Think Greatly of God

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. JOB 42:5–6

In the middle of a practical manual on fighting sin, Owen does something unexpected. He stops giving tactics and asks his reader to think about God. Not about God’s law, or God’s judgement, though he has spoken of those; about God Himself, His majesty, His greatness, and how little even the best of us know of Him. The chapter is one of the finest in the book, and it is easy to wonder at first why it is there at all.

The reason is simple and profound. Sin thrives on a small God. A heart that thinks of God as manageable, familiar and near to its own size will find its temptations large by comparison. A heart that is filled with the greatness of God will find them shrinking. Owen puts his direction in six words: “Think greatly of the greatness of God.”

The distance between

His first counsel is to dwell on the excellency of God’s majesty and our infinite distance from Him. When Job at last saw God, he abhorred himself. When Habakkuk heard the Lord, his belly trembled. The Scriptures compare the inhabitants of the earth to grasshoppers, to the small dust of the balance, to vanity. Owen says that such thoughts strike deep at the root of sin, because they humble the pride on which sin feeds, and there is no frame of heart less easily deceived than a humble one.

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. ISAIAH 40:22

His second counsel is more surprising: think much of how little you know of God. It might seem an odd thing for the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford to press on a congregation of students, but Owen meant it with all his heart. Even Moses, who spoke with God as a friend, was shown only His back parts. God proclaimed His name, the Lord merciful and gracious, and even that glorious revelation was, compared to the fulness of His glory, only a glimpse.

And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. EXODUS 33:23

Through a glass, darkly

Someone will object, Owen says, that this was true under the law, when God hid Himself in clouds and shadows, but that now, with Christ come and the gospel shining, we see His face. Owen grants a great deal of this. The difference between our knowledge of God and that of the saints before Christ is almost beyond measure; the sun has risen and the shadows are gone. And yet Paul, who saw more than any of us, said that he saw through a glass, darkly, and knew only in part.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:12

Owen draws out the picture. It is not a telescope that brings far things near; it is an old mirror, giving only dim images. Our best thoughts of God are like a child’s notions of the world, which the grown man remembers with a smile. “We lisp and babble, and say we know not what, for the most part, in our most accurate, as we think, conceptions and notions of God.” The Queen of Sheba heard great reports of Solomon, and when she saw him she said the half had not been told her. So, Owen says, when we come into God’s presence we shall confess that we never knew Him as He is.

Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. 1 TIMOTHY 6:16

He goes on to show why this must be so. God has described Himself largely by what He is not: invisible, immortal, infinite. We can repeat the words, but we cannot comprehend the things. To form an image of God’s being in our minds and suppose we have grasped it would be to make an idol as surely as if we carved one from wood. And all that we do know, we know by faith, which rests on His testimony and not on sight.

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. HEBREWS 11:6

Not less than we need

Owen is careful not to let this humility become an excuse. We know little of God, he says, but we know enough. The honest truth is that “we all of us know enough of him to love him more than we do,” to trust Him, serve Him and obey Him far beyond anything we have yet attained. Our darkness is no plea for our disobedience. If we had used well what light we had, we might have been trusted with more.

And he adds something that every Christian who is not a scholar should treasure. The difference between a believer and an unbeliever lies less in how much they know than in how they know it. An unbeliever may know and say more about God than many Christians. “The excellency of a believer is, not that he hath a large apprehension of things, but that what he doth apprehend, which perhaps may be very little, he sees it in the light of the Spirit of God.” The humble reader who knows little theology but knows God truly through Christ has what the learned sceptic lacks.

Awe as a guard

Why does all this belong in a book about mortification? Owen answers at the close of the chapter. A soul kept in reverent awe of God’s greatness and presence will be watchful over itself. It will find the ground hostile to the growth of any lust. Our God is a consuming fire.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire. HEBREWS 12:28–29

Owen is aware of a danger here, and he names it. He wants this awe to be consistent with the child-like boldness that is given us in Christ to come to the throne of grace. It is not the fear of a slave before a tyrant. It is the reverence of a child before a Father whose greatness he will spend eternity discovering. A Christian who has lost that reverence has lost something vital; a Christian who has lost the boldness has lost something vital too. The gospel holds both.

This may be the most neglected of all Owen’s counsels. We live in an age that speaks easily of God, often cheerfully and familiarly, and seldom with trembling. It would do most of us good to take his advice literally: to set aside time not to ask God for anything, nor to examine ourselves, but simply to think about Him, until our sins look as small and as ugly as they are.

Be still, and know that I am God. PSALM 46:10

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Set aside fifteen minutes this week to read Isaiah 40:12–31 slowly, and then sit in silence before God without asking Him for anything.

2. Notice how you speak of God in ordinary conversation. Is there any reverence in it? Ask Him for a truer sense of His greatness.

3. Owen says we all know enough of God to love Him more than we do. Name one thing you know about Him that you have not yet acted on, and act on it.

4. If you have felt that you know too little theology to walk closely with God, take comfort from Owen’s words about the believer who sees little but sees it in the Spirit’s light.

A PRAYER

Great and holy God, You dwell in light that no one can approach, and I have treated You as if You were small.

Forgive the pride that has made room for my sins, and the careless familiarity with which I have spoken of You.

Show me enough of Your glory to humble me, and enough of Your grace in Christ to draw me near with the boldness of a child.

Keep me in reverent awe all my days, until I see You face to face and know even as I am known. Amen.