Cited in sermons
Meredith Kline
83 sermons · All people cited
The Laws of the Unsolved Murder, Family Matters, and Dead Criminals
Deuteronomy 21 addresses five distinct legal ordinances governing the covenant community of old covenant Israel: the unsolved homicide, female captives taken in war, the firstborn son in a polygamous household, the stubborn and rebellious son, and the hanged criminal. Running beneath all five is a single theological concern — the prevention of blood guiltiness defiling the land God has given his people as an inheritance. The passage is read typologically: the heifer sacrificed for the unsolved murder foreshadows penal substitutionary atonement, the charge of 'glutton and drunkard' leveled at Jesus in Matthew 11 echoes the indictment for the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21, and Paul's citation of Deuteronomy 21:23 in Galatians 3:13 makes explicit that Christ became a curse for his people by hanging on a tree. The session closes with a Q&A discussion of polygamy, slavery, and the relationship between creation ordinances and post-fall civil legislation.
The Maintenance of Justice
Deuteronomy 16:18–17:7 establishes the framework for civil justice in Old Covenant Israel: the appointment of impartial judges, the prohibition of idolatrous practices that precede full apostasy, and a carefully guarded procedure for prosecuting capital offenses. The passage demonstrates that God's theocratic ordering of Israel required both judicial righteousness and cultic holiness, since Yahweh was simultaneously God and King. Israel's repeated failure to maintain this standard drives the expectation forward to Christ, the true Israel, who alone executes judgment with perfect righteousness. The enduring principles of due process, equal application of law, and capital punishment remain binding norms for civil government in every age, grounded not in Mosaic theocracy alone but in the Noahic covenant and the New Testament's own teaching on the sword.
Deuteronomy 14:1-29 - Laws of Death, Diet, and Tithing
Deuteronomy 14 regulates mourning rites, dietary practices, and tithing for Old Covenant Israel — not as arbitrary impositions but as expressions of a holy people set apart by God from the nations around them. The chapter's controlling logic is covenantal identity: because Israel bore the status of God's firstborn son, every dimension of daily life, from the menu to the method of mourning, was to reflect that consecration. The dietary laws, now abrogated under the New Covenant as ceremonial law fulfilled in Christ, nevertheless carry a permanent New Covenant counterpart: the people of God are still to be distinguished from the world in holiness, presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. The tithing section closes the chapter with a call to generous, joyful giving that cares for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow — a call that carries into the New Covenant era as well.
The Promise of Blessing or Curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Israel a stark covenantal choice: blessing conditioned upon obedience to the Lord, or curse consequent upon idolatry and rebellion. Working through the chapter's three sections — the works of God rehearsed in history, the requirement of covenant fidelity, and the promise of blessing or curse — the sermon traces how Israel's failure to meet the covenant's demands is precisely the ground upon which Christ, as the true Israel and last Adam, fulfills all righteousness and absorbs the covenant curse on behalf of his people. The exhortation closes by connecting Deuteronomy 27:26 to Galatians 3, showing that the Mosaic covenant of works for Israel becomes the ground of Christ's redemptive obedience and that justification has always been by faith alone in the one who kept what Israel could not.
The Central Demand of the Covenant
Deuteronomy 10 presents the central demand of the Mosaic covenant — that Israel fear, love, and serve the Lord with all their heart and soul — set against the backdrop of the golden calf incident and the covenant's renewal. The sermon traces this demand from its roots in Deuteronomy 10:12–13 through its echoes in Genesis 18, Proverbs 21, Hosea 12, Zechariah 7, Micah 6, and Matthew 23, demonstrating that obedience rooted in heart religion has always been God's requirement of His people. The threefold division of the law is expounded, with the moral law established as perpetually binding while the ceremonial law finds its fulfillment in Christ and the judicial law expires with the Israelite theocracy. The sermon closes by pressing believers to hold fast to God, keeping His law not as a means of justification but as the pattern for sanctification purchased by Christ, the true Israel who alone fulfilled the covenant.
