John Owen on the Holy Spirit - Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson

Let me say first of all, that when I was asked last year to speak on these two occasions on the teaching of John Owen on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I was obsessed as you would anticipate greatly delighted. And then as I actually began the preparation greatly daunted.

Delighted because there is nothing that delights many of us, I am sure, than the opportunity or the excuse or the necessity to read or reread some of the volumes of John Owen's expositions of God's truth. I think I would have to say to you to be totally honest that the works of John Owen largely constituted my own theological seminary and education. Education that I didn't receive in the theological college that I attended. I sought from my teenage years in the works of John Owen. Indeed, I remember buying them as a student when I was 18 for what I calculated at lunchtime today was the princely sum of $15. Less than a dollar a volume in those far-off days, I think, in 1966. And looking back on my own Christian experience, I believe I owe probably almost more to John Owen and his writings than I do to any other inspired uninspired writer outside of the pages of the New Testament. And I do believe that over the years of reading Owen, I have probably read almost every word that he ever he ever published. And for that reason, it has been a delight to go back to read particularly his teaching on the Holy Spirit.

But for the same reason, I more and more have been deeply daunted. Largely because as I have reread parts of Owen's work, I have discovered that he knew a great deal more about the Holy Spirit than I believed he knew the last time I read him. And also because it is almost impossible, as you would understand, to expound the thought of John Owen on the subject of the Holy Spirit when I calculate he devoted something like 1,300 pages in different parts of the 24 volumes of his writings to expound his own thought and his own exposition of biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit. And remarkably during the course of those volumes, because his treatment of the Holy Spirit is largely and unusually systematic, there is relatively little repetition. And not only so, although we often think that Owen seems to stretch out truth to as many pages as it is able to contain, the fact of the matter is that much of Owen's writing is exceedingly condensed. And to have the task of condensing what is already condensed into the space of two hours or so is a task that more and more has both frightened me and daunted me.

Owen covers systematically a variety of dimensions of the Holy Spirit's work. And I want just to mention these in passing in order that you may know particularly some of the help that you may find in the course of reading his many volumes. He writes powerfully and originally on the subject of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the authorship of scripture and in the testimony of the Spirit to scripture. It's often said about the 17th century theologians and pastors that whereas in the pristine reformed theology, much emphasis was laid upon the testimony of the Spirit, the testimonium internum Spiritus to sanctius Calvin called it. But in the 17th century, one finds little of that. Well, one only needs to turn to Owen to see that in fact, he gives us probably the profoundest and most systematic of all expositions at all times in Christian history of the vital doctrine of the testimony of the Spirit to the inherency and infallibility and authority of scripture.

The bulk of Owen's teaching on the Holy Spirit is taken up with his exposition largely in volume three of his works on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the salvation of the church. And there, as we shall see and deal with largely this evening and tomorrow, he focuses attention on the ministry of the Spirit in the new creation both in the head of the new creation and then in the members of the new creation. But as he further expounds the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Owen also deals wonderfully with the ministry of the Holy Spirit in prayer. And then, of course, he deals so well with the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation to the gifts of the Spirit.

And it's a very interesting thing, I think it's an important thing, to notice that Owen wrote on the subject of the Holy Spirit with great self-consciousness. It was not accidental that he chose the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the magnum opus theologically of his later years. He very deliberately at the age of somewhere around 57 or 58 set out to publish a complete exposition of the work of the Spirit. Just as exhaustive in his intention as he had been when in his mid-20s he had set out to expound the particularity of the redemption wrought by Christ when as a comparative youngster he had written The Death of Death in the Death of Christ at the age of 27 or 28. He knew precisely what he was doing and he knew precisely why he was doing it. And that perhaps is why we still find his teaching on the Holy Spirit so unusually relevant to the times in which we ourselves live and seek to minister.

I believe that there are really three reasons why Owen devoted so much time and energy to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In moments of fancy, one wonders just how much Owen might have accomplished if he'd had a quill computer instead of a quill pen. And how much more difficult it might be to expound his teaching on the Holy Spirit, never mind anything else. But he has, I think, three reasons for focusing attention on the Holy Spirit. The first of them is this. That he recognized theologically its contemporary relevance in his own time.

