Latest / Reformed Thinking / Christ Exalted Until Every Enemy Falls (1 Corinthians 15:25–26) | Jonathan Edwards
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to reformed thinking. So I want you to imagine walking
- 0:04into a room full of the brightest scientific minds of
- 0:09our generation. OK, setting the scene.
- 0:11Right. And you stand there and tell
- 0:12them that you have cracked the code to biological immortality.
- 0:16Oh man, they'd love. That Yeah, but not through
- 0:19medicine, not through like gene editing or some new tech.
- 0:23You tell them you cracked it because a 1st century Carpenter
- 0:26walked out of his own grave. Yeah, you would be laughed right
- 0:29out of the building. They would just show you the
- 0:31door. And the crazy thing is, 2000
- 0:34years ago in ancient Greece, the apostle Paul experienced that
- 0:37precise scenario. He really did.
- 0:40So today we were doing a deep dive into an August 1738 sermon
- 0:45by Jonathan Edwards. It's titled Jesus Christ,
- 0:48Gloriously Exalted Above All Evil in the Work of Redemption.
- 0:52That is quite the title. It is, and the text he uses is
- 0:55First Corinthians 15 verses 25 and 26.
- 0:58And what Edwards does here is build this massive theological
- 1:01architecture regarding the complete subjugation of every
- 1:04single form of evil. Yeah, the sheer scale of the
- 1:06problem, as Edwards thought, is frankly terrifying.
- 1:10Truly terrifying, and the absolute supremacy of his
- 1:14proposed solution is staggering. So you are going to want to pay
- 1:18close attention to this one because this deep dive dissects
- 1:22what is basically a cosmic siege.
- 1:25A cosmic siege. I like that, But we should
- 1:28probably point out that Edwards doesn't start with the whole
- 1:30cosmos, right? He doesn't.
- 1:32He starts where Paul started, with the very localized
- 1:35historical conflict. Yeah, Paul is writing to the
- 1:37church in Corinth, and the trigger for this entire letter,
- 1:41or at least this massive section of it, is skepticism about the
- 1:44resurrection. People were actually doubting
- 1:46it. Oh, heavily.
- 1:48There were factions in the ancient world aggressively
- 1:50opposing the idea that the dead could rise, which means we
- 1:53really need to look at the geographical and cultural
- 1:56reality of ancient Corinth. Because if we want to understand
- 1:59Edwards's analysis of evil, we have to look at the specific
- 2:02people who are arguing with Paul.
- 2:04Precisely, and Edwards highlights 2 historical groups.
- 2:07On one side you have the Jewish Sadducees.
- 2:10The source material references Acts 23 to show their theology.
- 2:14They denied angels, they denied spirits, and they denied the
- 2:16resurrection entirely. It was just a flat rejection of
- 2:19the supernatural afterlife. Complete rejection.
- 2:23But then on the other side you have the Greek philosophers
- 2:27Corinth was geographically very close to.
- 2:29Athens, the intellectual capital of the ancient world.
- 2:32Yeah, the Hub. And that proximity meant
- 2:35philosophical ideas bled heavily into the local Corinthian
- 2:39church. I think about it a lot like
- 2:41modern scientific materialism. Well, that's a good analogy.
- 2:44Yeah, because ancient Greek philosophical skepticism
- 2:48functioned in a very similar way.
- 2:50Both frameworks reject the bodily resurrection because it
- 2:52breaks their established rules for how the physical universe
- 2:55operates. You can't unfry an egg.
- 2:57Right, you just can't. In a closed material system,
- 2:59biological death is a one way street.
- 3:01So the Greeks are looking at Paul and saying your math does
- 3:04not work. The equation is broken.
- 3:05Yeah, once the body dies, the material decomposes and it is
- 3:09gone forever. They actually mocked Paul when
- 3:12he preached this at the Areopagus in Athens.
- 3:14They laughed at him, and Edward suggests that the church at
- 3:18Corinth probably picked up this specific strain of corruption
- 3:22from the Greek philosophers rather than the Sadducees.
- 3:25Just given that Corinth was such a major hub for Greek thinkers.
