The Language of “Revival”
Way back when I posted on a blog about John Owen’s use of the phrase “spiritual revivalls” (sic.). Kenneth J. Stewart subsequently cited this in Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition (p. 103 n10). Apparently I found the earliest use of the term “revival” in English! Notwithstanding, the Oxford English Dictionary attributed it to Cotton Matther in 1702. More important, though, is John Owen’s theology of revival.
Some modern American Reformed voices have led people in the pew to believe “revival” is a buggaboo (cue the spooky music). They say it’s an 18th century phenomenon of the First Great Awakening. As a pastor, people have told me believing revival is a legitimate work of the Holy Spirit means I’m a “revivalist.” I’m no different than Charles Finney and his ilk in the 19th century Second Great Awakening. There’s just one teeny tiny problem with this presentation: it doesn’t fit the evidence of history.
“Revival” in John Owen
Letter to Charles Fleetwood
The fact is, the concept of revival was not a 19th or even 18th century deviation from the Reformation. One of the giants of 17th century English Reformed Orthodox theology, John Owen, is a case in point. In “Letter 85: To Charles Fleetwood” written in 1674 (The Correspondence of John Owen, ed. Peter Toon, 159–160), Owen wrote at a time when he and his wife were sick. He thought the Lord was preparing him for death. Listen to what he said to his close friend:
“The truth is, if we cannot see the latter rain in its season as we have seen the former, and a latter spring thereon, death, that will turne in the streams of glory unto our poor withering souls, is the best relief. I begin to feare that we shall die in this wilderness; yet ought we to labour and pray continually that the heavens would drop downe from above, and the skies poure downe righteousness—that the earth may open and bring forth salvation, and that righteousness may spring up together. If ever I return to you in this world, I beseech you to contend yet more earnestly than ever I have done, with God, with my own heart, with the church, to labour after spiritual revivalls.”
When I originally posted this quote from Owen in an effort to recover this part of our tradition, one historian immediately rebuked me. Speaking positively of revival is “going after one of our own” historians who rejects revival as legitimate to being Reformed. My quotation meant I was “abandoning the cause” of so-called “ordinary means” ministry. In fact, this person even spoke a la the mythical NFL agent Jerry Maguire: “Show me the Latin!” Unfortunately Owen wrote the letter in English. I guess this is the Reformed version of “98% of climate scientists agree.”
Note Owen’s last phrase above: “to labour after spiritual revivalls.” John Owen’s theology of revival enabled him to exhort to revival. A 17th century Quaker or Shaker didn’t pen this exhortation. 19th century advocates of “new measures” a la Finney aren’t its source. These words come from arguably the greatest of English Reformed theologians. As a Reformed theologian Owen believed Scripture to be principium cognoscendi. This meant Scripture is the basis of knowledge of God, his world, and his redemptive plan. We see that here in Owen’s letter as he looks to the pattern of the biblical prophets for spiritual revival, citing Isaiah 45:8, “Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it” (KJV).
Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ
Later, in his posthumously published treatise of 1684, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ (Works 1, 395–396), we read Owen describing the reality that Jesus Christ at times withdraws our experience of him from us because of our sins:
“Do any of us find decays in grace prevailing in us;—deadness, coldness, lukewarmness, a kind of spiritual stupidity and senselessness coming upon us? Do we find an unreadiness unto the exercise of grace in its proper season, and the vigorous acting of it in duties of communion with God? and would we have our souls recovered from these dangerous diseases? Let us assure ourselves there is no better way for our healing and deliverance, yea, no other way but this alone,—namely, the obtaining a fresh view of the glory of Christ by faith, and a steady abiding therein. Constant contemplation of Christ and his glory, putting forth its transforming power unto the revival of all grace, is the only relief in this case; as shall farther be showed afterward.”
Here Owen wrote about the means by which we’re revived from spiritual slumber. Two of them are faith in and meditation upon Christ and his glory. What’s fascinating is what he goes on to say in this regard:
“Some will say, that this must be effected by fresh supplies and renewed communications of the Holy Spirit. Unless he fall as dew and showers on our dry and barren hearts,—unless he cause our graces to spring, thrive, and bring forth fruit,—unless he revive and increase faith, love, and holiness in our souls,—our backslidings will not be healed, nor our spiritual state be recovered. Unto this end is he prayed for and promised in the Scripture. See Cant. iv. 16; Isa, xliv. 3, 4; Ezek, xl 19, xxxvi. 26; Hos. xiv. 5, 6. And so it is. The immediate efficiency of the revival of our souls is from and by the Holy Spirit. But the inquiry is, in what way, or by what means, we may obtain the supplies and communications of him unto this end. This the apostle declares in the place insisted on: We, beholding the glory of Christ in a glass, “are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord.” It is in the exercise of faith on Christ, in the way before described, that the Holy Spirit puts forth his renewing, transforming power in and upon our souls. This, therefore, is that alone which will retrieve Christians from their present decays and deadness.”
Reading closely, we hear John Owen’s theology of revival. How are we revived from spiritual decay? Some in Owen’s day answered by pointing to the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. To this Owen agreed: “And it is so.” What Owen did, though, was to make the distinction between the efficient cause of revival—the Holy Spirit—and the instrumental cause—our faith in Christ and meditation upon his glory. Revival, therefore, was a Pneumatological, Christological, and soteriological phenomenon.
Conclusion
Say what you want about the First and Second Great Awakenings. Critique modern-day “revivalism” all you want. The language and concept of “revival” is a part of the Reformed Orthodoxy of the 17th century. Some today who profess adherence to Reformed Orthodoxy may reject it, but they do so inconsistent with our tradition.
As a good Orthodox and Puritan theologian, Owen also noted in the above, that we labor for the Holy Spirit’s work of revival not as mystics, pietists, revivalists, or Pentecostals, but by the “diligent use of the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation,” to cite the Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 153. What are those means? There are many, such as meditation per Owen above, but especially the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. Use the means; then wait for the sovereign Holy Spirit to bless them. Hew does so as he wills, when he wills, as much as he wills. This is John Owen’s theology of revival.