Owen, as most of you will know, lived between the years 1616 and 1683. He lived in days in England, obviously, when the impact of the Reformation was coming, in a sense, to its fullest flower in the application of the evangel to every aspect of the believer's life and every aspect of the Christian church. But Owen was deeply conscious at that time that the work of the Holy Spirit had been, perhaps, almost entirely unrecognized. One of the cardinal issues of the Reformation. And was certainly one of the cardinal issues of his contemporary ecclesiastical life. You may remember how Warfield is able to write many years after Calvin that what Calvin should chiefly be known for is the fact that he was the theologian of the Holy Spirit. And many years before B.B. Warfield, Owen also recognized that one of the great new or rediscoveries of the Reformation had been the rediscovery of the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit. It had not simply been a matter of altering some Catholic doctrine and returning to Catholic truth. It had been a matter of the rediscovery of the power of God's spirit among his people. Indeed, it's a very interesting thing that Edmund Campion, here, one of the leaders of the counter-reformation movement in England, had written already in the 16th century that he had discovered the chief difference between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic lay in the Protestant's understanding and experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Whereas in the Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit had been replaced by the priesthood and by the sacraments. One of the things that Campion recognized and despised was that in the Reformation, men and women had discovered God's own power and God's own spirit. And as Owen looks back upon the rediscovery of the Holy Spirit, as I say, he very self-consciously begins to write what he believes is the first ever systematic theology of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, he says in his own introductory letter to volume three of his works on the Holy Spirit, "I know not anyone who went before me in this design of representing the whole economy of the Spirit with all his adjuncts, operations, and effects." In other words, what Owen is trying to give to the Christian Church, very self-consciously, is all that he himself has sought to glean from the days of the Reformation onwards. And all that he, with his fellow Puritan believers, have come to discover of God's grace and anointing power in their midst. And so he writes, as it were, to say, "Here is the message that God has given to us concerning the power of the Holy Spirit."

But there is a second reason why he writes at such length on the Holy Spirit. And that is not only because he recognized its contemporary importance theologically, but because he also recognized its contemporary importance experimentally. As you read through many of Owen's works, those dealing with the Spirit and many other of his works, you discover that he is conscious of at least two movements in his time. He is conscious, on the one hand, of an emphasis on spiritism or an emphasis on the Holy Spirit that leaves no place for the reasonable and true understanding and influence of God's word. And on the other hand, as is always true of the Christian pastor, he finds himself fighting behind as well as in front with those who place all their emphasis on reason and the reasonable understanding of scripture and the reasonableness of the Christian faith and give no place to the necessity of the supernatural work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in order that any dead sinner may live a life that is pleasing and honoring to Jesus Christ. It's sometimes said in our own day that when we face that situation, this is what we find. If we have the word without the spirit, we dry up. If we have the spirit without the word, we blow up. And only when we have the spirit and the word, do we grow up. And Owen virtually says the same thing. He says, "Any man who thinks he can read scripture without calling upon the help of the Holy Spirit would be as well to go and burn his Bible." In other words, he wants to hold together the two great emphases of the Reformation and the two great emphases of the gospel that he finds being torn apart in the development of rationalism on the one hand and the development of a false enthusiasm on the other hand. And so in all his writing on the Holy Spirit, you find these two things always being held together. The necessity of the word and the study of the word and the truth of the word that is our canon and rule and guide and the equal necessity of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to enable us to understand the mind and will of God and to bring us to a balanced and fruitful Christian experience.

But there's a third reason, I think, that Owen writes so extensively on the Holy Spirit. Not only because of the theological importance and the contemporary critical, controversial importance, but also because of the personal and experimental importance of the Holy Spirit in his own life. Some of you will know that Owen was brought up, apparently, in a Puritan home. His father was a Puritan preacher. But from what we discover in the early biographies of his life, although he knew the truths of the reformed faith, and as Calvin said of Timothy, had drunk in godliness with his mother's milk, virtually, he was very conscious in his later teenage years and apparently even into his early 20s that he knew the truth without being inwardly persuaded of his own interest in the truth. His biographers record an occasion when in London he went to Aldermanbury Chapel in London to hear Edmund Calamy preach and was disappointed when some stranger came into the pulpit so disappointed that he wanted to get up and go, go somewhere else where he might hear better preaching. And the man preached on the story of Christ stilling the storm. And Owen, from that sermon onwards, marked his discovery of the power of the gospel in his own life and experience. And in many ways, encouragingly for us, he never was able to discover who the preacher was, what his name was. Some totally unknown standing who was the instrument in God's hands of bringing forth this jewel and in a sense, the handmaid of all of Owen's writings on the Holy Spirit. When he discusses that later on in his writings, particularly in volume six, he makes this classical distinction. He says there is all the difference in the world between knowing the truth and knowing the power of the truth. And what I am pretty sure was underlined for him when that anonymous preacher expounded Matthew 8 with such an anointing of the Spirit upon Owen's hearing and believing was that he was finally persuaded that without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, all preaching is in vain. And there is no hope, as Owen would say, for us coming to a settled assurance of our own salvation.

