Category Archives: John Owen

Thomas Watson: 24 Helps to Read Scripture.9

19 Thursday May 2016

Posted by in Isaiah, J.I. Packer, John Owen, Reading, Scripture, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

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IX. Come to the reading of Scripture with humble hearts; acknowledge how unworthy you are that God should reveal himself in his word to you.

There are two elements here. First, at the most basic level humility is required for any learning. Learning is the movement from ignorance to knowledge. That movement can only begin with the acknowledge of ignorance — which requires humility. It if the fool who will not learn: “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7).  “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Prov. 12:15).

Second, there is the revelation of God through the Word of God.

Isaiah 66:2 (ESV)

But this is the one to whom I will look:

he who is humble and contrite in spirit

and trembles at my word.

Thomas Brooks explains, “Humility is both a grace, and a vessel to receive more grace.”

The reception of the Scripture in humility is how God reveals himself to us. J.I. Packer summarizes Owen’s doctrine of the Spirit’s illumination of the Scripture as follows:

How does the Spirit bring about this effect? By a threefold activity. First, he imparts to the Scriptures the permanent quality of light. Owen appeals to biblical references to Scripture as ‘light in a dark place’ (2 Pet 1:19), a ‘light’ to men’s feet and a lamp to their path (Ps 119:105), a word whose entrance gives ‘light’ (130), and other similar passages. By light, Owen means that which dispels darkness and illuminates people and situations. Light, by its very nature, is self-evidencing. ‘Let a light be ever so mean and contemptible; yet if it shines, it casts out beams and rays in a dark place, it will evidence itself.’19 Scripture, through the covenanted action of the Holy Spirit, constantly ‘shines’, in the sense of giving spiritual illumination and insight as to who and what one is in the sight of God, and who and what Jesus Christ is, both in himself and in relation to one’s own self and finally, in the broadest and most inclusive sense, how one ought to live. Thus it makes evident its divine origin.

Second, the Spirit makes the Scriptures powerful to produce spiritual effects. They evidence their divine origin by their disruptive and recreative impact on human lives. Owen quotes in this connection the biblical descriptions of the word of God as ‘quick and powerful’, ‘able to build you up’, and ‘the power of God’ (Heb 4:12; Acts 20:31; 1 Cor 1:18).

Third, the Holy Spirit makes Scripture impinge on the individual consciousness as a word addressed personally to each man by God himself, evoking awe, and a sense of being in God’s presence and under his eye. This is what Owen means when he speaks of the ‘majesty’ of the Scriptures. So he writes: ‘the Holy Ghost speaking in and by the word imparting to it virtue, power, efficacy, majesty, and authority, affords us the witness, that our faith is resolved into’.

J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 90–91.

Watson concludes:

God’s secrets are with the humble. Pride is an enemy to profiting. It has been said that the ground on which the peacock sits is barren; that heart where pride sits is really barren. An arrogant person disdains the counsels of the word, and hates the reproofs: is he likely to profit? James 4:6: “God giveth grace to the humble.” The most eminent saints have been of low stature in their own eyes; like the sun at the zenith, they showed least when they were at the highest. David had “more understanding than all his teachers.” Psalm 119:99: but how humble he was. Psalm 22:6: “I am a worm and no man.”

Thomas Watson, “How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit,” in The Bible and the Closet: Or How We May Read the Scriptures with the Most Spiritual Profit; and Secret Prayer Successfully Managed, ed. John Overton Choules (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1842), 25.

 

 

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 4 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 353.

Study Guide, The Mortification of Sin, Chapter 12.b

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in John Owen, Mortification, Theology

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The previous post in this series may be found here

In the remainder of the chapter, Owen details the manner in which we do not know God. The study will pick up on page 111 of Kaipic/Taylor.

 

  1. Has any one ever seen God? What of Moses?

 

  1. The Puritans (as advised by William Perkins) would engage in the work of addressing objections to a doctrine (you will see this in Spurgeon’s sermons when he says, “Someone will say ….”). What is the objection which Owen addresses?

 

  1. While it is true that we have a fuller knowledge of God after the Incarnation, we still do not have a full understanding. What language does Paul use to describe our knowledge of God?

 

  1. Owen draws an analogy of how we understand God, and how a child understand his father. Explain and apply this analogy to our knowledge of God. (p. 113)

 

  1. What will say when we finally come to see God when we come into the presence of His glory?

 

  1. The next argument Owen uses to prove his point is an argument from the lesser to the greater: If we do not know what we will be (the lesser), how can we possibly know God (the greater)?

