Jeremiah Burroughs On The Excellency Of Christ The Mediator

By Jim Davison

The importance Jeremiah Burroughs (c. 1600-1646) places upon the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as God’s chosen Mediator to bring about reconciliation between Himself and mankind should not be underestimated. It was a subject that Burroughs preached upon on many occasions and in great detail, and in each of these sermons he goes to very great lengths to show that “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11).

As with his sermons on the excellency of God, Burroughs does not handle his subject in a purely theoretical manner, but rather as a means of leading his hearers to a position of exalting Christ by their practical godliness. Furthermore, in making Christ the object of their faith, delight, and adoration, they will give a true testimony to their love for Christ. Indeed, for Burroughs, practical godliness is the privilege of all believers and a testimony to the legitimacy and validity of true faith.

In a sermon on the above text published in The Saints’ Treasury (1654), Burroughs is emphatic that the covenant relationship between God the Father and God the Son, whereby God the Son became the Mediator between a holy, offended Majesty and sinful man, resulted in God the Father being infinitely content with Christ’s willingness to undertake the work of reconciliation and infinitely satisfied with the reconciliation accomplished by Christ.

On this basis, Burroughs proposes that the satisfaction of God the Father is such that “Christ is the only means of conveyance of good that God the Father intends to communicate unto the children of men in order to eternal life.” This proposition for Burroughs is the very heart of the gospel: “the most supernatural truth revealed in all the book of God— God “communicates His mercy through a mediator, through His Son.” Furthermore, for Burroughs, this is “the great point of divinity that is absolutely necessary to be known to eternal life.” [1]

Burroughs accepts that, based on the light of nature, many can see their great need of God’s mercy, yet they “miscarry and perish eternally with cries to God for mercy because they come to God, but not through a mediator.” Burroughs also notes that by the light of nature it can be perceived that all “good consists in communion with God,” but he insists that “not one drop of mercy that leads to eternal life can be communicated from God but through Christ the Mediator.” [2]

A natural knowledge of God may enable a man or woman “to set upon duties because God requires it of them,” but this is to honor God “in a natural way,” and such honor “God does not accept.” True, God would have great honor in the world, but this must be done in a “spiritual evangelical” manner. It must be done in the way that God has ordained, and that is by way of Christ the Mediator. Through Him we come to be “filled with all the goodness of God” and “grow up in godliness abundantly.” [3]

So important is the concept of a mediator in the thinking of Burroughs that he argues that so far as “God sees Christ in any, He accepts them,” but “if Christ be not there, whatever they have He regards them not.” All this draws from Burroughs the following decisive comment: “Surely, if Christ be an object sufficient for the satisfaction of the Father, much more, then, is He an object sufficient for the satisfaction of any soul.” [4]

Continuing with this line of argument Burroughs makes two significant points. The first is that “Adam knew nothing of this in his perfect state,” and it is that which “the angels themselves desire to pry into…that they may know what it is.” But such is the mystery of the gospel that it “requires a work of the Spirit, beyond the ordinary work of the Spirit of God, to reveal it unto the souls of men.” For Burroughs, the Holy Spirit not only “searcheth the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10), but He is “the discovering Spirit of this truth unto us.” [5]

In expounding his proposition, Burroughs states that God is in Himself “the Fountain of all goodness and infinite mercy;” evidenced by His first covenant with man and by which He intended “to convey and communicate His goodness” to man. However, because this first covenant was broken by man, there is “a stoppage, as it were, so that not one drop of…[God’s] mercy can be communicated to the children of men.” [6]

This is not, argues Burroughs, due so much to “God’s excellency in Himself and our meanness…[being] such poor low creatures” as it is to “the infiniteness of His holiness and our uncleanness and sinfulness; this makes the difference.” The curse that came upon mankind because of his failure to keep the first covenant resulted in the “cries of infinite justice against men, which must have satisfaction.” Indeed, such cries for justice that “will never be quiet until it has received satisfaction.” [7]

Burroughs endeavors to prove his argument regarding the need for a mediator by citing the case of the fallen angels: “We know according to God’s dealing with the fallen angels that there is no way of conveying mercy to them…. Because there is no mediator between God and them, and it would have been our case with them, had there not been a mediator between God and us.” [8]

Burroughs paints a very dark picture of man’s plight, but the hearts of his hearers would have been lifted as he went on to identify how Christ became the Mediator of a new covenant: Christ “actually comes to be the way of conveyance by taking our nature upon Him[self] and so makes us reconcilable to God by taking human nature into such a near union to the divine nature, to the second person of the Trinity.” [9]

Here Burroughs explains that there are “two great mysteries in the Gospel.” The first is that there are many “persons in the one nature” (“the mystery of the Trinity”) and the second is that “there should be divers natures in the one person” (“the mystery of the hypostatical union of our nature with Christ”). By this union of Christ and man, Burroughs sees a “mighty preparative” by God “to have thoughts of peace towards human nature, rather than to the angels” and “one part of Christ’s humility” in His work of “reconciling God to man.” [10]

Furthermore, and most importantly for Burroughs,

Christ was content now to come into the world and be made the head of a second covenant between God and mankind to perform whatever God the Father should require for the satisfaction of divine justice…. By His subjecting to this we come to receive all grace and mercy from God. And it could not have been otherwise, for though God would have thought of a second covenant, yet if He had left it to us to perform the terms of it, we would have broken that one as soon as we did the first. But Christ undertaking to be head of a second covenant and performing whatever the Father required in it by His perfect obedience to the law and satisfaction of divine justice, divine justice had nothing to lay to the charge of those for whom Christ undertook satisfaction. [11]

In bringing about the pardon of sin and the satisfaction of infinite justice by way of a mediator, Burroughs concludes that God is not only seen to be a God of mercy, but also a God of righteousness. It is, however, not only what Christ has done as our Mediator; it is what Christ is doing by interceding on our behalf: “He is now and shall forever be at the right hand of the Father in glory making intercession for His people.” This Christ the Mediator does by “continually presenting before the Father His infinite merits, to plead with Him… for [the] supply of all grace and mercy to us.” [12]

Evidence of the grace and mercy that flow from God through Christ the Mediator is the justification of sinners, which results in their reconciliation and peace with God. It is also to be seen in the adoption of justified and pardoned sinners into the family of God. In regard to our justification and the pardon of our sins, Burroughs notes that none can have such righteousness in themselves that will enable God to forgive them: “It is not all we have done, no, nor all that we can possibly do.” Neither is it what God “enables you to do that can be the formality of your justification.” [13]

These are two important points for Burroughs as he insists that the purpose of God’s mercy in justifying a soul is “to take him off from himself…to make him see and be sensible of his own unrighteousness and uncleanness.” Nothing less than perfect righteousness can satisfy God and only Christ has perfect righteousness. Therefore, “Christ is all and in all in point of justification.” [14]

Burroughs next turns to the doctrine of adoption and first notes that “[e]veryone will challenge a part in sonship, that they are the children of God; but only those that are in Christ have authority to challenge it as their due.” The basis of this authority, for Burroughs, is Galatians 3:26, 4:4-5, and John 1:12. These texts help Burroughs make the point that when “we come to be in Christ then we have authority to claim this privilege to be the sons of God.” In other words, we are sons of God by our union with Christ: “We are married to Christ and by union with His person are made one with Him; and so are sons by virtue of His Sonship.” [15]

On the practical level, Burroughs understands that in the blessing of sanctification “the fullness of Christ is conveyed to the soul.” Importantly, notes Burroughs, this is not only from Christ “meritoriously, but efficiently and…materially too.” And Christ “does not only merit it and work it by His Spirit; but through our union with Him there is a flowing of sanctification from Him into us as a principle of life.” It is because of our union with Christ that Burroughs can see “so much beauty and glory in the sanctification of the saints.” What more can a believer need that has “that skill and art and mystery of godliness that they can make Christ to be all in all in the want of all.” [16]

According to Burroughs the reason why a believer can do this is because, unlike the unbeliever, he can see Christ in all things: “The sun, when it shines through the air it is not as warm as when it shines through a magnifying glass.” Expanding on this illustration, Burroughs notes that “the goodness of God that comes to people through the general bounty and patience of God has not such an efficacy to warm and heat their hearts and draw them to God” as when “Christ is, as it were, the magnifying glass that is held between God and the soul.” [17]

But it is not only that the believer sees all things coming to him in Christ; he also accepts that his acts of service “though spiritual, yet they must find acceptance with the Father through Christ.” For Burroughs, this means that the believer must not “rest only in the duty, no, nor in the spirituality of the duty”; you must “tender them to God in the hands of Jesus Christ and expect acceptance through Him.” If we presume to offer them ourselves to God, they will not be accepted. Therefore, “be sure you do not omit the work of faith in laying hold of Christ and carrying Him along with you” to ensure your sacrifice is accepted. [18]

One reason Burroughs suggests why God chose this “peculiar way of communicating Himself to man” was that God “might manifest to all the children of men what a dreadful breach their sins have made between God and them.” But a second and more important reason was because God sees in this way “the most advantageous way for the manifestation of His glory”—“the glory of His mercy,” “the glory of His justice,” and “the glory of His wisdom.” Furthermore, the “infiniteness of God’s holiness is hereby manifested.” Then, too, “in the suffering of Christ there is a greater manifestation of God’s hatred for sin than in all the torments of Hell.” [19]

In seeking to apply this doctrine (“Christ is the only means of conveyance of good that God the Father intends to communicate unto the children of men in order to eternal life”), Burroughs reminds his hearers that “this is the masterpiece of all the works of God, which He has already done or ever will do to all eternity: therefore He is to be admired and adored.” [20]

In these last two comments alone we can see the emphasis Burroughs placed on admiring and adoring God for what He has done for sinful man. And what better way of doing this than for man to make Christ the object of his thoughts and conversation: to find his contentment and his enjoyment in Christ? It will also bring glory to Christ, for He will be seen to have accomplished what He set out to do, namely, to glorify God and bring eternal blessing to man.

In the sermon just considered, the main purpose was to show how the Mediator was able to bring glory to God the Father by His work of reconciliation. This was seen to be done by Christ bridging the infinite distance between God and man, caused by man’s rebellion and failure to keep the first covenant. In this sermon there is very little detail on the person of Christ Himself.

This is not the case, however, in a series of six sermons preached by Burroughs and later published with the title “The Excellency of Christ” in Gospel Revelation. In these sermons, based on the words “His name shall be called Wonderful” (Isa. 9:6), Burroughs’s emphasis is to reveal Christ in all His glory and thereby show what understanding should be had of Christ.

