Absolute Dependence

That no flesh should glory in his presence …He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:29, 31

In July 1731, a young minister from a country parish was invited to preach the public lecture in Boston before the assembled clergy of New England. It was the most prestigious pulpit available to him, and he was twenty-seven years old. He chose to tell them that they contributed nothing. The sermon was published as God Glorified in the Work of Redemption, by the Greatness of Man’s Dependence upon Him, in the Whole of It. It was Edwards’s first appearance in print, and it announced the theme he would spend the rest of his life developing.

The three prepositions

His structure came from the text itself, and it is worth following closely, because it is not merely tidy — it is exhaustive. The redeemed have all their good of God. He is the first cause, the fountain from which everything proceeds. Nothing we possess originated with us.

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? 1 CORINTHIANS 4:7

The redeemed have all their good through God. He is not only the source but the means. Salvation does not come to us by some channel God set up and then left running; it comes through the Son who purchased it and the Spirit who applies it. God does not merely supply the materials of our salvation; He is the medium of it at every point. And the redeemed have all their good in God. This is the part most readily forgotten. God does not give us a happiness that is separable from Himself, some blessing we could carry away and enjoy at a distance. The good He gives is Himself. Heaven is not a reward located near God; heaven is God. Of Him, through Him, in Him. Edwards’s conclusion was blunt: at no point in the entire transaction does the creature have anything to contribute, and therefore at no point does the creature have anything to boast about.

Grace does not reduce dependence — it deepens it

Here Edwards made an observation that overturns a common assumption. We tend to think of grace as a kind of assistance — God supplying what we lack so that we can then manage. On that view, the more grace we receive, the less dependent we become, rather as a child needs less help as he grows. Edwards argued the reverse. The redeemed are more dependent on God than unfallen Adam was, not less. Adam depended on God for his existence and his faculties. The redeemed sinner depends on God for those things and also for his righteousness, which is not his own; for his faith, which is a gift; for his perseverance, which is kept by another; and for his final glory, which is wholly of grace. Redemption therefore magnifies dependence. That, in Edwards’s view, is exactly why God arranged salvation this way. The design was not merely to rescue sinners but to rescue them in a manner that made the rescuer’s glory unmistakable.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. TITUS 3:5

The abolition of comparison

The pastoral consequence is enormous, and it is one of the most freeing things in Edwards. If everything I have was given, then comparison becomes meaningless. I cannot be superior to another believer on the basis of gifts I did not generate, any more than a man can be proud of the size of an inheritance he did nothing to earn. Paul’s question — who maketh thee to differ? — is designed to end the conversation before it begins. This cuts in both directions, and the second is the one we notice less. Comparison downward produces pride; comparison upward produces envy and despair. Both rest on the same error — the assumption that what we have is ours. Remove the assumption and both collapse together.

For without me ye can do nothing. JOHN 15:5

Edwards took nothing at full strength. Not a little. Not less than we might. Nothing.

There is a test buried in this doctrine, and it is uncomfortable. A man who truly believes he contributes nothing will not be devastated when he is overlooked, because he was never trading on his own account. He will not be inflated when he is praised, because he knows where the goods came from. His equilibrium under both flattery and neglect is the most reliable public evidence that the doctrine has got past his intellect and into his bones.

Prayer as the confession of dependence

If the doctrine of this chapter is true, then prayer is not principally a technique for obtaining things. It is the posture in which a creature acknowledges what he actually is. Edwards made this connection repeatedly, and it explains something otherwise puzzling. If God knows our needs before we ask, and intends to supply them, why ask at all? The answer is that God is not merely giving us things. He is drawing us into a relationship in which we know where everything comes from. A gift received without asking can be enjoyed without reference to the giver; a gift asked for and granted cannot. Prayer is how God arranges that His provision shall also be His self-revelation.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. MATTHEW 7:7

There is a diagnostic in this, and it is uncomfortable. A prayerless Christian is not merely neglecting a duty. He is making a statement about his own self-sufficiency, whatever his theology says. We pray in proportion to our conscious need, which is why prayer collapses in prosperity and revives in crisis — and why crisis is so often a mercy. Edwards observed that the same principle governs how God distributes His blessings over time. He gives daily rather than in bulk, as He gave manna in the wilderness, so that dependence is renewed each morning rather than settled once. We would greatly prefer a lump sum. He gives us a day at a time, and calls it our daily bread.

Give us this day our daily bread. MATTHEW 6:11

This also reframes what we should be asking for. If our highest good is God Himself, then the most important prayers are not for circumstances but for Him — for more of His presence, a clearer sight of Christ, a heart that wants Him. Edwards noticed that such prayers are the ones we make least often, and the only ones we can be certain are according to His will.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? LUKE 11:13

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. List three things you are quietly proud of. Trace each one back to where it came from, honestly, and see whether anything is left to boast in. 2. Notice this week when you compare yourself with another believer. Each time, answer Paul’s question: who made you to differ? 3. Watch your reaction to being overlooked. Do not suppress it — examine it. What does it reveal about what you thought was yours? 4. Thank God specifically for one ability you have always assumed was simply your own. 5. In prayer, ask not only for God’s help but for God Himself. Notice whether that is a strange request for you.

A PRAYER

Father, I have received everything and behaved as though I had earned something.

You are the fountain of all my good, the way by which it reaches me, and the good itself. There is nothing in my hands that You did not put there.

Deliver me from comparison — from the pride that looks down and the envy that looks up. Both are unbelief about where my life came from.

Make me content to be a receiver. And when I am overlooked, let me be steady, because I was never living on my own credit. Amen.