Jonathan Edwards · 288 of 409

CHAPTER V. Of Satisfaction for Sin · Part 4

Thus Christ suffered that which the damned in hell do not suffer. For they do not see the hateful nature of sin. They have no idea of sin in itself, that is infinitely disagreeable to their nature, as the idea of sin was to Christ’s holy nature; though conscience in them be awakened to behold the dreadful guilt and desert of sin. And as the clear view of sin in its hatefulness necessarily brought great suffering on the holy soul of Christ; so also did the view of its punishment. For both the evil of sin and the evil of punishment are infinite evils, and both infinitely disagreeable to Christ’s nature: the former to his holy nature, or his nature as God; the latter to his human nature, or his nature as man. Such is human nature, that a great, and clear, and full idea of suffering, without some other pleasant and sweet idea to balance it, brings suffering; as appears from the nature of all spiritual ideas, They are repetitions (in a degree at least) of the things themselves of which they are ideas. Therefore, if Christ had a perfectly clear and full idea of what the damned suffer in hell, the suffering he would have had in the mere presence of that idea, would have been perfectly equal to the thing itself, if there had been no idea in Christ in any degree to balance it; such as, some knowledge of the love of God, of a future reward, future salvation of his elect, &c. But pleasant ideas in this clearness being in a great measure withholden by reason of God’s hiding his race; hence, the awful ideas of eternal death which his elect people deserved, and of the dismal wrath of God, of consequence filled the soul of Christ with an inexpressible gloom.

Though Christ knew the love of God to him, and knew he should be successful in his sufferings; yet when God forsook him, those dismal views, those gloomy ideas, so fixed and swallowed up his mind, that though he had the habitual knowledge of those other objects, yet he could not attend to them; he could have comparatively but little comfort and support from them; for they could afford support no farther than they were attended to, or were in actual view.

Christ’s great love and pity to the elect (that his offering up himself on the cross was the greatest act and fruit of, and consequently which he was then in the highest exercise of) was one source of his suffering. A strong exercise of love excites a lively idea of the object beloved. And a strong exercise of pity excites a lively idea of the misery under which he pities them. Christ s love then brought his elect infinitely near to him in that great act and suffering wherein he especially stood for them, and was substituted in their stead: and his love and pity fixed the idea of them in his mind, as if he had really been they; and fixed their calamity in his mind, as though it really was his. A very strong and lively love and pity towards the miserable, tends to make their case ours; as in other respects, so in this in particular, as it doth in our idea place us in their stead, under their misery, with a most lively, feeling sense of that misery, as it were feeling it for them, actually suffering it in their stead by strong sympathy.

Coroll. 1. Hence we may see how the same thing, the same ideas that distressed the soul of Christ and brought on his amazing sufferings, engaged him to go through them. It was ordered that the bitterness of the cup, though exceedingly dreadful, was of that nature, or consisted in that, that the tasting of that bitterness was the thing that engaged him to go on to drink up the cup; and that as the bitterness of it arose from each of the forementioned things. (1.) As it arose from the clear idea he had then given him of the infinitely hateful and dreadful nature of sin. The more lively this idea was, the more dreadful was it to the soul of Christ; and yet, the more lively his idea of the hatefulness and dreadfulness of sin was, which consist in disobedience to God, the more did it engage him not to disobey, himself, that great command he had received of his Father, viz. That he should drink this cup, and go through those sufferings.

The more he had a sense how dreadful it is to contemn the authority of God, and to dishonour his holy name; the more would he be engaged to remove and abolish this dishonour, and to honour the authority of God himself. The more he had a sense of what an odious and dreadful thing sin was, the more would his heart be engaged to do and suffer what was necessary to take away this dreadful and odious thing, from those his heart was united to in love, viz. those that the Father had given him. (2.) It was the lively exercise of love and pity to those that the Father had given him, that was one thing that occasioned so lively a view of the punishment they had exposed themselves to, whereby his soul was filled with a dismal sense, and so he suffered. But this lively love and pity at the same time engaged him to suffer for them, to deliver them from their deserved punishment that he had an idea of. And as pity towards his elect excited a lively idea of their misery: so, on the other hand, the increase of his idea of their misery excited strong exercises of pity, and this pity engaged him still to endure those sufferings in their stead.

