John Owen Communion With God- Part 10

John Owen, Communion with God Part 2, Chapter 3, Digression II

(Sunday mornings before our worship service, our church is studying our way through Owen's book. This series consists of the notes handed out for the class).

To read John Owen is to enter a rare world. Whenever I return to one of his works I find myself asking “Why do I spend time reading lesser literature?”
—Sinclair B. Ferguson


The sum of all true wisdom and knowledge may be reduced to these three heads:- 1) The knowledge of God, his nature and his properties. 2) The knowledge of ourselves in reference to the will of God concerning us. 3) Skill to walk in communion with God….In these three is summed up all true wisdom and knowledge; and not any of them is to any purpose to be obtained, or is manifested, but only in and by the Lord Christ.

1) God, by the work of creation, by the creation itself, did reveal himself in many of his properties unto his creatures capable of his knowledge;- his power, his goodness, his wisdom, his all-sufficiency, are thereby known (see Romans 1:19-21). But yet there are some properties of God which all the works of creation cannot in any measure reveal or make known;- such as his patience, long-suffering, and forbearance. For all things being made good (Gen. 1:31), there could be no place for the exercise of any of these properties, or manifestation of them. The whole fabric of heaven and earth considered in itself, as at first created, will not discover any such thing as patience and forbearance in God; which yet are eminent properties of his nature, as himself proclaims and declares (Exodus 34:6,7).

Wherefore the Lord goes further; and by the works of his providence, in preserving and ruling the world which he made, discovers and reveals these properties also. For whereas by cursing the earth, and filling all the elements oftentimes with signs of his anger and indignation, he hath, as the apostle tells us, Rom. 1:18, “revealed from heaven his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men;” yet not proceeding immediately to destroy all things, he hath manifested his patience and forbearance to all. See Acts 14:16,17.

There are some of the most eminent and glorious properties of God that there is not the least glimpse to be attained of out of the Lord Christ, but only by and in him; and some that comparatively we have no light of but in him; and of all the rest no true light but by him:

A) Of the first sort, whereof not the least guess and imagination can enter into the heart of man but only by Christ, are love and pardoning mercy:-
a. Love; I mean love unto sinners. Without this, man is of all creatures most miserable; and there is not the least glimpse of it that can possibly be discovered but in Christ. The Holy Spirit tells us in 1 John 4:8 that “God is love.”

But how do we know this?

He tells us, verse 9- “In this was manifested the love of God, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”

Where now is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world, with all their wisdom? ….That wisdom which cannot teach me that God is love, shall ever pass for folly.

b. Pardoning mercy or grace. Without this, even love would be fruitless. Pardoning mercy is God’s free, gracious acceptance of a sinner upon satisfaction made to his justice in the blood of Jesus; nor is any discovery of it, but as relating to the satisfaction of justice, consistent with the glory of God. Romans 3:25, Ephesians 1:6,7

Had not God set forth the Lord Christ, all the angels in heaven and men on earth could not have apprehended that there had been any such thing in the nature of God as this grace of pardoning mercy.

And these are the properties of God whereby he will be known, whereof there is not the least glimpse to be obtained but by and in Christ; and whoever knows him not by these, knows him not at all. They know an idol, and not the only true God. He that hath not the Son, the same hath not the Father 1 John 2:23; and not to have God as a Father, is not to have him at all; and he is known as a Father only as he is love, and full of pardoning mercy in Christ.


Our Discussion this morning centered on:

The concept that this world, with all its tragedies, is the "best of all possible worlds.”

And the question: “Is the God of Islam the God of Christianity?”