John Owen · 35 of 73

Chapter VII. The mediation of Christ. · Part 2

2dly. We are said to do together with Christ those things which he doth for us in his own person, and that upon the account of that benefit which by those his personal performances doth redound unto us, and which being done, the quarrel about sin, as to make an utter separation between God and our souls, is certainly removed. Thus we are said to die with him, to be raised again with him, and with him we enter into the holy place, this whole business about sin being passed through, for he that is dead is justified from sin. Now, all this being done by us and for us, in and by our Head, can we henceforth die any more? shall death any more have dominion over us? This the apostle argues, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15: “We judge,” saith he, “that if one died for all, then were all” (that is, all those for whom he died) “dead,” or died likewise; they were dead in and with him, their sponsor, as to the curse due for sin, that henceforth they might “live to him which died for them.”

3dly. The compact or agreement that was between the Father and the Son as mediator, about the business of our redemption in his blood, manifests this truth. The Father required at his hands that he should do his will, fulfil his pleasure and counsel, make his soul an offering for sin, and do that which the sacrifices of bulls and goats shadowed out, but could never effect; upon the performance whereof he was to “see his seed,” and to “bring many sons to glory.” A covenanting and agreement into an uncertain issue and event (as that must be of God and the Mediator, if the salvation of the persons concerning which and whom it was be not infallibly certain) ought not, at any cheap rate or pretence, to be assigned to infinite wisdom. In the accomplishment of this undertaking, whereunto Christ was designed, the Father dealt with him in strict and rigid justice; there was neither composition about the debt, nor commutation about the punishment that he had taken upon himself. Now, doth not exact justice require that the ransom being given in, the prisoners be delivered? that the debt being paid, the bond be cancelled as to any power of imprisoning the original debtor? that punishment being undergone and the law fulfilled, the offender go free? Especially, all this being covenanted for in the first undertaking, doubtless wrath shall not arise a second time. The right knowledge, use, and improvement, of this grace being given, bounded, and directed, by the gospel, it is safeguarded from abuse by that which God calls his own wisdom.

4thly. It appears from what God bestows upon his elect, upon the account of the undertaking of Christ for them, in the pursuit of the eternal purpose of his will, antecedently to any thing whatsoever in them that should engage him to do them the least good. When God comes as a friend, to hold out unto and bestow good things upon men, — I mean, good in that kind of mercy which is peculiarly suited to the bringing of them to the enjoyment of himself, — it is evident that he hath put an end to all enmity and quarrel between him and them. Now, antecedently unto any thing in men, God, for Christ’s sake, bestows, with the greatest act of friendship imaginable, no less than the Holy Spirit on them. By him they are quickened; and their faith is but a fruit of that Spirit bestowed on them. If they have not any sufficiency in themselves, as much as to think a good thought, nor can do any thing that is acceptable to God, being by nature dead in trespasses and sins, which at present (the Scripture affirming it) I take for granted, then assuredly God doth give his Holy Spirit to the saints, whereby he “works in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure,” antecedently to any good thing in them that is well-pleasing unto him. Every thing that men do must either be brought forth by the strength and ability of their own natural faculties, assisted and provoked by motives and persuasions from without, or it must be the operation of the Spirit of God. There is not another principle to be fixed on. The first (at present I take it for granted) is not the fountain of any spiritual acting whatsoever, neither can any gracious act be educed radically from the corrupt natural faculty, however assisted or advantaged. It must be the Spirit, then, that is the sole principal cause and author of all the movings of our souls towards God that are acceptable to him in Christ. Now, the cause is certainly before the effect; and the Spirit, in order of nature, is bestowed upon us antecedently to all the grace which he worketh in us. Whether the Spirit be bestowed on men on the account of Christ’s undertaking for them none can question but they must withal deny him to be the mediator of the new covenant. The Spirit of grace is the principal promise thereof, Isa. lix. 20, 21. “We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ,” Eph. i. 3. Surely the Holy Spirit himself, so often promised to us of God, is a spiritual blessing. God’s bestowing faith on us is antecedent to our believing, and this also is given upon the account of Christ: Phil. i. 29, “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ to believe on him.” If, then, God, for Christ’s sake, antecedently to any thing that is good, that is not enmity to him, that is not iniquity in men, do bestow on them all that ever is good in them, as to the root and principle of it, surely his quarrel against their sins is put to an issue. Hence Christ being said to “make reconciliation for the sins of the people,” Heb. ii. 17, God, as one pacified and atoned thereupon, is said to be “in him reconciling the world unto himself,” 2 Cor. v. 19; and in the dispensation of the gospel he is still set forth as one carrying on that peace whose foundation is laid in the blood of his Son, by the atonement of his justice; and we are said to accept or “receive the atonement,” Rom. v. 11. We receive it by faith, it being accepted by him. Thus this death and oblation is said to be a “sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour,” Eph. v. 2, — that wherein God is abundantly delighted, and wherewith his soul is fully satisfied; so that as when he smelled a sweet savour from the sacrifice of Noah, he sware he would curse the earth no more, smelling this sweet savour of the oblation of Christ on the account of them for whom it was offered, he will not execute the curse on them whereof they were guilty. I might also insist on those testimonies, for the farther proof of the former assertion, where an immediate efficacy for the taking away of sin is ascribed to the death of Christ; but what hath been spoken may at present suffice.

