The Threats of the Gospel: John Owen on What the Law/Gospel Distinction Is not

McGraw, Ryan M.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-60807-5_4

The Threats of the Gospel: John Owen on What the Law/Gospel Distinction Is not

Ryan M. McGraw^2,3

Chapter
First Online: 19 August 2017

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Abstract

The third essay in section one addresses Owen’s assertion that “evangelical” threats were an indispensable component of the gospel as a covenant. This material demonstrates how the development of Reformed covenant theology altered the way in which Reformed authors formulated the law/gospel distinction in partial contrast to Lutheran constructions. It contends that post-Reformation theology was marked by continuities and discontinuities with earlier presentations of the law/gospel distinction. While this chapter will likely be regarded as controversial to some in light of contemporary theological debates over this subject, the primary purpose of the article is to provide clarity on the subject in light of an international and cross-confessional seventeenth-century context. Though the essay is historical in character, the author hopes that it will bring greater light and clarity to contemporary conversations on this topic as well.

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Notes

1.
Cited in William S. Plumer, The Law of God (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1996), 9. The author heartily thanks Gregory Moeck for his thorough feedback and criticism of the draft of this essay.
2.
James T. Dennison, Jr., “The Twilight of Scholasticism: Francis Turretin and the Dawn of the Enlightenment,” in Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark, eds., Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999), 252.
3.
For the classification of Reformed orthodoxy into periods, see Richard A. Muller , Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 1:30–32.
4.
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht is currently working to produce a volume on this topic, edited by Michael Haykin and Mark Jones .
5.
See J. Mark Beach , Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretin ’s Federal Theology as a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 249–253.
6.
Timothy J. Wengert , Law and Gospel: Philip Melanchthon ’s Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1997), especially chapter 6.
7.
For example, John Calvin (1509–1563), Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. XX–XXI, 2 vols., Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2.19; Johannes Wollebius (1589–1629), Compendium Christianae Theologiae, 9th ed. (Amsterdam, 1655), lib. 1, cap. 15: “De Euangelio eiusque cum Lege Convenientia et ab Illa Differentia.” pp. 76–78. It should be noted that many Reformed authors did not include a chapter on this distinction as well.
8.
Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones , A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 322, 333. For a treatment of Luther ’s development of the law gospel distinction as a biblical hermeneutic, see Robert Kolb , “Luther ’s Hermeneutic of Distinctions: Law and Gospel, Two Kinds of Righteousness, Two Realms, Freedom and Bondage,” in The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther ’s Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 168–184. Kolb cautions appropriately, “Luther did not know that he was devising hermeneutical principles for generations to come, so he was not always careful or consistent in his use of terminology that became critical for his practice of theology” (169). See also, Willem van Vlastuin , Be Renewed: A Theology of Personal Renewal, vol. 26, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 23.
9.
For a recent example, see Michael S. Horton , The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 137, who states that the law/gospel distinction refers to, “everything in both Testaments that is in the form of either an obligatory command or a saving promise in Christ.” He adds that the Lutheran and Calvinistic conceptions of the law and the gospel were essentially the same. However, this article shows that Reformed thinkers such as Owen believed that it was a mistake to relegate threats to the law and promises to the gospel because all covenants, law or gospel, included both elements.
10.
For a debate with references to recent literature on the subject, see Michael S. Horton and Mark A. Garcia, “Law and Gospel,” The Confessional Presbyterian 8 (2012): 154–176. In relation to the subject of this essay, Horton distinguishes covenants into law and promise covenants (158). He states, “there is no law in the gospel and no gospel in the law” (159). Garcia responds, “it is not conditionality but the question of meritorious grounds that distinguishes the covenants. Conditions are a defining feature of any covenant in the nature of the case, and are not unique to or a distinguishing mark of the covenant of works” (174).
11.
Carl R. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 1; Kelly M. Kapic , Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 18.
12.
