John Owen is widely considered the greatest of the Puritan theologians. He entered Oxford University at twelve, earned his MA at nineteen, eventually became Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. There were better preachers among the Puritans, and none of them were theological slouches, but Owen had an extraordinary ability to integrate biblical exegesis, systematic theology, philosophical sophistication, polemics, and intensely practical spiritual theology into one coherent system.
Nowhere is this more evident in his teaching on how to fight habitual sin. Owen wrote several books on the topic. Of Temptation explains how to keep the habit from getting control of you in the moment; Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers explains how to progressively weaken the underlying sinful disposition; and The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers explains why you can sincerely resolve to obey and then find your own heart undermining that resolution. These three together give a remarkably coherent theology of entrenched sinful habits. What follows is a summary of that teaching.
1. First, redefine success: mortification is weakening sin, not achieving instant eradication
Owen explicitly warns against defining mortification as reaching a state in which a particular temptation simply disappears. Complete eradication of indwelling sin does not occur in this life. Rather, mortification means progressively depriving a particular sin of its strength, frequency, spontaneity, and ability to control you.
That distinction matters enormously for entrenched habits. Suppose someone has resolved:
“I am convinced before God that I ought to do X, but when the relevant situation arises I repeatedly do Y.”
Owen would not necessarily regard repeated temptation—or even repeated failure—as evidence that nothing is changing. Better questions are:
Is Y becoming less automatic? Is temptation being detected earlier? Is resistance becoming stronger? Are failures becoming less frequent? Is repentance becoming quicker and less self-protective? Is obedience X becoming increasingly natural?
Mortification is a campaign rather than a single battle.
2. Don’t fight “sin in general.” Identify the particular sin precisely
This is one of Owen’s most practically useful insights. He repeatedly speaks of a particular lust or corruption. The Christian needs to know his own heart—his characteristic weaknesses, temperament, vulnerabilities, and the circumstances particularly suited to them. Christian Classics Ethereal Library
So instead of:
“I need to be more disciplined.”
Owen’s method pushes toward something much more diagnostic:
“When I am tired late in the evening, I begin telling myself X. That leads me to Y. I usually rationalize it by saying Z. Then I neglect the obedience I previously resolved upon.”
The sin has a pattern. And that pattern must be learned. Owen’s Indwelling Sin is especially valuable here because he treats sin almost as an intelligent adversary. Sin proposes reasons, obscures consequences, exploits desires, and gradually obtains consent from the will.
Consequently, ask:
What does this particular sin promise me?
Comfort? Relief? Control? Approval? Pleasure? Escape? Vindication? Security?
And:
What argument does it repeatedly use?
“Just this once.”
“You deserve this.”
“You’ll start tomorrow.”
“This isn’t really sinful.”
“You’re too tired.”
“There’s no harm in putting it off.”
For Owen, discovering these arguments is part of discovering the deceitfulness of sin.
3. Fight the temptation before it reaches full strength
This may be Owen’s most important practical contribution. In Of Temptation, he distinguishes being tempted from entering into temptation. Temptation itself is inevitable. But one “enters” temptation when the heart becomes sufficiently entangled that it begins seriously negotiating with the temptation. That means the decisive battle often occurs well before the sinful act.
Imagine the sequence:
occasion → desire → internal argument → consent → action
Most people concentrate their resistance at the consent stage. But Owen wants the Christian fighting much earlier. When the occasion arises, withdraw, watch and/or pray. For once the temptation has acquired emotional momentum, resistance becomes vastly harder. Hence Christ’s command that structures Owen’s Of Temptation:
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” — Matt. 26:41
Owen interprets “watch” broadly: actively monitor your heart, circumstances, Satan’s strategies, occasions of sin, and your particular vulnerabilities. For an entrenched habit, therefore, prevention is part of mortification.
4. Identify the “occasions” that feed the habit—and stop treating them casually
This follows directly. If you know that a certain situation predictably awakens a particular sin, Owen thinks it foolish to keep voluntarily entering that situation while praying for strength to resist it. He specifically says that knowing one’s weaknesses should lead one to “keep at a distance from all occasions of sin.”
Translated into modern habit language, identify:
trigger → routine → reward
But Owen adds theological depth. The trigger isn’t merely producing behaviour; it is providing an occasion through which indwelling sin solicits the will. So practical environmental changes aren’t substitutes for spiritual mortification. They are part of watchfulness. If a particular sinful behaviour occurs primarily when you are tired, alone, angry, online, hungry, criticized, bored, praised, stressed, or drinking, then changing those circumstances isn’t cowardice. It is obeying the command to “watch.”
5. Don’t merely suppress the sinful behaviour; attack its root desire
Owen strongly distinguishes genuine mortification from merely suppressing an outward behaviour. You can stop doing something because circumstances change, because you’re embarrassed, because you’re afraid of consequences, or because another desire has displaced it. None necessarily means the sin has been mortified. This gives Owen’s approach considerable psychological realism.
Suppose someone habitually responds angrily when criticized. Merely resolving,
“Next time I won’t raise my voice”
doesn’t reach the underlying problem. Why does criticism produce such anger? Perhaps:
“I need other people to regard me as competent.”
Now we have reached something closer to the root. The mortification project therefore becomes not merely:
Stop getting angry.
but rather:
Put to death my demand to be regarded as competent, and learn to receive my identity and security from Christ.
