Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

Glorious Freedom

Celebrating the relationship

GLORIOUS FREEDOM
By Richard Sibbes
Banner of Truth. 194 pages. £2.95
ISBN 0 851 51 7919

This is not an easy read (the text was first published in 1639 and has been reproduced with a minimum of editing) but there are compelling reasons for taking the trouble to spend some time with the 'heavenly Sibbes'.

In its attempt to steer well clear of rampant subjectivism, reformed evangelicalism has often found itself veering down a dangerously anti-experiential road. In response, many have blamed Reformed theology for the dryness in their souls, and have looked elsewhere for spiritual reality. Glorious Freedom is a reminder that before throwing out the baby with the bath water, and getting swept off our feet by the latest fad, we should revisit our Puritan heritage.

Sibbes demonstrates how our conviction about the sovereignty of God in salvation should lead us not to play down the work of the Holy Spirit, but to admit our desperate need of him. Redemption is 'devised by the Father', and purchased by Christ, but unless the Spirit opens our eyes and applies his work to us, we remain in chains. Sibbes is therefore unashamed to use the language of spiritual experience, but the experience he wants to lead us into is not of the bizarre or nebulous. It is a gospel-shaped experience of the reality of the freedom that we enjoy in union with Christ.

This book is not without eccentricity, but we often stop at what we have been freed from, and here is a celebration of the relationship with God that we have been freed for.

Mike Cain, Leipzig