A partial list of recent published monographs on Owen provides an at-a-glance cross-section of the topics current in Owen research: Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones , eds., The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology (Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012); Edwin E.M. Tay , The Priesthood of Christ: Atonement in the Theology of John Owen (1616–1683), Studies in Christian History and Thought (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2014); Tim Cooper , John Owen, Richard Baxter , and the Formation of Nonconformity (Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011); Ryan M. McGraw, A Heavenly Directory: Trinitarian Piety, Public Worship, and a Reassessment of John Owen’s Theology, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014); Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Thruth Trust, 1987); Brian Kay , Trinitarian Spirituality: John Owen and the Doctrine of God in Western Devotion (Bletchley, Milton Keynes, UK; Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2007); Christopher Cleveland , Thomism in John Owen (Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013); Alan Spence, Incarnation and Inspiration John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2007); Steve Griffiths, Redeem the Time: The Problem of Sin in the Writings of John Owen (Fearn: Mentor, 2001); Richard W. Daniels, The Christology of John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004); Sinclair B. Ferguson and Robert W. Oliver, “John Owen: The Man and His Theology: Papers Read at the Conference of the John Owen Centre for Theological Study, September 2000” (P & R Pub. ; Evangelical Press, 2002). The only full-scale scholarly biography of Owen remains Peter Toon , God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen, Pastor, Educator, Theologian. (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1971). In the Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, Crawford Gribben’s biographical details note that he is currently writing an intellectual biography of Owen.
13.
This essay cites the William Goold edition of Owen’s Works. The author has compared the Goold edition with Owen’s original publications extensively in A Heavenly Directory and concluded that Goold has retained Owen’s words precisely. Using this edition permits greater ease of reference for readers, since the Hebrews commentary went through several editions with varying numbers of volumes. For the significance of Owen’s work on Hebrews as the exegetical and theological capstone of his life and labors, see John W. Tweeddale , “John Owen’s Commentary on Hebrews in Context,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), 50–51.
14.
For a thorough treatment of the principles undergirding Owen’s exegesis, see Knapp , “Understanding the Mind of God.”
15.
For a concise summary of the development of this issue in its British context, see Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 321–333.
16.
Omitting the development of such distinctions is a weakness is Randall Pederson ’s otherwise outstanding treatment of English Puritan theology. Pederson gives the impression that the primary and perhaps the only question involved in Reformed treatments of the law and the gospel was the grounds on which one did good works. As demonstrated below, this misses the vital ways that Reformed covenant theology created varied uses of such terms in differing contexts. See Randall J. Pederson , Unity in Diversity: English Puritans and the Puritan Reformation, 1603–1689, vol. 68, Brill Studies in Church History (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 149, 206, 254–255, 281–282.
17.
A.G. Matthews, The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order, 1658 (London: Independent Press, 1959), 10–47.
18.
Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 321.
19.
Cited in Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 322.
20.
The material below shows that in a Lutheran context, Luther and Melanchton regarding placing imperatives such as repentance under “gospel” instead of “law” either confused the categories of law and gospel, or transformed repentance into remorse for sin without effecting ethical transformation.
21.
Kolb , “Luther ’s Hermeneutics of Distinctions,” 172.
22.
Cited in Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 323.
23.
See Kolb , “Luther ’s Hermeneutic of Distinctions, 174–175 for twentieth-century debates over how Luther himself used “law.”
24.
David Scaer notes that Gerhard was “the ‘archtheologian’ of the seventeenth century” and that his “Loci Communes was the standard dogmatics in post-Reformation Lutheranism.” David P. Scaer, “Johann Gerhard ’s Doctrine of the Sacraments,” Protestant Scholasticism, 289. The recent English translation of Gerhard ’s work is projected at a staggering seventeen volumes, which is condensed from the original twenty Latin volumes.
25.
Johann Gerhard , Tractatus De Legitima Scripturæ Sacræ Interpretatione (Ienæ: J.J. Bauhofferi, 1663), 150. This work mirrors his treatment of the same subject in his Loci Theologici with the same Roman Catholic opponents in view, only with greater brevity.
26.
Gerhard , De Legitma, 150. See Savoy Declaration of Faith 19.3–4. We should remember the commonly known fact that the three uses of the law originated with Melanchthon as was appropriated and modified by Calvin and others.
27.
Gerhard , De Legitma, 150: “Renati sunt non sub malediction legis, interim non sunt libera ab oboedientia.”
28.
Gerhard , De Legitma, 151.
29.
Johann Gerhard , Loci Theologici Cum Pro Adstruenda Veritate Tum Pro Destruenda Quorumvis Contradicentium Falsitate Per Theses Nervose Solide Et Copiose Explicati, ed. Johann Friedrich Cotta, 20 vols. (Tubingae: Cotta, 1766), 5:217. Gerhard relied explicitly on Martin Chemnitz (1522–1586) throughout his treatment of the law. Following the volume and page number, citations from Gerhard represent locus, chapter, and paragraph.
