http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14773864/holiness
The second half of the nineteenth century was not kind to Victorian evangelicals.
Darwin’s ideas, which first appeared in print in The Origin of Species in 1859, began to undermine the faith of some, just as German higher criticism of the Old Testament reached British shores in Essays and Reviews. Meanwhile, the Ritualists were busy unprotestantizing the Church of England, as men of “broad views” were insisting that sincerity — not truth — was the “one thing needful.” To make matters worse, relations between evangelical churchmen and dissenters reached new lows, and attacking (or defending) the establishment became a near-universal ecclesiastical obsession.
But in the 1870s, a renewal movement imported from America seemed to offer new spiritual life to embattled evangelicals. It promised full salvation and complete deliverance from all known sin — essentially a second conversion experience — and all one had to do was simply “let go and let God.” A series of popular meetings was held throughout England to promote this new vision of the Christian life, and the Keswick Convention was born.
Holiness Unfolded and Defended
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900), the “Anglican Spurgeon” and undisputed leader of the evangelical party within the Church of England, was entirely unsympathetic with Keswick spirituality. He, along with other evangelical leaders of the old guard, attempted to redirect this new interest in personal holiness into more orthodox channels. Articles were written. Speeches were made. A rival conference was even held in 1875 to promote scriptural holiness. Even so, the Keswick Movement continued to gain steam, especially among younger evangelicals. So, Ryle published his own response in 1877, which was then enlarged in 1879.
Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots proved to be one of Ryle’s most popular works. It is one of the best presentations of Puritan and Reformed spirituality ever written, and thanks to the simplicity and forcefulness of Ryle’s writing style, it is certainly one of the most accessible. Think of Holiness as The Pilgrim’s Progress stated propositionally. And like Bunyan’s masterpiece, it has proved to be remarkably enduring. It went through five editions during Ryle’s lifetime, and it has been republished regularly since the prompting of Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1952.
“Think of ‘Holiness’ as ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ stated propositionally.”
The enlarged edition of Holiness (1879) contains twenty-one papers, as well as an excellent introduction. The first seven chapters are the heart of Holiness and form a book within a book (this was the original edition of 1877). Here Ryle explains “the real nature of holiness, and the temptations and difficulties which all must expect who follow it” (xiii). The rest of the book consists of a series of holiness-related sermons that are arranged thematically: biblical character studies (chapters 8–12), the church (chapters 13–14), Christ (chapters 15–20), and extracts from Robert Traill and Thomas Brooks (chapter 21).
Rather than discussing each chapter, allow me to introduce you to some of the great themes of this spiritual classic.
Holiness
Holiness takes holiness seriously. Personal holiness is essential for final salvation. Such a claim is neither legalism nor a threat to the precious doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is the clear and sobering truth of Scripture: “Strive . . . for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). If Holiness accomplishes anything, it reminds the reader of this critical and potentially uncomfortable truth. Read the chapter on Lot’s wife (chapter 10), or consider this question Ryle poses to the indifferent:
Suppose for a moment that you were allowed to enter heaven without holiness. What would you do? What possible enjoyment could you feel there? To which of all the saints would you join yourself, and by whose side would you sit down? Their pleasures are not your pleasures, their tastes not your tastes, their character not your character. How could you possibly be happy, if you had not been holy on earth? (53)
Expect to be convicted. Expect to be challenged. And expect to be encouraged if you are determined to pursue holiness with greater zeal.
Sin
Holiness takes sin seriously. Ryle argues that he who “wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin” (1).
Sin is a vast moral disease that affects the whole human race. It consists in “doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God” (2). It is a family disease that we all inherit from our first parents, and it infects every part of our moral constitution. Its guilt and vileness — the very sinfulness of sin itself — must be viewed in light of its remedy: “Terribly black must that guilt be for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction” (8). But in a deft pastoral move (which is typical for Holiness), Ryle pivots from the guilt of sin to the grace of God:
There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease. 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. Though sin has abounded, grace has much more abounded. (11)
Doctrine
Holiness takes doctrine seriously. In the first seven chapters of the book, Ryle treats the doctrine of sanctification systematically, beginning with sin (chapter 1) and ending with assurance (chapter 7). These chapters are undoubtedly the most theologically sophisticated of the book. Ryle defines terms, exegetes Scripture, makes important distinctions, discusses church formularies, quotes authorities, and refutes opponents. Yet at the same time, he never loses sight of the pastoral purposes of the work. I’m not aware of anything comparable in terms of theological depth and pastoral sensitivity.
The same is true of the chapters that make up the rest of the work. Because they were originally sermons, they necessarily contain more exhortation and practical application than the first seven chapters, but they are by no means theologically anemic. Ryle has no problem discussing the person of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, or the nature of the church when the sermon text calls for it.
