The ransom

Reading John Owen's Death of Death and Karl Barth's treatment of the atonement in Church Dogmatics IV/1 somewhat concurrently is interesting.  The theological modes in which these two thoroughly Christ-centred theologians operate are very different, and that show in their conclusions.  I am particularly struck that Owen relies very heavily in his work on ransom imagery.  His book is polemical, aimed at promoting a theology of limited or definite atonement; his particular target is those who teach a 'general ransom'.  Owen's argument is long and detailed, but at the heart of it is the apparently inescapable conclusion that for whomever a ransom is paid, that person must in justice be set free; therefore, if a general ransom - a ransom for all - has been paid in the death of Christ, all must be saved.  Since he (rightly) regards universalism as obviously contrary to the witness of Holy Scripture, he considers that the general ransom is to be rejected by all who bow to Scripture's authority.

Barth frames his teaching entirely differently, focusing on legal imagery - "the Judge judged in our place".  He works this through thoroughly, and only at the very end of his treatment looks to other images.  He discusses priestly and cultic imagery at greatest length, corresponding to the more prominent place these images have in the NT - the book of Hebrews, for example, revolves entirely around this way of viewing the atonement.  Indeed, Barth suggests that this would have been just as good a way of structuring the whole of his treatment, except that it is more obscure to us than the legal imagery.  (He speculates that it may have been the primary mode of understanding the atonement in the earliest Christian communities).  He deals very briefly (in a single short paragraph) with military imagery and the concept of victory, but is unconvinced it would be helpful to develop this systematically even though a place must be preserved for it in our understanding of the atonement.  (So much for the suggestion, which I have regularly seen, that Barth prefers Christus Victor as a model of the atonement rather than penal substitution; this is simply unsustainable on any straightforward reading of the Dogmatics.)  And financial imagery - the ransom - gets a similarly brief review.  Barth acknowledges that the NT does "strangely enough" contain this image, but thinks that "this strand is relatively slender".  He considers that it would be difficult and unprofitable to use this as a framework for the whole doctrine of atonement.

Different approaches, very different conclusions.  I'm not going to dive into the rights and wrongs of either here (except to say the only way to begin to do that dive would be an overview of the relative strengths of the different images used in the NT, with their OT background, and not primarily a detailed exegesis of particular passages).  It just interests me that so much can rest on which set of NT images becomes the main interpretive lens of your engagement with doctrine.

Reformation Liturgies and corporate prayer

I've just finished working through Reformation Liturgies, edited by Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey.  This (massive) book compiles a number of different liturgies and forms of worship from the Reformation period (i.e., the 16th century), including liturgies from Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed churches.  I'll be honest, it's probably not everyone's idea of a gripping read, but I found it fascinating, and as a resource for contemporary worship absolutely invaluable.  Those guys, driven by gospel need, thought hard about what Christian worship ought to be like, and strove to put it into practice.  The care that went into those liturgies, to make sure that what was said and done was God-honouring, is really striking.  What is equally striking - and helpfully illustrated in an appendix which compares the 'running order' of all the different liturgies (including, usefully, an outline of the mediaeval Mass) - is that there was a broad consensus amongst the early Protestants, despite differences in detail and approach, on the content and shape of a Christian act of worship.

I don't want to go into detail on that content and shape here - see the book - but I do want to ask a couple of questions.

The first is this: given the consensus in the early Reformation period, how have we got to a point now where anything that smacks of being 'liturgical' feels, to folks in my congregation, as if it is 'Anglican'?

The answer is actually hinted at in the book - the liturgies of some of the English exiles during the Marian period are already tending towards simpler forms, less prescriptive.  The particular history of non-conformity in the late 16th and 17th centuries must surely have a bearing.  Theologically, arguments like that of John Owen in his Discourse Concerning Liturgies (1662) are relevant.  Owen's main points are: that Christ has provided men to lead in worship, equipped by the Holy Spirit, thus obviating the need for set prayers; that Christ having made such provision, any seeking out of other means is contrary to his will; and, that nobody other than Christ has the necessary authority to impose a particular liturgy.  I don't find these hugely persuasive, and I think Owen ignores evidence that set liturgical forms were in use much earlier than he is prepared to admit (and I think further evidence has come to light since Owen's day).  Owen thinks he is arguing for the liberty of the churches, but to me he seems to be arguing only for the liberty of the clergy, to lead as they see fit; and set in that light, the arguments do not appear so noble.  However, Owen's arguments are better than the main arguments expressed in our contemporary setting, which seem to be that set forms are necessarily 'inauthentic', and that only prayer from the heart counts; add to that our culture's strong preference for informality, and hey presto.

