Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Wisdom of God, Displayed in the Way of Salvation (Ephesians 3:10) | Jonathan Edwards

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The Wisdom of God, Displayed in the Way of Salvation (Ephesians 3:10) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the show. We are calling this edition
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  Reformed Thinking because, well, frankly, that is what we are
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  doing today. Yeah, we are.
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  We are taking a look at a very specific way of viewing the
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  world, viewing God and the history of humanity through a
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  highly specific theological lens.
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  And it is a lens that really shifts your perspective.
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  It does. And to start, I want to give
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  you, the listener, a visual picture, a theater, a massive
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  cosmic theater. The lights dim, the curtain
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  rises, and a drama begins. It is long, it has plot twists
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  no one saw coming, and the audience is just.
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  Sitting on the edge of their seats.
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  Right, they are completely captivated.
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  But here is the kicker. The audience isn't human.
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  Yeah, that is the image that really sets the tone for today's
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  deep dive. It really is.
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  We are so used to thinking that everything is about us.
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  You know, we think the Bible is a book about how to live our
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  best lives or how to get through a Tuesday without losing our
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  temper. And those things are in there,
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  sure, But the text we're looking at today flips the camera angle
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  around entirely. The audience in this theater is
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  the principalities and heavenly authorities.
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  Angels, right? Angels.
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  And the stage. The stage is the church.
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  The stage is us. So we are digging into a set of
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  sermons by Jonathan Edwards titled The Wisdom of God
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  Displayed in the Way of Salvation A.
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  Classic. And the core text he uses is
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  Ephesians 3.7. Now I have read this verse 100
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  times and I usually just gloss over it.
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  I. Think we all do?
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  It says something about the manifold wisdom of God being
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  made known to the principalities and authorities, but Edwards
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  stops right there and basically builds an entire worldview out
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  of that one single sentence. He really does.
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  He is arguing that the wisdom of God is more visible in the
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  redemption of sinners than in the creation of the entire
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  universe. Which is a bold statement.
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  Extremely. Bold.
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  I mean, I look at a supernova or the sheer intricacy of a human
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  eye, and I think, wow, that is wisdom.
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  And Edwards says, well, that is nice, but if you want to see the
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  real thing, look at salvation. It is a massive claim and our
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  mission today is to figure out if he can back it up.
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  Let's see if you can. Edwards is essentially saying
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  that the salvation of humanity is a Lesson plan.
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  It is a master class designed specifically for angels.
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  And the reason it is a master class is that the method, the
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  specific way God chose to save people, is so counterintuitive,
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  so full of paradoxes, and so technically difficult that no
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  human philosophy could have ever invented it.
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  So let's start with the students in this classroom.
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  The text mentions principalities and authorities.
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  We establish these are angels. But why use those titles?
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  It sounds like AI don't know a government org chart.
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  In a way, it is. Edwards points out that these
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  aren't just generic spirits floating around on clouds.
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  These are beings of immense dignity and strength.
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  The Bible calls them Thrones, dominions, authorities.
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  These are the heavy hitters of the spiritual realm.
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  They are the ministers of God who govern aspects of the
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  universe. They have a level of might that
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  makes a nuclear weapon look like a firecracker.
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  And they have intelligence that far surpasses ours.
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  Plus, they have been staring at the face of God since the dawn
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  of creation. And yet they are the students.
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  That seems backward to me. If they are so smart and have
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  been hanging out in God's presence for eons, shouldn't
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  they know everything by now? You would think so.
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  Why do they need to look at us broken, messy humans to learn
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  anything at all? That brings us to the keyword in
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  the text manifold. Manifold Wisdom.
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  Right, the Greek word there is polypoiculos.
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  It is a mouthful. It translates literally to many,
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  colored or variegated. Like a tie dye shirt.
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  Kind of, but think more like an intricate mosaic or a diamond
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  with 1000 facets. Or, to use an auditory analogy,
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  think of the difference between a single tuning fork and a
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  massive Symphony. Oh.
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  I like that. Creation is like the tuning
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  fork. It is pure, it is direct.
