The Peculiar Acts of the Father
Two peculiar acts there are in this work of our redemption by the blood of Jesus, which may be and are properly assigned to the person of the Father. First the sending of his Son into the world, for this employment. Secondly a laying the punishment due to our sin upon him.
Sending the Son
The Father loves the world and sends his Son to die. He “sent his Son into the world that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16–17), he “sent his Son in the likenesse of sinfull flesh, and for sinne condemned sinne in the flesh, that the righteousnesse of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3–4), he “set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Rom. 3:25), for “when the fulnesse of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4–5).
So more than twenty times in the Gospel of John, there is mention of this sending; and our Savior describes himself by this periphrasis,1 “him whom the Father hath sent” (John 6:39),2 and the Father, by this, “he who sent me” (John 8:16).3 So that this action of sending is appropriate to the Father, according to his promise, that he would “send us a Saviour, a great one to deliver us” (Isa. 19:20), and to the profession of our Savior, “I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time that it was, there am I, and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me” (Isa. 48:16): hence the Father himself is sometimes called our Savior: “according to the commandment θεοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, of God our Saviour” (1 Tim. 1:1). As also, 1 Timothy 4:10: “We have hoped in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that beleeve”: though in this last place, it be not ascribed unto him, with reference to his redeeming us by Christ, but his saving and preserving all by his providence. So also Titus 2:11;8 3:4; Deuteronomy 32:15; 1 Samuel 10:19; Psalms 24:5; 25:5; Isaiah 12:2; 11:10;9 45:15; Jeremiah 16:8;10 Micah 7:7; Hebrews 3:17;11 most of which places, have reference to his sending of Christ, which is also distinguished into three several acts, which in order we must lay down.
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Appointing the Son to the Office of Mediator
First, an authoritative imposition of the office of mediator, which Christ closed withal, by his voluntary susception4 of it, willingly undergoing the office, wherein by dispensation the Father had and exercised a kind of superiority, which the Son, though “in the form of God,” humbled himself unto (Phil. 2:6–7).5
Giving the Son the Gifts and Graces for His Work
The second act of the Father’s sending the Son, is the furnishing of him in his sending, with a fullness of all gifts and graces, that might any way be requisite for the office he was to undertake, the work he was to undergo, and the charge he had over the house of God.
There was indeed in Christ a twofold fullness and perfection of all spiritual excellencies. First the natural all-sufficient perfection of his Deity,6 as one with his Father in respect of his divine nature: for his glory was “the glory of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). The second fullness that was in Christ,7 was a communicated fullness, which was in him by dispensation from his Father bestowed upon him to fit him for his work and office, as he was and is the “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5), not as he is the Lord of hosts, but as he is “Immanuel God with us,”8 as he was a “Sonne given to us, called wonderfull, Counsellour, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, upon whose shoulders the government was to be” (Isa. 9:6).
Volume 9 includes John Owen’s work The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, which defends the doctrine of definite atonement. It has been edited for modern readers by Richard Snoddy.
Entering into Covenant with the Son About This Work
The third act of this sending, is, his entering into covenant, and compact with his Son concerning the work to be undertaken, and the issue or event thereof: of which there be two parts.
First his promise to protect and assist him, in the accomplishment and perfect fulfilling of the whole business and dispensation about which he was employed, or which he was to undertake. The Father engaged himself, that for his part, upon his Son’s undertaking this great work of redemption, he would not be wanting in any assistance in trials, strength against oppositions, encouragement against temptations, and strong consolation in the midst of terrors, which might be any way necessary or requisite to carry him on through all difficulties to the end of so great an employment.
Secondly of success, or a good issue out of all his sufferings, and a happy accomplishment and attainment of the end of his great undertaking: now of all the rest this chiefly is to be considered, as directly conducing to the business proposed, which yet would not have been so clear without the former considerations: for whatsoever it was that God promised his Son, should be fulfilled and attained by him, that certainly was it, at which the Son aimed in the whole undertaking, and designed it as the end of the work, that was committed to him, and which alone he could and did claim upon the accomplishment of his Father’s will: what this was, and the promises whereby it is at large set forth, you have Isaiah 49.
There was indeed in Christ a twofold fullness and perfection of all spiritual excellencies.