Review Of Israel's Rebellion
Deuteronomy 9 confronts Israel's temptation to attribute their inheritance of the promised land to their own righteousness, and Moses systematically dismantles that presumption. The chapter divides into the anticipation of the conquest (vv. 1–6) and a recapitulation of Israel's wilderness rebellions (vv. 7–29), each episode confirming that Israel stood not by merit but by the sovereign mercy of God and the faithfulness of his covenantal promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses's intercessory prayer at the chapter's close models covenant pleading that appeals not to Israel's worthiness but to God's glory, his sworn word, and the redemption he himself accomplished. The passage calls God's people in every era to forsake self-righteousness and rest entirely on divine grace.
Life in the Wilderness and Canaan
Deuteronomy 8 sets the wilderness generation of Israel before the land of Canaan with a threefold movement: a reminder of God's providential humbling in the wilderness (vv. 1–5), a promise of abundant blessing in the land (vv. 6–10), and a solemn warning against the pride and forgetfulness that prosperity tends to generate (vv. 11–20). The wilderness was not divine cruelty but divine chastening — designed to produce dependence on God rather than self-sufficiency — a pattern the New Testament applies both to the believer's ongoing trials and to the person of Christ, who as the true Israel recapitulates the exodus, wilderness, and restoration that old covenant Israel failed to embody faithfully. The sermon closes by calling hearers to combat forgetfulness of God through regular remembrance of his word, his covenant, and his redemptive acts, recognising that the danger is never prosperity itself but the pride that severs gratitude from grace.
The Command for the Conquest
Deuteronomy 7:1–11 sets out the divine policy for Israel's conquest of Canaan, commanding total destruction of the seven Canaanite nations and prohibiting political, social, and religious alliances with them. The passage answers the modern objection that God commanded genocide of innocent peoples by demonstrating from Leviticus 18 that the Canaanites were under divine judgment for extreme wickedness, and that God applied the same standard of judgment to Israel when Israel imitated their conduct. The distinction between Israel and Canaan rests entirely on sovereign, unconditional election — not Israel's numbers or righteousness — and finds its New Covenant fulfillment in the church as the true people of God united to Christ. The passage's prohibitions carry direct application to contemporary alliances: believers are to marry only in the Lord, avoid religious compromise on cardinal doctrines, and understand civil government's proper and limited role.
The Dangers and Precautions for Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–25 addresses the second generation of Old Covenant Israel on the plains of Moab with warnings and precautions before they enter the Promised Land. Three dangers threaten covenant loyalty: forgetting God in prosperity, forsaking God through idolatry, and testing God under hardship. The precautions against these dangers are diligent obedience to the commandments and faithful covenant succession — passing the knowledge of God's redemptive acts to the next generation. These dangers are not merely ancient; they press upon the New Covenant church with equal force, and the remedies remain the same: fear God, keep His word, and rehearse His faithfulness to your children.
The Conclusion of the Decalogue
Deuteronomy 5:22–33 records Moses rehearsing the original giving of the law at Sinai, and this exposition draws out the divine origin, authority, comprehensiveness, finality, and permanence of the Decalogue as the trans-covenantal moral law of God binding on all men in every age. The threefold use of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — is traced through the New Covenant, with the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith as the only ground of justification. The people's terror at the theophany on Sinai is commended as the proper response to God's majesty, and the sermon presses the distinction between slavish fear that flees from God and filial fear that flees to Him, urging the congregation to recover a robust doctrine of divine transcendence in their worship.
The Sixth Commandment, Part 2
The sixth commandment's prohibition of murder raises pressing questions about the lawfulness of capital punishment — questions this study addresses by examining common objections, both biblical and pragmatic. Working through passages in Genesis 9, Romans 12–13, Matthew 5, and John 8, the study argues that none of these texts undermines the death penalty; rather, each, rightly interpreted, confirms that the civil magistrate is God's ordained avenger, armed with the sword to execute retributive justice. The account of the woman caught in adultery is shown to uphold, not overturn, the law of Moses, since Jesus' appeal to qualified witnesses is itself a requirement of that law. Believers are called to embrace the whole counsel of God on civil justice, including its consistency with — not contradiction of — the free offer of the gospel.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 1
The abiding validity of the Fourth Commandment is defended through a biblical theology of the Sabbath that traces the institution from creation through the old covenant. The sermon argues that Sabbath rest is grounded not in the Mosaic economy alone but in the creation ordinance of Genesis 2 and the redemption of Exodus, making it binding upon all humanity — not Jews only — as Christ himself teaches in Mark 2:27. The positive and moral character of the commandment is distinguished from its ceremonial and positive elements, with the day change to the Lord's Day deferred to the following session. Hearers are called to receive the Sabbath as the gift it is declared to be in Isaiah 58, not as a Judaizing imposition.
