Cited in sermons
John Calvin
990 sermons · All people cited
The Christ-Centered Orientation of the New Man
Colossians 3:15–17 presents the new man not as a moralist who earns standing before God by putting off vice and putting on virtue, but as one whose entire life is oriented around the person and work of Christ. The sermon argues that three Christ-centered realities define the new man: the peace of Christ, which is grounded in justification by faith alone and flows from the blood of Calvary; the word of Christ, which is to dwell richly in the heart both for personal transformation and mutual edification in the body; and the name of Christ, under which every word and deed is performed. The practical summons is to let the gospel — not personal performance — be the governing principle of the Christian life, so that the new man is known above all for making much of Christ crucified.
The Superiority of Christ Over the Angels
Hebrews 1:8–14 presents four lines of Old Testament evidence that the Son is categorically superior to the angels: His unique filial relationship to the Father, the angels' worship of Him, His unqualified deity as the creator and immutable eternal God, and His present sovereign reign at the Father's right hand. The study works through citations from Psalms 45, 102, and 110, demonstrating from Israel's own scriptures that Christ holds the offices of creator, sovereign administrator, and eternal king — offices no angel can claim. The doctrine of the Trinity is defended against both Jehovah's Witnesses and any who collapse the distinction of persons, and believers are called to anchor their confidence in Christ's present reign rather than fear the powers arrayed against the church.
The Superiority of Christ Over the Angels
Hebrews 1:4–14 opens the epistle's sustained argument for the superiority of Christ over the angels — an argument the apostle grounds not in assertion but in seven quotations from the Old Testament. The passage addresses Jewish Christians tempted to abandon Christ and return to old covenant rites, demonstrating from their own scriptures that the Messiah, as God-man and mediator, possesses a dignity and dominion infinitely exceeding that of the angels. The sermon traces two of four sections in the confirmation passage: Christ's unique filial relationship to the Father (Psalm 2:7; 2 Samuel 7:14), shown to be fulfilled in his resurrection and exaltation, and his relationship to the angels, who worship him and serve as his ministers. Throughout, the recurring motif of 'better' in Hebrews is shown to be the epistle's controlling theme: Christ and the new covenant are not merely different from the old, but surpassingly superior to it in every respect.
The Superiority of Christ Over the Prophets
Hebrews 1:1–3 opens with a compressed Christological argument: God who spoke through the prophets of the old covenant has now spoken definitively and finally through His Son, and this Son is superior to every prophet in seven demonstrable ways. The sermon works through those seven evidences of Christ's supremacy — heir of all things, Creator, brightness of God's glory, express image of the Father's person, sovereign administrator, Savior, and exalted King — grounding each in the text and in supporting Scripture. Along the way it treats the unity of Scripture across the covenants, the cessation of new revelation, and the nature of the 'last days' as the present messianic era. The practical summons is to rest salvation entirely on Christ's finished work and to adore Him in His threefold office of prophet, priest, and king.
The Sovereignty of God in the Salvation of Sinners
Matthew 11:25–30 presents the sovereignty of God in salvation not as a theological puzzle to be argued but as a doxology to be prayed. Jesus praises the Father for hiding gospel truth from the self-sufficient wise and revealing it to those whom the Spirit reduces to babes — an act that is not injustice but divine judgment upon rebels who have no excuse. The passage then sets forth Christ's mediatorial authority as the sole ground upon which any sinner may know the Father, and issues three commands — come, take the yoke, learn — backed by the power of the one who commanded a dead man out of a tomb. The sermon calls hearers to abandon both hyper-Calvinist fatalism and Arminian manipulation, resting instead in the sovereign grace that humbles pride and fuels genuine gospel proclamation.
