The Trinity and The Art of Preaching: John Owen’s Theology of Communing with God Through the Preached Word

Jun 9

Jun 9 The Trinity and The Art of Preaching: John Owen’s Theology of Communing with God Through the Preached Word

John Owen (1616-1683) was a multifaceted nonconformist who left an indelible mark on the theological world of England during the seventeenth century and beyond. He was not only a theologian, pastor, educator, author, university administrator, statesman, biblical exegete, husband, father, and military chaplain, but also the author of numerous works that influenced generations of seekers long after his time. The famous English preacher, Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), aptly referred to him as the “prince of divines” two centuries after Owen’s death, for his works continued to impact and inspire (J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Wipf and Stock, 1990), 191).

However, it was Owen’s theological precision that caused him to be a great pastor from the pulpit. This article presents Owen’s position on how preaching is made effective for worship by the Trinity—making the Trinity not just the object of worship, but also the means to worship. Preaching, for Owen, is made effective for worship as the preacher and the members of the congregation manifest their communion with God through the preaching of the Word as affections from God and for God are expressed.

In order to understand how preaching is made effective for worship by the Trinity, this article is divided into three parts. First, Owen’s theology of the Trinity and communion with God is examined in order to understand how God reveals Himself through Himself for worship. Second, Owen’s articulation of the beatific vision is analyzed as the motivation to preach and respond to the preached word. Finally, Owen’s theology of communion with the triune God and the preaching of God’s Word are synthesized through the spiritual affections that are revealed from God and returned to God.

Part 1: The Trinity and Communion with God

John Owen's doctrine of the Trinity was closely interconnected with his theology of divine revelation. As a pastor, he frequently instructed the congregation on Christian fundamentals utilizing catechisms. In 1645, while serving at the parish of Fordham in Essex, he produced a greater and lesser catechism. One of the questions he asked in the former was, “What do the Scriptures teach concerning God?” The answer he provides is, “First, what he is, or his nature; secondly, what he doeth, or his works” (Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed., William Goold, 16 vols. (Carlisle, Pa: The Banner of Truth, 2009), 1:471). Owen taught that it is only through Scripture Christians can begin to know the nature of God and His works. The good news, for Owen, is that the triune God is knowable.

Owen dedicates seven questions to the Trinity in this larger catechism to help others know God. The last question asked deals directly with the knowledge of God. It asks, “Can we conceive these things as they are in themselves?” The answer Owen provides is, “Neither we nor yet the angels of heaven are at all able to dive into these secrets, as they are internally in God; but in respect of the outward dispensation of themselves to us by creation, redemption, and sanctification, a knowledge may be attained of these, saving and heavenly” (Owen, Works, 1:473). This knowledge, according to Owen, is found in God’s external revelation of Himself.

Owen's lesser catechism contained the question, "Is there only one God?" His answer was, “One only, in respect of his essence and being, but one in three distinct persons, of Father, Son and Holy Ghost” (Owen, Works, 1:467). Unity in God is essential; He is one in essence and being. Nonetheless, God exists as three persons. Owen described each person of the Trinity as “a distinct manner of substance of being, distinguished from the other persons by its own properties” (Owen, Works, 1:472).

In the greater catechism, he elaborated on these various properties that differentiate each individual as inherent relationship properties, not divine attributes or operations. Owen explained that the Father is the origin or "fountain" of the Godhead, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son (Owen, Works, 1:472).

The doctrines of inseparable operations and divine appropriations are foundational to Owen’s trinitarian theology. God reveals Himself through His undivided ad extra work shown through Scripture and creation, while simultaneously, each person of the Trinity has a unique mission specific to their eternal mutual relationship of origin, which can be appropriated to them in separate ways that are consistent with their relational property. All of God's works are to be interpreted as a single operation of the single God that is accomplished by each person of the Godhead in a particular and distinct way.

For example, the single work of redemption is initiated by the Father, accomplished through the Son, and made effective by the Spirit. For Owen, God revealed Himself not merely for individuals' cognitive understanding but to form a personal and loving relationship. God’s single work of revelation is appropriated as each person of the Godhead testifies distinctly about themselves.

Part 2: Worship and the Beatific Vision

To understand Owen’s trinitarian drive in worship, it is important to see how he is Christological in focus. Suzanne McDonald is helpful here as she explores Owen’s doctrine of the beatific vision (Suzanne McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision” in The Ashgate Research Companion, (Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), 141-158). For Owen, beholding the glory of God is to behold the face of Jesus Christ and it is this glory that motivates and stirs the worshipper to seek God.

The beatific vision comprises not only seeing by sight the eternal glory of God in the eschaton but also seeing by faith the glory of God in the Christian life now. Owen explains, “No man shall ever behold the glory of God by sight hereafter who doth not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight” (Owen, Works, 1:288). To behold the glory of God now by faith is to prepare to see the glory of God by sight.

