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The Necessity of Christ’s Resurrection by Samuel Willard

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

It was required that Christ should rise from the dead. Just as he had to die, he had to rise and live.  This was necessary for several reasons:

1. He rose again to prove and declare that he was the Son of God, Rom. 1:4.  During his Humiliation and particularly in his death, Christ’s divinity was obscured under a veil of the many infirmities of his humanity, but in his resurrection he proved his eternal power and Godhead.  Indeed it is true that others were raised, and indeed shortly all shall rise; therefore merely to be raised from the dead is not proof of the divinity of the one raised.  Yet, for someone to raise himself by his own power, that is sufficient proof of divinity. He gave evidence of divinity by raising others in his name, but he was required to raise himself by his own power to prove himself God.

There was a further proof of his divinity in the resurrection in that he died according to the Law and justice of God, sentenced as our Surety to suffer the whole weight of the wrath of God.  For him to be released from this sentence, after he had been born for that very purpose, and to live again having fulfilled all the demands of justice upon him, proves him to be God.  The weight of wrath that he bore would have broken the whole of creation and they would never have been released.

2. In this way he attested to his perfect victory over death and our spiritual enemies. It was not enough that Christ should die for us.  In dying, he must be a conqueror; otherwise his death would not profit us.  Indeed, he suffered in order that he might overcome, Heb. 2:14, “That through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”  This was shown and proven by his resurrection.  This is the reason why Paul after he had demonstrated by many arguments that Christ was risen and then shown what was the glorious cause of it, concluded the passage with a note of triumph, 1 Cor. 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is true that Christ conquered all on his cross: there the battle was fought and there the victory was gained.  But that victory was made into a triumph in his resurrection.  Now his enemies fled, quitting the field. Psa. 68:1, “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered; let those also who hate him flee before him.”  He made a conquest of death itself and it lay dead at his feet.  Christ would never be known as a conqueror except for this.  If death had held him as her captive, where would his victory be?

3. He rose for our justification. “Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised because of our justification,” Rom. 4:25.  As he died to pay our debt, so he rose again to acquit or absolve us from it.  Christ’s resurrection was both his and our discharge: his, when he stood as our surety bond for us, and ours, as those for whom he was Surety.  As Christ by dying was made virtually, so by rising he becomes actually the object of our justifying faith.

He became a sufficient object of faith not merely by undertaking to appear in our place, but by actually making an end of the transgressions on our account and paying our whole debt.  If he had not made satisfaction for us, we could not in justice have been pardoned.  If he had not fully reconciled us to God and completely answered the Law’s demands, we could not have been saved.  Therefore if he had continued on in death, it would have shown the continuing need for payment; which would have revealed its imperfection and consequently its invalidity.  Christ could not rise until justice acquitted him.  His bond was submitted for our cause and it must be accepted by the Judge and that only by a full payment of the bond.  When he arose, this bond was returned to him, and cancelled.  Our debt is paid; our bond is returned.  Therefore his resurrection stands in opposition to all that could be laid to our charge, Rom. 8:34.  Therefore this is one of the arguments that the Apostle uses to prove that Christ must be risen, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” 1 Cor. 15:17.

4. It was to put Christ into a proper condition for the completing of the work remaining in the execution of his offices. We observed in a [another] sermon that Christ executes his offices in both states of Humiliation and Exaltation.  As our Priest, here he was to satisfy justice for us and afterwards to intercede for us, Heb. 7:25.  As our Prophet, here he taught with his mouth, but there he sent forth his Spirit and therefore he had to go to the Father, John 16:17.  As our King, here he commanded his disciples and gave them laws, but he must also govern them by his power and wield the scepter over the world.  This was accomplished by his resurrection, Psa. 2:6 and following, cf. Acts 13:33.  Indeed, there was the glory of a mediator promised to him as a reward for his obedience, and it was necessary for him to rise in order to take possession of it, Luke 24:26, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”

5. It was necessary for him to rise, so he would be the first fruits of our resurrection, both spiritually and bodily. See 1 Cor. 15:20-23.  By first fruits, we are not to understand first in order of time, but in order of causation.  Those who rose at Christ’s death, as described in the Gospel, Matt. 27:52-53, rose by the power and influence of his resurrection.  Furthermore it is a sure pledge of the resurrection of his members.  When the first fruits were offered to God under the Law, he accepted them and gave his people an assurance of the harvest.  The Apostle makes the same point in 1 Cor. 15 using the order of the covenants.  Just as Adam in the first covenant, standing for us, procured death for us, so Christ in the new covenant, being our Surety, has purchased a resurrection for us.  His resurrection is the earnest of ours, 1 Cor. 15:20.

To summarize, Christ as God is the efficient cause: Christ as our substitute satisfying for our sins is the meritorious cause: Christ rising from the dead is the continuing cause of our resurrection. “A little while longer and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also,” John 14:19.

APPLICATION 1. Learn from this, that it is the concern of all those who desire a joyful, triumphant resurrection at last to get and secure a claim to Christ’s resurrection.  There will be a general rising again of all who die, both just and unjust, but no one will rise in glory except those who are under the saving power of the resurrection of Christ.

Others shall rise only to receive an everlasting second fall into the bottomless pit of never-ending miseries.  As long as men are out of Christ, thoughts of the resurrection may well be full of dread, for it is that which truly makes death to be a reason for terror.  If death were to put an end to the being of men, it would not have such fearfulness in it, as it does when one considers that after death comes a dreadful judgment and then a resurrection to condemnation.

To think that I must be restored to an incorruptible state for the purpose of being prepared to suffer eternal torments and lie in everlasting burning is a most confounding thought.  Is it enough to cause us to seriously enquire how may we escape this doom and be happy at the last day?  The solution is, let us get the power of Christ’s resurrection applied to us, first to raise us up from sin, which is done in this life, and then to raise us up to glory, which will be at the last day.  The second depends upon the first.  Let us make sure, then, that he rose for our justification by being in him by faith, and so we shall be both justified and glorified by him at that day.

APPLICATION 2. Let us labor to get our faith strengthened and established by rightly meditating on the resurrection of Christ. Let this satisfy us, that Christ has made a complete redemption, as the Apostle argues, Heb. 7:25. Justice had him in its hands, it put him to death, but it has released him. A risen Surety must be a sufficient Savior: there can no longer be any reason to question whether the justice of God is satisfied. Let this encourage us to go to Christ to finish all that is lacking in our being prepared for eternal life. Remember, he is exalted for this very purpose, to complete what he began in his earthly life and death.

APPLICATION 3. Let the consideration of our interest in his resurrection help us to triumph over death and the grave. Christ is risen and gone to heaven: he is our forerunner to take possession in our name and make ready our accommodations.  Let us cheerfully follow him, rejoicing in the hope of a happy rising, and being with him forever.

This is a portion of a sermon “The Nature of Christ’s Resurrection” preached by Willard on June 8, 1697.  The full version of the sermon can be found on our website.

Posted in Samuel Willard |

The Power of Christ’s Resurrection by George Whitefield

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

“That I may know Him, and the power of his resurrection.” Philippians 3:10

The apostle, in the verses before the text, had been cautioning the Philippians to “beware of the circumcision,” Judaizing teachers, who endeavored to subvert them from the simplicity of the gospel by telling them they still ought to be subject to circumcision and all the other ordinances of Moses.  So that they might not think he spoke out of prejudice and condemned their tenets because he himself was a stranger to the Jewish dispensation, he acquaints them that if any other man thought he had whereof he might trust in the flesh or seek to be justified by the outward privileges of the Jews, he had more: For he was “circumcised the eighth day; of the stock of Israel (not a proselyte, but a native Israelite); of the tribe of Benjamin (the tribe which adhered to Judah when the others revolted); an Hebrew of the Hebrews (a Jew both on the father’s and mother’s side); and as touching the law, a Pharisee,” the strictest sect amongst all Israel.  To show that he was no Galileo in religion, through his great though misguided zeal, he had persecuted the church of Christ; and “as touching the righteousness of the law (as far as the Pharisees exposition of it went, he was) blameless,” and had kept it from his youth.  But, when it pleased God, who separated him from his mother’s womb to reveal his Son in him, “What things were gain to me,” (he says) those privileges I boasted myself in and sought to be justified by, “I counted loss for Christ.”

So that they might not think he repented that he had done so, he tells them, he was now more confirmed than ever in his judgment.  For, says he, “yea doubtless (the expression in the original rises with a holy triumph) and I do count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”  And that they might not object that he professed and did not live it, he acquaints them with the proofs of the sincerity of these professions, because, for the sake of them, he had suffered the loss of all his worldly things and was still willing to do more; for, “I count them but dung so that I may win (or have a saving interest in) Christ and be found in him (as the manslayer in the city of refuge) not having my own righteousness which is of the law (not depending on having Abraham for my father, or on any works of righteousness which I have done, either to atone or serve as a balance for my evil deeds) but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”  A righteousness of God’s appointing and which will also be imputed to me, if I believe in Christ, “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection;” that I may have an experimental knowledge of the efficacy of his resurrection, by feeling the influences of his blessed Spirit on my soul.

In these words two things are implied.

FIRST, That Christ is risen indeed from the dead; and that it was necessary for him so to do; and, SECONDLY, That it highly concerns us to know and experience “the power of his resurrection.”

FIRST, Christ is indeed risen. That Jesus should rise from the dead was absolutely necessary;

1. FIRST, It was necessary on his own account. He had often appealed to this as the last and most convincing proof he would give them that he was the Messiah, “There shall no other sign be given you, than the sign of the prophet Jonas.”  And again he said, “Destroy this temple of my body, and in three days I will build it up.”  These words his enemies remembered and urged it as an argument to induce Pilate to grant them a watch to prevent his being stolen out of the grave: “We know that deceiver said, whilst he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again.”  So that had he not risen again, they might have justly said, we know that this man was an impostor.

2. SECONDLY, It was necessary on our account. “He rose again” (says the apostle) for our justification;” or that the debt we owed to God for our sins might be fully satisfied and discharged.  It had pleased the Father (for ever adored be his infinite love and free grace) to wound his only Son for our transgressions and to arrest and confine him in the prison of the grave as our surety for the guilt we had contracted by setting at naught his commandments.  Now had Christ continued always in the grave, we could have had no more assurance that the payments for our sins was satisfied any more than any common debtor can have of his creditor’s being satisfied whilst his surety is kept confined.  But he being released from the power of death, we are thereby assured, that with his sacrifice God was well pleased, that our atonement was finished on the cross, and that he hath made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the world.

3. THIRDLY, It was necessary that our Lord Jesus should rise again from the dead, to assure us of the certainty of the resurrection of our own bodies. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body was entirely exploded and set at naught among the Gentiles, as appears from the Athenians mocking at and calling St. Paul “a babbler and a setter forth of strange doctrines” when he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.  And though it was believed by most of the Jews, as is evident from many passages of scripture, yet not by all; the whole sect of the Sadducees denied it.  But the resurrection of Jesus Christ put it out of dispute.  For as he acted as our representative, if he our head be risen, then must we also, who are his members, shall rise with him.  And as in the first Adam we all died, even so in him our second Adam we must all, in this sense, be made alive.

