Theological term
Antinomianism
104 sermons · All terms
The Old Testament and Jesus: Specific Warnings
Matthew 5:19–20 presents two specific warnings that frame Christ's exposition of the law in the Sermon on the Mount: a warning against antinomianism and a warning against legalism. Both errors, though apparently opposite, share a common root — a contempt for God's law as he actually gave it, whether by subtracting from it or by supplementing it with human tradition. The sermon argues that the righteousness required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven is not produced by moral effort nor excused by doctrinal sleight of hand, but is found only in Christ, whose imputed righteousness is received through faith alone.
The Ethics of the Messianic Kingdom
The Sermon on the Mount is not a program for moral self-improvement or a blueprint for social reform, but a messianic manifesto addressed primarily to disciples — those already saved by grace — describing what they are and how they are to live. Five historical approaches to the Sermon on the Mount are surveyed and evaluated, with the 'normative' interpretation established as the proper hermeneutic: Jesus expounds the ethics of the kingdom for those who have first believed on the King. The Beatitudes are treated as indicatives of saving grace, not imperatives for earning it, and the pedagogical function of the law is retained as a secondary purpose — crushing the unconverted and driving them to Christ.
The Works of the Flesh
Galatians 5:19–21 presents Paul's catalog of the works of the flesh as a concrete definition of what it means to fail to walk in the Spirit — the very Spirit given to those justified by faith alone. This exposition works through four categories of fleshly sin: sexual immorality, religious apostasy, disorders in personal relationships, and intemperance, drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism to illuminate each category's depth and breadth. The critical distinction the sermon presses is between remaining corruption (the struggle every believer knows) and reigning corruption (the habitual, unrepentant practice that marks the unconverted). The sermon closes by directing hearers to the active obedience and atoning death of Christ as the only ground of hope in the face of this condemning list.
The God Who Justifies the Ungodly
Romans 4:5 declares that God justifies the ungodly — a statement that stands in apparent tension with Proverbs 17:15, which calls the one who justifies the wicked an abomination. This communion meditation resolves that tension by tracing the doctrine of imputation through three movements: Adam's sin imputed to his posterity, the sin of God's elect imputed to Christ, and Christ's righteousness imputed to believers. Far from promoting moral laxity, this forensic reality — that sinners are declared righteous on the sole ground of another's obedience and atoning death — is shown to be the very foundation of genuine sanctification and the most powerful incentive to holy living.
The Creepers, The Contenders, and The Keeper
The epistle of Jude addresses a crisis in the early church: ungodly men have crept in unnoticed, turning the grace of God into a license for lewdness and denying the Lord Jesus Christ. This exposition works through Jude's single chapter under three headings — the creeping ones (false teachers characterized by sixfold ungodliness and certain condemnation), the contending ones (the called, sanctified, and preserved who are charged to earnestly defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints), and the one who keeps them (Jesus Christ as keeper, master, eschatological judge, and sender of apostolic messengers). The sermon presses the cessationist and confessional conviction that the canon is closed and the faith delivered once for all, and closes with a call for both unbelievers to flee to Christ and believers to hold fast to gospel doctrine with theological love rather than cold dogmatism.
Gospel Liberty and the Law of Love
Gospel liberty, rightly understood, is not freedom from responsibility but freedom for the service of God and neighbour. Expounding Galatians 5:13–15, this sermon argues that Paul is no antinomian: believers called to liberty are simultaneously called to fulfil the moral law through love, and the gospel of free justification is the very source of genuine sanctification, not its enemy. Four theological implications of Paul's appeal to Leviticus 19:18 are drawn out — Paul's rejection of antinomianism, the threefold distinction in the law, the continuity of the moral law from creation through Sinai into the new covenant, and the complementary rather than antithetical relationship of Spirit and law — before the sermon closes with a sober warning that biting and devouring within the church betrays a failure of gospel-wrought love. The congregation is exhorted to pursue loving service of one another as the God-appointed antidote to both legalism and licentiousness.
The Defense of Justification by Faith Alone
Galatians 2:17–21 presents one of Paul's sharpest defenses of justification by faith alone, and this exposition works through three movements in the text: the proper and improper uses of the law (vv. 17–19), the personal experience of crucifixion with Christ as the ground of the justified life (v. 20), and the exclusivity of grace that renders any supplementation of the gospel a nullification of Christ's death (v. 21). The sermon exposes the logic of the objection that justification by faith makes Christ a 'minister of sin,' refutes it from the text, and shows that legalism — not antinomianism — is the true transgression of God's law. The central application is that any 'Christ-plus' system, whether formal theology or informal churchly shibboleths, empties Calvary of its meaning and must be resisted.
The Followers of the Lamb
Revelation 14:1–13 presents ten characteristics of those who belong to Christ, set against the backdrop of the unholy trinity's assault on the church in Revelation 12–13. Working from a preterist hermeneutic, this exposition argues that the 144,000 on Mount Zion represent the fullness of the Jewish-Christian church — sealed, worshipping, spiritually chaste, redeemed by blood, truth-speaking, and blameless before God by imputed righteousness. The sermon insists that these characteristics are indicative, not imperative — describing what is true of every believer in union with Christ — and closes with a call to rest in the Word rather than feelings, trusting Christ alone as the ground of standing before God.
Justification, Faith, and the Law
Galatians 2:15–16 drives Paul's sharpest declaration that justification is a forensic act — a legal declaration by God — received through faith alone in Christ alone, entirely apart from works of the law. This sermon expounds that doctrine in four observations: justification is a legal declaration, not by works of law, by faith as instrument not merit, and impossible by law for any flesh. The sermon then addresses the three classic uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — demonstrating that rejecting the law as a ground of justification does not entail antinomianism. The believer who has been justified by faith is directed back to God's law as a pattern and rule of life, the ground of genuine assurance being the doing, dying, and rising of Christ alone rather than personal obedience or inner experience.
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.
The Church at Pergamos
Revelation 2:12–17 presents Christ's letter to the church at Pergamos — a congregation dwelling at the seat of the imperial cult, where Caesar demanded worship as Lord and Savior, and where one of their own, Antipas, had already been martyred for the faith. Christ commends their steadfast confession of his name under lethal pressure, yet condemns without concession their tolerance of the doctrine of the Nicolaitans and its Old Testament type, the doctrine of Balaam — an antinomian infiltration that invited participation in idol feasts and sexual immorality as the price of cultural accommodation. The sermon presses the warning that difficult circumstances never justify doctrinal compromise, that Christ's sword-word will execute judgment on an unrepentant church, and that faithful overcomers receive hidden manna, a white stone, and a new name — the provision and identity that no imperial cult can offer or revoke.
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.
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.
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.