Introduction

Modern education has become a fragmented domain. Technical proficiency and pragmatic outcomes dominate curricula, while the classical virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty have largely been forgotten. C.S. Lewis forewarned of the downgrade of modern education in The Abolition of Man, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts…By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes.”[1] When education abandons the moral and theological, it is reduced to training consumers. A generation is indoctrinated to produce results and repeat information rather than educated to seek what is true, good, and beautiful.

In response to this problem, the renewal of classical Christian education aims to recover a holistic formation of the mind, affections, and will, under the lordship of Christ. As Miller and Kienel observe, “our role is to train the students’ affections and loves within a Christian world-and-life view. This is our goal because the goal of education is not primarily information, but formation.”[2] Classical education, far from being a relic of antiquity, is a living tradition not a closed chapter of history. As Christian Perrin explains classical education, “is the authoritative, traditional and enduring form of education, begun by the Greeks and Romans, developed through history and now being renewed and recovered in the 21st century.”[3][It is grounded in the Greco-Roman vision and medieval Christian belief that the purpose of education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. Thomas Aquinas could affirm, “Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea.”[4] From this synthesis emerged the Christian understanding of transcendentals—truth, goodness, and beauty—not as abstract philosophical categories but unified in the being of God Himself.

The Protestant Reformers did not dismantle this classical heritage, rather they reoriented it around Christ, the incarnate Logos, making Him the center of all knowledge and understanding. Within this Reformed and Puritan tradition, John Owen (1616-1683) developed one of the most comprehensive and Christ-centered explanations of Christ’s mediatorial offices—Prophet, Priest, and King. As Prophet, Christ reveals the truth of God and illuminates the darkened mind. As Priest, He reconciles sinners to God and restores moral goodness through His atoning work and ongoing intercession. As King, He subdues the fallen will and leads believers into the beauty of holiness. This Puritan dogma, expressed formally in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Shorter Catechism, provides a robust theological lens through which the classical transcendentals may be reinterpreted and recovered within Christian education.

Thesis Statement, Scope, and Direction of Research

This paper argues that Owen’s Christ-centered theology of Christ’s mediatorial offices—Prophet, Priest, and King—provides a doctrinally rich and theologically coherent paradigm for recovering and integrating the classical transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty within Christian education. To demonstrate this thesis, the body of the paper will proceed in four parts. First, it will review the Reformed and Puritan context in which Owen’s theology of Christ the Mediator developed, establishing doctrinal foundations. Second, it will examine the three mediatorial offices—Prophet, Priest, and King—explaining how Owen understood the function of each office as it relates to the mind, heart, and soul. Third, it will explore the classical and medieval understanding of the transcendentals and explain how Owen’s Christology provides their fulfillment in Christ. Finally, it will present practical applications, emphasizing how Owen’s mediatorial scheme can renew pedagogy, curriculum, and the formation of students within the classical Christian academy. The paper will conclude with a summary of findings, investigated applications, and recommendations for future work.

The Puritan Doctrine of Christ the Mediator

The theological landscape from which John Owen’s Christology developed was the rich confessional heritage of Reformed orthodoxy. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) and its Baptist child, the Second London Confession (1677/89), both begin their doctrinal summary of redemption with the Mediation of Christ. “It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man; the Prophet, Priest, and King.”[5][Central to Puritan dogma is the Covenant of Redemption—in which the Father appointed the Son as Mediator to carry out the eternal purpose of God the Father. Joel Beeke and Mark Jones write, “The idea of an eternal covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) between the Father and Son can be located in the work of many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed theologians.”[6] Owen stands at the convergence of Reformation and post-Reformation scholastic method. Rather than rejecting scholastic method, the Puritans built upon it to serve scriptural and confessional ends. Richard Muller explains,

High orthodoxy (ca. 1640–1685–1725) spans the greater part of the seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Like early orthodoxy, it needs to be divided into two phases. It represents a still broader theological synthesis than early orthodoxy: it rests upon a confessional summation of the faith, has a somewhat sharper and more codified polemic against its doctrinal adversaries, and possesses a broader and more explicit grasp of the tradition, particularly of the contribution of the Middle Ages…In this phase of the high orthodox period are found such authors as Johannes Cocceius, Samuel Maresius, Andreas Essenius, Gisbertus Voetius, Friedrich Spanheim the elder, Marcus Friedrich Wendelin, Franz Burman, Francis Turretin, Edward Leigh, Matthew Poole, John Owen, and Stephen Charnock.[7]

