Latest / Reformed Thinking / Of Christ's Incarnation | Jonathan Edwards

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Of Christ's Incarnation | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine stepping into a contaminated crime scene.
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You are the lead investigator. Something terrible has happened
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in a specific room and the evidence is just scattered all
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across the floor. Right, it's a mess.
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Yeah, and you do not solve this case from a pristine laboratory,
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you know, thousands of miles away.
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You can't just read a sanitized report from a distance and
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declare the problem fixed. Oh no, you have to get in there.
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You have to step into the mud. You have to tape off the very
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room where the ruin occurred. I mean, you have to breathe the
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air of the crime scene, gather the physical evidence with your
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own hands, and set things right from the inside.
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Welcome to reformed thinking. Today we are looking at human
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history not as some random series of wars, assassinated
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kings and shifting borders, but as the most meticulous, legally
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binding crime scene investigation ever conducted.
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It sort of forces a massive shift in perspective, doesn't.
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It. Oh, absolutely.
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Because we are so accustomed to viewing history reactively, like
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we watch the news, we read history books, and it just looks
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like a chaotic collision of millions of independent human
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decisions. Yeah, just noise, right?
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We tried to find patterns after the fact, but in the moment it
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looks entirely unscripted. But then you step into the world
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of historical theology. Specifically, we are looking at
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the claims surrounding the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and
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suddenly that chaotic view of history is aggressively
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challenged. We are talking directly to you
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sitting in your car or maybe at your desk right now.
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We are going to unpack a highly specific argument from Jonathan
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Edwards history of the work of redemption.
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Yeah, that specific section titled Of Christ's Incarnation.
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Right. Our goal for this deep dive is
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to analyze Edwards staggering logical framework, explaining
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why the incarnation happened the way it did, when it did, and why
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no other scenario was logically or legally possible.
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By the end of this conversation, you will look at human history
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through Edwards's lens as this highly synchronized clock where
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massive empires rise and fall simply to set the stage for a
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single birth in a stable. To set the table for the source
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material, we need to understand what Edwards is actually doing
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here. He is not giving us a
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sentimental retelling of Holiday Story.
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Definitely not. No, he is laying out a rigorous
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cosmic legal brief. Edwards argues that the
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incarnation was a highly calculated intervention
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requiring specific legal, biological and historical
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conditions to be met. He.
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Treats the biblical narrative not as a collection of, you
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know, inspiring moralistic anecdotes, but as a tight,
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legally binding mechanism designed to solve an impossible
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dilemma. Yeah, so let's start right there
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with the dilemma itself. OK, let's do it.
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Edwards begins with a basic logical problem regarding the
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nature of God and the strict requirements of justice.
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Before we even look at the historical timeline, we really
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have to walk into the courtroom, right?
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Edwards writes that Christ, possessing only a divine nature,
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was infinitely sufficient for salvation, but lacked the
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immediate capacity for it. That is such a specific
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distinction. It is Edwards.
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Precision with language here is critical.
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He draws a hard, definitive line between sufficiency and
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capacity. He says that if Christ had
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remained only in the divine nature, he would not have been
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in the capacity to purchase salvation.
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And the reason he gives is quite striking.
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It is not because of some flaw or limitation in the divine
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nature, but by reason of its absolute and infinite
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perfection. Which feels entirely
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counterintuitive. Yeah.
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I mean, usually we think of perfection as the ability to do
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anything and everything. If you are perfect, you have no
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limits. Sure.
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But Edwards says that this absolute and infinite perfection
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means the divine nature cannot suffer.
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It is infinitely above all suffering, and it cannot obey
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laws meant for humans. We really have to unpack the
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theological concept of impassibility here.
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Yeah, this is a crucial concept. Impassability means that the
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divine nature cannot be acted upon, harmed, or subjected to
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pain or emotional fluctuation by outside forces.
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God cannot be coerced or damaged.
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Right. Furthermore, God by definition
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is the supreme law giver. The law giver is not subject to
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the law in the same way the created citizen is.
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Obviously. To rescue humanity, the law
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required 2 highly specific things.
