What do people think about John Owen and why should he be read?

Communion With God was written by John Owen, a leading pastor, theologian, Puritan. He served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and Dean of Christ Church in the University of Oxford. There are some that have accused Owen of being very hard to read, and they are usually people who don’t take the time to read Owen’s works. Let me give you a couple of quotes of some people, pastors, and theologians and let you hear what they have to say about John Owen.

“Owen is extraordinary. Owen is simply extraordinary. He is in a class, Packer says, with Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards—that rarefied top 10 thinkers and pastors in the world. John Owen knows the soul, knows Christ, knows communion with Christ like very few others.”

— John Piper¹

“…Owen’s greatest books were written as sermons for an audience of teenagers…Owen’s Communion with God is among his most celebrated achievements—and no wonder. It is the exhalation of his devotion to Father, Son, and Spirit, and the discovery of the limitless love of God.”

–Crawford Gribben²

“Reading Owen is like eating triple Decker fruit Custer cake. The more you dig into it the richer and the more in depth the taste and the thought process and the love of Christ comes out. If you’ve ever thought, ‘How could I have a richer more in-depth love and knowledge of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?’,  Owens is it.”

–Unknown³

“And, with a disregard for other things, he cherished and experienced That blessed communion with God about which he wrote.”
–Sinclair B. Ferguson⁴

What is Communion With God?

Owen examines the Christian’s communion with God as it relates to all three members of the Trinity. He assures us that every Christian does have communion with God, no one is excluded, and that this communion takes place distinctly with Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Our relationship with God the Father is primarily through love and faith.

Our relationship with God the Son is through fellowship and grace.

Our relationship with God the Holy Spirit is primarily through comfort and sanctification.

In Communion With God we begin to understand the reality of the Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The relationship of each person of the Trinity to each other and also their individual relationship with us as believers in and under the Godhead of the Father. So that we may “…show gratitude for His love by living a life which pleases Him” ( p. 12). Owen also details the nature of the grace which Christ purchased.  “Acceptance with God, sanctification from God, and many great privileges with and before God…Now this we have in Christ’s life of perfect obedience.  This is our righteousness before God.  By His obedience we are ’made righteous’”(Romans 5:19; Owen, p. 128).

John Owen was a pastor, a theologian, a divine. A person well-versed in theology or a professor of divinity. He was also a teacher of theology. Theology is the science that teaches the existence, character and attributes of God; His laws and government, the doctrines we are to believe, and the duties we are to practice.

Owen was a Puritan, a member of a group of English believers who focused their life on living by the word of scripture. Puritans were a group of English reformed Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries, who sought to purify the Church of England from all Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England was only partially reformed. Puritans didn’t just believe and respond to the word and spirit of God, but were determined to live every day with this as their focus. They were rich in doctrinal truth, they had great depth and knowledge of the Scripture and the issues about how important it is to follow and rest in Christ. This was extremely important to them at the time, and maybe even more important in the culture of today.

Puritans do not really exist today. It seems today with the culture that we have, that religion becomes more and more watered-down. Today, the Puritan writings are being printed and more and more of their works are being read. I challenge you to read some of their works, it is wonderful. The Puritans wrote a  great deal about how to live a holy and sanctified life. Little of what they preached and wrote contains anything really unique or strange. What is special about the Puritan view of holiness, is its fullness and balance, rather than its distinctive thought. Do they have real value for us today? “The great eighteenth-century revivalist, George Whitefield, wrote:

The Puritans [were] burning and shining lights. When cast out by the black Bartholomew Act, and driven from their respective charges to preach in barns and fields, in the highways and hedges, they in a special manner wrote and preached as men having authority. Though dead, by their writings they yet speak: a peculiar unction attends them to this very hour.”⁵

   “Puritanism may be defined primarily by the intensity of the religious experience that it fostered. Puritans believed that it was necessary to be in a covenant relationship with God in order to be redeemed from one’s sinful condition, that God had chosen to reveal salvation through preaching, and that the Holy Spirit was the energizing instrument of salvation.”⁶

The Puritan classic definition of sanctification is well known, we find it in the Westminster shorter catechism’s questions 35 and 36:

What is sanctification?

Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die under sin and live unto righteousness.

What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification?

The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification are: Assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance there unto the end.