The starting point for Burroughs is to note a number of reasons why the prophecy was given to the people of God when they were in a sad condition. One is “that [it] might lighten all their darkness, that [it] might sweeten their sorrows and troubles.” Another reason is that by “the propounding of so great a mercy as Jesus Christ should be to the world, they might hereby have a help to their faith.” Still another reason was to teach God’s people that “the way of deliverance from outward affliction…was to exercise their faith upon Christ the Messiah that was to come.” [21]

In opening up his text, Burroughs endeavors, with great understanding and ability, to demonstrate why “Jesus Christ is the great wonder of the world.” In doing so, he handles his subject under thirteen heads: Christ is wonderful 1) “in His Natures”; 2) “in His Person”; 3) “in the manner of His incarnation”; 4) “in the work He came to do”; 5) “in His offices”; 6) “in His admirable endowments”; 7) “in His glorious miracles”; 8) “in the great glory of the Father that appears in Him”; 9) “in His humiliation”; 10) “in His conquest”; 11) “in His exaltation”; 12) “in His saints”; and 13) “in the Church triumphant.” [22]

It is the contention of Burroughs that a low perception of God and a wrong understanding of Jesus Christ are the reasons why God’s name is little sanctified and why there is a lack of contentment and blessing. This drives the sermons—to heighten his hearers’ conception of God and Christ by showing Christ in all His glorious excellency, especially when times of affliction come. Nothing, for Burroughs, is of such importance than that his hearers would know God as He is manifested in His Son whom He has sent into the world.

Burroughs begins his exaltation of Christ by highlighting the wonder of the two natures of Christ in the one Person and also the plural Persons in the one nature (mentioned also in the first sermon considered above). At this point, Burroughs becomes somewhat technical as he endeavors to show the mystery of these two very difficult concepts, but it also moves him to make the point that such a mystery “is one great argument that the Scriptures are divine: for it is too high a thing to have entered into the thought of a creature” and one that unless “the Spirit of God that searches the deep things of God… reveal it unto a man, it were impossible for man ever to have such a thought as this.” [23]

Developing the concept of the God-Man (Gk. Theanthropos), who is but one Person with two natures, Burroughs argues that what Christ suffered in His humanity “was of infinite value and efficacy” because of the hypostatic union of the two natures. But to search into how “the same person that is God, is man, and how human nature subsists in the Deity and has no subsistence at all in itself…is too deep a sea for any creature to wade into, we must stand and admire it and adore God in it.” [24]

Burroughs sees two amazing things flow from this: the first is that “the Creator of all the world was a creature.” For God to “unite two such creatures that seemed to be such distant natures, as the body of man and the soul of man in one person” is recognized by Burroughs as “one of the most wonderful works that ever God did in the world,” but “to unite the second Person of the Trinity to the nature of man” is “the great wonder of the Christian religion.” [25]

The second is likewise amazing; it is that “[t]he same Person that is eternal and immortal…that was the Lord of glory, whose name alone is glorious, that Person was crucified.” Knowledge of this union “is of marvellous use onto you for the helping of your faith,” says Burroughs to his hearers. Expanding on this, he says, “Hereby you may see that whatsoever Christ did, or suffered, though but in His human nature, it was of infinite value and efficacy, and the infinite value and efficacy of what Christ did and suffered does arise from the union of the two natures, because it was that Person that is God who did such things and suffered such things.” [26]

Regarding the incarnation of Christ, we first note this apt comment from Burroughs: “Christ was man and came from man, but not by man.” Here Burroughs insists that being conceived by the Holy Ghost means that Christ was neither “under original guilt, [nor] under original corruption.” At this point, Burroughs makes an unambiguous statement regarding original sin: “children coming into the world after the ordinary way of generation, coming from man, by man, the first minute that their souls and bodies are together, that the child is alive in the womb, it comes under the guilt of Adam’s transgression.” But, says Burroughs, “it was not so with Christ,” and therefore He “may well be called Wonderful from the wonderful manner of his Incarnation.” [27]

Burroughs now turns to the reconciling work of Christ, which he describes as “the greatest and most wonderful work that ever was undertaken since the world began or can possibly be undertaken.” Continuing in his high praise of Christ, Burroughs informs his hearers that setting forth “Christ in His glory and excellency in what He is and what He came into the world for…has a mighty power to draw forth faith.” Indeed, argues Burroughs, “not only to draw forth faith where faith was before, but it [setting forth ‘Christ in His glory and excellency’] has a power to cause faith in the soul;…a quickening power to work life in the soul…. [And] cause the heart to make after Him, though it was never so dead before.” [28]

The excellency of Christ for Burroughs is such that he urges his hearers to go home and meditate on what has been said and “never leave meditating until you find your heart come to this, to admire the glory of God in Jesus Christ.” As he closes this sermon, Burroughs gives the following warning, which we need take heed of: “Be taken up with the admiration of Jesus Christ” for “the soul that never found itself taken with admiring the glory of God in Christ, did never know what Christ meant.” [29]

This exaltation of Christ continues throughout the remaining five sermons as Burroughs expounds his theme with meticulous dedication. In sermon two, Burroughs handles the subject of Christ’s offices: King, Priest, and Prophet. These are three offices that only Christ holds, for “never any man in the world had them all…never a man in the world was anointed to these three together, but only Christ.” [30]

The first of these offices is considered under no fewer than eighteen heads, the second under fourteen heads, and the third under eight heads. And yet, after all this, Burroughs, in setting forth “every particular of these offices of Christ” and “the beauty and excellency of Christ in His three offices,” acknowledges that he sets forth the excellency of Christ but “briefly.” [31]

In respect to the office of King, Burroughs shows that Christ is not only universally sovereign, but that He is absolute in His sovereignty. Christ is “Lord of lords and King of kings” (Rev. 17:14) and therefore “has all the kings and lords, and all authority in the world under His feet.” Christ’s absolute authority is also shown in that He “rules over the hearts of men as well as their consciences” and is able to “subdue the wills of men and bring their hearts to obedience to Him,” which “all the power there is in the world cannot do.” [32]

Regarding Christ’s power to bind the consciences of men, Burroughs is insistent that only Christ has this power: “There is no obligation upon a man’s conscience, merely because it is the will of man. No, not even the angels in heaven could lay bonds upon conscience.” In advancing this argument, Burroughs shows that “all the laws that men can make must receive their power and authority especially from the end of them.” That is, they must “conduce unto that end for which God sets up magistracy over men”—“for the good of the place.” [33]

Christ’s kingly power is also wonderful in regard to His righteousness, for Christ “is King of righteousness” and “it is a happy thing when people live under righteous governors” for then they will “be sure never to have oppression, [or] any wrong at all done by [sic to] them, but they shall enjoy all in a righteous and just way.” This in itself would be a cause for joy among Burroughs’s hearers, considering the day in which they lived, but Burroughs adds something of more importance, namely, that Christ the King “clothes His people with everlasting righteousness; to make them all stand righteous before His Father.” And in this Christ, surely, “brings peace to the conscience [and] peace to the soul.” [34]

Quoting Zechariah 2:10 (“Rejoice therefore, O daughter of Zion, for thy King cometh”), Burroughs exclaims, “Oh, did we but apprehend these things by faith, that we have to do with Christ as such a King, certainly our hearts could not be troubled whatsoever stirs there are in the world, whatsoever kings and princes do in this world; yet when we look up to this King and by faith make all this real to our souls, oh what manner of infinite joy it is!” [35]

Turning to the priestly office of Christ, Burroughs notes that it is a royal priesthood, “for it is joined with kingly power.” In this office, Christ was “not after the order of Aaron” but “after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 7:17), who is said to be without father or mother. The meaning of this, for Burroughs, is that “Christ, as He was man, He had no father, and as He was God, He had no mother.” He had no beginning in His priestly office. It was from everlasting and shall endure to everlasting. But while Christ was not of the order of Aaron’s priesthood, it is nevertheless true that “all the priests in the Law did typify Christ,” says Burroughs. Yet Burroughs does insist that “when Jesus came and took that office to Himself, in His human nature” that which functioned under the law “ceased and vanished.” [36]

In handling the function of a priest, Burroughs draws attention to the value of the sacrifice Christ offered to God when he states that “[It] was sufficient to satisfy God in all the wrong that ever was done Him by man’s sin.” It was such a sacrifice that “did fully satisfy the justice of God the Father for the sins of mankind.” At this point Burroughs becomes more specific as he qualifies what the sacrifice accomplished: “It was a sacrifice that did satisfy God’s infinite justice, did make up all the wrong that all the sins of the elect had ever done to God.” [37]

That Burroughs understood the sacrifice offered by Christ was of “infinite merit and worth” is clearly evidenced by two other comments. The first is that “the offering that Christ offered was the blood of God.” This is an interesting comment which Burroughs supports by referring to the union of the two natures of Christ and Acts 20:28, which speaks of God purchasing the church “with his own blood.” The second is that Christ “offered Himself—not only His blood, but Himself, soul and body.” [38] Here again Burroughs offers Scripture support by referencing Isaiah 53:10 (“Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin”) and Hebrews 10:5 (“Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.”)

Both these comments are made on the basis that “[e]ither Christ must offer Himself, soul and body to be a sacrifice” for man’s sin, or else man’s own “soul and body [must] be offered as a sacrifice to God’s justice.” Anything less would not satisfy God’s justice, and therefore sinners “must eternally be under the stroke to God’s justice.” Furthermore, “as there is nothing but God can be a satisfying portion to an immortal soul, so no sacrifice but Christ Himself could be a sacrifice to pacify God’s wrath.” [39]

On the immense subject of Christ’s intercessory role, Burroughs notes that, unlike the “priests of the Law,” who constantly offered sacrifices, Christ “offered but one sacrifice, and at one time.” Burroughs emphasizes the importance of this one sacrifice which Christ offered “to the justice of His Father” by noting that the merits of it are “available for ever” and that it is “able to save to the uttermost,” as we read in Hebrews. [40]

Furthermore, Christ, having offered Himself, exercises His priestly office in the Holy of Holies—in heaven itself. There, having “the names of all believers upon His breast, upon His heart…[He] presents them all before His Father.” Christ our High Priest presents them in such a way as that of an Advocate who “makes intercession for them.” This fact, in itself, must surely bring great comfort to all believers, and yet they too have the immense privilege of entering into the Holy of Holies themselves. [41]

Yes, though the believer “has never so many sins of his own,” says Burroughs, “he may come with boldness into the Holy of Holies”— into “the holy, immediate, and glorious presence of God”— on the basis that Christ has made all believers “priests onto God, so as they may offer acceptable sacrifices to God.” But, as Burroughs noted in The Saints’ Treasury, we must always tender our sacrifices “to God in the hands of Jesus Christ.” [42] All this moves Burroughs to exclaim: “Oh, what wonderful things are these, if they were made real to us by faith? How wonderful would be the comfort and joy of the saints of God in the exercising of their faith” on these matters. [43]

Burroughs now turns to the prophetic office of Christ and declares that Christ is also wonderful in this office because “He is the one that knows all the mind of God the Father perfectly, which certainly all the creatures in the world do not,” knows “high things, supernatural things, things that are so infinitely above the reach of reason.” Irrespective of the ability a man might have, even if he is “elevated unto the greatest height of reason, he is not able to reach into the mysteries of godliness.” [44]

Such comments as these could, surely, be very discouraging, and this is recognized by Burroughs as he immediately exhorts his hearers, when they hear such “great and wonderful things,” that they must not be discouraged because Christ has been “anointed by God” to teach these things “to all the elect ones, [those] who belong to Christ.” Christ has willingly “undertaken the charge of your soul to instruct it in all the mind of His Father…so far as is necessary for your salvation.” But not only this, Christ as the “Prophet of His Church” will “reveal to your soul, if you are a believer…all those treasures of wisdom and counsels of His Father concerning your eternal estate.” [45]