Coroll. 2. From what has been said, we may learn how Christ was sanctified in his last sufferings. The suffering of his soul in great part consisted in the great and dreadful sense and idea that he then had given him of the dreadful, horrid odiousness of sin; which was done by the Spirit of God. But this could not be, without a proportionable increase of his aversion to and hatred of sin; and consequently of his inclination to the contrary, which is the same thing as an increase of the holiness of his nature. Beside the immediate sight he had given him of the odious nature of sin, he had that strong sense and that great experience of the bitter fruit and consequences of sin, to confirm his enmity to it. Moreover he was then in the exercise of his highest act of obedience or holiness, which, tending to increase the principle, the bringing forth of such great and abundant fruit, tended to strengthen and increase the root. Those last sufferings of Christ, were in some respect like a fire to refine the gold. For though the furnace purged away no dross or filthiness, yet it increased the preciousness of the gold; it added to the finite holiness of the human nature of Christ. Hence Christ calls his offering himself up, his sanctifying himself; John xvii. 19. “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth.” Hence he call’s those last sufferings a baptism that he was to be baptized with. It was a baptism to him in two respects, as it purged him from imputed guilt, and as it increased his holiness by the Spirit of God, that gave him those terrible but sanctifying views. And so this is one way in which the Captain of our salvation is made perfect by sufferings; Heb. ii. 10. and v. 9. and Luke xiii. 22. Thus Christ, before he was glorified, was prepared for that high degree of glory and joy he was to be exalted to, by being first sanctified in the furnace.

II. Another way in which it was possible that Christ should endure the wrath of God was, to endure the effects of that wrath. All that he suffered was by the special ordering of God. There was a very visible hand of God, in letting men and devils loose upon him at such a rate, and in separating from him his own disciples. Thus it pleased the Father to bruise him and put him to grief. God dealt with him as if he had been exceedingly angry with him, and as though he had been the object of his dreadful wrath. This made all the sufferings of Christ the more terrible to him, because they were from the hand of his Father, whom he infinitely loved, and whose infinite love he had had eternal experience of. Besides, it was an effect of God’s wrath, that he forsook Christ. This caused Christ to cry out once and again, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ” This was infinitely terrible to Christ. Christ’s knowledge of the glory of the Father, and his love to the Father, and the sense and experience he had had of the worth of the Father’s love to him, made the withholding the pleasant ideas and manifestations of his Father’s love as terrible to him, as the sense and knowledge of his hatred is to the damned, that have no knowledge of God’s excellency, no love to him, nor any experience of the infinite sweetness of his love.

It was a special fruit of the wrath of God against our sins, that he let loose upon Christ the devil, who has the power of death, is God’s executioner, and the roaring lion that devours the damned in hell. Christ was given up to the devil as his captive for a season. This antitype of Jonah was thrown to this great leviathan, to be swallowed up as his prey. The time of Christ’s suffering, was the time of the prevalency of the power of the devil, wherein Christ was delivered up to that power, as implied in Luke xxii. 53. “When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” And therefore, when Christ’s last sufferings were approaching, Christ said, John xiv. 30. “The prince of this world cometh.” He was let loose to torment the soul of Christ with gloomy and dismal ideas. He probably did his utmost to contribute to raise his ideas of the torments of hell.

§ 10. That God should all along require sacrifices in his church, and that something should be done by all that came near to him and worshipped him, or appeared in his presence to make atonement for their sins; insomuch that sacrificing obtained throughout the world in all nations and ages; and that such a multitude of sacrifices should be appointed; that sacrifices should be offered so continually, and on so many occasions, and joined with all their public worship; was a plain testimony of God, that a real atonement or satisfaction to his justice was necessary, and that God did not design, that, in his manner of dealing with mankind, men should be pardoned and accepted without atonement. And if there was nothing of true and real atonement and sacrifice, in those beasts that were offered, then doubtless they were an evidence, that there was to be some other greater sacrifice, that was to be a proper atonement or satisfaction, of which they were only the presage and signs; as those symbolical actions which God sometimes commanded the prophets to perform, were signs and presages of great events which they foretold.

God abundantly testified by the sacrifices from the beginning of the world, that an atonement for sin was necessary, and must be insisted on in order to his acceptance of the sinner. This proves that a sacrifice of infinite value was necessary, and that God would accept of no other.

For an atonement that bears no proportion to the offence is no atonement. An atonement carries in it a payment or satisfaction in the very notion of it. And if satisfaction was so little necessary, that the Divine Majesty easily admitted one that bears no proportion at all to the offence, i. e. was wholly equivalent to nothing, when compared with the offence, and so was no payment or satisfaction at all; then he might have forgiven sin without any atonement; and an atonement could not be so greatly to be insisted upon, as is represented by all the prodigious expense and labour, and multitude of services, and ceremonies, and so great an apparatus, and so great pomp, which, with so much exactness, were prescribed to be continued through so many ages, respecting their typical sacrifices and atonements, and from God’s church were propagated through the world of mankind.