30.
The material below will show that Owen referred to gospel “comminations.”
31.
Gehard, Loci Theologici, 15.2.20.
32.
Gehard, Loci Theologici, 15.2.20.
33.
For more detail on Gerhard ’s treatment of these distinctions see Loci Theologici, 15.5.40, where he argues that the form of the gospel consists in a gracious promise only, and 15.6.53–63 (“de discrimine legis et evangelii”).
34.
Reflecting the historical context of such references to Bellarmine , van Vlastuin argues that Calvin ’s views of the relationship between justification and sanctification were halfway between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism: “Over against Rome Calvin thus emphasized that justification is not absorbed into sanctification. … But over against the Lutherans he emphasized that sinners are justified in order that they may live a holy life.” Vlastuin , Be Renewed, 47. While this may appear overstated at first glance, van Vlastuin draws this conclusion from Luther ’s assertion that sanctification was enveloped into justification, thus leaving doubt over how the imperatival force of sanctification and the believer’s cooperation with God in it are preserved. See below for Calvin ’s treatment of the law and the gospel as well as for the implications of the Lutheran antinomian controversy over this issue.
35.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.7.1.
36.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.10.23. See the significant modification of WCF 7.5–6 in Savoy 7.5: “Although this covenant hath been differently and variously administered in respect of ordinances and institutions in the time of the law, and since the coming of Christ in the flesh; yet for the substance and efficacy of it, to all its spiritual and saving ends, it is one and the same; upon the account of which various dispensations, it is called the Old and New Testament.” Matthews, 85.
37.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.1–3.
38.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.4–6.
39.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.7–8.
40.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.9–10.
41.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.11–12.
42.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.5. See I. John Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1992), 11–12, 88, 170–176. This is the first study of Calvin ’s teaching on the law that attempts to sketch his entire doctrine of the law in its context. For an expansion of this research in connection to Calvin ’s Christology and the gospel, see Byung-Ho Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law: Calvin ’s Christological Understanding of the Law as the Rule of Living and Life-Giving, Studies in Christian History and Thought (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2006). Hesselink introduces the topic of Christ in relation to the law on pp. 97–101, 278–281.
43.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.7.3.
44.
Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.10.
45.
“In contrast to the usual Lutheran understanding of law and gospel, for Calvin these two terms do not first of all connote two kinds of righteousness or ways of salvation – that of works and that of grace—but rather two modes of God’s redemptive activity. … Calvin also recognizes the narrower meaning of these terms and gives due attention to the Pauline antithesis of law and gospel, as we shall see later.” Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 11–12. See also Charles Partee , The Theology of John Calvin (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 137.
46.
This is a foretaste of the conclusions that I will draw from the material examined below and the reader must look there for the evidence of this assertion.
47.
For a historical introduction to Savoy , see McGraw, ‘A Heavenly Directory’, 23–24, and the literature cited there.
48.
Matthews, Savoy Declaration.
49.
Matthews, Savoy Declaration, 101. Chapter 20 in Savoy .
50.
Matthews, Savoy Declaration, 67.
51.
The four paragraphs of this chapter treat respectively: 1. God’s promise to the elect to send Christ upon the breach of the Covenant of Works (compare to 7:3, on the covenant). 2. The necessity of divine revelation in order to know and believe the promise of the gospel (compare to 1.1, on Scripture, and 10.4, on effectual calling). 3. The sovereign good pleasure of God in deciding which nations hear the gospel and in what measure they receive it (related to, but going beyond 3.6, on calling the elect through the use of means). 4. The necessity of the Holy Spirit to make the gospel effectual for salvation (chapter 10, on effectual calling).
52.
Matthews, Savoy Declaration, 85, footnote.
53.
Savoy follows Westminster here almost exactly with the exception of: adding the assertion that Adam not only had the moral law written on his heart, but “a particular precept” not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good an evil” (19.1); explicitly stating that this law continued on Adam’s heart after the fall (19.2); asserting that the Father invested Christ with power to abrogate the ceremonial law (19.3); and by clarifying that the “general equity” of the judicial law was still in force, not by virtue of Mosaic institution, but by “moral use” only (19.4).
54.
Relevant here is Hesselink’s treatment of Calvin ’s concept of nuda lex, which pervades his monograph. While this subject goes beyond the bounds of this essay, it is worth noting that in involved the idea that one should distinguish the law in itself as a moral standard rooted in the relationship between God and man as a moral creature, and its uses to Adam in the Garden and the believer’s renewal in the image of God through Christ by the Spirit.