While the Puritans were not a monolithic group, Owen maintained methodological continuity with medieval scholastics while preserving the Reformation emphasis of sola Scriptura and solus Christus. Owen understood divine revelation as aiming not merely at knowledge but at a holy life directed toward God. “The first intention of the Scripture, in the revelation of God towards us,” he wrote, “is that we might fear him, believe, worship, obey him, and live unto him, as God.”[8] For Owen, the end of Scripture was not abstract speculation but holiness—a life shaped by the truth of God’s revelation and rising in worship before the beauty of Christ. In other words, theology was not speculation about divine realities but ultimately communion with Christ the Mediator.

It must be acknowledged that Owen himself did not consciously employ the classical categories of truth, goodness, and beauty. Understandably, Owen was a man of his own age and wrote from his own historical context. His theological formation stood within the high orthodoxy of the Puritan movement rather than the medieval world where the trivium and transcendentals were formed and articulated. Nevertheless, his Christology offers a profoundly useful framework for understanding the classical transcendentals—what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful. What classical philosophy sought abstractly, Owen locates in the person of Christ the Mediator. Through the application of Owen’s Christology, the transcendentals find their proper fulfillment not in metaphysical speculation but in doxological communion with Christ Himself.

Classical Christian education seeks to form the mind, affections, and will in the pursuit of what is true, good and beautiful. Yet when these aims are viewed through Owen’s doctrine of Christ the Mediator, the transcendentals take on a deeper and explicitly redemptive meaning. When Owen’s framework is applied, truth, goodness, and beauty do not function merely as education ideals and instead become divine perfections communicated to believers through Christ’s mediatorial offices. As prophet, He illumines the mind in truth. As Priest, He produces goodness in our hearts. As King, He draws the will away from the world to behold the beauty of Christ. Owen’s theology harmonizes these virtues in the glory of Christ. “That one of the greatest privileges and advancements of believers, both in this world and unto eternity, consists in their beholding the glory of Christ,” he writes, “hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections, to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world.”[9] Owen’s aim is the reordering of human desire so that all lesser glories fade before the beauty of Christ. It is this Christ-centered vision that allows the transcendentals to be recovered not as mere abstractions, but as divine perfections mediated through Christ’s offices.

The Mediatorial Offices of Christ and the Recovery of the Transcendentals

In this act of beholding, the whole person—mind, will, soul—is gathered into communion with Christ. In Him, the transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty are no longer separate pursuits but perfections of Christ the Mediator. To behold Christ is to see truth in its fullest light, to love goodness in its purest form, and to delight in beauty at its divine source. Owen’s doctrine of Christ’s mediatorship therefore offers a doctrinally rich paradigm for the recovery of classical education’s transcendentals—integrating the formation of the soul into the redemptive work of Prophet, Priest, and King. Owen writes, “It is by the exercise and discharge of the office of Christ—as the king, priest, and prophet of the church—that we are redeemed, sanctified and saved.”[10]

Christ as Prophet – The Renewal of Truth

The mediatorial offices of Christ—Prophet, Priest, and King—form the organizing framework of Puritan soteriology. John Owen captures their unity when he writes,

“And the office of Christ is nothing but the way appointed in the wisdom of God for the communication of the treasures of grace which were communicated unto his person. This is the end of the whole office of Christ, in all the parts of it, as he is a priest, a prophet, and a king.”[11]

In other words, the offices together display how divine grace flows from the Mediator to His people. As Prophet, Christ reveals the mind of God and redeems humanity’s ability to know the truth. Owen writes in his catechism, Christ exercises the prophetic office toward us, “By making known the whole doctrine of truth unto us in a saving and spiritual manner.”[12] As a result of the fall, man cannot know the truth without illumination from God. Owen understands illumination of knowledge as the glory of beholding the Mediator. “Whatever obscure, imperfect notions we may have of them other ways, we cannot have ‘the light of the’ illuminating, irradiating ‘knowledge of the glory of God,’ which may enlighten our minds and sanctify your hearts, but only ‘in the face’ or person ‘of Jesus Christ.’”[13] Here the prophetic office of Christ’s the Mediator reveals not merely divine information but divine communion. The prophetic work of Christ restores true knowledge by bringing the mind into communion with Christ.

