John Owen famously once said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” That is, we must actively, aggressively, and intentionally seek to kill our sin because sin is actively, aggressively, and intentionally trying to kill us. Since our beginnings, in fact, God has warned us about the ways sin seeks to destroy us, reminding us that “sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you…” (Genesis 4:7).
What, then, does killing sin mean? And, more importantly, what are the tools at our disposal to mortify or subdue our sin?
To answer that question, we first need to understand what is going on when we talk about killing sin, which goes by the theological name “sanctification.” Among the many benefits of his redemptive work, Christ accomplishes our sanctification, and no pursuit of mortifying sin is possible without a proper view of our sanctification. How, then, should we think about sanctification?
This aspect of sanctification is known as definitive sanctification and speaks of sin losing its power over us. We are already sanctified, pure, clean, and righteous in Jesus. When speaking to the Corinthian church—a church ravaged by the ongoing presence of some wild sin—Paul says, “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). That is, even with ongoing sin present, they were nonetheless termed “sanctified.”
However, though sanctification can be understood as definitive, there are also progressive or ongoing aspects of sanctification. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC) question 35 notes that sanctification is a work of God’s free grace, that we are now “…enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” In other words, our status as those who are sanctified empowers us to be a people being sanctified through the ongoing death of our sin and an ongoing commitment to righteousness. This is typically called progressive sanctification.
Remembering our status with Christ and understanding the power he gives us to pursue faithfulness is a fundamental dynamic to living the Christian life. We see this dynamic with Israel, when God gives them the Ten Commandments. Before giving Israel the law they were to obey, God first reminds them, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery…” Therefore, “obey these commands.” Their status established their ability and motivation to obey. As a side note, most other world religions invert this structure. Many would assume God to say, “obey these commands, and then I will set you free.” The Christian God, however, says, “Because I have set you free, here are the commands I desire you obey.”
We see this in the New Testament as well. One of my favorite presentations of this dynamic is from Ephesians and the powerful word “therefore” in 4:1. I remember my preacher grandfather saying, “Whenever you see a therefore, you better find out what it’s there for.” What is it there for? Well, in the first three chapters, Paul has reminded the Ephesians of all that God has accomplished for them in Christ. He makes abundantly clear their status. But then, after presenting the beauty of the gospel, he says, “Therefore,” remembering all that Christ has done, “I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Only after the gospel message is firmly in place does he then go on to address numerous aspects of a faithful Christian life. Ultimately, if we do not remember the definitive sanctification accomplished in Jesus for us, we will lack the foundation for progressive sanctification.
Theologians often talk about the work of God in our lives as either synergistic or monergistic. In monergistic works, God does everything; we are completely passive. In synergistic works, on the other hand, we cooperate with him in the work of grace in our lives. The ongoing work of progressive sanctification is most definitely synergistic. That is, the Christian life is empowered by the ongoing work of the Spirit and achieved through our commitment to joining that ongoing work.
In his Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck helpfully summarizes this work of sanctification this way,
God’s people are holy and called to be holy, set apart by God to be conformed to his Son and to live to his glory. The gift is also a call to active continued repentance on the part of the Christian. We are to die to sin and “present our members as instruments of righteousness.” We are grafted into Christ the vine and also told that we must bear fruit. This duality has been misunderstood by nomists and antinomians alike. The former insist that good works are necessary conditions for salvation; the latter are indifferent to repentance, prayer for forgiveness, and good works, since Christ’s perfect sacrifice made them superfluous…The presence of good works is a sign of God’s work of grace in a believer.
The tendency of the human heart will take the posture of the nomist who forgets the status we possess in Christ or the antinomian who forgets the demands of the law. But for the Christian, it is our status as one who is sanctified that empowers us to repent and obey and allows us to do so with great joy.
As we are reminded of the ugliness of sin, we are at the same time reminded of the beauty of Christ, a reminder that comes by the work of the Spirit. This reminder and its effects lead to what is often called vivification—a life-giving, joy-filled life before the Lord. Thus, sanctification, through repentance and faith, is simultaneously a sobering and confrontational experience and a joyous and energizing experience.
With these fundamental theological ideas in place, I want to suggest three opportunities for confrontations that I think we often do not take seriously enough in the ongoing work of sanctification. By confrontations, I mean experiences or practices that reveal the areas of our lives that we need to address. While there are likely many things I could add to this list, I find our lack of lament, our comfort with idolatry, and our misunderstanding spiritual warfare, at times, undermine our ability to mortify our sin rightly. Let’s consider each briefly.
Lament is too often lacking in many Western Christian contexts, yet it is a powerful practice that helps us take seriously the effects of sin within and around us. In his book Prophetic Lament, Soong Chan Rah defines lament as “the language of suffering” (22). Lament is a language that gives voice to suffering and injustice. In lament, we do not necessarily seek answers or even the removal of that suffering. Instead, we come with cries of “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13:1) or ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) while nonetheless trusting in the goodness of God. Yet, again, we often do not know this language.
