Jonathan Edwards preached this sermon on the Public Lecture in Boston, July 8, 1731 and was published after several ministers requested it. This was the first sermon published by Jonathan Edwards. The issue that Edwards addresses is in what way are we are dependent on God and how the work of redemption strips us of all reasons to glorify ourselves. Edwards gives more examples than I listed, and so I would recommend reading his sermon for a full exposition of these Biblical truths.
“So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:29-31).
Corinth was not far from Athens, the seat of Greek philosophy. Paul explains how the gospel has made the wisdom of the Greeks foolishness for they cannot know God through all their philosophizing. And when God reveals the gospel to these “wise men,” they label it as foolishness. So why did God choose “the foolish things of the world to confound the wise”? Paul explains it here-so that no man may boast.
1. God ordained things in the work of redemption so that man would not glorify himself, but in God
2. God is glorified in the work of redemption because of man’s complete dependence upon Him in this work for their salvation. All man’s good is in Christ. How so?
First, Christ “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” These four things are the entirety of man’s goodness and it is found all in Christ alone. The wisdom of understanding the truth, the gospel, is given to us by grace. Christ’s righteousness makes up for our sin through his substitutionary death on the cross so that our sins were accounted to him, and his righteousness was accounted to us. Sanctification comes from a renewed heart and this is found by Christ’s sacrifice. And it is through his sacrifice that comes redemption, deliverance from sin.
Second, God gives us Christ, thus our dependence is upon God.
Third, it is God who gives us faith by which we achieve union with Christ, and so without him we would have no interest whatsoever in Christ.
Thus we are dependent on all three persons of the Trinity. We are dependent on Christ, who is righteousness, sanctification, wisdom and redemption for us. We are dependent on the Father who gave us Christ to be these things for us. We are dependent on the Spirit who gives us faith in Christ.
DOCTRINE
We, the redeemed, have an absolute and complete dependence on God because the work of redemption depends entirely on Him.
We have all from the grace of God.
God’s grace is great…
In proportion to the excellence of what is given-Jesus, who is infinitely righteous and worthy of glory
In proportion to the benefit we receive-we are saved from damnation and given eternal joy
In proportion to the unworthiness of the receiver-we are infinitely undeserving of grace
According to the manner it was given-the method was through Christ humbling himself, submitting himself to the Law and offering himself up on the cross
We have all from the power of God.
We are dependent on God for every step of our redemption: his power to convert us, his power to give us faith in Christ, his power to give us a new nature. God was both purchaser and price for Christ both purchased us at the price of death. It is God’s power that preserves us in grace.
“Who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).
Grace is from God at first, and thus it is continually from him and maintained by him. We depend on God for every exercise of grace-for the mortification of sin, for increasing in godly living, for good works, for bringing to completion sanctification when we are raised bodily into glorification.
We have all our objective good in God.
All our objective good is in God because God is our ultimate delight because he is the great good that we are possessed by. He is the good that we will enjoy forever.
We have all our inherent good in God.
We are made “partakers of the divine nature,” the image of God (2 Pet. 1:4). In this we have communion with God. We have “spiritual excellency ad blessedness” because of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. The Spirit gifts us with our ability to be sanctified and bear fruit. This is the fullness of good, that we have received the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14). The Holy Spirit is the sum of the blessings that Christ died to purchase (Gal. 3:13-14). Holiness and happiness are the fruits of the indwelling Spirit because God is in the believer and the believer is in God.
God is glorified by the work of redemption because by it there is an absolute and complete dependence on Him.
The work of redemption obligates us to acknowledge God’s perfection and his all-sufficiency. We notice God’s all-sufficiency when we find that we are insufficient. When we depend on God for redemption, it demonstrates God’s all-sufficiency. Thus the greater the dependence of the creature on God, the more obvious it is that the creature is empty and the fullness of God who supplies it.
The work of redemption also demonstrates how great God’s glory is compared to us, his creatures. When we see this, we are disposed to give God the glory. That is why everything in redemption is disposed toward giving God the glory for it all speaks of God’s fullness and our emptiness, God being everything and we nothing. Thus the creature should have absolute and complete dependence on God so that God has our souls and he becomes our object of utmost respect. And this respect should be undivided, for our dependence is on nothing else but Him.
USE
So do we really see ourselves as fully dependent on God for everything? Many people believe that they depend on God for some things, but not everything. They may depend on God for the gift and acceptance of Christ, but deny that they are entirely dependent on the Spirit for gaining an interest in Christ. They may depend on God for grace, but deny that they entirely depend on Him for exercising holiness, the benefits of grace. They may depend on Christ as through whom we live and obtain a revived Spirit, but deny they are entirely depend on Him for righteousness because it is inherent in themselves. Anything inconsistent with entire dependence on God for everything takes away from His glory!
Through this understanding we learn why God has ordained faith as the means of salvation. For inherent in faith’s nature is absolute dependence on God. Edwards summarizes it as thus: “Faith abases men, and exalts God; it gives all the glory of redemption to him alone.”
Let us be exhorted to exalt God alone, and ascribe to him all the glory of redemption. Let us endeavor to obtain, and increase in, a sensibleness of our great dependence on God, to have our eye to him alone, to mortify a self-dependent and self-righteous disposition. Man is naturally exceeding prone to exalt himself, and depend on his own power or goodness; as though from himself he must expect happiness. He is prone to have respect to enjoyments alien from God and his Spirit, as those in which happiness is to be found.–But this doctrine should teach us to exalt God alone: as by trust and reliance, so by praise. Let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord.