The premises considered, some light may be brought forth to discover the various mistakes of men about the effects of the death of Christ as to the taking away of sin, if that were now the matter before us. Some having truly fixed their thoughts on the efficacy of the death of Christ for abolition of sin, do give their lusts and darkness leave to make wretched inferences thereupon; as that, “Because we are so completely justified and accepted before and without our believing, or the consideration of any thing whatever in us, therefore sin is nothing, nor at all to be accounted of.” And though they say we must not sin that grace may abound, yet too many, by woful experience, have discovered what such corrupt conclusions have tended unto. Others, again, fixing themselves on the necessity of obedience, and the concurrence of actual faith to the completing of justification in the soul of the sinner, with a no less dangerous reflection upon the truth, do suspend the efficacy of the death of Christ upon our believing, “which gives life, and vigour, and virtue unto it,” as they say, “and is the sole originally discriminating cause of all the benefits we receive thereby. Without the antecedent accomplishment of that condition in us, or our actual believing, it is not,” say they, “nor will be, useful.” Yea, that “the intention of God is to bestow upon us the fruits and effects of the death of Christ, upon condition we do believe; which that we shall is no part of his purchase, and which we can of ourselves perform,” say some of them, others not. Doubtless, these things are not, being rightly stated, in the least inconsistent. Christ may have his due, and we [may be] bound to the performance of our duty; which might be cleared by an enlargement of the ensuing considerations:—

(1.) That all good things whatsoever that are spiritual, that are wrought either for men or in them, are fruits of the death of Christ. They have nothing of themselves but nakedness, blood, and sin, guilt and impenitency; so that it is of indispensable necessity that God should show them favour antecedently to any act of their believing on him. Faith is given for Christ’s sake, as was observed.

(2.) That all the effects and fruits of the death of Christ, antecedent to our believing, are deposited in the hand of the righteousness and faithfulness of God, to whom as a ransom it was paid, as an atonement it was offered, before whom as a price and purchase it was laid down. It is all left in the hands of God’s faithfulness, righteousness, mercy, and grace, to be made out effectually to them for whom he died, in the appointed time or season. So that, —

(3.) The state or condition of those for whom Christ died is not actually and really changed by his death in itself, but they lie under the curse whilst they are in the state of nature, unregenerate, and all effects of sin whatever. That which is procured for them is left in the hand of the Father; they are not in the least intrusted with it until the appointed time do come.

(4.) That faith and belief are necessary, not to add any thing to complete the procurement of forgiveness of sins, any or all, but only to the actual receiving of it, when, upon the account of the death of Christ, it pleaseth God, in the promise of the gospel, to hold it out and impart it unto the soul, thereby completing covenant-justification.

And thus the whole business of salvation may be resolved into the mediation of Christ, and yet men carried on under an orderly dispensation of law and gospel into the enjoyment of it. Of the whole, these degrees are considerable:—

(1.) God’s eternal purpose of saving some in and by the mediation of Christ, that mediation of Christ being interposed between the purpose of God and the accomplishment of the thing purposed, as the fruit and effect of the one, the meritorious procuring cause of the other. This act of the will of God the Scripture knows by no other name than that of “election,” or “predestination,” or “the purpose of God according to election,” or “the purpose of his will in Jesus Christ;” which though it comprise his will of not punishing them in their own persons that are within the verge of this his purpose, yet it is not properly an act of forgiveness of sin, nor are they pardoned by it, nor is the law actually innovated or its obligation on them unto punishment dissolved, nor themselves justified in any sense thereby.

