Latest / Reformed Thinking / Beholding the Glory of Christ Explained | John Owen

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Beholding the Glory of Christ Explained | John Owen · Reformed Thinking

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Think about the last time you prepared for a massive
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relocation. Oh man, the absolute worst.
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Right. Like maybe you were moving to a
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new city across the country or, you know, perhaps transferring
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to a different branch of your company overseas.
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Yeah, you spend weeks or even months just obsessing over all
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the logistics. You do.
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You pack boxes. You label everything with this
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meticulous care, You sort out your bank accounts.
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You figure out where the grocery stores are in the new
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neighborhood. You're practically living on the
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Internet at looking at St. views of your new commute.
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Yeah, trying to figure out the local climate, the culture, the
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language, the infrastructure. We dedicate A staggering amount
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of mental energy to preparing for a change of address.
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Because we want to know every single detail about where we're
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going. It's human nature.
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But then, you know, consider this reality.
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There's one final relocation that every single human being
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will make a complete, permanent departure from this physical
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world. And yet, for the vast majority
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of us, we spend zero time packing for it.
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None at all. We don't learn the language of
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the destination. We don't prepare our minds for
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the transition. We just actively avoid thinking
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about it until, well, the moving truck is right at our front
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door. Which is a terrifying way to
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live, honestly. It really is so welcome to
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reformed thinking. Today we are doing a custom deep
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dive into the source material that tackles this specific issue
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head on. Yeah, we've got a fantastic
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primary source today. Our mission for this deep dive
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is to examine John Owen's 1684 work, Meditations and Discourses
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on the Glory of Christ. Such a massive text.
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It is we want to uncover how the act of looking at Christ by
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faith acts as a sovereign antidote for earthly anxieties,
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and how it completely diffuses the fear of death.
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It is a phenomenal text to examine, and I think what makes
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this specific source material so compelling is the author's
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physical state when he wrote. It right, the context is
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everything here. Yeah, because this isn't some
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theoretical theological treatise written by a young academic, you
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know, sitting in an ivory tower with decades of life ahead of
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him. No, not at all.
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This is the final dying written work of an incredibly sharp mind
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trying to process what actually happens when the physical body
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fails. John Owen was literally facing
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his own mortality. He was he was feeling his
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physical strength drain away day by day, and he took all of his
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theological knowledge and applied it to his own immediate
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terminal reality. Which is intense.
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It's super intense. He was testing his lifelong
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beliefs against the very real approach of his own bodily
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dissolution. The stakes are as high as they
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can possibly get for a human being.
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Which gives the entire text such immense weight.
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I mean, reading this text feels like finding the personal diary
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of an elite Mountaineer. Oh.
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That's a good analogy. Like a diary written just a few
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steps from the summit of an unscaled peak, you are reading
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the words of someone who is feeling the biting cold,
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experiencing the lack of oxygen and looking over the edge of the
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Cliff. Yeah, it carries the weight of
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authentic lived experience. This is an armchair philosophy.
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He is testing his own thesis in the laboratory of his dying
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moments. And if you're listening to this
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right now, maybe on your commute or while walking the dog, think
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about how much more gravity advice carries when the person
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giving it is actually living through the worst case scenario.
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Absolutely. Owen is not offering cheap
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platitudes. No, he is offering a survival
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guide from the absolute edge of eternity.
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So to really grasp the text, we have to look at the historical
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and personal context of its publication.
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You mentioned 1684. Yeah, 1684.
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And to put that in perspective, this was a period of massive
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political and religious upheaval in England.
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It was chaotic. Totally chaotic.
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John Owen was a man who had seen kings executed.
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He saw governments overthrown. He lived through massive plagues
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sweeping through London. Just a tremendous amount of
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trauma in the background. And personal trauma too.
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He had lost numerous children in infancy, which was a tragic
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reality of the 17th century. Yeah, the grief he must have
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carried is hard to even imagine. And on top of all that, he
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originally wrote these meditations, as he says in his
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own preface, purely for the exercise of his own mind.
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Oh wow, so he didn't even plan to publish it initially?
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Not initially, no. He was dealing with intense
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physical weakness, weariness and the near approaches of death.
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He was preparing his own soul to leave the physical body.
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Wow. It was only later that he
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considered sharing it with his congregation, which he noted
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would likely be his last function for them.
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There is a very specific historical anecdote about the
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day he died that we have to mention here because it frames
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everything we are going to discuss today.
