John Owen’S Doctrine Of Christ
15
JOHN OWEN’S DOCTRINE
OF CHRIST
F. R. Entwistle
Before we turn to our subject, may I remind you who John Owen was. He lived from 1616 to 1683, and so may be called a later Puritan. He entered Oxford at the age of twelve and was noted for his academic diligence. During his later years at the University, the Holy Spirit began a work of grace in his heart, and he left Oxford at the age of twenty-one on account of Laud’s statutes. He cast in his lot with Parliament at the outbreak of Civil War. He removed to London where his spiritual troubles were settled by an unknown preacher. In 1642 he published his first work, A display of Arminianism. In 1643 he was appointed to the living of Fordham and in 1646 to Coggeshall. About this time his ecclesiastical views changed from Presbyterianism to modified Congregationalism. He preached before Parliament, and in 1649 was taken by Cromwell to Ireland and in 1650 to Scotland. In 1651 he was appointed Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1652 Vice-Chancellor of the University. After a period of valuable service to the University he was removed from his post in 1658, and in 1660, on the Restoration, he lost the deanery.
Throughout this period, in spite of many administrative and advisory duties, he continued both to preach and to publish. After the Restoration we find him being indicted for holding religious assemblies in Oxford, but later, in 1673, he was allowed to preach to an Independent congregation in London. He continued to publish throughout these later years, and many of his most valuable works date from this period. He died in 1683.
The Dictionary of National Biography says of him, “Owen ranks with Baxter and Howe among the most eminent of Puritan divines. A trenchant controversialist, he distinguished himself no less by temperateness of tone than by vigour of polemic. His learning was vast, various and profound, and his mastery of Calvinistic theology complete.” To some aspects of that theology we must now give our attention.
We are dealing with only some aspects of Owen’s doctrine of Christ. No apology for this is needed when we are dealing with an author so voluminous as John Owen and a subject so central and complex as the Person and Work of Christ. As to sources, it has been necessary to limit ourselves to four major treatises of Owen’s: his Salus Electorum; or, the Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1648); Of Communion with God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (1657); CHRISTOLOGIA, or a Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ—God and Man (1679); Mediations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ (1684–96). Our sources thus range from Owen’s second major treatise to “his dying testimony to the truth.”1 In deciding what to include and what to omit, we have had two aims in mind; first, to include enough to indicate the main lines of Owen’s thought, and second, to give particular attention to those points at which his teaching is important for guiding our own thought at the present time. Our aim, then, is to let John Owen speak today.
Theological Method
Owen has something of value to say, first, to our theological method. Here two matters require our attention.
The Foundation of Owen’s Thought
It is immediately apparent that Owen’s great concern in his theological writing is to set out and explain what the Scripture teaches. This he conceives to be his great duty as theologian and as pastor. It is no exaggeration to say that his theological method is the exegesis of Scripture. In writing his treatises he is accustomed to state a proposition, which he believes summarizes and expresses the teaching of Scripture, and then he confirms it with vast quantities of scriptural quotation. The authority of Scripture is final and absolute and never called into question, for what the Scripture says, God says. From his use of Scripture we may learn at least three things:
1. Owen gives the lie to the common impression that a careful and critical use of texts was virtually unknown before the nineteenth century. Owen is extremely careful in his use of texts. He has regard to the context, and treats each text in its setting not only in the Bible but in the whole body of biblical truth. It is true that he is prepared to make more use of the Old Testament in discussing the Person and Work of Christ than most modern writers do, but his quotations are taken from Messianic psalms, or prophetic Messianic passages, such as the Servant Songs of Isaiah, or from passages dealing with the Wisdom or the Word of God; very often from passages which the New Testament itself applies to Christ. In doing this, Owen is doing no more than follow the two New Testament principles that the Old Testament does speak of Christ, and that in studying the inspired Scriptures we must give attention to the individual words if we are to understand the whole. A little more hesitancy may be felt about some passages in which Owen bases a detailed exposition of the Person of Christ upon verses from the Song of Solomon (e.g. Of Communion with God);2 but if we were to express that hesitation to Owen he might well reply that he was following the analogy of Scripture, and the principle that we must study the words if we are to understand the meaning. There may be occasional exceptions, but in general we can say that Owen was most careful in his use of texts.