(2.) That interposition of the Lord Christ whereof we have been treating being a medium indispensably necessary as to satisfaction, and freely designed by the will and wisdom of God for such a procurement of the good things designed in his eternal counsel as might advance the glory of his grace and make known his righteousness also; and this being fixed on by God as the only thing by him required that all the mercies, all the grace of his eternal purpose, might be dispensed in the order by him designed unto them; upon the performance of it God resteth as well pleased, and they for whom he hath mediated by his blood, or for whom he is considered so to have done, are reconciled unto God, as to’ that part of reconciliation which respects the love of God, as to the dispensing the fruits of it unto them even whilst they are enemies, upon the accounts before mentioned.

(3.) Things being thus stated between God and them for whom Christ died, on the account of his death God actually absolves them from under that sentence and curse of the law, by sending the Spirit of his Son into their hearts, to quicken them and to implant faith in them. And in what act of God to place his actual absolution of sinners, ungodly persons, whom Christ died for, but in this actual collation of the Spirit and habit of grace on them, I am not as yet satisfied. Neither doth this in any measure confound our justification and sanctification; for nothing hinders but that the same act, as it is of free grace in opposition to works or any thing in us, may justify us, or exert the fruit of his love, which was before purchased by Christ, in our gracious acceptation, notwithstanding all that was against us, and also, by principling us with grace for obedience, sanctify us throughout.

(4.) This being done, they with whom God thus graciously deals “receive the atonement,” and, “being justified by faith, have peace with God.” But this is not the matter or subject of our present contest.

This, then, is the first influence which the blood-shedding in the death and oblation of Christ hath into the saints’ continuance of the love and favour of God: It taketh away the guilt of sin, that it shall not be such a provocation to the eyes of his glory (his law being fulfilled and justice satisfied) as to cause him utterly to turn away his love from them; and they becoming “the righteousness of God in him,” to all intents and purposes, what should separate them from the love of God? He hath made peace in the blood of the cross of his Son, and will not engage in enmity against his elect any more to eternity; but, in his own way and own time (as he hath the sovereignty of all in his hands), he will bring them infallibly to the enjoyment of himself. And thus much, by this discourse about the effects of the death of Christ, have we clearly obtained: What Christ aims to accomplish by his death, and what was the design and intention of the Father that he should accomplish, that cannot fail of its issue and appointed event by any interposure whatever. That the effectual removal of every thing that might intercept, hinder, or turn aside, the love and favour of God from them for whom he died, is the designed effect of the death of Christ, hath been demonstrated. This, then, in the order wherein it hath seemed good to the infinite wisdom of God to proceed in dispensing his grace unto sinners, shall certainly be fulfilled, and all believers saved to the utmost.

2. I come, in the second place, to demonstrate that our Saviour secures the stability of the love of the saints to God and their abiding with him, by taking away and removing whatever might hinder them herein, or prevail upon them utterly and wickedly to depart from him. That which meritoriously might cause God to turn from us he utterly destroys and abolishes; and that which efficiently might cause us to turn from God, that also he destroys and removes. Now, all that is of this kind, that works effectually and powerfully for the alienating of the hearts of believers from God, or keeping men in a state of alienation from him, may be referred unto two principles: (1.) Satan himself; (2.) His works. The world, as under the curse, is an instrument in his hand, who is called the god thereof, to allure, vex, and mischief us withal; neither hath it the least power or efficacy in itself, but only as it is managed in the hand of Satan to turn men from God. And yet the Lord Christ hath not let that go free neither without its death’s wound, but bids his followers “be of good cheer, for he had overcome the world,” — that is, for them, and in their stead, — so that it should never be used nor heightened in its enmity to a conquest over them; I mean a total and final conquest, such as might frustrate any intention of God in his undertaking for them. It is not our loss of a little blood, but our loss of life, that makes the enemy a conqueror. But now for Satan:—

(1.) He overcomes, destroys, and breaks him in pieces, with his power: Heb. ii. 14, “Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” The first thing that was promised of him was, that he should “break the head of the serpent,” Gen. iii. 15, He doth it also in and for “the seed of the woman,” — all the elect of God, opposed to the seed of the serpent or generation of vipers. In pursuit hereof he “spoils principalities and powers, and makes a show of them openly, triumphing over them in his cross,” Col. ii. 15. In the blood of his cross he conquered, and brake the power of the devil, “binding that strong man armed, and spoiling his goods,” making a show of him and them, as great conquerors were wont to do with their captives and their spoils.

