Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.
If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.
Summary/Engagement
Christian liberty is an often misunderstood concept in the church. Strangely, in our day we have many who say we are under no obligation to obey the Word of God at all. They claim our obedience does not affect our salvation. Their tendency is to over-emphasize the decision, and under emphasize our obligation to obey. Jesus the Savior is neutered of all authority as Christ the King.
This ignores such passages as Romans 6:1 where Paul asks the rhetorical “Are we to sin that grace may abound?” He answers with an emphatic “By no means!” Recall also James chapter 2 challenging us to show our faith by our works and not merely say we have faith. These works, or duties and ordinances as our Puritan friend would say, are the evidences of the liberated heart of faith. Our obedience is the good fruit produced from the changed heart full of faith.
Contrary to this view are those who see the evidences of sin in their lives as proof they are not saved. “I should be doing better! I shouldn’t struggle with that, still!” These think a true apprehension of Christ is the loss of all conflict over sin in their lives. Many false teachers would say that anyone struggling with sin or suffering has a lack of faith. How abusive.
Consider that spiritual liberty “is not a liberty freeing us altogether from conflict, and deadness, and dullness, and the like; but it is a liberty enabling us to combat, not freeing us from combat.”
Application / Further Discussion
Free to fight, not freed from the fight. We are at perfect liberty before we know Christ, but our sinful hearts are bound to their corrupt liberty. Our very nature is that of a sinner. We are not a sinner because we sin, we sin because we are a sinner. What we do flows out of who we are. Before Christ comes and changes the heart, our nature is enslaved to sin.
“Now a natural man can do nothing but naturally….Therefore the soul of man hath no liberty at all to that which is spiritually good, without a supernatural principle, that raiseth it above itself.”
Our nature before Christ is to sin. That is what we do naturally, and that is what we cannot help but do. When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon us and gives us a new heart, our nature is changed. Our hearts are liberated from sin’s mastery of us. We are “free to fight” where before we were cannon fodder in Satan’s army.
Then, the liberty of the Spirit came.
“Where this liberty from the Spirit is, there is not only a freedom from all gross sins, but likewise a blessed freedom to all duties, an enlargement of heart to duties.”
A blessed freedom to all duties. Far from the dangerous and damning idea that we can be saved and never obey, Sibbes says not only are we free to obey but that our heart desires to. This means that when the conflict between sin and Christ arises in our hearts, we choose Christ.
When you came to faith you changed. If your faith is genuine, you will be different from who you were before you came to know Christ. No one can encounter the risen Lord Jesus and enter into relationship with him and not come away profoundly different.
If you are not different, why? Do you feel as though obedience is burdensome or joyful? Does your heart joyfully seek to obey Christ’s commands, or are they crushing?
Christian liberty is the freedom to obey the Sovereign God of the universe, not to earn salvation, but in joyful gratitude for and worship of the Savior. This often means the denial of certain behaviors, actions, and attitudes. If this obedience to God is so burdensome to you then consider what Augustine said;
“Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.”
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Last week, we read chapters 1 and 2 of Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law.
Next week, we’ll read chapters 5 and 6 of Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law.
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