Tag Archives: Love of Christ

Richard Sibbes, Sermons on Canticles 7.3

17 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Richard Sibbes, Song of Solomon, Uncategorized

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Knowing that we are beloved, Sibbes draws three “uses” of this doctrine:

First, to be “persuaded of his love”. The result of such persuasion is that it will draw us to him: love creates a reciprocal love in the beloved:

Now this should stir us up to be fully persuaded of his love, that loves us so much. Christ’s love in us, is as the loadstone to the iron. Our hearts are heavy and downwards of themselves. We may especially know his love by this, that it draws us upwards, and makes us heavenly minded. It makes us desire further and further communion with him. Still there is a magnetical attractive force in Christ’s love. Wheresoever it is, it draws the heart and affections after it.

This “use” forms the basis for sanctification. One aspect of sanctification is a fear of sin; a loathing of sin. As Thomas Brooks writes:

‘Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good.’ When we meet with anything extremely evil and contrary to us, nature abhors it, and retires as far as it can from it. The Greek word that is there rendered ‘abhor,’ is very significant; it signifies to hate it as hell itself, to hate it with horror.

Anselm used to say, ‘That if he should see the shame of sin on the one hand, and the pains of hell on the other, and must of necessity choose one, he would rather be thrust into hell without sin, than to go into heaven with sin,’ so great was his hatred and detestation of sin. It is our wisest and our safest course to stand at the farthest distance from sin; not to go near the house of the harlot, but to fly from all appearance of evil, Prov. 5:8, 1 Thes. 5:22.

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 13. However, abhorrence is only one step. We must move away; but we also must move toward. Romans 12:9 is to abhor on one hand and cling on the other. The love of Christ toward us impels our love toward him.

Second, it is an argument for the perseveration of the Church. Since the ground of the Church lies in the love of Christ, and since Christ’s is not shaken by the Church’s fluctuations, the Church is secure:

Use 2. And we may know from hence one argument to prove the stability of the saints, and the immortality of the soul, because Christ calls the church his love.

Sibbes does something interesting here. He does not merely assert that Christ has unchangeable love; he grounds that stability in the nature of law:

The want of love again, where it is entire, and in any great measure, is a misery. Christ therefore should suffer, if those he hath planted his love upon, whom he loves truly, either should fall away for ever, or should not be immortal for ever. Christ will not lose his love.

Because Christ loves the Church, Christ will not lose his church. He then draws that argument out further: Christ will not only not lose his Church in time; he will not lose his Church in eternity:

And as it is an argument of persevering in grace, so is it of an everlasting being, that this soul of ours hath; because it is capable of the love of Christ, seeing there is a sweet union and communion between Christ and the soul. It should make Christ miserable, as it were, in heaven, the place of happiness, if there should not be a meeting of him and his spouse. There must therefore be a meeting; which marriage is for ever, that both may be for ever happy one in another.

Here he cites to Hosea 2:20,  “I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.”

Finally, when we consider the Incarnation, it should cause of “warm our hearts” with love toward him:

Use 3. Let us often warm our hearts with the consideration hereof, because all our love is from this love of his.

Sibbes lays out a series of elements in this love. First, it is a mixgure of love and majesty together:

Oh the wonderful love of God, that both such transcendent majesty, and such an infinite love should dwell together. We say majesty and love never dwell together, because love is an abasing of the soul to all services. But herein it is false, for here majesty and love dwell together in the heart of one Christ, which majesty hath stooped as low as his almighty power could give leave. Nay, it was an almighty power that he could stoop so low and yet be God, keeping his majesty still. For God to become man, to hide his majesty for a while, not to be known to be God, and to hide so far in this nature as to die for us: what an almighty power was this, that could go so low and yet preserve himself God still!

Christ is the great combination of opposites; the greatest and most abased, because he descended from such a height:

Yet this we see in this our blessed Saviour, the greatest majesty met with the greatest abasement that ever was, and all out of love to our poor souls. There was no stooping, no abasement that was ever so low as Christ was abased unto us, to want for a time even the comfort of the presence of his Father. There was an union of grace; but the union of solace and comfort that he had from him was suspended for a time, out of love to us. For he had a right in his own person to be in heaven presently.

