The Christian's Duty of Holding Immediate Communion with the Father in Love

Chapter 4 of part 1 of Owen's On Communion with God provides exhortations unto communion with God along with directions in it and observations from it.

Owen exhorts:  "It is a duty for Christians to hold immediate communion with the Father in love."  After urging his readers to look to the Father as love, he exults in whose love this love is.  It is the love of an all-sufficient and infinitely self-satisfied God whose triune life amidts of no defect or lack.  God the Father infinitely delighted in his own glorious excellencies and perfections beheld in his Son from all eternity.  In the fellowship of the Son through the Spirit of their love, he might have rested and delighted himself forever.  So his love for creatures and requirement of love from them is not due to any need or deficiency in God.

Owen then describes the kind of love this is.  It is eternal, free, unchangeable, distinguishing.  The Father's love was fixed on his people before the foundation of the world.  And nothing in us moved him to this love.  It is wholly undeserved and has as its spring the Father's mere good pleasure and will.  It is constant, for God is immutable.  His love is a steadfast and comitted love.  And, last, but certainly not least precious, God's love is distinguishing, discriminating.  It is not promiscuous, at least not in one very important respect.  It is a particular love for his holy people, not for all, a love that sends his Son to die for them to secure sharing in the truine life and love of God forever and ever. 

So Owen urges all to look to the love of the Father so as to receive it.  And, "let it have its proper fruit and efficacy upon your heart" in the return of love back to God again.  He then gives considerations to help us in the duty and daily practice of receiving the Father's love and making suitable returns in love back to him. 

"So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more," says Owen.  If this is so, and if we were created to glorify God by enjoying him forever, then this is no small matter.  May the Father be pleased to grant to us a fuller enjoyment of his love as the blood-bought gift of the Son in the strength of the Spirit—to the praise of the glory of his grace, freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

Owen on How God's Love and Our Love Differ

One more post on chapter 3 of part 1 of John Owen's classic On Communion with the Triune God.  Toward the end of this chapter, Owen shows "wherein God's love and our love differ."  He sets forth three ways.

"First, the love of God is a love of bounty; our love unto him is a love of duty."

Commenting on the nature of this infinitely full love, after talking about how bountiful and overflowing it is, Owen says that the love of the Father "is the love of a spring, of a fountain--always communicating--a love from whence proceeds everything that is lovely in its object.  It infuses into, and creates goodness in, the persons beloved."  Divine love communicates, bestows, creates, infuses all manner of good things in the objects of love.  God loves us too well to leave us as we are.  He will make us reflect the image of the Son of his love, and it his peculiar and rich love communicated that brings this about. 

"Our love unto God is a love of duty, the love of a child. . . .  It is indeed made up of four things: (1) rest; (2) delight; (3) reverence; (4) obedience." 

"Second, they differ in this: The love of the Father unto us is an antecedent love; our love unto him is a consequent love."

One verse will do here:  "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 Jn. 4:10).  As Owen puts it, "his love goes before ours."  There is nothing in us, no love flowing from us, antecedent to the Father's love that moved him to love us.  He simply loved us because he loved us.  God is love.  And infinite love tends to overflow lavishly and needs no prior impetus to cause the overflowing. 

"Third, they differ in this also: The love of God is like himself--equal, constant, not capable of augmentation or diminuition; our love is like ourselves--unequal, increasing, waning, growing, declining."

This third heading says enough on its own, and anyone who knows anything of the glory of God and of the instability of the self knows what is intended here.

So again and always, all praise be to God who is love, who overflows in love, whose love then overflows from us back to him again and then out to others in communion with him--all through the Lord Jesus in the energy of the Holy Spirit.  For from him and through him and to him are all things, to him who is the great three-in-one and one-in-three be the glory forevermore!  Amen!

The Matter of Communion with God

Chapter 3 of part 1 in On Communion with God is, all of it, marvelous stuff.  It makes my heart sing and dance, thrills my soul with pleasure and refreshment, renews my mind with the triune love of God.  Along with chapter 4, it treats of the matter of communion with God.  The whole of it is worth reading and meditating upon at length, again and again.  And I will do this.  I do not by any means intend here to reproduce all that is valuable, but I will set forth some of the sweetness to point to the pot of honey.