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  God speaks and it is. It shows God's might and his
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  artistry in a straightforward way.
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  But redemption is different. Very different.
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  Redemption involves elements that seem contradictory.
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  It involves sin, suffering, death, justice, mercy, wrath,
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  and love all mixing together in this incredible Symphony.
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  So the manifold part is the intricacy of it all.
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  It is not just, hey, God is good, it is God is good, but he
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  is also just. And there is this massive
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  problem of sin. So how does he solve it?
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  Spot on. Edwards argues that there are
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  aspects of God's character that simply cannot be seen in a
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  perfect, unfallen world. You cannot see mercy if there is
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  no one who actually needs forgiveness.
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  You cannot see long-suffering or patience if no one is testing
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  you. You cannot see vindictive
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  justice if no one has broken a law.
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  That makes a lot of sense. So the angels knew God was
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  great. They knew he was omnipotent, but
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  until the drama of human redemption started unfolding,
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  they've never seen these specific colors of the divine
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  nature. They were seeing a completely
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  new side of God. OK, so they were watching the
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  screen, and the screen is the church.
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  That feels a bit ironic, honestly.
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  You have these glorious, sinless beings learning about holiness
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  by watch. Well, me and you and the history
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  of the church, which, let's be honest, is not always a pretty
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  picture. It is the ultimate humility for
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  them. Edwards actually touches on
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  this. They are.
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  They aren't jealous. They aren't.
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  No, they don't look at us and say why is God paying attention
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  to those worms? They are fascinated.
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  Wow. They are leaning over the
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  balcony of heaven, so to speak, because they see God taking
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  something that is worse than nothing, a rebellious, sinful
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  human, and turning it into a son of God.
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  That process is the lesson. Yes, if God just gave them a
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  lecture on his wisdom, that would be theory.
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  Seeing it play out in the messy history of the church is the lab
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  work. I want to push back on the
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  timeline here just a bit. You mentioned they learned this
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  through the church. Does that mean before the Church
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  existed, say in the Oral Testament or before creation,
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  they were totally in the dark? Not entirely in the dark, no,
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  But Edwards distinguishes between knowing and discovering.
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  They saw the creation of the world.
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  They shouted for joy, according to Job, but the plan of
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  redemption was a mystery. Kept hitting God, as Paul says.
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  So they saw hints of it. Right.
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  They saw the animal sacrifices, they saw the prophecies, they
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  saw the Ark of the Covenant. But Edward suggests they were
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  like us, trying to solve a Riddle.
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  They knew God was up to something, but the full
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  mechanics of it didn't click until Christ actually came.
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  So for 4000 years they're basically watching the trailer
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  trying to figure out the plot and then Jesus is born and the
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  movie finally starts. And that leads us perfectly into
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  the casting decisions. Edward sets up a hypothetical
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  scenario in his sermon that I think it's just brilliant logic.
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  I love this part. He says imagine God called a
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  meeting. He brings in all the angels and
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  maybe the smartest humans ever to live and he puts a problem on
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  the table. He says I want to save these
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  sinners, but I have strict standards.
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  Who is qualified to be the Redeemer?
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  Edwards argues that if God left it to them to guess, they would
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  have failed. They would have just stared at
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  the floor in silence. Because the job description is
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  impossible. The qualifications are
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  contradictory, at least to a created mind.
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  Edwards lists them out first. The Redeemer has to be a divine
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  person. Why though?
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  Why couldn't God just empower a super Angel?
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  Like give Gabriel a temporary boost in strength.
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  It comes down to the sheer weight of the work.
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  The Redeemer has to bear the infinite wrath of God against
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  sin, right? A finite creature would be
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  crushed instantly. They would be annihilated.
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  Also, the Redeemer has to merit or earn an infinite blessing.
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  And a creature can't do that. No, a finite creature cannot
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  generate infinite value, so right off the bat you need
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  someone with infinite capacity. OK, so that narrows it down to
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  God himself. But Edwards lists inner things.
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  He says the Redeemer must be infinitely dear to the Father.
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  This is all about the exchange rate.