Ryle’s works are well-known and well-loved for their combination of solid doctrinal content and practical pastoral wisdom. In this respect, Holiness is probably Ryle at his very best.
Growth
Holiness takes growth seriously. Christians must grow in holiness, for sanctification is a progressive work. Holiness will force you to come to terms with this reality. True Christianity is a fight: “To be at peace with the world, the flesh, and the devil is to be at enmity with God, and in the broad way that leads to destruction. We have no option. We must either fight or be lost” (67).
Ryle reminds the reader that it is costly to follow Christ. It will cost a man his sin and self-righteousness, his love of peace and ease, and the favor of the world. Long before Dietrich Bonhoeffer criticized cheap grace, Ryle noted, “A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing! A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown” (86).
Moreover, the Christian must “grow in grace.” Ryle explains,
When I speak of a man “growing in grace,” I mean simply this — that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual-mindedness more marked. He feels more of the power of godliness in his own heart. He manifests more of it in his life. He is going on from strength to strength, from faith to faith, and from grace to grace. (101)
And how do Christians grow? “He that would grow in grace must use the means of growth” (109), which include the private means of grace (prayer and Bible reading, meditation and self-examination, and habitual communion with Christ) and the public means of grace (the preached word and worship, the sacraments and Sabbath rest).
“It will cost you to follow Christ, but those costs pale in comparison to the reward that awaits those who persevere.”
These chapters are challenging, to be sure, but I find Ryle’s realism refreshing. There are no rose-colored glasses here. Ryle’s description of the Christian life is one that most of us can recognize and identify with. It is a fight. There are costs. Growth is essential and difficult. And there is an urgency here that is palpable. Even so, I emerge from these chapters more encouraged to pursue holiness than when I begin reading. There are resources as well as challenges. True Christianity is a good fight. Ryle reminds us that we have the best generals, the best helps, the best promises, and assurance of victory. It will cost you to follow Christ, but those costs pale in comparison to the reward that awaits those who persevere. And growth is necessary, but there are means available within the reach of all believers that will help them to “grow in grace.”
Christ
Finally, Holiness takes Christ seriously. The person and work of Christ is, perhaps, the greatest theme of this work. Ryle certainly intended it to be so.
Christ is “the sun and center” of Christian piety. “What the sun is in the firmament of heaven, that Christ is in true Christianity” (377). Communion with Christ is “the one secret of eminent holiness. He that would be conformed to Christ’s image, and become a Christ-like man, must be constantly studying Christ Himself” (234). Moreover, Christ is the “mainspring both of doctrinal and practical Christianity. A right knowledge of Christ is essential to a right knowledge of sanctification as well as justification. He that follows after holiness will make no progress unless he gives to Christ his rightful place” (370).
The last chapter sums up the place of Christ in Holiness — “Christ is all.” It is one of the most outstanding chapters Ryle ever wrote, which is saying quite a lot. Instead of describing it, let me just encourage you to read it, along with the chapters that precede it. It is a moving reminder that personal holiness is Christocentric and cruciform. Ryle closes Holiness with these words:
Let us live on Christ. Let us live in Christ. Let us live with Christ. Let us live to Christ. So doing, we shall prove that we fully realize that “Christ is all.” So doing, we shall feel great peace, and attain more of that “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.” (389)
J.C. Ryle’s Holiness certainly can help you along in this great pursuit.
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Why New Clothes in Christ? Ephesians 4:17–24, Part 6
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14839398/why-new-clothes-in-christ
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Our God-Sized Ordinary: Six Ways to See the Holy Spirit
Life in the Spirit can feel ordinary at times. It really is one of Satan’s greatest feats.
If he cannot keep God from breaking in and reviving a once-dead soul, he will do what he can to downplay what has happened. He’ll seed thorns that disrupt our sense of safety and rest (2 Corinthians 12:7). He’ll try to veil the glory of God in us and around us (2 Corinthians 4:4). He’ll flood us with cares and riches and pleasures to distract us from spiritual reality (Luke 8:14). He’ll seize on any glimpse of sin: “See, you’re exactly who you were before” (Revelation 12:10).
Satan can convince us that a life invaded by the presence, help, and joy of God — by the Holy Spirit — isn’t really all that different from any other life. He convinces us to perceive and define our lives by what’s left of the curse, rather than by the inbreaking of the new creation.
Yes, life in the Spirit — for now — often feels ordinary. We eat and drink, work and sleep, toil and spin, and then do it all again tomorrow. But none of now is the same as it was, not even our morning coffee or our afternoon snack. “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). This glory doesn’t skip meals; it invades them. And who empowers us to eat and drink and do everything for the glory of God? The Spirit.