Such a wonderful teacher is Christ that even “those men that have the dullest capacity to understand the reason of things in the world” will be taught, and in such a way that they have “the clear understanding of the chief mysteries in the Gospel.” Indeed, they will be taught “the deepest mysteries of godliness” and “the great mysteries of salvation.” Burroughs is convinced that these mysteries will “exercise the understanding of angels…exercise them to all eternity.” One can understand why such revelations moved Burroughs to exhort his hearers to let their “thoughts be carried to admire…the wonderful dispensation of the prophetical office of Jesus Christ.” [46]

In the flow of his exposition, it is clear that Burroughs is seeking to focus his hearers’ thoughts on the central issue of the gospel, namely, the glory of God. It is accepted by Burroughs that we “might know of the invisible things of God by His great works of creation and providence” (Rom. 1:20). However, as we have sought to show, it is not the “glory of God that shines in all His works of creation and providence” that Burroughs is seeking to enlarge upon; it is, rather, “the glory of God that shines in the face of Christ.” For Burroughs, the great difference between these two understandings of God’s glory is like “the glittering of a glow-worm in a dark night and the glory of the sun in the full strength of it.” Putting it another way, “God expects that those who do see His glory in Christ should glorify Him in another manner than those who see His glory shinning in the works of creation.” [47]

Burroughs emphasizes this in a number of ways. First, he states that all the attributes of God “do shine more brightly in the face of Christ than [in] any other way.” Here Burroughs refers again to the “hypostatical union of the natures of Christ,” along with the wisdom, holiness, mercy, and justice of God. Regarding the wisdom of God, Burroughs notes the “glorious way of reconciliation” and says, “The glory of God’s wisdom in other things is darkened in comparison of His wisdom in this.” The same is also true of God’s holiness: “Certainly in Christ God’s wisdom has found out an argument to make us all to be convinced of the infinite holiness of God, that God hates sin more than hell itself, and that we should do so too.” [48]

The evil of sin in the eyes of God as evidenced by this last comment moves Burroughs to speak of God’s justice, which “appears not so much in all the torments of the damned as in God’s dealings with Christ.” Adding an additional thrust to this statement, he says, “There is no such way to set out the justice of God as to show the dealing of God with His Son in relation to the sin of man.” But having stated the importance of God’s justice, which none can escape themselves, Burroughs draws attention to God’s mercy and goodness. [49]

In drawing our attention to the mercy and goodness of God, Burroughs wants us to think beyond the general understanding of these attributes—what he calls “those outward comforts as a fruit of the bounty and goodness of God.” For Burroughs, such comforts are as “a few sparks that come out of a burning furnace and the heat of it within,” in comparison “to the love and mercy [of God] that appears in Christ.” Indeed, “all the good and mercy that is in order to eternal life that God communicates to the children of men, it is through Jesus Christ.” “Without the knowledge of Christ we could never come to know any of these things,” says Burroughs. [50]

The second way that Burroughs emphasizes the importance of glorifying God in Christ is by his reference to the “great counsels and works of God, especially in the governing of man unto his eternal estate.” Enlarging upon this statement, Burroughs deals with the doctrines of vocation, election, justification, reconciliation, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. Here we have a glorious array of works, and for Burroughs they are “all the works whereby God does order and guide mankind unto an eternal estate.” But they all take place in Christ, for “all the sins of all the elect ones from the beginning of the world, to the end of the world are laid upon Him.” [51]

The point is emphatically made by Burroughs that the glory of God as seen in His “great works of creation and providence is a blessing to believers, but “the sweetness and soul-satisfaction” in “beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” is without measure. However, the truth is, as Burroughs notes, “we understand but little of it for the present,” while witnessing “all the dishonour that is done to Him in this wicked, corrupt world.” But we must take heart, for God will surely attain “unto His great design”; “He will fetch about His honour in His Son” and “glorify Himself in His elect ones to all eternity.” [52]

Another aspect of the wonderful work of Christ in accomplishing God’s great design is His humiliation. Here is set before us what Burroughs describes as perhaps “the greatest wonder of all,” Christ’s work of humiliation. This is handled in eight sections, which cover at least half of the fourth sermon. These eight sections are a veritable gold mine on the subject, but we can only summarize them. [53]

First, God the Son becomes man in order to “stand before God with all the sins of the elect charged upon Him”; second, the height from which God the Son stooped, “He who is Lord of life should die”; third, the manner of Christ’s suffering, though He “was the fountain of all consolation, yet Christ suffers in His soul”—“whose deaths have been as cruel as the death of Jesus Christ?”; fourth, the source of Christ’s suffering, “the chief sufferings of Jesus Christ were inflicted by the very hand of God the Father”; fifth, the extent of Christ’s suffering; the Father did not spare Him one whit, but lets out the fullness of justice upon Him”; sixth, His forsakenness, “In all these sufferings, God the Father leaves Him”; seventh, Christ’s willingness to suffer, “rather than He would see them [the elect ones] plunged into the bottomless gulf of eternal misery.” [54]

Burroughs’s scope in section eight is to “present as briefly as may be, as much of Christ” as he can to his hearers that they “may have some help” for clear “apprehensions of Christ and how to make Him the object” of their faith. Turning to those who have “gone on in a secure dead-hearted way,” Burroughs asks, “When was ever your heart taken up in admiring the way of God saving sinners?” Answering his own question, Burroughs makes two points: 1) “If you go on and have but low thoughts about salvation…the Gospel is hidden to you, certainly you yet do not understand the counsel of God about the way of salvation,” and 2) “If it has done so that is a good evidence that God is beginning to show Himself unto you in a saving way.” Therefore, “When ever you think of salvation, think wisely of this, it is a wonderful work of God to save a sinner…the most wonderful work that ever God did do.” [55]

Having considered Christ in all His humiliation and suffering, Burroughs turns and highlights how wonderful is the conquest of Christ. This Burroughs does by stating that “all other conquerors may conquer men and kill them, but they cannot conquer death itself,” which Christ did “by dying.” But, more particularly, Christ is wonderful in other things, such as His resurrection and ascension. In Christ’s resurrection, we have “a declaration to all the world that He had…paid fully what divine justice did require for the sin of man.” Burroughs also draws attention to the resurrection of the saints, “the elect ones,” for in Christ’s resurrection there was “a pledge of their resurrection,” in that “He was the first fruits from the dead.” [56]

The heavenly singers exclaim, “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty” (Rev. 15:3) and Burroughs has certainly echoed this declaration in these sermons. The works of Christ are such that the saints “account all things as dung and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.” Furthermore, “in heaven Christ shall be wondered at for all eternity.” But it is Burroughs’s lament that “Jesus Christ is little known in the world.” Christ is so little known that He “is but a mere notion and imagination to most people in the world.” The reason for this, suggests Burroughs, is that “many things are wondered at for the present,” but they are only of “nine days wonder.” [57]

These last comments are but echoes of Burroughs’s last comments respecting Christ in His priestly office: “Oh, what strangers are most unto the glory of Jesus Christ! What little glory has Christ from you, when you do not know Him in these things that are His glory?” Yes, even the saints who “do understand Him” are questioned: “How seldom has your faith acted upon Him” in regard to His three glorious offices? [58]

Following the comment regarding “Christ being little known in the world,” Burroughs appeals to his hearers’ consciences once again: “when were your hearts taken [up] with the administration of the glory of God shining in the face of Christ?… When did God dart light into your spirits to cause you to see so much of Jesus Christ, as made Him to be the wonder of all His works?” In answering these queries negatively, it is certain, argues Burroughs, that “that soul knows not God or Christ savingly.” [59]

Furthermore, if not knowing Christ in this excellent way is an indication that “everything is preferred before Him,” then “Oh how just must the condemnation of such be for ever.” This is especially true of those who come under the preaching of the gospel and hear “how Christ came into the world to save sinners” and yet “shall not be willing to forsake a base lust for all the good there is in Jesus Christ.” Such a soul, says Burroughs, “does indeed deserve to be cursed with a bitter, and an eternal curse.”60 But Burroughs, not willing to dwell on the negatives, reminds his hearers how they are to respond to the preaching of the gospel:

Now when you hear that the way of God to redeem man is so wonderful, you have cause to lay your hands upon your hearts and say, “Oh the depth of misery that my soul has fallen into! Oh the desperate disease of my soul that must have such a wonderful cure! Oh that ever the great and infinite God should work so wonderfully for the salvation of such a poor wretched creature as sinful man is!” [61]

Let me retrace my steps a moment and note that Christ is also the “infinite object of the delight of His Father,” an “object even adequate to the very heart of God.” Such is the delight and satisfaction that God has in His Son that He “did not only create that He might manifest that He was a mighty God”; it was also “to advance His Son,” and for Him “to be the heir of all things.” Burroughs exclaims: “Oh what infinite cause have we to honour Jesus Christ.” Indeed, if Christ is so excellent as to make God the Father satisfied and delighted in Him, what other cause is needed for man to find full satisfaction and delight in Christ? Burroughs’s response is one that all the children of God may echo: “Oh how happy are they who live to the honour of Jesus Christ, by whom God may have glory beyond a natural way.” [62]

More importantly, and so as to not finish this series of sermons on the excellency of Christ the Mediator on a negative note, Burroughs identifies more reasons why joy and comfort are to be derived from beholding the glory of God in Christ Jesus. One reason is the honor God has bestowed upon believers by working so wonderful a salvation for them in Christ. A second reason is that Christ is the perfect “object for their souls to rest upon, whatever their condition.” A third reason rests upon this premise: if “God Himself does glory so much in [Christ] and accounts Him so wonderful, then it needs follow that God does intend wonderful things for the saints,” for “no wise man that has abilities will build about himself a trifle.” The corollary of this is well said by Burroughs: “[As] nothing satisfies the heart so much as the knowledge of Christ”; therefore, “let us make it the chief of our study, to study the Lord Jesus.” [63]

A final reason given as to why believers should find comfort and joy in Christ is His coming again:

There is a time when Christ shall come and appear in all His glory in another manner than we are able to set Him out…. There is a time coming that you will see Christ to be more wonderful than you do now…. And you shall not only see Him, but so see Him, as He shall never go out of thy sight; you have but a little glimpse of Him now for the present, and your soul rejoices in that, the time is coming when you shall see Him and your eyes shall feed upon Him for ever…wondering at Him to all eternity…. The luster of the deity shall be shining through the humanity of Christ, and men and angels shall stand gazing and wondering at the glory of Jesus Christ to all eternity. [64]

Although Burroughs does not indicate when this will happen, he does suggest that it will be sooner rather than later: “Christ will come ere long in another manner to be admired at by His saints in all His glory.” [65] It is clear that Burroughs is referring to what he describes elsewhere as “Jerusalem’s glory breaking forth into the world” [66]—in other words, what he regards as the millennial reign of Christ when “there shall be a more glorious presence of Christ among His people.” [67]

Burroughs identifies those who will find real comfort and joy in Christ’s Second Coming: they are those who “long for the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ.” Furthermore, this longing shows “good evidence that they do belong to Jesus Christ,” and for his hearers to belong to Jesus Christ was clearly what Burroughs desired. This may be gleaned from his final word to them on the excellency of Christ, which, in a very succinct way, sums up all he has been trying to teach them: “Oh that He may be wonderful in your hearts and in your lives.” [68] Clearly, belonging to Christ was to be witnessed to by a life of godliness that would bring glory to God. A God-glorifying life would also bring satisfaction to the soul, for the soul would know what it meant to be the recipient of God’s gracious forgiveness of sin through the excellency of Jesus Christ the Mediator.

