07. CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 7 MORTIFICATION: THE WORK OF BELIEVERS General rules necessary to mortify a lust There is no mortification for non-believers The dangers of unregenerate people attempting mortification of sin Considering the duty of unconverted persons to this business of mortification The vanity of the Roman Catholics’ attempts at, and rules for, mortification.
Next we consider the Second Principle, II: The ways and means we may use to mortify any particular sin
Satan may take advantage of these means to distract and weaken us. There are some general rules concerning the basis of this work that are foundational to success. No one, no matter how convicted and resolved he is to mortify his sins, can achieve success apart from these rules. The general rules necessary to mortify sin are these:
1. Be sure to get an interest in Christ. If you intend to mortify any sin without it, it will never be done. Unless a man is a believer, he cannot mortify a single sin. Mortification is the unique work of faith.
2. Without being sincere and diligent to mortify all lusts, we cannot mortify a single lust (see Chapter 8).
1. The 1st general rule: be sure to get an interest in Christ.
(1.) Unless a man is a believer, he cannot mortify a single sin. By “believer”, I mean someone who is truly grafted into Christ. I am not saying unless a man thinks he is a believer, but unless he is indeed a believer. Mortification is the work of believers. “If you through the Spirit,”98 etc. You believers have no condemnation.99 Believers alone are exhorted to mortify. “Mortify therefore the parts of your body that belong to the earth.”100 Who should mortify? You who “are risen with Christ,”101 whose “life is hid with Christ in God,” verse 5; who “shall appear with him in glory,” verse 4. An unregenerate man may do something similar to it, but he can never perform the work itself in a way that would be acceptable to God. Some of the philosophers, such as Seneca, Tully, and Epictetus, have written in stirring terms of the contempt they have for the world and its self-indulgence. They have written of the need to control and conquer all excessive desires and emotions! Their lives made it evident that their maxims differed as much from true mortification as the sun painted on a sign-post differs from the sun in the sky. They had neither light nor heat. Their own Lucian represents quite adequately what they all were [a rhetorician for hire and amusement].
There is no death of sin without the death of Christ. You are familiar with the attempts the Roman Catholics made to mortify sin apart from Christ in their vows, penances, and indulgences. I might say of their practices what Paul says of Israel concerning righteousness: “They have pursued mortification, but they have not attained it. Why not? Because they do not seek it by faith, but by works of the law.”102 The same is true of those who, in obedience to their convictions and awakened consciences, attempt to relinquish sin. They follow after it, but do not attain it.
Every person who hears the law or gospel preached, is required to mortify sin. It is his duty, but it is not his immediate duty. It is his duty to do it, but he must do it in God’s way. If you require your employee to pay a bill for you, but you require that he first go to the bank to withdraw cash, then his duty to pay the bill is not his immediate duty. You will blame him if he fails to pay it, but according to your directions, his first duty was to withdraw cash from the bank. That is the case here: sin must be mortified, but something must be done first to enable us to mortify it.
I proved that it is the Spirit alone who can mortify sin. He was promised to us for that purpose. All other means of doing it without him are empty and useless. How can anyone who does not have the Spirit mortify sin? It would be easier to see without eyes, or speak without a tongue, than to truly mortify sin without the Spirit. How do we obtain the Spirit? It is the Spirit of Christ. As the apostle says, “If we do not have the Spirit of Christ, we do not have Christ.”103 So, if we are Christ’s, and we have an interest in him, then we have the Spirit, and we have the power to mortify. The apostle discusses this extensively in Romans 8:8. “Those in the flesh cannot please God.” It is the conclusion he draws from his preceding comment about our natural state, in which we have enmity with God and his law. If we are in the flesh, and we do not have the Spirit, then we cannot do anything to please God. But how can we be rescued from this condition? Verse 9: “But you are not in the flesh. You are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.” “You believers, who have the Spirit of Christ, are not in the flesh.” There is no rescue from being in the flesh except by the Spirit of Christ. And if this Spirit of Christ is in you, then you are mortified. “The body is dead because of sin,” verse 10, or at least it is dead to sin. If we have the Spirit, then mortification is carried on, and the new man is made alive to righteousness. The apostle proves this in verse 11. From the union we have with Christ by the Spirit, similar changes will be produced in us that were produced in him. Therefore, all attempts to mortify a lust without an interest in Christ are pointless.
Many men that are chafed by sin, by Christ’s convicting arrows, by the preaching of the word, or by some adversity that pierced their hearts, vigorously set themselves against the lust that most troubles their conscience. But they labor in the fire, and their work is consumed. When the Spirit of Christ comes to this work he will be “like a refiner’s fire and like cleaning soap,” and he will purge men like a refiner of gold and silver.104 He will take away their waste and impurities, their filth and blood, as in Isaiah 4:4. But men must first be made of gold and silver to have refining do them any good. The prophet Jeremiah gives us the sad account of the ultimate attempts at mortification made by wicked men: “The bellows are burned, and the lead is consumed in the fire; the founder melts in vain. Men will call them rejected silver, because the LORD has rejected them.”105 And what is the reason? Verse 28, They were “brass and iron” when they were put into the furnace. Men cannot refine brass and iron long enough to turn them into good silver.