Julian and Raelene's Wedding
A Reformed Baptist wedding homily expounds the institution of marriage in Genesis 2:18-25, the fall into sin in Genesis 3, and the first gospel promise of Genesis 3:15 as the theological ground on which Christian marriage stands. The sermon traces how the Apostle Paul's teaching in Ephesians 5:22-33 — the husband to lovingly lead, the wife to honor and submit — flows from the creation order and points beyond itself to Christ and his church. The homily closes by calling every attendee, believer and unbeliever alike, to look to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose obedient life, atoning death, and resurrection are the only answer to the sin that corrupts marriage and every human relationship.
Deuteronomy 1
Deuteronomy 1 opens Moses' first address to the second generation of Israel on the plains of Moab, a historical review designed to prepare the people for the conquest of the promised land. Moses rehearses four episodes: God's command to advance from Horeb, the appointment of judges, the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea rooted in unbelief, and the punishment that fell on the first generation. The central diagnostic is verse 32 — 'you did not believe the Lord your God' — which exposes unbelief as the taproot of Israel's grumbling, refusal, and covenant faithlessness. The sermon calls the New Covenant congregation to dwell on this history so as to be steadfast in the future, trusting the same God whose promises are yes and amen in Christ.
Unpacking Covenant Theology: Tensions in Reformed Tradition
The relationship between the Mosaic Covenant and the Covenant of Works has generated significant tension within Westminster confessional theology, particularly around Meredith Kline's view of republication. While the broader Reformed tradition has historically accommodated a range of positions — including treating the Mosaic Covenant as a subservient covenant of works — the Westminster Confession narrows that range by specifying the Mosaic Covenant as an administration of the Covenant of Grace, creating a confessional problem for those who hold Kline's position. This exchange examines how confessional Presbyterians (including paedobaptists) navigate the resulting tension, with reference to OPC reports on republication.
Introduction to Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy is introduced as the second giving of the law — not a new law, but a restatement of the Sinai covenant addressed to the second generation of Israel standing on the plains of Moab, poised to enter the land of promise. The session surveys Mosaic authorship, the book's place in the Pentateuch, its historical context, its broad outline (God's activity, law, covenant, and servants), and its major theological emphases: reminder, transition, exhortation, and instruction in theology proper, the promise of land, and the worship of God. The study concludes with the typological significance of Deuteronomy for the New Testament, tracing how the book prefigures Christ as prophet, priest, king, and true Israel, and how its promise of new covenant in chapter 30 points forward to what Jeremiah 31 and the gospel make explicit.
The Law Concerning Offerings and Vows
Numbers 28–30 presents the divinely regulated calendar of offerings and the law governing vows in Old Covenant Israel, both of which underscore that Israel was not merely a migrating people but a covenant community ordered by the worship of God. The offerings — daily, Sabbath, monthly, and the seven yearly feasts — served to remind Israel of their redemptive history, promote joy and community, resist idolatry, and ensure rest in God's presence, all of which find their fulfillment in Christ. The law of vows in chapter 30 teaches the sanctity of truth, the binding nature of solemn commitments made before God, and the complementarian order in which a woman's vow was subject to the authority of her father or husband. Together these chapters call the New Covenant believer to faithful, regulated worship, truthful speech, and lives of sanctification that flow from justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Covenant Ceremony With Abraham
Genesis 15 records the covenant ceremony by which God confirmed his promises of seed and land to Abram — not with a bilateral oath, but with a unilateral, self-maledictory act in which God alone passed between the divided animals. The sermon traces Abraham's justification by faith alone in verse 6, examines the ancient covenant-ratification ritual as a type of Christ bearing the covenant curse, and shows that the smoking oven and burning torch passing through the pieces preaches the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The application presses believers to rest their assurance not in their own covenant faithfulness but in the faithfulness of the God who swore by himself and sealed that oath in the blood of his Son.