As it was necessary, upon these accounts, that our blessed Lord should rise from the dead; so it is plain beyond contradiction that he did.  Never was any matter of fact better attested; never were more precautions made use of to prevent a cheat.  He was buried in a sepulcher hewn out of a rock, so that it could not be said that any digged under and conveyed him away.  It was a sepulcher also wherein never man before was laid; so that if any body did rise from thence, it must be the body of Jesus of Nazareth.  Besides, the sepulcher was sealed; a great stone rolled over the mouth of it and a band of soldiers (consisting not of friends, but of his professed enemies) was set to guard it.

And as for his disciples coming by night and stealing him away, it was altogether improbable.  For it was not long since, that they had all forsaken him and they were the most backward in believing his resurrection.  And supposing it was true, that they came whilst the soldiers slept; yet the soldiers must be cast into a deep sleep indeed, that the rolling away so great a stone did not awake some of them.

And our blessed Lord’s afterwards appearing at sundry times, and in divers manners, to his disciples, as when they were assembled together, when they were walking to Emmaus, when they were fishing: nay, and condescending to show them his hands and feet, and his appearing to above five hundred brethren at once, put the truth of his resurrection out of all dispute.

Indeed, there is one objection that may be made against what has been said, that the books wherein these facts are recorded were written by his disciples.  But who are more proper persons than those who were eye-witnesses of what they related and eat and drank with him after his resurrection?  “But they were illiterate and ignorant men.”  Yet they were as good witnesses of a plain matter of fact as the most learned masters in Israel.  Nay, this rendered them more proper witnesses.  For being plain men, they were therefore less to be suspected of telling or making a lie, particularly, since they laid down their lives for a testimony of the truth of it.  We read indeed of Jacob’s telling a lie, though he was a plain man, in order to get his father’s blessing.  But it was never heard since the world began, that any man, much less a whole set of men, died as martyrs for the sake of an untruth when they themselves were to reap no advantage from it.

No, this single circumstance proves them to Israelites indeed, in whom was no guile.  And the wonderful success God gave to their ministry afterwards when three thousand were converted by one sermon and when twelve poor fishermen in a very short time were enabled to be more than conquerors over all the opposition men or devils could make was as plain a demonstration that Christ was risen, according to their gospel.

But what need we of any further witnesses?  Believe you the resurrection of our blessed Lord?  I know that you believe it, as your gathering together on this first day of the week in the courts of the Lord’s house abundantly testifies.

What concerns us most to be assured of, and which is the SECOND thing I was to speak to, is, Whether we have experimentally known the power of his resurrection; that is, Whether or not we have received the Holy Ghost and by his powerful operations on our hearts have been raised from the death of sin to a life of righteousness and true holiness.

It was this, the great apostle was chiefly desirous to know.  He was satisfied that the resurrection of Christ’s body would avail him nothing unless he experienced the power of it in raising his dead soul. A chief end of our blessed Lord’s rising from the dead was to enter heaven as our representative and to send down the Holy Ghost to apply that redemption he had finished on the cross to our hearts, by working an entire change in them.  Without this, Christ would have died in vain.  For it would have done us no service to have had his outward righteousness imputed to us, unless we had an inward inherent righteousness wrought in us.  Because, being altogether conceived and born in sin and consequently unfit to hold communion with an infinitely pure and holy God, we cannot possibly be made meet to see or enjoy him till a thorough renovation has passed upon our hearts.

Without this, we leave out the Holy Ghost in the great work of our redemption.  But as we were made by the joint concurrence and consultation of the blessed trinity; and as we were baptized in their name, so must all of them concur in our salvation: As the Father made, and the Son redeemed, so must the Holy Ghost sanctify and seal us, or otherwise we have believed in vain.

This then is what the apostle means by the “Power of Christ’s resurrection,” and this is what we are as much concerned experimentally to know, as that He rose at all.  Without this, though we may be moralists, though we may be civilized, good-natured people, yet we are no Christians.  For he is not a true Christian who is only one outwardly; nor have we therefore a right because we daily profess to believe that Christ rose again the third day from the dead.  But he is a true Christian who is one inwardly; and then only can we be stilled true believers when we not only profess to believe but have felt the power of our blessed Lord’s rising from the dead by being quickened and raised by his Spirit (when dead in trespasses and sins) to a thorough newness both of heart and life.

The devils themselves cannot but believe the doctrine of the resurrection and they tremble.  But yet they continue devils, because the benefits of this resurrection have not been applied to them, nor have they received a renovating power from it, to change and put off their diabolical nature.  And so, unless we not only profess to know, but also feel that Christ is risen indeed, by being born again from above, we shall be as far from the kingdom of God as they: our faith will be as ineffectual as the faith of devils.

Nothing has done more harm to the Christian world; nothing has rendered the cross of Christ of less effect, than a vain supposition that religion is something without us.  Whereas we should consider, that everything that Christ did outwardly must be done over again in our souls or otherwise, the believing there was such a divine person once on earth who triumphed over hell and the grave will profit us no more than believing there was once such a person as Alexander, who conquered the world.

As Christ was born of the Virgin’s womb, so must he be spiritually formed in our hearts. As he died for sin, so must we die to sin.  And as he rose again from the dead, so must we also rise to a divine life.  None but those who have followed him in this regeneration or new-birth shall sit on thrones as approvers of his sentence when he shall come in terrible majesty to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

It is true, as for the outward work of our redemption, it was a transient act and was certainly finished on the cross, but the application of that redemption to our hearts is a work that will continue always, even unto the end of the world.  So long as there is an elect man breathing on the earth, who is naturally engendered of the offspring of the first Adam, so long must the quickening spirit, which was purchased by the resurrection of the second Adam, that Lord from heaven, be breathing upon his soul.  For though we may exist by Christ, yet we cannot be said to exist in him till we are united to him by one spirit and enter into a new state of things, as certainly as he entered into a new state of things after that he rose from the dead.  We may throng and crowd about Christ, and call him “Lord, Lord,” when we come to worship before his footstool; but we have not effectually touched him till by a lively faith in his resurrection, we perceive a divine virtue coming out of him to renew and purify our souls.

How greatly then do they err who rest in a bare historical faith of our Savior’s resurrection and look only for external proofs to evidence it?  Whereas were we the most learned disputers of this world and could speak of the certainty of this fact with the tongue of men and angels, yet without this inward testimony of it in our hearts, though we might convince others, yet we would never be saved by it ourselves.  For we are but dead men, we are like so many carcasses wrapped up in grave clothes till that same Jesus, who called Lazarus from his tomb and at whose own resurrection many that slept arose, doth raise us also by his quickening Spirit from our natural death, in which we have so long lain to a holy and heavenly life.

We might think ourselves happy, if we had seen the Holy Jesus after He was risen from the dead, and our hands had handled that Lord of life.  But more happy are they who have not seen him, and yet having felt the power of his resurrection and therefore believe in him.  For many saw our divine master on earth who were not saved by him; but whosoever has thus felt the power of his resurrection has the earnest of his inheritance in his heart, he has passed from death to life and shall never fall into final condemnation.

I am very sensible that this is foolishness to the natural man, as were many such like truths to our Lord’s own disciples when they were only weak in faith before he rose again.  But when these natural men, like them, have fully felt the power of his resurrection, they will then own that this doctrine is from God and say with the Samaritans, “Now we believe not because of thy saying,” for we ourselves have experienced it in our hearts.”

And O that all unbelievers, all letter-learned masters of Israel, who now look upon the doctrine of the power of Christ’s resurrection or our new birth as an idle tale and condemn the preachers of it as enthusiasts and madmen, did but thus feel the power of it in their souls, they would no longer ask, how this thing could be?  But they would be convinced of it, as much as Thomas was, when he saw the Lord’s Christ; and like him, when Jesus bid him reach out his hands and thrust them into his side, in a holy confession, they would cry out, “My Lord and my God!”

But how shall an unbeliever, how shall the formal Christian come thus to “know Christ, and the power of his resurrection?” God, who cannot lie, has told us, “I am the resurrection and the life, whosoever liveth and believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”  Again, says the apostle, “By faith we are saved, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God.”  This, this is the way, walk in it.  Believe, and you shall live in Christ and Christ in you; you shall be one with Christ and Christ one with you.  But without this, your outward goodness and professions will avail you nothing.

But then, by this faith we are not to understand a dead speculative faith, a faith in the head; but a living principle wrought in the heart by the powerful operations of the Holy Ghost, a faith that will enable us to overcome the world and forsake all the affection for Jesus Christ.  For thus speaks our blessed Master, “Unless a man forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”  And so the apostle, in the words immediately following the text, says, “being made conformable to his death;” thereby implying, that we cannot know the power of Christ’s resurrection unless we are made conformable to him in his death.

If we can reconcile light and darkness, heaven and hell, then we may hope to know the power of Christ’s resurrection without dying to ourselves and the world.  But till we can do this, we might as well expect that Christ will have concord with Belial.  For there is such a contrariety between the spirit of this world and the Spirit of Jesus Christ that he who will be at friendship with the one must be at enmity with the other: “We cannot serve God and mammon.”  This may, indeed, seem a hard saying and many, with the young man in the gospel, may be tempted to go away sorrowful.  But wherefore should this offend them?  For what is all that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, but vanity and vexation of spirit?

Could our own wills or the world have made us happy, He never would have sent his own dear Son Jesus Christ to die and rise again to deliver us from the power of them.  But because they only torment and cannot satisfy, therefore God bids us to renounce them.  Had anyone persuaded profane Esau not to lose so glorious a privilege merely for the sake of gratifying a present corrupt inclination when he saw him about to sell his birth-right for a little red pottage, would not one think that man to have been Esau’s friend?  And just thus stands the case between God and us.  By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are new-born to a heavenly inheritance amongst all them which are sanctified; but our own corrupt wills would tempt us to sell this glorious birth-right for the vanities of the world, which, like Esau’s red pottage, may please us for a while but will soon be taken away from us.  God knows this and therefore bids us renounce them for a season rather than for the short enjoyment of them to lose the privilege of that glorious birth-right, which is had by knowing the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

O the depth of the riches and excellency of Christianity!  Well might the great St. Paul count all things but dung and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of it.  Well might he desire so ardently to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection.  For even on this side of eternity, it raises us above the world and makes us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  Well might that glorious company of worthies, recorded in the Holy scriptures, supported with a deep sense of their heavenly calling, despise the pleasures and profits of this life and wander about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, in dens and caves of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.  And O that we were all like minded!  That we felt the power of Christ’s resurrection as they did!  How should we then “count all things as dung and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord!”

How should we then recover our primitive dignity, trample the earth under our feet, and with our souls be continually gasping after God?  And what hinders but we may be thus minded?  Is Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, altered from what he was?  No, “he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  And though he is exalted to the right hand of God, yet he is not ashamed to call us brethren.  The power of his resurrection is as great now as formerly, and the Holy Spirit, which was assured to us by his resurrection, is as ready and able to quicken us who are dead in trespasses and sins as any saint that ever lived.  Let us but cry, and that instantly, to Him that is mighty and able to save; let us, in sincerity and truth, without secretly keeping back the least part, renounce ourselves and the world; then we shall be Christians indeed.  And though the world may cast us out and separate from our company, yet Jesus Christ will walk with and abide in us.  And at the general resurrection of the last day, when the voice of the archangel and trump of God shall bid the sea and the graves to give up their dead and all nations shall appear before him, then will he confess us before his Father and the holy angels, and we shall receive that invitation which he shall then pronounce to all who love and fear him, “Come, ye blessed children of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.