- 3:28Yeah, it makes the most sense. But notice what Paul does in
- 3:31First Corinthians 15. He doesn't just give them
- 3:34biological arguments, he expands the equation to include the
- 3:37entire cosmos. He zooms way out.
- 3:40Way Out, Edward shows us Paul's logical progression in three
- 3:44distinct phases. First you have Christ's
- 3:47resurrection from the dead. That initial breach in the wall
- 3:49of death. Yeah, the first crack.
- 3:51Next you have the resurrection of all the Saints at the end of
- 3:54the world, and then follows the final phase, the delivery of the
- 3:57Kingdom to God the Father after all enemies are subdued.
- 4:01And the phrase Edwards locks onto here is the last enemy that
- 4:04shall be destroyed is death. It's such a heavy phrase.
- 4:07It stands out so starkly. The last enemy, I mean.
- 4:10When I hear the word enemies, my mind immediately goes to hostile
- 4:13people. Sure.
- 4:14Rival armies? Political opponents.
- 4:16Yeah, personal adversaries. But Edwards is doing something
- 4:19different here. He argues that by enemies, Paul
- 4:21doesn't just mean persons who set themselves against God.
- 4:24He means evils. Anything that opposes.
- 4:28Right. Whatever opposes Christ or his
- 4:30Saints, whether they be persons or things, death is not a
- 4:34person. No, it's a condition.
- 4:36It's a condition, a reality, and it is categorized as an enemy.
- 4:40And that shifts the entire battlefield.
- 4:42The victory isn't just about defeating A hostile army, it's
- 4:46about the destruction of hostile realities.
- 4:49Realities. That's good.
- 4:50And this is the core foundation Edwards build upon.
- 4:53If enemies include all forms of evil, then we have to evaluate
- 4:57the entire hierarchy of those forces.
- 4:59Which means we need to look at the top of the chain.
- 5:01If Satan is the architect, the grandmaster moving the pieces,
- 5:04then the Greeks might argue humanity is just a victim,
- 5:08right? So we should move from the
- 5:09philosophical debate happening in the streets of Corinth to the
- 5:12absolute top of that hierarchy, Satan.
- 5:15Edwards treats Satan as the first category of evil.
- 5:17And his description of Satan's origin is striking.
- 5:20It really is. He notes that Satan was
- 5:22original, one of the highest rank of creatures.
- 5:24Vastly superior and natural capacity and abilities to
- 5:28mankind. And his fall came through pride.
- 5:31He became enamored with his own superior dignity and the glory
- 5:36his Creator had given him. Edward specifically notes that
- 5:39Satan refused to submit to the Son of God.
- 5:42He attempted instead to exalt his own throne above him.
- 5:45Which drew vast multitudes of the heavenly hosts into open
- 5:49rebellion. Yeah, a massive defection.
- 5:52And after being cast out of heaven, his campaign moved
- 5:54directly to Earth. And the timeline Edwards lays
- 5:57out here is just relentless. It doesn't stop.
- 5:59No, yeah, he causes the fall of our first parents, bringing ruin
- 6:03to the whole human race in both body and soul.
- 6:06Then he triggers this almost universal corruption that brings
- 6:09on the flood. Wiping out almost everyone.
- 6:11Right. And after the flood, Edwards
- 6:13says, Satan darkened all the world with heathenism, setting
- 6:16himself up to be worshipped almost universally.
- 6:19He even required child sacrifices from the nation's.
- 6:21It is a brutal campaign. I view it through the analogy of
- 6:24a chess grandmaster. OK, let's hear it.
- 6:26Well, you look at a chess board and there are multiple seeming
- 6:29these unrelated attacks happening across the board.
- 6:32A pawn moves here, a night flanks over there.
- 6:34To a novice, it looks like separate chaotic events.
- 6:37Like they aren't connected at all.
- 6:39Yeah, but the Grandmaster is orchestrating all of it to
- 6:42corner a single king. I see where you're going with
- 6:45the chess analogy, but I think it only gets us halfway there.
- 6:49Why is that? Because chess implies a clean,
- 6:52sterile game, Edwards views this as incredibly messy and bloody.
