Audio Transcript

Christmas is Saturday. It’s a great time to take a fresh look at Christmas, particularly in what Christ’s birth represents in the big picture. As the apostle Paul says of us, Christians are those “on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). The end of the ages has come upon us, and the end of the ages has come upon us by the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

This is a big concept — a hard one. But it’s worth our time. Theologian Richard Gaffin has developed this point well in a really good book, his magnum opus coming out next year, which is titled In the Fullness of Time: An Introduction to the Biblical Theology of Acts and Paul (Crossway, May 2022). There he describes why the apostle Paul was so amazed that he — and us — is one upon which “the end of the ages has come.” Paul, he writes, is

deeply conscious of living in “the fullness of time,” when, at last, God has sent his Son and when the new creation has already dawned. His vantage point in history is characterized by the fact that he is privileged to be able now to look back on the climactic events of the history of redemption, the [birth and] death and resurrection of Christ, as having occurred. Using a sometimes-cited analogy from the Second World War, Paul knows himself to be among those for whom the great D-Day kingdom battle is over, for whom the era of conflict between the kingdom of God and the dominion of Satan is in the past and has been decisively resolved; the redemption of God’s people is an accomplished and secure reality.

D-Day is done. V-Day is yet future, in the second coming. Nevertheless, D-Day, the decisive battle, is over. It has been won. The kingdom has dawned. In other words, Gaffin writes, “God’s revelation in his Son, in his incarnate person and work . . . has a finality that cannot be superseded or surpassed.”

That’s the significance of the incarnation. The new creation has arrived. The kingdom of God has dawned. The future full arrival of the kingdom and the new creation, or V-Day, is now inevitable and unstoppable because there is a finality to redemptive history at Christmas. Paul never lost his amazement that something climactic, something decisive, something marking the end of time happened in a dusty manger in Bethlehem.

To use the apostle Paul’s very words: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4–5). That first Christmas marked the fullness of time. Or to say it another way, history ended on Christmas, as John Piper explains in this clip from his 1981 Christmas sermon, preached forty years ago. Here he is.

The meaning of Christmas was a total blur for some thirty years until the apostles broke through to this insight: “Oh, this is the first half of the final act of redemption, and the second half will only come later.” When they finally saw that, God counted them prepared to interpret Christmas for us. And that’s what they did in the New Testament, interpreting the incarnation in view of the second coming.

“The apostles do not treat Christmas as another bend in redemptive history. History ended at Christmas.”

Everything they wrote in their interpretation of the incarnation has a trademark about it. It’s a very unusual trademark that stamps it as apostolic, the words of the apostles. The trademark is that even though the apostles look forward to the second appearance of the coming of the Messiah, they nevertheless called the first appearing of the Messiah the end of the ages. History ended at Christmas. That’s the trademark of the apostles. They do not treat Christmas as just another bend in the river of redemptive history. With Christmas comes the end.

Christ’s Birth, Time’s End

Let me show you some examples of where this trademark is found. In 1 Corinthians 10:11, the apostle Paul says that all the events of the Old Testament “happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” That’s Paul speaking two thousand years ago: “The end of the ages has fallen upon us.”

Do you remember what the apostle Peter said when he stood up on Pentecost to interpret what was happening in the fall of the Holy Spirit? Quoting Joel, he said, “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit’” (Acts 2:16–17). Those were the last days.

Again, the apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:20 that “[Christ] was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.” Christ was made manifest at the end of the times. The appearing of Jesus at Christmas marked the end of the times — or, as Paul called it, “the end of the ages.”

Here’s one more text, Hebrews 9:26–28. It is especially important because, here, the two comings of the Messiah are held side by side, and still the first one is called the end. The text says,

[Christ] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:26–28)

What this text shows is that even though time had elapsed between Christmas and the writing of Hebrews, and the author looked forward to another uncertain elapse of time until that second appearing, nevertheless he still looked back and said that Christ’s first coming was the end of the age.

