May 16: "Sin No More"?!?! (John 8)

Wouldn’t that be a nice concept?

I mean, Jesus, after doodling on the ground (I really really wonder what he wrote), after sending everyone away, after forgiving a woman caught “in the act” of adultery, says “from now on sin no more.”

Geez.

And I love the imagery of John – the “darkness” that sin is; the tearing of relationship it causes; the removal from goodness that follows it; the blindness and inability surrounding it. And the “light” that is Christ and truth and redemption, piercing through the darkness of the world and my life. But even on my best days when I’m pursuing life in that “light,” I can’t say that I’ve “sinned no more.”

I’ve been reading John Owen this month; the dude is brilliant, perceptive, and gets sin like no other I’ve ever read. I highly recommend Taylor & Kapic’s compellation of Owen’s works, Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Crossway, 2007). Here are some of Owen’s “light scribbles” on the subject of sin – warning: they’re mull-worthy.

On our inability to stop sin by our own power: “Mortification [of sin] from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world” (p.47).

“[Sin] gets strength by temptation. When a suitable temptation falls in line with a lust, it gives it new life, vigor, power, violence, and rage, which it seemed not before to have of be capable of” (p.74).

“Take heed, this is that [which] your lust is working toward – the hardening of the heart, searing of the conscience, blinding of the mind, stupefying of the affections, and deceiving the whole soul” (p.99).

“We speak much of God, can talk of him, his ways, his works, his counsels, all the day long; the truth is, we know very little of him. Our thoughts, our meditations, our expressions of him are low, many of them unworthy of his glory, none of them reaching his perfections” (p.111).

“Grace and corruption lie deep in the hearth; men oftentimes deceive themselves in the search after the one or the other of them. When we give vent to the would, to try what grace is there, corruption comes out; and when we search for corruption, grace appears. So the would is kept in uncertainty; we fail in our trials” (p.153).

What does it mean to “sin no more”? According to Owen – who builds a pretty solid case indeed! – it’s fighting daily; it’s not praying that I won’t be tempted (because I always will be), but rather pursuing God; realizing the work of the Spirit; actively fighting to “mortify” (his word, which I really like: “to be killing”) sin in my lives, every minute of every day. Because if I don’t, Owen’s claim is that sin will be mortifying me: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you” (p.50) is Owen’s premise.

And in doing so, I fall on my face, thanking Christ for sending others away, for forgiving my ongoing, indwelling sin, and for enabling this battle to happen, through God’s grace and Spirit in my live, and through the cross, my only hope that one day, we will sin no more!

“Let faith look on Christ in the gospel as he is set forth dying and crucified for us. Look on him under the weight of our sins, praying, bleeding, dying; bring him in that condition into your heart by faith; apply his blood so shed for your corruptions. Do this daily” (p.138).