55.
Moon’s work on Calvin asserts that Reformed covenant theologians “treat the peculiar office and use of the law as merely an important element in explaining the mutuality and conditionality of the covenant.” Moon, Christ the Mediator of the Law, 20. This statement is puzzling in light of Reformed confessional documents, such as Savoy , which treat the law primarily as an expression of God’s character and of man’s relationship to God. On this ground, Savoy (and Owen) explicitly distinguished between law and covenant, though the moral law served as the terms and conditions of the covenant of works.
56.
For a clear treatment of the differing uses of “law” in Reformed thought, with special reference to the relationship between natural and moral law, see James E. Bruce, Rights in the Law: The Importance of God’s Free Choices in the Thought of Francis Turretin , vol. 24 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013).
57.
Matthews, Savoy Declaration, 100.
58.
Matthews, Savoy Declaration, 101.
59.
Without using the precise language of the covenant of works (which came later in Reformed thought), Calvin made a similar distinction between the law in itself and the law under covenant (in his case, the covenant of grace). See Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 91.
60.
Contra Partee , who argues that the Westminster Confession “distorted” Calvin ’s teaching on the law in relation to grace by placing the covenant of works first in the system of theology. Partee , Theology of John Calvin , 137. The material above shows that the covenant of works allowed Reformed authors to retain, restore, and further the gracious uses of the law. For the development of Calvin ’s covenant theology and his basic continuity with other Reformed authors, see Ballor, Covenant, Casuality, and Law.
61.
Wengert , Law and Gospel, 205. For the positive use of the Decalogue in a covenantal context, see Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 87–138. Especially see his contrast between Reformed and Lutheran views of threats in relation to the law and the gospel on pg. 111.
62.
Other British authors did. For example, Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), Glorious Freedom, or, The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law. Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646), who was one of the five “dissenting brethren” at the Westminster Assembly , similarly wrote a treatise addressing law and gospel in redemptive historical categories. Jeremiah Burroughs , Gospel Conversation Wherein Is Shewed I. How the Conversation of Beleevers Must Be Above What Could Be by the Light of Nature, Ii. Beyond Those That Lived Under the Law, Iii. and Suitable to What Truths the Gospel Holds Forth (London: Printed by Peter Cole, 1653).
63.
An example is chapter 5 of his posthumous Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:542–551. This chapter detailed signs by which to know whether one was under law or under grace.
64.
John Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:283. In the chapter cited, Beeke and Jones show that the Antinomians were likely in view here. See below.
65.
John Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:287.
66.
This distinction is borrowed from Bernardinus de Moor ’s description of two ways of constructing dialectic (systematic) theology. Bernardinus de Moor , Continuous Commentary on Johannes Marckius ’ Didactico-Elenctic Comendium of Christian Theology, trans. Stephen Dilday, vol. 1, 7 vols. (Culpeper, VA: L & G Reformation Translation Center, 2014), 206: “Synthetic method begins from a principium, and through its object and subject tends toward its end; Analytic method begins with an end, and proceeds to means.”
67.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:277.
68.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:297.
69.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:305.
70.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:310.
71.
See Herman Witsius , De Oeconomia Foederum Dei Cum Hominibus Libri Quatuor, 2 vols. (Trajecti ad Rhenum: apud Franciscum Halmam, Gulielmum van de Water, 1694), 1.9.16.
72.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:295.
73.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:95; Savoy 19.6.
74.
See Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 315–318. See also Ryan M. McGraw, A Heavenly Directory: Trinitarian Piety, Public Worship, and a Reassessment of John Owen’s Theology (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 150, fn 68.
75.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:287. This is clearly in line with Dort, as cited above.
76.
“For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?” Authorized Version.
77.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:283.
78.
Burroughs , Gospel Conversation, 41–54.
79.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:283.
80.
See the material cited above from Beeke and Jones . For the importance of faith as a condition of the covenant of grace in Reformed theology, see MacLean , James Durham , 98, 112, 216.
81.
John Flavel , A Blow at the Root of Antinomianism (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1840). He wrote, “The gospel makes sin more odious than ever the law did, and discovers the punishment of it in a more severe and dreadful manner, than ever it was discovered before” (13–14).
82.
