92SermonsofJonathanEdwards
2. Another design of the devil was to gratify his envy in the utter destruction of mankind. But, by the redemption of Jesus Christ, this malicious design of Satan is crossed, because all the elect are brought to their designed happiness, which is much greater than ever Satan thought it was in God's heart to bestow on man. And though some of mankind are left to be miserable, yet that does not answer Satan's end. For this also is ordered for God's glory. No more are left miserable than God saw meet to glorify his justice upon.
One end why God suffered Satan to do what he did in procuring the fall of man was that his Son might be glorified in conquering that strong, subtle, and proud spirit, and triumphing over him. How glorious does Christ Jesus appear in baffling and triumphing over this proud king of darkness, and all the haughty confederate rulers of hell. How glorious a sight is it to see the meek and patient Lamb of God leading that proud, malicious, and mighty enemy in triumph! What songs does this cause in heaven! It was a glorious sight in Israel, who came out with timbrels and with dances, and sang, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." But how much more glorious to see the Son of David, the Son of God, carrying the head of the spiritual Goliath, the champion of the armies of hell, in triumph to the heavenly Jerusalem! It is with a principal view to this, that Christ is called, "the Lord of hosts, or armies, and a man of war," Exo. 15:3. And Psa. 24:8, "Who is this king of glory! The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle."
SECTION V
In this way of salvation wonderful glory redounds to God, as to the effect of divine wisdom.
I. BY this contrivance for our redemption, God's greatest dishonor is made an occasion of his greatest glory. Sin is a thing by which God is greatly dishonored. The nature of its principle is enmity against God, and contempt of him. And man, by his rebellion, has greatly dishonored God. But this dishonor, by the contrivance of our redemption, is made an occasion of the greatest manifestation of God's glory that ever was. Sin, the greatest evil, is made an occasion of the greatest good. It is the nature of a principle of sin that it seeks to dethrone God. But this is made an occasion of the greatest manifestation of God's royal majesty and glory that ever was. By sin, man has slighted and despised God, but this is made an occasion of his appearing the more greatly honorable. Sin casts contempt upon the authority and law of God. But this, by the contrivance of our redemption, is made the occasion of the greatest honour done to that same authority, and to that very law. It was a greater honor to the law of God that Christ was subject to it, and obeyed it, than if all mankind had obeyed it. It was greater honor to God's authority that Christ showed such great respect, and such entire subjection to it, than the perfect obedience of all the angels in heaven. Man by his sin showed his enmity against the holiness of God. But this is made an occasion of the greatest manifestation of God's holiness. The holiness of God never appeared to so great a degree, as when God executed vengeance upon his own dear Son.
II. So has the wisdom of God contrived that those attributes are glorified in man's salvation, whose glory seemed to require his destruction. When man had fallen, several attributes of God seemed to require his destruction. The justice of God requires that sin be punished as it deserves. But it deserves no less than eternal destruction. God proclaims it as a part of glory of his nature that he will in no wise clear the guilty, Exo. 34:7. The holiness of God seemed to require man's destruction. For God by his holiness infinitely hates sin. This seemed to require therefore that God should manifest a proportionable hatred of the sinner. And that he should be forever an enemy unto him. The truth of God seemed also to require man's destruction. For eternal death was what God had threatened for sin, one jot or tittle of which threatening cannot by any means pass away. But yet so has God contrived, that those very attributes not only allow of man's redemption, and are not inconsistent with it, but they are glorified in it. Even vindictive justice is glorified in the death and sufferings of Christ. The holiness of God, or his holy hatred of sin, that seemed to require man's damnation, is seen in Christ's dying for sinners. So herein also is manifested and glorified the truth of God, in the threatenings of the law.
III. Yea, it is so ordered now that the glory of these attributes requires the salvation of those that believe. The justice of God that required man's damnation, and seemed inconsistent with his salvation, now as much requires the salvation of those that believe in Christ, as ever before it required their damnation. Salvation is an absolute debt to the believer from God, so that he may in justice demand it, on account of what his surety has done. For Christ has satisfied justice fully for his sin. It is but a piece of justice, that the creditor should release the debtor, when he has fully paid the debt. And again, the believer may demand eternal life, because it has been merited by Christ, by a merit of condignity. So is it contrived, that justice that seemed to require man's destruction, now requires his salvation.
So the truth of God that seemed to require man's damnation, now requires his salvation. At the same time that the threatening of the law stands good, there is a promise of eternal life to many who have broken the law. They both stand good at the same time. And the truth of God requires that both should be fulfilled. How much soever they seemed to clash, yet so is the matter contrived in this way of salvation, that both are fulfilled and do not interfere one with another.
