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Imagine yourself as a soldier in battle against a most vicious enemy whose sole purpose is to destroy you. What’s more, this enemy is not a misguided soul but rather a truly malevolent force. It cannot be reasoned with. It is unappeasable and tireless in its malicious pursuit of your destruction. What is your proper response to this enemy in battle? Is it not to marshal all means at your disposal to seek its destruction? This was the attitude that Jesus and the Apostles had toward sin and temptation; the same attitude is enjoined on every Christian.
In Dante’s imagination, men such as Brutus and Judas Iscariot occupy the lowest rungs of hell because they are traitors disguised as friends. Is this not how temptation and sin function? They promise our good and deliver only death. Sin is the Brutus that stabs in the back, the Judas that betrays with a kiss. The great Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote, “All sins in the eye of an upright heart, are traitors to the crown and dignity of the Lord Jesus.” Little wonder why Jesus took such a militant approach to dealing with sin:
“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matt. 5:29–30)
We can safely assume that Jesus is not literally in favor of bodily mutilation as a means of sanctification. But let us not be so focused on Jesus’ hyperbole that we miss the force of His words. Sin and temptation require a militant response. This is why the Puritans called this approach toward sin mortification.
Mortification is a compound word that means literally “to make dead.” Its theological use describes the Christian’s proper attitude toward sin. That is, part of the Christian vocation in this life is to kill sin. The idea that sin and temptation must be met with spiritual violence is not an invention of the Puritans. Indeed, the Apostle Paul writes: “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 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” (Rom. 8:12–13).
Jesus taught us, and experience confirms, that much of the battle against sin takes place in our innermost being. Before sin manifests in our acts, there is a war in our minds. In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that before sins such as adultery and murder come to fruition in physical acts, they are born in the heart (Matt. 5:21–28). The Apostle James tells us that sinful acts are birthed by sinful desires (James 1:14–15).
One of the New Testament’s clearest calls to mortify sin is found in Colossians 3. Paul tells his readers:
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. (vv. 5–9)
“Put to death” is a strong admonition. In this, Paul personifies sin as an enemy that must be utterly destroyed. There is no third-way approach to dealing with sin. A gentlemanly disagreement is not in view. Only a determined and deadly hostility will suffice in our approach to sin.
The catalogue of sins that Paul names in Colossians 3 is not intended to be exhaustive but is illustrative of the variety of ways that sin corrupts—from sexual sins that destroy the body to the impulses that produce lying, malice, slander, theft, and murder.
Because of these things, Paul warns, “the wrath of God is coming” (v. 6). Our sin is not some trifling matter to which God has overreacted. Our sins are acts of malice against God, mutinous deeds that demand the King’s justice. Indeed, our sins represent all the ways that we seek to undo God’s proper place of lordship over our lives—thus the reference to “idolatry” (v. 5). Mortification is called for against such a foe.
John Owen, in his classic work The Mortification of Sin, writes:
If sin is always acting, and we are not always mortifying, then we are lost creatures. If a man stands still and allows his enemies to beat him without resistance, then he will undoubtedly be conquered. If sin is subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we are slothful, negligent, and foolish in trying to ruin its efforts, then how can we expect a good outcome? There is not a day that goes by that sin either foils or is foiled, that it either wins or loses; and it will be this way all the while we live in this world.
In the fight against sin, specific acts and attitudes are required. If merely remembering our justification were sufficient to fuel our fight against sin, then that is what the Scriptures would prescribe. Instead, the Scriptures prescribe hostile action against sin. Paul, the great champion of free grace, writes of strenuous exercise in resisting sin and cultivating holiness (1 Cor. 9:27). He likens our walk with Christ to a race in which the runners seek a prize (v. 24). This is hardly a “let go and let God” approach to sanctification.
Mortifying sin is not an exercise in spiritual entrepreneurship. We should avoid spiritual novelties. What we need are the old paths, those means prescribed in Scripture and seized on by past generations of Christians. Owen rightly observes that “mortification using our own strength, or carried on by ways that we invent, to make ourselves righteous in our own eyes, is the core of every false religion in the world.”
The big question, then, is how exactly do we go about killing sin? We must do more than strike a posture of unforgiving hostility toward sin. We must also go about actively cultivating new desires and affections. In other words, in mortifying sin we are doing more than putting off what is old. We are to also go about putting on what is new (Eph. 4:22–24).
Regular use of the ordinary means of grace
It is under the tutelage of Christian worship with its emphasis on the Word and sacraments where we first learn to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12). In an age of Christian entrepreneurship, which has minimized the role of the church in forming Christians, Scripture’s emphasis on the ordinary means of grace seems alien. Indeed, the preaching of God’s Word and the right administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper appear to many contemporary Christians as too weak and unspectacular to grow strong disciples. But when they are rightly administered and supported by prayer and Christian fellowship, God has promised to bless these very things toward our growth in Christlikeness. These are the gifts that our Lord bequeathed to His church—Word, prayer, water, bread, and wine. Indeed, the church was built on and sustained by these means of grace, and so too will we be (Acts 2:42–47).
Daily Prayer and Meditation on God’s Word
When I was growing up in the 1980s, I regularly heard about the importance of having a “quiet time.” By the time I was a youth pastor myself, it had become popular to ignore or even mock the quiet time as legalistic. Yet the principle itself should never have been discarded. The righteous man of Psalm 1 meditates on God’s Word “day and night.” Jesus prayed that the Father would sanctify His people through means of His Word (John 17:17). We are to pray “without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:16–18). It is in communion with God through prayer and His living Word that we are formed into people who are more ready and willing to kill sin and live to Christ. And so, at the risk of being accused of legalism, I urge you, Christian, to give time each day to the Lord in prayer and meditation on His Word.
Keep watch over your heart
In all this, I do not mean to suggest that our lives must be filled with fear or obsessive introspection. Rather, I commend the spiritual discipline that the Puritans called watchfulness. “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). Jesus warned His disciples to “watch and pray that you might not enter into temptation” (Matt. 26:41).
Keeping watch over our hearts involves more than focusing on the self, however. Our watchfulness must keep Christ as the great prize. Robert Murray M’Cheyne famously wrote: “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ!” Keeping watch over our hearts necessarily involves “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Keep watch over your heart by keeping your eyes on Christ.
Aim for Joy
We go about mortifying sin not merely to avoid doing what is bad for us but to experience what works toward our joy. C.S. Lewis was right when he said that our problem is not that we desire too much but that in our desires we aim too low. Sanctification through self-flagellation or grim austerity is not our aim. In killing sin, our aim is joy in Christ.
Mortifying sin is not a recipe for a morose life; just the opposite. After all, we are not seeking to deprive ourselves of what would otherwise give us joy and freedom. We are aiming to kill that which seeks to kill us. By mortifying sin, we are depriving ourselves of that which will cause us misery. Killing our sin will cause us to miss out on the burden of guilt and damaged relationships. Mortifying sin always delivers something better than what sin could ever provide. Again, Brooks observes: “All sin strikes at God, at his holiness, as well as at an upright man’s happiness. It strikes at God’s glory, as well as the soul’s comfort.”
It is a light burden to mortify our sin. The reward is far greater than the cost of the labor. As Owen observed:
I will release anyone from this duty that can make sin surrender, that can bring a cessation of arms in this warfare. If sin will spare him one day, even one duty . . . he may say to his soul, “Take the day off in this duty.” The saints long for deliverance from sin’s bewildering rebellion. They know that the only safety against it is constant warfare.