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“The bottomless mine of His eternal love” by John Owen

“The mutual love of God and the saints agrees in this: that the way of communicating the issues and fruits of these loves is only in Christ.

The Father communicates no issue of His love unto us but through Christ; and we make no return of love unto Him but through Christ.

He is the treasury wherein the Father disposeth all the riches of His grace, taken from the bottomless mine of His eternal love; and He is the priest into whose hand we put all the offerings that we return unto the Father.

Thence He is first, and by way of eminency, said to love the Son; not only as His eternal Son,– as He was the delight of His soul before the foundation of the world, (Prov. 8:30)– but also as our mediator, and the means of conveying His love to us. (Matt. 3:17; John 3:35, 5:20, 10:17, 15:9, 17:24)

And we are said through Him to believe in and to have access to God.”

–John Owen, “Communion with God,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 2 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 2: 26-27.

“Infinitely lovely and loving” by John Owen

“God loves that He may be beloved.

When He comes to command the return of His received love, to complete communion with Him, He says, ‘My son, give Me thine heart,” (Prov. 23:26),— thy affections, thy love.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind,” (Luke 10:27). This is the return that He demandeth.

When the soul sees God, in His dispensation of love, to be love, to be infinitely lovely and loving, rests upon and delights in Him as such,— then hath it communion with Him in love.

This is love, that God loves us first, and then we love Him again.

Thus is this whole business stated by the apostle, ‘According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.’ (Eph. 1:4)

It begins in the love of God, and ends in our love to Him.”

–John Owen, “Communion with God,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 2 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 2: 24.

“They thrive best that meditate most” by Thomas Manton

“Meditation is a middle sort of duty between the word and prayer, and hath respect to both.

The word feedeth meditation, and meditation feedeth prayer; we must hear that we be not erroneous, and meditate that we be not barren.

These duties must always go hand in hand; meditation must follow hearing and precede prayer.

To hear and not to meditate is unfruitful. We may hear and hear, but it is like putting a thing into a bag with holes:

‘He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.‘ (Hag. 1:6)

‘He is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.’ (James 1:23-24)

Bare hearing begets but transient thoughts, and they leave but a weak impression, which is rather like the glance of a sunbeam upon a wall.

There is a glaring for the present, but a man never discerneth the beauty, the lustre, and the order of the truths delivered till he cometh to meditate upon them; then we come clearly to see into the truth, and how it concerneth us, and how it falleth upon our hearts.

David saith, ‘I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation.’ (Ps. 119:99)

The preacher can but deliver general theorems, and draw them down to practical inferences; by meditation we come to see more clearly and practically than he that preacheth.

We see, in outward learning, they thrive best that meditate most; knowledge floateth, till by deliberate thoughts it be compressed upon the affections.”

–Thomas Manton, The Works of Thomas Manton, Vol. 17 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1870/2020), 17: 272.

“We digest the Word by meditation” by Thomas Manton

“What we take in by the Word we digest by meditation and then let out by prayer.”

–Thomas Manton, The Works of Thomas Manton, Vol. 17 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1870/2020), 17: 273.

“The fruit of meditation” by Thomas Manton

“The fruit of study is to hoard up truth, but the fruit of meditation is to practice it.”

–Thomas Manton, The Works of Thomas Manton, Vol. 17 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1870/2020), 17: 269.

“An eternal Hallelujah” by Francis Turretin

“We must wait for that happy moment when being admitted into the full vision and communion of God, we will perfectly and without a veil see into those things which are as yet inaccessible to us.

In the meantime, let us learn on earth the things whose knowledge will remain in heaven and let us begin in grace what we will perpetually do in glory.

Thus gratefully cherishing the memory of the great and numerous blessings with which the immense love of God has enriched us, let us not cease with heart, tongue and work to glorify Him both in our souls and in our bodies, waiting for that blessed time when, fully glorified by Him in body and soul, we may in unison sing an eternal Hallelujah to Him.”

–Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, (20.13.10). Ed. James Dennison (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1692/1996), 3: 637.

“This is what John Owen wanted Christians to know” by Sinclair B. Ferguson

“There is nothing in all the world more important to you than these truths:

(1) God is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is a great mystery—because we are not God and we cannot fully understand the sheer, wonderful, glorious mystery of His being. But we can begin to grasp it, and learn to love and adore Him.

(2) If you are a Christian, it is because of the loving thought and action of each person of the Trinity.

The Father, along with the Son and the Spirit, planned it before the foundation of the world; the Son came to pay the price for your redemption and, supported by the Holy Spirit, became obedient to His Father in your place, both in His life and death, to bring you justification before God; and now, by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit sent by both the Father and the Son, you have been brought to faith.

(3) The greatest privilege any of us can have is this: we can know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We can enjoy fellowship—what Owen calls “communion”—with God. This knowledge is as rich, wide, deep, long, and high as are the three persons of God. Knowing Him and having fellowship with Him is an entire world of endless knowledge, trust, love, joy, fellowship, pleasure, and satisfaction.

This is what John Owen wanted Christians to know.”

–Sinclair Ferguson, The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2014), xvi-xvii.

