“If His enemies were admitted to be so free with Christ in persecuting and afflicting; if Christ, as it were, yielded Himself wholly into their hands to be mocked and spit upon, and that they might be as bold as they would in deriding and trampling on Him, and might execute their utmost malice and cruelty to make way for His friends’ enjoyment of Him, [then] doubtless His friends, for whom this was done, will be allowed to be as free with Him in enjoying of Him.
He will yield Himself as freely up to His friends to enjoy Him, as He did to be abused by His enemies, seeing the former was the end of the latter. Christ will surely give Himself as much to His saints as He has given Himself for them. He whose arms were expanded to suffer, to be nailed to the cross, will doubtless be opened as wide to embrace those for whom He suffered. He whose side, whose vitals, whose heart was opened to the spear of His enemies, to give access to their malice and cruelty, and to let out His blood, will doubtless be opened to admit the love of His saints.”
–Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies”: Entries Nos. 501-832 in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 18, Ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 370.