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It required perfect obedience to the commands given to humans and
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the endurance of the physical and spiritual punishment for
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breaking those commands. So if God cannot suffer, and God
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is not a subject under the human law, how does he pay a debt that
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requires suffering and legal submission?
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That is the big question. I want to try an analogy here to
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see if we can make this concrete.
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Let's say we have a billionaire whose son commits a serious
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crime. The billionaire has infinite
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funds. The bank account is limitless.
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That is infinite sufficiency. The billionaire wants to show
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mercy and take the son's place, but the judge hands down a
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sentence that doesn't involve money at all.
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The sentence is five years of hard manual labor in a state
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penitentiary. Oh, that analogy sets up the
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restriction perfectly. Right, because the billionaire
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has the desire and the abstract resources to fix the problem,
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but not the legal Ave. to apply them.
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The warden at the penitentiary does not care how much money is
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in the checking account. No, not at.
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All the legal The system demands time in a cell.
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The legal system demands physical labor.
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The billionaire's bank account has no capacity to sit in a
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concrete room or swing a sledgehammer.
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The billionaire cannot fulfill the sentence from a luxury
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penthouse. I mean, the wealth is sufficient
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to buy the prison, but the law demands physical sweat, physical
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exhaustion and the loss of personal freedom.
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He. Has to go in.
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He has to physically put on the orange jumpsuit.
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He has to take on the physical capacity to do the labor.
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The wealth is the sufficiency, but the physical body in the
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cell is the necessary capacity. This reframes the incarnation
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entirely. It is not a demotion of deity,
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right? God does not become less divine
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by taking on flesh. Instead, it is the strategic
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acquisition of a new capacity. Capacity.
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Yeah, the infinite took on the finite specifically to become
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vulnerable, to have a physical nervous system that could feel
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pain, a body that could sweat and bleed, and a status that
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could be subjected to the law. He acquired a nature capable of
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experiencing punishment and rendering obedience.
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The incarnation was an absolute legal necessity.
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Which brings up a massive logical challenge.
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Yeah, I know where you're going with this.
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Right. If a created nature was strictly
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required to accomplish this rescue, why did the rescue
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vehicle have to be human flesh? We are talking about a cosmic
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emergency here. Why couldn't a magnificent Angel
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accomplish this? An Angel is a created being.
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An Angel can obey commands. An Angel has a nature distinct
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from the divine. Yeah, Edwards actually
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anticipates that challenge and gives 3 distinct reasons why an
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angelic nature would fail the legal requirements of the
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courtroom. The first reason is rooted in
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the specific wording of the original command in Genesis.
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The law, specifically the command thou shalt not eat
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thereof, was given exclusively to human nature, Edwards writes.
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God insisted upon it that the law which He had given to man
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shall be honored and fulfilled by the nature of man.
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Otherwise the law could not be answered for men.
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This brings in the concept of federal headship or authorized
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representation. Explain.
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That a bit more. In any legal proceeding, you
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need an authorized representative.
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An Angel cannot represent a human in this specific cosmic
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court because the angelic class was never under that specific
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law. Right, they weren't in the
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garden. Exactly.
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The human race was given the mandate in the Garden of Eden.
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Therefore, human nature had to fulfill it.
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It makes sense. An Angel stepping in would be
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like a Canadian citizen trying to pay the back taxes of an
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American citizen using Canadian law.
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The jurisdiction is completely wrong.
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And Edwards, the second point follows that same strict
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jurisdictional logic. The threat of death, the
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consequence for breaking the law, was directed solely at
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human nature. Yeah, the words from Genesis.
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Thou shalt surely die. Respect the human nature.
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The same nature to which the command was given was that to
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which the threatening was directed.
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You cannot substitute a different species to take the
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penalty for humanity. Justice demands symmetry, right?
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If a human commits a crime, punishing a horse or a dog does
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not satisfy justice. The nature that sinned must be
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the nature that dies. I follow the logic on the legal
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representation totally, but Edwards Third Point is where I
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want to push back a little bit. OK, let's hear it.
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He argues that the physical location matters.
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He says that the earth was the stage of man's fall and ruin,
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and therefore it had to be the stage of his redemption.
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He quotes John 1.14. There the Word was made flesh
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and dwelt among us. Right.
