Endless Pursuit
John Owen, The Art of War, and the Slaughter of the Canaanites
When reading On the Mortification of Sin by John Owen it is hard not to despair at the unrelenting nature of the internal conflict. The war never ends, and when we pretend victory or relent, sin takes every opening to press the advantage. The undead hordes never stop coming no matter how many you’ve dispatched in the name of personal holiness.
A battlefield image he uses struck me most. He describes believers advancing over the slain bodies of their lusts, leaving temptations and flaws in the mud and guts of battle on the advance to sanctification. The tide of war is favorable. The believer’s character is progressing. His weaknesses are being fortified with strength, vitality, and experience. Praise be to God.
But Owen warns us not to grow complacent in victory. With so much forward momentum, our tendency is to neglect the rear. From there sin frequently springs its traps. It will lay down in dirt, feigning submission or death to the believer, only to spring up later in ambush. The believer, taking a breather atop his triumphs, finds an assassin in the camp murdering in the night like a ghost. The zombie lusts roll back the gains in godliness, and all because the believer gave up the pursuit.
The principle of pursuit is a key to successful warfare, and it is a central feature of Owen’s conception of sanctification. If we are not taking up the pursuit, actively killing sin in our lives, then sin will counter in a devious and disheartening array of ways. If a man would advance in his sanctification he can never quit the pursuit of sin. Every day the weeds of corruption are neglected they grow taller and fix themselves deeper. We must be killing sin.
Amidst the contemporary cultural chaos, Owen’s prescriptions seem to apply similarly to societies. Though the mortification of such corruptions in society tends to be a more barbarous and appalling affair. Here we see that we’re no longer dealing in the realm of metaphors. Mortification, eradication, killing, slaying, etc. are the bloody results of sinful corruptions full flower in societies. The longer they are allowed to root themselves, the harder and more terrible the process of restoring life and health to a people. Owen could just as aptly say, “Society, be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”
The depth and pervasiveness of mankind’s depravity is on unfiltered display once the chaos of conflict and war breaks out. The insanity comes into even sharper focus when you consider the perennial nature of these conflicts. There has never been a war to end war, despite several with the title and almost all with the aim. The fighting may stop, but the causes remain dormant in the culture’s collective memories. Like Owen’s earlier warning, the zombie lusts rise again, only this time within the victor’s next generation. The endless cycle of madness that takes place in Valhalla is almost a rational explanation for mankind’s approach to warfare. Unceasing waves of drunken bluster and bloodshed, only to wake up and repeat it all again in the morning of another age.
Several recent examples are everyday in the news. Despite a celebrated history over the communism of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, the fascism of the Axis powers in the Second World War, and the misunderstanding and misapplication of our own freedom in the Civil War, America is still today at war with these same ideologies. Only now they live in our nation’s own institutions, halls of power, and children. History records the bodies of the enemies slain, but the present shows them alive and well, and worse, wearing our colors. The fascist totalitarianism of Antifa activists, the racist intersectionality and segregation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, and the Marxist socialist policies of those in the Democratic (and in some cases Republican and Libertarian) party all parade the insanity of our hypocritical conflicts. It’s one thing to see your enemies regain strength and rise again in defiance. It is a far more frightening observation when you see your defeated enemy reincarnated in the chants of your own children. Did we not prevail? Was not enough blood, sweat, and sacrifice shed on the day of Ragnarok?
How then do we apply the principle of pursuit to a culture as a whole? How do we mortify the sinful ideologies daily seeking to destroy our societies? The same sense of despair and wearisomeness occur to me, summed up by the apt quote, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and those who study history are doomed to stand by helplessly as other people repeat it.” Even if we apply pursuit, how far and how faithfully can we follow it, both as an individual and as a society?
The Isrealites were given the charge to devote all of the men, women, and children to destruction when they advanced into the Promised Land. The intent of such a savage command was to prevent the germs of idolatry from infecting the future generations of Israel. But it wasn’t followed faithfully or kept up with any kind of watchfulness. Before long the Isrealites were murdering their own children to the bloodthirsty gods their forefathers marched against. Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you. Pursue the enemy. Leave none alive.
It seems to be a plot device in every zombie movie, that someone smuggles in the infection. A hard-fought moment of peace is shattered when the monster reappears, only now the monster is the loved one you’d gone to desperate lengths to protect. It’s the same story seen in the aftermath of Sodom, when Lot’s family laid the seeds of Israel’s future enemies, the Ammonites and Moabites. It’s seen earlier in the aftermath of the Great Deluge, when Noah’s family smuggles the seeds of the abominable Canaanites off the ark. Two of the greatest examples of mortification, and still the cycle repeats. How could we not despair? In the pursuit of sin, how could we go farther than this and still remain?
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51
In Christ we find that the zombie bite finds its bitter antidote. The ravages of sin and death come undone in his sacrifice. As the greater Joshua, our savior devotes all of his enemies to a complete destruction in his body on the cross. He washes away every trace of our corruptions with his blood. And his pursuit is sent forth by his Spirit, promised unto the completion of the work began in us at our redemption. Christ saves sinners.
“Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
1 Cor. 10:17
But Christ also saves nations of sinners by the same gospel, even in this year of our Lord. We must pursue the redemption of the nations, preaching the gospel of his grace to zombie sinners like us. And his grace never relents. It always pursues, granting no rest to the strongholds of the devil, both inwardly and societally. The gates of hell will not prevail. God has willed his truth to triumph through us. His kingdom is forever.
