Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards-GOD GLORIFIED IN MAN’S DEPENDENCE 3

 

Men are dependent on the power of God for every exercise of grace, for carrying on the work of grace in the heart, for the subduing of sin and corruption, and increasing holy principles, and for enabling them to bring forth fruit in good works, and at last bringing grace to its perfection, in making the soul completely amiable in Christ’s glorious likeness, and filling of it with a satisfying joy and blessedness; and for the raising of the body to life, and to such a perfect state, that it shall be suitable for habitation and organ for a soul so perfected and blessed. These are the most glorious effects of the power of God that are seen in the series of God’s acts with respect to the creatures. 

Man was dependent on the power of God in his first estate, but he is more dependent on his power now; he needs God’s power to do more things for him and depends on a more wonderful exercise of his power. It was an effect of the power of God to make man holy at the first; but more remarkably so now, because there is a great deal of opposition and difficulty in the way. ’Tis a more glorious effect of power to make that holy that was so depraved and under the dominion of sin, than to confer holiness on that which before had nothing of the contrary. It is a more glorious work of power to rescue a soul out of the hands of the devil, and from the powers of darkness, and to bring it into a state of salvation than to confer holiness where there was no prepossession or opposition. Luke xi. 21, 22, “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted and divided his spoils.” So ’tis a more glorious work of power to uphold a soul in a state of grace and holiness, and to carry it on till it is brought to glory when there is so much sin remaining in the heart resisting, and Satan with all his might opposing, than it would have been to have kept man from falling at first when Satan had nothing in man. 

Thus we have shown how the redeemed are dependent on God for all their good, as they have all of him. 

Secondly, They are also dependent on God for all, as they have all through him. ’Tis God that is the medium of it, as well as the author and fountain of it. All that we have, wisdom and the pardon of sin, deliverance from hell, acceptance in God’s favor, grace and holiness, true comfort and happiness, eternal life and glory, we have from God by a Mediator; and this Mediator is God, which Mediator we have an absolute dependence upon as he through whom we receive all. So that here is another way wherein we have our dependence on God for all good. God not only gives us the Mediator, and accepts his mediation, and of his power and grace bestows the things purchased by the Mediator, but he is the Mediator. 

Our blessings are what we have by purchase, and the purchase is made of God, the blessings are purchased of him, and God gives the purchaser; and not only so, but God is the purchaser. Yea, God is both the purchaser and the price; for Christ, who is God, purchased these blessings for us by offering up himself as the price of our salvation. He purchased eternal life by the sacrifice of himself: Heb. vii. 27, “He offered up himself;” and ix. 26, “He hath appeared to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Indeed it was the human nature that was offered, but it was the same person with the divine, and therefore was an infinite price: it was looked upon as if God had been offered in sacrifice. 

As we thus have our good through God, we have a dependence on God in respect that man in his first estate had not. Man was to have eternal life than through his own righteousness; so that he had partly a dependence upon what was in himself; for we have a dependence upon that through which we have our good, as well as that from which we have it. And though man’s righteousness that he then depended on was indeed from God, yet it was his own, it was inherent in himself; so that his dependence was not so immediately on God. But now the righteousness that we are dependent on is not in ourselves but in God. We are saved through the righteousness of Christ: he is made unto us righteousness, and therefore is prophesied of, Jer. xxiii. 6, under that name of “the Lord our righteousness.” In that the righteousness we are justified by is the righteousness of Christ, it is the righteousness of God: 2 Cor. v. 21, “That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 

Thus in redemption, we hadn't only all things of God, but by and through him: 1 Cor. viii. 21, “But to us, there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” 

Thirdly, The redeemed have all their good in God. We not only have it of him, and through him, but it consists in him; he is all our good. 

The good of the redeemed is either objective or inherent. By their objective good, I mean that intrinsic object, in the possession and enjoyment of which they are happy. Their inherent good is that excellency or pleasure which is in the soul itself. With respect to both of which the redeemed have all their good in God, or, which is the same thing, God himself is all their good.