The Key Teachings of John Owen

This is not a book by John Owen. It is a companion to him — an independent work of exposition and appreciation, written by Ochorus, that gathers the heart of his teaching into fifteen short chapters for the ordinary reader, with a chapter on his life, a conclusion and a guide to his books. It draws most closely on The Mortification of Sin in Believers, which is in the Ochorus library, and describes his other great works in plain modern prose.

Owen’s one theme was communion with God. Sin is dreadful because it spoils that fellowship, and so it must be put to death; Christ has died to make both the fellowship and the dying possible; and the end of it all is to see His glory. This volume follows that thread from his searching directions for killing sin, through his writing on communion with the Trinity, temptation, indwelling sin, the atonement, the spiritual mind and the church, and it is honest about where he must be read with care: his dense style, his disputed doctrine of definite atonement, and his part in the Commonwealth.

Owen’s own writings are in the public domain and freely available, and every chapter here names them so the reader can go to the source. This companion is offered only to open the door. It quotes Scripture from the Authorised (King James) Version, and it makes no claim to stand in for the man’s own exacting, prayerful pages.