 

  1. Owen now seeks to detail and prove his point: We do not know God.

 

  • Note how God describes himself: “invisible, incomprehensible, and the like?—that is, he whom we do not, cannot, know as he is. And our farther progress consists more in knowing what he is not, than what he is.” (114). In-visible means not visible. In-comprehensible means not to be comprehended. These are negative describes, something is not, rather than an affirmative statement of God is.

 

  • Identify some verses which describe God as invisible or incomprehensible (or infinite, or other statement of what God is not).

 

  • Consider carefully these descriptions. We think in terms of what we can see. When it comes to things which we do not understand, we seek to see it. God is a being we cannot see. Take the next element, incomprehensible: Do you expect to comprehend God? Do you find that we human beings expect to be able to understand God, who God is, what God does? Do we — do you — ever attribute reasons to God (whom we cannot understand).

 

  • What is the effect of the light surrounding God? Can any creature approach unto God?

 

  1. If God is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, then what is God? Can you imagine anything which is merely infinite? As soon as you conceive of something, you have made it finite? What of eternal, as soon you have any beginning or ending (or perhaps even now) you have something which is not eternal. Can you imagine something which cannot change? We cannot possibly understand the mere being of God.

 

  1. If we pretend to understand the incomprehensible God, what have we done?

 

  1. If our goal, if it is not to understand God’s being? (114).

 

  1. When it comes to the nature of God, the nature of the Trinity, is it a problem that we cannot explain such things? Are there things about physical universe which human beings do not understand? Can you explain the way in which the soul and the body interact? Can you explain how God moves upon the heart? Is it a surprise that we cannot explain God?

 

  1. If we cannot know God’s being, how can we know God?

 

  1. If we cannot know God by the “normal means” (our senses), how can we know God?

 

  1. Knowing something “by faith” seems like nonsense to post-Enlightenment Westerners: we have a prejudice to claiming that we only “know” things by senses. This is a problem in many ways. First, our senses can be wrong. Second, our beliefs about things are what permits us to know anything. We must believe certain things are true to know anything. Example: You must belief that there is a real world, that you are not dreaming, that there are other rational beings before you can know anything about them.

Moreover, we can only know certain things by faith, by belief. Imagine a young couple: each has formed a deep romantic love for the other, but that love has never been expressed. The love exists but it cannot be known until it is believed. What if the young man tells the lady, “I love you” — but she does not believe him. The love is real, but it is unknown. Only if she believes it to be real, is it real.

The truth about God is real and apparent: Creation, Conscience, Christ; yet, it is not known until it is believed.

Thus, faith in God is not a make-believe exercise.

  1. Since knowledge of God is relational it is regulated by the persons in relation; God is under no obligation to make himself known. What is required to lay hold of things not seen? Whom does God reward?

 

  1. While knowledge by faith is real, does it have any limitations?

 

  1. What are the affirmative statements in the NT which describe the manner in which we do know God?

 

  1. Do we know “enough” of God? In what way? For what purpose?

 

  1. What is the end of our knowledge of God?

 

  1. Explain how we comparatively know God better after the Incarnation?

 

  1. What is the difference in knowledge between a believer and an unbeliever?
  2. How can an unbeliever know “about” God? An unbeliever can know about God from Creation — even from the Scriptures. Unbelievers can study the Scripture and make conclusions based upon that data.

 

  1. Analogy: Is it possible for a historian to know a great deal about President Lincoln (without knowing Mr. Lincoln?)?

 

  1. What does God not intend by his self-revelation?

 

  1. What does God intend by revealing himself to us?

 

  1. A doctrine is never to known simply for its factual value: A doctrine is to known for its effect. What effect should the ultimate incomprehensibility of God have upon us?

Let us, then, revive the use and intendment of this consideration: Will not a due apprehension of this inconceivable greatness of God, and that infinite distance wherein we stand from him, fill the soul with a holy and awful fear of him, so as to keep it in a frame unsuited to the thriving or flourishing of any lust whatever? Let the soul be continually wonted to reverential thoughts of God’s greatness and omnipresence, and it will be much upon its watch as to any undue deportments. Consider him with whom you have to do,—even “our God is a consuming fire;” and in your greatest abashments at his presence and eye, know that your very nature is too narrow to bear apprehensions suitable to his essential glory. (118)

  1. How will such an effect result in deadening (mortification) of sin in our lives?

 

 

Study Guide, The Mortification of Sin, Chapter 12

17 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Glory, John Owen, Mortification, Obedience, Sanctifictation

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The previous post in this series may be found here

 

EIGHTHLY, Use and exercise thyself to such meditations as may serve to fill thee at all times with self-abasement and thoughts of your own vileness; as,—

 

Kaipic, p. 110.

