1. The elect cannot fall away (John 10:27-29, etc.).
believer, this knowledge offers the assurance that nothing will ever separate him from God's love in Christ (Romans 8:38-39).
Polemical Response to John Goodwin
No Reformed writer has matched Owen's profound thinking, thorough exposition, and rigorous application in the matter of perseverance and assurance. Owen's defense of perseverance was a response to a treatise by John Goodwin, titled Redemption Redeemed, in which Goodwin denied that God secures the continuance of faith in a believer.11 Because Goodwin's work was rambling and repetitious and lacked logical progression, Owen's rebuttal suffered the same asymmetry.
However, Owen essentially responded to the four major objections Goodwin repeatedly raised against the doctrine of perseverance. Two of those objections were theological, and two, practical. Owen clearly felt that leaving those four objections unanswered would also undermine the doctrine of personal assurance.12
In The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance Explained and Confirmed (1654) Owen addressed Goodwin's objection to perseverance due to the reality of apostasy. Goodwin insisted that such passages as Hebrews 6:1-8 and 10:26-39, taught the possibility of the believer's defection from a state of grace. Goodwin said that was confirmed by the large numbers of churchgoers who had been zealous but were now indifferent.
Owen made no attempt to deny the existence of backsliders and apostates. Rather, he suggested that Goodwin's error, like that of all Arminians, was assuming that all professors of religion were true believers. In exhaustive detail, Owen examined scriptural passages describing those who fell away from faith and concluded that every one of those apostates had never been true believers. Owen said such apostates had experienced only a "temporary holiness" that did not change their natures.13 Each time Scripture mentioned a Hymenaeus or a Philetus, for example, it then made a declaration, such as, "nevertheless, the firm foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his."14 Thus hypocrites in Scripture, who were like tares among the Lord's wheat, are not convincing arguments against perseverance.
Before stating his own position on perseverance, Owen established a biblical basis for perseverance by exegeting Philippians 1:6, 1 Peter 1:5, and John 10:27-29. He then offered the following syllogism to respond to Goodwin's objection:
1. The elect cannot fall away (John 10:27-29, etc.).
2. Some professors do fall away.
11 Owen's running commentary contra John Goodwin (not to be confused with Thomas Goodwin), grew into an extended book review of nearly 700 pages! Owen concluded that Goodwin borrowed the unsuccessful arguments of the Remonstrants. Although the Remonstrants initially deferred judgment on whether they held to the doctrine of perseverance, by the mid-1600s logic compelled most of them to deny it, for they increasingly realized that Calvinism could only be accepted or rejected as an organic whole. For John Goodwin, see Wallace, "Life and Thought of John Owen," pp. 242-47.
12 11:82ff.
13 11:90.
14 2 Timothy 2:17-19; cf. Hebrews 6:1-9; 10:26-39.