Communion With God John Owen Quotes

The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.

The love of God is like himself – equal, constant, not capable of augmentation or diminution; 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, has its enlargements and straightenings.

Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

Believers obey Christ as the one whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect, and unable to abide in God's presence. Therefore they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God.

So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.

The use of means for the obtaining of peace is ours; the bestowing of it is God's prerogative.

Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation, than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God.

By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with God. He is light, we darkness; and what communion has light with darkness? He is life, we are dead—he is love, and we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us?

And truly, for sinners to have fellowship with God, the infinitely holy God, is an astonishing dispensation.9

in the meantime praying the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has, of the riches of his grace, recovered us from a state of enmity into a condition of communion and fellowship with himself, that both he that writes, and they that read the words of his mercy, may have such a taste of his sweetness and excellencies therein, as to be stirred up to a farther longing after the fulness of his salvation, and the eternal fruition of him in glory.

Bring thy lust to the gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt; look on Him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, “What have I done? What love, what mercy what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust’s sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great a salvation? In the meantime, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation… I have despised them all and esteemed them as a thing of nought, that I might harbor a lust in my heart. Have I obtained a view of God’s fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?” Entertain thy conscience daily with this treaty. See if it can stand before this aggravation of its guilt. If this make it not sink in some measure and melt, I fear thy case is dangerous.

Let a soul exercise itself to a communion with Christ in the good things of the gospel—pardon of sin, fruits of holiness, hope of glory, peace with God, joy in the Holy Ghost, dominion over sin—and he shall have a mighty preservative against all temptations.

The seventeenth-century English theologian John Owen wrote a warning to popular and successful ministers: A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.32

When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ’s, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts. So did Joseph. “How shall I do this great evil,” saith he, “and sin against the Lord ?” my good and gracious God.

Suppose a man to be a true believer, and yet finds in himself a powerful indwelling sin, leading him captive to the law of it, consuming his heart with trouble, perplexing his thoughts, weakening his soul as to duties of communion with God, disquieting him as to peace, and perhaps defiling his conscience, and exposing him to hardening through the deceitfulness of sin,—what

1st. It untunes and unframes the heart itself, by entangling its affections. It diverts the heart from the spiritual frame that is required for vigorous communion with God; it lays hold on the affections, rendering its object beloved and desirable, so expelling the love of the Father, 1 John. ii. 15, iii 17; so that the soul cannot say uprightly and truly to God, “Thou art my portion,” having something else that it loves. Fear, desire, hope, which are the choice affections of the soul, that should be full of God, will be one way or other entangled with it. 2dly. It fills the thoughts with contrivances about it. Thoughts are the great purveyors of the soul to bring in provision to satisfy its affections; and if sin remain unmortified in the heart, they must ever and anon be making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. They must glaze, adorn, and dress the objects of the flesh, and bring them home to give satisfaction; and this they are able to do, in the service of a defiled imagination, beyond all expression. 3dly. It breaks out and actually hinders duty. The ambitious man must be studying, and the worldling must be working or contriving, and the sensual, vain person providing himself for vanity, when they should be engaged in the worship of God.

That God hath no design for his own glory in us or by us, in this world or unto eternity,—that there is no especial communion that we can have with him by Jesus Christ, nor any capacity for us to enjoy him,—but holiness is necessary unto it, as a means unto its end.

What promise hath any unregenerate man to countenance him in this work? what assistance for the performance of it? Can sin be killed without an interest in the death of Christ, or mortified without the Spirit?

The true and acceptable principles of mortification shall be afterward insisted on. Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification.

Hast thou permitted worldliness, ambition, greediness of study, to eat up other duties, the duties wherein thou oughtest to hold constant communion with God, for some long season?

That the saints have distinct communion with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit (that is, distinctly with the Father, and distinctly with the Son, and distinctly with the Holy Spirit), and in what the peculiar appropriation of this distinct communion unto the several persons does consist, must, in the first place, be made manifest.