Now, it's out of that background and into that foreground and because of these various contexts, but I think what Owen has to say, we so often find meets our own needs and echoes the desires of our own hearts as we read through his writings. And when he comes to expound the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in all these various dimensions, as he does, particularly in volumes two and three and four, and then later on in volume 11, and then especially in portions of his commentary on the letter to the Hebrews, there are, out of all the mass of material that he presents to us, two chief themes that I want us to focus on in these two studies that we are having together. The first of them that we will deal with this evening is his emphasis on the ministry of the Spirit in the head of the new creation, our Lord Jesus Christ. And the second, obviously, is the ministry of the Spirit in the members of the new creation, in those who believe in Jesus Christ. And although statistically Owen gives far more attention to the second of these things than to the first, there is no doubt from the way in which he deals with the first, that he recognizes its fundamental, indeed its prior importance for our understanding of the Holy Spirit. And so what I want to do this evening is to focus attention on his teaching of the ministry and this of the Spirit in the life of the Lord Jesus and in his work and ministry, and then tomorrow to think of the ministry of the Spirit in believers, restricting ourselves particularly to his ministry in indwelling believers and his ministry in sealing believers. So this evening we think together as we are able of the ministry of the Spirit in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Scattered throughout Owen's writings on the ministry of the Spirit, he regularly quotes from the 45th Psalm, cited, you remember, in the opening chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of how the bridegroom in the 45th Psalm is anointed with the oil of gladness beyond his fellows. And how that is taken up by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews and focused on the person and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in dealing with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Owen says this is the first place that we are to look. The cause of our experience of the Holy Spirit and the pattern of our experience of the Holy Spirit are both to be found in the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness, the Holy Spirit, without measure. And as we likewise are anointed with the oil of gladness with the measure which is appropriate to the Spirit's sovereign working and our response in faith, we discover that the same pattern and indeed a measure of the same experience that was true of the Lord Jesus becomes true of all the members of the body of the Lord Jesus as he pours out his Spirit also upon them.

Fundamental to what Owen has to say is this, that that outpouring of the Spirit, that descent of the oil of gladness upon Jesus, is something, Owen says, that is carried out in the life of Jesus by degrees. And as Owen takes us through the life and ministry of the Spirit, as he takes us through the pattern of Jesus' experience, he wants to point out to us how in various dimensions and stages of the life of the Lord, the Holy Spirit evidenced himself in a way that was appropriate to the growth of Jesus as a man on the one hand and to the ministry of Jesus as the Messiah on the other hand. And Owen is trying to say to us, brethren, if you would ever expand the ministry of the Holy Spirit and understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you ought not to start with the ministry of the Spirit in the life of the believer. That, as it were, is to remove the head and look merely at the body. You need to begin with the ministry of the Spirit in the life of the Lord Jesus. And he says that really for three reasons. The first is that to do this is to obey the basic law of the Spirit's ministry. The Spirit's ministry primarily is to draw attention to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now Owen would be the last man in the history of the church, surely, to say that the Holy Spirit does not draw attention to the sins of man. He is given for that reason to convict man of sin and righteousness and judgment. But Owen recognized what sometimes we ourselves do not recognize even in those verses in John 16:8-11, that that testimony of the Holy Spirit is directly related to his testimony to Jesus. It is because he goes to the Father. It is because the prince of this world is judged. It is because Jesus is exalted that the Spirit convicts man of sin and righteousness and judgment. So that even there Owen underlines, we need to begin with the testimony of the Spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ because that is the Spirit's deepest desire, to show us Jesus.