Communion with the Father consists in love.  The saints do peculiarly and eminently have communion with God the Father in love—and this love is free, undeserved, eternal.  This is, says Owen, the great discovery of the Gospel.  Indeed it is.  To know God not as our angry judge but as a loving heavenly Father is the best news in all the world.  Owen cites "God is love" (1 Jn. 4:8) and shows that clearly the love of the Father is in view in the context.  He then shows how Jesus purchases and mediates this love and the Holy Spirit sheds it abroad in believers' hearts.

The Requirements of Believers for Complete Communion with the Father in Love.  Now the first bit was important and antecedant to this second bit, but this second bit is important for modern American Christians to consider and practice.  There are two requirements for complete communion with the Father in love according to Owen:  First, that we recieve the Father's love; and second, that we make "suitable returns" unto the Father. 

"Communion consists in giving and receiving."  And we do not hold communion with the Father until we receive his love.  How then is this love received?  Answer: by faith in the Son crucified, risen, exalted.  It is through Christ alone that we have access to the enjoyment of the Father's love (e.g., Jn. 14:6; Eph. 2:18; 1 Pet. 1:21).  "When by and through Christ we have an access unto the Father, we then behold his glory also, and see his love that he peculiarly bears unto us, and act faith thereon."  So we may not receive the light of God's love except by the beams of the Son; by the beams of the Son we see the sun of the Father's love, which is the Fountain of all light. 

So "Jesus Christ, in respect of the love of the Father, is but the beam, the stream; wherein though actually all our light, our refreshment lies, yet by him we are led to the fountain, the sun of eternal love itself.  Would beleivers exercise themselves herein, they would find it a matter of no small spiritual improvement in their walking with God."

Owen then goes on to describe the "suitable returns" that believers make in love to God.  He rounds off chapter 3 by describing wherein our love and God's love are similar and different.  The riches in this chapter are worth mining and offering up to God in love, delight, satisfaction, obedience, worship.  For God the three-in-one and one-in-three is infinitely worthy of our deepest longings, most intense affections, highest delightings, absolute obedience, and consummate trust.  All praise and worship and love and honor and glory be to him who lives and reigns forever—one God, Father, Son, and Spirit—world without end.  Amen!

Unique Communications within the Trinity

Rounding off chapter 2 of part 1 of Communion with God, Owen refers to the unique contributions of each person of the triune Godhead.  He takes up John 6:45 as a clear example of this:  "It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.'  Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. . . ."

Now the accomplishment of that promise--"they will all be taught by God"--is, says Owen, particularly referred to the Father.  Continuing, "This teaching, whereby we are translated from death unto life, brought  unto Christ, unto a participation of life and love in him--it is of and from the Father: him we hear, of him we learn, by him are we brought unto union and communion with the Lord Jesus.  This is his drawing us, his begetting us anew of his own will, by his Spirit. . . ."

And then we are called upon by the Father to hear the Son uniquely: "This is my loved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him" (Mt. 17:5).  So "the Father proclaims him from heaven to be the great teacher."  And the entirety of Christ's prophetic office, and no small part of his kingly office, consists in the teaching of the Son.  In this teaching he is said to draw all to himself (Jn. 12:32).  And he does this "with such efficacy that the 'dead hear his voice and live'" (Jn. 5:25).  Owen goes on, "The teaching of the Son is a life-giving, a spirit-breathing, teaching--an effectual influence of light, whereby he shines into darkness; a communication of life, quickening the dead; an opening of blind eyes, and changing of hard hearts; a pouring out of the Spirit, with all the fruits thereof."

Later in John's Gospel we read of the Spirit's ministry: "The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (Jn. 14:26).  And then John says in his first epistle, "But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.  But as his anointing teaches you about everything--and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you--abide in him" (1 Jn. 2:27; cf. 1 Cor. 2:12).  Owen sets forth this text to show the unique contribution of the Spirit, he tells us, because "it is comprehensive, and comprises in itself most of the particulars that might be enumerated--quickening, preserving, and so forth."

Owen's conclusion:  "This, then, further drives on the truth that lies under demonstration; there being such a distinct communication of grace from the several persons of the Diety, the saints must needs have distinct communion with them."