2. Owen gives the lie to the accusation which is still sometimes heard, that Calvinist theologians tend to be ruled by a narrow logic, which they impose upon Scripture, rather than by Scripture itself. Of no doctrine is that accusation made with more vehemence than the doctrine of definite or particular redemption. Yet with regard to Owen, at any rate, the charge is quite groundless. His main argument in The Death of Death, in which he is concerned with this subject, is not a logical one at all, but a scriptural one. He argues that the Scriptures teach particular redemption; that in fact the scriptural terminology of redemption is evacuated of meaning if we understand it to teach anything less than the definite, effective redemption of God’s elect. Other views of the atonement are condemned not because they are logically inconsistent in themselves, but because they are neither taught in Scripture nor consistent with scriptural teaching. There is order and system in Owen’s writing, but it is there with a view to displaying the teaching of Scripture. It is governed by his biblical exegesis.
3. Owen’s use of Scripture serves as a healthy corrective in the present century, when some treatments of the Person and Work of Christ have been rather preoccupied with intellectual problems—problems of philosophy and psychology—rather than with the submissive exegesis of Scripture. Owen, with his careful and acute analysis, is the last person to be opposed to an accurate and full doctrinal understanding; indeed, he sees the development of such an understanding as part of our increase in the knowledge of God. But he is never content with mental accuracy in either himself or his readers. His object in writing is always practical and pastoral. In the Preface to his treatise on The Person of Christ he describes the knowledge of Christ which he is concerned to promote:
. . . the principal design of their whole lives unto whom he is thus precious, is to acquaint themselves with him—the mystery of the wisdom, grace, and love of God, in his person and mediation, as revealed unto us in the Scripture, which is “life eternal”; (John 17:3)—to trust in him, and unto him, as to all the everlasting concernments of their souls—to love and honour him with all their hearts—to endeavour after conformity to him, in all those characters of divine goodness and holiness which are represented unto them in him. In these things consist the soul, life, power, beauty and efficacy of the Christian religion; without which, whatever ornaments may be put upon its exercise, it is but a useless, lifeless carcass.3
There are, and there have been, he says, many errors in the Church concerning the Person and Work of Christ. But we must look for more than doctrinal correction: “The re-enthroning of the Person, Spirit, Grace and Authority of Christ, in the hearts and consciences of men, is the only way whereby an end may be put unto these woeful conflicts.”4
This practical and pastoral concern is something from which we can learn today. He is prepared to write volume after volume with the simple object of expounding and teaching all that the Scriptures teach about these doctrines, because he believes that it is the teaching of Scripture which his readers need to know and believe for their salvation.
The Trinitarian Framework of Owen’s Thought
The second aspect of Owen’s theological method which requires our attention is this—Owen’s exposition of scriptural truth takes a Trinitarian form. In giving this form to his thought Owen is not simply adopting a framework because it is neat, nor is he placing himself in bondage to a system, as a sort of Protestant scholastic. The great theme of all his writings is redemption, for that is the theme of Scripture. Owen therefore gives his work a Trinitarian form because the Scripture reveals a Trinity, working for our salvation. The foundations of this Trinitarian framework are thus twofold: first, in the exegesis of Scripture, from which as we have seen Owen seeks to quarry all his theology, and second, in the nature of God, the essential Trinity Whom Scripture reveals. Two quotations may illustrate this.
In his treatment of the agent of redemption in The Death of Death, book 1, Owen discusses in turn the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and prefaces his discussion with these words:
The agent in, and chief author of, this great work of our redemption is the whole blessed Trinity; for all the works which outwardly are of the Deity are undivided and belong equally to each person, their distinct manner of subsistence and order being observed. . . . In the several persons of the Holy Trinity, the joint author of the whole work, the Scripture proposeth distinct and sundry acts or operations peculiarly assigned unto them; which, according to our weak manner of apprehension, we are to consider severally and apart.5
In his treatise Of Communion with God, one of his fundamental positions is “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).”6 Owen proceeds to demonstrate this from Scripture, and organizes his whole treatise on the basis of this three-fold distinction. He clarifies his position on this matter as follows:
Now the works that outwardly are of God (called “Trinitatis ad extra”), which are commonly said to be common and undivided, are either wholly so, and in all respects, as all works of common providence; or else, being common in respect of their acts, they are distinguished in respect of that principle, or next and immediate rise in the manner of operation: so creation is appropriated to the Father, redemption to the Son. In which sense we speak of these things.7
Scripture speaks of the work of three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Owen therefore will speak of them too.
