A new Thursday brings us to our next reading in Richard Sibbes’ classic The Bruised Reed. This week we were to read chapter 6 (“Marks of the Smoking Flax”) and chapter 7 (“Help for the Weak”).

Summary

Some weeks I like to provide a summary of the content of the chapters we’ve read. Today, though, I think I’ll simply provide a roundup of some of those most quotable quotes. As I’ve said before, Sibbes has that Puritan ability to condense massive amounts of truth into a single and highly memorable statement. He reminds me a little bit of Matthew Henry in that regard. Here are a few of the statements I just had to highlight.

“We must not judge of ourselves always according to present feeling, for in temptations we shall see nothing but smoke of distrustful thoughts.”

Today we begin our journey through Richard Sibbes’ The Bruised Reed. I’m starting a bit late in the day, as it happens, due to some technical issues. Nevertheless, here we go. If you have decided to read this classic with us, you are free to leave a comment below. And if you’re not the commenting sort, that’s just fine. I ask only that you keep reading the book.

Summary

As you might expect, the first chapter of The Bruised Reed is dedicated to explaining the rather odd expression that makes up the title. The words come from Isaiah 42:1-3 and are fulfilled in Christ (Matthew 12:18-20).

Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.

In this chapter Sibbes looks quickly at the calling of Christ to his office and the manner in which he carries it out. There are a few quotes that I found particularly noteworthy.

In speaking of Christ’s calling he says “Christ was God’s servant in the greatest piece of service that ever was, a chosen and a choice servant who did and suffered all by commission from the Father. In this we may see the sweet love of God to us, in that he counts the work of our salvation by Christ his greatest service, and in that he will put his only beloved Son to that service.”

Ten days ago I announced the next classic book we’ll be reading together. To refresh your memory, it will be The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes. If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a few months, you know the pattern. Through the week anyone who wishes to participate reads a chapter from the book and on Thursdays we come here and discuss it. It’s that simple, really. The impetus for this project was the simple realization that, though many Christians want to read through the classics of the faith, few of us have the motivation to actually make it happen. I know this was long the case for me. This program allows us to read such classic works together, providing both a level of accountability and the added interest of comparing notes as we read in community. The Bruised Reed is, by all accounts, the kind of book any Christian will benefit from. So please do consider reading it with us.

Last week I encouraged you to Read More and Read Better. Then I got both busy and distracted and didn’t give you the second part. So let me do that today. Let me tell you how I read a book.

Overview

Before I do anything else, I want to get an overview of the book. Very rarely will I read a book without really knowing what it is about. Here I learn about the reason it exists, whether it is attempting to make its mark in the world of ideas or the world of entertainment. Here I learn about its significance. And, most importantly, here I learn about its purpose. From the back cover, from the Foreword and Preface, I can learn what the book is trying to do, to teach. I may also turn to a review or two, though generally I prefer not to since I prefer to form my own opinion of it. (The less familiar I am with the topic, the more likely I am to read some reviews.) I also tend to read the Acknowledgements since this tends to help me understand the author a bit more.

(Note: I know that I owe you an article on how to read a book. It’s coming; it may be tomorrow, it may be next week. But it’s coming.)

Several years ago I introduced a program called Reading Classics Together. The impetus for this project was the simple realization that, though many Christians want to read through the classics of the faith, few of us have the motivation to actually make it happen. I know this was long the case for me. This program allows us to read such classic works together, providing both a level of accountability and the added interest of comparing notes as we read in community. Those who have participated in each of the programs will now have read Holiness by J.C. Ryle, Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen, The Seven Sayings of the Savior on the Cross by A.W. Pink, The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Real Christianity by William Wilberforce, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs and Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray. That is quite a solid collection of classics! I have benefited immensely from reading these books and know that others have, too. The format is simple: every week we read a chapter or a section of a classic of the Christian faith and then on Thursday we check in at my blog to discuss it. It’s that easy: one chapter per week.

