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Overjoyed in Our Robe of Righteousness

As God is glorified in the display and communication of His holiness and happiness, and as that display and communication is by the grand medium of Christ in His redemptive work, so the saints’ happiness in heaven will be as participants in God’s ultimate purpose in viewing and loving Christ and His redemptive work. “The beatifical vision of God in heaven consists mostly in beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, either in his work or in his person as appearing in the glorified human nature.”[1] The saints will view God’s glory in Christ as “the image of the invisible God,” whose perfections shine forth most prominently in the acts and fruits of His redemptive work.[2]  The souls of the saints in heaven will be “ravished” in beholding the “beauty and amiable excellency of Christ as appearing in his virtues,” in viewing the “height” and “sum” of His glory, “appearing in and by the exercise of dying love to them.” In viewing Christ “they see the transcendent greatness of his love shining forth in the same act that they see the transcendent greatness of his loveliness shining forth.”[3]

They see everything in Christ that tends to kindle and enflame love, and everything that tends to gratify love, and everything that tends to satisfy them: and that in the most clear and glorious manner, without any darkness or delusion, without any impediment or interruption.[4]

What is seen by saints in their earthly body is mingled with darkness and the spiritual deformity of sin, but the vision of their “glorious redeemer,” the “Sun of righteousness,” will be seen “without clouds” and in full light in heaven.[5]

Moreover, the saints “have the additional pleasure of considering that this lovely virtue is imputed to them. ‘Tis the lovely robe, and robe of love, with which they are covered.”[6] Thus the glory of Christ’s righteousness by which they are overwhelmed with joy is the righteousness in which they are covered, providing an additional basis of their great happiness in Christ.


[1] M 1137, Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies,” 833-1152, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw, vol. 20 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 515. See also “True Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord,” Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 1743-1758, ed. Wilson H. Kimnach, vol. 25 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). 238. Edwards included the view of the ongoing works of redemption on earth as viewed by the saints already in heaven as part of the happiness of the saints in heaven. See M 917 and M 1061, Works 20:166, 429-30.

[2] M 777, Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies,” 501-832, ed. Ava Chamberlain, vol. 18 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 431. See also M 1137, Works 20:515.

[3] M 791, Works 18:494-5.

[4] “True Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord,” Works 25:230.

[5] Ibid., Works 25:230-1.

[6] M 791, Works 18:495.

Click here to download a PDF of this article.


© 2015 Craig Biehl, Adapted from Craig Biehl, The Infinite Merit of Christ, (Reformed Academic Press, 2009), 49-50.

 

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    The Wishful Atheist

    High Ground or Thin Air?
    Atheists claim the high ground of reason and science while viewing Christian faith as blind and wishful thinking. But could the opposite be true? Could atheism be unreasonable wishful thinking, while Christianity is both reasonable and consistent with what we know of the universe?

    A Limited View
    We begin by asking the question, what would an atheist need to know in order to know that God does not exist? Answer? Everything about everything in the universe and beyond. Infinite knowledge. In other words, the atheist would need to be God to deny His existence. Of course, people write books, teach at universities, and accomplish many marvelous things, but none are equipped to describe reality beyond our three or four dimensions or to know what inhabits the other side of the universe. Christians and atheists alike forget where they put their wallet, purse, or car keys, and can’t know the contents of their neighbor’s garage without having a look. How, then, can such limited people know that God does not exist, or what an infinite God can be or do? Apart from God’s revelation, our limitations render such claims meaningless.

    An Unreasonable Standard
    Next, Atheists point to apparent contradictions in Scripture to deny the God of Scripture. But God infinitely exceeds our limited understanding. In fact, we could never know Him if He did not condescend to make Himself known. Our limitations before an infinite God make mystery reasonable and necessary. To say the God of Scripture cannot exist because I cannot understand or logically reconcile something in my mind presumes my limited understanding to be the ultimate standard of what God can or cannot be or do. Finite and fallen people are ill-equipped for such a lofty role. Scripture describes God as infinite Spirit and higher than the universe He created, whom no man has seen or can see (John 1:18; 1 Timothy 6:16). Arguments against God’s existence based on our limited experience and understanding are futile in the face of a God who transcends reality as we know it. He is not limited by what He created.

    Without Excuse in a Sea of Evidence
    Scripture tells us that all people know God in a way that leaves them without excuse for not worshipping or giving Him thanks (Romans 1:18-22). God’s power, genius, and goodness are displayed clearly in all things, including the stars, our conscience, and the food on our table. No one visits a bakery and denies the existence of a baker, uses a computer and denies the existence of a programmer, or sees a baby and denies the existence of a mother and father. Yet, atheists deny God while drowning in a sea of evidence.

    Willful Mystery
    Why do they do this? They “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18) because they do not like the implications of God as their maker. If God created and sustains them, apart from whom they have and could do nothing, then they owe God all love, honor, and obedience. They deny the obvious because they do not like where the evidence leads them. They refuse to deny their presumed independence and authority and reject the reality of their dependence on God for all things. As they love darkness and hate the light, they view God as a direct challenge to their love of sin and self-rule (John 3:19-20).

    Wishful Thinking
    So, unlike the Christian realist, the atheist suffers from wishful thinking. He imagines no heaven or hell, no ultimate judgment, and no God to whom he must humbly bow the knee. He devises what he could never know or determine. Yet, someday he will be confronted with reality as God has determined it to be, regardless of what he imagined it to be. The presumed omniscience of the atheist will be exposed as a denial of the obvious, from contempt for the One who gave him all good things, to whom he owes all things. It’s no wonder, then, that Scripture tells us: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1 NAS).

    Click here to download a PDF of this article.

    God the Reason: How Infinite Excellence Gives Unbreakable Faith by Dr. Craig Biehl

    © 2015 Craig Biehl, Adapted from Craig Biehl, God the Reason: How Infinite Excellence Gives Unbreakable Faith, Carpenter’s Son Publishing, 2015.

     

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