That’s the trademark of the apostles. That’s the way they thought about Christmas. And I think the Holy Spirit preserves that trademark for us because there is a tremendously important truth in it. Namely, don’t trivialize Christmas into just another great event in the stream of redemptive history.

How Christmas Tastes

Creation out of nothing was an awesome event. I try to imagine what the angels thought when matter, the universe, flashed into existence at the word of God. They never could have imagined such a thing, and there it was. The fall was an awful event that shook creation. The exodus was an amazing display of power and love. The giving of the law, the wandering in the wilderness, the conquest of Canaan, the rise of the monarchy, the prophetic word — all great demonstrations of the power of God along the river of redemptive history.

But don’t align Christmas on the same continuum with those great events. We trivialize the incarnation if we make it just another stage along the way to the end. It is the end of redemptive history, and I think the analogy of the river helps us see how.

Picture the Mississippi River, running all the way to the Gulf. Picture redemptive history now, flowing from creation right on through as a river. Picture the ocean into which it is flowing as the final kingdom of God — eternal and glorious beyond all description. At the mouth, or the end, of this river, the ocean presses back with its salt water some way up into the river. I’ve always wondered what kind of fish live in this no man’s land, where the freshwater and the salt water are mingling, where the river meets the ocean.

“Taste Jesus Christ. Taste his birth, life, death, and resurrection. Has not the kingdom arrived?”

Therefore, at the mouth of the river there’s a mingling of freshwater and salt water. One might say that the kingdom has pressed its way back up into the stream of history a short way. It has surprised the travelers on that river very, very much. They can taste it if they put their oar down into the water. They can smell it. They can see the seagull circling the deck. The end has come upon them, even though they’re still on the river.

Christmas is not just another bend in that river. Christmas is the arrival of the salt water of the kingdom, backing up into the river for some way. That salt water is beckoning us, welcoming us, alluring us out into the deep. Christmas is not just another great bend in the river. It is the end of the river.

Let down your oar. Taste Jesus Christ. Taste his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection. Has not the age to come fallen upon us? Has not the kingdom arrived? Do you not taste the powers of the age to come? I think those who can taste it lift up their eyes, and they see a big blue bow on the horizon between sky and ocean. And they are hankering and longing to go out of the delta, out of the mouth of the river, into the ocean.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14735917/was-the-old-testament-in-light-of-the-new

“The Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in. Revival grew, and souls did as it were come by floods to Christ” (Works, 1:348). That is how Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) described the remarkable progress of the gospel in Northampton in 1734, one local manifestation of what would come to be known as the First Great Awakening.

Many were overjoyed at what they regarded as a glorious work of God. Others were horrified, regarding it all as dangerous fanaticism. When Edwards later set out to analyze the true and the false in revival, the experience of his own wife, Sarah, provided him with a remarkable case study of the genuine work of the Spirit.

Although the first part of Sarah’s life appeared outwardly peaceful, her inner life was sometimes troubled. Later in life, however, she endured a series of crises, through which she remained serene. The most significant turning point came in 1742, when she was given a fresh appreciation of “the breadth and length and height and depth” of Christ’s love (Ephesians 3:18).

Desiring God

From a young age, Sarah enjoyed an awareness of the beauty and glory of God. Famously, when she was just 13, Jonathan (aged 20) wrote a delightful eulogy to her piety and lovely character. By 16, Sarah was powerfully aware of her own sin, and trusted God for mercy. She valued “nearness to Christ as the creature’s greatest happiness,” and she could say, “My soul thirsted for him, so that death meant nothing to me, that I might be with him; for he was altogether lovely” (quoted in Haykin, “Nearness to Christ the Creature’s Greatest Happiness”).

Seventeen-year-old Sarah married Jonathan in 1727 and moved to Northampton. Jonathan was assisting his grandfather Solomon Stoddard (1643–1729), who had ministered at the church there since 1669. When Stoddard died two years later, Jonathan succeeded him as sole minister.

