Gospel Sobriety in Owen

In the work entitled, A Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace, John Owen describes the antithesis as being in either of two possible dominions. The one who is in the dominion of sin, the person who has not been blessed with definitive sanctification, is the unbeliever. For this person, there has not occurred that epochal break with the rule of sin by virtue of faith-wrought union with Christ. The believer, while still at war with indwelling sin in progressive sanctification, has been liberated from sin's sovereignty.

The following quote is preceded by Owen's treatment of what it means for sin to have dominion in the mind. I am now on the part wherein he discusses the affections, and I found this snippet to be valuable:

"If we love any thing more than God, as we do if we will not part with it for his sake, be it as a right eye or as a right hand unto us; if we take more satisfaction and complacency in it, and cleave more unto it in our thoughts and minds than unto God, as men commonly do in their lusts, interests, enjoyments, and relations; if we trust more to it, as unto a supply of our wants, than unto God, as most do to the world; if our desires are enlarged and our diligence heightened in seeking after and attaining other things, more than towards the love and favour of God; if we fear the loss of other things or danger from them more than we fear God, -- we are not under the rule of God or his grace, but we are under the dominion of sin, which reigns in our affections...All the commands we have in the Scripture for self-searching, trial, and examination; all the rules that are given us unto that end; all the warnings we have of the deceitfulness of sin and of our own hearts, -- are given us to prevent this evil of shutting our eyes against the prevalent corruption and disorder of our affections." (The Essential Works Of John Owen)

The gravitas in Owen's words is hard to miss. The ascertaining of our right standing with God, of being not in the dominion of sin but of grace, does not appear to him as simply a matter of "getting used to our justification" but involves real hard and sacrificial work! While Owen is keen on highlighting the primacy of faith: "I call these latter evidences subordinate ones, and additional to that of faith, [and they are] of great use by way of establishment and confirmation unto believers, provided they be not abused to sole resting and reliance upon them, to the great prejudice of our life of faith: for we live by faith (so must all repenting sinners when they have attained to the highest pitch of holiness in this life), and not by sense, no, not even spiritual sense; it is a good handmaid to faith, but no good mistress to it.", it is a faith that is ever examining the heart so that its affections may solely be grounded on Christ.

I am always thankful for Owen's Gospel sobriety.

Kabod and the Christian Life

The glory of God denotes weight and substance.

This perfectly comports with God's aseity as being the foundation of man's every conception of God.

Ontologically, God IS. He is not derived from, or an instance of, a generic and abstract "God" being, but is Himself the self-existent Triune God and the source of all created being.

Epistemologically, man's knowledge of anything, if it is to be "of substance," must reckon with the Creator of the fact being apprehended.

Morally, one's lifestyle, and the worldview which informs and influences this, if it is to be "weighty" and truly significant, must have the glory of God as Creator and Redeemer at the forefront of its consideration.

As you can see, the glory of God is God Himself, and the pursuit of His glory is the pursuit of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for "long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs (Hebrews 1:1-4)."

And we will share in His glory:

"Furthermore, other passages in this last part of Isaiah suggest that the presence of God's glory will render the people of God glorious (see 62:2). What does it mean that the people will be glorious? After their purification by judgment, they can reflect God's glory. Their glory is not inherent to them but is reflected—as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so the people of God reflect the glory of their Lord. Thanks to the work of God, God's people are 'heavy' with significance. God's people will be a 'crown of beauty' and a 'royal diadem' (62:3). They have substance and reputation ('you shall be called by a new name,' 62:2). God's blessing will also bring them substance. Their glory primarily serves a missionary purpose, as the nations will see this glory and be attracted to it." (Tremper Longman III, 'The Glory of God in the Old Testament', The Glory of God [Theology in Community] [Illinois: Crossway, 2010], eds. Christopher W. Morgan & Robert A. Peterson, p. 69)

Man, as made in the image of God, was not made for fluffy, floaty stuff. It can then be argued that the antithesis may also be described as humanity that is defined either by hollow weightlessness or substantial heaviness.

The Glories of the Two Cities

Another way to delineate the antithesis of believer and unbeliever is in the area of glory. The former desires the glory of God, the latter the glory of self.

"Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, 'Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.' In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, 'I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.' And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God 'glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise'—that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride—'they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.' For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, 'and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.' But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, 'that God may be all in all.'" (Augustine, City of God, Book 14, Chap. 28)

Van Til the Street Preacher

These images of Cornelius Van Til street preaching may seem uncharacteristic of a Reformed apologist and churchman like himself. The stereotype is that numbers are added to the church through the procreation of covenant children by believing parents. While this is certainly true and not something to be embarrased about, there is also nothing un-Reformed about what Van Til did. He simply made the antithesis hit hard. What does this mean?

It means every human being is guilty and is aware of this guilt to one extent or another by virtue of being made in the image of God. Even Francis Turretin posits that there is actually no such entity as an absolute, theoretical atheist, though practical ones abound. The voice of conscience is strong in every man, condemning imperfect obedience to the Law. While the unbeliever tries incessantly to suppress this voice, the Holy Spirit uses the means of the declaration of the Law and the guilt it brings, followed by the Gospel with its attendant grace, to effect the faith that justifies. When the unbeliever is translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, he passes from one side of the antithesis to another.

So, in fact, Van Til was merely being a good agent of divine concursus!

The Antithesis a New Species Doth Not Make

Man, as made in the image of God, is intrinsically (by default) "wired" as a covenantal being. He knows of himself as a covenantal being and, though after the Fall, the sinner lives and moves in suppression of this fact, still he cannot escape it in the voice of his conscience and in the testimony of creation all around him.

What this covenatalism further presupposes is that both natural and special revelation bear upon man's conception of anything. Natural revelation both reveal the grace and wrath of God in the consistency of life-support systems in creation as well as the death dynamic that is at work in it, just as special revelation reveal the grace and wrath of God in the person and work of Christ and in the final, eschatological death that is alluded to by physical, temporal death. Man, as man, needs both natural and special revelation.

This realization has given me pause about NL2K (Natural Law Two Kingdoms Theology, or sometimes R2K). Sure, the baker does not need special revelation in order to engage in his baking, but this is merely speaking at a practical level. The baker, as an ontological human being made in the image of God, has upon himself the covenantal duty to reckon with both God's natural and special revelation at every turn. Is there an occasion wherein the baker does not bake as a human being? If not, then even in his baking, special revelation is required if he is to bake as a human being. What NL2K seems to imply is that there are two species of human beings, one for whom both natural and special revelation are of import and another wherein natural revelation will do. But the Fall did not create two different ontological classes of human beings but two different covenant relations to God in which man could either be a covenant-keeper or covenant-breaker (the antithesis). So when the baker bakes unmindful of God in special revelation, he bakes as a covenant-breaker and in fact sins in his baking.

To be sure, God uses the covenant-breaking baker to provide carbohydrate energy to both sinner and saint alike, but this is merely an outworking of His patience, intending the order and consistency in the present age to facilitate the smooth unfolding of redemptive history that will culminate in the age of glory characterized by revelational integrity.