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The biblical Calvinist rests his life and her life on the amazing love of the Father. It was his love that sent his only begotten Son into the world, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Biblical Calvinism is a warm Calvinism should result in deeper communion with our Lord. Hello and welcome to the Friday edition of Renewing youg Mind. Concluding his six part series on Calvinism and the Christian life, Ian Hamilton now considers the trinitarian nature of Calvinism and the way John Owen masterfully expressed this communion with God. Here's Dr. Hamilton, President of Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the UK.
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I want to highlight and underline this note that Calvinism cultivates communion with the triune God. Calvinism has a profoundly trinitarian shape and content. You cannot read the Institutes of the Christian Religion, especially Calvin's magnum opus, without being struck by how radically trinitarian Calvin's instinctive Christian thinking actually is. But probably no one better express this communion with the triune God than John owen, the great 17th century English pastor theologian. Many Christians only really know John Owen through the lens of works like his six volume Mortification of Sin or Volume 10, the Death of Deaths and the Death of Christ. And these are great volumes. But Owen is at his best, and I actually think he would say this himself when he's writing in volume one on the Glory of Christ, in volume two on communion with the Triune God, and in volume three on the work of the Holy Spirit. And I actually think that volume two of Owen's collected Works, where he dwells at some length on the believer's communion with the triune God, is the greatest of his works. In this volume, Owen does in a most detailed and developed form what no one before him had done. Owen recognizes that in the New Testament love is almost always predicated of the Father, grace of the Son and comfort of the Holy Spirit. And so Owen wrote, we have communion with the Father supremely, but not exclusively in love with the Son supremely, but not exclusively in grace, his personal grace and his purchase grace and with the Holy Spirit supremely, but not exclusively in comfort. Now, Owen didn't just imagine this. He reflects on 2 Corinthians 13:14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God that is the Father, and the communion or comfort of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And he especially notices what John wrote in the opening words of his first letter. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you so that. So that what? We proclaim the gospel to you the gospel of the manifested incarnate Son of God so that you may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. For the Scriptures and certainly for Calvin and for John Owen, preeminently Christian spirituality is natively trinitarian. For Owen, as for Calvin before him, the default reality in the Christian life is. I wonder how you would complete that sentence. The default reality in the Christian life is the grace and glory of the Holy Spirit, Trinity. Owen is rooted in the Catholic historic tradition of the Church. And with John Calvin before him and with the Cappadocian fathers of the 4th century, long before Calvin and Owen, they applied their spirit renewed minds and hearts to exploring the immensities and infinities of God's revelation of his triune being and triune glory. Now I'm sure it's true to say that modern evangelical and perhaps even modern reformed writing with a few honorable exceptions, give little thought to a doctrine that is the first and foundational truth of the Christian religion. In Book 1 of the Institutes, Chapter 13, Section 17, Calvin quotes a passage from Gregory Nazianzen that he says vastly delights me. Gregory was a late 4th century Greek church father and Calvin is quoting from Gregory's baptismal oration 40, section 41, and he says, this passage vastly delights me. And when you read that, you ask what is it that's vastly delighting Calvin? And he quotes Gregory, no sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three. No sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried Back to the 1. When I think of any one of the three, I think of him as the whole and my eyes are filled and the greater part of what I'm thinking escapes me. When were you last overwhelmed by pondering the threeness and the oneness of our God? Calvin says this passage and I recently read the whole baptismal oration of Gregory's and it's absolutely phenomenal. I read it to one of my boys and his comment at the end was just simply wow. Here in the Catholic tradition of the Church, Calvin and Owen find themselves completely at ease. And it's Owen who develops this Communion of the believer with the triune God that has become a distinctive hallmark of authentic reformed Calvinistic piety. Owen sought in his writings to encourage Christians to make communion with God a vital priority in their lives. He wrote this, I, the Father as love. Look