On the day that John Owen died, he was informed that his last book had been sent to the printers. Its title was Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, and it was based on the last sermons he preached to his congregation, a series of discourses on John 17v24:
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
When his friend told him that the book was now on the printer’s presses, he responded: “I am glad, but, O brother Payne, the long looked-for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done yet, or was capable of doing in this world.” Two longstanding prayers were about to be answered: the Savior’s prayer for Owen to see His glory, and Owen’s prayer to see his Savior’s glory. The personal context for this book lends it a unique power and lustre. As the editor wrote:
It is instructive to peruse the solemn musings of his soul when weakness, weariness, and the near approaches of death, were calling him away from his earthly labors; and to mark how intently his thoughts were fixed on the glory of the Savior, whom he was soon to behold “face to face.”
As we read these beautiful meditations, surely the cry of our hearts is not only, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” (Num. 23:10) but also, “Show me your glory!” (Ex. 33:10)