Theological term
Common Grace
81 sermons · All terms
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.
The Psalmist's Contemplation on the Revelation of God, Part 1
Psalm 19:1–6 presents the doctrine of general revelation — God's self-disclosure through the created order — and David's prophetic anticipation of the gospel's universal proclamation. The sermon traces the content, constancy, and comprehensive scope of general revelation, grounding each observation in Paul's parallel argument in Romans 1:18–32. The expositor then argues, against Calvin's merely comparative reading, that Paul's citation of Psalm 19:4 in Romans 10:18 legitimizes a Christological interpretation of verses 4b–6, in which the sun typifies Christ the Son of Righteousness, the great Bridegroom of his church, whose gospel goes forth conquering to the ends of the earth. Hearers are called to receive the Son whose rays of saving grace cannot be stopped any more than the circuit of the sun.
The Sin of David and the Grace of God
David's adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah the Hittite stand as the gravest sins of Israel's greatest king, yet 2 Samuel 12:1–15 is ultimately a text about the pursuing grace of God. Through Nathan's carefully constructed parable, God exposes David's sin in all its senselessness and treachery — making clear that to despise the commandment of God is to despise God himself. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: God's confrontation through his servant Nathan, the full indictment of David's covenant treachery, and the stunning declaration that the Lord has put away David's sin — a declaration that underlies David's celebration of forgiveness throughout the Psalter and points forward to the atoning work of David's greater Son.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
2 London Baptist Confession Chapter 24 examines the divine origin, proper scope, and Christian obligations relating to civil government. Civil magistrates are ordained by God, under his authority, for his glory and the public good, with their power limited to maintaining justice and peace through the sword — encompassing criminal punishment, capital justice, and defense against foreign invasion. The sermon argues that Christians may lawfully serve as magistrates or soldiers, directly contra the Anabaptist tradition, and that the Confession's three paragraphs provide a sufficient framework for navigating contemporary political crises. Believers are called to submit to lawful commands, resist unlawful ones, and pray persistently for governing authorities so that the church may worship freely.
The Presence of the God of Peace
Philippians 4:8–9 presents two inseparable imperatives — meditate on whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, and then do what has been learned, received, heard, and seen in the Apostle Paul — with the promise that the God of peace will be with those who obey. The sermon argues that orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not alternatives but are inextricably bound: the failure to practice truth indicts the practitioner, not the doctrine. The source of right thinking is both the light of nature (general revelation accessible to all men) and the special revelation of Scripture, which governs and clarifies all truth. The hearer is called to fill the mind with God's word, live consistently with it in a pagan society, and trust that the grace which saves also teaches and equips for godly conduct.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Psalm 139:13–16 declares that the formation of every human being in the womb is an act of God's immediate, intimate providence — the divine Weaver knitting together image-bearers for His own glory. The sermon argues that human dignity is grounded not in sentiment or politics but in divine authorship: God knows each person's substance before conception, fashions every inward part, and has decreed their days in His eternal book. The Incarnation deepens rather than evacuates this ethical claim, for the Son of God assumed embryonic and fetal life, passing through every stage of human existence to redeem a multitude of sinners. The congregation is called to tremble before the God who sees in secret, to defend the sanctity of life from conception to death, and to rest in the omnipotent providence of the One who has numbered both our members and our days.
A Psalm of Thanksgiving
Psalm 103 is a psalm of David that models the discipline of deliberate thanksgiving — speaking to one's own soul rather than merely listening to its despondency. This exposition works through three movements: the reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God catalogued as gifts, their recipients, and their giver (vv. 3–18), and a reflection on the sovereign kingdom of God (vv. 19–22). The chief benefit heading David's list is the forgiveness of sins — the one blessing that remains constant through every external adversity — and the sermon calls hearers to fight melancholy with the specific, rehearsed goodness of God rather than merely silencing the soul's complaints.
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.
The Sixth Commandment, Part 1
The sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder' (Deuteronomy 5:17), forbids not only the external act of unlawful killing but also the internal dispositions of hatred, unwarranted anger, and the assassination of another's character. The sermon establishes that the Hebrew term rendered 'murder' carries the specific sense of premeditated, intentional killing, thereby distinguishing murder from accidental homicide, negligent homicide, and three categories of lawful killing: capital punishment, just war, and self-defense. The bulk of the study undertakes a biblical theology of the death penalty, tracing it from the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9:6 through the Mosaic legislation and into the New Testament witness of Acts 25 and Romans 13:1–4, arguing that capital punishment is a non-abrogated, common-grace ordinance binding on all civil governments. Christians are called to think biblically about civil government, to pray for just magistrates, and to reject the cultural sentimentalism that has displaced God's revealed standard for the punishment of murderers.
The Cry of Dereliction
What does Christ mean when he cries 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' from the cross? This sermon on Matthew 27:45–46 carefully distinguishes what the cry of dereliction does not mean — no ontological division within the Trinity, no dissolution of the hypostatic union, no suffering of all three persons — before arguing that it expresses Christ's true humanity as our surety bearing the punishment of loss: the withdrawal of the Father's smiling favor and consolatory presence as the Son satisfies divine justice for the sins of his people. The sermon draws extensively on Psalm 22 to show that the forsakenness is covenantal and substitutionary, not metaphysical, and closes with a call to believe on the crucified and risen Christ who cried this cry so that his people never will.
