If you're reading along with us this Summer, then you should, in theory, be done reading through chapter 6. The blog is a week behind due to both Troy and my absence last week. I'm sure we'll catch up at some point.
Very few chapters throughout "Communion with God" have made such a lasting impression on me than chapters 3-4. Here, Owen begins looking more deeply at the communion we have with each person of the Trinity, these two chapters specifically focusing in on our communion with the Father.
Throughout these two chapters, Owen hits on a major issue within the Christian mindset, and that is the idea that we, even as God's children, struggle to think of God the Father as loving. We tend to see the Son as being full of love, and yet, when it comes to the Father who sent the Son for us, we fall into the trap of seeing him as full of wrath and anger. Owen is right to point out that this is exactly how unrepentant sinners should see the Father, but this is not how his children should see him! We need to remember that for those who are in Christ, we have communion and fellowship with the Father, and the bond of that communion and fellowship is love. The Father has an eternal, never-ending love for us, his people, and we in turn love him because he first loved us.
Owen says the Father's love is like the Father himself in that it is unchangeable. Just as the Father never changes, his love for us never changes. It is never less, and it is never more. He loves us as much as he possible could ever love us, and that never changes. While our love for him, Owen says, is like the moon in that it waxes and wanes, the Father's love for us is like the sun in that it is always there! It may be hidden by a cloud from time to time, but it is no less radiant. It is no less intense. He says:
Whom God loves he loves to the end, and he loves them all alike. On whom he sets his love, it is set for ever. God's love is an eternal love that had no beginning and that shall have no end. It is a love that cannot be increased by anything we do and that cannot be lessened by anything in us.
Remembering this truth about the Father will have a great impact on the lives of God's people. When we remember how much the Father loves us, Owen says it will lead us to run towards him, to cherish our fellowship with him, to not see him as only in his "terrible majesty, severity and greatness", but also to see him as one who is "most kind and gentle...as one who from eternity has always had kind thoughts towards us."
Owen says that it is the greatest desire of God the Father that we should have loving fellowship with him. And yet, how often is our mindset the one Owen describes when he writes:
Flesh and blood is apt to think hard thoughts of God, to think that he is always angry and incapable of being pleased with his sinful creatures, that is is not for them to draw near to him, and that there is nothing in the world more to be desired than never to come into his presence.
But these thoughts grieve our Lord and delight our enemy! Let us therefore be intentional about how we think of our Father in heaven, and remember the truth Owen reminds us of when he writes,
"The saints have close communion and fellowship with the Father. Their relationship with the Father is a relationship is a relationship of love. Men are generally esteemed by the company they keep. It is an honour to stand in the presence of princes, even if it be as a servant. What honour, then, have all the saints, to stand with boldness in the presence of the Father and there enjoy his love!"
This blog was written by Andy Styer