My Year with Owen #8

I will be sharing some John Owen quotes this year. The first book I'll be reading is Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656).

There will be no mortification unless a man be a believer. ~ John Owen

Unless a man be a believer--that is, one that is truly ingrafted into Christ--he can never mortify any one sin; I do not say, unless he know himself to be so, but unless indeed he be so. ~ John Owen

I have proved that it is the Spirit alone that can mortify sin; he is promised to do it, and all other means without him are empty and vain. How shall he, then, mortify sin that has not the Spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit. ~ John Owen

To kill sin is the work of living men; where men are dead (as all unbelievers, the best of them, are dead), sin is alive, and will live. ~ John Owen

Be sure to get an interest in Christ--if you intend to mortify ay sin without it, it will never be done. ~ John Owen

To break men off particular sins, and not to break their hearts, is to deprive ourselves of advantages in dealing with them. ~ John Owen

Can sin be killed without an interest in the death of Christ, or mortified without the spirit? ~ John Owen

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible