All Christ’s Obedience Counts For Edwards

Edwards wrote:

“We are as much saved by the death of Christ, as his yielding himself to die was an act of obedience, as we are, as it was a propitiation for our sins: for as it was not the only act of obedience that merited, he having performed meritorious acts of obedience through the whole course of his life; so neither was it the only suffering that was propitiatory; all his suffering through the whole course of his life being propitiatory, as well as every act of obedience meritorious . . . .”

Commenting on Edwards’ understanding of the infinite merit of Christ, Craig Biehl concludes:

“An accurate understanding of the Triune God depends upon an accurate understanding of the pre-temporal and earthly ministry of Christ in satisfying the positive and negative demands of God’s unchanging rule of righteousness, as revealed in Scripture.”

(From: Craig Biehl, The Infinite Merit of Christ, The Glory of Christ’s Obedience in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Jackson: Reformed Academic Press, 2009), 222-223, 250.)