Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots

by J.C. Ryle

I know that people are fond of talking about death-bed evidences. They will rest on words spoken in the hours of fear, and pain, and weakness, as if they might take comfort in them about the friends they lose. But I am afraid in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred such evidences are not to be depended on. I suspect that, with rare exceptions, men die just as they have lived. The only safe evidence that we are one with Christ, and Christ in us, is holy life.

Cold must our hearts be if we do not hate sin and labour to get rid of it, though we may have to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye in doing it.

“As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they,” and they only, “are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14).

“Say not,” says Gurnall, “that thou hast royal blood in thy veins, and art born of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by daring to be holy.”

Our lives will always be doing either good or harm to those who see them. They are a silent sermon which all can read.

I believe there is far more harm done by unholy and inconsistent Christians than we are aware of. Such men are among Satan’s best allies. They pull down by their lives what ministers build with their lips. They cause the chariot wheels of the Gospel to drive heavily. They supply the children of this world with a never-ending excuse for remaining as they are.

We must be holy, because our present comfort depends much upon it.

We are sadly apt to forget that there is a close connection between sin and sorrow, holiness and happiness, sanctification and consolation.

When the disciples forsook the Lord and fled, they escaped danger, but they were miserable and sad. When, shortly after, they confessed Him boldly before men, they were cast into prison and beaten; but we are told that “they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” (Acts 5:41).

Lastly, we must be holy, because without holiness on earth we shall never be prepared to enjoy heaven.

I appeal solemnly to everyone who reads these pages, How shall we ever be at home and happy in heaven, if we die unholy? Death works no change. The grave makes no alteration. Each will rise again with the same character in which he breathed his last. Where will our place be if we are strangers to holiness now?

amen

How could you possibly be happy, if you had not been holy on earth?

Think you that such a one would delight to meet David, and Paul, and John, after a life spent in doing the very things they spoke against?

To reach the holiday of glory, we must pass through the training school of grace. We must be heavenly-minded, and have heavenly tastes, in the life that now is, or else we shall never find ourselves in heaven, in the life to come.

I do not ask whether you approve of holiness in others – whether you like to read the lives of holy people, and to talk of holy things, and to have on your table holy books – whether you mean to be holy, and hope you will be holy some day – I ask something further: Are you yourself holy this very day, or are you not?

The great question is not what you think, and what you feel, but what you DO.”

You may say, “At this rate very few will be saved.” I answer, “I know it. It is precisely what we are told in the Sermon on the Mount.” The Lord Jesus said so 1,900 years ago. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:14).

That which costs nothing is worth nothing.

“Let not men deceive themselves,” says Owen; “sanctification is a qualification indispensably necessary unto those who will be under the conduct of the Lord Christ unto salvation. He leads none to heaven but whom He sanctifies on the earth. This living Head will not admit of dead members.”

“Do you feel the importance of holiness as much as you should?”

I fear it is sometimes forgotten that God has married together justification and sanctification. They are distinct and different things, beyond question, but one is never found without the other.

Boast not of Christ’s work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit’s work in you.

But let us remember that the Lord Jesus did speak the Sermon on the Mount, and that the Epistle to the Ephesians contains six chapters and not four.

But I never like such complaints when I see ground for suspecting, as I often do, that they are only a cloak to cover spiritual laziness, and an excuse for spiritual sloth. If we say with Paul, “O wretched man that I am,” let us also be able to say with him, “I press toward the mark.” Let us not quote his example in one thing, while we do not follow him in another. (Romans 7:24; Philippians 3:14).

Is it not true that we need a higher standard of personal holiness in this day? Where is our patience? Where is our zeal? Where is our love? Where are our works? Where is the power of religion to be seen, as it was in times gone by? Where is that unmistakable tone which used to distinguish the saints of old, and shake the world? Verily our silver has become dross, our wine mixed with water, and our salt has very little savour.

Would you be holy? Would you become a new creature? Then you must begin with Christ. You will do just nothing at all, and make no progress till you feel your sin and weakness, and flee to Him. He is the root and beginning of all holiness, and the way to be holy is to come to Him by faith and be joined to Him.

