Tag: Indwelling Sin in Believers

09/19/17

Aversion to Holiness

© Jorge Casais | 123rf.com

In chapter four of Indwelling Sin in Believers, John Owen began to unpack how indwelling sin is enmity against God. Here in chapter five, he described how this enmity manifests itself as aversation—turning from God and all things associated with God in disgust. Aversation is an older term, with a more intense sense of disgust than the similar modern term aversion. A Biblical example of aversation would be the enmity between the Jews and Samaritans.

The Samaritans believed they were the true descendents of Israel and the keepers of the Torah. During New Testament times, their main religious site was Mount Gerizim. They believed that the Jewish temple and priesthood were illegitimate. They took their name from the Hebrew phrase “keeper of the law.” They believed Mount Gerizim was where both the patriarchs and the Israelites (when they first arrived in Canaan) made sacrifices. The Samaritan version of the Pentateuch also said God’s people should worship him in Shechem, making worship in Jerusalem illegitimate. They also believed that their messiah would be a prophet like Moses.

Needless to say, this made the Jews and Samaritans religious, ethnic and cultural enemies with a strong aversation for one another. This context lays the foundation for the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in chapter four of the gospel of John. John Owen said there is an aversation in the law of sin against everything of God. All reluctance towards religious practices designed to attain communion with God, all carnality and religious formality springs from this root. “It will allow an outward, bodily presence unto the worship of God, wherein it is not concerned, but it keeps the heart quite away.”

Some people pretend they have no aversation towards the things of God. Rather, they believe they have liberty or freedom from these duties. Owen thought this pretended liberty came from “ignorance of the true state and condition of their own souls.” or through a lack of faith and interest in Christ. “It may be, whatever duties of worship or obedience such persons perform, they may, through want of faith and an interest in Christ, have no communion with them; and if so, sin will make but little opposition unto them therein.” It can often be found in the emotions, where there is a secret loathing about any “close or cordial dealing with God.”

Even when convictions, sense of duty, dear and real esteem of God and communion with him, have carried the soul into its closet, yet if there be not the vigour and power of a spiritual life constantly at work, there will be a secret loathness in them unto duty; yea, sometimes there will be a violent inclination to the contrary, so that the soul had rather do any thing, embrace any diversion, though it wound itself thereby, than vigorously apply itself unto that which in the inward man it breathes after. It is weary before it begins, and says, “When will the work be over?”

Aversation is also found in the mind. When we pray we should be able to  “fill our mouths with arguments” to God (Job 23:4). Our minds should be ready to plead for the considerations that prevail with God. What if it starts, but then wanders or fades—“all from this secret aversation unto communion with God, which proceeds from the law of indwelling sin.” Others are so occupied with family or public duties that they have little time for private prayer. This is the source of many foolish opinions and the beginning of many who fall away from God.

Finding this aversation in their minds and affections from closeness and constancy in private spiritual duties, not knowing how to conquer and prevail against these difficulties through Him who enables us, they have at first been subdued to a neglect of them, first partial, then total, until, having lost all conscience of them, they have had a door opened unto all sin and licentiousness, and so to a full and utter apostasy.

Owen said he was convinced that among believers, there were two common ways of backsliding. The first was from a great or notorious sin that bloodied their consciences, tainted their affections or and intercepted all delight of having anything more to do with God. The second was from weariness in contending against “the powerful aversation, which they found in themselves.” The reason for all of this is, that giving way to the law of sin in the least is giving strength to it. Leaving it alone lets it grow. Failure to conquer it, is to be conquered by it.

The best way to prevent the fruits and effects of this aversation is to stay in a universally holy frame of mind. It is impossible to keep the heart in a holy frame of mind for one duty, unless it is done for all of them. “A constant, even frame and temper in all duties, in all ways, is the only preservative for any one way.” Strive to prevent the beginnings of this aversation. Guard against temptations; oppose them. Strive to possess your mind with the beauty and excellency of spiritual things, and so this cursed aversation of sin will be weakened.

