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!