The Glory of Christ in His State of Humiliation
What does the eternal Son of God's descent from infinite glory to a cattle trough reveal about the nature of his saving work? This sermon on Luke 2:1–14 traces five aspects of Christ's state of humiliation — the timing, place, purpose, manner, and cost of the incarnation — showing that each detail, from the manger to the mocking soldiers to Gethsemane, is not an occasion for embarrassment but for worship. The incarnation was not a sentimental seasonal event but the arrival of the eternal Son, veiled in flesh, to bear the wrath of God and the curse of the cross as the active and passive obedient substitute for guilty sinners. Hearers are called to centre their daily praise on this Christ, to learn humility from his condescension, and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Conversion in the Eleventh Hour
The conversion of the dying thief in Luke 23:39–43 displays the anatomy of saving faith and the character of Christ as a willing, able, and glorious Savior. Working through five marks of genuine conversion visible in the thief — concern for others, fear of God's judgment, ownership of guilt, confession of Christ's holiness, and calling upon the Lord — the sermon demonstrates that saving faith is not a human achievement but a sovereign work of grace. The passage equally reveals that Jesus, even in the agony of bearing the wrath of God on the cross, is actively and assuredly saving sinners. The application is urgent: salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and no sinner should presume upon a future opportunity to repent.
Possession, Position, and Privileges of Believers, Part 1
Philippians 3:8–11 sets the apostle Paul's counting of all things as loss against the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord, and this sermon expounds that text as a sustained defense of justification by faith alone. Working through Paul's commercial language of profit and loss, the preacher distinguishes between Paul's past renunciation of his religious pedigree and his present, continuous counting of all things as rubbish, pressing the congregation to feel the radical reorientation the gospel demands. The heart of the exposition is the doctrine of imputed righteousness in verse 9 — the forensic declaration by which God pardons sins and credits Christ's active and passive obedience to the believer — set in direct contrast with Rome's infusion of righteousness and with modern Protestant departures such as the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision. Because justification is an objective, once-for-all act of God and not a process, assurance is grounded in Christ's faithfulness alone, not in the believer's covenant performance, freeing sanctification to flow from gratitude rather than fear.
The Book of Jude
The epistle of Jude issues an urgent call to God's people to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, in the face of ungodly men who have crept unnoticed into the church and are turning the grace of God into a license for immorality. Working through all twenty-five verses, this exposition traces the letter's anatomy — salutation, statement of purpose, denunciation and doom of the heretics, positive exhortations to believers, and closing doxology — showing that Jude's 'sandwich' structure encloses a hard confrontation with false teaching within the glorious realities of calling, sanctification, and preservation in Christ. The sermon argues that the body of objective doctrinal truth committed to the church must be held with zeal, not limp-wristedly accommodated to include those who deny the sovereign lordship of Christ. Believers are to rejoice in their preservation, know troublemakers for what they are, and deal pastorally but distinctly with those in danger of or already ensnared by heresy.
Five Truths that Demonstrate God's Glory, Part 1
Ephesians 1:3–14 presents salvation as the coordinated work of the triune God — Father electing, Son redeeming, Spirit sealing — all directed to one end: the praise of God's glory. This sermon expounds the first three of five truths grounded in that passage: total depravity, unconditional election, and definite atonement. The preacher argues that only when sinners reckon with the depth of human corruption can they rightly appreciate the sovereign grace that saves, and that the proper response to these doctrines is not polemics but doxology.
The Description of the Heresy
Colossians 2:16–23 exposes a syncretistic heresy threatening the church at Colossae — a blend of Jewish legalism, pagan mysticism, and bodily asceticism — and Paul's response is to anchor the believer's complete standing in Christ alone. The sermon works through three facets of this false teaching: the imposition of dietary laws and calendar observances as religious requirements, the pursuit of angelic visions and experiential 'higher planes' above Scripture, and the self-imposed bodily regulations that, despite their appearance of wisdom, fuel rather than subdue the flesh. The governing principle throughout is that Christ plus anything — legalism, mysticism, or asceticism — is heresy; Christ plus nothing is the gospel.