My second, and more important, question has to do with the effect of the abandonment of liturgical forms on our churches.  It is commonly observed that our worship is often rather thin gruel; that our services lack 'shape' and depth.  I think that's right.  The work of teaching, formation, and discipleship has come to be focused exclusively on the sermon, with the surrounding informal liturgy being seen as primarily a time for self-expression.  That is problematic, to say the least.

I wonder whether there hasn't been a broader impact on corporate prayer.  I don't want to over-state this, but I do think it is significant that when Jesus taught his disciples to pray he gave them, not a technique, but a form of words.  (I've commented on this here and here).  We learn to pray by praying along.  There is no doubt in my mind that this is easier with 'set prayers' which are repeated over time than it is with extemporaneous prayer.  Moreover, the sense of 'praying along' is surely conveyed better in a liturgical form with space for responses and prayers recited together than a more informal form which reserves only the 'amen' for the 'laity' (so-called).

On running the church, then and now

One of the interesting things about reading John Owen on the question of church is picking up some of the similarities and differences between his situation and ours.  When it comes to the role of elders, Owen has three main things to argue: firstly, that churches should have elders(!); second, that elders should not be put over people without their consent; and third, that elders have real authority to rule and manage the church.  I think it would be fair to say that his stress falls on the first two points, without neglecting the third.

The backdrop, presumably, to this arrangement is a prevalent clericalism and authoritarianism in religious matters.  The semi-reformed state of the Church of England before the Civil War - and in many ways the worse situation after the Restoration - meant that the most familiar form of running the church would have been episcopalianism.  The break with the Roman understanding of the clergy/laity divide had not been made with anything like the decisiveness or clarity required.  So one of Owen's main targets is the parish church, to which a person is legally assumed to belong purely by virtue of their habitation within the boundaries of the parish.  This brings a person of necessity under the rule of a pastor (vicar, priest, whatever) who derives his authority from a bishop - and moreover it does so without the person's consent.

Owen regards this as a form of spiritual tyranny.  Both the singular nature of the pastor - Owen devotes a great deal of space to the importance of having 'ruling elders' alongside him - and the lack of consent make the arrangement entirely illegitimate.

On the other hand, against those on the radical wing - remember that Owen had significant and very negative encounters with Quakers during his time as VC at Oxford - Owen has to assert that elders really do rule (1 Tim 5:17) and have a responsibility for managing the church (1 Tim 3:4-5).  They do this as ministers and not as absolute rulers - they can appeal to people's consciences, but they have no coercive power - and nothing they do is legitimate if it isn't ultimately designed to display Christ's authority and not their own.  Owen maintains that there is no ultimate authority in the church save that of Christ, and elders can only act under him.  Their authority is not inherent in them, but is simply the ministerial exercise of Christ's authority.  (Neither is their authority delegated to them by the congregation; rather, the church, in endorsing elders, recognises Christ's gifting of them and his appointment of them to office).  The limits of their authority are made most obvious for Owen by the fact that anyone can freely withdraw from a local congregation if they judge the elders not to be ruling in Christ's name for the good of his people.  Still, the (delegated, limited) authority of the eldership is maintained.  It is established as a sign of the authority of Christ himself.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  The clericalism of the past is largely dissipated, and the parish structure has long been bereft of legal force and is now in complete breakdown - the most lively Anglican churches are functionally 'gathered churches' rather than parish churches.  The radicals of Owen's day have largely wandered over the centuries further and further away from orthodoxy, and their heirs barely claim to be Christian anymore.  But the threats to a biblical form of church government haven't gone away: on the one hand, an authoritarianism (usually, let's face it, promoted - perhaps unconsciously - by ministers, but more often that not with the connivance and cooperation of congregations) which exalts the 'man of God' over the congregation, neutering whatever 'lay elders' there may be and leaving all the reins in one pair of hands; on the other hand, a democratisation, which (often by an appeal to the Holy Spirit - cf. the old Quakers) denies the form and order of the church as it is prescribed in Scripture in favour of a kind of free-for-all.