A baby girl was born to Sarah and Jonathan in 1728, the first of eleven children. Visitors to their home testified to the warmth and love of their family life. Meanwhile, Sarah continued to know God’s smile. By 1735, she had gone through labor four times (then immensely risky), but she wrote,

During a time of great affliction, I could often say: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none on earth that I desire beside thee. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.” (“Nearness to Christ”)

Up to the age of 31, Sarah’s life was reasonably smooth. She did experience mood swings and depression, no doubt associated in part with the rigors of childbearing. She depended a lot on the approval of her husband. She was sometimes overprotective of his reputation, and feared the bad opinion of the townspeople. At times she was beset with anxiety. Even still, she continued to know and rejoice in God. With the psalmist, she desired ever closer fellowship with God (Psalm 27:4), and longed for greater holiness (Psalm 139:23–24).

Delighting in God

Jonathan had begun his ministry at a time when most people in Northampton attended church, but many were nominal Christians. Most of the youth were unconverted, with low moral standards.

The sudden death of one young man in 1734, however, shook the community. At the funeral, Jonathan preached on Psalm 90:5–6, challenging all to prepare for death and judgment. Small prayer groups sprang up. By early 1735, many were convicted of sin, repented, and found assurance of forgiveness. Jonathan reported an average of thirty conversions a week over a five- to six-week period (Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, 117). Six months later, three hundred people were converted.

Throughout the next year, revival continued in Northampton and in many other communities in New England, as well as in Britain and beyond. When George Whitefield (1714–1770) visited New England in 1740, he preached to crowds of thousands. At such times of revival, God draws near in a special and widespread way: unbelievers are convicted and converted, and believers are given a deeper awareness of spiritual reality.

Heaven Below

While Jonathan was preaching away from home early in 1742, there was further revival in Northampton. Between January 19 and February 11, Sarah was so overwhelmed with assurance of the love of God that some wondered whether she would survive until her husband’s return. She did, and was able in due course to give him a precise account of what she had experienced during that time.

In those days, Sarah had felt crushed by awareness of her own indwelling sin, but then overjoyed by the glory of salvation. She rejoiced in the ministry of each person of the Holy Trinity. Truths she had enjoyed for many years brought her almost unbearably intense happiness. Her delight in God was so overpowering it was as if she were already experiencing the joy of heaven.

I never before, for so long a time together, enjoyed so much of the light, and rest and sweetness of heaven in my soul. . . . I continued in a constant, clear, and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ’s love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him. (Works, 1:lxv)

‘Your Will Be Done’

Along with that personal sense of God’s love, she felt intense love and compassion for others. She no longer feared the ill-will of the town or the disapproval of her husband. Nor did she care whether it was her husband or another preacher who was more effective in ministry.

“The priority was that God should be glorified. If that involved suffering, so be it. His glory was all in all.”

She envisaged the worst scenarios that could possibly befall. What if the townsfolk turned on her and she was thrown out into the wilderness in the midst of winter? What if her husband turned against her? Or if she had to die for Christ? (And what about living her daily routine uncomplainingly, and facing the risks and traumas of repeated childbirth?) God loved her, so Sarah could trust him. Whatever happened, her response would be “Your will be done” and “Amen, Lord Jesus!”

The priority was that God should be glorified. If that involved suffering, so be it. His glory was all in all.

Depending on God

The reality of Sarah’s “resignation of all to God” would soon be tested as she faced a series of crises: war, poverty, rejection, and multiple bereavements.

When England and France declared war in 1744, inhabitants of towns such as Northampton became targets of attack. (French Canadians paid allies among the North American Indians to kill English settlers.) The town was on constant alert. Several were killed. Jonathan and Sarah stayed calm, remaining there to minister. Nevertheless, war resulted in economic hardship. Parishioners struggled to feed themselves, and the Edwardses’ salary often went unpaid. Sarah had to submit detailed household budgets to the church and engage in every conceivable economy.

