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 chapters five and six Dever explores the theology of Richard Sibbes. He makes the case that Sibbes was a Reformed theologian, and an “affectionate” theologian. If you are not familiar with Reformed Theology, you can search the internet for any number of sources. Many books have been written to explain the question of what it is. You can find a short treatment here.
Specifically in view for Dever were the issues of reformed soteriology, (commonly referred to as Calvinism) which includes reprobation, election, particular redemption, and predestination, and covenant theology. The need for clarification comes from the lack of overwhelming, or at first glance clear, evidence of reformed theology throughout his surviving work. However, Dever sets the record straight on what Sibbes’s theology was, which was Reformed. As we read, the author has done the hard work of pouring through all of Sibbes work to show by Sibbes’s own words his stance on these theological issues.
In his sermons, all the doctrines typically associated with predestination were clearly present–election and reprobation, the decrees and definite atonement. Yet this did not give to Sibbes’s sermons a grimness that some modern writers present as the necessary concomitant to any espousal of such doctrines….For Sibbes, the Reformed doctrines of predestination were nothing other than God’s love language to his people, a “delightful determinism.” (108-109)
Continuing from there, Dever describes Sibbes’s theology as “Affectionate.” Sibbes preached with passion and a pastoral care that is evidenced by how fondly he is remembered by his contemporaries, and many today, who enjoy his work.
Sibbes preached to the affections and the intellect. He brought heavenly wisdom out of the text and presented it in beautiful metaphor and illustration to engage the affections of his hearers. He took the truth of scripture, and instead of lecturing as Dr. Sibbes, Master of Katherine Hall, he preached as Pastor Sibbes, Minister of Gray’s Inn. There is a wide difference between teaching and preaching, and Sibbes is a prototype for those to come. After reading Sibbes, I can hear echoes of him in Spurgeon’s flowing sermons. It was not merely information designed to instruct that Sibbes delivered, but information designed to trigger a response. He was after the transformation of his hearers by the power of the Holy Spirit using the word of God.
“For it is not knowledge that will bring to heaven, for the devil hath that, but it is knowledge sanctified, seizing upon the affections.” (146)
Application / Further Discussion
The more I read him the more I can’t help but conclude Sibbes was a Pastor first and foremost. He maintained a relationship with one college or another throughout his life. Be it a fellow, a Dean, or finally as Master of Katherine Hall. Yet, as soon as he was licensed to preach he delivered the word of God in public sermons. He didn’t spend that time in theological disputations. As Dever noted, those were best left to the academy and not the pulpit. (109)
Sibbes sought to rouse the affections toward God of anyone who heard him. Read again his words and feel your own heart stir.
“The gospel breeds love in us to God.” (148)
“When the soul hath been with God in the mount, and when it is turned from earthly things, then it sees nothing but love and mercy, and this constrains us to do all things out of love to God and men.” (148-149)
“We are not as we know, but as we love.” (152)
He taught that it was not mere knowledge that saved someone, but a heart transformed by the grace of God and moved to love him. The Apostle James agrees with this. The knowledge of the Bible, a brilliant intellect, a logical mind, are not sufficient to save anyone. Sibbes knew that it was the soul moved in love to God, insofar as God had moved that soul to love him, that saved someone. His theology was not dry and his orthodoxy was not dead. Here was a man who had fire and passion for the love of God, and the heart of a Pastor to exhort his congregation to respond to God in faith and love.
I read this and I think, do I present the gospel with such passion and love? When you share your faith do you do it with passion born from love? Will the person know that you are acting out of love and not smug superiority or lifeless obligation? Do you seek the hearts of others with love?
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Last week, we covered chapters three and four in Mark Dever’s biography of Richard Sibbes.
Next week, we’ll cover chapters seven and eight, finishing the book.
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