Theological term
Beatific Vision
11 sermons · All terms
2LCF Chapter 31 - Of the State of Man After Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 31, addresses individual eschatology under two heads: the state of man at death and the resurrection of the dead at the last day. The chapter grounds its teaching in the biblical constitution of man as body and soul, affirming that at death the body returns to dust while the immortal soul immediately returns to God — the souls of the righteous received into paradise with Christ, made perfect in holiness, and the souls of the wicked cast into hell awaiting the judgment of the great day. Against soul sleep, purgatory, limbo, and Socinian denials of bodily resurrection, the confession insists that all the dead will be raised with the self-same bodies, the just by the Spirit unto honor conformed to Christ's glorious body, and the unjust by the power of Christ unto dishonor.
CTF 2026 - Session 4: Pastoral Sermon
Hebrews 2:10 declares that it was fitting for God — the source and goal of all things — to bring many sons to glory through the sufferings of Christ. This sermon traces the eternal decree of election to glory, showing that the predestined are appointed not only to grace but to the full unveiled sight of God in Christ. Drawing on Hebrews 1–2, 2 Corinthians 4, and Psalm 36, the preacher argues that regenerate eyes now see the glory of God refracted through creation, Scripture, and the means of grace, as a foretaste of the unmediated vision that awaits the saints. The exhortation is to resist stopping at the creature, tracing every creaturely beauty upward to God himself, and to hunger for the glory that outweighs all present suffering.
2LBC - Chapter 2 - Of God and the Holy Trinity
What does it mean that God is one, simple, immutable, immense, and triune — and why does any of it matter for Christian worship? This confession study works through the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 2 ("Of God and the Holy Trinity"), tracing the three movements of the chapter: God's essential glory in paragraph 1, God's transcendent relations in paragraph 2, and God's triune majesty in paragraph 3. Along the way, foundational interpretive principles for speaking rightly about God are established — the legitimate use of logical consequences from Scripture, the necessity of extra-biblical vocabulary to guard biblical truth, and the reading of anthropomorphic language according to the meaning rather than the letter. The session closes with a direct application: the doctrine of God is not speculative labor but the very foundation of communion with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of the creature's comfortable dependence upon him.
Light Prevails Over Darkness
Ephesians 5:13–14 sets before the hearer a decisive confrontation: the light of Christ exposes the darkness of sin, spiritual blindness, and death, and effectually calls sinners to life. The sermon traces the contextual contrast between spiritual darkness and light, the two components by which Christ's light operates (the external word and the internal work of the Spirit), and the gospel call to awake and arise. Justification by faith alone — faith as the sole instrument by which the sinner receives and rests on Christ's imputed righteousness — is the doctrinal center from which applications to the unbeliever, the backslidden, and the walking believer are drawn.
Ask FGBC - July 2024 Podcast with Pastors Butler and Kirkpatrick
Two pastors work through a wide-ranging set of questions submitted by listeners, covering the Reformed doctrine of the will, repentance and faith, holy days, Christian political engagement, believers' baptism, the New Covenant, forgiveness of unrepentant offenders, ongoing confession of sin, witnessing to homosexual neighbors, the Sabbath shift from Saturday to Sunday, the day of the Lord, the beatific vision, common grace, saving versus temporary faith, and the holy walk. Throughout, the answers are grounded in the 1689 London Baptist Confession and exposit the relevant biblical texts, consistently distinguishing the Reformed Baptist position from Arminian, dispensationalist, and paedobaptist alternatives. The session serves as accessible catechetical instruction for believers at all stages while modeling how confessional Reformed Baptist theology addresses both doctrinal and practical questions.
Ask FGBC #29: How will we see the Trinity in Heaven?
How will believers see and interact with the three persons of the Trinity in the new heavens and new earth? This question-and-answer episode wrestles with the beatific vision — the blessed sight of God in glory — and what kind of sensible or cognitive interaction redeemed humanity might have with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternity. The discussion grounds its answer in the immutability of God (who does not cease to be spirit), the genuine humanity of the glorified Christ (whose wounds are healed but whose human nature persists), and the Trinitarian structure of all Christian experience, including prayer. The takeaway is that beholding the Lamb in the new earth is not abstract: it is a physical, glorified, sin-free existence in the presence of the God who cannot change.
Ask FGBC #11: What will our days in Heaven look like?
A question about the nature of heavenly existence — whether eternity will feel like endless sameness — draws out a sustained reflection on the creator-creature distinction, the infinity of God, and the progressive unfolding of divine glory to finite creatures. Drawing from Ephesians 2:7's reference to 'the ages to come,' the discussion argues that eternity for creatures will be temporal and successive, not static, because God is inexhaustible and finite creatures can never comprehend the infinite. The corporate dimension of heavenly worship, including Christ's own role in leading his people in the praise of God, is offered as a counterweight to individualistic or tedium-haunted conceptions of the eternal state.
Wisdom from Above
James 3:13–18 presents heavenly wisdom in direct contrast to the earthly, sensual, and devilish wisdom that breeds jealousy, faction, and confusion. This exposition identifies four fundamental features of wisdom from above: it is communicated from the triune God through His Word and Spirit; it is a copy of God's own pure, immutable wisdom suited to finite creatures; it is contemplative, engaging the regenerate mind to perceive all things in relation to God; and it is consequential, bearing the practical fruit of peace, meekness, mercy, and a good life ordered by God. The sermon calls hearers to test whether they possess this wisdom by asking whether they trust Christ alone, love God, and earnestly seek to frame their lives in the order God has established.
The Sight of Salvation
How do believers apprehend Christ now, before the sight of glory? Expounding 1 Peter 1:8–9, this sermon traces the apostle Peter's contrast between the present age — marked by faith, love, and unspeakable joy in an unseen Christ — and the age to come, when faith reaches its divinely appointed telos in the full, final, and bodily sight of the glorified Mediator. Faith is shown to be the foundation of every other grace: love for Christ and joy in Christ are impossible apart from it, and both are sovereign gifts of divine mercy, not works stirred up from within the believer. The sermon closes by pressing the necessity of saving faith as the only preparation for glory, calling the unconverted to flee to Christ and assuring the tried believer that no promise of God in Christ will fail.
Our Changed Resurrected Bodies
What kind of body will believers receive at the resurrection, and why must it be so radically different from the body that dies? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15, this sermon argues that the resurrection body is not merely restored to pre-mortem condition or even to Adamic perfection, but is transformed into conformity with Christ's own glorified body — physically, morally, and in full capacity for the beatific enjoyment of God. The driving application is that this eschatological hope is God's appointed means of promoting present holiness: those who truly desire to be like Christ hereafter will pursue Christlikeness now, mortifying sinful desires and setting their minds on things above.
The Pure in Heart
What does it mean to be pure in heart, and how can sinners whose hearts are described in Scripture as deceitful and desperately wicked ever attain it? Expounding the sixth Beatitude in Matthew 5:8, this sermon works through four observations: the description of heart purity as single-minded devotion and internal righteousness (in contrast to the Pharisees' meticulous external compliance); the source of that purity in the sovereign, monergistic grace of the triune God — the Father's electing work, the Son's atoning blood and imputed righteousness, and the Spirit's indwelling power; the cultivation of purity through meditation on the gospel, prayer, and Scripture as God's binding command; and the promise that the pure in heart shall see God, a beatific vision already begun in creation, providence, and redemption, and consummated in the new creation of Revelation 21–22. Hearers are called to rest not in civility or external compliance but to flee to Christ, whose blood alone cleanses the heart, and to pursue purity by dwelling deeply in the gospel.