Communion with God chapters 11&12

There's a lot in these two chapters to reflect upon, but I really want to focus the theme of prayer that Owen hits on in chapter 11. 

Owen begins his exhortation on prayer with this simple statement: 

Christ delights to reveal his kingdom to his saints...Christ enables his saints to reveal their minds and souls to him that they might walk together in intimate love and friendship...But to know this truth will not avail us if we do not know how to open our hearts to him. this we do in prayer. To Christ, the prayers of his saints are like incense...If we would open our hearts to Christ, we need help to pray.

Two things. First, notice here that Owen is saying that Christ makes himself and his Kingdom known to the saints, and the saints make their minds and souls known to him through prayer. Prayer is how we share in a deep, intimate love and friendship with Jesus Christ. But secondly, notice Owen fully recognizes that we are weak in prayer and that we need help. And here, Owen reminds us that the Holy Spirit, the "Helper" as Christ referred to him, is the one who helps us in our prayers. 

I'm encouraged by these two points. First, doesn't it make our hearts sing to know that Jesus Christ makes himself known to us, and delights in having us make ourselves known to him in an intimate friendship? The one who in and through whom all things were made, the eternal Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the very image of the invisible God delights in us. He delights in having an intimate friendship, a deep rooted love, and communion with us. That fact alone should give us great delight in the act of prayer! 

And yet, all of us still struggle with prayer, don't we? We are tempted to see prayer as a chore. We don't delight in prayer as we should. We may know that through prayer we are having sweet communion with God, and yet how many of us are eager to go before the Lord in prayer? How many of us struggle to even know what to say and how to say it? And here is the encouraging reminder from John Owen that Jesus, who knows our weaknesses first hand, has sent a Helper-the Holy Spirit of Christ. He writes:

...we need help to pray. This help we have by the Spirit of Jesus. All attempts at praying without the help of the Spirit working in us a prayerful spirit are of no avail and of no value. Christ greatly delights in the prayers of his saints when they truly open their hearts to him. When the soul is driven to hide from Christ, then Christ calls it out and enables it to pray by giving it the help of his Spirit."

If we (when we...) struggle to pray, let us all look to the power of the Holy Spirit, who is working in us. He is the one who will help us to pray! The Spirit gives us the help and power we need to pray, which leads to sweet communion and fellowship with Jesus Christ, through whom we are able to come into the presence of the Father who sits upon a throne of grace, to which we draw close with confidence!

This blog was written by Andy Styer
 

Communion with God chapters 9&10

In chapter 8 of "Communion with God", Owen began exploring the "excellencies of Christ", giving us glorious truths about Jesus in the hopes that by meditating on Christ's attributes, we would be encouraged to give ourselves up more fully to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Chapter 9 continues Owen's exploration of Christ's attributes, looking specifically at his wisdom and knowledge. But really, what Owen has in mind here is not so much an exploration of the wisdom and knowledge Christ showed in his earthly life, but rather, Owen speaks to the truth that in Christ we truly know God and that to know God is to be truly wise. It is in Christ that we get to see and know the attributes of the eternal God. For example, in Christ, we know God's righteousness and justice in punishing sin. We see this at the cross. Yet we also know his mercy and love and forgiveness for sinners. 

All this is hidden in Christ. The great and unspeakable riches of God's wisdom in pardoning sin, saving sinners, satisfying justice, fulfilling the law, regaining his own honour and providing for us a much greater weight of glory are all accomplished in Christ. And all this was accomplished out of an impossible state of affairs. It was impossible for angels or men to discover how God could possibly restore all things to his glory or ever save one sinful creature from everlasting ruin...

Nothing in God concerning our salvation can be known or received except by Christ. All that is necessary for our salvation is in Christ and is shown to us by Christ. All truth outside Christ does not lead to the knowledge of salvation. It only leads to further corruption.

Do we desire to be wise? Do we desire to truly know God, which is the heart of all wisdom? Then our desire should be to know Jesus Christ, because, "To know Christ and to be in Christ by faith is to know the wonder and excellence of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the salvation of sinners."

Chapter 10 marks a turn in Owen's thought. If we are to have a saving knowledge of God in Christ, we must also know ourselves. And what are we to know about ourselves? We are to know just how desperately we need Jesus Christ. We are to know that we are sinners. We are rebellious. We are breakers of God's holy law. We are worthy of eternal punishment for our sin. And most terrifying of all, we are to know that all mankind will face a day of judgment, carried out by Jesus Christ himself. 

And yet...this thought should bring us hope and comfort as well, because this means that we will be judged by the one who loves us and gave himself up for us. We are to be judged by the one who has taken away enmity between us and God. If we are putting our faith in Christ, if we have communion and fellowship with him, if we are "walking with him", (and Owen gives several examples of what walking with Christ means), then we can rejoice in knowing that Jesus has indeed reconciled us to the Father. And while for some the day of judgment will be a terrible day, for us, it will be a day of unspeakable joy. All of this is an encouragement to us to continue to pursue communion with Christ, aiming for the day when he comes again, restores all things, and we have perfect and eternal communion with him, unhindered by our enemies of sin, death, and the devil. 

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Communion with God chapters 7&8

One of my favorite "pastimes" is chatting with one of our ruling elders at Proclamation, Matt Henny. We talk about many things dealing with the church both locally and globally, and we talk about what we're reading. Recently, Matt was sharing some thoughts after reading these chapters in "Communion with God". He said to me:

A really important word to meditate upon in Owen's "Communion with God" is the word "receive." Have you received the love, fellowship, and communion with the Eternal Trinity--Father, Son and Spirt by faith? This is the essence of communion: receiving love and then loving back out of adoration.