At the very time that God uttered the threatening, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," and at the time that Adam had first eaten the forbidden fruit, there was then an existing promise, that many thousands of Adam's race should obtain eternal life. This promise was made to Jesus Christ before the world was. What a difficulty and inconsistency did there seem to be here? But it was no difficulty to the wisdom of God that the promise and the threatening should be both fully accomplished to the glory of God's truth in each of them. Psa. 25:10, "Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other."
IV. Those very attributes which seemed to require man's destruction are more glorious in his salvation than they would have been in his destruction. The revenging justice of God is a great deal more manifested in the death of Christ than it would have been if all mankind had been sufferers to all eternity. If man had remained under the guilt and imputation of sin, the justice of God would not have had such a trial as it had, when his own Son was under the imputation of sin. If all mankind had stood guilty, and justice had called for vengeance upon them, that would not have been such a trial of the inflexibleness and unchangeableness of the justice of God, as when his own Son, who was the object of his infinite love, and in whom he infinitely delighted, stood with the imputation of guilt upon him.
This was the greatest trial that could be, to manifest whether God's justice was perfect and unchangeable, or not. Whether God was so just that he would not upon any account abate of what justice required. And whether God would have any respect to persons in judgment.
So the majesty of God appears much more in the sufferings of Christ than it would have done in the eternal sufferings of all mankind. The majesty of a prince appears greater in the just punishment of great personages under the guilt of treason, than of inferior persons. The sufferings of Christ have this advantage over the eternal sufferings of the wicked, for impressing upon the minds of the spectators a sense of the dread majesty of God, and his infinite hatred of sin; viz. that the eternal sufferings of the wicked never will be seen actually accomplished, and finished, whereas they have seen that which is equivalent to those eternal sufferings actually fulfilled and finished in the sufferings of Christ.
V. Such is the wisdom of salvation, that the more any of the elect have dishonored God, the more is God glorified in this redemption. Such wonders as these are accomplished by the wisdom of this way of salvation. Such things as these, if they had been proposed to any created intelligence, would have seemed strange and unaccountable paradoxes, till the counsels of divine wisdom concerning the matter were unfolded.
So sufficient is this way of salvation, that it is not inconsistent with any of God's attributes to save the chief of sinners. However great a sinner any one has been, yet God can, if he pleased, save without any injury to the glory of any one attribute. And not only so, but the more sinful any one has been, the more does God glorify himself in his salvation. The more does he glorify his power, that he can redeem one in whom sin so abounds, and of whom Satan has such strong possession. — The greater triumph has Christ over his grand adversary, in redeeming and setting at liberty from his bondage those that were his greatest vassals. The more does the sufficiency of Christ appear, in that it is sufficient for such vile wretches.
The more is the sovereignty and boundless extent of the mercy of God manifested, in that it is sufficient to redeem those that are undeserving. Rom. 5:20, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."
SECTION VI
How the wisdom of God appears in the manner and circumstances of obtaining the good intended.
WE now come to take notice of some wonderful circumstances of the attainment of our good, hereby; which shows the great wisdom of the contrivance.
I. So has God contrived in this way, that a sinful creature should become not guilty; and that he who has no righteousness of his own, should become righteous. These things, if they had been proposed, would have appeared contradictious to any but the divine understanding.
If it had been proposed to any created intelligence, to find out a way in which a sinful creature should not be a guilty creature, how impossible would it have been judged, that there should be any way at all. It would doubtless have been judged impossible but that he who has committed sin, must stand guilty of the sin he has committed. And if sin necessarily obliges to punishment, it must oblige him who has committed it. If punishment and sin be inseparable, then that punishment, and the sinner are inseparable. If the law denounces death to the person who is guilty of sin, and if it be impossible that the law should not take place, then he who has committed sin must die. Thus any created understanding would have thought.
And if it had been proposed that here should be some way found out, wherein man might be righteous without fulfilling righteousness himself, so that he might reasonably and properly be looked upon and accepted as a righteous person, and adjudged to the reward of righteousness, and yet have no righteousness, and yet have broken the law, and done nothing else but break it — this doubtless would have been looked upon as impossible and contradictious.
