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A Holy Violence






A few years ago when my two brothers and I were baptized our dad bought each of us a copy of a book called Holiness by J.C. Ryle. He challenged us to read and meditate on it and, once a week, my brothers and I would gather and share our favorite quotes with our family. I want to do something like that through my future blog posts and share multiple quotes from his book along with the different things that stuck out to me. Each page was full of such rich biblical wisdom and truth and I could not share the half of it in just one short blog post (and shall probably fail trying to dig into a single quote right now).



If you have not read Holiness by J.C. Ryle, I suggest you immediately go buy it and get reading! I don’t think I could overstate the great blessing it has been to me. It discusses holiness, the Christian life and sanctification in a much needed, biblical way.


I used to think that the Christian life was an easy ride to heaven in which we float about in happy bliss with perfectly righteous hearts and minds. And when I was first saved, I was very discouraged because of how much I struggled with sin. I felt like I was a worse sinner than I had been before salvation. Why did I have so much inward turmoil and struggle? Shouldn’t I be “free” from sin?

This particular quote really corrected my misconceptions about the Christian life. It so clearly states that the sign of a true believer is that they are in a daily battle against sin. In fact, if someone is not battling sin they are in slavery to it. In other words, what I thought was a possible reason to doubt my conversion was actually a reason to be assured of my salvation.


To further explain; before we are born again (saved) we are in complete bondage to sin; it rules over us and we are incapable of doing anything against it. We naturally love it.


(Ephesians 2:1-3)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.


But when we are born again, we are set free from sin and given a new heart that desires to obey God. We now love Christ and hate sin. Christ grants us a living faith in himself and by his death on the cross, our sins are washed away and his perfect righteousness is imputed to us. Because of this in God’s eyes a true believer is legally sinless and perfectly righteous.


(Ephesians 2:4)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,

even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved-

(Romans 6:22)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.



Yet, even though sin is a defeated foe, it remains in our hearts and will continue to remain within us until we are inwardly perfected in Glory. We are still sinners


(1 John 1:10)

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.


The difference is that now that we fight it rather than blindly caringly outs it's wishes. In this life, we are in a constant fight against it. Daily, we must put it to death by abiding in Christ, reading the Word and praying.


(1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.



A desire for adventure easily springs up when I read stories about heroes fighting terrible foes for a righteous cause, but why don't I come to the Christian life with that attitude? I should!

We need to be reminded of the truth explained above and approach life as a battle. Here, right in front of us is a demand to fight and a promise of ultimate victory. Struggles against sins are not unique; I need to see that I am merely another soldier fighting in an age-old war.


I kept missing this until J.C. Ryle drove it home through his writings. Rather than droop in defeat or laze about in lethargy we should muster our courage and embrace the holy violence of the Christian life, placing our hope in Christ the captain of our salvation.


For Christ has won the ultimate victory.


(John 16:33)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”





P.S. Here's the link to the book in case you don't already own it :) https://a.co/d/112iMw0


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