It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

I guess if you can parallel the falling away, the loss, and their rejection of repentance, which I think you can certainly make a case that all unrepented sin exactly is, then I believe Owen can actually make that claim. Christ is being subjected to public disgrace and a re-crucifying when sin is wantonly flaunted and unrepented.

“The Lord Jesus Christ is wounded afresh by it; his new creature in the heart is wounded; his love is foiled; his adversary gratified. As a total relinquishment of him, by the deceitfulness of sin, is the ‘crucifying him afresh, and the putting of him to open shame;’ so every harbouring of sin that he came to destroy wounds and grieves him.”

Compare “As a total relinquishment of him” to Rushing “If deceitful sin engulfs the will”.

Both sound odd for me. At times Owen wrote against what he called “Papists”. A belief that he probably would not hold to was the re-crucifixion of Christ at celebration of the Eucharist. Yet in saying that sin wounds Christ afresh, it sounds similar. Just some thinking I need to sort out.

“His works, his endeavors, his labors, will seldom receive blessing from God. He labours as though in the fire, without any success in his work! The world is full of poor professors without reality. How few are there that walk in beauty and glory! How barren, and how useless are they for the most part!…Sin lies as a worm at the root of obedience and corrodes and waekns it day by day. Al grace, ways and means whereby one might be improved are hindered by sin. God blasts such men’s efforts.” (p. 75)