Sanctification

Kevin DeYoung post:  Ryle:  The Visible Signs of Sanctification

[J. C. Ryle:  Holiness]

What does holiness look like? J.C. Ryle explains:

1. True sanctification then does not consist in talk about religion.
2. True sanctification does not consist in temporary religious feelings.
3. True sanctification does not consist in outward formalism and external devoutness.
4. Sanctification does not consist in retirement from our place in life, and the renunciation of our social duties.
5. Sanctification does not consist in the occasional performance of right actions. (p. 32)
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.
7. Genuine sanctification will show itself in an habitual endeavour to do Christ’s will, and to live by His practical precepts.
8. Genuine sanctification will show itself in an habitual desire to live up to the standard which St. Paul sets before the churches in his writings.
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.
10. Genuine sanctification, in the last place, will show itself in habitual attention to the passive graces of Christianity.

This list would make a good tool for self-examination and a good prompt for prayer. Ryle’s signs are biblical, and easier to understand that Jonathan Edwards.

Tomorrow: how justification and sanctification are alike and different.