Sibbes and the Glory of Death (YWS Week 16)

Nick Horton 2 Comments

richardsibbessmall

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

“If the state of God’s people be thus sweet and comfortable, and full of well-grounded hopes, that glory shall go further on to glory, and end in glory, then why should we be afraid of death?”

All of us knows someone who has died. How did it make you feel? Did you get that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach? It probably took time to nail down until at last you realized death itself brought fear to your heart. You realize, “I will someday die.” This realization gives way to thoughts: “Will it hurt? Will I suffer? What will happen to those I leave behind? What will happen to ME?”

There is no coming back from death this side of the judgment. We know this in our hearts. We know that when we die we will not come back to this life. We will leave behind that we have known in this life, and we will be with Christ, if we believe in him and his resurrection.

Death is final. Death is complete. It is a transition from which there is no return. There are no reliable reports outside the Bible of what awaits. Even the Bible does not speak extensively on it. This naturally leaves many with an uneasy feeling. The fear of the unknown is powerful. We want to know what we will experience in full. Where are the YouTube videos of heaven? I want first person accounts of what it’s like.

“Peter on the mount had but a glimpse of the glory of heaven, and he was spiritually drunk as it were, he knew not what he said, Mark 9:6.”

Application / Further Discussion

Peter, on the mount of transfiguration, was so overcome by the sliver of glory revealed that he wanted to build tents and stay there on the mount. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the Apostle John strain their language to attempt to describe their visions of Heaven. They fired all their adjective bullets and still come short of hitting the mark.

Paul didn’t even bother trying to describe it. “He heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.” (2 Cor. 12:4) He could not even speak of this “paradise” he saw. Untold glory awaits the believer of a magnitude that a mere glimpse left Peter dumbfounded and content to stay on the mount forever.

Thoughts of death leave us afraid. We’re afraid because it is an act of faith to trust God and his word that Heaven is a place of joy, because it is filled with the glory of God. Death is not the end, but the consummation of our sanctification. Glorification awaits. Then, we will see God face to face, and not so dimly as we do now. Then we will see him!

We will go from “glory to glory.” The grace in this life will give way to the glory of heaven as we go to be with him.

“We are afraid of our glory, and of the perfection of our glory.”

If heaven is so great and wonderful and pure, why are we afraid of this glory to come? We cannot grasp this eternal weight of glory that is to come. (2 Cor. 4:16-18) The sheer magnitude of the grace of God that we already posses, and the life to come, are on a level that our sin-damaged minds cannot grasp.

“What that glory shall be at that day, it is a part of that glory to know; for indeed it is beyond expression, and beyond comprehension of our minds.”

On that day that we die, we Christians may pass from this life in fear, or maybe you will have the grace of comfort, yet when we go to be with him we will be glorified. Sin and its damage will be removed. Even then I don’t think we will comprehend it. How could God ever be fully understand by his finite creation?

I do know this; there will be joy. Joy of a kind that is limitless. Joy that never fails or must bow to sorrow and pain. Joy in a fully restored relationship to God. Joy in seeing Jesus Christ face to face. Joy for eons. Joy.

If you are in Christ, don’t fear. Rejoice! You don’t fully know what’s coming. But what you do know is that God is good and will be glorified in the goodness he has prepared for us. Sorrow may be our constant companion now, but Christ and his joy are there. Breaking through a piece at a time until … “those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

I can’t even comprehend the glory to come.

I want you to come to Jesus. I want you there with me. Won’t you come?

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Last week, we read chapters 5 and 6a of Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law.

Next week, we’ll start The Soul’s Conflict.

Today in Blogworld 04.25.14

Mike Leake

Are We Expecting Too much or Too Little From the Church?

Erik Raymond asks a great question, and I believe provides a great answer.

God, the Gospel, and the Gay Challenge

Dr. Mohler explains and links to a book length response to Matthew Vines’ book, God and the Gay Christian.

China: The Most Christian Nation in 15 Years?

According to this article, China is on pace to be the world’s most Christian nation in 15 years. That is tremendous. My prayer is that they don’t buy into the health and wealth prosperity non-gospel that we Americans bought into.

Sawdust and Scolding

I appreciate this reflection from Lore Ferguson. There is much here to chew on.

I find it amazing how many different ways people play the Mario Bros. theme song. I think it’s because a generation of people have that song bouncing around in their brains non-stop. This is another one of those neat ways to play the song:

Why I’m Passionate About the Seeds Project

Mike Leake

Last week my sermon in youth group was pretty terrible. It was one of those that made me really glad that we don’t record our sermons on Wednesday evening. I stuttered and stumbled and plodded my way through 1 Peter 5:1-5. Look it up. Now laugh at me for preaching on that particular text to teenagers.

Why in the world would I have chosen 1 Peter 5:1-5 as my text? I did it because we are going through 1 Peter with our teenagers and I had just finished chapter 4. This was the next thing. I’m not opposed to doing occasional topical series with our teens. But I also know my heart. I know that if I am left to pick the sermon topic every Wednesday evening we’ll focus on about fifteen topics and really drive them home. They don’t need that. What our teens really need is six years of hearing preaching form the whole counsel of God’s Word.

