Glorious Mystery - Chapter 3

Jesus Christ is to be the centre of our religion and worship. It is God who holds this title rightly - "For religion, and the worship performed in it, is nothing but the due respect of rational creatures unto the divine nature, and its infinite excellencies." (p. 45) And it turns on Jesus being the centre of such worship because: "of all the effects of the divine excellencies, the constitution of the person of Christ... was the most ineffable and glorious." (p. 45) (Owen talks not of the secnd person of the Trinity being created when he says "constituted" but of his incarnation).

Christ the eternal word became flesh, in a mystery we cannot comprehend: "the Eternal was made in time, the Infinite became finite, the Immortal mortal, yet continuing eternal, infinite, immortal" (p. 46) Such that we are, everyone of us, left with a choice: "either...reject the divine person of Christ - as many do unto their own destruction - or humbly to adore the mystery of infinite wisdom and grace therein." (p. 47).

The incarntion is vital to the Christian religion. Man could not fulfill the role of glorifying God: "unless our nature was assumed into personal union and subsistence with himself." (p. 48). All religion before Christ which was true: was concerning Jesus - "the promise was concerning him, and the institutions of worship did only represent him."

Faith in these divine mysteries makes a human, no matter how weak or poor, into the image of God. So want all things to be believed to be rational and comprehensible: "an apprehension which, as it ariseth from the pride which naturally ensues the ignorance of God and ourselves, so it is not only an invention suited to debase religion, but an engine to avert the faith of the church" (p. 50).

We will be fully transformed when we see God face to face, but for now we see him by faith which is the beginning of the transformation.

What must I do to be saved (p. 53):

1. Your conscience will "be awakened unto a sense of sin, and of apostasy from God thereby...it will cause men to look out for relief."

2. "This relief is proposed in the Gospel. And it is the death and mediation of Christ alone. By them peace with God must be obtained, or it will cease forever."

3. there will be to this truth: "endless objections through the power of unbelief" from "any person"

4. So what will give the forgiven man rest from these endless objections? "the due consideration of, and the acting of faith upon, this infinite effect of divine wisdom and goodness, in the constitution of the person of Christ."