Ryle’s Holiness, Chapter 2: Sanctification

Post by Landon Preston

In his second chapter on sanctification, Ryle lays out twelve points which he believes are clear in the Scriptures. I find these points to be extremely compelling in helping me to understand the nature of holiness versus a false, singular, and eccentric view of salvation and holiness that can still be found today. Below are Ryle’s first eight points:

1. Sanctification, is the result of that vital union with Christ which true faith gives to a Christian.
2. Sanctification, is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration.
3. Sanctification, is the only certain evidence of that indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
4. Sanctification, is the sure mark of God’s election.
5. Sanctification, is a thing that will always be seen.
6. Sanctification, is a thing for which every believer is responsible.
7. Sanctification, is a thing which admits growth and degrees.
8. Sanctification, is a thing which depends greatly on a diligent use of Scriptural means (praying, reading, worship, Lord’s Supper)

While I would encourage all Christians to read this book, in particular, Ryle’s view of sanctification here emphasizes true sanctification to be an ongoing result of regeneration.  For him, and I would argue the Bible,  this view of Christian living goes against the notion of a short, one- time Christian sprint where all of a believer’s hurdles and challenges are overcome in one occasion. Instead, a steady and persistent marathon of endurance will display a person’s process of sanctification and an ongoing reliance upon the power of God the Spirit for strength and holiness.  Reading Ryle reminds me that sanctification is an ongoing and daily process, and one that I am responsible for yet it is God who is the Sanctifier. May we be challenged and encouraged to strive for holiness each day as God conforms us more into the image of his Son Jesus.

Ryle’s Holiness, Chapter 1: Sin

Chapter one of J.C. Ryle ’s Holiness is simply entitled, “Sin.” His introductory paragraph to the first chapter is frequently quoted, and justifiably so:

He that wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin. He must dig down very low if he would build high. A mistake here Is most mischievous. Wrong views about holiness are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption. I make no apology for beginning this volume of papers about holiness by making some plain statements about sin. (1)

This is a key point for pastors and church members alike: a thoroughly Biblical understanding of sin is non-negotiable if we are to rightly preach, live, and prize the Gospel. He goes on:

The plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity. Without it such doctrines as justification, conversion, sanctification, are “words and names” which convey no meaning to the mind . . . Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of the chief wants of the church in the nineteenth century has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.

The entire chapter is just as powerfully and clearly written, and could be quoted in its entirety. I have referred back to this study several times in sermon preparation since I first read it. He offers two vivid illustrations which have stuck with me:

We can acknowledge that man has all the marks of a majestic temple about him – a temple in which God once dwelt, but a temple which is now in utter ruins –a temple in which a shattered window here, and a doorway there, and a column there, still give some faint idea of the magnificence of the original design, but a temple from which end to end has lost its glory and fallen from its high estate. (5)

And again,

So deeply planted are the roots of human corruption, that even after we are born again, renewed, washed, sanctified, justified,” and made living members of Christ, these roots remain alive in the bottom of our hearts, and, like the leprosy in the walls of the house, we never get rid of them until the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved. (6)

If I were digging into teaching the doctrine of sin with a small group, there is no question in my mind that Ryle’s treatment of it here would be the first piece of literature I would want to distribute.  At twenty pages, this chapter is long enough to give a fairly full, Biblical picture. And like Spurgeon, Ryle is dedicated to the very best of Puritan teaching, while blessed with the amazing gift of communicating it in a crystal-clear an unintimidating way. I close with a quote that demonstrates how Gospel-centered Ryle remains, even when aiming at conviction of sin in his hearers.

We need not be afraid to look at sin, and study its nature, origin, power, extent, and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. (11)

Amen. What a worthy model to emulate.

Lesson on the Necessity of the New Birth

I commented recently on the almost non-exisitence of teaching about the new birth in so many of our churches, and the great need to explain the necessity of the miracle of regeneration as we lay out the Gospel. I received an encouragement in this area from one of my own members not long ago. He is a man in his early eighties, a WWII veteran and a lifelong Gospel quartet singer (bass). His eyesight is such now that he is unable to read the Bible for longer than a few seconds before it becomes blurry, so his wife often reads aloud for them both. A battle with diabetes lead to the partial amputation of one leg a few years back, so getting around is becoming increasingly difficult.  But as I sat in his living room and visited him the other day, speaking about the Christian life, he suddenly fixed me with a steely gaze that could have come from a fiery young sail somewhere in the Pacific over sixty years ago. The intensity increased when he lifted his hand and pointed to me, ensuring that I was paying attention. I was. He said,

“But let me tell you something right now: you have to be born again. Nothing else matters if you haven’t been born again. “

I couldn’t argue with that. Even if I could, I wouldn’t have wanted to try it. I just shifted in my seat, cleared my throat a little and said “Amen.”

