In Scripture we are repeatedly warned to esteem not the flesh so as to treasure it above our own souls. Count not sin to be as necessary as a right eye or as necessary as a right hand. Rather, cut off an eye or a hand if you must to enter heaven (Mark 9:43-49). But there is a way to mortify the flesh that does no good service for the soul.

Self inflicted pains, binding of the arms, filtering of the vision, watching of personal temperaments; these all are helpful, but alone ultimately they are all of no worth apart from the Spirit of God! (Rom 8:6-8) To live in such a way as to depend on the arm of the flesh in order to seek to please and honor God is no different from the Roman code.

There is no holiness to be gained in such activities, for what is to be gained in the binding of an arm or a plucking out of an eye if the heart is still corrupt? We have no business to meddle with streams of corruption whilst disregarding the fountain of evil in our hearts!

Mortification is a spiritual activity through whom only God the Holy Spirit can accomplish (Rom 8:13). We are to desire regenerated hearts. We are to pant for the indwelling of His Spirit, the outpouring of His works of sanctification through His appointed means of grace. And through the grace and Spirit of God, then and only then are we now able to mortify the deeds of the flesh.

Let us do well and make use of such graces God has given us, and step a mile away from the Pharisaical bindings of dead religion.

The Holy Spirit is the Great Sovereign Cause
of the Mortification of Indwelling Sin

The next principle relates to the great sovereign cause of the mortification treated of; which, in the words laid for the foundation of this discourse [Rom. 8:13], is said to be the Spirit—that is, the Holy Ghost, as was evinced.ⁱ

He only is sufficient for this work; all ways and means without him are as a thing of naught; and he is the great efficientⁱⁱ) of it—he works in us as he pleases.

Other Remedies Are Sought in Vain

In vain do men seek other remedies; they shall not be healed by them. What several ways have been prescribed for this, to have sin mortified, is known. The greatest part of popishⁱⁱⁱ religion, of that which looks most like religion in their profession, consists in mistaken ways and means of mortification. This is the pretense of their rough garments, whereby they deceive.^iv Their vows, orders, fastings, penances, are all built on this ground; they are all for the mortifying of sin.

Their preachings, sermons, and books of devotion, they look all this way. Hence, those who interpret the locusts that came out of the bottomless pit (Rev. 9:3), who are said to torment men so “that they should seek death and not find it” (Rev. 9:6), to be the friars of the Romish^v church, think that they did it by their stinging sermons, whereby they convinced them of sin, but being not able to discover the remedy for the healing and mortifying of it, they kept them in such perpetual anguish and terror, and such trouble in their consciences, that they desired to die.

This, I say, is the substance and glory of their religion; but what with their laboring to mortify dead creatures, ignorant of the nature and end of the work—what with the poison they mixed with it, in their persuasion of its merit, yea, supererogation^vi (as they style their unnecessary merit, with a proud, barbarous^vii title)—their glory is their shame [cf. Phil. 3:19]: but of them and their mortification more afterward (chapter 7).

That the ways and means to be used for the mortification of sin invented by them are still insisted on and prescribed, for the same end, by some who should have more light and knowledge of the gospel, is known. Such directions to this purpose have of late been given by some, and are greedily catched^viii by others professing themselves Protestants, as might have become popish devotionists three or four hundred years ago. Such outside endeavors, such bodily exercises, such selfperformances, such merely legal duties, without the least mention of Christ or his Spirit, are varnished over with swelling words of vanity, for the only means and expedients for the mortification of sin, as discover^ix a deeprooted unacquaintedness with the power of God and mystery of the gospel. The consideration hereof was one motive to the publishing of this plain discourse.

Now, the reasons why the papists^x) can never, with all their endeavors, truly mortify any one sin, among others, are:

Because many of the ways and means they use
and insist upon for this end were never
appointed of God for that purpose.

(Now, there is nothing in religion that has any efficacy for compassing^xi an end, but it has it from God’s appointment of it to that purpose.) Such as these are their rough garments, their vows, penances, disciplines, their course of monastical life, and the like; concerning all which God will say, “Who has required these things at your hand?” [Isa. 1:12] and, “In vain do you worship me, teaching for doctrines the traditions of men” [Matt. 15:9]. Of the same nature are sundry selfvexations^xii insisted on by others.

Because those things that are appointed of God
as means are not used by them in their due place
and order—such as are praying, fasting,
watching, meditation, and the like.

These have their use in the business at hand; but whereas they are all to be looked on as streams, they look on them as the fountain. Whereas they effect and accomplish the end as means only, subordinate to the Spirit and faith, they look on them to do it by virtue of the work wrought. If they fast so much, and pray so much, and keep their hours and times, the work is done. As the apostle says of some in another case, “They are always learning, never coming to the knowledge of the truth” [2 Tim. 3:7]; so they are always mortifying, but never come to any sound mortification. In a word, they have sundry means to mortify the natural man, as to the natural life here we lead; none to mortify lust or corruption.

This is the general mistake of men ignorant of the gospel about this thing; and it lies at the bottom of very much of that superstition and willworship that has been brought into the world. What horrible selfmacerations^xiii were practiced by some of the ancient authors of monastical devotion! What violence did they offer to nature! What extremity of sufferings did they put themselves upon! Search their ways and principles to the bottom, and you will find that it had no other root but this mistake, namely, that attempting rigid mortification, they fell upon the natural man instead of the corrupt old man— upon the body wherein we live instead of the body of death.

Neither will the natural popery that is in others do it. Men are galled with the guilt of a sin that has prevailed over them; they instantly^xiv promise to themselves and God that they will do so no more; they watch over themselves and pray for a season until this heat waxes^xv cold and the sense of sin is worn off—and so mortification goes also, and sin returns to its former dominion. Duties are excellent food for an unhealthy soul; they are no physic^xvi for a sick soul. He that turns his meat into his medicine must expect no great operation. Spiritually sick men cannot sweat out their distemper with working. But this is the way of men who deceive their own souls; as we shall see afterward.

That none of these ways are sufficient is evident from the nature of the work itself that is to be done; it is a work that requires so many concurrent actings in it as no selfendeavor can reach unto, and is of that kind that an almighty energy is necessary for its accomplishment; as shall be afterward manifested.

—John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006), p57-60

Read more of “Overcoming Sin and Temptation” here.

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Footnotes

1. proven, evidenced, made manifest [↩]
2. i.e., efficient cause (see note 6, above [↩]
3. negative label for Roman Catholicism, relating to belief in papal supremacy [↩]
4. an allusion to Zechariah 13:4, where rough garments, or hairy cloaks, were deceptively used by false prophets in order to fool the people into thinking they were true prophets [↩]
5. of or relating to the Roman Catholic Church [↩]
6. According to the Roman Catholic doctrine of opera supererogationis, supererogatory acts—that is, actions that go beyond the call of duty and the requirements for salvation—produce a superabundance of merit that is deposited in a spiritual treasury of the Church and can be used by ordinary sinners for the remission of their sins. [↩]
7. uncivilized [↩]
8. grasped, sought [↩]
9. uncover, reveal, demonstrate [↩]
10. negative label for Roman Catholics, relating to belief in papal supremacy; from the Latin pap a (“pope” [↩]
11. attaining, achieving [↩]
12. annoyances [↩]
13. selfinflicted starvation, emaciation [↩]
14. insistently, constantly, faithfully [↩]
15. grows, becomes [↩]
16. remedy, relief, medicine [↩]