But then there is another reason why he does this. And it is this, there was a book published earlier on this year, I think, entitled The Holy Spirit, The Shy Member of the Trinity. And I suppose many Christian people think of the Spirit in that way. I think I would go even further and say that many Christians think of the Spirit as the anonymous member of the Trinity. He is a faceless, nameless one. But what Owen is trying to say is this, that just as you come to know the Father through the Son, because he is the Father of the Son, so it is as the Spirit shines on the Son and you come to know the Son that you come also to know the Spirit because he is the Spirit of the Son. Owen makes a good deal in his writings of the notion that the Spirit is the Paraclete. He is the one called to our side. But he is not only the one called to our side to plead our cause, Owen points out, he is the one called to our side to plead the cause of Jesus. And it's a very interesting thing in the context in which John is writing of that and Jesus is speaking of that. But the Paraclete or the advocate is not, as in our society, the highly trained scientific lawyer. The Paraclete or the advocate of a man or woman in Jesus' time was, generally speaking, one of his companions, his best friend, someone who had observed the man and been with the man and was able therefore to testify to the man. And in much that he says, this is the direction in which Owen is tending. He is saying to us, do you want to know the Holy Spirit? Do you want, as is one of his chief applications of his exposition, to learn what it is to worship the Holy Spirit? Then learn his identity as the eternal companion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Watch the Spirit and learn therefore to love the Spirit because as he shines on Jesus Christ, he reveals his own identity as the great lover and companion and comforter and supporter of the one who has become your savior and Lord and friend.

But then there is another aspect to this which Owen expands. And that is that in all he seeks to do in focusing our attention, relatively briefly though he does it, upon the Spirit's ministry to Jesus Christ as well as the Spirit's testimony to Jesus Christ, he is seeking to do something that the evangelical tradition following Owen largely lost sight of. And that was to teach men and women that their salvation could never be fetched from within themselves, but could only be fetched from Jesus Christ. Constantly Owen is saying, this is the witness of the Spirit to look to Jesus Christ. And it seems to me one of the groundbreaking characteristics of his exposition of the ministry of the Spirit and the life of the Lord Jesus is that he does this not simply in a general way, look to Jesus because the Spirit tells you to look to Jesus. But he takes us, as it were, piece by piece through the biblical revelation of the relationship between the Spirit and Jesus. Not only that we may see Jesus all the more clearly as our savior, but that we may learn in the gospel to be fully Trinitarian and come also to worship and to love the one who is the Spirit of Jesus and all the more, as we shall see tomorrow, because it is this same Spirit who dwells in our lives by the gift of the ascended Jesus Christ.

Now, what are the stages in which Owen expounds the Spirit's ministry? There are, I think, four of them. First of all, he expounds the ministry of the Spirit in the incarnation of Jesus. That is to say more precisely in the incarnate Logos. As Jesus is born into the world, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's always struck me as being very illuminating how Owen not only points back in general terms to one of the great old tags of Christian theology, but actually expresses it in more than one occasion in his writings. Opera ad extra Trinitatis indivisa sunt. The work of the Trinity beyond the Trinity, the saving as well as the creating operations of the Trinity are indivisible. And Owen picks this up when he speaks about the incarnation of Jesus. He points to the fact that the Lord is able to say to the Father, "A body have you prepared for me." And he recognizes the Father's activity in the enfleshment of the Logos. He points to how Hebrews tells us that the Son laid hold not of the seed of angels, but of the seed of Abraham. And indicates to us how the Son himself has operated in his own incarnation. But chiefly he points us to the fact that in the conception of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is by the ministry of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is both conceived and sanctified. He is conceived, says Owen, following obviously the Apostles' Creed, in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the overshadowing ministry of the Holy Spirit. He tells us, in a sense, that the very language that is used there is theologically loaded. Just as the Spirit overshadowed the deep in the first creation, and just as the Spirit overshadowed the church on the day of Pentecost, so in the mysterious creative operation of the Holy Spirit, he overshadowed the Virgin Mary, hiding both from her sight and from ours the means by which the Logos would become incarnate. But emphasizing that although here is a mystery that is simply beyond our understanding and as a matter of fact lies unrevealed as one of the secret things of God, Owen wants to emphasize that here, from the very inauguration of Jesus the Messiah, in the conception of Jesus, in that moment when the Holy Spirit brought into being the union between the eternal Son of the eternal God and the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, the seed of Mary, from the very conception in her womb, before he was brought forth, the Spirit overshadowed him in order that he might be, that is, that the Spirit might be the efficient cause of the incarnation, in which the Virgin Mary served as the material cause.