Now, we eat with the Spirit. Now, we drink with the Spirit. Now, we work and play and sleep in the Spirit. Now, we walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). A normal day may feel ordinary, but below the surface of our perceptions, God is knitting together a new, miraculous, unfinished life in us — by his Spirit.
You Have the Spirit
Do you remember that, if you belong to Christ, the Spirit of God lives in you? He doesn’t hover above you waiting to help. He’s not waiting at a desk in heaven for you to call. He’s not patrolling neighborhoods looking for souls in need. No, when God delivered you from the prison of sin and death, he not only invited you into his presence and family, but he came to live in you. He made a home for himself in your weak, broken, and forgiven soul.
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple,” the apostle Paul asks, “and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Do you know? Has the ordinariness of life made you forget? God is living in the ordinary, in your ordinary.
Paul writes in Romans 8:8–9, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Even if many aspects of your life stayed the same after you came to Christ — your family, your job, your neighborhood, your car, your wardrobe, even what you have for breakfast — something fundamental changed. Someone fundamental. God flooded every familiar and unremarkable corner of your life with God — with himself, with his Spirit.
Feel the force of Paul’s wonder as he repeats himself three times in just a few verses:
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. . . . If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:9–11)
He’s captivated by a reality we often miss. God does not just love you, protect you, provide for you, and draw near to you; he dwells in you. He dwells in you. He dwells in you.
Making His Presence Felt
If we could see all that the Holy Spirit is working in us and through us, we would not yawn or groan over “ordinary” like we’re prone to. One day, we’ll have eyes and ears tuned to these miracles, but for now, we have to search for them — for him. But what do we look for?
We look for child-like dependence. Paul goes on to say in Romans 8, “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:15–16). Whenever we reach out in faith to God as our Father — as someone who sovereignly loves and cares for us as his children — we do so by the Spirit. Do you have an impulse to pray when you feel tempted or weak or confused or discouraged? That impulse is not ordinary or natural; it’s a work of God.
We look for an awareness of spiritual reality. Anything you truly understand about God, his word, and his will are gifts of the Holy Spirit. Anyone can read God’s words and perhaps even make sense of the vocabulary and grammar and logic, but no one grasps the realities unless the Spirit moves. “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12). We will never fully comprehend all God has done for us in Christ, but what we do understand now, we understand because of what God has done for us in the Holy Spirit.
“Humans die in a thousand different ways, but sin dies in just one: by the Spirit.”
We look for rejected temptations and conquered sins. “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). Humans die in a thousand different ways, but sin dies in just one: by the Spirit. We may miss the power of these deaths because we assume, somewhere deep down, that we could overcome sin on our own — but we can’t and we don’t. If sin dies by our hand, it is only because our hand has become a mighty weapon in the hands of God himself.
We look for God-like love. The Holy Spirit doesn’t only weed out the remaining wickedness in us; he also plants and nurtures a garden of righteousness. The clearest evidence that he dwells in us is not the ugliness he removes, but the beauty he creates. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). In other words, he makes us more like Christ. We look for love like his, joy like his, faithfulness like his. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image” — his image — “from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
We look for specific giftings or insights that meet needs in the church. Everyone in whom the Spirit lives has been given abilities for the good of other believers. Paul says of the church, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4–7). To each — not just some or many. If the Spirit lives in you, then to you too. So how has God recently met a specific need through you? When he does, he’s reminding you that he lives in you, by his Spirit.
Most of all, though, we look for love for Jesus. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’” Paul says, “except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). Of course, they can say it, but not with their heart — not with their faith, their joy, their hope, their love. Sustained love for Jesus only happens where the Spirit lives. Paul describes the same miracle in 2 Corinthians 4:6: “[God] has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” If we still love what we see when we look at Jesus, we see something only the Spirit could do in us.
“The clearest evidence that the Spirit dwells in us is not the ugliness he removes, but the beauty he creates.”
Do you see continued dependence on God in your life? Do you see any gifting from him, any victory over sin, any Christlike love or peace or joy? Do you still love what you see of Jesus? Then your ordinary isn’t as ordinary as you might think, because the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in you.
Prophecies of Paradise
As Christians, we have — yes, have — the Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). We have the Holy Spirit now, but what we experience now is only a taste of what’s to come. The Spirit, Paul says, “is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Ephesians 1:14). Guarantee, meaning there’s more.
Whatever good the Spirit does in each of us now is merely an appetizer of what he will do in all of us forever. The Spirit living in us in this world is a taste of what it will be like for us to live in his coming world. And, at the center of it all, we’ll find him. The Christ whose Spirit lives in us will be the Christ who lives with us.
Life in the Spirit feels mundane when we grow dull to miracles. Yes, we live and work and love among thorns and thistles for now, but we do so by the strength and wisdom of God — until the day when he makes glory our ordinary.