That no mere creature could offer to God that true sacrifice of real atonement, of which the Old-Testament sacrifices were resemblances or shadows, is evident by the Old Testament. For by the Old Testament it is evident, that that is not sufficient to be looked upon by God as any real atonement or sacrifice for sin, which is God’s before it is offered to him. In the Psal. l. fiftieth Psalm we have a prophecy of Christ’s coming to set up his kingdom in the world. There it is said in the 5th and following verses, “Gather my saints together unto me: those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice” (where we may observe that the necessity of sacrifices is implied). “And the heavens shall declare his righteousness; for God is judge himself. Selah. Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.” But no mere creature can have any thing to offer to God which is not his already: for all that he has is God’s gift to him.

§11. That Christ indeed suffered the full punishment of the sin that was imputed to him, or offered that to God that was fully and completely equivalent to what we owed to divine justice for our sins, is evident by Psalm lxix. 5. “Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins” (my guiltiness it is in the Hebrew) “are not hid from thee. That the person that is the subject of this Psalm, and that is here speaking, is the Messiah, is evident from many places in the New Testament, in which it is applied to Christ; as, John xv. 25. and John ii. 17. and Rom. xv. 3. 2 Cor. vi. 2. John xix. 28, 29, 30. with Matt. xxvii. 34, 48. and Mark xv. 23. and Rom. xi. 9, 10. Acts i. 20. And by the Psalm itself, especially when compared with other Psalms and prophecies of the Old Testament, it is plain that David, in this Psalm, did not speak in his own name, but in the name of the Messiah. See Of the Prophecies of the Messiah, in a succeeding part of this volume.

But if it be the Messiah that is here speaking, then by the sin and guiltiness that he here speaks of, must be intended, not sin that he himself committed, but that sin that was laid upon him, or that he took upon him, spoken of Isaiah liii. And when Christ says, “O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my guiltiness is not hid from thee;” thereby must be meant, that God did not forgive that which was imputed to him, but punished it. When God forgives sin, and does not execute punishment for it, then he is said not to behold iniquity, nor see perverseness; and to cover, and hide, and bury their sins, so that they cannot be seen or found; and to turn away his face from beholding them, and not to remember them any more. But when God does not remit sin, but punishes it, then, in the language of the Old Testament, he is said to find out their sins, to set them before him in the light of his countenance, to remember them, to bring them to remembrance, and to know them. And therefore, when it is said here, “O God, thou hast known my foolishness, and my guiltiness hast thou not hid;” thereby is intended, that he forgives nothing to the Messiah, but beholds all his guiltiness by imputed sin, has set all in the light of his countenance, and does not cover or hide the least part of it.

§ 12. Satisfaction for sin must be complete. God declares, that those sinners that are not forgiven, shall pay the uttermost farthing, and the last mite; and that all the debt shall be exacted of them, &c. Now, it seems unreasonable to suppose, that God, in case of a surety, and of his insisting on an atonement made by him, will show mercy, by releasing the surety without a full atonement, any more than that he will show mercy to the sinner that is punished, by not insisting on the complete punishment.

§ 13. Christ’s knowing his own infinite dignity and glory, and having it in view in the time of his humiliation, is mentioned as a circumstance that is important and of great consequence in that humiliation; “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God,” &c.

§ 14. “Those expressions of the apostle [concerning Christ’s satisfaction and righteousness, and the operations of the Spirit] are to be understood in the common sense and meaning of the words, and not as far-fetched metaphors. For it is evident, that in all this he does not affect the arts of oratory, nor assume a magnificent air of writing, nor does he raise himself into sublimity of style, nor rant in an enthusiastic manner, when he treats of these subjects. But while he is explaining to us these great things of the gospel, he avoids the wisdom of words and oratory, and he talks in a plain, rational, argumentative method, to inform the minds of men, and give them the clearest knowledge of the truth.” Watts’s Orthodoxy and Charity.

§ 15. Let us consider how a perfectly wise, holy, and disinterested Arbiter, whose office it should be to regulate all things within the whole compass of existence according to the most perfect propriety, would determine, in case the creature should injure the Most High, should cast contempt on the majesty, and trample on the authority of the infinite Lord of the universe, whether he would not determine, that in such a case the injury should be repaired, his majesty vindicated, and the sacredness of the authority thoroughly supported; and that it was very requisite, in order to things being regulated and disposed most fitly and beautifully, that such injuries should not be forgiven in the neglect of this, or without due care taken of this matter. If it be fit that the honour of God’s majesty should be maintained at all in any degree, (which I suppose none will deny,) then why is it not most fit that it should be maintained fully? If it would be quite improper and unsuitable, that the dignity of the Supreme Being, the sacredness of the authority of the infinitely great Governor of the world, should be entirely neglected, should be suffered at all times, and to the greatest degree, to be trampled on, without any care to defend or support it; and that the majesty of this great King, as to the manifestation of it, should be obscured by his enemies to the greatest degree, and that continually and for ever, without any vindication or reparation at all; then why is it not most suitable and most becoming, that the vindication of it should be thorough, and the reparation complete and perfect?