Notes

1. Jeremiah Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” in The Saints Treasury (London, 1656), 32-33.
2. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 33.
3. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 34-35.
4. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 33.
5. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 33-34.
6. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 37-38.
7. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 38.
8. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 38.
9. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 38-39.
10. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 39.
11. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 40.
12. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 42.
13. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 43.
14. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 44.
15. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 45.
16. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 46-47.
17. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 47.
18. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 48-49.
19. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 50-52. Sin is a subject that Burroughs dealt with at length in a series of sermons published as The Evil of Evils or the Exceeding Sinfulness of Sin (London, 1654). Such is the evil of sin, says Burroughs, that “if a man…could save the whole world from eternal torments by the commission of one sin, he should suffer the whole world to perish rather than commit one sin.” In pressing this point home, Burroughs makes it more personal to his hearers: “You must not commit one sin though the soul of your father or mother or all the world rest upon it.” Neither must sin be committed “though it is for the glory of God,” for God “does not need the help of the devil to help his cause.” By these few comments on the evil of sin we can understand why Burroughs was so insistent on preaching on our present subject: Christ the Mediator.
20. Burroughs, “Christ is all in all,” 32, 56.
21. Jeremiah Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” in Gospel Revelation (London, 1660), 50-51.
22. The different topics are handled throughout the six sermons, but are set out in outline form on 55-56.
23. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 57-58.
24. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 59-61.
25. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 60-61.
26. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 61.
27. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 63-64.
28. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 65-67. By the last comment in this paragraph it is not difficult to grasp Burroughs’s Calvinist understanding of the doctrine of regeneration.
29. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 67.
30. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 68-69.
31. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 69.
32. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 71, 74-75.
33. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 74.
34. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 76-77.
35. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 81.
36. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 83.
37. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 84.
38. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 83-84.
39. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 85.
40. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 86.
41. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 86-87.
42. See note 18 above.
43. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 87, 89.
44. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 90-94.
45. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 91-92. Two phrases in this paragraph need a little further comment. The use of the terms “elect ones” and “a believer” would indicate that Burroughs held to the doctrine of particular redemption.
46. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 96, 97.
47. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 112-13.
48. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 114-15.
49. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 116.
50. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 116, 119.
51. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 118, 122.
52. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 118, 120.
53. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 122.
54. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 122-28.
55. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 129-30.
56. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 137, 139, 144.
57. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 146-47, 150.
58. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 90, 118, 150.
59. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 150-51.
60. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 150-52.
61. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 155.
62. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 107-8.
63. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 156, 158-59, 164.
64. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 168-69, 171.
65. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 170.
66. The phrase comes from the title page of Burroughs’s Jerusalem's Glory (London, 1684).
67. Jeremiah Burroughs, An Exposition of the Prophesie of Hosea, Chapters 1-3 (1643), 190. Chapters 4-10 were published in 1650 and chapters 11-13:11 in 1651.
68. Burroughs, “The Excellency of Christ,” 171.

Easier For A Camel Than Zacchaeus: A Sermon On Luke 19:1-10

By Maarten Kuivenhoven

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. 

—LUKE 19:1-10

When reading Scripture we can often pass over some very important details that the Gospels’ writers have included for us. In light of this particular passage, I want to set up the story of Zacchaeus for a few moments by following Jesus as He makes His way to Jericho. In Luke 18:18, we find Jesus interacting with a “certain ruler” who asked Jesus a question: “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Here is a seemingly righteous man asking Jesus a very important question. Jesus engages him by speaking about the law that he was obviously very familiar with, because he answers, “All these things have I kept from my youth up.” But when it came to selling everything and following Jesus, giving up the god he served, the ruler could not. Jesus responds with amazement, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Jesus’ listeners are puzzled: “Who then can be saved?” If this man, who kept the law, cannot enter…. And then Jesus replies, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

Luke introduced this theme of impossibility previously in Luke 1, where the angel announces to Mary that she will give birth to Jesus. Mary asks, “How can these things be?” The angel replies, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” That is the theme that surrounds Jesus’ ministry to the lost. The lost cannot save themselves, but with God nothing shall be impossible—not the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, not the virgin birth, not the birth of Jesus, and not the salvation of sinners. And now, as Jesus comes near to Jericho, we find Him healing a blind man who cried out for mercy. The impossible is made possible.

But in chapter 19, verse 1, we read that Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Suspense hangs thickly in the air. What will Jesus do now? Verse 2 introduces us to Zacchaeus: “And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.” In the space of thirty verses, we are introduced to two rich men and Jesus’ teaching about the rich entering into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ interaction with the rich young ruler demonstrates the impossibility of entering into the kingdom of God because of his attachment to his riches. But now Jesus passes through Jericho and he finds another rich man, Zacchaeus. Will the impossible be made possible?

This message will look at the utter impossibility of salvation from Zacchaeus’s standpoint and then at how salvation is made possible from Jesus’ side.

Impossible With Zacchaeus

Imagine for a moment the eye of a needle. It’s a tiny, tiny hole, measuring millimeters. Now imagine a camel. It’s a huge animal; a grown camel is up to seven feet tall at the hump. Now Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of that needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Why does Jesus speak that way? Because He wants us to understand the utter impossibility of entering into the kingdom of God if we worship anything besides Him. It’s not just the rich, though they are vulnerable to particular temptation in having money as their god. This is evidenced by this rich, young ruler, but in our fallen state it is impossible for anyone to fit into the narrow entrance into the kingdom (Matt. 7:14). And that is how we meet Zacchaeus—standing outside the kingdom in all his impossibilities.

From his perspective and from what Jesus has just said about camels and rich men, it is impossible for Zacchaeus to enter into the kingdom of God. Everything is against him.

Zacchaeus’s station is against him. Read in verse 2a, “And, behold there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans.” The irony of the man’s name is not lost. His name actually means “righteous,” and he was the chief tax collector. How can these two things go together? Tax collectors were despised in Israel. They were Jews, but they collected taxes for the Romans—and to add insult to injury, they made money off the backs of their fellow Jews by asking for more tax money than was necessary and keeping the excess for themselves. This extortion did not gain the publicans any favor with their fellow Jews; they were despised. And now we read that Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector. No doubt, he would have made even more money than a regular tax collector. He was the chief, so he could make money not only off the people he collected taxes from, but also from the tax collectors under his authority. Thus he was despised even more by his fellow Jews. He was written off by the Pharisees as irredeemable. It is impossible for Zacchaeus to be saved.

Zacchaeus’s substance is against him. In verse 2b, we read, “And he was rich.” He had amassed a considerable fortune because of his dishonest collecting of taxes. Remember now Jesus’ words regarding rich men entering into the kingdom of God, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” He had set his heart on his riches, which proves a great hindrance to entering the kingdom of God. It is impossible for Zacchaeus to be saved.

Zacchaeus’s stature is against him. He wants to see Jesus, but he cannot because he’s too short. “And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him; for he [Jesus] was to pass that way” (vv. 3-4). There is curiosity in Zacchaeus’s mind. “I wonder who Jesus is? I’ve heard of Him before, but I want to see Him. I can’t, because I can’t see above the people, I’m too short.” This drives him to climb the tree in order to see who Jesus was. He is physically limited from seeing Jesus. It is impossible for Zacchaeus to be saved.

Zacchaeus’s spectators are against him. When Jesus addressed Zacchaeus and told him He was going to stay at Zacchaeus’s house, the spectators began to grumble. “And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner” (v. 7). They all murmured. The same word is used when the publicans and sinners came to hear Jesus in Luke 15, where He speaks to them the parables of the missing sheep, coin, and the prodigal son. The Pharisees murmured then and they murmur now. A rumble of discontentment ripples through the crowd as they witness Jesus and Zacchaeus entering into the tax collector’s home. The Pharisees think that Zacchaeus is not worthy of Jesus’ presence. Rather than rejoicing and encouraging Zacchaeus, they murmur and are against him. It is impossible for Zacchaeus to be saved.

Zacchaeus’s sins are against him. More than anything, this makes salvation impossible for him. This man whose name actually means “righteous” is anything but righteous. His spectators rightly label him a sinner, however graceless their attitude is. The fact that he eventually gives his money to the poor and pays back those whom he defrauded indicates sin in Zacchaeus’s life needed to be dealt with. He is a thief and a fraud, defrauding many for his own millions. This man Zacchaeus is a sinner and because of that it is impossible for him to be saved.

Everything is against Zacchaeus, making it utterly impossible for him to be saved.

What makes it impossible for you to enter the kingdom of God? Is it your station in life that hinders you? Both despised stations and exalted stations can be hindrances from entering the kingdom. Are you a CEO or unemployed? The rich are particularly vulnerable because riches make almost everything in life possible, but the absence of riches can make us murmur and complain and think that it is impossible to be saved. Are you physically or mentally hindered from being saved? Or do you use the excuse of your spiritual inability? Are there people in your life who are making it impossible for you to be saved? Are your sins against you, hindering you from being saved? What are your impossibilities?

Through this passage of Scripture, we are counseled by the Word of God to take our eyes off everything that we would turn to for salvation: our position in life, our substance or lack thereof, our physical or mental or emotional limitations, the spectators in our lives, our sins, our excuses. All these things may be against us, but remember Jesus’ words, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

Possible With God

It would have been easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for Zacchaeus to be saved. But we read that Jesus came to Jericho. Jesus comes wherever you are. He comes in His Word and by His Spirit and says, “All these things that make salvation impossible—every excuse you can muster, every roadblock thrown up in God’s path—God takes away and destroys them, and He saves.” The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. That’s what Jesus displays as He comes to Jericho. He makes the impossible possible. He brings salvation to the house of Zacchaeus. He himself says in verse 10, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” How?

The Savior shows up. “And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho” (v. 1). This is no mere coincidence. He comes to the city whose builder was cursed and his son died, and brings the great blessing of life to the house of Zacchaeus. There is intentionality in Jesus’ actions as He comes through Jericho to meet with Zacchaeus. Scripture tells us, “And, behold there was a man named Zacchaeus.” Jesus is coming to make the impossible possible. He is going to usher a rich man into the kingdom of heaven. He is going to make Zacchaeus truly righteous.