Frequently, where Scripture leads him, Owen carries this distinction into the discussion of detailed aspects of doctrine. Thus, with regard to the coming of Christ into the world for our redemption, “The Father loves the world, and sends his Son to die”; the Son takes flesh; and the Spirit co-operates in overshadowing the Virgin and in filling Christ until “he was thoroughly furnished and fitted for his great undertaking.”8 Again, with regard to the oblation of Christ, the Father laid upon Christ the punishment of sins;9 Christ voluntarily gave Himself up as an oblation and a sacrifice;10 and He did so “through the eternal Spirit.”11 And third, with regard to the resurrection, ascension, and heavenly mediation of Christ, the Father “crowns Him with glory and honour”;12 the Son now appears in the presence of God as our Advocate;13 and both His resurrection and His presentation of Himself in heaven are through the Holy Spirit.14
The Trinitarian framework of Owen’s thought, in which his Christology is set, contrasts with some modern theology which makes much of Christocentricity. The great difference between Owen and some of our contemporaries lies of course in their ideas of revelation. Owen believes that God has revealed Himself through truths about Himself conveyed through the words of Scripture, and this belief leads him to a thoroughgoing Trinitarianism. Some modern theology tends to regard belief in the revelatory significance of Christ as an alternative to such a view of Scripture, and hence to argue analogically from the Person of Christ rather than directly from the Bible. Owen’s Trinitarianism rests upon his belief in the nature of Scripture, and for that reason will commend itself to those who share that belief.
It is sometimes suggested that this modern, Christological theology is more honoring to Christ than the older Trinitarianism, and in such a suggestion lies its appeal to the Christian. But this is not so. Owen’s full Trinitarianism is not less honoring to Christ: to give glory to the Father and the Spirit does not detract from the glory of the Son. On the contrary, Owen can only do justice to the Scripture teaching about Christ, by being thoroughly Trinitarian when he is discussing it. And we shall see that his biblical Trinitarianism leads him to a theology which is wonderfully Christocentric and Christ-exalting.
The Person of Christ
Owen has much of value to say, second, to our doctrine of the Person of Christ. The foundation of his doctrine is his view of the constitution of the Person of Christ, His human and divine natures. Owen’s doctrine here is the orthodox Christian one, and his contribution lies in the clarity of his thought, the accuracy of his definitions, and the rich, scriptural way in which he expounds the doctrine, rather than in anything strikingly original. He deals with this matter under four heads.
I. The assumption of our nature into personal subsistence with the Son of God. II. The union of the two natures into that single person which is consequential thereon. III. The mutual communication of those distinct natures, the divine and human, by virtue of that union. IV. The enunciations or predications concerning the person of Christ, which follow on that union and communion.15
Christ became Incarnate, he says, by taking our nature into His: “He could no otherwise . . . be made flesh, or made of a woman, but in that our nature was made his by his assuming it to be his own. The same person—who before was not flesh, was not man—was made flesh as man, in that he took our human nature to be his own.”16
From this assumption follows the union of the two natures of the same person, or the hypostatical union; “that is, the union of the divine and human nature in the person of the Son of God, the human nature having no personality nor subsistence of its own.”17 This union is different from all other unions. It is different from the union of the Trinity: that is a unity of three Persons in one nature, this of two natures in one Person. It is different from the union of soul and body: soul and body together constitute one entire nature, this is a union of two complete natures which remain two complete natures; soul and body united constitute a new individual person, while Christ did not become a new person by taking humanity into Himself. It is certainly not a mixture of two natures to produce a third, nor is it the conversion of one into the other. It is different from the spiritual union between Christ and believers: to use this analogy is to divide the Person of Christ, in Nestorian fashion.
From the union of the two natures follows their interrelationship. Thus the divine nature gives to the human its subsistence, that fullness of grace which belongs to divinity, and worth and dignity in its official actions. In this interrelation of the two natures, each nature preserves its own natural, essential properties; the divine nature is not made finite or limited, nor is the human nature made infinite and omnipotent. “Unless this be granted, there will not be two natures in Christ, a divine and a human; nor indeed either of them, but somewhat else, composed of both.”18 Moreover, each nature operates in Christ according to its essential properties: “The divine nature knows all things, upholds all things, rules all things, acts by its presence everywhere; the human nature was born, yielded obedience, died and rose again. But it is the same person, the same Christ, that acts all these things—the one nature being his no less than the other.”19
From this last point it follows that the work of Christ, in every act of his mediatory office, is the act and work of the whole Person. In all that Christ did as King, Priest, and Prophet of the Church—in all that He did and suffered and continues to do for us—His work “is not to be considered as the act of this or that nature in him alone, but it is the act and work of the whole person—of him that is both God and man in one person.”20
This helps us to understand some of the scriptural statements about Christ. Some of the things which Scripture affirms of His Person belong to it with respect to one nature only: His eternal preexistence, His upholding all things by the Word of His power, belong to His Person on account of His divine nature; His being born and suffering, on account of His human nature. Each statement of Scripture needs to be studied carefully in this respect.
