So . . . what did the great Puritan, John Owen, say about our level of experiential delight in the weekly worship of God? Do we actually believe that worship should be a delight? Is it okay to feel anything in worship?

I have been making my way through John Owen’s 1667 treatise, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament, which came to be known as “The Independents’ Catechism” (Works 15, 447–530). This treatise speaks to us today as we seek a helpful way forward for ourselves and our family, friends, and visitors to our churches who feel like we may be cold.

In one of the more beautiful and practical sections of this treatise, Owen spoke of our delighting in the divine service. Picking up in question and answer seven, we read Owen saying that when we gather for the divine service there are four “chief things that we ought to aim at in our observation” (Works 15, 455–456):

1. To sanctify the name of God.
2. To own and avow our professed subjection to Christ.
3. To build up ourselves in our most holy faith.
4. To testify and confirm our mutual love.

Owen went on to explicate this first aim, or, chief end, of the Christians’ observation of the divine service by further dividing it into five parts (Works 15, 456–459):

1. to reverence God’s sovereign authority in appointing his gospel institutions.
2. to regard God’s special presence in his ordinances.
3. to exercise faith in the promises of God annexed to his ordinances.
4. to delight in his “will, wisdom, love, and grace” manifested in his gospel ordinances.
5. to persevere in our observance of Christ’s ordinances.

For our purposes, here I want to focus in on the fourth point that Owen made, namely, that we sanctify the name of God in worship by our delighting in God’s will, wisdom, love, and grace as they are manifested to us in the gospel ordinances (by which he means, Word, sacraments, prayer, and discipline). So what precisely does it mean to “delight” in worship?

First, Owen says what it does not mean. Our delighting in the service does not mean what he called a “carnal self-pleasing, or satisfaction in the outward modes or manner of the performance of divine worship.” What did Owen mean by this? He was saying that our delight in worship was not to be found in our sinful and experiential delights. In a word, worship is not about you! Further, he was saying this against those in his time who sought for delight in the outward form and beauty of the liturgy itself. Here Owen sought to cut off any idea that worship was for our pleasure, whether in serving our emotions or even serving our eyes, such as in the Mass or the English Prayer Book with its pomp and ceremony in the days of Archbishop Laud’s high church experimentation. So our delighting in the divine service is not about “what we get out of it,” to use an evangelical phrase. For many of us who became Reformed later, we get this. But here is where Owen warns us in a way we need to hear. We are not to find our delight in the divine service in the mere fact that our liturgy might have ancient roots, or in the trappings of candles, banners, crosses, incense, kneeling, coming forward for communion, vestments, the Geneva robe, or the fully printed-out liturgy itself. Owen is saying, be careful of the trappings of high church.

Instead of this, Owen said that our delighting in the divine service was rooted in “contemplation on the will, wisdom, grace, and condescension of God.” Our God has drawn near to us! And he has done so, as Owen wrote, “of his own sovereign mere will and grace.” Why? Owen gave five beautiful reasons:

1. “so to manifest himself unto such poor sinful creatures as we are”
2. “so to condescend unto our weakness”
3. “so to communicate himself unto us”
4. “so to excite and draw forth our souls unto himself”
5. “and to give us such pledges of his gracious intercourse with us by Jesus Christ”

When we gather for the Divine service (meaning, God’s service to us in Word and sacrament and our service to him in prayer), we are to find our delight in our covenant God himself, not in anything else, whether within us or whether external to us that we have contrived. It is our communion with God that brings us delight and the means of grace serve to bring us closer to him that we might glorify him and delight in him.

Christian, God has so stooped down to you that he invites you into his heavenly presence in worship. What a privilege! Believer, delight in worshipping the Lord your God!

Incidentally, this may be one of the most edifying posts from my previous blog and yet it did not receive the readership that I had hoped for.  Indeed, my review of “The Law is Not of Faith” or my response to Bruce McCormack on Enns controversy at WTS generated a massive readership, which shows, of course, that people are generally more interested in a good debate than devotional literature.  Sad, really.

Anyway, below I have summarized a small portion of Goodwin’s work on Christ’s heart in Heaven towards sinners on earth. Enjoy, I hope!

Demonstrations [of Christ’s love to his people] from passages and expressions after his resurrection:

Christ’s resurrection was his first step into glory, an entrance into it. Having established Christ’s love while on earth to sinners in the preceding discourse (Jn. 13-17), Goodwin now speaks of Christ’s love to sinners in his post-resurrection state, which is even more magnified.  All of Christ’s disciples had acted in a most unworthily manner towards Christ when he was “performing the greatest act of love towards them” (4:104). Goodwin continues, “God often orders it, that when he is in hand with the greatest mercies for us, and bringing about our greatest good, then we are most of all sinning against him …” (Ibid).