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Galatians 6:15

Discerning the Spirit and John Quincy Adams

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4:2-3)

I preached 1 John 3:24 – 4:6 on Sunday morning, where John exhorts the Children of God to exercise discernment between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of antichrist in the messages that are brought to their ears. The preeminent test which we must apply to these messages, John tells them, is what these messages say about the person and work of Christ. This means that Christology is not just a relic from the past to be studied by pastors and bible teachers. Instead, if they are to be lead by the Spirit rather than into error, all the people of God at all times and in all places need to nourish themselves on the precious doctrines of Christ upon which the church has stood for the last 2,ooo years.

Later that Father’s Day afternoon, my family and I watched a portion of the recent John Adams miniseries on DVD, which lead us into a discussion about the faith of his son and our sixth president, John Quincy Adams. Little did I know that these two themes from Sunday would intersect in this article I found at the Christian History Timeline:

Until George W. Bush’s election, he was the only president’s son to have become president himself. Before holding America’s highest office, Adams was a lawyer, senator, diplomat, and Secretary of State.

That such a man could be elected is a reflection of America’s religious roots. John Quincy Adams sprang directly from those roots and had a firm faith. If Christianity is proven by character, Adams was surely a Christian. This stubborn man whose motto was “Watch and Pray,” spoke openly of his trust in God: but not for that did he win his nickname “Old Eloquence.” Rather, it was for championing principle and attacking the institution of slavery.

He was an unyielding patriarch, tough as the granite of his native New England. Every day he read two to five chapters of the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek and drew strength from them. He prayed daily. Not content merely to read, he acted on what he read. So often did he put principle before party he became highly unpopular with his followers.

John Quincy did not let their disapproval alter his course. “The Sermon on the Mount commends me to lay up for myself treasures, not on earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ…” he had written his father. After his single term as President, he returned to Congress.

Christ was central to John’s theology. When Unitarianism emerged, denying the divinity of Christ, Adams flirted with it, but the Bible soon convinced him the doctrine was false. Either Jesus is God incarnate and our path to salvation or we have none. With characteristic rectitude John wrote as much to his parents.

“I find in the New Testament, Jesus Christ accosted in His own presence by one of his disciples as God, without disclaiming the appellation…I see him named in the great prophecy of Isaiah concerning him to be the mighty God.”

The Life of Ryle: Three Pastoral Lessons from the Preface of Holiness

I am reading the Hendrickson edition of J.C. Ryle’s Holiness, which includes a 20-page biographical sketch of Ryle’s life as  a preface. This has been one of the most edifying portions of the whole book!

A remarkable preacher, an effective evangelist, and a bold leader of the church in Victorian England, John Charles Ryle (1816-1900) drew untold thousands to deeper Christian holiness. His writings – many still in print – have drawn untold millions more. (vii)

Here are three points from his life directly related to Gospel ministry that I found to be thought-provoking.

A Fatherly Rebuke Leads to Repentance

The whole story of Ryle’s conversion is fascinating, but one episode in particular has stuck with me for months now:

At a house party with an old Eton friend, Ryle carelessly swore in the hearing of his friend’s godly father, who rebuked him firmly. ‘He was the first person who ever told me to think, repent, and pray,’ recalled Ryle. (ix)

I found this to be terribly convicting, because I have unfortunately been affected by our “don’t judge me” culture far more than I would care to admit. The one sin in our society that remains, even for pastors, is to draw attention to any sort of imperfection or moral failure in someone else. And yet, here is a young, privileged, brazen J.C. Ryle being reprimanded by his friend’s dad, and it leads to his repentance and faith in Christ! How many times am I too cowardly or too apathetic to see the careless sinning of a young man or woman as an opportunity to lovingly challenge them and direct them to Christ? Where are the strong, godly fathers among us? I loved this part of Ryle’s story best of all.

Ryle’s Pattern of Ministry

I could not help but admire the zeal with which Ryle pursued his pastoral calling. His first appointment to the tiny village of Exbury, a “dreary, desolate, and solitary” place on England’s south coast, was described in this way:

Ryle boldly preached the Gospel. He held Sunday services and a Sunday school and conducted weeknight meetings. He also visited every house in the parish once a month, calling on thirty or forty families a week. This certainly took up much of his time, but allowed him to know and care for his congregation as no other pastoral method could. ‘We must talk to our people when we are out of church if we would understand how to preach to them when they are in church,’ he insisted. (xi)

In addition, Ryle circulated a number of tracts on Christian living, described as ‘serious short essays designed to have a large spiritual impact.’ (xi) Like the Puritan pastors he loved to quote, Ryle exerted tremendous energy in his ministry of the Word, publicly and from house to house. Ryle remained dedicated to this pattern of ministry all his life. How much grace I need to be even half as faithful with the charge God has given to me!

