Jason Chan

“The good things of this world—the tastes, the sights, the smells, the accomplishments, the relationships—are all echoes of the true Joy, the joy of which every earthly pleasure is a shadow. Edwards would agree with the way modern thinker Cornelius Plantinga puts it: “Ultimate joy comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but through them. . . . They point to what is ‘higher up’ and ‘further back.’ The Christian life is not an ascetic life, but a life in which every received pleasure draws the mind up to supreme Pleasure, Christ himself, in his resplendent beauty. Joy is fundamentally a vision of God.
Edwards therefore saw what many writers and preachers today do not: that the way to cultivate joy in God’s people was not to talk about joy but to talk about God. If a New York park guide wants to help his band of tourists feel awe at the Niagara Falls, he doesn’t give a lecture on awe. He shows them the falls. If a Christian leader wants believers to feel joy in Christ, he doesn’t give a lecture on awe. He shows them the falls. If a Christian leader wants believers to feel joy in Christ, he doesn’t mainly tell them about joy. He shows them Christ. Joy sneaks unbidden in the back door”
― Dane C. Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God