Warning: This direction is easily misunderstand, and if misunderstood, will have precisely the opposite effect as intended by Owen.

When we read such a direction, we could easily begin to think about ourselves, to direct attention to ourselves. Owen is trying to push our attention out of ourselves and onto Christ.

So we will need to first unpack some of Owen’s language. First the word “vile”: there is a nuance of this word which may difficult for us to capture at this distance in time. Here is a quotation from the Authorized Version of the Bible which will help:

20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Philippians 3:20–21 (AV)

“Vile” is contrasted with the glorious body will have in the future. It is the normal state of a human being on the Genesis 3 side of the Fall. It does not mean a peculiarly vile human being — it means a normal human being. The human being is “vile” in contrast to (1) what a human being should be; and (2) implicitly in contrast to the glory of God.

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Mortification of Sin Study Guide, Complete Through Chapter 11

22 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, John Owen, Mortification

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This in an interim Study Guide. It is only complete through chapter 11. The formatting is a bit inconsistent. However, the substance is all here.

(I will be using the text found in the 2006 book Overcoming Sin and Temptation, Crossway, edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor – all page references will be to that edition. If you have not read John Owen before, I would recommend this edition as a good starting place.  The editors provide introductions, explanatory footnotes and outlines of the books; without such helps you may easily find yourself lost in the text. )

The Mortification of Sin, Study Guide, Chapter 1.

Read the chapter through three times.  The first time, just get through it from beginning to end.  If you have difficulty with some idea, do your best and keep reading.  Read it a second time, this time make sure you understand every element of the chapter in some detail.  Look up words you do not understand.  Read every verse cited in the chapter.  Pay attention to every detail.  Third: Go the back of the book, page 411, and read the outline for chapter one.  Then read the chapter a third time noting how all the parts go together.  Repeat this strategy for reading with every chapter in the book.

 

  1. Read Romans 8 through once.  Make an outline of the basic progression of thought in Roman 8.  Note our 8:13 fits into the over scheme of the chapter.

 

  1. What are the five elements of 8:13? Note that Owen does not put the five elements in the same in which they are found in the verse.  He has reordered the elements so as to make the main verb (Mortify) the most important element of the text.

 

  1. Explain what is meant by “conditionality” and “connection”.  Does the word “if” in 8:13 mean that a believer has a choice as to whether to mortify sin?  Do you agree with Owen’s argument concerning the word “If”?

 

  1. Who is being addressed in 8:13? Look back over the immediately preceding context (Rom. 8:1-11): Does Owen correctly identify the class of persons who are told to “mortify sin”? There is a block quote at the top of page 47, restate that observation in your own words.

 

  1. If you have trouble with the phrase  of “efficient cause” on page here are two links which may help you understand the question of causation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_cause#Efficient_cause and  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/.  Efficient cause in this instance merely refers to the agent who actually makes something happen.

 

  1. Look over your own life: Can you rightly say that the Holy Spirit causes you on a daily basis to kill your sin?  Do you know how to distinguish between whether the Holy Spirit or your own efforts are principally responsible for your growth in holiness?  If you are unclear on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, there are many good resources which can help you get started in this area.  There are entire books which cover the subject as well as sections from systematic theology.

 

  1. How does Owen explain the phrase “deeds of the body”?  Read Romans 8:1-12 and note how Paul uses the word “flesh” in that section.  If you are tempted to think of “flesh” as merely your skin and bones try to make sense of the word “flesh” in Romans 8:9 using that interpretation.   Read Galatians 5:16-24.  What two principles are contrasted in that passage?  How does the passage in Galatians help you understand the proposition that the Holy Spirit is the “efficient cause” of your sanctification?

 

  1. What does “mortify” mean?  How does Owen describe the growth in holiness?  Is it fast, slow, instantaneous, possible but not likely?

 

  1. Read the block quote on the top of page 49: restate that quotation in your own words.

 

  1. What does the promise of “life” mean in Romans 8:13?  Isn’t a Christian already alive, why does he need to do this work?  Using a search tool, find at least three other verses in the New Testament which use the word “life” in the same manner.  Why does God offer “life” to someone who is already alive? Compare Gen.  2:17 and Ephesians 2:1-3.