Sanctification starts when we are renewed and continues until we die. We don’t reach it here. So, there will be ups and downs in this life, with the Spirit working, testing, and, growing in us for holiness. From these two questions it is obvious that sanctification in the Puritan mind encompasses all Christian living – the entire process of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. The Puritans want to see people growing up into strong assurance of God’s love, great piece of conscience, and authentic joy in the Holy Spirit. What did the Puritans actually mean concerning sanctification?  Five elements are listed here; which we see in Communion With God.

1.Universal and moral renewal. First, sanctification for the Puritans is a divine work of renewal involving a radical change of character. It springs from a regenerated heart which is something deeper than any psychologist or counselor could ever reach. God works in the heart, and out of the change of heart comes a new character. This work of renewal in Puritan thought is universal. This means that it touches and affects every area of the persons entire life. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4: 4, 5 that everything is to be sanctified, every sphere of life, “…for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”

Holiness is an inward thing that must fill our hearts, our  core being, and it is an outward thing that must spill over to every detail of our lives. 1 Thessalonians 5: 23 says “and  the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless into the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sanctification is also moral; by this they meant that it would produce moral fruits, the very fruits that we read of in Galatians 5. “…love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness faith, meekness and temperance; against such things there is no law” (vv.22, 23). If you asked the Puritan what these fruits mean when you combine them together, they would say that it represents the moral profile of the Lord Jesus Christ himself (1 Corinthians 8: 28, 29).

2. True repentance. Sanctification for the Puritans consists of repentance and righteousness, the two-sided activity of turning from sin to obedience. Repentance for the Puritans is turning from sin and is a lifelong activity. We must repent every day of our lives and in doing so, we must also turn to righteousness. Repentance, they said is the work of faith. Without the Holy Spirit there is no repentance. The Puritan idea of repentance certainly starts with remorse, but it goes deeper into an essential change of life. Repentance is actually turning. It is a hating of things I loved before, now loving of the things I hated before.

3.Is a holy war. Puritan sanctification is progressive, operating through conflict. The Puritans said conflict is inescapable and sanctification, because indwelling sin remains in the Christian to his great sorrow, engages him in great warfare in many battles. Indwelling sin works from inside, the Puritan said while the world exerts ungodly pressure from the outside. The devil who plays the role of ringleader wants to take those outside pressures and use them along with the internal pressures to regain loss territory. A holy war is raging. That is why Bunyan called his book The Holy War. Sanctification involves conflict with myself, with my flesh, with the world, and satan.  If a Christian is not willing to battle sin the Puritan would say that person should question whether he is a Christian at all.

4.Accepting a struggle. Thomas Watson said the way to heaven is a sweating work. There’s a battle raging but the work of sanctification, happily, will advance. Sanctification is not stagnant. The Puritans employed Paul’s words of 2 Corinthians 3: 18, that we will be changed from one glory to another, if we walk in the Spirit. However, there is a snag, said the Puritans. The Christian will often not be able to see any progress in himself. One of the Puritans used an example of a woman who dusts her furniture and she thinks she has cleaned away all the dust, until the sun shines into the room, revealing all the remaining dust. So, the more the Sun of Righteousness shines in our hearts, even though we may be growing in holiness, we shall see increasingly the motives of our heart. Another Puritan way of evaluating progress in holiness is to ask how we are currently battling with temptation.

5.The inner private person. Puritan sanctification is imperfect though invincible. In this life it is never complete. Our reach will always exceed our grasp. Many people do not understand the Puritans at this point. They think that they are introspective or that they lead us into a legalistic bondage. The Puritans felt the imperfection of their sanctification, precisely because they had God’s standard of righteousness before them. They did not compare themselves with their neighbor, but with God’s holy law. Righteousness for the Puritan was motivational and character. What lives inside of you is important. What you do and say reflects who you are within.

One Puritan said what a man is in private, that is what he really is in the sight of God. Do you think that is true?

I think they would ask us to ask ourselves, what do you think about? What motivates you? Are you really motivated by the love of God? Are you motivated by Samaritanship to others, loving them, doing good to them, and laying out yourselves for their benefit and spiritual welfare? This is the heart of Puritan righteousness.

Who was John Owens?

1 https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/why-read-john-owen-what-to-read/

2 Crawford Gribben. 7/22/2020. 10 Things You Should Know about John Owen https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-john-owen/

3 Quote supplied by author

4 good reads The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen Quotes

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/42953429-the-trinitarian-devotion-of-john-owen

5 Joel Beeke Why You Should Read the Puritans

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/why-you-should-read-puritans/

6 Puritanism https://www.britannica.com/topic/Puritanism

John Owen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Owen_(theologian)