Edwards on the Sweet Comfort of an Unchangeable Savior

Over the past few months, I have taken a course on the life and theology of Jonathan Edwards, having opportunity to read a number of his most significant theological and pastoral works. Much of the time when I mention Edwards to folks interested in my studies, their heads turn to the side and their eyes squint in a mix of mild confusion and discomfort. And this reaction is understandable considering that Edwards is most known (and most vilified) for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” But to believe that Edwards was little more than an expositor of the horrors of hell would be a gross miscalculation, for the Puritan pastor at the same time demonstrates a remarkable gift for expounding the sweet, soul-gripping heights of the glory of Christ.

In April of 1738, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon on Hebrews 8:8 entitled “Jesus Christ, the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever.” The final few paragraphs of his message were aimed at applying the truth of Jesus’ unchanging nature for the comfort of God’s children. His insights are practical, faithful, and dripping in the richness of the gospel.

The truth taught in the text may be applied by way of consolation to the godly. You may consider that you have in him an unchangeable Savior, who, as he has loved you and undertaken for you from eternity, and in time has died for you before you were born, and has since converted you by his grace, and brought you out of a blind, guilty, and undone condition, savingly home to himself; so he will carry on his work in your heart; he will perfect what is yet lacking in you, in order to your complete deliverance from sin, and death, and all evil, and to your establishment in complete and unalterable blessedness. From the unchangeableness of your Savior, you may see how he thinks of that chain in Rom. 8:29, 30, “For whom he did foreknow them he also did predestinate, and whom he did predestinate them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified.” The Savior has promised you very great and precious blessings in this world. And things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, in the world to come. And from his unchangeableness you may be assured that the things which he has promised he will also perform.

You may from this doctrine see the unchangeableness of his love. And therefore, when you consider how great love he seemed to manifest, when he yielded himself up to God a sacrifice for you, in his agony and bloody sweat in the garden, and when he went out to the place of his crucifixion bearing his own cross, you may rejoice that his love now is the same that it was then.

And so when you think of past discoveries which Christ has made of himself in his glory, and in his love to your soul, you may comfort yourself that he is as glorious, and his love to you is as great, as it was in the time of these discoveries.

You may greatly comfort yourself that you have an unchangeable friend in Christ Jesus. Constancy is justly looked upon as a most necessary and most desirable qualification in a friend. That he be not fickle, and so that his friendship cannot be depended on as that of a steady sure friend. How excellent his friendship is, you may learn from his manner of treating his disciples on earth, whom he graciously treated as a tender father his children, meekly instructing them, most friendly conversing with them, and being ready to pity them, and help them, and forgive their infirmities. And then you may consider this doctrine, and how it thence appears that he is the same still that he was then, and ever will be the same.

From the unchangeableness of your Savior, you may be assured of your continuance in a state of grace. As to yourself, you are so changeable, that, if left to yourself, you would soon fall utterly away. There is no dependence on your unchangeableness. But Christ is the same, and therefore, when he has begun a good work in you he will finish it. As he has been the author, he will be the finisher of your faith. Your love to Christ is in itself changeable. But his to you is unchangeable, and therefore he will never suffer your love to him utterly to fail. The apostle gives this reason why the saints’ love to Christ cannot fail, viz. that his love to them never can fail.

From the unchangeableness of Christ you may learn the unchangeableness of his intercession, how he will never cease to intercede for you. And from this you may learn the unalterableness of your heavenly happiness. When once you have entered on the happiness of heaven, it never shall be taken from you, because Christ, your Savior and friend, who bestows it on you, and in whom you have it, is unchangeable. He will be the same forever and ever, and therefore so will be your happiness in heaven. As Christ is an unchangeable Savior, so he is your unchangeable portion. That may be your rejoicing, that however your earthly enjoyments may be removed, Christ can never fail. Your dear friends may be taken away and you suffer many losses. And at last you must part with all those things. Yet you have a portion, a precious treasure, more worth, ten thousand times, than all these things. That portion cannot fail you, for you have it in him, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It is staggering how one aspect of Christ’s infinite beauty can proffer such contentment and rest to his people. We need people like Edwards to remind us every now and then of the glory of God and the depths of the gospel.

You can read the full text of “Jesus Christ, the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever” here.

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