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  Sin is an infinite offense to God because it is against an
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  infinite authority. To balance the scales, the
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  sacrifice offered must be of equal value to the offense.
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  The Father has to value the blood of the Redeemer as much as
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  he hates the sin of the world. If he loves the Redeemer only a
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  finite amount, it is not enough to cover the debt, so the
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  Redeemer must be the beloved of the Father.
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  That makes total sense, but then you get to the 4th qualification
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  and this is where I get stuck. Let's hear it.
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  Edwards says the Redeemer must act by his own absolute right.
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  He cannot be a servant and pack that for me, because aren't we
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  all servants of God? We are, and that is exactly the
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  problem. Think about it this way.
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  If you borrow $100,000 from the bank and you pay them back
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  $100,000, what have you done? I have paid my debt.
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  I am back to 0. Right.
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  Have you earned a bonus? Did the bank throw a parade for
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  you? Definitely not.
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  No, you just did what you were legally required to do.
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  Edwards argues that every created being, Angel or human,
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  owes God absolute 100% obedience every single second of their
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  existence. We are property.
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  Yes, we are servants by definition.
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  So if Dabriel the Archangel obeys God perfectly for a
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  billion years, he hasn't done anything extra.
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  Precisely. He is just paying his bills.
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  He is living paycheck to paycheck.
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  In terms of righteousness, he has no surplus merit to transfer
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  to your account. Because he owes it all anyway.
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  Right. To pay off someone else's debt,
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  you need to have money that you don't owe to the bank yourself.
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  You need a surplus. And the only person who doesn't
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  owe God obedience is, well, God. That is correct.
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  God does not have a boss. He acts by his own absolute
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  right. So if a divine person chooses to
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  obey, if he chooses to serve, that is a voluntary act.
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  Because he didn't have to. Right, it is an act of super
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  irrigation. That is the theological term for
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  it. He creates a surplus of merit
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  because he wasn't obligated to do it.
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  That is the math of the gospel right there.
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  That is fascinating. So we know it has to be God.
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  But Edwards doesn't stop there. He plays a game of who is it
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  within the Trinity? He does.
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  Why not the Father? Why not the Holy Spirit has
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  Christians who adhere to the Westminster Confession?
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  We know the distinct roles of the Persons of the Trinity are
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  vital here. Yes, and we have to be very
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  careful with our theology, but Edwards is very clear on this.
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  It is about fitting those specific roles.
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  The Father acts as the judge and the governor of the universe.
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  He represents the majesty of the Godhead that has been offended
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  by sin. Now, in a courtroom, the judge
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  cannot step down from the bench, act as the defense attorney,
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  take the penalty for the client, and then go back to the bench to
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  accept the payment. It blurs the roles completely.
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  Exactly. The father's the one receiving
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  the satisfaction. OK, so the Father stays on the
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  bench. What about the Spirit?
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  The Spirit's role is different. He's the agent who works inside
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  the believer. He's the one who applies the
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  work of salvation right? Edwards argues that the mediator
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  needs to stand between the Father and the believer.
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  If the Spirit were the mediator, he would be mediating between
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  the Father and Himself in a way, since he dwells in the Believer.
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  Yeah, that gets conceptually very messy.
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  It does. The Son, however, is the middle
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  person of the Trinity. He is the Word.
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  He is the perfect bridge. So by process of elimination,
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  divine wisdom figures out it must be the Son.
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  And Edward says no human or Angel would have ever dared to
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  suggest that right? Imagine a meeting of angels who
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  would raise their hand and say, hey God, I have an idea.
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  Why don't you send your beloved son, execute him, and let him
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  take the blame for these rebels? It would sound insane it.
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  Would sound like blasphemy. It had to come from the mind of
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  God because it is too costly and too strange for a creature to
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  invent. And that strangeness continues
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  right into the execution of the plan.
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  This brings us to the paradox of the incarnation.
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  We have The Who, the Son. Now we have the how.
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  And the how is shocking. Edwards talks a lot about
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  substitution. The great exchange.
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  The judge becomes the accused, the beloved becomes the
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  forsaken. We say these things in church so
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  often they tend to lose their. Punches, they really do.
