The Glory of Christ

Works of John Owen #1

by John Owen

In The Glory of Christ, abridged and made easy to read by R. J. K. Law, we have the great Puritan pastor and theologian John Owen at his richest and most mature.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Christianity, Christian Living, Nonfiction, Devotional, Religion

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1683

About the author

John Owen was an English theologian and "was without doubt not only the greatest theologian of the English Puritan movement but also one of the greatest European Reformed theologians of his day, and quite possibly possessed the finest theological mind that England ever produced" ("Owen, John", in Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, p. 494)

Reviews

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

READ THIS BOOK!!! BUY IT, BUY IT NOW!!! I am only a young, lay person, but with much meditation I can see what Owen is talking about. No matter who you are, if you profess to believe in Christ Jesus, you need to read this! ~Oh how my heart longs to hear every Pastor preach about the Glory of Christ like how Owen wrote about it. How I long to see EVERYONE living life this way, with Christ One and Only in their life, seeking out His Glory day by day.~ Along with spending daily time alone with God, and reading His Word, you should also pick up this book, and read it too. It is well worth your time, and thought.

[Bernard Hull · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this twice the second time immediately following the first. I have only found myself drawn to do this on three other occasions and the subject matter of each of those books was the wonderful Person and work of Christ. This book was written when Owen was near the end of his life and it is full of the greatness and beauty of Jesus.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book that will help you consider and ponder the glory of Christ. If you are not accustomed to reading John Owen, get the abridged version and it will be a tremendous blessing to your soul.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve heard it said that John Owen trained himself to think in Latin, and that it became so second nature to him that he spoke and wrote his English in Latin sentence structure. I don’t know if this is true, and I forget where I heard it, but when reading Owen it certainly seems plausible.
This is where this modernization of Owen shines. Jason Roth has set several works of Owen right by restructuring each sentence back into English sentence structure. I’ve read modernizations of Owen before and they didn’t help much because they only focused on the archaic words and not the structure. Roth has done a phenomenal job with his work on this book. This may be the first time I could follow the structure of Owen’s argument simply by listening to an audiobook!

Having said this, I’m not as big of an Owen fan boy as many of my Reformed friends. He’s simply too wordy and too theologically ethereal for me to grasp a hold of. Don’t get me wrong. I did appreciate this excellent tome on Christ’s glory. I learned much and it was often very devotionally refreshing, but the going was extremely difficult even with the modernization - and, as I’ve found before - Owen is probably better to be read extremely slowly with a pen and journal all the way.

[Haley Hoggle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book challenged me in all the best ways. The last 2 chapters sealed the 5 star rating of this book. I highly recommend sitting with this book for a while. It was so good! This book was a sweet encouragement to my soul. A book every Christian must read!
“The flourishing of the righteous in grace and holiness is the glory of the office of Christ and of the gospel.”
“There is more glory given to God in coming to Christ by faith than in keeping the whole law, because Christ has more gloriously revealed the holy properties of God‘s nature by the salvation of sinners than by the giving of the law”

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owen's "The Person of Christ" and "The Glory of Christ" may be the best theological treatises in the English language. Beholding Christ is medicine for the soul. There is almost no better theological doctor than Owen to apply it.

[Ryan Hawkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the book, Owen strongly argues that the glory of Christ is the central thing the Christian should aim at seeing. It is by beholding Christ's glory that the Christian is truly changed and becomes more spiritual. Moreover, it is this glory that we now behold by faith, and that by beholding it by faith now we prepare ourselves to behold it by sight forever in his presence. He then says the reason we don't behold his glory more here is due to laziness and ignorance, coupled with desires for worldly things.

In all of this, Owen is spot on. It is biblical and true. He is zealous to teach that one needs to behold the glory of Christ. He shows how this is not just our duty, but that it is much more blessed to do so.

However, the reason I gave it 3 stars is because of two things. 1) I was hoping he would spend more time actually digging into why Christ is glorious. He did this a little bit, but mainly only focused on his person (being 100% God and man) and his sufferings a bit. But not much else. And neither of these were really dug into biblically. 2) Instead, he mainly just tried to argue how important it was for the Christian to see Christ's glory. He argued this well, but it became repetitive, and I was longing for him to simply meditate on Christ's glory. Instead, he seemed to be more meditating on the fact that it is important to seek out Christ's glory.

In the end, of course it is a classic. But it isn't a classic because he meditated on the glory of Christ (I think something like Stott's "Cross of Christ" did this much better), but because he meditated on the central importance of focusing on the glory of Christ.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshingly beautiful and moving. Our greatest need is to behold Christ in his glory.

[Rachel Luan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When we behold the glory of Christ by faith every grace in us will be stirred up. This is how our spiritual life is revived (see Rom. 5:3-5, 2 Pet. 1:5-8).

