J.C. Ryle: The True Christian is Victorious

"If you would prove you are born again and going to heaven, you must be a victorious soldier of Christ.  If you would make it clear that you have any title to Christ's precious promises,you must fight the good fight in Christ's cause, and in the fight you must conquer.

"Victory is the only satisfactory evidence that you have a saving religion.  You like good sermons perhaps.  You respect the Bible, and read it occasionally.  You say your prayers night and morning.  You have family prayers, and give to religious societies.  I thank God for this.  It is all very good.  But how goes the battle?  How does the great conflict go on all this time?  Are you overcoming the love of the world and the fear of man?  Are you overcoming the passions, tempers and lusts of your own heart?  Are you resisting the devil and making him flee from you?  How is it in this matter?  You must either rule or serve sin and the devil and the world.  There is no middle course.  You must either conquer or be lost.

"I know well it is a hard battle that you have to fight, and I want you to know it, too.  You must fight the good fight of faith and endure hardships if you would lay hold of eternal life.  You must make up your mind to a daily struggle if you would reach heaven.  There may be short roads to heaven invented by man, but ancient Christianity, the good old way, is the way of the cross, the way of conflict.  Sin, the world and the devil must be actually mortified, resisted and overcome."

These words from J.C. Ryle may on the surface seem very works based when it comes to salvation.  But a closer look reveals that he is speaking of enduring and persevering through the hardships of life until eternity comes upon us.  For it is only the true soldier of Christ who endures to the end.  As the apostle Paul says,

2 Timothy 2:8-13 (ESV) 
⁸ Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, ⁹ for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! ¹⁰ Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. ¹¹ The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; ¹² if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; ¹³ if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.