Mortification is not the business of unregenerate men. God does not call them to it yet. Conversion is their first duty and work. And it is the conversion of the whole soul, not the mortification of this or that particular lust. You would laugh at a man who sets up a large structure without laying a foundation. Especially if you had seen him repeat the fiasco a thousand times. He builds it one day only to see it fall the next. So it is with people who are convinced their way is right. Though they can plainly see that the ground they gain against sin one day is lost another, they continue on the same road without asking where the flaw lies in their progress. When the Jews, convicted of their sin, were cut to the heart and cried out, “What shall we do?”106 what does Peter direct them to do? Does he ask them to mortify their pride, anger, malice, cruelty, and the like? No! He knew that was not their present work. He calls them instead to conversion and faith in Christ, verse 38. Convert the soul first, and then, “looking on the One they pierced,”107 humiliation and mortification will ensue. In the same way, when John came to preach repentance and conversion, he said, “The axe is now set to the root of the tree.”108 The Pharisees had been laying heavy burdens on the people, imposing tedious duties, and requiring rigid means of mortification by fasting, washing, and the like. All of this served no purpose. John says essentially, “The doctrine of conversion is for you; the axe in my hand is laid to the root of your problem.” And our Savior tells us what to do in this case, “Do men pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?”109 Suppose a thorn is well-pruned, and well taken care of? “Nonetheless, it will never bear figs,” verses 17,18. It cannot be any other way. Every tree bears fruit of its own kind. What must be done, he tells us, is this: “Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good.”110 The root must be dealt with. The nature of the tree must be changed, or it cannot bear good fruit. This is the point I am trying to make: unless a man is saved, unless he is a believer, all attempts he makes to mortify sin are useless. No matter how deceptively attractive or promising his efforts, whatever diligence, earnestness, watchfulness, and good intentions he may have, his efforts are useless. He will try many cures in vain, and he will not be healed. In fact, there are several nasty evils which accompany efforts by non-believers to mortify sin:
[1.] His mind is consumed by something that is not the man’s proper business, and so he is diverted from something that is his business. By his Word and his judgments, God has laid hold of a sin in him. He chafes the man’s conscience, troubles his heart, and deprives him of his rest, so that other diversions will not serve his needs. The man is supposed to apply himself to the work in front of him. And that work is to awaken and consider his condition apart from God, his need to be brought home to God. Instead, he sets out to mortify the sin that chafes him. This attempt to be freed from his trouble is a pure case of self-love. This is not the work he is called to at all. And so he is distracted from his true work. God tells us similarly of the tribe of Ephraim, when he “spread his net on them, and brought them down like the fowls of heaven, and chastised them.”111 He caught them, entangled them, and convinced them that they could not escape from him, nor find solutions elsewhere. “They return, but not to the Most High.” They were determined to relinquish their sin, but not the way God called for, which was by complete conversion.
Thus, men are diverted from truly coming to God by devising their own ingenious ways to come to him. This is one of the most common deceits by which men ruin their souls. I wish some did not teach this deceit. They make it their business to smear weakened mortar on the things of God. They cause people to err from ignorance. What do men do, what are they often directed to do, when their consciences are chafed by sin and uneasiness because the Lord has taken hold of them? Are they not told to give up the sin they are troubled by? And after making some headway against it, do they not devote themselves all the more to it? But in the end, these convictions have cost them the aim of the gospel. This is how men remain in their sin and rot.
[2.] This duty of mortification is a good thing in its proper place. It is a duty that evidences sincerity, and brings peace to the conscience. A man might conclude he is in good shape if he is committed to this duty. His mind and heart are set against a particular sin, and he is resolved to have no more to do with it. But he deludes himself because,
1. When a man’s conscience is sickened with sin, and he can find no rest, he should go to the great Physician of souls to be healed in his blood. But the man who merely wants to pacify his conscience by ending a sin, sits down without going to Christ at all. There are so many who are deceived out of eternity this way! “When Ephraim saw his sickness, he sent to king Jareb.”112 That kept him from God. The entire Roman Catholic religion is comprised of designs and schemes to pacify the conscience without Christ, as described by the apostle in Romans 10:3.
2. By doing this, men convince themselves that they are all right. After all, it is a good work, and they are not doing it to be seen. They are sincere. But all this does is harden them in a kind of self-righteousness.
[3.] When a man has pursued this course for awhile, and deceived himself by it, he finds over the course of his life that indeed his sin has not been mortified. It has simply taken a new form. He begins to think that he is wasting his time. He will never be able to prevail. He is only building a dam against constantly rising waters. That is when he gives up, despairing of any success. He yields himself to the power of sin and the formality of fighting it. This is the usual result for people who attempt to mortify sin without first obtaining an interest in Christ. It deludes them, hardens them, and destroys them. The most loathsome and desperate sinners in the world are those who pursued this course out of conviction, found it fruitless, and then deserted it without discovering Christ. This is the basis of all the world’s formalist religions, and all those in the Roman congregation who are drawn to mortification. They think they can force Indians into baptism, or cattle to water. I repeat, mortification is for believers and believers only. Killing sin is the work of living men. When men are dead, as unbelievers are dead, sin is alive, and it continues to live.
