This past week I read the following quote on Jonathan Edwards, about how he handled being voted out of his church at the end of his ministry, for taking the biblical stand that communion should be only for believers:
“That faithful witness received the shock, unshaken. I never saw the least symptoms of displeasure in his countenance the whole week but he appeared like a man of God, whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies.”
It is impossible to not contrast his behavior with the current political climate in the United States.
One must ask, “What enabled Edwards to handle such a difficult situation with such apparent grace and peace?”
Interestingly enough, I ran across the following insights from H.A. Ironside in my study of 1 Corinthians:
In the third verse we have the apostolic salutation, “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” We are saved by grace, but of course this is not the grace to which he here refers. He knows that is settled, these people who are sanctified in Christ Jesus are already justified by faith, saved by grace. It is not that which he is thinking of when he says, “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then again all Christians have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God”—it is a settled thing—“through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is not praying that these Christians may obtain that grace of which he speaks here.
First of all, it is grace to sustain in all the trials of the way, grace to enable us to overcome in every hour of temptation. In Hebrews we are bidden to “come boldly unto the throne of grace”—upon which our great High Priest sits—“that we may obtain mercy, and find grace for seasonable help” (Heb. 4:16). We need grace every day of our lives. The grace of yesterday will not suffice for today. We need to go to God morning by morning, to draw down from above by meditation and prayer supplies of grace to start the day aright. But throughout the day we need to learn to “Pray without ceasing” that our hearts may continually be reaching out to Him that new supplies of grace may come down to us constantly. We cannot keep ourselves, not for one moment, therefore the need of the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
And the peace, I repeat, is not peace with God, but that peace of God of which we read in Philippians 4:6, 7: “Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
You see this has nothing to do with the sin question. That is settled. We have peace with God because our sins have been forever put away, but this has to do with the question of things that would keep us anxious, the trials of life that press upon our hearts…
My brother, my sister, not a trial ever comes to you, there is not a perplexity you are called upon to face, there is not a need you will have to meet, but God invites you to come to Him about it, and you have the promise, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phi. 4:19).
(Excerpt from Addresses on the First Epistle to the Corinthians)
