Holiness. It is of such importance that without it, according to the author of Hebrews, no one will see the Lord (12:14). In other words, entrance into heaven requires holiness. That does not mean you must strive to enter the kingdom by doing enough good works, but that those who enter are those who strive to be holy. Furthermore, holiness is what will characterize our lives in heaven. If someone does not desire holiness, heaven will be hell to him, because that is what Jesus is and what He requires of the occupants. On the other hand, if you desire holiness more than your own life, you will love this book, written more than a century ago by J.C. Ryle, "the working man's preacher." Every page drips with spiritual honey that true believers in Christ will savor as they read. Ryle's approach to seeking holiness is forthright and confrontive, but refreshing and liberating. I recommend this book as the most thorough, researched, and helpful book on the issue of personal holiness that I have ever read.

Holiness stands out to me and to most Christians as somewhat of an enigma, because it is something that the Bible describes, and yet few Christians experience with any depth. Ryle's thesis and emphasis lie chiefly in the fact that holiness is of such importance that without it, according to the author of Hebrews, no one will see the Lord (12:14). In other words, argues Ryle, entrance into heaven requires holiness. That does not mean you must strive to enter the kingdom by doing enough good works, but that those who enter are those who strive to be holy. Furthermore, holiness is what will characterize our lives in heaven. If someone does not desire holiness, heaven will be hell to him, because that is where Jesus is and what He requires of the occupants. On the other hand, if you desire holiness more than your own life, this book is not only refreshing, but also liberating.

To Ryle, the Christian life is more than an external, ritualistic, emotionally charged, effortless journey to heaven, it is a road on which battles are fought, which must be won if a person is to reach heaven. Each chapter alone is filled with enough material for a book in itself. Sometimes the Christian life is likened unto a fight, against which the enemies of our souls must be vanquished. Elsewhere, we are told that the way to heaven is opposite the course of this world, to which Lot and Moses can testify. The Christian life is a reckoning of the cost required to follow Christ, in which sacrifice must be made if we are to be saved. Following Christ is not easy according to Ryle, wherein every chapter he contrasts false notions pervasive in his day against the Scriptures - which also appear in our day dressed in similar clothing.

Sin is something that is assaulted on every page - indwelling sin that is! Sanctification is something that is clearly defined, articulated, and distinguished from justification, and false forms of holiness. Truly, if I had only this book in my library, I think that I would have all that I needed to know about the Christian life. It is that comprehensive and broad in its coverage. Certainly it omits certain details and is not complete, but it is foundational and essential for every Christian to read, because of its scope. It is a handbook on life - so that anyone who reads it obtains a systematic understanding of applied theology relative to the Christian life.

I have yet to read a book on the Christian life more researched, scholarly, and yet practical, convicting, and worshipful. The balance with which this "working man's preacher" presents the Biblical data on sanctification and holiness is astounding. His commitment to the Biblical text, his research from men of old, his command of the necessity of the message in the modern age, and the authority with which he commands the readers led me to the place where I am forced to comply with the Scriptures, or rebel against God. I can scarcely think of a place within the book that I disagree. Another helpful portion of the book, specifically in the introduction, and then sprinkled throughout are the stark contrasts of false views of sanctification, which serve as a backdrop against which true holiness is seen.

It is easy to capture at least 10 of the life essential principles found in his work. Here are some of his greatest lines:

1. A sin consists in "doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the Law and mind of God" (p. 2). 

2. "The sinfulness of man does not begin from without but from within. It is not the result of bad training in the early years. It is not picked up from bad companions and bad examples... No!  It is a family disease that we all inherit from our first parents Adam and Eve, and with which we are born" (p. 3). 

3. "Sanctification is that inward spiritual work which the Lord Jesus Christ works in a man by the Holy Ghost, when He calls him to be a true believer. He not only washes him from his sins in His own blood, but He also separates him from his natural love of sin and of the world, puts a new principle in his heart and makes his practically godly in life" (p. 16). 

4. "Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in the Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in the world by the standard of His Word. He who most entirely agrees with God, he is the most holy man" (p. 34). 

5. "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... He that pretends to condemn 'fighting' and teaches that we ought to sit still and 'yield ourselves to God', appears to me to misunderstand his Bible, and to make a great mistake" (p. 51, 53). 