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  But try to see it from the angels perspective.
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  They see the Son who holds the universe together by the word of
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  his might, and suddenly he's a zygote.
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  He is a cluster of cells in the womb of a peasant girl.
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  The incarnation Edwards uses some visceral language.
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  Here he quotes the Psalm. I am a worm and no man.
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  He does, and he contrasts the attributes beautifully.
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  You have the all sufficient God, the one who needs absolutely
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  nothing, suddenly needing breast milk.
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  It is. Staggering when you put it like
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  that. You have the omnipresent God who
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  fills all space confined to a feeding Truss, Edwards says.
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  This is a mystery of godliness. To a human mind or an angelic
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  mind, dignity usually means looking strong.
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  It means glowing lights and Thunder.
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  But God's wisdom redefined dignity.
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  He showed the true greatness can descend to the lowest point
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  without losing its value. The circumstances of his life
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  were a major curveball, too. If I were planning the Messiah's
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  arrival and I wanted to impress the world, I would have him born
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  in Rome. Naturally.
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  Maybe in Caesar's palace he would have a golden sword.
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  He would overthrow the oppressors immediately.
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  That makes sense to human wisdom.
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  It does. That is what the Jewish leaders
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  expected. They wanted a political lion,
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  but divine wisdom said no. Why though?
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  Because God wanted to pour contempt on worldly glory, He
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  wanted to show that money, status and earthly influence are
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  not the metrics of the Kingdom. By being born in a stable, by
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  living as a poor Carpenter, by having nowhere to lay his head,
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  Jesus was dismantling our idols. He was showing that you could be
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  the most significant person in the universe and have $0.00 in
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  your bank account. That is a lesson the angels were
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  watching, too. And then the death.
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  This is the absolute climax of the paradox.
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  Edwards calls him the fountain of life, and yet the fountain
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  dies. It is the ultimate
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  contradiction. The creator is killed by the
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  creature. The source of life breathes his
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  last. Wow.
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  Edwards imagines the confusion of the heavenly hosts.
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  Unless they had been briefed on the specifics of the plan,
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  seeing their commander allowed to be spit upon, beaten and
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  nailed to wood must have been horrifying.
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  It looked like a total deceit. It looked like a disaster, yeah,
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  But Edwards says this was the specific design of wisdom.
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  It wasn't Plan B. Let's talk about why.
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  Why do it this way? Why not just snap his fingers
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  and fix everything? This moves us into the
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  attributes of God. Edwards uses an analogy of the
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  solar system, right? He says creation is like the
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  stars, but redemption is like the sun in his strength.
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  He is talking about but the brightness of the glory.
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  When the sun comes up, the stars disappear, not because they're
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  gone, but because the sun is so much brighter.
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  Edwards argues that every attribute of God, his strength,
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  his justice, his mercy, shines brighter at the cross that it
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  did at The Big Bang. Let's break that down.
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  Start with God's strength of the struggle with this one.
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  Creating a universe from nothing feels like the ultimate display
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  of might. How is saving a Sinner harder
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  than making a Galaxy? It's all about resistance.
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  Think about the material God used for creation.
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  Nothing, right? X and Hilo out of nothing.
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  Now how much resistance does nothing put up?
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  Not at all. It is nothing.
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  Spot on. Nothing doesn't say no.
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  I don't want to be a planet. God speaks and it obeys.
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  There's zero friction. But now look at the material for
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  redemption. Look at the human heart.
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  Yeah, that is a completely different story.
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  Edwards describes the fallen human heart as stone.
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  It is enmity against God. It is actively hostile.
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  It hates the light. So for God to take a heart that
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  is kicking and screaming against him and turn it into a heart
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  that genuinely loves Him and obeys Him, and to do it without
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  turning us into robots, preserving our will, that
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  requires overcoming active infinite resistance.
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  So creation is a display of raw strength, but redemption is a
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  display of conquest. Perfectly put, it is the
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  difference between lifting a heavy inanimate weight and
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  wrestling alive of opponent who is actively trying to stab you.
