John Owen: Christ the Beam of Divine Sunlight

"The light of the sun comes to us by its beams. By its beams we see the sun, and by its beams the sun touches us. Jesus Christ is the beam of his Father's love and through him the Father's love reaches down and touches us. By Jesus Christ also we see and experience and are led up to the Father's love. If we, as believers, would meditate on this truth more and live in the light of it, there would be great spiritual growth in our walk with God.

This growth in our walk with God is what we are to aim at. Many dark and disturbing thoughts arise to hinder our walk with God. Few can rise to the height of the Father's love by faith, so as to rest their souls in his love. They live far below it in the troublesome region of hopes and fears, storms and clouds. Abiding in the Father's love, all is peace and quiet. But how to rise up to the height of the Father's love they do not know. It is God's will that he should always be seen as gentle, kind, tender, loving and unchangeable. It is his will that we see him as the Father, and the great fountain and reservoir of all grace and love. This is what Christ came to reveal. Christ came to reveal God as a Father (John 1:18). It is the name of God as Father which Christ declares to those who are given him out of the world (John 17:6). And this is what Christ leads us to, because he is the only way of going to God as a Father (John 14:5,6). He leads us to God as love. By this, Christ gives us the rest which he promised us. We believe in God through Christ (1 Peter 1:21). Faith seeks out a place for the soul to rest. This rest is presented to the soul by Christ, the Mediator. By Christ the soul has access into the Father's love (Ephesians 2:18). Believers find that God is love, and that he loved them from eternity. Believers learn that it was God's will and purpose to love them from everlasting to everlasting in Christ, and that all reason for God to be angry with us and treat us as his enemies has been taken away. The believer, being brought by Christ into the bosom of the Father, rests in the full assurance of God's love and of never being separated from that love. This is the first act of communion which the believer has with the Father."

~John Owen From the Puritan Paperback's, R.J.K Law abridged version of "Communion With God."

HT: Puritan Fellowship