John Owen on the Lord's Supper (Philippians 3:10)

For some brief tastes of John Owen (1616-1683), his discourses are great, short and also solid and thoughtful. I just read one of his discourses relating to the Lord's Supper, based on Philippians 3:10, particularly about us being conformed to Christ's death. Below are some excerpts...

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death."

The cause of the death of Christ was sin... He died for sin; he died for our sin; our iniquities were upon him, and were the cause of all the punishment that befell him...

Our hope and faith is, in and through him, that we shall never die for sin. No mortal man can be made like unto Christ in suffering for sin... our conformity unto the death of Christ with respect unto sin lies in this, — that as he died for sin, so we should die unto sin, — that that sin which he died for should die in us... Here is our conformity to Christ, as he suffered in the flesh, — that we should no longer live to our lusts, nor unto the will of man, but unto the will of God. And, brethren, let me tell you, he who approacheth unto this remembrance of the death of Christ, that hath not laboured, that doth not labour, for conformity to his death in the universal mortification of all sin, runs a hazard to his soul, and puts an affront upon Jesus Christ. O let none of us come in a way of thankfulness to remember the death of Jesus Christ, and bring along with us the murderer whereby he was slain! To harbour with us, and bring along with us to the death of Christ, unmortified lusts and corruptions, such as we do not continually and sincerely endeavour to kill and mortify, is to come and upbraid Christ with his murderer, instead of obtaining any spiritual advantage.

There is no such sermon to teach, mortification of sin, as the commemoration of the death of Christ. It is the greatest outward instruction unto this duty that God hath left unto his church; and, I am persuaded, which he doth most bless to them who are sincere. Do we see Christ evidently crucified before our eyes, his body broken, his blood shed for sin? and is it not of powerful instruction to us to go on to mortify sin? He that hath not learned this, never learned any thing aright from this ordinance, nor did he ever receive any benefit from it...

And I would beg of you all, brethren, that not one of us would pass through or go over this ordinance, this representation of the death of Christ, without a fresh obligation to God to abide more constant and vigorous in the mortification of sin: we all need it.

And lastly; a spiritually beholding of Christ by faith is the means to change us into the image and likeness of Christ. Beholding the death of Christ by faith, as represented to us in this ordinance, is the means to change us into his image and likeness, and make us conformable unto his death, in the death of sin in us.

[Source: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/discourses.i.xvii.html]

Greatest love? Laying down your life for your friend... (John 15:12-17)

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another."
(John 15:12-17; ESV)

Yesterday we had a rich time looking at God's word, in preparation for small group bible studies at an upcoming camp. Looking together at John 15:1-17, one of the people shared about how this was a new and striking thought, that we are not just servants of Jesus, but also friends of Jesus. And we pondered then about how that changes things, if we think of ourselves as Jesus' friends?

As Jesus is about to go and die for his friends, he tells the disciples, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" immediately followed by "You are my friends if you do what I command you." At one level, we can understand this in helping us answer the question, "Who are the people that Jesus dies for, who are his friends?" They are the ones who do what he says, they are the ones who love one another. So Christians should show love to one another, and that's how they show themselves to be Christ's disciples, and Jesus' friends.

But then Jesus also said to love one another "as I have loved you". How did Jesus love? He died for his friends. Are the other disciples my friends too? Am I ready to lay down my life for them? Or even more to the point, is Jesus my friend? Am I ready to lay down my life for my friend Jesus? As Jesus spoke these words to his friends, he knew not only that he was going to die soon for them, but he also knew that it wouldn't be long before most (perhaps not John), would also have to die for him (cf John 15:18-21). And certainly all would suffer for him, at the hands of others, for the sake of Christ, and Christ's body, the church.

Now we should well come to the point where we also are ready to say, "Yes, I will lay down my life for my friend Jesus". But perhaps (for some of us) we may take comfort in the fact that not many of us have to physically die for Jesus' sake, or even barely suffer physically, and will probably just die of old age. Putting our life on the line for Jesus isn't really an everyday thing for many of us. Hmm. Or maybe it is.

