Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Jonathan Edwards on the Resurrection and Justification


I was just browsing through Adrian Warnock's blog and found this great quote from Jonathan Edwards on the Resurrection of Jesus and Justification:


So Christ, our second surety (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified), was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father's commandments through all trials, and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, 1 Peter 3:18 , then he that was manifest in the flesh was justified in the Spirit, 1 Timothy 3:16 . But God, when he justified him in raising him from the dead, did not only release him from his humiliation for sin, and acquit him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done.And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers: for as Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety. So when after this suffering he was raised from the dead, he was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all that should believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle, Romans 4:25 , "Who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification." And therefore it is that the apostle says, as he does in Romans 8:34 , "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen


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