Owen again

I am still plugging along in John Owen's book, The Mortification of Sin. In chapter 7, Owen discusses how only believers in Christ can mortify (or put to death) their sin. I guess I have always known that we cannot expect those without a relationship to Christ to behave in the same way a Christian does, but I had never thought of the implications to the fact that we cannot kill our own sin, only Christ can kill it. As Owen puts it:

Unless a man be a believer, that is, one that is truly ingrafted into Christ, he can never mortify any one sin. I do not say, unless he knows himself to be so, but unless he indeed be so. Mortification is the work of believers...

I think I knew this, yet the implications seem staggering to me. Owen points out that unbiblical encouragement to mortify sin apart from the work of Christ is the birth-place of hypocrisy and legalism. Again, he says:

When the Jews, upon conviction of their sin, were cut to the heart (Acts 2:37), and cried out, "What shall we do?" what doth Peter direct them to? Does he bid them go and mortify their pride, wrath, malice, cuelty and the like? No, he knew that was not their present work; but he calls them to conversion, and faith in Christ in general. Let their souls first be thoroughly converted, and then, looking on Him whom they have pierced, humiliation and mortification will ensue. Thus when John came to preach repentance and conversion, he said, "the axe is now laid at the root of the tree" (Matt. 3:10). The Pharisees had been laying heavy burdens, imposing tedious duties and mortification, in fastings, washings and the like: all in vain...The root must be dealt with, the nature of the tree changed, or no good fruit will be brought forth.

For some reason, the implications of this have never hit me so fully: when I load work upon work on myself or others (my children, my husband, my friends), in an attempt to make myself or them more "holy", am I really encouraging godliness, or am I tempting them to work for their salvation, and depend upon legalism or hypocrisy instead of Christ? It seems to me that if we really take this little piece of the gospel seriously, it would affect our expectations in many ways, not the least of which is the outward illusion of holiness that we require sometimes from our children. Perhaps we would be more likely to encourage them to throw themselves upon Christ than to conform their outward behavior to our standard.

Owen points out the problem with encouraging unregenerate people to work on mortifying sin apart from a relationship with Christ:

The mind and soul are taken up about that which is not the man's proper business, and so he is diverted from that which is. God lays hold, by His word and judgments, on some sin in him; galls his conscience, disquiets his heart, deprives him of rest; now other diversions will not serve his turn, he must apply himself to the work before him. The business in hand being to awake the whole man to a consideration of the state and condition wherein he is, that he might be brought home to God; instead hereof, he sets himself to mortify the sin that galls him; which is a pure issue of self-love, that he may be freed from his trouble, and not at all the work he is called unto; and so he is diverted from it.

While mortification of sin is not what one normally thinks of as a diversion from our real duties, this rings true in my life. I think this explains why legalism and hypocrisy are so tempting to us: we would rather DO something than submit. I recognize the ring of truth here:

When his conscience hath been made sick with sin and he could find no rest, when he should go to the great Physician of souls and get healing in his blood, the man pacifies and quiets his conscience by this engagement aghainst sin, and sits down without going to Christ at all. Ah! How many poor souls are thus deluded to eternity!

When I am convicted of sin, I must confess I want to find some self-help book that will help me fight my sin. Not that fighting sin is bad. Of course not (and Owen addresses this before his chapter is finished as well.) But my first response should be to flee to the Great Physician. My heart response should be to apply to the one who can mortify my sin and make me like Himself.

I will end this post with the closing words from Owen's chapter. I say "Amen and amen!":

It grieves me oftentimes to see poor souls, that have a zeal for God and a desire for eternal welfare, kept by such directors and directions, under a hard, burdensome, outside worship and service of God, with many specious endeavors for mortification, in an utter ignorance of the righteousness of Christ, and unacquaintedness with the Spirit, all their days. Personsand things of this kind, I know too many. If ever God shine into their hearts to give them the knowledge of his glory in the face of his Son Jesus Christ, they will see the folly of their present way.

It