As an aside, Owen suggested his readers develop a humble awareness of the presence of this aversation to spiritualness present in our nature. If someone were to recognize its efficacy, what consideration can, be more powerful, to bring them unto humbly walking with God?” Since God delights to dwell with individuals who are “of an humble and contrite spirit,” so it can be effective in weakening the remaining sin within us.

In closing the chapter, Owen urged that we labor to occupy our minds with the beauty and excellency of spiritual things, so that “this cursed aversation of sin” can be weakened. “Let, then, the soul labour to acquaint itself with the spiritual beauty of obedience, of communion with God, and of all duties of immediate approach to him, that it may be filled with delight in them.”

06/23/17

Total War Against Sin

Christian fighting against Apollyon; Wiki image of stained glass in Robin Chapel

The sense of total war, and the carnage it generates, was graphically portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie Hacksaw Ridge. And yet the movie’s hero was a man who did not fire a shot against his enemy. He trusted in God to deliver him. Puritan writers regularly used the imagery of warfare to describe our battle against the indwelling sin of our flesh. But John Owen intensified that imagery in his work Indwelling Sin, when he clearly portrayed our fight against sin as total war against the indwelling sin of our flesh.

In chapter four of Indwelling Sin, Owen said he would limit his reflections on the nature of indwelling sin to what Paul said in Romans 8:7, namely that the carnal mind (or the mind that is set on the flesh, as in the ESV) is hostile to God. After quoting the Greek phrase for “carnal mind”, Owen said this fleshly wisdom was the same as “the law of sin.”  More than just an enemy of God, this mindset is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, because it cannot.  Owen said this enmity signifies there is no possibility for reconciliation.

There can be reconciliation with an enemy of God, as Paul wrote in Romans 5:10: “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” But where there is enmity, there can be no reconciliation. As Owen said: “There is no way to deal with any enmity whatever but by its abolition or destruction.” The only way to reconcile enemies is to first destroy the enmity that exists between them, which Christ did by his death (Ephesians 2:15).  And if even the smallest amount remains, it is still enmity; it is still poison.

Every spark of fire is still fire, and it will burn. The apostle Paul, who may have made as great a progress in subduing his flesh as any one on earth, still cried out for deliverance: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) Mortification of the flesh will abate its force, but cannot change its nature. While grace changes the nature of a person, nothing can change the nature of sin. “Whatever effect be wrought upon it, there is no effect wrought in it, but that it is enmity still, sin still.”

God is love (1 John 4:8) and against this God we carry enmity all out days—an enmity that is incapable of cure or reconciliation. “Destroyed it may be, it shall be, but cured it cannot be.” When it is enmity against which a person struggles, nothing can be expected but continual fighting until one or the other is destroyed. “If it be not overcome and destroyed, it will overcome and destroy the soul.”

Here lies its power: there is never a truce or true peace. “It is never quiet, conquering nor conquered.” Some people try to quiet their corruptions by trying to satisfy them—to make provisions for their flesh by gratifying its desires (Romans 13:14). Yet this is but adding fuel to the fire. All the fuel in the world, everything that is combustible will not satisfy it, but will only increase it. So it is with trying to satisfy sin by sinning. You cannot bargain with a fire to only burn so much; you have to quench it.

It is so with this indwelling sin: whether it violently tumultuate [create great emotional or mental agitation], as it will do on provocations and temptations, it will be outrageous in the soul; or whether it seem to be pleased and contented, to be satisfied, all is one, there is no peace, no rest to be had with it or by it. Had it, then, been of any other nature, some other way might have been fixed on; but seeing it consists in enmity, all the relief the soul hath must lie in its ruin.

Although Scripture variously portrays this enmity as our enemy, it is ultimately “enmity against God.” Peter urged us to abstain from the passions of the flesh that war against our soul (1 Peter 2:11). Paul said the desires of the flesh and Spirit are opposed to one another to keep us from doing what we want to do in the flesh (Galatians 5:17). “It fights against the Spirit, or the spiritual principle that is in us, to conquer it; it fights against our souls, to destroy them.” Its nature and ultimate aim is to oppose God.

