True Christianity

True Christianity

(J. C. Ryle, "What Is Needed?" 1895)

(1) True Christianity has always taught the inspiration, sufficiency, and supremacy of Holy Scripture. It has told men that "God's written Word" is the only trustworthy rule of faith and practice in religion; that God requires nothing to be believed that is not in this Word; and that nothing is right which contradicts it. It has never allowed reason, or the voice of the Church, to be placed above, or on a level with Scripture. It has steadily maintained that, however imperfectly we may understand it, the Old Book is meant to be the only standard of life and doctrine.

(2) True Christianity has always taught fully the sinfulness, guilt and corruption of human nature. It has told men, that they are born in sin, deserve God's wrath and condemnation, and are naturally inclined to do evil. It has never allowed that men and women are only weak and pitiable creatures, who can become good when they please, and make their own peace with God. On the contrary, it has steadily declared man's danger and vileness, and his pressing need of a Divine forgiveness and atonement for his sins, a new birth or conversion, and an entire change of heart.

(3) True Christianity has always set before men, the Lord Jesus Christ as the chief object of faith and hope in religion—as the Divine Mediator between God and men, the only source of peace of conscience, and the root of all spiritual life. The main things it has ever insisted on about Christ, are—the atonement for sin He made by His death, His sacrifice on the cross, the complete redemption from guilt and condemnation by His blood, His victory over the grave by His resurrection, His active life of intercession at God's right hand, and the absolute necessity of simple faith in Him. In short, it has made Christ the Alpha and the Omega in Christian theology.

(4) True Christianity has always honored the Person of God the Holy Spirit, and magnified His work. It has never taught that all professing Christians have the grace of the Spirit in their hearts, as a matter of course—because they are baptized, or because they belong to a Church. It has steadily maintained that the fruits of the Spirit are the only evidence of having the Spirit, and that those fruits must be seen! It has always taught, that we must be born of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, sanctified by the Spirit, and feel the operations of the Spirit—and that a close walk with God in the path of His commandments, a life of holiness, love, self-denial, purity, and zeal to do good—are the only satisfactory marks of the Holy Spirit.

Such is true Christianity. Well would it have been for the world, if there had been more of it during the last nineteen centuries! Too often, and in too many parts of Christendom, there has been so little of it—that Christ's religion has seemed extinct, and has fallen into utter contempt!

This is the Christianity which, in the days of the Apostles, "turned the world upside down!" It was this which emptied the idol temples of their worshipers, routed the Greek and Roman philosophers, and obliged even heathen writers to confess that the followers of the "new superstition," as they called it, were people who loved one another, and lived very pure and holy lives!

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[goisabella5]

BTW, if you select the CC on this video and many other videos on Christianity you will see the closed captions are not truley accurate and even dangerously error filled....too sad huh??? The folks who rely upon them are not getting the true message. =(

[GraceVideoTreasures]

@goisabella5 The full text of the video is in the description. CC is an experimental service, according to google, and the vids are set to background music.

[stomp919]

I dont trust anything that humans do they are all corrupt. You are not accepted in churches today unless you conform to this world. Which means you must bow your knee to Satan to be accepted and be somebody. Wide is the gate to destruction narrow is the gate to heaven and FEW who find it.

[starryskye6829]

Amen. In a day where there is so much false teaching going on. God bless you.

[Donking595]

God bless you brother in Jesus Christ!!!

[HermitintheRain]

@JohnPeter952 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

[HermitintheRain]

@Rachulie but the child of God, though he does still sin while he is in this body of flesh, will find no pleasure in that sin which still is present in his flesh which wages war against his soul. But as Paul declared in his woefulness of being delivered from the body of this death that was in him waging war against him:

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. Romans 7:25

[HermitintheRain]

@Rachulie ..when we know how it displeases the one who loved us before we loved him. that our love for Christ, as it grows, will cause all the things of this world to lose their savor, and all we will know, or want to know is that which is of the Lord, which alone does satisfy the soul. Jesus truly becomes that living water, for which no other water can satisfy our thirst. others may take pleasure in their sins:

[HermitintheRain]

@Rachulie Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2

Those who are born of God, born of the Spirit, born of the blood of Jesus Christ, are such that can no longer continue to enjoy the sins that once we so easily enjoined ourselves. when we fall into sin, it no longer has the pleasure it once did; but is only now met with shame, when we know how..

[HermitintheRain]

@Rachulie that the promise given to us through the prophet Jeremiah might ring true when he declares: In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness. Jeremiah 33:16

To be dressed with, to live by, to walk in the righteousness that is Christ's; to have his righteousness accounted unto us, to be transformed by his righteousness-that is the hope of glory, to put it as John so beautifully revealed:

[HermitintheRain]

@Rachulie All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. John 6:37

For our hope, our only hope is in the mercy that is to be found in Jesus Christ, who by the power given to him of the Father, does through his death on the cross, does take their sin and crucify them with him on that cross, and gives them his righteousness, by which they might be made acceptable with God.