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Mortification of Sin, Study Guide Chapter 11c (John Owen)

08 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Deuteronomy, Discipleship, John Owen, Micah, Mortification, Psalms

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The previous post in this series will be found here

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Seventh General:

Rise mightily against the first actings of thy distemper, its first conceptions; suffer it not to get the least ground. Do not say, “Thus far it shall go, and no farther.” If it have allowance for one step, it will take another.

  1. Sin in our actions begins as sin our hearts:

20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Mark 7:20–23 (ESV)

Thus, sin first begins in our thoughts and affections, it is an idea and desire before it ever becomes an action. Read James 1:14-15: What are the steps there listed for the beginning of sin?

Read Genesis 3:6: What takes place in Eve before she takes the fruit?

What about sins which seem to spring up spontaneously without any precursor, such a rage of anger: in what ways do such sins have start? Consider a recent experience of anger: What thoughts and desires had to be in place for anger to be possible? How would an increase in humility, pity, love have altered your heart in such a way that anger would not have been expressed? By way of comparison — consider other sins which you see others commit but you do follow in yourself. What is different your thoughts and affections that lead you to not following in that sin?

  1. We must stop sin at first actings.

It is impossible to fix bounds to sin. It is like water in a channel,—if it once break out, it will have its course. Its not acting is easier to be compassed than its bounding. Therefore doth James give that gradation and process of lust, chap. 1:14, 15, that we may stop at the entrance.

 

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Mortification of Sin, Study Guide Chapter 11b (John Owen)

01 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, John Owen, Mortification, Sanctification

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You can find the previous study guide here:

The SIXTH direction is,—

Consider what occasions, what advantages thy distemper hath taken to exert and put forth itself, and watch against them all.

Quite simply: look for the things that tempt you and avoid them.

As Jesus admonished Peter in the Garden: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Mark 14:38 (ESV)

Owen interestingly ties this command to two eschatological passages. First in Mark:

32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. 35 Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— 36 lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

Mark 13:32–37 (ESV)

Secondly in Luke

34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” 37 And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. 38 And early in the morning all the people came to him in the temple to hear him. Luke 21:34–38 (ESV)

Jesus in Mark 13 & Luke 21 is specifically concerned with the Second Coming, we must be careful to watch for the Second Coming. Owen is specifically concerning with watching our hearts to avoid temptation. These seem to be two separate topics: How does watching my heart to avoid temptation relate to watching for the Second Coming of Christ?

Read 1 Peter 1:13-17. How does Peter’s command to “set your hope fully” relate to Jesus’ command to “watch”?

What is the connection between preparing your heart and life for Jesus’ return and avoiding sin this afternoon?

Illustration: Whenever you teach an idea always follow up with a picture; give an illustration. Illustrations help the hearer (1) apprehend the idea and (2) remember the idea.

Here Owen gives the illustration of diet and health. Some types of food may not sit well with our stomach. We note those foods and avoid them. Certain plants or animals may cause an allergic reaction — we will remain the things which hurt us and avoid them.

What sorts of foods, animals, plants or circumstances do you avoid because those circumstances make your body hurt? Have you ever made such an observation about your temptation and sin? Why are you more careful about avoiding a stomach ache than sin? What does this tell you about how seriously you consider sin?

Biblical Illustrations: Continue reading →

The Fruitful Love of Christ

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Christology, John Owen

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Whom he loves, he loves unto the end. His love is such as never had beginning, and never shall have ending.

It is also fruitful, — fruitful in all gracious issues and effects. A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him; bemoan him in misery, but not help him; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him.

We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” but it might not be.

But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. Love in him is properly to will good to any one: whatever good Christ by his love wills to any, that willing is operative of that good.

These three qualifications of the love of Christ make it exceedingly eminent, and him exceeding desirable.

How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome! what mountains of unbelief does it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day?

What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day!

John Owen, Of Communion With the Father, the Son & the Spirit

That Which all the Saints of God

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Hope, John Owen

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This immediate sight of Christ is that which all the saints of God in this life do breathe and pant after. Hence are they willing to be dissolved, or “desire to depart, that they may be with Christ,” which is best for them, Philippians 1:23. They choose “to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord,” 2 Corinthians 5:8; or that they may enjoy the inexpressibly longed-for sight of Christ in his glory. Those who do not so long for it, whose souls and minds are not frequently visited with earnest desires after it, unto whom the thoughts of it are not their relief in trouble, and their chiefest joy, are carnal, blind, and cannot see afar off. He that is truly spiritual entertains and refresheth himself with thoughts hereof continually.

