In my meditations on Romans 8, I remembered an old thought, somewhere deep in my mind, that I first heard expressed clearly by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I had to do some digging to find the source. I’d heard him say it before but I was sure I had read it as well. And, after said digging, I now share it:
The problem of life, my friends, is not individual sins but Sin itself, the whole background – the thing itself, the desire process which is the cause of all these local and minor manifestations and eruptions. And that is our problem. We are not here to teach and lecture men and women about individual sins you may control and conquer. You are still a sinner, your nature is still evil and will remain so, until by the death of Christ and the resurrection you are born again and receive a new nature. Our trouble is that our nature is evil; it really does not matter how it may manifest itself.
What is our duty then? Well, it is this. Before we talk to anyone we must find out first whether he believes in Christ or not. Is he a new man? If he is not, then he is still struggling with flesh and blood. Are we to lecture him on his sins and to preach morality to him? No, we are to preach Christ to him and do all we can to convert him, for what he needs is a new nature, a new outlook, a new mind. It is no use our expecting to find figs on a thorn bush, however much we may treat and tend and care for it. The trouble is the root. We are wasting our time and neglecting our duty by preaching morality to a lost world. For what the world needs is life, new life, and it can be found in Christ alone.
For purity, as I say, is something for Christians only, it is impossible to anyone else. Sanctification is impossible without conversion… (Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, pp. 159-160).
From my perspective this is a major issue for the church in the U.S. presently. We have spent so much time hammering on particular sins and all the while the doctrine of Original Sin, the teaching of the sinful nature and condition of man, has languished. We are constantly attacking the fruit while neglecting to attack the root.
The Doctor was indeed a doctor after all. He knew that in the medical field it was not good practice to simply treat symptoms. This is what we do when we spend all of our time lambasting particular sins without getting to the deeper issue of the sinful nature – we’re diagnosing and attacking the particular manifestations, the symptoms, without addressing its cause – that our souls are jacked up. The problem is not simply my sin, the problem is me, the sinner.
Therefore the great issue we face is not simply convincing folks that such and such particular action is wrong, but convincing them that they are sinners by nature, rebels against God, in need of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice, in need of a new nature. And thus the great pastoral dilemma according to John Owen – that the two great problems we face are convincing non-believers that they are sinners, and convincing Christians that sin no longer has dominion over them, stands true.
My job therefore is a lot harder than convincing my gay co-worker, or the abortion doctor, or the wife-beater, or the shoplifter, or the porn addict, that his particular action is wrong. I have to convince him that his whole soul is wrong, that his self is wrong, that his nature is wrong and that he therefore needs a new one.
To focus solely on particular sins, and the need for obedience, rather than the need of a new nature through new birth is to promote false religion and self-righteousness. As John Owen puts it,
This is the work of the Spirit; by him alone is it to be wrought, and by no other power is it to be brought about. Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world (Mortification of Sin in Believers, ch. 1).
Again, Owen says, believers alone are able to mortify sin because of the work of the Spirit in them:
The pressing of this duty immediately on any other [i.e. non-believers] is a notable fruit of that superstition and self-righteousness that the world is full of, — the great work and design of devout men ignorant of the gospel (Ibid).
So our job is not simply to call for repentance concerning specific sins. Rather we must call for a repentance from/of self, for a complete denial of self: that is, for complete rebirth – a putting to death of the old man, which is the root of those sins. For only as they are born anew and united to Christ will they find power to put sin to death. In bypassing justification and demanding sanctification from the world we are, if not denying the gospel, surely forfeiting its promises and power (perhaps that is a denial).
Someone might object to this line of thought: ‘God demands holiness from everyone, we must demand it too.’ I do not deny this, but I would add the following: Why is it that we demand holiness from the homosexual but not from the wealthy business man who lives a fairly upright life but has never prayed in his life and cares for nothing but his own private kingdom? His sin isn’t public enough I guess. Both the homosexual and the self-absorbed upper middle class non-believer who isn’t bothering anyone have this in common: they need to be born again. They both have a sinful nature – that’s the issue. Their particular sins are just manifestations of a common problem – spiritual death.
I was meditating a bit on all this, especially your concluding thoughts, and it made me think: the way that we focus on particular sins is not unlike a person whom in war focuses on the damage done by a particular bomb, or gun, etc, and considers it to be the end-source of their problem. In the small view they are correct, the bomb that razed their home was the source of their now being homeless. And yet, taken from the larger view, the problem isn’t the bomb, but the war that they are involved in. Stop that bomb, and there will be other bombs, or guns, or otherwise to still destroy their home, so long as the war goes on…
To complain about a bomb, while remaining indifferent to the war from which it came is assinine. And yet mankind would often seek to inhibit the wounds of particular sins, and ignore their source: the war of souls. In this way he may gain a part of the world, but forfeit his soul.
That’s a good illustration.
You say John Owen wrote on “…convincing Christians that sin no longer has dominion over them…” Where did he write this? I would like to read what he had to say. I presume the phrase is also a reference to Romans 6.
See here: https://tidesandturning.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/john-owen-being-convinced-of-your-position-before-god/
I don’t have the book in front of me at the moment, but I believe that section of Owen’s works is “A Treatise on the Dominion of Sin and Grace.”