Posted in George Whitefield |

Theme Study: The Resurrection by Jim & Debbie Ehrhard

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Preface to the Study

Nothing in Christianity is of greater importance than the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The resurrection of Jesus makes Christianity unique among all the other religions of the world.  Every other religion has its founders and holy men, but none but Christianity has a Risen Savior!  This is why Peter said, “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  Such a statement is not narrow-minded or arrogant.  It is a simple fact—no one else has died for sins and risen from the dead.  As a National Chinese friend of mine always says, “If you can find a better savior, serve him!”  You won’t; you can’t—there is but one who is risen from the dead—Jesus Christ, our savior.

Christ’s resurrection is essential for our salvation.  If Jesus is not risen from the dead, then his payment for sins was not acceptable to the Father.  As Paul notes: “”If Christ be not raised, then your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).  His resurrection also proves his claim to be the Son of God (Romans 1:3-4).  His resurrection also insures our resurrection.  In 1 Corinthians 6:14, Paul connects our resurrection with his: “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.”   Similarly in 2 Corinthians 4:14, he says, “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.”  His resurrection also provides strength for life.  In Philippians 3:10, Paul speaks about “the power of his resurrection” as a regular source of strength.  And his resurrection gives us reason to continue to serve him each day and hope for the life to come!

We hope that the various articles in this issue will remind you of the importance and power of the resurrection of Jesus.  May you know the power and the presence of our risen Savior in your lives every day!

To God be the Glory, alone and forever!

By His Grace, Jim & Debbie

Posted in Uncategorized |

The Peace Which Christ Gives His True Followers by Jonathan Edwards

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

The Peace Which Christ Gives His True Followers by Jonathan Edwards

Peace, I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. (John 14:27)

These words are a part of a most affectionate and affecting discourse that Christ had with his disciples the same evening in which he was betrayed, knowing that he was to be crucified the next day. This discourse begins with the 31st verse of the 13th and is continued to the end of the 16th chapter.  Christ began his discourse after he partook of the Passover with them after he had instituted and administered the sacrament of the supper, and after Judas was gone out.  None were left but his true and faithful disciples whom he now addresses as his dear children.  This was the last discourse that Christ had with them before his death.  As it was his parting discourse, and, as it were, his dying discourse, so it is on many accounts the most remarkable we have recorded in our Bibles.

It is evident this discourse made a deep impression on the minds of the disciples; and we may suppose that it did so, in a special manner, on the mind of love the beloved disciple whose heart was especially full of love to him and who had just then been leaning on his bosom.  In this discourse Christ had told his dear disciples that he was going away which filled them with sorrow and heaviness.  The words of the text are given to comfort them and to relieve their sorrow.  He supports them with the promise of that peace which he would leave with them and which they would have in him and with him when he was gone.

This promise he delivers in three emphatic expressions which illustrate one another.  “Peace I leave with you.”  As much as to say, though I am going away, yet I will not take all comfort away with me.  While I have been with you, I have been your support and comfort and you have had peace in me in the midst of the losses you have sustained and troubles you have met with from this evil generation.  This peace I will not take from you but leave it with you in a more full possession.

“My peace I give unto you.”  Christ by calling it his peace signifies two things,

1. That it was his own that which he had to give. It was the peculiar benefit that he had to bestow on his children now as he was about to leave the world as to his human presence.  Silver and gold he had none; for, while in his estate of humiliation, he was poor.  The foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests; but the Son of man had not where to lay his head (Luke 9:58).  He had no earthly estate to leave to his disciples who were as it were his family: but he had peace to give them.

2. It was his peace that he gave them; as it was the same kind of peace which he himself enjoyed.  The same excellent and divine peace which he ever had in God and which he was about to receive in his exalted state in a vastly greater perfection and fullness.  For the happiness Christ gives to his people is a participation of his own happiness: agreeable to chapter 15:11: “These things have I said unto you, that my joy might remain in you.”  And in his prayer with his disciples at the conclusion of this discourse, chapter 17:13: “And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”  And verse 22: “And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.”  Christ here alludes to men making their wills before death.  When parents are about to leave their children by death, they are wont in their last will and testament to give them their estate, that estate which they themselves were wont to possess and enjoy.  So it was with Christ when he was about to leave the world with respect to the peace which he gave his disciples; only with this difference, that earthly parents, when they die, though they leave the same estate to their children which they themselves heretofore enjoyed; yet when the children come to the full possession of it, they enjoy it no more; the parents do not enjoy it with their children.  The time of the full possession of parents and children is not together.  Whereas with respect to Christ’s peace, he did not only possess it himself before his death, when he bequeathed it to his disciples; but also afterwards more fully: so that they were received to possess it with him.

The third and last expression is “not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”  Which is as much as to say, my gifts and legacies, now I am going to leave the world are not like those which the rich and great men of the world are wont to leave to their heirs when they die.  They bequeath to their children their worldly possessions; and it may be vast treasures of silver and gold and sometimes an earthly kingdom.  But the thing that I give you is my peace, a vastly different thing from what they are wont to give and which cannot be obtained by all that they can bestow or their children inherit from them.


DOCTRINE

That peace which Christ, when he died, left as a legacy to all his true saints is very different from all those things which the men of this world bequeath to their children, when they die.

I. Christ at his death made over the blessings of the new covenant to believers, as it were in a will or testament.

II. A great blessing that Christ made over to believers in this his testament was his peace.

III. This legacy of Christ is exceedingly diverse from all that any of the men of this world ever leave to their children when they die.

I. Christ at his death made over the blessings of the new covenant to believers, as it were in a will or testament.

The new covenant is represented by the apostle as Christ’s last will and testament.  Hebrews 9:15, 16: “And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.  For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.”  What men convey by their will or testament is their own estate.  So Christ in the new covenant conveys to believers his own inheritance, so far as they are capable of possessing and enjoying it.  They have that eternal life given to them in their measure which Christ himself possesses.  They live in him and with him and by a participation of his life.  Because he lives they live also.  They inherit his kingdom: the same kingdom which the Father appointed unto him, Luke 25:29, “And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me.”  They shall reign on his throne, Revelation 3:21.  They have his glory given to them, John 17.  And because all things are Christ’s, so in Christ all things are the saints, 1 Corinthians 3:21-22.

Men in their wills or testaments most commonly give their estates to their children: so believers are in Scripture represented as Christ’s children. Hebrews 2:13, “Behold, l, and the children which God hath given me.”  Men most commonly make their wills a little before their death: so Christ did, in a very special and solemn manner, make over and confirm to his disciples the blessings of the new covenant on the evening before the day of his crucifixion in that discourse of which my text is a part.  The promises of the new covenant were never so particularly expressed and so solemnly given forth by Christ in all the time that he was upon earth as in this discourse.  Christ promises them mansions in his Father’s house (Chapter 14:1-3).  Here he promises them whatever blessings they should need and ask in his name (Chapter 15:7; 14:23, 24).  Here he more solemnly and fully than any where else gives forth and confirms the promise of the Holy Spirit, which is the sum of the blessings of the covenant of grace (Chapter 14:18; 17:26; 15:25; 16:7).  Here he promises them his own and his Father’s gracious presence and favor (Chapter 14:18-21).  Here he promises them peace, as in the text.  Here he promises them his joy (Chapter 15:11).  Here he promises grace to being forth holy fruits (Chapter 15:16). And victory over the world (Chapter 16:33).  And indeed there seems to be nowhere else so full and complete an edition of the covenant of grace in the whole Bible as in this dying discourse of Christ with his eleven true disciples.

This covenant between Christ and his children is like a will or testament also in this respect that it becomes effectual, and a way is made for putting it in execution, no other way than by his death; as the apostle observes it is with a will or testament among men, “For a testament is of force after men are dead” (Hebrews 9:17).  For though the covenant of grace indeed was of force before the death of Christ, yet it was of force no otherwise than by his death, so that his death then did virtually intervene, being already undertaken and engaged.  As a man’s heirs come by the legacies bequeathed to them no otherwise than by the death of the testator, so men come by the spiritual and eternal inheritance no otherwise than by the death of Christ.  If it had not been for the death of Christ they never could have obtained it.

II. A great blessing that Christ in his testament hath bequeathed to his true followers, is his peace.

Here are two things that I would observe particularly, viz. That Christ hath bequeathed to believers true peace and then, that the peace he has given them is his peace.

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ has bequeathed true peace and comfort to his followers.  Christ is called the Prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6).  And when he was born into the world, the angels on that joyful and wonderful occasion sang, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace:” because of that peace which he should procure for and bestow on the children of men; peace with God and peace one with another and tranquility and peace within themselves: which last is especially the benefit spoken of in the text.  He has procured for them peace and reconciliation with God and his favor and friendship; in that he satisfied for their sins and laid a foundation for the perfect removal of the guilt of sin, and the forgiveness of all their trespasses and wrought out for them a perfect and glorious righteousness, most acceptable to God and sufficient to recommend them to God s full acceptance to the adoption of children and to the eternal fruits of his fatherly kindness.

By these means, true saints are brought into a state of freedom from condemnation and all the curses of the law of God.  Romans 8:34, “Who is he that condemneth?”  And by these means, they are safe from that dreadful and eternal misery to which naturally they are exposed and are set on high out of the reach of all their enemies, so that the gates of hell and powers of darkness can never destroy them; nor can wicked men, though they may persecute, ever hurt them.  Romans 8:31, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”  Numbers 23:8, “How shall l curse whom God hath not cursed?”  And verse 23,. “There is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.”  By these means, they are out of the reach of death, John 6:4-9, 50, 51, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.”  By these means, death with respect to them has lost its sting and is no more worthy of the name of death.  1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting?”  By these means, they have no need to be afraid of the day of judgment when the heavens and earth shall be dissolved.  Psalm 46:1, 2, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed: and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”  Yea, a true saint has reason to be at rest in an assurance, that nothing can separate him from the love of God (Romans 8:38, 39).  Thus he that is in Christ is in a safe refuge from every thing that might disturb him; Isaiah 32:2, “And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest: as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”  And hence they that dwell in Christ have that promise fulfilled to them which we have in the 18th verse of the same chapter: “And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.”

And the true followers of Christ have not only ground of rest and peace of soul by reason of their safety from evil, but on account of their sure title and certain enjoyment of all that good which they stand in need of, living, dying, and through all eternity.  They are on a sure foundation for happiness, are built on a rock that can never he moved, and have a fountain that is sufficient and can never be exhausted.  The covenant is ordered in all things and sure, and God has passed his word and oath, “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.”  The infinite Jehovah is become their God, who can do everything for them.  He is their portion who has an infinite fullness of good in himself: “He is their shield and exceeding great reward.”  As great a good is made over to them as they can desire or conceive of and is made as sure as they can desire: therefore they have reason to put their hearts at rest and be at peace in their minds.

