Convinced Sinners Seeking Comfort and Acceptance

In the quotations that follow, John Owen speaks wisely to how we approach the doctrine of justification. He's talking about our posture before God in this matter. And in this section from his book on justification, he's inquiring into the cause or reason a person may be acquitted of sin and accepted with God. It spans a few pages, and I pull out and place here pieces of a common theme cropping up again and again in this section, which theme I think is almost entirely missing today in our posture in relation to this doctrine. And this is not a good thing, in case you're wondering.

Whether it be any thing in ourselves, as our faith and repentance, the renovation of our natures, inherent habits of grace, and actual works of righteousness which we have done, or may do? or whether it be the obedience, righteousness, satisfaction, and merit of the Son of God our mediator, and surety of the covenant, imputed unto us? One of these it must be—namely, something that is our own which, whatever may be the influence of the grace of God unto it, or causality of it, because wrought in and by us, is inherently our own in a proper sense; or something which, being not our own, not inherent in us, nor wrought by us, is yet imputed unto us, for the pardon of our sins and the acceptation of our persons as righteous, or the making of us righteous in the sight of God. Which of these it is the duty, wisdom, and safety of a convinced sinner to rely upon and trust unto, in his appearance before God, is the sum of our present inquiry. . . . 

. . . Neither are we in this matter much to regard the senses or arguings of men who were never thoroughly convinced of sin, nor have ever in their own person "fled for refuge unto the hope set before them."  

. . . It is alone the relief of those who are in themselves . . . guilty before, or obnoxious and liable to, the judgment of God, that we inquire after. . . . 

. . . But, beyond what tends directly unto the guidance of the minds and satisfaction of the souls of men, who seek after a stable and abiding foundation of acceptance with God, we are not easily to be drawn . . . 

. . . That which alone we aim (or ought so to do) to learn in it and by it, is how we may get and maintain peace with God, and so to live unto him as to be accepted with him in what we do. To satisfy the minds and consciences of men in these things is this doctrine to be taught.

As I said, this feel is almost entirely missing in the present wranglings about justification. And it's a sign, if Scripture is to be the judge (and it is), that we're culpably overlooking what our posture must be as we approach God in this matter. Are we convinced sinners seeking relief? Or are we detached scientists studying a specimen?

—The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (vol. 5; Works, Banner of Truth), 8-10.