Preaching the 100-proof Gospel to Youself

Fellow Mainer Joshua Otte has a great post about preaching the Gospel to your drooping heart. He's quoting the great John Owen here. Owen was one of the greatest teachers concerning the Gospel. He reminds us that it is the Gospel (and only the Gospel) that truly convicts our sin-sick hearts, and the Gospel that in turn comforts and sanctifies us. Otte's post contains a lengthy quote from Owen, and you should really read the whole thing, but here's a snip:

Let, then, your soul by faith be exercised with such thoughts and apprehensions as these: I am a poor, weak creature; unstable as water, I cannot excel. This corruption is too hard for me, and is at the very door of ruining my soul; and what to do I know not. My soul is become as parched ground, and a habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them; vows and engagements have been as a thing of naught. Many persuasions have I had that I had got the victory and should be delivered, but I am deceived; so that I plainly see, that without some eminent succor and assistance, I am lost, and shall be prevailed on to an utter relinquishment of God. But yet, though this be my state and condition, let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and the feeble knees be strengthened. Behold, the Lord Christ, that has all fullness of grace in his heart [Matt. 28:18], he is able to slay all these his enemies.

I also want to mention a post from Joshua's friend, Jonathan Dodson, called 50/50 or 100% Gospel.

The 50/50 Gospel relies on 50% behavior, and 50% God's grace. The behavior half can include such good things as morality, missions, or community. These things are merely our contribution to the mix. Look at any Christian bestseller list and you'll likely see a lot of books promoting the 50/50 Gospel. In fact, much of Christian publishing is dependent on reader-acceptance of this premise. Dodson explains the 50/50 Gospel further:

Broken marriages, patterns of sexual sin, deep-seated anger, and financial hardships are primarily the product of our failure to behave like Jesus. Enter the Church. The church can reminds us, exhort us, even train us to be like Jesus, to make good moral decisions, not bad ones. We need the grace of God’s example and a faithful commitment to behave accordingly. This is the 50/50 gospel, and it is anathema.

The 50/50 gospel relies, not on the power of grace, but on the power of morality. As a result, the Church becomes a half-way house between our moral failures and our moral successes. We rehabilitate our decision-making under the faithful instruction of a faithless institution. But the 50/50 gospel is sometimes mixed differently. Try 50% mission, 50% grace. We need the grace of Jesus example and the goal of Jesus mission. In this concoction, churches serve as a inspiring non-profit, moving us from missional failure to missional success. We soften our social consciences under the weight of a missional institution. And then there is the 50% community, 50% grace combo. We need the grace of God to become “like the early church,” to have real community, to jettison our individualism in order to truly become “the church.” The gospel becomes a quick-fix to our lack of community.

Well, I've quoted a good deal of Dodson's article so far. I simply don't know what to leave out. Dodson's ends his post with a brief description of the "100 proof Gospel." You should really read the whole post carefully. I would see the 100-proof Gospel explained more fully . . . but wait, that's what Owen did. Go back to Joshua's post and read Owen's take on the 100-proof Gospel.

"For the love of the Father is the only rest of the soul."

I've begun reading John Owen's Communion with the Triune God, with a plan to discuss it in some manner here at the blog. A number of people will undoubtedly be doing this, since we're all cadging for a free copy. Notice, for example, the hard-working Adrian Warnock.

I'm only 3 chapters into the book, and I must say it makes me shake my head in wonder at times, for the writing is rich and deep. Chapter 3 in particular has stopped me in my tracks. I don't intend to recapitulate the whole of Owen's argument here, but I did want to dwell for a moment on a particular point from chapter 3. On page 111 there is a section headed, "The Requirement of Believers to Complete Communion of the Father in Love." I've reread this section three times now and I can't get over it. Owen makes two points here about true communion with God.

1. Believers must receive the love of the Father.
2. Believers must return love to the Father.

On point 1 above, Owen makes this incredibly simple and yet profound statement:

How then is the love of the Father to be received, so as to hold fellowship with him? I answer: By faith. The receiving is the believing.

Owen explains that the receiving is through Christ; in other words, that Jesus mediates the Father's love to us. And it is by faith that we receive it. To receive is to believe. He writes:

Would believers exercise themselves herein, they would find it a matter of no small spiritual improvement in their walking with God.

But don't let that word "exercise" fool you. Owen is talking about "rest." He writes, "For the love of the Father is the only rest for the soul." Owen is saying that there can be no true communion with God unless the point is settled in our hearts. As Brennan Manning often asks, "Do you know how much the Father loves you?"

Owen says that through Christ we are offered rest for the soul, and we receive that rest by trusting in Christ. He is "the procuring cause." By him the believer has access to the Father and

... into his love; finds out that he is love, as having a design, a purpose of love, a good pleasure toward us from eternity--a delight, a complacency [peace], a goodwill in Christ.... The soul being thus, by faith through Christ, and by him, brought into the bosom of God, into a comfortable persuasion and spiritual perception and sense of his love, there reposes and rests itself. And this is the first thing the saints do, in their communion with the Father[.] (p. 113)

Chew on that for a while, saints.

Reading Report

Union with Christ was the theme of Walter Marshall's The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. Marshall convinces me that this is an important theme in the NT.

Next I'm going to be reading John Owen's Communion with the Triune God. The plan is to read it and review it here (see Justin's Taylor's invitation to review). It seems a good follow-up to the Marshall book.

Meanwhile, I've begun reading Marva Dawn's Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God. This seems to me to be a closely related theme: weakness, that is, being closely related to "union with Christ."

Kapic on Owen

This morning I read Kelly M. Kapic's introduction to the new edition of John Owen's Overcoming Sin and Temptation, edited by Kapic and Justin Taylor. Since much of what I do here at In the Clearing is simply to recommend the good things I've been reading, I do highly recommend Kapic's introduction, available through Google Print.

In the past I have struggled through Owen's treatise on the mortification of sin, but am rather eager now to read Owen in Taylor and Kapic's new edition, which has removed archaic spelling and clarified the syntax for modern readers (I need all the help I can get). In any case, Kapic's introduction is in itself a model of clarity and graceful exposition.

One of things I've noticed in my reading is that many the modern authors that I admire inevitably quote Owen. His work has continued to have a salutary influence on the Church down through the years. Here's an nice exceprt from Kapic:

Ever deepening communion with God occurs as the Spirit draws us to the Father through the Son. The Father will allow none to be snatched from his hand, the Son incarnate is a truly sympathetic high priest who is the lover of our souls, and the Spirit applies the atoning work of Christ to us. Thus, Owen reminds believers to keep these truths in mind as they face temptation, bringing their "lust to the gospel," lest they lose sight of the sufficient sacrifice and restorative grace found in God's work.