He is all-satisfying!
There is no man whatever, that has any want in reference unto the things of God, but Christ will be unto him that which he wants: I speak of those who are given him of his Father. Is he dead? Christ is life (Col. 3:4). Is he weak? Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24, 30). Has he the sense of guilt upon him? Christ is complete righteousness - “The LORD our Righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). Many poor creatures are sensible of their wants, but know not where their rememdy lies. Indeed, whether it be life or light, power or joy, all is wrapped up in him. (149)
Ordinary professors only deny Christ because they don’t know him. Men spend all of their efforts and labors after things that do not satisfy because they don’t know what’s in Christ.
Some set before them some certain end- perhaps pleasure, profit, or, in religion itself, acceptance with God; others seek after some end, but without any certainty, pleasing themselves, now with one path, now with another, with various thoughts and ways, like them (Isa. 57:10) - because something comes in by the life of they hand, they give not over though weary. In whatsoever condition you may be (either in greediness pursuing some certain end, be it secular or religious; or wandering away in your own imaginations, wearying yourselves in the largeness of your ways), compare a little what you aim at, or what you do, with what you have already heard of Jesus Christ: if anything you design be like to him, if anything you desire be equal to him, let him be rejected as one that has neither form nor comeliness in him; but if, indeed, all your ways be but vanity and vexation of spirit, in comparison of him, why do you spend your “money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfies not?” (150)
References
- Owen, Communion with the Triune God, 149-150