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But why does a geographical location truly matter?
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Why does Edwards insist that the physical Dirk, the literal
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habitation of humanity, must be the place where this happens?
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To understand this we have to look at Edwards view of cosmic
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symmetry. The biblical narrative treats
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physical space as highly significant.
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How so? The earth was corrupted by the
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actions of a human. The ground itself was cursed.
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Thorns and thistles grew as a direct result of human
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rebellion. The physical environment was
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fractured. Oh, I see.
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Therefore, the physical dirt, the literal habitation of
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humanity, required the physical presence of the Redeemer.
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He had a Tabernacle among us to reverse the curse.
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It is a matter of restoring the specific domain that was lost.
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This goes back to that contaminated crime scene analogy
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we started with. Yes, precisely.
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The investigator must step into the mud.
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They have to tape off the very room where the ruin occurred.
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That physical presence validates the reality of the problem.
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If the Redeemer never steps foot on the earth, the earth remains
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in abandoned, conquered territory.
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Wow, yeah. By coming to man's proper
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habitation, the Redeemer reclaims the territory.
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He plants a flag in the actual dirt that was lost to the enemy.
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OK, let me stop you there, because we hit a serious logical
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wall here. Human nature is strictly
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required, a physical human body on the physical earth subject to
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the specific human law, right? But if the whole human race is
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part of the contaminated crime scene, how do you get a clean
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investigator who is also a local?
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Oh yes, how do you acquire that human nature without inheriting
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the moral corruption that caused the problem in the first place?
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This is the next hurdle, and Edwards details the mechanics of
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the incarnation by separating it into two distinct biological and
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theological aspects. Conception and birth.
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Yes, conception and birth. This distinction is vital to his
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argument. He points out that Christ was
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the immediate son of Mary, making him a true literal
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descendant of Adam, Abraham and David.
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He had to be in the family tree. He couldn't just be a look
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alike. Spot on.
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If God just formed a brand new human out of the dirt, exactly
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like he did with Adam, that new human wouldn't be part of our
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specific family tree. He'd be totally separate.
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Right. He wouldn't be a true son of
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David. He would be a new creation
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entirely, a sort of alien to our specific lineage.
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He would fail the requirement of being a kinsman Redeemer.
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That the conception bypassed ordinary generation.
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It occurred via the operation of the Holy Spirit.
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Edwards writes that Christ was formed in the womb of the
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Virgin, of the substance of her body by the Spirit of God.
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So he was the seed of the woman fulfilling that ancient promise
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in Genesis 3, but not the immediate son of any human male.
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This biological and theological distinction secures a sinless
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nature. In the theological framework
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Edwards operates within, the guilt of the original sin is
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passed down through ordinary generation, specifically through
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the federal headship of the human father.
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By interrupting the ordinary generation of the point of
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conception, the legal guilt is bypassed.
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He gets the human DNA, the human substance, from Mary, but the
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line of guilt is severed by the supernatural conception.
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But then Edwards goes out of his way to highlight the birth
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itself. He says that while the
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conception was supernatural, the human nature was gradually
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perfected in the womb of the virgin in a way of natural
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progress. His birth was in the way of
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nature. There's a striking paradox here,
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a fully supernatural origin combined with a totally
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ordinary, grueling nine month biological gestation.
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It is quite a contrast. Why does Edwards highlight the
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natural gestation so heavily? If this is a cosmic emergency,
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why couldn't the supernatural conception just immediately
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produce a fully grown human ready to solve the problem?
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Why the delay? Well, if the entire process were
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instantaneous, Christ wouldn't truly be a son of man.
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He would be a sudden apparition. Like a ghost, almost.
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Exactly. I mean, yes, precisely.
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Edwards is securing Christ's absolute solidarity with the
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human race. Think about the vulnerability of
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a developing infant in the womb, the absolute dependence on a
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human mother for nutrients, for oxygen, for protection.
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Yeah, you don't get more vulnerable than that.
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Right. He had to undergo the standard
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human development to legitimately represent humanity
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in the cosmic legal court. He had to share in the complete
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human experience for the microscopic cellular level
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onward. He didn't just borrow a human
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suit for a three-year ministry. He was built from human DNA,
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developing cell by cell, forming A skeletal structure, developing
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a nervous system over nine months.