- 6:57It's less like a grandmaster moving wooden pieces and more
- 6:59like a biological virus mutating to infect every new
- 7:03civilization. Oh wow, OK, a mutating virus.
- 7:06Yeah, Edwards views all of human history as a single, unified
- 7:09theater of war. He doesn't see isolated
- 7:11political or religious movements.
- 7:13He sees a highly coordinated strategy orchestrated by an
- 7:16intellect vastly superior to our own.
- 7:18So to Edwards, the Roman persecutions, the rise of rival
- 7:22empires, the spread of heresies. These aren't random historical
- 7:26accidents. No, they are calculated moves to
- 7:29checkmate the Kingdom of Christ. Edwards tracks this ongoing
- 7:33assault through the rise of historical empires and false
- 7:36religions. He.
- 7:37Specifically mentions the kingdoms of Antichrist in
- 7:39Muhammad, right? Yes, and also the promotion of
- 7:42modern atheism and infidelity. The entire goal is to obliterate
- 7:46the Church, and this campaign peaks with his direct attacks on
- 7:50Christ. Getting right to the source.
- 7:51Yeah, Satan influenced men to hate and despise Christ
- 7:55throughout his life, and finally he persuaded one of his own
- 7:58disciples, Judas, to betray him. Procuring the crucifixion.
- 8:01Which Edwards calls the most cruel and ignominious death
- 8:05unrestrained malice could device.
- 8:07Unrestrained malice. That's a heavy phrase, but Satan
- 8:11is an external adversary, right? While he orchestrated the ruin,
- 8:14his primary victory was creating an internal catastrophe for
- 8:18humanity. Yes, that internal ruin.
- 8:21Edwards doesn't let mankind off the hook by painting us just as
- 8:24victims of a cosmic war, he turns the camera inward, right
- 8:27to the human soul. Which brings us to Edwards 2nd
- 8:30and 3rd categories of evil, guilt and corruption.
- 8:32And his description of guilt is terrifying.
- 8:35He forces us to look at the scale of.
- 8:37It he really zooms in on the map.
- 8:39He does. He says it's not just that some
- 8:41persons are guilty, but all people in all nations and all
- 8:45ages, and those who live any length of time aren't guilty of
- 8:49one sin, but of thousands and thousands of thousands.
- 8:53The multiplier is insane. It makes me think of a national
- 8:56debt that grows exponentially every single second.
- 9:00Imagine a Ledger so massive, accumulating interest so rapidly
- 9:04that no human effort, no tax rate, no austerity measure could
- 9:08ever balance it. The debt is structurally
- 9:10impossible to pay off. Exactly.
- 9:12I mean spot on. Structurally impossible.
- 9:15And Edwards uses a very vivid physical metaphor to illustrate
- 9:18that precise point. He likens the guilt of the world
- 9:22to mountains heaped upon mountains.
- 9:24Just piled up. Piled so high they rise above
- 9:27the clouds and the stars of heaven, he says.
- 9:29It transcends all account, all expression, all ability of
- 9:32numbers or measures. The world is loaded with it on
- 9:35every side. Mountains reaching the stars.
- 9:37We really have to pause on the math.
- 9:39Yeah, let's break that down. Why is guilt described as
- 9:42reaching the stars? Because Edwards is operating on
- 9:45the principle that the severity of an offense is measured by the
- 9:49dignity of the person offended. Right, so sinning against an
- 9:52infinitely holy God incurs an infinite debt.
- 9:56If guilt is infinite, humans cannot pay it because we are
- 9:59finite beings. We would have to pay it forever.
- 10:02Hence the concept of eternal punishment.
- 10:05The human mind can't even comprehend that scale.
- 10:07We. Really can't.
- 10:08And that is just the guilt. Then he moves to the third
- 10:11category, corruption and wickedness of heart.
- 10:13This is where. It gets really dark.
- 10:14He. Unpacks total depravity using
- 10:16Romans chapter 3. He says every part is depraved.
- 10:20He. Focuses heavily on the bodily
- 10:21metaphors Paul uses in Romans 3 to show how comprehensive this
- 10:26internal ruin is he. Notes The throat is an open
- 10:28sepulchre. Yeah, an.