There is not a brick nor a stone laid in the work of our sanctification till we go to Christ. Holiness is His special gift to His believing people. Holiness is the work He carries on in their hearts, by the Spirit whom He puts within them.

Would you continue holy? Then abide in Christ. He says Himself, “Abide in Me and I in you, – he that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.” (John 15:4, 5). It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell – a full supply for all a believer’s wants.

I hold the subject to be closely connected with that of sanctification and holiness. He that would understand the nature of true holiness must know that the Christian is “a man of war.” If we would be holy we must fight.

True Christianity is a fight. True Christianity! Let us mind that word “true.” There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity.

The true Christian is called to be a soldier, and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death. He is not meant to live a life of religious ease, indolence, and security. He must never imagine for a moment that he can sleep and doze along the way to heaven, like one travelling in an easy carriage.

He must fight the flesh. Even after conversion he carries within him a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water.

To keep that heart from going astray, the Lord Jesus bids us “watch and pray.” The spirit may be ready, but the flesh is weak. There is need of a daily struggle and a daily wrestling in prayer. “I keep under my body,” cries Paul, “and bring it into subjection.” – “I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity.” – “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” – “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” – “Mortify your members which are upon the earth.” (Mark 14:38; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Romans 7:23, 24; Galatians 5:24; Colossians 3:5).

He must fight the world.

The love of the world’s good things – the fear of the world’s laughter or blame – the secret desire to keep in with the world – the secret wish to do as others in the world do, and not to run into extremes – all these are spiritual foes which beset the Christian continually on his way to heaven, and must be conquered.

He must fight the devil.

Never slumbering and never sleeping, he is always “going about as a lion seeking whom he may devour.” An unseen enemy, he is always near us, about our path and about our bed, and spying out all our ways.

The strong man armed will never be kept out of our hearts without a daily battle. (Job 1:7; 1 Peter 5:8; John 8:44; Luke 22:31; Ephesians 6:11).

Where there is grace there will be conflict. The believer is a soldier. There is no holiness without a warfare. Saved souls will always be found to have fought a fight.

All are living in a world beset with snares, traps, and pitfalls for the soul. All have near them a busy, restless, malicious devil. All, from the queen in her palace down to the pauper in the workhouse, all must fight, if they would be saved.

The saddest symptom about many so-called Christians is the utter absence of anything like conflict and fight in their Christianity. They eat, they drink, they dress, they work, they amuse themselves, they get money, they spend money, they go through a scanty round of formal religious services once or twice every week. But the great spiritual warfare – its watchings and strugglings, its agonies and anxieties, its battles and contests – of all this they appear to know nothing at all.

The worst chains are those which are neither felt nor seen by the prisoner. (Luke 11:21; 2 Timothy 2:26).

All true saints are soldiers. Anything is better than apathy, stagnation, deadness, and indifference.

The child of God has two great marks about him, and of these two we have one. HE MAY BE KNOWN BY HIS INWARD WARFARE, AS WELL AS BY HIS INWARD PEACE.

True Christianity is the fight of faith.

A general faith in the truth of God’s written Word is the primary foundation of the Christian soldier’s character. He is what he is, does what he does, thinks as he thinks, acts as he acts, hopes as he hopes, behaves as he behaves, for one simple reason – he believes certain propositions revealed and laid down in Holy Scripture.

A special faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’s person, work, and office, is the life, heart, and mainspring of the Christian soldier’s character. He sees by faith an unseen Saviour, who loved him, gave Himself for him, paid his debts for him, bore his sins, carried his transgressions, rose again for him, and appears in heaven for him as his Advocate at the right hand of God.

Habitual lively faith in Christ’s presence to help is the secret of the Christian soldier fighting successfully.

He that has most faith will always be the happiest and most comfortable soldier. Nothing makes the anxieties of warfare sit so lightly on a man as the assurance of Christ’s love and continual protection. Nothing enables him to bear the fatigue of watching, struggling, and wrestling against sin, like the indwelling confidence that Christ is on his side and success is sure.

The more faith the more inward peace! (Ephesians 6:16; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2 Corinthians 4:17, 18; Galatians 2:20; 6:14; Philippians 1:21; 4:11, 13).