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Oh, the interaction with Mr. Payne.
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Yes, it involves a friend of his, a Mr. Payne, and Mr. Payne
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was the person in charge of getting this very book printed
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right. So Payne came to visit Owen on
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his deathbed to bid him farewell, and he told Owen,
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Doctor, I have just been putting your book on the glory of Christ
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to the press. And Owen's reply is just
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staggering. It is, he said he was glad to
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hear it was going to the press, but then he added, and I'm
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quoting here. Oh, Brother Payne, the long
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looked for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory
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in another manner than I have ever done yet, or was capable of
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doing in this world. That interaction perfectly
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encapsulates the entire thesis of his book.
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He had zero fear. Right, because he had spent his
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entire life looking at this glory through the lens of faith,
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and now he was stepping over the threshold to see it by immediate
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sight. He was anticipating the
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transition. He was actually excited.
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Yeah, And later reviewers recognized the massive value of
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these meditations. There was a reviewer named Mr.
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Hervey who called the work Aureus Gemius Mellitus.
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OK, my Latin is a bit rusty. What does that mean?
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Those are Latin terms meaning gold, gems, and honey.
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Oh, I like that. Yeah, Hervey noted that the text
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enlightens the eyes, sweetens the enjoyments of life and
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softens the hours of death. All softens hours.
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Death, yeah. He used gold to represent its
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lasting value, gems for its brilliance and clarifying dark
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subjects, and honey because it actually brings psychological
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sweetness to the bitter reality of dying.
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It's practical preparation for leaving the physical.
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World exact. Well, precisely that.
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I love that phrase softening the hours of death, because let's be
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honest, the hours of death are naturally hard.
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They're terrifying. Very much so.
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But before Owen explains how to cross that final finish line of
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life, he first looks backward. He looks at the origin of our
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human condition. Right, he sets the stage.
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He wants to establish how human nature became so degraded in the
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1st place and how it gets fixed because you cannot understand
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the altitude of the summit until you see how low the valley is.
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That's a great point. If we are going to talk about
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being elevated to heaven, we first have to understand why we
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are currently stuck in the dirt. And the text takes us all the
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way back to the original state of human nature.
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In the beginning, in the persons of our first parents, human
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nature was crowned with honor and dignity.
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In Eden, right? Man was made in the image of God
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and was given dominion over the lower world.
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Humanity was the seed of excellence and beauty.
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That then came the fall. Yeah, the righteous doom was
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pronounced. Dust thou art, and to dust thou
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shalt return. Human nature lost its peculiar
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nearness to God. Which was a catastrophic
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downgrade. Massive.
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The text notes that human nature went from being the crown of
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creation to falling out of the dominion of Satan.
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Satan, being the enemy of the whole creation, never had any
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place to reign except in the debase nature of man.
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Humanity fell to the greatest distance from God of all
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creatures, with the devil's being The only exception.
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So we were basically left to perish eternally.
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That was the trajectory. That is a dire diagnosis.
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The psychological impact of realizing you belong to the dust
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is incredibly heavy. Sobering.
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But then we arrive at the the recovery.
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Christ found human nature in this lost, poor base and cursed
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condition. And here is where the argument
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points out a staggering reality. The assumption of human nature.
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Yes, Christ did not take on the nature of angels.
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He took on the seat of Abraham in infinite compassion.
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He sanctified a portion of this fallen human nature unto
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Himself. He took it into a wholly
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ineffable subsistence in His own person.
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By taking human nature into a substantial union with himself,
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He exalted our nature far above the whole creation.
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Far above all principalities, powers, might and dominion.
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OK, we should pause and unpack the mechanics of that phrase
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ineffable subsistence, because it sounds like heavy academic
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jargon. It does sound pretty dense.
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What is Owen actually talking about there?
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What Owen is talking about is the incarnation.
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The Son of God didn't just put on a human meat suit
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temporarily. Right, like a disguise.
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Yeah, it wasn't a disguise. He permanently integrated human
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nature, a real human body, and a real human soul into his divine
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person. The two natures, human and
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divine, remain distinct, but they are united in one person
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forever. That union is what exalts human
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nature. So what does that mean for us
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practically? It means that right now there is
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a glorified human being sitting at the center of the universe,
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governing all of creation. Human nature, which was cursed
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to the dust, is now raining in heaven.