This is our state and condition: All the opposition that ariseth in us unto any thing that is spiritually good, whether it be from darkness in the mind, or aversation in the will, or sloth in the affections, all the secret arguings and reasonings that are in the soul in pursuit of them, the direct object of them is God himself. The enmity lies against him; which consideration surely should influence us to a perpetual, constant watchfulness over ourselves.

Every sin is opposition to God—an attempt to cast off His yoke. It is an attempt to break off the dependence the creature should have on the Creator. So here we may reflect back on the Genesis account of the Fall, where humankind sought to be like God, independently knowing what was good and what was evil (Genesis 3:5). The carnal mind is hostile to God because it will not subject itself to the will of God. “The soul wherein it is may be subject to the law of God; but this law of sin sets up in contrariety unto it, and will not be in subjection.” It is absolute and universal to all of God and all of the soul.

If there were anything of God that sin was not in enmity against, the soul could have a shelter and retreat there. But enmity lies against God himself. It is against everything that is of God—his nature, properties, mind or will, his law or gospel. The nearer anything is to God, the greater is enmity against it. “That which hath most of God hath most of its opposition.” The more spirituality and holiness is in a thing, the greater is the enmity against it.

Enmity is also universally against the soul. If this law of sin had been content to subdue one faculty of the soul, but leave another at liberty, “it might possibly have been with more ease opposed or subdued.” But when Christ comes with his spiritual power to the soul, he can find no quiet landing place. “He can set foot on no ground but what he must fight for and conquer.”

Everything is secured against him—the mind, the will and emotions. And when grace had made it’s landing, yet sin is entrenched from coast to coast. Had there been anything in the soul at perfect freedom and liberty, perhaps a stand to drive enmity out could be made. But it is universal and makes war throughout the soul.

The mind hath its own darkness and vanity to wrestle with,—the will its own stubbornness, obstinacy, and perverseness; every affection its own frowardness and aversation from God, and its sensuality, to deal withal: so that one cannot yield relief unto another as they ought; they have, as it were, their hands full at home. Hence it is that our knowledge is imperfect, our obedience weak, love not unmixed, fear not pure, delight not free and noble.

In Pilgrim’s Progress there is a battle between the pilgrim Christian and Apollyon that captured this sense of total war described by Owen. The narrator, who “dreamed the dream” of Christian’s journey had this to say:

In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the fight—he spake life a dragon; and on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian’s heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw.

A digital copy of Owen’s work, Indwelling Sin in Believers, is available here.

04/21/17

An Evil Treasure

 

© Artem Mazunov | 123rf.com

In the third chapter of Indwelling Sin in Believers by John Owen, he moved on from describing how indwelling sin was a law to where it is located, what are its properties and how it operates.  First, Owen noted that everywhere in Scripture indwelling sin is said to have its “especial residence” in the heart. Citing Matthew 15:19, he listed how evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts and other sinful actions proceed from the heart. There are many outward temptations that excite and stir up these evils, but they merely open the vessel and let out what was already laid up and stored there. “The root, rise, and spring of all these things is in the heart. Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.”

From the very beginning, God saw that every intention of the human heart was “only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). In Luke 6:45, Jesus referred to the evil treasure of the heart, which Owen said was “the prevailing principle of moral actions” in humanity. Note how the beginning of the verse also points to “the good treasure of the heart,” referring to the grace received from our Savior. This good treasure will never be exhausted. The more we draw out of this treasure, the more it grows! And their indwelling sin decreases. However, the more we exert and manifest the fruit of our lusts, the more they are increased in us. “It feeds upon itself, swallows up its own poison, and grows thereby.”

The more men sin, the more are they inclined unto sin. It is from the deceitfulness of this law of sin, whereof we shall speak afterward at large, that men persuade themselves that by this or that particular sin they shall so satisfy their lusts as that they shall need to sin no more. Every sin increaseth the principle, and fortifieth the habit of sinning. It is an evil treasure that increaseth by doing evil. And where doth this treasure lie? It is in the heart; there it is laid up, there it is kept in safety. All the men in the world, all the angels in heaven, cannot dispossess a man of this treasure, it is so safely stored in the heart.

