John Owen’s Communion With God- Part 4
—Sinclair B. Ferguson
Having called us to recognize that love comes to us primarily from the Father he has been telling us how we must receive that love by faith. We closed last week with Owen’s comment that, if we would see Christ as the “stream” that leads us to the “fountain” of eternal love, that we would find great spiritual improvement in our lives.
Picking up from there, he then writes:
This is what is aimed at. Many dark and disturbing thoughts are apt to arise in this thing. Few can carry up their hearts and minds to this height by faith, as to rest their souls in the love of the Father; they live below it, in the troublesome region of hopes and fears, storms and clouds. All here is serene and quiet. But how to attain to this pitch they know not. This is the will of God, that he may always be eyed as benign, kin, tender, loving and unchangeable therein; and that peculiarly as the Father, as the great fountain and spring of all gracious communications and fruits of love. This is that which Christ came to reveal, - God as Father. (pg 23)
Owen now points out that the Father’s giving of love to us requires a suitable return from us which also consists of love- “God loves, that he may be beloved.”
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” this is the return that he demandeth.”
As long as the Father is seen as acting only in ways which are contrary to love, it causes dread and an aversion to Him. But when God is considered as a father, acting in love upon our souls, it causes us to love Him in return and this, in faith, is the ground of all acceptable obedience (Deut. 5:10; Exod. 20:6; Deut. 5:12, 11:1 and 13, 13:3). It begins in the love of God, and ends in our love to him.
Owen now points out how the love of God to us and our love to Him are alike and how the love of God to us and our love to Him are different.
They are alike in two ways:
1) They are both love in “rest” and “complacency.”
a. God’s love is like this.
Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest in his love; he will joy over thee in singing.” The original Hebrew reads: “He shall be silent because of His love.” Here we see that two things are described in relation to God’s love: “rest and delight.”
To rest with contentment is expressed by being silent; that is, without repining, without complaint. This God doeth upon the account of his own love, so full, so every way complete and absolute, that it will not allow him to complain of anything in them whom he loves, but he is silent on the account thereof. Or “Rest in his love;” that is, he will not remove it, - he will not seek farther for another object. It shall make its abode upon the soul where it is once fixed, forever. And COMPLACENCY AND DELIGHT: ‘He rejoiceth with singing;’ as one that is fully satisfied in that object he has fixed his love on.
When God speaks of those who are not the recipient of His love, He says of them that he is “not well pleased” 1 Cor. 10:5, or that His soul “has no pleasure in him” Heb. 10:38; Jer. 22:28; Hos. 8:8; Mal. 1:10. But, those whom He loves, He takes great pleasure in. He sings to the church: “A vineyard of red wine: I the LORD do keep it,” Is. 22:2,3.
He wills good to us that He may rest in that will.
b. The love that we return to God is also a love of rest and delight. David says: “Return unto thy rest, O my soul” Psalm 116:7.
He makes God his rest; that is, he in whom his soul doth rest, without seeking farther for a more suitable and desirable object. “Whom have I,” saith he, “in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,” Psalm 73:25. Thus the soul gathers itself from all its wanderings from all other beloveds to rest in God alone,- to satiate and content itself in Him; choosing the Father for his present and eternal rest. And this also with delight. “Thy loving-kindness,” saith the psalmist, “is better than life; therefore will I praise thee,” Psalm 63:3. P.26
2) The love of God and the love of Christians for God are alike in that the way of communicating it is in Christ alone. The Father communicates His love of us through Christ and we cannot return love to Him except through Christ.
He is the treasury wherein the Father disposeth all the riches of his grace, taken from the bottomless mine of his eternal love; and he is the priest into whose hand we put all the offerings that we return unto the Father.
a. The Father loves us and chose us “before the foundation of the world;” but in pursuit of that love, He “blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Eph. 1:3,4
From His love, He sheds or pours out the Holy Spirit richly upon us, through Jesus Christ our Savior, Titus 3:6. In the pouring out of His love, there is not one drop falls besides the Lord Christ. The holy anointing oil was all poured on the head of Aaron, Ps. 133:2; and thence went down the skirts of his clothing. Love is first poured out on Christ; and from him it drops as the dew of Hermon upon the souls of the saints. The Father will have him to have “in all things the pre-eminence,” Col. 1:18.
So that though the saints may, nay, do see an infinite ocean of love unto them in the bosom of the Father, yet they are not to look for one drop from Him but what comes through Christ. He is the only means of communication. Love in the Father is like honey in the flower;- it must be in the comb before it be for our use. Christ must extract and prepare this honey for us. He draws this water from the fountain through union and dispensation of fullness;- we by faith, from the wells of salvation that are in him. P. 27
b. Our return of love to God are all in Christ and by Christ also.
And well is it with us that it is so. What lame and blind sacrifices should we otherwise present unto God! He bears the iniquity of our offerings, and he adds incense to our prayers. Our love is fixed on the Father; but it is conveyed to him through the Son of his love. He is the only way for our graces as well as our persons to go unto God; through him passeth all our desire, our delight, our complacency, our obedience.
Our loves differ as well :
1) The love of God is a love of “bounty” while our love to Him is a love of “duty.”
a. The love of the Father is a love of bounty. It is a love of choosing (Rom. 9:11,12).
It is a love like that of the heavens to the earth, when, being full of rain, they pour forth showers to make it fruitful; as the sea communicates its waters to the rivers by the way of bounty, out of its own fullness, - they return to it only what they receive from it. It is the love of a spring, of a fountain, always communicating- a love from whence proceeds everything that is lovely in its object. It infuseth into, and creates goodness in, the person beloved.
b. Our love to God is a love of duty, the love of a child.
His love descends upon us in bounty and fruitfulness, our love ascends to him in duty and thankfulness. He adds to us by his love; we nothing to him by ours… Though he requires our love, he is not benefited by it (Job 35:5-8; Rom. 11:35, Job 22:2,3). It is indeed made up of four things- 1. Rest; 2. Delight; 3. Reverance; 4. Obedience. By these do we hold communion with the Father in his love. Hence God calls that love which is due him as a father, “honor” Mal. 1:6. “If I be a father, where is mine honor?” It is a deserved act of duty.
2) The love of God is an antecedent love; our love to Him is a consequent love.
a. The love of God is antecedent in respect to our love- 1 John 4:10. He loved us before we loved Him. It is also antecedent in respect of all cause for love. Romans 5:8- He loved us while we were still sinners. His kindness appears to us when we are foolish and disobedient.
b. Our love is consequential in both of these regards. In respect of the love of God, no one would turn their love to Him if He did not first love them. In respect to the causes of love, God must be revealed unto us as lovely and desirable, as a fit and suitable object unto the soul to set up its rest upon, before we can bar any love unto Him. The saints (in this sense) do not love God for nothing, but for that excellency, loveliness and desireableness that is in Him.
3) They differ in that the love of God is like himself- equal, constant, not capable of augmentation or diminuation; our love is like ourselves, - unequal, increasing, waning, growing, declining. His, like the sun, always the same in its light, though a cloud may sometimes interpose; ours as the moon, hath its enlargements and straightening. P. 30
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