- 10:29Open grave. Just think about the stench of
- 10:32that imagery 0. Man.
- 10:33Yeah, and the tongues are used for deceit.
- 10:35The poison. Of ASPs is under the lips, the
- 10:37mouth. Is full of cursing and the feet
- 10:39are swift shed blood every single faculty and principle is
- 10:42infected the. Mind is darkened, the will is
- 10:45rebellious, the affections are disordered.
- 10:48Think. About the times you've tried to
- 10:49break a bad habit, like scrolling your phone late at
- 10:52night or losing your temper with a family member, it's harder.
- 10:55Than it seems you. Realize very quickly you aren't
- 10:58fully in control of your own mind.
- 11:00Edwards has taken that universal human frustration and turning
- 11:03the dial up to 1000 way. Up he.
- 11:06Calls it innate corruption, and he contrasts it with contracted
- 11:10habits of sin, meaning. It's not just what we were born
- 11:13with, right? It's not just that we were born
- 11:15with the propensity to do wrong. We practice it, we refine it, we
- 11:19build cultures around it. We breakdown all restraints upon
- 11:23natural corruption through bad customs and education.
- 11:26Just. As he used the mountain metaphor
- 11:28for guilt, he uses a terrifying physical metaphor for
- 11:31corruption. What does?
- 11:32He compare it to he likens. It to a great and universal
- 11:35deluge that overtops all things a.
- 11:38Flood. Yeah, A.
- 11:39Flood that prevails with the strength of the raging waves of
- 11:42a tempestuous ocean, ready to bear down all before it.
- 11:45So you. Have mountains of guilt reaching
- 11:48to the stars, and an ocean of corruption drowning the earth.
- 11:51The. Internal state of mankind is a
- 11:53total disaster area it's a. Wasteland and this internal ruin
- 11:57inevitably produces a hostile external world, of course.
- 12:01It does if. The heart is an ocean of
- 12:03corruption. The societies built by those
- 12:06hearts will reflect that chaos. Which leads us to the final
- 12:10three categories of evil. Edwards identifies the devil.
- 12:13'S instruments affliction and death.
- 12:16Let's. Look at the devil's instruments
- 12:17first. We see these instruments
- 12:19prospering and rising to the head of great kingdoms with vast
- 12:22riches and mighty force. Edwards.
- 12:24Points to the four great heathen monarchies from Daniel's
- 12:27prophecies, right? The statue, yeah.
- 12:29Kingdoms set up in direct opposition to the Kingdom of
- 12:32Christ. He specifically highlights the
- 12:34Roman Empire, describing it with great iron teeth that devoured,
- 12:38broken and stamp the residue with its feet.
- 12:40This was the empire that made a business of tormenting and
- 12:43destroying Christians with the full might of its state
- 12:45apparatus, the external. World became a machine designed
- 12:48to crush the Saints and. From those mighty instruments of
- 12:52state authority, Edwards transitions into the everyday
- 12:55afflictions of humanity, the. Daily grind of suffering, yeah.
- 12:59Spiritual and physical misery he mentions the intolerable weight
- 13:03of a wounded spirit and a guilty conscience, the spiritual
- 13:07darkness that can overtake people, but he.
- 13:09Says affliction peaked. It reached its absolute zenith
- 13:12in Christ's bloody sweat in the garden.
- 13:14Gethsemane, yes. Affliction exalted itself so
- 13:17high that it sees the Son of God overwhelming his soul in an
- 13:21ocean of sorrow, which. Logically brings us to the final
- 13:24ultimate enemy death the. Last Eddie Edwards.
- 13:27Scrutinizes death as an evil that has made dreadful habic.
- 13:30He calls it a great insatiable monster that devours all
- 13:34mankind, sparing no one higher. Low, rich or poor, good or bad,
- 13:38death devours all. Even the bodies of the Saints
- 13:41fall prey to this devourer. And this circles us back to the
- 13:44initial context of the Corinthians skepticism, right?
