For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
— Romans 7:5
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
— Galatians 5:19-21
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
— Romans 6:23
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
— Colossians 3:9-10
Rules for Mortification: Universal Sincerity Needed, by John Owen. The following contains Chapter Eight of his work, “Of Mortification of Sin in Believers.”
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
— Romans 8:13
The second rule for the mortification of sin that I shall propose is this:
B. Without sincerity and diligence in a universal obedience, there is no mortification of any one perplexing lust to be obtained.
The first rule was to the person, that he must be a true believer (ch. 7); this second rule is to the thing itself. I shall a little explain this position.
1. Why Universal Diligence Is Needed
A man finds a lust to bring him into the condition formerly described. It is powerful, strong, and disturbing. It leads captive, vexes, disquiets, and takes away peace. He is not able to bear it; wherefore he sets himself against it, prays against it, groans under it, sighs to be delivered. But in the meantime, in other duties—in constant communion with God; in reading, prayer, and meditation; in other ways that are not of the same kind with the lust wherewith he is troubled—he is loose and negligent. Let not that man think that he shall ever arrive to the mortification of the lust he is perplexed with.
This is a condition that often befalls men in their pilgrimage. The Israelites drew nigh to God under a sense of their sin, with much diligence and earnestness, with fasting and prayer. Many expressions are made of their earnestness in the work, such as, “They seek me daily, and delight to know my ways…they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God” (Isa 58:2). But God rejects all. Their fast (v. 5) is a remedy that will not heal them, and the reason given is because they focused on this one duty only (vv. 5-7). They attended diligently to it, but in others were negligent and careless. He who has a “running sore” (it is the scriptural expression in Psalm 77:2) upon him arising from an ill habit of body, contracted by intemperance and ill diet, let him apply himself with what diligence and skill he can to the cure of his sore, if he leaves the general habit of his body in disorder, his labor and travail will be in vain. So will his attempts be that shall endeavor to stop the bloody issue of sin and filth in his soul, and is not equally careful of his universal spiritual temperature and constitution. The reasons for this follow.
2. Reasons for Failure when Focusing on Only One Sin
An invalid underlying principle
This kind of endeavor for mortification proceeds from a corrupt principle, ground, and foundation; so that it will never proceed to a good result. The true and acceptable principles of mortification shall be afterward insisted on: hatred of sin as sin (not only as troubling or disquieting) and a sense of the love of Christ in the cross lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. It is certain that what I speak of proceeds from self-love. You set yourself with all diligence and earnestness to mortify such a lust or sin. What is the reason of it? It disquiets you; it has taken away your peace. It fills your heart with sorrow, trouble, and fear; you have no rest because of it. Yes, but friend, you have neglected prayer or reading; you have been vain and loose in your conduct in other things that have not been of the same nature with that lust wherewith you are perplexed. These are no less sins and evils than those under which you groan. Jesus Christ bled for them also. Why do you not set yourself against them also?
If you hate sin as sin, every evil way, you would be no less watchful against everything that grieves and disquiets the Spirit of God than against that which grieves and disquiets your own soul. It is evident that you contend against sin merely because of your own trouble by it. If your conscience were quiet under it you would let it alone. If it did not disquiet you it should not be disquieted by you. Now, can you think that God will set in with such hypocritical endeavors, so that His Spirit will not bear witness to the treachery and falsehood of your spirit? Do you think He will ease you of that which perplexes you, so that you may be at liberty to do that which no less grieves Him? No. Instead, God says, “Here is one who, if he could be rid of this lust, I should never hear of him more. Let him wrestle with this, or he is lost.”
Let not any man think to do his own work that will not do God’s. God’s work consists in universal obedience. To be freed of one sin’s present perplexity is that man’s work only. Hence is that of the apostle, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Co 7:1). If we will do any one thing, we must do all things. So then, it is not only an intense opposition to this or that peculiar lust, but a universal humble frame and temper of heart—with watchfulness over every evil and for the performance of every duty—that is accepted.
Chastening
A second reason to avoid focusing on mortifying only one particular sin is this: How do you know but that God has suffered the lust wherewith you have been perplexed to get strength in you and power over you in order to chasten you for your other negligences and common lukewarmness in walking before Him—at least to awaken you to the consideration of your ways, that you may make a thorough work and change in your course of walking with Him?
The rage and predominance of a particular lust is commonly the fruit and result of a careless, negligent course in general, and that upon a double account.
l). As its natural effect, if I may so say. Lust, as I showed in general, lies in the heart of everyone, even the best, while he lives. Think not that the Scripture speaks in vain that it is subtle, cunning, crafty; that it seduces, entices, fights, rebels (Jer 17:9). While a man keeps a diligent watch over his heart, which is sin’s root and fountain; while above all keepings he keeps his heart, from whence are the issues of life and death (Pro 4:23)—then lust withers and dies in it. But if through negligence lust makes an eruption in a particular way, gets a passage to the thoughts by the affections, and from them and by them perhaps breaks out into open sin in the life, then the strength of sin follows the way it has found out, and that way mainly it urges until, having got a passage, it then vexes, disquiets, and is not easily to be restrained. Thus, perhaps a man may be put to wrestle all his days in sorrow with that which might easily have been prevented by a strict and universal watch.
2). God’s use of one sin to chasten another. As I said, God often suffers one sin to break out in order to chasten our negligence. As with wicked men, He gives them up to one sin as the judgment of another—a greater for the punishment of a less, or one that will hold them more firmly and securely for that which they might have possibly obtained a deliverance from (Rom 1:26). This is so even with His own. He may, He does, leave them sometimes to some distressing condition, either to prevent or cure some other evil. So was the messenger of Satan let loose on Paul that he might not be lifted up through the abundance of spiritual revelations (2Co 12:7). Was it not a correction to Peter’s vain confidence that he was left to deny his Master?
Now, if this be the state and condition of lust in its prevalence, that God oftentimes suffers it so to prevail—at least in order to admonish us and humble us, and perhaps to chasten and correct us for our general loose and careless walking—is it possible that the effect should be removed and the cause continued—so that the particular lust should be mortified while the general course be unreformed?
He, then, that would really, thoroughly, and acceptably mortify any disquieting lust—let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience, and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God, though but one lust is burdensome to him (Isa 43:24). While there abides a treachery in the heart to indulge any negligence in not pressing universally to all perfection in obedience, the soul is weak, as not giving faith its whole work; and the soul is selfish, as considering more the trouble of sin than the filth and guilt of it. The soul then lives under a constant provocation of God, so that it may not expect any comfortable result in any spiritual duty that it undertakes—much less in this under consideration, which requires another principle and frame of spirit for its accomplishment.
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