God’s Glory in Ministry

God’s Flaming Glory – Post 17 – God’s Glory in Ministry, According to Jonathan Edwards

If you missed any post in the series so far, access the God’s Flaming Glory series page by clicking here.

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            This is the grand design that Christians are brought into. From before the foundation of the world, God has been preparing His kingdom and glory for Christians.^[1] In this way it is good and necessary that those who remain in hostility with God and His Bride, who have worked to kill both Him and Her, to be judged. That was what we looked at in the last post. Now we will turn our attention to God’s glory in ministry.

            All of what we have looked at so far is done, it bears repeating, by the Triune God in His goodness. A goodness seen primarily in Christ upon the cross. This wrath, which sinners who hate Christ face for eternity, Christ has faced for His beloved Bride. This is what He considered as “the joy set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2). For

Christ has done greater things than to create the world, in order to obtain his bride and the joy of his espousals with her: for he became man for this end; which was a greater thing than his creating the world. For the Creator to make the creature was a great thing; but for him to become a creature was a greater thing. And he did a much greater thing still to obtain this joy; in that for this he laid down his life, and suffered even the death of the cross: for this he poured out his soul unto death; and he that is the Lord of the universe, God over all, blessed for evermore, offered up himself a sacrifice, in both body and soul, in the flames of divine wrath. Christ obtains his elect spouse by conquest: for she was captive in the hands of dreadful enemies; and her Redeemer came into the world to conquer these enemies, and rescue her out of their hands, that she might be his bride. And he came and encountered these enemies in the greatest battle that ever was beheld by men or angels: he fought with principalities and powers; he fought alone with the powers of darkness, and all the armies of hell; yea, he conflicted with the infinitely more dreadful wrath of God, and overcame in this great battle; and thus he obtained his spouse. Let us consider at how great a price Christ purchased this spouse: he did not redeem her with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with his own precious blood; yea, he gave himself for her. When he offered up himself to God in those extreme labors and sufferings, this was the joy that was set before him, that made him cheerfully to endure the cross, and despise the pain and shame in comparison of this joy; even that rejoicing over his church, as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride that the Father has promised him, and that he expected when he should present her to himself in perfect beauty and blessedness.^[2]

            This homecoming was the reason Jesus was lifted up on the cross.^[3] And this glorious work of God, because of His great and astounding love, He imparts to His servants (i.e., those friends of Jesus who point undeserving sinners to the Bridegroom). Christians are not slaves, created as God’s playthings. Christians are friends of the Most High God, upon whom God gives the greatest work of joy, the work of His pleasure – the task of His crowning joy, and His very own mission. In that sense they are servants (this is indeed the way Paul sees himself in relation to the Corinthians at Corinth, when he wrote “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2)). It must never be thought that they are mere servants that Christ has saved to proclaim His Name.^[4] No! But “as his ambassadors, [they are] to stand in his stead, and in his name, and represent his person in so great an affair as that of his espousals with the eternally beloved of his soul (Philippians 1:8). Christ employs us not as mere servants, but as friends of the bridegroom” in the manner of John the Baptist.^[5]

            Christ has given His own servants such an honor that His spouse should be loved by them as He Himself loves her. That they should, by themselves being in union with Christ, participate in rejoicing over the Son’s Bride, and therefore also partake of His sufferings for her. That they should woo her with the words of Christ on their tongue, and the Word of God in their hearts, to the end that they would see Christ’s joy fulfilled in Her! And greater still, that His ministers should be unto her as her older brother – to defend her against the enemies, and sustain the image of His own endearing love to her.

Christ directs His church to respond to Christ’s ministers with Her affection for Christ, Her heart united to Her ministers as they are Her Groom’s body; in this way she esteems and honors those who represent Christ to Her. That, by virtue of their union and communion in Christ, they should partake in the deep sufferings of the soul for the church’s children – as Jesus Himself proclaimed, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4) when He spoke of His body and the ministers of His church.

            Does their Father, then, spurn them when He lets His ministers suffer? No!