Besides, he has bequeathed peace to the souls of his people, as he has procured for them and made over to them the spirit of grace and true holiness; which has a natural tendency to the peace and quietness of the soul.  It implies a discovery and relish of a suitable and sufficient good.  It brings a person into a view of divine beauty and to a relish of that good which is a man’s proper happiness; and so it brings the soul to its true center.  The soul by his means is brought to rest  and ceases from restlessly inquiring, as others do, who will show us any good; and wandering to and fro, like lost sheep seeking rest, and finding none.  The soul hath found him who is as the appletree among the trees of the wood and sits down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit is sweet unto his taste (Cant. 2:2).  And thus that saving of Christ is fulfilled, John 4:14, “Whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.”  And besides, true grace naturally tends to peace and quietness, as it settles things in the soul in their due order, sets reason on the throne, and subjects the settees and affections to its government, which before were uppermost.  Grace tends to tranquility as it mortifies tumultuous desires and passions, subdues the eager and insatiable appetites of the sensual nature and greediness after the vanities of the world.  It mortifies such principles as hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, envyings, and the like, which are a continual source of inward uneasiness and perturbation; and supplies those sweet, calming, and quieting principles of humility, meekness, resignation, patience, gentleness, forgiveness, and sweet reliance on God.  It also tends to peace, as it fixes the aim of the soul to a certain end; so that the soul is no longer distracted and drawn by opposite ends to be sought and opposite portions to be obtained and many masters of contrary wills and commands to be served; but the heart is fixed in the choice of one certain, sufficient, and unfailing good: and the soul’s aim at this and hope of it is like an anchor that keeps it steadfast that it should no more he driven to and fro by every wind.

2. This peace which Christ has left as a legacy to his true followers is his peace. It is the peace which himself enjoys.  This is what I take to be principally intended in the expression.  It is the peace that he enjoyed while on earth in his state of humiliation.  Though he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and was every where hated and persecuted by men and devils and had no place of rest in this world, yet in God, his Father, he had peace.  We read of his rejoicing in spirit, Luke 10:21.  So Christ’s true disciples, though in the world they have tribulation, yet in God have peace.

When Christ had finished his labors and sufferings had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, he entered into his rest a state of most blessed, perfect, and everlasting peace: delivered by his own sufferings from our imputed guilt, acquitted and justified of the Father on his resurrection.  Having obtained a perfect victory over all his enemies, he was received of his Father into heaven the rest which he had prepared for him, there to enjoy his heart’s desire fully and perfectly to all eternity.  And then were those words in the six first verses of the 21st Psalm which have respect to Christ fulfilled.  This peace and rest of the Messiah is exceeding glorious.  Isaiah 11:10, “And his rest shall be glorious.”  This rest is what Christ has procured, not only for himself, but also his people by his death; and he has bequeathed it to them, that they may enjoy it with him, imperfectly in this, and perfectly and eternally in another world.  That peace, which has been described and which believers enjoy is a participation of the peace which their glorious Lord and Master himself enjoys, by virtue of the same blood by which Christ himself has entered into rest.  It is in a participation of this same justification; for believers are justified with Christ.  As he was justified when he rose from the dead and as he was made free from our guilt, which he had as our surety, so believers are justified in him and through him, as being accepted of God in the same righteousness.  It is in the favor of the same God and heavenly Father that they enjoy peace, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

It is in a participation of the same Spirit for believers have the Spirit of Christ.  He had the Spirit given to him not by measure, and of his fullness do they all receive and grace for grace.  As the oil poured on the head of Aaron went down to the skirts of his garments, so the Spirit poured on Christ, the head, descends to all his members.  It is as partaking of the same grace of the Spirit that believers enjoy this peace (John 1:16).  It is as being united to Christ and living by a participation of his life, as a branch lives by the life of the vine.  It is as part thing of the same love of God; John 17:26, “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them.” — It is as having a part with him in his victory over the same enemies: and also as having an interest in the same kind of eternal rest and peace.  Ephesians 2:5, 6, “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in heavenly places.”

III. This legacy of Christ to his true disciples is very different from all that the men of this world ever leave to their children when they die.

The men of this world, many of them, when they come to die, have great estates to bequeath to their children, an abundance of the good things of this world, large tracts of ground, perhaps in a fruitful soil, covered with flocks and herds.  They sometimes leave to their children stately mansions, and vast treasures of silver, gold, jewels, and precious things, fetched from both the Indies, and from every side of the globe.  They leave them wherewith to live in much state and magnificence and make a great show among men, to fare very sumptuously, and swim in worldly pleasures.  Some have crowns, scepters, and palaces, and great monarchies to leave to their heirs.  But none of these things are to be compared to that blessed peace of Christ which he has bequeathed to his true followers.  These things are such as God commonly in his providence gives his worst enemies, those whom he hates and despises most.  But Christ’s peace is a precious benefit, which he reserves for his peculiar favorites.  These worldly things, even the best of them that the men and princes of the world leave for their children are things which God in his providence throws out to those whom he looks on as dogs; but Christ’s peace is the bread of his children.  All these earthly things are but empty shadows, which, however men set their hearts upon them are not bread and never can satisfy their souls; but this peace of Christ is a truly substantial satisfying food (Isaiah 55:2).  None of those things, if men have them to the best advantage, and in ever so great abundance, can give true peace and rest to the soul, as is abundantly manifest not only in reason, but experience; it being found in all ages, that those who have the most of them, have commonly the least quietness of mind.

It is true, there may be a kind of quietness, a false peace, in the enjoyment of worldly things; men may bless their souls and think themselves the only happy persons, and despise others: may say to their souls, as the rich man did, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19).  But Christ’s peace, which he gives to his true disciples, differs from this peace that men may have in the enjoyments of the world in the following respects:

1. Christ’s peace is a reasonable peace and rest of soul. It is what has its foundation in light and knowledge, in the proper exercises of reason, and a right view of things; whereas the peace of the world is founded in blindness and delusion.  The peace that the people of Christ have arises from their having their eyes open and seeing things as they are.  The more they consider and the more they know of the truth and reality of things — the more they know what is true concerning themselves, the state and condition they are in; the more they know of God and what manner of being he is; the more certain they are of another world and future judgment and of the truth of God’s threatenings and promises; the more their consciences are awakened and enlightened, and the brighter and the more searching the light — the more is their peace established.  Whereas, on the contrary, the peace that the men of the world have in their worldly enjoyments can subsist no otherwise than by their being kept in ignorance.  They must be blindfolded and deceived,  otherwise they can have no peace: do but let light in upon their consciences, so that they may look about them and see what they are and what circumstances they are in and it will at once destroy all their quietness and comfort.  Their peace can live no where but in the dark.  Light turns their ease into torment.  The more they know what is true concerning God and concerning themselves.  The more they are sensible of the truth concerning those enjoyments which they possess; and the more they are sensible what things now are and what things are like to be hereafter, the more will their calm be turned into a storm.  The worldly man’s peace cannot he maintained but by avoiding consideration and reflection.  If he allows himself to think and properly to exercise his reason, it destroys his quietness and comfort.

But with respect to the peace which Christ gives, reason is its great friend.  The more this faculty is exercised, the more it is established.  The more they consider and view things with truth and exactness, the firmer is their comfort and the higher their joy.  How vast a difference then is there between the peace of a Christian and the worldling!  How miserable are they who cannot enjoy peace any otherwise than by hiding their eyes from the light and confining themselves to darkness.  Their peace is stupidity, it is as the ease that a man has who has taken a dose of stupefying poison, the ease and pleasure that a drunkard may have in a house on fire over his head, or the joy of a distracted man in thinking that he is a king, though a miserable wretch confined in bedlam!  Whereas the peace that Christ gives his true disciples is the light of life, something of the tranquility of heaven, the peace of the celestial paradise that has the glory of God to lighten it.

2. Christ’s peace is a virtuous and holy peace. The peace that the men of the world enjoy is vicious: it is vile depraves and debases the mind and makes men brutish.  But the peace that the saints enjoy in Christ is not only their comfort, but it is a part of their beauty and dignity.  The Christian tranquility, rest, and joy of real saints are not only unspeakable privileges, but they are virtues and graces of God’s Spirit, wherein his image partly consists.  This peace has its source in those principles which are in the highest degree virtuous and amiable, such as poverty of spirit, holy resignation, trust in God, divine love, meekness, and charity; the exercise of the blessed fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23).

3. This peace greatly differs from that which is enjoyed by the men of the world, with regard to its exquisite sweetness. It is a peace so much above all that natural men enjoy in worldly things, that it surpasses their understanding and conception (Philippians 4:7).  It is exquisitely sweet and secure, because it has so firm a foundation, the everlasting rock that never can be moved because perfectly agreeable to reason; because it rises from holy and divine principles, that, as they are the virtue, so are they the proper happiness of men; and because the greatness of the objective good that the saints enjoy is no other than the infinite bounty and fullness of that God who is the fountain of all good.  The fullness and perfection of that provision that is made in Christ and the new covenant is a foundation laid for the saints’ perfect peace; and this hereafter they shall actually enjoy.  And though their peace is not now perfect, it is not owing to any defect in the provision made, but to their own imperfection, sin, and darkness.  As yet, they partly cleave to the world and seek peace from thence and do not perfectly cleave to Christ.  But the more they do so, and the more they see of the provision made and accept of it and cleave to that alone, the nearer are they brought to perfect tranquility (Isaiah 27:5).

4. The peace of the Christian infinitely differs from that of the worldling, in that it is unfailing and eternal. That peace which carnal men have in the things of the world is, according to the foundation upon which it is built, of short continuance; like the comfort of a dream, 1 John 2; 1 Corinthians 7:31.  These things, the best and most durable of them, are like bubbles on the face of the water; they vanish in a moment (Hosea 10:7) — But the foundation of the Christian’s peace is everlasting; it is what no time nor change can destroy.  It will remain when the body dies: it will remain when the mountains depart and the hills shall be removed and when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll.  The fountain of his comfort shall never be diminished and the stream shall never be dried.  His comfort and joy is a living spring in the soul, a well of water springing up to everlasting life.

APPLICATION

The use that I would make of this doctrine is to improve it as an inducement unto all to forsake the world, no longer seeking peace and rest in its vanities, and to cleave to Christ and follow him.  Happiness and rest are what all men pursue.  But the things of the world, wherein most men seek it, can never afford it, they are laboring and spending themselves in vain.  But Christ invites you to come to him and offers you this peace, which he gives his true followers, and that so much excels all that the world can afford, Isaiah 55:2, 3.

You that have hitherto spent your time in the pursuit of satisfaction in the profit or glory of the world, or in the pleasures and vanities of youth have this day an offer of that excellent and everlasting peace and blessedness which Christ has purchased with the price of his own blood.  As long as you continue to reject those offers and invitations of Christ and continue in a Christless condition, you never will enjoy any true peace or comfort; but will be like the prodigal, that in vain endeavored to be satisfied with the husks that the swine did eat.  The wrath of God will abide upon and misery will attend you, wherever you go, which you never will be able to escape.  Christ gives peace to the most sinful and miserable that come to him.  He heals the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.  But it is impossible that they should have peace while they continue in their sins (Isaiah 57:19-21).  There is no peace between God and them, for, as they have the guilt of sin remaining in their souls and are under its dominion so God’s indignation continually burns against them, and therefore they travail in pain all their days.  While you continue in such a state, you live in dreadful uncertainty what will become of you and in continual danger.  When you are in the enjoyment of things most pleasing to you where your heart is best suited, and most cheerful, yet you are in a state of condemnation.  You hang over the infernal pit with the sword of divine vengeance hanging over your head, having no security one moment from utter and remediless destruction.  What reasonable peace can anyone enjoy in such a state as this?  Though you clothe him in gorgeous apparel, or set him on a throne, or at a prince’s table, and feed him with the rarest dainties the earth affords – How miserable is the ease and cheerfulness that such have!  What a poor kind of comfort and joy is it that such take in their wealth and pleasures for a moment while they are the prisoners of divine justice and wretched captives of the devil!  They have none to befriend them, being without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world!