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Hold on, I need to raise a logical question here.
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If Jesus takes on human nature physically and he ascends and
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sits in heaven, how does that actually elevate us down here on
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earth? I see you're saying.
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Like it sounds great for him, he gets the glory, but you and I
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are still down here dealing with the reality of a fallen world.
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We still get sick. We still face the decay of our
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own body. Yeah, life is still hard.
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So how does his physical exaltation in heaven guarantee
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anything for the rest of humanity?
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That is a crucial question, and it requires us to understand the
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concept of federal. Headship A federal hitch, OK.
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Think of Federal Headship like a legal representative model.
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Imagine an ambassador who acts on behalf of an entire nation.
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When the ambassador signs a treaty, the whole nation is
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legally bound by it. OK, that makes sense.
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Or, to use an organic analogy that Owen actually prefers,
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think of the connection between a head and a body.
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Christ is described as the first born of the new creation.
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He is the head of the body. And we are the body.
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Yes. The fundamental logic here is
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that what happens to the head guarantees what happens to the
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members of the body. You cannot sever the head from
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the body. Right, because the Son of God
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assumed human nature into a substantial union with Himself,
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that relation is eternally secure.
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So it's permanent. Completely permanent, the text
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says. Heaven and earth may pass away,
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but there shall never be a dissolution of the union between
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God and our nature anymore. Therefore, our nature's eternal
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habitation in the regions of light is absolutely secured.
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The legal and organic connection means his victory is credited to
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those united to him by faith. So it is the highest possible
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validation of human worth. Even though we feel the
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degradation of the fall down here, our nature is currently
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sitting at the right hand of God.
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Yeah, which provides a massive psychological boost for
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believers. It really does.
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But here is where we hit the friction of daily life, knowing
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our nature is secure in heaven for eternity.
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Sounds phenomenal when you are sitting quietly in a chair
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thinking about theology. Yeah, sure.
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But if you are listening to this on a Tuesday morning while stuck
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in traffic, how does that help you pay the rent tomorrow?
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How does it help you handle the daily stress of living in a
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chaotic world right now? Owen actually addresses that
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exact tension. He lists out the miseries of
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life that everyone faces, sickness, poverty, wars, the
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distress of nation's perplexity, and the overall brevity of human
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existence. Yeah, those haven't changed much
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in 1684. Not at all.
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Owen was writing in a tumultuous 17th century context, where
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plagues and civil wars were recent memories.
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But those categories map perfectly onto our modern
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anxieties. We just have different versions
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of them. Right.
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We still deal with economic instability, international
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conflicts, failing health, and Owen observes the typical human
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tendency. When distress hits, we start
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scrambling for what he calls poor perishing reliefs.
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Poor perishing reliefs. I mean, those perishing reliefs
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look different today, but the impulse is identical.
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What would be a modern example? Today, a perishing relief might
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be doomscrawling on your phone for three hours to numb your
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brain. Oh, absolutely.
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It might be retail therapy or obsessively checking your
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investment portfolio. We become like a troubled sea
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that cannot rest. We fall into despondency.
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We complain. We do.
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We have secret repinings against divine Providence.
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We complain internally that life is unfair when we feel the
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pressure. We try to grout onto anything
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solid, but it is all temporary. And the proposed cure for this
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is a fixed judgement in our minds.
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We must arrive at a settled conclusion that all temporal
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things only reach the outward body.
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They're superficial. Yes, they are transitory.
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The cure for the internal distress is that the mind must
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retreat to the contemplation of Christ's glory.
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OK, so a mental shift. Exactly.
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When the mind is fixed on that eternal reality, it
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recontextualizes the temporary suffering.
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It's a form of cognitive reappraisal.
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You were taking a massive stressor and placing it against
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an infinite backdrop, which shrinks the stressor down to its
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proper minuscule size. I thought of a very relatable
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scenario when I read this part. Imagine you are playing a highly
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competitive game of Monopoly with your friends.
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OK, Monopoly ruins friendships, but go on it really.
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Does. But say you have houses on
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boardwalk, you have Park Place, you are doing great.
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Then suddenly the dice roll against you, you land on someone
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else's properties, you get hit with massive rent, and you lose
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all your paper money. Tragic turn of events.
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Right now, if you convince yourself that the Monopoly game
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is reality, you will panic. Your heart rate will spike.
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You will feel genuine anger. People flip the board.
