1. The Holy Spirit is the only infallible interpreter of the Bible. In classic, pre-critical and Reformed orthodox fashion, Owen briefly articulates his view of special hermeneutics and the Scripture:
…for although the Scripture hath many things in common with other writings wherein secular arts and sciences are declared, yet to suppose that we may attain the sense and mind of God in them by the mere use of such ways and means as we apply in the investigation of truths of other natures is to exclude all consideration of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit, of the end of the Scriptures themselves, of the nature and use of the things delivered in them; and, by consequent, to overthrow all religion.[1]
Owen obviously and firmly believed that the Bible should not be interpreted like any other book. How can it be, it–and it alone–is the word of God. In Owen’s BTO, he says:
The only unique, public, authentic, and infallible interpreter of Scripture is none other than the Author of Scripture Himself, by whose inspiration they are the truth, and by whom they possess their perspicuity and authority, that is, God the Holy Spirit.[2]
2. The scope of Scripture is God in Christ as Redeemer. Christ as scopus Scripturae can be seen in Owen’s writings in many ways. In his work on the Person of Christ, Owen says, “The end of the Word itself, is to instruct us in the knowledge of God in Christ.”[3] A few pages later he goes on to say:
Christ is the image of the invisible God, the express image of the person of the Father; and the principal end of the whole Scripture, especially of the Gospel, is to declare him so to be, and how he is so.[4]
In these two instances he uses the term ‘end’ in a technical sense. In other words, Christ is scopus Scripturae.
Christ as scopus Scripturae can be seen from an exegetical standpoint in Owen as well. Commenting on Genesis 3:15 as the first promise of the only means of delivery from the effects of sin–Christ, he says:
This is the very foundation of the faith of the church; and if it be denied, nothing of the economy or dispensation of God towards it from the beginning can be understood. The whole doctrine and story of the Old Testament must be rejected as useless, and no foundation be left in the truth of God for the introduction of the New.[5]
Without a soteriological/Messianic interpretation of Genesis 3:15, in the mind of Owen, subsequent Scripture makes no sense. A Christocentric hermeneutic is the foundation of proper biblical interpretation.
In Owen, Works, XVII, writing on the “Oneness of the Church” throughout redemptive history, Owen argues that the object of saving faith throughout redemptive history is “the Seed that was in the promise…”[6] In this brief exercitation, Owen argues that God first gave the promise of salvation to Adam based on Genesis 3:15. In fact, God’s Church is founded “in the promise of the Messiah given to Adam.”[7] Owen argues that all subsequent revelation serves to unfold the first promise of the gospel to Adam. This promise is the first revelation of the covenant of grace.[8] Subsequent revelation unfolds the promise of the Redeemer and, in fact depends upon it. In his treatise on the Person of Christ, Owen says:
This principle is always to be retained in our minds in reading of the Scripture,–namely, that the revelation and doctrine of the person of Christ and his office, is the foundation whereon all other instructions of the prophets and apostles for the edification of the church are built, and whereinto they are resolved; as is declared, Eph. ii. 20—22. So our Lord Jesus Christ himself at large makes it manifest, Luke xxiv. 26, 27, 45, 46. Lay aside the consideration hereof, and the Scriptures are no such thing as they pretend unto,—namely, a revelation of the glory of God in the salvation of the church; nor are those of the Old Testament so at this day unto the Jews, who own not this principle, 2 Cor. iii. 13—16. There are, therefore, such revelations of the person and glory of Christ treasured up in the Scripture, from the beginning unto the end of it, as may exercise the faith and contemplation of believers in this world, and shall never, during this life, be fully discovered or understood; and in divine meditations of these revelations doth much of the life of faith consist.[9]
For Owen, “the revelation and doctrine of the person of Christ and his office” is the hermeneutical key providing interpretive cohesiveness for all of Scripture.
