What is Communion with God?
John Owen’s Communion with God (1657) stands out among the many great works of puritan devotional theology. Essentially it is a summons for Christians to be Trinitarian in practice as well as in faith, and it captures Owen’s passion for a theology resolutely Trinitarian and thoroughly applied.
― Joel Beeke & Michael Reeves, Puritan: All of Life to the Glory of God
John Owen (1616-1683) was an English scholar, theologian, chaplain, tutor, pastor, vicar, dean of Christ Church College, and author.
John Owen’s rich spiritual legacy is carried on today by the many books he left behind, including Communion with God, a work on the meaning and privileges of the saint’s communion with all three persons of the Godhead.
In Communion with God, Owen writes,
truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ
1 John 1:3
John in his First Epistle tells us in general what this communion with God is. He assures Christians that the fellowship of believers ‘is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.’ And to impress this doctrine on the minds of his readers, he says, ‘truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3).
…From this declaration of John, we learn that the saints of God have communion or fellowship with God. And this communion is a holy or spiritual communion, as we shall see.
Now the only way back into fellowship with God is through faith in Jesus Christ.
Because of sin, no man in his natural state has fellowship with God. God is light, and we are darkness. What communion has light with darkness? God is life; we are dead. God is love; we are enmity. So what agreement can there be between God and man? Men, in such a condition, do not have Christ, and so they are without hope and without God in the world. They are ‘alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.’ Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed with each other. Whilst there is great distance between God and man, there can be no walking together in fellowship or communion. Our first relationship with God was so lost by sin that there was no possibility in ourselves of any return to God.
Now the only way back into fellowship with God is through faith in Jesus Christ…The way into the holiest has been opened and believers have boldness and confidence to come into Christ’s presence. Christ, then, is the foundation of all our communion with God and by the Spirit believers now receive boldness of faith. Consider how greatly God has honored us!
Human wisdom sees such an infinite disparity between God and man that it concludes that there can be no communion between them. The knowledge that God and man can live in fellowship together is hidden in Christ. It is too wonderful for sinful, corrupted human nature to discover. Human wisdom leads only to terrors and fears when it thinks of coming into God’s presence. But we have, in Christ, the way into God’s presence without fear.
Our communion with God lies in His giving of Himself to us and our giving of ourselves and all that He requires to Him.
Now communion is the mutual sharing of those good things which delight all those in that fellowship. This was so with David and Jonathan. Their souls were bound together in love. Their love for one another was shown in various ways. But their love was nothing in comparison to the love that is between God and His people. This fellowship of love is far more wonderful. Those who enjoy this communion are gloriously united to God through Christ and share in all the glorious and excellent fruits of such communion.
Our communion with God lies in His giving of Himself to us and our giving of ourselves and all that He requires to Him. This communion with God flows from that union which is in Christ Jesus.
This communion will be perfect and complete when we enter into the full enjoyment of Christ’s glory. Then we shall totally give ourselves up to Him, resting in Him as the utmost fulfillment of all our desires.