According to Owen, beholding the glory of God through the person of Christ is done by reflecting on who Christ is as the Hypostatic Union. McDonald rightly explains, “For Owen, it matters for our lives now and for all eternity that we should set aside time for our minds to be shaped by the foretaste that is offered to us of the beatific vision,” in order to shape minds and to change lives more into the image of the Son (McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God,” 143).

Owen dedicates a treatise, that was first published in 1684, on this important doctrine called, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in his Person, Office and Grace: the difference between faith and sight; applied unto the use of them that believe. He explains the purpose of this particular work is to “stir us up unto diligence in the discharge of the duty here proposed – namely, a continual contemplation of the glory of Christ, in his person, office, and grace” (Owen, Works, 1:277).

For Owen, contemplating the glory of Christ in His person, office, and grace begins intellectually and ends devotionally. Knowing God correctly results in worship. Owen explains:

The design of this Discourse is no more, but that when by faith we have attained a view of the glory of Christ, in our contemplations on his person, we should not pass it over as a notion of truth which we assent unto,—namely, that he is thus glorious in himself,—but endeavor to affect our hearts with it, as that wherein our own principal interest doth lie; wherein it will be effectual unto the transformation of our souls into his image (Owen, Works, 1:321).

The person of Christ as the God-man is the object of man’s adoration and as they contemplate Him, based on His own revelation of Himself through Himself, hearts begin to be transformed – affections grow. Owen understood that knowledge or what he called “true theology” never consisted of only the intellect, but it also included the heart. To know God, to be in communion with Him, is to know who He is intellectually, based on His own revelation, resulting in a changed heart by the Spirit.

McDonald makes the observation that Owen follows Thomas Aquinas’ lead in giving precedence to the intellect, “since we cannot rightly desire or love God without true knowledge of him, but we do not truly know God if knowledge does not issue in love” (McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God,” 147). However, “true theology” is completely dependent on God and is self-authenticating by the work of the Spirit on one’s heart and mind (John Owen, Biblical Theology, or The Nature, Origin, Development, and Study of Theological Truth, in Six Books, translated by Stephen P. Westcott (Grand Rapids: Soli Deo Gloria, 1994), 16). Therefore, this knowledge of God is never the intellect apart from the heart. Knowing God is to receive God’s affections through one’s union with Christ.

Owen is Chalcedonian in his articulation of the beatific vision since he uses the person of Christ, both his divinity and humanity, as the centerpiece to see the glory of God. McDonald summarizes the primary content of Owen’s beatific vision well when she says, “The beatific vision is primarily Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, acknowledged by faith now, apprehended in its fullness in eternity” (McDonald, “Beholding the Glory of God,” 147). Christ is beautiful and glorious because He is divine and human, acting as the image of the invisible God in His divinity and the elect’s advocate in His humanity. Because Christ is God, true knowledge of God comes through Him; yet at the same time, because Christ is man, true worship of God also comes through Him. As the Hypostatic Union, both knowledge from God and worship to God go through Him.

Part 3: Communion with God and the Preached Word

All of the Father’s affections are fully revealed through the person of Christ. The beatific vision comprises not only seeing the eternal glory of God in the eschaton but begins now by faith in the person of Christ. So, this section seeks to answer the question, “How does the church see this Christ in order to show their affections to Him as the Word of God is preached? And how does this seeing allow the Christian to have communion with God?”

Owen addresses false worship that comes from the Roman Catholic Church in a sermon called, “The Chamber of Imagery” from Ezekiel 8:11-12. In this passage, God is showing the prophet Ezekiel the chamber of images or idols all throughout the temple. Owen is using this language to demonstrate how the Church of Rome also has its chamber of images.

In this sermon, Owen quickly explains that light is an antecedent to tasting the Word and this light is what the Church of Rome has lost and therefore they are unable to taste the Word of God properly. He explains:

The first thing hereunto is light; this is, a spiritual, supernatural light, enabling us to discern the wisdom, will, and mind of God in the word, in a spiritual manner; without which we can have no experience of its power. Hence the gospel is hid unto them that perish, though it be outwardly declared unto them [in preaching], 2 Cor. iv. 3. This is the only means which lets unto the mind and conscience a sense of this efficacy [the efficacy of the Scriptures] (Owen, Works, 8:549).

In other words, without the work of God enabling man to understand the Scriptures to know God, they are unable to “taste” the Word. Those without God have no experience of the power of God’s Word, even if they hear it outwardly preached to them. All of this is an exposition to Owen’s first principle in this sermon, “All the benefit and advantage which any men do or may receive by the word, or the truths of the gospel, depend on an experience of its power and efficacy in communicating the grace of God unto their souls” (Owen, Works, 8:548). Meaning, if there is no light, then there is no understanding of the Word’s power and efficacy that is only found in the gospel.