This was driven by love:

Now for him to live so long out of heaven, and ofttimes, especially towards his suffering, to be without that solace (that he might be a sacrifice for our sins), to have it suspended for a time, what a condescending was this? It is said, Ps. 113:6, that God stoops ‘to behold the things done here below.’ It is indeed a wondrous condescending, that God will look upon things below; but that he would become man, and out of love to save us, suffer as he did here, this is wondrous humility to astonishment! We think humility is not a proper grace becoming the majesty of God. So it is not indeed, but there is some resemblance of that grace in God, especially in Christ, that he should, to reveal himself, veil himself with flesh, and all out of love to us.

And our response:

The consideration of these things are wondrous effectual, as to strengthen faith, so to kindle love. Let these be for a taste to direct our meditations herein.

 

 

Richard Sibbes, Sermons on Canticles, 7.2

11 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in Richard Sibbes, Song of Solomon, Uncategorized

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In the next section of the sermon, Sibbes notes the nature of the Savior’s love to his people. He takes this doctrine from the clause which contains the words “my love”, “Open my unto me, my love.” The appellation “my love” demonstrates the fact of love. Sibbes makes two observations about this love. First,

his love was settled upon her. It was in his own breast, but it rested not there, but seated itself upon, and in the heart of his spouse, so that she became Christ’s love.

Her status as being the beloved comes about because of the action of the lover. It is Christ’s love which makes the Church is beloved. This may seem obvious in human relationships: you are loved because you are loved. But when this comes to God, it demonstrates that the Church’s position is solely a matter of grace. It is one thing for a man to love a woman; it is quite another thing for the Creator to love the rebellious creature.

And since there is love, there is a “going out”:

We know the heart of a lover is more where it loves than where it lives, as we use to speak; and indeed, there is a kind of a going out, as it were, to the thing beloved, with a heedlessness of all other things. Where the affection is in any excess, it carries the whole soul with it.

The next observation of Sibbes concern manner in which this love finds expression in act. First this love is uniquely upon the Church

But, besides this, when Christ saith my love, he shews, that as his love goes, and plants, and seats itself in the church, so it is united to that, and is not scattered to other objects. There are beams of God’s general love scattered in the whole world; but this love, this exceeding love, is only fastened upon the church.

Next, this love is a quality which exceeds all other loves:

And, indeed, there is no love comparable to this love of Christ, which is above the love of women, of father, or mother, if we consider what course he takes to shew it.

The most that any lover could give would be himself. And thus God gives the greatest gift of all, by giving God:

For there could be nothing in the world so great to discover his love, as this gift, and gift of himself. And therefore he gave himself, the best thing in heaven or in earth withal, to shew his love. The Father gave him, when he was God equal with his Father. He loved his church, and gave himself for it.

This act of self giving is manifested in the Incarnation:

How could he discover his love better, than to take our nature to shew how he loved us? How could he come nearer to us, than by being incarnate, so to be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and took our nature to shew how he loved it, Eph. 5:30.

Sibbes then details the chain of love in the Incarnation:

Love draws things nearer wheresoever it is.

It drew him out of heaven to the womb of the virgin, there to be incarnate;

and, after that, when he was born not only to be a man,

but a miserable man,

because we could not be his spouse unless he purchased us by his death.

We must be his spouse by a satisfaction made to divine justice.

God would not give us to him, but with salving [preserving] his justice.

Unlike other doctors, this doctor suffers the treatment and we are healed:

What sweet love is it to heal us not by searing, or lancing, but by making a plaster of his own blood, which he shed for those that shed his, in malice and hatred.

William Gurnall used a very similar image in The Christian in Complete Armor:

He lived and died for you; he will live and die with you; for mercy and tenderness to his soldiers, none like him. Trajan, it is said, rent his clothes to bind up his soldiers’ wounds; Christ poured out his blood as balm to heal his saints’ wounds; tears off his flesh to bind them up.

