Latest / Reformed Thinking / Viewing All History Through the Work of Redemption | Jonathan Edwards

Transcript

Viewing All History Through the Work of Redemption | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
• 0:01
  Today we're doing a deep dive into, well, an absolutely
• 0:04
  immense theological project. It's not just a set of
• 0:07
  doctrines, but a whole narrative that tries to explain the
• 0:10
  purpose of, well, all of time. Yeah, it's a huge vision.
• 0:15
  We're looking at Jonathan Edwards and his detailed
• 0:17
  framework for understanding history, which he called a
• 0:21
  history of the work of Redemption.
• 0:23
  And you know, right from the start, it's so important to get
• 0:26
  your head around just how big this thing is.
• 0:28
  Edwards wasn't just writing another book about salvation in
• 0:31
  the abstract. Not at all.
• 0:33
  He was trying to show that everything God has ever done is
• 0:36
  doing right now and will do in the future.
• 0:39
  It's all connected. It's one single indivisible
• 0:41
  effort, all moving toward one single goal.
• 0:44
  And the source material itself is just fascinating because what
• 0:46
  we have isn't even the finished product.
• 0:48
  No, it's not. What we're working from is a
• 0:50
  series of sermons that Edwards preached way back in 1739 in
• 0:54
  Northampton. But these sermons were never
• 0:56
  meant to be the end of it. They were the outlines.
• 0:58
  Exactly the skeleton of a much, much bigger magnum opus he had
• 1:03
  planned. He wanted to write a complete
• 1:05
  body of divinity in a new method and in the form of a history.
• 1:09
  I mean, just think about that. He wanted to reorganize all of
• 1:12
  theology, not by the usual topics like, you know, sin or
• 1:16
  Christ or the Church, but chronologically.
• 1:19
  To show how those doctrines actually unfold in real history.
• 1:23
  It's an incredible idea. It tells you so much about his
• 1:26
  mind that he was actually worried that taking the job as
• 1:29
  president of Princeton would get in the way of him finishing this
• 1:32
  one massive historical project. Thankfully, the outlines
• 1:35
  survived and they were published after he died in 1773.
• 1:38
  So our mission for you today is to pull out the core argument
• 1:41
  from these outlines. We really want to get a grasp on
• 1:44
  this foundational idea that all of God's dealings with humanity
• 1:47
  from the very second of the fall until the world ends, are all
• 1:51
  just parts of one single overarching design.
• 1:55
  The work of redemption. We're looking at history as one
• 1:57
  purposeful river, not just a bunch of random disconnected
• 2:01
  events. OK, so to unpack this, this
• 2:04
  grand vision, we have to start where Edward starts, and that's
• 2:07
  what the theological basis he lays out in the book of Isaiah.
• 2:10
  Right, Isaiah chapter 51, verse 8.
• 2:12
  He grounds this entire historical plan in a really
• 2:16
  dramatic contrast. He's basically offering comfort
• 2:19
  to the church when it's under persecution.
• 2:20
  And that comfort comes from looking at 2 completely opposite
• 2:24
  destinies. On the one hand you have the
• 2:26
  fleeting power of the church's enemies, and on the other, the
• 2:30
  absolute permanence of what God is doing for the church.
• 2:33
  The description of what happens to the enemies is it's potent.
• 2:37
  It's almost like secretly terrifying.
• 2:39
  It is. He uses this vivid internal
• 2:42
  imagery of decay. He says their power and their
• 2:44
  prosperity are short lived. They will consume and vanish
• 2:48
  away by a secret coast of God. That phrase, a secret curse that
• 2:52
  really stands out. It's not necessarily some big
• 2:54
  dramatic fire and brimstone judgment that everyone sees, No.
• 2:58
  Often it's a process. It's slow, internal, unseen
• 3:00
  consumption. He compares them to a garment
• 3:03
  being eaten by a moth, or a wool being eaten by a worm.
• 3:06
  That analogy just brings it to life, doesn't it?