All these thriving, flourishing graces in us will then make us more watchful against the deceitful workings of sin, temptations, foolish attitudes of mind and the vain thoughts which are the causes of our spiritual decays. Thus we will be able to behold the glory of Christ more dearly by faith in this world, and so prepare to behold the glory of Christ by sight in the next.”

[Johnny Zacchio jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. I think this should be read before The Mortification of Sin.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have never read John Owen, pick up this book and go straight to page 285. There you will find the beginning of a section called Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ. Read it. Be warned, however, that you will not come out the other side the same.

[Isaac Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glorious. Owens consistently calls me further up and further in. Though, his idea of ordinary Christian life sometimes seems only possible when glorified. Remember that this guy was a career theologian who made a living thinking about Jesus. The blue-collar worker with five kids should read this with a grain of salt and a heap of grace, lest he despair. Chapter 10 is especially spectacular.

[Matthew Grotheer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has significantly changed how I read the Bible and, to be quite honest, how I experience God. I don't think this work was the sole cause of it but I think the theology contained within made significant changes in me. The Lord used the writings of this dead man from the 16th century to give me a vision of reading the Scriptures with 2 things in mind: everything is about knowing and enjoying the glory of Jesus Christ and seeing and beholding his beauty. As difficult as Owen is to read, it is so worth your time to try. I didn't get everything out of it the first time but I was able to get enough to get shell-shocked.

This particular section of Volume 1 that I reference here begins with a quote of John 17:24. Jesus, praying to the Father for us, says:

"Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world."


If you want to begin to better enjoy seeing the beauty and glory of Jesus Christ and to enjoy it, then I would strongly recommend that you use this work to help you study the Scriptures. Consider the things that he says. Owen doesn't pull his theology out of midair. He is certainly drawing it from the Bible itself and, if anything, he showed me that I was mostly reading the Bible wrongly. This work has helped open up the Bible in a whole new way for me and I have never been the same. I am currently rereading this magnificent work and am continually being reminded of the greatness of Jesus. My spiritual taste buds have been awakened to something that no religious substitute can satisfy: seeing and enjoying the beauty of Jesus Christ. That is what we are here for.



I shall conclude with just one of the many gems that will hopefully compel you to read:

"Herein would I love; herein would I die; hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections, to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces. For these and the like reasons, I shall first inquire into our behold of the glory of Christ in this world by faith; and therein endeavour to lead the souls of them that believe, into the more retired walks of faith, love, and holy meditation, whereby the king is held in his galleries, Cant. vii. 5" (p. 381).

[David Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading my way through this again although in the Christian Focus edition which is well set out. At times it still leaves me in wide-eyed wonder at the glory of Christ. Sinclair Ferguson writes that when he reads Owen he wonders why he bothers reading anything else. One gets a sense of what he means through this great book

[Alex Betts · Rating 4 out of 5]

“One view of Christ’s glory by faith will scatter all the fears, answer all the objections and disperse all the depressions of poor, tempted, doubting souls. To all believers it is an anchor which they may cast within the veil, to hold them firm and steadfast in all trials, storms and temptations, both in life and death.” Come on!!

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am currently on my 5th read through, I hope that I get it this time.

[Blue Morse · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best Puritan Paperback I’ve read to date.

This is #22 of the 63 released (as of today) by the Banner of Truth Puritan Paperback series. If you haven’t read any of these conveniently cheap and easy to carry (I always keep one in my flight suit pocket) gems, you’re missing out.

Reading this book felt like hearing the beauty of Christ and the Gospel for the first time. Some sections literally brought me to tears.

John Owen’s thesis: “That which I intend to show is, that beholding the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges that believers are capable of in this world, or even in that which is to come. Indeed, it is by beholding the glory of Christ that believers are first gradually transformed into his image and then brought into the eternal enjoyment of it … on this depend our present comforts and future blessedness. This is the life and reward of our souls (John 14:9; 2 Cor 4:6).”

Put simply, enjoying the glory of Christ is what we were designed to do on earth and what will make earth begin to feel like heaven and ultimately make heaven itself heaven. In fact, Owen argues that those on earth who have no desire to seek Christ’s glory will not only be unfit for heaven, but would hate heaven if they were sent there: “The soul unprepared by grace and faith is not capable of seeing the glory of Christ in heaven … a fish would not thank you for taking it out of the sea and putting it on dry land under the blazing sun! Neither would an unregenerate sinner welcome the thought of living for ever in the blazing glory of Christ.”

Owen argues that by “beholding the glory of Christ,” we will …
1. Be more and more crucified to this world … “it will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.”
2. Be made fit for heaven … “not all who desire to go to heaven are fit and ready for heaven.”
3. Be transformed ‘into the same image’ of His Son (2 Cor 3:18)
4. Find rest to our souls (Rom 8:6)
5. Have the only clear vision of the glory of God in his infinite perfections (2 Cor 4:6)

In the following chapters he answers:
1. What is that glory of Christ which we can behold by faith?
2. How do we behold the glory of Christ by faith?
3. How is our beholding Christ by faith different from our actually seeing his glory in heaven?