I invite you now to a better portion.  There are better things provided for the sinful, miserable children of men.  There is a surer comfort and more durable peace: comfort that you may enjoy in a state of safety and on a sure foundation: a peace and rest that you may enjoy with reason and with your eyes open.  You may have all your sins forgiven, your greatest and most aggravated transgressions blotted out as a cloud and buried as in the depths of the sea that they may never be found more.  And being not only forgiven but accepted to favor, you become the objects of Gods complacency and delight being taken into God’s family and made his children, you may have good evidence that your names were written on the heart of Christ before the world was made, and that you have an interest in that covenant of grace that is well ordered in all things and sure; wherein is promised no less than life and immortality, an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, a crown of glory that fades not away.  Being in such circumstances, nothing shall be able to prevent your being happy to all eternity; having for the foundation of your hope that love of God which is from eternity to eternity and his promise and oath and his omnipotent power, things infinitely firmer than mountains of brass.  The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, yea, the heavens shall vanish away like smoke and the earth shall wax old like a garment, yet these things will never be abolished.

In such a state as this, you will have a foundation of peace and rest through all changes, and in times of the greatest uproar and outward calamity be defended from all storms, and dwell above the floods (Psalm 32:6, 7).  And you shall be at peace with everything, and God will make all his creatures throughout all parts of his dominion to befriend you (Job 5:19-24).  You need not be afraid of anything that your enemies can do unto you (Psalm 3:5, 6).  Those things that now are most terrible to you, viz. death, judgment, and eternity, will then be most comfortable, the most sweet and pleasant objects of your contemplation, at least there will be reason that they should be so.

Hearken therefore to the friendly counsel that is given you this day, turn your feet into the way of peace, forsake the foolish and live; forsake those things which are no other than the devil’s baits and seek after this excellent peace and rest of Jesus Christ, that peace of God which passeth all understanding.  Taste and see; never was any disappointed that made a trial (Proverbs 24:13, 14).  You will not only find those spiritual comforts that Christ offers you to be of a surpassing sweetness for the present, but they will be to your soul as the dawning light that shines more and more to the perfect day; and the issue of all will be your arrival in heaven, that land of rest, those regions of everlasting joy, where your peace and happiness will be perfect, without the least mixture of trouble or affliction, and never be interrupted nor have an end.

Posted in Jonathan Edwards |

The Jewels in Our Heavenly Crown by Richard Baxter

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Let us draw near and see from the pure fountain of the Scriptures what excellencies the saints’ everlasting rest affords.  May the Lord hide us in the clefts of the rock and cover us with the hands of indulgent grace while we approach to take this view.  And may we put off from our feet the shoes of irreverence and fleshly thoughts while we stand upon this holy ground.  These truths are like jewels in the Christian’s heavenly crown:

Heaven Is Purchased for Us with Christ’s Own Blood

It is a most singular honor and ornament in the style of the saints’ heavenly rest to be called the purchased possession; meaning it is the fruit of the blood of the Son of God.  Yea, it is the chief fruit—the end and perfection of all the effects and efficacy of that blood.

Surely love is the most precious ingredient in the whole composition; and of all the flowers that grow in the garden of love, can there be brought one more sweet and beautiful to the garland than this blood?  Greater love than this there is not—to lay down the life of the lover.  And to have our Redeemer ever before our eyes and the liveliest sense and freshest remembrance of that dying, bleeding love upon our souls!  Oh, how will it fill our souls with perpetual ravishments to think that we have passed through all, and here arrived safely at the breast of God!  We shall behold, as it were, the wounds of love with eyes and hearts of love forever.

With what astonishing apprehensions, then, will the redeemed saints everlastingly behold their Blessed Redeemer!  I will not meddle with their vain, audacious question, who must need know whether the glorified body of Christ does yet retain either the wounds or scars.  But this is most certain: the memory of it will be as fresh, and the impressions of love as deep, and its working as strong as if His wounds were still in our eyes.

Now His heart is open to us and ours shut to Him: but then His heart shall be open and our hearts open.  Oh, the blessed congress that there will then be.  But I am here at a loss; my apprehensions fail me, and fall so short.  Only this, I know; it will be the singular praise of our inheritance, that it was bought with the price of that blood; and the singular joy of the saints, to behold the purchaser and the price, together with the possession!

Neither will the views of the wounds of love renew our wounds of sorrow.  How dear forever will the love of Christ be then to us, who stripped Himself, as it were, of His majesty and glory, and put our humble garment of flesh upon Him, that He might put the robes of His own righteousness and glory upon us; and saved us, not from cruel injustice, but from His Father’s deserved wrath!  Well then, Christians, as you used to do in your books, and on your goods, write down the price they cost you; so do you on your righteousness and on your glory, write down the price: The precious blood of Christ.

Heaven is Free

The second pearl in the saint’s diadem is that it is free. This seems to devour the former point.  But the seeming discord is but a pleasing diversity composed into that harmony which constitutes the melody.  These two attributes, purchased and free, are the two chains of gold which by their pleasant twisting do make up the wreath for the heads of the pillars in the temple of God.  It was dear to Christ, but free to us.

Oh, the everlasting admiration that will surprise the saints to think of this freeness.  What did the Lord see in me that He should judge me meet for such a state?  That I who was but a poor, diseased, despised wretch should be clad in the brightness of His glory?  Oh, who can fathom unmeasurable love?  There is no talk of our worthiness nor unworthiness; if worthiness were our condition for admittance, we might sit down with St. John and weep, “because none in heaven or earth is found worthy.”  But the Lion of the tribe of Judah is worthy and has prevailed; and by that title must we hold this inheritance.  Here our commission runs: “Freely ye have received, freely give.”  But Christ has dearly received, yet freely gives.  The pope and his servants will be paid for their pardons and indulgences, but Christ will take nothing for His.  The commutation of penance must cost men’s purses dear or else they must be cast out of the synagogue and soul and body delivered up to the devil: but none are shut out of that church for want of money, nor is poverty any eyesore to Christ.  An empty heart may bar them out, but an empty purse cannot.  His kingdom of grace has always been more consistent with despised poverty than wealth and honor, and riches make entrance to heaven far more difficult than poverty can ever do.  That’s why it is “the poor of the world, rich in faith, whom God hath chosen to be the heirs of that kingdom, which He hath prepared for them that love Him.”

I know the true laborer is “worthy of his hire” and “they that serve at the altar, should live upon the altar.”  Yet let me desire the right-aiming ministers of Christ to consider what is expedient as well as what is lawful, and that the saving of one soul is better than a thousand pounds a year, and our gain, though due, is a cursed gain, if it causes a stumbling-block to our people’s souls.  Let us make the free gospel as little burdensome and chargeable as is possible. I would rather never take their tithes while I live than by those tithes destroy souls for whom Christ died.  And though God has ordained that “they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel,” yet I would rather suffer all things than hinder the gospel.  It would be better for me to die than that any man should make this my glorying void.  If the necessity of souls and the promoting of the gospel require it, I would rather preach the Gospel in hunger and rags than rigidly contend for what is my due.  And if I should do so, still I have no reason to glory.  Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe be to me if I preach not the gospel—whether or not I ever receive anything from men.

How unbecoming it is for the messengers of His free grace and kingdom, to risk losing the hearts and souls of their people, rather than losing a dime of their due.  How shameful it is to exasperate people against the message of God, rather than forbear some of their right.  What a tragedy to contend with people at law for the wages of the gospel, thus making the glad tidings seem sad tidings to their yet carnal hearts because of this burden!  This is not the way of Christ and His apostles, nor adoring to the self-denying, yielding, suffering doctrine which they taught.  Away with all those actions that are against the main end of our studies and calling, which is to win souls.  And woe be upon that gain which hinders the gaining of men to Christ!  I know flesh will here object necessities and distrust will have plenty of arguments; but we who have enough to answer to the diffidence of our people, let us take home some of our answers to ourselves and teach ourselves first before we teach them.  How many people have you known whom God allowed to starve in His vineyard?

Since we paid nothing for God’s eternal love and nothing for the Son of His love and nothing for His Spirit and our grace and faith, and nothing for our pardon—so shall we pay nothing for our eternal rest.  The broken heart that has known the dregs of sin will understand and feel what I say.  What an astonishing thought it will be to think of the unmeasurable difference between our deservings and our receivings; between the state we should have been in and the state we are in!  Oh, how free was all this love, and how free is this enjoyed glory!  Infinite wisdom did cast the whole design of man’s salvation into the mold of purchase and freeness, that the love and joy of man might be perfected, and the honor of grace most highly advanced; that the thought of merit might neither cloud the one nor obstruct the other, and that on these two hinges the gates of heaven might turn.  So then let “Deserved” be written on the floor of hell but on the door of heaven and life, “The Free Gift.”

Heaven Is the Saints’ Own Possession

The third comfortable attribute of our heavenly rest is that it is the saints’ proper and peculiar possession. It belongs to no other of all the sons of men; not that it would have detracted from the greatness or freeness of the gift if God had so pleased that all the world should have enjoyed it.  But when God has resolved otherwise, that it must be enjoyed but by few.  To find our names among that number should make us the more to value our enjoyment. Distinguishing, separating mercy affects more than any mercy.  If it should rain on our grounds alone or the sun shine alone upon our habitations, or the blessing of heaven divide between our flocks and other men’s, as between Jacob’s and Laban’s, then we should more feelingly acknowledge mercy than now, while we possess the same in common.  The lower the weighty end of the balance descends, the higher is the other lifted up; and the falling of one of the sails of the windmill is the occasion of the rising of the other.

It would be no extenuation of the mercies of the saints here if all the world were as holy as they; and the communication of their happiness is their greatest desire; yet it might perhaps dull their thankfulness, and distinguishing grace would not be known.  But when one should be enlightened and another left in darkness; one reformed and another by his lusts enslaved, it makes them cry out, with the disciple: “Lord, what is it, that thou wilt reveal thyself to us, and not unto the world?” (cf. John 14:22).

By this time the impenitent world will see a reason for the saints’ singularity while they were on earth and will be able to answer their own demands, Why must you be more holy than your neighbors?  Even because they would fain be more happy than their neighbors.  And why cannot you do as others, and live as the world about you?  Sincere singularity in holiness is by this time known to be neither hypocrisy nor folly.  If to be singular in that glory be so desirable, surely to be singular in godly living is not contemptible.  As every one of them knows his own sore, and his own grief, so shall everyone then feel his own joy; and if they can now call Christ their own, and call God their own God, how much more then upon their full possession of Him!  For as He takes His people for His inheritance, so will He Himself be the inheritance of His people forever.

