In the enterprise of Christian living we must be careful not to have a view of life and eternity that sees things and does things primarily in the realm of human power. That being, in the realm of the mortification of sin specifically, we see ourselves and our own abilities as the starting point of our obedience in our desire of pleasing and honoring God.

Like all systems of theology, Christianity and Christian faith in general can only be rightly understood and rightly practiced with a God-centered world view. So then, in the killing of sin we should live, think and feel in such a way that sees God Himself as the fountain-head of all that He requires. In that, it is only through the Spirit of God can any mortification of flesh be attained. It is the Spirit that gives life, flesh profits nothing (John 6:33).

It is only there can any progress be attained in the Christian life. It is only there that flesh may be mortified and His commandments be obeyed. If not, if everything that is done is done apart from dependence from the Spirit of God for all things, then all that is done is a striving after the wind, laboring for that which profits not (Isaiah 55:2). And in essence is an addition to rebellion against God, confessing that we in and of ourselves are able to please Him. When in truth, in ourselves lies no good thing (Rom 7:18), and are utterly unable to please Him apart from Him.

So then, it is by the Holy Spirit can sin be killed (Rom 8:13). And that not merely as a theological concept, but in the truth of life and present day living. As the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, as we are renewed by Him continually through the means of grace, sin is killed and being continually killed.

It is my worry, however, if you, dear reader see it this way; if you truly live in this way or not.

Perhaps one of the most important questions you can ask today about your own Christian life is this, “In your striving and laboring to honor and please God in the killing of sin and the obedience of His commands, do you really in fact, depend on the Holy Spirit?”

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…

Why Mortification Is the Work of the Spirit

It is, then, the work of the Spirit. For—

He is promised of God to be given unto us to do this work.

The taking away of the stony heart—that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart—is in general the work of mortification that we treat of. Now this is still promised to be done by the Spirit, “I will give my Spirit, and take away the stony heart” (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26), and by the Spirit of God is this work wrought when all means fail (Isa. 57:1718).

We have all our mortification from the gift of Christ,
and all the gifts of Christ are communicated
to us and given us by the Spirit of Christ:

“Without Christ we can do nothing” (John 15:5). All communications of supplies and relief, in the beginnings, increasings, actings of any grace whatsoever, from him, are by the Spirit, by whom he alone works in and upon believers. From him we have our mortification: “He is exalted and made a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance unto us” (Acts 5:31); and of our repentance our mortification is no small portion. How does he do it? Having “received . . . the promise of the Holy Ghost,” he sends him abroad for that end (Acts 2:33). You know the manifold promises he made of sending the Spirit, as Tertullian speaks, “Vicariam navare operam,”ⁱⁱⁱ to do the works that he had to accomplish in us.

The resolution of one or two questions will now lead me nearer to what I principally intend.

How the Spirit Mortifies Sin

The first [question] is: How does the Spirit mortify sin? I answer, in general, three ways.

I. By causing our hearts to abound in grace
and the fruits that are contrary to the flesh,
and the fruits thereof and principles of them.

So the apostle opposes the fruits of the flesh and of the Spirit: “The fruits of the flesh,” says he, “are so and so” (Gal. 5:1921); “but,” says he, “the fruits of the Spirit are quite contrary, quite of another sort” (vv. 2223). Yea; but what if these are in us and do abound, may not the other abound also? No, says he, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (v. 24). But how? Why, “by living in the Spirit and walking after the Spirit” (v. 25)— that is, by the abounding of these graces of the Spirit in us and walking according to them. For, says the apostle, “these are contrary one to another” (v. 17); so that they cannot both be in the same subject in any intense or high degree. This “renewing of us by the Holy Ghost,” as it is called (Titus 3:5), is one great way of mortification; he causes us to grow, thrive, flourish, and abound in those graces which are contrary, opposite, and destructive to all the fruits of the flesh, and to the quiet or thriving of indwelling sin itself.

II. By a real physical efficiency on the root
and habit of sin, for the weakening, destroying,
and taking it away.

Hence he is called a “spirit of judgment and . . . burning” (Isa. 4:4), really consuming and destroying our lusts. He takes away the stony heart by an almighty efficiency; for as he begins the work as to its kind, so he carries it on as to its degrees. He is the fire which burns up the very root of lust.

III. He brings the cross of Christ into
the heart of a sinner by faith, and gives us
communion with Christ in his death and
fellowship in his sufferings:

of the manner whereof more afterward.

If the Spirit Alone Mortifies Sin,
Why Are We Exhorted to Mortify It?

Secondly, if this be the work of the Spirit alone, how is it that we are exhorted to it?—seeing the Spirit of God only can do it, let the work be left wholly to him.

It is no otherwise the work of the Spirit
but as all graces and good works
which are in us are his.

He “works in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13); he works “all our works in us” (Isa. 26:12)—“the work of faith with power” (2 Thess. 1:11; Col. 2:12); he causes us to pray, and is a “spirit of supplication” (Rom. 8:26; Zech. 12:10); and yet we are exhorted, and are to be exhorted, to all these.

He does not so work our mortification in us
as not to keep it still an act of our obedience.

The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures; he works in us and with us, not against us or without^iv us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.

And, indeed, I might here bewail the endless, foolish labor of poor souls, who, being convinced of sin and not able to stand against the power of their convictions, do set themselves, by innumerable perplexing ways and duties, to keep down sin, but, being strangers to the Spirit of God, all in vain. They combat without victory, have war without peace, and are in slavery all their days. They spend their strength for that which is not bread, and their labor for that which profits not [Isa. 55:2].

This is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but has no strength for the combat. They cannot but fight, and they can never conquer; they are like men thrust on the sword of enemies on purpose to be slain.

The law drives them on, and sin beats them back. Sometimes they think, indeed, that they have foiled sin, when they have only raised a dust that they see it not; that is, they distemper their natural affections of fear, sorrow, and anguish, which makes them believe that sin is conquered when it is not touched. By that time they are cold, they must go to the battle again; and the lust which they thought to be slain appears to have had no wound.

And if the case be so sad with them who do labor and strive, and yet enter not into the kingdom, what is their condition who despise all this; who are perpetually under the power and dominion of sin and love to have it so; and are troubled at nothing, but that they cannot make sufficient provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof [cf. Rom. 13:14]?

—John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006), p60-63

Read more of “Overcoming Sin and Temptation” here.

You can also purchase the book in paperback here, or read it in pdf here.

Footnotes

1. proven, evidenced, made manifest [↩]
2. i.e., efficient cause (see note 6, above [↩]
3. May be translated: “to perform the work on his behalf.” This quote is also found in Owen’s Communion with God (Works, 2:148). Owen may be quoting Tertullian’s “De Praescriptionibus Haereticos (On Prescription Against Heretics),” found in AntiNicene Fathers: Volume 3 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2004), 249. For similar uses of the “vicariam” in connection with Tertullian and the Holy Spirit see Richard Baxter’s The Practical Works of Richard Baxter(London, 1838), 2:266; and Thomas Manton’s Eighteen Sermons on the Second Chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (Achill, 1842 [1679]), 49. [↩]
4. outside of [↩]