"Christ is that tree of life"

     I read this today in John Owen’s Communion with the Triune God: 

When the heat of wrath is ready to scorch the soul, Christ, interposing, bears it all. Under the shadow of his wings we sit down constantly, quietly, safely, putting out trust in him; and all this with great delight. Yea, who can express the joy of a soul safe[ly] shadowed from wrath under the covert of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus! (139).

     This is written in the present tense, implying that even now, Christ is shading us, His children, from the wrath of God.  But was not our justification a one-time event, as described in Romans 8:1-2?  And yet – He continually intercedes for us. He is functioning as a mediator, praying for us, so something is happening continually with respect to our salvation.  Jesus never ceases from his work in saving us!  As it says in Hebrews 7, “…he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

     So, although his sacrifice was made “once for all” (Hebrews 7:27), it did not obtain for us immediate access to the Father.  We must always come to Him through the mediation of Christ.  I have been taught this, but Owen’s metaphor of Christ as a tree, to whom we can run for shade is new, and reminds me of how ugly my sin is.  I must run to Christ.  I can’t sin and then step out into the sunlight, so to speak, away from the protective boughs of Christ’s mediation, and I shouldn’t want to, for, as Owen says “who can express the joy of a soul safely shadowed from wrath under the covert of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus?” 

     And yet, this is what we are prone to do.  “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.  Prone to leave the God I love," as the hymn-writer puts it.  Even when we think we are stepping towards Him, if we try to approach Him apart from Christ, we are not approaching Him in faith, but in self-sufficiency and pride.  Owen’s picture of a tree brings me back to the full realization of what Christ is doing.  He is shielding me from the wrath of God – continually – when I am working, playing, sleeping, eating.  He doesn’t stop.  This is almost too much.  As David said in Psalm 139, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” 

      I cannot attain it, and yet I can revel in it.  I can rejoice that the same God whose only response to sin is wrath, is also so full of love that He would make a way to shield His children from that wrath, and to make them holy – and happy, forever!