John Owen’s Understanding of Covenant Pertaining to the Knowledge of God

John Owen argued that all true theology is based on covenant, which means supernatural theology is to best understood covenantally. Trueman described how the doctrine of the covenant “allows for the bridging of the ontological chasm that exists between an infinite self-existent Creator and a finite, dependent creation.” John Owen demonstrated in his writings, revelation was progressive along covenantal lines, but in the new covenant God speaks definitively and most gloriously in the person of Jesus Christ.  John Owen’s writings describe two lines of thought on how Scripture as revelation relates to the doctrine of the covenant, first there is the vertical line of God’s gracious will to save. Second there is the horizontal line of the gradual revelation of God’s salvific will in history which starts in the Garden of Eden and climaxes in the birth, life and death of Christ. 



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