Most Christians have thought that the active work of Jesus among us as redeemer did not begin until the Incarnation in the first century. Salvation for people before that time, it has been assumed, came by active faith in God’s promises of future redemption through Jesus.
But Edwards was convinced, as were the Church Fathers before Augustine, that Jesus began his redemptive work in the garden of Eden, just after the Fall. Because the Father is all-holy, he cannot abide the direct presence of sin or sinners, as Scripture teaches. Thus the Son of God was appointed to be the mediator between a holy Father and a sinful humanity—to represent the Father before sinners. This is why, Edwards wrote, God did not destroy Adam and Eve after they defied his commands, and why they did not immediately suffer the full penalty of the curse they had brought on themselves.
There are many other lines of evidence for this in the Bible, said Edwards. Consider the repeated theme that God the Father is invisible; yet he is said to have been seen, even in the Old Testament. John tells us that “no one has seen God [the Father] at any time” (John 1:18). Yet Moses talked with God “face to face as a man speaks with his friend” (Exod. 33:11). The seventy elders at Sinai “saw the God of Israel” (Exod. 24:10). Whom were they seeing if God the Father has never been seen?
Jonathan Edwards came to see that Israel is at the center of world history.https://t.co/06C5zIRPMI
— First Things (@firstthingsmag) September 25, 2024
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