Killing Sin with St. Owen (pt. 4)
Chapter 14
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Table of Contents
Introduction
With this, we have now gone over nine practical instructions for the Christian faithful to put in place to mortify and put to sin. In the fourteenth and final chapter of his work, St. Owen gives a few directions to prepare you to mortify sin.
Directions for Preparing for Mortification
1: Set your faith and sights on Christ for the work of killing sin.
Christ is the one who worked that our sins may be blotted out. His precious blood was poured out for the cleansing of our sins. Meditate on Christ, He is the one who brings relief. Abide in Him and rest in Him. Recognize your weakness, and how lost you are, and throw yourself firmly into His warm embrace. St. Owen writes:
“Behold the Lord Christ, who hath all fulness of grace in his heart, all fulness of power in his hand (John 1:16; Matthew 28:18): he is able to slay all these his enemies. There is a sufficient provision in him for my relief and assistance: he can take my drooping, dying soul, and make me more than a conqueror (Romans 8:38) … He can make the dry, parched ground of my soul to become a pool, and my thirsty, barren heart as springs of water; yea, he can make this habitation of dragons, this heart so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations, to be a place for grass and for fruit for himself (Isaiah 35:7).”1
Expect deliverance and relief from Christ, be rooted in Christ and His sure promises. He is God, everlasting to everlasting, who is immutable and does not change. In Him we find our Yes and Amen. His promises are sure, He has sworn it, and it will be so. Consider His Mercy, Tenderness, and Priestly office. Having been suffered and tempted, He is able and willing to deliver us, He is able to help (Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:15-16). His Mercy and Heart is for sinners, He loves you with all His being. He will never fail you, He will never let you down, remember the confession of St. Polycarp, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”2 St. Owen writes:
When the heart is once won to rest in God, to repose himself on him, he will assuredly satisfy it. He will never be as water that fails; nor hath he said at any time to the seed of Jacob, “Seek ye my face in vain.” If Christ be chosen for the foundation of our supply, he will not fail us.3
Receive Christ through the ways He promised to bestow Himself upon you. Christ established means of grace for you to receive Him. “The way whereby, and the means wherein, Christ communicates himself is and are, ordinarily, his ordinances. He that expects any thing from him must attend upon him therein.”4 As the Baptist Catechism notes:
Question: What are the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?
Answer: The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are his ordinances, especially the word, baptism, the Lord’s supper, and prayer; all which means are made effectual to the elect for salvation.5
Turn to His ordinances, which are set apart for sinners for their nourishment and growth, for God to infuse grace into your heart, and save you, to deliver you from your sin and sprinkle your hearts with clean water.
In particular, put focus on Christ’s death, blood, and cross. Mortification follows intimately from Christ’s death (Romans 6:1-4), so when meditating on Christ for the purpose of mortification, meditate on these things. Christ died to destroy sin and the devil, to free us and ransom us from Him. Christ died for your sin that it will be destroyed. Look to your Baptism as evidence for this, “We have in baptism an evidence of our implantation into Christ; we are baptized into him: but what of him are we baptized into an interest in? ‘His death,’ saith he. If indeed we are baptized into Christ, and beyond outward profession, we are baptized into his death. The explication of this, of one being baptized into the death of Christ, the Apostle gives us (Romans 6:4-5).” If you have yet to be baptized, then seek the washing with haste!
Make use of the cross, expect that it has a real power over your life and sin. Christ on the cross poured out His blood to cover your sin, believing that it has a real power. Bring the cross into your heart and conform yourself fully to it, to its message, and it’s working. Pray with earnest that God puts the cross and suffering of Christ on your Heart.
2: Remember that the whole work of mortification is done by the Spirit
The Spirit alone is the instrument and means by which sins can be mortified, as has been stated over and over again by St. Owen. However, in preparing to mortify sin, you must keep this in mind. He alone:
Convicts the heart of sin through the Law and the Preaching of the Word
Reveals the fullness of Christ
Establishes the expectation of relief from Christ
Brings the cross into our Hearts
Is the author and finisher of our sanctification
Is the root of the efficacy of all of God’s ordinances. They only work by virtue of the Spirit working in them.
And with this, St. Owen’s most excellent work comes to a close.
Conclusion
May this article have given you ideas and tips to mortify sin in your life. Christ has forgiven you, you are under no condemnation, now go on and do the work He commands you to do, as the Apostle says, “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).
All Glory be to God.
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The Mortification of Sin, St. John Owen, p. 147
The Martyrdom of Polycarp, Chapter 9
The Mortification of Sin, St. John Owen, p. 152
Ibid
The 1695 Baptist Catechism, Question 93