Owen’s framework provides a bridge between Puritan theology and the classical Christian pursuit of veritas. He gives virtue theological grounding: all knowledge of truth begins and ends in beholding the Mediator’s glory. In Christ, the mind is renewed and restored to worship of Him who is Truth. In educational terms, Christ the Prophet is the archetype of every true teacher—the one who understands reality as God has revealed it in Christ.

Christ as Priest – The Restoration of Goodness

As Priest, Christ restores the moral and spiritual life of man through his work of atonement and continual intercession. “All the present faith and worship of God in the church here on earth, all access unto him for grace, and all acceptable ascriptions of glory unto his divine Majesty, do all of them, in their being and exercise, wholly depend on, and are resolved into, the continuation of the mediatory actings of Christ in heaven and glory.”[14] For Owen, the office of Priest is fountain from where all grace, goodness, and holiness flow. The believer’s union with Christ as the great high priest produces the spiritual fruit of goodness (Gal. 5). Owen calls this “communion with God” and in His formula the believer has communion with all three persons of the Godhead.[15] Therefore, the moral formation envisioned within the classical Christian model, when situated within Owen’s priestly framework, is produced in students by the priestly work of Christ the Mediator.

Christ as King – Seeking Beauty

In Christ’s Kingly office, He subdues, governs, and beautifies the soul. For Owen, Christ was king in his humiliation and continues to be king in his exaltation. As King,

As for his exaltation at his ascension, it was not by any investiture in any new office, but by an admission to the execution of that part of his work of mediatorship which did remain, in a full and glorious manner, the whole concernment of his humiliation being past. In the meantime, doubtless, he was a king when the Lord of glory was crucified.[16]

In His Kingly office, Christ will restore the world in glory and order, bringing all things in subjection to Him, making his enemies a footstool under his feet (Psalm 110). His Kingly reign is restorative in that He will renew creation to perfect order and beauty, reversing the curse of the fall.

Applied to the classical model, the will submits to Christ and produces affection towards Christ’s beauty. As the will of man bends to the authority of Christ, the heart of man is awakened to behold His glory. As the soul of beholds the king, it is restored and this will one day be fully consummated in the new heavens and new earth across all of creation. Thus, the final state of the kingdom is one of order, beauty, and glory of the King of kings.

Thus, the mediatorial framework of Owen applied to the transcendentals is what classical education aims for in its formation pedagogy. As Prophet, Christ renews the mind to the knowledge of truth. As Priest, Christ restores the heart to what is good. As King, Christ subdues the will of man to see the beauty of His glory. When the mediatorial framework is applied to the academy, classical education becomes a form of worship of the whole student—the mind, the heart, and the soul. Thus, the medieval transcendentals—truth, goodness, and beauty are not reduced to abstraction but become communicable through the offices of Christ to the student. Owen’s Christology, when applied to the transcendentals, forms a theological bridge between the ideals of classical antiquity and the contemporary practice of classical education.

Classical Transcendentals—Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

The transcendentals—truth, goodness, and beauty—have long served as the metaphysical architecture of the Christian intellectual tradition, shaping theology and philosophy from the patristic era through the high Middle Ages. While the modern classical Christian renewal rightly draws upon Platonic and Thomistic origins, its recovery of the transcendentals also stands in continuity with Reformed scholasticism and Puritanism. The metaphysical categories described by Aquinas applied through Puritan Christology attaints both classical and Christian definitions. The Christianization of the transcendentals reaches back to Augustine, who grounded all created goodness in God. “All of nature, therefore, is good, since the Creator of all nature is supremely good. But nature is not supremely and immutably good as is the Creator of it.”[17] In the medieval period, this metaphysical framework was further refined. Thomas Aquinas famously argued that “Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea,” grounding the transcendentals ontologically rather than merely morally.[18]For Aquinas, truth, goodness, and beauty were anchored in being itself.