The Redemptive Act of God
Colossians 2:13–15 sets out four distinct facets of God's one redemptive act accomplished through Christ: regeneration of the spiritually dead, forgiveness of all trespasses, cancellation of the debt of law-breaking, and disarming of demonic principalities and powers at the cross. The totality of this divine work leaves no room for human supplement — not asceticism, not mysticism, not legalism — because God in Christ has secured the salvation of his elect entirely and irrevocably. The sermon presses believers toward grounding their daily assurance not in personal performance but in these objective acts of God recorded in Scripture.
The World According to Haggai
Haggai 2:10–23 confronts a people whose neglect of God's house exposed a deeper failure: they had made comfort and self-interest primary while relegating God to an afterthought. The sermon traces two movements in the text — a promise of blessing conditioned on restored covenant faithfulness (vv. 10–19), and a messianic announcement centering on Zerubbabel as an ancestor of Christ (vv. 20–23). Defilement, unlike holiness, is contagious, and the unbuilt temple was not merely a construction failure but a declaration that God was an unwanted resident. The governing application, drawn from Matthew 6:33, is the imperative to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness in every domain of life — worship, work, evangelism, and devotion.
Christ's Circumcision
Colossians 2:11–12 is frequently marshalled by paedobaptists to argue that baptism has replaced circumcision as the covenant sign and therefore ought to be administered to infants, but the passage cannot bear that weight. This sermon works through three preliminary observations — the structure of covenant theology, the relationship between circumcision and baptism, and the actual point of the passage — before exegeting verses 11–12 directly. The circumcision Paul describes is spiritual regeneration performed by Christ without hands, and baptism is its retrospective public sign, not a parallel to the prospective sign of physical circumcision given to Abraham's infant sons. The sermon closes with a sharp warning against any gospel that supplements Christ's finished work, insisting that justification is an alien, forensic righteousness imputed to the believer by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Best Defense
Colossians 2:8–10 issues a double-edged call: beware of the spiritual kidnapping of godless philosophy, and rest in the sufficiency of Christ in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. The sermon exposes the 'Christ plus' logic underlying ancient and modern heresy — circumcision, asceticism, angel-veneration, and their contemporary equivalents — as substitutes for what believers already possess completely in Christ. The best defense against false teaching is not vigilance alone but a thoroughly biblical Christology, grounded in the conviction that those who are in Christ are complete in the head of all principality and power.
Encouraging Words for a Discouraging Time
Haggai 2:1–9 addresses a community of returned exiles who, after a sixteen-year building hiatus, have resumed construction on the Second Temple only to find themselves discouraged by its apparent insignificance compared to Solomon's. The sermon works through three movements in the text: the reality of the people's discouragement, the threefold faith required for present obedience (in God's presence, his covenant, and his Spirit), and the promise of a future glory that finds its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. The New Testament's own interpretation of Haggai's 'shaking' language in Hebrews 12 is brought to bear, showing that the prophet points forward to the covenantal transformation inaugurated by Christ — the one who is himself both the desire of all nations and the only source of the peace Haggai promises.
Observations on the Gospel
What is the gospel, and what does it demand of its hearers? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–11, this sermon traces six defining observations about the gospel of Jesus Christ: it is rooted in history, revealed by God in Scripture, Christ-centered, received by faith alone, essential to salvation, and powerful for the worst of sinners. The Lord's Supper frames the meditation, reminding believers that the bread and wine point not to human merit but entirely to Christ's accomplished work. Hearers are called to examine whether they possess a saving interest in Christ and to trust him alone for justification.
The Ascension of Jesus Christ
The ascension of Jesus Christ is not religious myth but historically verified fact with profound doctrinal and practical consequences for the believer and the church. Working through Acts 1:9–11, five observations are drawn: the ascension was visible, bodily, and glorious; it sets the pattern for Christ's bodily and glorious return; and it resulted in his enthronement at the right hand of the Father. The sermon applies this doctrine to personal holiness, corporate joy, evangelistic zeal, faithfulness to the next generation, and the call to sinners to look to the enthroned Christ in faith.