Rah highlights the extent to which lament was a foundational element of Israel’s prayer life yet is often missing from our prayer lives. He highlights the work of Glen Pemberton, who shows that upwards of 40% of the Psalms, Israel’s hymnal, was lament. Yet, when we consider contemporary “hymnals,” lament is far less often seen. When looking at historic hymnals, Pemberton found that only 13% of the Church of Christ and Baptist hymnals and 19% of the Presbyterian hymnals included lament. However, even more telling, Rah examined the top 100 contemporary worship songs and found only 5% could be classified as lament. He also notes that he is very generous in defining lament and that the contemporary percentage is likely even less. The point is that Western Christians, particularly in the U.S., have lost the rhythm of lament (Rah, 22).
While there is much to say about why that is the case, all of which is beyond the scope of this article, briefly, one reason is the influence of Western culture, which too often equates faithfulness with victory and success. The consequence plays out in different ways.
First, some inherited a faith that emphasizes a works-righteousness that assumes that if I can do good things and if I just pray fervently enough, God will bring me victory over my suffering. Too often, that kind of faith devolves into what looks a lot like the pagan priests of Baal on Mount Carmel trying to get their god’s attention so that he might intervene on their behalf. Second, some inherited a faith like that of the disciples in John 9 who, after seeing a blind man, asked Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v.2), assuming the affliction was the result of sin. Third, others flatten suffering to the extent of believing a good God could never allow suffering, and therefore, God, or at least a good God, does not exist. However, every one of these postures is fundamentally anti-Christian and does not take the posture of biblical lament seriously. Lament gives us language for our suffering, points our cries to God, and even questions God amid that suffering, all while recognizing that God is nonetheless sovereign over that suffering and remains good and just in the midst of it.
Embracing the language of lament provides a depth of clarity to our sanctification process. Lament is necessary for sanctification for two reasons: first, at minimum, we ought to be concerned that a central practice of prayer amongst God’s historic people is often completely lacking in many of our rhythms of prayer. Second, lament helps us make distinctions between our sin and the effects of sin. When inevitable suffering comes—and it will come—if we have no theology and language for suffering, we are susceptible to the assumption that suffering is some kind of punishment for our sin or that God must not be a good God. However, when we have rhythms of lament, our faith and trust in the goodness of God, regardless of what might come, deepen our faith and trust that his promises remain. Ironically, vivification flows from a healthy practice of lament.
Idolatry, though, is sadly hardly lacking in many Western (and Eastern) churches. John Calvin just as famously, said, “The human heart is a perpetual idol factory” (Institutes 1.11.8). How do we understand this assertion, especially in modern society? Tim Keller puts it this way,
We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life…What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give…If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol (Keller, Counterfeit Gods, 181–198).
The fact that idolatry is often an overreliance and dependence on an otherwise good thing deeply informs how we should think about sanctification. Every Christian recognizes that the worship of other gods, or turning good things into ultimate things, is sinful. However, since said idols can be good things, we can be completely blind to the idolatry and become far too comfortable with bowing our knee. Further, we can even feel justified in bowing our knee, thinking we are faithful. What does that look like for us? Well, at the risk of getting in trouble, let’s name some idols.
What idols lurk in the contemporary, post-enlightenment, post-post-modern, individualistic, capitalistic, and Western world? Well, first, all of those ideas are not inherently idolatrous. The Enlightenment and elements of humanism have contributed to human flourishing. But idolatry comes when humanism rejects God, and we become our own gods. How about post-modernism? It rightly challenged people to think more critically about the world and the assumptions many inherited. Questioning established norms can be good. But idolatry comes when God-given truth in his Word is traded for self-derived claims of truth or self-oriented pursuits of fulfillment that are at odds with the creator’s intention.
What about capitalism? In many ways, capitalism has established levels of security, advancement, and development like the world has not seen. However, as Bob Goudzwaard has rightly pointed out in his crucial work, Capitalism and Progress, capitalism has a set of standards, namely those of economic growth, technological innovation, and scientific advancement, which supersede all other values. As a result,
The forces of economic growth, technical innovation, and scientific aggrandizement have established themselves in our society as ultimate standards. They need not measure up to society, but society must measure up to them. Progress does not need to adapt itself to the wishes of people and institutions; people and institutions must adapt themselves to the demands of progress (Goudzwaard, 191).
In other words, we live in a society that funnels everything through the lens of growth, innovation, and aggrandizement, and time and time again, we have seen the extent to which that impacts our church models, economic practices, and ignorance around the exploitation at home and abroad to pursue what Goudzwaard calls “ultimate standards.”