I suspect that in today's climate Owen would have found that he had to lay more stress on his third argument.  So used have we become to democratic mechanisms - and so thoroughly has democracy come to be equated with goodness in our culture - that it is hard to argue for the authority of elders without sounding like you're arguing for authoritarianism.  It's a fine line to tread.

So, in answer to the question 'who runs the local church?' I think I'd want to say something like this:

The Lord Jesus governs his church, being enthroned in heaven and present by the Holy Spirit, and he has established within his church elders, who are to govern as his ministers, with the consent and counsel of the whole congregation.

Plural eldership.  Congregational consent - and counsel, active involvement (Owen doesn't have much to say about this; he is also a product of his time, and has not totally shaken off clericalism).  All in recognition of the fact that Christ rules, in the present, by his Spirit, and that this is the form which he has directed for the government of his people.

He has spoken

I'm re-reading a bit of John Owen at the moment (On the true nature of a gospel church - volume XVI of his Works, for those following along at home).  Owen is very definitely of his era: a scholastic theologian, meaning that he pushes for precision in every point and is very careful in his analysis; in particular, he milks the Scriptures for every drop of truth he can see in them, and works hard to bring those truths into relation with one another.  It sometimes makes for tedious reading (okay, okay, John - you've made your point), but I basically like it.  There is something in the scholastic instinct which to my mind honours God, by seeking the coherence of his words and works.  "Fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet", as Barth remarks in CD I/1.

Behind Owen's rigour there lies the conviction that God has spoken, and still speaks through the Scriptures; and therefore whatever question is raised in the church it is to the Scriptures that we ought to turn.

I think we've lost that conviction a little bit, or perhaps a lot depending on what circles you move in.  My guess is that it happened like this, although I freely admit I've made no effort to check whether history maps on to this analysis.

In the olden days (that is to say, the 16th and 17th centuries), the three convictions that (1) God has something to say on all points of Christian doctrine, that (2) it is in principle possible with the aid of the Spirit to hear what he says from Scripture, and that (3) it is our absolute duty to listen to, trust, and obey God in every detail of what he says led to the long confessional documents that characterise that era.  These confessions reflect a belief that God has something clear and certain to say about, for example, the extent of the atonement, the precise mode of church government, the proper administration of baptism (to whom, when and how), even the role of the civil magistrate and the limits of state power.  They are, as I mentioned long documents.

The failure to come to a consensus on many of these points in Protestantism, with the multiplication of church associations and the writing of ever more lengthy doctrinal statements, undermined over time the central convictions.  Of course no Protestant - no Christian! - could easily sell out point 3: we certainly have to hear and obey God in everything he says.  But convictions 1 and 2 begin to waver, or at least to function less vitally in the church: perhaps God has not spoken to every detail, perhaps it is not possible for us to reliably read off every detail of what he has said from Scripture.  Of course some theological positions were never committed to these assumptions - to be an episcopalian, for example, you have to assume that the church is given wide latitude to form its own church government, and that means assuming that God has not given direction on the matter (or at least, that he has not done so in Scripture).

Modern evangelicalism is characterised by, amongst other things, its desire to bring Christians who are committed to the Bible together.  This is often achieved by drawing a dividing line through theological issues, splitting them into primary and secondary.  The aim of this division was not, originally, to undermine the claim that God speaks into all sorts of doctrinal questions; the aim was to clarify which doctrines came so close to the heart of the gospel message that to distort or abandon them was to ruin the church's faith and witness.  Those doctrines are classified as primary.  Others, judged less close to the heart of the matter, were judged secondary.  We can talk and argue about them, but we shouldn't divide over them, at least not completely.  (Everyone accepts that practically it is difficult to run a church without agreeing on, for example, who are the proper subjects of baptism; but congregations which disagree on this could still co-operate in mission organisations and local outreach, for example).