The Protestant Reformers did not reject the transcendentals, instead, they grounded them in Scripture.  Calvin famously wrote, “All right knowledge of God is born of obedience.”[The later Reformed scholastics, including John Owen, further refined the medieval method. Owen’s Christology stands in continuity with the medieval and classical pursuit of unity in truth, goodness, and beauty—while grounding them in redemptive categories. Owen’s theology applied to the transcendentals transforms metaphysical ideals into theological realities—even perfections of Christ. Truth is revealed by Christ as Prophet, who illumines the darkened mind. Goodness is realized by Christ the Priest, who conforms man to moral renewal. Beauty is displayed by Christ as king who transforms us into His image.  Dinu Moga writes,

For Owen the background to every aspect of Christ’s work is that it is an act of divine love, or good pleasure, in which Jesus Christ comes to us as the Second Man and the Last Adam, first to restore individual sinners and an entire people to fellowship with God, and then to bring a restored, reconstituted and glorious universe into being—one that surpasses creation in its original form.[20]

In Owen’s theology, then, the transcendentals become personal, covenantal, and doxological. Truth, goodness, and beauty are not abstract ideals, but divine perfections embodied in Christ Himself. To behold Christ as beautiful is to gaze upon Him who is holy, Thomas Watson captures this well. He writes, “Holiness is the most sparkling jewel of His crown; it is the name by which God is known.”[21]

For Owen, to behold Christ is to be transformed into His likeness. What the ancients sought through philosophy and the medieval thinkers pursued through metaphysics, Owen locates entirely in the person of Christ the Mediator—the one in whom “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). The transcendentals reach fulfillment not through human ascent to ideals, but through divine descent in the incarnation.

If truth, goodness, and beauty are fulfilled in the Mediator, then education must be mediated education—a participation in the Prophets illumination, the Priest’s sanctification, and the King’s ordering rule. Classical Christian education, therefore, is not merely the transmission of ideas but the formation of persons through union with Christ, the One in whom the transcendentals reach their perfection. The medieval trivium trained the mind in grammar, logic and rhetoric, shaping intellectual piety and wisdom for life.  The Puritan recovery of practical Christology—modeled by Owen—extends this formation to the affections and the will, cultivating holiness through communion with Christ in his Mediatorial offices. Together these form a vision for a new classical Christian education in which the mind is reformed by truth, the hearts sanctified in goodness, and the will is ordered by the beauty of Christ. Having established the theological foundations for truth, goodness, and beauty, we now turn to how the application of Owen’s mediatorial Christology reshapes classical Christian pedagogy.

Educational Applications for Classical Christian Academy

The renewal of Christ’s offices as Mediator as the doctrinal foundation for truth, goodness, and beauty informs how to do Christology and has practical applications for the academy. As the transcendentals have fulfillment in the Mediatorial offices of Christ, , the applications for education must be centered around prophetic illumination, priestly sanctification, and kingly order. The classical Christian academy is therefore more than an intellectual institution and is a Christian community whereby the whole person—mind, heart, soul—is formed through communion with Christ.

Christ the Prophet and the Application of Truth

Christ as Prophet reveals the will of God and illuminates the fallen mind of man (Heb. 1:1-3). For Owen, “A soul enlightened with the knowledge of the truth, and made sensible of its own condition by spiritual conviction, has two predominant desires and aims, whereby it is wholly regulated, — the one is, that God may be gloried; and the other, that itself may be eternally saved.”[22] Education, then, has a higher aim, that is through the knowledge of the truth, that God be glorified and the person’s salvation. This highlights the necessity to receive divine illumination by the word and Spirit through the Prophetic office of Christ as God has revealed the truth.

The practical implications for the teacher in the classical Christian academy are profound when viewed through the relationship between Christ as Prophet and the student’s reception of truth by the illuminating power of the Spirit. In the classroom, the teacher exercises a significant—but subordinate—role as prophetic teacher, in the lesser sense, of one who outwardly delivers the truth of God. As Augustine observed, “Outwardly, by His Law, and inwardly, by speaking to the depths of man’s heart, He directs the soul to exert itself, while He prepares a state of glory in the Blessed City…”[23] This distinction, later refined by the Puritans, preserves the classical classroom from mere secular teaching detached from God.