Inglorious End

Meanwhile, by 1744, Jonathan had become convinced that only believers should take communion — a position that caused uproar. Those baptized as infants expected to be able to take communion, whether or not they had professed faith. At the same time, a controversial case of church discipline also caused friction. Factions in the church, including some of Jonathan’s own relatives, turned against their pastor. The church eventually dismissed Jonathan in June 1750, leaving the family without financial support. Yet Jonathan and Sarah remained free of bitterness, shut up to the opinion of all but God. Later on, a relative admitted that he had spread numerous untrue slanders about them, but they never demanded public vindication.

In 1751, Jonathan accepted a call to minister to a remote mission station at Stockbridge. The family relocated to the frontier, where conditions were harsh compared to Northampton. The settlement was made up of twelve English families, as well as two different groups of North American Indians. Tensions abounded, however, and all lived in fear because of ongoing war between the English and the French, with the Indians caught in between. Each day, news came in of horrible atrocities. Sarah had to provide meals for streams of refugees leaving the interior, as well as for soldiers billeted with them. Friends and family begged the Edwardses to leave, but Jonathan and Sarah felt they were safer in the path of their calling than out of it.

The Edwardses had great vision for the North American Indians, even sending their 9-year-old son off to a remote place with a missionary in order to learn another Indian language. Jonathan commented in a letter, “The Indians seem much pleased with my family, especially my wife” (Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 391).

Death upon Death

Worst of all, however, were the series of bereavements the Edwards family endured from the late 1740s on. Jerusha Edwards, Jonathan’s and Sarah’s second-oldest daughter, died in 1748 at the age of 17. She had offered to care for a visiting missionary, David Brainerd, as he died of tuberculosis, but she too succumbed to the disease. Exceptionally godly, Jerusha had been regarded as the “flower of the family.” But her parents submitted to God’s sovereignty, knowing their daughter was with her Lord.

In 1752, 20-year-old Esther married Aaron Burr, the 36-year-old president of New Jersey College at Princeton. They soon had two children — the youngest, Aaron Jr., would famously kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, while U.S. Vice President — but Aaron Sr. died at just 41 years old in 1757. Jonathan then was invited to take his place as President of the New Jersey College. He moved down to Princeton ahead of the family.

Soon after taking up the post, in March 1758, Jonathan died after a smallpox vaccination. While dying, he sent word to Sarah, thanking God for the “uncommon union” that they had enjoyed, and looking to the eternity that lay before them in Christ. When Sarah received the terrible news of his untimely death, she responded with towering faith:

The Lord has done it: He has made me adore his goodness that we had him [Jonathan] so long. But my God lives and he has my heart. (Works, 1:clxxix)

She soon received further terrible news. Esther had died a few days after her father. Sarah immediately left her own children and traveled down to Princeton to collect her two orphaned grandchildren. On the way home, she herself fell critically ill and died on October 2, 1758, at age 48.

Throughout this tragic series of events, and in her final hours, Sarah still could testify,

Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

Desiring God’s Glory in all the Earth

From an early age, Sarah Edwards had delighted in God. That delight was intensified during revival, it endured through suffering, and she died knowing that death would be her entry to unbroken delight in him. Her delight in God gave her a passion that he be glorified. She knew that God is worthy of the praise of every person on earth (Psalm 148), and she could not bear to think of him not receiving his due:

I felt such a disposition to rejoice in God, that I wished to have the world join me in praising him. I was ready to wonder how the world of mankind could lie and sleep when there was such a God to praise! (Works, 1:lxvii)

“Sarah longed for revival, not only in her own life, in her own family, or in Northampton, but throughout the earth.”

Sarah longed for revival, not only in her own life, in her own family, or in Northampton, but throughout the earth. The Edwardses’ ambitions and prayers went far beyond personal, family, or parochial concerns — they were certain of the ultimate and cosmic triumph of Christ. And so, Jonathan urged all believers to unite in prayer for global evangelization and revival.

As we love God more, and enjoy his love, we too long for him to be honored by all, and for his glory to fill the earth. We too are to pray and work for revival — in our own experience, our family, our church, our nation, and the world:

Blessed be his glorious name forever;     may the whole earth be filled with his glory!Amen and Amen! (Psalm 72:19)