I preach through books of the Bible in youth group because I want our teens to know that the authority in my life and in their life is the Word of God. There is a subtle and beautiful thing that happens whenever I stutter my way through a difficult to apply text like 1 Peter 5:1-5. What happens is the students learn that we are captive to God’s Word. We don’t skip some of it or only deal with the comfortable parts. We enjoy the desert but we also work hard at cutting up the steak and at times we choke down the broccoli. All of God’s Word is beneficial, this helps them to know this.

Why am I sharing all of this when I am supposed to be telling you why I am passionate about the Seeds Project?

I’m sharing this because the same commitment that drives me to preach 1 Peter 5:1-5 to a group of teens is the same commitment that drives me in the Seeds Project. As I have perused Christian bookstores and even online bookstores I do not see many projects that are similar. Some do a great job of going through the Bible’s overarching storyline (I’m thinking of the Gospel Project), but I’ve yet to really see anything that brings it into the home so that dad can lead junior through a specific book of the Bible.

I want to see families wrestling through difficult texts in the Bible. I want children to be exposed to—and learn to surrender to—the whole counsel of God’s Word. This, I believe, will happen through book-by-book devotionals that are simple enough that any parent can lead and also engaging enough that it will keep attention.

As passionate as I am about this project we cannot get it off the ground without your help. We are only a little over half way to our goal and time is running out. Kickstarter is an all or nothing type of thing. If we only raise $800 of our $1000 it’s not that we simply $200 short. No, we are now $1000 short and the project has to be put on hold.

I believe in this project. I’m passionate about this project. And I believe you should be too. I would love to see this expand into more books with more writers for more age ranges. But it all starts with this first book. And this first book starts with your gift.

So, what are you waiting for? Go to Kickstarter and get on board with this project!

The Resurrection Helps Explain the Cross

Mike Leake

For our Sunday School class we are going through The Gospel Project. Last Sunday in the discussion on the bronze serpent, an interesting question was asked:

For some people, the idea of salvation through the cross of Christ may seem somewhat unlikely or improbable. How would you help answer those with such misgivings? (TGP, Spring 2014, p85)

As I thought through this question I realized how difficult it is to prove the reality of the Cross by the historical fact of the crucifixion. What I mean is that we could historically show that a man named Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in Jerusalem by Pontius Pilate. But that doesn’t mean much of anything in itself. There were other men that were crucified on that same day. The significance is found in why this man was hung on a tree.

For this I believe we need to turn to the resurrection. For those that find salvation through the cross improbably I don’t know that I’d turn their attention to the crucifixion. I’d turn their attention to the resurrection.

Theories Tried and Found Wanting

I agree with Michael Patton that “Christianity is the most falsifiable religion there is and yet it has survived.” And that claim centers upon the resurrection. The claim that the crucified man Jesus Christ has risen from the dead is historically verifiable. There are many that have posited theories to show how the resurrection was a hoax. These are unconvincing.

The swoon theory holds that Jesus did not really die but merely fainted from exhaustion. He was then buried alive. After a couple days he got better, rolled away the stone, and left. Somehow we are supposed to believe that Jesus faked his death better than Tupac, then proceeded to get better and take off his own linen wrappings, somehow find an exit in the tomb that wouldn’t have been known to the guards, and then a day or so later walk seven miles on the Emmaus road—all of this after being beaten and crucified in such a way that professionals said, “Yep, this fella is dead”. Sorry, I’m not buying it.

The hallucination theory holds that all of his Jesus’ post-resurrection visitations were just hallucinations. Here we are supposed to believe that over 500 people at one time had the same hallucination and that others in different places and at different times where having the same thing. Now I could believe something like this in the age of the internet, when the power of suggestion could play a massive role. But not in the first century when news travelled slower than Billy Butler running to first base.

The impersonation theory would have us believe that, just like Elvis, Jesus had an impersonator. This, according to the theory, would explain why people were not able to recognize him at first. Never mind the fact that our typical experience with impersonators is the opposite. Upon closer inspection we don’t usually think to ourselves, “Wow, that dude really does look like Elvis”. No, we usually get closer and realize that this isn’t the real deal.

The theft theory posits that those tricksy disciples stole the body and then spread the lie that Jesus rose from the dead. I suppose the same people watch a movie like National Treasure and think, “Hmm, that’s legit. I could see that happening”. Trained Roman guards were there at the tomb to prevent this very thing from happening. And also the likelihood of keeping this secret for so long and even being willing to die for this lie is just too much for me to believe.

The unknown tomb theory teaches that the early disciples would have had no way to know where Jesus was buried because crucified criminals were just tossed into a pit. This rejects what Scripture teaches—that Joseph of Arimathea took the body to his own private tomb. But even still—this could have been verified by the Romans.

None of these theories would make me disbelieve the historical and biblical evidence of a resurrection. At this point we have to ask—who was this man that was raised from the dead? When we ask that question we are in a much better position to answer questions related to the significance of the Cross.

The resurrection is the crux of the issue. If they won’t believe that somebody was raised from the dead they certainly won’t believe the other Scriptures.

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I’m indebted to this article for help in outlining the different theories that deny the resurrection: https://bible.org/article/false-theories-against-resurrection-christ