The Worthless Sacrifice of All Men

Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon Life Through Christ Alone, noted:

It was by Christ that eternal life has been communicated from the foundation of the world. It was by Christ that holy men in the old world, before the flood, received life; ’twas by faith in him that Enoch was translated; ’twas by the reception of Christ that Abraham received eternal life; ’twas [by] faith in him Moses received eternal happiness, that faith whereby he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. It was by Christ and him alone that Job, Samuel, David, and the prophets were saved; he is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, in whose blood the godly have been washed and with whose righteousness they have been clothed—never ever have been or ever will be saved any other way to the end of this world. There is none else can communicate eternal life to us, or deliver us from eternal death.

I. We cannot obtain it by ourselves. Our own strength, our own righteousness, our own suffering, are all good for nothing to procure this life we speak of. If we make our ways never so clean, if we worship God never so well, if we sacrifice thousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil, yea, if man should sacrifice the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul, it is nothing.

Abraham’s being so freely willing to offer his only son, Isaac, was not sufficient to satisfy God for the least of Abraham’s sins, not for the least wrong thought and sinful action; but it was Christ that satisfied for Abraham’s sin, and it was through that faith in Him by which he offered him up that he received pardon of sin and eternal life, and it was for His sake that this action of his was accepted and rewarded.

II. All the world can’t procure eternal life for us. If all the men in the world should offer to be crucified for the sake of one man, it would be absolutely to no purpose; instead of satisfying for all our sins, they could not satisfy for one of them; instead of procuring eternal life, they could not procure one drop of water for us in hell: the flames of hell would not be at all the cooler for it. They are not able to pay one farthing of all that ten thousand talents which we owe, but we must have been in hell till we had paid the uttermost farthing, notwithstanding all that they could do or suffer; and so,

III. Neither could angels help us. If the archangel, the chief angel in heaven, with all the rest of those bright, excellent, and glorious spirits, should assume human bodies and all undergo as much disgrace as Christ did, and should hang upon crosses in pain and intolerable torment thousands of years, ‘twould be to as little purpose.

[IV.]‘Tis the Lamb of God alone that can take away the sins of the world, and it is the Lion of the tribe of Judah alone that is strong enough to work our way through to everlasting happiness.1

1. Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (WJE Online Vol. 10) , Ed. Wilson H. Kimnach