Meditation from Edwards on "The Excellency of Christ"

Reading Jonathan Edwards is just plain hard and painful at times. But, he does an excellent discourse on "The Excellency of Christ", and I wanted to share a meditation and hopefully tantalize your appetite, and make you desire to read more of him. I suffer through reading this wonderful man of God, but it is so worth it. Enjoy, and enjoy God because of Him making much of Jesus through men like Jonathan Edwards. May we present Christ to the world as most excellent - and seek to know Him more deeply so that He will pour out of us as we live our lives.
"There meet in Jesus Christ, infinite justice and infinite grace. As Christ is a divine person, He is infinitely holy and just; hating sin, and disposed to execute condign punishment for sin. He is the Judge of the world, and the infinitely just Judge of it, and will not at all acquit the wicked, or by any means clear the guilty.
And yet He is infinitely gracious and merciful. Though His justice be so strict with respect to all sin, and every breach of the law, yet He has grace sufficient for every sinner, and even the chief of sinners. And it is not only sufficient for the most unworthy to show them mercy, and bestow some good upon them, but to bestow the greatest good; yea, it is sufficient to bestow all good upon them, and to do all things for them. There is no benefit or blessing that they can receive, so great but the grace of Christ is sufficient to bestow it on the greatest sinner that ever lived. And not only so, but so great is His grace, that nothing is too much as the means of this good. It is sufficient not only to do great things, but also to suffer in order to it; and not only to suffer, but to suffer most extremely even unto death, the most terrible of natural evils; and not only death, but the most ignominious and tormenting, and every way the most terrible that men could inflict; yea, and greater sufferings than men could inflict, who could only torment the body. He had sufferings in His soul, that were the more immediate fruits of the wrath of God against the sins of those He undertakes for." - Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume i. p. 681 (Hendrickson Edition).

May the words of Edwards lead us to love Jesus more and enjoy Him more. May we seek Him first and savor Him as the all-surpassing Value of our life. Read difficult theologians and struggle with me in this endeavor, but ENJOY God.

Savoring the Excellency of Christ.
Dwight