Owen's Day

Wednesday is Owen's Day. Each Wednesday (at least that's the goal), I will post some insights from my reading in The Works of John Owen. These selections may be individual posts or comprised of a series of posts covering several weeks.

To view Owen's Day series, click here.

Why Owen? Let me list just a few reasons for my preoccupation with him.

1. He was biblically, doctrinally solid.
John Owen was a puritan (the greatest puritan, some would say) and he was consistent with the most eminent in that tradition when it came to biblical fidelity. He stood in the line of Luther and Calvin with his reformed theology, but he did not write, teach, or preach by quoting Luther and Calvin. He found his doctrine in the word of God and took his stand boldly upon it.

2. He was God-centered.
We live in an age and in a country that values self-worth. The preaching in our churches betrays an underlying philosophy of the value of the individual as supreme. Owen was not drenched with this kind of thinking as so much of our contemporary stuff is. When one reads “The Glory of Christ,” “The Mortification of Sin,” or “On Communion with God” it becomes clear that this man saw the glory of God and the sinfulness of his own soul in a way that few today do. His biographer, Andrew Thomson comments that what set him apart was “the spirit which connected all events with God, and bent with lowly and awe-struck feeling before the divine sovereignty.”

3. Owen is thorough
Here is another comment by Thomson. “Owen does not merely touch his subject, but travels through it with the elephant’s grave and solid step, if sometimes also with his ungainly motion; and more than any other writer makes you feel, when he has reached the end of his subject, that he has also exhausted it.” I have found this to be true. In his commentary on Psalm 130, Owen devotes 250 pages to verse 4 (“But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared”)! If I am genuinely interested in searching the depths of a particular issue, I can be certain that Owen, if he has written on the subject, will give me plenty of material to consider.

4. Owen had a pastor’s heart
Many people think of Puritans primarily as theologians. While they certainly did theology, they did not see theology as their primary task. For the most part, they were pastors. Owen, like others, took this task seriously. If he were to be a faithful steward of the office to which he had been entrusted, then he had better do solid theology, but even more, he had better have a solid practice. One only has to look at the titles of his works to see that it was a practical (practiced) Christianity with which he was concerned (Communion with God; Mortification of Sin; On Temptation; On Indwelling Sin in Believers; Causes, Ways, and Means, of Understanding the Mind of God; On Spiritual-Mindedness; etc.). Owen had no room for a theology that was all head and no heart. Here is the best statement I have found that expresses his heart in the matter. It is long, but it deserves to be read several times.

“When the heart is cast into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth;…when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the things abides in our hearts; when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for, - then shall we be garrisoned, by the grace of God, against all the assaults of men…What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense of sweetness in my heart from hence that he is a God in covenant with my soul?...Let us, then, not think that we are any thing the better for our conviction of the truths of the great doctrines of the gospel…unless we find the power of the truths abiding in our own hearts and have a continual experience of their necessity and excellency in our standing before God and our communion with Him.”

5. I find in Owen recurring themes that resonate with my heart.

A. I have already commented on hope in a previous blog. The more I read, the more I see of it in Owen. I only read a few pages before I am confronted again by this great truth of faith and hope, taking God at his word and expecting a fulfillment.

B. There are no autobiographies for us to read so that we might know more about the man’s personal struggles, but here was a man who must have known the power of sin in his own life. His works Mortification of Sin, On Temptation, and On Indwelling Sin in Believers are from the pen of a man who knew what he was saying. No one can write the way he did regarding sin and temptation unless he had experienced its power. No one can articulate with such clarity the deceitfulness and depravity of the human heart unless he had found it in himself. Here was a man of God, saved by grace, and I want to hear what he has to say.

C. He wrote a commentary on Hebrews. Now before you begin to laugh and point out the obvious – that many men have written commentaries on Hebrews – let me clarify. The Word Biblical Commentary on Hebrews is 2 volumes. The New International Commentary on the New Testament, The New International Greek Testament Commentary, The Anchor Bible Commentary Series, The International Critical Commentary, and Hermeneia are each one volume commentaries. These are some of the latest, most highly respected critical commentary series. They deserve careful study by the serious student and I would recommend some of them in handling the book of Hebrews. Now consider Owen. His commentary on Hebrews consists of SEVEN volumes! To my knowledge, it is the largest commentary on Hebrews in existence.
So what is the big deal about writing such a commentary? Just this – the favorite book of most pastors (even among Puritans) is Romans. I assume that this was not the case with Owen. He wrote no commentary on Romans. Hebrews was his favorite grazing spot. Some may not think that this would make him an obvious candidate for my preoccupation, but, on the contrary, it contributes a great deal. I, too (not that I am comparing myself with Owen), would have to choose Hebrews as my favorite epistle. I know that it may sound a bit like wishful thinking, but perhaps I might claim Owen as a man after my own heart in this matter.

This post has turned out to be much longer than intended and I have to stop somewhere. I hope that these points help you to understand why I've chosen to make Owen my friend. My prayer is that others will find a friend in him as well and, along with me, draw closer to Christ because of him.