Ryle’s Rise to Bishop

Over the course of Ryle’s ministry, he was consistently called upon to move to larger, more influential parishes by the leadership of the Anglican church, and Ryle regularly accepted these calls, eventually rising to the position of Bishop. I have been told a number of times that the average stay of a pastor at a church is 18 months. Because pastoral ministry has sadly been largely “professionalized” ordained men often think of their ministry as a career to be plotted out after the pattern of a CEO, always looking for the larger more visible charge. The negative results of this widely accepted mindset are incalculable, on both pastors and churches alike. For this reason, the model of a lifelong pastorate, barring Providential intervention, is close to my heart, and strikes me as the biblical model. When the book noted that a contributing factor to Ryle’s decision to leave his church on more than one occasion was the increase in salary, I sneered inwardly (with only a hint of spiritual superiority, of course).

As I have continued turning these matters over in my mind, I have softened. First of all, Ryle was functioning in an entirely different form of church government than I am. There are not any bishops in the Baptist church, at least not official ones, who are going to urge me to leave my church for another one. There is also the matter of Ryle’s stewardship of his remarkable gifts. I usually find it to be both suspicious and rather lame today when someone suggests that gifted pastors should always be looking for a larger church. This often implies such a devaluing of the souls of small church members. However, Ryle was fighting for orthodoxy in an Anglican church which now ordains practicing homosexuals in some corners, and his rise to the position of Bishop certainly increased his influence there, which was undoubtedly a good thing.

So does Ryle’s move from church to church betray him as just another opportunist, or does it reveal a genuinely pious defender of the faith? I am really in no position to say after this brief biographical sketch, but everything I have read of his has been a model of sound, thoughtful, doxological, theology in service to the church at large. Looking at his ministry alongside Charles Simeon’s (pastor of one church in England for around fifty years) has lead me to reconsider my hasty judgments, both historical and present-day. Like Peter and John listening to the voice of the risen Christ on the shores of Galilee, we are called to follow him in various ways.

Reading through Ryle’s Holiness

A number of people have recently recommended the book Holiness by J.C. Ryle to me. Holiness was written to correct a number of wrong-headed teachings about the nature of sanctification in his day, from the possibility of sinless perfection, to total antinomianism, to other errant understandings of the Gospel that are common to every age. Ryle’s treatment of theChristian life has endured as one of the finest ever written.

My friend Landon Preston and I have agreed to read through this classic together, and would like to post some of our reflections on each chapter here in the coming weeks. I hope it spurs you to check out Ryle for yourself, and more importantly, that it moves us all to “pursue holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord.”

Tell Them We Need New Hearts

Teaching Vacation Bible School this week has helped me to pinpoint a glaring deficiency in our much of our children’s (as well as adult) literature and ministry instruction, and one that is easily corrected by a thoughtful teacher. Every lesson in our VBS curriculum has urged our children to do something: follow Jesus, obey Jesus, worship Jesus, confess Jesus openly, etc. These are, of course, wonderful exhortations, and we should be faithful to deliver them to young and old hearts alike. There’s just one problem.

They can’t do it. Not one of them can do it. Not for a second.

What end up communicating in so much of our teaching is that our listeners are already spiritually and morally equipped to worship and follow Christ, and all that is necessary is teeth-gritting determination on their part. We are effectively communicating that they can save themselves. But the Bible speaks very differently about salvation. God’s Word tells us that our greatest need is not ethical formation, but total, supernatural transformation. We are not good but uninformed people who need a little guidance; we are corpses, “dead in our trespasses and sins,” that need to be brought to life by the power of God. What we need is to be born again. The Lord Jesus himself said to one of the most knowledgeable, morally upright men in Israel, Nicodemus, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” I am convinced that this teaching of the necessity of the new birth is severely lacking in the way we explain the Gospel, and I fear that it has produced many basically moral but unspiritual church members.

But I think it can be remedied easily enough by a discerning teacher, even if the literature with which you are working leaves something to be desired. I have been emphasizing to my 10-12 year-old students throughout this week that our greatest problem is that we have “bad hearts,” that are bent away from God and doing what is right, and no matter how many times you tell someone with a bad heart to worship and follow Jesus, they can’t do it, because their heart is still bad. I used the example of a fountain. If the inside of the fountain where all the water is stored is dirty and grimy, what kind of stream is going to flow out of it? Dirty water, because it is flowing out of a dirty fountain. How can the water be made clean? Only by cleaning the inside of the fountain. This is our problem with sin. The reason that we do bad things is because those bad things are flowing out of a bad heart. It won’t do any good to fix the bad things unless the heart is fixed.

So what do we need more than anything else if our hearts are bad?