- 13:47The Greeks death. Is the ultimate physical proof
- 13:49of the reign of evil every grave is a physical argument that evil
- 13:53has won the day it's. Hard to argue with a tombstone
- 13:56it. Really is When Edwards describes
- 13:58death swallowing Christ, I cannot help but picture an apex
- 14:01predator like a lion, more like a great white shark that devours
- 14:05everything in the ocean. It's massive, unstoppable and
- 14:08terrifying. But one day it finally swallows
- 14:11a stick of dynamite I. See the.
- 14:14Very act of feeding is what blows it apart.
- 14:16Death rose so high that it took hold of Christ himself.
- 14:20His bodily frame was destroyed and laid in the dark, silent
- 14:24grave, but the consumption became the destruction.
- 14:27This raises a massive theological question, and it is
- 14:30the pivot point of Edward's entire argument.
- 14:32OK. Laid out while.
- 14:33Having stacked the enemy forces to towering heights, Satan,
- 14:37infinite guilt, total corruption, mighty empires and
- 14:40death, how does Christ actually conquer this mountain of evil
- 14:44that is the big. Question.
- 14:45The narrative shifts from the scale of the ruin to the paradox
- 14:48of victory, Edwards says. This victory is secured in
- 14:52Christ's state of humiliation. Let's.
- 14:53Breakdown the mechanics here because logically people ask,
- 14:57how does a few hours of physical and spiritual suffering on a
- 14:59cross equal an infinite payment? It's a.
- 15:02Common question because. We established earlier that the
- 15:04dead is infinite because it's against an infinite God, right?
- 15:08And Edwards relies on the mechanism of substitution.
- 15:11Christ is an infinite being, so when an infinite person suffers,
- 15:15the value of that suffering is infinite, so it.
- 15:17Scales perfectly, yes. It covers the infinite debt.
- 15:20In a matter of hours. The math finally balances.
- 15:24He offered a sacrifice sufficient for the whole world,
- 15:27and he purchased holiness for the chief of sinners.
- 15:30And Edwards uses this incredible phrase here.
- 15:32He says he slew Satan with his own weapon.
- 15:35The spiritual David cut off this Goliath's head with his own
- 15:38sword, that is. Brilliant tactical analysis by
- 15:41Edwards it really. Is Satan That old serpent used
- 15:45an immense amount of subtlety to procure Christ's death, Seton
- 15:48thought. He had obtained a complete
- 15:50victory, he thought. He'd won the chess match, he
- 15:52thought. It was checkmate, but he was
- 15:54ignorant of the contrivance of redemption.
- 15:56The wisdom of Christ ordered things so that Satan's subtlety
- 15:59and malice became the very means of undermining the foundations
- 16:03of his own Kingdom, Jesus. Wisely LED Satan into the pit
- 16:06that Satan himself had dug the. Irony is just incredible the
- 16:10irony that evil, in exerting its maximum force, exhausts itself
- 16:15against infinite purity and merit the.
- 16:17Cross is where the iron teeth of Rome and the malice of Satan do
- 16:21their absolute worst. Yet it functions as the engine
- 16:24of victory, yes. The engine of victory Edwards
- 16:28dwells on the imagery for the atonement overcoming guilt we
- 16:31talked about guilt being like mountains reaching the stars,
- 16:34right yes the. Impossible Mountains.
- 16:35Edwards. Says Christ's dying love and
- 16:38merit are like an immense fountain of light.
- 16:40A fountain. Of light and the.
- 16:41Fullness and redundancy of its brightness swallows up men's
- 16:45greatest sins the way the full beam of the sun swallows a tiny
- 16:48dust mode. Wow.
- 16:50That imagery is staggering. It really.
- 16:52Puts it in perspective. You have a mountain of guilt,
- 16:54but when you place it next to the infinite merit of Christ, it
- 16:57looks like a speck of dust in sunlight.
- 16:59The. Cross is where the infinite debt
- 17:01meets an infinite payment. In dying, Christ became the
- 17:04plague and destruction of death. When death slew him, it slew
- 17:08itself. But a?
- 17:09Hidden victory on a cross requires public vindication.
- 17:11Nobody. Knew he won right at that
- 17:13moment. Exactly.