But yet the wisdom of God has truly accomplished each of these things. He has accomplished that men, though sinners, should be without guilt, in that he has found out a way that the threatenings of the law should truly and properly be fulfilled, and punishment be executed on sin, and yet not on the sinner. The sufferings of Christ answer the demands of the law, with respect to the sins of those who believe in him. And justice is truly satisfied thereby. And the law is fulfilled and answered by the obedience of Christ, so that his righteousness should properly be our righteousness. Though not performed by us, yet it is properly and reasonably accepted for us, as much as if we had performed it ourselves. Divine wisdom has so contrived, that such an interchanging of sin and righteousness should be consistent, and most agreeable with reason, with the law, and God's holy attributes. For Jesus Christ has so united himself to us, and us to him, as to make himself ours, our head. The love of Christ to the elect is so great, that God the Father looks upon it proper and suitable to account Christ and the elect as one; and accordingly to account what Christ does and suffers, as if they did and suffered it. — That love of Christ which is so great as to render him willing to put himself in the stead of the elect, and to bear the misery that they deserved, does, in the Father's account, so unite Christ and the elect, that they may be looked upon as legally one.
II. It shows wonderful wisdom that our good should be procured by such seemingly unlikely and opposite means, as the humiliation of the Son of God. When Christ was about to undertake that great work of redemption, he did not take the method that any creature wisdom would have thought as the most proper. Creature wisdom would have determined that in order to his effectually and more gloriously accomplishing such a great work, he should rather have been exalted higher, if it had been possible, rather than humbled so low. — Earthly kings and princes, when they are about to engage in any great and difficult work, will put on their strength, an will appear in all their majesty and power, that they may be successful. — But when Christ was about to perform the great work of redeeming a lost world, the wisdom of God took an opposite method, and determined that he should be humbled and abased to a mean state, and appear in low circumstances. He did not deck himself with glory, but laid it aside. He emptied himself. Phil. 2:6, 7, 8, "Being in the form of God — he made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." — Creature wisdom would have thought that Christ, in order to perform this great work, should deck himself with all his strength. But divine wisdom determined that he should be made weak, or put on the infirmities of human nature.
And why did divine wisdom determine that he should become thus weak? It was that he might be subject to want, and to suffering, and to the power and malice of his enemies. But then what advantage could it be to him in this work, to be subject to the power and malice of his enemies? It was the very design on which he came into the world, to overcome his enemies.
Who would have thought that this was the way to overthrow them, that he should become weak and feeble, and for that very end that he might be subject to their power and malice. But this is the very means by which God determined that Christ should prevail against his enemies, even that he should be subject to their power, that they might prevail against him, so as to put him to disgrace, and pain, and death.
What other but divine wisdom could ever have determined, that this was the way to be taken in order to being successful in the work of our redemption. This would have appeared to creature wisdom the most direct course to be frustrated that could be devised. But it was indeed the way to glorious success, and the only way. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men," 1 Cor. 1:25. God has brought strength out of weakness, glory out of ignominy and reproach. Christ's shame and reproach are the only means by which a way is made to our eternal honor.
The wisdom of God has made Christ's humiliation the means of our exaltation. His coming down from heaven is that which brings us to heaven. The wisdom of God has made life the fruit of death. The death of Christ was the only means by which we could have eternal life. The death of a person who was God, was the only way by which we could come to have life in God. — Here favor is made to arise out of wrath; our acceptance into God's favor out of God's wrath upon his own Son. A blessing rises out of curse; our everlasting blessedness, from Christ being made a curse for us. Our righteousness is made to rise out Christ's imputed guilt. He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God, 2 Cor. 5:21. By such wonderful means has the wisdom of God procured our salvation.
III. Our sin and misery, by this contrivance, are made an occasion of our greater blessedness. This is a very wonderful thing. It would have been a very wonderful thing if we had been merely restored from sin and misery, to be as we were before. But it was a much more wonderful thing that we should be brought to a higher blessedness than ever, and that our sin and misery should be the occasion of it, and should make way for it.
First, it was wonderful that sin should be made the occasion of our greater blessedness. For sin deserves misery. By our sin we had deserved to be everlastingly miserable. But this is so turned by divine wisdom, that it is made an occasion of our being more happy. — It was a strange thing that sin should be the occasion of anything else but misery. But divine wisdom has found out a way whereby the sinner might not only escape being miserable, but that he should be happier than before he sinned, yea than he would have been if he had never sinned at all. And this sin and unworthiness of his are the occasion of this greater blessedness.
Second, it was a wonderful thing that man's own misery should be an occasion of his greater happiness. For happiness and misery are contraries. And man's misery was very great. He was under the wrath and curse of God, and condemned to everlasting burning. — But the sin and misery of man, by this contrivance, are made an occasion of his being more happy, not only than he was before the fall, but than he would have been if he never had fallen.
Our first parents, if they had stood and persevered in perfect obedience, till God had given them the fruit of the tree of life as a seal of their reward, would probably have been advanced to higher