J.C. Ryle on ‘Living Righteously’ As a Mark of Righteousness

Continuing further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about the next mark of regeneration, which I am calling “living righteously”:

Thirdly, John says, “Every one that does righteousness is born of Him”-I John 2:29.

The man born again, or regenerate, then is, a holy man. He endeavors to live according to God’s will, to do the things that please God, to avoid the things that God hates. His aim and desire is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself. His wish is to be continually looking to Christ as his example as well as his Savior, and to show himself Christ’s friend by doing whatever Christ commands. No doubt he is not perfect. None will tell you that sooner than himself. He groans under the burden of indwelling corruption cleaving to him. He finds an evil principle within him constantly warring against Grace, and trying to draw him away from God. But he does not consent to it, though he cannot prevent its presence. In spite of all shortcomings, the average bent and bias of his way is holy-his doings are holy, his tastes holy, and his habits holy. In spite of all this swerving and turning aside, like a ship beating up against a contrary wind, the general course of his life is in one direction-toward God and for God. And though he may sometimes fell so low that he questions whether he is a Christian at all, he will generally be able to say with old John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be in another world, but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the Grace of God I am what I am.”

I place this mark also before you. What would the Apostle say about you? Are you born again?

The next mark of regeneration will be love of the brethren.

This post originally appeared at the Prydain website. It is republished here with Will Prydain’s permission.