Chapter 13: Grace Shall Reign
This Sibbes Chapter 13 gives the third conclusion deriving from Sibbes’s observation that “Christ’s Government shall be victorious.” This continues his theme that whatever is our circumstances, even as bruised reeds / smoldering flax, no only does Christ welcome and redeem our condition He does so to a condition of complete and final victory. So just as it may be inconceivable that we could receive the benevolent attention of the Lord God, Creator of the Universe in the initial instance–as we are unknown and of no importance even to the temporal human leaders of our present spacetime–it is also, and equally, true that such benevolent attention will not be without becoming finally and fully fruitful. The latter condition is even more astonishing than the first because as little as we can conceive of our experiencing the love of God it seems even more amazing after having had such experience that subsequent stumbles in faith and work has not, does not, dissuade God from completing the Work that He began.
The sections in this Ch 13 are:
- Why Christ’s Kingdom Must Prevail
- Why the Enemy Seems Victorious
- Consolations for Weak Christians
- Evidences of Christ’s Rule in Us
Here are a few Sibbes’s Ch 13 ’nuggets’…
- Conscience makes a man kingly or contemptible….The sharpest conflict which the soul has is between the conscience and God’s justice.
- [we have been] begotten by the immortal seed of the Spirit.
- Truth is a beam of Christ’s Spirit, both in itself and as it is engrafted into the soul.
- The purpose of Christ’s coming was to destroy the works of the devil, both for us and in us;
and the purpose of the resurrection was, as well as sealing to us the assurance of his victory, - God’s children usually, in their troubles, overcome by suffering….[and this] is by degrees
- virtutis custos infirmitas (weakness is the keeper of virtue)….when we have fallen, let us believe we shall rise again…
So let us never give up, but, in our thoughts, knit the beginning, progress and end together - rooted faith, fides radicata [the Latin origin of our English word “radical” means “root,” “core”].
Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. - Having a well ordered, uniform life, not consisting of fits and starts, shows a well ordered heart; as in a clock,
when the hammer strikes well, and the hand of the dial points well, it is a sign that the wheels are rightly set.
[Here we see another of Sibbes’s poignant contemporary illustrations…wherein he is thinking of every city’s central clock that governs the activities of its town square]
Sec 13.1 Why Christ’s Kingdom Must Prevail
Sibbes answers the question in six parts.
- Our Conscience. Within our human state of being there exists a judge-discerner we call “conscience” (the compound word derives from the Latin roots: with + knowing). In purely natural terms our conscience marks out the boundary or right/wrong, good/evil, just/unjust, better/worse, from which our choices either conform or condemn us. However, that dividing line, the “/” in the above word-pairs, moves with time, choices, and consequences. But, increasingly such choices forms a network, in physiological terms a neural network in our brain that engrains and moves (to some degree) the positions of that “/.” The famous psychologist William James noted this by an equally-famous quote: “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone…Every smallest stroke of virus, or of vice, leaves it never so little scar.” Thus, follows power from our nature and nurture. Sibbes brings us to recognize that however active and powerful are such natural forces upon ourselves, there is an even greater, external (extra nos, outside of ourselves) power, that of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
- External Enemies. If our conscience, first fallen and yet all the more powerful, is overcome (in and by time) so also is the condition of our external enemies. They do not cease to exist; but they have had extinguished their power to prevail, though there are battles to be fought, and setbacks as part of God’s own plan for increasing our humility and dependence.
- Truth. Pilate’s question of Jesus was “What is Truth?” Jesus gave him no answer (that we know). But the Holy Spirit / Comforter / Revealer, sent to indwell us by Jesus, does bring Truth through God’s revealed Word. The lies, by the Father of Lies (Satan-accuser / Devil-deceiver), continue and are mighty toward us and our environment. But God’s Spirit is not idle, nor defeated: “…as He dwells [within]…so He will drive out all that rise against Him, until He is all in all” (Sibbes 13.1.3).
- Victory. The beginning of the Spirit’s work in bringing us from darkness into light, from flesh-only to Spirit-indwelling, is not only the evidence of a beginning but the certainty of the final victory: “O death where is your sting?”
- Softened Heart. Christ as King is also our Loving Father who nurtures, supports, and changes our inner man such that His Kingdom will be so established.
