become a missionary. To prepare himself, in 1743 Brainerd went to work with John Sargeant, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians. He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York in 1744. From 1743 to 1747 he ministered to the Indians in western Massachusetts, eastern New York, the Lehigh region of Pennsylvania, and central New Jersey. At the New Jersey Bethel mission (near Cranbury), he achieved his most notable successes. Out of his experiences here came the publication of two installments of his journals that described both the revivals among the Delaware Indians and his own spiritual turmoil and exultation.
Brainerd preaching to the Indians for all of his zeal, however, Brainerdās constitution could not stand up to the hardships of wilderness living. In April 1747, seriously weakened by tuberculosis, he left New Jersey for the home of his friend Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he died in October.
In 1749 Edwards published An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd, drawn from Brainerdās extensive diaries and supplemented by Edwardsās own commentary. Edwards sought to portray Brainerd as a model of Christian saintliness who manifested his faith in good works and self-sacrifice, expurgating many passages that recorded Brainerdās depressions and enthusiasms. Over the centuries, this work has achieved international fame, has gone through countless printings, and has inspired many missionaries in pursuing their call.
Minkema, Kenneth P., āBrainerd, David,ā in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 84-5.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright Ā© 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
Heaven Will Be Better Than Eden
When we read about the garden of Eden in Genesis 1 and 2, we canāt help but feel drawn to its beauty and abundance and innocence. It must have been wonderful to live in such a pristine environment, with every need met, to experience an intimate marriage full of delight in each other, and to have a satisfying sense of purpose in ruling over Godās creation together. In fact, we often hear people talk about the future in terms of a return to, or restoration of, Eden. But to speak of the new creation in terms of a restoration of Eden is actually a reduction of what God has planned for his people and for his world. Eden was never intended to be the end. It was always headed somewhere ā somewhere even more glorious: new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1ā2). Rather than thinking of Eden in terms of perfection, we should think of it in terms of potential. Eden was unspoiled, but it was also unfinished; it was unsullied, but it was also incomplete. As Adam and Eve were fruitful and multiplied, more offspring in the image of God would come to glorify God by enjoying him forever. As they worked and kept the garden, the boundaries of Eden would expand, and the glory of their royal rule would increase. Just as Eden was not yet all that God intended the home he shared with his people to be, so Adam and Eve were not yet all that God intended his people to be. They were sinless, but they were vulnerable to temptation. They were alive, but they were vulnerable to death. They were made in Godās image, and crowned with a measure of his glory, but they werenāt yet as glorious as God intended them to be. If they obeyed God regarding the forbidden tree, they would be able to eat of the tree of life and enter into the unending, glorious life promised by the tree of life. But, of course, thatās not what happened. Garden Gone Wrong āRather than thinking of Eden in terms of perfection, we should think of it in terms of potential.ā When Satan slithered into Eden in the form of a serpent, Adam did not crush his head then and there but listened to and obeyed him. So rather than extending the boundaries of Eden, Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. Rather than more fully sharing the glory of the image of God, the image of God in them became marred. Rather than entering into the endless Sabbath rest, they were plunged into the restlessness of the wilderness of this world. But Godās plan for his people and the place he intends to share with them could not be hindered by human sin. Godās plan for his creation was then, and remains now, to establish his kingdom in a new creation, ruled by his Son and his Sonās bride who will share his glory and enjoy his presence in an eternal Sabbath rest. So why does this plan matter? Why does it matter that we understand that Godās original and still-in-place plan always has been headed toward an escalation of the excellencies of the original Eden? Understanding Eden orients us toward a better home. Sometimes we get sick of this world, and we find ourselves very homesick for the next. But what we long for is not merely a return to Eden. Eden was beautiful, but it wasnāt secure. Evil made its way into Eden and brought ruin with it. The new creation, where we will make our home forever, will be completely secure. āNothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or falseā (Revelation 21:27). It will be a vast garden city, filled with a āransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nationā (Revelation 5:9). As the bride of Christ, we will share this home with our perfect Bridegroom. We wonāt just hear his sound in the garden (Genesis 3:10); we āwill see his faceā (Revelation 22:4). Understanding Eden compels us to be joined to the true Adam. The first Adam failed in the work God gave him to do. Jesus, the second Adam, accomplished the work he was given to do, declaring from the cross, āIt is finished!ā (John 19:30). The first Adam failed to obey regarding a tree. Jesus obeyed regarding the tree of Calvary. The first Adam failed to love and protect his bride. But Jesus loved his bride by giving himself up for her. Understanding the failure of Adam in Eden compels us to take hold of the true Adam, Jesus. We all are born connected by our shared humanity to the first Adam, physically alive but spiritually dead. Unless something supernatural happens, we remain spiritually dead. It is when our eyes are opened to the beauty of Christ, and we respond in repentance and faith, that something supernatural does happen. We become joined to Christ by faith so that we are made spiritually alive with his life. Understanding Eden fills us with anticipation for future glory. To be joined to the risen Christ is to have the newness and glory and life of the greater Eden breaking into our lives in the here and now. āIf anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has comeā (2 Corinthians 5:17). We find that the glory of the future transforms our sense of shame now. A settled sense of the security of the future soothes our fear of death now. A growing sense of our identity as citizens of heaven changes how we see ourselves now. Truly taking in the love relationship weāre going to enjoy forever warms our hearts toward Christ now. āWeāre looking forward to the consummation of all that Eden was intended to be.ā But the glory we experience now is nothing compared with the glory to come. One day Christ is going to come and call us to rise from our graves. Heās going to give us resurrected, glorified bodies that are fit for living forever with him. Weāll experience all that God has planned, and been preparing, to share with his people from the very beginning. Weāre not merely looking forward to a restoration of what Eden once was. Instead, weāre looking forward to the consummation of all that Eden was intended to be. Jesus, the true Adam, our glorious Bridegroom, the Seed who crushed the serpentās head (Genesis 3:15), will not fail to lead us into all that God is preparing for us ā a home even better than Eden. Article by Nancy Guthrie
