Who was John Owen?
Answered from the commentary of William Kelly
John Owen was a celebrated Independent preacher of the Commonwealth, a Congregationalist, and Cromwell’s chaplain on his expedition to Ireland; he was also Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. He and Richard Baxter were able and good men, but differed in their views: Owen was decidedly Calvinistic, while Baxter was Arminianly disposed. The account of his theology says that Owen and Dr. Sibbs were the earliest writers it could trace who formally expressed the view that Christ’s fulfilment of the law is the ground of righteousness, a view it criticizes for separating pardon from justification and diminishing the share of Christ’s death in justification.
Verses: 2 Timothy 2:15, 1 Timothy 3:1
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What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
Look, again, at John Owen. He was Baxter's antagonist. The one was a moderate Presbyterian, the other a Congregationalist. They were both good and able men, but they differed materially — the one being decidedly Calvinistic, the other Arminianly disposed. Still, in both there was, perhaps, equal lack of light as to the righteousness of God. Is this to disparage either? Be it far from us; but must we therefore accept their mutual attacks and their clashing thoughts on this very head of justifying righteousness? The fact is, their stamp remains and is plain enough: not a heavenly, but an earthly tone; little sense of the liberty of grace; no joy of resurrection, but contrariwise, a strong assimilation to the position and experience of godly Jews. This is not to be wondered at in Cromwell's Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. His system of theology rather fitted him for (certainly in no way hindered him from) the revolutionary movement of that day. None of them had the faintest conception of the heavenly calling of the saint, still less of the Church's privileges as the body and bride of Christ in heaven. Nay, they had no right understanding of the full and proper deliverance of the individual Christian. Association with Christ raised and ascended was to them an unknown region. Not one of the Puritan class could say intelligently with the apostle, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." (2 Cor. 5)
We have not been able to trace these views formally and dogmatically expressed earlier than Dr. Sibbs and Dr. Owen, the celebrated Independent Preacher of the commonwealth, who accompanied Cromwell in his expedition to Ireland as his chaplain, and they are thoroughly suited in their hard, rigid features to the well-known characteristics of the Puritan age, with its repulsive dogmatism, and its legal and combative spirit, which amalgamated a sort of bastard Judaism with Christianity, and as a consequence led men into lines of action and scenes of conflict which the light of the present day has taught, even mere professors, to judge as inconsistent with the genius of Christianity, and the lowly, gracious spirit of Christ. They have, alas, found modern imitators both of their spirit and of their doctrines.
One is anxious to see how far such a champion for truth, as he has been called, presented the gospel to his hearers. A great many of his sermons dwelt upon the Person of Christ, and dilated either upon His being truly God, or on His being really a man. As to the atonement, he had the erroneous thought, that man being a slave of Satan, the atonement was made really to the devil in order to free man from his authority — an idea not uncommon in those days.
He called for the most energetic measures on the part of the authorities. In the council, in the pulpit, he exhorted them to take up arms, to be firm and fear not. Identifying himself with the army, of which he was chaplain, he exclaimed, "We thirst for no man's blood, but we will clip the wings of the Oligarchy; if we shun it, the truth of the gospel and the lives of ministers will never be secure among us. We must trust in God alone; but when we have a just cause, we must also know how to defend it, and, like Joshua and Gideon, shed blood in behalf of our country and our
Verses
- 2 Timothy 2:15Strive diligently to present thyself approved to God, a workman that has not to be ashamed, cutting in a straight line the word of truth.
- 1 Timothy 3:1The word [is] faithful if any one aspires to exercise oversight, he desires a good work.