Monergism Books

Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Banner of Truth
ISBN#: 9780851516981

Availability: Usually Ships the Same Business Day

Description: Abridged and made easy to read by R. J. K. Law. "Owen on the Holy Spirit," as this work has been known to generations of Christians, was written by the greatest theologian of the Puritan era. It is, without question, one of the truly great Christian books.

Originally published in 1674 as Pneumatologia, or A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, it is a massive work, taking up 650 pages in the Banner of Truth edition of Owen's Works (volume 3). It deals with the name, nature, personality and operations of the Spirit, and urges the necessity of gospel holiness as distinct from mere human morality. The work is both doctrinal and pastoral in character.

The very length and exhaustiveness of the original book could easily deter us from attempting to read it, but this abridged and modernized version prepared, like the earlier volumes in the series, (Apostasy from the Gospel, Communion with God and The Glory of Christ), by Dr. R. J. K. Law will make Owen's teaching more accessible to modern readers.

Excerpts:
"There is an 'eye' in the understanding of man. This eye is the ability to see spiritual things. It is sometimes said to be blind, darkness, shut. By these descriptions we are taught that the natural mind cannot know God personally for salvation, and nor can it see, that is, discern spiritual things. It is the work of the Spirit of grace to open this eye (luke 4:18, Acts 26:18). He does this, firstly, by giving us the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Secondly, he gives us a heart to know him (Jer 24:7)."

"We are enabled to obey God firstly by an inward, spiritual, ruling principle of grace ... by virtue of the life and death of Jesus Christ according to the terms of the new covenant... by which God writes his laws in our hearts and enables us to obey them by the Holy Spirit..."

Owen is a theologian after my own heart. His book on the Holy Spirit is magnificent. When I read his sections on the Holy Spirit in the work of conversion -- calling and regeneration I thought it was uncanny and wondered if his spirit dwelled within the virtual walls of monergism.com. If you want to understand the biblical issues that drive this Website you simply MUST read OWEN. Great stuff.