Cited in sermons
Louis Berkhof
40 sermons · All people cited
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 3
Justification is the article upon which the church stands or falls, and this exposition of 2LCF Chapter 11 works through the nature, basis, and instrument of justification as the confession presents them. The sermon distinguishes justification sharply from sanctification against the Roman Catholic doctrine of infused righteousness, the neo-Nomian teaching of Richard Baxter, and the New Perspective on Paul, arguing that the elect are accepted by God solely on the basis of Christ's imputed active and passive obedience received through faith alone. The active obedience of Christ — his 33 years of perfect law-keeping — is shown to be as necessary as his death, because forgiveness alone would leave the believer back in a probationary state without a positive righteousness that avails before God. Faith is the alone instrument of justification, not its condition or cause, and is itself a gift of God, so that every ground of human boasting is excluded.
The Glory of the Father
John 17:1–5 records the opening of Christ's High Priestly Prayer, in which the incarnate Son petitions the Father to glorify Him in and through His approaching death, resurrection, and exaltation. The sermon expounds three grounds for that petition: the salvation of the elect, the accomplishment of redemption through Christ's active and passive obedience, and the restoration of the pre-incarnate glory to the God-Man. Central to the exposition is verse 3, where Christ defines eternal life as the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ — a knowledge that necessarily issues in glorifying God, sustaining believers through trial, and grounding assurance not in personal performance but in the character and covenant of the triune God. Hearers are pressed to pursue that knowledge through the ordinary means of grace: the reading of Scripture, prayer, and faithful attendance upon the Word.
2LCF Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant, Part 3
Covenant theology is not abstract speculation but the architectural blueprint of all Scripture, and a faulty grasp of it distorts both law and gospel. This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 7, paragraph 3, tracing the covenant of grace from its first announcement in Genesis 3:15 through the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants as progressive, concentric revelations of the same redemptive promise, culminating in the new covenant ratified by Christ's blood. The eternal covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son grounds the covenant of grace, so that for sinners, grace is free and unconditional, while for Christ, it was a covenant of works demanding exact, entire, and personal obedience. The session closes with the axiom that 'the covenant of grace is the covenant of works kept for us,' and applies this structure to the necessity of sola fide against Federal Vision, Baxterian, and Roman Catholic distortions.
Divine Simplicity 2 - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
What does it mean to say God is 'without parts,' and why does it matter for every other divine attribute? This second session on divine simplicity (2LCF 2.1–3) continues an expository study of the Second London Baptist Confession's opening chapter on God, working through the classical doctrine that God is not composed of physical, metaphysical, or logical parts — a doctrine historically attested from the church fathers through the Reformation and represented in every major Reformed confession. The session focuses especially on God's pure actuality (the denial of act-and-potency composition), the inseparability of God as knower, knowing, and things known, and the impossibility of God being both agent and patient — showing that divine simplicity is the ontological foundation for God's immutability, independence, absoluteness, unity, and infinite love.
Divine Simplicity - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
Divine simplicity — the classical doctrine that God has no parts, no composition whatsoever, and that all that is in God is God — is examined through its confessional, definitional, historical, and doctrinal dimensions. The 1689 London Baptist Confession's phrase 'without body, parts, or passions' serves as the entry point, with 'without parts' identified as the direct expression of divine simplicity. The doctrine is shown to be the ontological foundation for God's aseity, infinity, immutability, and the unity of his attributes, and is traced through an unbroken stream of witnesses from Irenaeus and Augustine through Aquinas, the Reformers, and the Reformed scholastics. Hearers are pressed to resist any conception of God as a composite being whose attributes are properties inhering in a subject, and to affirm instead that God is identical with his own essence, being, and every perfection predicated of him.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-2)
What does it mean that God is omnipresent, and how does his omniscience differ from all creaturely knowledge? Working through the second chapter of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study examines the divine attributes of omnipresence and omniscience with theological precision, drawing on Scripture, the church fathers, the Reformers, and the Reformed orthodox tradition. God's omnipresence is grounded not in his omnipotence or omniscience but in his infinity and immensity — he fills all of heaven and earth repletively, with his whole being, while remaining utterly transcendent and uncircumscribed by creation. God's omniscience is equally distinguished from creaturely knowing: he knows all things not discursively, derivatively, or by foreknowledge acquired through observation, but intuitively, independently, and eternally, in one simple act of self-knowledge.
2LCF Chapter 1 - Of the Holy Scriptures, Part 2
What does it mean to interpret Scripture rightly, and why does it matter? This Bible study exposition of 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (part 2) builds on the prior week's treatment of the doctrine of Scripture to address the discipline of hermeneutics — the principles, laws, and methods of biblical interpretation. Eight basic principles are set forth: Scripture's interpretation is a spiritual exercise requiring Spirit-dependent prayer; the text's meaning is objective, not reader-relative; the grammatical-historical method governs exegesis; context is paramount; Scripture is its own best interpreter; literary genre must be recognized; the relationship between the Old and New Testaments must be understood; and the interpreter is not alone but stands within the community of the church's gifted teachers across the centuries. The governing application is that every believer, not merely the ordained minister, must handle the Word of God accurately rather than twisting it to suit preferred meanings.
The Mission of the Twelve
The mission of the Twelve in Matthew 10:5–15 is not a universal mandate for all gospel ministry but a historically specific, geographically confined commission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel — the necessary first movement in a salvation-historical arc that culminates in the Great Commission of Matthew 28. The sermon works through four observations: the scope, nature, provision, and response to the mission, demonstrating that the sign gifts authenticated apostolic preaching rather than being ends in themselves. The sermon closes with a sober warning drawn from verse 15: greater gospel privilege demands greater accountability, and to hear the word faithfully preached and refuse it is a more grievous offense than the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Preface to the Lord's Prayer
What does it mean to address God as 'Our Father in heaven' before a single petition is spoken? This sermon on Matthew 6:9 argues that the preface to the Lord's Prayer is not a formality but a theological foundation: the invocation shapes the entire posture of prayer. Six truths embedded in the two words 'Our Father' are examined — that God is personal, gracious, hearing, caring, loving, and alone to be addressed — followed by two truths in the phrase 'in heaven': that God is transcendent and omnipotent. The sermon closes with a pointed call to examine whether one can honestly pray 'Our Father' at all, since access to the Father comes only through faith in the Son.
Paul's Prayer for the Colossians
Paul's prayer in Colossians 1:9–14 sets forth four characteristics of a walk worthy of the Lord: fruitfulness in good works, growth in the knowledge of God, strength for patient endurance, and thankfulness to the Father. The sermon argues that doctrine and practice are inseparable — the knowledge of God fuels the good works God prepared for his people — and that genuine thankfulness flows not from natural disposition but from the Spirit's work in those whom God has qualified, delivered, transferred, and redeemed. The ungodly are marked by ingratitude and failure to glorify God; the converted are called to a daily, Spirit-wrought thankfulness that honors God for every circumstance, not merely the pleasant ones.