6. If a man is to be a Christian, "it will cost him his self-righteousness... his sins... his love of ease... the favor of the world. A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown" (p. 68-70). 

7. "This is one secret of eminent holiness, he that would be conformed to Christ's image, and become a Christ-like man, must be constantly studying Christ Himself...  Surely we cannot know this Christ too well! Surely there is not a word, nor a deed, nor a day, nor a step, nor a thought in the record of His life, which ought not to be precious to us" (p. 191, 192). 

8. Be patient under the enmity of the gates of hell. It is all working together for your good. It tends to sanctify. It will keep you awake. It will make you humble. It will drive you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ. It will wean you from the world. It will help to make you pray more. Above all, it will make you long for heaven. It will teach you to say with the heart as well as lips, 'Come, Lord Jesus. Thy Kingdom come' " (p. 217). 

9. Referring to Peter's confrontation by Jesus after the resurrection, Ryle writes, "And what was the question that He asked him? He might have said, "Believest thou?" "Art thou converted?" "Art thou ready to confess Me?" "Wilt thou obey Me?" He uses none of these expressions. He simply says, "Lovest thou Me?" This is the point, He would have us know, on which a man's Christianity hinges. Simple as the question sounded, it was most searching. Plain and easy to be understood by the most unlearned poor man, it contains matter which tests the reality of the most advanced apostle. If a man truly loves Christ, all is right; if not, all is wrong" (p. 236). 

10. Charge every reader of this message to ask himself frequently what the Bible is to him. Is it a Bible in which you have found nothing more than good moral precepts and sound advice? Or is it a Bible in which you have found Christ? Is it a Bible in which Christ is all? If not, I tell you plainly, you have hitherto used your Bible to very little purpose. You are like a man who studies the solar system, and leaves out in his studies the sun, which is the center of all. It is no wonder if you find your Bible a dull book!...  I cannot dwell long on this point. I have not power, if I had space and room. I can ill describe things unseen and a world unknown. But this I know, that all men and women who reach heaven will find that even there also Christ is all" (p. 305, 310).

I can say after looking at the world, the media, and even Christianity globally, there is little to nothing that even leans towards the devotion, zeal, values, goals, lifestyle described in this book by JC Ryle. In one particular program I watched recently, there was a sense of moral conscience because of the oppression many face who are 'undeserving', but never a true sense of how to arrive at filling the Christ-shaped vacuum in our hearts left by the absence of true holiness and Christlikeness. The church and the world today, which seem to be so very much alike, do not even really have the platform to process the values esteemed and proclaimed in this book. The diagnosis? A hard heart, and a wholesale rejection of the Word of God, in which Christ the Magnificent Savior is prized and lauded.

Personally, the greatest lessons learned and challenges to my own heart, after reading this book have to do with how little effort I really give to the Christian life, which have uncovered deadly motives to remain comfortable in carnality and sin, for which Christ died. I have also been liberated, now that I understand true holiness, in theory more than experience, to run as hard as I can towards it because of its wonderful attraction to my new and redeemed heart. O reader, I plead with you to read this book over and over, and take to heart all that is written in it, for the health of your soul and the glory of God.

From the Flap

Holiness is by far Ryle's most important doctrinal and practical work...

The book you are holding in your hands is Ryle's response to the errors that were flourishing in his time...

More than a century has passed since Ryle's Holiness was first published, and today the book is more timely than ever...

In any list of must-read books, this one should be somewhere near the very top.  It is simple, clear, practical, and biblical -- a clarion echo from an earlier time, but still an ideal corrective for this generation.  I am thrilled to have a part in helping to get it into people's hands.

-- John MacAruthur

About the Author

John Charles Ryle (1816-1900), first Bishop of Liverpool and, perhaps, the Church of England's last Puritan, was a theological vertebrate.  He never suffered from what he called a "boneless, nerveless, jellyfish condition of soul."  Indeed, his successor described him as "that mane of granite."  Archbishop Magee called him "the frank and manly Mr. Ryle."  And Charles Spurgeon extolled him as "an evangelical champion."  Ryle simply said, "What is won dearly is priced highly and clung to firmly."

Bishop Ryle died on trinity Sunday 1900.  Today, more than a hundred years after his death, his works stand at the crossroads between the historic faith and modern evangelicalism.  They are signposts directing us to the "old paths."  And holiness, no doubt, is not least among them, for without it no man shall see the Lord.