Cited in sermons
Gerardus Vos
3 sermons · All people cited
The 6th Commandment
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — is one of the briefest commands in the Decalogue, yet it carries profound theological and legal weight. This expository Bible study examines the precise Hebrew terminology that distinguishes murder from other forms of killing, establishes the internal disposition (hatred, unrighteous anger, character assassination) as equally condemned by the sixth commandment alongside the external act, and then surveys three exceptions to the prohibition: capital punishment, just war, and self-defense. Each exception is grounded in both Old and New Testament texts, with sustained attention to the Noahic Covenant, Romans 13, and Exodus 22, demonstrating that the civil magistrate's sword is a God-ordained instrument of justice rather than a violation of the commandment.
The Death Penalty
Genesis 9:6 grounds the biblical mandate for capital punishment in the image of God: to shed human blood unlawfully is to assault God himself, and the prescribed penalty reflects the weight of that offense. This sermon works through the Noahic covenant as a common-grace ordinance never abrogated, traces the continuity of capital punishment into the New Testament through Romans 13, and then systematically answers both biblical and pragmatic objections — including the mistranslation of Exodus 20:13, the pacifist reading of Matthew 5:38–42, and the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Believers are called to submit to the whole counsel of God on this issue, even where it cuts against cultural sentiment, because consistency with Scripture requires affirming what God has commanded for the governance of civil society.
A Brief Survey of Covenant Theology, Part 1
What is a divine covenant, and why does 'covenant theology' accurately describe the Bible's own architecture? This lecture — the first in a three-part survey — defines divine covenants as relational arrangements sovereignly initiated by God for man's benefit, with ways and means established by God alone to obtain the designated blessings. Drawing on Nehemiah Cox, 2 Samuel 7, Exodus 19, and Hebrews 10, the speaker demonstrates that both Testaments are covenantally structured documents: the Old Testament is the covenantal record for old covenant Israel, and the New Testament is the covenantal record for the new covenant church, both centering on Christ in his sufferings and glory. The lecture concludes that covenant theology is not an alien grid imposed on Scripture but the organic, Christocentric shape of biblical revelation itself, best interpreted by allowing the New Testament to illuminate the Old.