• 3:08
  You can picture the most beautiful royal robe you know,
• 3:11
  the symbol of earthly power. You put it away thinking it's
• 3:14
  safe and a moth just silently internally ruins it.
• 3:18
  And all that external glory, all that perceived strength, is just
• 3:22
  being hollowed out from the inside by God's quiet judgment.
• 3:25
  The persecution that feels so overwhelming in the moment will
• 3:28
  end because the persecutors themselves are just vanishing.
• 3:32
  This quiet, inevitable decay is then set against the Church's
• 3:36
  destiny. A total contrast.
• 3:38
  The church's happiness, its security, is rooted in God's
• 3:42
  righteousness and salvation toward them.
• 3:44
  And the key feature of this security is its continuance.
• 3:47
  It's forever and from generation to generation.
• 3:50
  And that's the foundation. But before we can even get into
• 3:53
  that idea of continuance, we have to untack those two big
• 3:56
  words, righteousness and salvation, because in this
• 4:00
  context, they're defined by the covenant.
• 4:02
  Absolutely. When Ender's talks about God's
• 4:04
  righteousness here, he's not primarily talking about God's
• 4:07
  abstract moral purity. He's talking very specifically
• 4:10
  about God's faithfulness to his covenant promises.
• 4:13
  It's his covenant faithfulness. OK, so hold on.
• 4:16
  If God is acting out of righteousness, out of his
• 4:19
  justice, doesn't that fundamentally change how we see
• 4:22
  the blessings He gives? It's not just sort of random
• 4:25
  grace anymore. It's now a debt, a promise that
• 4:28
  he has to pay to himself because he bound himself by an oath.
• 4:31
  That is the hinge. That is the point on which this
• 4:34
  whole theology turns. Because God has made the
• 4:36
  covenant of grace this self binding promise to save his
• 4:40
  people through Christ. When he actually gives those
• 4:42
  benefits, He's acting in line with his own justice.
• 4:46
  He's being true to his word and therefore he's being righteous.
• 4:49
  And he pulls examples straight from scripture to show this.
• 4:52
  I'm thinking of Nehemiah 9.8 speaking dot.
• 4:54
  It says, Thou hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous.
• 4:58
  Exactly the righteousness is proven in the fulfillment of the
• 5:01
  promise or first John 1.9. He is faithful and just to
• 5:04
  forgive us our sins. The forgiveness, which is an act
• 5:08
  of grace, is grounded in God's faithfulness, His justice to the
• 5:12
  promise He made in Christ. So this is the key insight for
• 5:15
  you to really grab hold of. Even though all the benefits are
• 5:17
  a result of free grace, God's promise to Himself, His covenant
• 5:22
  makes delivering those benefits in an act of righteousness.
• 5:25
  He cannot, by his very nature, break a promise he has made.
• 5:29
  So the church's ultimate happiness isn't based on, you
• 5:32
  know, some fleeting emotion, but on the stable, unchangeable
• 5:37
  righteousness of God. OK, so if righteousness is the
• 5:40
  root, that foundation of covenant faithfulness, what then
• 5:44
  is salvation? Salvation is the effect.
• 5:47
  It's the result of God's righteousness being put into
• 5:49
  action. Edwards calls it the sum of all
• 5:51
  those works of God by which the benefits that are by the
• 5:54
  covenant of grace are procured and bestowed.
• 5:57
  It's the whole package. So 1 is the divine character
• 6:00
  that upholds the promise, and the other is the comprehensive
• 6:03
  action that flows from. It that's it, you have the
• 6:05
  certainty of the foundation, and then you have the historical
• 6:07
  work of salvation that's built on it.
• 6:09
  Which finally brings us to the issue of time.
• 6:11
  The continuance forever and from generation to generation.
• 6:15
  And you have to be careful with this phrasing.
• 6:18
  As Edwards points out, the phrase forever is used in a lot
• 6:21
  of different ways in Scripture. You can't just assume it means
• 6:24
  eternity. He lists at least four different
• 6:26
  ways the Bible uses that phrase, which just shows you how
• 6:29
  meticulous he's being. Right.
