Apr 22, 2011 • By David Murray • 0 Comments
Having looked yesterday at the Puritan principles of redemptive-historical preaching, this fifth and last post in the series will consider the Puritan practice of redemptive-historical preaching, as exemplified by Jonathan Edwards.
There is no substitute for reading Edwards’ History of the Work of Redemption. However, here I would like to highlight just a few extracts to give you samples of what I believe is an even more Christ-honoring kind of “redemptive-historical” preaching. Notice that Edwards preaches Christ from Old Testament histories without always linking these histories to Christ’s first coming. Edwards’ History does advance step-by-step to Christ’s physical comings, but he also finds Christ in each and every step along the way.
The First SalvationEdwards finds Christ as early as Genesis 3, in the first salvation of the Bible:
As soon as ever man fell, Christ the eternal Son of God clothed himself with his mediatorial character and therein presented himself before the Father. He immediately stepped in between an holy, infinite, offended majesty and offending mankind, and was accepted in his interposition; and so wrath was prevented from going forth in the full execution of that ensuing curse that man had brought on himself. ‘Tis manifest that Christ began to exercise the office of mediator between God and man as soon as man fell because mercy began to be exercised towards man immediately.[1]
Edwards goes on to show how Genesis 3:15ff revealed Christ to Adam and Eve in His three offices, of prophet (the promise of a seed to defeat the devil), priest (the institution of sacrifices), and king (the salvation of Adam and Eve).
Thus ‘tis exceeding probable if not evident that as Christ took on him the work of Mediator as soon as man fell… He now immediately began his Work of Redemption in its effect. And that he immediately banished his great enemy the devil, whom he had undertaken to conquer, and rescued those two first captives of his… hands.[2]
The First Sacrifice
From the life of Abel, Edwards establishes that sacrifices were appointed by God to be a type of Christ, and that when offered through faith in Christ they were pleasing to God. Also, from the fact that Abel seemed to be complying with an established custom, Edwards argues that sacrifice “was instituted immediately after God had revealed the covenant of grace, in Gen 3:15, which covenant and promise was the foundation on which the custom of sacrificing was built.”[3]
The First GlorificationThe first persecution was followed by the first martyrdom, when Cain slew the blood of righteous Abel. Edwards says that Abel’s soul was “the first that went to heaven through Christ’s redemption.”
If he was the first, then as the redemption of Christ began to dawn before in the souls of men in their conversion and justification, in him it first began to dawn in glorification. And in him the angels began first to do the part of ministering spirits to Christ in going forth to conduct the souls of the redeemed to glory. And in Christ the elect angels in heaven had the first opportunity to see so wonderful a sight as the soul of one of the fallen race of mankind, that had been sunk by the fall into such an abyss of sin and misery actually brought to heaven in the enjoyment of heavenly glory…Thus they by this saw the glorious effect of Christ’s redemption in the great honor and happiness that was procured for sinful, miserable creatures by it.[4]
The First Revival
Edwards persuasively argues that the days of Enos, in which men began “to call upon the name of the LORD” (Gen. 4:26), was the first remarkable pouring out of the Spirit through Christ.
…from the Fall of man to this day wherein we live the Work of Redemption in its effect has mainly been carried on by remarkable pourings out of the Spirit of God…And this pouring out of the Spirit in the days of Enos was the first remarkable pouring out of the Spirit of God that ever was. There had [been] a saving work of God in the hearts of some before, but now God was pleased to grant a more large effusion of his Spirit for the bringing in an harvest of souls to Christ. So that in this we see that great building that is the subject of our present discourse, which God laid the foundation immediately of after the fall, carried on further, and built up higher than ever it had been before.[5]
The First Preacher
Edwards views Enoch as a greater saint than any before him. He, therefore, experienced the work of redemption to a greater degree than any before him, being brought into intimate fellowship with Christ (Gen. 5:22). The New Testament reveals that Enoch was also a preacher of Christ (Jude 14-15).
Here Enoch prophesies of the coming of Christ. It doesn’t seem to be confined to any particular coming of Christ, but it has respect in general to Christ’s coming in his kingdom, and is fulfilled in a degree in both the first and second coming of Christ, and indeed in every remarkable manifestation Christ has made of himself in the world for the saving of his people and the destroying of his enemies… And though it is not unlikely that Enoch might have a more immediate respect in this prophecy to the approaching destruction of the old world by the flood, which was a remarkable resemblance of Christ’s destruction of all his enemies at his coming, yet it doubtless looked beyond the type to the antitype.[6]
The First “Resurrection”
The uniqueness of God’s work of redemption in Enoch is highlighted by his “translation” into heaven (Gen. 5:24).
Now this translation of Enoch was the first instance that ever was of restoring the ruins of the fall with respect to the body. There had been many instances of restoring the soul of man by Christ’s redemption, but none of redeeming and actually saving the body till now. All the bodies of the elect are to be saved as well as their souls….there was a number of the bodies of saints raised and glorified at Christ’s resurrection and ascension, and, before that was an instance of a body glorified in Elijah, but the first instance of all was this of Enoch that we are now speaking of.[7]
These samples are only a flavor of Edwards’ History. Again, I urge you to read it for yourself, and compare the soul-edifying and spiritual beauty and simplicity of his words, with what you often find in some modern redemptive-historical preaching. Edwards preaches Christ and His redemption not only as the climax of redemptive history, but as an integral and constant part of all redemptive history.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 9, A History of the Work of Redemption (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 130.
[2] Ibid., 139.
[3] Ibid., 135.
[4] Ibid., 139-140.
[5] Ibid., 143.
[6] Ibid., 144.
[7] Ibid., 145-146.