But not only is Jesus conceived by the Holy Spirit, he is sanctified, at the moment of conception, says Owen, by the Holy Spirit. And that in two senses. Just because it is precisely our flesh to which the Logos has joined himself irrevocably and now permanently. Just because it is our flesh, Mary's flesh, Owen emphasizes the necessity not only of a conception by the Holy Spirit, but a holy conception through the power of the Spirit, so that what would be born in her would be that holy thing. Owen suggests that the reason the incarnate Logos is free from sin from the moment of his generation is because he is brought forth not by natural generation, but by the generation of the Holy Spirit. Not by natural conception, but by supernatural conception. And then, more positively, he says, "Not only is the Messiah preserved from the moment of conception from sin, but the Messiah is also, at the moment of conception, sanctified. One might say embryonically sanctified. And filled to the measure, one might say, of embryonic sanctification with all the graces and gifts required for his babyhood. So that he is not only free from corruption, but he is endowed with grace by the Spirit that he might be both holy and harmless and undefiled and separated from sinners."

And the consequence of this for Owen, and indeed for Owen's theology and our theology, is monumental in its nature. Why? Why is this so important? Well, it's for this reason, says Owen, it's in order that the Messiah might be both truly man, fully human, and yet truly and fully holy. That there might be joined together in one the last Adam and the second man, a true and genuine humanity, sharing his humanity with us and our humanity with him, knowing what it is to be frail and to be weak, knowing what it is to be tempted and afflicted, being utterly and fully man as well as utterly and fully God. And yet presenting to us, as it were, in his life and ministry a new definition of what man is and who man is intended to be by the harmlessness and holiness and separation of the life that he lived. And it's not difficult, you see, to draw the lines that Owen himself occasionally draws from this basic principle of the operation of the Spirit in the life of the Lord Jesus to the operation of the Spirit in the life of the believer. What is the Spirit planning to do in our lives? Well, he's obviously planning to do in our lives what he patterned, first of all, in the life of the Lord Jesus. He is seeking to make true men who are truly holy. So that holiness and humanity, rather than being contradictions of one another, might meet together in the lives of God's people.

Shortly after Owen died and I've always found this to be a most moving and glorious compliment to the work of God's grace in his life. Someone said this of him, that he loved with such seriousness and he was serious with such love that it almost seemed as though nature and grace were combined in his life and were one and the same thing. And if Owen consciously learned that principle at all, then he obviously learned it from this foundational ministry of the spirit in the life of the savior, truly man, truly holy, doing as we sometimes say, the spiritual thing naturally, and the natural thing spiritually, doing what is natural as one who is filled with the spirit, doing what is spiritual as one who expresses the beauty and the clarity of true humanity. So that from his mother's womb, he was already holy and human.

But then the second stage in the spirit's ministry, Owen says, is in more general terms, his ministry throughout Christ's own ministry. It is an axiom in Owen's teaching at this point that our Lord Jesus acted grace, as Owen puts it, he acted grace as a man. And Owen therefore follows through the indications in scripture of the savior's humanity and the way in which that humanity is endowed by the ministry of the spirit. And that takes place again, Owen points, in at least two ways. It takes place first of all in the spirit's presence in the personal growth of the man Christ Jesus, and it takes place secondly in the presence of the gifts of the spirit in the ministry of the Messiah.

Owen rightly reminds his readers of the statement of Luke in chapter 2 verse 40 of Jesus growing both in stature and in spirituality, as it were. That is to say, growing in wisdom appropriate to the understanding and growth of, for example, a 12-year-old boy. And he explains how this takes place in terms of the great Messianic chapters in the prophecy of Isaiah, notably from Isaiah 11. How the spirit that was to rest on the Messiah, promised in Isaiah 11, produces the very fruit that we see described of Jesus in Luke chapter 2. Here already is the ministry of the spirit on the humanity of the Lord as he grows physically, yes, but also he grows in wisdom, as he grows in understanding as a man, as he learns, as it were, by experience through the things that he suffered, the gracious patterns of his heavenly father for his future life and ministry. And as a child, he listens, apparently, to God's word. And as Isaiah again expresses it, you remember in the third servant song, is the one who from his childhood, according to Luke, is wakened morning by morning with his ear opened to hear what his father is saying and apparently to understand what his father is saying in the written word through the ministry of the Holy Spirit abiding on him and as it were, developing within his humanity those peculiar graces which flowered in his fattest year. Each step of the way, Owen indicates, Jesus has companions. He is the companion of fellowship with his father. He has the companionship of the word of his father. And he has the permanent companionship of the ministry of the spirit. Says Owen commenting on this growth in Jesus' humanity generally, he says, "The human nature of Christ was capable of having new objects proposed to its mind and understanding whereof before it had simple nescience. It had simple human ignorance. In the representation, then, of things anew to the human nature of Christ, the wisdom and knowledge of his human nature was objectively increased. And in new trials and temptations, he experimentally learned the new exercise of grace. And this was the constant work of the Holy Spirit in the human nature of Christ. He dwelt in him in fullness, for he received not him by measure. From hence was Christ habitually holy and from hence did he exercise holiness entirely and universally in all things. The spirit is the savior's companion throughout the whole course of his ministry. And you notice generally, don't you, how in the Gospels this is the pattern. The apostles are called together to Jesus that they might be with him and that he might send them out as his witnesses. But you remember how Jesus says to them in the upper room that this is not the chief witness. The chief witness is the Holy Spirit who has been with all of them and who has been with him in a special sense from the beginning, whom he will send as his witness when he is crowned and magnified in his ascension to the right hand of the father. The one who is his companion is uniquely qualified to bear witness to him and to bear witness in this special sense to the whole course of his life, as he does in different ways in the pages of the New Testament.

