I’ve never read John Owen, but I never thought of redemptive history from this perspective before, in light of the Persons of the Trinity. John Piper speaks on the privilege that it is to be living in the age of the Spirit:

[Excerpt (3 min 27 sec) from The Holy Spirit: He Is God! by John Piper, 1984-02-05.]

[John] Owen says [in Pneumatologia (knowledge of the Holy Spirit)], there are three periods of redemptive history which correspond roughly, though not exactly, to the three Persons of the Godhead–God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit–and that in each of those periods of redemptive history, a peculiar and unique responsibility lies upon the people who receive that revelation to respond uniquely to that Person of the Trinity.

For example:

1. Before the coming of Christ, the unique obligation and touchstone of orthodoxy was the unity of God’s nature and His monarchy over all, and our submission to Him as Father.
2. Then comes the Incarnation with the arrival of the Son of God in the Person of Jesus Christ, and for those some 30 years the new touchstone of orthodoxy for the people of Palestine was: would those who are orthodox on point #1 open their arms to and welcome God the Son?
3. Then the Son is crucified for our sins, raised from the dead, ascends to the Father’s right hand, and They pour out the Holy Spirit upon the church in unique and new prominence, and from that day forward until the second coming of Jesus Christ, we live in the age of the Spirit where the touchstone of orthodoxy is: will we honor, will we know, will we submit to, will we follow God the Holy Spirit?

First the prominence of God the Father, then the prominence of God the Son, then the prominence of God the Holy Spirit. It was possible for Israel to commit idolatry against God, it was possible for the Pharisees to reject the Son, and it is possible today for people to despise the Spirit. Owen wrote: “the sin of despising His Person and rejecting His Work, now is the same nature with idolatry of old, and with the Jews’ rejection of the Person of the Son.”

We are a favored people, do you know that? We are an extraordinarily favored people to live in the age of the Spirit… And you know why it’s such a privilege? Because of old, people could only look at God the Father and some very dim foreshadowings of the Son and the Spirit. And then they could look at the Son with a partial outpouring of the Spirit. But we live in the place where the whole of redemptive history with the revelation of God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is spread before us preserved in Holy Scripture. We are rich. We are so rich to know the whole Godhead, and what a responsibility we have to love Him and respond to Him as we ought!

–John Piper