If one does not have the light to begin with, then what are they to do? How does one first receive the light in order to see whom they are to worship? Owen, in this sermon, explains that the Church of Rome has lost “an experience of the power of religion… [Therefore, they need to set] up a shadow or image [of the light]” (Owen, Works, 8:549). Owen continues to explain that the Roman Catholic Church has set up dead images to replace this light in order to draw their affections toward something in order to create affectionate worship.

Further, Owen explains, “The power and efficacy of the mystery of the gospel… in communicating the grace of God unto the souls of men, being lost, retaining the general notion of it, they contrived and framed an outward image or representation of them, suited unto their ignorance and superstition” (Owen, Works, 8:549-50). So the question again arises, what is to be represented to the church as the light in order to experience the power and efficacy of the Word? The answer to this question is found in the public proclamation of God’s Word to help others see by faith the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Just as one beholds the fullness of God’s glory in the person of Christ as the God-man, it is also in the person of Christ that God is fully represented or imaged—this is the antecedent light that makes the Word of God powerful and effective. Just as Suzanne McDonald correctly unpacks how Owen’s theology of the beatific vision is Chalcedonian in Owen’s treatise Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, Owen again explicitly highlights the reality of Christ as the Hypostatic Union here in this sermon. After making the central point, “the Lord Jesus, in his person and grace, is to be proposed and represented unto men as the principal object of their faith and love,” (Owen, Works, 8:551) he says:

He himself, in his Divine Person, is absolutely invisible unto us; and, as unto his human nature, absent from us; for the heaven must receive him “until the times of restitution of all things.” There must, therefore, an image of representation of him be made unto our minds, or he cannot be the proper object of our faith, trust, love, and delight (Owen, Works, 8:551-52).

Saying the person of Christ as the God-man is the glory of God and that Christ as the God-man is the full representation or image of God as the light of the world is not to say two different things about Him, but it is to say the same thing. Therefore, beholding the glory of God in the beatific vision now by faith is to see this light that is required to make the Word of God, specifically the gospel, powerful and effective. So, again, how does the church see this Christ, in order to show their affections to Him? Owen explains, “This is done in the gospel, and the preaching of it; for therein he is ‘evidently set forth’ before our eyes, as ‘crucified amongst us,’ Gal. iii. 1 [emphasis added]” (Owen, Works, 8:552). Elsewhere, Owen explains that prayer is the hinge on which all worship hangs, including the preaching of God’s Word (Owen, Works, 4:254). Without prayer, the preaching of God’s Word could not be powerful and effective (Owen, Works, 15:10).

Later in this sermon, Owen roots the effectiveness of prayer and how it is intended to work hand-in-hand with the preaching of God’s Word only when it is done in the person of Christ and not a dead image. He explains, “All success of the prayers of the church dependeth on… the presence of Christ amongst them: he is so present for their assistance and for their consolation. This presence of a living Christ, and not a dead crucifix, gives glory to divine worship” (Owen, Works, 8:557).

It is in the preaching of God’s Word that the proper spiritual representation (image) of God is found, which is the person of Christ. Christ alone as the God-man, the glory of God, makes the Word of God effective in order to receive and therefore reciprocate God’s affections in and through Him. The beatific vision, as outlined in Owen’s work, can be seen by faith alone on earth now as the Word is preached to reveal the inseparable work of God in redemption so that others may respond through the heavenly directory—by the Spirit, through the Son, and to the Father.

Preaching, as a means of manifesting one’s communion with the triune God, is for the glory of God and the edification of the church. When Scripture is preached, God’s love is revealed and received, leading the congregation to reciprocate affections back towards God. In fact, the aim of preaching, according to Owen, is to feed the flock with the knowledge and understanding of God so they may truly know God and have communion with Him. Owen marks this duty as the primary responsibility of the pastor in The True Nature of a Gospel Church. He explains:

The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word. It is a promise relating to the New Testament, that God would give unto the church “pastors according to his own heart, which should feed them with knowledge and understanding,” Jer. Iii. 15. This is by teaching or preaching the word, and no otherwise (Owen, Works, 16:74-75).

This also demonstrates Owen’s own heart and intent behind the sermons he preached throughout his life as a pastor. Owen’s primary goal in preaching the Word of God was to lead others into a communal relationship with the triune God by proclaiming the antecedent light—which is the gospel—while recognizing this light is revealed through the inseparable work of God.

Conclusion

As Owen reflects on the believer’s communion with God as the Word of God is preached in his treatise Communion with God, he looks back to the consequential affections and how it is in these affections that communion occurs. The affections communicated by the Father, through Christ, and by the Spirit are given as graces that the believer receives so that they may return them back to God in worship. Owen explains, “So it is with the graces of Christ, when held out and lifted up in the preaching of the gospel. They are a tower of perfumes, - a sweet savior to God and man [emphasis added]” (Own, Works, 2:76). Preaching is made effective for worship by the Trinity because it is the triune God who reveals Himself through the preached word in order to cultivate communion with God in worship.

Jacob Boyd (PhD, Midwestern Seminary) is a pastor at First Baptist Church of Springfield, VA.