Now, there are two ways whereby the blood of Christ thus brake the power of Satan, that he shall not lead those always captive at his pleasure, nor rule in them, as children of disobedience, in the behalf of whom his power was so broken:—

[1.] He subdues him by taking away all that right and title which he had by sin to rule over them: I speak of the elect of God. By the entrance of sin, the devil entered upon a twofold rule in reference to sinners:— 1st. A rule over them with the terror and dread of death and hell They are in bondage by reason of death all their days, Heb. ii. 14, 15; and the devil hath the power of that death upon the world whereunto they are in bondage. The death that is in the curse is put into his hand to manage it, to the dread and terror of sinners; and by it he bath always kept many, and to this day doth keep innumerable souls in unexpressible bondage, putting them upon barbarous inhumanities to make atonement for their sins, and forcing some to inflict revenge and destruction upon themselves, thinking to prevent, but really hastening, that which they fear. As of old this power of his lay at the bottom of all the abominations wherewith men provoked God when they thought to atone him, as by burning their children in the fire, and the like, Micah vi. 6, 7, so at present is it the principle of all that superstitious will-worship and religious drudgery which is spread over the antichristian world. Yea, the inventions of men ignorant of the righteousness of God, and convinced of their own insufficiency to perform, work out, and establish, a righteousness of their own, that shall perfectly answer the exact, holy demands of the law, as far as to them is discovered, to deliver themselves from under this dread of death, wherewith he that hath the power of it terrifies them all their days, are indeed the foundation and spring, the sum and substance, of all religions in the world, and the darling of all religious persons, in and with whom Christ is not all and in all. And herein have the Papists gone one notable step beyond all their predecessors in superstition and devotion; for whereas they universally contented themselves with sacrifices, purifications, purgations, lustrations, satisfactions, recompenses, to be in this life performed, these latter, — more refined, sublimated, mercurial wits, — observing that nothing they could here invent would settle and charm the spirits of men haunted with the dread of death we speak of, but that instantly they came again, with the same disquietness as formerly, and renewed mention of sin, upon the insufficiency of the atonement fixed on for its expiation, they found out that noble expedient of the future purgatory, which might maintain the souls of men in some hopes in this life, and secure themselves from the cries and complaints of men against the insufficiency of their remedy which they do prescribe. 2dly. As he rules over men by death, and hell that follows after, so also he rules in men by sin: he “ruleth in the children of disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2. And to this end, to secure men to himself, — he being that strong man armed who hath the first possession, and labours to keep what he hath got in peace, — he sets up strongholds, imaginations, and high things, against God, 2 Cor. iv. 4. Now, this twofold power of Satan, over men and in mere, doth both arise from sin, whereby men are first cast out of God’s love and care, becoming obnoxious to death, and, secondly, are alienated from God in willing subjection to his enemy. And both these parts and branches of his dominion are, in reference unto the elect, east down and destroyed, and taken away; for, first, Christ by his death cashiers the title and claim that Satan laid to the exercise of any such power, in reference unto the elect. When men cast down any from rule, they may interrupt and put by their exercise of any power, but they cannot take away their title unless it be of their own giving. Christ by his death takes away the very bottom, foundation, and occasion, of the whole power of Satan. All the power of Satan in the first sense consists in death, and those things that either conduce to it or do attend it. Blow, death entered by sin, and therewithal the power of Satan. The Lord Jesus taking away sin and putting an end thereunto, as was manifested, the whole title of Satan falls and comes to nothing, Heb. ii. 9–15. And this was really done in the cross, its manifestation by the gospel ensuing thereupon, according to the appointment of God, Col. ii. 15; Titus i. 3.

[2.] He takes away the exercise of his power, and that to the utmost: for he binds him with bonds, — he binds the strong man armed, Matt. xii. 29; and he breaks his head, Gen. iii. 15; then leads him captive, Ps. lxviii. 18; triumphs over him, Col. ii. 15; treads him down under the feet of his, Rom. xvi. 20, as the kings of Canaan were trod down under the feet of the children of Israel; then destroys him, Heb. ii. 14. What exercise of power is left to a conquered, bound, wounded, captived, triumphed-over, trodden-down, destroyed caitiff?

Think ye this wretch shall ever wholly prevail against any one of them for whose sake all this was done to him? Neither can this with any colour of reason be said to be done for them, or with respect unto them, towards whom the power of Satan remains entire all their days, whom he leads captive and rules over at his pleasure, until death takes full dominion over them.

