Growing in Christ
mortification of sin
Danger: Seeing temptations as normal
19 months ago
I’ve had a realization about a way I’ve been reading the Bible all wrong.
I’m thoroughly enjoying Russell Moore’s latest book, Tempted and Tried, which is about the nature of temptation and how we find hope in Christ’s triumph over temptation (specifically in his time in the desert being solicited by Satan).
In a section of chapter two, Dr. Moore opens up James 1:13:
James of Jerusalem told his flock that they’d certainly face the sting of temptation and that they’d be tempted to blame it on God. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,” James wrote, “for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). This probably doesn’t seem like a problem for you. Reader, I doubt you would ever say, “I just feel that God is entrapping me to leave for Acapoulco with a fake ID and my company’s retirement funds in small unmarked bills.”
But the danger is that we might see our temptations as a normal part of the fabric of the universe, as the way things are supposed to be. That’s true for both believers and unbelievers. We must recognize that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14). The human story, after all, starts with a man who blames God (“the woman whom you gave to be with me,” Gen. 3:12) for the fact that he fell into his own twisted desires. (37-38, bolding mine)
This hit me square in the face. How often do I excuse my own temptations as just a part of the way the universe is? Which is to implicate God, because this is just the way he’s made things to be – for my struggle… What Dr. Moore is doing here is two things:
- Helping us see that our desires are good and God given to be used and enjoyed how God designed them to be.
- Temptations that seek to pervert those desires are not the way God designed the universe to be.
This is to say that God designed us with good desires to enjoy the world around us. But God did not create us to satisfy our desires by our own designs. For example, it’s natural to desire friendship. It’s natural to desire to love others and to live in loving fellowship with them. What’s unnatural and twisted (and kinda creepy) is how I pervert those desires to be about my sense of feeling accepted, turning other people into servants to my sinful cravings and desires of how I want to be loved and adored. Instead of using my desires for friendship as God intended to love and delight in other people, I treat other people as though they have to serve my idols of anxiety and finding identity in their praise. (And if you’ve been around this whirling planet enough, you’ll know that this endeavor never works, and never satisfies.)
Dr. Moore goes on:
We too often assume our current sinful status is what it means to be “real.” That’s because we’ve never known a world in which there is no sin. If you grow up all your life on a coastline near an uncapped oil spill, you might conclude that seagulls are covered in tar. As you read or travel, though, and see the birds in their natural state, you’ll discover your experience was abnormal; that’s not the way it’s meant to be. Too often we dismiss as ‘all too human” that is not human at all; it’s a satanic nature parasitically imposed on the human after the fall of Eden. (43-44)
What I began to see here is that those temptations I feel as so natural – from the craving to have acceptance with others, to the lustful look at a woman – is my way of blaming my sin on God. I think I’m far too often the type, as Dr. Moore points out, that thinks “blaming my temptations on God” is something people do who are in bed with their adulterous lover and they just “couldn’t help but follow their ‘soul mate’, this is God’s fault for sending love.” But I think James is aiming much closer to home.
Dr. Moore moves on to say this:
…[M]uch of what we include in “temptation” isn’t temptation at all. It’s beyond our good, created desires being appealed to. It’s instead those embryonic stages of sinful desire. (45)
I think the application here is simple:
Recognize where you and I are seeing temptations and sins as “normal” as anything but normal. The seagull isn’t supposed to be drenched in oil, no matter how long we’ve seen him like that. Our world and heart aren’t supposed to be drenched in temptation, no matter how long we’ve learned to live like they are.
Recognize that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). When we see that our desirse are twisted, we need to repent, and ask God to correct them to be the good gifts they were designed to be.
May God give us grace to do this.
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If you’re interested in Dr. Moore’s book, Tempted and Tried, I recommend you check it out here. You can also follow him on twitter. I’ll be writing a review about it in the days to come.
Six Reasons to Kill Indwelling Sin
02 years ago
From chapter 2 of John Owen’s The Mortification of Sin, he talks about six reasons why Christians should diligently seek to kill their indwelling sin:
- Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified.
- Sin does not only abide in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh.
- Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let along, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins.
