May
29
John Owen and Pentecost
Filed Under Books, Holy Spirit, John Owen
This past Lord’s Day was Pentecost Sunday, the occasion of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of the promise of Joel 2:28-32 (“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…”). In the Old Testament Pentecost was a feast that celebrated the first fruits of the year’s harvest (Exodus 23:16; Numbers 28:26). In the New Testament, the fulfillment appears, and the long-expected Day of the Lord has arrived: the powers of the age to come are released; the harvest of the world begins to come in. Christ—crucified, risen and ascended—pours out the Spirit in unrestrained measure and without geographical or ethnic limitation. The gospel promise “is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39).
John Owen wrote Pneumatalogia, or A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit in 1674. It
is a massive work occupying 650 pages in the Banner of Truth edition of Owen’s works (volume 3). Volume 4 contains a number of other works by Owen on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Banner of Truth Trust has also released an abridged and modernized version, edited by R.J.K. Law, in their ‘Puritan Paperback Series’ entitled The Holy Spirit, to make Owen’s monumental work a bit more accessible to contemporary readers. The Sweet Dropper, who has read and outlined the entirety of the originals in volumes 3 and 4, highly recommends the paperback.
Here is a good taste of the abridged version, which I read during Evening Worship:
The great privilege prophesied of the gospel age, which would make the New Testament church more glorious than that of the Old, was the wonderful pouring out of the promised Holy Spirit on all believers. This was the good wine which was kept to the last (Isa. 35:7; 44:3; Joel 2:28; Ezek. 11:19; 36:27).
The ministry of the gospel by which we are born again is called the ministry of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8). The promise of the Holy Spirit under the gospel is to all believers and not just to a special few (Rom. 8:9; John 14:16; Matt.28:20). We are taught to pray that God would give us his Holy Spirit, so that with his help we may live to God in the holy obedience he requires (Luke 11:9-13; Matt. 7;11; Eph. 1:17; 3:16; Col. 2:2; Rom. 8:26). The Holy Spirit was solemnly promised by Jesus Christ when he was about to leave the world (John 14:15-17; Heb. 9:15-17; 2 Cor. 1:22; John 14:27; 16:13). So the Holy Spirit is promised and given as the only cause of all the good that in this world we can partake of.
There is no good that we receive from God but it is brought to us and wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. Nor is there in us any good towards God, any faith, love, obedience to his will, but what we are enabled to do by the Holy Spirit. For in us, that is in our flesh, there is no good thing, as Paul tells us…The Holy Spirit’s work is to bring to completion what the Father had planned to do through his Son. By this, God is made know to us, and we are taught to trust in him. (p.19,21)
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