Journal: Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies
Volume: JIRBS 09:1 (NA 2024)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

JIRBS 9 (2024) p. 123

Book Reviews

Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling, Colin R. McCulloch (Grace Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2024, 232pp.), reviewed by J. Ryan Davidson*

*J. Ryan Davidson, Ph.D., is pastor of Grace Baptist Chapel, Hampton, VA, and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Dean of Students at International Reformed Baptist Seminary, Mansfield, TX.

Colin McCulloch has provided a helpful resource for the field of biblical and/or pastoral counseling. In what appears to be a publication of his Ph.D. dissertation, McCulloch accomplishes several tasks. First, and mainly, his overarching thesis regarding the usefulness of John Owen’s work on sanctification and the work of the Spirit alongside infused grace (in sanctification) and habits as a middle way in the field of biblical counseling is clearly demonstrated. Secondly, in his opening chapter, he aptly summarizes the milieu of biblical counseling from its early development, as a movement, under Jay Adams and the subsequent differences of second-generation biblical counseling proponents like David Powlison and others. This chapter in and of itself is worth the read for biblical counseling students and practitioners. Thirdly, in several chapters necessary to his thesis, there is the provision of summaries in a few theological areas such as theology proper, and theological anthropology, particularly as it relates to the human constitution and Faculty Psychology. In

JIRBS 9 (2024) p. 124

the end, McCulloch also adds to the growing field of literature related to John Owen. This work is a welcomed addition to the literature of the field of counseling, and one that for years to come will be a necessary resource with which to engage.

In the Introduction, McCulloch states his thesis. He writes:

In this work I will argue that John Owen’s conception of Spirit-infused habitual grace appropriately corrects and develops two divergent frameworks for understanding sanctification within the biblical counseling movement. Owen portrayed Spirit-infused habitual grace as the internal, metaphysical work whereby God sanctifies His people and conforms them to the image of Christ. He demonstrated that the Holy Spirit produces sanctification by 1). Infusing a habit—or principle—of grace in the soul of believers at regeneration, which inclines them away from sin and toward righteousness; 2) increasing the operations of that habit of grace upon the faculties of the soul; and 3) bringing forth the effects of that habit of grace through the actual fruit of righteousness borne by believers. Owen’s understanding of sanctification corrects and reconciles two divergent conceptions ...