• 6:30
  First, sometimes it just means a person's lifetime, like in the
• 6:33
  Old Testament law when a servant chose to serve his master
• 6:36
  forever. Second, it can mean for the
• 6:38
  whole duration of the Jewish state, like with some of the
• 6:41
  ceremonial laws. And 3rd, it can mean all
• 6:44
  eternity, like when it's talking about God's existence or our
• 6:47
  final state of blessedness. But the fourth sense, and the
• 6:50
  one he argues is being used here, is for the duration of the
• 6:54
  world itself. As long as generations of people
• 6:57
  continue to exist on the earth, like in Ecclesiastes 1.4, the
• 7:01
  earth abideth forever. So what's the clue?
• 7:04
  How do we know which one it is? The determiner is the clarifying
• 7:08
  phrase that comes right after it from generation to generation.
• 7:11
  That second phrase locks the first one forever into that 4th
• 7:15
  meaning. It establishes that the work of
• 7:17
  salvation will continue through all human generations on earth,
• 7:21
  from the fall right up to the end of the world.
• 7:24
  That's a really critical distinction.
• 7:25
  The work continues through all generations.
• 7:28
  This means the work itself has a beginning and an end.
• 7:31
  It defines the timeline for the whole history he's about to lay
• 7:34
  out. Precisely the progressive works
• 7:37
  of God that bring about redemption are bookended by the
• 7:39
  fall and the end of the world. But, and this is key, the fruits
• 7:43
  of that salvation, the glory and the blessed, is those remain for
• 7:47
  all eternity. The construction project stops
• 7:50
  when the building is finished, but the people get to live in
• 7:52
  the house forever. A perfect analogy.
• 7:55
  And that clarity lets us move on to the doctrine of the unified
• 7:58
  design. We've set the duration.
• 8:00
  Now we can see the unity. So the core doctrine then is
• 8:04
  that the work of redemption is a single work that God carries on
• 8:07
  from the fall of man to the end of the world.
• 8:09
  And Edwards is quick to point out that redemption and
• 8:12
  salvation are basically interchangeable terms.
• 8:14
  In Scripture, Christ is called both Savior and Redeemer.
• 8:17
  But we have to define what we mean by redemption.
• 8:20
  I think for a lot of us, the word redemption immediately
• 8:22
  makes us think of the cross. But Edwards forces us to use a
• 8:26
  much, much wider lens. He draws A vital distinction
• 8:30
  between what he calls the limited sense and the
• 8:33
  comprehensive sense of redemption.
• 8:35
  OK, let's start with the limited sense, the one we probably
• 8:37
  default to. The limited sense refers
• 8:39
  strictly to the purchase of salvation, and if we only mean
• 8:43
  that, then the work was very short lived.
• 8:46
  It started with Christ's incarnation, continued through
• 8:49
  His life of obedience, and it was finished when He rose from
• 8:52
  the dead. That was the price being paid.
• 8:54
  The finished work of the cross. The payment of the debt.
• 8:58
  But the comprehensive sense, the unified design, is the focus of
• 9:02
  this entire history, and it basically swallows up that
• 9:05
  limited sense as just one phase of the whole thing, even if it
• 9:08
  is the central one. So the comprehensive sense
• 9:10
  includes everything. Everything God does that tends
• 9:13
  toward this end, it has three major parts.
• 9:17
  The preparation, which is all the preparatory works.
• 9:20
  The purchase which is Christ's humiliation and death, and then
• 9:23
  the application, the long process of actually bringing
• 9:26
  about the success of that purchase in the world.
• 9:28
  It's remarkable how he pulls all of these different works
• 9:31
  together. Things done by the Father, the
• 9:33
  Son, the Holy Spirit spanning millennia and says this is all 1
• 9:37
  design. He connects that unity back to
• 9:40
  eternity itself. He calls it one single design
• 9:43
  that was formed in the eternal confederated covenant of
• 9:46
  redemption. All three persons of the Trinity
• 9:49
  conspire in this one work. All the various historical
• 9:52
  events are but the several parts of 1 scheme.
