Tuesdays with Edwards! Yeah, I know it’s Thursday. This week got away from me a bit…But here is the final section of The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel Represented by a Feast.
Sometime between August 1728 and February 1729 Edwards preached The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel Represented by a Feast based on Luke 14:16 Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many. My Tuesdays with Edwards posts have been looking at the ways which show “how gospel provision is well represented by a feast.”
In last week’s post, Edwards began sharing some directions on how directions on what to do so that you can be sure to be in attendance at the heavenly feast the Lord’s Supper pictures for us. This post shares his second, third, and fourth directions, which is where the sermon ends.
You can read this sermon in its entirety at www.edwards.yale.edu. This selection is from Sermons and Discourses, 1723-1729, ed. Kenneth P. Minkema, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 14 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) Pages 293-296.
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II. Labor to get your soul clothed with Christ’s righteousness. At the day of judgment, none will be admitted but those that shall be found having on Christ’s righteousness. All others, that cloth themselves with their own righteousness, shall be stripped naked, and they shall see their shame.
Many trust in their own righteousness, flatter themselves with hope of admittance through that; but men that are found clothed with no other righteousness shall [not] be admitted. Men’s righteousness, that they think makes them look lovely in the sight of God, will appear in that day in the sight of all, and even in their own sight, to be but a most filthy wretched covering and that which renders most deformed and abominable.
But at that day, everyone that appears shining with the white and beautiful robes of Christ’s righteousness upon him, in whatever quarter or region of the earth he is, why, Christ will readily own him. He will soon be conducted by angels into the kingdom of God, and to a throne of glory at Christ’s right hand. He shall have abundant entrance administered to him into Christ’s joy. He shall be received with great welcome, with great love and great joy.
Christ will by no means thrust forth any such as are found clothed with his own righteousness, no, but he’ll welcome him to his right hand. They that have the righteousness of Christ on, they han’t any clothing of their own making; they han’t any clothing that any creature could make for them. They have that clothing which God sent them from heaven. Revelation 19:8, “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.” ‘Tis not a garment of human workmanship, but of the workmanship of Christ Jesus, the eternal Wisdom of God. They that have of Christ’s righteousness on them, they have Christ’s own robes upon them.
The beauty of those robes will appear so great, and will thus appear so lovely therein, that it will provide for them the most ready and easy admittance. None will incline to shut out those that shine forth with such a glorious beauty, that have the beautiful righteousness of Christ Jesus upon them.
The righteousness of Christ is a most excellent righteousness, and acceptable to God the Father. The obedience was perfect. He obeyed at a wonderful expense and self-denial. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. His obedience was of infinite value, because the Son expressed in it an infinite love to God the Father whom he obeyed.
This righteousness that is thus excellent, will doubtless procure a ready admittance for you, for it even merits it. If you are clothed with this righteousness, you may challenge an entrance as your right. You have that righteousness, your own estate. The kingdom of heaven is not at all too great a reward, for ’tis not a whit more than a reward equal to the excellency and desert of the righteous. ‘Tis but justice that you should enter into the kingdom of heaven if your soul is clothed with the righteousness of [Christ]. This is the price with which Christ purchased that kingdom, and the price is an adequate price. The price is of as much worth and value as the thing purchased.
So that if you have on the righteousness of Christ, you are in Christ worthy of the kingdom of heaven and deserve to be admitted by a merit of condignity, and as such will doubtless be admitted. It is impossible but that God should be willing that you should be admitted to sit down in the kingdom of heaven if you are clothed with the righteousness of Christ.
‘Tis the righteousness of him that is to be the judge. Christ is appointed the judge of the world; he is to admit to eternal life who he pleases, whom he thinks fit. And how can any suppose that he will reject those that are clothed with his own righteousness?
Therefore let this be your aim: that you may get your soul clothed with that righteousness. And to that end, seek that you may be made sensible how destitute you are of righteousness in yourself. Seek that you may see your own emptiness and filthiness and undone desperate state as to anything that is in and of yourself. And seek faith in Jesus Christ: all that believe on him and trust in him for salvation shall be clothed with his righteousness.
III. If you would not be shut out of the kingdom of heaven at the last day, when you see others entering in, labor that you may have Christ’s mark set upon you: and that is that you be of Christ’s spirit and temper, and of a Christ-like behavior.
Christ doth as it were set his mark upon his own flock, whereby he distinguishes them from others. The servants of God are sealed with God’s seals and marks in their foreheads. Revelation 7:3, “Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, till you have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads”; and again, Revelation 14:1, “And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.”
They that are found at the day of judgment with Christ’s mark on them, they shall doubtless be admitted and none [else]. This mark is a being of a Christ-like spirit and temper. When the soul is regenerated and its nature changed, renewed and sanctified, then has it Christ’s mark set [on it]; it is then made [a] partaker of the divine; it is changed into Christ’s image (2 Corinthians 3:18). When a person is converted and has his nature changed, he then puts on Christ (Galatians 3:27). They become of a spirit and disposition like his. They are partakers of his holy, heavenly, meek and lowly, and charitable, loving disposition and behavior. Those graces are as a stamp on the soul, a seal wherein is the name of Christ, in that that is an image of his nature.
And then also their likeness to Christ begins to show itself in their Christ-like behavior. They follow Christ. The redeemed from amongst men are said to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth” [Revelation 14:4].
At the day of judgment, men must be judged by their works; and they whose works are Christian, or, which is the same thing, Christ-like, they shall be admitted as having Christ’s mark upon them.
Labor therefore now, which is the only opportunity to get this mark of Jesus Christ set upon your soul, and then you will have an open entrance into the kingdom of God, your sovereign.
IV. And lastly, if you would enter {the kingdom of heaven}, be contented while here to bear the cross. Christ tells us, if we would be his disciples, we must take up our cross daily, {and follow him} (Luke 9:23). Christ obtained the kingdom by enduring the cross, and so must we. The cross is the way to the crown. A way of having the cross is the strait and narrow way that leads to life.
We must bear the cross. That is to say, we must be content to deny all our lusts and to bear all suffering for Christ’s sake. We must pluck out {our right eyes} and cut off [our] right hands, if we would not go to hell having two {eyes and two hands} [Matthew 5:29, Matthew 18:9].
The Christian life is a warfare, and the crown is promised only to those that overcome.
If you therefore would have admittance {to the kingdom of heaven}, you must come to that that few will comply with, viz. to be in these things conformed to Christ’s death; and then you shall also be conformed to his resurrection and glorious exultation, as Philippians 3:10–11.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 