Heaven Offers Perfect Fellowship

A fourth comfortable adjunct of our heavenly rest is that it is the fellowship of the blessed saints and angels of God. The Christian will not be so singular as to be solitary.  Though heaven is proper to the saints only, yet is it common to all the saints, for what is it but an association of blessed spirits in God; a corporation of perfected saints, whereof Christ is the head; the communion of saints completed?  This does not mean we derive heaven’s joys from one another.  Though the strings receive not their sound and sweetness from each other, yet their concurrence causes that harmony which could not be by one alone; for those that have prayed, and fasted, and wept, and watched and waited together, now to joy and enjoy and praise together, should much advance their pleasure.  I am certain of this, fellow-Christians, that as we have been together in the labor, duty, danger and distress, so shall we be in the great recompense and deliverance.  And as we have been scorned and despised together, so shall we be crowned and honored together; and we who have gone through the day of sadness shall enjoy together that day of gladness; and those who have been with us in persecution and prison shall be with us also in that palace of consolation.

When I look in the faces of the precious people of God, and believingly think of that day, what a refreshing thought it is!  Shall we not there remember, think you, the trials which we passed through here; our fellowship in duty and in sufferings; how oft our groans made, as it were, one sound, our tears uniting in one stream, and our desires uniting in one prayer?  And now all our praise shall make up one melody, and all our churches one church, and all ourselves but one body; for we shall be one in Christ, even as He and the Father are one.

It is true we must be very careful in this case, that, in our thoughts we look not for that in the saints which is alone in Christ, and that we give them not His own prerogative, nor expect too great a part of our comfort in the fruition of them.  We are prone enough to this kind of idolatry.  But, yet, He who commands us so to love them now, will give us leave, in the same subordination to Himself, to love them then, when Himself has made them much more lovely.  And if we may love them, we shall surely rejoice in them; for love and enjoyment cannot stand without an answerable joy.

I know that Christ is all in all; and that it is the presence of God that makes heaven to be heaven.  But yet it much sweetens the thoughts of that place to me to remember that there are such a multitude of my most dear and precious friends in Christ; with whom I took sweet counsel, and with whom I went up to the house of God; who walked with me in the fear of God, and integrity of their hearts.  In the face of their lives was written the name of Christ; whose sweet and sensible mention of His excellencies has made my heart to burn within me.

It is a question with some, whether we shall know each other in heaven or not.  Surely, there shall no knowledge cease which now we have, but only that which implies our imperfection.  And what imperfection can our knowledge of one another imply?  Nay, our present knowledge of one other shall be increased beyond belief.  It shall indeed be done away, but as the light of candles and stars is done away by the rising of the sun. It is more proper to think of it as a doing away of our ignorance than of our knowledge. Indeed, we shall not know each other after the flesh, not by stature, voice, color, complexion, face, or outward shape.  If we had so known Christ, we should know Him no more.  We shall know each other not by parts and gifts of learning; nor by titles of honor of worldly dignity; nor by terms of affinity and consanguinity, nor benefits, nor such relations; nor by youth or age—but by the image of Christ, and spiritual relation, and former faithfulness in improving our talents, beyond doubt, we shall know and be known.  Nor is it only our old acquaintance, but all the saints of all the ages, whose faces in the flesh we never saw, whom we shall there both know and comfortably enjoy.  Those who now are willingly ministering spirits for our good will willingly then be our companions in joy for the perfecting of our good; and they who had such joy in heaven for our conversion will gladly rejoice with us in our glorification.  I think, Christian, this will be a more honorable assembly than ever you beheld, and a more happy society than you were ever of before.

We are come thither already in respect of title and of earnest and first-fruits; but we shall then come into full possession.  Oh, beloved, if it be a happiness to live with the saints in their imperfection, when they have sin to embitter their society, as well as holiness to sweeten it, what will it be to live with them in their perfection, where saints are wholly and only saints? If we thought ourselves in the suburbs of heaven when we heard them set forth the beauty of our Lord, and speak of the excellencies of His kingdom, what a day will it be when we shall join with them in praises to our Lord in and for that kingdom!  So then I conclude, this is one singular excellency of the rest of heaven, that we are “fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”

Heaven’s Joys Come Directly from the Hand of God

Another excellent property of our rest will be that the joys of it are immediately from God. We shall see God face to face and stand continually in His presence, and consequently derive our life and comfort immediately from Him.  Whether God will make use of any creatures for our service then, or, if any, what creatures, and what use, is more than I yet know.  It seems that the creature shall have a day of deliverance, and that into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.  Our most and great joys will be immediate—directly from God’s own hand.  Now we have nothing at all immediately.  From the earth, from man, from sun and moon, from the influence of the planets, from the ministration of angels, and from the Spirit and Christ; and, doubtless, the further the stream runs from the fountain, the more impure it is.  It gathers some defilement from every unclean channel it passes through.

Christ is indeed a precious pearl but often is held forth in leprous hands.  And thus do we disgrace the riches of the Gospel when it is the work of our calling to make it honorable in the eyes of men.  We dim the glory of that jewel by our dull and low expressions, whose luster we do pretend to discover, while the hearers judge of it by our expressions, and not its proper genuine worth.  The truth is the best of men do apprehend but little of what God, in His word, expresses—and what they do apprehend they are unable to utter.  If an angel from heaven should preach the gospel, yet could he not deliver it according to its glory; much less we, who never saw what they have seen, and keep this treasure in earthen vessels.

The comforts that flow through sermons, through sacraments, through reading, and company, and conference, and creatures are but half comforts. The life that comes by these is but half a life, in comparison of those which the Almighty shall speak with His own mouth and reach forth to us with His own hand.  The Christian knows by experience now, that his most immediate joys are his sweetest joys: which have least of man, and are most directly from the Spirit.  That is one reason, as I conceive, why Christians who are much in secret prayer, and in meditation and contemplation, rather than they who are more in hearing, reading and conference, are men of greatest life and joy, because they are nearer the source of the fountain, and have all more immediately from God Himself.  We are not yet come to the time and state where we shall have all from God’s immediate hand.  As God has made all creatures, and instituted all ordinances for us, so will He continue our need of all.  We must be content with love-tokens from Him, till we come to receive our all in Him.

There is joy in these remote receivings but the fullness is in His own presence.  Oh, Christians!  You will then know the difference between the creature and the Creator, and the content that each of them affords.  We shall then have light without a candle and a perpetual day without the sun.  We shall then have rest without sleep, for God will be our rest.  We shall then have enlightened understandings without a written law: for the Lord will perfect His law in our hearts, and we shall be all perfectly taught of God.  His own will shall be our law, and His own face shall be our light forever.  Then shall we have joy, which we drew not from the promises, nor was fetched us home by faith and hope. Beholding and possessing will exclude most of these.  We shall then have communion without sacraments when Christ shall drink with us of the fruit of the vine new; that is, refresh us with the comforting wine of immediate fruition, in the kingdom of His Father.

When we shall live in our Father’s house and presence and God shall be all and in all, then we are indeed at home in rest.

Heaven Will Be a Seasonable Rest

A further excellency is this: it will be unto us a seasonable rest. He who expects the fruit of His vineyard in season and makes His people as trees planted by the waters, fruitful in their season, He will also give them the crown in season.  He that will have the words of joy spoken to the weary in season will sure cause that time of joy to appear in His perfect time.

They who knew the season of grace and did repent and believe in season shall also, if they faint not, reap in season.  If God will not miss the season of common mercies, even to His enemies, but will give both the former and the latter rain in their season, and the appointed weeks of harvest in its season, and by inviolable covenant has established day and night in their seasons, then sure, the harvest of the saints and their day of gladness shall not miss its season.

He who has given the stork, the crane, and the swallow to know their appointed time will surely keep His time appointed.  When we have had in this world a long night of sad darkness, will not the day breaking and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness be then seasonable?  When we have endured a hard winter in this cold climate will not the reviving spring be then seasonable?  When we have sailed (as Paul) slowly many days, and much time spent, and sailing now grown more dangerous; and when neither sun nor stars in many days appear, and no small tempest comes on us and all hope that we shall be saved is almost taken away—do you think that the haven of rest is not seasonable then?

When we have passed a long and tedious journey and that through no small dangers, is not home then seasonable?  When we have had a long and perilous war, and have lived in the midst of furious enemies, and have been forced to stand on a perpetual watch, and received from them many a wound, would not a peace with victory be now seasonable?  When we have been captivated in many years’ imprisonment, and insulted over by scornful foes, and suffered many pinching wants, and hardly enjoyed bare necessaries, would not a full deliverance to a most plentiful state, even from this prison to a throne, be now seasonable?

Surely, a man would think, who looks upon the face of the world, that rest should seem seasonable to all men.  Some of us are languishing under continual weakness and groaning under most grievous pains, crying in the morning.  “Would God it were evening!” and in the evening, “Would God it were morning!”—weary of going, weary of sitting, weary of standing, weary of lying, weary of eating, weary of speaking, weary of walking, weary of our very friends, weary of ourselves.  Oh! how often has this been mine own case!  And is not rest yet seasonable?  Some are complaining under the pressure of the times; weary of their taxes, weary of their dwellings, weary of crime, weary of their fears and dangers, weary of their poverty and wants.  And is not rest yet seasonable?

Where can you go, and into what company can you come, where the voice of complaining does not show that men live in a continual weariness—but especially the saints, who are most weary of that which the world cannot feel?  What godly society can you fall into, but you shall hear by their moans that something ails them?  Some are weary because of a blind mind, doubting the way they walk, unsettled in almost all their thoughts.  Some are weary because of a hard heart, some because of pride, some because of passion—and some from all these, and much more.  Some are weary because of their daily doubtings and fear concerning their spiritual estate; some because of a shortage of spiritual joys; and some because of the sense of God’s wrath.  And is not rest now seasonable?

When a poor Christian has desired and prayed and waited for deliverance many a year, is it not then seasonable?  When he is ready almost to give up, and saith, “I am afraid I shall not reach the end, and my faith and patience will not hold out,” is not this a fit season for rest?  If the voice of the king were seasonable to Daniel, early in the morning calling him from his den, that he might advance him to more than former dignity, then surely that morning voice of Christ our King, calling us from our terrors among lions, to possess his rest among His saints, should be to us a very seasonable voice.

Now we are often grudging that we have not a greater share of comforts; that our deliverances are not more speedy and eminent; that the world prospers more than we; that our prayers are not presently answered.  But our portion is kept to a fitter season.  When the winter comes we shall have our harvest.  We grudge that we do not find a Canaan in the wilderness or cities of rest in Noah’s Ark and the songs of Zion in a strange land; that we have not a harbor in the main ocean, or find not our home in the middle way, and are not crowned in the midst of the fight, and have not our rest in the heat of the day, and have not our inheritance before we are at age, and have not heaven before we leave the earth: and would not all this be very unreasonable?

I confess, in regard of the church’s service, the removing of the saints may sometimes appear to us unseasonable.  I must confess it is one of my saddest thoughts, to reckon up the useful instruments, whom God has lately called out of His vineyard, when the loiterers are many, and the harvest great and very many congregations desolate, and the people as sheep without shepherds, and yet the laborers called from their work, especially when a door of liberty and opportunity is open.  We cannot but lament so sore a judgment, and think the removal, in regard of the church, unseasonable.

