Christ Alone Gives the Spirit and All Grace

"Believers Look to Christ as the Dispenser of the Spirit and of All Grace."  This is the heading of a marvelous section in Owen's On Communion with God that addresses communion with the Son Jesus Christ.  Almost a definition of what it means to be a saint, here is what the saints do: they look upon Christ as the only dispenser of the Spirit and all grace for sanctification.  

Based upon a threefold lack, the risen Christ gives to his own the Spirit to dwell in them (as a pledge of the inheritance of the children of God); he imparts life to them in the Spirit (which habitually inclines to holiness); and he gives to them actual aid by the Spirit for every duty to which they are called (seasonable grace to help in time of need).  Then Owen asserts: 

In vain is help looked for from other mountains; in vain do men spend their strength in following after righteousness. . . .  Fix your soul here. . . . This is the way, the only way, to obtain full, effectual manifestations of the Spirit's dwelling in us; to have our hearts purified, our consciences purged, our sins mortified, our graces increased, our souls made humble, holy, zealous, believing--like to him; to have our lives fruitful, our deaths comfortable.  Let us herein abide, eyeing Christ by faith, to attain that measure of conformity to him that is allotted to us in this world, that when we shall see him as he is, we shall be like unto him.

Once again Owen provides the stuff of faith.  Evangelical holiness is what the Puritans called it.  Which I like a lot.  May the risen Lord Jesus be pleased to pour forth more of his Spirit upon his blood-bought bride, as we look to him in faith as the only source of the Spirit and of all grace.