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
One of the great victories of the Reformation was the recovery and correct ordering of justification and sanctification. The Catholic Church taught, and still teaches, that our justification depends on our sanctification. The Reformation recovered the right Biblical understanding that our sanctification depends on our justification. In the former, assurance of salvation was not possible. The Protestant Reformation recovered the right understanding that our justification was accomplished in Christ, and from that, our sanctification progressed until we went home to be with Jesus.
In these two sermons Sibbes sought to bring assurance to those who had Christ, and to instruct those who did not, how to pursue Christ. The notion of assurance is still as pressing today as it ever was. Don’t you want to know if your salvation is sure and you are going to heaven? If you’re a Pastor, beyond your own salvation you know that your church struggles with this.
There is nothing more practical or pressing in the lives of so many than the knowledge that their salvation is fully and finally accomplished. Here Sibbes sets out to show how one can know salvation, that Christ is there when he has seemingly left us, how to “keep” Christ in the soul or more clearly, and how to regain awareness and closeness with him as he has never left.
Application / Further Discussion
A few truths are important for any understanding of salvation. Sibbes sets the table right away.
“Now all our goodness, and comfort, it comes from this original, the knowledge of God’s love to us, when that is in us, for we have no love to him until we know that we are beloved of him. We cannot be thankful to God till we know that he loves us in Christ.”
This is often overlooked in our pluralistic society. We breathe the air of “every religion points to God” that the influence has been subtle. If someone is seeking God and thinks they have found him in New Age pantheism, or Paganism, or Hinduism they have not found the God of the Bible. They worship nothing at best and Demons at worst. We cannot celebrate a child looking for a toy in the yard but who finds a grenade and say, “Well, they’re looking.” The love of God is found only in Jesus Christ.
He then says something that many folks today need to hear.
“We ought to labour that God’s love may be in us.”
Sibbes is not talking about works based salvation, which he immediately refutes. No, this Calvinist says we must labour to have God’s love to be in us, not at all meaning that we can obtain Christ’s salvation through our work, effort, or determination. Christ calls us to obedience which includes all that he has commanded of us. We are to attend the means of salvation, the preaching of God’s Word in the gathering of his church.
This is a right observation of man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty. We are responsible for what we do yet God is sovereign over all things, including our salvation. We do not know the beginning and the end, but he does. We are to obey and do as he has commanded. The call to worship God is not only for the Church, it is for all. Those who do not, those rebellious lost souls, should attend to Christ. In their “labour” or “duties” Christ saves many. How many attended Church because they thought they had to, or should, and through hearing the Gospel were gloriously converted by God? So, strive for the love of God to be in you.
For those who fear Christ has left them and want to regain that closeness of spirit consider:
“A son under anger is a son.”
When we sin, or do not attend to our “labour” for Christ in attending worship, private Bible reading, and prayer; we sense a distance between us and God and may fear he is angry with us. Yet Sibbes says two important things; Christ chastises the sons he loves, and Satan lies and says that we have angered God and there is no hope for us.
“Every child God corrects; and for poverty, shame, and the like, we must not measure God’s love by these, for God loves us as he loved Christ.”
God’s love for us is not shown in how our life goes. There is no “second blessing.” God’s love for us in secured in Christ, not in us or what we do. Our “labour” as Sibbes calls it is to obey. Yet, our labour will not save us; only God saves. We are not to sit down and presume on the grace of God nor are we to earn salvation nor are we to measure God’s approval to us in worldly things. God saves us in Christ apart from any work and his approval of us rests on Christ, not us.
And how can we know that we are in Christ? What are some ways we can work out our salvation with fear and trembling? (Phil 2:12)
“Let us measure God’s love that he bears to us in Christ, by the best fruits of his love. What are those?
An heart to seek him;
to fear his name;
love to his majesty;
love to his children;
delight in good things;
hatred of that which is evil.”
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Last week, thanks to Mike, we covered Spiritual Mourning.
Next week, no reading is scheduled. Catch up week!
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