The Mortification of Sin

[HiredGoon]

"Paul, in speaking to believers, thus challenges the Colossians: 'Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth' (Col. 3:5, AV) Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? You must always be at it while you live; do not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you."

I'm reading this through a second time, it is a very good guide to fighting sin. I've also skimmed the original version online, and this "abridged and made easy to read" version is much easier to understand. Owen is excellent as always.


"To read John Owen is to enter a rare world. Whenever I return to one of his works I find myself asking “Why do I spend time reading lesser literature?”
—Sinclair B. Ferguson

John Owen’s treatises on Indwelling Sin in Believers and The Mortification of Sin are, in my opinion, the most helpful writings on personal holiness ever written.
—Jerry Bridges

I owe more to John Owen than to any other theologian, ancient or modern; and I owe more to [The Mortification of Sin] than to anything else he wrote."
—J.I. Packer

 

[oworm]

Ive read this version too and would thoroughly recommend it. I think all Christians should read it actually!

 

[phoboskaitromos]

I'm looking forward to reading this version. Thanks for the reviews.

 

[The Narrator]

I have narrated this book a number of times, at least two different versions I have narrated are on Sermon Audio. I have narrated most of Owen's works chapter 6. Very searching stuff. They don't write them like that anymore.

 

[SatisfiedNHim]

Just got my copy in the mail yesterday... it has several other works by John Owen in it as well. I'm making it my winter read.

 

[The Narrator]

There is a chapter in the book, The Forgiveness of Sin, EVIDENCES THAT MOST MEN DO NOT BELIEVE FORGIVENESS - I reread that chapter a week ago Sunday and was amazed at it. I believe Owen is right which means many professions are suspect in our day. Very humbling.

 

[Defcon]

I read this a few months back. I figured since it wasn't real long, I'd breeze right through. Man was I wrong. It was a very humbling book for me. I could only get through small sections at a time before my conscience gripped me again.

While it is not for the faint of heart, it is a must read.

 

[Kennesaw42]

John Owen is one of my heroes, and I read and copiously underlined Mortification of Sin years ago when I was attending a quasi-cultish church where the elders were practically infallible and what was preached was the "whole counsel of God" minus any Gospel encouragement. The ministry was all about personal holiness and every man Jack of us in the church had an enormous Puritan library (I had the 16 vol set of JO for starters). The weakness of all this, however, is that, speaking from the sad experience of one who strove with all my power to mortify my besetting sin (addiction to inappropriate content, primarily), we were each trying to do this on our own, in private, as though we were in church together, but each isolated in his own cocoon. But Christ gave us the church, our brothers, each other, to bear each other's burdens, to help one another through our struggles, in the spirit of James 5:16, to wit "Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed." I now know men who are successfully mortifying such sin, but they're not doing it alone. They attend men's groups regularly, and have accountability partners. If I could have had one such meeting, and one such partner, 25 years ago when I was striving on my own for holiness, reading Owen and Whitfield and Flavel and Watson, I would have gladly traded all my hundreds of Puritan and Reformed volumes for the privilege.
This is in no way a criticism of the great John Owen, though, and it doesn't have to be either or. To any brother struggling with indwelling, especially besetting sin today, I would say, study Owen (if you have the mind; as one said above, he's not for the faint of heart), and study that other giant of Christian literature of a slightly later day, John Bunyon. But find a group of brothers with whom you can share your burden, and unburden your soul and heart to them, and find one or two brothers to be accountable to.
"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up." Eccl 4:9, 10.

 

[Kennesaw42]

John Owen is one of my heroes, and I read and copiously underlined Mortification of Sin years ago when I was attending a quasi-cultish church where the elders were practically infallible and what was preached was the "whole counsel of God" minus any Gospel encouragement. The ministry was all about personal holiness and every man Jack of us in the church had an enormous Puritan library (I had the 16 vol set of JO for starters). The weakness of all this, however, is that, speaking from the sad experience of one who strove with all my power to mortify my besetting sin (addiction to inappropriate content, primarily), we were each trying to do this on our own, in private, as though we were in church together, but each isolated in his own cocoon. But Christ gave us the church, our brothers, each other, to bear each other's burdens, to help one another through our struggles, in the spirit of James 5:16, to wit "Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed." I now know men who are successfully mortifying such sin, but they're not doing it alone. They attend men's groups regularly, and have accountability partners. If I could have had one such meeting, and one such partner, 25 years ago when I was striving on my own for holiness, reading Owen and Whitfield and Flavel and Watson, I would have gladly traded all my hundreds of Puritan and Reformed volumes for the privilege.
This is in no way a criticism of the great John Owen, though, and it doesn't have to be either or. To any brother struggling with indwelling, especially besetting sin today, I would say, study Owen (if you have the mind; as one said above, he's not for the faint of heart), and study that other giant of Christian literature of a slightly later day, John Bunyon. But find a group of brothers with whom you can share your burden, and unburden your soul and heart to them, and find one or two brothers to be accountable to.
"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up." Eccl 4:9, 10.