These are just some examples, but the list is endless. Some have bowed their knee to a sex-positive culture that perverts sex into merely pleasure, often leading to exploitation (and yes, even consensual sex can be exploitative). Some have bowed their knee to conservativism, rejecting the wisdom of progressives who recognize the need to let go of some perspectives and institutions of the past. Some have bowed their knee to progressivism, rejecting the wisdom conservatives seek to maintain from our perspectives and institutions of the past.
When our idols are confronted, we often respond in one of three ways. And our responses confirm that we are indeed dealing with an idol. First, we may become furious at the insinuation that we are idolaters and, as a result, start to justify certain commitments. Golden calves die hard. Second, we may stop thinking about our own idols in favor of naming the idolatry of others. Third, and prayerfully, we experience genuine conviction. The Lord, in his grace, clarifies where our idolatry lies. Sanctification, putting to death our sin, requires an ongoing admission of our idols. Lest we be deceived, doing so will often require asking the Spirit to show how the otherwise good things in our lives have become functional gods.
Finally, pretty much everyone misunderstands spiritual warfare. Throughout my vocational history, I have been both an ordained Pentecostal pastor and an ordained Presbyterian pastor. For many, these are two ends of a spectrum. However, my wife and I joke that we will forever be Presbycostals. While there are many interesting aspects of our theological journey, the notion of spiritual warfare is one of them.
Over my time, I have found one stream of Christian thought is tempted to give too much credit to the evil forces set against us. The other, though they have to admit we wrestle not against principalities and powers, nonetheless gives too little credit to the power and influence of evil forces. To avoid being guilty of caricaturing, I will let you decide who is who. But acknowledging spiritual warfare and the presence of a real spiritual enemy who has set his face against us is crucial to sanctification and the mortification of sin. On the one hand, we cannot blame our decision to sin on demonic forces. Satan didn’t make you do it. However, on the other hand, the temptations and lies of Satan pervade. What, then, does spiritual warfare look like?
First, we need to recognize the ways the enemy works. Since the beginning, the evil one has schemed to put into question the character, wisdom, and commands of God. We see this in Genesis 3. In many ways, his tactic remains. One imaginative example of how the evil one works is C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. I won’t rehash the whole book, but the summary is simply that a senior demon, Screwtape, is mentoring a younger demon, Wormwood, on how to deceive humanity. The real insight of the fictional work is that spiritual warfare—though it can look like the extraordinary experiences of possessions, witchcraft, and the like—often looks like everyday life. As a result, our spiritual warfare ought to reflect the normalness of that reality.
Second, and relatedly, this is exactly what Paul seems to be getting at in his articulation of spiritual warfare and the full armor of God in Ephesians 6. Over the years, I have had a complete paradigm shift in the way I think about spiritual warfare based on what Paul describes in that passage. First, one cannot miss that Paul is making clear there are real spiritual forces of darkness set against us, our families, our friends, our communities, and every nation of the earth. To reject, downplay, or ignore that reality leaves us susceptible to the schemes of the evil one.
However, he also argues that the battle against those forces is rooted in the knowledge that our king is already victorious, and we are simply growing in greater dependence, reliance, and obedience to him. That means our spiritual battle requires not some spectacular and dramatic display of power (though God, of course, is capable of such a display) but rather is rooted in our commitment to daily, regular, unwavering rhythms of surrender to him.
That is, Paul does not just say we wrestle against spiritual forces of evil, therefore, look for extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit’s power and pursue extraordinary means to combat your great foe. Instead, he says we wrestle against spiritual forces of evil, therefore, remember what is true (v. 14), what is righteous (v. 14), and the gospel that brought peace between you and God (15). Hold fast to the faith you have in our Savior-King (v. 16), for that will extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one (v. 16). Remembering your salvation will protect your mind (v. 17). Know your Word, for it is your sword, and pray with the knowledge the Spirit is with you in those prayers (v. 17–18).
Spiritual warfare happens in what we call the ordinary means of grace. It happens in our regular rhythms of growth. Spiritual warfare happens in prayer and the Word. Spiritual warfare happens in commitment to regular worship together, where Christians regularly remind one another of the hope we possess in our Savior-King. Sanctification and the mortification of sin depend on recognizing how the enemy seeks to undermine our faith. In recognizing the spiritual battle before us, we are then able to engage that battle with the tools afforded to us.
These means of grace, the intentional practices we keep, will determine our spiritual health and our ability to kill sin so that sin does not kill us. Spiritual practices, especially an emphasis on the ordinary means of grace, put us in the best position to grow in our Christian walk. What, then, are the ways in which we put ourselves on the paths of that transforming grace? First, let’s consider the means of grace. Second, while the means of grace are part of our spiritual practices, there are also some tangible practices that emphasize and support those means of grace.
First, what are the means of grace? The means of grace are the primary ways in which God speaks, acts, and confers his grace. The WSC question 88 notes that these means of grace are “The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption, are his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.” In other words, Scripture and the preaching of the Word, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and prayer are the primary ways in which God meets us.