But the spirit is seen in Jesus' ministry not only in the presence of the spirit in the growth of the humanity, the human nature of Jesus, as Owen puts it, but also in the presence of the gifts of the spirit in the life and ministry of Jesus. Owen points out how Luke tells us in chapter 2 that Jesus grew strong in his own spirit. But then as at the age of 30, he is anointed, publicly manifested as the one who will bear the offices of prophet and priest and king, there is a special sense in which there at his baptism, Jesus is filled with the spirit, says Owen, now for the peculiar service and ministry, particularly, Owen argues, in those three years for the ministry of the prophetic office, and finally on the cross for the ministry of the priestly office. But he is marked out as now a mature man having reached the apex of human development. He receives now, as it were, not only the presence of the spirit without measure, but the gifts of the spirit without measure. So, he goes on his way conquering and to conquer. And Owen indicates that through the presence of those gifts of the spirit which Jesus received without measure, we find three particular avenues in which he exercises them. First of all, he exercises them in his conflict and victory over Satan. And again, Owen seeks to draw the parallel between the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of his people. He draws attention to the fact that in the Markan account of the temptation narrative, the brief account in Mark 1:12, Mark uses the verb ekballo. Jesus is thrown out, thrust out by the spirit to be tempted by the devil. He is thrust out to the place of conflict in order that he may be aided by the spirit through that place of conflict to turn it into a place of victory and conquest. And Owen picks up the fact how later on in the gospel narratives in Luke's gospel, the same verb ekballo is used now of the disciples praying that the Lord of the harvest would thrust out laborers into the harvest. It's the same picture, Owen says, the spirit thrusting Jesus out into the wilderness in order that he may establish the kingdom of God and overcome the powers of darkness, and the spirit thrusting out his servants into the world in all ages of Christian history in order that the evil one may be overcome. And the kingdom of God may be established in every corner of the earth. So that just as Jesus has received the spirit without measure for his conflict and conquest, the people of God receive the ministry of the spirit according to the measure of grace and faith in order that they may walk where Jesus walked and keep in step with his spirit and share in his mighty victory.

So he receives the gifts of the spirit for conflict and victory. He receives the gift He receives the gifts of the spirit particularly for his works of power. It is by the finger of God, that is, says Owen, in the power of the Holy Spirit that he casts out demons. That's why blasphemy against the spirit discussed in that very context in the gospels is such a serious crime because it is not only opposition to the spirit in some vague sense, it is opposition to the Lord Jesus as the bearer of the spirit. And in another sense as the instrument of the spirit in the establishing of the kingdom of God. And then of course, thirdly, Jesus receives the gift of the spirit for his preaching and teaching. Owen reminds us of that wonderful exposition of our Lord following he points out, following the temptation narrative, following the battle, Jesus returns to the synagogue. And he begins to expound that which has already begun to be fulfilled through his ministry. How the spirit of the Lord is upon him, how he's been anointed to preach the gospel, how he shows the presence of the kingdom of God by signs of restoration and healing and grace. So that it is by the spirit not only in his work but in his preaching and teaching that the Lord Jesus manifests that he is the one endued with the spirit who bears the spirit in order that the power of the spirit may touch the lives of the broken and the needy. But it's wonderful, isn't it, in Luke's gospel that has such a glorious emphasis on the humanity of Jesus and the humility of Jesus, that here comes this conquering hero deliberately painted as a conquering hero, come fresh from his battle in the wilderness, overwhelming Satan by his use of the wisdom of God in God's word. But you remember as Owen points out what it is that the people in the synagogue were arrested by in Jesus' preaching. They were arrested by the graciousness of his words. And that's one of the things that Owen seeks to capture, but the spirit, as it were, effects in Jesus and consequently as Jesus is the pattern of the spirit's ministry, effects in the believer. He effects a conquest over Satan. But rather than stifle our humanity, it is, as it were, simply the prologue to the expression of our humanity as we stoop down to the poor and the needy and the broken. And you see the wonderful thing that Owen I think has captured in so much of his teaching about the ministry of the spirit is that it's these two concepts that are so often thrust apart in our lives and in our ministries, the strong and the bold and the noble and the victorious and the gentle and the quiet and the humble and the meek and the gracious that are brought together in the ministry of Jesus. And that's why it's all the more striking that when we look together as Owen bids us do at the ministry of Jesus, we find in a glorious and in a convincing way the pattern of the ministry that the spirit seeks to produce in all those he has gifted for service.