This is helpful and commendable; nobody wants to go back to the divisiveness of early modern confessionalism, I hope.  But I suspect that over time it has undermined further our already wobbly convictions.  If we're working with these people, worshipping with these people, it becomes harder to think that their disagreement with us over 'secondary' issues is a matter of them not hearing properly what God says on the topics in question.  It is easier to say that God has not spoken, or at least that he does not speak clearly, on these subjects.  That gives us latitude to fudge them without any sense of disobedience on our part, or any apprehension that our good co-evangelical friends are disobedient.  But this naturally leads to the idea that these 'secondary issues' don't really matter: if they did, God would speak clearly on them.  So rather than work hard (and scholastically) to hear God, we shrug and let everyone go his own way on these things.

The fundamental problem here is that we have stopped listening to God.  That means, in practice, that we are doing what lies in us to prevent the Lord Jesus from governing his church.  (Thankfully, what lies in us is really not very much).  Out of fear of awkward chats, and a disinclination to work hard, think carefully, and be precise, we have done our best to shut out the voice of God.

But he has spoken, and because he has spoken he is speaking; and no topic is beyond the scope of his sovereign speech.  Might it not be better to try to hear and obey him?  If it leads to us having to acknowledge frankly that we think others, whilst we see them as in many ways faithful brothers and sisters, have failed to hear and obey - would that be the end of the world?  And might it not even be helpful if it exposes us to the same sort of critique from them?  Might we not together expect to hear God speak more clearly as we mutually rebuke and exhort each other?

I hope for a future with more scholasticism in this sense, more rigour, more fiery theological debate between people who acknowledge one another to belong to Christ's faithful.  I hope for a future in which God's word rules God's people.  I hope for a future in which the Lion's roar is heard clearly again.

Owen on Spiritual gifts

Prepping for a sermon series in 1 Corinthians 12-14, I've been re-reading John Owen on the gifts of the Spirit (end of volume 4 of his Works, if you're interested).  There's lots of good stuff in there, but there are some big negatives which are interesting in and of themselves.  It can be instructive to see, at a few centuries' remove, the errors made by theologians, and to think how these ideas might have had an impact on the course of church history!

Here are the two biggest problems with Owen's account of spiritual gifts:

1.  He ties gifting almost exclusively to the ordained ministry.  Although there are occasional hints that the Spirit gives gifts to the average layman, Owen has almost no interest in those gifts.  He sees Spiritual gifting and ecclesiastical office as almost completely correlated.  This has some definite positive effects: he is pretty damning when it comes to the appointment of persons not clearly gifted for Christian ministry to ecclesiastical office.  Without the gifting of the Spirit, nobody can be legitimately appointed to a church office, no matter what human calling they receive, and the human attempt to construct a ministry independent of the Spirit's equipping represents a revolt against the authority of Christ.  But negatively, where is the body?  Where is every-member ministry?

I think we can trace this problem to Owen's historical situation.  The Magisterial Reformation never did quite escape the clericalism of the mediæval period.  Moreover, Owen was concerned, in the face of various groups of 'enthusiasts', for the maintenance of order in the church - a concern which he read from 1 Corinthians.  But for the 17th century Englishman, order meant constitutional order, and that meant officers.  One wonders how the over-reliance on church officers which this view implies has affected church life in the English speaking world for the last 300 years.

2.  He doesn't think the church is on mission.  That might be stating it too baldly, but one of Owen's arguments for the cessation of the 'extraordinary' gifts (prophecy, healings, miracles, tongues etc.) and some of the 'extraordinary' offices (prophets and evangelists) is that they were necessary during the initial period of mission, when the gospel was new to the world and much opposed.  When the churches are planted, there is no more need for such things.  The regular work of the ministry is upbuilding within the church, not mission.  The churches, being established, have in the Word written and preached by Spirit-empowered ministers everything that they need to maintain (and if lost, recover) their identity and life in Christ.  There is no need for miracles anymore.

Owen had other reasons for cessationism, but this one at least will hardly stand up to scrutiny.  The church, in so far as it is true to its given identity according to the witness of the NT, is always being sent.  One could say it is always being established.  The gospel is always new to the world, even if the world has been hearing it for centuries.  Even if the whole population of the world were nominally Christian, the church would still be sent by her Lord - would still be on mission.  I wonder how the loss of this perspective contributed to the inner weakness of the churches and their vulnerability to a rising secularism.

Blessed Assurance

As faith is the first vital act that every true Christian puts forth, and the life which he lives is by the faith of the Son of God, so it is his next and great concern to know that he doth believe, and that believing he hath eternal life...