(2.) Mortification is the work of faith, and the unique work of faith.
If something can be achieved by only one means, it is madness to attempt it another way. It is faith that purifies the heart,113 or, as Peter says, we “purify our souls by obeying the truth through the Spirit.”114 Without faith, it will not be done.
What has been spoken is sufficient, I suppose, to prove my first general rule: Be sure to get an interest in Christ; if you intend to mortify a sin without it, it will never be done.
Objection. You may say, “What should non-believers do when they are convinced of the evil of sin? Should they stop fighting against it? Should they live without moral constraints, give their lusts free reign, and join the ranks of the worst of men? This is a good way to put the whole world into chaos. It will return us to the dark ages, open the flood-gates of lust, and spur men to rush into sin with delight like a horse into battle.”
Ans. 1. God forbid! It is a testament to the wisdom, goodness, and love of God, that by numerous ways and means, he restrains the sons of men. He keeps them from pursuing the excessive and riotous behavior that their depraved nature would violently lead them to. By whatever means he does this, it demonstrates the care, kindness, and goodness of God that he keeps the whole earth from being a hell of sin and confusion.
Ans. 2. There is a unique convincing power in the word, which God is often pleased to display. It wounds, amazes, and in some sort of way, humbles sinners, even though they are never converted. The word is not to be preached with this in mind, but it will have this effect no less. Therefore, let the word be preached and the sins of men will be rebuked. Lust will be restrained, and sin will be opposed, although these are not the results we seek.
Ans. 3. Even though killing sin is the work of the word and the Spirit, and even though it is good in itself, it is not available to those who still suffer from bitterness, and who remain under the power of darkness. It will not lead to their salvation.
Ans. 4. Let men know it is their duty, but only in its proper place. I do not remove men from mortification unless I intend to convert them. Someone who stops a man from mending a hole in his wall, to put out a fire that is consuming his whole house, is not that man’s enemy. You poor fool! It is not a sore finger but a raging fever that you need to worry about. You set yourself against a particular sin, but do not realize that you are nothing but sin.
Let me add this for preachers of the word, or those who aspire to that profession by the good hand of God. It is their duty to plead with men about their sins, and to weigh into particular sins. But always remember that it is to be done with the proper goal of both law and gospel. That is, in so doing, their intent must be to reveal the sinner’s true condition. Otherwise, by accident, they may drive men into mere formality or hypocrisy. Little of the purpose of preaching the gospel will be served by that. It does not help to beat a man out of drunkenness only to drive him into sober formality. A skillful preacher strikes at the root with his axe, and he strikes at the heart. It is a good work to angrily attack the particular sins of ignorant and unregenerate persons, which the world is full of. We can do that with great efficacy, vigor, and success. However, if that leads them to painstaking put away only the sins that were preached about, then we may have beaten the enemy in the field, but we have driven them into an impregnable stronghold beyond our reach. You do not gain anything by picking on a single sin. You have nothing to hold the sinner by. Instead, get to the point of his sinful condition. Drive the argument to its source, and then deal with him there. Breaking men of particular sins, without breaking their hearts, denies us the advantage in dealing with them. And here is where the Roman mortification is seriously in error. They drive all sorts of people to mortification, without considering whether they have a principle for doing that or not. They are so intent on having men mortify their lusts, that they call men to mortification instead of calling them to believing. The truth is, they do not know what it means to believe, or what mortification is used for. Faith for them is just a general assent to the doctrine taught in their church. Mortification is when a man takes a vow to seek a certain course of life, to deny himself some of the things of this world at a cost. Such men do not know either the Scriptures or the power of God. When they boast of their mortification, they are really celebrating their shame.
Some ethicists among ourselves also overlook the necessity of regeneration. They direct people who complain of a sin or lust, to vow against it for a month or so. They have no clue as to the mystery of the gospel, much like Nicodemus when he came first to Christ. They ask men to abstain from their sin for awhile. This usually makes their lust stronger. Maybe with a struggle they keep their word; maybe not. This only increases their guilt and torment. Does this mortify their sin at all? Do they conquer it? Is their condition changed if they manage to relinquish the sin? Do they not still suffer from bitterness? Is this not tantamount to making brick without straw, or worse, without strength? What promise has been made to any unregenerate man to justify doing this work? What assistance can he expect for performing it? Can sin be killed without an interest in the death of Christ, or mortified without the Spirit?
If such directions succeed in changing men’s lives, which they seldom do, they never reach the point of changing their hearts or conditions. It may make them self-justified or hypocrites, but not Christians. It often grieves me to see people with a zeal for God and a desire for eternal happiness, kept under a hard, burdensome, external worship and service of God by such directions. They toil all their days with these deceptive efforts to mortify their sins, oblivious to the righteousness of Christ, and unacquainted with his Spirit. I know too many of them. If God ever shines into their hearts, giving them the knowledge of his glory in the face of his Son Jesus Christ, then they will see the folly of their present way of life.