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Yes, but if you take a step back and remember that you have
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actual cash in a real bank account and a real house, the
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losses in the game suddenly feel trivial.
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You remember it is just cardboard and plastic.
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The distress only happens because you are overvaluing
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temporal things. Overvaluing the game causes the
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canik. That analogy illustrates the
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mechanism perfectly. The anxiety comes from an
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overvaluation of the present circumstances.
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The text uses a fascinating Latin quote to drive this point
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home. Crooks Nil sent it to Narvo Dom
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Animals. Estin, Carlo.
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Another Latin drop. Break that one down for.
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Us this translates to 1 does not feel the pain of the cross when
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his mind is on heavenly things. Wow, yeah.
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When troubles hit, they cast the mind into disorder.
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They let loose passions of fear and sorrow.
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But contemplating heavily things restores A sedate, quiet frame.
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It allows faith to speak to the distempered passions and say
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peace be still, and the ways of anxiety actually obey.
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So you are essentially short circuiting the brain's panic
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response to temporal threats by focusing on an unshakable
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eternal reality. That is the practical
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application, Yeah, if. Fixing the mind on heavenly
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things cures the daily anxieties of life by putting them in their
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proper temporary context. That naturally raises another
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question. OK, what's that?
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Well, it is one thing to have peace when your bank account is
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low or you have a fever, but how does this contemplation hold up
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against the final, most terrifying enemy, the actual
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dissolution of the human body? Wait, so you were telling me
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that if I am diagnosed with a terminal illness, I am just
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supposed to imagine Jesus in heaven and my fear will
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disappear? It sounds too simple, right?
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It sounds incredibly dismissive of real human suffering.
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How did Owen, a man who was actually dying, justify that?
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He justifies it by breaking down the anatomy of dying into
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specific, manageable duties. He doesn't just dismiss the
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terror. He acknowledges that many people
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live their entire lives in bondage to the fear of death.
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That's a universal fear. It is so he outlines 4 specific
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duties that are required if a person wants to encounter death
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cheerfully and constantly. OK, what's the first duty?
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The first duty is resigning the departing soul.
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The soul is parting with all things here below forever.
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It must launch into an invisible world entirely alone.
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Which is a terrifying concept. Completely none of the fences
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can travel with it. Your eyesight, your hearing,
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your touch, they all stay behind.
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The terror of that isolation is captured so well in a quote from
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a Roman emperor mentioned in the text.
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Oh yeah, Hadrian, I think. Yes, the Emperor cries out on
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the approach of death. Oh, poor trembling, wandering
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soul, into what places of darkness and defilement art thou
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going? That's haunting.
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It really is. The soul knows it is leaving,
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but it has no idea what happens next, is completely at the
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disposal of another. It is stepping off a Cliff and
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pitch blackness. And against that terror, Owen
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offers the counter examples of Christ and Stephen.
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Christ resigned his spirit into the hands of his Father.
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He commended his Spirit with absolute resolve.
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And Stephen did something similar.
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Right. Stephen did the same, saying
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Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. This is the last victorious act
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of faith you have to actively commit your departing soul in
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the hands of someone you trust to receive it and keep it.
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So it changes the dynamic from a terrifying freefall into a
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deliberate handoff. That's a brilliant way to phrase
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it, yes. A deliberate handoff.
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The second duty required is a willingness to part with the
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flesh, and the auto makes a brilliant philosophical
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distinction here about human nature.
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He compares humans to angels and beasts.
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This part is fascinating. It is.
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Angels are pure spirit. They have no physical body that
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can die. Beasts have bodies, but their
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souls perish with their bodies. They do not have immortal
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spirits that survive death. But humans are different.
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Right. Humans are uniquely comprised of
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both a physical body and an immortal soul.
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Which means humans are the only creatures in all of creation
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that experience the massive, unnatural convulsion of death.
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The essential parts of human nature are separable.
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The body goes to the dust while the soul continues.
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Exactly. It exists in a separate state.
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Because this union between body and soul is so intimate, there
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is a fixed aversion to dissolution, the text notes.
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The body clasps about the soul, and the soul receives strange
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impressions from its embraces. We do not want to be torn apart.
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No, the soul and body are meant to be together.
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Death is an enemy. So the third duty involves
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resigning the times and seasons of our death.
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We all want to choose when we die.
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The text gives biblical examples.