Laying on Him the Punishment of Sin
The second is of laying upon him the punishment of sins, everywhere ascribed unto the Father: “ ‘Awake O sword against my shepheard, against the man that is my fellow,’ saith the Lord of hosts: ‘Smite the shepheard and the sheepe shall bee scattered’ ” (Zech. 13:7). What here is set down imperatively, by way of command is in the gospel indicatively expounded, “I will smite the shepheard, and the sheepe of the flocke shall bee scattered abroad” (Matt. 26:31). He was “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted,” yea “the Lord layed upon him the iniquity of us all,” yea it “pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to griefe” (Isa. 53:4, 6, 10), “hee made him to bee sinne for us, who knew no sinne, that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
The adjunct in both places is put for the subject, as the opposition between his being made sin, and our being made righteousness declares: “him who knew no sinne” that is who deserved no punishment, “him hath he made to be sinne,” or laid the punishment due to sin upon him; or perhaps in the latter place, “sin” may be taken for an offering or sacrifice for the expiation of sin, ἁμαρτία answering in this place to the word חטאת9 in the Old Testament which signifies both sin and the sacrifice for it. And this the Lord did, for as for Herod, Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, when they were gathered together they did nothing but “what his hand and councell had determined before to bee done” (Acts 4:27–28), whence the great shakings of our Savior, were in his close conflict with his Father’s wrath, and that burden which by himself he immediately imposed on him, when there was no hand or instrument outwardly appearing to put him10 to any suffering or cruciating11 torment; then “began he to bee sorrowfull even unto death” (Matt. 26:37–38), to wit when he was in the garden with his three choice apostles, before the traitor or any of his accomplices appeared; then was he “sore amazed and very heavie” (Mark 14:34),12 that was the time “in the dayes of his flesh when he offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryes and teares unto him that was able to save him from death” (Heb. 5:7), which how he performed the apostle describes, “There appeared an angell unto him from heaven strengthening him, but being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling downe to the ground” (Luke 22:43–44): surely it was a close and strong trial and that immediately from his Father he now underwent: for how meekly and cheerfully does he submit without any regret or trouble of spirit, to all the cruelty of men, and violence offered to his body, until this conflict being renewed again, he cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”13
And this by the way, will be worth our observation, that we may know with whom our Savior chiefly had to do, and what was that which he underwent for sinners, which also will give some light to the grand quaere,14 concerning the persons of them for whom he undertook all this: his sufferings were far from consisting in mere corporal perpessions15 and afflictions, with such impressions upon his soul and spirit, as were the effects and issues only of them: it was no more, nor less, than the curse of the law of God, which he underwent for us, for he freed us from the curse “by being made a curse” (Gal. 3:13), which contained all the punishment that was due to sin, either in the severity of God’s justice, or according to the exigence16 of that law which required obedience. That the execration17 of the law should be only temporal death, as the law was considered to be the instrument of the Jewish polity, and serving that economy or dispensation, is true; but that it should be no more as it is the universal rule of obedience and the bond of the covenant between God and man, is a foolish dream. Nay but in dying for us Christ did not only aim at our good, but also directly died in our stead: the punishment due to our sin and the chastisement of our peace was upon him: which that it was the pains of hell in their nature and being, in their weight and pressure, though not in tendence18 and continuance (it being impossible that he should be detained by death), who can deny, and not be injurious to the justice of God, which will inevitably inflict those pains to eternity upon sinners? It is true indeed, there is a relaxation of the law, in respect of the persons suffering, God admitting of commutation: as in the old law when in their sacrifices, the life of the beast was accepted (in respect to the carnal part of the ordinances) for the life of the man; this is fully revealed, and we believe it: but for any change of the punishment, in respect of the nature of it, where is the least intimation of any alteration? We conclude then this second act of God, in laying the punishment on him for us, with that of the prophet: “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). And add thereunto this observation, that it seems strange to me, that Christ should undergo the pains of hell in their stead, who lay in the pains of hell before he underwent those pains, and shall continue in them to eternity, for “their worme dieth not, neither is their fire quenched.”19
The Universalists’ “Dilemma”
To which I may add this dilemma to our universalists: God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or some sins of all men. If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved, for “if God enter into judgment with us,”20 though it were with all mankind for one sin, “no flesh should be justified in his sight”:21 “if the Lord should marke iniquities who should stand?” (Ps. 130:3). We might all go to cast all that we have, “to the moles and to the bats, to goe into the clefts of the rocks, and the tops of the ragged rocks for feare of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty” (Isa. 2:20–21). If the second; that is it which we affirm, that Christ in their stead, and room, suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world. If the first, why then are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins? You will say, because of their unbelief, they will not believe, but this unbelief, is it a sin or not? If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not: if so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died, from partaking of the fruit of his death: if he did not, then did he not die for all their sins? Let them choose which part they will.
Notes:
- I.e., a circumlocution, or roundabout way of speaking, in which meaning is conveyed by several words rather than by one or a few.
- This could be read as a paraphrase of John 6:38–39. Gib and Goold emend to John 10:36.
- Goold emends to John 5:37.
- I.e., assumption, taking on oneself.
- The correct reference is Phil. 2:6–8.
- In the margin: θειότητος [“fullness”] of the Deity.—Owen.
- In the margin: θεíων ἀγαθών [“divine good things”]. Of divine gifts properly intended.—Owen.
- Matt. 1:23.
- חַ טָ את .H
- In the text: them.—Owen.
- I.e., distressing. This is the adjectival form of the verb cruciate, “to afflict with pain, torment,
or torture.” - The correct reference is Mark 14:33.
- Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34.
- Lat. “question,” “query.”
- I.e., sufferings.
- I.e., exigency, or requirement.
- I.e., the act of pronouncing a curse.
- In the text: tendance.—Owen. Owen’s original term relates to care and attention. Gib, Russell, and Goold likewise emend to “tendence,” i.e., tendency
- Mark 9:48.
- If God enter into judgment with us” is presented in italics in the text, as if a quotation. Perhaps Owen had Job 22:4 in mind.
- Rom. 3:20.
This article is adapted from The Death of Christ revised by John Owen and edited by Richard Snoddy.
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