N13864:509
A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…
A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of divinity, in a method entirely new. / By the late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, president of the College of New Jersey[.]
Boston: printed by Draper & Folsom, 1782
A HISTORY Of the WORK of REDEMPTION. › Period 2 › Part 2 › Section 3
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Another law that Christ was subject to, was the mediatorial law, which contained those commands of God to which he was subject, not merely as man, nor yet as a Jew, but which related purely to his mediatorial office. Such were the commands which the Father gave him, to teach such doctrines, to preach the gospel, to work such miracles, to call such disciples, to appoint such ordinances, and finally to lay down his life: for he did all these things in obedience to commands he had received of the Father, as he often tells us. And these commands he was not subject to merely as man; for they did not belong to other men: nor yet was he subject to them as a Jew; for they were no part of the Mosaic law; but they were commands that he had received of the Father, that purely respected the work he was to do in the world in his mediatorial office.
It is to be observed, that Christ's righteousness, by which he merited heaven for himself, and all who believe in him, consists principally in his obedience to this mediatorial law: for in fulfilling this law consisted his chief work and business in the world. The history of the evangelists is chiefly taken up in giving an account of his obedience to this law: and this part of his obedience was ⟨p. 150⟩that which was attended with the greatest difficulty of all; and therefore his obedience in it was most meritorious What Christ had to do in the world by virtue of his being Mediator, was infinitely more difficult than what he had to do merely as a man, or as a Jew. To his obedience to this mediatorial law belongs his going through his last sufferings, beginning with his agony in the garden, and ending with his resurrection.
As the obedience of the first Adam, wherein his righteousness would have consisted, if he had stood, would have mainly consisted, not his in obedience to the moral law, to which he was subject merely as man, but in his obedience to that special law that he was subject to as moral head and surety of mankind, even the command of abstaining from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; so the obedience of the second Adam, wherein his righteousness consists, lies mainly, not in his obedience of the law that he was subject to merely as man, but to that special law which he was subject to in his office as Mediator and surety for man.