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That level of solidarity is staggering.
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It means he is thoroughly entwined with the physical,
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biological reality of mankind. He started as an embryo.
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And it prepares him for the obedience required.
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He entered the world subject to time, subject to physical
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growth, and subject to natural loss.
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He had to learn to walk, learn to speak, and experience the
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slow progression of human maturation.
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OK. I buy the legal argument that he
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had to be human. I buy the necessity of a
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physical presence on the earth. And I understand the biological
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paradox of the virgin birth. What?
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But if this was an absolute cosmic emergency, why hit the
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pause button for thousands of years?
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Right, the timeline. If my house is on fire, I don't
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wait for the fullness of time to call the fire department.
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If the crime scene is contaminated, why wait millennia
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to send the investigator? Edwards bases his argument for
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the timeline on Galatians 4.4, which states But when the
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fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son.
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Edwards argues that the timing was the most fit and proper.
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He systematically looks at previous eras of human history
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and rules them out, proving that the conditions were not yet
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legally or socially ready. Let's look at the era before the
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flood, the days of Noah, Edwards says.
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This would not have been a fit time because the mischief and
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ruin of the fall, we're not fully seen.
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The curse had not fully come upon the earth.
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This is where we have to look at the psychological realities of
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the ancient world, Edwards points out something we often
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overlook. He points to human lifespans.
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People were living to be almost 1000 years old.
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The biblical record says Methuselah lived to be 969.
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Edwards calls this a kind of immortality in comparison with
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what the life of man is now. I can see that.
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If humans live for nearly a Millennium, the severity of the
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death sentence in Genesis, Dust thou art, and unto dust thou
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shalt return, is entirely masked.
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It doesn't look like a severe punishment if you get to live
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for 10 centuries first. Can you imagine the psychology
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of a society where people live that long?
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Think about a midlife crisis. At age 450, that is.
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Wild to think about. If you have a tyrannical ruler,
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you don't just wait him out for a decade, you suffer under him
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for six centuries, right? If you get sick, you have
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hundreds of years to recover. If you make a mistake, you have
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centuries to fix it. Death wouldn't even feel like a
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punishment at that point, it would feel like an urban legend.
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Edwards argues that God needed the curse to be executed in its
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greatest degree on mankind before the Redeemer came to
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purchase a never ending life. The value of the rescue is
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completely lost if the danger isn't fully realized by the
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victims. That is precisely the point.
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If you offer a cure to someone who feels perfectly healthy,
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they will reject it. And that is why he also rules
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out the era before Moses. Even after the flood, things
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weren't quite ready for the intervention.
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Edwards notes that before Moses, humanity had not universally
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fallen into heathenish darkness, so the absolute necessity of a
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heavenly physician wasn't obvious.
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Plus, lifespans weren't shortened to the present
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standard of 70 or 80 years until around the time of Moses.
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The human condition had to deteriorate to a specific
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baseline. Edwards uses a weighty phrase
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here. The remedy?
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Lessness of their disease. I want to use a medical analogy
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to visualize this. Go for it.
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Think of a doctor treating an incredibly stubborn patient.
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The patient has a localized infection on their arm.
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The doctor knows it requires aggressive surgery, but the
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patient refuses. They always do.
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They want to pry herbal teas hot compressed Internet remedies
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positive, thinking the doctor might wait for that localized
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infection to become a systemic fever.
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Not out of cruelty. No, not at all, but because only
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when the fever spikes, only when all the home remedies fail
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completely and the patient is lying in a hospital bed, will
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they stop resisting and finally consent to the required life
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saving surgery. That captures the dynamic
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perfectly. Humanity needed centuries of
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failure to prove that no human philosophy, no form of
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government, no legal code and no long lifespan could reverse the
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curse. The world needed to exhaust
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every possible alternative. They needed a long experience to
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see the absolute necessity, a rescue from the outside.
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Which brings Edward's timeline right up to the geopolitical
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realities of the ancient Near East.
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He doesn't stop in ancient history.
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He looks at the empires that dominated the globe.