Now, if the disciples would not know him in his sufferings, would we not expect that Christ would rebuke them for their faithlessness and falsehood? “But there is no such matter” says Goodwin (see Jn. 20:17). Even though the disciples were ashamed of Christ, Christ was not ashamed to call them brothers (Heb. 2:11).

In fact, Christ excels Joseph in this instance. Joseph reminded his brothers of their unkindness, but not so Christ. Moreover, there was no reminding the disciples of the work Christ had just carried out; rather, he “hastens to heaven as fast as he can to do another” (4:105).

Regarding those poor sinners, those full of thoughts of their own sins, who “know not how they shall be able at the latter day to look Christ in the face when they shall first meet him” (Ibid), Goodwin uses this treatise to comfort them. “But they may relieve their spirits against their care and fear, by Christ’s carriage now towards his disciples, who had sinned against him. Be not afraid, “your sins will he remember no more.”

Demonstrations from passages at and after his ascension into heaven:

When Christ blessed his disciples (Luke 24:50ff.) it was his last act before being carried up into heaven. The meaning of this benediction, similar to the blessing God gave to Adam and Eve, “bidding them ‘increase and multiply’” (4:107), carries with it a blessing to all mankind that were to come of them.

Upon Christ’s ascension into heaven, he instantly poured out his Spirit (Acts 2:33; Eph. 4:8). This Spirit is still in our preaching and praying (Heb. 12:25 & Rom. 8:26); it persuades us of Christ’s love. The Spirit prays in us, because Christ prays for us. The Spirit is an intercessor on earth, because Christ is an intercessor in heaven.

Now that Goodwin has laid the foundation, he proceeds to look at Christ’s work in heaven and how that speaks of his great love for us (Heb. 4:15).

Goodwin spends the bulk of his time speaking of Christ’s love for us as he is in heaven. The first intrinsical demonstration of Christ’s love is drawn from the influence all the three Persons have for ever into the heart of the human nature of Christ in heaven and how that is therefore inclined toward us.

God the Father: the Father has given a perpetual command to Christ to love sinners. As a result, Christ’s heart continues the same forever (compare Jn. 6:37-40 with Jn. 10:15-18). This plays out in the following manner: “Son, as you would have my love continue towards you, let me see your love towards me shown in being kind to these I have given you, ‘whom I have loved with the same love wherewith I have loved you,’ as you have it, (Jn. 17:23). As God would have us show love unto him by loving his children, so he would have Christ also shew his love towards him by loving us” (5:114-15). Christ’s failure to love his sheep, then, would amount to his own failure to love the Father; a sheer ontological impossibility. This love, however, is not forced but arises freely out of the very nature of Christ himself. God is love; and so if Christ be God’s Son in privileges, “then also his Father’s properties are natural to him, more natural than to us …” (4:115-16).

God the Holy Spirit: Christ was given the Spirit “without measure” while on earth; he rested upon him and in him. This Spirit still rests upon him in heaven says Goodwin. From this we note that the Holy Spirit dwelling in him continues, even in heaven, to make his heart graciously affected towards sinners (see Lk. 4:1,14,18; Matt. 12:18-19).

Goodwin attempts to prove this, knowing that all will candidly admit that Christ had sweet affections for sinners while on earth. But, even into heaven? We note that at Christ’s baptism God is well pleased with his Son which, together with God’s giving him the Spirit, is a reference to Isaiah 40. Thus Christ, being filled with the Spirit, has “in him such sweet affections towards sinners” (4:120). Indeed, the whole earthly ministry of Christ testifies plainly to this fact. Does the Spirit still rest upon Christ in heaven and are his affections thus still full of love towards sinners?

Goodwin firmly says that “it must never be said the Spirit of the Lord is departed from him, who is the sender and bestower of the Holy Spirit upon us” (Ibid). John 14:16 makes clear that the Spirit abides with believers for ever. How much more, then, does the Spirit abide upon Christ, the Head? Moreover, based on Acts 2:36ff., Goodwin argues that whatsoever we receive from Christ, he himself first receives in himself. “And so one reason why this oil ran then so plentifully down on the skirts of this our High Priest, that is, on his members the apostles and saints, and so continues to do unto this day, is because our High Priest and Head himself was then afresh anointed with it.

Another point of interest concerns Christ’s knowledge. As Mediator on earth he did not know when the Day of Judgment should be. But, now being glorified in heaven he does. Because Christ was the author of the book of Revelation (written, according to Goodwin, 60 years after Christ’s death and resurrection), he had to know that which, formerly, he did not know. This can be explained from the Spirit being given more fully to him, since knowledge is a fruit of the Spirit (4:121).