While the teacher in the classroom delivers the word of God externally, Christ speaks to the heart of the student inwardly. In other words, Christ in His Prophetic office applies what is taught outwardly by the prophet teacher in the classroom. Inwardly, Christ by the Spirit presses the truth into the mind of the student. Therefore, the teacher in the classical Christian academy becomes the instrument through whom Christ’s Prophetic truth is outwardly taught, while Christ inwardly illuminates the truth to the student. It is this integration of outward teaching and inward illumination that grounds classical Christian pedagogy in the distinct theological framework of the Puritans and guards it from intellectualism separated from divine truth.

When practically applied to the trivium’s states of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, classical education becomes more than a cognitive framework, it becomes a means of beholding divine truth. Grammar defines the created world as God has truly revealed it. Logic orders and explains the truth with understanding so students think God’s truth after Him. Rhetoric declares the truth with beauty and forms affections toward what is good. As such, the trivium is unified not merely for academic stages but by the sacred truth of communion with God. Owen captures this spiritual reality when writes,

There is no more sacred truth than this, that where Christ is present with believers, where he has not withdrawn for a season from them, where they live in view of His glory by faith as it is possessed unto them in the Gospel, he will give unto them in His own seasons, such intimations of his love, supplies of his Spirit, such holy joys and rejoicings, such repose of soul in assurance, as shall refresh their souls, fill them with joy, satisfy them with spiritual delight, and quicken them with all acts of holy communion with himself.[24]

Owen’s vision applied to classical education becomes a spiritual pathway through which students are formed to see creation truly, reason truly, and express God’s truth beautifully through inward communion with Christ.

Christ the Priest and Formation of Goodness

As the great High Priest, Christ’s mediatorial work encompasses the whole doctrine of salvation, including the sanctification of believers. For Owen there are two essential parts of the priestly office: (1) an oblation of himself, and (2) intercession.[25] In his catechism, Owen explains the good benefits of Christ’s oblation:

Q. 5. Whereby doth this oblation do good unto us?

A. Divers ways; first, in that it satisfied the justice of God; secondly, it redeemed us from the power of sin, death, and hell; thirdly, it ratified the new covenant of grace; fourthly, it procured for us grace here, and glory hereafter; by all which means the peace and reconciliation between God and us is wrought.

Christ’s priestly work, therefore, imparts good to the believer—namely the good of salvation. The book of Hebrews tells us as high priest, Christ lives forever in heaven to make intercession for His people (Heb. 7:25). On Christ’s priestly intercession Owen writes,

His intercession in heaven is nothing but a continued oblation of himself. So that whatsoever Christ impetrated, merited, or obtained by his death and passion, must be infallibly applied unto and bestowed upon them for whom he intended to obtain it; or else his intercession is vain, he is not heard in the prayers of his mediatorship.[26]

In other words, Christ’s work is applied to believers from heaven through his intercessory work in His office of high priest. Owen writes, “Now, both these consist in a communication of God and his goodness unto us (and our participation of him by virtue thereof); and that either to grace or glory, holiness or blessedness, faith or salvation.”[27]

In the classical setting, education cannot be downgraded to cultivation of virtue or ethics. For education to be Christian, it must be founded upon Christian teaching, particularly on Christ mediatorial work as priest. United to Christ as people, he produces in us goodness by the Spirit (Gal. 5). Thus, goodness desired in classical education must not be abstractly defined in philosophical categories. Without this assumption, teachers do not function as priests, in the sense of the priesthood of believers. The pursuit of goodness without union to Christ, will produce a kind of legalistic morality. Students must practice goodness as well. We should as Paul Tripp argues, shepherd a child’s heart. The aim of classical Christian education is to produce morally good children through the sanctifying work of the priestly office of Christ. Teachers then become in a lower sense, priests of heart formation, helping students see the sanctifying work of Christ in His high priestly office. When teachers teach obedience, for example, that is not to be good for goodness sake, but to reflect the character of God, as Christ produces His goodness in the hearts of children. It is through this cultivation of Christ’s Priestly work that the teachers are used as instruments, in the priestly sense, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ—the perfect display of God’s goodness—in the daily rhythms of academy life. As children encounter the priestly work of Christ in the classical Christian context, the transforming work of the Spirit shapes hearts of children for generations to come.