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  Well, the might required to subdue the will of a Sinner is
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  qualitatively different and, Edwards argues, far greater than
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  the might to create matter. That puts my own salvation in a
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  totally new light. It wasn't just a gentle nudge.
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  It was a cosmic conquest. It really was.
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  What about justice? We touched on this with a dead
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  analogy earlier. Edwards is very strict here.
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  In line with Reformed covenant theology, he says God refused to
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  abate 1 mite of the debt. Not even a discount.
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  A mite was a tiny coin, no discount at all.
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  If he simply forgave sin without payment, he would be
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  compromising his own law. His law says the soul that sins
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  shall die. If God ignored that, his
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  truthfulness would be in question.
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  So justice had to be satisfied completely.
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  And he argues that justice is actually more glorified in the
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  cross than in hell. That sounds counter intuitive to
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  me. Isn't hell the ultimate place of
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  justice? It is, but think about the
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  capacity to pay in hell. The Sinner is paying the debt,
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  but because the center is finite, he can never finish
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  paying an infinite debt. Great, it goes on forever.
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  Exactly. The debt is never stamped paid
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  in full, but on the cross. Because Christ is infinite, He
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  could absorb the full wrath of God in a finite amount of time.
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  He. Drained the cup completely.
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  Yes. So Justice actually got a full
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  completed payment at the cross, which it never gets in hell that
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  is. Heavy, but it leads to the
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  beautiful resolution of mercy and truth.
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  Edwards personifies them. They're usually at odds in our
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  world. Right truth says he sinned, he
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  must die verse he says I love him, I want him to live in a
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  human court. You usually have to pick one.
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  You either punish upholding justice or you let them go
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  showing mercy. You can't really do both fully.
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  Right, it is a compromise. But at the cross, God found a
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  way to do both 100%. He punished the sin fully in
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  Christ. So truth was happy.
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  Yeah, and he let the Sinner go free, so Mercy was happy.
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  As the Psalm says, mercy and truth are met together.
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  Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
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  It is a diplomatic masterpiece. It really is.
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  Now let's pivot to what we actually get out of this What do
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  we gain? Edwards talks about filling the
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  capacity he. Starts with the premise that
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  humans are incredibly needy. We have a hole in our soul, and
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  because we were made for God, that hole is effectively
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  infinite. We have infinite cravings.
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  We do. We want happiness that never
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  ends and never gets boring. And we usually try to fill it
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  with money or relationships or, I don't know, entertainment.
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  And it never works. It is like throwing pebbles into
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  the Grand Canyon. Edwards argues that the wisdom
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  of the gospel is that it gives us the only object that actually
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  fits the container. It gives us God.
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  He makes a sharp distinction between the gifts and the giver.
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  Yes. The reward isn't just heaven is
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  a place of comfort or nice scenery.
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  The reward is the beatific vision, seeing God face to face.
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  Being united to him. Edwards uses the marriage
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  analogy. We are the bride.
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  It is entirely relational. If you get married just for the
• 18:55
  spouses money, that is a sham right?
• 18:57
  If you want salvation just to avoid hell, you are missing the
• 19:01
  point. The point is to have the person.
• 19:04
  The Lord is my portion. But there is a condition to all
• 19:07
  of this faith, and Edwards, being a solid Reformed
• 19:10
  theologian, doesn't let us take credit for that either.
• 19:12
  He can't. If the plan depended on us
• 19:15
  smartening up and generating faith on our own, it would fail.
• 19:19
  We are too broken. Dead in trespasses.
• 19:21
  Right, so, Edwards explains, the purchase of Christ includes the
• 19:24
  means as well as the end. Christ bought our ticket to
• 19:27
  heaven, but He also bought the Holy Spirit to come down and
• 19:31
  wake us up, so we would even want to accept the ticket.
• 19:33
  So the whole thing is a gift. Even the hand I reach out to
• 19:35
  take the gift is empowered by him.
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  That is right. That is the only way it is
• 19:39
  secure. If it relied on my willpower, I
• 19:41
  would lose my salvation tomorrow.