It will be important for our subsequent discussion to note here that Owen teaches that the office and work of Christ as Mediator follows not from one or the other of His natures, but from the fact that both are united in Him.
Much modern discussion of the Person of Christ has been concerned with the psychology of His Person, and in emphasizing His humanity has failed to do justice to His divinity. The implications of this in present-day writing with regard to the truthfulness of His utterances and the authority of Scripture are well known to us all. But in fact, as we shall see, the effects of such a tendency are even more far-reaching; it is subversive of the whole of religion and theology. With regard to the psychology of the Person of Christ, Owen does not help us to explain what he regards as beyond explanation, but he does remind us of the range of scriptural concepts upon which our doctrine must be based; he recalls us, in short, to more scriptural views of the Person of Christ.
Owen makes this scriptural doctrine of the Person of Christ, God and man, the foundation of a great body of Biblical Theology. We may summarize some of it under four propositions.
1. The Person of Christ is the immediate cause of all true religion and worship. Ultimately religion depends upon taking God to be our God, but it is the manifestation of His Being and excellencies which moves us to worship Him. And the most glorious result of divine wisdom, grace, and power is the constitution of the Person of Christ. It is “that singular expression of divine wisdom, goodness and power, wherein God will be admired and glorified unto all eternity.”21 It must move every true believer to worship.
Let all vain imaginations cease: there is nothing left unto the sons of men, but either to reject the divine person of Christ—as many do unto their own destruction—or humbly to adore the mystery of infinite wisdom and grace therein. And it will require a condescending charity, to judge that those do really believe the incarnation of the Son of God, who live not in the admiration of it, as the most adorable effect of divine wisdom. . . . This is the glory of the Christian religion—the basis and foundation that bears the whole superstructure—the root whereon it grows. This is its life and soul, that wherein it differs from, and inconceivably excels, whatever was in true religion before, or whatever any false religion pretended unto.22
In these days of minimizing doctrinal statements, when the Person of Christ is assailed by sects outside the Church and, albeit unwittingly, by skeptical theological tendencies within, Owen reminds us of the utter necessity of true and full views of the Person of Christ.
2. The Person of Christ is the foundation of all the saving purposes of God. God’s purposes for the sanctification and salvation of the Church to His own glory, were all to be effected “in Christ”; their foundation was laid “in and with him.”23 God delighted in these purposes, and in the Person of Christ, “as his eternal wisdom in their contrivance, and as the means of their accomplishment in his future incarnation.”24 His purposes for the sanctification and salvation of the Church are acts of infinite wisdom, goodness, love, and grace, and they were all laid in the Person of Christ. Their origin, of course, was in the divine will and wisdom alone, but their accomplishment was to be in the Person of the Son alone. They were expressed in election, and election is in Christ. “In him we were not actually, nor by faith, before the foundation of the world; yet were we then chosen in him, as the only foundation of the execution of all the counsels of God concerning our sanctification and salvation.”25
Wrong and defective views of election abound today. It is often a help to those who regard the decree of election as harsh and arbitrary, to be reminded that it is election in Christ of which we speak. It is also a corrective to the view which is still sometimes heard, that the decree of election was based upon the divine foreknowledge of repentance and faith, to remind ourselves that the only ground of election outside the will and purpose of the Father, was the Person of His Son.
3. The Person of Christ is the great revelation of God and His will. All religion depends upon a revelation of God and His purposes. And, says Owen, “This is done perfectly only in the Person of Christ, all other means of it being subordinate thereunto, and none of them of the same nature therewithal. The end of the Word itself, is to instruct us in the knowledge of God in Christ.” He therefore seeks to demonstrate “that in the person and mediation of Christ (which are inseparable, in all the respects of faith unto him) there is made unto us a blessed representation of the glorious properties of the divine nature, and of the holy counsels of the will of God.”26 We who believe in propositional revelation, and the importance of doctrinal statements, do well to note what Owen says about the relation between the Scriptures, and the revelation of God in Christ:
A mere external, doctrinal revelation of the divine nature and properties, without any exemplification or real representation of them, was not sufficient unto the end of God in the manifestation of himself. This is done in the Scripture. But the whole Scripture is built on this foundation, or proceeds on this supposition—that there is a real representation of the divine nature unto us, which it declares and describes. . . . All this is done in the Person of Christ. He is the complete image and perfect representation of the Divine Being and excellencies . . . as God proposeth himself as the object of our faith, trust, and obedience.27
What is thus true of the nature of God is true also of His purposes. “Of them all the person of Christ is the sacred repository and treasury—in him are they to be learned. All their efficacy and use depend upon their relation unto him. He is the centre and circumference of all the lines of truth—that is, which is divine, spiritual and supernatural.”28
Reformed Christians are rightly accustomed to make much of the Scriptures. But let us remember that the Scriptures were given to lead us to Christ. Sometimes our zealous defense of the Scriptures can lead us to overstatement—or rather, on this point, understatement. Let us remember that the purpose of the Scriptures is simply to mediate to us the revelation which God has given us in His Son.