It has been a few weeks now since we finished reading the last classic together. We finished reading Redemption Accomplished and Applied, an excellent book and, by any measure, a true classic. Though I have long been familiar with classic Reformed theology, I learned a great deal from Murray. And now it’s time to move on.

Today I want to announce the next classic we’ll be reading together. We’ll be heading back to the Puritans and reading The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes. First published in 1630, the book has long been a source of spiritual comfort for Christians. Sibbes exposits Isaiah 42:3 and “unfolds the tender ministry of Jesus Christ, who is ‘a physician good at all diseases, especially at the binding up of the broken heart.’” Charles Spurgeon said of Sibbes that he “never wastes the student’s time … he scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.”

At Puritan Sermons you can read an article from Banner of Truth magazine that provides a useful overview of the book. The author of that article says, “Though well written and reasoned, The Bruised Reed is far from a scholarly treatise. It was originally published as ‘Some Sermons contracted out of the 12. of Matth. 20.’ It was not written in the heat of academic debate, but in the heat of pastoral concern, as the title page continues: ‘At the desire, and for the good of weaker Christians.’ But Sibbes writes armed with more than just a pastor’s concern. He writes with a physician’s skill, for he knows the true cause of his readers’ woes and symptoms, and wastes no time in directing them to the cure.”

More than any other question that comes in via email, I’m asked this one: “How do you read so much?” While granting that I do read a lot, I think it bears mention that there are lots of people who read as much as I do or a lot more. The difference is that I write about what I’m reading, so you’re more aware of it than you are with most of these voracious readers.

Every year or so I sit down to write out a few thoughts on reading. I’m doing so again today, offering a few thoughts on how you can read more and read better. This is adapted from a list I created a couple of years ago. Actually, what I’ll do is write today about how to read more and read more widely and then tomorrow we’ll work on reading better.

Read - Start with the obvious: you need to read. If you want to be a good painter, you’ve got to paint; if you want to be a good runner, you’ve got to run. So before anything else, you need to commit to the discipline. Unless reading is a genuine passion, you may need to be very deliberate about setting aside time to do it. You may need to force yourself into it. Set yourself some reasonable targets (“I’m going to read three books this year” or “I’m going to finish this book before the end of the month”) and work towards it. Set aside time every day or every week and make sure you pick up the book during those times. Start out by reading a book that deals with a subject of particular interest to you. You may even find it beneficial to find a book that looks interesting—a nice hardback volume with a beautiful, embossed cover, easy-to-read fonts and excellent typography. Reading is an experience and the experience begins with the look and feel of the book. So find a book that looks like one you’ll enjoy and commit to reading it. And when you’ve done that, find another one and do it again. And again.

Read Widely - I’m convinced that one reason people do not read more is that they do not vary their reading enough. Any subject, no matter how much you are interested in it, can begin to feel dry if you focus all of your attention upon it. So be sure to read widely. Read fiction and non-fiction, theology and biography, current affairs and history. You will no doubt want to focus the majority of your reading in one broad area, and that is well and good. But be sure to vary your diet. I think it’s especially important to say to Christians that you are allowed to read mainstream books. Read a bit of Malcolm Gladwell or read Freakonomics or a title plucked from the bestseller’s list. Many of these books will enrich you in unexpected ways.

And here we are, in the last reading from John Murray’s classic book Redemption Accomplished and Applied. This week brings us to the glorious subject of glorification.

Summary
Glorification is the final phase of this long application of the redemption to God’s elect. “It is that which brings to completion the process which begins in effectual calling. Indeed it is the completion of the whole process of redemption.” Glorification is the consummation of the promise that comes with the effectual call. It is not something we experience at the moment of death, though, but something greater than that. It is something we will experience only upon Christ’s return. “The redemption which Christ has secured for his people is redemption not only from sin but also from all its consequences. Death is the wages of sin and the death of believers does not deliver them from death. … Hence glorification has in view the destruction of death itself. … It is the complete and final redemption of the whole person when in the integrity of body and spirit the people of God will be conformed to the image of the risen, exalted, and glorified Redeemer, when the very body of their humiliation will be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory.” These are sweet words to the believer.