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Moses wanted to stay alive long enough to cross the Jordan and
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see the good land. Paul hesitated because he
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thought he was needed by the churches.
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And David wanted to finish his work.
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But the text suggests that often this desire to finish our work
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is just a disguised love of life.
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And I have to push back on this. I read this and thought, isn't
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it completely reasonable to want to stay alive to do good work?
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If you are a parent, you want to stay alive to raise your
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children. If you run a charity, you want
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to stay alive to help people. Why does Owen treat that desire
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like a lack of faith? It is a totally natural desire.
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But Oman argues that true peace only comes from total
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resignation to the sovereign will of God.
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Our times are in his hand. OK?
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If God decides that your work on earth is done, clinging to it
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shows a lack of trust in his broader plan.
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You have to believe that God's will is infinitely holy, wise,
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just, and good. That's a tough standard.
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It is, but without this complete resignation of the timeline to
19:33
God, no person can enjoy solid peace in this world.
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If you think your children or your projects cannot survive
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without you, you are overestimating your own
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necessity and underestimating God's provision.
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Ouch. That is a hard pill to swallow,
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but it is essential for facing death without panic.
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Yeah, you have to let go. That makes a lot of sense when
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you frame it as a control issue. We desperately want to keep our
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hands on the steering wheel. Yielding that control is the
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only way to find peace. Right.
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And the fourth duty is preparing for the Ways and Means of death.
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Which is the physical reality of it.
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Yeah, we do not just fear the state of being dead, we fear the
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physical process of dying, the text mentions wasting
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consumptions, burning fevers, swords, fires, tortures.
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A person might be perfectly fine with the concept of heaven, but
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they are terrified of the strong physical pains required to get
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there. To counteract this, Owen
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introduces the concept of the Great refiner.
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The physical body must return to dust to be completely purified
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from all corruption. So the decay is actually a
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process of cleansing. Yes, he argues that we should
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actually desire this dissolution after a long endeavor to mortify
20:41
sin during our lives. The text says the purification
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will never be absolutely perfect until the body is reduced to
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dust. The grave acts as a hiding place
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where the great refiner consumes the corruption so the body can
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later be restored to its pristine glory at the
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resurrection. I thought of a modern parallel
20:59
for this. Think of the body like a
21:00
contaminated building. Maybe it is full of asbestos and
21:03
black. Mold.
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Oh, that's nasty. Right.
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You cannot just clean the surface with some bleach.
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You have to tear the entire structure all the way down to
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the foundation to get the rot out before you can build it up
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fresh and clean again. That's a perfect image.
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The grave is the demolition site.
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Yeah, it's a necessary step before the reconstruction, yeah,
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But the ability to face death with this much confidence, to
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actually resign your soul and embrace the great refiner, that
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is not something a person can just conjure up through sheer
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willpower. No, you can't fake it.
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You cannot just grit your teeth and decide you are not going to
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fear death today. It requires an external
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guarantee. Where does that guarantee?
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Come from the guarantee is rooted in the core biblical text
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of this source material, which is John 17 point 24.
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Let's read that verse. The verse reads, Father, I will
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that they also whom thou has given me, be with me where I am,
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that they may behold my glory. And Owen uses some Old Testament
21:58
imagery to explain this right? He does.
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He is the Old Testament Day of Atonement typology to explain
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the mechanics of this intercession.
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The entire Old Testament sacrificial system was designed
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to point forward to these mechanics.
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Let's break down that imagery, because it is incredibly vivid.
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Under the old Law, the high priest would enter the Holy
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Place on the solemn Day of Atonement, right?
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He would take his hands full of sweet incense from the golden
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table and carry a sensor filled with fire taken from the altar
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of burnt offerings. When he entered through the
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veil, he put the incense on the fire to create a cloud of smoke
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that covered the Ark and the Mercy seat.
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The purpose of that ritual was to present a sweet smelling
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savor to God on behalf of the people.
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It was a physical representation of an appeasing sacrifice.
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OK, so how does Owen connect that to Christ?
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Owen applies this mystical type to the great high priest, Jesus
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Christ. Christ enters the holy place not
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made with hands, which is heaven itself, by His glorious prayer
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in John 17, influenced by the blood of His own sacrifice, He
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fills heaven with a sweet perfume of His continual
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intercession. So the prayer is the incense.
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Yes, the desires he expresses for his church are the reality
23:08
that the ancient incense typed out.
