“The people of Jesus Christ have great cause to glory in their Savior.
What reason have we to praise God, who has given us so much cause to glory in Christ Jesus, that we that deserve so much shame should have so much cause to glory!
We were in a forlorn condition:
- we were depressed to the lowest depths of misery and wretchedness;
- we were filthy and abominable,
- we had made ourselves viler than the earth,
- we deserved nothing but shame and everlasting contempt;
- we had nothing to glory in, but all the circumstances of our case were such as administered to us just cause of shame and confusion of face (Daniel 9:8).
But God has been pleased to provide One for us
- to take away our guilt and disgrace,
- and to be the glory in the midst of us;
- to put great honor upon us,
- to be as a covering to hide our nakedness,
- and not only so, but to adorn us and make us glorious;
- to be to us wisdom,
- to bring us from our shameful ignorance and darkness;
- to be our righteousness for the removal of our guilt
- and to procure acceptance with God for us;
- to be our sanctification,
- to change us from sinful and loathsome to holy and amiable;
- to be our redemption,
- to deliver us from all trouble and danger,
- and to make us happy and blessed forever;
- to bestow upon us gold tried in the fire, that of poor we might become rich, and that He might exalt us from the dunghill and set us among princes (1 Samuel 2:8).
That God should take us, who were under bondage to sin and Satan, and give us such a glorious victory over our adversaries, and cause us thus to triumph over those that had us captives and were so much stronger than we, and that God gives us so much greater privileges than others, that we should have such a king, is reason enough to praise God.”
–Jonathan Edwards, “Glorying in the Savior,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1723–1729, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 14 (Ed. Harry S. Stout and Kenneth P. Minkema (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1997), 14: 468.