If you've read these two chapters, then you know that Matt is right. The word "receive" is so essential to Owen's thoughts on communing with God. And you know Matt is right about how communion works. We receive love from the Triune God, and in return, we love back out of adoration. This is what Owen is saying in his closing statements in chapter 7 when he writes:

Let us, then, receive Christ in all his excellencies and glories as he gives himself to us. Frequently think of him by faith, comparing him with other beloveds, such as sin, the world and legal righteousness. Then you will more and more prefer him above them all, and you will count them all as rubbish in comparison to him. And let your soul be persuaded of Christ's sincerity and willingness to give himself to you, in all that he is, to be yours forever. And let us give up ourselves wholeheartedly to him. Let us tell Jesus that we will be for him and not for another. Let him hear this from us. He delights to hear it from our lips. Christ says, 'Your voice is sweet to my ears, and your face is beautiful to my eyes'. Are we going to disappoint Christ by neglecting this communion with him?

Isn't it astonishing that Christ would be disappointed because we would neglect communion with him? It is absolutely remarkable that the eternal Son of God, the one whom through all things were created, the one who holds all things together, the one who is reigning and ruling over all creation would want and desire to have communion with us. And when you read chapter 8, when you see how excellent and glorious Christ is, the truth that Jesus would desire communion with us should become all the more remarkable to us. Let us not disappoint our dear Savior by neglecting communion with him!

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Communion with God chapters 5&6

These two chapters shift from exploring the communion believers have with the Father into looking at the communion believers have with the Son. 

Believe it or not, these are some of the most "controversial" portions of "Communion with God". Not because of what Owen says about Christ's fellowship with his people, but because of his use of "Song of Songs". There's been a long debate, predating Christianity even, going back to the Jewish understandings of this book, concerning how "Song of Songs" should be read. Should it be read and understood within the context of a literal love-relationship between a man and his lover, or should it be understood allegorically to describe God's love for his people? Owen here appears to side with many throughout the history of the Church and even many within the Jewish Rabbinical tradition by taking a more allegorical approach to "Song of Songs", using it to describe Christ's love for the church. And while many may argue against Owen's use of "Song of Songs" here, I do think that ultimately, what he says concerning Christ's relationship with his people is correct. In other words, we may disagree with Owen's interpretive approach to Scripture in these two chapters, but hopefully none of us would disagree with his conclusions! 

Listen to and reflect upon some of Owen's conclusions concerning Christ and his relationship with the church based upon his understanding of "Song of Songs":

The Lord Christ greatly delights in the sweet fruits of the Spirit in his saints.

The souls of the saints are the garden of Jesus Christ, the good ground which is blessed by God.

He (Jesus) is, in the heavens, as glorious as the sun, and as the bright morning star. Among the beasts is is like like the lion, the lion of the tribe of Judah. Among the flowers, Christ is as beautiful and as glorious as the rose and the lily. He is like the rose for the sweetness of its perfume, and like the lily for its beauty.

Owen spends ample time discussing the beauty of Jesus Christ, giving us great reason to delight in who Jesus is and to bask in the reality that we do, indeed, have communion and fellowship with him. 

How does one have communion with Christ? Owen stresses that it is by grace that we enjoy this fellowship with Jesus. "We have communion with Christ in grace. We receive from Jesus all manner of grace whatever. In grace, then, we have fellowship with Jesus."

Owen lays out three uses of the word, "grace":
 1-Grace can mean a personal presence and beauty. This is how we use the word when we refer to someone as being "graceful".
2-Grace can mean free favor and acceptance. Owen equates this use with "by grace you have been saved".
3-Grace can mean the fruit of the Spirit that sanctifies and renews our natures, that grace that enables us to do good things which God has commanded and ordained us to do. 

All three of these uses have a redemptive purpose. This is typical of the Puritan writers. In our context today, we tend to give broad use to the word, "grace". For example, we talk about God's "common grace", that is, the idea that there is a general grace that is shown to all peoples on earth. It's the idea that the "rain falls on the wicked as well as the righteous". It's not a saving grace, but rather, a grace that sustains and provides for all creation. But for the Puritans, "grace" was generally used only in direct connection with redemption. They would talk about the rain falling on the wicked as well as the righteous in terms of God's general love for his creation rather than use the word "grace", and for Owen, even the first use of the word "grace" as it applies to Jesus is understood within the context of Christ as our mediator. This "personal grace" of Christ, as he calls it, refers to his mediatorial work on our behalf. Here, his glory and his beauty, "as appointed and anointed by the Father", does the great work of "bringing home all his elect". In Christ, in our mediator, God and man meet and the person of Jesus Christ becomes "More beautiful and gracious than anything here on earth." In this union of God and man in Jesus Christ, Christ is "fit to save".  Owen writes,

Christ brings God and man together who were driven apart by sin. We who were afar off are brought near to God by Christ. For this very reason, he had room enough in his heart to receive us and strength enough in his spirit to bear all the wrath that was prepared for us. Sing brought infinite punishment because it was committed against an infinite God. Christ, being the infinite God in human nature, could suffer the infinite punishment that the sinner deserved. And so, by this personal union in Christ we are saved.

And it is because of this first use of the word grace, this "personal grace" of Christ, that the other two uses, what Owen calls "purchased grace", our "fellowship in his sufferings, and the power of his resurrection" are ours to enjoy. 

Owen ends chapter six with several charges directed towards those who are truly seeking Christ, those who reject him, directed to "the young", and to those who would look to themselves for their righteousness before God. And we find at the heart of these charges Owen's final sentences in this chapter:

Has Christ his rightful place in your hearts? Does he mean anything to you? Is he in all your thoughts? Do you know him in all his glory and beauty? Do you desire him more and more? Do you really count all things 'loss and dung' in comparison to him? Or do you prefer almost anything in the world to him?

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Communion with God chapters 3&4

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