Communion with Father, Son and Spirit

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. 2 CORINTHIANS 13:14

In the preface to The Mortification of Sin, Owen admitted that he owed some friends a book on communion with God, and offered them the smaller work as interest on the debt. The following year, 1657, he paid it. Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is, for many who love Owen, the warmest thing he ever wrote. If The Mortification of Sin shows the surgeon, this book shows the lover. And it explains why the surgery is worth enduring.

What communion is

Owen defines communion as a mutual giving and receiving between God and His people, grounded in their union with Christ. God gives Himself to us, and we return ourselves to Him in faith and love. It is not a feeling that comes and goes, though it has feelings in it. It is a real relationship, with things given and things returned on both sides.

His great and distinctive claim is that believers have this communion with each Person of the Trinity distinctly. He does not mean that the Father, Son and Spirit can be separated, or that one acts without the others; Owen was an orthodox theologian and insisted that all three are at work in everything God does. But Scripture ascribes particular things to each Person, and the believer is invited to know and enjoy each of them in His own way. Owen built the whole book on Paul’s benediction: the love of God the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the communion of the Holy Spirit.

If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. JOHN 14:23

The Father in love

The Father’s particular gift, Owen says, is love. And here he makes an observation that has set many Christians free. A great many believers, he notices, think of the Father as stern and reluctant, and of the Son as the kind one who persuades Him to be merciful. Owen says this is exactly backwards. The Son came to reveal the Father’s love, not to create it. The Father’s love is the fountain from which all the rest flows. Jesus Himself told His disciples that He would not need to plead with the Father on their behalf, because the Father Himself loved them.

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me. JOHN 16:26–27

What is the believer’s part in this communion? Owen says it is, first, to receive the Father’s love: to believe it, to rest in it, to let it be what it is. And then to return it, with a love of delight and reverence. He urges his readers to dwell on the Father’s love until it melts them. Many Christians, he says, walk in fear of the Father for years when they might have been enjoying Him. The remedy is to go to Him directly as the One who loved them first.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 JOHN 4:10

The Son in grace

With the Son, the believer’s communion is in grace. Owen divides this into two parts.

There is, first, the personal grace of Christ: His beauty, His fitness to be our Saviour as God and man in one Person, His fulness, His excellence. Owen lingers here, and draws on the Song of Solomon, which he reads, as many Christians before him had done, as a picture of the love between Christ and His people. He describes Christ as the Bridegroom who delights in His bride, and the believer as one who learns to delight in Him in return. Modern readers may find this use of the Song unfamiliar, and some interpreters read the book differently; but Owen’s point does not depend on it. The New Testament itself speaks of Christ as the Bridegroom, and the believer’s relation to Him is one of love, not only of duty.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. JOHN 1:14

There is, second, the purchased grace of Christ: all that He won for His people by His life, death and intercession. Owen gathers it under three headings. There is acceptance with God, the free forgiveness and righteousness that are ours in Christ. There is holiness, the new life He gives by His Spirit. And there is adoption, the privilege of being received into God’s family as sons and daughters. The believer has communion with Christ in all these, by receiving them from Him with thankfulness and giving himself back to Him.

The Spirit in comfort

With the Holy Spirit, Owen says, the believer’s communion is in comfort, or consolation. Christ promised His disciples another Comforter who would abide with them for ever. Owen draws out what the Spirit does as Comforter: He brings to remembrance the words of Christ; He glorifies Christ; He sheds abroad the love of God in the heart; He bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; He seals us; He is the earnest, or down payment, of our inheritance; He anoints us to understand.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. JOHN 14:16

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. ROMANS 8:16

The believer’s part, Owen says, is to receive these gifts with gratitude, to pray for them, and to take care not to grieve, quench or resist the Spirit who gives them. Here the two books meet. The sin that The Mortification of Sin teaches us to kill is the very thing that grieves the Comforter and clouds our communion with Him.

Why this belongs at the centre

Owen believed that most Christians live far below their privileges. They know about the Trinity as a doctrine but have little conscious fellowship with the Father, the Son and the Spirit. They serve God but do not enjoy Him. This book was written to change that, and it still can.

It also corrects a false impression of Owen. He is often remembered as a severe writer about sin, and he was. But his severity served his joy. He wanted his readers to kill sin because sin robbed them of fellowship with a God who loved them, a Saviour who delighted in them, and a Spirit who longed to comfort them. The Mortification of Sin is the surgery; Communion with God is the health it restores.

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 1 PETER 1:8

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask yourself honestly how you picture God the Father. If you picture Him as stern while Christ is kind, read John 16:26–27 and 1 John 4:9–10, and let them correct you.

2. This week, give one period of prayer to each Person of the Trinity in turn: thank the Father for His love, the Son for His grace, the Spirit for His comfort.

3. Make a list of the things Christ has purchased for you: forgiveness, righteousness, new life, adoption. Thank Him for each one by name.

4. Consider whether any sin in your life is grieving the Spirit and clouding your communion with God. Bring it to Him.

A PRAYER

Father, I have too often thought of You as distant and severe. Thank You that You Yourself love me, and that Your love is the fountain of everything Christ has done.

Lord Jesus, You are full of grace and truth. Let me see Your beauty, receive Your gifts, and give myself back to You in love.

Holy Spirit, Comforter, bear witness with my spirit that I am a child of God, and forgive me for the ways I have grieved You.

Draw me into real fellowship with You, Father, Son and Spirit, and let me enjoy You as well as serve You. Amen.