It seems to be a common occurrence within the Christian world wherein bondage to different forms of sin is the mark of the faith of many. Though perhaps most don’t have more pronounced besetting-sins as others the mere consideration of the thought that the majority of professors are in bondage to sin is very worrying. As disciples and a people who profess the name of Christ, this must not be so.

Why is it then so? Perhaps it is so because of two lines, that sin is deceitful and that man is fundamentally lazy. I see this first in my own life when I am being overtaken by sin and it goes on to entangle my soul ever tighter, it began in a lackadaisical attitude towards my own lusts and a carelessness towards my soul and the walk of holiness.

Oh! How often does such a thing occur in the lives of many. Is it not so too with you, dear reader? I bid you, if you are truly saved, consider to you heart this great task of mortification! I entreat your love to Christ, if indeed it is true and not superficial, be killing sin or it be killing you!

Believers ought to make the mortification of indwelling sin their daily work.

Having laid this foundation, a brief confirmation of the aforementioned principal deductions will lead me to what I chiefly intend, that:

The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin. So the apostle, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Col. 3:5). To whom does he speak? Such as were “risen with Christ” (v. 1); such as were “dead” with him (v. 3); such as whose life Christ was and who should “appear with him in glory” (v. 4).

Do you mortify;
do you make it your daily work;
be always at it while you live;
cease not a day from this work;
be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Your being dead with Christ virtually, your being quickened with him, will not excuse you from this work. And our Savior tells us how his Father deals with every branch in him that bears fruit, every true and living branch. “He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2). He prunes it, and that not for a day or two, but while it is a branch in this world. And the apostle tells you what was his practice: “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection” (1 Cor. 9:27). “I do it,” says he, “daily; it is the work of my life: I omit it not; this is my business.”

And if this were the work and business of Paul, who was so incomparably exalted in grace, revelations, enjoyments, privileges, consolations, above the ordinary measure of believers, where may we possibly bottomⁱ) an exemption from this work and duty while we are in this world? Some brief account of the reasons hereof may be given.

Indwelling Sin Always Abides, Therefore It Must Always Be Mortified

Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified. The vain, foolish, and ignorant disputes of men about perfectly keeping the commands of God, of perfection in this life, of being wholly and perfectly dead to sin, I meddle not now with. It is more than probable that the men of those abominations never knew what belonged to the keeping of any one of God’s commands and are so much below perfection of degrees that they never attained to a perfection of parts in obedience or universal obedience in sincerity.

And, therefore, many in our days who have talked of perfection have been wiser and have affirmed it to consist in knowing no difference between good and evil. Not that they are perfect in the things we call good, but that all is alike to them, and the height of wickedness is their perfection. Others who have found out a new way to it, by denying original, indwelling sin, and tempering the spirituality of the law of God unto men’s carnal hearts, as they have sufficiently discovered themselves to be ignorant of the life of Christ and the power of it in believers, so they have invented a new righteousness that the gospel knows not of, being vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds.

For us, who dare not be wise above what is written, nor boast by other men’s lines of what God has not done for us, we say that indwelling sin lives in us, in some measure and degree, while we are in this world. We dare not speak as “though we had already attained, or were already perfect” (Phil. 3:12). Our “inward man is to be renewed day by day” while here we live (2 Cor. 4:16), and according to the renovations of the new are the breachesⁱⁱ and decays of the old.

While we are here we “know but in part” (1 Cor. 13:12), having a remaining darkness to be gradually removed by our “growth in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18); and “the flesh lusts against the Spirit . . . so that we cannot do the things that we would” (Gal. 5:17), and are therefore defective in our obedience as well as in our light (1 John 1:8). We have a “body of death” (Rom. 7:24), from whence we are not delivered but by the death of our bodies (Phil. 3:20). Now, it being our duty to mortify, to be killing of sin while it is in us, we must be at work. He that is appointed to kill an enemy, if he leaveⁱⁱⁱ striking before the other ceases living, does but half his work (Gal. 6:9; Heb. 12:1; 2 Cor. 7:1).

