Overcoming Sin & Temptation

I just finished reading Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic's edited version of John Owen's classic work on Temptation and Sin (Volume 6 of Owen's works). This is no abridgment; it's all here. Below is a list of the editing that Taylor and Kapic provide

• provided overviews of the thesis and arguments for all three books
• footnoted difficult vocabulary words or phrases (at their first occurrence in each book) and collected them into a glossary
• Americanized the British spelling (e.g., behaviour to behavior)
• updated archaic pronouns (e.g., thou to you)
• updated other archaic spellings (e.g., hath to have; requireth to requires)
• updated some archaic word forms (e.g., concernments to concerns, surprisals to surprises)
• corrected the text in places where the nineteenth-century edition incorrectly deviated from the original
• modernized some of the punctuation
• placed Owen’s Scripture references in parentheses7
• added our own Scripture references in brackets when Owen quotes or alludes to a passage but does not provide a reference
• transliterated all Hebrew and Greek words, and provided a translation if Owen didn’t provide one
• translated all Latin phrases that Owen leaves untranslated
• provided sources for quotations and allusions where possible
• removed Owen’s intricate numbering system, which functioned as an extensive outline
• added headings and italics throughout this volume, and extensive outlines of our own at the end, to aid the reader in following the flow of Owen’s thought. Pages 17-18

I started reading this book on July 6th and just finished on September 21st. Reading it was a fairly severe beat down. It is the best help in understanding sin I have read.

The book is made up of 3 individual books, Of Mortification of Sin in Believers, Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of it, and Indwelling Sin. I suggest that you read Indwelling Sin first then on to Mortification and Temptation. It was half way thru Indwelling Sin that I realized I was going to have to read it again; it's that good.

Here's a taste...

Indeed, in opposition unto this deceit lies much of the wisdom of faith and power of gospel grace. When the mind is fully possessed with, and cast habitually and firmly into, the mold of the notion and doctrine of gospel truth about the full and free forgiveness of all sins in the blood of Christ, then to be able to keep the heart always in a deep, humbling sense of sin, abhorrency of it, and self-abasement for it, is a great effect of gospel wisdom and grace. This is the trial and touchstone of gospel light: If it keeps the heart sensible of sin, humble, lowly, and broken on that account—if it teaches us to water a free pardon with tears, to detest forgiven sin, to watch diligently for the ruin of that which we are yet assured shall never ruin us—it is divine, from above, of the Spirit of grace. If it secretly and insensibly makes men loose and slight in their thoughts about sin, it is adulterate, selfish, false. If it will be all, answer all ends, it is nothing. Hence it comes to pass that sometimes we see men walking in a bondage-frame of spirit all their days, low in their light, mean in their apprehensions of grace; so that it is hard to discern whether covenant in their principles they belong unto—whether they are under the law or under grace; yet walk with a more conscientious tenderness of sinning than many who are advanced into higher degrees of light and knowledge than they—not that the saving light of the gospel is not the only principle of saving holiness and obedience; but that, through the deceitfulness of sin, it is variously abused to countenance the soul in manifold neglect of duties, and to draw off the mind from a due consideration of the nature, desert, and danger of sin. John Owen, Indwelling Sin, Pages 301-302

We also have an abridgment of The Mortification of Sin on the FCC bookstand which I have not read but have been told is good
Also, Kris Lundgaard's book, The Enemy Within, which has been studied at FCC in Sunday School, is a meditation on Owen's work on sin. I am looking forward myself to reading this soon.