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| J. C. Ryle |
For one thing, let me ask everyone who may read these pages, Are you holy? Listen, I pray you, to the question I put before you this day. Do you know anything of the holiness of which I have been speaking?
I do not ask whether you attend your church regularly--whether you have been baptized, and received the Lord's Supper--whether you have the name of Christian--I ask something more than all this: Are you holy, or are you not?
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 someday--I ask something further: Are you yourself holy on this very day, or are you not?
And why do I ask so straitly, and press the question so strongly? I do it because the scripture says, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." It is written, it is not in my fancy--it is in the Bible, not my private opinion--it is the word of God, not of man--"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord" (Heb.12:14).
Alas, what searching, sifting words are these! What thoughts come across my mind, as I write them down! I look at the world and see the greater part of it lying in wickedness. I look at professing Christians, and see the vast majority having nothing of Christianity but the name. I turn to the Bible, and I hear the Spirit saying, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."
Surely it is a text that ought to make us consider our ways, and search our hearts. Surely it should raise within us solemn thoughts, and send us to prayer.
You may try to put me off by saying you "feel much, and think much about these things: far more than many suppose." I answer, "This is not the point. The poor lost souls in hell do as much as this. The great question is not what you think, and what you feel, but what you do."
You may say, "It was never meant that all Christians should be holy, and that holiness," such as I have described, "is only for great saints, and people of uncommon gifts." I answer, "I cannot see that in Scripture. I read that every man who hath hope in Christ purifieth himself" (1 John3:3)."Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."
You may says, "It is impossible to be so holy and to do our duty in this life at the same time; the thing cannot be done." I answer, "You are mistaken. It can be done. With Christ on your side nothing is impossible. It has been done by many. David, and Obadiah, and Daniel, and the servant's of Nero's household, are all examples that go to prove it."
You may say, "If I were so holy I would be unlike other people." I answer, "I know it well. It is just what you ought to be. Christ's true servant's were unlike the world around them--a separate nation, a peculiar people; and you must be too, if you would be saved!"
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 2,000 years ago. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matt.7:14). Few will be saved, because few will take the trouble to seek salvation. Men will not deny themselves the pleasures of sin and their own way for a little season. They turn their backs on an "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." "Ye will not come unto Me," says Jesus, "that ye might have life" (John 5:40).
You may say, "These are hard sayings: the way is very narrow." I answer, "I know it. So says the Sermon on the Mount." The Lord Jesus said so 2,000 years ago. He always said that men must take up the cross daily, and that they be ready to cut off hand or foot, if they would be His disciples. It is in religion as it is in other things, "there are no gains without pains." That which costs nothing is worth nothing.
Whatever we may think fIt to say, we must be holy, if we would see the Lord. Where is our Christianity if we are not? We must not merely have a Christian name, and Christian knowledge, we must have a Christian character also. We must be saints on earth, if we mean to be saints in heaven. God has said it, and He will not go back: "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." "The Pope's calendar," says Jenkyn, "only makes saints of the dead, but Scripture requires sanctity in the living." "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 dead members."
Surely we need not wonder that Scripture says, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). Surely it is clear as noonday that many professing Christians need a complete change--new hearts, new natures--if ever they are to be saved. Old things must pass away; they must become new creatures. "Without holiness no man," be he who he may, "shall see the Lord."
Let me, for another thing, speak a little to believers. I ask you this question, "Do you think you feel the importance of holiness as much as you should?"
I own I fear the temper of the times about this subject. I doubt exceedingly whether it holds that place it deserves in the thoughts and attention of some of the Lord's people. I would humbly suggest that we are apt to overlook the doctrine of growth in grace, and that we do not sufficiently consider how very far a person may go in profession of religion, and yet have no grace, and be dead in God's sight after all. I believe that Judas Iscariot seemed very like the other apostles. When the Lord warned them that one would betray Him, no one said, "Is it Judas?" We had better think more about the churches of Sardis and Laodicea then we do.
I have no desire to make an idol of holiness. I do not wish to dethrone Christ and put holiness in His place. But I must candidly say, I wish sanctification was more thought of in this day than it seems to be, and I therefore take occasion to press the subject on all believers into whose hands these pages may fall. I fear it is sometimes forgotten that God has married justification and sanctification. They are distinct and different things, beyond question, but one is never found without the other. All justified people are sanctified, and all sanctified are justified. What God has joined together let no man dare to put asunder. Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ's work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit's work in you. Think not that Christ and the Spirit have ever been divided. I doubt not that many believers know these things, but I think it good for us to be put in remembrance of them. Let us prove that we know them by our lives. Let us try to keep them in view this text more continually: "Follow holiness, without which no shall see the Lord."
I must frankly say that I wish there wasn't such an excessive sensitiveness on the subject of holiness as I sometimes perceive in the minds of believers. A man might really think it is a dangerous subject to handle, so cautiously is it touched! Yet surely when we have exalted Christ as "the way, the truth, and the life," we cannot err in speaking strongly about what should be the character of His people. Well says Rutherford, "The way that crieth down duties and sanctification, is not the way of grace. Believing and doing are blood-friends."
I would say it with all reverence, but say it I must--I sometimes fear if Christ were on earth now, there are not a few who would think His preaching legal; and if Paul were writing his Epistles, there are those who would think he had better not write the latter part of most of them as he did. 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. I grieve to feel obligated to speak in this way, but I am sure there is a cause.
That great divine, John Owen, the dean of Christ Church, used to say more than two hundred years ago, that there were people whose whole religion seemed to consist in going about complaining of their own corruption, and telling everyone they could nothing of themselves. I am afraid that after two centuries the same thing might be said with truth of Christ's professing people in this day. I know there are texts in Scripture that warrant such complaints. I do not object to them when they come from men who walk in the steps of the Apostle Paul, and fight a good fight, as he did, against sin, the devil, and the world. But I never like such complaints when see grounds for suspecting, as I often do, that they are only a cloak to cover spiritual laziness, and 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 (Rom.7:24; Phil.3:14).
I do not set up myself to be better than other people, and if anyone asks, "What are you, that you write in this way?" I answer, "I am a very poor creature indeed." But I say that I cannot read the Bible without desiring to see many believers more spiritual, more holy, more single-eyed, more heavenly minded, more whole-hearted than they are today. I want to see among believers more of a pilgrim spirit, a more decided separation from the world, a conversation more evidently in heaven, a closer walk with God--and therefore I have written as I have.
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 the unmistakable tone that 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 savor. We are all more than half asleep. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Let us awake, and sleep no more. Let us open our eyes more widely than we have done hitherto. "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us." "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and perfect holiness in the fear of God" (Heb.12:1; 2 Cor.7:1). "Did Christ die," says Owen, "and sin shall live? Was He crucified in the world, and shall our affections to the world be quick and lively? Oh, where is the spirit of Him, who by the cross of Christ was crucified to the world, and the world to him!"
~J.C. Ryle - Holiness~
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