The Doctrine of the Beatific Vision—Owen's Greatest Contribution

My favorite Avenger is the character called "The Vision." In the movie adaptation of the hit comic book series, the Vision was portrayed as being the possessor of the "mind stone", one of the Infinity gems that are the said to be the receptacles of all the power that is in the universe—and the object of Thanos' covetous inclinations. This makes the Vision very special indeed. But while he can do a lot of cool stuff—like alter his density to intangibility or diamond-hardness—this is not why I like him. I like him because he reminds me of John Owen's most important theological contribution (at least in reference to my own appreciation of it and its implications)—the doctrine of the beatific vision.

To be sure, John Owen was not the first to articulate this doctrine. It was the great Thomas Aquinas who gave prominence to the doctrine and Owen owes much of his thought on the subject to the former. However, Owen did in fact improve upon Aquinas' take on the BV. In a nutshell, Aquinas' notion of the BV consists in it being the human being's intellectual fruition as pertaining to the knowledge of God. As image-bearers, we have the capacity to know God and this knowing, maximally heightened as creaturely possible, will be our blessedness in glory. For Aquinas, the BV is still mediated by Christ through the Spirit.

While Owen does not particularly disagree with this, he extends, as it were, Aquinas' formulation and grounds the BV on Christ Himself as the object of this vision. When Aquinas seemingly gives Christ a utilitarian function in the BV, Owen makes Christ both the mediator and the essence of the BV. We behold God in the face of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The saint's blessedness in glory, according to Owen, will be in marveling at and enjoying God's greatest work, the hypostatic union. And it gets better.

Francis Turretin, along with Aquinas, does not give the physical senses, even though glorified, any place in the BV, but Owen includes the physical sight of Christ as part of our blessedness. In other words, not only will we enjoy the divinity of Christ in heaven but His humanity as well.

In terms of the importance of the doctrine of the beatific vision for the Christian life this side of glory, Owen gives it the paramount place. He writes the ff. in "The Glory of Christ" (the last book he ever wrote):

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who does not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight. Where the subject (the soul) is not previously seasoned with grace and faith, it is not capable of glory or vision. Nay, persons not disposed hereby unto it cannot desire it, whatever they pretend; they only deceive their own souls in supposing that so they do. Most men will say with confidence, living and dying, that they desire to be with Christ, and to behold his glory; but they can give no reason why they should desire any such thing, -- only they think it somewhat that is better than to be in that evil condition which otherwise they must be cast into for ever, when they can be here no more. If a man pretend himself to be enamoured on, or greatly to desire, what he never saw, nor was ever represented unto him, he does but dote on his own imaginations. And the pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith whilst they are here in this world, are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations.

We behold Christ by faith now through the means of grace and we shall behold Him by sight immediately in glory thereafter.

Looking to Christ by faith is an outflow of Spirit-regenerated and Spirit-enflamed affections. If we hunger and thirst for Him now and love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we shall surely be satisfied with being with Him and seeing Him face-to-face in glory for we have proven to be His friends while here on earth.

Click on the ff. for a very good lecture by Suzanne McDonald (contributor to The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen's Theology, where she discusses the BV) on Owen's doctrine of the beatific vision: "Beholding God's Glory: John Owen and the 'Reforming' of the Beatific Vision"

Click on the ff. for quotes that can be used a devotional aids from Owen's "The Glory of Christ": Highlights of John Owen's "The Glory of Christ"

Highlights of John Owen's "The Glory of Christ" (Part 3)

Click here for: Part 1, Part 2.



Chapter XI. The glory of Christ in the recapitulation of all things in him.

• "Moreover, his being and goodness are the same. The goodness of God is the meetness of the Divine Being to be communicative of itself in its effects. Hence this is the first notion of the divine nature, -- infinite being and goodness, in a nature intelligent and self-subsistent."
• "Being and goodness must be the first outward effects of the divine nature, which, being wrought by infinite power and wisdom, do represent unto us the glory of God in the creation of all things. Infinite being in self-subsistence, which is necessary in the first cause and spring of all things, -- infinite goodness to communicate the effect of this being unto that which was not, -- and infinite wisdom and power in that communication, -- are gloriously manifested therein."
• "To suppose any other race of intellectual creatures, besides angels in heaven and men on earth, is not only without all countenance from any divine testimony, but it disturbs and disorders the whole representation of the glory of God made unto us in the Scripture, and the whole design of his wisdom and grace, as declared therein. Intellectual creatures not comprehended in that government of God and mystery of his wisdom in Christ which the Scripture reveals, are a chimera framed in the imaginations of some men, scarce duly sensible of what it is to be wise unto sobriety."
• "There is no contemplation of the glory of Christ that ought more to affect the hearts of them that do believe with delight and joy, than this, of the recapitulation of all things in him. One view by faith of him in the place of God, as the supreme head of the whole creation. Moving, acting, guiding, and disposing of it, will bring in spiritual refreshment unto a believing refreshment unto a believing soul.
  
  And it will do so the more, in that it gives a glorious representation of his divine nature also. For that any mere creature should thus be a head of life, motion, and power, as also of sovereign rule and disposal, of the whole new creation, with all things reduced into order thereby, is not only an impious, but a foolish imagination.
  
  Did we live more in the contemplation of this glory of Christ, and of the wisdom of God in this recapitulation of all things in him, there is not anything of our duty which it would not mind us of, nor anything of privilege which it would not give us a sense of, as might easily be demonstrated."
• "Whatever there is of order, of beauty, of glory, in heaven above, or in earth beneath, it all ariseth from this new relation of the creation unto the Son of God. Whatever is not gathered into one, even in him, in its place, and according to its measure, is under darkness, disorder, and the curse."