This truth that glorification depends upon Christ’s return indicates that it is something all Christians will experience together, at the exact same point in time. Those who died first will be glorified in the same moment as those who are still alive at his return. The whole church will experience this last event in unison. Here Murray offers a succinct understanding of this: “Glorification, then, is the instantaneous change that will take place for the whole company of the redeemed when Christ will come again the second time without sin unto salvation and will descend from heaven with the shout of triumph over the last enemy.”

He offers two important points. First, that glorification is associated and bound up with the coming of Christ in glory. “So indispensable is the coming of the Lord to the hope of glory that glorification for the believer has no meaning without the manifestation of Christ’s glory. Glorification is glorification in Christ. Remove the latter and we have robbed the glorification of believers of the one thing that enables them to look forward to this event with confidence, with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Second, he wants the reader to know that “the glorification of believers is associated and bound up with the renewal of creation. It is not only believers who are to be delivered from the bondage of corruption but the creation itself also.” At the moment when believers are delivered from their sin, the whole of creation will be delivered from the effects of that sin. “When we think of glorification, then, it is no narrow perspective that we entertain. It is a renewed cosmos, new heavens and new earth, that we must think of as the context of the believers’ glory.” Doesn’t the believer’s heart long for this day?

Before he closes the chapter, Murray dispels modern day myths about the body and soul, myths that say that what is material is the source of our sin. This raises the body over the soul, as if the soul is pure and the body sinful. “This conception can be made to appear very beautiful and ‘spiritual,’ but it is just ‘beautiful paganism.’ It is a straight thrust at the biblical doctrine that God created man with body and soul and that he was very good. It is also aimed at the biblical doctrine of sin which teaches that sin has its origin and seat in the spirit of man, not in the material and fleshly.” This myth, alive in the day of the biblical writers and alive today, perhaps primarily in the influence of the New Age, must be rejected.

Your Turn
The purpose of this program is to read classics together. So if there are things that stood out to you in this chapter, if there are questions you had, this is the time and place to have your say. Feel free to post a comment below or to link to your blog if you’ve chosen to write about this on your own site.

Next…
Stay tuned and in a couple of weeks I’ll let you know what classic we’ll be reading next.

Another round of Reading Classics Together is swiftly drawing to its close. We have one more chapter to read in John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied and then we will have reached the end. But before we do that, let’s talk about this week’s chapter which dealt with the doctrine of Union with Christ.

Summary
I’ll admit that this was a chapter that took me by surprise. I suppose I must not have thought very much about union with Christ in the past and how it fits within the application of redemption. So it surprised me a little to see how deep-rooted this doctrine is, to see how it is in many ways the doctrine that encompasses all the others. Murray says “Nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ. … Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ. Indeed the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ.” Having read that, I knew I needed to sit up and pay attention.

Murray looks at both of these “phases” of union with Christ, first in the broad sense and then in the narrow. He looks first to the broad sense of the word and shows what Scripture teaches respecting it.

All who are elect were elected in Christ. “Those who will be saved were not even contemplated by the Father in the ultimate counsel of his predestinating love apart from union with Christ—they were chosen in Christ. As far back as we can go in tracing salvation to its foundation we find ‘union with Christ’; it is not something tacked on; it is there from the outset.” From before the world, from all eternity, we were united in Christ as those who were predestined in him.

God’s people were in Christ when he lived, died and was born again. “We may never think of redemption in abstraction from the mysterious arrangements of God’s love and wisdom and grace by which Christ was united to his people and his people were united to him when he died upon the accursed tree and rose again from the dead.” So even when Christ died, we were united with him.

It is in Christ that God’s people are created anew. “It should not surprise us that the beginning of salvation in actual possession should be in union with Christ because we have already found that it is in Christ that salvation had its origin…” When we are born again, we are regenerated in Christ.

The believer’s life is continued by his being in Christ. “It is in Christ that Christian life and behavior are conducted.” We live day to day in union with Christ.

