John Owen wrote this book, often given the subtitle The Nature and Power of It, the Danger of Entering into It, and the Means of Preventing That Danger; with a Resolution, to show how Christians can avoid temptation in living a more spiritual life. A prolific author, Owen was an English nonconformist Church leader who served as academic administrator at the University of Oxford.

Written by John Owen, one of the best known of the Puritans. In The Mortification of Sin, John Owen insisted on the importance of the Christian dealing effectively with their sinful tendencies and attitudes. He believed that God, through his Word and Spirit, had provided the guidelines and the power for this to be achieved. Owen effectively dismisses various excuses for not engaging in self scrutiny and yet avoids the current trend of self absorption. In so doing he provides principles to help believers live lives of holiness. As with all of Owen’s writings, continues to be widely read and greatly appreciated to this day.

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is a polemical work, designed to show, among other things, that the doctrine of universal redemption is unscriptural and destructive to the gospel. Those who see no need for doctrinal exactness and have no time for theological debates which show up divisions between evangelicals may well regret its reappearance. Some may find the very sound of Owen’s thesis so shocking that they will refuse to read his book at all. It is to those who share this readiness that Owen’s treatise is offered, in the belief that it will help us in one of the most urgent tasks facing evangelical Christendom today—the recovery of the gospel.