4. The Person of Christ is the foundation of His work, and hence of our salvation. Here is a very important point in Owen’s thought. We may note two ways in which he works it out. In the treatise Of Communion with God, he shows how Christ’s Person is the foundation of His work generally as Mediator and Savior.
His fitness to save results from the union of the two natures in Him: “The uniting of the natures of God and man in one person made him fit to be a Saviour to the uttermost. He lays his hand upon God, by partaking of his nature, Zech. 3:7; and he lays his hand upon us, by being partaker of our nature, Heb. 2:14, 16: and so becomes a days-man, or umpire between both.”29
We saw earlier that from the union of the two natures follows their inter-relationship, and that in this relationship the divine nature gives to the human that fullness of grace which belongs to divinity. This, says Owen, constitutes Christ’s “fulness to save.”30 It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell, and He received not the Spirit by measure. “Had it been given to Him by measure, we had exhausted it.”31 From these two follows, says Owen, Christ’s complete suitableness to all the wants of the souls of men.
In his treatise on The Person of Christ, Owen shows how the Person of Christ is fundamental to His threefold office as Prophet, Priest, and King.32 The Person of Christ was essential, says Owen, for the saving exercise of these offices in general. For we could not have an interest in what He did, He could not be our Representative and Substitute, if He were not human as well as divine. But humanity without deity could not make a Savior any more than vice versa. He could not be the Prophet of the whole Church, before His incarnation, during His earthly ministry, and to the end of time, revealing the mind of God fully, infallibly, and authoritatively, if He were not divine. He could not be the King, ruling over the whole creation for His people’s good, and graciously working in the mind, soul, and conscience of every believer, if He were not divine. He could not be Priest, expiating the sins of His whole Church, if He were not divine. Thus the work of Christ utterly depends upon, and arises from, His divine-human Person. Faith in the mystery of His Person is therefore essential if we are to understand or benefit from His offices. The life which we receive through His mediation is the life which is in the Son of God.
So Owen speaks to us of the utter centrality of the Person of Christ in the Christian religion. He shows us that true religion, and salvation, and eternal life, stand or fall by right views of His Person. He calls us to worship His Person, to depend upon Him, to make Him our glory. If ever we thought in preaching to magnify Calvary by minimizing Bethlehem, Owen shows us the utter folly of such a practice. May we learn to live and preach to the glory of the Father, by giving glory to the Person of the Son.
The Office of Christ
Let Owen be our teacher, third, with regard to the office of Christ, for which His Person fits Him and which He discharges in His work. “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). The thought of Christ as Mediator is central to Owen’s exposition of the Work of Christ. The need of a Mediator is clear:
In that great difference between God and man occasioned by our sin and apostasy from him, which of itself could issue in nothing but the utter ruin of the whole race of mankind, there was none in heaven or earth, in their original nature and operations, who was meet or able to make up a righteous peace between them. Yet this must be done by a mediator, or cease for ever.33
We have already seen how in Owen’s thought the Person of Christ fitted Him for this office. Now we consider how it actually became His. In His entry upon the office of Mediator, a number of actions may be distinguished. The fact that they are distinguished and listed consecutively does not mean that they necessarily follow each other chronologically. The distinctions are made only so that our finite minds may understand more clearly.
1. Christ was appointed by God to the office of Mediator. In this appointment three actions may be discerned: First, the eternal purpose of God. It was eternally established in the mind and will of God, that His incarnate Son should be set apart for this work.
Second, the furnishing of Christ with a fullness of spiritual gifts and graces—all “that might any way be requisite for the office he was to undertake, the work he was to undergo, and the charge he had over the house of God.”34 This fullness is not the natural perfection of Christ’s Deity, but “a communicated fulness, which was in him by dispensation from his Father, bestowed upon him to fit him for his work and office.”35 It means that “there is no grace that is not in Christ, and every grace is in him in the highest degree.” From another aspect, it is this full and unique bearing of the Spirit.
And third, God’s entering into covenant with Christ, concerning His work and its fruits. This “covenant of redemption” consisted of a twofold promise. First, the Father promised to protect and assist His Son in the accomplishment and fulfillment of His work:
The Father engaged himself, that for his part, upon his Son’s undertaking this great work of redemption, he would not be wanting in any assistance in trials, strength against oppositions, encouragement against temptations, and strong consolation in the midst of terrors, which might be in any way necessary or requisite to carry him on through all difficulties to the end of so great an employment.36
Second, the Father promised the Son success in His work, and the achievement of all that He set Himself to do. What was the content of this promise? Owen tells us, basing his exposition upon the words of the Lord to His Servant in Isaiah 49:
that he should gather to himself a glorious church of believers from among Jews and Gentiles, through all the world, that should be brought unto him, and certainly fed in full pasture, and refreshed by the springs of water, all the spiritual springs of living water which flow from God in Christ for their everlasting salvation. This, then, our Saviour certainly aimed at, as being the promise upon which he undertook the work—the gathering of the sons of God together, their bringing unto God, and passing to eternal salvation.37
2. Christ was actually admitted into the office of Mediator. This may be said to have taken place in three distinct acts: (1) At His birth, when God “prepared him a body,” and caused the angels to bear testimony to Him. (2) At His baptism, when God sent the Spirit visibly to light upon Him: “when He was endued with a fulness thereof, for the accomplishment of the work and discharge of the office whereunto He was designed,” and the Father bore testimony to Him as His well-beloved.38 And (3) at His resurrection, ascension, and sitting down in heaven, when God crowned Him with glory and honor, and appointed many witnesses.
3. Christ willingly undertook the office of Mediator. This He did (1) in His incarnation, in that He willingly took our human nature into personal union with Himself; (2) in His oblation, when He voluntarily gave Himself up to be an oblation and a sacrifice; and (3) in His intercession, when He freely undertook to be our Advocate.
These last points must await development in our next section. But it may be worth making one or two observations about this doctrine of the office of Christ. The doctrine of Christ as Mediator in the sense in which Owen taught it is not common today. May we suggest that this is at least partly because the Church no longer believes in “that great difference between God and man occasioned by our sin and apostasy from him.” If the serious consequences of sin are minimized, then the need of a Mediator is lessened and men pay less attention to the teaching of Scripture on the subject. The incentive to do so is gone. When, in a day of grace, men are made conscious of divine holiness and human sinfulness and cry, “What must I do to be saved?”, the doctrine of Christ as Mediator will again be cherished by the Church. Second, we can learn from Owen here, also, in the way in which the work of Christ is seen to arise from the eternal will of God, and the covenant between Father and Son. In this doctrine, and in the doctrine of election, we are able to understand something of how the work of Christ was related to His preexistence, and it is made plain that His work in time is rooted in eternity.
The Work of Christ
In this doctrine, as in the others we have considered, Owen’s teaching will be seen to have a number of aspects which are neglected by the Church today, and in which we can learn from him. Owen sees the work of Christ as threefold.
The Obedience of Christ’s Life
By this Owen means “the universal conformity of the Lord Jesus Christ . . . to the whole will of God; and his complete fulfilling of the whole of every law of God, or doing all that God in them required.”39 The actual obedience of Christ consisted of two parts: (1) He did whatever was required of us by the law—the law of nature, the moral and ceremonial laws, the righteous judicial laws. “This was that which he owned of himself—that he came to do the will of God; and he did it.”40 (2) He did whatever was required of Him as Mediator, carrying out all His duties which are not for our imitation—such as His dying for us on the cross.
What effect did the obedience of His life have toward our free acceptance with God? His obedience to the law of the Mediator involved His doing what was necessary for the exercise of His office, and of itself does not benefit us. With regard to His actual fulfilling of the law, in doing everything which is required of us, Owen says that three views were held. The first view sees the obedience of Christ as simply preparatory to His death, which is the sole ground of our justification. The second view was that the obedience of Christ was pure obedience, but that insofar as it involved suffering, it was part of His humiliation and so is part of the ground of our justification. The third view regards the obedience of Christ as being for us, and therefore reckoned unto us as the ground of our acceptance as righteous.
Owen comments on these views as follows: First, all that Christ did (that is, not just His fulfilling of the law of the Mediator), He did as Mediator, and therefore for those for whom He was Mediator. Second, the end of His active obedience cannot be to prepare Him for His death, for He was already fitted to be an offering for sin by virtue of His Person. Third, Christ need not by nature render obedience to the law of nature or to the ceremonial law, or, for example, submit to baptism. The conclusion is that His obedience in such matters must be for us. Fourth, the obedience of Christ is clearly distinct from His sufferings: “Doing is one thing, suffering another.”41 Owen’s views on this matter may therefore be summarized under three propositions:
1. The obedience of the life of Christ means His perfect and willing submission to every law that bound any of God’s people.