The Savior sees. News travels that Jesus is coming. Zacchaeus wants to see Him and quickly climbs the tree to see who Jesus is. Christ not only shows up, but He takes immediate stock of the situation. He has seen Zacchaeus from eternity; He knows exactly where he is. In verse 5b we read, “And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him.” Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, but we don’t read that he actually saw Jesus—only that Jesus saw him. What a blessing when Jesus looks upon us in His tender mercy! He sees us where we are. He sees sinners. He sees the impossibility of Zacchaeus’s situation. This little man is up in the tree because he couldn’t see above the heads of the crowd. The pursuit of wealth was his besetting sin, and that makes it impossible to enter the kingdom. But when Jesus takes notice of sinners, when He sees them, He sees them to save them. He sees the things which are impossible and He makes them possible so that sinners who are saved confess:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No, I was found of Thee. [1]

The Savior speaks. Jesus not only shows up and sees Zacchaeus in the tree, but He begins to shake things up by speaking first: “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for today I must abide at thy house.” He speaks with knowledge. He knows who Zacchaeus is; He addresses him by name. “O righteous one!” Do you sense the irony? A sinner up in the tree whose name means “righteous one,” and Jesus, the only Righteous One who would become sin for this man. He comes and calls him by his name, Zacchaeus. Through the gospel preached to all of you, Jesus is calling by name. Do you hear Him?

He speaks authoritatively, “Make haste and come down.” “Hurry and come down, Zacchaeus. Do you want to know who I am? Hurry and come down.” Jesus does not want Zacchaeus to remain where he is. He must come down and converse with Jesus. He must come down, not just physically from the tree, but from his self-exalting position, leaving behind his desire for riches.

Jesus speaks a divine command and when He does so, sinners take notice. Have you ever heard His commanding voice? Make haste and come down. Jesus is here; don’t delay. He cuts through all the impossibilities with this command. Zacchaeus is not really any different from the blind man that Jesus had recently healed; both are incapacitated and both need the command of Jesus to enliven them. And you and I are the same. He commands us to come down from our sin and pride and meet with Him. He commands us to come down from our hiding place in the tree and stand before Him with our sin so that we can be saved.

Jesus speaks with purpose. “For today I must abide at thy house.” There is a divine necessity in these words. Was it because Jesus is so hungry and tired from the journey? Was it because He merely wanted to converse and have a time of fellowship with Zacchaeus? No, He has come to save Zacchaeus. He has come to show that the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Zacchaeus, the rich man, will be brought into the kingdom. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, but when Jesus speaks a rich man will enter the kingdom at His command.

And Jesus speaks invitingly. Jesus doesn’t ask, “Zacchaeus, may I come to your house today?” Rather, He says, “I must come to your house today.” Just as Zacchaeus desired to know who Jesus was, he finds himself face to face with Jesus in a way that he never thought he would see Jesus. He doesn’t see Him just from a tree, but he will witness Him in his own home. He will experience Jesus’ transforming power in his soul.

The Savior saves. Jesus not only shows up, sees, and speaks, but He also saves. That is the whole purpose of His coming to Jericho: to make the impossible possible. He has come to save Zacchaeus. Everything was previously against Zacchaeus, but now Jesus sees him and speaks with him and saves him. Now everything is for Zacchaeus because Jesus is for him, and if Jesus is for Zacchaeus, who can be against him? That is true for sinners today, too, whose impossibilities are erased through the power of the Son of God. “If God be for us who will be against us” (Rom. 8:31)?

We see evidence of Jesus’ work in Zacchaeus’s response. In verse 6, we read, “And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully.” When Jesus commands sinners to make room for Him in their hearts, they are constrained to obey. Jesus does not force Zacchaeus against his will, but bends his will so that Zacchaeus responds. This is by no means free will or a self-help gospel. When the Son of man enters our lives, we will know it in our response to Him. Zacchaeus made haste and came down. He obeyed Jesus’ command. That is the best evidence of Jesus’ work in our lives—obedience to His Word in all its aspects.

And alongside obedience is another evidence: a newfound joy and desire in Zacchaeus’s life as he comes face to face with the Savior. This is no chance meeting. This is no small talk. This is life and death, and Jesus has just saved this man from certain death. This man was just saved from sin. As a result, he received Jesus with joy into his heart and into his home. He receives Jesus as the Savior.

So often we are afraid of using the question, “Have you received Jesus as your personal Savior?” because it implies that we are doing something. But we always are doing something with Jesus. We either reject Jesus or we receive Jesus. We see the same in Luke’s narrative: there are two rich men, and they have two different responses to Jesus. The one rejects Jesus; the other receives Him. Zacchaeus received Him with joy. Here is a sinner receiving Jesus because all the impossibilities have been removed. Have you received Jesus? He makes the impossible possible.

And if that is not enough for Zacchaeus, Jesus goes on. He confirms that Zacchaeus is indeed saved through the work that He was about to perform in Jerusalem in His death on the cross. He had taught His disciples about this work earlier, and now we find Zacchaeus believing on Jesus as the One who was to be crucified. “This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham” (v. 9). Salvation is come to this house—the house of a despised tax collector which now receives the blessing of salvation. Earthly riches have been superseded by riches of a heavenly kind. Perishable goods have been replaced by imperishable. A treasure on earth is surpassed by a heavenly treasure. Salvation has come to Zacchaeus’s house.

Where is your heart being drawn? Are you being pulled to Jesus who removes all impossibilities to salvation, or toward a counterfeit god who continues to make things impossible for you?

This Zacchaeus, who had made money on the backs of his fellow countrymen and was no longer considered a rightful Jew, is declared a son of Abraham. Jesus demonstrates that a true son of Abraham is not one who necessarily physically descends from the line of Abraham, but one who lives out of the promise made to Abraham that Christ would come. Here is a man who did the works of Abraham: he repented, he received Jesus, and he now lives by faith in the Son of God. Zacchaeus was disowned by his fellow Jews as a natural son of Abraham, but through Jesus he is made a true son of Abraham. That is what Jesus still does. Even as Jesus confirms the salvation of Zacchaeus, He condemns those who were murmuring about his dining with Zacchaeus. To those who were Jews and who lived uprightly, thinking they were the sons of Abraham, Jesus points out the real issue to be the heart and not the outward actions only. A true son of Abraham would recognize Jesus as the Messiah as Zacchaeus did. When the Pharisees in John 8:39 said, “Abraham is our father,” Jesus gave this answer in return: “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.” Are you a son of Abraham, living by faith?

Jesus further confirms Zacchaeus’s salvation by speaking of His work in saving the lost. He says, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost” (v. 10). Zacchaeus was truly lost. Salvation was utterly impossible, and yet here the Son of man comes seeking and saving this lost sinner. This is the chief work of Christ in the lives of sinners who are hopelessly, helplessly, and impossibly lost. He comes to show that there are two very different responses to the gospel from two wealthy men. The one went away grieving because Jesus was not enough. The other, Zacchaeus, obeyed the gospel call and received Jesus with joy. And Jesus says, “This is what I’ve come to do. What is impossible with you is possible with Me. I have the power to save sinners; I am come to seek and to save those who are lost.”

Is there a Zacchaeus who reads this sermon? Is everything against you? Salvation is an utter impossibility, but here is Jesus. He shows up in His Word. He sees you in all your impossibility and He calls you to bring that to Him. He wants you to acknowledge the impossibility from your perspective. He speaks. He commands. He invites. “Make haste and come down. I must come to your house today.” He saves. He saves the chief tax collector. He saves the chiefest sinner today. He remakes sinners into sons.

The Savior sanctifies. Jesus not only saves, He also sanctifies. Zacchaeus is a changed man. Salvation issues forth in sanctification, in holy living, in obedience to the commandments of God. “And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold” (v. 8). Throughout the course of the conversation with Jesus, Zacchaeus must have been convicted of this chief sin, and now he is responding in obedience to the call of Jesus upon His life, demonstrating what obedience looks like in the kingdom of God. Promising that he won’t defraud anyone anymore or ignore the poor is not enough; he is determined to put off this sin and put on behavior that reflects a man declared righteous by Jesus.

Notice the resolve of Zacchaeus. At first it seems like he is bragging. But no, Zacchaeus has been changed and the sins that affected him most were the areas where sanctification first evidences itself. He takes aim at the sin of greed; he takes aim at the snare of riches. Half of his goods are distributed to the poor, and the money he has gained by fraud is returned fourfold to the people from whom he stole. This is not superficial. He doesn’t just make an empty promise that he will turn his life around and no longer steal. Rather, he makes restitution. This is not a case for socialism so that the rich will be forced to redistribute their wealth. It is a case that proves that the impossible is made possible: Jesus has ushered a rich man into the kingdom of God. A rich man is convicted of his sin of greed. A rich man is powerfully converted and obeys his Master, not just in coming down from the tree and receiving Jesus into his house, but in demonstrating obedience by giving away half his wealth to the poor and making restitution.

It’s not just the riches that concern Jesus. These riches are Zacchaeus’s idol, and that makes his sin transferrable to all of us. Jesus wants us to see that it is impossible to enter the kingdom of God while we cling to idols. It is the kingdom of God alone, not the kingdom of God and of idols. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel than for Zacchaeus. It is easier for a camel than for you. You really are lost if you are being drawn away from God by anything besides Jesus.

But have you heard about Jesus? Jesus has come to seek and to save those who are lost. He has come to make possible what we have made impossible. He shows up in His Word. He sees sinners and knows you by name. He speaks with power and authority, commanding sinners and changing their wills to receive Him. The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. We can never hide behind our impossibilities when Jesus has shown that even a rich man can enter the kingdom of God.

Are you sorrowful because you have to give up too much to follow Jesus? Or will you receive Jesus with joy, giving up what you cling to and clinging only to Jesus?

Notes

1. Anonymous, written circa 1880.

The Full Brightness And Diffused Beams Of Glory: Jonathan Edwards’s Concept Of Beauty And Its Relevance For Apologetics

By David Vanbrugge

Beauty is often assumed to be a subjective, personal, and cultural phenomenon. In some peoples’ minds, the word beauty is primarily attached to parlors and contests and sleep. However, through periods of church history, beauty was primarily a theological and ethical concept. [1] In order to properly understand why beauty should matter to church members and pastors, it is necessary to learn from other pastors who were concerned with the concept.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), the last Puritan, was fascinated with the idea and implications of beauty. [2] This has stirred up much discussion. Some authors, such as Perry Miller and Michael McClymond, consider Edwards’s conception of beauty to be Neo-Platonic and overly influenced by John Locke. [3] Norman Fiering argues that Edwards’s aesthetic was influenced particularly by Lord Shaftesbury. [4] Roland Delattre contends that it was doctrinal and scriptural, though it might best be described as both philosophical and theological at once. [5]

Nevertheless, the practical applications of Edwards’s concept of beauty seem to have been neglected by conservative Protestant scholars. In recent scholarship, Edwards’s concept of beauty has been related to his understanding of the psychology of religious experience. [6] But as this paper will make evident, Edwards’s language concerning beauty, and particularly how he places it in relation to God as well as nature, also brings out practical implications for pastors and Christian apologists.

The Language Of Beauty

When defining and describing complex theological ideas, the language involved is rarely clear or simple. This is particularly true of Edwards’s language concerning beauty. However, a careful consideration of Edwards’s own descriptions and distinctions makes his concept of beauty somewhat easier to understand.

