Scripture
Galatians
64 sermons
The Gospel's Precious Liberty
Galatians 5:1–6 commands believers to stand fast in the liberty Christ has purchased, refusing any entanglement with a yoke of bondage. This sermon traces the full weight of Paul's argument through Galatians to show that Christian liberty is freedom from the dominion, guilt, and condemnation of sin, from the grip of the devil, and from the yoke of the ceremonial law. The forfeiture of that liberty — by adding circumcision or any other work to the ground of justification — renders Christ of no profit and leaves the soul estranged from grace. Seven means by which believers stand fast in this liberty are set out, all grounded in the Spirit's sustaining work through the means of grace.
The Children of Covenant Liberty
Galatians 4:21–31 presents two covenants through the allegory of Hagar and Sarah, and Paul's argument cuts to the heart of the Judaizing error: those who desire to be under the law have failed to hear what the law itself says about the promise. The Old Covenant, a legal covenant given to the physical posterity of Abraham, produces only bondage; the Covenant of Grace, secured by Christ, produces free heirs of the promise. The sermon draws on Nehemiah Cox, John Spilsbury, and Romans 9 to argue that Abraham's two distinct posterities — one of flesh, one of promise — cannot be conflated without damage to justification by faith alone, with direct implications for Reformed Baptist covenant theology and the proper recipients of baptism.
Paul's Apostolic Concern
Paul's letter to the Galatians confronts churches tempted to abandon the sufficiency of Christ's work in favour of Judaizing observances, and in Galatians 4:8–20 the apostle makes the startling theological move of equating Jewish law-keeping after Christ's advent with pagan idolatry — both are bondage to 'weak and beggarly elements.' The sermon traces three movements in the passage: the regression of backsliding into that bondage, the broken fellowship Paul calls to remembrance, and the false zeal of the agitators set against Paul's own burdened, birth-labour concern for Christ to be formed in his hearers. The application presses believers to guard against the perennial love of novelty and to hold with unwavering constancy to the old paths of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.
Who Are the Heirs of the Promise?
Galatians 3:29 and 4:6–7 together answer the question of who truly inherits the promises made to Abraham: not those physically descended from him, nor those who observe Mosaic ceremonies, but those who are united to Christ by saving faith. The sermon traces the covenant-theological distinction between Abraham's physical seed and his spiritual seed, showing that membership in the covenant of grace is coextensive with those who receive the definite atonement of Christ. The Trinitarian shape of redemption — the Father sending the Spirit of the Son into the hearts of adopted sons — seals the argument, and the sermon draws out implications for believer's baptism and the enlarged liberty of the new covenant age.
Late in Time Behold Him Come
The incarnation of the Son of God is not one event among many in redemptive history but the appointed climax toward which every Old Covenant type, ceremony, and providence was directing the people of God. Expounding Galatians 4:1–5, this sermon argues that the Old Covenant was temporary, preparatory, and anticipatory — never designed to convey everlasting covenantal blessing — and that Paul deploys the incarnation as a decisive argument against the Judaizing error of faith plus works. The 'but when' of verse 4 marks the arrival of the fullness of the times: the Father's eternally decreed appointment, the fulfillment of prophetic announcement, the termination of types and shadows, and the perfection of all providences. The sermon closes with a call to set the confidence of the soul entirely on the Son of God who descended from glory to redeem lawbreakers and bring many sons and daughters to everlasting glory.
Who Are the Sons of God?
Galatians 3:26–29 declares that all who believe in Christ are sons of God through faith — not through ethnic descent from Abraham, physical circumcision, or adherence to the Mosaic law. This sermon works through the status, redemptive ground, sign, and unity of that sonship, demonstrating from Matthew 3, John 8, Romans 2 and 9, and Ephesians 2 that children of God are defined by union with Christ rather than by nationality, social condition, or sex. The threefold negation of Galatians 3:28 directly demolishes the Judaizing confidence in Israelite birth, free status, and maleness, and points instead to the covenant of grace in which all believers are equally heirs of the promise. The sermon closes with a call to rest in the alien righteousness of Christ as the sole ground of adopted sonship.