See Patrick Gillespie , The Ark of the Testament Opened, Or, the Secret of the Lords Covenant Unsealed in a Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, Wherein an Essay Is Made for the Promoving [sic] and Increase of Knowledge in the Mysterie of the Gospel-Covenant Which Hath Been Hid from Ages and Generations but Now Is Made Manifest to the Saints (London: Printed by R.C., 1983), 271–273. For a brief sketch of the Antinomian controversy in England, see Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 323–329. See also, Theodore Dwight Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion & Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
83.
Samuel Petto , The Difference Between the Old and New Covenant Stated and Explained with an Exposition of the Covenant of Grace in the Principal Concernments of It (London: Printed for Eliz. Calvert, 1674), 110–111, 221–226.
84.
Wengert , Law and Gospel, 41, 126.
85.
For a recent treatment of British antinomianism in a Reformed context, see Randall J. Pederson , Unity in Diversity: English Puritans and the Puritan Reformation, 1603–1689, vol. 68, Brill Studies in Church History (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 75–81, 210–237.
86.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:283.
87.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:284.
88.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:284.
89.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:285.
90.
Henry Scudder , A Key of Heaven: The Lord’s Prayer Opened and so Applied, that a Christian May Learn How to Pray, and to Procure all Things which May Make for the Glory of God, and the Good of Himself and of His Neighbor; Containing Likewise such Doctrines of Faith and Godliness, as May be Very Useful to All that Desire to Live Godly in Christ Jesus (London, 1633), 267–272.
91.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:285.
92.
This confirms van Vlasuin’s interpretation of Calvin ’s teaching on the fear of God in relation to sanctification . Vlastuin , Be Renewed, 33.
93.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:286.
94.
For an explicit treatment of this assertion, see Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:268–269.
95.
McGraw, A Heavenly Directory, 187.
96.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:286.
97.
Owen, The Nature of a Gospel Church, Works, 16:64–66. For the thorny question of the seat of church power and diverse theories among seventeenth-century Congregationalists and Presbyterians, see Hunter Powell , “October 1643: The Dissenting Brethren on the Proton Dektikon,” Michael A.G Haykin and Mark Jones , eds., Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, vol. 17, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen; Oakville, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 52–82. Powell ’s more extensive treatment of this topic is found in Hunter Powell , The Crisis of British Protestantism: Church Power in the Puritan Revolution 1638–44, Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015).
98.
Owen, The Nature of a Gospel Church, Works, 16:74–96. Most of this section highlights the duties of ministers to the congregation. The authority of their teaching is implied by the weight of their responsibilities. The substance of this entire section is repeated in “The Duty of a Pastor,” Works, 9:452–461, highlighting its importance in Owen’s thought.
99.
“They are authorized to denounce the eternal wrath of God against disobedient sinners; and whomsoever they bind under the sentence of it on earth, they are bound in heaven unto the judgment of the great day.” Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:286.
100.
Peter Toon , God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen, Pastor, Educator, Theologian. (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1971), 18–19.
101.
John Cotton , The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven, and Power Thereof, According to the Word of God (London: Printed by M. Simmons for Henry Overton, 1644), 10.
102.
Mark Jones , Antinomianism : Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest? (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2013), 9–11.
103.
See Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 323–325. Also see Wengert , Law and Gospel, Chap. 4.
104.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:286.
105.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:311.
106.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:207.
107.
See Burroughs , Gospel Conversation, 40–44; Flavel , Antinomianism , 13–14.
108.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 20:287.
109.
Velde, Synopsis Purioris , 1:573.
110.
For example, Owen, Works, 9:490–517. For an analysis of Owen’s preaching, though limited largely to the period of the English Civil War, see Martin C. Cowan , “The Prophetic Preaching of John Owen from 1646–1659 in its Historical Context,” PhD Dissertation, Cambridge University, 2012.
111.
Obadiah Sedgwick , England’s Preservation; Or, a Sermon Discovering the Onely Way to Prevent Destroying Judgments: Preached to the Honourable House of Commons at Their Last Solemne Fast Being on May, 25, 1642. (London: Printed by R.B. for Samuel Gellibrand, 1642).
112.
Sedgwick , England’s Preservation, 7.
113.
For an interesting treatment of the English Civil War from the radically differing perspectives of Owen and Richard Baxter (1615–1691), see Tim Cooper , John Owen, Richard Baxter , and the Formation of Nonconformity (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). Like Sedgwick , Owen viewed the war as an opportunity to see God bless England. Baxter , who experienced the devastations of the front line, regarded the war as a disastrous judgment from God.
