What Does It Mean to Mortify the Sins of the Body?
“If ye by the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:13)
The Duty: Mortify Your Deeds
The duty itself, “Mortify the deeds of the body,” is next to be remarked upon. Three things are here to be inquired into:
(1) What is meant by the body?
(2) What by the deeds of the body?
(3) What by mortifying of them?
(1) “The body” in the close of the verse is the same with “the flesh” in the beginning: “If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye,” but if ye “mortifie the deeds of the body”—that is, of the flesh. It is that which the apostle has all along discoursed of under the name of “the flesh,” which is evident from the prosecution1 of the antithesis between the Spirit and the flesh, before and after. “The body,” then, here is taken for that corruption and depravity of our natures whereof the body, in a great part, is the seat and instrument, the very members of the body being made servants unto unrighteousness thereby (Rom. 6:19). It is indwelling sin, the corrupted flesh or lust, that is intended. Many reasons might be given of this metonymical expression2that I shall not now insist on. The “body” here is the same with παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος and σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας, the “old man” and the “body of sin” (Rom. 6:6); or it may synecdochically3 express the whole person considered as corrupted, and the seat of lusts and distempered affections.
Sin and Temptation
John Owen, Kelly M. Kapic, Justin Taylor
Volume 15 of The Complete Works of John Owen includes 4 edited and formatted treatises on the mortification of sin, the power of temptation, indwelling sin, and God’s grace.
(2) The deeds of the body. The word is πράξεις,4 which, indeed, denotes the outward actions chiefly, “the works of the flesh,” as they are called, τὰ ἔργα τῆς σαρκὸς (Gal. 5:19); which are there said to be “manifest” and are enumerated. Now, though the outward deeds are here only expressed, yet the inward and next causes are chiefly intended; the “axe is to be laid to the root of the tree”5—the deeds of the flesh are to be mortified in their causes, from whence they spring. The apostle calls them deeds, as that which every lust tends unto; though they do but conceive and prove abortive, they aim to bring forth a perfect sin.
Having treated indwelling lust and sin as the fountain and principle of all sinful actions, he here mentions its destruction under the name of the effects which it does produce. Πράξεις τοῦ σώματος6 are, as much as φρώνημα τῆς σαρκός7 (Rom. 8:6), the “wisdom of the flesh,” by a metonymy of the same nature with the former; or as the παθήματα8 and ἐπιθυμίαι,9 the “passions and lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:24), whence the deeds and fruits of it do arise; and in this sense is “the body” used: “The body is dead because of sin” (Rom. 8:10).
(3) To mortify. Εἰ θανατοῦτε—“if ye put to death”—[is] a metaphorical expression, taken from the putting of any living thing to death. To kill a man, or any other living thing, is to take away the principle of all his strength, vigor, and power, so that he cannot act or exert or put forth any proper actings of his own; so it is in this case. Indwelling sin is compared to a person, a living person, called “the old man,” with his faculties and properties, his wisdom, craft, subtlety, strength; this, says the apostle, must be killed, put to death, mortified—that is, have its power, life, vigor, and strength to produce its effects taken away by the Spirit. It is, indeed, meritoriously, and by way of example, utterly mortified and slain by the cross of Christ; and the “old man” is thence said to be “crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6), and ourselves to be “dead” with him (Rom. 6:8), and really initially in regeneration (Rom. 6:3–5), when a principle contrary to it and destructive of it (Gal. 5:17) is planted in our hearts; but the whole work is by degrees to be carried on toward perfection all our days. Of this more in the process of our discourse.
The intendment10 of the apostle in this prescription of the duty mentioned is that: the mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh, is the constant duty of believers.
The Promise: You Shall Live
The promise unto this duty is life: “ye shall live.” The life promised is opposed to the death threatened in the clause foregoing, “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die”; which the same apostle expresses, “Ye shall of the flesh reap corruption” (Gal. 6:8), or destruction from God. Now, perhaps the word may not only intend eternal life, but also the spiritual life in Christ, which here we have; not as to the essence and being of it, which is already enjoyed by believers, but as to the joy, comfort, and vigor of it: as the apostle says in another case, “now I live if ye stand fast” (1 Thess. 3:8)—“Now my life will do me good; I shall have joy and comfort with my life”—“You shall live, lead a good, vigorous, comfortable, spiritual life while you are here, and obtain eternal life hereafter.”
Supposing what was said before of the connection between mortification and eternal life, as of means and end, I shall add only, as a second motive to the duty prescribed, that:
The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life
depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.
Notes:
- I.e., carrying out; execution.
- I.e., figure of speech in which one term is substituted for another term closely associated with it. For example, we might say “wheels” to refer to an automobile, “Crown” to refer to a monarchy, or “Washington” to refer to the U.S. government.
- I.e., a figure of speech (in which, among other uses, the part stands for the whole or the whole stands for the part). In this case, Owen is suggesting that “body” stands for the whole person.
- Gk. “actions, or practices.”/li>
- Matt. 3:10.
- Gk. “works of the body.”
- Gk. “mind of the flesh.” Novum Testamentum Graece reads, φρόνημα. Novum Testamentum Graece, ed. B. Aland et al., 28th rev. ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012); hereafter cited as NA28.
- NA28 reads, παθήμασιν.
- NA28 reads, ἐπιθυμίαις.
- I.e., intention.
This article is adapted from Sin and Temptation (Volume 15) by John Owen.
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