• 9:55
  He uses the analogy of a machine with all its wheels working
• 9:58
  together. Exactly.
• 9:59
  It's not just a collection of individual actions, it's the
• 10:02
  systematic coordinated movement of a single complex device built
• 10:06
  for very specific purpose. But to understand the machine
• 10:09
  you have to look at what happened before it was even
• 10:11
  turned on, the pre fall activities, the things that were
• 10:13
  done in order to redemption. Yes, the work itself, as he
• 10:18
  defined it, starts at the fall. But for that work to even be
• 10:21
  possible, some necessary things had to be done long before that.
• 10:25
  The first step happens before time.
• 10:27
  The groundwork was laid from eternity in the covenant of
• 10:30
  redemption between the Father and the Son.
• 10:32
  The pactum salutis. This is a central doctrine in
• 10:35
  Reformed thought. The Sun agrees to do the work,
• 10:38
  the terms are all settled, and the whole scope of history is
• 10:41
  basically ratified before anything is even created.
• 10:44
  It's not a prediction, it's a legal arrangement within the
• 10:47
  Godhead. It's the engine that drives all
• 10:50
  of history. Absolutely.
• 10:52
  And then when time begins at creation, the world itself is
• 10:55
  created for this work of redemption.
• 10:57
  Edwards claim here is pretty radical.
• 10:59
  That Providence is the end of creation, yes.
• 11:02
  And since the main work of Providence is redemption, the
• 11:05
  creation of the universe itself was subordinate to the Rescue
• 11:07
  Plan. The world isn't a random stage.
• 11:10
  It was built for this play. We tend to think of creation and
• 11:13
  redemption as two separate things, but Edwards weaves them
• 11:15
  together completely. And this design principle goes
• 11:18
  even higher than the material world.
• 11:21
  Heaven and the angels were created as part of this design.
• 11:24
  Heaven was created to be the home for the redeemed.
• 11:27
  Christ talks about the Kingdom prepared for you from the
• 11:30
  foundation of the world. And the angels.
• 11:32
  The very nature of angels is defined by redemption, Edwards
• 11:36
  points out. They were created as ministering
• 11:38
  spirits. They aren't just celestial
• 11:41
  beings. They are functionaries sent
• 11:43
  forth to minister for them, who shall be heirs of salvation.
• 11:46
  Their main job is to be employed in this grand work.
• 11:49
  It reframes the purpose of everything the celestial beings,
• 11:53
  the physical universe, it's all ancillary to the rescue
• 11:57
  operation. And this lower world, our
• 12:00
  physical reality, was meticulously fitted to be the
• 12:03
  stage for this great and wonderful work.
• 12:06
  It's a theater custom built not for paradise, but for the drama
• 12:09
  of sin, suffering and salvation that would follow.
• 12:11
  So when Edwards says the work is carried on from the fall to the
• 12:14
  end of the world, he's just specifying the time frame, the
• 12:17
  period when the machine is actually running and doing its
• 12:19
  work. Exactly.
• 12:20
  The plan and the benefits are eternal, but the history of the
• 12:24
  work is chronological, and all the different things God does
• 12:27
  during this time belong to that same single design.
• 12:31
  OK, that brings us to Section 3, how the work is carried on.
• 12:34
  Edwards says this work operates in two distinct but related ways
• 12:38
  across time, and this distinction is vital for
• 12:41
  understanding his history right. The first respect is what he
• 12:45
  calls the individual application, or the common
• 12:47
  effect. This is the work that's done on
• 12:49
  the souls of the elect, and it's common to all ages, from Adam
• 12:53
  all the way to the last believer.
• 12:55
  So this is the part that sounds like what we'd call standard
• 12:57
  theology conversion, personal salvation.
• 13:00
  It is. It's the consistent process of
• 13:01
  converting, justifying, sanctifying and glorifying
• 13:04
  individual people. This started right after the
• 13:07
  fall. You think of Abel Enoch, and it
• 13:09
  has never stopped. God has always had a church,
• 13:12
  even when it was, you know, a narrow compass.