114.
Sedgwick , England’s Preservation, 18.
115.
Sedgwick , England’s Preservation, 20.
116.
See McGraw, ‘A Heavenly Directory’, 21, fn 48, 24, 104.
117.
Sedgwick , England’s Preservation, 23.
118.
Sedgwick , England’s Preservation, 24.
119.
Wengert , Law and Gospel, 126, 129.
120.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:124, 269.
121.
For a similar set of questions, see Beeke and Jones , A Puritan Theology, 322.
122.
Hesselink shows that Calvin used “law” primarily in two senses: law as Old Testament and gospel as New Testament, and law in antithesis to gospel as a means of approaching God. However, rather than connecting the latter use of law explicitly to a primitive concept of a covenant of works, Calvin appears to have treated this use of the law with the law abstracted as from the covenant of grace. Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 157–158, 188. However, Hesselink notes later that even here Calvin imported covenantal overtones into the law by sometimes referring to is as “the original covenant” (197).
123.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:216; 23:77–78. For the complexities surrounding the Mosaic covenant in British Reformed orthodoxy, see Mark Jones , “The ‘Old’ Covenant,” Drawn into Controversie, 189–202. For a treatment of Owen’s position, see McGraw, A Heavenly Directory, 166–174.
124.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:542.
125.
See above.
126.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:542–543. The full citation reads: “The law is taken two ways: 1. For the whole revelation of the mind and will of God in the Old Testament. In this sense it had grace in it, and doth give both life, and light, and strength against sin, as the Psalmist declares, Ps. xix. 7–9. In this sense it contained not only the law of precepts, but the promise also and the covenant, which was the means of conveying spiritual life and strength unto the church. In this sense it is not here spoken of, nor is anywhere opposed unto grace. 2. For the covenant rule of perfect obedience: ‘Do this and live.’ In this sense, men are said to be ‘under it,’ in opposition unto being ‘under grace.’ They are under its power, rule, conditions, and authority as a covenant. And in this sense all men are under it who are not instated in the new covenant through faith in Christ Jesus, who sets up in them and over them the rule of grace; for all men must be one way or other under the rule of God, and he rules only by the law or by grace, and none can be under both at the same time.”
127.
See Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:48–100, for his fullest exposition of this contrast.
128.
This is particularly evident in his contrast between the Old and New Testament in relation to the sanctions of civil law in his A Day of Sacred Rest, Works, 19:263–460.
129.
“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Authorized Version.
130.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205.
131.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205.
132.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205. For a treatment of hypocrisy and assurance, see Joel R Beeke , The Quest for Full Assurance: The Legacy of Calvin and His Successors (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA.: Banner of Truth, 1999).
133.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205.
134.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205.
135.
John Flavel , A Practical Treatise of Fear, in The Works of John Flavel (Baynes & Son, 1820), 3:239. Earlier, Calvin treated simply saving and non-saving fear. Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 232. For the role of the fear of God in Calvin ’s view of the Christian life, see Vlastuin , Be Renewed, 33.
136.
Flavel , A Practical Treatise of Fear, 245.
137.
Flavel , A Practical Treatise of Fear, 248. Citing Is. 30:15.
138.
Flavel , A Practical Treatise of Fear, 252: “This fear is a gracious habit or principle planted by God in the soul, whereby the soul is kept under an holy awe of the eye of God, and from thence is inclined to perform and do what pleaseth him, and to shun and avoid whatsoever he forbids and hates.”
139.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205.
140.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:201. Cites 2 Cor. 5:11: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.”
141.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:202, 210.
142.
Citing Psalm 119:120: “My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments,” and, Josh. 24:19–20: “And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.” Authorized Version.
143.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:203.
144.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:203.
145.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:203.
146.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:204.
147.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:204.
148.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:204. Citing Hebrews 11:7: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”
149.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:205, 211.
150.
John Bunyan , The Pilgrim’s Progress , From This World to That Which is to Come (London, 1778), 80.
151.
See above for the varied uses of “law” in these connections.
152.
See Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:268.
153.
“The end of both [threats and promises] is, to increase in us faith and obedience. … The threatenings of God, then, are not assigned unto any other end but what the promises are assigned unto, only they work and operate another way.” Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:269.
154.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:206.
155.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:206.
156.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:206.