Ask FGBC - Podcast with Jim Butler, Dr James Renihan, Dr Richard Barcellos
This roundtable conversation between three pastors and theologians addresses a wide range of questions submitted by church members, covering biblical theology, covenant theology, baptism, eschatology, and Christian living. The discussion moves from how Christ fulfills Old Testament Israel, through the covenantal basis for believers' baptism, to the nature of the eternal state, the hermeneutics of applying Old Testament promises, the place of ethnic Israel in relation to the church, and the means of grace for raising covenant children. Throughout, the speakers return to a consistent Reformed hermeneutic: Christ is the true and greater fulfillment of all Old Testament promise, the church is the eschatological Israel of prophetic expectation, and the ordinary means of grace — Word, prayer, and faithful worship — remain God's appointed instruments for the conversion and nurture of his people.
The Promise of Blessings and Cursing, Part 2
Leviticus 26:14–46 sets forth the covenant curses God threatened against Israel for breaking the Mosaic Covenant — a covenant of works — escalating through drought, wild animals, war, cannibalism, wholesale destruction, and exile. These curses came to historical fulfillment in the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria in 722 BC, the fall of the Southern Kingdom to Babylon in 586 BC, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70 — events prophesied in the Olivet Discourse and confirmed by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2. The chapter closes with a promise of restoration conditioned on Israel's humble repentance and God's fidelity to the Abrahamic covenant. Believers under the New Covenant are freed from these covenant curses because Christ bore them fully, fulfilling the demands of the law and standing as the surety of a better covenant.
The Feasts of the Lord
Leviticus 23 sets before Israel a calendar of holy convocations — the weekly Sabbath, the spring feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Weeks, and the fall feasts of Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles — all commanded by God as the covenant head of his people. These feasts served to remind Israel of their redemptive history, promote joy and community, encourage charity, deter idolatry, and provide rest. As ceremonial law, they were typological ordinances pointing forward to Christ, and their perpetuity was covenantally conditioned: with the inauguration of the New Covenant, Christ abrogated them. The weekly Sabbath, however, rests on moral law grounded in creation and redemption and remains binding on the New Covenant people of God, who are called to observe the Lord's Day — not the Old Covenant feasts — as the appointed time for corporate worship.
The Husband and Wife Relationship, Part 2
What does it mean for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church? Expounding Ephesians 5:25–27, this sermon argues that the husband's headship is never a license for domestic tyranny but is always to be exercised as a reign of love, patterned after Christ's self-sacrificing, sanctifying love for his bride. The sermon works through the nature and explanation of the command to love, the characteristics of that love (faithful monogamy, consistent self-sacrifice, joyful commitment to the wife's well-being), and its threefold expression: praying for her, providing for her, and protecting her. The passage then opens into the broader Christological vision of Ephesians 5:26–27 — Christ's definite atonement, his sanctifying and cleansing of the church, and his purpose to present her to himself without spot, wrinkle, or blemish — held up as both the ground and the standard of the husband's love.
Wednesday Night Bible Study - November 8, 2023
Leviticus 20 prescribes specific penal sanctions for covenant violations, and this study surveys those sanctions before turning to the broader biblical teaching on capital punishment. The Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9:6), understood as a universal common grace covenant never abrogated, grounds the death penalty for murder in the imago Dei and assigns its execution to the civil magistrate. Old Covenant Israel adds further distinctions — between accidental homicide and murder, between first-table and second-table offenses — and Numbers 35 establishes that no monetary ransom may substitute for the execution of a murderer. The study closes by noting that blood guilt defiles the land and can only be expiated by the blood of the one who shed it, setting up a subsequent session on the New Testament's treatment of capital punishment.
The Ratification of the Covenant, Part I
Exodus 24:1–8 records the formal ratification of the old covenant at Sinai, and this expository study examines three elements the text presents: God's instructions structuring nearness and distance on the mountain, Moses' compliance in writing the covenant words and erecting the altar and twelve pillars, and the blood-sprinkling ceremony that sealed the covenant between Yahweh and Israel. The sermon argues that the old covenant, far from being a mere administration of the covenant of grace, is a republication of the covenant of works — a position the 1689 LBCF reflects in distinction from the Westminster Confession. The blood of the ratification ceremony finds its antitype in the blood of Christ, whose once-for-all sacrifice inaugurates the new covenant in which believers stand accepted not by their own obedience but by that of their covenant head.
