His Last Sufferings

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things,
and to enter into his glory?

— LUKE 24:26 (KJV)
Christ’s holiness never so illustriously shone forth as it did in His last sufferings, and yet He never was to such a degree treated as guilty. Christ’s holiness never had such a trial as it had then; and therefore it never had so great a manifestation. When it was tried in this furnace it came forth as gold, or as silver purified seven times. His holiness then, above all, appeared in His steadfast pursuit of the honor of God and in His obedience to Him. His yielding Himself unto death was transcendentally the greatest act of obedience that ever was paid to God by anyone since the foundation of the world; and yet, Christ was then in the greatest degree treated as a wicked person would have been. He was apprehended and bound as a malefactor. His accusers represented Him as a most wicked wretch. In His sufferings before His crucifixion He was treated as if He had been the worst and vilest of mankind; then He was put to a kind of death that none but the worst sort of malefactors was wont to suffer, those that were most abject in their persons and guilty of the blackest crimes. He suffered as though guilty from God Himself, by reason of our guilt imputed to Him; for He who knew no sin was made sin for us; He was made subject to wrath as if He had been sinful Himself. He was made a curse for us.

- Dustin Benge, ed., The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards (2012)
“The Excellency of Jesus Christ,” pp. 684–85