2. “That this obedience was performed by Christ not for Himself, but for us, and in our stead.”42
3. “Then, I say, this perfect obedience of Christ to the law is reckoned unto us.”43 Life is not to be obtained, says Owen, unless all be done that the law requires. The commandments must be kept, by us or by our surety. The fact that Christ kept them for us should not lead to antinomianism: “we are not freed from obedience, as a way of walking with God, but we are as a way of working to come to him.”44
Owen recognizes that Romans 5 is central to a discussion of this matter, and gives particular weight here to verses 18–19: “By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life: by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
The Oblation and Death of Christ
It would be true to say that Owen does not precisely identify the oblation of Christ and His death. His concept of oblation is rather wider and includes the life of Christ viewed from certain aspects:
Now this oblation or offering of Christ I would not tie up to any one thing, action or passion, performance or suffering; but it compriseth the whole economy and dispensation of God manifested in the flesh and conversing among us with all those things which he performed in the days of his flesh . . . all the whole dispensation of his coming and ministering, until he had given his soul a price of redemption for many.45
The death of Christ, he says “was the sum and complement of his oblation and that wherein it did chiefly consist,” but His oblation includes
his whole humiliation, or state of emptying himself, whether by yielding voluntary obedience to the law, as being made under it, that he might be the end thereof to them that believe, Rom. 10:4, or by his subjection to the curse of the law, in the antecedent misery and suffering of life, as well as by submitting to death, the death of the cross: for no action of his as mediator is to be excluded from a concurrence to make up the whole means in this work.46
Owen believes that the scriptural teaching concerning the nature of the death of Christ may be summarized under three propositions.
1. It is a price, and its effect is redemption. The essence of redemption is deliverance from bondage or captivity through the payment of a price. The price of our deliverance was the blood of Christ. “Free justification from the guilt and pardon of sin, in the deliverance from the punishment due unto it, is the effect of the redemption procured by the payment of the price.”47 Owen recognizes that the language of redemption when it is applied to the death of Christ differs from its usual applications in a number of points. Thus, He Who receives the ransom also gives it: “His love is the cause of the price in respect of its procurement, and his justice accepts of the price in respect of its merit.”48 Again, this redemption is not so much a release from the power of God as a bringing into His favor.
2. The death of Christ is a sacrifice, and its effect is reconciliation and atonement. Reconciliation is the renewing of friendship between two parties. Christ thus reconciled God to us, by turning away His wrath from us; and He turned us away from our enmity toward God, by redeeming us and reconciling us to Him.
3. The death of Christ is a punishment, and its effect is satisfaction. Our debt to God lay in that we were under the curse of the law. Jesus “took away the curse, by ‘being made a curse,’ Gal. 3:13. He delivered us from sin, being ‘made sin,’ 2 Cor. 5:21. He underwent death, that we might be delivered from death. All our debt was in the curse of the law, which He wholly underwent.”49 His satisfaction “was a full, valuable compensation, made to the justice of God, for all the sins of all those for whom he made satisfaction, by undergoing that same punishment which, by reason of the obligation that was upon them, they themselves were bound to undergo.”50
The Intercession and Mediation of Christ
Once again, we must briefly summarize Owen’s teaching in a number of propositions:
1. The intercession of Christ stands in the closest relationship to His oblation. They have the same persons in view, and they have the same end in view. Owen is able to describe the intercession of Christ in heaven as “a continuance and carrying on of his oblation.”51
2. Christ by His death secured certain benefits for His people. By His intercession He secures the application of those benefits to His people. He appears in heaven “to be our advocate, to plead our cause with God, for the application of the good things procured by his oblation unto all them for whom he was an offering.”52 “The oblation of Christ is . . . the foundation of his intercession, inasmuch as by the oblation was procured every thing that, by virtue of his intercession, is bestowed.”53 And so Owen is able to say that Christ is in heaven as the Representative of believers
to make effectual the atonement that he hath made for sin. By the continued representation of it, and of himself as a “Lamb that hath been slain,” he procures the application of the virtues and benefits of it, in reconciliation and peace with God, unto their souls and consciences. . . . To undertake their protection, and to plead their cause against all the accusations of Satan. . . . To intercede for them, as unto the communication of all grace and glory, all supplies of the Spirit, the accomplishment of all the promises of the covenant towards them.54