As an aside Owen commented how the heart in Scripture has various meanings. Sometimes it refers to the mind and understanding; sometimes to the will, sometimes the emotions (or affections); and sometimes to the whole soul. It typically refers to the whole soul and all its faculties, but not always. However all these faculties act together as one principle when doing good or evil.

This is the subject, the seat, the dwelling-place of this law of sin,—the heart; as it is the entire principle of moral operations, of doing good or evil, as out of it proceed good or evil. Here dwells our enemy; this is the fort, the citadel of this tyrant, where it maintains a rebellion against God all our days. Sometimes it hath more strength, and consequently more success; sometimes less of the one and of the other; but it is always in rebellion whilst we live.

The properties of the heart include that it is unsearchable, except by the Lord (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Can anyone know the perfect measure of their own light and darkness? “We fight with an enemy whose secret strength we cannot discover.” Often we think sin is quite ruined, but after awhile we find it was merely out of sight. It has places to hide in an unsearchable heart where we cannot enter. We might persuade ourselves that all is well, when sin is safely hidden in the hidden darkness of our mind, or the will’s indisposition, or the disorder and carnality of the emotions.

The best of our wisdom is but to watch its first appearances, to catch its first under-earth heavings and workings, and to set ourselves in opposition to them; for to follow it into the secret corners of the heart, that we cannot do.

Not only is the heart unsearchable, it is also deceitful. The deceit we see in the world around us is nothing in comparison to the deceit in our hearts towards ourselves. “Now, incomparable deceitfulness, added to unsearchableness, gives a great addition and increase of strength to the law of sin, upon the account of its seat and subject.” Owen wants us to be clear that he speaks here of the deceitfulness of the heart, and not of sin itself. And this deceitfulness of the heart has two advantages in harboring sin.

First, it abounds in contradictions, so there is not any constant rule by which it proceeds. “The frame of the heart is ready to contradict itself every moment.” Whenever you think you have everything under control, you quickly discover it is “quite otherwise.” So no one knows what to expect from it. This is because of sin working upon all the faculties of the heart. Sometimes the mind is subjected to God’s will, as are the emotions, and the will is ready for its duty. But if the emotions rebel or an obstinate will arises and prevails, everything is changed.

This, I say, makes the heart deceitful above all things: it agrees not at all in itself, is not constant to itself, hath no order that it is constant unto, is under no certain conduct that is stable; but, if I may so say, hath a rotation in itself, where ofttimes the feet lead and guide the whole.

Second, its deceit lies in the initial appearance of things. Sometimes our emotions are moved and “the whole heart appears in a fair frame; all promiseth to be well.” But in a little while, the whole frame is changed—the mind was not affected or turned; the emotions played their part at first, and then wandered off; and all the fair promises of the heart left with them. Add this deceitfulness to the previously mentioned unsearchableness, and we find that the difficulty of dealing with sin is exceedingly increased. Who can cope with a deceived and unsearchable heart? Particularly since it employs all its deceits in the service of sin.

All the disorder that is in the heart, all its false promises and fair appearances, promote the interest and advantages of sin. Hence God cautions the people to look to it, lest their own hearts should entice and deceive them.

Therefore it is not for nothing that the Lord says in Jeremiah 17:9 that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.” So consider these things. First, never think that your work in contending against sin is at an end. It hides within the unsearchable places of our heart. So when we think we have thoroughly won, there is some reserve of sin remaining that we missed. Second, since our heart is changeable and deceitful, we should be perpetually watchful against it. Against an adversary that deals in deceit and treachery, only perpetual watchfulness will give you security. Third and finally, commit the whole matter to Him who can search and know your heart (Jeremiah 17:10). For there is no treacherous corner in your heart that He cannot search to its uttermost.

A digital copy of Owen’s work, Indwelling Sin in Believers, is available here.

12/6/16

Is It Well with Your Soul?

© krsmanovic | stockfresh.com
© krsmanovic | stockfresh.com

Sometimes Puritan authors seem to put an entire introduction into their book titles. John Owen’s work, Indwelling Sin in Believers, is a good example of this tendency. It’s original title was: “The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers; Together with the Way of Its Working and Means of Prevention, Opened, Evinced, and Applied: With a Resolution of Sundry Casts of Conscience Thereunto Appertaining.” In chapter two Owen discusses why and how indwelling sin is a law—“an inward effective principle.”