Thus Isaac Chauncey in his preface to John Owen's posthumously published work on the Evidences of the Faith of God's Elect.  Chauncey here envisages a two-step process, if you like.  Firstly there is faith, and by this he means not just intellectual assent to Christian doctrine but a living faith, a trust in Christ, such that the believer's life is now lived in Christ as Christ lives in him.  This first step is the thing which resolves all the biggest questions: by this faith, the believer is united to Christ, and with Christ destined for eternal life and glory.  But there is a second step here.  The believer, having believed, now seeks to know that he has believed.  This is a second-order concern, dependent on the reality of the first step, and with lesser consequences.  Faith leads to life; knowledge of one's own faith leads to assurance, comfort, and the blessings in this life that accompany confidence in one's relationship with God.

But is this right?  Is there a second-order move, after believing, whereby one must examine one's own faith in order to ascertain whether it is possible to discern in it the marks of genuine trust (and therefore, somewhere in the background, the evidences of election)?  Is that how faith works?

One study which might be attempted would be a biblical one.  It would be helpful to have a full contextual exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13:5, for example.  But it is also not unreasonable to ask some theological and pastoral questions of this viewpoint.  For example, theologically, faith is rightly understood as the believer looking away from himself, to place his trust in another, namely Christ.  Righteousness is sought in Christ.  Life is sought in Christ.  This by itself ought to raise a question mark against the idea that having looked away from himself for everything that pertains to life and godliness, the believer is called to a reflexive self-examination to ensure that his faith is genuinely faith.  How is one to avoid making faith a kind of work, on this model?

Pastorally, does this view recognise how impossible it is for the Christian to really know themselves - their true life and identity being, after all, hidden with Christ in God?  Not to mention the mere psychological difficulty of analysing any of one's own subjective actions.  Of course there is value in such analysis, but ought we to resolve the believer's assurance of salvation to such a thing?

A larger question is: does this approach inevitably follow from the classical Calvinist doctrine of election?  Is it inevitable that people will want to answer the question 'well, am I elect or not?' - and if so, how would they go about answering except by examining their own faith?  Of course, the pastoral advice which the good Calvinist would give would be to look to Jesus, but it is not clear on Calvinist doctrine that this actually answers the question.

Personally, I think Chauncey's approach (and, of course, Owen's, since he reflects the theme of the treatise here) is deeply flawed, turning faith into non-faith.  Faith is always and necessarily other-regarding; it always looks away from itself to Christ.  If the believer puts his own faith under the microscope, he will always find it wanting.  (There is a question in my mind over whether the psychological phenomenon of faith - which is all I have access to - is identical with what the NT is talking about, but that's for another day).  If the believer lives by faith in the Son of God, then let them also be assured by faith in the Son of God, and not by second-order reflection on their own state of mind or feeling.

Faith in what?

When we (Protestants) say that people are 'justified by faith', what do we mean?  Are we declared righteous on the basis of a general credulity?  Is it faith, per se, that justifies, or is there a particular character to justifying faith?

John Owen, a man not much given to brevity, defines the object of justifying faith as "the Lord Jesus Christ himself, as the ordinance of God, in his work of mediation for the recovery and salvation of lost sinners, and as unto that end proposed in the promise of the gospel".  And he goes on to helpfully unpack that in four dimensions, which we might summarise thus:

1.  "The Lord Jesus Christ himself" - that is to say, the faith which justifies is personal faith, trust in Christ himself.  It is not mere assent to facts.  We all know what it means to trust a person; that is what faith is, and the trusted person is the Lord Jesus Christ.

2.  "as the ordinance of God" - in other words, faith in Christ views him not as a general person, but as the person given by God the Father to bring about our salvation.  So justifying faith is not only grounded in the person of Christ as the Son; it also looks to the Father as the one who sends him.  Knowing that Christ is the one sent by God for the purpose of recovering and saving lost sinners, those who are justified put their trust in him.

3.  "for the recovery and salvation of lost sinners" - the effect of Christ's work is salvation, and so justifying faith has an eye on that as its end goal.  (Owen fudges a little here, to my mind, arguing that although justifying faith ought to lead one to believe that one's own sins are forgiven, that does not belong to its essential nature - I struggle with that; how can one trust Christ for salvation and not trust that one is actually saved?)  Still, justifying faith is not directly faith that one is justified - this could well be mere presumption.  It is faith in Christ as the one sent to effect justification.

