John Owen on Spiritual warfare
Through the usual means of the Christian life: Scripture, prayer, faith and watchfulness, including asking God to deliver the afflicted
"he that would be little in temptation, let him be much in prayer."
THE POSITION
Satan is a real tempter who sometimes works alone, injecting blasphemous thoughts into the saints, but the deeper danger is the traitors in our own hearts. The remedy is Christ's own summary: watch and pray. Prayer is central, and believing God's promise to preserve us is itself a means of preservation.
41 “Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
11 OTHERS HOLD THIS
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.
Cite this page
"John Owen on Spiritual warfare", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/owen/spiritual-warfare (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/owen/spiritual-warfare).