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Examined Doctrine

John Owen on the person of Christ

1616 – 1683 · REFORMED / CONGREGATIONALIST
READ IN A PRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°
STANCE

One person in two natures, unconfused and undivided

Jesus Christ is God and man in one, — not a God and a man; God incarnate, — not a man deified. The essential properties of either nature remain in his person theirs still, not communicated unto the other; as of the Deity to be eternal, everywhere; of the humanity to be born and die.
The Greater Catechism (1645), ch. 10, marginal note 44 (Works, vol. 1, Goold ed.) ↗

THE POSITION

Chalcedonian, and Owen states the guardrails explicitly: God and man in one person, not a God and a man; God incarnate, not a man deified; the properties of each nature remaining that nature's own and not communicated to the other; and whatever may be said of either nature said of the whole person.

SCRIPTURE
JOHN 1:14 · BSB

14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

12 OTHERS HOLD THIS

CalvinChalcedonJonathan EdwardsThe Church of Eleven22 Statement of FaithEphesusSecond London Baptist ConfessionLutherJohn MacArthurPhilip MelanchthonR.C. SproulWestminster ConfessionZwingli
Word united to flesh, with the human soul underemphasizedATHANASIUS
Affirms both deity and humanity before the categories were fixedCHRYSOSTOM · IRENAEUS
See all 19 figures on the person of christ →

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
Everything John Owen holds →
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"John Owen on the person of Christ", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/owen/christology (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/owen/christology).

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