• 19:43
  Without doubt. Now I want to move to the next
• 19:46
  part of this deep dive, and I have to warn our listeners, this
• 19:49
  is a bit controversial on the surface.
• 19:51
  It is the concept of the fortunate fall.
• 19:54
  Yes, O Felix culpa. Right.
• 19:58
  Is Edward saying it is good that Adam sinned?
• 20:00
  Because that sounds fundamentally wrong.
• 20:02
  He is not saying sin itself is good, sin is evil, but he is
• 20:06
  saying that the result of God's redeeming work is a higher state
• 20:11
  for humanity than if we had never fallen in the first place.
• 20:13
  It is a comparison of two states.
• 20:15
  Walk me through that. How am I better off now than
• 20:18
  Adam was in Eden before he ate the fruit?
• 20:20
  Adam was perfect. He walked with God in the cool
• 20:23
  of the day. I have back pain and anxiety.
• 20:25
  I hear you, but think about the relational standing.
• 20:28
  Adam was a servant. He was a friend, yes, but he was
• 20:31
  a distinct creature. He was not united to God in a
• 20:34
  federal, organic sense like we are now.
• 20:36
  But look at the believer now. Because of the incarnation, God
• 20:40
  became a man. He took on our nature and
• 20:43
  through the Holy Spirit we are in Christ.
• 20:45
  We are members of his body. Right.
• 20:47
  The federal headship shifts from Adam to Christ.
• 20:50
  Spot on. Edwards argues that our union
• 20:53
  with God through Christ is far more intimate and organic than
• 20:57
  anything Adam had. We are the bride.
• 20:59
  Adam was the gardener. So we have a higher rank.
• 21:02
  We do. We share in the sonship of
• 21:04
  Christ. We cry ABBA father in a way Adam
• 21:07
  didn't. And there is also the contrast
• 21:09
  principle. What is that?
• 21:11
  This is just basic human psychology.
• 21:13
  Who appreciates the light more? The guy who has been stumbling
• 21:16
  around in the dark. Right.
• 21:17
  Adam had never known pain, guilt, or separation.
• 21:20
  He enjoyed God, sure, but the redeemed Sinner who has been
• 21:24
  rescued from the horrible pit, who has felt the crushing weight
• 21:27
  of guilt and then felt it lift. That person loves God with a
• 21:30
  ferocity, yes. A gratitude that innocent Adam
• 21:33
  couldn't even comprehend. We will sing louder in heaven
• 21:36
  because we know what we were saved from.
• 21:38
  And you mentioned earlier that angels get something out of this
• 21:41
  too. They didn't fall.
• 21:42
  They don't need saving. But they get ahead.
• 21:45
  Edwards points out that Christ is now the head of all
• 21:47
  principality and authority. The angels are organized under
• 21:50
  the God man. They are part of this new cosmic
• 21:53
  family, and going back to the intro, they get to see God's
• 21:57
  dying love. They can never experience
• 21:59
  forgiveness themselves, but by watching us, they see a facet of
• 22:03
  God's beauty that would have remained hidden forever if sin
• 22:07
  hadn't entered the picture. Now let's get to the thriller
• 22:09
  section of the sermon. Checkmate Against Satan.
• 22:12
  Edwards portrays this whole thing as a massive battle of
• 22:15
  wits. It is the ultimate chess match.
• 22:17
  Satan is the strong man armed. He is brilliant, but he's also
• 22:21
  intensely arrogant and arrogance creates blind spots.
• 22:25
  What was Satan's original goal? He wanted to ruin God's
• 22:28
  masterpiece. He saw humanity, God's new
• 22:31
  creation, and he wanted to drag it down.
• 22:33
  He used a lie in the garden. You shall be as gods.
• 22:37
  He tempted them with autonomy. He thought if I can get them to
• 22:39
  rebel, God's justice will force him to destroy them, and I win.
• 22:43
  But God turned the tables completely.
• 22:45
  God took the lie and made it true, but not always.
• 22:48
  Satan meant it all. Satan said you will be like God.
• 22:53
  Well, through the plan of redemption, God actually did
• 22:56
  unite human nature to the divine nature in Christ.