To begin, it is necessary to realize that Edwards, following acceptable practice within philosophical and Puritan writing, equated beauty with other words, including excellency and virtue. On one hand, excellency to Edwards is a broader term encompassing beauty, holiness, and greatness. [7] On the other hand, beauty can also be used as a synonym for excellency: “Excellence, to put it in other words, is that which is beautiful and lovely.” [8] Edwards himself wrote that “there is nothing [that has] been more without definition than excellency.” [9]

Second, it helps to understand that Edwards pursued the ideal and ultimate understanding of beauty. While he agreed in “The Mind” that understanding beauty as proportionality was acceptable, he wanted to know why. [10] In the end, Edwards believed that the reason there is any ultimate beauty is resolved in ontological being. “Beauty is the first principle of being, not the reverse.” [11] Then, “by virtue of beauty, being is; according to its measure of beauty, any particular thing or event has being and remains in being.” [12] As the perfection of being, beauty “provides the primary model of order in terms of which Edwards attempts to understand all forms of order and disorder, concord and discord, in the whole system of being under God.” [13] It is difficult to overstate how significant beauty was for Edwards. [14]

To Edwards, the ontology of God and man is aesthetically defined. [15] That is one reason why he uses virtue, beauty, and excellence (in their moral sense) interchangeably. [16]

God has sufficiently exhibited himself, in his being, his infinite greatness and excellency: and has given us faculties, whereby we are capable of plainly discovering immense superiority to all other beings in these respects…. And all true virtue must radically and essentially, and as it were summarily, consist in this. Because God is not only infinitely greater and more excellent than all other being, but he is the head of the universal system of existence; the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty… and whose being and beauty is as it were the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence. [17]

Third, Edwards differentiated between primary and secondary beauty. Primary beauty is spiritual beauty that “lies in virtuous principles and acts…that imply consent and union with Being in general. This is the primary and most essential beauty of everything that can justly be called by the name of virtue, or is any moral excellency in the eye of one that has a perfect view of things.” [18] It is manifest as goodness, value, consent, benevolence, love, and perfection of being. [19] Secondary beauty is inferior, and can be found in both spiritual and inanimate things. It “consists in a mutual consent and agreement of different things in form, manner, quantity, and visible end or design; called by the various names of regularity, order, uniformity, symmetry, proportion, harmony, etc.” [20] This agreement can appear in colors, dimensions, patterns, the proportions of a human body, and the arrangement of notes in a tune. [21] It must be highlighted that, to Edwards, this is not subjective but “a law of nature, which God has fixed, or an instinct he has given to mankind.” [22] The difference between primary and secondary beauty is not that the one is spiritual and the other material, but is “with the nature of the consenting relationship involved.” [23] Primary beauty then is union or consent with the source of beauty and being; secondary beauty is agreement or consent with other things.

Fourth, Edwards distinguished between particular and general beauty. By particular beauty he meant that which makes something appear beautiful in a limited sphere. A general beauty is beautiful even when it is viewed in the most comprehensive position possible, even when connected to all its possible connections. [24] Particular and general beauty are not the same, and may even oppose each other. This is best illustrated using an Edwardsian illustration: Imagine a few notes of a melody. When each note is taken individually, or in relation to the previous or subsequent one, it demonstrates a particular beauty. But if all those same notes were played at once, there would be a general beauty of harmony.

This general beauty highlights how extensive beauty is. For example, Edwards wrote that “true virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to Being in general. Or perhaps to speak more accurately, it is that consent, propensity and union of heart to Being in general, that is immediately exercised in a general good will.” [25] Edwards goes on to discuss this general consent in terms of beauty: “Beauty does not consist in discord and dissent, but in consent and agreement. And if every intelligent being is some way related to Being in general, and is a part of the universal system of existence; and so stands in connection with the whole; what can its general and true beauty be, but its union and consent with the great whole?” [26] Beauty then is consent, proportion, and reflection of being in general.

Fifth, Edwards tried to keep beauty more objective by contrasting simple and complex beauty. He writes in “The Mind” that “excellency therefore seems to consist in equality…. All beauty consists in similarness, or identity of relation.” [27] There is a simple beauty which shows forth things at a basic level of identicalness or exact correspondence; for example, circles with equal radii or triangles with equal sides. On the other hand there is complex beauty, which focuses not on identicality but on proportionality. [28] Hence points on a line which are not equal but are separated by distances with proportionate ratios are still beautiful.

Sixth, Edwards used the concept of sensibility in relation to beauty. Beauty is sensed or experienced; it “had an effect, and the effect was an affect (i.e., feeling).” [29] Edwards himself wrote that “when a form or quality appears lovely, pleasing and delightful in itself, then it is called beautiful; and this agreeableness or gratefulness of the idea is beauty. It is evident that the way we come by the idea of beauty is by immediate sensation of the gratefulness of the idea called beautiful; and not by finding out by argumentation any consequences.” [30] Therefore, beauty is not just abstract and/or objective. Beauty must also be sensed or experienced. These two facets always need to be considered together. [31]

The Beauty Of God

According to Edwards, understanding beauty is fundamental for a proper understanding of God. [32] Because beauty is the first principle of being and the inner, structural principle of being-itself, according to which the universal system of being is articulated, God needs to be understood as Beauty. [33] This means that God can be defined by His beauty. In Religious Affections, Edwards wrote, “God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ‘em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty.” [34] God is also where beauty is. According to Edwards, all beauty can only come from God, and all beauty ultimately points back to Him. [35] God can also be affirmed by beauty, because beauty is the objective standard for the perfection of being, which is Edwards’s way of describing the ultimate unity of being and good in God. [36]

God’s beauty is also describable as an attribute. For Edwards, beauty “is the first among the perfections of God.” [37] It is consistent with other attributes in that His beauty can be seen by looking at His eternality, His greatness, His loveliness, His wisdom, His power, or His holiness. [38] Then what is often thought of as beautiful, such as the beauty of nature and man, is just “deformity and darkness in comparison of the brighter glories and beauties of the Creator of all.” [39] As an attribute, God’s beauty is also from eternity.

God’s beauty then is who He is. In a sermon on God’s excellencies, Edwards said: “Neither does [God] thank anyone for anything he enjoys: his power, his wisdom, his excellency, his glory, his honor, and his authority are his own, and received from none other; he possesses them and he will possess them.” [40] Here, once again, the moral and ethical descriptions of God’s attributes are mixed with aesthetic and physical descriptions. [41] Beauty also reveals who God is because He rejoices in His beauty and His joy overflows: “If God does both esteem and delight in his own perfections and virtues, he can’t but value and delight in the expressions and genuine effects of them. So that in delighting in the expressions of his perfections, he manifests a delighting in his own perfections themselves.” [42] Yet it is only when man’s eyes are opened to see this beauty that “the heart is transformed into the same image and strongly engaged to imitate God.” [43]

God’s beauty can also help one understand the Trinity. Because general beauty cannot be beauty if it is not in agreement or consent, there must be relationship. Therefore, if God is excellent and beautiful, “there must be a plurality in God; otherwise there can be no consent in Him.” [44] Elsewhere Edwards wrote: “What we call ‘one’ may be excellent because of consent of parts, or some consent of those in that being that are distinguished into a plurality some way or other. But in a being that is absolutely without any plurality there cannot be excellency, for there can be no such thing as consent or agreement.” [45]

God’s beauty is also seen in His redemption of the world. Delattre lists numerous propositions that detail this, including Edwards’s understanding that “beauty is the law of the moral or spiritual world; beauty is both the end or goal of redemption and the principal means for the redemption of the moral or spiritual world; and beauty is the constitution of genuine community among men.” [46]

God’s beauty can also be experienced. This truly is a most remarkable gift from God: “They who see the beauty there is in true virtue, don’t perceive it by argumentation on its connections and consequences, but by the frame of their own minds, or a certain spiritual sense given them of God, whereby they immediately perceive pleasure in the presence of the idea of true virtue in their minds.” [47] But beauty is also an exercised gift. True virtue, for Edwards, is “that consent, propensity and union of heart to Being in general, that is immediately exercised in a general good will.” [48] Beauty then becomes a framework for expressing the genuine religious experience. [49] For Edwards, a beautiful life purposefully lives in love and obedience to God in response to God. [50] Saints who know God’s beauty have a comprehensive and well-ordered moral and spiritual character, resist deformity, and become “proportioned Christians.” [51]

In summary, God’s beauty was “in the eyes of Edwards, a multifaceted diamond, a precious collection of attributes in their purest form…. Over all the earth and all the created order stood this Lord, beautiful for the perfections of His person.” [52] How does this relate to secondary beauty? In the words of Edwards, “[A]ll the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of the Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory.” [53] Without God’s beauty there is no beauty in our lives or in nature.

Beauty Of Nature

In the modern rush of life, the world and many Christians fail to stop and see that nature contains great elegance and precise design. Instead, when most people think of beauty, they think of more personal things. In a sense, Edwards would not disagree—though he would expand that, because it was only “natural for the Lord to create a world in which His ‘excellent perfections’ could shine.” [54] This world of shining beauty includes both animate and inanimate things.

The beauty of nature can be seen in created man. Edwards relates this beauty to the image of God in man individually as well as corporately. This is most visible in behavior. Natural and spiritual virtue, as well as conscience and justice, needs to be seen “as varieties and forms of beauty.” [55] So when people ask, “what is the nature of true virtue?

this is the same as to inquire, what that is which renders any habit, disposition, or exercise of the heart truly beautiful?” [56] Put positively, one of the most beautiful things, even to Edwards, is love. [57]

The beauty of nature is also in created things. To Edwards, there was an analogy between spiritual excellencies and the beauty of the skies, trees, or fields. He wrote in one of his collected miscellaneous thoughts that “the beauties of nature are really emanations, or shadows, of the excellencies of the Son of God.” [58] In other words, nature points to spiritual realities: “The sweetest and most charming beauty of [the corporeal world] is its resemblance of spiritual beauties.” [59] This pedagogical use of beauty can be applied to all aspects of nature:

When we are delighted with flowery meadows and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we only see the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ; when we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see his love and purity. So the green trees and fields, and singing of birds, are the emanations of his infinite joy and benignity; the easiness and naturalness of trees and vines [are] shadows of his infinite beauty and loveliness; the crystal rivers and murmuring streams have the footsteps of his sweet grace and bounty…. That beauteous light with which the world is filled in a clear day is a lively shadow of his spotless holiness and happiness, and delight in communicating himself. [60]

Interestingly, when stating that the things of the world are designed to shadow spiritual things, Edwards made it personal by referring to 1 Corinthians 15:36: “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.” [61]

The laws of nature also reveal a secondary beauty. However, seeing the beauty in nature takes effort and work since, according to Edwards, the more complex a natural beauty is, the more hidden it is. [62]

When considering God’s moral government of the universe, Edwards noted that there is “much evidence of the most perfect exactness of proportion, harmony, equity and beauty in the mechanical laws of nature and other methods of providence…which are means by which God shews his regard to harmony, fitness, and beauty in what He does as the Governor of the natural world.” [63]

The beauty of nature can also be seen in non-living things. Geometric figures and harmonious tunes depict harmony within variety and therefore can present beauty. This can also be applied to all manmade creations as far as they are beautiful in the general sense. Interestingly, Edwards was living on the frontier of America in the eighteenth century and likely never saw many of the things people today consider beautiful. He probably never saw a cathedral or an art gallery, never heard a symphony or an opera, and was largely ignorant of Shakespeare and sculpture. [64] Yet he said that for all created things, “the greater the variety is, in equal uniformity, the greater the beauty: which is no more than to say, the more there are of different mutually agreeing things, the greater the beauty.” [65]

This recognition of secondary beauty is then universal regardless of culture or circumstance. This does not mean all things are equally perceived. Edwards himself said:

There are beauties that are more palpable and explicable, and there are hidden and secret beauties. The former pleases and we can tell why: we can explain and particularly point forth agreements that render the thing pleasing. Such are all artificial regularities: we can tell wherein the regularity lies that affects us. The latter sort are those beauties that delight us and we can’t tell why. Thus we find ourselves pleased in beholding the color of violets, but we know not what secret regularity or harmony it is that creates that pleasure in our minds. [66]

Wooddell summarizes Edwards when he writes that “people instinctively recognize secondary beauty, especially in more important objects (complex over simple, immaterial over material), and in those objects which are closer together, rather than scattered.” [67] Today, even though most people have working eyes and beauty is appreciated by all to a certain degree, very few realize its source.