What has been observed, may serve to show the reasonableness of the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ; and that it is most rational to suppose, that if God did determine to forgive such as had cast contempt on his infinite majesty, and on his authority, as the infinitely high Lord over all, and to take such into favour, Infinite Wisdom would some way or other so contrive the matter, that the injury done to the appearance or exhibition of the dignity and sacred authority of the great King, should be fully repaired, and his majesty entirely vindicated, and set forth in all awfulness, inviolable sacredness, and worthiness of regard and reverence. It cannot here be reasonably objected, that God is not capable of properly receiving any benefit; that a price offered to men satisfies for an injury, because it may truly be a price to them, or a thing valuable and beneficial, but that God is not capable of receiving a benefit. For God is as capable of receiving satisfaction as injury. It is true, he cannot properly be profited; so neither can he be properly hurt. But as rebelling against him may properly be looked upon as of the nature of an injury or wrong done to God, and so God is capable, in some proper sense, of being the object of injuriousness; so he is as capable of being the object of that which is the opposite of injuriousness, or the repairing of an injury. If you say, what need is there that God have any care, for repairing the honour of his majesty, when it can do him no good, and no addition can be made to his happiness by it? You might as well say, what need is there that God care when he is despised and.dishonoured, and his authority and glory trampled on; since it does him no hurt? It is a vain thing here to pretend, that God cares only, because it hurts creatures’ own happiness for them to cast contempt on God. Is that agreeable to the natural light of all men’s minds, to the natural sense of their hearts, and to the dictates of conscience, which unavoidably and necessarily arise, after some very direct, most profane, and daring opposition to and reproach of the Most High, that God is now angry and much provoked, only because the audacious sinner has now greatly hurt himself, and hurt his neighbours, that happen to see him? No, this is entirely diverse from the voice of natural sense in such a case, which inevitably suggests, that God is provoked, as one will regard himself for himself, as having a direct respect for his dignity and majesty. And this is agreeable to the strictest reason. It is impossible, if God infinitely loves and honours himself, as one infinitely worthy to be loved and esteemed, but that he should, from the same principle, proportionably abhor and oppose opposition to himself, and contempt of himself. And if it be in its own nature decent and proper for him thus to love himself, then it is in its own nature fit and becoming in him to hate opposition to himself. And for the same reason, and from the same principle, God, when he is contemned and injured, and his authority and glory are trampled in the dust, will be disposed to repair the injury done to his honour, and raise his injured majesty out of the dust again.

§ 17. The satisfaction of Christ, by suffering the punishment of sin, is properly to be distinguished, as being in its own nature different from the merit of Christ. For merit is only some excellency or worth. But when we consider Christ’s sufferings merely as the satisfaction for the guilt of another, the excellency of Christ’s act in suffering does not all come into consideration; but only those two things, viz. Their equality or equivalence to the punishment that the sinner deserved; and, 2ndly, The union between him and them, or the propriety of his being accepted in suffering, as the representative of the sinner. Christ’s bearing our punishment for us, is not properly meriting that we should not bear it, any more than, if it had been possible for us ourselves to have borne it all, that would have been meriting that we should not be punished any more. Christ’s sufferings do not satisfy by any excellency in them, but by a fulfilment. To satisfy by a fulfilment, and to satisfy by worthiness or excellency, are different things. If the law be fulfilled, there is no need of any excellency or merit to satisfy it; because it is satisfied by taking place and having its course. Indeed, how far the dignity or worthiness of Christ’s person comes into consideration, in determining the propriety of his being accepted as a representative of sinners, so that his suffering, when equivalent, can be accepted as theirs, may be matter of question and debate; but it is a matter entirely foreign to the present purpose.

§ 18. The blood of Christ washes away sin. So it is represented in the Scripture, that we are washed from our filthiness in Christ’s blood. Whereas, although the blood of Christ washes from our guilt, yet it is the Spirit of Christ that washes from the pollution and stain of sin. However, the blood of Christ washes also from the filth of sin, as it purchases sanctification; it makes way for it by satisfying, and purchases it by the merit of obedience implied in it. The sacrifices under the law typified Christ’s sacrifice, not only as a satisfaction, but as meritorious obedience. They are called a sweet savour upon both these accounts. And therefore we find obedience compared with sacrifice, Psal. xl. 6,. &c.