But Now Christ is Risen
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a peripheral doctrine but an inseparable component of the gospel itself — Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 demands that it be treated as a truth of the first rank. This exposition works through four movements: the resurrection's cardinal importance, its absolute certainty established by both Old Testament Scripture and eyewitness testimony, the devastating logical implications if it were false, and the blessed realities that flow from the fact that Christ is indeed risen. Believers are called to find in the risen Christ the ground of their regeneration, justification, sanctification, and hope; unbelievers are warned that the same resurrection that secures salvation for the elect guarantees a righteous judgment against all who reject it.
Redemption Through the Curse Bearer
Galatians 3:10–14 presents two mutually exclusive grounds on which a sinner might attempt to stand before God: the works of the law, which place every performer under a divine curse, or faith in Christ, who became that curse in the place of his people. This sermon expounds the universal and just nature of the curse fallen humanity labors under, the identity and substitutionary work of the Redeemer who bore it, and the nature of redemption as a purchased liberation from condemnation. The parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is brought alongside Galatians 3 to press the willingness and joy of Christ in receiving sinners, calling every hearer to look to him in faith rather than to any measure of personal law-keeping.
A Biblical View of Lying
The ninth commandment — 'You shall not bear false witness' — reaches far beyond the courtroom to govern every form of speech: perjury, slander, backbiting, gossip, tailbearing, and religious hypocrisy. The command is grounded in the character of God as the Lord of truth and in the practical necessity of social order, which collapses when confidence between persons is destroyed. The sermon closes by directing the hearer not to resolve moral reformation but to flee to Christ, whose sinless tongue and atoning death are the only ground on which the tongue-defiled sinner may stand.
Abraham's Faith and God's Promise
Genesis 22 presents the supreme test of Abraham's faith: the commanded sacrifice of Isaac, the son of promise. The passage is expounded under three headings — the presentation of the test (vv. 1–2), the obedience of Abraham (vv. 3–10), and the approval of God (vv. 11–19) — with close attention to the three-day journey, Abraham's silent faith, and his confession that 'God will provide.' The sermon moves from the historical narrative to its Christological typology: Abraham foreshadows the Father, Isaac foreshadows the Son, and the substitutionary ram of verse 13 foreshadows the Lamb of God, so that Yahweh-Yireh finds its ultimate fulfilment at Calvary. Hearers are called to the same contrary-to-hope, unwavering trust in the promising God that marked Abraham's life.
A Christian View of Abortion
Abortion is not a political question but a theological and ethical one, answered definitively by Scripture. This sermon works through the biblical case for the sanctity of human life from creation to law, grounds the personhood of the pre-born in texts from Genesis through Luke, and then expounds Exodus 21:22–25 to show that God's law affords full legal protection — including the lex talionis — to the unborn child and the mother alike. Christians are called to weep over this ongoing atrocity, to arm themselves with Scripture, to pray and witness faithfully, and to proclaim both the law that condemns and the gospel that saves to all who have participated in it.
The Lawful Uses of God's Law
The law of God is good when used lawfully — and Scripture identifies three distinct lawful uses that the church must recover. Drawing from 1 Timothy 1:8–11 and ranging across Romans, Galatians, and the Westminster Larger Catechism, this sermon exposits the threefold use of the law (civil, pedagogical, normative) as the historically Reformed framework for understanding law and gospel. The civil use restrains wickedness in society; the pedagogical use exposes sin and drives sinners to Christ; the normative use provides the regenerate with a pattern of holy conduct that the indwelling Spirit enables them to pursue freely. The central burden of the sermon is that stripping law from gospel preaching produces a generation that wants comfort rather than righteousness, and that a high view of the law is inseparable from a high view of the Redeemer.