But whatever it is to those that are left behind; yet the saints’ departure, to themselves, is usually seasonable.

Heaven Will Be a Suitable Rest

A further excellency of this rest is this: as it will be seasonable, so a suitable rest, suited to the natures, to the desires, and to the necessity of the saints.

To their natures. If suitableness concur not with excellency, the best things may be bad to us; for it is that which makes things good in themselves to be good to us.  In our choice of friends, we often pass by the more excellent, to choose the more suitable.  Every good agrees not with every nature.  To live in a free and open air, under the warming rays of the sun, is excellent to man because suitable; but the fish, which is of another nature does rather choose another element; and that which is to us so excellent would quickly be to it destructive.

In heaven, suitableness and excellency will finally be conjoined.  The new nature of saints suits their spirits to this rest; and indeed their holiness is nothing else but a spark taken from this element, and by the Spirit of Christ kindled in their hearts, the flame whereof, as mindful of its own divine original, ever mounts the soul aloft, and tends to the place from whence it comes.  It works toward its own center, and makes us restless, till there we rest.  Gold and earthly glory, temporal crowns and kingdoms, could not make a rest for saints.  As they were not redeemed with so low a price, so neither are they endued with so low a nature.  As God will have from them a spiritual worship, suitable to His own spiritual being, so will He provide them a spiritual rest, suitable to His people’s spiritual nature.  As spirits have not fleshly substances, so neither delight they in fleshly pleasures; these are too gross and vile for them.  A heaven of the knowledge of God and His Christ; a delightful contentment in that mutual love; an everlasting rejoicing in the fruition of our God; a perpetual singing of His high praises; this is heaven for a saint, a spiritual rest suitable to a spiritual nature.  Were not our own nature in some sort divine, the enjoyment of the true divine nature could not be to us a suitable rest.

It is suitable also to the desires of the saints.  As their natures, so will be their desires; and as their desires, so will be their rest.  Indeed, we have now a mixed nature; and from contrary principles, do arise contrary desires; as they are flesh, they have desires of flesh; and as so they have sinful desires.  These are not the desires that this rest is suited to for they will accompany them to their rest.  But it is the desires of our renewed natures, and those which the Christian will ordinarily own which this rest is suited to.  While our desires remain uncorrupted and misguided, it is a far greater mercy to deny them, yea, to destroy them, than to satisfy them; but those which are spiritual are of His own planting, and He will surely water them and give the increase.  Is it so great a work to raise them in us, and shall they after all this vanish and fail?

He quickened our hungering and thirsting for righteousness, so that He might make us happy in a full satisfaction.  Christian, this is a rest after your own heart.  It contains all that your heart can wish; that which you long for, pray for, labor for, there you shall find it all.  You would rather have God in Christ than all the world.  There you shall have Him!  What would you not give for assurance of His love?  There you shall have assurance beyond suspicion.  Nay, your desires cannot now extend to the height of what you shall there obtain.

This is a life of desire and prayer; but that is a life of satisfaction and enjoyment.  Oh! that sinners would also consider that seeing God will not give them a felicity suitable to their sensual desires; it is therefore their wisdom to endeavor for desires suitable to the true felicity, and to direct their ship to the right harbor, seeing they cannot bring the harbor to their ship.

The rest is very suitable to the saints’ necessities also as well as to their natures and desires.  It contains whatsoever they truly wanted.  It was Christ and perfected holiness which they most needed, and with these shall they here be principally supplied.  The rain which Elijah’s prayer procured was not more seasonable, after the three years’ drought, than this rest will be to this thirsty soul.

Heaven Will Be Perfect in Every Way

Another excellency of our rest will be this, that it will be absolutely perfect and complete; and this both in the sincerity and universality of it.  We shall then have joy without sorrow, and rest without weariness.  As there is no mixture of corruption with our graces, so no mixture of sufferings with our solace.  There are none of those waves in that harbor, which now so toss us up and down.  There will be a universal perfecting of all our parts and powers, and a universal removal of all our evils.  And though the positive part be the sweetest, and that which draws the other after it, even as the rising of the sun excludes the darkness; yet is not the negative part to be slighted, even our freedom, from so many and great calamities.

Heaven excludes nothing more directly than sin; whether original and of nature, or actual and of behavior.  For there enters nothing that defiles, nor that works abomination, nor that makes a lie.  When they are there, the saints are saints indeed.  He that will wash them with His heart-blood, rather than suffer them to enter unclean, will now perfectly see to that; He who has undertaken to present them to His Father, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but perfectly holy, and without blemish,” will now most certainly perform His undertaking.

I know if it were offered to your choice, you wouldst rather choose to be freed from sin than to be made heir of all the world. Wait till then, and you shall have that desire: your hard heart, those vile thoughts that lay down and rose up with you, which accompanied you to every duty, which you could no more leave behind you than you could leave yourself behind, shall now be left behind forever. They might accompany you to death, but they cannot proceed a step farther.

Your understanding shall nevermore be troubled with darkness.  Ignorance and error are inconsistent with this light.  Now you walk like a man in the twilight, always afraid of being out of the way; but then will all this darkness be dispelled, and our blind understandings fully opened, and we shall have no more doubts of our way.  We shall know which was the right side, and which the wrong; which was the truth, and which the error.  What would we not give to see all dark Scriptures made plain, to see all seeming contradictions reconciled!  When glory has taken the veil from our eyes, all this will be known in a moment; we shall then see clearly into all the controversies about doctrine or discipline that now perplex us.  The poorest Christian is presently there a more perfect divine than any is here.

When our ignorance is perfectly healed, then we shall be settled, resolved men; then shall our reproach be taken from us, and we shall never change our judgments more. Oh! that happy, approaching day, when error shall vanish away forever; when our understanding shall be filled with God Himself, whose light will leave no darkness in us!  His face shall be the Scripture, where we shall read the truth; and Himself, instead of teachers and counsels, to perfect our understandings, and acquaint us with Himself, who is the perfect truth.  No more error, no more scandal to others, no more disquiet to our own spirits, no more mistaking zeal for falsehood; because our understandings have no more sin.  Many a godly man has been a means to deceive and pervert his brethren, and when he sees his own error, cannot again tell how to undeceive them; but there we shall all conspire in one truth, as being one in Him who is that truth.

And as we shall rest from all the sin of our understandings, so of our wills, affection, and conversation.  We shall no more retain this rebelling principle, which is still withdrawing us from God.  Doubtless, we shall no more be oppressed with the power of our corruptions, nor vexed with their presence; no pride, passion, slothfulness, senselessness, shall enter with us; no strangeness to God, and the things of God; no coldness of affections, nor imperfection in our love; no uneven walking, nor grieving of the Spirit; no scandalous action, or unholy living.  We shall rest from all these forever.  Then shall our understandings receive light from the face of God, as the full moon from the open sun, where there is no earth to interpose between them; then shall our wills correspond to the divine will, as face answers to face in a glass; and the same, His will shall be our law and rule from which we shall never swerve again.

Heaven Is a Rest from Suffering

Heaven is a perfect rest from suffering. When the cause is gone, the effect ceases.   Our sufferings were but the consequences of our sinning, and here they both shall cease together.

We shall rest from all our perplexing doubts and fears.  It shall no more be said that doubts are like the thistle, a bad weed, but growing in good ground; they shall now be weeded out, and trouble the gracious soul no more.  No more need of so many sermons, books, and signs to resolve the poor doubting soul.  The full fruition of love itself will resolve all doubts forever.

We shall rest from all that sense of God’s displeasure, which was our greatest torment, whether manifested mediately or immediately.  Sorrowful complaints will be turned into admiring thankfulness.  All sense of God’s displeasure will be swallowed up in that ocean of infinite love when sense shall convince us that fury dwells not in God (cf. Isa. 27:4).  Though for a little moment He hides His face, yet with everlasting compassion will He receive and embrace us.

We shall rest from all the temptations of Satan whereby he continually disturbs our peace.  What a grief is it to a Christian, though he yield not to the temptation, yet to be still solicited to deny his Lord.  That such a thought should be cast into his heart; that he can set about nothing that is good, but Satan is still dissuading him from it, distracting him in it, or discouraging him after it!  What a torment as well as a temptation is it to have such horrid motions made to his soul!

Here we are too prone to entertain cruel thoughts of God, undervaluing thoughts of Christ, unbelieving thoughts of Scripture, injurious thoughts of Providence.  We are so easily tempted to turn to present things, to play with the baits of sin, to venture on the delights of the flesh, and to consider atheism itself!  We know the treachery of our own hearts that they are as tinder and gunpowder, ready to take fire, as soon as one of these sparks shall fall upon them.  How the poor Christian lives in continual disquietness, to feel these motions!  But more that his heart should be the soil for this seed and the too-fruitful mother of such an offspring.  And, most of all, he is disquieted by the fear that they will at last prevail and these cursed motions should procure his consent.

But here is our comfort; as we now stand not by our own strength and shall not be charged with any of this; so when the day of our deliverance comes, we shall fully rest from these temptations.  Satan is then bound up; the time of tempting is done.  Now we do walk among his snares and are in danger of being circumvented with his methods and wiles; but then we are quite above his snares, and out of the hearing of his enticing charms.  He has power here to tempt us in the wilderness, but he enters not into the Holy City.  There will be no more work for Satan then.

We shall rest also from all our temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh, as well as Satan; and that is a number inexpressible, and a weight, were it not that we are beholden to supporting grace, utterly intolerable.  Every sense is a snare; every member a snare; every creature a snare; every mercy a snare; and every duty a snare to us.  We can scarce open our eyes, but we are in danger.  If we behold them above us, we are in danger of envy; if below us, we are in danger of contempt.  If we see sumptuous buildings, pleasant habitations, honor and riches we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires; if the rags and beggary of others, we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness.  If we see beauty, it is a bait to lust; if deformity, loathing and disdain.

We can scarcely hear a word spoken but contains to us a matter of temptation.  How soon do slanderous reports, vain jests, wanton speeches, by that passage creep into the heart!  How strong and prevalent a temptation is our appetite and how constant and strong a watch does it require!  Have we comeliness and beauty?  What fuel for pride.  Are we deformed?  What occasion of repining!  Have we strength of reason, and gifts of learning?  How hard it is not to be puffed up!  To seek ourselves; to hunt after applause; to despise our brethren; to dislike the simplicity that is in Christ.  Both in the matter and manner of Scripture, in doctrine, in discipline, in worship, and in the saints; to affect a pompous, specious, fleshly service of God, and to exalt reason above faith.  Are we unlearned and of shallow heads and slender parts?  How apt then to despise what we have not and to undervalue that which we do not know; and to err with confidence, because of our ignorance.  Conceitedness and pride become a zealous enemy to truth and a leading troubler of the church’s peace, under pretenses of truth and holiness.  Are we men of eminence and in place of authority?  How strong is our temptation to slight our brethren, to abuse our trust, to seek ourselves, to stand upon our honor and privileges; to forget ourselves, our poor brethren, and the public good.  How hard it is to devote our power to His glory from whom we have received it!  How prone we are to make our wills our law and to cut out all the enjoyments of others, both religious and civil, by the cursed rules and model of our own interest and policy!  Are we inferiors and subject?  How prone to judge at others’ pre-eminence, and to take liberty to bring all their actions to the bar of our incompetent judgment; and to censure and slander them, and murmur at their proceedings!  Are we rich and not too much exalted?  Are we poor and not discontented, and make our worldly necessities a pretense for robbing God of all His service?

