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Before we get to today’s article, I just want to mention that am writing from the perspective of a man that has experienced many of the challenges of which I write…. and those spiritual battles continue daily. The articles are implications of what it means to obey the commandment to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They require some reflection and are particularly for Christians who, as Peter would say, are diligently seeking to confirm their calling and are making every effort to supplement their faith. Said more succinctly, serious Christians. If you know other believers who desire to walk more faithfully with the Lord, please forward an article to them and tell them to sign up for future articles. Thanks so much!

Have you ever had your spouse, or a friend suddenly stop you from leaving for work or getting in front of a group of people just so they could straighten your tie, or remove a piece of lint, or even point out that some article of clothing was not properly closed? They noticed and acted because they were concerned about how you would look to others. In the case of the first two examples, you were thankful, and in the case of the third example, you were really grateful! We take those as acts of kindness or love. 

Yet, while we are apt to pay attention and act over those sorts of small “out of place” details, we are remiss in taking note and acting regarding the most important things to a friend or loved one- things that are out of place concerning their soul. We must ask ourselves the “why” question. Are we ignorant of what the Bible says a Christian looks like? Are we afraid to talk to a friend or loved one when something is out of place in their Christian walk? I think there is a lot to discuss regarding those two questions, but that will have to wait for another post. This post is about knowing what to look for in the life of a professing believer, the visible evidence of sanctification in particular. We must know what to look for before we are challenged with a loving response and in order to do that, I take you back to the great book written by J.C. Ryle, called Holiness. 

The topic is not only incredibly important for us to think about; it is also huge. In the remainder of this article, I am going to do my best to parse J.C. Ryle’s words (The book is called Holiness) down to a size that will fit into this post. My previous article based on Ryle’s book was on the absolute necessity of sanctification; this article concerns the evidence of sanctification in every true believer.

As always, I implore you to think deeply about application first to yourself, and then to others. Ryle begins this section of his book with what he calls The Visible Evidence of Sanctification. From Ryle:

In a word, what are the visible marks of a sanctified man? What may we expect to see in him? It is difficult because it cannot possibly be treated without giving offence. But at any risk truth ought to be spoken, and there is some kind of truth which especially requires to be spoken in the present day.

1. True sanctification then does not consist in talk about religion.

In fact, it is sickening and disgusting to hear the cool and flippant language which many pour out about ‘conversion’, ‘the Savior’, ‘the gospel’, ‘finding peace’, ‘free grace’ and the like, while they are notoriously serving sin or living for the world. God does not want His people to be mere empty tubs, sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. We must be sanctified, not only ‘in word and in tongue, but in deed and truth’ (1 John 3:18).

2. True sanctification does not consist in temporary religious feelings. 

Many, it may be feared, appear moved and touched and roused under the preaching of the gospel, while in reality their hearts are not changed at all. Like the stony-ground hearers, they receive the Word with joy (Matt. 13:20), but after a little they fall away, go back to the world and are harder and worse than before. Therefore, let us urge on everyone who exhibits new interest in religion to be content with nothing short of the deep, solid, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. It is a thousand times better to begin more slowly, and then ‘continue in the Word’ steadfastly, than begin in a hurry without counting the cost, and by and by look back with Lot’s wife, and return to the world. 

3. True sanctification does not consist in outward formalism and external devoutness. Thousands appear to imagine that true holiness is to be seen in an excessive quantity of bodily religion – in constant attendance on church services, reception of the Lord’s Supper, observance of fasts and saints’ days, and in multiplied bowings and turnings and gestures and postures during public worship. But I am afraid that in many cases this external religiousness is made a substitute for inward holiness.  Above all, when I see that many followers of this outward, sensuous, and formal style of Christianity are absorbed in worldliness, and plunge headlong into its pomps and vanities without shame, I feel that there is need of very plain speaking on the subject. There may be an immense amount of ‘bodily service’, while there is not a jot of real sanctification.

4. Sanctification does not consist in retirement from our place in life, and the renunciation of our social duties. In every age it has been a snare with many to take up this line in the pursuit of holiness. Hundreds of hermits have buried themselves in some wilderness, and thousands of men and women have shut themselves up within the walls of monasteries and convents, under the vain idea that by so doing they would escape sin and become eminently holy. They have forgotten that no bolts and bars can keep out the devil and that, wherever we go, we carry that root of all evil, our own hearts. It is doing our duty in that state to which God has called us, like salt in the midst of corruption and light in the midst of darkness, which is a primary element in sanctification. It is not the man who hides himself in a cave, but the man who glorifies God as master or servant, parent or child, in the family and in the street, in business and in trade, who is the scriptural type of a sanctified man. 

