OUTSIDE SOURCE Book Review: The Puritan Paperback, "The Glory of Christ," by John Owen

BOOK REVIEWED: "The Glory of Christ," by John Owen - The Puritan Paperback Series version, made easier to read by Richard Rushing
THE REVIEWER: Pastor Scott Head at his blog
THE REVIEW (his words, not mine): "Today I had the great privilege to preach about the glory of God, specifically, the glory of God in Jesus Christ as our motivation for our affection and worship. I spent some time showing that God's attributes are, in a sense, the key for believers to behold His glory. His attributes, his characteristics, are the key to knowing God, and knowing Him is knowing Jesus. Jesus said if you have seen me you have seen the Father. As John Owen so eloquently shows in his book "The Glory of Christ", the glory of God, totally and utterly unknowable to mere men in our earthly state, is manifest in the person and deity of Jesus Christ and thus made knowable. (2 Cor 4:4, 2 Cor 3:12-18, etc.)Owens shows from scripture that we behold the glory of Christ, and thus that of the Father, by faith. So if we do not know Jesus, we do not know God (John 14:7). It takes spending time in the Word of God to KNOW this Jesus, and the true believer has that desire! If he claims to love the Lord, he will desire to KNOW the Lord and learn more and more about Jesus. It is the reasonable thing to expect of one who says they love God. This is done by hard work, study, scripture and the counsel of the Holy Spirit. The one who truly loves the Lord and desires to behold His glory mines the Word of God for every last bit of the knowledge of God that He can. He desires to do so with intent and passion. He digs out of genuine desire, not duty. He digs deep and works hard to know this Jesus not so that he can present His works to the Lord as if to say "Lord, Lord, look what I have done in your name", but because it is just what he does out of appreciation for what the Lord has done for him. To bring our works to the Lord as righteousness is to deny Him glory, and is idolatry. Instead, a true believer is motivated BY the glory of God, and in response pours himself into further knowing God. He is fully aware that he has no righteousness of his own with which to plead his case, because he has been the undeserved recipient of that glory by faith in Christ, for God's glory, motivated and instigated by God alone.I can heartily recommend Owen's book on this topic, it is an inexpensive price to pay for such clear and scripturally sound teaching. The Puritan Paperback version available from Banner of Truth publishing is abridged and features 'modernized' English, both of which would generally send me looking for a more true-to-the-author version. However, this edition is easy to read, only 184 pages, and exceptionally to the point. Owens' "The Glory of Christ" showed me from scripture truths I had never heard preached, and rarely read in modern Christian work. We've lost so much!
For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4:6)
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