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
In keeping with Christmas, lets begin with a few lines from the familiar hymn, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Christmas day is the holiday where many Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. No matter whether it was a pagan holiday, or if he was born in the spring, it is the day we traditionally mark the birth of our Savior. The point is not being perfect with respect to the day, but in marking that our Savior, very God of very God, was born in human flesh. Jesus has a birthday. Not a day he was created, no, but the day he incarnated.
“The mystery of religion is Christ ‘manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,” etc., all is but Christ.”
Application / Further Discussion
The fountain of the Scriptures are opened in Jesus Christ. Without him all the lines don’t come to their end. The stories don’t have an eternal point. The prophecies don’t reach final fulfilment. Without God physically taking on flesh there is no point to Christianity. There is no other way given what we know of right and wrong for man to be reconciled to God.
In the Garden our communion with God was severed. As fully as if you had your arm amputated. You cannot run out and attach another arm as we are not characters in a cheesy horror flick. In like manner our sin has completely severed us from our God. We need a miracle to re-attach us. Sin against a holy and infinite God requires a worthy sacrifice by something of like worth. Man is simply not worthy enough to pay for his own sin much less someone else’s. Hence, God taking on flesh and dying in our place.
“And none but the image of God could restore us to that image. He was the Son of God, and none but the natural Son could make us sons. He is the ‘wisdom’ of the Father, to make us wise, and he is the ‘first beloved’ to make us beloved.”
The mystery of godliness in the incarnation of Christ is the unfathomable grace of God toward undeserving sinners. God sent God to die on a cross in order to satisfy the wrath of God and atone for the sin of all who would believe, to the glory of God. Jesus came for the glory of God, not the glory of man. God loves us yes, but that is to His glory and credit and not to our misplaced and inflated sense of worth.
This Christmas, pause and reflect that the God who created all things was born in the darkness of a manger. He was born in a stable full of animals with their excrement on the floor. The Lord of all Creation, took on flesh in a stable, the ultimate act of humility. “And he took our nature upon him when it was at the worst; not in innocency, but with all the infirmities that are natural infirmities, not personal. Therefore he came to be so that he might be pitiful.”
Mild indeed he laid such glory by. There has never been a greater disparity between who he is and what he suffered and I don’t mean merely the last week of his life. Laying aside the glory and praise He was due to suffer the normal course of human life. It is indeed a mystery of godliness.
What a marvelous, lovely, gracious, kind, merciful, holy, just, and beautiful God He is!
“Therefore there was no suffering like that of Christ’s. And shall we think so great a matter was for small purpose, for little sins or for few sins only? Oh no. It was to give a foundation to our faith in all extremity of temptations; to stay our conscience in the guilt of great and crying sins. Oh despair not, despair not!
God’s purpose in this was to triumph, as it were, over all the clamours of conscience whatsoever, over all things that Satan and the power of hell can object. Let Satan object what he will, here is a shield put into the hand of faith to beat back all his fiery darts.”
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Last week, we read Part 2 of A Fountain Sealed.
Next week, I’ll write some reflections on spending a year with Richard Sibbes.