• 13:15
  The elect seed has never completely failed.
• 13:17
  It reflects that unchanging process we see in places like
• 13:20
  Romans 8.30 who he did predestinate them He also called
• 13:24
  justified, glorified. And the mechanism here,
• 13:28
  historically speaking, is repetition.
• 13:31
  The work is carried on by doing the same thing, opening blind
• 13:34
  eyes, raising dead souls to life over and over again and
• 13:37
  different people across time. That's what ensures the Church
• 13:40
  continues. But the second respect is the
• 13:42
  grand design, the successive scheme.
• 13:45
  This is what makes Edwards work, a real history and not just a
• 13:48
  collection of conversion stories.
• 13:50
  Precisely. This part isn't carried on by
• 13:52
  repetition, but by many successive works and
• 13:55
  dispensations of God, all tending to 1 great effect.
• 13:59
  The keywords there are succession and progress.
• 14:01
  It's not the same thing over and over.
• 14:03
  It's a building process. This is where that analogy of
• 14:06
  the great temple comes in, yes. The whole work of redemption in
• 14:09
  this big comprehensive sense is like building a great temple.
• 14:12
  First the foundation is laid over many dispensations, then
• 14:15
  the superstructure goes up piece by piece, age after age, until
• 14:19
  the top stone is laid and all is finished at the end of the
• 14:22
  world. So if the first respect is the
• 14:24
  constant work of adding individual stones saved souls to
• 14:27
  the building. Then the second respect is the
• 14:29
  strategic chronological progression of the construction
• 14:32
  project itself, moving from the blueprint to the foundation to
• 14:36
  the walls to the roof. It's carried on by unique
• 14:39
  successive works in different ages, one historical step in one
• 14:43
  generation and then a totally different kind of step in the
• 14:46
  next. These are the historical actions
• 14:48
  he wants to trace. OK, so we've got the timeline
• 14:50
  and the method, but before he even starts the history, Edwards
• 14:54
  says we have to know the design, the end goal, otherwise all the
• 14:58
  historical steps will just look like chaos.
• 15:00
  You have to see the blueprint before you can appreciate the
• 15:02
  construction phases. And he gives 5 key things that
• 15:07
  this whole plan is designed to accomplish.
• 15:09
  These are the reasons God is going to all this trouble.
• 15:11
  The first purpose is triumphant over evil.
• 15:13
  This is the great reversal that was necessary after the Fall.
• 15:16
  The primary goal is the complete defeat of the enemies that rose
• 15:19
  up against God, and he lists three big ones, Satan, Sin, and
• 15:24
  Death. Satan, the usurper who tried to
• 15:26
  ruin God's design. Redemption has to utterly defeat
• 15:29
  and triumph over Satan, bruising the serpent's head, destroying
• 15:33
  the works of the devil. Then there's sin itself, the
• 15:36
  rebellion and corruption that invaded everything.
• 15:39
  Redemption has to root out both the defilement and the legal
• 15:43
  guilt. And finally death, which he
• 15:45
  calls the last enemy that shall be destroyed.
• 15:47
  And it's so important that death is last.
• 15:50
  It's the physical stamp of the curse.
• 15:52
  The goal here is stated in First Corinthians 15.25, that Christ
• 15:56
  must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
• 16:00
  This whole work is designed to show God as glorious and
• 16:03
  triumphant over all opposition. But it's not just about
• 16:06
  destruction. The architect isn't just
• 16:08
  knocking down a ruined building. He's building something far
• 16:10
  better. Which brings us to purpose, to
• 16:13
  restitution of all ruins. The Fall ruined everything for
• 16:16
  the elect, and Redemption has to perfectly restore those ruins.
• 16:19
  Edwards breaks the ruins down into 3 categories, the soul, the
• 16:23
  body, and the world itself. OK, let's start with the soul.
• 16:26
  The divine image was defaced. Man became spiritually dead in
• 16:30
  sin. Redemption brings the soul back
• 16:33
  to life through conversion, continues that change through
• 16:36
  sanctification, and perfects it in glory.
