Thursday, June 09, 2011

Holiness: J. C. Ryle on the Christian Life


Chapter 20: Christ is All

"Christ is all" (Col. 3:11).

The words of the text which heads this page are few, short and soon spoken; but they contain great things. Like those golden sayings, "To me to live is Christ," "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me," they are singularly rich and suggestive (Phil. 1:21; Gal. 2:20).

These three words are the essence and substance of Christianity. If our hearts can really go along with them, it is well with our souls. If not, we may be sure we have yet much to learn.

Let me try to set before my readers in what sense Christ is all, and let me ask them, as they read, to Judge themselves honestly, that they may not make shipwreck in the judgment of the last day.

I purposely close this volume with a message on this remarkable text. 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. I began the volume with a plain statement about sin. Let me end it with an equally plain statement about Christ.

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Chapter 20 concludes what some consider the best book on the Christian life ever written.

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