The Permanence and Primacy of Christ and Christianity
Paul's argument in Galatians 3:19–26 is pressed from every angle: the Mosaic law was given because of transgressions, temporary in design, never a rival to the promise but a servant of it, and fulfilled entirely in the coming of Christ. The law functioned as a pedagogue — restraining sin, exposing guilt, and driving the sinner toward the one it signified — but with Christ's advent that tutelage has ended. True sonship before God belongs not to national Israel nor to any who ground their standing in works of law, but exclusively to those united to Christ by faith, who are thereby Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise. The sermon calls the church to be guarded against any doctrine that introduces human works into the ground of justification, and to be ardently and exclusively attached to Christ as the sole Savior of sinners.
The Promise of the Covenant of Grace
Galatians 3:15–18 presents Paul's covenantal argument that the Mosaic law, given 430 years after the Abrahamic promise, cannot annul the covenant of grace nor supplement faith with legal works as the ground of justification. The sermon traces four interlocking points: the immutability of God's redemptive promise, the nature of Abraham's faith in Christ as the singular promised seed, the pedagogical and temporary character of the Mosaic covenant as a distinct covenant of works, and the inheritance as freely given by promise rather than earned by law. The pastoral application is a call to rest entirely on Christ, the champion of the covenant of grace, and to resist every system that adds law-keeping or circumcision to faith as the basis of standing before God.
The Glorious Curse Bearer
Galatians 3:10–14 presents the law's curse as a judicial sentence of divine condemnation from which no sinner can escape by obedience, since perfect and perpetual law-keeping is universally failed. Christ, the covenant champion, redeemed his elect by becoming a curse in their place — bearing the wrath due them, answering on a mountain at a tree the curse that entered the world on a mountain at a tree. The blessing of Abraham — the imputation of Christ's righteousness received through faith alone — comes not through circumcision, ceremony, or ethnic connection to the covenant community, but through union with the crucified and risen Christ. Those outside Christ remain justly under divine condemnation; those in him are freed from the curse and heirs of all the promises of God.
March 30 PM
Galatians 2:17–21 closes Paul's autobiographical defense of justification by faith alone, and these five verses press three weighty questions: Is Christ a minister of sin when believers forsake the Mosaic ceremonies? Who is the true transgressor? And what does Judaizing heresy actually do to the cross of Christ? The sermon argues that to impose any measure of works upon the economy of salvation — whether old-covenant ceremony or its modern legalistic counterpart — is to render the incarnation, the perfect obedience, and the atoning death of the Son of God as vanity. The single ground of the believer's justification, assurance, and perseverance is the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us, in whom alone everlasting righteousness is found.
Our Robe of Beauty
Galatians 2:16 presents a five-fold declaration that justification is by faith alone and not by the works of the law — a doctrine that stands at the very heart of the Christian gospel. This sermon works through four categories: a definition of justification as a forensic declaration set in opposition to condemnation, its foundation in the obedience and satisfaction of Christ alone (not infused righteousness, works, the act of faith, or evangelical obedience), the transaction of imputation by which sin is credited to Christ and his righteousness credited to the believer, and faith as the empty instrument that receives rather than earns that righteousness. The pastoral application presses the believer's assurance away from inward evidences toward the finished work of Christ, and calls the unconverted to look to Christ in faith as their only standing before a holy God.
The Apostolic Magnitude of Justification
Paul's confrontation of Peter at Antioch in Galatians 2:11–16 is not merely a biographical episode but a defence of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Peter's hypocritical withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentile believers, driven by fear of the circumcision party, was not an open denial of the gospel but a compromise of it — and Paul's rebuke exposes how even the appearance of impropriety can bring the truth of the gospel into disrepute. The sermon then turns to the apostolic doctrine set forth in verses 15–16, tracing the five-fold reiterative negation and affirmation of justification by faith and not by the works of the law, grounding Christian peace in the imputation of Christ's active and passive obedience. Hearers are exhorted to carry the doctrine of justification beyond the service itself, resting their peace not on any measure of personal performance but on the sole and complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Authenticity of Paul's Gospel, Part 2
Galatians 1:18–2:10 records Paul's autobiographical defense of justification by faith alone against Judaizers who insisted that circumcision and adherence to Mosaic precepts were necessary for salvation. The sermon traces Paul's independence from the Jerusalem apostles, the uncompromising refusal to circumcise Titus, and the apostolic unity between Paul and the Jerusalem pillars — all marshaled to prove that Paul's gospel came by divine revelation, not human tradition, and that it stands as the only true gospel. The application presses both the vital importance of the doctrine of justification and the necessity of an uncompromising ministry: Christian peace rests solely in Christ's perfect obedience and atoning death, not in the ebbing and flowing of personal works or church attendance.