157.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:206. Citing 2 Cor. 2:16: “To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?”
158.
Contra Horton , The Christian Faith, 137.
159.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:206.
160.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:207.
161.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:207.
162.
For an outstanding analysis of John Owen’s exegesis in relation to his theology, see Henry M. Knapp , “Understanding the Mind of God: John Owen and Seventeenth-Century Exegetical Methodology,” PhD dissertation, Calvin Theological Seminary, 2002.
163.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:207.
164.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
165.
See Westminster Shorter Catechism 85: “To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.”
166.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
167.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:543.
168.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:543: “It discovers sin and condemns it, but it gives no strength to oppose it. It is not God’s ordinance for the dethroning of sin, nor for the destruction of its dominion.”
169.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 24:317. He asserted here that it was not the proper office of the law to convince men of sin and to drive them to Christ, since “this design, as unto the law, is covered in blackness. … It is the gospel alone that reveals the design of God in his law.” For the “first use” of the law, see Calvin , Institutes, 2.11.7; Partee , Theology of John Calvin , 139; Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 219–221. To avoid confusion, this was Melanchthon ’s “second use” of the law.
170.
Velde, Synopsis Purioris , 371 (Polyander).
171.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:543. In his Hebrews commentary, Owen added that the Sinai covenant did not abrogate the covenant of works, but that, “in sundry things it re-enforced, established, and confirmed that covenant.” Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:77. Israel was under the covenant of works declaratively in the law, but not covenantally like Adam.
172.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:543.
173.
Owen, Works, 23: 61–65, but especially 77–78. For a summary of the thorny question of how Reformed authors regarded the Mosaic covenant , see Mark Jones , “The ‘Old’ Covenant,” in Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, ed. Michael A.G. Haykin and Mark Jones , vol. 17, Reformed Historical Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 183–203.
174.
Owen preferred to write about the “renovation of the law” at Sinai. Owen, Hebrews, Works, 24:313. In the preceding volume he denied explicitly that “the covenant of works, absolutely the old” was the “old covenant ” intended in Hebrews eight. Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:61.
175.
Owen, Dominion of Sin and Grace, Works, 7:543.
176.
Hesselink notes that Calvin , “never quite says that we come to know ourselves as sinners and come to realize the gravity of our plight not through the law alone, but through the law as seen in Jesus Christ. This can be inferred from several passages cited earlier, but Calvin himself does not make this clear.” Hesselink, Calvin ’s Concept of the Law, 236.
177.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:113. The primary idea in this covenant scheme is that the Mosaic covenant related primarily to Christ, as he would fulfill the legal condition of the covenant of works in order to bring the covenant of grace to fruition. Thus the Mosaic covenant was not a covenant of works to Israel, but to Christ. It promoted the covenant of grace without being synonymous with the covenant of grace. This idea of a “superadded covenant” is also present on pg. 70 of the volume cited, though the terminology of a “superadded covenant” appears only in the reference cited here. In my Heavenly Directory, 166, I mistakenly cite pg. 70 instead of the exact citation, which is found on pg. 113.
178.
Jones , “The ‘Old’ Covenant,” Drawn into Controversie, 199–202. See Richard A. Muller , “Beyond Hypothetical Universalism: Moise Amyraut (1596–1644) on Faith, Reason, and Ethics,” in Martin I. Klauber, ed., The Theology of the French Reformed Churches: From Henri IV to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Reformed Historical-Theological Studies (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 206–208.
179.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:77–78. See McGraw, A Heavenly Directory, 166–174 for an analysis of Owen’s views of the Mosaic Covenant.
180.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:73–74; McGraw, A Heavenly Directory, 170–171.
181.
See Wengert , Law and Gospel, chap. 6.
182.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:74–75.
183.
Kolb , “Luther ’s Hermeneutics of Distinctions,” 172.
184.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23: 68–69. While excluding threats from the gospel, Horton makes a similar point about Christ supplying the conditions of the gospel. Horton and Garcia, “Law and Gospel,” 162.
185.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 24:317.
186.
See Witsius , Oeconomia Foderum, 1.9.
187.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
188.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208; See also the exegetical portion of Owen, Apostasy from the Gospel, Works, 7:1–52.
189.
Scudder , A Key of Heaven, 271. By contrast, WCF 21.4 and Savoy Declaration 22.4 imply that it is possible to identify and to avoid praying for some who “have sinned the sin unto death.”
190.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
191.