Best Quotes by Chapter:

1. Seeing Christ’s Glory
- “No man ought to look for anything in heaven if he has not by faith first had some experience of it in this life.”

2. Christ’s Glory as God’s Representative
- “Without Christ we would have known nothing truly about God.”

3. The Glory of Christ in His Person
- “The glory of Christ is the ‘pearl of great price’ which we should make every effort to find (Matt. 13:45, 46). And the Scripture is the ocean into which we dive to discover this pearl, or the mine in which we dig for its precious treasures (Prov. 2:1-5).

4. The Glory of Christ’s Humbling Himself
- “The mediator could not be God himself as God only, for a mediator does not mediate for only one … Man needs a mediator to represent him just as God needs a mediator to represent him (Gal 3:20). So whatever God might do in the work of reconciliation, yet as God, he could not do it as mediator.”

5. The Glory of Christ’s Love as Mediator
- “The only thing that moved God to choose us was his undeserved love.”

6. The Glory of Christ’s Work as Mediator
- “The wisdom of the world despised the sufferings of Christ. But it is precisely because of his sufferings that he is glorious and precious in the sight of believers (1 Pet 2:6,7).”

7. The Glory of Christ’s Exaltation
- “In Christ, sufferings went before glory. And so it must be with us. Satan and the world both offer immediate glory, but this glory will be followed by eternal suffering … and so he calls his church to follow him, first through sufferings and then into glory.”

8. The Glory of Christ under the Old Testament
- “If we do not see the glory of Christ in the Scriptures it is because a veil of blindness is over our minds. Nor can we read, study or become spiritually strong by meditating on the writings of the Old Testament unless we commit ourselves to considering the glory of Christ displayed in them.”

9. The Glory of Christ’s Union with the Church
- “One view of Christ’s glory by faith will scatter all the fears, answer all the objections and disperse all the depressions of poor, tempted, doubting souls. To all believers it is an anchor which they may cast within the veil, to hold them firm and steadfast in all trials, storms and temptations, both in life and in death.”

10. The Glory of Christ’s Giving Himself to Believers
- “For as in his incarnation he took our nature into personal union with his own, so by the Holy Spirit he takes us into a mystical union with himself.”

11. The Glory of Christ in Restoring All Things
- “The blessedness of all creatures depends on their being centered on him in his glorious office as head of the new family in heaven and earth.”

12. The First Difference between Beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith and by Sight
- “I have no idea what understanding and sight we shall have of the union of Christ’s two natures. But this I do know: in the actual sight of Christ, we shall see a glory in this union of his two natures a thousand times more wonderful than we can conceive.”

13. The Second Difference between Beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith and by Sight
- “We all too easily take Christ for granted and become lazy in seeking fellowship with him … so, by withdrawing himself he aims to awaken his people to search for him, and to mourn over their sin in takinghim for granted.”

14. The Third Difference between Beholding the Glory of Christ by Faith and by Sight (needed to write 2 quotes here…)
- “Scripture is our only blueprint of the glory of Christ. Only in Scripture and only by faith can we behold the glory of Christ while still in this life.”
- “When, at death, the soul departs from the body, it is immediately freed from all weakness, disability, darkness, doubts and fear … the first entry into immortality from mortality is a step towards eternal glory and into eternal rest. The great evil, death, thus becomes the means of freeing us from all the remains of evil in us.”

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leland Ryken says that we can learn some things from the negative examples of the Puritans, such as "Be on guard against multiplying the rules that we add to our foundational moral principles," "Beware of overkill through too much moralizing," "Respect the religious feelings of people whose viewpoint we reject."
I suggest that we can find all of those failings in this text, without a ton of good to redeem it. I've always heard that Owen writes beautifully if overly complexly-- I don't see it. I see something very close to obstinate belligerence that sees himself as a perfect exemplar and every aberration from his preferences as desperately sinful.
Owen writes about "strangers to Christ"-- that is, those people who routinely attend church and try to live like Christians but still aren't 'awake' the (unspecified and possibly unspecifiable?) way he wants them to be. He represents them as saying "What is it that you would have us to do? We hear the word preached, we believe it as well as we can, we do many things willingly, and abstain from many evils diligently; what more is required of us?"
to which he responds: "Be advised, therefore, not to be too confident of your state, lest you should yet lack that one thing, the want whereof might prove your eternal ruin."
Cool. So we need assurance of faith, but we're not allowed to have it in good conscience.

Small sample size, sure, but I don't get this guy as a great spiritual teacher.