It is in Christ that believers die. “They have fallen asleep in Christ or through Christ and they are dead in Christ.” When we die, we die in Christ.

It is in Christ that God’s people will be resurrected. “It is in Christ they will be made alive when the last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible.” When we rise again in the resurrection, we will be resurrected in Christ.

Through all of this we see that union in Christ is not confined to space and time. We have always been united to him, we live in him now, and we will be united to him forever. This is an amazing truth that stirred my heart. “[Union with Christ] has the expanse of eternity. Its orbit has two foci, one the elected love of God the Father in the counsels of eternity, the other glorification with Christ in the manifestation of his glory. The former has no beginning, the latter has no end.” Do you see this? There is a sense in which we who believe have been united to Christ since before the world began and in which we will always and forever be united to him. “It is a perspective with a past and with a future, but neither the past nor the future is bounded by what we know as our temporal history.” “Apart from union with Christ we cannot view past, present, or future with anything but dismay and Christian dread. By union with Christ the whole complexion of time and eternity is unchanged and the people of God may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” It is our union with Christ that gives us hope and peace when we look to today, when we look to yesterday, when we look to tomorrow.

Now, though union with Christ is an important part of the application of redemption, Christians do not become partakers of Christ until redemption is actually applied to them. Here Murray turns to the second “phase” and offers a few words about this union.

First, this union is spiritual. It is spiritual in that the bond of this union is the Holy Spirit and also in that there is a spiritual relationship in view here.

Second, this union is mystical. Wanting to use this word in its best sense, Murray says, “A mystery is something which eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entered into the heart of man but which God has revealed unto us by his Spirit and which by revelation and faith comes to be known and appropriated by men.” So this union is not mystical in the sense the word is used by eastern religions, but mystical in that there is a sense of mystery about it—mystery that is slowly being revealed in God’s revelation.

To draw attention to just what an amazing mystery this is, he says the following: “Of all the kinds of union or unity that exist for creatures the union of believers with Christ is the highest. The greatest mystery of being is the mystery of the trinity—three persons in one God. The great mystery of godliness is the mystery of the incarnation, that the Son of God became man and was manifest in the flesh. But the greatest mystery of creaturely relations is the union of the people of God with Christ. And the mystery of it is attested by nothing more than this that it is compared to the union that exists between the Father and the son in the unity of the Godhead.”

Returning again to the big picture of the doctrine of union with Christ Murray says, “Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that has been secured and procured for them in the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption, all of which they become the actual partakers in the application of redemption, and all that by God’s grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ.” Could he say it with more strength than this? We have no right or ability to think of the other doctrines without reference to this one.

Before he closes the chapter, he seeks to show on more critical fact about union with Christ, one more thing without which the doctrine would be incomplete. This union is more than union only with Christ—it is also a union with the Father and the Spirit. “Believers know the Father and have fellowship with him in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Father. They know the Son and have fellowship with him in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Son, the Savior, the Redeemer, the exalted Lord. They know and have fellowship with the Holy Spirit in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, the Sanctifier. It is not the blurred confusion of rapturous ecstasy. It is faith solidly founded on the revelation deposited for us in the Scripture and it is faith actively receiving that revelation by the inward witness of the holy Spirit.” In our union with Christ, we are united also with the Father and the Spirit. We “enter into the holy of holies of communion with the triune God and do so because we have been raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Jesus Christ.”

How is it, then, that I’ve never contemplated the scope of this doctrine?

Next Week
For next Thursday please read the final chapter—“Glorification.”

Your Turn
The purpose of this program is to read classics together. So if there are things that stood out to you in this chapter, if there are questions you had, this is the time and place to have your say. Feel free to post a comment below or to link to your blog if you’ve chosen to write about this on your own site.

Once again, I’m a couple of days late with this next entry in Reading Classics Together. Being on the road for almost the entire week played havoc with my schedule (though I did remember to bring the book with me). Again I’m indebted to Rebecca Stark for providing a great post that I was able to “borrow.”