• 16:39
  The soul is re stamped with God's holiness.
• 16:42
  And the body. The body became subject to death
• 16:45
  and decay. The design is to restore it,
• 16:47
  delivering it not only from death in the resurrection, but
• 16:50
  from mortality itself, making it like Christ's glorious body.
• 16:54
  And then third, the ruins of the world itself.
• 16:56
  This is where the scope just becomes cosmic.
• 16:58
  It really does. The whole world was ruined for
• 17:00
  man because of the curse, Edwards says.
• 17:02
  It was as effectually ruined for him as if it had been reduced to
• 17:06
  chaos again. So the divine design was to
• 17:09
  restore all of it, creating a new heaven and a new earth.
• 17:12
  That's a staggering claim. It means the physical salvation
• 17:16
  of creation is built into the plan from the start.
• 17:18
  The renovation of the soul requires the renovation of its
• 17:20
  entire environment. And that leads to purpose.
• 17:23
  Third, unification and gathering.
• 17:25
  This is about the relationships within the saved community God
• 17:28
  designed to gather together in one all elect creatures in
• 17:31
  heaven and on earth under Christ as one head.
• 17:33
  And that's not just humans, right?
• 17:34
  He specifically includes the angels.
• 17:36
  It includes all elect elect creatures in one huge unified
• 17:40
  body under Christ. The design is to bring them all
• 17:44
  into union with each other and then to unite the whole body,
• 17:47
  human and angelic, to God the Father.
• 17:49
  But wait, why do the angels need to be unified under Christ?
• 17:52
  They didn't fall. They're part of the created
• 17:54
  order, and Christ, because of his successful redemptive work,
• 17:59
  earns the headship over all things.
• 18:01
  He's the federal head of the Redeemed Church, and through
• 18:03
  that he becomes the head of all creation, including the angels.
• 18:07
  Redemption is the way the entire cosmos, spiritual and physical,
• 18:11
  get centralized under the sun. That structural reality seems to
• 18:14
  lead right into purpose to Earth, perfecting the glory of
• 18:17
  the elect. It does.
• 18:18
  This is about bringing the whole Church, soul and body, human and
• 18:21
  Angel, to its absolute highest possible state of blessedness.
• 18:24
  Something I have not seen nor ear heard.
• 18:27
  And he breaks this perfection down into three parts.
• 18:30
  First, perfect Excellency and beauty in God's holy image.
• 18:34
  The redeemed are finished copies of God's character.
• 18:37
  Second, being advanced to a degree of honor, a royal
• 18:40
  dignity. And 3rd, being raised to an
• 18:43
  ineffable height of pleasure and joy from that perfect union with
• 18:47
  God. And again, this includes the
• 18:49
  elect angels bringing their glory to its highest elevation
• 18:52
  under one head, Christ. And all of these purposes, all
• 18:55
  these steps, they all ultimately serve the final one, purpose V
• 18:59
  accomplishing the glory of the Blessed Trinity.
• 19:02
  This is the highest end. This is the ultimate reason for
• 19:04
  all the others. So we have to think of it like
• 19:06
  this. God had this end first his own
• 19:08
  glory, and then he chose the means to achieve it.
• 19:12
  And the main way he chose to glorify himself was this great
• 19:14
  work of redemption. It wasn't just a way, it was the
• 19:17
  best way through redemption. God puts all of His attributes
• 19:20
  on display in a way that nothing else could.
• 19:22
  His justice, mercy, holiness, patience, love, wisdom, all of
• 19:27
  them meeting perfectly in Christ.
• 19:29
  And the work was designed for the mutual glory of the Persons
• 19:31
  of the Trinity. The Son glorifies the Father,
• 19:34
  and the Father glorifies the Son.
• 19:36
  Exactly as Christ Himself said in John 13.
• 19:38
  And Holy Spirit completes the work of application.
• 19:41
  So the Spirit is glorified as the one who sanctifies and
• 19:44
  calls. The whole design ensures that
• 19:46
  the whole Trinity, together and as individual persons, is
• 19:49
  exceedingly glorified. It's just astonishing, This
• 19:53
  whole architectural scheme, defeating evil, restoring the
• 19:56
  world, unifying all creation, and glorifying the Godhead is
• 20:00
  carried out step by step over thousands of years.