Christ the King and Seeking Beauty

The kingly office of Christ brings order to the world, including the classical Christian academy. Christ has been given all authority in heaven and earth (Matt. 28) and has been exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords (Phil. 2). As King, Christ subdues the will of man to obedience to his rule to restore order to man and the cosmos. Owen writes,

Q. 4. What is his ruling power in and over his people?

A. That supreme authority which, for their everlasting good, he useth towards them, whereof in general there be two acts; first, internal and spiritual, in converting their souls unto him, making them unto himself a willing, obedient, persevering people; secondly, external and ecclesiastical, in giving perfect laws and rules for their government, as gathered into holy societies under him.[28]

For Owen, Christ in the kingly office rules the hearts of His people and guides their affections to the obedience of faith. The inward rule exercised by the kingly office of Christ restores order, beauty, and love under Christ’s reign.  Sin caused disorder and chaos (Gen. 3). Christ kingly work beings in order through redemption as the church submits to Christ’s rule, and ultimately the beauty of restoration in the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21-22).

Beauty in the classical Christian tradition has emphasized this order and beauty as a transcendental. The Puritan synthesis builds on transcendental and gives spiritual meaning beyond the cosmetic. True beauty is seen in Christ and beholding Him in His glory. Thus, to educate is to form the delight of Christ in the souls of students. Practically, this can take shape through the liturgy of the academy—the daily prayer, songs, chapels, and Christian teaching. It can also take shape in the high arts—music, art, language—to display the beauty of Christ. “And this is the subject-matter of what the Lord Christ here desires in the behalf of those given him by the Father,–namely, THAT THEY MAY BEHOLD HIS GLORY.”[29] Therefore, at the apex, the application of Owen’s thesis to the world of classical education is to form souls that delight in and behold the glory of King Jesus. Thus, to educate within the classical Christian framework—when the mediatorial theology of Owen is applied—is to participate in communion with Christ in his offices of Prophet, Priest, and King to enjoy what is true, good, and beautiful. Every class, activity, and moment of learning becomes a small foretaste of the glory that all the children of God will fully behold in heaven.

Conclusion

This study has argued that Owen’s Christ-centered theology of Christ’s mediatorial offices—Prophet, Priest, and King—provides a doctrinally rich and theologically coherent paradigm for recovering and integrating the classical transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty within Christian education. The classical Christian academy must aspire to more than academic excellence; any secular institution can produce scholars. Rather, its telos is the formation of boys and girls who know the truth, embody goodness, and delight in the beauty of Jesus Christ. As Christ Himself declared, “those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Thus, education itself becomes an act of worship, ordered toward the One who is Truth, Goodness, Beauty.

Summary of Findings

This research has demonstrated three central findings. First, classical education requires a theological foundation, not merely a philosophical one. The transcendentals—truth, goodness, and beauty—cannot stand as abstract ideals. Owen’s mediatorial Christology, applied to the transcendentals, roots them in the person and work of Christ. As Prophet, Christ illumines the mind to behold truth. As Priest, He reconciles the heart to goodness. As King, He orders the will toward beauty.

Second, the study has shown that Owen’s synthesis strengthens and fulfills the classical and medieval heritage. Plato’s forms, the patristic and scholastic development of the transcendentals, and Aquinas’s teaching that goodness and being are really the same, all find their consummation in Christ, the incarnate Logos. The Reformation’s solus Christus centers the entire metaphysical framework into the sacred by grounding it in Christ from above. The transcendentals are not things we can ascend to through intellectual pursuit merely, but wisdom that descends to us from above through Christ—the incarnate Mediator who alone reveals divine truth, goodness, and beauty. As Owen wrote, “Let it be evinced that all true and solid knowledge is laid up in, and is only to be attained from and by, the Lord Jesus Christ; and the hearts of men, if they are but true to themselves and their most predominate principles, must needs be engaged to him.”[30] For the classical Christian academy, this means that education is not a secular pursuit, it is communion with God through Christ the Mediator in His offices. This pilgrimage transforms students into the image of Christ from one degree to another (2 Cor. 3:18)

Third, this research has demonstrated that applying Owen’s mediatorship to classical Christian pedagogy yields an integrative model of formation. Truth known becomes illumination; goodness practiced becomes sanctification; beauty behold becomes worship. Teachers become prophets who steward truth, priests who minister grace, and servants of the King who model holiness. Teachers engage the whole student—mind, heart, and will—in education that results in communion with Christ both now and in glory. In this way, Owen’s model safeguards classical Christian education from the fragmentation of modern pedagogy. This model of education is not merely classical—it is Christological. All parts of the trivium participate in the end of forming students to the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). For He is the Truth, the Good, and the Beautiful.

