On Peace

Peace, we may safely conclude, was intended, by our Lord, to be the keynote to the Christian ministry.  That same peace which was so continually on the lips of the Master was to be the grand subject of the teaching of His disciples.  Peace between God and man through the precious blood of atonement, peace between man and man through the infusion of grace and charity – to spread such peace as this was to be the work of the church.  Any religion – like that of Mahomet, who made converts with the sword – is not from above but from beneath.  Any form of Christianity which burns men at the stake in order to promote its own success carries about with it the stamp of an apostasy.  That is the truest and best religion which does most to spread real, true peace. – J. C. Ryle (1816-1900).  Comment on John 20.19-23.

 

On Inward Peace

We see, in Peter’s tears, the close connection between unhappiness and departure from God.  It is a merciful arrangement of God that, in one sense, holiness shall always be its own reward.  A heavy heart and an uneasy conscience, a clouded hope and an abundant crop of doubts will always be the consequences of backsliding and inconsistency.  The words of Solomon describe the experience of many an inconsistent child of God: “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways” (Proverbs 14.14).  Let it be a settled principle in our religion that, if we love inward peace, we must walk closely with God. – J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), commenting on Matthew 26.69-75.

 

Ryle on Wednesday – 12

The foundation of the true church was made at a mighty cost.  It needed that the Son of God should take our nature upon Him and, in that nature, live, suffer, and die, not for His own sins, but for ours.  It needed that, in that nature, Christ should go to the grave, and rise again.  It needed that, in that nature, Christ should go up to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, having obtained eternal redemption for all His people.  No other foundation could have met the necessities of lost, guilty, corrupt, weak, helpless sinners.

That foundation, once obtained, is very strong.  It can bear the weight of the sins of all the world.  It has borne the weight of all the sins of all the believers who have built on it.  Sins of thought, sins of the imagination, sins of the heart, sins of the head, sins which everyone has seen, and sins which no man knows, sins against God, and sins against man, sins of all kinds and descriptions – that mighty rock can bear the weight of all these sins and not give way.  The mediatorial office of Christ is a remedy sufficient for all the sins of all the world.

To this one foundation, every member of Christ’s true church is joined.  In many things, believers are disunited and disagreed.  In the matter of their soul’s foundation, they are all of one mind.  Whether Episcopalians or Presbyterians, Baptists or Methodists, believers all meet at one point.  They are all built on the rock.  Ask where they get their peace and hope and joyful expectation of good things to come.  You will find that all flows from that one mighty source: Christ, the mediator between God and man, and the office that Christ holds as the High Priest and Surety of sinners.

From: Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots by J. C. Ryle; reprint (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 1979), p. 215.  Originally published in 1879.

 

Ryle on Wednesday – 7

When I speak of growth in grace, I do not, for a moment, mean that a believer’s interest in Christ can grow.  I do not mean that he can grow in safety, acceptance with God, or security.  I do not mean that he can ever be more justified, more pardoned, more forgiven, more at peace with God than he is the first moment he believes.  I hold, firmly, that the justification of a believer is a finished, perfect, and complete work, and that the weakest saint, though he may not know and feel it, is as completely justified as the strongest.  I hold, firmly, that our election, calling, and standing in Christ admit of no degrees, increase, or diminution.  If anyone dreams that, by growth in grace, I mean growth in justification, he is utterly wide of the mark and utterly mistaken about the whole point I am considering.  I would go to the stake, God helping me, for the glorious truth that, in the matter of justification before God, every believer is complete in Christ (Colossians 2.10).  Nothing can be added to his justification from the moment he believes, and nothing can be taken away.

When I speak of growth in grace, I only mean increase in the degree, size, strength, vigor, and power of the graces which the Holy Spirit plants in a believer’s heart.  I hold that every one of those graces admits of growth, progress, and increase.  I hold that repentance, faith, hope, love, humility, zeal, courage, and the like may be little or great, strong or weak, vigorous or feeble, and may vary greatly in the same man at different periods of his life.  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 spiritualmindedness 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.  I leave it to others to describe such a man’s condition by any words they please.  For myself, I think the truest and best account of him is this – he is growing in grace.  

From: Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots by J. C. Ryle; reprint (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 1979), pp. 82-83.  Originally published in 1879.

 

Justification and Sanctification

J. C. Ryle, that latter-day Puritan of the nineteenth century, has provided one further strand of reflection on this subject.  In his book, “Holiness,” he not only sets out the differences between justification and sanctification, he highlights, also, where they are alike.  He highlights five important similarities: both justification and sanctification proceed from the free grace of God, both are rooted in the eternal covenant and, supremely, in Christ, both are found in the same persons, both begin at the same time, and both are necessary to salvation.

In the eight contrasts he draws, there are three which add to what has been summarized above already: the righteousness we have by justification is not our own, while that found in sanctification is.  In justification, our works have no place at all while, in sanctification, they are of vast importance.  And, justification is a finished and complete work, whereas sanctification is imperfect and will never be perfect till we reach heaven. 

From: “Sanctification: 4 – Alone, But Never Alone!,” by Mark G. Johnston, in The Banner of Truth, Issue 511 (April, 2006), pp. 12-13.