But forever blessed be omnipotent love which saves us out of all these and makes our straits but the advantages of the glory of His saving grace.  In heaven the danger and trouble is over; there is nothing but what will advance our joy.

As we rest from the temptations, so also from all the abuses and persecutions which we suffer at the hands of wicked men.  We shall be scorned, derided, imprisoned, banished, and butchered by them no more.  The prayers of the souls under the altar will then be answered and God will avenge their blood on these that dwell on the earth.  This is the time for crowning with thorns, buffeting, spitting on; that will be the time for crowning with glory.

Now we must be hated of all men for Christ’s name’s sake, and the gospel; then will Christ be admired in His saints that were thus hated.  Now because we are not of the world, therefore doth the world hate us; then, because we are not of the world, therefore will the world admire us.  Now, as they hated Christ, they will also hate us; then, as they will honor Christ, so will they also honor us.  When their flood of persecution is dried up, and the church called out of the wilderness, and the New Jerusalem come down from heaven, and mercy and justice are fully glorified, then shall we feel their fury no more.  We leave all this behind us when once we enter the City of our Rest: the names of Lollard, Huguenots, Roundheads are not there used; the inquisition of Spain is there condemned; the statute of the Six Articles is there repealed.  There are no Bishops’ or Chancellor’s Courts; no visitations nor High Commission judgments; no censures to loss of members, perpetual imprisonment, or banishment.  Christ is not there clothed in a mock robe and blindfolded.  Nor is truth clothed in the robes of error and smitten for that which it most directly contradicts.  Nor is a schismatic wounded, and a saint found bleeding; nor our friends smite us, mistaking us for their enemies.  There is none of all this blind, mad work there.

Till then possess your souls in patience; bind all reproaches as a crown to our heads; esteem them greater riches than the world’s treasures; account it a matter of joy when you fall into tribulation.  You have seen in these days that our God can deliver us; but this is nothing to our final conquest.  He will recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with Christ.

We shall then also rest from our sad divisions, and unchristian quarrels with one another.  There is no contention, because none of this pride, ignorance, or other corruption.  Paul and Barnabas are now fully reconciled.  There they are, not every man conceited of his own understanding and in love with the issue of his own brain, but all admiring the divine perfection, and in love with God and one another.  Luther and Zwingli will be agreed.  There shall be a full reconciliation between Calvinists and Lutherans; Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants; Conformists and Nonconformists.  Antinomians and Legalists are terms there not known: Presbyterians and Independents are perfectly agreed.  There is no discipline erected by state policy, nor any disordered popular rule; no government but that of Christ!

And is it not shame that our course is now so contrary?  Is it not enough that all the world is against us, but we must also be against one another?  Did I ever think to have heard Christians so to reproach and scorn Christians; and men professing the fear of God to make so little conscience of censuring, vilifying, slandering and disgracing one another?  Alas!  Once discernment has been perverted and error has possessed the supreme faculty, where will men go and what will they do?  Nay!  What will they not do?  Oh, what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience!  Today they may be orthodox, unanimous, and joined in love, and perhaps within a few weeks will be divided, and at bitter enmity, through their doting about questions that tend not to edify.

Oh happy day of the rest of the saints in glory when as there is one God, one Christ, one Spirit, so we shall have one judgment, one heart, one church, one employment forever!  When there will be no more circumcision and uncircumcision, Jew and Gentile, Anabaptist, Paedobaptist, Brownist, Separatist, Independent, Presbyterian, Episcopal: but Christ is All in All.  We shall not there scruple our communion, nor any of the ordinances of divine worship.  There will not be one for singing and another against it.  But even those who have jarred in discord shall all conjoin in blessed concord and make one melodious choir.

We shall then rest from all the sorrowful hours and sad thoughts we now undergo, by participating with our brethren in their calamities.  Alas!  If we had nothing upon ourselves to trouble us, yet what heart could lay aside sorrows that live in the sound of the church’s sufferings?  The church on earth is a mere hospital.  Whichever way we go, we hear complaining, and into whatsoever corner we cast our eyes, we behold objects of pity and grief.  Who weeps not when all these bleed?  As now our friends’ distresses are our distresses, so then our friends’ deliverance will be part of our own deliverance.  How much more comfortable to see them perfected than now to see them wounded, weak, sick and afflicted?  Our day of rest will free both them and us from all this.

Oh, the sad and heart-piercing spectacles that my eyes have seen in four years’ space!  In this fight [The English Civil War], scarce a month, scarce a week, without the sight or noise of blood.  Surely there is none of this in heaven.  Our black raiment and mourning attire will then be turned into the white robes and garments of gladness.  How hardly can my heart now hold when I think of such, and such, and such a dear Christian friend slain or departed!  How glad must the same heart needs be when I see them all alive and glorified!

But a far greater grief it is to our spirits, to see the spiritual miseries of our brethren; to see our dearest and most intimate friends to be turned aside from the truth of Christ; to see many near us in the flesh continue their neglect of Christ and their souls.  Oh, what continual sorrows do all these sad sights and thoughts fill our hearts with from day to day!  And will it not be a blessed day when we shall rest from all these?  What heart is not wounded to think on Germany’s long desolations [from the Hundred Years Wars–wars between the Catholics and Protestants after the Reformation]?  Look on England’s four years’ blood, a flourishing land almost made ruined!  Look to Scotland, look to Ireland; look almost everywhere!  Blessed be that approaching day, when our eyes shall behold no more such sights nor our ears hear any more such tidings!

We shall rest also from all our personal sufferings, whether natural or ordinary, or extraordinary, from the afflicting hand of God.  And though this may seem a small thing to those who live in continual ease, and abound in all kind of prosperity, yet, to the daily afflicted soul, it should make all thoughts of heaven delightful.  As all our senses are the inlets of sin, so are they become the inlets of our sorrow.  Grief creeps in at our eyes, at our ears, and almost everywhere.  Fears do devour us, and darken our delights, as the frosts nip the tender buds, our cares consume us, and feed upon our spirits, as the scorching sun withers the delicate flowers.  What tender pieces are these dusty bodies!  What brittle glasses do we bear about us; and how many thousand dangers are they hurried through, and how hardly cured if once cracked!

Whatever it is to the sound and healthful, to such as myself this rest should be acceptable, who in ten or twelve years’ time have scarce had a whole day free from some sorrow.  Oh, the weary nights and days; oh, the unserviceable, languishing weakness; oh, the restless working vapors; oh, the tedious, nauseous medicines, beside the daily expectation of worse!  Will it not be desirable to rest from all these?  Oh, the blessed tranquility of that region where there is nothing but sweet continued peace!  Our lives will be but one joy, as our time will be changed into one eternity.  For it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall give us rest from our sorrow, and our fear, and from the hard bondage wherein we served.  The poor man shall no more be tired with his incessant labors: no more use of the plough, or flail, or scythe, or sickle; no stooping of the servant to the master, or the tenant to the landlord; no hunger, or thirst, or cold, or nakedness; no pinching frosts or scorching heats.  No more parting of friends asunder, nor voice of lamentation heard in our dwellings; no more breaches nor disproportion will be in our friendship, nor any trouble accompanying our relations.

Then shall the “the ransomed of the Lord … return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:10).  Hold out then a little longer, oh, my soul; bear with the infirmities of thine earthly tabernacle.  It will be thus but a little while; the sound of our Redeemer’s feet are even at the door and your own deliverance nearer than many others.  And you who have often cried shall then feel that God and joy fill all your soul.  The fruition of heaven, with your freedom from all these sorrows, will more sincerely and feelingly make you know, and to His eternal praise acknowledge, that you live.

We shall rest also from all the trouble and pain of duty.  The conscientious magistrate now cries out, “Oh, the burden that lies upon me!”  The conscientious parents, who know the preciousness of their children’s souls and the constant pains required to their godly education, cry out, “Oh, the burden!”  The conscientious minister when he reads his charge and views his pattern; when he has tried awhile what it is to study, and pray and preach; to go from house to house, and from neighbor to neighbor, and to beseech them night and day with tears, and, after all, be hated and persecuted for so doing—no wonder if he cries out, “Oh, the burden!”

And seldom does a minister live to see the ripeness of his people.  But one sows and plants, another waters, and a third reaps and receives the increase.  To inform the old ignorant sinner, to convince the stubborn and worldly wise, to persuade a willful, resolved wretch, to prick a stony heart to the quick, to make a rock to weep and tremble, to set forth Christ according to our necessity and His excellency, to comfort the soul whom God dejects, to clear up dark and difficult truths, to oppose with convincing arguments all gainsayers, to credit the gospel with exemplary conversations, when multitudes do but watch for our halting.  Oh, who is sufficient for these things?  So that every conscientious Christian cries out, “Oh, the burden!  Oh, my weakness that makes it so burdensome!”  But our eternal rest will ease us of the burden.

Lastly, we shall rest from all those sad affections which necessarily accompany our absence from God.  We shall no more look into our cabinet and miss our treasure; look into our hearts and miss our Christ; nor no more seek Him from ordinance to ordinance, and inquire for our God of those we meet.  Our heart will not lie in our knee, nor our souls be breathed out in our request, but all conclude in a most full and blessed fruition.

Heaven Is an Eternal Rest

The last jewel in our crown and blessed attribute of this rest is that it is an eternal rest. This is the crown of our crown without which all were comparatively little or nothing.  The very thought of once leaving it would else embitter all our joys; and the more would it pierce us because of the singular excellencies which we must forsake.

Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights.  It makes our present life of little value—were it not for the reference it has to God and eternity—to think that we must shortly lay it down.  Surely, were it not for eternity, I should think man a silly piece; and all his life and honor but contemptible; a vain shadow.  I can value nothing that shall have an end, except as it leads to that which has no end; or as it comes from that love which has neither beginning nor end.

What do I say when I talk of eternity?  Can my shallow thoughts conceive at all what that most high expression contains?  To be eternally blessed, and so blessed!  Why, surely this, if anything, is the resemblance of God: eternity is a piece of infiniteness.  Oh, then, my soul, let go thy dreams of present pleasures and loose thy hold of earth and flesh.  Fear not to enter that estate where thou shalt ever after cease thy fears.  Sit down and think about this eternity.  Study frequently, study thoroughly, this one word: eternity. And when you have learned thoroughly that one word, you will never look on books again!  What! live, and never die?  Rejoice, and ever rejoice!  Oh, what sweet words are those, never and ever.

Oh, that the gracious soul would believingly study this word everlasting.  That should revive him in his deepest agony!  Must I, Lord, thus live forever?  Then will I also love forever.  Must my joys be immortal; and shall not my thanks be also immortal?  Surely, if I shall never lose my glory, I will also never cease Thy praises.  If Thou wilt both perfect and perpetuate me and my glory, as I shall be Thine, and not my own, so shall my glory be Thy glory.  And as all did take their spring from Thee, so shall all devolve into Thee again; and as Thy glory was Thine ultimate end in my glory, so shall it also be mine when Thou hast crowned me with that glory which has no end.  And unto Thee, “eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever.  Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17).

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