Q. 1. By what means did Jesus Christ undertake the office of an eternal priest?
A. By athe decree, ordination, and will of God his Father, bwhereunto he yielded voluntary obedience; so cthat concerning this there was a compact and covenant between them.
aPs. cx. 4; Heb. v. 5, 6, vii. 17, 18. bIsa. l. 4–6; Heb. x. 5–10. cPs. ii. 7, 8; Isa. liii. 8, 10–12; Phil. ii. 7, 9; Heb. xii. 2; John xvii. 2, 4.
Q. 2. Wherein doth his execution of this office consist?
A. In bringing his people unto God.
Heb. ii. 10, iv. 16, vii. 25.
Q. 3. What are the parts of it?
A. First, aoblation; secondly, bintercession.50
aHeb. ix. 14. bHeb. vii. 25.
Q. 4. What is the oblation of Christ?
A. The aoffering up of himself upon the altar of the cross, an holy propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of all the elect throughout the world; as balso, the presentation of himself for us in heaven, sprinkled with the blood of the covenant.
aIsa. liii. 10, 12; John iii. 16, xi. 51, xvii. 19; Heb. ix. 13,14. bHeb. ix. 24.
Q. 5. Whereby doth this oblation do good unto us?
A. Divers ways; first, in that it satisfied the justice of God; secondly, it redeemed us from the power of sin, death, and hell; thirdly, it ratified the new covenant of grace; fourthly, it procured for us grace here, and glory hereafter; by all which means the peace and reconciliation between God and us is wrought.
Eph ii. 14, 15.
Q. 6. How did the oblation of Christ satisfy God’s justice for our sin?
A. In that for us he underwent the51 punishment due to our sin.
Isa. liii. 4–6; John x. 11; Rom. iii. 25, 26, iv. 25; 1 Cor. xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 21; Eph. v. 2; 1 Pet. ii. 24.
Q. 7. What was that punishment?
A. The wrath of God, the curse52 of the law, the pains of hell, due 482to sinners, in body and soul.
Gen. ii. 17; Deut. xxvii. 15–26; Isa. lix. 2; Rom. v. 12; Eph ii. 3; John iii. 36; Heb. ii. 14.
Q. 8. Did Christ undergo all these?
A. Yes; in respect of the greatness53 and extremity, not the eternity and continuance of those pains; for it was impossible he should be holden of death.
Matt. xxvi. 28; Mark xiv. 33, 34; xv. 34; Gal. iii. 13; Eph ii. 16; Col. i. 20; Heb. v. 7; Ps. xviii. 5.
Q. 9. How could the punishment of one satisfy for the offence of all?
A. In that he was not a mere54 man only, but God also, of infinitely more value than all those who had offended.
Rom. v. 9; Heb. ix. 26; 1 Pet. iii. 18.
Q. 10. How did the oblation of Christ redeem from death and hell?
A. First, aby paying a ransom55 to God, the judge and lawgiver, who had condemned us; secondly, bby overcoming and spoiling Satan, death, and the powers of hell, that detained us captives.
aMatt. xx. 28; John vi. 51; Mark x. 45; Rom. iii. 25; 1 Cor. vi. 20; Gal. iii. 13; Eph i. 7; 1 Tim. ii. 6; Heb. x. 9. bJohn v. 24; Col. ii. 13–15; 1 Thess. i. 10; Heb. ii. 14; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19.
Q. 11. What was the ransom that Christ paid for us?
A. His own precious blood.
Acts xx. 28; 1 Pet. i. 19.
Q. 12. How was the new covenant ratified in his blood?
A. By being accompanied with56 his death; for that, as all other testaments, was to be ratified by the death of the testator.
Gen. xxii. 18; Heb. ix. 16, viii. 10–12.
Q. 13. What is this new covenant?
A. The gracious, free, aimmutable promise of God, made unto all his elect fallen in Adam, to bgive them Jesus Christ, and cin him mercy, pardon, grace, and glory, dwith a re-stipulation of faith from them unto this faith from them unto this promise, and new obedience.
aGen. iii. 15; Jer. xxxi. 31–34, xxxii. 40; Heb. viii. 10–12. bGal. iii. 8, 16; Gen. xii. 3. cRom. viii. 32; Eph. i. 3, 4. dMark xvi. 16; John i. 12, x. 27, 28.
Q. 14. How did Christ procure for us grace, faith, and glory?
A. By the way of purchase57 and merit; for the death of Christ deservedly procured of God that he should bless us with all58 spiritual 483blessings needful for our coming unto him.
Isa. liii. 11, 12; John xvii. 2; Acts xx. 28; Rom. v. 17, 18; Eph. ii. 15, 16, i. 4; Phil. i. 29; Tit. ii. 14; Rev. i. 5, 6.
Q. 15. What is the intercession of Christ?
A. His continual soliciting59 of God on our behalf, begun here in fervent prayers, continued in heaven by appearing as our advocate at the throne of grace.
Ps. ii. 8; Rom. viii. 34; Heb. vii. 25, ix. 24, x. 19–21; 1 John ii. 1, 2; John xvii.
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John Owen (1616 - 1683)
Read freely text sermons and articles by the speaker John Owen in text and pdf format.John Owen, called the “prince of the English divines,” “the leading figure among the Congregationalist divines,” “a genius with learning second only to Calvin’s,” and “indisputably the leading proponent of high Calvinism in England in the late seventeenth century,” was born in Stadham (Stadhampton), near Oxford. He was the second son of Henry Owen, the local Puritan vicar. Owen showed godly and scholarly tendencies at an early age. He entered Queen’s College, Oxford, at the age of twelve and studied the classics, mathematics, philosophy, theology, Hebrew, and rabbinical writings. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1632 and a Master of Arts degree in 1635. Throughout his teen years, young Owen studied eighteen to twenty hours per day.Pressured to accept Archbishop Laud’s new statutes, Owen left Oxford in 1637. He became a private chaplain and tutor, first for Sir William Dormer of Ascot, then for John Lord Lovelace at Hurley, Berkshire. He worked for Lovelace until 1643. Those years of chaplaincy afforded him much time for study, which God richly blessed. At the age of twenty-six, Owen began a forty-one year writing span that produced more than eighty works. Many of those would become classics and be greatly used by God.
Owen was by common consent the weightiest Puritan theologian, and many would bracket him with Jonathan Edwards as one of the greatest Reformed theologians of all time.
Born in 1616, he entered Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of twelve and secured his M.A. in 1635, when he was nineteen. In his early twenties, conviction of sin threw him into such turmoil that for three months he could scarcely utter a coherent word on anything; but slowly he learned to trust Christ, and so found peace.
In 1637 he became a pastor; in the 1640s he was chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and in 1651 he was made Dean of Christ Church, Oxford's largest college. In 1652 he was given the additional post of Vice-Chancellor of the University, which he then reorganized with conspicuous success. After 1660 he led the Independents through the bitter years of persecution till his death in 1683.
John Owen was born of Puritan parents at Stadham in Oxfordshire in 1616. At Oxford University, which he entered in 1628 at twelve years of age, John pored over books so much that he undermined his health by sleeping only four hours a night. In old age he deeply regretted this misuse of his body, and said he would give up all the additional learning it brought him if only he might have his health back. Naturally, he studied the classics of the western world, but also Hebrew, the literature of the Jewish rabbis, mathematics and philosophy. His beliefs at that time were Presbyterian, however, his ambition, although fixed on the church, was worldly.
John was driven from Oxford in 1637 when Archbishop Laud issued rules that many of England's more democratically-minded or "low" church ministers could not accept. After this, John was in deep depression. He struggled to resolve religious issues to his satisfaction. While in this state, he heard a sermon on the text "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" which fired him with new decisiveness.
After that, John wrote a rebuke of Arminianism (a mild form of Calvinism which teaches that man has some say in his own salvation or damnation although God is still sovereign). Ordained shortly before his expulsion from Oxford, he was given work at Fordham in Essex. After that he rose steadily in public affairs. Before all was over, he would become one of the top administrators of the university which expelled him and he even sat in Parliament.
He became a Congregationalist (Puritan) and took Parliament's side in the English Civil Wars. Oliver Cromwell employed him in positions of influence and trust, but John would not go along when Cromwell became "Protector." Nonetheless, many of Parliament's leaders attended John's church.
John's reputation was so great that he was offered many churches. One was in Boston, Massachusetts. John turned that down, but he once scolded the Puritans of New England for persecuting people who disagreed with them.
He also engaged in controversy with such contemporaries as Richard Baxter and Jeremy Taylor. Through it all, John focused his teaching on the person of Christ. "If Christ had not died," he said, "sin had never died in any sinner unto eternity." In another place he noted that "Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but he died for all God's elect, that they should believe."
John wrote many books including a masterpiece on the Holy Spirit. Kidney stones and asthma tormented him in his last years. But he died peacefully in the end, eyes and hands lifted up as if in prayer.