In chapter one, Owen argued why he sees Paul contemplating the existence of indwelling sin after his conversion in Romans 7. “Your enemy is not only upon you, as on Samson of old, but is in you also.” In chapter two Owen described why indwelling sin is properly understood in general to be a law, and then elaborated what is “peculiar and proper” in such a law.

The first thing that underlies any law is dominion. Owen pointed to Romans 7:1, where Paul said the law was binding (has dominion) over an individual. He suggested there are two aspects to this dominion. There is a moral authoritative dominion, and there is a real effective dominion. The first is an affection of the law of God; the second is an affection of the law of sin. Although the law of sin does not have any rightful moral dominion or authority over any person, “it hath that which is equivalent unto it.”  Owen sees indwelling sin as a usurper to the throne of grace that God intended for humanity when He made us in His image.

Because of the work of Christ, indwelling sin has lost its complete dominion over believers. Nevertheless, it still is a law in them. “But even in them it is a law still; though not a law unto them, yet, as was said, it is a law in them.” It does not have complete dominion, yet it will act with power and bind us with regard to some things. “Though it be weakened, yet its nature is not changed.”

Laws also have the ability to goad those who oppose it to obey what it requires through reward and punishment. All laws influence our minds through the rewards and punishments that accompany them. “The pleasures of sin are the rewards of sin;” ones that many people lose their souls to obtain. Owen sees the discussion of Moses in Hebrews 11 as an example of the contest in the minds of believers between the law of sin and the law of grace. Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, rejecting the pleasures that went along with it. “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:26).

The motive on the part of the law of sin, wherewith it sought to draw him over, and wherewith it prevails on the most, was the reward that it proposed unto him,—namely, that he should have the present enjoyment of the pleasures of sin. By this it contended against the reward annexed unto the law of grace, called “the recompense of reward.”

The law of sin also has punishment for those who would oppose it, or who attempt to “cast off its yoke.” Whatever the evil, trouble, or danger that exists in the world when someone attempts to obey the gospel—whatever the hardships someone seeking to mortify their flesh faces—“sin makes use of.” Owen thought it was difficult to discern which approach was more effective, the pretended rewards or the pretended punishments of indwelling sin. But one thing was certain, whether it was by the promises of pleasures or the threats of temporal evils or the loss of pleasure, it has a great effect on the minds of believers and unbelievers alike.

Owen then turned to consider what was “peculiar and proper” in the law of sin.  He again asserted it is not an outward, written law. Such a law cannot compete with “an inbred, working, impelling urging” one. An inbred law is necessarily effectual. To illustrate his point, he pointed to how the law of God was at first naturally inbred to humanity. It had power to enable obedience, even to make this obedience easy and pleasant. Although this law (with regard to its rule and dominion) has been cast out of the soul, there are yet sparks that remain which are very powerful and effectual (Romans 2:14-15).

God renewed this law, writing it on tablets of stone. He knew as an outward, written law it could not enable us to perform the things it required. It would have to again become internal. It would have to turn from an outward moral rule into a real, inward principle. So God made His law internal again, implanting it in our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-33). The written law, He knew, would not do it. “Mercies and deliverances from distress will not effect it; trials and afflictions will not accomplish it.” Therefore He turned the written law into “an internal living principle.”

The same applies to sin. “It is now an indwelling law.” It is in us. The flesh is its seat and throne. From this, we can see that it has some advantages for increasing its strength and furthering its power. It always abides in the soul. It is never absent. It is always ready to apply itself to every end and purpose that it serves. Because it is an indwelling law, it can easily apply itself with great ease.

It needs no doors to be opened unto it; it needs no engines to work by. . . . Hence it is easy for it to insinuate itself into all that we do, and to hinder all that is good, and to further all sin and wickedness. It hath an intimacy, an inwardness with the soul; and therefore, in all that we do, doth easily beset us. It possesseth those very faculties of the soul whereby we must do what we do, whatever it be, good or evil. Now, all these advantages it hath as it is a law, as an indwelling law, which manifests its power and efficacy. It is always resident in the soul, it puts itself upon all its actings, and that with easiness and facility.