For the relation of such themes to gospel preaching in the seventeenth century, see MacLean , James Durham and the Gospel Offer.
192.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
193.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
194.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:208.
195.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:209.
196.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:209. This mirrors Savoy Declaration 20 (“Of the Gospel”). See above.
197.
Wollebius , Compendium, 77: “Conveniunt materia communi, quod utrinque urgetur oboedientia, additis promissionibus et comminationibus. Differunt autem materia propria: Lex enim primario facidenda, Evangelium vero primario credenda, docet.”
198.
See Westminster Shorter Catechism 12: “When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.” See also, Savoy Declaration 7.2: “The first covenant made with man, was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.”
199.
“For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.” Authorized version.
200.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 22:264. The “first covenant” does not always refer to the covenant of works in Owen’s Hebrews commentary. See, for example Owen, Hebrews, Works, 23:173–177, where the “first covenant” refers to the Mosaic covenant . Owen’s choice of terms in expounding Hebrews 8 may potentially confuse readers because he allowed the language of the text rather than his theology to dictate his use of terms.
201.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:258.
202.
“Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.” Authorized Version.
203.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:258.
204.
For more details on Reformed principles of interpreting the Decalogue, see McGraw, A Heavenly Directory, 90–92.
205.
“This is the foundation of that mutual inbeing of promises and threatenings whereof we discourse.” Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:258–259.
206.
Patrick Gillespie , The Ark of the Testament Opened, Or, the Secret of the Lords Covenant Unsealed in a Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, Wherein an Essay Is Made for the Promoving [sic] and Increase of Knowledge in the Mysterie of the Gospel-Covenant Which Hath Been Hid from Ages and Generations but Now Is Made Manifest to the Saints (London, 1983), 271–273.
207.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:209. For examples of Puritan treatments of “spiritual desertion,” see William Bridge (1600–1670), A Lifting up for the Downcast (orig. pub. 1649, reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995); Timothy Rogers (1658–1728), Trouble of Mind and the Disease of Melancholy, (orig. pub. 1706, reprint, Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2002); Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax, in, The Works of Richard Sibbes (orig. pub. 1862–1864, reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), 33–101. Also see Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) and Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–1666), Spiritual Desertion, trans. John Vriend, ed. M. Eugene Osterhaven (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2003). These references are borrowed from McGraw, A Heavenly Directory, 65, fn 166.
208.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:209. Owen cited Christ’s letters and warnings to the seven churches in Revelation 2–3 throughout this section as a prime example.
209.
Owen, Hebrews, Works, 21:209.
210.
James Durham , The Law Unsealed, Or, a Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments with a Resolution of Several Momentous Questions and Cases of Conscience (Edinburgh: Printed by the heir of Andrew Anderson, 1676).
211.
Samuel Rutherford distinguished between “law threatenings” under the covenant of works versus the covenant of grace, and described how God made such threats useful for the salvation of the elect. Samuel Rutherford , The Covenant of Life Opened; Or, a Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (Edinburgh, 1655), 7–10. Andrew Woolsey argues that while the covenant of works was accepted by virtually all seventeenth-century Reformed theologians, the doctrine grew out of the teaching of the early Reformers. Andrew A. Woolsey, Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed Tradition to the Westminster Assembly , Reformed Historical-Theological Studies (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 543–547.
212.
Wollebius , Compendium, 77.
213.
Wengert , Law and Gospel, 92.
214.
For another example, see the explanation of covenant terminology by John Ball (1585–1640), A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace Wherein the Graduall Breakings Out of Gospel Grace from Adam to Christ Are Clearly Discovered, the Differences Betwixt the Old and New Testament Are Laid Open, Divers Errours of Arminians and Others Are Confuted, the Nature of Uprightnesse, and the Way of Christ in Bringing the Soul into Communion with Himself … Are Solidly Handled (London: Printed by G. Miller for Edward Brewster, 1645), 1–2.
215.
Brian Lee comes to similar conclusions with regard to Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669), who chose to pursue his polemical work and covenant theology in the context of his Hebrews commentary. Lee , Johannes Cocceius and the Exegetical Roots of Federal Theology.

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Department of Systematic Theology, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Taylors, SC, USA
Ryan M. McGraw
Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Ryan M. McGraw

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McGraw, R.M. (2017). The Threats of the Gospel: John Owen on What the Law/Gospel Distinction Is not. In: John Owen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60807-5_4

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