Lastly, in what do these distinctions lie and what is the ground of them? 

"The Father communicates all grace by the way of original authority."

"The Son, by the way of making out a purchased treasury."

"The Spirit does it by the way of immediate efficacy."

Oh do rush and purchase this sweetest of all works on the Trinity!  I feel really at home and healthy as I've been sitting at Owen's feet to learn of our tripersonal God.  And the great thing about sitting at Owen's feet is that you forget Owen and are led to Jesus' feet through the Father's call in the power and life of the Spirit.

All praise to the three-in-one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  All glory and honor and praise and blessing be to him who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, and to the the Seven Spirits before the throne, for they created all things and are redeeming all things according to their infinite wisdom and good pleasure!

Distinct Communion with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit

Moving on through chapter 2 of part 1 of Owen's On Communion with God, Owen discusses and provides scriptural support for distinct communion with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit.

Of the Father, for example, he says:  "He gives testimony unto . . . his Son: 'This is the witness of God, that he has testified of his Son' (1 Jn. 5:9).  In his bearing witness he is the object of belief.  When he gives testimony (which he does as the Father, because he does it of the Son), he is to be received in it by faith. . . .  To believe on the Son of God . . . is to receive the Lord Jesus as the Son, the Son given unto us, for all the ends of the Father's love, upon the credit of the Father's testimony; and, therefore, therein is faith immediately acted on the Father."

Of the Son.  Owen cites first Jn. 14:1: "'You believe in God,' says Christ, 'believe also in me'--believe also, act faith distinctly on me; faith divine, supernatural, that faith whereby you believe in God, that is, the Father."  And then he gives numerous other texts including Rev. 1:5-6; 5:8, 13-14, where the Lamb is worshipped distinctly along with Father.  He also cites Acts 7:59-60, where dying martyr Stephen says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."  See also 1 Cor. 1:2, where the saints are defined as those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus. 

Of the Holy Spirit, one text will suffice:  "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Cor. 13:4).  Here, I believe, the communion of the Spirit means the fellowship of the saints under the Spirit's sweet influence and by the communication of himself from the fountain which is the grace of the Lord Jesus and love of God. 

Owen then speaks of distinct communion from each person of the Trinity.  He shows the Trinity communicating both jointly and distinctly to the churches of first-century Asia minor and thence to the Church universal.  In Rev. 1:4-5 we read:  "Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits [an apocalyptic way of referring to the one Holy Spirit who is all-powerful and all-knowing and the fullness of God's gift to us] who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth."  Notice here that grace and peace are prayed for by John as coming from each person of the Trinity, but coming from the whole Trinity, that is to say, from God who is a unity.  There is both a distinguishing and joining here in the communication of divine grace and peace.

This gives a flavor of the contents of this portion of the book.  It is the stuff of a joyful, glad, grateful, and full heart.  This is what might be called interpersonal doctrine in the heights, the sort of thing that makes a sinner-turned-saint sing and dance till he well nigh faints.  Oh blessed Trinity!  All praise be to you--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the three-in-one and one-in-three!

Defining Virtue

St. Augustine's definition of virtue can scarcely be improved upon: "rightly ordered love" (Book XV, City of God).

Here is C. S. Lewis's expansion of Augustine's definition: "St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it" (Ch. 1, The Abolition of Man).

The Spacious Firmament on High

The Spacious Firmament on high,
With all the blue Ethereal Sky,
And spangled Heav'ns, a Shining Frame,
Their great Original proclaim:
Th' unwearied Sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's Pow'r display,
And publishes to every Land
The Work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the Evening Shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous Tale,
And nightly to the list'ning Earth
Repeats the Story of her Birth:
Whilst all the Star that round her burn,
And all the Planets, in their turn,
Confirm the Tidings as they rowl,
And spread the Truth from Pole to Pole.

What though, in solemn Silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial Ball?
What tho' nor real Voice nor Sound
Amid their radiant Orbs be found?

In Reason's Ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious Voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
The Hand that made us is Divine.

--Joseph Addison [1672-1719]

Gospel Theatre: Rehearsing, Improvising, Performing

Here is the second lecture by Dr. Vanhoozer given at Southeastern.  Hit the title for the link.