The thought occurred to us yesterday, maybe dying for Jesus is an every day thing. What if Jesus also means that dying for him means dying to self and doing what Jesus commands? What if we should look at obedience from a different perspective, not just as master and servant, but also from the perspective of being Jesus' friend. Are we ready to die to self, putting away our own desires and dreams, or our own pleasures and passions, because we love our friend, Jesus? Will we love one another, because we are ready to die to self out of our great love for our friend Jesus, who died for us?

A servant may die for his master because he has to. But he may not want to. A friend wants to die for the friend he loves. Do I want to die to self every day, because I love my friend Jesus? How great is my love for Jesus?

This simple song by Robin Mark is one of my favourites:

Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.

All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands.
All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands.

For it's only in Your will that I am free,
For it's only in Your will that I am free,
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.

Jesus as Message, Model and Motive (Titus 2-3)

For the last ten years or so, I have had the privilege of reading through the Bible each week with people whose first language isn't English, many of them not Christians and little exposed to the Scriptures. Through their questions, with fresh views of the texts, perhaps over the years I have learnt more than they did!

Most of the time we read through the four Gospels. And I am very glad to have "forced" myself into fresh exposure to Jesus. One of the things that has struck me again and again in Jesus' teaching, is that when it looks like he is telling others what they should do, at the same time, perhaps even more so, he is telling others what he does and will do. Whether it is in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, or the in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, etc.

In preparing for a recent sermon on Titus, this idea struck me freshly. That Jesus is not only the message to us, not only the motivation for us to do what he said, but he is also the model.

As I was trying to read through the text in Greek, one thing that stood out was the correspondence between what Paul said God did, and what he calls us to do and desires for us. Specifically how God was abundantly good to all people ("to all men", Titus 2:11; "the love of God our Saviour toward man", Titus 3:4), and he calls us to do good for the benefit of all people ("showing all humility to all men", Titus 3:2; "good and profitable unto men", Titus 3:8). Here, what God did was not only the message of the gospel which motivates us to do what he asks of us in subsequent commands, at the same time, the message is also the model of what he wants us to do.

Jesus is the message, because what who is is and what he did is the content of our trust and belief as Christians. Jesus is the model, because he also sets the example and shows us what it looks like to live out that belief. Jesus is the motive, because at the same time he is the reason, when we understand his love to us, we want to live that different way, and in what he did we discover the power to enable us to put sin to death and live the resurrection life.

We can sometimes argue in principle about whether it is necessary for a leader to lead by example, or the led just need to do what is said because the leader has that authority. But there can be no doubt that God sets a powerful precedent, by putting forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, as message, model and motive, all in one.

John Owen on the Deadly Deceptiveness of Sin

Sin is always deceptive and deadly. It may start looking harmless enough, but it will stealthily lead towards utter destruction. We need to kill sin or be killed by it! Here is a quote from the English Puritan, John Owen:

Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. The apostle tells us what the works and fruits of it are, Gal. v. 19–21, “The works of the flesh are manifest, which are, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.” You know what it did in David and sundry others. Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head. Men may come to that, that sin may not be heard speaking a scandalous word in their hearts, — that is, provoking to any great sin with scandal in its mouth; but yet every rise of lust, might it have its course, would come to the height of villany: it is like the grave, that is never satisfied. And herein lies no small share of the deceitfulness of sin, by which it prevails to the hardening of men, and so to their ruin, Heb. iii. 13, — it is modest, as it were, in its first motions and proposals, but having once got footing in the heart by them, it constantly makes good its ground, and presseth on to some farther degrees in the same kind. This new acting and pressing forward makes the soul take little notice of what an entrance to a falling off from God is already made; it thinks all is indifferent well if there be no farther progress; and so far as the soul is made insensible of any sin, — that is, as to such a sense as the gospel requireth, — so far it is hardened: but sin is still pressing forward, and that because it hath no bounds but utter relinquishment of God and opposition to him; that it proceeds towards its height by degrees, making good the ground it hath got by hardness, is not from its nature, but its deceitfulness. Now nothing can prevent this but mortification; that withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that whatever it aims at it is crossed in. There is not the best saint in the world but, if he should give over this duty, would fall into as many cursed sins as ever any did of his kind.

[src: Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, Chapter 2, heading 3]