The Vision of Christ and the Necessity of Good Works

The first thesis in Luther's famous 95 states that all of the Christian life is characterized by repentance. Repentance, by its very nature, necessarily includes faith in its exercise. This faith, to be true faith, can only have one object of focus, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Putting faith in Christ is synonymous to looking unto Him (Heb. 12:2), and this vision of Christ transforms the beholder into His image and likeness (faith now conforms progressively [2 Cor. 3:18], while actual sight in glory conforms instantly [1 John 3:2]).

Highlights of John Owen's "The Glory of Christ" (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.



Chapter VI. The glory of Christ in the discharge of his mediatory office.

• "It is our duty to endeavour after freedom, willingness, and cheerfulness in all our obedience. Obedience has its formal nature from our wills. So much as there is of our wills in what we do towards God, so much there is of obedience, and no more. Howbeit we are, antecedently unto all acts of our own wills, obliged unto all that is called obedience. From the very constitution of our natures we are necessarily subject unto the law of God."
• "He unto whom prayer was made, prayed himself night and day. He whom all the angels of heaven and all creatures worshipped, was continually conversant in all the duties of the worship of God. He who was over the house, diligently observed the meanest office of the house. He that made all men, in whose hand they are all as clay in the hand of the potter, observed amongst them the strictest rules of justice, in giving unto every one his due; and of charity, in giving good things that were not so due. This is that which renders the obedience of Christ in the discharge of his office both mysterious and glorious."
• "We might here look on him as under the weight of the wrath of God, and the curse of the law; taking on himself, and on his whole soul, the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to sin or sinners. We might look on him in his agony and bloody sweat, in his strong cries and supplications, when he was sorrowful unto the death, and began to be amazed, in apprehensions of the things that were coming on him, -- of that dreadful trial which he was entering into. We might look upon him conflicting with all the powers of darkness, the rage and madness of men, -- suffering in his soul, his body, his name, his reputation, his goods, his life; some of these sufferings being immediate from God above, others from devils and wicked men, acting according to the determinate counsel of God. We might look on him praying, weeping, crying out, bleeding, dying, -- in all things making his soul an offering for sin; so was he 'taken from prison, and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression,' says God, 'of my people was he smitten,' Isa. liii. 8. But these things I shall not insist on in particular, but leave them under such a veil as may give us a prospect into them, so far as to fill our souls with holy admiration."
• "How glorious is the Lord Christ on this account, in the eyes of believers! When Adam had sinned, and thereby eternally, according unto the sanction of the law, ruined himself and all his posterity, he stood ashamed, afraid, trembling, as one ready to perish for ever, under the displeasure of God. Death was that which he had deserved, and immediate death was that which he looked for. In this state the Lord Christ in the promise comes unto him, and says, Poor creature! how woeful is thy condition! how deformed is thy appearance! What is become of the beauty, of the glory of that image of God wherein thou wast created? how hast thou taken on thee the monstrous shape and image of Satan? And yet thy present misery, thy entrance into dust and darkness, is no way to be compared with what is to ensue. Eternal distress lies at the door. But yet look up once more, and behold me, that thou mayest have some glimpse of what is in the designs of infinite wisdom, love, and grace. Come forth from thy vain shelter, thy hiding-place I will put myself into thy condition. I will undergo and bear that burden of guilt and punishment which would sink thee eternally into the bottom of hell. I will pay that which I never took; and be made temporally a curse for thee, that thou mayest attain unto eternal blessedness. To the same purpose he speaks unto convinced sinners, in the invitation he gives them to come unto him."

Highlights of John Owen's "The Glory of Christ" (Part 1)

This will be the first post in a series of posts that will contain all the portions of John Owen's Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in His Person, Office, and Grace—or "The Glory of Christ" for short—that I highlighted.

This work by Owen is significant by virtue of the topic treated and the fact that it was the last book he ever wrote, thus reflecting the knowledge and wisdom of a mature, battle-worn faith that is now about to graduate into sight:

"There are some facts which impart peculiar interest to these Meditations. They were drawn up, according to the author's own statement, 'for the exercise of his own mind,' in the first instance; and illustrate, accordingly, the scope and tenor of his Christian experience. They form, moreover, his dying testimony to the truth, -- and to the truth, with peculiar emphasis, as it 'is in Jesus;' for they are the substance of the last instructions which he delivered to his flock; and they constitute the last work which he prepared for the press. It is instructive to peruse the solemn musings of his soul when 'weakness, weariness, and the near approaches of death,' were calling him away from his earthly labours; and to mark how intently his thoughts were fixed on the glory of the Saviour, whom he was soon to behold 'face to face.' On the day of his death, Mr Payne, who had the charge of the original publication of this treatise, on bidding Dr Owen farewell, said to him, 'Doctor, I have just been putting your book on the Glory of Christ to the press.' 'I am glad,' was Owen's reply, 'to hear that that performance is put to the press; but, O brother Payne, the long looked-for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done yet, or was capable of doing in this world.'" (William H. Goold, Prefatory note.)

I can see these posts as being profitable to the reader as a devotional or as an introduction to Owen's theology of the beatific vision. May they serve to make Christ more glorious and beautiful—and thus desirable—to us as we look to Him now in faith, and thereafter in sight.