Our Sonship in Christ by Jonathan Edwards

 

The saints, being united to Christ, shall have a more glorious union with, and enjoyment of, the Father, than otherwise could be; for hereby their relation becomes much nearer, they are the children of God in a higher manner than otherwise they could be; for, being members of God's own Son, they are partakers of his relation to the Father, or of his Sonship; being members of the Son, they are partakers of the Father's love to the Son and his complacence in him. John xvii. 23. "I in them, and thou in me:–thou hast loved them as thou has loved me;" and verse 26, "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them;" and xvi. 27, "The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." So they are, in this measure, partakers of the Son's enjoyment of his Father; they have his joy fulfilled in themselves, and by this means they come to a more familiar and intimate conversing with God the Father than otherwise ever would have been; for there is, doubtless, an infinite intimacy between the Father and the Son, and the saints being in him shall partake with him in it, and of the blessedness of it. - Jonathan Edwards in his Miscellaneous Observations, Heaven

[page 548 HERE; or page 548 HERE]