*****

John Murray starts this chapter by admitting that there are, at first glance, strong arguments against the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. We all know, from scripture and history and our own experience, those who have appeared to be genuine believers but have fallen away from the faith.

The first step, then, in building the case for this doctrine is establishing what it is not. “It does not mean,” he writes, “that every one who professes faith in Christ and who is accepted as a believer in the fellowship of the saints is secure for eternity and may entertain the assurance of eternal salvation.”

No, Jesus himself give us the criterion for determining true believers: true believers continue in the faith until the end. The kind of temporary faith that doesn’t endure can look very much like the real thing.

…[I]t is possible to have very uplifting, ennobling, reforming, and exhilarating experience of the power and truth of the gospel, to come into such close contact with he supernatural forces which are operative in God’s kingdom of grace that these forces produce effects in us which to human observation are hardly distinguishable from those produced by God’s regenerating and sanctifying grace and yet be not partakers of Christ and heirs of eternal life.

But true believers persevere. They sin, they may backslide, but they will not finally fall away because they “are kept by the power of God through faith” until the end.

What scripture does Murray appeal to in his defense of perseverance of the saints? He starts with Romans 8:28-30, the Golden Chain of Redemption. The called are justified and the justified are glorified. If true saints—those who are called and justified—can be lost, it would go against what Paul is plainly teaching in these verses.

Next he moves to the teachings of Jesus in John 6 and 10. Jesus says that those given to him by the Father—who are also those who believe, who are also those who come to him, who are also those who are drawn by the Father—will be raised on the last day. And no one who is given to Jesus by the Father can be snatched away. In fact, believers have a kind of double security because they are held in the hand of Christ and the hand of the Father. Two powerful hands are grasping us tightly until the end.

Have we not in this truth new reason to marvel at the grace of God and the immutability of his love?

When my kids were younger, they’d enthusiastically affirm something by saying, “Yes! Yes! Double yes!” Doubly held so that we can never perish gets a double yes from me.

*****

For next week, please read chapter 9, Union with Christ.

Over at 10MillionWords I’ve been working hard, reading all of the New York Times bestsellers that have been on the list so far this year. Just yesterday I posted a review of one that I found particularly interesting because it deals with a topic that is innately theological. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert is a book about marriage.

At the end of her bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe. Four years later she returns to tell their story. Having fallen in love with this Brazilian man, Gilbert began to build a life with him. But before long the Department of Homeland Security intervened, deporting Felipe for spending too much time in the United States despite not being a citizen. The only solution, the only way to gain his citizenship, was for the two of them to marry. Yet both of them, scarred from prior divorces, had no desire at all to marry. In fact, they had both sworn off marriage, vowing to remain together, but unfettered by that age-old institution.

“…I was not convinced that I knew very much more than ever about the realities of institutionalized companionship.” says Gilbert. “I had failed at marriage and thus I was terrified of marriage, but I’m not sure this made me an expert on marriage; this only made me an expert on failure and terror, and those particular fields are already crowded with experts. Yet destiny had intervened and was demanding marriage from me, and I’d learned enough from life’s experiences to understand that destiny’s interventions can sometimes be read as invitations for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears.” Yet the reality was that if she wanted to live her life with Felipe, she would have to marry him. “Within one year—like it or not, ready or not—I had to get married. That being the case, it seemed imperative that I focus my attention on unraveling the history of monogamous Western marriage in order to better understand my inherited assumptions, the shape of my family’s narrative, and my culturally specific catalogue of anxieties.”

This book, half travelogue and half sociology, follows her as she and Felipe travel through Asia while they wait for the U.S. government to grant him permission to enter America and get married. As she travels she researches marriage, trying to get to the bottom of what it is and why it is so fundamental to humanity. Committed is, then, a book about marriage. In its own way it is pro-marriage, I suppose, though only if we grant quite a wide understanding of what marriage is.

You can read the rest of the review at 10MillionWords

*****

Here are a few other books I’ve reviewed recently:

• When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson
• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
• The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons
• Last Words by George Carlin
• The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley
• Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson