Quotes by John Owen
John Owen (1616–1683) — Theologe · Puritaner · England
John Owen (1616–1683) war ein englischer puritanischer Theologe, Prediger und Vizekanzler der Universität Oxford. Er profilierte sich durch einflussreiche Schriften zur reformierten Sühnelehre und praktischen Heiligung, während seine Unterstützung der Parlamentspartei und die Rolle als Berater Oliver Cromwells historisch umstritten blieben. Heutigen Bibellesern vermittelt sein Werk eine streng dogmatische Schriftauslegung und eine tiefgründige theologische Beschäftigung mit dem geistlichen Kampf gegen die Sünde.
Era: Reformation & Baroque
Recurring topics: Growth & Character, God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit, The Bible & the Word of God, Temptation & Struggle, Grace & Redemption, Guilt & Forgiveness, Faith & Trust, Prayer & Silence
Quotes by John Owen
The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay upon the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to Him is not to believe that He loves you.
John Owen
A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more
John Owen
A sermon is not made with an eye upon the sermon, but with both eyes upon the people and all the heart upon God.
John Owen
For the most part we live upon successes, not promises: unless we see and feel the print of victories, we will not believe.
John Owen
We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.
John Owen
Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or poison.
John Owen
Pardon comes not to the soul alone; or rather, Christ comes not to the soul with pardon only! It is that which He opens the door and enters by, but He comes with a Spirit of life and power.
John Owen
A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul… If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.
John Owen
He who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays.
John Owen
If I have observed anything by experience, it is this: a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ’s Kingdom, and of His love.
John Owen
Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.
John Owen
The nature and end of judgment or sentence must be corrective, not vindictive; for healing, not destruction.
John Owen
There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.
John Owen
Trying to be holy from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.
John Owen
If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false.
John Owen
He that has slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.
John Owen
A man may love another as his own soul, yet his love may not be able to help him. He may 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 greatest desire of our soul… But the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effective and fruitful in producing all the good things which He wills for His beloved. He loves life, grace and holiness into us; He loves us into covenant, loves us into heaven.
John Owen
The nearer anyone is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there.
John Owen
To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.
John Owen
If the Word does not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.
John Owen
Christ Himself with all His glory will be really and continually with us. We shall no longer have to be satisfied with the mere descriptions of Him that we have in the gospel. We shall see Him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12) and as He is (1 John 3:2). We shall see Him with our bodily eyes, for Job says: “In my flesh shall I see God (my Redeemer), whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold” (Job 19:25-27). Our bodily senses will be restored and glorified in a way we cannot now understand, in order that we may be able to look at Christ and His glory forever and ever. We shall see not only His human nature but His divinity also in its infinite wisdom, love and power. That glory will be a thousand times more than anything we can imagine.
John Owen
He that is more frequent in his pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people is but a sorry watchman.
John Owen
Think of the guilt of sin, that you may be humbled. Think of the power of sin, that you may seek strength against it. Think not of the matter of sin…lest you be more and more entangled.
John Owen
And as men’s diversions increase from the world, so do their entanglements from Satan. When they have more to do in the world than they can well manage, they shall have more to do from Satan than they can well withstand.
John Owen
We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.
John Owen
Satan’s greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.
John Owen
God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation as David did before he fell asleep.
John Owen
We shall not benefit from reading the Old Testament unless we look for and meditate on the glory of Christ in its pages.
John Owen
When He took on Him the form of a servant in our nature, He became what He had never been before, but He did not cease to be what He always had been in His divine nature. He who is God cannot ever cease to be God.
John Owen
There is only one way to be revived and healed from our backslidings so that we may become fruitful even in old age. We must take a steady look at the glory of Christ in His special character, in His grace and work, as shown to us in the Scripture.
John Owen
The foundation of true holiness and true Christian worship is the doctrine of the gospel, what we are to believe. So when Christian doctrine is neglected, forsaken, or corrupted, true holiness and worship will also be neglected, forsaken, and corrupted.
John Owen
A true saving knowledge of sin is to be had only in the Lord Christ: in him may we see the desert of our iniquities.
John Owen
God speaks by the Church (the true Church we mean); but He speaks nothing by her but what He speaks in the Scriptures, which she does only ministerially declare to us; and therefore the authority of God and His law is above hers, who, though she publish, yet did not make it, but is herself subject to it.
John Owen
If we do not have some knowledge by faith of the glory of Christ here and now, it means that we have no real desire for His presence in heaven.
John Owen
Only what God has commanded in His word should be regarded as binding; in all else there may be liberty of actions.
John Owen
The chief design of my life in the station wherein the good providence of God hath placed me, are, that mortification and universal holiness may be promoted in my own and in the hearts and ways of others, to the glory of God; that so the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things.
John Owen
The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to [put to death] the indwelling power of sin.
John Owen
Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about matters, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.
John Owen
Those ordained to salvation were also ordained to be holy.
John Owen
To labor to be acquainted with the ways, wiles, methods, advantages, and occasions of the success of sin, is the beginning to this warfare.
John Owen
70 quotes in total — browse the collection.
Sources: wikipedia.org, cslewisinstitute.org, oup.com, dordt.edu
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