(2.) As he destroys Satan, so he doth his works: “For this cause was he manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,” 1 John iii. 8. He doth not only bind the strong man armed, but also he spoils his goods, Matt. xii. 29. Whatsoever is in men that follows from that corrupted principle of nature is reckoned to the work of Satan, being the issue of his seduction. Whatsoever his temptations draw men out unto, the Lord Christ came to destroy it all, to make an end of it; and he will not fail of his end, but certainly carry on his undertaking, until he hath utterly destroyed all those works of Satan in the hearts of all that are his. He “redeems us from our vain conversation,” 2 Pet. i. 18, 19, — from the power of our lusts and corruptions, leading us out to a vain conversation. The apostle tells us, Rom. vi. 6, that by his death the “old man is crucified,” and the “body of sin destroyed.” The craft of sin, the old man, and the strength of sin, the body of it, — or the ruling of original sin, the old man, and the full fruit of actual sin in the body of it, — are by the death of Christ crucified and destroyed. And in that whole chapter, from our participation in the death of Christ, he argues to such an abolition of the law and rule of sin, to such a breaking of the power and strength of it, that it is impossible that it should any more rule in us or have dominion over us. Of the way whereby virtue flows out from the death of Christ for the killing of sin I am not now to speak.

And this is the first way whereby the death of Christ hath an influence into the safeguarding of believers in their continuance in the love and favour of God: He so takes away the guilt of sin that it shall never be able utterly to turn the love of God from them; and so takes away the rule of Satan and power of sin, destroying the one and killing the other, that they shall never be able to turn them wholly from God.

II. Farther to secure their continuance with God, he procureth the Holy Spirit for them, as was showed before. But because, much weight lies upon this part of our foundation, I shall a little farther clear it up. That the Spirit of grace and adoption, with all those spiritual mercies and operations wherewith he is attended and accompanied, is a promise of the new covenant, doubtless is by its own evidence put out of question. There is scarce any promise thereof wherein he is not either clearly expressed or evidently included; yea, and oftentimes the whole covenant is stated in that one promise of the Spirit, the actual collation and bestowing of all the mercy thereof being his proper work and peculiar dispensation for the carrying on the great design of the salvation of sinners. So Isa. lix. 21, “As for me,” saith God, “this is my covenant with them; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth,” etc.; — “This is my covenant,” saith God, “or what in my covenant I do faithfully engage to bestow upon you.” But of this text and its vindication more afterward. Many other places, not only pregnant of proof to the same purpose, but expressly in terms affirming it, might be insisted on.

Now, that this Spirit, promised in the covenant of grace, as to the bestowing of him on the elect of God, or those for whom Christ died, is of his purchasing and procurement in his death, is apparent:—

1. Because he is the mediator of the covenant, by whose hands and for whose sake all the mercies of it are made out to them who are admitted into the bond thereof. Though men are not completely stated in the covenant before their own believing, which brings in what on their part is stipulated, yet the covenant and grace of it lays hold of them before, even to bestow faith on them, or they would never believe; for faith is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. God certainly bestows no such gifts but from a covenant. Spiritual graces are not administered solely in a providential dispensation. Faith for the receiving the pardon of sin is no gift nor product of the covenant of works. Now, as in general the mercies of the covenant are procured by the mediator of it, so this whereof we speak in an especial manner: Heb. ix. 15, “For this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” By his death, they for whom he died, and who thereupon are called, being delivered from their sins, which were against the covenant of works, receive the promise or pledge of an eternal inheritance. What this great promise here intended is, and wherein it doth consist, the Holy Ghost declares, Acts ii. 33. The promise which Jesus Christ received of the Father, upon his exaltation, was that of the Holy Ghost, having purchased and procured the bestowing of him by his death. Upon his exaltation, the dispensation thereof is committed to him, as being part of the compact and covenant which was between his Father and himself, the grand bottom of his satisfaction and merit. This is the great, original, radical promise of that eternal inheritance. By the promised Spirit are we begotten anew unto a hope thereof, made meet for it, and sealed up unto it: yea, do but look upon the Spirit as promised, and ye may conclude him purchased; “for all the promises of God are yea and amen in Jesus Christ,” 2 Cor. i. 20. They all have their confirmation, establishment, and accomplishment in, by, and for Jesus Christ. And if it be granted that any designed, appointed mercy whatever, that, in Christ, the Lord blesseth us withal, be procured for us by him in the way of merit (being given freely to us through him, but reckoned to him of debt), it will easily be manifested that the same is the condition of every mercy whatever promised unto us, and given us upon his mediatory interposition.