- 17:15I mean, yes, spot on. We have to move from the
- 17:17mechanism of the victory to its undeniable display in history.
- 17:21Which brings us to the exaltation Edwards.
- 17:24Details christ's resurrection and ascension as the moment he
- 17:28appears gloriously above all evil death, which Edwards now
- 17:32calls the leviathan, is forced to vomit Christ up the.
- 17:36Grave couldn't hold him in his. Resurrection Christ was
- 17:39justified, appearing above all guilt and affliction when he
- 17:43ascended into heaven, he rose far above the reach of the devil
- 17:46and his instruments, sitting at the right hand of God and.
- 17:49Edwards uses some striking Old Testament parallels here to
- 17:52illustrate this point, doesn't he?
- 17:53He does. He examines the story of Dagon,
- 17:56the Philistine idol. Oh, I.
- 17:57Love that story. Yeah, the Ark.
- 17:58Of the Covenant was captured and placed in the Temple of Dagon,
- 18:01but the next morning the idol of Dagon was found fallen face down
- 18:05before the ark just. Flat on its face, right?
- 18:07And I set it back up and the following morning is falling
- 18:10again, but this time its head and hands were broken off just
- 18:13completely. Severed.
- 18:14Yeah. And Edwards uses this as a
- 18:16representation of death, falling, broken before Christ.
- 18:20The head representing wisdom and authority, and the hands
- 18:24representing might are completely severed, that is.
- 18:27A brilliant connection. He also analyzes the prophecies
- 18:30of Daniel too with. King Nebuchadnezzar, right?
- 18:33The king has a dream of a great statue representing the empires
- 18:36of the world. Gold, silver, bronze, iron.
- 18:41But a stone cut without hands strikes the feet of the statue,
- 18:45smashing it to pieces. And the wind carries the pieces
- 18:48away like chaff, yes. And the stone grows into a
- 18:51mountain that fills the whole earth.
- 18:53Edwards connects this to Christ's ongoing Providence in
- 18:56history. Christ.
- 18:57Upholds the Church through all the attempts by Earth and hell
- 19:00to destroy it against. All odds, really, Edwards.
- 19:03Highlights the rapid spread of the Gospel overtaking the Roman
- 19:06Empire, the philosopher's In Corinth and Athens, the wise men
- 19:10and the emperor's united all their force to stop it, but the
- 19:13gospel overthrew satan's heathenish Kingdom in a very
- 19:16short time he also. Points to the historical
- 19:18Reformation, recovering the church from Popery, and the
- 19:21future fall of Antichrist. It's an.
- 19:22Ongoing campaign, I think. Of this like a decisive military
- 19:25beachhead look at D-Day in World War Two OK, the.
- 19:28Invasion of Normandy, Yeah. The outcome of the entire war is
- 19:32technically secured on those beaches.
- 19:34The decisive victory has been won.
- 19:37The enemy's back is broken even though.
- 19:38There's still a lot of fighting left.
- 19:40Right. The rest of history, what
- 19:43Edwards calls Providence, is the systematic pushing back of the
- 19:46enemy forces until the entire map is reclaimed.
- 19:49The leviathan is broken, Dagon's hands are snapped off, and now
- 19:53the stone is growing into a mountain.
- 19:55But. Edwards never leaves his
- 19:56theology in the abstract realm of history or grand military
- 20:00metaphors he brings. It down to the individual.
- 20:03The victory must arrive in the human soul.
- 20:06This brings us to the application of internal grace
- 20:09and the final consummation and. Edwards describes conversion in
- 20:12very combative terms, he says. The strongman armed is overcome.
- 20:16All his armor is taken from him. The.
- 20:18Lamb is taken right out of the mouth of the lion, and the bear
- 20:21a heart of. Stone turns to flesh.
- 20:23Christ's grace comes over the mountains of their sins.
- 20:27This is not a gentle persuasion. This is a rescue mission behind
- 20:30enemy lines. It's a.
- 20:31Hostile extraction and then Edwards moves to the
- 20:35consummation at the end of the the world.
- 20:37He says the whole work of Redemption will be completed
- 20:39regarding interpretation and application wrapping.