Gospel Theatre: Staging, Scripting, Directing

This lecture and the one following (in the next post) given four months ago by Dr. Kevin Vahoozer of Wheaton College at Southeastern Seminary are worth absorbing.  The two lectures together are entitled, “Doing Faith: Seeking (and Showing) Understanding in Company with Christ.”  Click on the title to go to the lecture on Vimeo.

The Manner of Communion: Distinct and Peculiar

The next portion of On Communion with God addresses the manner and matter of communion with God (chps. 2-4).  The manner of communion with God takes up all of chapter 2 and part of chapter 3.

The fellowship is exercised either distinctly and peculiarly or jointly and in common.  That is to say, our fellowship with God is experienced either distinctly and peculiarly with each person of the Trinity or with the Godhead as a unity.  The beginning of chapter 2 sets forth the scriptural evidence for a distinct communion with each person--with the Father, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit--in giving and receiving.

Union and Communion

As I mentioned in the last post, part 1 of Owen's On Communion with God deals with communion with the Father.  And in chapter 1 Owen's starting point is this glorious text: "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 Jn. 1:3).  He then reminds us that by nature no one holds any communion with God because he is light, we darkness; and what fellowship has light with darkness?  He is life, we are dead; he is love, and we are enmity.  So what agreement can there be between us?  Humanity in this condition has neither Christ, nor hope, nor God in the world (Eph. 2:12).  In this condition humanity is alienated from the life of God through the ignorance within (Eph. 4:18).  So Owen instructs, "While there is this distance between God and man, there is no walking together for them in any fellowship or communion." 

And so it is only by the "manifestation of grace and pardoning mercy" that a door is opened for entrance into any communion with God.  In Christ Jesus those who were far off are brought near by his blood, for he is our peace (Eph. 2:13-14).  Through him sinners have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18).  "By Jesus Christ alone, then . . . is this distance taken away."  He is the sole basis for all our communion with God.  Owen then marvels: "And truly, for sinners to have fellowship with God, the infinitely holy God, is an astonishing dispensation."

After stating that there is such a thing as communion with God, Owen discusses the notion of communion generally.  He then gives a specific definition of communion with God: it consists in "his communication of himself unto us, with our return unto him of that which he requires and accepts, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with him."  Note that it is grounded upon a union established with Jesus Christ.  It is only then--flowing from that union--that there can be "that mutual communication, in giving and receiving, after a most holy and spiritual manner, which is between God and the saints while they walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified  in the blood of Jesus." 

The saints communion with God is twofold: (1) perfect and complete (experienced in glory); and (2) initial and incomplete (experienced in this age as the firstruits and dawnings of the full communion to come).  And it is the latter--initial and incomplete communion--that Owen handles in this work.

Communion with the Triune God

Of Communion with God by the great Puritan divine John Owen (1616-1683) was published in 1657.  It was republished recently in 2007 with light editing and helps by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic for the sake of the modern reader.  Emily and I have just taken this one up to foster our fellowship with the one God who is three persons and the three persons who are one God.

It is interesting to note that this work by Owen grew out of sermons that he had preached to his flock.  So this is a pastoral work, and it is a pastoral work of spiritual and theological genius.  And as Kapic states in the introduction to the republished edition, this work is "intentionally and consistently Trinitarian in structure and Christocentric in emphasis." It is divided into three parts: (1) Of Communion with the Father; (2) Of Communion with the Son Jesus Christ; and (3) Of Communion with the Holy Spirit.  Part two is by far the longest.   

One of the reasons this book is so valuable and beneficial for us today is that Owen, like many Puritians, was strong where we are weak.  In harmony with Buynan and other dissenters like him, Owen, Dewey Wallace says, "insisted upon a very personal and emotional experience of union with Christ and the Holy Spirit."  In my quarter of evangelicalism, our approach to God is oftentimes intellectualistic, dry, cold.  So Owen, an intellectual giant probably without rival today, can help us.  We are rightly afraid of emotionalism, but we, as they say, throw the baby out with the bath water.  Or, using another metaphor, like the drunk, after falling off one side of the horse, we fall off the other side as we try to get back on.

