If there is one thing I think that is lacking in most churches these days would be the necessity to place the focus of Christians on the glory and meditations of Christ. I don't think in all of the preaching that I have ever heard, that a pastor has spurned me on to meditate on the glories of Christ. Sure they have pointed out that Christ is my salvation and that I must put my faith in him in order to be saved. After that it has been centrally a man centered theology or teaching, there may be mention of the conviction of the Holy Spirit about sin that we need to be rid of, but a failure to point the Christian to Christ for relief. Christians would have a hard time distinguishing spiritual sanctification and good moral living are. The reason I would say lies in the fact that Christ is not the center focus of the preaching, but rather man is, and Christ has his place in the invitation.
This is where John Owen has tapped into the fountain of sanctification, and that being on the meditations of Christ, who he sees as central to overcoming the temporal things of this world. This is overcoming the worlds temporary and perishing satisfactions, and looking by faith at the eternal a Christian will be able to rise above the temptations of the world and live in hope of the glory for which Jesus is the first-born. To Owen though meditating on Christ is not just meditating on the baby Jesus, or moral Jesus, or the suffering Jesus, but rather meditating on the risen Jesus, he who is seated in the heavenly places. Meditating on the benefits that we have acquired through his death and resurrection are friendship, likeness, and complacency.
I hope that as I go through this book and blog on the mined jewels of the labors of another, that I shall be able to condense what might be a labor for others to read and to explain some of the hard statements of Owen for the benefit of the reader. Hopefully if anything you will read just the quotes that will be in italics of John Owen, that alone are beneficial and just skip over my jibber-jabber about Owen. I will be beginning with the Introduction of Owen, which may come in sections, because even his introduction is very weighty and contains jewels of immense value. I will also try and outline Owens work as I go along, which is not always and easy task.
PURPOSE
Owen outlines his purposes for writing this work in his introduction which was not just to write another book or gain some recognition among theologians. Owen wrote this book first for his own edification, then I am sure at the prodding of some for the use and edification of his congregation. Owen writes this:
"I shall not, therefore, use any apology for the publishing of the ensuing Meditations, intended first for the exercise of my own mind, and then for the edification of a private congregation; which is like to be the last service I shall do them in that kind. Some may, by the consideration of them, be called to attend unto the charge of it; and some may be provoked to communicate their greater light and knowledge unto the good of many. And that which I design farther in the present discourse, is to give a brief account of the necessity and use, in life and death of the duty exhorted unto (book 1 pg. 275)."
John Owen considers our growth in understanding to be a preparation by faith for the beholding of the glory of God by sight after death. Owen says that the view of Christ by faith is better than anything that the creation can offer, so the Christian must put forth his utmost endeavor, to obtaining a heavenly vision of Christ that comes by faith as revealed in the Scripture. Here is a quote from John Owen about meditating on the glory of Christ:
"This, therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them. For if our future blessedness shall consist in being where his is, and beholding of his glory, what better preparation can there be for it that in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed in the same glory? (John Owen Book 1 pg. 275)."
This is my hope that I shall be able through working these deep truths out in the blogosphere to be able to communicate them unto the good of many and first and foremost to myself. This will be difficult at first but maybe as time progresses, it shall get easier.
A DEBASED NATURE AND AN EXALTED NATURE
"He it is in whom our nature, which was debased as low as hell by apostasy from God, is exalted above the whole creation."
"In this condition—lost, poor, base, yea, cursed—the Lord Christ, the Son of God found our nature. And here on, in infinite condescension and compassion, sanctifying a portion of it unto himself, he took it to be his own, in a holy, ineffable subsistence, in his own person. And herein again the same nature, so depressed in the utmost misery, is exalted above the whole creation of God. For in that very nature, God hath "set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come (pg. 276)."
Owen explains that our nature was corrupted by the fall and made at a distance from God, under the dominion of Satan, to suffer righteous doom, and perish eternally. Man lost by this fall lost the seat of Excellency, of beauty, and of glory, he was made naked by sin, and laid groveling in the dust from which he was created. Man according to his decision to disobey God deserved nothing more than eternal punishment. Yet God stooped down and took the form of man, becoming the lowest of lowest in the world, living a holy and righteous life, then to be punished for mans sin. Then to top it off God exalts him above the creation. This is ample reason to meditate on the glory of Christ who is our redeemer, and glorifying God in our thought life.
Those who engage this nature in the service of sensual lust and pleasures, who think that its felicity and utmost capacities consist in their satisfaction, with the accomplishments of other earthy, temporary desires, are satisfied with it in its state of apostasy from God; but those who have received the light of faith and grace, so as rightly to understand the being and end of that nature whereof they are partakers, cannot but rejoice in its deliverance from the utmost debasement, into that glorious exaltation which it hath received in the person of Christ. And this must needs make thoughts of him full of refreshment unto their souls (ib. pg. 276)."The Christian is not suppose to exercise his flesh in all of the sinful enjoyments of this world, to be satisfied in that nature that is at enmity with God. There is no satisfaction in this, there is no peace, because the things of this world are transistory, they fade away, moth and rust corrupt
them, so a man seeking to satisfy the old man, the flesh will never be able to. He will constantly be moving farther and farther away from God, growing more and more spiritually dead, which might be an indicator that the individual search out his salvation. Yet those Christians who have put their faith in Christ, and understand that condition from which they have been saved, and the new nature they have received, cannot help but to rejoice in the future deliverance from
sin and corruption. The deliverance from sin and corruption only come through Christ, and that happens either when we die or the heavens part with the shout of an arch—angel. The meditation upon these things are what refresh a man's spirit, and gives him hope in the face of a
corrupt and fading world.
I wonder how often we have though in the course of our day that the things that we are striving so hard to obtain that one day they are going to perish, or if they last long enough they will fade away by the forces of nature? Meditation on Christ was important to Owen because it gave him hope that the sufferings of this present time would be worth it in the end because he would be finally freed from the clutches of the flesh and the shackles of sin. This would do Christians a lot of good to meditate on these things today because our minds would move beyond what we want now, causing us to focus on our need and God's desire for our life which is his glory and the chief end of man.
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