I cannot overstate the importance of this idea because, at our foundation, a Christian experiencing ongoing sanctification will have the ordinary means of grace present in their life. There are connected practices and experiences that come and are even necessary, but if these ordinary means are not present, we lack the primary ways that God is going to meet us and speak to us. God speaks to us in his Word, we respond to him in prayer, we enter the community of faith in baptism, and feast on and with Christ in the Lord’s Supper. And lest we become overly centered on extraordinary experiences as a measure of spiritual growth, the ordinary means of grace remind us that God does not sustain or grow us through the extraordinary.
I think about this all the time as a preacher. As a pastor who is preaching week in and week out, as others have pointed out, it is helpful to think about the sermon like a meal. Many of us can think about meals that changed our lives, blew us away, and made us fall in love with food. But we also know those meals are few and far between. Those meals are not what sustain us, nor are they regular, and they shouldn’t be. Instead, what really sustains us are the ordinary meals of grace, so to speak. What sustains and grows me are meals I likely do not think too much about and maybe even forget about by the next day. These meals are simple yet sustaining. Now and then, I will have a meal that blows me away, and when I do, I am grateful. But in the regular rhythms of life, the basics keep me alive. As a preacher, I must remember that I cannot create a Michelin-starred experience for my congregation every Sunday. Instead, all I can do is my best to ensure the sermon, their meal, is healthy, balanced, and simple enough to sustain them. Someone who is growing in grace, putting to death sin, and maturing in faith is someone committed to the ordinary means of grace.
Additionally, we cannot understand these ordinary means of grace without also understanding the importance of the church. Worship and commitment to a local church with qualified elders overseeing a congregation is foundational to proper engagement with the means of grace. Something we say every time our church has membership vows is that the Bible really does not have categories for Christians who are not part of local congregations. It is always assumed that Christians are gathering to be heard and be taught the Word of God. The Gospel accounts, the letters of Paul, Peter, John, and others, were circulated to local congregations. Christians are commanded to submit to qualified elders. All the commands about worship in places like Psalm 95 are corporate, not individual calls. Further, consider all the one-anothering passages that assume Christians are in a covenant relationship with one another.
I know there are various traditions that have various opinions on things like church membership, and I certainly want to be conscious of that. But though there are good and healthy debates about the nature of spiritual authority, what constitutes membership, etc., what should not be debated is the validity of the notion that faithfulness is just Jesus, my Bible, and me. There is no biblical grounding for the normality of that posture to Christian faithfulness.
Second, and briefly, from these ordinary means of grace flow practices that support and undergird our ongoing sanctification. One way to think about it is through the creation of a rule of life. A “rule of life”, from the Latin word for trellis, is an intentional structure we give to our lives to maintain healthy rhythms and boundaries so that we can grow upward (in our relationship with God) and outward (in our mission to the world) with greater fruit. These practices include reading Scripture, prayer, confession, fasting, generosity, sabbath, hospitality, and many others. If we are not intentionally building into our rhythms of life practices, establishing a rule of life, the busyness of life, and even the work of the evil one will crowd out these practices, undermining our growth.
In Book 3 of his Institutes, which was, in part, published as a separate pamphlet called On the Christian Life, Calvin emphasizes a key dynamic to the Christian life that seems fitting to close. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 6, he emphasizes the extent to which we are not our own but are the Lord’s. He said,
We are not our own but the Lord’s, it is clear what error we should avoid and to what end we should direct all the activity of our lives. We are not our own; therefore, let neither our reason nor our will hold sovereignty over our plans and deeds. We are not our own; and therefore, let us not make this our goal, that we seek what is advantageous for us according to the flesh. We are not our own; therefore, as far as possible, let us forget ourselves and everything that is ours.
On the contrary, We are God’s; therefore, let us live and die for him. We are God’s; therefore, let his wisdom and will govern all our actions. We are God’s; thus, let every part of our life strive for him as our only authentic purpose. Oh, how greatly has that person profited who, when he has been taught that he is not his own, has taken away dominion in control from his own reason in order to grant it to God! You see, since the plague that is most effective in destroying human beings is when we submit to ourselves, there is one safe haven of salvation: to neither know nor will anything on our own but simply to follow the lord as he leads. (Calvin, On the Christian Life, 14)
Reminiscent of Exodus 20 and the book of Ephesians (and many other places), remembering who we are in Christ empowers our ability to live faithfully. If we are to be killing sin, we must remember our status in Christ. We belong to the Lord, body and soul, as the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us. Therefore, we are sanctified as we are being sanctified and, as a result, can trust the Lord in all things, worship him alone, thwart the schemes of the enemy, and do so with the ordinary means God has provided. May the Spirit of God make it so amongst us!