This is the law Paul said he found within him. This is what he said remains even in believers. Owen said that from what he has described, if such a law is in believers, it is their duty to discover it. Upon this one hinge, finding and experiencing the law of sin, turns the whole course of our lives. Ignorance of it breeds “senselessness, carelessness, sloth, security, and pride.” All of this the Lord abhors. The eruptions of great, open scandalous sins are the result of a failure to consider this law. “Inquire, then, how it is with your souls.”

What do you find of this law? What experience have you of its power and efficacy? Do you find it dwelling in you, always present with you, exciting itself, or putting forth its poison with facility and easiness at all times, in all your duties, “when you would do good?” What humiliation, what self-abasement, what intenseness in prayer, what diligence, what watchfulness, doth this call for at your hands! What spiritual wisdom do you stand in need of! What supplies of grace, what assistance of the Holy Ghost, will be hence also discovered! I fear we have few of us a diligence proportionable to our danger.

Simply put, is it well with your soul?

A digital copy of Owen’s work, Indwelling Sin in Believers, is available here.

11/4/16

Who Will Deliver Me?

© albund | stockfresh.com
© albund | stockfresh.com

The last half of the seventh chapter of Romans (7:13-25) has been a matter of theological debate from the time of the early church. Is Paul describing himself while under the law, before salvation or afterwards—his condition under the grace of salvation? The Puritan author John Owen can shed some light on the passage in his seminal work, Indwelling Sin in Believers. In the first chapter of Indwelling Sin, Owen acknowledged the dispute over how to understand the passage, but quickly declared the apostle was describing the condition of the regenerate person, “with respect to the remaining power of indwelling sin.” As if the title wasn’t a dead giveaway.

Clear thinking on this passage is essential, for we live in a time where there are renewed disputes about how to understand the doctrine of original sin. But before turning to Owen’s work, I want to note some of the biblical arguments for both positions. In his New American Commentary: Romans, Robert Mounce said that both positions could be persuasively argued. In support of Paul writing of his experience before conversion in 7:13-25 are several phrases throughout the passage. Paul said he was “sold under sin” (v. 14). He knew that nothing good dwelt in him (v. 18). He was “captive to the law of sin” (v. 23) and a wretched man in need of deliverance (v. 24).

The dramatic contrast of chapter seven with the victory of chapter eight in Romans is further evidence to argue for a preconversion setting. In chapter seven Paul was crying out for deliverance. In chapter eight, he said a believer was set free from the law of sin and death (v. 8:2) and controlled by the Spirit of God (v. 8:9). Another strong argument for Paul describing his spiritual experience before conversion in chapter seven is the “quagmire of impotence and misery” described there. “How could this be the abundant life that Jesus came to bring (John 10:10)?”

On the other hand, throughout the entire passage (7:13-25) Paul used the present tense—over twenty times. For example, in verse fifteen Paul said: “I do not understand my own actions.” If he was speaking of his life before conversion, would he not have said something like: “I don’t understand what I did.” Then there are statements that seem incompatible with the experience of a nonbeliever, as in verse 22: “For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.” Earlier, in Romans Paul said about those who were outside of Christ although they knew God, they sought to suppress the truth of God (1:18-21). There was no one who was righteous, who seeks God (3:10-12).

Mounce said he thought Paul was revealing his difficulty “meeting the radical demands of the Christian faith.” He used his own experience to describe the inevitability of spiritual defeat when a believer fails to trust in Christ for victory over their indwelling sin. Recognizing our inability to live up to our desire to do what is right (chapter 7), we know that in Christ, we are more than conquerors (chapter 8). “Sanctification is a gradual process that repeatedly takes the believer through this recurring sequence of failure through dependency upon self to triumph through the indwelling Spirit.”

Douglas Moo pointed out that most of the early church fathers thought the verses described a preconversion Paul. However, Augustine had a change of heart that seems to have been at least partly due to his battle with Pelagius over the freedom of the will. We see this in his work, A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. Augustine wrote this treatise in response to two letters he received from Pope Boniface. One was from Julian and the other from eighteen bishops, including Julian. The letters challenged the catholic faith and attacked Augustine personally. In chapter 22 of book one, Augustine said he once thought that Paul was describing a man under the law (preconversion).