The Father is here placed as the object of our love, in opposition to the world, which takes up our affections

Our peculiar communion with the Father is in love

in the next verses that communion of theirs is at large set forth and described. I shall briefly observe four things therein:— (1.) Sweetness. (2.) Delight. (3.) Safety. (4.) Comfort. (1.)

that God alone may be preferred. And this is the soul’s entrance into conjugal communion with Jesus Christ as to personal grace, — the constant preferring him above all pretenders to its affections, counting all loss and dung in comparison of him.

It is the daily exercise of the saints of God, to consider the great provocation that is in sin,

not to terrify and affright their souls with it, but that a due sense of the evil of it may be kept alive upon their hearts.

he knew we would grieve him, provoke him, quench his motions, defile his dwelling-place; and yet he would come to be our comforter.

When once the soul of a believer has obtained sweet and real communion with Christ, it looks about him, watcheth all temptations, all ways whereby sin might approach, to disturb him in his enjoyment of his dear Lord and Saviour, his rest and desire.

He looks about him every way, and fears every thing that may deprive him of it.

Whatever impeacheth the universality of obedience in one thing overthrows its sincerity in all things.

If prayer do not constantly endeavour the ruin of sin, sin will ruin prayer, and utterly alienate the soul from it.

To become a Christian believer is to be brought into a reality far grander than anything we could ever have imagined. It means communion with the triune God.

They will readily change truth for error, who find no more sweetness in the one than in the other.

By some men's too much understanding, others are brought to understand nothing at all.

And, with a disregard for other things, he cherished and experienced That blessed communion with God about which he wrote.

This might be illustrated by the way in which, for example, John Owen’s work Of the Mortification of Sin has undoubtedly been read by many more younger ministers than either his Glory of Christ or Communion with God. That may be understandable because of the deep pastoral insight in Owen’s short work; but it may also put the practical cart before the theological horse. Owen himself would not have been satisfied with hearers who learned mortification without learning Christ. A larger paradigmatic shift needs to take place than only exchanging a superficial subjectivism for Owen’s rigorous subjectivism. What is required is a radical recentering in a richer and deeper knowledge of Christ, understood in terms of his person and work. There can be little doubt that Owen himself viewed things this way.

Zephyrinus, the bishop of Rome, that he had "admitted adulterers unto repentance, and thereby unto the communion of the church." But that church proceeding in her lenity, and every day enlarging her charity, Novatus and Novatianus, taking offence thereat, advanced an opinion in the contrary extreme: for they denied all hope of church pardon or of a return unto ecclesiastical communion unto them who had fallen into open sin after baptism; and, in especial, peremptorily excluded all persons whatsoever who had outwardly complied with idolatrous worship in time of persecution, without respect unto any distinguishing circumstances; yea, they seem to have excluded them from all expectation of forgiveness from God himself.

A man finds any lust to bring him into the condition formerly described; it is powerful, strong, tumultuating, leads captive, vexes, disquiets, takes away peace; he is not able to bear it; wherefore he sets himself against it, groans under it, sighs to be delivered: but in the meantime, perhaps, in other duties,—in constant communion with God,—in reading, prayer, and meditation,—in other ways that are not of the same kind with the lust wherewith he is troubled,—he is loose and negligent. Let not that man think that ever he shall arrive to the mortification of the lust he is perplexed withal.

When for a little moment he hides his face, yet he gathers us with everlasting kindness.

How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome!

How much more glorious are the tender affections, mercies, and compassion of the Lord Jesus unto believers!

What is required of believers to hold communion with the Father in love — His love received by faith — Returns of love to him — God’s love to us and ours to him — Wherein they agree — Wherein they differ.

The Father is love;” that is, not only of an infinitely gracious, tender, compassionate, and loving nature, according as he has proclaimed himself, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7, but also one that eminently and peculiarly dispenseth himself unto us in free love.

immediate communion with the Father in love.

