Tag Archives: Thomas Goodwin

“I am swallowed up in God” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

Thomas Goodwin died in London at age eighty. His son wrote this about his father’s final days:

“In February 1679, a fever seized my dear father, which in a few days put an end to his life.

In all the violence of it, he discoursed with that strength of faith and assurance of Christ’s love, with that holy admiration of free grace, with that joy in believing, and such thanksgivings and praises, as he extremely moved and affected all that heard him.

He rejoiced in the thoughts that he was dying, and going to have a full and uninterrupted communion with God.

‘I am going,’ said he, ‘to the three Persons, with whom I have had communion: they have taken me; I did not take them. I shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye; all my lusts and corruptions I shall be rid of, which I could not be here; those croaking toads will fall off in a moment.’

And mentioning those great examples of faith, Heb. 11,

‘All these,’ said he, ‘died in faith. I could not have imagined I should ever have had such a measure of faith in this hour; no, I could never have imagined it. My bow abides in strength.

Is Christ divided? No, I have the whole of His righteousness; I am found in Him, not in my own righteousness, which is of the law, but in the righteousness which is of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.

Christ cannot love me better than He doth; I think I cannot love Christ better than I do; I am swallowed up in God.’

Directing his speech to his two sons, he exhorted them to value the privilege of the covenant. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘I shall be ever with the Lord.’

With this assurance of faith and fulness of joy, his soul left this world, and went to see and enjoy the reality of that blessed state of glory, which in a discourse on that subject he had so well demonstrated.

He died February 1679, and in the eightieth year of his age.”

–Thomas Goodwin, Memoir of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., Composed Out of His Own Papers and Memoirs, By His Son, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 2: lxxiv–lxxv.

“The Spirit prays in you, because Christ prays for you” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“Let us consider what Christ did when He was come to heaven and exalted there: how abundantly did He there make good all that He had promised in His last sermon!

For, first, He instantly poured out His Spirit, and that ‘richly’ (as the apostle to Titus speaks), and He ‘being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this which you now see and hear,’ says the apostle in his first sermon after, Acts 2:33.

He then received it, and visibly poured Him out. So Eph. 4:8, it is said, ‘He ascended up on high, and gave gifts unto men … for the work of the ministry (4:15), and for the jointing in of the saints to the increase of the body of Christ’ (4:16), that is, for the converting of elect sinners, and making them saints.

And the gifts there mentioned (some of them) remain into this day, in ‘pastors and teachers,’ &c. And this Spirit is still in our preaching and in your hearts, in hearing, in praying, and He persuades you of Christ’s love to this very day; and is in all these the pledge of the continuance of Christ’s love still in heaven unto sinners.

All our sermons and your prayers are evidences to you, that Christ’s heart is still the same towards sinners that ever it was, for the Spirit that assists in all these comes in His name, and in His stead, and works all by commission from Him.

And do none of you feel your hearts moved in the preaching of these things, at this and other times? And who is it that moves you?

It is the Spirit who speaks in Christ’s name from heaven, even as Himself is said to ‘speak from heaven,’ Heb. 12:25.

And when you pray, it is the Spirit that indites your prayers, and that ‘makes intercession for you’ in your own hearts, Rom. 8:26, which intercession of His is but the evidence and echo of Christ’s intercession in heaven.

The Spirit prays in you, because Christ prays for you. He is an intercessor on earth, because Christ is an intercessor in heaven.

As He did take off Christ’s words, and used the same that He before had uttered, when He spake in and to the disciples the words of life, so He takes off Christ’s prayers also when He prays in us; He takes but the words as it were out of Christ’s mouth, or heart rather, and directs our hearts to offer them up to God.

He also follows us to the sacrament, and in that glass shews us Christ’s face smiling on us, and through His face His heart; and thus helping of us to a sight of Him, we go away rejoicing that we saw our Saviour that day.”

–Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ in Heaven, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 4: 107-108.

“It is mercy that hath brought us there” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“We were dead in sins and trespasses, we were children of wrath by nature, hell was our place.

It is the exceeding riches of His grace that pulls men out of that miserable condition, and sets them upon that height and top of blessedness and happiness in the world to come.