The Authenticity of Paul's Gospel
Paul's vigorous autobiographical defense in Galatians 1:11–24 establishes that his gospel did not originate from any human source but came by direct revelation of Jesus Christ — a claim with profound implications for the doctrine of justification. The sermon works through three arguments for gospel authenticity: the nature of the gospel itself as something no man would invent, Paul's pre-conversion conduct as a violent persecutor of the church, and his post-conversion movements that deliberately bypassed human instruction. The application presses the congregation to hold with confidence to a gospel that rests on the triune God's sovereign grace alone, not on human tradition or legal observance, and to hope for the conversion of even the most hardened opponents of the truth.
Late in Time Behold Him Come
Galatians 4:4–5 declares that the Son of God entered history at the precise moment determined in the eternal covenant of redemption — not a moment early or late, but at the fullness of the times. The sermon works through four heads: the moment of Christ's coming as the convergence of eternal decree, prophetic anticipation, typological terminus, and Old Covenant tutelage's completion; the mission of the sent Son as the assumption of humanity by the omnipresent divine Word; the mystery of His humiliation in being born of a woman and born under the law as last Adam, obedient servant, and satisfier of the law's penal demands; and the meaning of the Incarnation as the redemption of law-breakers and their adoption as sons of God. The sermon calls believers to daily joy in so great a salvation and urges unbelievers to repent and believe before the day of forced submission.
The Gospel's Liberty
Galatians 1:1–5 introduces an epistle written in urgent opposition to the Judaizing error that was perverting the gospel of justification by faith alone among the southern Galatian churches. Working from the historical setting of Paul's first missionary journey and the impending Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, this exposition traces how Paul's apostolic greeting — his assertion of divine authority, his benediction of grace and peace, and his compressed account of Christ's self-giving — is deliberately shaped to lay the theological foundation for the entire letter. The sermon argues that every element of Paul's opening salutation serves the polemic purpose of the epistle: to cast down the error that adds Mosaic ceremony to faith in Christ and to anchor the believer's peace and joy exclusively in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
The Astonishment of the Apostle
Paul's opening salvo in Galatians 1:6–9 registers apostolic astonishment at the speed with which the Galatian churches were deserting the gospel of free grace for a Judaizing supplement of circumcision and Mosaic law-keeping. The sermon expounds why any addition to the finished work of Christ — however small — is not a variation of the gospel but its outright denial, because a man must choose either perfect law-keeping or the wholly sufficient righteousness of Christ received by faith alone. The anathema Paul pronounces in verses 8–9, drawn out through the Hebrew concept of ḥērem and its New Testament cognate anathema, exposes the perverter of the gospel not merely to church discipline but to the judicial wrath of God. The sermon closes with an urgent call to doctrinal vigilance: to resist indifference, imprecision, compromise, and novelty, and to hold fast to justification by faith alone as the very heart of the Christian religion.
2LCF 16 - Of Good Works (part I)
Good works in the Christian life must be carefully defined, grounded, and distinguished from every meritorious scheme if the glory of Christ is to be preserved. This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 16 works through the definition of good works (their substance, manner, and definitive character as fruits and evidences of a lively faith), the necessary foundation of good works in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, and the non-meritorious nature of good works as plainly asserted in Romans 3 and Galatians 2. The central burden is that no work of the creature — however sincere, however commanded — can merit pardon of sin or eternal life before God, because the only works that avail with divine justice are the active and passive obedience of Christ alone imputed to the believer by faith.
