Final Chapters and Final Thoughts

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The Bruised Reed (TBR) has been on my “to read” list for many years and I’m glad to have finally read it. I have profited greatly by doing so. With that said, I know there is so much I missed along the way, and much I failed to convey in my chapter summaries. But like any good book, I'm sure a reread would open new vistas of understanding. Perhaps I will do that someday. But for now, here are a few of my highlights from the final two chapters. One recurring theme that I found particularly encouraging in TBR was a long view of Christian growth and sanctification. Sibbes repeatedly reminds us of small beginnings and growth over time. See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings. Look not so much to the beginning as to the perfection, and so we shall be, in some degree, joyful in ourselves, and thankful to Christ.[i] Another thing I appreciate about Sibbes is that, although he recognizes our frailty, sin, and weakness, there is no coddling of sin. He...
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...in Christ Mystical?

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There is no more shocking truth about believers than that God has loved them even as He has loved His own Son.[1]

– The Moody Bible Commentary




This week we are reading chapters one and two of The Bruised Reed. In Chapter one there is a curious phrase that was unfamiliar to me: 

For his love rests in a whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well as Christ natural, because he loves him and us with one love.[2] 

What is meant by "Christ mystical"? In our day and age, it sounds kind New Agey. If you Google Christ mystical (and Googled it I did) you will find a long list of aberrant teachings about “Christian mysticism”. You will also find that the term was popularized by Pope Pius XII in 1943. However, after some searching, I came upon another passage from Sibbes that was more helpful. 

Does God delight thus in Christ, in his person, or considered mystically? I answer; both. God loves and delights in Christ mystical, that is, in Christ and his members, in whole Christ. 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,' not only with whom alone by himself, but 'in whom,' in him as God, in him in body and soul, in him as head of the church, in him mystically, in all that are under him any kind of way. God delights in him, and all his.

Is it possible that he should delight in the head, and refuse the members? that he should love the husband, and mislike the spouse? O no; with the same love that God loves Christ, he loves all his. He delights in Christ and all his, with the same delight. There is some difference in the degree, 'that Christ in all things may have the pre-eminence,' Col. 1:18, but it is the same love; therefore our Saviour sets it down excellently in his own prayer, he desires 'that the same love wherewith his Father loved him may be in them that are his,' John 17:20, that they may feel the love wherewith his Father loves him, for he loved him and his members, him and his spouse, with all one love. This is our comfort and our confidence, that God accepts us, because he accepts his beloved; and when he shall cease to love Christ, he shall cease to love the members of Christ. They and Christ make one mystical Christ.

This is our comfort in dejection for sin. We are so and so indeed, but Christ is the chosen servant of God, 'in whom he delighteth,' and delights in us in him. It is no matter what we are in ourselves, but what we are in Christ when we are once in him and continue in him. God loves us with that inseparable love wherewith he loves his own Son. Therefore St Paul triumphs, Rom. 8:35, 'What shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?' This love, it is founded in Christ, 'therefore neither things present, nor things to come (as he goes on there gloriously), shall be able to separate us.' You see what a wondrous confidence and comfort we have hence, if we labour to be in Christ, that then God loves and delights in us, because he loves and delights in Christ Jesus. (Emphasis added.)[3]

So, what is meant by Christ mystical? It refers to the union that Christ has with His body, the Church. And because we are in Christ and so connected with Christ, the Father loves and delights in us with the same love and delight He has in Christ. That is simply astounding! Reading this certainly helps me better understand what it means to be “in Christ”. This chapter has given me much to ponder and meditate upon.

For further Reading: 

For more commentary about the mystical union of Christ and the Church from R. C. Sproul, Louis Berkhof, and others, visit this link: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1daLrrNqIp-CF0RkSJDuRtMAenKKbuxmv/view?usp=sharing 

Passage List: In Christ 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOMhOkjUrjkHSXpyMZqcVabJNoh8M4Y9/view?usp=sharing 


________________

[1] Hart, J. F. (2014). John. In M. A. Rydelnik & M. Vanlaningham (Eds.), The moody bible commentary (p. 1654). Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers. 
[2] The Bruised Reed (p. 6). Kindle Edition. 
[3] Sibbes, Richard. A Description of Christ . Kindle Edition. 

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