Indwelling Sin Not Only Abides, But Is Still Acting

Sin does not only still abide in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh. When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion.

Sin does not only abide in us, but “the law of the members is still rebelling against the law of the mind” (Rom. 7:23); and “the spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy” (James 4:5). It is always in continual work; “the flesh lusts against the Spirit” (Gal. 5:17); lust is still tempting and conceiving sin (James 1:14); in every moral action it is always either inclining to evil, or hindering from that which is good, or disframing^iv the spirit from communion with God.

It inclines to evil. “The evil which I would not, that I do,” says the apostle (Rom. 7:19). Whence is that? Why, “Because in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing.” And it hinders from good: “The good that I would do, that I do not” (v. 19)—“Upon the same account, either I do it not, or not as I should; all my holy things being defiled by this sin.” “The flesh lusts against the Spirit . . . so that you cannot do the things that you would” (Gal. 5:17).

And it unframes our spirit, and thence is called “the sin that so easily besets us” (Heb. 12:1); on which account are those grievous complaints that the apostle makes of it (Romans 7). So that sin is always acting, always conceiving, always seducing and tempting.

Who can say that he had ever anything to do with God or for God, that indwelling sin had not a hand in the corrupting of what he did? And this trade^v will it drive more or less all our days. If, then, sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures.

He that stands still and suffers^vi his enemies to double blows upon him without resistance will undoubtedly be conquered in the issue. If sin be subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we be slothful, negligent, foolish, in proceeding to the ruin thereof, can we expect a comfortable event?^vii There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so while we live in this world.

I shall discharge him from this duty who can bring sin to a composition,^viii to a cessation of arms in this warfare; if it will spare him any one day, in any one duty (provided he be a person that is acquainted with the spirituality of obedience and the subtlety of sin), let him say to his soul, as to this duty, “Soul, take your rest.” The saints, whose souls breathe after deliverance from its [i.e., sin’s] perplexing rebellion, know there is no safety against it but in a constant warfare.

Indwelling Sin Is Not Only Active, But Will Produce Soul-Destroying Sins If Not Mortified

Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. The apostle tells us what the works and fruits of it are. “The works of the flesh are manifest, which are, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,^ix idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,^x wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like” (Gal. 5:1921).

You know what it did in David and sundry^xi others. Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head.^xii

Men may come to that, that sin may not be heard speaking a scandalous word in their hearts—that is, provoking to any great sin with scandal in its mouth; but yet every rise of lust, might it have its course, would come to the height of villainy: it is like the grave that is never satisfied.

And herein lies no small share of the deceitfulness of sin, by which it prevails to the hardening of men, and so to their ruin (Heb. 3:13)— it is modest, as it were, in its first motions and proposals, but having once got footing in the heart by them, it constantly makes good its ground, and presses on to some farther degrees in the same kind.

This new acting and pressing forward makes the soul take little notice of what an entrance to a falling off from God is already made; it thinks all is indifferently well if there be no further progress; and so far as the soul is made insensible^xiii of any sin—that is, as to such a sense as the gospel requires—so far it is hardened: but sin is still pressing forward, and that because it has no bounds but utter relinquishment of God and opposition to him; that it proceeds toward its height by degrees, making good the ground it has got by hardness, is not from its nature, but its deceitfulness.

Now nothing can prevent this but mortification; that withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that whatever it aims at, it is crossed in. There is not the best saint in the world but, if he should give over this duty, would fall into as many cursed sins as ever any did of his kind.

—John Owen, Preface: Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006), p49-53

Read more of “Overcoming Sin and Temptation” here.

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Footnotes

1. found, base (find a basis for [↩]
2. gaps, broken areas [↩]
3. cease [↩]
4. dismantling, undoing [↩]
5. course, path, way or manner of life [↩]
6. allows, permits, tolerates [↩]
7. result, outcome [↩]
8. truce, cessation of hostilities [↩]
9. wantonness, inclination to lust [↩]
10. jealousies, especially of power and position [↩]
11. various [↩]
12. ultimate outcome [↩]
13. apathetic, callous, uncomprehending [↩]