“As feasts are expensive and are provided at the expense of the host, so the provision which God has in the gospel made for our souls is exceedingly expensive unto Him. We have it for nothing. It costs us nothing, but it cost God a great deal. Fallen men can’t be feasted but at vast expense. We are by sin sunk infinitely low, into the lowest depths of misery and want, and our famishing souls could not be provided for but under infinite expense.
All that we have from God for the salvation and support and nourishment of our souls cost exceeding dear. Never were any that were feasted at so dear a rate as believers: what they eat and drink is a thousand times more costly than what they eat at the tables of princes, that is far-fetched and dear bought. Every crumb of bread that they eat and every drop of wine that they drink is more costly than so much gold or gems.
God purchased it at no less a rate than with the blood of His only and infinitely dear Son. That holiness and that favor, and that peace and joy which they have, it was bought with the heart’s blood of the Son of God, His precious life. He made His soul an offering. Christ Jesus obtained this provision by victory. He was obliged to fight for it as it were up to His knees in blood that He might obtain it; yea, He waded through a sea of blood to get it for us.”
-–Jonathan Edwards, “The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel Represented by a Feast,” Sermons and Discourses: 1723-1729, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 14, Ed. Kenneth P. Minkema (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 282-3.