But afterwards I was constrained to give up the idea by those words where he says, “Now, then, it is no more I that do it.” For to this belongs what he says subsequently also: “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” And because I do not see how a man under the law should say, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man;” since this very delight in good, by which, moreover, he does not consent to evil, not from fear of penalty, but from love of righteousness (for this is meant by “delighting”), can only be attributed to grace.

Almost all of the Reformers, particularly Luther, agreed with Augustine that the passage depicted a believer in Christ.  Writing in the century after the Reformation, Owen was clearly influenced by their thought. His opening declaration was:

It is of indwelling sin, and that in the remainders of it in persons after their conversion to God, with its power, efficacy, and effects that we intend to treat. This also is the great design of the apostle to manifest and evince in chap. 7 of the Epistle to the Romans.

Beginning with verse 7:21, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand,” Owen observed four things. First, Paul referred to indwelling sin as “a law.” Second, he experienced this law within himself. Third, despite the inhabitation of this law of sin, the general framework of believers is to do good. And fourth, when the believer would do good, evil is close at hand.

By calling indwelling sin a law, Owen thought Paul meant it was an inward principle that inclines and presses the believer towards actions agreeable and consistent with its own nature, namely that of sin. It is a law in them, but not to them. “Though its rule be broken, its strength weakened and impaired, its root mortified, yet it is a law still of great force and efficacy. There, where it is least felt, it is most powerful.”

In saying he found this law within him, Paul meant that he found it within himself. It is one thing to know in general there is a law of sin. It is entirely another thing to experience the power of the law of sin within your being. Owen saw this experience of the law of sin is the great preservative of divine truth in the soul. When we are taught it from the Scriptures and then find it exists within us, we truly know it. “He shall find the stream to be strong who swims against it, though he who rolls along with it be insensible of it.”

Notwithstanding the indwelling of the law of sin, the habitual inclination of believers is towards good. “There is, and there is through grace, kept up in believers a constant and ordinarily prevailing will of doing good, notwithstanding the power and efficacy of indwelling sin to the contrary.” Good things come from the good treasures of the heart. But you can only see the evidence of this disposition by its fruits. “A will of doing good without doing good is but pretended.”

Whenever a believer would do good, they should consider two things. While there is a gracious principle residing within the will, there is also a contrary principle inclined towards evil. So then, “Indwelling sin is effectually operative in rebelling and inclining to evil, when the will of doing good is in a particular manner active and inclining unto obedience.”

So this is a description of the person who is a believer and a sinner. And “everyone who is the former is the latter also.” Their actions and operations are implied in these expressions: “When I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (Romans 7:21); and: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17).

Owen then concluded his first chapter for Indwelling Sin as follows:

Awake, therefore, all of you in whose hearts is any thing of the ways of God! Your enemy is not only upon you, as on Samson of old, but is in you also. He is at work, by all ways of force and craft, as we shall see. Would you not dishonour God and his gospel; would you not scandalize the saints and ways of God; would you not wound your consciences and endanger your souls; would you not grieve the good and holy Spirit of God, the author of all your comforts; would you keep your garments undefiled, and escape the woeful temptations and pollutions of the days wherein we live; would you be preserved from the number of the apostates in these latter days;—awake to the consideration of this cursed enemy, which is the spring of all these and innumerable other evils, as also of the ruin of all the souls that perish in this world!

So John Owen and Augustine see Paul speaking of life after conversion. Douglas Moo and others see him remembering his life before conversion. Personally, I find truth in both positions. Experientially, the truth of Owen’s metaphor of swimming against the stream rings true for me. Awareness of the stream of indwelling sin and the strength of its current within me is stronger now than before my conversion. But unconverted, that same stream would have swept me faster downstream, though I was insensible to it. Whether preconversion or postconversion, the answer is still the same: “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

A digital copy of Owen’s work, Indwelling Sin in Believers, is available here.