SUMMARY OF WHAT IS A TRUE CHRISTIAN, TRUE CHRISTIANITY, SABBATH, 20220813

To summarize and conclude the lesson today, we would like to ask: What Is A True Christian? Here are some Scriptural definitions for your prayerful application.  

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

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

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

True Christianity has always set before men, women, and children the LORD Jesus Christ as the chief object of faith and hope in relation—as the Divine Mediator between GOD and men, women, and children the only source of peace of conscience, and the root of all spiritual life. The main things True Christianity 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, True Christianity has made Christ the Alpha and the Omega in Christian theology.

True Christianity has always honored the Person of GOD the Holy Spirit, and magnified His work. True Christianity has never taught that all professing or presumed or fake or counterfeit 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. True Christianity has steadily maintained that the fruits or evidence of the Spirit are the only evidence of having the Spirit, and that those fruits or evidence must be seen! Holy Scripture confirms in Romans 8:9 that he or she who does not have the Spirit of Christ is none of Christ. True Christianity 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, as Enoch walked with GOD, a life of holiness, love, self-denial, purity, and zeal to do good—are the only satisfactory marks of the Holy Spirit.

Such is the evidence of True Christianity. Well would it have been for the world, if there had been more of True Christianity during the last twenty-one centuries! Too often, and in too many parts of Christendom, there has been so little of True Christianity—that Christ's relationship 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!"(Acts 17:6). 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," (Acts 25:19) as they called it, were people who loved one another, and lived very pure and holy lives! AMEN!