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He asks why the era after the Babylonian captivity is
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specifically during the rise of the Roman Empire was the only
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viable window. Edwards identifies the Roman
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Empire as the strongest, most visible manifestation of worldly
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dominion. He goes so far as to call it
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Satan's visible Kingdom in the world.
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That is a massive claim. Rome at its height represented
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the pinnacle of human achievement.
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We are talking about unrivaled military might, brilliant
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engineering, complex legal systems, sophisticated
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philosophy. And that is why it had to be the
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stage. Overcoming the greatest monarchy
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meant a more complete triumph. That makes a lot of sense.
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If the Messiah had arrived during a time of scattered,
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weak, disorganized tribes, the victory might seem small.
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But to arrive when the most organized, powerful and ruthless
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human empire is ruling the known world, and to establish a
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Kingdom that outlasts Rome, that is a display of absolute
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supremacy. The Pax Romana, the Roman peace,
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created a world where travel was possible across vast distances
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without constant tribal warfare. Edwards also points to the
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intellectual infrastructure of the time.
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Written histories were now available.
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Learning had flourished under the Greeks and Romans.
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He had Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism.
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And all of them subsequently failed to fix the human
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condition. Yeah.
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The insufficiency of human wisdom was thoroughly
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documented. The greatest minds had taken
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their best shot, and society was still deeply fractured.
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We also have to look at the Jewish dispersion.
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The centuries of exile under Babylon, Persia and Greece
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scattered the Jewish people across the known world.
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They built synagogues in almost every major city around the
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Mediterranean. This created a necessary network
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for the future propagation of the gospel.
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It did. When the message of the Messiah
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began to spread, there were already communities who knew the
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ancient prophecies. You had pockets of people in
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Greece, in Rome, in Alexandria who understood the concepts of
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monotheism, sin, substitutionary sacrifice and a coming king.
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The physical roads were built by Rome.
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The language was unified by Greece and the theological
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outposts were established by the Jewish dispersion.
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I have to ask you a challenging question here, because the
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implications are heavy. Is it unsettling to think of
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massive human empires, bloody wars, exiles and forced
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dispersions simply as props being moved around a stage to
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prepare for one individual's arrival?
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Is a lot to take in. We are talking about the rise
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and fall of millions of people, the burning of ancient cities,
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the shifting of borders over centuries, and Edwards is saying
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it was all just setting the table.
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The sheer audacity of Edward's acclaim is staggering.
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He's demanding we accept a massive view of historical
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sovereignty. He does not view human empires
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as the main characters of history.
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They are scaffolding. Right when Augusta Caesar issued
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a tax decree that the whole Roman world should be
20:24
registered, he thought he was displaying his supreme
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authority. He thought he was counting his
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property and flexing his economic muscle.
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But Edwards argues Augustus was simply a mechanism.
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He was a pawn used to move a peasant Carpenter and a pregnant
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teenager from Nazareth to Bethlehem to fulfill a prophecy
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made centuries earlier in Micah 5.2.
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All worldly authority is depicted as entirely subordinate
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to the redemptive timeline. The emperors and kings are
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unwitting participants in a script they cannot even read.
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The entire geopolitical landscape is arranged for the
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single event. Let's look at the jarring
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contrast Edwards highlights next.
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We just discussed this massive cosmic build up, thousands of
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years of history, the altering of human lifespan.
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The exhaustion of human philosophy.
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The rise of the greatest military empire the world has
21:11
ever seen. The staging is epic, but the
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actual physical reality of the event, The circumstances were
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remarkably low. Edwards asserts this is the
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greatest event in history. He says it is greater than the
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creation of the universe because it is a great thing for God to
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make a creature out of nothing, but it is infinitely greater for
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the Creator himself to become a creature.
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And yet look at the historical details.
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He is born to a poor virgin, with poor espoused husband in a
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stable laid in a Manger. Edward cites specific legal
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evidence of their poverty. He points to Mary's offering at
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her purification in the temple. Luke Chapter 2 records that she
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offered a pair of turtledoves. Which refers back to Leviticus
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5.7. The law States and if she be not
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able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring 2 turtledoves or two
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young pigeons. This legally proved her severe
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poverty. A lamb was the standard
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offering. It was what was expected.
