The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
John Owen · 1648
The classic case that Christ's death did not merely make salvation possible for everyone, but actually won it for his people.
1656 · Sin & temptation
The Mortification of Sin
“If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” John Owen preached on this one verse, Romans 8:13, to the students of Oxford, and turned the sermons into a short book about the daily fight with sin.
Owen is honest that sin can't simply be managed or hidden: it has to be put to death, and only the Spirit of God can do it. He is just as practical about how: watching for the warning signs, refusing to make peace with it, and filling the mind with Christ. It is the most read of all his books.
- About 3 hours to read (43,000 words)
- A substantial, demanding read
- Anyone struggling with a habit or temptation that keeps coming back.
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Then & Now
See every correction
This book is already in modern English. Compare it with its source and see each small correction the editor made.
The source text
2. It is the work of faith, the peculiar work of faith. Now, if there be a work to be done that will be effected by one only instrument, it is the greatest madness for any to attempt the doing of it p. 38 that hath not that instrument. Now, it is faith that purifies the heart, Acts xv. 9; or, as Peter speaks, we “purify our souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit,” 1 Pet. i. 22; and without it, it will not be done.
Today
2. It is the work of faith, the peculiar work of faith. Now, if there be a work to be done that will be effected by one only instrument, it is the greatest madness for any to attempt the doing of it that hath not that instrument. Now, it is faith that purifies the heart, Acts 15:‸9; or, as Peter speaks, we “purify our souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit,” 1 Pet 1:‸22; and without it, it will not be done.
About this edition
Faithful, and easier to read
Owen's Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers in Goold's text (1850-53), as CCEL gives it, with two lines CCEL dropped and three slips corrected from Goold's printing, the 1668 second edition agreeing.
99.2% of the words are exactly as in the source. The rest are small corrections, each one recorded.
Open Then & Now- First published
- 1656
- Made from
- Goold's Works of John Owen, vol. 6 (1850–53), as kept by CCEL
- Source files
- This edition on GitHub
- Licence
- Public domain (CC0): copy and share freely
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- Tell us
About the authorJohn Owen 1616–1683Oxford scholar, chaplain to Cromwell, and a doctor of the soul.