# “Surprising, amazing joy” by Jonathan Edwards

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2025/11/16/surprising-amazing-joy-by-jonathan-edwards/
- Published: 2025-11-16T05:00:00-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“By virtue of the believer’s union with Christ, he does really possess all things(**
1 Cor. 3:21-23**). But it may be asked, how does he possess all things? What is 
he the better for it? How is a true Christian so much richer than other people?

To answer this, I’ll tell you what I mean by “possessing all things.” I mean that
God three in one, all that He is, and all that He has, and all that He does, all
that He has made or done— the whole universe, bodies and spirits, earth and heaven,
angels, humans and devils, sun, moon and stars, land and sea, fish and fowls, all
silver and gold, kings and potentates— are as much the Christian’s as the money 
in his pocket, the clothes he wears, the house he dwells in, or the victuals (ie.
food) he eats; yes, properly his, advantageously his, by virtue of the union with
Christ; because Christ, who certainly does possess all things, is entirely his: 
so that the Christian possesses it all, more than a wife the share of the best and
dearest husband, more than the hand possesses what the head does. It is all his.

Every atom in the universe is managed by Christ so as to be most to the advantage
of the Christian, every particle of air or every ray of the sun; so that he in the
other world, when he comes to see it, shall sit and enjoy all this vast inheritance
with surprising, amazing joy.”

–Jonathan Edwards, “[Miscellany ff](https://amzn.to/3GY9w07),” [_The “Miscellanies”: (Entry a–500)_](https://amzn.to/3GY9w07),
ed. Thomas A. Schafer and Harry S. Stout, [vol. 13, _The Works of Jonathan Edwards_](https://amzn.to/3GY9w07)(
New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2002), 13: 183–184.

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