Walking as Sons of God
Ephesians 5:1–21 sets out three responsibilities belonging to every adopted son and daughter of God: walking in love, walking in light, and walking in wisdom. Biblical love is not a feeling but a law-directed action patterned after Christ's self-sacrifice, measured by the Decalogue rather than sentiment. Walking in light means finding out what is acceptable to God through diligent study of Scripture, then living in such a way that righteousness exposes darkness. Walking in wisdom means hearing the Word of Christ and doing it — redeeming every opportunity in evil days, whether to advance the kingdom or to guard against the temptations a pagan culture presses upon the believer.
Paul's Conflict and Concern for the Colossians
Colossians 2:1–5 exposes both the nature of Paul's apostolic struggle and the objectives that drove it: he agonized in prayer for churches he had never visited because the stakes of false teaching are eternal. The sermon traces four objectives of Paul's conflict — that believers be encouraged in heart, united in love, assured in understanding, and consumed with Christ as the sole treasury of wisdom and knowledge — before turning to Paul's concern in verses 4–5, where persuasive words are shown to be the perennial weapon of heresy. The antidote is not rhetorical sophistication but deep, corporate rootedness in the person and sufficiency of Christ, which alone guards the church against the humanistic philosophy, legalism, mysticism, asceticism, and antinomianism Paul will address throughout the epistle.
Paul's Stewardship of the Gospel
Colossians 1:25–29 sets before the church the apostolic stewardship and preaching ministry of Paul as a pattern for gospel ministry. The passage unfolds in three movements: Paul's divinely assigned stewardship of the mystery of Christ in the Gentiles, the content and manner of his Christ-centered proclamation, and the Spirit-empowered labor that drove that proclamation toward eschatological completeness. The sermon draws out the implications for both preachers — who must warn, teach, and strive with wisdom in dependence on God — and hearers, who bear responsibility to receive the preached word with attentive, covenant-renewing ears.
Paul's Sufferings for Christ and the Church
Colossians 1:24 confronts the assumption — doctrinal or practical — that the Christian life is one of health, wealth, and prosperity. Paul's declaration that he rejoices in his sufferings for the church raises two difficult questions: what does it mean to fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, and why would any apostle rejoice in prison, beatings, and stonings? This exposition works through both questions, demolishing the Roman Catholic reading that Christ's atonement was incomplete, and arguing instead that Christ so identifies with His body that their sufferings are in some sense His own, and that Paul's willingness to absorb suffering on behalf of the church is the pattern of genuine Christian ministry and churchmanship.
Paul's Intercessory Prayer for the Colossians
Paul's intercessory prayer for the Colossians (Colossians 1:9–14) defines what a worthy walk before God actually looks like, tracing four participles that mark genuine Christian discipleship: fruitfulness in good works, growth in the knowledge of God, divine strengthening for patient endurance, and thankfulness to the Father. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone — not by works, but unto works — so that every lawful act, whether in the home, the workplace, or the church, is rendered as sacred service to the Lord. The sermon moves from these four marks of discipleship into the theological ground of thanksgiving: God has qualified the believer for an inheritance, delivered him from the dominion of darkness, transferred him into the kingdom of the Son, and redeemed him through Christ's blood. The hearer is urged to examine whether these four characteristics genuinely identify his own walk, resting the assurance of that examination on the sovereign, irresistible grace of God.
The Prophet's Lament and the Lord's Answer
Habakkuk's two laments to God — one ethical, one theological — expose the perennial tension between a believer's knowledge of God's holiness and sovereignty and the apparent triumph of wickedness. The first complaint concerns lawlessness rampant in Judah under Jehoiakim; God's answer, that He is raising up the Chaldeans as His instrument of judgment, only deepens the crisis: how can a God of pure eyes employ a nation more wicked than the one He is chastising? The sermon situates these laments historically, traces their covenant-theological logic through Deuteronomy's curse-sanctions, and draws out four applications: godly concern for societal evil, prayer as the primary outlet for that concern, confidence in God's sovereign control, and the doctrinal anchor that the covenant remnant shall not perish.