It is thy mercy, say they in the Lamentations, that we are not consumed; Thy mercies fail not.

It is the mercy of God that we are not in hell.

And when we are in heaven, it is mercy that hath brought us there.

And it is mercy and grace that continues us there forever.”

–Thomas Goodwin, “Sermon 19: Ephesians 2:7,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 2: 303–304.

“All the glory and all the grace” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“Lastly, here is ‘in Christ Jesus‘ added, for all God’s kindness, and all His grace towards us, is in Christ (Ephesians 2:7).

It is an infinite magnifying of the Lord Jesus, that He alone, being in heaven, is able enough and worthy enough to take into His possession all the glory and all the grace that ever God means to bestow upon His children.

He hath done it, my brethren.

Had not He been a person answerably glorious, we could not have been said to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, or that the riches of His grace should be shown in His kindness toward us in Him.

But so great a person is Jesus Christ, God and man, that look as the sun, if there were ten hundred thousand stars more to be created, and the heavens to be filled with them all, there is light enough in the sun to enlighten them all; so there is in Christ.

And therefore, my brethren, never think to set up without this Lord Jesus Christ.

Do not think that He only serveth to bring you unto God, and there to leave you. No, He will never leave you to eternity.

All the kindness that God shows you to eternity is in Christ Jesus.”

–Thomas Goodwin, “Sermon 19: Ephesians 2:7,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 2: 293–294.

“The gospel is the best news that ears ever heard” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“Our commission is to tell this message to all and every man in the world. And upon this ground, that reconciliation is to be obtained from God for them, to entreat them to be reconciled.

And when men accordingly seek it, as thus revealed to them, though by us, it is as if God had done it:

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”(2 Cor. 5:20-21)

‘As though God,’ and, ‘I in Christ’s stead,’ says the apostle.

And this, my brethren, is to preach the gospel unto men, which is the best news that ears ever heard, or tongues were employed to utter, which took up God’s thoughts from eternity, and which lay hid in His breast, which none but He and His Son knew, which, if it were but for the antiquity of the story of it, it is worth the relating, it being the greatest plot and state affair that ever was transacted in heaven or earth, or ever will be.”

–Thomas Goodwin, “The One Sacrifice,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1862/2006), 5: 482.

“Jesus Christ in all His glories is the great and eminent subject of the gospel” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“1. In Christ all the riches of God and the knowledge of Him are laid up, as the treasury and subject of them; and so discovered and communicated to us objectively in the knowledge of Him. Thus, in Colossians 2:2-3, the apostle further explains it.

For having termed the gospel the mystery of God and of Christ, he adds, ‘In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;’ not only to be revealed by Him, or subjectively known in and by Himself; but (which is the proper scope of the apostle) objectively set forth, and contained in Him alone, and in the knowledge of Him made known to us.

2. In Christ shines ‘the glory of God’ (2 Cor. 4:6, ‘The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’), as the lively image of all His features and perfections, and evidences of His inward counsels and affections.

That therefore which I here insist upon is, that Jesus Christ in all His glories is the great and eminent subject of the gospel, (Rev. 1:1).

3. It is the gospel of God (namely, as the author of it), but it is concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. God had but one Son, and He made this gospel on purpose to honour Him, and set Him forth.

It is all, and every word of it, some way or other concerning Him, or about Him. God made it purposely to set His Son Christ forth to us; and in setting forth His Son, Himself also.

It is therefore termed (Colossians 2:2) ‘the mystery of God the Father, and of Christ,’ Christ, in that series of truths about Him held forth in the whole New Testament, is the sum of this newly revealed wisdom of God, (1 Cor. 1:24).”

–Thomas Goodwin, “A Discourse of the Glory of the Gospel,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1862/2021), 4: 263–264.

“Reconciliation is His masterpiece” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“Are not all God’s attributes His nature, His justice as well as mercy? His hatred of sin, as well as the love of His creature?

And is not that nature of His pure act, and therefore active, and therefore provokes all His will to manifest these His attributes upon all occasions?

Doth not justice boil within Him against sin, as well as His bowels of mercy yearn towards the sinner?

Is not the plot of reconciliation His masterpiece, wherein He means to bring all His attributes upon the stage?”