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But the law made a provision for the destitute, Yeah.
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The mother of the Creator of the universe had to use the poverty
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exemption clause in the very law he established.
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And what about Joseph? Edwards notes that Joseph was
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the rightful heir to the Crown of David.
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The royal family was the most honorable in Jewish history, but
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it had been reduced to a very low state.
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Edwards quotes Amos 9.11, which describes the fallen Tabernacle
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of David. It wasn't a palace anymore.
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It was ruins. The royal lineage was intact,
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but the royal wealth, the status, and the political
22:38
influence were entirely gone. Joseph was a manual laborer
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living in an obscure village in Galilee.
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The irony here is thick. Picture the 1st century
22:47
landscape. The Roman Empire is at its
22:49
absolute peak. You have marble columns,
22:52
sprawling palaces, legions of soldiers in shining armor,
22:55
wealth pouring in from across the globe to fund gladiatorial
22:58
games and massive public works. Meanwhile, the rightful king of
23:02
the cosmos is born in an animal feeding through surrounded by
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dirt to parents who cannot even afford a single lamb for a
23:08
temple sacrifice. It is a complete subversion of
23:10
human expectations regarding status and victory.
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If you were writing a script for a king arriving to conquer an
23:15
empire, you would not write it this way.
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Definitely not. You would have him arrive with
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armies, wealth and immediate political dominance.
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But the legal requirements we discussed earlier, the need to
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perfectly obey the law and suffer its penalty, required
23:29
total submission and vulnerability.
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The low circumstances were necessary for the work he came
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to do. He had to start at the absolute
23:37
bottom of the human experience to redeem the whole of it.
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While the Roman political machine and the elite classes
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missed the event entirely, Edwards goes on to prove that
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the rest of the universe did not.
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He concludes his timeline with specific accompanying signs,
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which he calls concomitants. The stage was set, the event
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happened in deep obscurity, but the spiritual realm reacted
23:59
violently. Edwards lists several of these
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concomitants, starting with the sudden return of the Spirit of
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Prophecy. This is a huge shift in the
24:07
biblical narrative. Prophecy had been totally silent
24:09
since the days of Malachi. For about 400 years.
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Yeah, there were no new prophets, no recorded visions,
24:15
no immediate revelations. Just deafening silence.
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And then suddenly, visions and songs erupt.
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It begins with Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist,
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having a vision in the temple. Then the Virgin Mary receives an
24:29
angelic visitation. Then Joseph has a dream.
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Then the spirit falls upon Elizabeth.
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Mary sings her song. The Magnificat Zacharias
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prophecies, Simeon and Anna in the temple recognize the child.
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The shepherds in the field receive a massive announcement.
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It is as if a dam holding back cosmic activity suddenly broke.
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4 centuries, A drought, and then a massive flood of spiritual
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phenomena, all concentrated in one tiny province of the Roman
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Empire. And it wasn't just human
24:56
prophets, Edwards points out the angelic notice the angels who
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sang at the creation of the world, as described in Job 38.7,
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sing again. When the morning stars sang
25:06
together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
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Edwards notes that these angelic beings have been administering
25:12
steps of redemption since the fall.
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They dealt with Abraham. They dealt with Jacob.
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They guarded the Israelites. They had been waiting for this
25:18
specific culmination. And when they finally see it
25:21
accomplished, they breakthrough into the physical realm to
25:24
announce it. Not the kings, but two working
25:26
class shepherds. And it stretches beyond Israel.
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Gentile wise men are guided by a *.
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Edward suggests they might have been instructed by Balaam's
25:35
ancient prophecy from the Book of Numbers about a star rising
25:39
out of Jacob. Or they might have been acting
25:41
on the general expectation of a Messiah caused by those
25:44
dispersed Jewish communities we talked about earlier.
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Either way, the physical cosmos, the literal movement of
25:50
celestial bodies, is signaling the event.
25:53
The final concomitant Edwards mentions is perhaps the most
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precise historical lock on the timing.
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He points to the scepter departing from Judah.
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Let's break this down, because it involves some ancient
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intertestamental politics that are fascinating but can be a bit
26:07
tricky to follow. Sure.
