Put it to death
Mortification
The dark night did a hidden work, and now its purpose comes into the open. Paul gives a command that the older writers called mortification — a word that simply means putting to death: put to death therefore what is earthly in you. The Christian life involves not only putting on new virtues but actively putting old things to death, and Paul uses the strongest possible verb. Some things in us are not to be managed, tamed, or merely improved. They are to be killed.
This is bracing, and deliberately so. We prefer to negotiate with our sins, to moderate them, to keep them on a leash — anything but execute them. But Paul knows that the deeply rooted patterns of the old self do not respond to half-measures; left alive, even weakened, they revive and reclaim their ground. The only safe policy toward what is earthly in us is death.
Thomas à Kempis, who wrote so penetratingly on the inner life, taught that the whole work of conversion is a kind of self-conquest, a daily dying to the cravings of the self. This is not a one-time event but a lifelong practice: each day, the old self must be denied again, its claims put to death again. The death of self is not a single dramatic moment but a daily discipline of execution. What in you have you been trying to manage and tame, when the call is to put it to death?
“Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth.”
— Paul, to the Colossians — Colossians 3:5 (WEB)
Put your besetting sins to death rather than merely managing them — taking up the daily discipline of mortification the older writers knew.
“Have put on the new man, that is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator.”
Underneath the wish to merely tame a sin is a quieter wish: to keep it. We negotiate because some part of us still wants what it offers, and a leash feels safer than a grave. The interior work is to stop bargaining and consent to mortification — the daily, Spirit-empowered execution of what is earthly in us — accepting that a root left breathing in the dark will always send up shoots, and that grace, not grit, is what drives the blade.
This week, name one earthly thing you have been managing rather than killing, and treat it as Paul commands: cut off its supply, refuse it deliberately, and put it to death again each day rather than negotiating with it.
Half-measures feel like progress, so we settle for a sin on a leash and call it victory while it quietly waits for slack. But a soul that brings the same root to its death morning after morning, leaning on the Spirit to do the killing, gives the old self no ground to climb back up — and walks freer than any compromise could make it.
We instinctively prefer to manage our sins rather than kill them — to moderate the besetting patterns, keep them on a leash, improve our behavior at the edges. Paul will have none of it. Put to death, he commands, using the language of execution, because he knows that the deep roots of the old self do not respond to negotiation. Weakened but left alive, they revive and reclaim their ground.
This is the work the death of self requires, and it is a daily one. The older writers called it mortification, and Thomas à Kempis described it as a continual self-conquest, the old self denied and put to death again each day. It is bracing and unwelcome to a self that would rather be managed than executed. But there is no other safe policy toward what is earthly in us. Name what you have been trying to tame rather than kill, and bring it, today and again tomorrow, to its death.
- What sin have I been trying to manage rather than put to death?
- Do I negotiate with the old self instead of executing it?
- What would daily mortification look like for me this week?
Lord, I try to manage and tame my sins when you call me to put them to death. Give me the resolve for daily mortification. Help me kill what is earthly in me, deny the old self again each day, and put on the new self renewed in your image. Amen.