The Eye Of Faith

Richard Sibbes

Richard Sibbes reminds us here of the personal nature of the transformation that takes place when we first see our Savior:

The very beholding of Christ is a transforming sight. The Spirit that makes us new creatures, and stirs us up to behold this Savior, causes it to be a transforming beholding. If we look upon him with the eye of faith, it will make us like Christ; for the gospel is a mirror, and such a mirror, that when we a look into it, and see ourselves interested in it, we are changed from glory to glory, 2 Cor. iii. 18. A man cannot look upon the love of God and of Christ in the gospel, but it will change him to be like God and Christ For how can we see Christ, and God in Christ, but we shall see how God hates sin, and this will transform us to hate it as God cloth, who hated it so that it could not be expiated but with the blood of Christ, God man. So, seeing the holiness of God in it, it will transform us to be holy. When we see the love of God in the gospel, and the love of Christ giving himself for us, this will transform us to love God. When we see the humility and obedience of Christ, when we look on Christ as God’s chosen servant in all this, and as our surety and head, it transforms us to the like humility and obedience. Those that find not their dispositions in some comfortable measure wrought to this blessed transformation; they have not yet those eyes that the Holy Ghost requireth here. ‘Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul delighteth.’ (Extract from “A Description of Christ”)