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This goes back to a prophecy in Genesis 49.9 where the patriarch
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Jacob declares on his deathbed the scepter shall not depart
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from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
26:20
come. Shiloh being an ancient title
26:22
for the Messiah. Right.
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So the tribe of Judah had to retain some form of self rule,
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some internal legislative authority, until the moment the
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Messiah arrived. And Edwards traces this history
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meticulously. He does.
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Despite centuries of brutal captivity under Babylon, Persia
26:38
and Greece, Judah retained internal lawmakers even under
26:42
Persian rule. They had their own governors and
26:44
the power of life and death. Under the Greeks, they
26:47
eventually fought for their own kings, the Maccabees.
26:50
And even when the Romans initially took over the region,
26:52
they allowed Herod the Great to rule as a king over Judea,
26:56
maintaining a semblance of Jewish law and autonomy.
26:59
But then, right around the time Christ is born, the political
27:02
landscape shifts dramatically. Herod the Great dies.
27:05
His son Arcleus succeeds him, but is notoriously incompetent
27:09
and brutal, and is quickly deposed by the Roman Emperor
27:12
Augustus. Rome decides to strip Judea of
27:14
its autonomy. They install Roman governors,
27:17
prefects like Pontius Pilot later on, and crucially, they
27:20
take away the Jewish authority to execute capital punishment.
27:23
The Jewish courts lose the sword.
27:26
Which is why decades later in John 18.31, when the Jewish
27:30
leaders want to execute Jesus, they have to go to pilot and
27:33
admit it is not lawful for us to put any man to death.
27:36
The timing is incredible. The scepter, the political seal
27:40
of autonomy and legal authority, finally and totally departed
27:43
from Judah in the exact historical window that the
27:46
Messiah was born. The political autonomy of Judah
27:49
finally extinguishes precisely as the spiritual lights turn on.
27:53
They act as a lock and key. The prophecy holds until the
27:56
very moment the fulfillment arrives, and then the old system
28:00
is dismantled by Rome. Let's step back and look at the
28:02
staggering architecture of Edward's argument we just
28:05
covered. This is not a random collection
28:07
of religious facts. He is presented a tight logical
28:10
sequence. It really is.
28:12
The incarnation was not an emergency backup plan thrown
28:15
together at the last minute because things got out of hand.
28:18
It required the precise legal capacity of human flesh to
28:21
suffer and obey. It required a physical presence
28:24
on the contaminated earth to reclaim the territory.
28:27
It demanded A sinless conception to bypass guilt, but a
28:31
biologically ordinary nine month human gestation to secure
28:35
absolute solidarity with mankind.
28:38
And it was timed with unbelievable precision.
28:41
It happened only after human lifespans shortened, so death
28:44
became a visible immediate threat rather than an abstract
28:48
concept hundreds of years away. It waited until human
28:51
philosophies and wisdom entirely failed to cure the disease.
28:55
It utilized the greatest military empire in history to
28:58
unknowingly build the physical roads, establish the necessary
29:01
peace, and create the geopolitical climate necessary
29:04
for the message to spread across the globe.
29:06
I want to leave you with a final thought to chew on as we wrap up
29:09
this analysis. We started by contrasting the
29:11
seeming randomness of history with the meticulous schedule of
29:14
these events. If Jonathan Edwards is correct,
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if thousands of years of human history, the rise of the Roman
29:20
war machine, the altering of human lifespans, the shifting of
29:24
political control and Judea, and the literal movements of stars
29:27
were all meticulously synchronized for a single birth
29:31
in a forgotten, dirty stable, how should you view the
29:35
seemingly random ordinary events playing out in the news today?
29:39
Or even in your own daily life. If the largest empires are just
29:42
scaffolding for redemptive purpose, then history is not
29:45
chaotic, it is highly directed. Are there hidden through lines
29:49
in history currently passing entirely unnoticed by the
29:52
experts, the economists and the politicians of our day?
29:54
It makes you look at the daily headlines very differently.
29:57
The noise of the present might just be scaffolding for
29:59
something much larger. Thank you for joining us for
30:02
this deep dive on reformed thinking.
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Keep questioning the surface level of history.
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There is always more happening underneath.