• 23:00
  So humanity ended up seated on the throne of the universe.
• 23:03
  That is incredible. Satan's attempt at the greatest
• 23:05
  resulted in our highest elevation.
• 23:07
  I had a supreme irony, but the cross seems like the main trap.
• 23:11
  What was Satan thinking on Good Friday?
• 23:13
  Well, Satan isn't omniscient. He knew Jesus was the Messiah,
• 23:16
  the son of David. To Satan, a king is a political
• 23:20
  threat. He thought if I kill the air,
• 23:22
  the inheritance is mine. He thought he was achieving a
• 23:25
  massive coup. He incited Judas.
• 23:27
  He whipped up the mob. He wanted Jesus dead.
• 23:30
  He thought the cross was his victory lap.
• 23:32
  Edwards uses the David and Goliath analogy here.
• 23:35
  I absolutely love this is. Perfect.
• 23:36
  When David fought Goliath, Dave didn't have a sword.
• 23:39
  He knocked the giant down with a stone.
• 23:41
  Then he ran up, took Goliath's own sword out of the sheath, and
• 23:44
  cut off his head. And the cross was Goliath's
• 23:46
  sword. Exactly.
• 23:47
  The cross was Satan's weapon. It was his instrument of torture
• 23:50
  and death, and Christ let him use it.
• 23:52
  But in dying, Christ paid the debt of sin.
• 23:55
  He satisfied the legal demands of God, so the very act that
• 23:59
  Satan thought was his victory was actually the act that
• 24:02
  stripped him of all his legal claims over the prisoners.
• 24:04
  By killing the victim, he lost his leverage.
• 24:07
  He played himself. That is the ultimate checkmate.
• 24:10
  And the irony continues with the final judgement.
• 24:13
  Satan wanted to be superior to men, but Paul says, know ye not
• 24:17
  that we shall judge angels? He is talking about the fallen
• 24:20
  angels. It is the final humiliation for
• 24:23
  Satan. The very creatures he despised
• 24:26
  us will eventually sit on the bench alongside Christ and pass
• 24:29
  sentence on Him. It is a complete reversal of the
• 24:31
  hierarchy he tried to establish. Complete reversal.
• 24:34
  We are coming into the homestretch here.
• 24:36
  Edwards calls this superior wisdom.
• 24:38
  He's basically using this entire framework as a proof that the
• 24:42
  Bible is true. It is a brilliant apologetic
• 24:44
  argument. Edwards looks at the religions
• 24:46
  of the world, religions invented by men, and what do you see?
• 24:49
  Mostly workspace systems. Right.
• 24:51
  Do this. Get that you see gods who are
• 24:53
  just bigger versions of humans, petty, lustful, angry.
• 24:57
  Or you see vague, impersonal forces.
• 24:59
  And the gospel is just weird. It is out of the way, as Edwards
• 25:03
  puts it. It is completely off the map of
• 25:06
  human probability. The idea of a Trinity, a God who
• 25:10
  is 1 but three. The idea of a dying God.
• 25:14
  The idea of justifying the ungodly, declaring a bad person
• 25:18
  good based on someone else's perfect record.
• 25:20
  Humans don't invent that, no. These are concepts that Greeks
• 25:24
  called foolishness and Jews called a stumbling block.
• 25:27
  He points out the apostles to These weren't philosophers from
• 25:30
  Athens, they were fishermen. They are blue collar guys from
• 25:32
  Galilee and if you read the Gospels, they are constantly
• 25:35
  confused. They really are.
• 25:36
  Jesus tells them the plan and Peter says no Lord, that will
• 25:40
  never happen. They didn't get it, Edwards
• 25:43
  argues. If they didn't get it, they
• 25:44
  certainly didn't invent it. That makes total sense.
• 25:46
  The fact that the message baffled its own messengers is
• 25:49
  proof that it came from outside the human system.
• 25:52
  It carries the unmistakable fingerprints of a divine mind.
• 25:55
  So we have this masterpiece of wisdom, a plan that baffles
• 25:59
  angels and defeats demons. What do we actually do with it?
