Twenty-two Tweets on Sin from HOLINESS by J. C. Ryle

Here are 22 tweets (140 characters or less) from the chapter on sin in J. C. Ryle's classic work on sanctification, Holiness:

1. Wrong views about holiness are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption
2. The plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.
3. Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day.
4. Sin…is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank, and class, and name, and nation, and people, and tongue…
5. … “a sin,”…consists in doing, saying, thinking, or imagining, anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God.
6. The slightest outward or inward departure from absolute mathematical parallelism with God’s revealed will and character constitutes a sin…
7. …when we make our own miserably imperfect knowledge and consciousness the measure of our sinfulness, we are on very dangerous ground.
8. …the sinfulness of man does not begin from without, but from within.
9. The fairest babe … is not, as its mother perhaps fondly calls it, a little “angel,” or a little “innocent,” but a little “sinner.”
10. Sin is a disease which pervades and runs through every part of our moral constitution and every faculty of our minds.
11. Mighty indeed must that foe be who even when crucified is still alive!
12. I do not think…that mortal man can at all realize the exceeding sinfulness of sin in the sight of that holy and perfect One.
13. Terribly black must that guilt be for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction.
14. I fear we do not sufficiently realize the extreme subtlety of our soul’s disease.
15. Oh, no! sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss; and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words.
16. Sin rarely seems sin at first beginnings.
17. What a mass of infirmity and imperfection cleaves to the very best of us at our very best!
18. There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease.
19. …in all this, I say, there is a full, perfect, and complete medicine for the hideous disease of sin.
20. Awful and tremendous as the right view of sin undoubtedly is, no one need faint and despair if he will take a right view of Jesus Christ…
21. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin.
22. …a Scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to the extravagantly broad and liberal theology…