not on him as an always disapproving Father, but as one most kind and tender. Let us look on him by faith as one that had hath thoughts of kindness towards us from everlasting. And so, he says, Christians must therefore meditate on this distinguishing, free, unchangeable love. And because he never ceased to think as a pastor, Owen anticipates a query from a trembling saint. The saint says, I cannot find in my heart making returns of love to God. Could I find my soul set upon him, I could then believe that his soul delighted in me. And Owen responds, this is the most preposterous course that possibly thy thoughts can pitch upon. Herein is love, saith the Holy Spirit. Not that we love God, but that he loved us first. Now thou wouldst invert this order and say, herein is love. Not that God loved me, but that I loved him first. This is a course of flesh's finding out that will never bring glory to God, nor peace to thine own soul. Lay down, then thy reasonings. Take up the love of the Father upon a pure act of believing, and that will open thy soul to let it out unto the Lord, the communion of love. Owen labored as a pastor to persuade his hearers and his readers that Jesus Christ did not come into the world to win or secure, far less buy, the Father's love for us. He came as the gift of the Father's love to us. Owen was deeply concerned that many Christians failed to grasp the grace of the Father's love in Christ. He writes, how few of the saints are experimentally acquainted with this privilege of holding immediate communion with the Father in love. With what anxious, doubtful thoughts do they look upon him? What fears, what questionings are there of his goodwill and kindness? At the best, now these are striking words. At the best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him towards us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus. And one of the great notes of Calvinism, as it's called, is this great note of placarding to the very forefront of life in the worship of the Church. The primary preeminent prevenient love God. And sadly, this is something that Calvinists have not been good adverts for. Ask someone what is a Calvinist? I doubt very few would Say someone who glories in the prevenient love of God to them in Jesus Christ. Owen never wearied of impressing on his hearers and readers that the Father's love ought to be looked upon, quote, as the fountain from whence all other sweetnesses flow. Communion with God is communion with this God, the God who has loved us from times eternal. Gerhardus Vos, somewhere in his writings, asks the question, how can we be sure that God will never stop loving us? And the answer is, because he never began, I have loved you. Jeremiah 32. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Calvinism cherishes communion with this God and understands that this communion requires two things. First, that we receive his love and that we make suitable returns to Him. Wrote Owen, the Father's love is received through faith in Jesus Christ. Christ is always the mediator. What one does, they all do. So while Owen is saying we have communion with the Father in love, he is not saying we don't have communion with the Son in love or the Spirit in love. Of course we do, because the triune God is one. But love is almost always predicated of the Father, grace of the Son and comfort of the Spirit. But what one does, they all do. And Christ is always the Mediator in whom and by whom, and through whom we come unto God. And so, writes Owen, the soul being thus by faith through Christ, and by him, brought into the bosom of God, into a comfortable persuasion and spiritual perception and sense of his love, there reposes and rests itself. The biblical Calvinist rests his life and her life on the amazing love of the Father. It was his love that sent his only begotten Son into the world, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. But there is Morris's own God loves that he may be loved. And so we are to make returns of love to the Father. We find that in human relationships, don't we? The one thing a wife longs for from her husband is to know that he loves her. She's happy to receive his gifts, if gifts he brings. But what she wants to know is his heart going out to her in love. And this is what Benjamin Warfield meant when he maintained that the whole outworking of Calvinism in life is thus but the flowering of its fundamental religious consciousness, which finds its scientific statement in its theological system. Now that's something of a mouthful. Let me read that just once again. The whole outworking of Calvinism in life. What does it look like in life? Why does it do what it does and not do. What it doesn't do is thus but the flowering of the fundamental religious consciousness which finds its scientific statement in its theological system. In other words, if you want to understand Calvinism, you need to understand the love of God. It is the love of God that is the fountainhead of the Gospel. Everything is traced back to the fountainhead. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son in this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And the fundamental religious consciousness of the Calvinist is love. God's gracious love to us in Christ and the returns of adoring, thankful love to God. Christ. So what is to be the hallmark of any congregation that describes itself as being Reformed or Calvinistic? It will be a congregation first and foremost that marvels at the love of God. Now, the love of God is something of a commonplace in evangelical Christianity. I remember the very moment that that truth dawned upon me for the first time in my life. I had never heard John 3:16 before. I didn't come from a Christian family. I had no Christian background. The only passage in the Bible I knew was David's lament over Saul on Mount Gilboa. I knew that off by heart, but I didn't know John 3:16. My teacher in primary school was a very educated man and he would teach us little bits of Scripture, little bits of Latin, little bits of German. I thought this was wonderful. Not sure the rest of the class knew what was going on. Half the time in the East End of Glasgow, I'd never heard of John 3:16. I didn't know what it was. I'd never read John's Gospel, I'd never read the Bible. And I sat in a church and someone preached in John 3:16. And I just sat there bewildered and bemused at first. What does this mean? God loves sinners. Why would he do that? What would possess him to do that? I don't love him. I think nothing of Him. The occasional thought flits through my brain only to flit out again. And then I began to marvel. He loves me not because of anything in me or done by me, but he loves me and because he loved me, which means to seek the very best for me. He gave his only son for me. I can remember yet just being overwhelmed by that. I had no idea this was called sovereign, electing, gracious love. I didn't know any of these words, never heard of Calvin or Calvinism. And yet so often we can move on from the love of God. Oh, we know it's there and we're thankful it's there, but we lose sight that it's the source of all sweetness. And Owen is always telling his readers, and no doubt his congregation, to ponder and meditate and consider the great love of God which caused him to send his only son into the world that we might live through him. That is to be one of the demarcating, foundational, fundamental hallmarks of anyone or any church that claims in any way to be Calvinistic. And if the love of God is not the animating pulse beat in our worship, we have departed very far from the Reformation and certainly very far from John Calvin. Far from perfect Calvin, he had his blemishes, as I said, he had a volcanic temper that shamed him. And yet at the very heart of his theological system, although I don't think actually it is a system as such, is the glory and wonder of the triune God and the responsibility and the privilege of the believer to love him who first loved them. Let me give the last word, not to John Owen, but to Thomas Goodwin, a contemporary of John Owen's. In volume seven of his Collected Works, Goodwin considers the love of Christ who died to make us his friends. Though, said Goodwin. Now listen to this, though he could have created new ones cheaper. I think that's a phenomenal statement. Absolutely phenomenal. He could have created new ones cheaper. Goodwin continues. Mutual communion is the soul of all true friendship. And friendship is most maintained and kept up by visits. And these the more free and less occasioned by urgent business, the more friendly they are. We used to check our friends with this upbraiding. You still come when you have some business, but when will you come to see me? The very sight of a friend rejoiceth a man. Personal communion with God is the end of our graces. And as for duties, the journey's end of them is fellowship with God. What is it that the Lord looks to receive from us, that we delight to be in his presence without business? There are times, many times, when we must come with all the business and the cares of life. But he loves it when we just come to see Him. Why have you come today? I've just come to see you, my father, and to tell you that I love you. That is Calvinism.
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What a beautiful picture of biblical Calvinism. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Renewing youg Mind. Today you heard the final message in Ian Hamilton's series, Calvinism and the Christian Life. It's a six part series and we'll send it to you on DVD along with digital access to the messages as well as the study guide. When you give a donation in support of Renewing your mind@renewingyourmind.org you can also call us. Our number is 800-435-4343. Be reminded what Calvinism actually teaches and how these theological truths should shape the Christian life. This is a one day only offer, so respond now@renewingyourmind.org before the offer ends. Well, what is marriage? What is a happy marriage? I hope you'll join us Monday for a special conversation with the Ligonier author as we seek to answer both of those questions here on Renewing youg Mind.
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Sam.