4.  "as unto that end proposed in the promise" - faith which justifies is faith which looks at God's promises extended to us in the gospel and leans on Christ in the promises.  All the promises of the gospel - every good thing which God offers to believers - is found in Christ and based in his work as mediator.  Therefore, faith which regards the promises is faith which can be traced to Christ himself.

Justifying faith is trust in Jesus as the one sent by the Father for our good; trust in Jesus as the one who came for our salvation; trust in Jesus as the one in whom all God's promises are yes and amen.

Purchased grace

A summary of John Owen's Communion with God, part 2, chap. VII

Christ, by his death and resurrection, has purchased for us:

1. Acceptance with God
1. by removing that which set us at enmity with God, namely sin and guilt, which he does by his death; and
2. by giving us that for which we are accepted, namely the obedience of his perfect life, imputed to us.
2. Sanctification (by which he "makes us not only accepted, but also acceptable"), consisting of
1. the removal of defilements, meaning
1. the cleansing of our nature of its sinful habit;
2. the removal of the pollutions accompanying our actual sins; and
3. the removal of the defilement accompanying even our best deeds ("so that the saints' good works shall meet them one day with a changed countenance, that they shall scarce know them: that which seemed to them to be black, deformed, defiled, shall appear beautiful and glorious; they shall not be afraid of them, but rejoice to see and follow them").
2. the bestowal of cleanness and purity by
1. giving the Spirit of holiness to indwell us;
2. giving habitual grace ("a principle of grace, opposed to the principle of lust that is in us by nature"); and
3. actually influencing us in particular cases for the performance of every spiritual duty.
3. Privileges to stand before God, being:
1. primarily, adoption as sons; and
2. consequentially, all the favours of the gospel which attend this adoption.

The last victorious act

Reading John Owen's meditations On the Glory of Christ is one of the greatest pleasures that I have enjoyed so far in life - no exaggeration.  As I've been revisiting it recently, one of the things that has struck me is that the preface is largely about death.  The author was himself not long for this world: "My principal work having been now for a long season to die daily, as living in a continual expectation of my dissolution..."

What will enable us to face death?  How can we die well?  How "may we be able to encounter death cheerfully, constantly, and victoriously"?

Owen proposes three things.  Firstly, we must be prepared to surrender our spirits to God, after the example of Christ - something which is very difficult for us, both on account of our sinfulness and on account of the natural constitution of a human being as body and soul conjoined.  Secondly, we must be prepared to let go of the flesh and everything that goes with it, good and bad.  Thirdly, we must be happy to resign ourselves to God's management of time, and not to resent his timing.  How are these things, which are admittedly desperately difficult, to be achieved?

For Owen, these "cannot be attained unto, without a prospect of that glory that shall give us a new state far more excellent than what we here leave or depart from.  This we cannot have, whatever we pretend, unless we have some present views of the glory of Christ."  We cannot expect to enjoy Christ hereafter unless we have enjoyed him in this life.  And we cannot have any expectation of dying well unless we have that future glory to look forward to.

Since unless the Lord comes (Maranatha!) I will certainly die, there is nothing better for me to do with my time now than to meditate on the glory of Christ, to acquire a taste for his goodness, to learn to value him above everything else.  In so far as I do this, I will be prepared to surrender to death.

"This is the last victorious act of faith, wherein its conquest over its last enemy death itself doth consist" - namely, to be so delighted by the prospect of seeing Christ in his glory that I can be comforted in death and happily surrender my spirit into his hands.

God help us so to do.

Killing sin

I have recently finished re-reading John Owen On the Mortification of Sin, something which I do periodically and always find beneficial.  It has been a few years since I last dusted it off, and this time through I noted something I have not spotted before, and which struck me as very different from much of the instruction currently given on personal change.

Owen spends some time setting out what it means to mortify sin, and makes it clear that the power to so comes from the Spirit, and is given only to believers.  Then he gets on to some practical steps, of which there are nine, including "Get a clear sense of... the guilt... the danger... the evil... of the sin", "the first actings of sin to be vigorously opposed", and "Thoughtfulness of the excellence of the majesty of God".  These directions make up the bulk of the work.