William Gurnall The Christian in Complete Armour

And this love ties the Church to Christ now with the promise of an eternity with him.

The Fruitful Love of Christ

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Christology, John Owen

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Whom he loves, he loves unto the end. His love is such as never had beginning, and never shall have ending.

It is also fruitful, — fruitful in all gracious issues and effects. A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him; bemoan him in misery, but not help him; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him.

We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” but it might not be.

But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. Love in him is properly to will good to any one: whatever good Christ by his love wills to any, that willing is operative of that good.

These three qualifications of the love of Christ make it exceedingly eminent, and him exceeding desirable.

How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome! what mountains of unbelief does it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day?

What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day!

John Owen, Of Communion With the Father, the Son & the Spirit

Unless thou hadst first

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Faith, Love, Preaching, William Romaine

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The best Christian theology must be trinitarian and must be preached:

“His love is a free gift. I would by faith enjoy it in time, as I hope by sense to enjoy it in eternity. Whatever blessings, strength, victory, or comfort I stand in need of, I look to the fulness which he has laid up in Jesus, and from thence I receive it. I read my title to it, and I take possession of it, for nothing done in me or by me, now or at any other time, but only in and for the free grace of his Father and my Father”

The best preaching must lead to joy which breaks out as prayer:

“O Father of merciesI could never have sought my happiness in thy love, unless thou hadst first loved me. O grant me then the desires of my heart! What thy good Spirit has put me upon seeking, let me, by his grace, find continually. He has manifested to me thy perfect reconciliation to thy people, through the life and death of Jesus. It has been given me on his behalf to believe this. I have therefore taken thee for my God and my portion, and I would so walk with thee as to obtain a growing knowledge and experience of thy love. For this cause I bow my knees unto thee, Holy Father. O hear and answer the prayer of faith! Give me grace to walk with thee in love, all the way to glory. I ask it in the name of Jesus: for thou art the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”

William Romaine “Treatises on the life, walk, and triumph of faith.”

Preparation for Suffering in an Evil Day: The Love of Christ.3

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Edward Polhill, James, Puritan

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Polhill continues in the same vein, a love Christ makes every bitter sweet – not because the bitter of life is sweet, but because there is a source of love and joy which the world cannot invade:

Love to Christ stands in an holy complacence in him, it makes the soul enjoy a kind of heaven in his presence, and delight itself in his satisfying sweetness.

Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 345. Thus, when evil days comes we do not look solely to the evil which is before us, but we look above and beyond and settle our soul in the dear love of Christ which overcomes the world. We can have such succor

in times of fear and temptation, that his presence may sweeten the bitterest condition to her. The cross of Jesus, if we taste the sweetness of it, will turn a marah into joy and comfort

Ibid. This sets us to a task now, before the evil day strikes. The moments we have meditation, of communion, of grace, of leaving off sin, of fellowship, of prayer and study, all these things must teach us to drink the undying water which transforms our souls:

O let us labour to taste more of the sweetness of Christ, to find his blood in every pardon, his Spirit in every grace, his wine cellar in every ordinance, that the divine comforts, that we experimentally feel in him, may sweeten the cross to us.

This is the way of the dear ones of God. In the midst of the Lamentations, the poet knows the goodness and blessing of God exist. How? He cannot know them from present experience, for present experience is bitter but he can say:

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Lamentations 3:25 (ESV)

The verb to wait can also be translated to hope. The waiting is expectant, the hope is patient but preserving. Such a hope cannot come to us but we know that God is good before the trial strikes. James encourages the early Christians to hope and not turn to grumbling and sin, but rather be patient in suffering knowing that the Lord is good:

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. James 5:7–11 (ESV)

This is not a grim waiting, but an expectant waiting premised upon a knowledge that “the Lord is compassionate and merciful”.  The compassion and mercy of the Lord should stir our soul to love – such love that when trial and temptation fall upon us we are sure of his compassion and mercy – for trial will try our knowledge.