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He is actively applying the benefits of his sacrifice to his
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people right now. And what he specifically asks
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for in that prayer is that believers may behold His glory.
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The text gives us this brilliant analogy of the lodestone, which
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is an old term for a magnet. A magnetic compass.
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Yeah, it says that the hearts of believers are like a compass
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needle touched by a lodestone. Once they are touched by the
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love of Christ, they are completely restless.
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They will always be in motion until they point toward Him and
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behold His glory. They're pulled toward him.
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Yeah, a soul that can be satisfied without seeing that
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glory has not been touched by the magnet.
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It is a fundamental shift in the soul's orientation.
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It raises A fascinating psychological question about the
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motivation behind Christ's prayer, though.
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What's that? Why does he want them to see his
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glory? Is he just showing off?
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Is it an ostentatious display of power?
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That's a fair question. It could sound a bit egotistical
24:05
if you don't understand. It right Owen references the
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story of Joseph in Egypt to answer this.
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When Joseph became the second most powerful man in Egypt, he
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told his brothers to go back and tell his father Jacob about all
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his glory. But Joseph wasn't doing it to
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brag. Exactly.
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He did it because He knew the knowledge of His glory would
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bring immense joy and satisfaction to His grieving
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Father. It is entirely for the benefit
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of the observer. I thought about an analogy for
24:32
this. Think about a parent who works
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incredibly hard for years to build a beautiful, secure home.
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They put all their resources, their sweat, and their money
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into making it perfect. When they finally show it to
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their kids, they aren't bragging to their kids about their
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architectural skills or their bank account.
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No, of course not. They are showing it to them
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because they want the kids to enjoy living in it safely.
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They want the kids to experience the blessing of the home.
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Christ wants believers to see His glory for their own
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blessedness. It is an act of supreme
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generosity. The beholding of the glory is
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the mechanism that gives the believer satisfaction, but this
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introduces a major tension in the argument.
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Let's hear it. If seeing this glory is the
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whole point of our existence and the source of our ultimate
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comfort, how do we actually see it while we are still alive on
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Earth? Right, because we don't have
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physical sight of heaven right now.
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Is it a mystical vision? Do we wait for a specific
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feeling? Do we need to have some sort of
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near death experience to get a glimpse of it?
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That brings us to a massive warning in the text regarding
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the danger of false views and the absolute necessity of faith.
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Owen distinguishes between two distinct ways of beholding this
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glory. Right.
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Faith versus sight, Yeah. In this world we behold it by
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faith, which the apostle Paul describes as seeing darkly in a
25:51
glass. In eternity we will behold it by
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sight through immediate vision. These are two different modes of
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operation. And here is the stern warning
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from the author. No one will ever behold the
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glory of Christ by sight later if they do not behold it by
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faith now. That's a strong statement.
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Very strong people who claim they want to go to heaven to see
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Christ, but who have no faith now are just doting on their own
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imaginations. They're kidding themselves.
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Yeah, they do not actually desire him.
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They just want to avoid a worse condition.
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They want to avoid hell, so they say they want heaven, but they
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have no real desire for the glory of Christ.
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Heaven to them is just a generic place of safety, not a place
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defined by the presence of a specific person.
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Which makes total logical sense. If you do not love the subject
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matter now, why would you want to spend eternity staring at?
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It exactly. Imagine saying you hate playing
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the piano, but your greatest dream is to be locked in a room
26:44
playing the piano forever just because the alternative is being
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thrown in a fire. You'd be miserable.
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You don't love the piano, you just fear the fire.
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But the text also clarifies what we are actually looking at.
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When the disciples saw Christ in the flesh, what did they see?
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Well, the text points out three things they did not see.
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OK, let's go through them. First, they did not see secular
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grandeur. He did not keep a court or live
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like an earthly king with wealth and armies.
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Second, they did not see physical beauty, The text notes
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His visit was marred more than any man.
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There was no physical attractiveness that drew people
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to him. And the third thing.
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And 3rd, they did not see the essential divine nature because
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that is entirely invisible to the human eye.
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So what did they see? John 1.12 says they saw His
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glory as full of grace and truth.
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They saw the glory of His person and His office in the
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administration of grace. They saw His character, His
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Holiness and His mission. Which is a spiritual sight.
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Right. The text points out that in
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every age there are cultural oppositions to this true vision.
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Some people call Christ Ichabod, meaning where is the glory?
