Fighting for Holiness

J. C. Ryle

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781433580086
• eBook ISBN: 9781433580116
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Put on the Armor of God in Your Daily Battle Against Sin

"True Christianity is a fight," wrote J. C. Ryle in 1877. He argued that from the day of their conversion until the day they die, Christians are called to be soldiers for Christ in a war for their holiness. This inspiring call to action written more than 100 years ago continues to be a source of great encouragement and inspiration for believers today. 

In this addition to the Crossway Short Classics series, Ryle explains why the fight for holiness is one of absolute necessity for Christians. Identifying the three main enemies of every believer—the world, the flesh, and the devil—he emboldens them to "either fight or be lost" in their daily battle and offers biblical and historical examples of notable Christian "soldiers." Fighting for Holiness is a bold reminder for believers to daily put on the whole armor of God and train their eyes on Christ.

• Spiritually Challenging and Inspiring: Helps believers identify and overcome 3 enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil
• A Christian Classic: Content adapted from J. C. Ryle's classic book  Holiness
• Part of the Crossway Short Classics series

Fighting
for
Holiness

Fight the good fight of faith.

1 Timothy 6:12

It is a curious fact that there is no subject about which most people feel such deep interest as “fighting.” Young men and maidens, old men and little children, high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned all feel a deep interest in wars, battles, and fighting.

This is a simple fact, whatever way we may try to explain it. We should call that Englishman a dull fellow who cared nothing about the story of Waterloo or Inkerman or Balaclava or Lucknow. We should think that heart cold and stupid that was not moved and thrilled by the struggles at Sedan and Strasburg and Metz and Paris during the war between France and Germany.

But there is another warfare of far greater importance than any war that was ever waged by man. It is a warfare that concerns not two or three nations only but every Christian man and woman born into the world. The warfare I speak of is the spiritual warfare. It is the fight that everyone who would be saved must fight about his soul.

This warfare, I am aware, is a thing of which many know nothing. Talk to them about it, and they are ready to set you down as a madman, an enthusiast, or a fool. And yet it is as real and true as any war the world has ever seen. It has its hand-to-hand conflicts and its wounds. It has its watchings and fatigues. It has its sieges and assaults. It has its victories and its defeats. Above all, it has consequences that are awful, tremendous, and most peculiar. In earthly warfare, the consequences to nations are often temporary and remediable. In the spiritual warfare, it is very different. Of that warfare, the consequences, when the fight is over, are unchangeable and eternal. It is of this warfare that St. Paul spoke to Timothy when he wrote those burning words, “Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life.”

It is of this warfare that I propose to speak in this paper. I hold the subject to be closely connected with that of sanctification and holiness. He that would understand the nature of true holiness must know that the Christian is “a man of war.” If we would be holy, we must fight.

I

The first thing I have to say is this: true Christianity is a fight.

True Christianity! Let us mind that word “true.” There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world that is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster; it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the real, that which was called Christianity eighteen hundred years ago. There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday, and call themselves Christians. Their names are in the baptismal register. They are reckoned Christians while they live. They are married with a Christian marriage service. They mean to be buried as Christians when they die. But you never see any “fight” about their religion! Of spiritual strife and exertion and conflict and self-denial and watching and warring, they know literally nothing at all. Such Christianity may satisfy man, and those who say anything against it may be thought very hard and uncharitable, but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion that the Lord Jesus founded and his apostles preached. It is not the religion that produces real holiness. True Christianity is “a fight.”

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, like one traveling in an easy carriage. If he takes his standard of Christianity from the children of this world, he may be content with such notions, but he will find no countenance for them in the word of God. If the Bible is the rule of his faith and practice, he will find his course laid down very plainly in this matter. He must “fight.”

With whom is the Christian soldier meant to fight? Not with other Christians. Wretched indeed is that man’s idea of religion who fancies that it consists in perpetual controversy! He who is never satisfied unless he is engaged in some strife between church and church, chapel and chapel, sect and sect, faction and faction, party and party knows nothing yet as he ought to know. No doubt, it may be absolutely needful sometimes to appeal to law courts, in order to ascertain the right interpretation of a church’s articles and rubrics and formularies. But, as a general rule, the cause of sin is never so much helped as when Christians waste their strength in quarreling with one another and spend their time in petty squabbles.

No, indeed! The principal fight of the Christian is with the world, the flesh, and the devil. These are his never-dying foes. These are the three chief enemies against whom he must wage war. Unless he gets the victory over these three, all other victories are useless and vain. If he had a nature like an angel, and were not a fallen creature, the warfare would not be so essential. But with a corrupt heart, a busy devil, and an ensnaring world, he must either “fight” or be lost.

He must fight the flesh. Even after conversion, he carries within him a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water. That heart will never be free from imperfection in this world, and it is a miserable delusion to expect it. To keep that heart from going astray, the Lord Jesus bids us “watch and pray.” The spirit may be ready, but the flesh is weak. There is need of a daily struggle and a daily wrestling in prayer. “I keep under my body,” cries St. Paul, “and bring it into subjection.” “I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity.” “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Newsletter Signup
• Other Crossway Books
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Series Preface
• Biography of J. C. Ryle
• Fighting for Holiness
• Scripture Index