There are two things that could make God neglect sinners because he looks down from heaven where there is both glory and holiness: “his holiness, as they are sinners, and his glory, as they are … low creatures.” But, this is not possible with Christ for several reasons. Christ is the founder and subject of all relations; therefore he calls the church both his sister and his spouse (Song of Songs, 5:1 “I came to my garden, my sister, my bride”). Christ is also the pattern/example of all these relations as seen in Eph. 5. This union between Christ and his bride is seen principally in adoption – a significant theme in Goodwin’s writings. When a member or members of the family suffer, so, too does Christ based upon this living union.

Because Christ ever lives to intercede for us we can be sure of his love. The office of high priesthood is altogether an office of grace. “And as his kingly office is an office of power and dominion, and his prophetical office an office of knowledge and wisdom, so his priestly office is an office of grace and mercy” (4:127). The high priest in the OT went into the holy of holies because the mercy-seat in there showed forth reconciliation and atonement. This all was but a typical allusion of Christ’s office in heaven. The office of a priest is one of mercy and compassion coupled with faithfulness; an office that Christ fulfilled perfectly because he is a “faithful high priest” (Heb. 2:17).

The person of Jesus Christ is always coupled with his work; the work of Christ speaks of who he is in the same way that who he is speaks of the work he does. According to Goodwin, the “human nature of Christ in heaven hath a double capacity for glory, happiness and delight”(4:132-33).

The first is based upon his “communion with his Father and the other persons, through his personal union with the Godhead” (Ps. 16:11). This pleasure is complete, not needing an addition or diminution; it is “absolute and entire in itself” because it is the Son’s natural inheritance. Second, God has bestowed upon Christ another capacity for glory and pleasure; namely, “from his church and spouse, which is his body” (see Eph. 1:20-22).

In summary, as the Son of God Christ is complete by virtue of the Godhead of persons all sharing communion and fellowship; “but as an head, he yet hath another additional fullness of joy from the good and happiness of his members” (4:133). The former is personal and “due unto him”, the latter “acquired, purchased, and merited by his having performed that great service and obedience” (Ibid). Here Goodwin ends his explication.

Goodwin really starts to excel as he demonstrates Christ’s love for his church. Christ’s happiness and glory, in regards to his church (not his own personal glory), is increased as his chosen ones reap the benefits of his redemptive work; “so as when their sins are pardoned, their hearts more sanctified, and their spirits comforted,” then Christ comes to see the fruit of his labor and is comforted thereby. Indeed, Christ is much more pleased in this than his saints can be. Therefore, it is in Christ’s interest to “refresh them every moment” (Isa. 27:3). Christ bestowing good towards his bride results in his own increased happiness. Evidence for this comes from Eph. 5:28. “Christ in loving his church doth but love himself; and then the more love and grace he shews unto the members of that his body, the more he shews love unto himself” (4:134). What Christ does for his members, he does for himself; in fact, more fully for himself than for his sheep (Jn. 17:13, 22-23; cf. 15:9-11).

Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We should not understand being able to sympathize with our weaknesses as metaphorical like we do of God in the OT who sometimes spoke “after the manner of men”. Notwithstanding this however, these affections of Christ are meant of his human nature and not his Godhead. “And so, that what before was but improperly spoken, and by way of metaphor and similitude, in the Old Testament … becomes verified and fulfilled in the truth of it …” (4:139).

The Christology of Goodwin, specifically his Person, is well summarized in these words, “But Christ having a human nature, the same for substance that ours is, consisting both of soul and body, although through glory made spiritual, yet not become a spirit” (4:140). As a result, he must have affections towards us, even more so than to angels. So, by Christ’s incarnation, the taking of human flesh, his compassions are true and real, “and not metaphorically attributed to him” (Ibid).

During Christ’s time on earth God prepared for him all sorts of afflictions and miseries in order “to frame his heart, when he should be in glory”. Christ’s heart is enabled, out of experience, to pity those, who like himself, are tempted and distressed. His human nature, in heaven, knows and remembers all that had once taken place and now takes place (Rev. 2:2 “I know your works”). Christ, as head of the body, is the “fountain of all sense and feeling in the body”; he remembers those in adversity, having been in adversity himself, and so is compassionate towards them.

We know, therefore, that Christ remembers our infirmities and has remembrance of his own. Also, the word “sympathize” signifies to suffer with us until we are relieved. The question may be asked, “How far does this affection extend and how deep does it reach?”

The answer: No man in this life can fathom.

Interesting Christological issues arise out of the above. God, in his nature, is said to be more merciful than Christ’s human nature. However, “the act and exercise of Christ’s affections is as large as God’s purposes and decrees of mercy are. And all those large affections and mercies … become human mercies, the mercies of a man unto men” (4:146).