The Only Redeemer of God's Elect
Galatians 3:10–14 sets law and gospel in sharp contrast, demonstrating that justification before God is entirely excluded from the domain of law-keeping. Paul's threefold appeal to Deuteronomy 27, Habakkuk 2:4, and Leviticus 18:5 establishes that the law demands perfect, perpetual, and entire obedience — an impossibility for sinners in Adam. The only hope lies in Christ's substitutionary, curse-bearing work: he bore the imputed sin of his people, exhausted the wrath of God in their place, and secured for them both the blessing of Abraham and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The sermon calls hearers to abandon every form of faith-plus-works supplementation and to rest wholly in the particular redemption accomplished by Christ alone.
The Nature of the Gospel
Galatians 1:1–5 is not merely a conventional greeting but a compressed summary of the gospel itself. Working through each clause of verses 4–5, this exposition identifies five defining features of Christ's death: it was voluntary, it consisted in penal substitution, it secured deliverance from this present evil age, it was determined by the Father according to His eternal will, and it promotes the glory of God alone. The sermon presses toward the Lord's Supper, calling each hearer to examine whether they can say with Paul in Galatians 2:20, 'He loved me and gave Himself for me,' and to receive the bread and cup only on that ground.
Liberty and Law
Galatians 5:1–15 presents the Pauline application of justification by faith alone: those whom Christ has liberated from the law's curse must stand fast in that freedom rather than entangle themselves again in the yoke of legal works-righteousness. The sermon works through two headings — the liberty of Christ (vv. 1–6) and the law of love (vv. 7–15) — showing that true Christian liberty is neither license for sin nor grounds for adding human merit to Christ's finished work. Justified believers are called to a gospel holiness expressed through love of God and neighbor, lived out by the Spirit in dependence on Christ's imputed righteousness alone.
Bond or Free
Galatians 4:21–31 presents the contrast between Hagar and Sarah as Paul's climactic illustration of the two mutually exclusive ways of standing before God: righteousness by law-keeping and righteousness by faith. Working through the passage under three headings — the illustration described, explained, and applied — the sermon argues that the Judaizers' demand for circumcision and law-observance is a return to the bondage of Mount Sinai, while all who believe in Christ belong to the Jerusalem above, the free woman, born of promise through the Spirit. Listeners are warned against the perpetual temptation to add anything to justification by faith alone, and are called to stand fast in the liberty Christ has secured for his people.
The Privilege of Adoption
Galatians 3:26–29 brings the history of redemption into focus on the individual believer's standing before God: all who are in Christ by faith are sons of God, adopted into the divine family through the finished work of the one who became a curse for them. The sermon expounds three features of the believer's new identity — filial adoption by faith, redemptive unity across every human distinction, and covenantal solidarity as the seed of Abraham — while insisting that redemptive unity does not collapse the role distinctions God ordained in creation and confirmed in the apostolic letters. Theological, ethical, doxological, and eschatological implications of adoption are drawn out in the conclusion, calling believers to gratitude, godly conduct, and eschatological hope as blood-bought children of God Most High.
The Works of the Flesh
Galatians 5:19–21 presents a vice list Paul calls 'the works of the flesh,' catalogued here under four headings: sins of the flesh (adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness), sins of religious apostasy (idolatry, sorcery, heresy), sins against personal relationships (hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, envy, murder), and sins of intemperance (drunkenness, revelries). The sermon distinguishes between remaining corruption — the ongoing struggle common to every justified believer — and reigning corruption, the habitual, unrepentant practice that characterises the unregenerate and excludes from the kingdom of God. Drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism, Calvin, and Perkins, the preacher grounds each vice in the moral law and closes with a double summons: believers who have fallen into these sins are to repent and seek forgiveness through the blood of Christ; unbelievers are to see in the law their need for the Saviour.