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They look at the biblical accounts and see no form or
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comeliness in him. Others mock him by saying Hail
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Master while crucifying him. Owen also calls out those who
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use the sobriety of reason to attack the mysteries of the
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Trinity and the Incarnation. They try to subject divine
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revelation to the limits of human logic.
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Which you just can't do. No.
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The author also offers a sharp critique of relying on physical
28:15
images, pictures, and sensory music to invent a vision of
28:19
heaven. He argues that people do this
28:21
because their souls lack actual internal experience.
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They're substituting external things for internal reality.
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They try to manufacture a feeling of glory using external
28:31
stimuli because they have no real spiritual foretaste of it,
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Owen says. Trying to imagine future
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heavenly things without present spiritual experience is like a
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man looking in a mirror and immediately forgetting what his
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face looks like. The notions just do not stick to
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the mind. They evaporate the moment the
28:48
music stops or you look away from the painting.
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I want to circle back to something you mentioned earlier.
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You asked how this is supposed to work practically.
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Yeah, the application. If we cannot see physical beauty
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and we cannot see the divine nature itself, what exactly or
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what what specifically are we looking at when we use this term
29:07
Faith? It is easy to say just have
29:09
faith, but what is the actual object of that faith?
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Yes, faith can sound so nebulous.
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If I am not looking at a physical picture and I'm not
29:16
waiting for a mystical trance, what am I contemplating in my
29:20
mind? How do I actually do this on a
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Tuesday? Faith looks at the
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administration of grace and truth as revealed in the
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Scriptures. You are looking at His person
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and His office. OK, so it's tied to the text.
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Heavily tied to the text, you're contemplating his condescension,
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his love is taking on a human nature, his sacrifice on the
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cross, and his continual intercession right now.
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It sounds like active work. It is faith is the faculty that
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perceives the reality of these revealed truths and rests upon
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them. It is an active, rigorous
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exercise of the mind and affections upon the truth of the
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Gospel. You read the text, you
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understand the theological reality, and you align your
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affections with that truth. Since we must look through the
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specific lens of faith right now, what are the actual
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tangible benefits of doing so on a daily basis?
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If we put in the mental and spiritual effort to contemplate
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this, what happens to? Us What's the payoff?
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Right, we have established it cures anxiety and prepares us
30:19
for death. But what are the direct outcomes
30:21
of this contemplation? Owen lists 4 very distinct,
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tangible advantages to the constant contemplation of Christ
30:28
by faith. Faith.
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The first outcome is that we are made fit for heaven.
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Fit for heaven? He points out that unrenewed
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people are utterly incapable of enjoying heaven.
30:38
He uses some brilliant analogies here.
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You cannot give a deaf person beautiful music and expect them
30:45
to enjoy it. You cannot show a blind person
30:48
beautiful colors and expect them to be thrilled.
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Their faculties are not suited for the input.
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My favorite analogy from the text is the fish.
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Oh, the fish analogy is so good. If you take a fish from the
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cold, dark bottom of the ocean and put it directly into the
31:02
bright warm beams of the sun, it will not be refreshed.
31:05
It will die almost instantly. Because it's physical nature is
31:08
not suited for that environment. The oxygen in the air is useless
31:12
to its gills. Owen argues that heaven itself
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would not be advantageous to a person who has not been renewed
31:18
by grace. They would hate it.
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So contemplating glory by faith is the process that actually
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changes the soul, making it capable of enjoying the future
31:26
reality. The second tangible outcome is
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that the believer is changed into the same image.
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What does that mean practically? Cohen is essentially saying that
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staring at this glory isn't passive, it's radioactive.
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It actively changes the person looking at it.
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Beholding the object causes a real moral and spiritual change
31:44
in the observer. Wow.
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OK, what's the third? The third outcome is rest and
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satisfaction. By taking the heart away from
31:51
the undue regard of worldly things, the mind is kept in a
31:55
serene spiritual frame. You stop frantically grasping at
31:59
temporal things because your hands are full of eternal
32:02
things. And the fourth outcome is
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everlasting blessedness. This is the final goal, what the
32:07
text calls the beatifical vision the soul drinks from rivers of
32:11
pleasure at his right hand. But Owen is also highly
32:14
realistic about our current spiritual struggles.
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He doesn't sugarcoat it. No, he does not pretend that
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believers walk around in a constant state of ecstatic
32:22
vision floating above the ground.
