When I arrived home from my travels last weekend, I told my wife, "I finished Overcoming Sin and Temptation!" (It is the book that I completed, and not the struggle!)
I first read John Owen at full length in The Glory of Christ, and found the experience to be both challenging and richly rewarding. In all honesty, I would say that Overcoming Sin and Temptation is just as rewarding as The Glory of Christ, but (at least for me) more challenging reading.
So why tackle 407 pages of small print, precise language and archaic syntax? Owen has such a clear view of the glory of Christ, the nature of the Gospel, and how to wage war on indwelling sin that on almost every page I was struck with fresh insight. On the very subject Owen notes:
"Growing in notions of truth without answerable practice is another thing that indwelling sin makes use of to bring the souls of believers unto a decay. . . . By this means, from humble, close walking, have many withered into an empty, barren, talking profession. . . . And generally this is so when men content themselves, as was said, with the notions of truth, without laboring after an experience of the power of them in their hearts, and the bringing forth the fruit of them in their lives, on which a decay must needs ensue" (p386).
He did not intend people to read his writings just to get insight; in fact he saw it as potentially destructive! Rather he wrote a theological treatise on how to kill that which can take what is good and make it deadly to us. There are few authors that I have found that so successful navigate the course to faithful doctrine
and faithful practice. It would seem that this very reality is the reason that Owen wrote: there was much true profession without answerable practice, and much falling away, even in the midst of true doctrine:
"This is indwelling sin. So wonderfully powerful, so effectually poisonous it is, that it can bring leanness on the souls of men in the midst of all precious means of growth and flourishing. It may well make us tremble, to see men living under and in the means of the gospel, preaching, praying, administration of the sacraments, and yet grow colder every day than others in zeal for God, more selfish and worldly, even habitually to decline as to the degrees of holiness which they had attained to." (p370)
Those are sober words; and yet Owen is convinced that through the Gospel we are given
everything we need for life and godliness, which he presses on believers with tremendous force.
It is this reality, the insidious power of sin and the glorious power of the Gospel, that makes such difficult reading worthwhile. After reading Owen, I see how trifling vast swaths of contemporary Christian literature (and my own writing!) are. We simply don't have the acquaintance with indwelling sin,
or the Gospel, that Owen had. So, from three centuries ago, he offers timely warnings, and powerful counsel.
I can't escape from commenting on how I read Owen
as a parent. I no longer read simply for myself; all of my reading is for my family as well as myself. I have found no one better (yes, I think he is even more helpful than Jonathan Edwards) for treating the subtleties of our hearts, and applying the gospel remedies. Dozens of times in the course of reading this book (which has been at least six months), I have been corrected in my parenting, though Owen rarely makes direct references to the responsibilities of parents. In fact, I think
someone should apply Owen's theology (which is simply careful, practical, Biblical systematics) to child-rearing. Any takers?
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