- This is one main reasons why the Spirit and the new nature is given to us – that we may have a principle within whereby we may oppose sin.
- Negligence in this duty casts the soul into a perfectly opposite condition to that which the apostle affirms was his – 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”
- It is our duty to be “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1); to be “growing in grace” every day (1 Peter 2:2, 2 Peter 3:18); to be “renewing out inward man day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).
A few memorable quotes:
Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps towards his journey’s end. He who finds not opposition from it, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it. (6:14)
Be killing sin or it will be killing you. (6:9)
(I know I should have a Sunday Gurnall in here, but that will wait until tomorrow. This comes from some Owen I’m rereading in the mornings to focus my mind on mortifying the sin in my heart – which is multifarious!)
The Hope and Reason of Sin in Christians
03 years ago
I finished up Of the Dominion of Sin and Grace by Owen today while in the doctor’s office. I was deeply struck by Owen’s words here that I’ve quoted below. The question he’s dealing with is: Why does sin remain, and what purpose does it serve in the Christian? I am aware that there are some Christians who believe that there is no more sin within Christians, that our new nature by faith in Christ presently does not have sin. I believe that this is not only contradictory to Scripture, but also to their own experience. But, when it comes to showing how great the Gospel is in removing the power and sting of death and sin, Owen does a great job of showing us why the Lord has ordained for sin to remain in the believer’s life yet without dominion and conquest. I was going to provide some commentary on this, but I’m in a rush, and haven’t been able to do anything with this today, but I wanted to put this up so that it would benefit some other folks.
Obs. 2. It is the great interest of a soul conflicting with the power of sin to secure itself against its dominion, that it is not under its dominion, not to have the cause hang dubious in the mind. To clear the truth hereof we may observe the things that follow:—
First, The conflict with sin, making continual repentance and mortification absolutely necessary, will continue in us whilst we are in this world. Pretences of perfection here are contrary to the Scriptures, contrary to the universal experience of all believers, and contrary to the sense and conscience of them by whom they are pleaded, as they make it evident every day. We pray against it, strive against it, groan for deliverance from it; and that, by the grace of Christ healing our nature, not without success. Howbeit this success extends not unto its absolute abolition whilst we are in this world. It will abide in us until the union of the soul and body, wherein it hath incorporated itself, be dissolved. This is our lot and portion; this is the consequent of our apostasy from God, and of the depravation of our nature thereby.
You will say, then, “Whereto serves the gospel and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in this case, if it be not able to give us deliverance herein?” I answer, It doth give us a fourfold relief, which amounts virtually to a constant deliverance, though sin will abide in us whilst we are in this world:—
1. It is so ordered that the continuance of sin in us shall be the ground, reason, and occasion, of the exercise of all grace, and of putting a lustre on our obedience. Some excellent graces, as repentance and mortification, could have no exercise if it were otherwise; and whilst we are in this world, there is a beauty in them that is an overbalance for the evil of the remainders of sin. And the difficulty which is hereby put on our obedience, calling continually for the exercise and improvement of all grace, renders it the more valuable. Herein lies the spring of humility and self-resignation to the will of God. This makes us love and long for the enjoyment of Christ, putting an excellency on his mediation; whence the apostle, on the consideration of it, falls into that ejaculation, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). This sweetens unto us our future rest and reward. Wherefore, the continuance of us in this state and condition in this world, — a state of spiritual warfare, — is best for us, and highly suited unto divine wisdom, considering the office and care of our Lord Jesus Christ for our relief. Let us not complain, or repine, or faint, but go on with Christian fortitude unto the end, and we shall have success;
for, —2. There are, by the grace of Christ, such supplies and aids of spiritual strength granted unto believers, that sin shall never proceed farther in them than is useful and needful for the exercise of their graces. It shall never have its will upon them nor dominion over them, as we have before declared.
3. There is mercy administered in and by the gospel for the pardon of all that is evil in itself or in any of its effects: “There is no condemnation unto them that are in Christ Jesus.” Pardoning mercy, according to the tenor of the covenant, doth always disarm this sin in believers of its condemning power; so that, notwithstanding the utmost endeavours of it, “being justified by faith, they have peace with God.”
