Cited in sermons
James Dunn
2 sermons · All people cited
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 1
What does it mean to be justified before a holy God, and on what basis does that standing rest? This confession study works through paragraphs one and two of Chapter 11 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, examining the forensic nature of justification against both Roman Catholic infused righteousness and Baxterian neonomianism. The twin foundations of justification are established: the pardon of sins through Christ's passive obedience and the imputation of righteousness through his active obedience, both received by faith alone as a gift of God. The lecture closes by showing that justifying faith, though the sole instrument of justification, is never alone in the person justified but is always accompanied by sanctification.
Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 7 traces the biblical and theological architecture of God's covenant: from the necessity of divine condescension (paragraph 1), through the gracious character of the covenant of grace (paragraph 2), to the three theological covenants — grace, redemption, and works — and their progressive historical unfolding (paragraph 3). The session contrasts covenant theology with dispensationalism and New Covenant theology as competing hermeneutical frameworks, argues that the Old (Mosaic) Covenant functioned as a republication of the covenant of works rather than an administration of the covenant of grace, and demonstrates from Genesis 3:15 through Jeremiah 31 and Matthew 26 that all historical covenants advance a single promise of redemption finally and fully disclosed in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. The practical payoff is a robustly confessional case for believers-only baptism: the new covenant community is defined by inward regeneration, universal knowledge of the Lord, and definitive forgiveness — marks that exclude the external-and-internal covenant structure required to justify paedobaptism.