The Sabbaths and Annual Feasts
Exodus 23:10–19 legislates two kinds of Sabbath and three annual feasts within the Book of the Covenant, each designed to order Israel's life around the worship of Yahweh alone. The seven-year land Sabbath provided for the poor and beasts through a system of crop rotation, while the seventh-day Sabbath — whose moral principle is perpetual and now observed on the first day of the week in the new covenant — extended its restorative benefit to every member of the community, including servants and resident aliens. The three annual feasts (Unleavened Bread, Harvest/Weeks, Ingathering) were not merely ceremonial obligations but instruments for rehearsing redemptive history, promoting communal joy and reciprocity, and guarding the covenant people from idolatry. As judicial and ceremonial laws, these specific institutions have expired with Old Covenant Israel, yet their general equity and the moral principle of Sabbath rest continue to bind the new covenant community.
November 19, 2022 - Wedding Stream
A wedding homily grounding the institution of marriage in the creation account of Genesis 2 and the redemptive promise of Genesis 3:15. The sermon traces God's good gift of companionship in creation, the disruption of the fall, and the protoevangelium as the first announcement of the gospel — that Christ, born of a woman, would crush the serpent's head through substitutionary suffering and resurrection. The couple is charged to embody in their Christian marriage the relationship between Christ and his church as depicted in Ephesians 5, and all hearers are called to trust in Christ's righteousness received by faith alone.
The Woman Caught in Adultery
John 8:1–11 presents the Pharisees placing Christ on the horns of a dilemma: uphold the law of Moses and condemn the woman caught in adultery, or show compassion and be exposed as an antinomian. This sermon works through the passage in two movements — the woman brought to Christ (vv. 1–6) and the woman forgiven by Christ (vv. 7–11) — demonstrating that Jesus resolves the dilemma not by choosing one horn but by upholding both simultaneously. He appeals to the Mosaic witness laws of Deuteronomy 17 and 19 to silence the hypocritical accusers, then pronounces forgiveness, illustrating that the gospel pattern is 'get and do' rather than 'do and get.' The passage stands as a vivid display of Christ as both the holy lawgiver who writes with his finger and the friend of sinners who bids the thirsty come and drink.
Book introduction: The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom
Samuel Renihan introduces his book 'The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom,' explaining its origins in his seminary-era dissatisfaction with both pedobaptist and Baptist covenantal literature. He argues that historical particular Baptist covenant theology has been largely forgotten, and that modern Reformed Baptist literature has suffered from poor historical theology, excessive polemicism, and conclusions stated without premises. The book is structured by biblical theology rather than systematic theology, tracing three covenantal kingdoms — creation, Israel, and Christ — and contends that the concept of mystery in Paul is essential to a properly calibrated covenant theology that distinguishes the old covenants from the new covenant without collapsing the progressive development of divine revelation.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 1
The fourth commandment, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy' (Exodus 20:8–11), is grounded not in Mosaic legislation alone but in the creational ordinance of Genesis 2:1–3, where God's sabbathing after six days of work establishes the one-in-seven pattern binding upon all his image-bearers. The Deuteronomy 5 parallel adds redemption alongside creation as a second rationale, and these twin foundations carry into the New Covenant. Surveying Genesis 2–4, Exodus 16, Mark 2, Isaiah 56 and 58, and Jeremiah 31, this exposition demonstrates the trans-covenantal utility of the Decalogue and argues that the Sabbath is not a burdensome restriction but a gracious gift through which God's people enter into fellowship with their Creator.
The Qualifications of Elders, Part 4
The elder's qualification 'able to teach' (1 Timothy 3:2) is not an arbitrary requirement but the inevitable expression of a word-centered religion. This sermon traces the centrality of the proclaimed Word from the Mosaic covenant through the prophetic institution, the earthly ministry of Christ, the apostolic mission, and the pastoral epistles, demonstrating that teaching and governing in the church have always been inseparable. The third main point applies this theology practically: men aspiring to eldership must demonstrate proven faithfulness as churchmen before the church recognizes, tests, and formally approves them by common suffrage according to 2nd London Confession chapter 26, paragraph 9.