The reason why Christ puts such honor on faithful ministers, even above the angels themselves, is because they [themselves!] are of his beloved church, they are select members of his dear spouse, and Christ esteems nothing too much, no honor too great, for her. Therefore Jesus Christ, the King of angels and men, does as it were cause it to be proclaimed concerning faithful ministers, as Ahasuerus did concerning him that brought up Esther, his beloved queen; “Thus shall it be done to the man that the king delights to honor.”^[6]

            It is because His ministers are valued so highly, and His Bride is loved so greatly, that they suffer in His service. Therefore, they should not loath this labor of love which is in Christ, but rather be drawn out in affection toward the heart of Christ who considers them worthy of such an honor, however difficult their life and work becomes.^[7] They should be drawn out in thinking on the riches of His glorious grace, the eternal weight of glory, and in this way not to lose heart, but to keep it in the ever-glowing furnace of the Triune God’s love. In this way they will come to find the gloriousness of that kingdom to which they are heirs, “when the bridegroom and bride shall rejoice in each other in perfect and eternal glory.”^[8]

            All those who point others to Jesus are the friends of the Bridegroom. They will be brought to share in “the glory and joy of the eternal wedding-day of the church after the resurrection of” those justified by Christ’s righteousness.^[9] In this way, when Christ is glorified in God’s Triune glory, His Bride will also be glorified in Him.

[Christ] shall more especially have conferred on Him the glory of His Father, in His gentle and sweet attributes, shining forth in the infinitely bright robes of His love, and grace, and holiness, His sweet ravishing beauty and delight, that He may bless and glorify that elect world with the beams of this light. The Son being thus glorified with infinite sweetness, by the light of the countenance of the Father, the glory will be communicated from Him to his church, and she shall be transformed into His image by beholding Him, and by the light of His glory and love, shining and smiling upon her.^[10]

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[1] “That expression in the blessed sentence pronounced on the righteous at the day of judgment, ‘Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,’ seems to hold forth thus much, that the fruits of God’s goodness to them was his end in creating the world, and in his providential disposals: that God in all his works, in laying the foundation of the world, and ever since the foundation of it, had been preparing this kingdom and glory for them” [Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume One. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 842].

[2] Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 62-63.

[3] “bringing home his elect church to himself…” [Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 63].

[4] Thomas Goodwin, writing on Ephesians 1:5-6, is helpful in understanding this differentiation between the church being God’s spouse, not merely His servant. Goodwin shows that God’s choosing of His church is not such that they become his servants, with outward honor only, but that He chose them to be His most “familiar intimate friend,” “a wife,” for “His own Person,” such that she has “a participation of Himself.” He writes that God, in choosing His church (“us”) for Himself, chooses them for His own glory – as Goodwin argues, that is the very meaning of “to the praise of His glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6). Yes, He chose us

“for himself. But— That which I most pitch upon as intended in this expression, is his designing us to the nearest nearest oneness and entire communion with himself. A man chooseth goods, and dwellings, and servants for his use … Yea, but to choose a spouse, a familiar intimate friend…. Imports something higher. And further, it is one thing for a king to choose to such or such an office or dignity, as to choose his lord chancellor, treasurer, chief justice, &c.; …: but it is another thing to choose his wife, to lie in his bosom, to be one flesh with him, and another self with himself; or an intimate companion, to be as one soul with him. This latter is to choose to and for himself, and for his own person, and unto the highest communion with himself, and a participation of himself; the other is but to outward honour, and for his business, his service, and the like” (Thomas Goodwin (n.d.). The Works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., Volume 1. Edinburgh: James Nichol. pp.92-94).

[5] Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 64.

[6] Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 64.

[7] “Shall Christ do such great things, and go through such great labors and sufferings to obtain his joy, and then honor us sinful worms, so as to employ us as his ministers and instruments to bring this joy to pass; and shall we be loath to labor, and backward to deny ourselves for this end” [Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 63]?

[8] Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 64.

[9] Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 66.

[10] Jonathan Edwards (n.d.). The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 1767.