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Live Like You’ll Live Forever
The world makes its quiet but furious war against death, groping to live forever. Plastic surgery, obsessive fitness, compulsive dieting, pouring billions into scientific research searching for the holy grail of immortality. The author of Hebrews describes the condition as a lifelong slavery to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15).
Try as we may, Adam’s and Eve’s children cannot shake the ancient nightmare.
[God] drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)
Humanity, east of Eden, still reaches out in vain for that Tree of Life.
Curing Death
How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that a man had cured death? How many ages would pass celebrating the discovery? But as it stands, these same people bypass the knowledge of a true eternity because it is not the eternity they invented.
“How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that man had cured death?”
God has placed in us a sense that life continues after death: “[God] has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Yet most suppress this knowledge of their own immortality. But why?
Because they “did not see fit to acknowledge God” (Romans 1:28) — the God “who inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). They disavow the truth their hearts would thrill to believe because they do not approve of any eternity with God. Better to steal happy moments from a broken and fleeting mortality, their dead hearts reason, than submerge in an endless existence with the God they disapprove.
Immortal Beings
All men, we know, shall live forever. We trust and love the eternal God, we believe in the resurrection from the dead, we believe Jesus’s promise of eternal life with him. And we know the everlasting fate of the wicked: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
Eternity exists, we believe, and all men are immortal. The souls we come in contact with at the ballgame, in the restaurant, walking the dog — shall be a million years from now. The mailman, the bus driver, the nosy neighbor — immortal beings. The most decrepit among us shall outlive the galaxy.
“The most decrepit among us shall outlive the galaxy.”
Even considering those who have gone before us — the deceased grandfather, the fallen child, the departed spouse — though hidden momentarily from our eyes, we know they are and shall be again. Death, we profess, is the Great Interruption, not the Great End.
Falling Leaf
While we say we believe in undying souls (a truth that the world would go delirious to acknowledge), do we give that momentous reality much thought? Does that eternal weight of glory hold much weight with us? Has it changed your week at all?
How many of us have believed upon eternity, as John Foster lamented, in vain?
The very consciousness that your minds have been capable of admitting and dismissing this subject [eternity] without a prolonged and serious emotion, ought to produce at last that seriousness, by means of wonder and alarm, which may well be awakened by the consideration how many years you have believed this truth in vain. (An Essay on the Improvement of Time, 150–151)
How many years have I believed in eternity without much effect? And not just any eternity, but eternity with the Blessed God? Eternity with Jesus Christ? How many of my waking moments of these short and numbered days have orbited around the ceaseless “day of eternity” (2 Peter 3:18)? If in Christ I have hope in this life only, do I really feel myself of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19)?
How this world deceives me. The sturdy tree and its branches I call “this life”; the falling leaf I call, “eternity.”
Forgotten Forever
With one glance of the mind, I realize my madness. Who at sea would give all his affection and thought to a day’s trip onboard, completely disregarding the inescapable land ahead? I forget that “Surely a man goes about as a shadow!” (Psalm 39:6) as a dream (Psalm 78:18–20), as a flower that fades, as grass that withers (Isaiah 40:6–8), as a mere mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (James 4:14). This world, O my soul remember, “is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).
I hope you have kept eternity closer at hand than I have.
Have you, Christian — possessor of the mightiest revelations, steward of sacred knowledge, keepers of the way of eternity — appropriated these truths for yourself and distributed them freely to a desperate and decaying world? Has forever bent down with you as you changed diapers? Has it drove with you to work? Has it laughed along while you had a game night with neighbors?
Has “everlasting” brought you low to plead in prayer for your children, your church, your city? Has that terrifying splendor, “immortality,” lifted your gaze from this painted and perishing kingdom to the one that cannot be shaken?
Has eternity provided you an anchor in suffering? Sent you along on a grand mission? Warned you against friendship with Here and Now? Bestowed solemnity to life? Brightened up gloomy days? Infused courage to venture on in Christ? Showed you the coming tsunami that will wash away all these splendid sandcastles? Endowed acquaintances with new significance? Lifted our eyes with abiding gratitude to God? Equipped us to drive a spear through sin?
Have you believed in eternity in vain?
Tree of Life
We must awake to the coming world without end. We are those who look “not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
People all around us live and die for the seen, the felt, the tasted, the pleasurable, the transient. But God has left you and me here to speak, to reason, to plead with immortal souls that they be reconciled to God.
Through faith in Christ, we have reached our hands out to a Tree of Life on Golgotha’s hill, and we will taste of that fruit denied to our first parents:
To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7)
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:14)
This tree is within reach because Jesus Christ — the Resurrection and the Life — has drawn near to us. He promises, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die,” and asks the pertinent question, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26).
God give us grace to believe, and to make sure our friends know, our families know, our children know, that eternity is only a short time away.