–Thomas Goodwin, “Of Christ the Mediator,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1862/2021), 5: 16.

“God stamped upon His Son all His glory” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“He is the Son of God, and second person, and therefore the express image and brightness of His Father’s glory, (Hebrews 1:3) the essential substantial image of His Father, which transcends infinitely more all other drafts of Him than the image of a king in his son begotten like him, and in a board or tablet.

But this image, you will say, it is too bright for us to behold it shining in His strength, we being as unable to behold it in Him, as we were to see His Father Himself, who dwells in light inaccessible, which no eye can attain to.

Therefore that yet we may see it as nigh and as fully and to the utmost that creatures could; this Godhead dwells bodily in a human nature (Colossians 2:9), that so shining through the lantern of His flesh we might behold it.

His human nature and divine make up one person, and being so, are united together in the highest kind of union that God can be to a creature, and the nearest and fullest communications follow always upon the nearest union.

To Him therefore as man are communicated these riches of glory that are in the Godhead, as nearly and fully as was possible unto a creature; and being thus communicated, must needs shine forth in Him to us to the utmost that they ever could unto creatures.

And therefore more clearly than if millions of several worlds had been created every day on purpose to reveal God to us.

God having stamped upon His Son all His glory, that we might see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, (2 Cor. 4:6).”

–Thomas Goodwin, “A Discourse of the Glory of the Gospel,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1862/2021), 4: 232.

“A righteousness that is able to cover the sins of millions of worlds” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“In the gospel, and work of redemption, we see a righteousness of that breadth that is able to cover the sins of millions of worlds; of that length that it reacheth to eternity, and no sin in God’s people can wear it out or nullify the virtue of it.

And those attributes which God accounts His greatest riches and greatest glory, (Rom. 9:23), even His mercy and free grace, which He intends most to exalt, never saw light till now.

The doctrine of salvation by Christ being the stage, wherein only it is represented, and elsewhere it is not to be seen, and upon it acts the greatest part, for all passages in it tend to this, to shew, as, that ‘by grace we are saved,’ (Eph. 2:5) and therefore, the whole work of salvation is called ‘mercy,’ (1 Peter 2:10) all God’s ways to His people are mercy, (Ps. 25:10), the whole plot and frame of it is made of mercy, and therefore the doctrine of the gospel is called grace, (Titus 2:10-11).

Mercy manageth the plot, gives all other attributes, as it were, their parts to act.

Mercy enters in at the beginning, acts the prologue in election.

And mercy, giving Christ, continues every part of it, sets all a-work, ends the whole in glory.”

–Thomas Goodwin, “The Glory of the Gospel,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2021), 4: 230-231.

“Angels are worshippers of Christ” by Thomas Goodwin

Posted on by
Reply

“My brethren, the angels are part of the worshippers of Christ as well as we; as they are part of His family, as they are part of His city (Heb. 12:22), whereof He is the King and Lord, so they are part of His worshippers. And, as you shall set anon, we, with all them, worship God and Him together, both here, and shall do so hereafter.

They are worshippers of Him, and in that sense make a part of the Church; for ecclesia colentium, a church is properly for worship. If they be therefore part of the worshippers of Christ, they come under His Church, they are a part of it; particular churches are ordained for worship, and so is the general Church for a worship to be performed to Christ.

And it is the proper expression of the members of a church, what they are designed unto—they are worshippers. Now, in Heb. 1:6, you shall find that the angels are all worshippers of Jesus Christ, ‘And again, when He bringeth His first-begotten into the world, He saith, Let all the angels of God worship Him,’ speaking of Christ…

Little do we think it, but the angels fill our churches as well as men, and are present at all our congregations and assemblies. Because we are to be with them hereafter, and to worship God together with them, therefore they come down and are present at the worship of God here with us…

Angels are round about the throne; and they are present at the courts of God’s house; still they are worshippers, you see, together with us on earth. They do delight to hear Christ preached, because Christ is their Head, and therefore are present (Eph. 1:21-22).

The text is express, Eph. 3:10; Paul sheweth there the end why to him was committed, and so to others, the preaching of the gospel: ‘To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.’