32:23
Right. He notes that these moments of
32:25
clear vision are quite rare and short.
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He uses a Latin phrase, Rara hora brevis morai.
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Few the hours, short the stay. And he places the blame for this
32:35
rarity squarely on our own sloth and darkness.
32:38
We get distracted. We allow our minds to be
32:40
cluttered with worldly cares and we neglect the active exercise
32:44
of faith. We choose the perishing reliefs
32:47
over the permanent realities. I kept thinking about preparing
32:50
for a massive mountain climb. Preparing for heaven is like
32:54
acclimating to high altitude before climbing a peak like
32:57
Everest. That's a great way to think
32:59
about. It you cannot just take a
33:00
helicopter and be dropped off on the summit, your lungs would
33:03
burst, you would pass out from the lack of oxygen.
33:06
You have to spend weeks at base camp.
33:08
You do rotation climbs to let your body adjust to the thin
33:11
air. Yeah, it's a brutal process.
33:13
Faith acts as the base camp that acclimatizes our spiritual lungs
33:16
to breathe the atmosphere of heaven.
33:19
The rare hours of clear vision are like those practice climbs.
33:22
We get a taste of the thin air and it changes our capacity.
33:26
To push your Everest analogy further, what happens if you
33:29
skip base camp? You get altitude sickness.
33:31
The spiritual equivalent of altitude sickness is trying to
33:34
manufacture a heavenly feeling with loud music or dark rooms
33:39
when you haven't actually done the rigorous work of
33:42
acclimatizing your faith through the scriptures.
33:44
Oh, that's a sharp insight. The practice of beholding Christ
33:48
by faith is the steady acclimatization process.
33:52
It shifts our entire focus from merely, well, simply surviving
33:57
the miseries of this life to actively practicing for the next
34:00
one. It changes the paradigm of the
34:02
Christian life from defensive to offensive preparation.
34:06
This entire discussion really shifts the perspective on why we
34:09
do what we do. Let's summarize the core
34:11
discoveries from this deep dive. Let's do it.
34:14
We have seen that the act of looking at the specific grace
34:17
and truth of Christ through faith is not a dry intellectual
34:21
exercise meant for theology classrooms.
34:24
It is a highly practical discipline.
34:26
It cures the anxiety of daily life by putting temporal
34:29
struggles into their proper perspective.
34:31
It short circuits are panic response.
34:33
It recontextualizes everything. It contextualizes physical
34:36
suffering by showing us the great refiner at work in the
34:38
demolition of our mortal bodies. And it totally defangs the
34:42
horror of the body and soul separating at death, because we
34:45
know our human nature is already secure in the person of Christ
34:47
in heaven. We must also stress that this
34:49
preparation is available right now.
34:51
Right today. You do not need to wait for a
34:54
mystical vision, You do not need elaborate sensory experiences to
34:58
manufacture a feeling of glory. You need the revealed text to
35:02
Scripture, and you need an act of faith that meditates on the
35:05
person and office of the mediator.
35:08
It is rigorous mental and spiritual effort, but the payoff
35:12
is absolute peace in the face of our greatest enemy.
35:15
It really is, which leaves us with a lingering thought to chew
35:18
on. If you are listening to this
35:20
right now, think back to the fish pulled from the cold, dark
35:23
ocean. What if the things you find most
35:26
beautiful, restful, or satisfying in this physical
35:28
world are nothing but the absolute faintest shadows of the
35:32
reality you are actually designed to crave?
35:34
That's a massive thought. If taking the fish out of the
35:36
dark ocean into the sun destroys the fish because it's nature is
35:40
wrong, what changes need to happen in your affections before
35:43
you can step into the uncreated light without being consumed by
35:46
it? It forces us to ask whether we
35:48
are truly allowing faith to conform our nature to the
35:51
reality of heaven, or if we are just hoping to bring our ocean
35:54
dwelling habits into the sun. It is a question that requires
35:57
serious self reflection. The trip is coming for all of
36:00
us. The moving truck will eventually
36:02
pull into the driveway. We will all have to leave the
36:04
cardboard boxes and Monopoly money behind.
36:07
The only question is whether we have spent our time packing for
36:09
a temporary vacation or climatizing our lungs for the
36:13
summit. Thank you for joining us on
36:14
Reformed Thinking for this custom deep dive into the source
36:17
material. Keep examining these truths,
36:19
keep exercising that faith, and we will catch you next time.