- Destruction of Satan. Christ came into the world system “to destroy the works of the devil, both for us and in us” (Sibbes 13.1.6) On the Cross we hear the proclamation: “It is finished!” The “it” must include the destruction foretold. “Christ at length will fulfill his purpose in us, and faith rests assured of it, and this assurance is very operative, stirring us up to join with Christ in his purposes.” (Sibbes 13.1.6)
Sec 13.2 Why the Enemy Seems Victorious
Sibbes here addresses the everyday conundrum of the Christian walk: from our trudging perspective it appears more failure than victory, such that we even come to doubt whether any of all this is true, either of us or even of anyone. This is a particularized version of one of the great mysteries of life: Why Evil? (This itself is a subcategory of the even greater question known as Theodicy, which asks “Is God Just?” or more-commonly, “Given the world as we have it, how can it be that God is Just?”
Put the other way around, if we claim as given that God Is Just–full stop–then how can there then be Evil? The simple answer, which is not fully satisfying, is heaven comes later.
Sibbes gives his insight in four parts:
- Suffering is Part of the Plan. The Divine principle is that God overcomes evil by enduring and ultimately overcoming it. At a macro-view, “evil” won in the Garden many millennia ago, and before Christ’s redemptive payment and justified resurrection, with two more millennia since. For reasons that in large part must remain with the hidden Will of God, He has permitted time and struggle, large and long, as the path toward heave.
- Victory is by Degrees. There are many Biblical illustrations that God does bring true victory but it only by degrees. God grants to Abram (Abraham) the Promised Land but not initially full ownership of it. God promises Abraham heirs biological heirs, but there’s a 24 year wait. God promises Israel in captivity that He will deliver them out of it, but there’s a multi-hundred year delay. God promises entry and possession of the Promised Land, but there’s a 40 year journey in the desert. God promises victory led by Joshua over the seven evil nations in God’s Land but it takes warfare, including defeats, and time.
- God Works by ‘Contraries.’ Sibbes notes that a consistent theme of revelation is that God does what appears to be ‘opposite world,’ namely what He promises appears to begin in exactly the opposite direction to what one would have reasonably imagined.
- Backward Blesses. Sibbes further expands on the ‘contraries’ point to note that such ‘opposite world’ causes the greater benefit. As is often the case, there exists a succinct Latin phrase that captures such unexpected benefit: virtutis custos infirmitas (weakness is the keeper of virtue); we recognize “virtue” and “infirmity” from their English proximity, and “custos” is related to our English word “custody” (in the control of) and “custodian” (as the building’s ‘super’). It is by one’s weakness, even affliction, that we come into the custody of God’s virtue. How is that possible, and even if it is, why have it be this way? (i.e., Why Evil?). Sibbes gives us another one of those beautiful Latin phrases: fides radicata (rooted faith), where “fides” extends to our English “fidelity” and “faith,” but “radicata” to “radical” meaning something different than the Latin, namely “extreme” instead of Latin’s “rooted,” “grounded,” “founded.” The biggest life-issue as to our walk is what is, exactly, enduringly, my own fides radicata? Is it that God all things well–He is indeed Just, and Loving?
“It matters not so much what ill is in us, as what good; not what corruptions, but how we regard them; not what our particular failings are so much as what the thread and tenor of our lives are, for Christ’s dislike of that which is amiss in us turns not to the hatred of our persons but to the victorious subduing of all our infirmities.” (Sibbes 13.2.4)
It is not “what happens,” but what we hold to be true at our radicata, and say, about “what happens.”
Sec 13.3 Consolations for Weak Christians
The reality is that we are all weak as Christians and, as noted above, that is intended to bring us in custody to faith. But it can easily bring us to doubt. What arrests this latter is: “That little that is in us is fed with an everlasting spring.” (Sibbes 13.3)
There is a wonderful verse of poetry on this point at Proverbs 13:14. “The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.” (NIV)
There is a deeper beauty in this verse by looking carefully at its Koine Greek expression, as it is expressed in the Septuagint (LXX), the OT translation of ca 200 B.C. that was the primary OT ‘Bible’ of the Jewish people during the NT period.
- “The Teaching.” The Koine word is “nomos” which can mean rule, law. In this context I prefer translating it as “life-rule” or “-guideline / principles.”
- “Fountain.” The Koine word is “pay-gay” which does mean fountain. It conveys an upward force. There is a beautiful word play of “pay-gay” with “snares” as below.
- “Turning a person.” This phrase does not occur in the Koine but derives by implication from “nomos” as described above, namely one’s life guidelines.