How few of the saints are experimentally acquainted with this privilege of holding immediate communion with the Father in love! With what anxious, doubtful thoughts do they look upon him!

the soul frequently eye the love of the Father, and that under these considerations, — they are all soul-conquering and endearing.

such a thought is cruel as the grave. The worst thoughts that, in any fear, sin desertions, they have of hell, is, that they shall not enjoy Jesus Christ.

When will the Sabbath be past, that we may exact all our labours?” — when our delight and refreshment lies in earthly things, — we are unsuitable to Christ.

Adam had no right to life because he was innocent; he must, moreover, “do this,” and then he shall “live.

In remission of sin and imputation of righteousness does it consist; from the death of Christ, as a price, sacrifice, and a punishment, — from the life of Christ spent in obedience to the law, does it arise.

of electing love; and proposes the consideration of that love as a motive to holiness,

Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with God. He is light, we darkness; and what communion has light with darkness? He is life, we are dead, — he is love, and we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us?

The manifestation of grace and pardoning mercy, which is the only door of entrance into any such communion, is not committed unto any but unto him atoned in whom it is, by whom that grace and mercy was purchased, through whom it is dispensed, who reveals it from the bosom of the Father.

God is not in express terms mentioned in the Old Testament. The thing itself is found there; but the clear light of it, and the boldness of faith in it, is discovered in the gospel, and by the Spirit administered therein.

But the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest whilst the first tabernacle was standing, Heb. ix. 8. Though they had communion with God, yet they had not παῤῥησίαν, — a boldness and confidence in that communion.

But now in Christ we have boldness and access with confidence to God, Eph. iii. 12. This boldness and access with confidence the saints of old were not acquainted with.

And truly, for sinners to have fellowship with God, the infinitely holy God, is an astonishing dispensation.

Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” say the sinners in Zion. And, “I knew thou wast an austere man,” saith the evil servant in the gospels. Now, there is not any thing more grievous to the Lord, nor more subservient to the design of Satan upon the soul, than such thoughts as these.

exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him.

Communion with the Father is wholly inconsistent with loose walking. “If

have, or may have, distinct communion with the three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.

We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul.

hell itself is but the filling of wretched creatures with the fruit of their own devices.

He must not only have a negative righteousness, — he was not guilty of any thing; but also a positive righteousness,

Herein he gives us holy communion with himself. The soul knows his voice when he speaks, Nec hominem sonat.4 There is something too great in it to be the effect of a created power. When the Lord Jesus Christ at one word stilled the raging of the sea and wind, all that were with him knew there was divine power at hand (Matt. 8:25–27). And when the Holy Ghost by one word stills the tumults and storms that are raised in the soul, giving it an immediate calm and security, it knows his divine power, and rejoices in his presence.

By the incarnation of Christ, God intended first of all to redeem the church by the sacrifice of his Son. But there is a greater reason for the incarnation of Christ, one which centres on the glory of God. This was that he might 'gather all things into one' in Christ. The whole creation, especially that which was to be eternal blessed, was to have anew head given to it. From him all graces were to glow into this new family, and from this new family worship, praise and gratitude would flow back to him. All communications from God to this new family would be channelled through Christ, and all worship and gratitude to God from this new family would also be channelled through Christ. Who can describe the divine beauty, order and harmony of all things in this new family under its new head Jesus Christ? The union and communion between angels and men, the order of the whole family in heaven and earth, the communication of life, grace, power, mercy and comfort to the church and all things being ruled for the glory of God all depend on Jesus Christ. This glory God purposed for his incarnate Son, and it was the greatest, the highest glory that could be given to him.

As a means of retaining communion with God, whereby we sweetly ease our hearts in the bosom of the Father, and receive in refreshing tastes of his love. The soul is never more raised with the love of God than when by the Spirit taken into intimate communion with him in the discharge of this duty; and therein it belongs to the Spirit of consolation, to the Spirit promised as a comforter.

True followers of Christ use gospel principles to fight against sin, such as the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, and the preciousness of communion with God.