Jonathan Edwards - True Saints, When Absent From the Body, Are Present With the Lord (4 of 7)

And accordingly the souls of departed saints, with Christ in heaven, shall have Christ, as it were, unbosomed unto them, manifesting those infinite riches of love towards them that have been there from eternity. And they shall be enabled to express their love to him in an infinitely better manner than ever they could while in the body. Thus they shall eat and drink abundantly, and swim in the ocean of love, and be eternally swallowed up in the infinitely bright and infinitely mild and sweet beams of divine love, eternally receiving that light, eternally full of it, and eternally compassed round with it, and everlastingly reflecting it back again to the fountain of it. Fifth, the souls of the saints, while they leave their bodies at death, go to be with Christ, as they are received to a glorious fellowship with Christ in his blessedness. As the wife is received to a joint possession of her husband's estate, and as the wife of a prince partakes with him in his princely possessions and honors, so the church, the spouse of Christ, when the marriage comes, and she is received to dwell with him in heaven, shall partake with him in his glory. When Christ rose from the dead and took possession of eternal life, this was not as a private person but as the public head of all his redeemed people. He took possession of it for them as well as for himself, and they are quickened together with him and raised up together. And so, when he ascended into heaven and was exalted to great glory there, this also was as a public person. He took possession of heaven not only for himself but for his people, as their forerunner and head, that they might ascend also and sit together in heavenly places with him. Ephesians 2 verse 5 and 6 Christ writes upon them his new name, Revelations 3 verse 12. That is, he makes them partakers of his own glory and exaltation in heaven. His new name is that new honor and glory that the Father invested him with when he set him on his own right hand. As a prince, when he advances anyone to a new dignity in his kingdom, gives him a new title, Christ and his saints shall be glorified together, Romans 8 verse 17. The saints in heaven have communion or a joint participation with Christ in his glory and blessedness in heaven, in the following respects more especially. First they partake with him in the ineffable delights he has in heaven in the enjoyment of his Father. When Christ ascended into heaven, he was received to a glorious and peculiar joy and blessedness in the enjoyment of his Father, who in his passion hid his face from him. Such an enjoyment as became the relation he stood in to the Father, and such as was a meat reward for the great and hard service he had performed on earth. Then God showed him the path of life and brought him into his presence, where is fullness of joy and to sit on his right hand, where there are pleasures forevermore, as it is said of Christ in Psalm 16 verse 11. Then the Father made him most blessed forever, he made him exceedingly glad with his countenance, as in Psalm 21.6. The saints, by virtue of their union with Christ and being his members, do in some sort partake of his childlike relation to the Father. And so are heirs with him of his happiness in the enjoyment of his Father, as seems to be intimated by the Apostle in Galatians 4 verses 4-7. The spouse of Christ, by virtue of her espousals to that only begotten Son of God, is, as it were, a partaker of his filial relation to God, and becomes the King's daughter, Psalm 14 verse 13. And so partakes with her divine husband, in his enjoyment of his Father and her Father, his God and her God. A promise of this seems to be implied in those words of Christ to Mary, John 20 verse 17. Thus Christ's faithful servants enter into the joy of their Lord, Matthew 25 verse 21 and 23. And Christ's joy remains in them. Agreeably to those words of Christ, John chapter 15 verse 11, Christ from eternity is, as it were, in the bosom of the Father, as the object of his infinite complacence. In him is the Father's eternal happiness. Before the world was, he was with the Father in the enjoyment of his infinite love, and had infinite delight and blessedness in that enjoyment. As he declares of himself in Proverbs 8 verse 30, Then I was by him as one, brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. And when Christ ascended to the Father after his passion, he went to him to the enjoyment of the same glory and blessedness in the enjoyment of his love. Agreeably to his prayer the evening before his crucifixion, John 17 verse 5, And now, Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before the world was. And in the same prayer he manifests it to be his will, that his true disciples shall be with him in the enjoyment of that joy and glory, which he then asked for himself. Verse 13, That my joy might be fulfilled in themselves. Verse 22, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them. This glory of Christ, which the saints are to enjoy with him, is that which he has in the enjoyment of the Father's infinite love to him. As appears by the last words of that prayer of our Lord, verse 26, That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. The love which the Father has to his Son is great indeed. The deity does, as it were, wholly and entirely flow out in a stream of love to Christ. And the joy and pleasure of Christ is proportionately great. This is the stream of Christ's delights, the river of his infinite pleasure, which he will make his saints to drink of with him. Agreeably to Psalm 36 verse 8 and 9, They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house. Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures, for with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light shall we see light. The saints shall have pleasure in partaking with Christ in his pleasure, and shall see light in his light. They shall partake with Christ of the same river of pleasure, shall drink of the same water of life, and of the same new wine in Christ's Father's kingdom. Matthew 26 verse 29. That new wine is especially that joy and happiness that Christ and his true disciples shall partake of together in glory, which is the purchase of Christ's blood, or the reward of his obedience unto death. Christ, at his ascension into heaven, received everlasting pleasures at his Father's right hand, and in the enjoyment of his Father's love, as the reward of his own death, or obedience unto death. But the same righteousness is reckoned to both head and members, and both shall have fellowship in the same reward, each according to their distinct capacity. That the saints in heaven have such a communion with Christ in his joy, and do so partake with him in his own enjoyment of the Father, does greatly manifest the transcendent excellency of their happiness, and their being admitted to a vastly higher privilege and glory than the angels.