[Kenna Traver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will absolutely be re reading this at some point. Encouragement for my soul & a reminder of what it looks like to ‘behold’ Christ. Stirred up a deeper desire to seek the glory of Christ alone!

“While we are still on earth, faith, beholding the glory of Christ, will give us a fortaste of future glory. There is no glory, no peace, no joy, no satisfaction to be found in this world compared to what we get from that weak imperfect view which we have of the glory of Christ by faith. This while we are still in this world, faith gives us such a foretaste of future blessedness in the enjoyment of Christ as may continually stir us up to say with the psalmist. ‘I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness.’

[Daniel Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my! What a joy to read this book by Owen. He truly is a master at bringing his reader to contemplate the glory of the triune God in the face of Christ.

Make time to read this book! Read it slowly! Meditate on its truths! I come away from this book with awe of my savior Jesus Christ. I wish many more books today had this same effect.

I praise God for Owen's tremendous help even after being dead for so long. God is amazing!

[Sam Aird · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reminder/encouragement/challenge on the importance of constantly viewing the glory of Christ and its requirement in order to grow in your spiritual life. A good one to discuss on Wednesday mornings?

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely coming back to it.

[Austin Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great work by Owen. If you are looking for a good encouragement about Christ from a Puritan, this is your answer!

[Timothy Riordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always love me some John Owen. Always rich. Always needed.

[Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.0/10 - It’s difficult to fairly rate truly old books that had a profound influence on the world. On one hand, much profundity and insight can be reduced in impact due to its thinking being so widely adopted and repeated afterward. So in that sense I don’t feel like I was quite able to feel the gravity this rightfully deserves, though an 8 is still definitely a high rating for me. On another hand, biases of past worldviews become apparent with time (and modernity has its own too, of which if we knew all, they wouldn’t be real biases). This, on top of just how older books read, written by theologians from a world starved for content as opposed to totally inundated in it. All in all, this was my first Puritan read, and I couldn’t have selected a better one to start with this one that Reagan Schiewe *highly* recommended. My favorite part was his early remarks on links between glory experienced by faith in this present life and glory later experienced in full.

“No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven who does not, in some measure, behold it by faith in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory and faith for sight.”

Owen was evidently a giant of the age, and I know I’ll be returning again a number of times to him and his work. For all the things within that have been repeated endlessly since, there is a corresponding breadth and depth of theology truly impressive from the 1600s. I will be quoting this a number of times in the future.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to start my year with a Puritan Paperback, and this year's choice didn't disappoint. Of course it didn't--it was John Owen!

Wow. Owen maybe doesn't have the emotional resonance of Samuel Rutherford or isn't as pithily quotable as Richard Sibbes (both of whom I adore), but he illuminates the role of Christian teaching in our daily walk more beautifully than anyone I've read. Particularly the importance of a right understanding of the person of Christ, and how meditating on those glories fuels our spiritual life.

This (abridged) work is especially good on Christ's two natures, the union of Christ with the church and with individual believers, Christ's ultimate restoration of all things, and the differences between faith and eventual heavenly sight (SO helpful). Sprinkled throughout are little exhortations and practical helps. It's challenging and comforting in equal measure.

I really, really recommend this readable little volume. Savor it.

[María Vannia Kenght · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hermoso material de ayuda, se puede usar como herramienta de apoyo para estudiar y meditar en las Escrituras acerca de la belleza de la gloria de Cristo, es 100 bíblico en cuanto a conocer porque realmente podemos contemplar y amar a nuestro Señor Jesucristo por su Deidad, por su encarnación, por su amor, muerte sustitutoría, como cabeza de la iglesia, etc; siendo la contemplación que hacemos en la tierra por la fe en Él un destello de lo que vamos a hacer en cielos y tierra nueva: contemplarlo cara a cara por toda la eternidad, sin nunca cansarnos de hacerlo, porque Él es digno y el más bello de los hijos de los hombres (Salmo 45). Ha sido de ánimo para mi vida devocional, ¡gloria a Cristo! :)

[Brian Pate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theologically rich, warmly devotional, and pastorally urgent. This is not so much an overview of Christology as it is a plea to behold the glory of Christ by faith.

I think Owen wrote this at the end of his life, and you can see this reflected throughout the book. He longs to behold Christ face to face. He uses old age for several illustrations. And he speaks much of finishing well.

The final section was good stuff but seemed like it belonged in another book. He includes evangelistic appeals to unbelievers and warnings to Christians who have strayed from their walk with God.

[Phil Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a life changing book. It is an extremely helpful in-depth meditation on the wonderful subject of the Glory of Christ. I found it helpful to read the book over a few months so that I could regularly meditate on this glorious subject.

[Brian Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been abundantly helpful in my walk with Christ and making Him my chief joy. I will be recommending this book for years to come