They do not know it out of the Scripture simply, but as it is opened in the church, by the ministers of the church, for the good of the church, so they come to know it; and they delight to do so, for so you have it, 1 Pet 1:12. Saith he, speaking of the fathers before in the Old Testament, ‘It was revealed unto them, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you’ (he speaks in general) ‘by them that preached the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.’

The angels are present, and they are glad to hear Christ laid open and preached unto men, to hear their Head spoken of. They are worshippers together with us of Christ…

Here on earth angels have joy when any poor soul is converted. As they come to church, be they observe who is wrought upon. When they see a poor soul go home and humble himself, fall down upon his knees and become a new creature, news is presently carried up to heaven; for the text saith, Luke 15:10, that ‘there is joy in the presence of the angels of God’—that is, in the court of heaven, amongst them all, so the word signifieth, ἐνώπιον, in the face of all the angels; it is the same word used, Luke 12:8, ‘him shall the Son of man confess before the angels of God,’ He will own him in his court, and confess Him in the presence, in the face of all the angels; so there is joy amongst the angels, they rejoice before God—‘over one sinner that is converted,’ over a poor soul that is gathered unto Christ their Head.

This association, my brethren, we have with them, besides all the services they do us, which I cannot stand to repeat and reckon up unto you; for all the angels are our fellow-servants; so that angel calleth himself, Rev. 22:9. And Jacob’s ladder that touched heaven, the angels ascended and descended upon it; and Christ himself, John 1:51, interprets it that He is the ladder; they all come down upon Him and ascend upon Him, for the service of men.

He is their head, their ruler, their governor. But as we have in this world this association with them, so in the world to come we shall all worship God with one worship, both angels and men together.

Such he there is Heb. 12, the place I quoted before; ‘you are come to the Mount Sion,’—so he calleth the Church, which consisteth both of angels and men, as I observed before. Mount Sion, you know, was the place of God’s worship.

What is his meaning, then, when he saith, ‘you are come to the Mount Sion, to the heavenly Jerusalem?’ You are all come, saith he, to the place of worship whither angels are come up; for al the tribes came up there, to that Mount Sion, to worship God—the mount where all the angels are, and where all the souls of just men made perfect shall come up in their succession, and all to worship God.

It is called Mount Sion, because it is the place of God’s worship. And that which we translate the company of angels, μυριάσιν, it is the solemn assembly of angels; so the word signifieth, such an assembly as was at a solemn feast of the Jews, whither all the people came up.

The men that dwelt at Jerusalem, he compareth them to the angels, for that is their standing seat and dwelling; and we that are upon earth, he compareth to the tribes that came up to the solemn assembly, to the solemn feast. And he calleth them the general assembly, for there God will have all His children about Him. So that both angels and we one day shall be common worshippers, live in one kingdom together; we shall be as angels; so Matt. 22:30...

Angels have a happiness in Christ, in seeing of Him as well as we. I take that to be part of the meaning of that 1 Tim. 3:16. I have often wondered at the expression there; I shall give you what I think to be the meaning of it.

Speaking of Christ, and of the great mystery of godliness in Him, saith he, ‘God, who was manifested in the flesh,’—and there was more of God manifested in the flesh in the person of Christ, than there is in all creatures that were made, or possibly could be made,—‘justified in the Spirit,’ which was spoken of his resurrection, ‘seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.’

Here are two principles, faith and vision. Here is faith attributed to men; they cleave to Christ their head by faith, ‘believed on in the world.’ The angels cleave unto him by vision, ‘seen of angels;’ admiring Him with infinite joy, looking upon Him as their Head.

They saw more of God manifested in that man Christ Jesus, than they had seen in heaven before. We cleave to Him by faith; they cleave to Him by sense: that which we shall have, for we shall see Him one day as He is, that the angels do, and are made happy in Him; the same eternal life that we have, they have, ‘and this is eternal life, to know God, and to know Jesus Christ,’ John 17:3.

Their happiness lieth, as our happiness, in seeing God incarnate, in seeing God in the flesh, in seeing God face to face, and His Christ forever.”

–Thomas Goodwin, “Sermon X: Ephesians 1:10,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2021), 1: 160–161, 162, 163, 163–164, 166.