John Owen on Extent of the atonement

1616 – 1683 · REFORMED / CONGREGATIONALIST

READ IN A PRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°

STANCE

Definite — for the elect, effectually

To which I may add this dilemma to our Universalists:— God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or some sins of all men... But this unbelief, is it a sin or not? If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not. If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death? If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins. Let them choose which part they will.

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, Book I, ch. 3 (Works, vol. 10, pp. 173-174, Goold ed.) ↗

THE POSITION

Definite atonement, argued from the intention of God rather than from the value of the sacrifice. The hinge is intention: what the Father and the Son intended to accomplish by Christ's death is certainly effected, so Christ died for all and only those in whom it is effected (Book II, ch. 3). The famous disjunction — all the sins of all men, all the sins of some men, or some sins of all men — is an aside introduced as "this dilemma to our Universalists," and its force is the pincer on unbelief: if Christ bore it, it cannot bar anyone; if he did not, he did not die for all their sins.

CAVEAT

Two corrections. Owen is not denying sufficiency: answering the universalist appeal to "world" texts he grants that apart from one place "all the other places seem only to hold out the sufficiency of his oblation for all, which we also maintain" (Book IV, ch. 2, Works 10:319). What he denies is that the sufficiency reflects an intention to save all. And the disjunction above is not the book's argument, though it is almost always quoted as if it were. It is Owen's word "dilemma," not "trilemma"; it is introduced with "To which I may add" at the end of Book I ch. 3; and the case the four books actually build is the one about intention in Book II ch. 3. Calvin, at sufficient-for-all/efficient-for-the-elect, is not simply a weaker version of this — the disagreement between them is partly about what question is being asked.

SCRIPTURE

ISAIAH 53:6 · BSB

6 We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.

7 OTHERS HOLD THIS

Voddie Baucham Jonathan Edwards Second London Baptist Confession John MacArthur John Piper R.C. Sproul Westminster Confession

Universal — for all, applied on faithJACOBUS ARMINIUS · ATHANASIUS · CHRYSOSTOM · LUTHER · PHILIP MELANCHTHON · WESLEY

Sufficient for all, efficient for the electAQUINAS · CALVIN · CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

Never framed in these termsAUGUSTINE · JOSH HOWERTON · NICAEA I · ZWINGLI

See all 24 figures on extent of the atonement →

ABOUT THIS FIGURE

The most formidable English Puritan theologian: Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford under Cromwell, later a nonconformist pastor in London. This entry rests on The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647), The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677), Pneumatologia and the Discourse of Spiritual Gifts (1674), and the Two Short Catechisms (1645), read in the Goold edition of the Works.

16 OF 18 POSITIONS QUOTED

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Cite this page

"John Owen on Extent of the atonement", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/owen/atonement-extent (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/owen/atonement-extent).

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