3. The nature of the intercession is an authoritative presenting Himself in glory.
The very nature of this intercession . . . is not a humble, dejected supplication, which beseems not that glorious state of advancement which he is possessed of that sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high, but an authoritative presenting himself before the throne of his Father, sprinkled with his own blood, for the making out of his people all spiritual things that are procured by his oblation, saying, “Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am,” John 17:24.55
His intercession, therefore, is not vocal, but real:
. . . it cannot be conceived to be vocal, by the way of entreaty, but merely real, by the presentation of himself, sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, before the throne of grace on our behalf. . . . His intercession there is an appearing for us in heaven in the presence of God . . . so presenting himself that his former oblation might have its perpetual efficacy, until the many sons given unto him are brought to glory.56
The End of the Work of Christ
Here we must be brief: to go into this matter in detail would carry us too far afield. For Owen it is axiomatic that the end which God sets out to accomplish, and the result which He finally achieves, are one and the same thing. The work of Christ, he says, was effective in achieving its end. “Whatsoever the blessed Trinity intended by them (the oblation and intercession of Christ), that was effected.”57 The supreme or ultimate end is the glory of God, that is “the manifestation of his glorious attributes, especially of his justice, and mercy tempered with justice, unto us.”58 And to that end, His purpose is to bring many sons to glory. Thus the Father sent Christ to die “for the purchasing of eternal redemption, and bringing unto himself all and every one of those whom he had before ordained to eternal life, for the praise of his own glory.”59 All the blessings of the gospel flow from our justification, and we are justified by means of the “great exchange,” of which there are two parts: “First, the laying of our sin on Christ, or making Him to be sin for us . . . Secondly, the gracious imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us, or making us the righteousness of God in him.”60 From this peace with God which was obtained for us, everything else flows: grace and faith, salvation and glory:
A real, effectual and infallible bestowing and applying of all these things—as well those that are the means as those that are the end, the condition as the thing conditioned about, faith and grace as salvation and glory—unto all and every one for whom he died, do we maintain to be the end proposed and effected by the blood-shedding of Jesus Christ, with those other acts of his mediatorship which we before declared to be therewith inseparably conjoined: so that everyone for whom he died and offered up himself hath, by virtue of his death or oblation, a right purchased for him unto all these things, which in due time he shall certainly and infallibly enjoy.61
It remains to make one or two brief comments about Owen’s doctrine of the work of Christ, and then briefly to sum up the whole. His doctrine of the obedience of the life of Christ as righteousness which is reckoned to us, is the orthodox doctrine, but it is nevertheless one which is much neglected in the Church today. One often hears the other views of which Owen spoke put forward in our churches and pulpits. Yet here is a thoroughly scriptural doctrine, one which shows the unity of the life and death of Christ in the one work of mediation and justification; and moreover one which does justice to the biblical view of righteousness, as not merely freedom from guilt, but the possession of a status which is positively pleasing to God, and conformed to His will.
Owen’s doctrine of the death of Christ, again, has value today as a rich statement of the biblical doctrine. He bases it upon careful and detailed exegesis, and shows a sound awareness of the danger of allowing nonbiblical uses of such ideas as redemption to push our doctrine in nonbiblical directions.
The present writer confesses to hesitations about Owen’s doctrine of the heavenly intercession of Christ. On the one hand, and this is good, Owen shows a healthy freedom from the over-pressing of biblical metaphors and the indulgence of the imagination which has characterized some Roman and Protestant writing on the subject. But on the other hand, there seems to be a contradiction between Owen’s doctrine of the death of Christ, and his doctrine of His intercession. If the death of Christ has really secured both the ultimate salvation of the “people of God, and all the means to it, including the gift of faith, how can Christ be praying in heaven for the application of the benefits of His death to His people?” [But Owen himself describes the intercession as not “vocal, by the way of entreaty, but merely real . . . an appearing for us in heaven”: see above.] To take such a view is to detract, unwittingly, from His death. Owen would have been more biblical had he said that the death of Christ really did secure all things for His people for time and eternity; that the intercession of Christ consists in His session at the right hand of God as the guarantee of our acceptance and of all that flows from it; and that His present work is one of distributing to men the benefits of His passion.
The personal challenge of Owen’s work is very real. He calls us to more scriptural views of the Person and Work of Christ; to worship Him and to uphold Him in our life and preaching not, as so many of us do, in one or two aspects, but in all His glory and fullness as He is revealed in the whole counsel of God, as our God and our Savior. He makes us feel how little we know and understand about our Lord Jesus Christ, and even more, how little we know Him. He helps to bring us to the point at which we can say with Paul, “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. . . . I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8, 13–14).