Owen’s Christocentricity has been identified by several recent studies. In an article on John Owen dealing with Owen’s Dissertation on Divine Justice and subtitled “An Exercise in Christocentric Scholasticism,” Carl Trueman says, “…his theology is, at heart, thoroughly christocentric.”[10] Trueman entitles his conclusion “Owen’s Christocentrism” and says:
In asserting the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice, Owen is presenting a Reformed theology that cannot displace the historical person of the mediator from the center of the drama of redemption. There can be no eternal justification based purely on the decree: Salvation is as surely linked to history as it is to eternity. It is those who predicate the necessity of incarnation and atonement solely on the decretive will of God who run the risk of marginalizing the historical person of Christ and undermining the importance of salvation history. In this context, Owen’s scholasticism serves not to eclipse Christ but to place him at the center. Indeed, as is clear from his argument, if it was not for his Thomist understanding of God’s causal relationship to creation and his acceptance of the validity of the analogy of being, Owen would have no way of attacking his opponents’ position. While it is true that his use of such arguments depends on assumptions that he does not justify, it is also true that any rejection of their validity renders his christocentrism epistemologically unsustainable. In the context of this dispute, at least, it is the rejection of natural theology, not its acceptance, that is the enemy of Christ-centered theology.[11]
In fact, Trueman goes so far as to say that on the issue of divine justice and the incarnation, Owen “is arguably not less christocentric than [his] opponents, including Calvin himself, but actually more so.”[12]
Kelly Kapic argues that Owen’s anthropology is formulated “in a christocentric pattern, pointing to Jesus Christ as the incarnate and true image of God.”[13] Even the Sabbath is Christologically transformed by Christ, thus further displaying the Christocentricity of Owen’s thought.[14]
Sebastian Rehnman acknowledges this of Owen, “His theology has, for all its adherence to scholasticism and contrary to the argument of much modern scholarship on Reformed orthodoxy, a Christocentric and practical character.”[15]
Richard W. Daniels shows that not only redemption, but creation and providence are christocentric for Owen.[16] Commenting on the doctrines of creation and providence in Owen’s thought, Daniels says, “It is difficult to conceive of a more Christocentric view of the purpose of God in creation than this, which subjects the creation and history of the universe to the manifestation of the glory of God in its renovation by the Son.”[17] After acknowledging that Owen’s Christocentricity was not unique among the English Puritans, he then says:
In the development of this Christocentric theological system, however, Owen was unsurpassed. The lines which he traces from the doctrine of the person of Christ are bold, and long enough to reach every subject of doctrinal inquiry, showing that “by him, all things” [including all doctrinal truths] consist” (Col. 1:17).[18]
In Daniels’ concluding words to his study on Owen’s Christology, he gives this tribute to him:
it is one thing to say Christian theology ought to be Christocentric, it is quite another to actually understand the entire spectrum of theological loci Christocentrically, or to articulate one’s theology in a way that manifests this Christocentricity. Owen does this, as we have observed with regard to the knowledge of God, creation, providence, the redemption of man, the mediatorial kingdom, the church, and the Christian life.[19]
[1] Owen, Works, IV:208.
[2] Owen, BTO, 797. Cf. Ferguson, John Owen, 196-99; Howson, “Hermeneutics of John Owen,” 351-76; Lea, “The Hermeneutics of the Puritans,” 271-84; Packer, “The Puritans as Interpreters of Scripture” in Quest for Godliness, 97-105; and Leland Ryken, “The Bible” in Worldly Saints: The Puritans as they Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 137-54.
[3] Owen, Works, I:65. Emphasis added.
[4] Owen, Works, I:74. Emphasis added.
[5] Owen, Works, I:120. Cf. Daniels, Christology of John Owen, 230-61.
[6] Owen, Works, XVII:121, 142.
[7] Owen, Works, XVII:120.
[8] Owen, Works, XVII:120.
[9] Owen, Works, I:314-15.
[10] Carl R. Trueman, “John Owen’s Dissertation on Divine Justice: An Exercise in Christocentric Scholasticism,” CTJ 33 (1998): 97.
[11] Trueman, “John Owen’s Dissertation on Divine Justice,” 103.
[12] Trueman, “John Owen’s Dissertation on Divine Justice,” 103.
[13] Kapic, Communion with God, 65.
[14] Kapic, Communion with God, 212-14. Cf. Owen, Works, XVIII:263-460 for Owen’s masterful treatment of a day of sacred rest.
[15] Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 181.
[16] Daniels, Christology of Owen, 178-93.
[17] Daniels, Christology of Owen, 180.
[18] Daniels, Christology of Owen, 517.
[19] Daniels, Christology of Owen, 519.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
