I thought today, at this late hour, I’d share a short quote from John Owen, as found in The Puritan Golden Treasury concerning the glory of Christ and our very real, spiritual and physical unworthiness.
“Should the Lord Jesus appear now to any of us in His majesty and glory, it would not be to our edification nor consolation. For we are not meet nor able, by the power of any light or grace that we have received, or can receive, to bear the immediate appearance and representation of them. His beloved apostle John had leaned on His bosom probably many a time in his life, in the intimate familiarities of love; but when He afterward appeared to him in His glory, ‘he fell at His feet as dead.’ ”
What do we do with a statement like that? Well, I’m uncertain. It underscores the supremacy and greatness of God in Christ and the total destitution of man, especially in comparison to Him. That deserves dwelling on, I think.
I think John might have fainted at the site of someone he saw die a few days ago. It certainly wasn’t an ordinary, everyday event to see a dead guy alive again. I don’t think it had much to do with the glory of the risen Jesus.
The human form of God, Jesus, became that so that we COULD approach God. This statement doesn’t make any sense to me. Of course, I don’t begin to claim to understand the language used – but it doesn’t really seem to say anything.
What would be the impact of the Lord Jesus appearing in His majesty and glory? Did John Owen finish the thought?
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By: b4dguy on February 8, 2008
at 2:16 pm