“It was written to a gospel end and must be studied with a gospel spirit” by Stephen Charnock

“The Scriptures of the Old Testament verify the substance of the New, and the New does evidence the authority of the Old: “by the Scriptures of the prophets made known.” (Rom. 16:26)

The Old Testament credits the New, and the New illustrates the Old. The New Testament is a comment upon the prophetic part of the Old.

The Old shows the promises and predictions of God, and the New shows the performance. What was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New; the predictions are cleared by the events.

The predictions of the Old are divine, because they are above the reason of man to foreknow; none but an infinite knowledge could foretell them, because none but an infinite wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them.

The Christian religion has then the surest foundation, since the Scriptures of the prophets, wherein it is foretold, are of undoubted antiquity and owned by the Jews and many heathens who are and were the great enemies of Christ.

The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthening of our faith.

Our blessed Savior himself draws the streams of his doctrine from the Old Testament; he clears up the promise of eternal life and the doctrine of the resurrection from the words of the covenant, “I am the God of Abraham,” etc. (Matt. 22:32).

And our apostle clears up the doctrine of justification by faith from God’s covenant with Abraham (Rom. 4).

It must be read, and it must be read as it is written: it was written to a gospel end; it must be studied with a gospel spirit.

The Old Testament was written to give credit to the New, when it should be manifested in the world. It must be read by us to give strength to our faith and establish us in the doctrine of Christianity.

How many view it as a bare story, an almanac out of date, and regard it as a dry bone, without sucking from it the evangelical marrow!

Christ is, in Genesis, Abraham’s seed; in David’s Psalms and the Prophets, the Messiah and Redeemer of the world.”

–Stephen Charnock, “On the Wisdom of God,” in The Existence and Attributes of God, ed. Mark Jones, Updated and Unabridged, vol. 1 & 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 2: 749-750.

“The face of Jesus the Messiah, the light of the world” by L. Michael Morales

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)

“YHWH’s ‘blessing’ in the first part of Numbers 6:24 is elaborated with a portrayal of His face shining upon Israel for the sake of acting graciously toward them.

The first part of the verse calls for YHWH’s movement and favourable disposition toward Israel, out of which the second part calls for a concrete action, expressing such favour.

God is linked to light by His first speech in Scripture, ‘Let there be light (’ôr)’ (Gen. 1:3), a light traditionally understood as uncreated, a manifestation of YHWH’s glory.

Given the Dwelling’s eastward orientation, solar imagery is possible here— note the description of Judah’s encampment: ‘eastward, toward the rising of the sun’ (Num. 2:3).

Psalm 31:16 parallels ‘Shine your face upon Your servant’ with ‘save me in Your steadfast love’.

For YHWH to ‘be gracious’ to Israel means that His people will experience His loving-kindness and tender mercies in all spheres of life.

Ultimately, it is the face of Jesus the Messiah, the light of the world (John 8:12; cf. 1:9), that shines the light of the glory of God upon the redeemed (2 Cor. 4:6).

His transfiguration fulfils many of the expressions in the Aaronic benediction.”

–L. Michael Morales, Numbers 1–19, ed. David W. Baker and Beth M. Stovell, vol. 4a, Apollos Old Testament Commentary (London: Apollos, 2024), 170. Morales is commenting on Numbers 6:25.

“From the first moment of faith, we are fully, finally, irreversibly justified in Christ” by Sinclair B. Ferguson

“God the Father calls us ‘into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.’ (1 Cor. 1:9) Paul’s words of thanksgiving for God’s work among the Corinthians seem so simple, so commonplace, that it would be easy for us to take them for granted and gloss over them.

But for John Owen, the Apostle’s statement serves as the open door into all the treasures of grace and blessing that are ours through faith. All that God has for us in His Son Jesus is condensed in this apparently simple statement.

For to become a Christian means to have fellowship with Christ in all that He has accomplished for us. Indeed, Christ Himself invites us to ‘sit with Him and sup with Him.’ (See Rev. 3:10) This is what Paul prays will be ours in his Trinitarian benediction: ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ (2 Cor. 13:14)

Grace is, ultimately, personal. Grace is Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is God’s grace. For grace is not substantial in the sense of being a quality or entity that can be abstracted from the person of the Savior.

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of these words. Owen was writing against the background of the theological categories employed in medieval theology (many of which he inherited).

The medieval understanding of salvation was dominated by sacramental grace, from its first “infusion” at baptism until its hoped-for conclusion in a faith fully formed by perfect love for God.

This fides caritate formata, as it was known, or perfect love for God, rendered the individual “justifiable” on the basis of what “grace” had now accomplished in him or her.

The net result was spiritually disastrous. Grace was viewed virtually as a commodity to be dispensed by the church through its priests and sacraments. It might be resourced in Christ, but in itself it was something impersonal, a commodity– not the loving, caring, sacrificing, keeping, gracious Savior Himself.

Thus, Owen’s great burden and emphasis in helping us to understand what it means to be a Christian is to say:

Through the work of the Spirit, the heavenly Father gives you to Jesus and gives Jesus to you. You have Him. Everything you can ever lack is found in Him; all you will ever need is given to you in Him.

“From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16) For the Father has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 1:3)

It is as true for the newest, weakest Christian as for the most mature believer: from the first moment of faith, we are fully, finally, irreversibly justified in Christ.”

–Sinclair Ferguson, The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2014), 61-65.