• 20:03
  And that unified architecture is the whole point of his history.
• 20:06
  It moves us beyond just individual theology and into
• 20:08
  cosmic history. All these events that might look
• 20:11
  random are actually perfectly logical phases in the building
• 20:15
  of that one great temple. This systematic approach brings
• 20:18
  us to the final structural piece.
• 20:20
  Edwards gives us how he organizes the history itself.
• 20:23
  To trace this one great work. He divides all of history from
• 20:27
  the fall to the end into 3 periods.
• 20:30
  And the division itself is really striking because of what
• 20:32
  he calls it, striking inequality.
• 20:34
  They are not equal in length at all, but their significance is
• 20:37
  completely disproportionate. So the division is period one
• 20:41
  from the fall of man to the incarnation, period 2 from the
• 20:44
  incarnation to the resurrection, and period three from the
• 20:47
  resurrection to the end of the world.
• 20:49
  And just notice the timeline there, period one and period 3
• 20:52
  or thousands of years long. But that middle period, period
• 20:56
  2, is incredibly short, only 30 to 40 years.
• 21:00
  And yet, and this is the stunning claim, Edwards says
• 21:03
  that the second period, despite being so short, is more than
• 21:05
  both the others in its significance to redemption.
• 21:08
  It's a claim that forces you to reweigh all of history.
• 21:11
  It makes you ask what could possibly happen in 30 years that
• 21:16
  outweighs millennia on either side of.
• 21:18
  It let's define what happens in each period.
• 21:20
  Then period one is preparation. This is from the Fall to the
• 21:24
  incarnation. This is the whole Old Testament
• 21:26
  era, and during all those generations God was doing things
• 21:28
  that were preparatory to His coming has forerunners in
• 21:31
  earnest to it. So every covenant with Noah,
• 21:34
  Abraham, Moses, David, every prophet, every sacrifice in the
• 21:37
  temple, it was all groundwork. It was all calculated, laying
• 21:41
  the political, theological and historical foundation, preparing
• 21:45
  the materials for the central act that was about to happen.
• 21:48
  It's all pointing forward. So if this whole thing is like a
• 21:51
  military campaign period, one is gathering the troops, mapping
• 21:55
  the terrain, and setting the conditions for the battle.
• 21:58
  It's crucial, but it's not the battle itself.
• 22:01
  Exactly. Then you hit period 2
• 22:02
  procurement, that short period from the Incarnation to the
• 22:05
  Resurrection. This is the decisive battle.
• 22:08
  And these 30 to 40 years were dedicated entirely to procuring
• 22:12
  and purchasing redemption through Christ's humiliation.
• 22:15
  This is the moment the price was paid.
• 22:17
  This is the purchase itself. And we have to pause here
• 22:20
  because the weight of this period is in the technical
• 22:23
  details of what Christ actually did.
• 22:25
  When Edward says procuring and purchasing, he's talking about
• 22:28
  Christ's active and passive obedience.
• 22:31
  That's the source of its immense significance.
• 22:33
  OK, let's delineate that. Why are both of those necessary
• 22:36
  for the short period to outweigh everything else?
• 22:39
  OK, so active obedience is Christ fulfilling the law
• 22:41
  perfectly throughout his entire life.
• 22:44
  Redemption requires more than just forgiveness of sin.
• 22:47
  It requires a positive righteousness to be credited to
• 22:49
  us. Adam fell by failing to keep
• 22:53
  God's law. So to fix that, the second Adam,
• 22:56
  Christ, had to live a perfect life of submission to God's
• 22:59
  standard. He earned righteousness for his
• 23:01
  people. And passive obedience.
• 23:03
  Passive obedience is Christ suffering the penalty for sin
• 23:07
  because God is just. The broken law demanded a
• 23:09
  penalty, the curse and death itself.