Investigated Applications

The findings of this study point toward several practical applications for the classical Christian academy. Since Christ as Prophet positions the academy’s pursuit of truth, teachers must present every disciple as informed by the truth of God. As Priest, Christ forms goodness in the hearts of students, calling teachers to exercise liturgical practices. As King, Christ orders the will toward beauty, which requires schools to renew the arts as essential to curriculum. Administrators and teachers ought to apply this study by designing lessons and school culture around the mediatorial offices of Christ to emphasize that truth is prophetic, goodness is priestly, and beauty is sought under Christ’s kingly reign. These applications flow from the argument of the body of this work and demonstrate the practical applications of Owen’s mediatorial model.

Call for Further Investigation

The findings of this study invite several areas of further investigation. Since the body of this work demonstrated the pedagogical significant of Christ’s mediatorial offices, future research should explore how each office may shape specific curricular areas—how prophetic illumination informs grammar, logic and rhetoric, how priestly mediation shapes liturgical practices, and how kingly authority transforms learning to love beauty. Future work should also explore how Owen’s framework can address practical challenges faced by modern classical Christian schools, such as the disintegration between academic rigor and spiritual development or the trend to treat truth, goodness, and beauty as philosophical categories only, rather than perfections in Christ. Studies comparing Owen’s Christology with other scholastic and puritan theologians could deepen the understanding of how Christology integrates into a classical Christian pedagogy.

Final Reflection

Ultimately, this study has shown that the transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty find their source, unity, and fulfillment in Christ the Mediator. To know truth is to behold the Prophet who reveals the Father. To pursue goodness is to walk with the Priest who sanctifies. To cherish beauty is to bow before the King in the splendor of holiness. Owen’s Christology applied to classical Christian academy recovers the true telos of classical Christian education—the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). As teachers, families, and students behold Christ—“in whom as hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3)—education becomes an act of worship, culminating in the doxology of Romans 11:36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him as all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.”

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Smith, Morton H. Harmony of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Taylor, TX: Presbyterian Press, 1990.

Tay, Edwin. “Priesthood of Christ in the Atonement Theology of John Owen (1616-1683).” PhD diss., The University of Edinburgh, 2010. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Trueman, Carl. The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI:Reformation Heritage Books, 2021.

Watson, Thomas. A Body of Divinity. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1958.

Footnotes

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 24.

[2] Matthew R. Miller and JohnMark Bennett Beazley, “Christian Spiritual Formation in the Classical School,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 11, no. 2 (2018): 231.

[3] Christopher A. Perrin, An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents (Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2004), 6.

[4] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 5, a. 1.

[5] Morton H. Smith, Harmony of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms (Taylor, TX: Presbyterian Press, 1990).

[6] Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 302.

[7] Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), Kindle edition, 495.

[8] John Owen, A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, and also of the Person and Satisfaction of Christ, in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 377.

[9] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 286, 291.

[10] Ibid, 85.

[11] Ibid, Kindle edition, loc. 1940.

[12] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 1, 483.

[13] Ibid, Kindle edition, loc. 490.

[14] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 1, 271.

[15] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 2, 3-15.

[16] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 12, 373.

[17] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 29.

[18] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 5, a. 1.

[19] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 46.

[20] Dinu Moga, “A Consideration of John Owen’s Teaching on the Heavenly Session of Christ,” Perichoresis 17, Supplement 1 (2019): 4.

[21] Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1958), 240.

[22] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 5, 415.

[23] Augustine. The Teacher; The Free Choice of the Will; Grace and Free Will. Vol. 59 of The Fathers of the Church. Translated by Robert P. Russell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 217.

[24] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 1, 399.

[25] Ibid, 481.

[26] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 10, 90.

[27] Ibid, 202.

[28] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 1, 480.

[29] Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 1, 285.

[30] Owen, The Works of John Owen, vol. 2, 79.