The Astonishment of Paul
Paul's opening salvo in Galatians 1:6–9 is a study in holy alarm: the apostle marvels not with wonder but with grief that the Galatian churches are so quickly defecting from the gospel of grace to a Judaizing corruption that mingles law-keeping with faith. The Judaizing heresy — like Roman Catholicism, the New Perspective on Paul, and the Federal Vision after it — does not abolish Christ but supplements him, which Paul declares is no gospel at all, because justification is either entirely by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, or it is not justification at all. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: Paul's astonishment at the defection, the nature of the false gospel as something that is 'not another,' and the double anathema pronounced on all who pervert the gospel regardless of their authority. The application calls hearers to a 'blessed intolerance' toward gospel corruption, to precision in doctrine, and to the personal embrace of Christ's doing and dying as the sole ground of acceptance with God.
Gospel and Doxology for the Galatians
Galatians 1:4-5 presents both a summary of the true gospel and a call to doxology, set against the backdrop of the false gospel threatening the Galatian churches. The sermon works through three movements in the gospel itself: Christ who gave Himself (His free act, His assumption of human nature, His vicarious obedience, and His sacrificial death), the substitutionary and cleansing effect of that giving 'for our sins,' and the deliverance from this present evil age effected according to the sovereign will of God the Father. The exposition closes with Paul's doxology, arguing from Job, Acts 17, and the 1689 confession that God does not stand in need of glory but that His creatures are called to ascribe to Him the glory eternally due His name. Hearers are exhorted to know the triune God, guard against every false gospel, and train themselves now in the ascription of glory that will occupy the saints forever.
The Galatian Benediction
The opening three verses of Galatians are not mere epistolary formality but carry concentrated theological weight: Paul's identity as a divinely commissioned apostle, the significance of the audience designation, and the rich pastoral benediction of grace and peace. The sermon argues that Paul's apostolic authority is grounded in divine rather than human commissioning, that the absence of the customary commendatory address to the Galatian churches signals a subtle rebuke, and that the benediction of grace and peace is a Trinitarian gift addressing the precise spiritual need created by the Judaizing perversion of justification by faith alone. Hearers are called to seek growth in grace and peace through faithful attendance upon the means of grace, and those outside of Christ are pressed to believe on the one who lived, died, and rose to save sinners.
The Redeemer of God's Elect
Galatians 4:4–7 presents the person and work of the Redeemer in covenantal context: Christ's pre-existent eternal Sonship, incarnation, and role as mediator under the law provide the basis for redemption, adoption, and the indwelling of the Spirit. The sermon traces the obsolescence of the Mosaic covenant as designed and purposed by God, giving way to the full privileges of sons in the new covenant. The triune God is shown to be the sole initiator and executor of salvation — the Father sending the Son, the Son accomplishing redemption, and the Spirit sealing the adopted heirs. The sermon closes with a call to robust Trinitarian theology as inseparable from knowing and worshipping the God who saves.
4 Aspects of the Incarnation
Galatians 4:4–5 contains one of the most compressed statements of the gospel in all of Scripture, setting forth the incarnation of the eternal Son of God as the decisive corrective to the Galatian error of adding legal works to faith in Christ. This sermon examines four aspects of the incarnation: the timing sovereignly appointed in the eternal covenant between Father and Son, the triune glory visible in the Father's sending of both Son and Spirit, the double humility of Christ being born of a woman and born under the law, and the twofold purpose of redemption and adoption. The application calls hearers to be astonished at God's sovereign plan, to know the Trinity rightly, to rejoice in Christ's condescension, and to rest solely in His finished work — neither adding legal performance nor trusting in one's own standing as a professing Christian.
The Object of Christian Boasting
Galatians 6:14–15 presents the cross of Christ as the sole legitimate object of Christian boasting, standing in sharp contrast to the Judaizers' self-promoting insistence on circumcision as a supplement to faith. This sermon works through four elements of the text: the contrast between Paul and the Judaizers, the cross as the object of boasting, the effect of the cross in crucifying the world to the believer, and the theological summary of verse 15 that renders circumcision and uncircumcision alike irrelevant in Christ. The central burden is that the gospel is designed so that no flesh may glory before God, and that the only boast available to the justified sinner is in what Christ accomplished at Calvary. Hearers are pressed to examine what they prize most — their religious performance, social standing, or accomplishments — and to flee to Christ as the one in whom alone glory is warranted.