Here are a few quotes from Kelly M. Kapic’s introductory article to he and Justin Taylor’s reproduction of John Owen’s works on the subject of Overcomeing Sin & Temptation, which I am reading in my devotional time each morning:
Owen’s personal life: Though he had eleven children with his first wife, only one of them survived beyond adulescence; the one girl who did survive ended up returning to live with her father after her marriage collapsed, and while in his home she died of consumption (24).
Sin moves by drawing the mind away from God, enticing the affections and twisting desires and paralyzing the will, thus stunning any real Christian growth.
Far too often Christians working within the Reformed tradition have been guilty of confusing stoic ideals of emotional detachment with maturity in the Christian life. But this Reformed tradition, which Owen self-consciously grows out of, has at its best made significanct space for the importance of the affections (27).
. . . all Christians are call to love God with their mind, will, and affections. Healthy affections are crucial tothe life of faith, and numbing them cannot be the answer (28).
Resisting sin, according to this Puritan divine, comes not by deadening your affections but by awakening them to God himself. Do not seek to empty your cup as a way to avoid sin, bu rather seek to fill it up with the Spirit of life, so there is no longer room for sin (28).
. . . there is no temperament that is free from temptation, and the trick is to be aware of the threats that are easily overlooked (29).
Affirming the importance of honest introspection does not blind Owen to the fact that this exercise will lead a person to despair if it is not also paralleled with a study of the grace of God (31).
In truth, the Christian hope rests not ultimately upon our own diligence, bu on God’s faithfulness (31).
True and lasting resistance to sin comes not through willpower and self-improvement but through the Spirit who empowers believers with a knowledge and love of God (33).
Quoting John Murray on God’s work and human effort in sanctification:
God’s working in us [in sanctification] is not suspended because we work, nor our working suspended because God works. neither is the relation strictly one of co-operation as if God did his part and we did ours so that the conjunction or coordination of both produced the required result. God works in us and we alsowork. But the relation is that because God works we work (33).
Two concepts commonly appear in early Reformed approaches to sanctification: mortification and vivification. Building on thelanguage and imagry of Colossians 3:9-10, the idea of mortification was understood as a putting off of the ‘old man,’ and vivification was conceived as the reality of being made alive by the Spirit. . . . These twin ideas of sanctification require not only the shedding of sin but also renewal in grace . . . . sanctification invovles both putting sin to death and becoming fre to love and obey (34-35).
