In Christ Your Sin Is Publicly and Legally Cancelled, Nailed Up for All to See

In Christ Your Sin Is Publicly and Legally Cancelled, Nailed Up for All to See
Sin being removed, and righteousness bestowed, we have peace with God—are continually accepted before him.
There is not any thing to charge us with: that which was, is taken out of the way by Christ, and nailed to his cross—made fast there; yea, publicly and legally cancelled, that it can never be admitted again as an evidence.
What court among men would admit of evidence that has been publicly cancelled and nailed up for all to see it?
So has Christ dealt with that which was against us; and not only so, but also he puts that upon us for which we are received into favor.
He makes us comely through his beauty; gives us white raiment to stand before the Lord.
This is the first part of purchased grace wherein the saints have communion with Jesus Christ. In remission of sin and imputation of righteousness does it consist; from the death of Christ, as a price, sacrifice, and a punishment—from the life of Christ spent in obedience to the law, does it arise.
The great product it is of the Father’s righteousness, wisdom, love, and grace—the great and astonish-able fruit of the love and condescension of the Son—the great discovery of the Holy Ghost in the revelation of the mystery of the gospel.
—John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, 290-91.

Read this and believe it, read it until you believe it, Owen says "There is not any thing to charge us with" Paul said "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies." (Rom. 8:33) The answer is no one! Once God declares you not guilty and all charges against you have not only been removed they have been nailed to the cross, publicly cancelled legally cancelled never to be used as evidence again. You are free, enjoy it.

John Owen’s Final Words

On August 22, 1683, at his home in Ealing (a suburb west of London), the great theologian John Owen dictated his last surviving letter to his longtime friend, Charles Fleetwood:

I am going to him whom my soul hath loved, or rather hath love me with an everlasting love; which is the whole ground of all my consolation.
The passage is very irksome and wearisome through strong pain of various sorts which are all issued in an intermitting fever.
All things were provided to carry me to London today attending to the advice of my physician, but we were all disappointed by my utter disability to understand the journey.
I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm, but while the great Pilot is in it the loss of a poore under-rower will be inconsiderable.
Live and pray and hope and waite patiently and doe not despair; the promise stands invincible that he will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

Two days later William Payne, a friend who was overseeing the printing of his latest book, The Glory of Christ, paid him a visit. Payne assured Owen that plans were proceeding well for the publication.
Owen responded:

I am glad to hear it; but O brother Payne! The long wished-for day is come at last, in which I shall see the glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in the world.

These were Owen’s last recorded words. He died that day, August 24, 1683—St. Bartholomew’s Day—exactly twenty years after the Great Ejection of the Puritans. He was 67 years old.
Justin Taylor

I Am Going to Him

On August 23, 1683--the day before he died--John Owen dictated a final letter to his friend Charles Fleetwood. Part of it reads:

I am going to Him whom my soul hath loved, or rather who hath loved me with an everlasting love; which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearysome through strong pains of various sorts which are all issued in an intermitting fever . . . I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm, but whilst the great Pilot is in it the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable.

--quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 18

Dane Ortlund

The Difference between Union and Communion with God

Kelly Kapic:
It is important to note that Owen maintains an essential distinction between union and communion.
Believers are united to Christ in God by the Spirit. This union is a unilateral action by God, in which those who were dead are made alive, those who lived in darkness begin to see the light, and those who were enslaved to sin are set free to be loved and to love. When one speaks of “union,” it must be clear that the human person is merely receptive, being the object of God’s gracious action. This is the state and condition of all true saints.
Communion with God, however, is distinct from union. Those who are united to Christ are called to respond to God’s loving embrace. While union with Christ is something that does not ebb and flow, one’s experience of communion with Christ can fluctuate.
This is an important theological and experiential distinction, for it protects the biblical truth that we are saved by radical and free divine grace.
Furthermore, this distinction also protects the biblical truth that the children of God have a relationship with their Lord, and as a relationship, there are things that can either help or hinder it. When a believer grows comfortable with sin (whether sins of commission or sins of omission) this invariably affects the level of intimacy this person feels with God. It is not that the Father’s love grows and diminishes for his children in accordance with their actions, for his love is unflinching. It is not that God runs from us, but we run from him. Sin tends to isolate the believer, making him feel distant from God. Then come the accusations—both from Satan and self—which can make the believer worry he is under God’s wrath. In truth, however, saints stand not under wrath, but in the safe shadow of the cross.
While a saint’s consistency in prayer, corporate worship, and biblical meditation are not things that make God love him more or less, such activities tend to foster the beautiful experience of communion with God. Temptations and neglect threaten the communion, but not the union [Works, 2:126]. And it is this union which encourages the believer to turn from sin to the God who is quick to forgive, abounding in compassion, and faithful in his unending love.
Let there be no misunderstanding—for Owen, Christian obedience was of utmost importance, but it was always understood to flow out of this union, and never seen as the ground for it. In harmony with Bunyan and other Dissenters like him, Owen “insisted upon a very personal and emotional experience of union with Christ and the Holy Spirit,” and out of this union naturally flowed active communion.

