Practical Religion / Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians

by J. C. Ryle

I wish to unfold these three things before you, and I invite your serious consideration of them. Our family gatherings on earth must have an end one day. Our last earthly Christmas must come. Happy indeed is that Christmas which finds us prepared to meet God!

I. What is that family which the Bible calls "the whole family in heaven and earth"? Of whom does it consist?

The family before us consists of all real Christians,—of all who have the Spirit,—of all true believers in Christ,—of the saints of every age, and Church, and nation, and tongue. It includes the blessed company of all faithful people. It is the same as the election of God,—the household of faith,—the mystical body of Christ,—the bride,—the living temple,—the sheep that never perish,—the Church of the first-born,—the holy Catholic Church. All these expressions are only "the family of God" under other names.

Membership of the family before us does not depend on any earthly connection. It comes not by natural birth, but by new birth. Ministers cannot impart it to their hearers. Parents cannot give it to their children. You may be born in the godliest family in the land, and enjoy the richest means of grace a Church can supply, and yet never belong to the family of God. To belong to it you must be born again. None but the Holy Ghost can make a living member of His family. It is His special office and prerogative to bring into the true Church such as shall be saved. They that are born again are born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 13.)

Do you ask the reason, of this name which the Bible gives to the company of all true Christians? Would you like to know why they are called "a family"? Listen and I will tell you.

(a) True Christians are called "a family" because they have all one Father. They are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. They are all born of one Spirit. They are all sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. They have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba Father. (Gal. iii. 26; John iii. 8; 2 Cor. vi. 18; Rom. viii. 15.) They do not regard God with slavish fear, as an austere Being, only ready to punish them. They look up to Him with tender confidence, as a reconciled and loving parent,—as one forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, to all who believe on Jesus,—and full of pity even to the least and feeblest. The words, "Our Father which art in heaven," are no mere form in the mouth of true Christians. No wonder they are called God's "family."

(b) True Christians are called "a family," because they all rejoice in one name. That name is the name of their great Head and Elder Brother, even Jesus Christ the Lord. Just as a common family name is the uniting link to all the members of a Highland clan, so does the name of Jesus tie all believers together in one vast family. As members of outward visible Churches they have various names and distinguishing appellations. As living members of Christ, they all, with one heart and mind, rejoice in one Saviour. Not a heart among them but feels drawn to Jesus as the only object of hope. Not a tongue among them but would tell you that "Christ is all." Sweet to them all is the thought of Christ's death for them on the cross. Sweet is the thought of Christ's intercession for them at the right hand of God. Sweet is the thought of Christ's coming again to unite them to Himself in one glorified company for ever. In fact, you might as well take away the sun out of heaven, as take away the name of Christ from believers. To the world there may seem little in His name. To believers it is full of comfort, hope, joy, rest, and peace. No wonder they are called "a family."

(c) True Christians, above all, are called "a family" because there is so strong a family likeness among them. They are all led by one Spirit, and are marked by the same general features of life, heart, taste, and character. Just as there is a general bodily resemblance among the brothers and sisters of a family, so there is a general spiritual resemblance among all the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. They all hate sin and love God. They all rest their hope of salvation on Christ, and have no confidence in themselves. They all endeavour to "come out and be separate" from the ways of the world, and to set their affections on things above. They all turn naturally to the same Bible, as the only food of their souls and the only sure guide in their pilgrimage toward heaven: they find it a "lamp to their feet, and a light to their path." (Psa. cxix. 105.) They all go to the same throne of grace in prayer, and find it as needful to speak to God as to breathe. They all live by the same rule, the Word of God, and strive to conform their daily life to its precepts. They have all the same inward experience. Repentance, faith, hope, charity, humility, inward conflict, are things with which they are all more or less acquainted. No wonder they are called "a family."

This family likeness among true believers is a thing that deserves special attention. To my own mind it is one of the strongest indirect evidences of the truth of Christianity It is one of the greatest proofs of the reality of the work of the Holy Ghost. Some true Christians live in civilized countries, and some in the midst of heathen lands. Some are highly educated, and some are unable to read a letter. Some are rich and some are poor. Some are Churchmen and some are Dissenters. Some are old and some are young. And yet, notwithstanding all this, there is a marvellous oneness of heart and character among them. Their joys and their sorrows, their love and their hatred, their likes and their dislikes, their tastes and their distastes, their hopes and their fears, are all most curiously alike. Let others think what they please, I see in all this the finger of God. His handiwork is always one and the same. No wonder that true Christians are compared to "a family."

Take a converted Englishman and a converted Hindoo, and let them suddenly meet for the first time. I will engage, if they can understand one another's language, they will soon find common ground between them, and feel at home. The one may have been brought up at Eton and Oxford, and enjoyed every privilege of English civilization. The other may have been trained in the midst of gross heathenism, and accustomed to habits, ways, and manners as unlike the Englishman's as darkness compared to light. And yet now in half an hour they feel that they are friends! The Englishman finds that he has more in common with his Hindoo brother than he has with many an old college companion or school-fellow! Who can account for this? How can it be explained? Nothing can account for it but the unity of the Spirit's teaching. It is "one touch" of grace (not nature) "that makes the whole world kin." God's people are in the highest sense "a family."