Edwards also considered the role of the fall and sin on the sensibility of beauty. Before the fall, the light of the knowledge of God and His glory was enjoyed, but “when man fell all this light was at once extinguished and the world reduced back again to total darkness.” [68] Put in balance with his other quotations, Edwards does not mean that the creation was totally black, but that it was marred, ugly, corrupt, and its beauty weakened. [69] Sin did not completely erase all beauty from the world, for the countless natural types still shine each day: “There are some types of divine things, both in Scripture and also in the works of nature and constitution of the world, that are much more lively than others. Everything seems to aim that way; and in some things the image is very lively, in others less lively, in others the image but faint and the resemblance in but few particulars with many things wherein there is a dissimilitude. God has ordered things in this respect much as he has in the natural world.” [70]

But Edwards also warned about seeing natural beauty wrongly. The secondary beauty of nature cannot be confused with the primary beauty of the Creator. He wrote: “A taste of this kind of beauty is entirely a different thing from a taste of true virtue…. A taste of this inferior beauty in things immaterial is one thing which has been mistaken by some moralists for a true virtuous principle, implanted naturally in the hearts of all mankind.” [71] He also warned against those who think that reason is enough to see this beauty, displaying that even in his aesthetics, he was not truly Lockean. “The book of Scripture is the interpreter of the book of nature two ways: viz. by declaring to us those spiritual mysteries that are indeed signified or typified in the constitution of the natural world; and secondly, in actually making application of the signs and types in the book of nature as representations of those spiritual mysteries in many instances.” [72] Nor is Edwards neo-Platonic; he did not love flowers or birds for their shadows of perfect flowers or birds, but because they were “a living exhibition of the wisdom and beauty of God.” [73]

Beauty For Apologetics

Like Edwards’s day, beauty is still sought for, and yet so misunderstood. Therefore it is a ripe concept for apologetics, and needs to be recaptured for the sake of the world as well as the church. Using aesthetics could also help apologists build towards an understanding of Puritan apologetics. Following Edwards’s implicit and indirect approach to apologetics, an aesthetic apologetic could demonstrate the interconnection of Christian beliefs with other already accepted beliefs. [74]

Pursuing an aesthetic apologetic is not to make a reasonable discipline more sentimental and subjective. Rather, as Edwards himself noted, beauty “and the perception and enjoyment of spiritual beauty in particular, offers as deep a penetration of those mysteries and of that order as is available to men.” [75] That is why beauty can help apologists point people to God, build a doctrinal foundation, make apologetics preachable, connect apologetics to regeneration, use a visible point of contact that has deep content, and still appeal to the postmodern mind.

First, beauty can help apologists point people to God. Today, when asked about why something is beautiful, many say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Those who do not agree with that subjectivism generally refer to proportion, harmony, space, and where individual parts contribute to a greater end. In other words, aesthetics is something on which all people have an opinion. But it can also be raised as a question that points to the ultimate answer. According to Edwards, because God is the only One who has beauty in Himself, all beauty is derived from Him and never from any other source outside of Him. [76] Further, in order for a person to be truly virtuous or something to be truly beautiful, it must have “Being in general, or the great system of universal existence, for its direct and immediate object: so that no exercise of love or kind affection to any one particular being, that is but a small part of this whole, has anything of the nature of true virtue.” [77]

At least one reason why God has made secondary beauty perceivable is because “there is in it some image of the true, spiritual original beauty, which has been spoken of…. And so he has constituted the external world in an analogy to things in the spiritual world, in numberless instances.” [78] Edwards made this practical: “When one thing sweetly harmonizes with another, as the notes in music, the notes are so conformed and have such proportion one to another that they seem to have respect one to another, as if they loved one another. So the beauty of figures and motions is, when one part has such consonant proportion with the rest as represents a general agreeing and consenting together; which is very much the image of love in all the parts of a society united by a sweet consent and charity of heart.” [79] In other words, God can use beauty in music and nature, as well as many other things, to show people that there is more to life than the material. [80]

Aesthetics also allows apologists to use the work of unbelievers in order to point them to God. Here Edwards almost sounds Van Tillian: “Thus has God established and ordered that this principle of natural conscience, which though it implies no such thing as actual benevolence to Being in general, nor any delight in such a principle, simply considered, and so implies no truly spiritual sense or virtuous taste, yet should approve and condemn the same things that are approved and condemned by a spiritual sense or virtuous taste.” [81] Gerstner takes this a little differently when he writes that, “once being instructed by Scripture, that which Scripture did teach, in Edwards’s view, could be clearly demonstrated independently of Scripture to the fallen but rational mind which continued to function even in the most depraved of sinners.” [82]

Second, beauty points to a doctrinal foundation for worldviews, and is therefore helpful for apologetics. Few people today consider the source of beauty, and yet the source of beauty is the source of all things; for Edwards, the study of true beauty was the study of God. [83] He saw this clearly: even though we are “less than nothing, yet so has God dignified us, that he has made us for this very end: to think and be astonished at his glorious perfections.” [84] He really was “convinced that beauty is the reality in terms of which the Divine Being and the moral and religious life of human beings as well as the order of the universal system of being, both moral and natural, can best be understood.” [85]

According to Strachan and Sweeney, Edwards believed that “God’s majestic nature not only enables but calls Him to glory in Himself. As a perfect being, a figure of absolute eternality, greatness, loveliness, power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness, God deserved to celebrate and glorify Himself.” [86] His creation ought to join Him in doing so. Therefore, all people need a worldview where “beauty is the key to the structure and the dynamics of the moral and religious life and more particularly to the manner of the divine governance and its relation to human freedom and responsibility.” [87] All of this reminds us that practical steps are needed to embrace a radical God- first worldview, rather than the me-first worldview so common in the culture and church today. [88]

Third, beauty is preachable apologetics. In part, this is because of the rich treasure-chest of analogies that it provides. As already mentioned, God makes these analogies in nature so people would recognize a sense of spiritual beauty and regard the true beauty in God. [89] However, the analogous beauty in nature to God does not dismiss the full character of God: “The waves and billows of the sea in a storm and the dire cataracts there are of rivers have a representation of the terrible wrath of God, and amazing misery of them that endure it.” [90] Preachers can preach the full counsel of God because something is truly beautiful only insofar as it harmonizes with being in general, and the truly beautiful is such in relation to all things, and not just a few particular other things. [91]

Edwards himself encapsulated this as he, in spite of his challenging philosophical writings and academics, was primarily a preacher. [92] Charles Geschiere argues that the “beauty of God, the beauty of the created order, the beauty of Christ’s person and work, the beauty of the redeemed heart, the beauty of holiness (God’s and the Christian’s) is the main thread that runs through almost all of [Edwards’s] printed works.” [93] And still, beauty and sensibility come through in Edwards’s sermon preparation, sermon writing, and even sermon delivery. [94] As he considered his homiletical task, Edwards’s mission was “to touch the heart, to effectively raise the affections in the direction of agreeableness, pleasure, delight, and love for God, that each hearer might have a new spiritual sense of the heart for the beauty of and the Beauty that is God.” [95] He did not invoke beauty so as to simply sing God’s praises, but “to speak as truly as he can about the nature of God and the relation of the triune God to His creation.” [96]

Fourth, beauty connects apologetic arguments with the necessity of regeneration. That Edwards saw regeneration as necessary is clear from his writing: “Private affection, if not subordinate in general affection, is not only liable, as the case may be, to issue in enmity to Being in general, but has a tendency to it, as the case certainly is and must necessarily be. For he that is influenced by private affection, not subordinate to regard to Being in general, sets up its particular or limited object above Being in general.” [97] If one wants to understand and properly appreciate any beauty, one needs to find the Ultimate Beauty: “For how should one love and value a disposition to a thing, or a tendency to promote a thing, and for that very reason, because it tends to promote it—when the thing itself is what he is regardless of, and has no value for, nor desires to have promoted?” [98] It is clear then that, for Edwards, beauty was not separate from regeneration. Rather, as Delattre notes, in beauty Edwards found “the central clue to the meaning of conversion, of the new life in Christ, and of the holiness and joy given in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.” [99]

While his language is somewhat unguarded here and he leaves himself open to misinterpretation, Wooddell says that God can use Edwards’s concept of secondary beauty “to draw people toward salvation.” [100] Edwards’s own words may be clearer: “I am bold to assert, that never was any considerable change wrought in the mind or conversation of any one person, by anything of a religious nature, that ever he read, heard, or saw, that had not his affections moved.” [101] Elsewhere Edwards said, “The things of religion take place in men’s hearts, no further than they are affected by them.” [102] Regeneration is not only intellectual, but also affectional. [103]

But beauty is also a response to regeneration. When true beauty “is discovered to the soul, it, as it were, opens a new world to its view.” [104] Therefore, God’s perfection and beauty should remind all those who have tasted His goodness by faith that they must humble themselves and bow in His presence, rejoicing that through Christ they can have access to Him and will not be crushed by the weight of His glory. [105] It is here that Terrance Erdt argues that Edwards’s concept of beauty is not connected to John Locke, but more to Calvin’s concept of suavitas or “sweetness.” [106] This sense of beauty was to define the response to one’s experimental knowledge of regeneration. [107]

This leads then to beauty as a point of contact for apologetics. Beauty seems to be a nearly universal point of contact for Edwards. When discussing the beauty of the world, Edwards himself makes the corollary that this beauty is “the reason why almost all men, and those that seem to be very miserable, love life: because they cannot bear to lose the sight of such a beautiful and lovely world.” [108] As Delattre says, for Edwards “no real good is fully known until its beauty is known and enjoyed and beauty is neither known nor enjoyed until it is sensibly apprehended and ‘taken to heart’ by a ‘sense of the heart.’” [109]