- “From.” The Koine has the preposition more graphically translated has “under,” which fits, importantly, the words that follow.
- “—.” Not directly translated by the NIV is the Koine word for “unwise.” This stands in juxtaposition to the opening phrase describing “the wise.” So we are dealing here, as is often the case in Proverbs, two opposites, the wise and the unwise (i.e. the fool).
- “The snares.” The Koine word is for a “trap,” which is slightly better than “snare” because of the above preposition conveying “under.” And the contrast is better made with the “foundation” with its upward impetus. But there is an additional beauty here. The Koine word for “trap” is “pah-gis.” So we have a word play contrasting the upward free flow of “pay-gay” with the downward lockdown of “pah-gis.”
So that “everlasting spring” metaphor used by Sibbes has a lovely fitting together with the contrast given us in Proverbs 13:14 between the person who is guided by a rightly-formed life-principle contrasted with the fool lacking such guide.
“The church of Christ, begotten by the Word of truth, has the doctrine of the apostles for her crown, and tramples the moon, that is, the world and all worldly things, under he fee (Rev. 12.1). Every one that is born of God overcometh the world’ (1 John 5:4). Faith, whereby especially Christ rules, sets the soul so high that it looks down on all other things as far below, as having represented to it, by the Spirit of Christ, riches, honor, beauty and pleasures of a higher nature.” (Sibbes 13.3, closing paragraph)
Sec 13.4 Evidences of Christ’s Rule in Us
As further consolation for “weak Christians” in this closing section of Sibbes Ch 13 he gives us eight evidences of Christ’s Rule in us.
- Justification. Here’s Sibbes uses “just” in a different way. Every person can be asked on what basis is their justification for their way of life, as they have prescribed it and lived it. (It is interesting to ask people such questions…and listen hyper-carefully). A question that always be asked in response is: On what basis do you know that you (your prescribed way of life) is correct? What is the foundation of your belief system? For us, in Christ, our answer is Christ, and Him Crucified, and all that derives from that, as we written elsewhere on this site from Calvin’s Little Book of five summary chapters.
- Strength. Sibbes uses the phrase “reasons of religion,” which does not properly reflect his meaning in our time and place because “religion” has lost its primary meaning to mean almost anything, including evil. We have a strength of revelation (The Bible), and the Indwelling Spirit of God.
- Outcome. Given the above, we have a confidence in a wonderful outcome, even in our immediate suffering, but ultimately in Glory with God our Father.
- Truth. There is such a thing a Truth, Pilate excepted. And we have been given it. In the opening of John’s Gospel we see Jesus disclosed to us as the Eternal Logos, whereby Logos is commonly-translated “Word.” But “Logos” is much more than “Word.” It is certainly Truth (John 14:6 Jesus gave one of His seven “I AM” statement, namely “I am Truth.”). But it is more than just something factually correct. It is the revelation of ultimate Reality.
- Satisfaction. We believe, as persons indwell by God Himself, we are that “naos” that OT “Holy Place,” that so we are under the best possible Government, and are so satisfied.
- Order. Life in Christ is (should be) that of “well order, uniform…not consists of fits and starts.” We are always to be on one very particular path that never changes, though sufferings enter in and comforts as well, each in some turn and harmony, the path never changes. (Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress is a beautiful illustration of this).
- Comfort. That which we might otherwise count as some “loss,” and truly be even that, becomes also the occasion of Christ’s Comfort.
- Faithfulness. A continuing amazement of the Christian walk is the opportunity to find delight in Christ’s Way in contrast even to our naturally-preferred way. Such contrast, opposite, is not of our doing but our delight, and confirms our being in Christ (“in Christ” being a favorite phrase in the Epistles, and remarkable indeed).
“In Christ” occurs 96 times in the Epistles of the NT (according to the NASB 1995 translation), and likely many other times “in Him.” In all or almost all of such examples “Christ” occurs as a singular, masculine, noun (of course) in a particular part of speech known as the Dative Case. There are three primary uses of the Koine Dative: (1) indirect object, (2) position in space or time (locative Dative), or (3) by the agency pf, or under the instrumentality of. What is primarily intended by such use “in Christ” is certainly the 3rd use–agency / instrumentality of–and metaphorically the 2nd use–location in space/time. (Christ is not ‘out, or up, there’ looking down and wondering what the hell is going on, and puzzled how to respond).