Caveat comes from the Latin cavere. The verb in Latin means to be on guard. I am using its English descendant caveat to mean a warning or caution. Such is my esteem for John Owen that I prefer the softer idea of caution.
John Owen has attained (and not without warrant) a high status among Reformed Baptists in our day. This status derives from many things, I suppose. He is certainly a profound and faithful expositor of the Reformed faith. He is also a progenitor of the Reformed Baptist movement as a Congregationalist Puritan and one of the authors of that confession from which the mass of the 1689 is immediately drawn, the Savoy Declaration of Faith. The views articulated in the Savoy are only a kind of half step from the positions regarding baptism and the church found in the 1689. 1689 Federalism has publicized the idea that Owen’s views of covenant theology articulate a covenant theology amenable to and even foundational for Reformed Baptist views of covenant theology.
For all of these reasons, to cite Owen is almost to cite Scripture in Reformed books and blogs. Do we have a celebrity theologian of our own in John Owen? This is a question, I think, worth considering. Christian realism and spiritual sanity require, I think, that we admit that all men have spiritual and exegetical feet of clay. I think this is true of John Owen, and in the posts that follow I will point out a place at which I am convinced Owen does have feet of clay. It is also an exegetical place about which, in my opinion, we may no longer entertain his views without opening ourselves to serious error.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
