J.I. Packer unpacks John Owen‘s ‘The Death of death in the death of Christ’ in chapter 4 of In My Place Condemned He Stood and chapter 8 of A Quest for Godliness. The essay is a doctrinal discussion, broadly of Calvinism, and particularly (pardon the pun) on the atonement of Christ. It is also a practical application of both of these and how sound theology will aid your understanding of the gospel and your preaching ministry. He claims in this chapter that Owen will teach you and set you free, (if you read his work) to preach the gospel.
According to Scripture, preaching the gospel is entirely a matter of proclaiming to men, as truth from God which all are bound to believe and act on, the following four facts:
- that all men are sinners and cannot do anything to save themselves;
- that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Savior for sinners, even the worst;
- that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to sinners and put their faith in Christ as Savior shall be received into favor, and none cast out-which promise is “a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the oblation of Christ in itself, for whomsoever [fewer or more] it be intended:”;
- that God has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the gospel “a serious full recumbency and rolling of the soul upon Christ in the promise of the gospel, as an all-sufficient Savior, able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him; able and willing, through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom, to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto him for that end.”