The sacrifice of Christ is a sweet savour, because as such it was a great honour done to God’s majesty, holiness, and law, and a glorious expression of Christ’s respect to that majesty, &c. That when he loved man, and so greatly desired his salvation, be had yet so great respect to that majesty and holiness of God, that he had rather die than that the salvation of man should be any injury or dishonour unto those attributes. And then, 2ndly, It was a sweet savour, as it was a marvellous act of obedience, and some expression of a wonderful respect to God’s authority. The value of Christ’s sacrifice was infinite, both as a propitiation, and as an act of obedience; because he showed an infinite regard to the majesty, holiness, &c. of God, in being at infinite expense from regard to those divine attributes.

§19. The sacrifices under the law are said to be most holy; but the sacrifice of Christ may properly be said to be infinitely holy, as it was an expression of an infinite regard to the holiness, majesty, &c. of God.

§ 20. Late philosophers seem ready enough to own the great importance of God’s maintaining steady and inviolable the laws of the natural world. It may be worthy to be considered, whether it is not of as great or greater importance, that the law of God, that great rule of righteousness between the supreme moral Governor and his subjects, should be maintained inviolate.

§ 21. If the threatening of death be not executed, the devil’s horrid suggestion, and our first parents’ wise suspicion, will be verified and fulfilled; viz. that God said otherwise than what he knew, when he threatened, Thou shalt surely die.

§ 22. “Had God violated his word in the threatening of death for sin, he had justified the devil in his arguments for man’s rebellion. The devil’s argument is a plain contradiction to God’s threatening. God affirms the certainty of death; the devil affirms the certainty of life. ‘Ye shall not surely die.’ Had no punishment been inflicted, the devil had not been a liar from the beginning. God would have honoured the tempter, and justified the charge he brought against him, and owned that envy the devil accused him of, and thereby have rendered the devil the fittest object for love and trust. As the devil charged God with a lie; so, had no punishment been inflicted, God would have condemned himself, and declared Satan, instead of a lying tempter, to be the truest counsellor. He had exposed himself to contempt, and advanced the credit of his enemy, and so set up the devil as God instead of himself. It concerned God therefore to manifest himself true, and the devil a liar, and acquaint the world, that not himself, but the evil spirit, was their deceiver; and that he meant as he spoke.” Charnock, vol. ii. p. 924.

As to any objection that may be made against the force of the foregoing arguments, from the practice of all, and even the wisest of human legislators, their dispensing with their own laws, and forbearing to execute them, and pardoning offenders, without any one’s being made to suffer in their stead; the case is vastly different in the Supreme Lawgiver and subordinate lawgivers, and in the Supreme Judge and subordinate judges. The case is vastly different in them that give rules only to a certain small part of the commonwealth of moral agents, and with relation only to some few of their concerns, and for a little while in lawgivers that are weak and fallible, and very imperfect in the exercises of a limited, subordinate, and infinitely inferior authority; from what is in him, who is the great, infinitely wise, omniscient, holy, and absolutely perfect, Rector of all; to whom it belongs to establish a rule for the regulation of the whole university of beings, throughout all eternity, in all that concerns them in the exercise of an infinitely strong right of supreme, absolute dominion and sovereignty. The laws of men may be dispensed with, who cannot foresee all cases that may’ happen; and if they could, have not both the laws and the state of the subject perfectly at their own disposal, so that it is possible for them universally and perfectly to suit one to the other. And moreover, there is a superior law, i. e. the divine law, that all are subject to, and a superior tribunal, to which all are obnoxious; to which inferior tribunals, when the exigency of affairs, or any thing extraordinary in the case, requires it, may refer offenders, dispensing with inferior subordinate laws made by men. But there is no wise and good law, but that care should be taken that it ordinarily be put in execution: and the nearer any human law approaches to the supreme or divine law in perfection, and in extent of jurisdiction, the more care should be taken of its execution: the wisdom of nations teaches this. And besides, persons’ repentance may be proportionable and answerable, at least in some measure, to offences against men. And as to the public truth which is to be upheld in execution of the threatening of human laws, there ought to be great care to uphold it, according to the true intent and meaning of those threatenings. If all that is meant by them, and all that, by the very nature of the public constitution,(that is the foundation on which all their laws stand,) is to be understood by those threatening, is, that the punishment shall be inflicted, excepting when the exigence of the public requires otherwise, or when the pleasure of the prince is otherwise; then the public truth obliges to no more; and this being done, the public truth is maintained.