So I'm eager to be led with my wife into deeper communion with the triune God by an old saint who knew God personally, intimately, richly, profoundly.

Shakespeare's Sonnet #55

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
  So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

True Grace and Our Need

Thomas Brooks on true grace:

"The objects of true grace are supernatural.  True grace is conversant about the choicest and the highest objects, about the most soul-ennobling and soul-greatening objects, as God, Christ, precious promises that are more worth than a world, and a kingdom that shakes not, a crown of glory that withers not, and heavenly treasures that rust not.  The objects of temporary grace are low and poor, and always within the compass of reason's reach."

Oh for more soul-transforming and life-imparting grace in the soul!  Come down, Lord, rend the heavens, and visit your languishing church with supernatural grace and life.  We need change within, not methodological change without, that is, if ever we are going to make significant changes without and be a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.  Come down, sovereign Lord, for your great name's sake!  Apart from you, we can do nothing.  This we confess openly and plainly.  Pour forth once more, more of the Spirit of grace from the heavenly throne of the risen and exalted Christ, for we are perishing, for we "have a reputation of being alive, but are dead."

Perseverance and Persecution

An observation on the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3.  Of the seven churches, only two are not criticized by the risen Christ for moral shortcomings: only the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia.  And Smyrna is undergoing severe persecution, even unto death.  Among all seven churches, only Smyrna is under the intense fire of bodily suffering. 

Now my question is this: Why is one of the only two faithful churches suffering the most severely?  And this suffering, take note, as it is clear from the text, is ordered by the Lord to test the church of Smyrna.  The answer is found, among many places, in Paul:  "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim. 3:12).  It is precisely those who follow in the Master's steps most closely who are going to suffer most.  Faithfulness and fire go together.  Perseverance always meets with persecution. 

So let us hear Peter: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of his glory you may rejoice with exultation" (1 Pet. 4:12-13).

Smoke in Satan's Eye

A follow up to the last post is in order due to a deficiency.  One more holy exhortation: after having a holy time of horsing around, don't forget to toast and thank the truine God of redemption with a glass of wine.  Then, and this is very important; without this the instruction would be incomplete: be sure to blow some cigar smoke in Satan's eye.  (Yes, of course this instruction is aimed at heads of households.  And be sure to pass this on to your sons, men.)

Holy Marriage and Holy War

Is it coincidental that domestic relationship instructions in Eph. 5 and 6 precede holy war instructions in Eph. 6?  Or are these instructions of a piece in the seamless Christian life?  Are these part and parcel of the one fight of faith?

It ought not to come as a surpise to the Church that the devil wants to destroy relationships, especially marital.  And it also ought not to be surprising, therefore, that a holy, healthy, and harmonious marriage is an awesome weapon with which to wage holy war against the enemy of our souls. 

So let us don the whole armor of God--including the robust marriage instruction of Eph. 5.  This is one of the sharpest of the Spirit's swords.  And to men, especially, let us take up that sword and slay every dragon that attempts to ruin our marriages.  Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and petition, let us wield the weaponry of a Word-fashioned marriage to throw down what was already thrown down decisively at the cross.

Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood.  Consequently, our weapons ought not to include peashooters--impotent instruments like secular psychology, twelve-step programs, and romance advice from the gurus.  We should be fully prepared and armed to wield the holy Word and a holy marriage. 

One more salutary tactical bit of biblical instruction (pulling out one of the big guns): don't forget to flout the devil frequently with some holy horsing around in that pure and undefiled marriage bed.

We Resemble What We Revere, either for Ruin or for Restoration

Professor G. K. Beale's recent work "We Become [Like] What We Worship" looks at the story of Israel's sin through the lens of Isa. 6. And Israel's sin, so Beale argues, was essentially idol worship. The main thesis of the study is this: "What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration."

If one were to read nothing more than the section in the introduction on Professor Beale's interpretive approach, money will have been well spent. Beale is a master interpreter, especially when it comes to canonical interpretation, biblical theology, and Old in the New material. But he also handles a slice of the textual data (this study does not purport to be exhaustive) on idolatry with a good exegetical and theological grasp. It is meaty and salutary instruction. My recommendation: take up, and read.