The spirit then in the life of Christ first of all in his incarnation, secondly, throughout the course of his ministry, and thirdly, of course, in his work of atonement, in his passion and death, and indeed also, as Owen points out rightly, in his resurrection and ascension. Central to Owen's thinking here is the great statement of Hebrews 9:13 and 14. But by contrast with all that has gone before under the old covenant, Christ offers himself sacrificially to the Father by the eternal spirit. Now if you know Owen's writings, you will know that here as on one or two other issues of exegesis and application, Owen wavers from place to place. Is this, he asks us, many people have suggested, a reference to the spirit of Jesus, or is this more objectively a reference to the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit? He sometimes seems to veer towards one interpretation and other times seems to veer towards another interpretation. When he focuses, as I think he eventually does, on the fact that this is the ministry of the spirit in the work of Jesus on the cross, he tells us that in that context Hebrews is saying two things. I'm almost embarrassed to be telling you that it's two things and three things, but those of you who know Owen know that it's at least two things or three things, and I'm trying to do what he failed to do, at least on one occasion and that is keep my place in his writings. He tells us that there are two things here. First of all, there is in the context of the passage, and here you get a great and glorious sense of Owen's feel for the exegesis of scripture. He says, there is here an implicit contrast between Jesus' sacrifice and the sacrifices of the Old Testament. He says, for example, what is supreme about Jesus' sacrifice is precisely that it is being offered in the power of the spirit of God. It is a divinely offered sacrifice, and it is a sacrifice in which the one who offers it is divinely enabled by the spirit's power. Not only so, says Owen, but whereas in the old covenant, it was a man-made altar that sustained the sacrifice, what sustains the final sacrifice, the once-for-all sacrifice of the new covenant, is the passion of the Holy Spirit. It is the third member of the Trinity who is the supporting agency of the Lord Jesus as he offers himself to God as a sacrifice without spot or blemish. Thirdly, says Owen, just whereas the Old Testament sacrifices were offered on coals of fire on the man-made altar, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is made upon the burning zeal of the savior, inspired and inflamed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Here is the epitome of what he is able to say. The zeal for his father's house, his father's glory, and his father's people have consumed him. It is the consuming power of the agency of the Spirit, says Owen. What enables the Lord Jesus to offer himself as an atoning sacrifice.

But there's not only an implicit contrast with the old covenant sacrifices, there is, secondly, an explicit indication here, says Owen, of the Spirit's help. And he takes us at this juncture through the final stages of our Lord's life and passion. And emphasizes to us that in the light of all that we know of the significance of the ministry of the Spirit in the life of Jesus, we may rightly believe that our Lord Jesus was supported in his decision to go to the cross by the companionship of the Holy Spirit. In his fellowship with the Spirit, his frail humanity was supported to make that final decision under the final crisis of his trials and temptations, but it would be not his natural, holy, pure, human will to shrink back from death. But that in the power of his companion, he would go to the cross and bear the agony and shame of the cross. And so, says Owen, he is not only helped to make the decision, but as he puts it rather picturesquely, he is upheld as he goes like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, not opening his mouth, as he goes to the very door of the temple, to the very priests themselves, to be offered, as it were, under their judgment, as a sacrifice on the altar of Calvary for the sins of men, bound to the altar by the strong bonds of the Spirit's help. So that, thirdly, Jesus supported in the decision-making process, upheld by the Spirit's grace, is sustained in the course of his obedience even to the death of the cross. When in the last climactic moments of his sacrifice to the Father, Hebrews says it was by the eternal Spirit that he offered himself up to atone for the sins of the elect.