• 26:03
  Edwards doesn't pull punches here in his application.
• 26:05
  He turns directly to the listener and says, essentially,
• 26:10
  if this is true, what are you doing?
• 26:13
  He talks about the blindness of the world.
• 26:15
  He says this wisdom is brighter than the sun, yet most people
• 26:18
  walk right past it and call it foolishness.
• 26:21
  He traces that back to the pride of the human heart.
• 26:23
  We love our own wisdom. We want to be the authors of our
• 26:25
  own story. He uses the word insult.
• 26:28
  That really struck me. Neglecting salvation isn't just
• 26:31
  a bad choice, it is an active insult to God.
• 26:34
  Think about it. Imagine an artist who spends a
• 26:37
  lifetime creating their absolute masterpiece, the culmination of
• 26:41
  all their skill, their passion, their love.
• 26:43
  They unveil it to you and you glance at it, shrug and say I'd
• 26:47
  rather look at my phone. That is an insult.
• 26:49
  Yeah, it is. Edward says salvation is God's
• 26:52
  masterpiece. It is where he displayed his
• 26:54
  wisdom most fully. To ignore it, or to try to build
• 26:58
  your own little ladder to heaven with your good deeds, is to tell
• 27:01
  God that His greatest work was unnecessary.
• 27:03
  It is a slap in the face to the architect, it really is, and the
• 27:06
  consequences are dire, he says. The wisdom of God actually
• 27:09
  becomes your condemnation. It goes back to the biblical
• 27:11
  concept of the savor of life and the savor of death.
• 27:16
  If you were drowning in the ocean and a Coast Guard cutter
• 27:19
  pulls up alongside you and you refuse to get on, your death is
• 27:23
  a tragedy of a completely different order than if no boat
• 27:26
  had come at all. The presence of the rescue makes
• 27:28
  the death more terrible. Spot on.
• 27:31
  Edwards argues that how should we escape if we neglect so great
• 27:35
  a salvation? The greatness of the salvation
• 27:38
  is the measure of the guilt if we reject it.
• 27:40
  Wow. It would be better to have never
• 27:42
  heard the gospel at all than to hear it and walk away from it.
• 27:45
  That is a very sobering thought. It raises the stakes
• 27:48
  significantly. We aren't just dealing with
• 27:50
  interesting theological information, we are dealing with
• 27:53
  a final verdict. But Edwards ends on an
• 27:55
  invitation, which is crucial. He clears the deck of excuses.
• 27:59
  He says look at the wisdom. The plan is perfect.
• 28:01
  Perfect. The Redeemer is fully capable.
• 28:03
  The price is paid in full. The logic holds up.
• 28:06
  Right. You can't say I'm too bad
• 28:08
  because the Redeemer has infinite merit.
• 28:10
  You can't say God is too angry because the justice has been
• 28:14
  completely satisfied. He pleads with the listener to
• 28:17
  stop trusting their own blurry vision and look at this blazing
• 28:21
  sun. The attractives, as he calls
• 28:25
  them, are all right there. And that brings us right back to
• 28:28
  where we started the theater. I want to leave our listeners
• 28:31
  with this thought to Mull over. We have these angels, perfect,
• 28:35
  brilliant, ancient spirits, and they are obsessed with this
• 28:41
  drama. They are studying it.
• 28:43
  They are marvelling at. It and we are the main
• 28:45
  characters. We are the ones on stage.
• 28:47
  We're the ones getting the ring, the inheritance, the union.
• 28:50
  So the question I have to ask myself is, if the angels are on
• 28:53
  the edge of their seats watching my redemption, why am I so bored
• 28:56
  by it? Why does it feel dull to me on a
• 28:57
  random Monday morning? That is the question we really
• 29:00
  need to sit with with maybe we just aren't looking closely
• 29:02
  enough at the facets of the diamond.
• 29:04
  I think you are right about that.
• 29:05
  We need to wake up to the cosmic drama we are living in.
• 29:08
  This has been reformed thinking. Thanks for taking this deep dive
• 29:11
  with us. See you next time.