• 23:11
  So passive obedience is Christ taking that substitutionary
• 23:14
  penalty on the cross, exhausting the full wrath of God against
• 23:18
  the sins of His people. He paid the debt of death they
• 23:21
  owed. So in that short span of time,
• 23:23
  Christ did two things humanity could never do.
• 23:26
  He perfectly obeyed the law. That's active obedience.
• 23:29
  And he perfectly suffered the penalty for breaking the law.
• 23:31
  That's passive obedience. He satisfied God's justice twice
• 23:34
  over. He lived the life we should have
• 23:36
  lived, and he died the death we deserve to die.
• 23:38
  And that combination, the perfect life and the
• 23:41
  substitutionary death, is the entirety of the purchase.
• 23:46
  It's the legal and moral pivot of all of history.
• 23:49
  No amount of preparation in period one or application in
• 23:52
  period three could ever create that righteousness.
• 23:55
  It was a finished singular transaction.
• 23:58
  That is why Edward sees this tiny window of time as being
• 24:02
  more than both the others. It provides the ground for
• 24:05
  everything that came before and everything that comes after.
• 24:08
  That really clarifies the shocking weight he gives to
• 24:10
  period 2. It's the pivot on which
• 24:12
  thousands of years of history depend.
• 24:15
  Without the purchase, the preparation was for nothing and
• 24:17
  the application would be impossible.
• 24:19
  And that leads to the final period, Period 3 accomplishment.
• 24:22
  This runs from the resurrection to the end of the world.
• 24:24
  It's the era we are living in right now.
• 24:26
  And all of this time is taken up and bringing about or
• 24:29
  accomplishing the great effect or success of that purpose.
• 24:32
  If the second period was the purchase, this third long period
• 24:36
  is the strategic application of that purchase to the world.
• 24:39
  It's building the rest of the temple until that final top
• 24:42
  stone is laid. This includes the gathering of
• 24:45
  the Gentiles, the spread of the gospel, the great revivals, and
• 24:48
  the final triumph of the Church. The great truth, then, is that
• 24:52
  all of God's actions throughout history, from Adam to the final
• 24:55
  judgment, are all parts of one single work, unified by that
• 24:59
  eternal covenant, defined by a single purpose, and organized
• 25:03
  into these three distinct phases of preparation, purchase, and
• 25:06
  accomplishment. And this structure allows
• 25:09
  Edwards to look at any event, the calling of Abraham, the
• 25:12
  Exodus from Egypt, the rise of Babylon, the Reformation, and
• 25:15
  see it not as random but as a logical phase in the building of
• 25:19
  that one unified temple. So we've clarified the terms in
• 25:22
  this grand, unified architecture of God's redemptive plan as a
• 25:26
  single work that spans all the ages.
• 25:28
  We've established that the work is carried on through all
• 25:31
  generations, defined by that purchase of salvation right in
• 25:33
  the center, and it achieves 5 glorious ends, the highest being
• 25:37
  the the Blessed Trinity. And, you know, this architecture
• 25:41
  really forces you to think about your own place in history.
• 25:44
  If the work of Christ's humiliation, that short 30 to 40
• 25:48
  years of period 2 outweighs thousands of years of
• 25:51
  preparation and the thousands of years of application that we're
• 25:54
  still in, it just forces you to focus on what was actually
• 25:58
  purchased. The centrality of that perfect
• 26:00
  active and passive obedience means that period I exists only
• 26:04
  to point forward to it, and period 3 exists only to display
• 26:08
  the fruits of it. Your own salvation, your
• 26:10
  conversion, your sanctification, the glory you hope for, It's all
• 26:13
  just the gradual application of a finished act that took place
• 26:16
  in one specific astonishingly short period of time.
• 26:19
  So the question for you to consider then is this.
• 26:22
  If the entire engine of history is period 2, if that is the
• 26:25
  center of gravity for all of time and eternity, how much of
• 26:29
  your daily life reflects the weight and the certainty of that
• 26:32
  perfect procured righteousness that undergirds everything else?
• 26:35
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into Edward's
• 26:37
  grand design.