5. Sanctification does not consist in the occasional performance of right actions. It is the habitual working of a new heavenly principle within, which runs through all a man’s daily conduct, both in great things and in small. Its seat is in the heart and, like the heart in the body, it has a regular influence on every part of the character. Just so there are scores of people in the present day who seem to have spasmodical fits of ‘goodness’, as it is called, and do many right things under the influence of sickness, affliction, death in the family, public calamities, or a sudden qualm of conscience. Yet all the time any intelligent observer can see plainly that they are not converted, and that they know nothing of sanctification?

6. Genuine sanctification will show itself in habitual respect to God’s law, and habitual effort to live in obedience to it as the rule of life. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a Christian has nothing to do with the law and the Ten Commandments, because he cannot be justified by keeping them. The same Holy Ghost who convinces the believer of sin by the law, and leads him to Christ for justification, will always lead him to a spiritual use of the law, as a friendly guide, in the pursuit of sanctification. Our Lord Jesus Christ never made light of the Ten Commandments. On the contrary, in His first public discourse at the sermon on the mount, He expounded them, and showed the searching nature of their requirements. Paul never made light of the law; on the contrary, he says, “The law is good, if a man uses it lawfully.’ ‘I delight in the law of God after the inward man’ (1 Tim. 1:8; Rom. 7:22). He that pretends to be a saint, while he sneers at the Ten Commandments and thinks nothing of lying, hypocrisy, swindling, ill temper, slander, drunkenness, and adultery, is under a fearful delusion. He will find it hard to prove that he is a ‘saint’ in the last day!

7. Genuine sanctification will show itself in a habitual endeavor to do Christ’s will, and to live by His practical precepts. These precepts are to be found scattered everywhere throughout the four Gospels, and especially in the sermon on the mount. He that supposes they were spoken without the intention of promoting holiness, and that a Christian need not attend to them in his daily life, is really little better than a lunatic, and at any rate is a grossly ignorant person. A truly sanctified man will never forget this. He serves a Master who said, ‘You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you’ (John 15:14).

8. Genuine sanctification will show itself in a habitual desire to live up to the standard which Paul sets before the churches in his writings. I defy anyone to read Paul’s writings carefully without finding in them a large quantity of plain practical directions about the Christian’s duty in every relation of life and about our daily habits, temperament, and behavior to one another. These directions were written down by inspiration of God for the perpetual guidance of professing Christians. He who does not attend to them may possibly pass muster as a member of a church or a chapel, but he certainly is not what the Bible calls a ‘sanctified’ man.

9. Genuine sanctification will show itself in habitual attention to the active graces which our Lord so beautifully exemplified, and especially to the grace of charity. ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one to another’ (John 13:34, 35). The selfish Christian professor, who wraps himself up in his own conceit of superior knowledge and seems to care nothing whether others sink or swim, go to heaven or hell, so long as he walks to church or chapel in his Sunday best, and is called a ‘sound member’ – such a man knows nothing of sanctification. He may think himself a saint on earth, but he will not be a saint in heaven. 

10. Genuine sanctification, in the last place, will show itself in habitual attention to the passive graces of Christianity. When I speak of passive graces, I mean those graces which are especially shown in submission to the will of God, and in bearing and forbearing towards one another. Of one thing I feel very sure: it is nonsense to pretend to sanctification unless we follow after the meekness, gentleness, longsuffering, and forgivingness of which the Bible makes so much. People who are habitually giving way to peevish and cross tempers in daily life and are constantly sharp with their tongues and disagreeable to all around them, spiteful people, vindictive people, revengeful people, malicious people – of whom, alas, the world is only too full – all such know little as they should know about sanctification.

Such are the visible marks of a sanctified man. I do not say that they are all to be seen equally in all God’s people. I freely admit that in the best they are not fully and perfectly exhibited. But I do say confidently that the things of which I have been speaking are the scriptural marks of sanctification, and that they who know nothing of them may well doubt whether they have any grace at all. Whatever others may please to say, I will never shrink from saying that genuine sanctification is a thing that can be seen, and that the marks I have endeavored to sketch out are more or less the marks of a sanctified man.

So, there it is from Ryle. I’ll finish this post with several questions for you to ponder. Do you know a person who claims to follow Christ, but you cannot see Christ in him? A person who says that they love Jesus, but they clearly don’t love to do what Jesus has commanded? What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do if that person is you?

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Last modified: January 21, 2023

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