Edwards’s conception of beauty allows apologists to bring truly beautiful things like worldview, music, truth, lives, and even ecclesiology into the apologetic conversation. While these things are not traditional apologetic arguments, their true beauty allows them entrance into apologetic discussion. According to Edwards, “wherever one discovered intelligence, loveliness, or depictions of spiritual realities, one found prime evidence of God’s design. Beauty was not a concept one could abstract from God, but was the very essence of God.” [110]

These points of contact are visible to both Christians and non- Christians. While Christians can recognize spiritual beauty in another Christian and appreciate it for what it is, “some unbelievers might also see spiritual beauty in the life of a believer, but they cannot know it for what is, again a reflection of God’s beauty. They only know that it is attractive and cannot tell why.” [111] This is because the natural conscience common to mankind may approve of Being in general from its uniformity, equality, and justice though it cannot fully approve of true virtue without a regenerated taste for it. [112]

Fifth, beauty helps apologists appeal to the postmodern mind. While that obviously was not Edwards’s intention and it cannot be fully elaborated here, it is a beneficial effect. Because Edwards sees beauty as a perception via the mind or spirit or even an instinctive sense given by God, the compelling nature of beauty as an apologetic argument is that it does not depend on argumentation as traditionally understood. [113]

Traditionally, apologetics has focused on rationality and logic. However, by reclaiming Edwards’s understanding of beauty, apologetics can help the unbeliever be open to listening about God and the gospel. [114] As Strachan and Sweeney note, “Beauty, whether God- centered or not, captivates the human mind and heart.” [115] Now that does not mean that rationality, evidence, and reason are discarded, but it does mean they may be temporarily bypassed in favor of the sensory. [116] Even the rational Edwards wrote that “the manner of being affected with the immediate presence of the beautiful idea, depends not on reasonings about the idea after we have it, before we can find out whether it be beautiful or not; but on the frame of our minds, whereby they are so made that such an idea, as soon as we have it, is grateful, or appears beautiful.” [117] For him, rationalism was not exalted at the expense of the sensory, nor were the affections exalted at the expense of reason. [118]

Spiritual beauty is not seen by all. Following Edwards, Delattre writes, “the perception of the beauty of a thing does not yet guarantee that the existential engagement with that good is for its intrinsic goodness rather than for its instrumental goodness.” [119] There are some things only the regenerate can see. Edwards said, “Thus in that great goodness of God to sinners, and the wonderful dying love of Christ, there is a natural good, which all men love, as they love themselves; as well as a spiritual and holy beauty, which is seen only by the regenerate.” [120]

For the believer, understanding beauty will give perpetual food for the soul as well as purpose to life and meaning to existence. [121] “Probably tis with regard to this image or resemblance which secondary beauty has of true spiritual beauty that God has so constituted nature that the presenting of this inferior beauty…[has] a tendency to assist those whose hearts are under the influence of a truly virtuous temper, to dispose them to the exercises of divine love, and enliven in them a sense of spiritual beauty.” [122] In a sermon, Edwards said that “when the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension. It is implied in a person’s being heartily sensible of the loveliness of a thing, that the idea of it is sweet and pleasant to his soul.” [123]

Therefore, beauty, as Edwards understood it, needs to be rediscovered. Strachan and Sweeney give some practical guidelines on how Christians can increase their capacity for recognizing beauty. They suggest clearing space in technologically saturated lives to recognize the wisdom of the Lord in the natural realm; returning to nature and enjoying singing, praying, laughing, and contemplating small delights; communing with God in the realm created to testify of Him; looking for spiritual truths in daily lives; caring for creation; and longing for the new realm that will be a complete place of beauty and love where God will dwell forever. [124]

Then, rather than pursuing false beauty with the world, Christians will pursue true beauty by knowing God, His Word, and His world. We cannot neglect beauty, because then we would not only neglect an aspect of creation, but would also fall to an improper view of God, our Creator and Sustainer. Edwards reminds us that because God is beautiful, we are interested in beauty. Christians should have the most beautiful imaginations, the greatest love for beautiful things, and the most passionate desire to protect and promote true beauty. [125] Apologetics is one arena that could be transformed by such an aesthetic focus.

Notes

1. Joseph D. Wooddell, The Beauty of the Faith: Using Aesthetics for Christian Apologetics (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 52-54, 88-91.
2. Whether Edwards can be considered a Puritan has been disputed. See Joel Beeke and Randall Peterson, Meet the Puritans: With a Guide to Modern Reprints (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 193-204; David C. Brand, The Last Puritan: Jonathan Edwards, Self-Love, and the Dawn of the Beatific Vision (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1-29.
3. Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (New York: Sloane and Associates, 1949), 67; Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 94.
4. Norman Fiering, Jonathan Edwards’s Moral Thought and Its British Context (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 108.
5. Roland A. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1968), 15.
6. Louis Joseph Mitchell, “The Experience of Beauty in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards” (Th.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1995).
7. Mitchell, Experience of Beauty, 11.
8. Jonathan Edwards, “The Mind,” in Scientific and Philosophical Writings, ed. Wallace Anderson, vol. 6 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 344. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 6.
9. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:332.
10. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:332.
11. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 32.
12. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 47.
13. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 2.
14. Roland Delattre, “Beauty and Theology: A Reappraisal of Jonathan Edwards,” in Critical Essays on Jonathan Edwards, ed. William J. Scheick (Boston: Hall & Co., 1980), 136.
15. Charles Geschiere, “Taste and See That the Lord is Good: The Aesthetical- Affectional Preaching of Jonathan Edwards” (Th.M. thesis, Calvin Theological Seminary, 2008), 7; See also Douglas Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 25; Delattre; Beauty and Sensibility, 9.
16. Jonathan Edwards, “The Nature of True Virtue,” in Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey, vol. 8 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale Press, 1989), 539. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 8.
17. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:551, emphasis added; Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 46 has a helpful visual summary of this idea.
18. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:548.
19. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 31.
20. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:561-62.
21. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 31.
22. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:565.
23. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 51.
24. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:540.
25. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:540.
26. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:541.
27. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:332-34.
28. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:333.
29. McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Edwards, 99.
30. Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, ed. Paul Ramsey, vol. 1 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 141.
31. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 3.
32. McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Edwards, 93.
33. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 1-2.
34. Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. John Smith, vol. 2 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 298. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 2.
35. Geschiere, “Taste and See,” 102.
36. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 2.
37. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 2.
38. Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards on Beauty (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010), 27-38.
39. Jonathan Edwards, “God’s Excellencies,” in Sermons and Discourses 1720– 1723, ed. Wilson M. Kimnath, vol. 10 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 421. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 10.
40. Edwards, “God’s Excellencies,” in WJE, 10:419. Italics mine.
41. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 36.
42. Jonathan Edwards, “Concerning the End for Which God Created the World,” in WJE, 8:437.
43. Jonathan Edwards, “Miscellanies,” no. 1127, in The “Miscellanies,” 833-1152, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw, vol. 20 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 498. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 20.
44. Jonathan Edwards, “Miscellanies,” no. 117, in The “Miscellanies,” a–500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer, vol. 13 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 284. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 13.
45. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:337.
46. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 185.
47. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:620.
48. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:546.
49. McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Edwards, 93.
50. Joseph Wooddell, “Jonathan Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” Criswell Theological Review, 5 (Fall 2007), 87.
51. Jonathan Edwards, “Charity and Its Fruits,” in WJE, 8:338.
52. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 38.
53. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:550-51.
54. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 53.
55. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 2.
56. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:539.
57. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:337.
58. Edwards, “Miscellanies,” no. 108, in WJE, 13:279.
59. Jonathan Edwards, “Beauty of the World (1725),” in A Jonathan Edwards Reader, ed. John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2003), 14.
60. Edwards, “Miscellanies,” no. 108, in WJE, 13:279.
61. Jonathan Edwards, “Images of Divine Things (1728),” in Jonathan Edwards Reader, 16.
62. Edwards, “Beauty of the World,” 15.
63. Jonathan Edwards, “Miscellanies,” no. 1196, in “The Miscellanies” 1153– 1360, ed. Douglas Sweeney, vol. 22 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 118.
64. Miller, Edwards, 292, 110.
65. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:562-63.
66. Edwards, “Beauty of the World,” 15.
67. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 89-90.
68. Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, ed. John F. Wilson, vol. 9 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 133.
69. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 60.
70. Jonathan Edwards, “Shadows of Divine Things,” in Typological Writings, ed. Wallace Anderson and David Watters, vol. 11 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 114. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 11.
71. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:573-74.
72. Edwards, “Shadows of Divine Things,” in WJE, 11:106.
73. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 48.
74. McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Edwards, 150.
75. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 1.
76. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:363-65; McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Edwards, 96.
77. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:541.
78. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:564.
79. Edwards, “The Mind,” in WJE, 6:380.
80. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 88.
81. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:595-96.
82. John H. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Orlando, Fla.: Ligonier Ministries, 1993), 3:292-93.
83. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 20-21.
84. Edwards, “God’s Excellencies,” in WJE, 10:417.
85. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 1.
86. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 40.
87. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 2.
88. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 42.
89. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:565.
90. Edwards, “Shadows of Divine Things,” in WJE, 11:58.
91. Wooddell, “Jonathan Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 85.
92. George Marsden, quoted in Gescheire, “Taste and See,” 9; See also Perry Miller, “Jonathan Edwards on the Sense of the Heart,” Harvard Theological Review 41, no. 2 (April 1948), 123.
93. Geschiere, “Taste and See,” v.
94. Geschiere, “Taste and See,” 10.
95. Geschiere, “Taste and See,” 96.
96. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 117.
97. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:555.
98. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:549.
99. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 2.
100. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 88. He later says on p. 94, “Nothing of what I have said in this essay equates recognition of beauty with salvation.”
101. Edwards, “Religious Affections”, in WJE, 2:102.
102. Jonathan Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival,” in The Great Awakening, ed. C.C. Goen, vol. 4 of Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 297-98. Hereafter this volume is cited as WJE, 4.
103. Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival,” in WJE, 4:388.
104. Edwards, Religious Affections, in WJE, 2:273.
105. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 41.
106. Terrence Erdt, Jonathan Edwards, Art and the Sense of the Heart (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), 20; see also Kenneth P. Minkema, “A ‘Dordtian Philosophe’: Jonathan Edwards, Calvin, and Reformed Orthodoxy,” Church History and Religious Culture 91 (2011), 241.
107. Geschiere, “Taste and See,” 3.
108. Edwards, “Beauty of the World,” 15.
109. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 73; Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” in WJE, 4:442.
110. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 65.
111. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 86.
112. Gerstner, Rational Biblical Theology, 3:265.
113. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 94.
114. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 94.
115. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 142.
116. Wooddell, “Edwards, Beauty, and Apologetics,” 94.
117. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:619.
118. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 282.
119. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility, 74.
120. Edwards, Religious Affections, in WJE, 2:277.
121. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 21.
122. Edwards, “True Virtue,” in WJE, 8:565.
123. Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” in WJE, 4:442.
124. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 66-69.
125. Strachan and Sweeney, On Beauty, 142.