- 20:42Everything up all. Devils and their instruments
- 20:44will be brought before Christ, judged and cast into the lake of
- 20:47fire. Shut up forever.
- 20:49All guilt, corruption, affliction, size and tears will
- 20:52be eternally abolished, and we. Get to this amazing statement
- 20:55about death in glorifying departed Saints.
- 20:59Death is turned from an enemy into a servant.
- 21:01A servant. Yeah, the soul is exalted to a
- 21:03state where it is perfectly delivered from temptation,
- 21:06corruption and affliction. Death becomes a resurrection for
- 21:09the soul. Let's.
- 21:11Let's pause on that idea because that is huge it.
- 21:14Really is how? Does this framework alter a
- 21:17person's view of mortality? If death has been demoted from
- 21:21an insatiable monster to a servant whose only job is to
- 21:24escort the believer to glory, how should that affect the daily
- 21:28anxieties? You care, I mean.
- 21:29It completely defangs the monster it.
- 21:31Does if the worst thing that can happen to you, physical death,
- 21:35has been repurposed into a chauffeur that drives you into
- 21:37eternal joy, the baseline panic of human existence starts to
- 21:42dissolve you. No longer have to live in fear
- 21:44of the Greek philosophers closed material system which.
- 21:47Sets up Edwards conclusion perfectly bringing.
- 21:49At all home having. Traced this timeline from
- 21:51eternity past to eternity future, he lands on his
- 21:55practical takeaways for his congregation, offering what he
- 21:58calls extreme encouragement Christ.
- 22:01Is the true Michael fighting the dragon?
- 22:03No. Matter how high guilt rises,
- 22:05even towering up to the stars, Christ is exalted above it.
- 22:09If you are sinking in a deluge of woe, Christ is above the
- 22:13deluge, believers. Are carried on eagle's wings
- 22:15high out of the reach of all evils.
- 22:17Edwards. Makes a fascinating aesthetic
- 22:20here, he says the beauty of good appears with the greatest
- 22:23advantage when compared with its contrary he.
- 22:26Argues that the sheer magnitude of evil it's terrifying height
- 22:29and depth is permitted specifically to act as a dark
- 22:32foil the. Darker the background, the
- 22:34brighter the glory of Christ's redemption shines he.
- 22:37Points out that Christ, who appeared as a little child and a
- 22:40man of sorrows, triumphed over the most gigantic enemies in
- 22:44their greatest might, using the despicable instrument of the
- 22:47cross. The math of redemption is
- 22:50infinite. Edwards.
- 22:51Argues that no matter how multiplied your sins are, no
- 22:54matter how strong the contracted habits of corruption or how
- 22:57fierce the devil's buffetings, Christ has already demonstrated
- 23:01his supremacy over the absolute worst manifestations of these
- 23:05evils. It is.
- 23:06Like standing at the bottom of a massive Canyon, the deeper the
- 23:10Canyon of sin, misery and historical ruin, the higher you
- 23:14have to look to see the summit of Christ's victory it makes.
- 23:16The rescue so much more staggering if he.
- 23:19Conquered the ocean of corruption and the mountains of
- 23:21guilt on the cross. The specific sins of an
- 23:24individual person are easily swallowed up like that dust mote
- 23:28in the beam of the sun there is. No depth.
- 23:29You can sink to that. The foundation of his victory
- 23:32has not already gone deeper than that.
- 23:34Is the core of Edwards message to his listeners that's.
- 23:37The extreme encouragement so. We're going to leave you with a
- 23:39final thought to cue on If Edwards is correct that every
- 23:43single manifestation of evil, whether a personal tragedy, A
- 23:47systemic injustice, or a massive historical catastrophe, will
- 23:50conclusively be put under his feet and made to display
- 23:53Christ's glory, how does? That reframe things for you,
- 23:56right? How does that reframe the way
- 23:57you consume the Daily News or view your own personal
- 24:00struggles? Does it change despair into a
- 24:02waiting period for the inevitable victory?
- 24:05Thank you for joining Reformed Thinking for this deep dive into
- 24:08Edwards. Let that idea sit with you until
- 24:10next time.