“We need new hearts.”

Who can give us those new hearts? Can you give yourself a new heart? (Going around the room and asking each student)

“No”

Can I, your preacher,  give you a new heart?

“No.”

Only God can give you a new heart. If only God can give us these new hearts, what should we do?

“Pray.”

That’s right. we need to pray very hard, asking God to give us new hearts that hate our sin and that love Jesus Christ. We need new hearts. I want to urge you to talk to God about him giving you a new heart . . .

Brothers and sisters, as we are teaching the Bible, let us not tell our listeners that what they need is to simply get their act together and stop sinning. Let us tell them that we need new hearts, given from God, that are broken over sin and that hope entirely in Christ.

New Links to Old Truth

This week I added several new links to the left of the page, all of them resources that I find valuable for Bible study, issues in pastoral ministry, and general edification as a believer. There are so many helpful tools available on the internet, and these are just a few that I seem to go back to the most, many of them several times each week as I prepare for sermons and wrestle with questions in the Christian life. If you are unfamiliar with any of these commentators, preachers, etc., I encourage you to give them a try; there is much good, old truth to be found there.

Awake My Soul! Delighting in the Exalted Christ

How I love to think about the ascension of Christ to the right hand of the Father, where he receives the glory due to him for completing the work of salvation for his people, he wields the scepter over the entire universe as Lord and Christ, and yet continues to minister to his saints – interceding on our behalf, calling us to himself through his Word, and comforting us with his presence! I rarely hear this beautiful, soul-strengthening doctrine of the majesty of Christ being emphasized in Biblical teaching, because I think we would rather have a weak Jesus who is at the mercy of powerful sinners. The New Testament blasts away at such a thought! Listen to John Calvin describe the ascension of Christ, and then read the words of one of my favorite hymns, “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” and see if the thought of the exalted Christ does not thrill your heart this morning! “His praise and glory shall not fail through all eternity!”

“You see to what end he is seated, namely that all creatures both in Heaven and earth should reverence his majesty, be ruled by his hand, do him implicit homage, and submit to his power. All that the apostles intend, when they so often mention his seat at the Father’s hand, is to teach, that everything is at his disposal.” (Calvin, Institutes, II.16.15)

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.

Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.

Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,

And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

Crown Him the virgin’s Son, the God incarnate born,

Whose arm those crimson trophies won which now His brow adorn;

Fruit of the mystic rose, as of that rose the stem;

The root whence mercy ever flows, the Babe of Bethlehem.

Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began,

And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man;

Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,

And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,

And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.

His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high,

Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of peace, whose power a scepter sways

From pole to pole, that wars may cease, and all be prayer and praise.

His reign shall know no end, and round His piercèd feet

Fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,

Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.

No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,

But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, enthroned in worlds above,

Crown Him the King to Whom is given the wondrous name of Love.

Crown Him with many crowns, as thrones before Him fall;

Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns, for He is King of all.

Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,

Who once on earth, the incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,

Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing

Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,

Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.

All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;

Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

(Words by Matthew Bridges, 1852  and Godfrey Thring, 1874)

How the Gospel Makes us Wise, or Proverbs 3:5-7

The wises men know themselves to be fools. This is the message of Proverbs 3:5-7.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

This is really just an Old Testament-Wisdom way of saying that we can only understand how to become wise when we understand the Gospel.

The Gospel’s message about our total corruption through sin leads us away from self-reliance and instead to a profound distrust of ourselves to make the right decision under the even the easiest and best of circumstances. The Gospel gives us a realistic understanding about the devastating impact of the fall upon the human mind and heart, our “feeler” and our “thinker.” The apostle Paul puts it like this: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”  (Rom 1:21-22) This futility of thought is pictured vividly throughout Proverbs: “There is a way that seems right to a man,but its end is the way to death.” It makes perfect sense according to the world’s wisdom to listen to the flattering words of the adulteress, to horde our money away from the God who gave it to us, to reject all corrective counsel, to join with the gang of robbers who promise us we’ll all get rich quick together, etc. It seems so right! But the Gospel tells us that its end is death. In fact, that very thinking has already plunged the entire creation into death. (Gen 3)

But neither the Gospel nor Proverbs leave us here. We are instead directed to the only true source of Wisdom. The revelation of our own propensity for self-deceit should drive us, as the father puts it here, to “trust in the Lord with all hearts, and lean not on our own understanding,” and to “be not wise in our own eyes.” The Gospel instead cultivates a God-given humble dependence upon the Lord in which we slowly learn to “acknowledging him in all our ways,” because we know that the voice of Christ speaks truly when he tells us “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” And if we do this, the Gospel promises us that God will not lead us astray, down the crooked path to death. But like a Good Shepherd, “he will make your paths straight,” leading us with cords of kindness on the Way everlasting.