4. There is a season when, by the grace of Christ, it shall be utterly abolished, — namely, at death, when the course of our obedience is finished.
Wherefore, to affirm that this sin, and consequently a conflict with it, doth abide in believers whilst they are in this world, is no disparagement unto the grace of Christ, which gives such a blessed deliverance from it. (Owen, Works VII:556-557)
John Owen on Faith and Mortifying Sin
03 years ago
I am presently reading The Dominion of Sin and Grace by John Owen for some devotional reading, and am finding it very helpful in a refresher on fighting sin (which I don’t do well). Bellow is a bit out of a chapter where Owen is discussing the evidences of the reign of sin in a heart, the evidences of the reign of grace in a heart, and the ambiguity that can arise in distinguishing each in certain areas. I found this section very helpful in stirring my faith, and I pray it does the same for you.
…I shall now name some of those graces and duties upon whose omission and neglect sin may prevail, as unto an application of them unto the mortification of any sin:—
The first is, the daily exercise of faith on Christ as crucified. This is the great fundamental means of the mortification of sin in general, and which we ought to apply unto every particular instance of it. This the apostle discourseth at large, Rom. 6:6-13. “Our old man,” saith he, “is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Our “old man,” or the body of sin, is the power and reign of sin in us. These are to be destroyed; that is, so mortified that “henceforth we should not serve sin,” that we should be delivered from the power and rule of it. This, saith the apostle, is done in Christ: “Crucified with him.” It is so meritoriously, in his actual dying or being crucified for us; it is so virtually, because of the certain provision that is made therein for the mortification of all sin; but it is so actually, by the exercise of faith on him as crucified, dead, and buried, which is the means of the actual communication of the virtue of his death unto us for that end. Herein are we said to be dead and buried with him; whereof baptism is the pledge. So by the cross of Christ the world is crucified unto us, and we are so to the world, Gal. 6:14; which is the substance of the mortification of all sin. There are several ways whereby the exercise of faith on Christ crucified is effectual unto this end:—
[1.] Looking unto him as such will beget holy mourning in us: Zech. 12:10, “They shall look on me whom they have pierced, and mourn.” It is a promise of gospel times and gospel grace. A view of Christ as pierced will cause mourning in them that have received the promise of the Spirit of grace and supplication there mentioned. And this mourning is the foundation of mortification. It is that “godly sorrow which worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of,” 2 Cor. 7:10. And mortification of sin is of the essence of repentance. The more believers are exercised in this view of Christ, the more humble they are, the more they are kept in that mourning frame which is universally opposite unto all the interests of sin, and which keeps the soul watchful against all its attempts. Sin never reigned in an humble, mourning soul.
[2.] It is effectual unto the same end by the way of a powerful motive, as that which calls and leads unto conformity to him. This is pressed by the apostle, Romans 6:8-11. Our conformity unto Christ as crucified and dead consists in our being dead unto sin, and thereby 528overthrowing the reign of it in our mortal bodies. This conformity, saith he, we ought to reckon on as our duty: “Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin;” that is, that you ought so to be, in that conformity which you ought to aim at unto Christ crucified. Can any spiritual eye behold Christ dying for sin, and continue to live in sin? Shall we keep that alive in us which he died for, that it might not eternally destroy us? Can we behold him bleeding for our sins, and not endeavour to give them their death-wound? The efficacy of the exercise of faith herein unto the mortification of sin is known unto all believers by experience.
[3.] Faith herein gives us communion with him in his death, and unites the soul unto it in its efficacy. Hence we are said to be “buried with him into death,” and to be “planted together in the likeness of his death,” Romans 6:4,5. Our “old man is crucified with him,”(v.6). We have by faith communion with him in his death, unto the death of sin.
This, therefore, is the first grace and duty which we ought to attend unto for the mortification of sin. But where sin hath that interest and power in the mind as to take it off from this exercise of faith, to prevent or obstruct it, as it will do, so as that it shall not dare to think or meditate on Christ crucified, because of the inconsistency of such thoughts with an indulgence unto any lust, it is to be feared that sin is in the throne.