But when he is done with them, Owen writes "Now, the things which I have hitherto insisted on are rather of things preparatory to the work aimed at than such as will effect it". In other words, think all you want about the guilt and evil of your sin, put as much effort as you can into meditation on the majesty of God, you still haven't even started to mortify sin.  For the actual battle against sin, Owen has only two directions, and since one of these is really just a reminder that this is the work of the Spirit, there is actually only one thing to do that belongs to the real fight against sin:

"Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin".

That's it.  Of course, we are used to exercising faith in Christ for the forgiving of our sin, but for Owen it is faith also which will kill it.  Setting faith at work here means regarding Christ as the one who will defeat sin in us, actively expecting him to do it, and then waiting for him to come through.

This is as far away from the CBT-disguised-as-sanctification that we often see as you can get.

Two things really strike me about this.  Firstly, it will only work if Jesus really is a gracious Lord, and really has conquered sin.  It's not a technique, but an appeal to a person with power to exercise it mercifully towards us.  It consists in expectation, and waiting, and looking, and longing.  In other words, it throws us absolutely on Christ, and not on any source of peace we can summon up in ourselves.  (Don't speak peace to yourself until God has spoken it to you, Owen says).

Secondly, this clarifies for me that sanctification, no less than justification, is by faith alone, because by Christ alone.  And this is both liberating and glorious.

Jesus and the Bible

"So much as we know of Christ, his sufferings, and his glory, so much do we understand of the Scripture, and no more."

Thus John Owen, in his meditations on the glory of Christ (Works I, p 343).

What would this mean for our reading of the Bible, if we took it seriously?  What about our preaching?  Our systematic theology?

Images of the Church

I've recently been reading a bit about the nature of church, and especially John Owen on the subject, and one of the things that strikes me is that Owen consistently relies on imagery to describe the church which doesn't show up much in contemporary discussion.  For Owen, the church is primarily a society.  His discussion of it revolves around the idea of a well-ordered society, and therefore around the appointment and function of officers within the church.  There is more, and every-member ministry is there in the margins, but the main imagery is drawn from the state and civil society.  By contrast, I would think that the most regularly recurring image used for the church in contemporary literature is the family.  The emphasis is therefore much more on relationship.

It is not hard to see historical causes for these differences.  Owen was writing against the backdrop of the Civil War, the Protectorate, and the Stuart Restoration (he would have loved the Glorious Revolution, but skipped it and went straight for the Glory).  All the big questions of the day were about the ordering of civil society, the roles of magistrates, the constraints placed on rulers.  And Owen was in the thick of all that.  By contrast, such questions bore us today, but family life is very much out of the category of 'taken for granted', where it was when Owen wrote.  Perhaps because, as a society, we're less secure in natural family life, the image becomes particularly powerful for us in relation to the church.

Of course, both images (and a host of others) are found in Scripture.  The idea of the church as polis is there in the background to Philippians, for example, whilst the idea of family functions very strongly in Galatians.  (Actually both images are in both letters, and are generally intertwined throughout the NT).  The question that stands out in my mind is: what do we miss when we pursue this image of the church over all others?  I can see what Owen missed when he pursued his image, but that is one of the wonders of hindsight.  I wonder whether we end up giving in to our culture's general hostility or indifference to structure, using the language of relationships to justify our neglect of the Scriptural representation of this side of church life.  And, as I look at Owen and wonder whether his one-sided use of imagery led to a damaging clericalism,  I wonder what damage our neglect will do us in the long term.

John Owen is my homeboy

And I quote:

Reason alone - especially as it is corrupted and depraved - can discern no glory in the representation of God by Christ; yea, all that is spoken thereof, or declared in the gospel, is foolishness unto it. Hence many live in a profession of the faith of the letter of the gospel, yet - having no light, guide nor conduct, but that of reason - they do not, they cannot, really behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; nor hath the revelation of it any efficacy unto their souls. The manifestation of him in the light of nature, by the works of creation and providence, is suited unto their reason, and doth affect it; for that which is made of Christ, they say of it, as the Israelites did of Manna, that came down from heaven, "What is it?", we know not the meaning of it. For it is made unto faith alone, and all men have not faith.