Putting sin to death

I’ve read a lot of books on the Christian life over the years—that tends to be an occupational hazard of being a pastor, after all—and I can’t say I remember most of them; but one of the most important books I’ve ever read, one which has had a profound effect on my thinking, is a little book by the great Puritan pastor/theologian John Owen entitled On the Mortification of Sin in Believers. It’s a collection of sermons he preached on Romans 8:13: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live”; Owen was a practical and pastoral theologian, and his concern was to lay out exactly how it is we may go about doing that.

It’s a splendid book, and of great value to anyone who wants to live a life pleasing to God, which is why I was pleased recently to discover two things. First, the full text of the book is available online through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (which, by the way, is linked in the sidebar here; I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me to look there for this book). Second, since Owen is a dense writer and no simple stylist, I was glad to find that Robert Thune has posted a brief outline of Owen’s argument, one which links in turn to a longer and more thorough outline of the book. I wouldn’t encourage reading either in lieu of Owen’s work, because there is so much good in the book, but they provide an excellent orientation to his argument. The longer outline in particular is a valuable reader’s guide.

What Owen is on to is a matter of great importance, and much neglected in the American church, which tends not to want to talk about the struggle against sin (or to take that struggle seriously); as such, his book may well be more important now than it was when it was written, for it provides a necessary corrective to our self-indulgent consumerist culture. It isn’t light reading, but it’s more than worthwhile, especially with Thune’s work to help, and I recommend it to anyone who’s serious about the Christian life.