---

Kelly M. Kapic, “Worshiping the Triune God: Insights from John Owen,” introduction to John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor; foreword by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), pp. 21-22.
Justin Taylor

God's Love: The Key Ingredient to God's Attributes

So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.

Every other discovery of God, without this, will but make the soul fly from him; but if the heart be once much taken up with this the eminency of the Father’s love, it cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto him. This, if anything, will work upon us to make our abode with him. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will?

Put, then, this to the venture: exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him. I dare boldly say: believers will find it as thriving a course as ever they pitched on in their lives. Sit down a little at the fountain, and you will quickly have a further discovery of the sweetness of the streams. You who have run from him, will not be able, after a while, to keep at a distance for a moment.

--John Owen, Communion with the Triune God (ed. K. Kapic and J. Taylor; Crossway, 2007), 128
Dane Ortlund

Some Last Words Of John Owen Before Entering Glory

On August 22, 1683, at his home in Ealing, Owen dictated his last surviving letter to his long-time friend, Charles Fleetwood:

I am going to him whom my soul hath loved, or rather hath love me with an everlasting love; which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearisome through strong pain of various sorts which are all issued in an intermitting fever. All things were provided to carry me to London today attending to the advice of my physician, but we were all disappointed by my utter disability to understand the journey. I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm, but while the great Pilot is in it the loss of a poore under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live and pray and hope and waite patiently and doe not despair; the promise stands invincible that he will never leave thee nor forsake thee. (Toon, The Correspondence of John Owen, 174)

Two days later Owen’s friend William Payne, who was overseeing the printing of The Glory of Christ, paid him a visit, assuring him that all was going well with the publication. Owen responded:

I am glad to hear it; but O brother Payne! The long wished-for day is come at last, in which I shall see the glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in the world.

Justin Taylor

He Loves Life into Us

One of my favorite passages from Owen's Communion with God, enjoyed with some dear brothers around a Wheaton College cafeteria table last night.

The love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he wills to his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. . . .

How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one of which were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome! What mountains of unbelief does it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day! This is our Beloved . . .

--John Owen, Communion with God (Christian Focus, 2007), 113 (for those considering buying the book, this is the edition to get)
Dane Ortlund

Do You Commune with the Father in Love?

John Owen:

First, then, this is a duty wherein it is most evident that Christians are but little exercised—namely, in holding immediate communion with the Father in love. Unacquaintedness with our mercies, our privileges, is our sin as well as our trouble. We hearken not to the voice of the Spirit which is given unto us, “that we may know the things that are freely bestowed on us of God” (1 Cor. 2:12). This makes us go heavily, when we might rejoice; and to be weak, where we might be strong in the Lord.
How few of the saints are experimentally acquainted with this privilege of holding immediate communion with the Father in love!
With what anxious, doubtful thoughts do they look upon him!
What fears, what questioning are there, of his goodwill and kindness!
At the best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him toward us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus.
It is true: that alone is the way of communication; but the free fountain and spring of all is in the bosom of the Father. “Eternal life was with the Father, and is manifested unto us” (1 John 1:2).
Let us, then—Eye the Father as love; look not on him as an always lowering father, but as one most kind and tender.
Let us look on him by faith, as one that has had thoughts of kindness toward us from everlasting.
It is misapprehension of God that makes any [to] run from him, who have the least breathing wrought in them after him. “They that know you will put their trust in you” [Ps. 9:10].
Men cannot abide with God in spiritual meditations. He loses soul’s company by their want [=lack] of this insight into his love. They fix their thoughts only on his terrible majesty, severity, and greatness; and so their spirits are not endeared.
Would a soul continually eye his everlasting tenderness and compassion, his thoughts of kindness that have been from of old, his present gracious acceptance, [then] it could not bear an hour’s absence from him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

—John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, ed. Kapic and Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), ch. 4.
Justin Taylor

Do You Look to the Father as Love?