John Owen, The Glory of Christ

Suffenus

07 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in John Owen, Thomas Goodwin

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Because of the internet, and thus the ability to “self-publish”, there are a plethora of “Suffenuses” causing all sorts of trouble for the church. John Owen used the term “Suffenus” to describe young theologians who think they know it all. Suffenus was a poet, a tad incompetent, but in no way lacking confidence in his own abilities. Those (overly) pleased with their intellectual powers were, says Owen, called “Suffenuses.” These types are blind to their own faults but bitterly attack the faults of others.

Gold is in every grain of sand

07 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by in Hebrews, John Owen, Meditation, Scripture, Study

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John Owen on the beauty and depth of Scripture:

I. Every thing in the Scripture is instructive. The apostle’s arguing in this place is not so much from the thing spoken, as from the manner wherein it is spoken. Even that also is highly mysterious. So are all the concernments of it. Nothing in it is needless, nothing useless. Men sometimes perplex themselves to find out the suitableness of some testimonies produced out of the Old Testament unto the confirmation of things and doctrines in the New by the penmen of the Holy Ghost, when all the difficulty ariseth from a fond conceit that they can apprehend the length and breadth of the wisdom that is laid up in any one text of Scripture, when the Holy Ghost may have a principal aim at those things which they are not able to dive into. Every letter and tittle of it is teaching, and every thing that relates unto it is instructive in the mind of God. And it must be so, because, —

1. It proceeds from infinite wisdom, which hath put an impress of itself upon it, and filled all its capacity with its blessed effects. In the whole frame, structure, and order of it, in the sense, words, coherence, expression, it is filled with wisdom; which makes the commandment exceeding broad and large, so that there is no absolute comprehension of it in this life. We cannot perfectly trace the footsteps of infinite wisdom, nor find out all the effects and characters of it that it hath left upon the Word. The whole Scripture is full of wisdom, as the sea is of water, which fills and covers all the parts of it. And, —

2. Because it was to be very comprehensive. It was to contain, directly or by consequence, one way or other, the whole revelation of God unto us, and all our duty unto him; both which are marvellous, great, large, and various. Now this could not have been done in so narrow a room, but that every part of it, and all the concernments of it, with its whole order, were to be filled with mysteries and expressions or intimations of the mind and will of God. It could not hence be that any thing superfluous should be put into it, or any thing be in it that should not relate to teaching and instruction.

3. It is that which God hath given unto his servants for their continual exercise day and night in this world; and in their inquiry into it he requires of them their utmost diligence and endeavors. This being assigned for their duty, it was convenient unto divine wisdom and goodness to find them blessed and useful work in the whole Scripture to exercise themselves
about, that everywhere they might meet with that which might satisfy their inquiry and answer their industry. There shall never be any time or strength lost or misspent that is laid out according to the mind of God in and about his Word. The matter, the words, the order, the contexture of them, the scope, design, and aim of the Holy Ghost in them, all and every one of them, may well take up the utmost of our diligence, — all are divine. Nothing is empty, unfurnished, or unprepared for our spiritual use, advantage, and benefit. Let us then learn hence, —

(1.) To admire, and, as one said of old, to adore the fullness of the Scripture, or of the wisdom of God in it. It is all full of divine wisdom, and calls for our reverence in the consideration of it. And indeed a constant awe of the majesty, authority, and holiness of God in his Word, is the only teachable frame. Proud and careless spirits see nothing of heaven or Divinity in the Word; but the humble are made wise in it.

(2.) To stir up and exercise our faith and diligence to the utmost in our study and search of the Scripture. It is an endless storehouse, a bottomless treasure of divine truth; gold is in every sand. All the wise men in the world may, every one for himself, learn somewhat out of every word of it, and yet leave enough still behind them for the instruction of all those that shall come after them. The fountains and springs of wisdom in it are endless, and will never be dry. We may have much truth and power out of a word, sometimes enough, but never all that is in it. There will still be enough remaining to exercise and refresh us anew for ever. So that we may attain a true sense, but we can never attain the full sense of any place; we can never exhaust the whole impress of infinite wisdom that is on the Word. And how should this stir us up to be meditating in it day and night!

— From John Owen’s Commentary on Hebrews, volume 1 (verse 5b), pages 168-170