Cited in sermons
Timothy George
3 sermons · All people cited
2LCF Chapter 26 - Of the Church, Part 1
The universal church — its invisibility, its visible expression in the lives of professing saints, its perpetuity, and the exclusive headship of Christ — is the doctrinal territory of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 26, paragraphs 1 to 4. The confession grounds the church's existence not in voluntary human association but in the electing grace of God and the internal work of the Spirit, defining the church's members as those who profess the gospel and live in conformity with that profession. The distinction between the invisible universal church and visible saints is shown to carry a distinctively Baptist ecclesiological weight: church membership flows from credible profession, not covenant birth. Christ's absolute headship over the church — established by the Father as mediator — provides the foundation for the regulative principle of worship and stands in irreconcilable opposition to any papal claim to vicarship.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 1
Justification is the cardinal article of the Christian faith — the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. This first of two sessions on 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 11 (paragraphs 1–6) surveys the definition of justification through the Confession, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the 39 Articles, then examines five reasons why departure from the biblical doctrine is catastrophic: it is a damnable error, it diminishes the holiness and justice of God, it contradicts God's eternal decree, it lessens the severity of sin and robs Christ of his exclusivity as Savior, and it destroys the believer's peace. The session closes by tracing the three historical errors the Confession's negations target — Roman Catholicism, Anabaptism, and Arminianism — and calls the hearer to treasure the precise forensic definition of justification as a bulwark against every corruption of the gospel.
The Establishment of the Church
Matthew 16:18 is, as one commentator notes, the most discussed verse in the most discussed paragraph of Matthew's Gospel — and its controversies are anything but settled. This sermon works through four aspects of Christ's declaration concerning His church: its definition as the catholic or universal assembly of the elect, its foundation in the confession that Jesus is the Christ, its triumph over the gates of Hades, and its builder, who is Christ alone and not any man or institution. The Roman Catholic claim that Peter's person is the rock undergirding a papal succession is examined and rejected on exegetical, historical, and biblical-theological grounds, while the legitimate priority of the apostles in the church's foundation is carefully maintained. Believers are called to hold together the church's certain triumph with the reality of persecution, guarding the deposit committed to them and confessing Christ as Lord.