Owen on Sin and Fire

It is vain for a man to have any expectation of rest from his lust but by its death … Some, in the tumultuating of their corruptions, seek for quietness by labouring to satisfy them, “making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof,” as the apostle speaks, Rom xiii.14. This is to aslake* fire by wood and oil. As all the fuel in the world, all the fabric of the creation that is combustible, being cast into the fire, will not at all satisfy it, but increase it; so is it with satisfaction given to sin by sinning,—it doth but inflame and increase.

John Owen, The Nature and Power of Indwelling Sin.

*diminish, slacken, reduce.

Owen on the Full Pursuit of Holiness

In his little book Of Temptation, in a section on “deceitful assistances” in fighting against sin, ODG John Owen warns about

The most vigorous actings, by prayer, fasting, and other such means, against that particular lust , corruption, temptation, wherewith you are exercised and have to do. This will not avail you if, in the meantime, there be neglects on other accounts. To hear a man wrestle, cry, contend as to any particular of temptation, and immediately fall into worldly ways, worldly compliances, looseness, and negligence in other things, — it is righteous with Jesus Christ to leave such a one to the hour of temptation (John Owen, Of Temptation (Joseph Kreifels), pp. 147-48).

It is overwhelming, to me at least, to think of fighting all sin at once. It is too easy to let the “little sins,” or some private sins, go unchallenged while we focus on the “biggies.”

Owen says that to do such is a deceitful assistance, to imagine that we can address sin on one part of our lives while neglecting the sin in other parts.

Perhaps Owen is given to some hyperbole here, but his point should be given careful consideration. Sin is not an all or nothing proposition. It will take whatever it can get from us.

John Owen on Guilt

"Guilt-free" is one of the ubiquitous idols of a modern generation. From eating to sex to entertainment to crime, people do not want to experience guilt about anything, whether real guilt (liability for punishment) or emotional guilt (feeling bad about doing something).

Even Christian counselors, yes, even biblical counselors, spend much time exhorting people on ways to deal with guilt and live in the grace and forgiveness of God.

In his book, On the Mortification of Sin, John Owen takes the opposite tack. Rather than trying to escape guilt, he says,

"Load thy conscience with the guilt of [sin]. Not only consider that it hath a guilt, but load thy conscience with the guilt of its actual eruptions and disturbances" (p. 56).

And then:

Bring thy lust to the gospel , — not for relief, but for farther conviction of its guilt; look on Him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, “What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love , to the Son for his blood , to the Holy Ghost for his grace ? Do I thus requite the Lord? (p. 58).

How many of us counsel people to consider the guilt of their sin even more? Do we take them(or ourselves) too quickly to grace?

While that might seem a strange question, perhaps (and I think this is Owen's point) too little meditation on the guilt of sin has led to an attitude towards sin which does not take mortification seriously.

We don't want to kill it, to pulverize it, to remove every last vestige from our souls. Why? Because we do not really grasp its guilt. No, not the way it makes us feel. But rather what it did to our Savior.

We simply want to get over it, to not think about, to live "guilt-free."

Perhaps Owen could be meditated on with some profit here.