6. Bring the particular sin consciously under the cross of Christ
Owen insists that mortification is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit. Human techniques by themselves cannot accomplish it. But that does not mean passivity. Owen explicitly rejects that conclusion. The Spirit works through our understanding, will, conscience, and affections so that mortification remains genuinely our obedient action, while simultaneously being God’s work within us.
The central instrument is faith. In The Dominion of Sin and Grace, Owen calls the daily exercise of faith upon Christ crucified the fundamental means of mortifying sin, and says it should be applied to particular sins.
So Owen doesn’t merely say:
“Jesus forgives me when I fail.”
He wants something stronger:
The death of Christ has decisively condemned the very power I am presently fighting, and through union with Christ I participate in his death and resurrection.
Therefore the Christian approaches the habitual sin not merely as someone desperately hoping to become free but as someone claiming by faith a liberation already inaugurated in union with Christ.
7. Bring the guilt and ugliness of the sin into full consciousness
Owen thinks sin survives partly through self-deception. Therefore he recommends what we might call sustained moral attention: don’t allow yourself to minimize the sin. Bring Scripture’s verdict upon that particular sin to bear upon conscience.
But there is an important qualification. Owen does not want this to become self-punishment. He carefully distinguishes between:
conviction produced by God’s truth
and
trying to manufacture enough misery to pay for one’s sin.
The latter undermines the gospel.
The point is not:
“I must feel terrible enough for God to forgive me.”
Rather:
“I must stop protecting this sin from God’s judgment by euphemism, excuses, comparison, or rationalization.”
That is particularly important with entrenched habits because familiarity tends to normalize them.
8. Replace the sinful disposition with its contrary grace
This part of Owen is sometimes lost when people summarize him as “kill sin.” The Spirit mortifies sin partly by causing contrary graces to “grow, thrive, flourish, and abound.” So mortification and vivification belong together.
So the contrary grace for common sinful patterns include:
- anger → cultivate patience and meekness
- envy → gratitude and love
- pride → humility
- cowardice → faithful courage
- lust → chastity and love
- self-indulgence → temperance
- procrastinated obedience → prompt obedience
This is particularly important for an obedience you are convinced of but struggle to live out consistently. The goal isn’t merely to stop performing Y. It is to train the heart toward X. In contemporary terms, Owen’s account isn’t merely extinction of an old habit. It is cultivation of a competing holy disposition.
9. Pray specifically about the temptation—not merely generally about holiness
Owen takes “watch and pray” literally. He recommends sustained prayer specifically directed toward not entering this particular temptation. He says that someone who wishes to encounter little temptation should be “much in prayer,” consciously asking God to order circumstances, guard the heart, and supply vigilance.
That suggests something more concrete than:
“Lord, help me be good today.”
For an entrenched habit:
“Father, I know that around 10 tonight I am likely to face X. I know what I will begin telling myself. Keep me from entering that temptation. Give me grace to recognize its first movement and immediately choose Y.”
That is profoundly Owenian. Prayer occurs before the predictable temptation, not merely afterward in confession.
10. Treat self-confidence as a danger signal
One of Owen’s identified “seasons” of heightened temptation is self-confidence. This creates an interesting paradox. After three weeks of success, someone might think:
“I’ve finally beaten this.”
Owen would shout, “Danger!” Not because progress isn’t real, but because confidence has subtly migrated from Christ and the Spirit to one’s newly acquired track record.
Likewise, repeated failure can generate the opposite error:
“Apparently I simply cannot obey.”
Both errors focus excessively on oneself. Owen wants something closer to:
“I am genuinely weak; this sin is genuinely dangerous; the Spirit is genuinely powerful; therefore I will watch, pray, believe, and obey.”
Putting Owen into practice
Distilling Owen’s several works into a concrete plan for a specific entrenched sinful habit might look something like this:
- Name the obedience precisely.
“God calls me to ______.” - Name the contrary sin precisely.
Not merely the outward action, but the underlying desire/disposition. - Map its ordinary pattern.
When does it happen? What circumstances precede it? What feelings accompany it? What argument does the sin make? - Remove predictable occasions.
Don’t repeatedly walk voluntarily into situations where experience says the temptation becomes overwhelming. - Prepare before the temptation.
Pray specifically and rehearse the relevant truth of Scripture before the usual moment arrives. - Resist the first movement rather than the final act.
When you recognize the familiar internal argument beginning, refuse to negotiate with it. - Exercise faith specifically upon Christ.
Bring this sin, rather than sin abstractly, under Christ’s death and your union with him. - Practice the contrary obedience immediately.
Don’t merely say no to Y; deliberately do X. Strengthen the new disposition through repeated obedience. - After failure, repent quickly without catastrophizing.
Don’t excuse the sin, but don’t interpret one defeat as proof that mortification isn’t occurring. Return immediately to Christ and resume the fight. - Evaluate over months rather than individual episodes.
Ask whether the sin is losing frequency, strength, spontaneity, persuasiveness, and emotional attraction—and whether the contrary obedience is becoming easier and more characteristic.
That last point is important because Owen’s framework is fundamentally developmental. Mortification is not normally:
temptation → heroic decision → permanent victory.
It is more often:
recognition → resistance → failure → repentance → renewed resistance → partial victory → stronger resistance → increasing obedience → weakening sin.
And all of this occurs through dependence upon the Spirit rather than autonomous willpower. This is considerably richer than “try harder,” but it also avoids the opposite mistake of waiting for God to change one’s desires before attempting obedience. Owen explicitly says the Spirit works in and with our faculties rather than bypassing them.
The Magpie 
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