 

Of Ultimate Importance

Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition.  It can only be obtained by diligent, regular, daily, attentive, wakeful reading. – J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), Anglican pastor and author

(Hat tip: Randy Senior)

 

 

Those Who are Regenerated

A regenerated person…

1.  …does not commit sin as a habit (1 John 3:9; 5:18).

2.  …believes that Jesus Christ is the only Savior (1 John 5:1).

3.  …is a holy person (1 John 2:29).

4.  …has a special love for all true disciples of Christ (1 John 3:14).

5.  …does not make the world’s opinion his rule of right and wrong (1 John 5:4).

6.  …is very careful of his own soul (1 John 5:18).

From: Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion from the Standpoint of an Evangelical Clergyman by J. C. Ryle; reprint (London: Chas J. Thynne, 1900), pp. 124-128.  Originally published in 1877.

 

Adhering to Jesus Christ

Cling to Christ, I say, and never forget your debt to Him.  Sinners you were, when you were first called by the Holy Ghost and fled to Jesus.  Sinners you have been, even at your best, from the day of your conversion.  Sinners you will find yourselves to your dying hour, having nothing to boast of in yourselves.  Then, cling to Christ.

Cling to Christ, I say, and make use of His atoning blood every day.  Go to Him every morning as your morning sacrifice and confess your need of His salvation.  Go to Him every night, after the bustle of the day, and plead for fresh absolution.  Wash in the great fountain every evening after all the defilement of contact with the world.  “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet” (John 13:10).

Cling to Christ, I say, and show the world how you love Him.  Show it by obedience to His commandments.  Show it by conformity to His image.  Show it by following His example.  Make your Master’s cause lovely and beautiful before men by your holiness of temper and conversation.  Let all the world see that he who is much forgiven is the man who loves much, and that he who loves most is the man who does most for Christ (Luke 7:47).

From: Old Paths: Being Plain Statements on Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity from the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman by J. C. Ryle (London: William Hunt and Company, 1877), p. 177.

 

On the Transfiguration

The event described in these verses, commonly called “the transfiguration,” is one of the most remarkable in the history of our Lord’s earthly ministry.  It is one of those passages which we should always read with peculiar thankfulness.  It lifts a corner of the veil which hangs over the world to come and throws light on some of the deepest truths of our religion.

In the first place, this passage shows us something of the glory which Christ will have at His second coming.  We read that “the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering,” and that the disciples who were with Him “saw His glory.”

We need not doubt that this marvellous vision was meant to encourage and strengthen our Lord’s disciples.  They had just been hearing of the cross and passion, and the self-denials and sufferings to which they must submit themselves if they would be saved.  They were now cheered by a glimpse of the “glory that should follow,” and the reward which all faithful servants of their Master would one day receive.  They had seen their Master’s day of weakness.  They now saw, for a few minutes, a pattern and specimen of His future power.

From: Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by J. C. Ryle.  Commentary on Luke 9:25-36 (published in 1858).

 

On the Lord’s Supper

I turn from the positive to the negative side of the subject with real pain and reluctance.  But it is a plain duty to do so.  Ministers, like physicians, must study disease as well as health, and exhibit error as well as truth.  Let me, then, try to show what are not the intentions of the Lord’s Supper.

It was never meant to be regarded as a sacrifice.  We were not intended to believe that there is any change in the elements of bread and wine or any corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament.  These things can never be fairly or honestly got out of Scripture.  Let the three accounts of the institution, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the one given by St. Paul to the Corinthians, be weighed and examined impartially, and I have no doubt as to the result.  They teach that there is no sacrifice, no altar, no change in the substance of the elements; that the bread, after consecration, is still literally and truly bread, and the wine, after consecration, is literally and truly wine.  In no part of the New Testament do we find the Christian minister called a priest and, in no part, do we find any mention of a sacrifice, except that of prayer and praise and good works.  The last literal sacrifice, we are repeatedly told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is the once for all finished sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

No doubt it may satisfy such controversialists are the late Cardinal Wiseman to adduce such texts as “This is My body” and “This is My blood” as proofs that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice.  But a man must be easily satisfied if such texts content him.  The quotation of a single isolated phrase is a mode of arguing that would establish Arianism or Socinianism.  The context of these famous expressions shows clearly that those who heard the words used understood them to mean “This represents My body” and “This represents My blood.”  The analogy of other places proves that “is” and “are” frequently mean “represent” in Scripture.  St. Paul, in writing on the sacrament, expressly calls the consecrated bread “bread,” and not the body of Christ, no less than three times (1 Corinthians 11:26-28).  Above all, there remains the unanswerable argument that, if our Lord were actually holding His own body in His hands when He said, of the bread, “This is My body,” His body must have been a different body to that of ordinary men.  Of course, if His body was not a body like ours, His real and proper humanity is at an end.  At this rate, the blessed and comfortable doctrine of Christ’s entire sympathy with His people, as very man, would be completely overthrown and fall to the ground.

From: Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion, From the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman by John Charles Ryle; reprint (London: Chas. J. Thynne, 1900 [1877]), pp. 166-167.