The Antidote For Hazy Theology

As you read Ryle's description of the ailments of the church, it is hard to believe that he was writing in the 19th century and not the 21st century. He seems to be diagnosing contemporary evangelicalism especially the cultural Christianity of the southern variety. Read on and see.

I say, then, in the first place, that a scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to that vague, dim, misty, hazy kind of theology which is so painfully current in the present age. It is vain to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a vast quantity of so-called Christianity nowadays which you cannot declare positively unsound, but which, nevertheless, is not full measure, good weight, and sixteen ounces to the pound. It is a Christianity in which there is undeniably “something about Christ, and something about grace, and something about faith, and something about repentance, and something about holiness”; but it is not the real “thing as it is” in the Bible. (Job 26.3.) Things are out of place, and out of proportion. As old Latimer would have said, it is a kind of “mingle-mangle,” and does no good. (Works, 1, p. 290.) It neither exercises influence on daily conduct, nor comforts in life, nor gives peace in death; and those who hold it, often awake too late to find that they have got nothing solid under their feet. Now I believe the likeliest way to cure and mend this defective kind of religion is to bring forward more prominently the old scriptural truth about the sinfulness of sin. People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven, and live like pilgrims, until they really feel that they are in danger of hell. Let us all try to revive the old teaching about sin, in nurseries, in schools, in training colleges, in universities. Let us not forget that “the law is good if we use it lawfully,” and that “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” (1 Tim. 1.8; Rom. 3.20; 7.7.) Let us bring the law to the front and press it on men’s attention. Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments, and show the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of their requirements. This is the way of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. We cannot do better than follow His plan. We may depend upon it, men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.

– J.C. Ryle, Holiness, p. 12