John Owen:

Eye the Father as love; look not on him as an always lowering father, but as one most kind and tender.
Let us look on him by faith, as one that has had thoughts of kindness toward us from everlasting.
It is misapprehension of God that makes any [to] run from him, who have the least breathing wrought in them after him. “They that know you will put their trust in you” [Ps. 9:10].
Men cannot abide with God in spiritual meditations. He loses soul’s company by their want [=lack] of this insight into his love.
They fix their thoughts only on his terrible majesty, severity, and greatness; and so their spirits are not endeared.
Would a soul continually eye his everlasting tenderness and compassion, his thoughts of kindness that have been from of old, his present gracious acceptance, [then] it could not bear an hour’s absence from him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

—John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, ed. Kapic and Taylor (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), p. 124.
Justin Taylor

The Kingdom of Heaven Suffers Violence, and the Violent Take It by Force

John Owen on the earnestness required of those who intend to kill sin and walk happily with God--

Get up, watch, pray, fast, meditate, offer violence to your lusts and corruptions; fear not, startle not at their crying or importunities to be spared; press unto the throne of grace by prayers, supplications, importunities, restless requests. This is the way to take the kingdom of heaven. These things are not peace, they are not assurance; but they are part of the means God hath appointed for the attainment of them.

--Jown Owen, Works, 6.567-68; quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 111
Dane Ortlund

With an Everlasting Love

On August 23, 1683--the day before he died--John Owen dictated a final letter to his friend Charles Fleetwood. Part of it reads:

I am going to Him whom my soul hath loved, or rather who hath loved me with an everlasting love; which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearysome through strong pains of various sorts which are all issued in an intermitting fever . . . I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm, but whilst the great Pilot is in it the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable.

--quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 18
Dane Ortlund

Indwelling Sin in Believers, by John Owen

John Owen is perhaps the most worthy author of being read in the English language; and the doctrine of indwelling sin in a Christian – what it is and how to fight against it without slipping into legalism or antinomianism – is one of the most crucial topics in practical, twenty-first century Christianity. So then, what would hinder any Christian, young or old, from reading such a helpful-sounding title as Indwelling Sin in Believers, by John Owen? Until recently, the argument could perhaps have been made that Owen's style is just a little too obscure and prolix to be readily accessible to simple believers without a high education or theological training; but with the advent of the new Puritan Paperback, which abridges Owen's classic work and makes it easy to read, the last potential obstacle has fallen away. Christian, if you struggle with sin (and make no doubt, if you don't then you're not a Christian after all), read this book! You may just find it to be one of the most useful books you've read in a good, long while.
I only wish to leave a couple of very brief excerpts from Indwelling Sin, to give the reader the merest hint of how the book deals with what indwelling sin is; why it is important to understand the doctrine; and how the Christian can go about fighting against it. The problem with excerpting Owen, however, is that every sentence is so pithy and full of wisdom that one could judicially excerpt just about the entire work! But if you're going to do that, you might as well just buy the book and be done with it – a solution I hope quite a few of you come to!

What is indwelling sin like? “Throw it off – it will come back. Rebuke it by the power of grace – it withdraws for a while, and then returns. Set the cross of Christ before it – it does as those that came to take him: at the sight of him they went backwards and fell to the ground, but then they rose again and laid hands on him. It gives way for a while, but it soon returns and presses on the soul again. Remind it of the love of God in Christ – though it is stricken, it does not give up. Present hell-fire to it – it rushes into the midst of the flames. Reproach it with its folly and madness – it knows no shame, but presses on still. Let the thoughts of the mind struggle to flee from it – it follows, as though on the wings of the wind. And by this importunity it wearies and wears out the soul, and if the great remedy, Romans 8:3, does not come in time, it gains the victory.” Why is it important to understand this? “The one who understands the evil of his own heart is the only useful fruitful, solid believer. Others are fit only to delude themselves, and to disquiet families, churches, and every association. Let us wisely consider our hearts, and then see if we can be proud of our gifts and graces, and whether we can go and judge, condemn, and reproach others that have been tempted.”
How can the Christian fight against it? “Set your affections on the cross of Christ. This is eminently effective in frustrating the whole work of indwelling sin. The apostle gloried and rejoiced in the cross of Christ. His heart was set on it. It crucified the world to him, making it a dead and undesirable thing (Gal. 6:14). The baits and pleasures of sin are all things of the world, 'the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life'. By these sin entices and entangles our souls. If the heart is filled with the cross of Christ, it casts death and undesirability on them all, leaving no seeming beauty, pleasure or comeliness in them.”
Indwelling Sin in Believers 
Reformation Theology