And then Owen develops this further and pursues the logic of the Spirit's ministry in Jesus, as it were, to its logical conclusion. He says, on the cross, Jesus commanded his spirit into the hands of his father, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." But what about his body, says Owen? Well, he says, it is true that, objectively, his body was guarded by angels. Those angels that are present at the resurrection narrative of the angels, Owen surmises, sent by God to minister, as it were, as guards over the tomb of Jesus, lest, externally, that body that God had promised would not see corruption, lest it might be molested. But, says Owen, the guardian of the body of our Lord Jesus, in the silence and darkness of the tomb, preserving it from corruption, was, yes, his eternal companion, the Holy Spirit. And that is why, says Owen, we find not only that the thing that was conceived in the womb of the virgin was that holy thing, but the body that was preserved in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea remained that holy one because, as it were, of the un-dying commitment of the Spirit of God to the Son of God incarnate in our flesh.

And that brings us to the final element of the ministry of the Spirit in the life of our Lord Jesus. He is present in his conception. He is present throughout the whole course of his ministry. He is present in his work upon the cross. And he is present also, Owen again rightly, surely emphasizes, in Christ's exaltation. Here, too, the external works of the Trinity cannot be divided. He is raised by the Father. But the Father has given him authority to lay down his life and to take up his life again himself. He rises again from the dead. But, says Owen, it is also especially in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus that we find again the presence and power of the Spirit's ministry. He is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead through the Spirit of holiness. He cites, obviously, what Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:16, that Jesus, in his resurrection, is vindicated or justified by the Spirit. The Spirit continues to minister in the resurrection of Jesus, because the resurrection of Jesus is part of the mediation of Jesus. He is raised again for our justification, because he was vindicated or justified by the power of the Spirit in his own resurrection. The Spirit, with the Father, in the resurrection of Jesus, is saying, "This is the Son of God." And because he points out that he is the Son of God, men are convicted, as they are, you remember, on the day of Pentecost, of their sin, of their need of righteousness, and of the certainty of judgment. And so you see that, rather beautifully, Owen is doing two things here. He is, first of all, telling us that the Holy Spirit exalts Christ theologically. He is the one who exalts Christ in the resurrection, literally. And in that sense, physically, by the transformation of the body of the Lord Jesus laid in the tomb as a body of our flesh, raised from the tomb, not resuscitated in the tomb, but resurrected in the tomb by the transforming agency of the Holy Spirit. So that what you see in that spiritual body, that body according to the Spirit, in the resurrection life of Jesus, is an expression of the testimony of the Spirit to the very being of Jesus as the God-man mediator. And precisely because he participates in the exaltation of Jesus in the resurrection, he participates in the exaltation of Jesus in the preaching of the gospel, in shining through the preaching of the apostles on the Lord Jesus, but so evident in the opening chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, as in chapter 2, Peter seeks in his preaching to exalt the Lord Jesus as the crucified and risen and ascended and reigning one. And the Spirit, as it were, shines mightily upon the testimony of Peter to the exalted Jesus, so that he begins to exalt Jesus in the hearts of sinners. So that he discovers to them their ruin and their rebellion and the certainty of the judgment of their lives. In order that they may seek and find under the conviction of their sin by the power of the Holy Spirit that the exalted Christ is the one who has been exalted to be a prince and savior and to give repentance to his people. The Spirit therefore in the resurrection exalts Christ theologically and literally. And in all ages following he exalts Christ evangelistically.

But then there is the application. I'm going to so much application of these things that I want since our time is really gone to limit myself to the one that seems to me striking and remarkable point that he makes. Which is this. That my right response to the ministry of the Spirit to my Lord Jesus Christ should not only be that I worship the Lord Jesus Christ but precisely because I worship the Lord Jesus Christ as my God, my savior and my Lord. I learn likewise to worship the Holy Spirit. To worship him because he is the divine witness to Jesus. But to worship him in that special way. Because as I am drawn to faith in Christ and to love for my Lord Jesus Christ it instinctively follows that I not only learn to love my brethren. But that I learn to love him who of all witnesses to my Lord Jesus is the witness, the advocate, the companion. And because he is not only his companion but shares with him in his divine nature. I love him not merely with the love that is appropriate to my fellow believers who look with me to Christ as my elder brother. But that I worship him.