The Prodigal Son
Luke 15:11–32, the parable of the prodigal son, confronts two kinds of lostness: the deliberate rebellion of a son who demands his inheritance while his father still lives, and the self-righteous resentment of an elder son who cannot rejoice at his brother's return. The sermon traces the younger son's descent, his coming to himself in godly sorrow and repentance, and the father's extravagant, undeserved welcome as a picture of God's readiness to receive returning sinners. The older son's unresolved anger is pressed upon those whose confidence rests in their own moral performance rather than in grace. The sermon closes by pointing to Christ as the true older brother who, unlike his counterpart in the parable, laid down his life to make repentant sinners co-heirs with himself.
CLIP: An Urgent Plea With Unbelievers
Isaiah 55 issues an urgent, time-sensitive call to unbelievers: the window of grace will close, and those who die outside of Christ will face the wrath of a thrice-holy God. The sermon confronts common self-excuses for delaying repentance — including the notion that one's sins are too great — and answers them with the inexhaustible pardoning grace of God. Every sinner is summoned to seek the Lord while he may be found, flee to Christ immediately, and rest in the abundance of his mercy.
The Necessity of Faithful Obedience
Deuteronomy 4 closes Moses' historical prologue with an urgent exhortation to the second generation of Israel on the necessity of faithful covenant obedience before crossing the Jordan. The chapter's three movements — the necessity of obedience (vv. 1–8), the dangers of idolatry (vv. 9–31), and the incomparability of Israel's God (vv. 32–40) — are treated as an impassioned speech by a man who lived the history he recounts. Scripture's sufficiency is defended against every form of addition or subtraction, and the regulative principle of worship is grounded in God's self-revelation at Sinai as a consuming fire who receives no image.
The Regulations for Life in Canaan
Numbers 32–36 closes the book with regulations governing Israel's entry into Canaan: the Transjordanian tribal allotments, the itinerary of the wilderness journey, the boundaries of the land, Levitical cities, cities of refuge, and the inheritance rights of female heirs. The legislation on cities of refuge anchors a sustained exposition of the distinction between murder and manslaughter, grounded in the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9:6, and carries forward the biblical case for capital punishment as a perpetual civil obligation. The study closes by tracing Christ through Numbers — as the guiding presence, the compassionate shepherd, the greater Joshua, the great high priest, and the brazen serpent lifted up for the life of the world — and applies the wilderness pattern to the new covenant people who must persevere through present affliction toward an eternal Canaan.
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 #32: Are there different types of faith? Ie. temporary, historical, saving
Scripture distinguishes several types of faith, and only saving faith — the kind that receives and rests upon Jesus Christ — differs qualitatively, not merely in degree, from historical or temporary faith. Historical faith acknowledges the facts about Christ without personal trust; temporary faith produces an apparent profession that does not endure. Saving faith, even in its weakest form, is united to Christ as its object and is accompanied by all other saving graces, working through love. The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 14 paragraph 3 grounds the distinction: even weak saving faith is different in kind from the faith of temporary believers, and it will ultimately attain full assurance through Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.
Ask FGBC #31: What is the difference between saving and common grace?
Common grace and saving grace are distinct but related aspects of God's goodness. Common grace is God's non-redemptive kindness extended to all mankind and creation — including the restraint of sin, fruitful seasons, and the capacity for civic good among unbelievers — while saving grace is God's particular redemptive work in the hearts of sinners through the preaching of the gospel. Understanding this distinction shapes how Christians relate to the world, how they pray for unbelievers, and how they understand the church's mission without compromising it.
Anger at the Goodness of God
Jonah 4 exposes the problem of unrighteous anger with God's sovereignty, as the prophet sulks over the mercy God shows to Nineveh — the very enemies he wished to see destroyed. The passage sets God's character as the gracious covenant Lord, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness (Exodus 34), against Jonah's petty double standard: grieving more over a withered plant than over the souls of 120,000 people. God's gentle rebuke of Jonah magnifies rather than diminishes his sovereign mercy, which extends not merely to Israel but to the nations — a Gentile foretaste ultimately fulfilled in the proclamation of the gospel through Jesus Christ. The sermon calls hearers to repent of covetous anger at God's goodness toward others, and to trust that the same sovereign God who pitied Nineveh has pitied sinners in Christ Jesus.
May 18 Sanders Holy Spirit and the Father
How does the Holy Spirit relate to God the Father, and what does that relationship mean for Christian worship and prayer? Working through a chapter on the Holy Spirit and the Father, this study traces the biblical pattern of 'from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit' — and its liturgical reverse, 'in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father' — as the framework for understanding both Trinitarian processions and the nature of true worship. The discussion addresses the Spirit's work in the old and new covenants, the cessation of the revelatory gifts at the completion of the New Testament canon, and the Spirit's role in empowering prayer, drawing particularly on John Owen's treatment of Ephesians 2:18 and Romans 8:26-27.
Leviticus 20 - the Death Penalty
Leviticus 20 catalogues capital offenses under the Mosaic law — idolatry, witchcraft, adultery, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality — and provides the occasion for a sustained biblical-theological treatment of the death penalty across the covenants. The study traces the authorization of capital punishment from the Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9 through the Mosaic legislation and into the New Covenant via Acts 25 and Romans 13, arguing that the death penalty remains a binding obligation upon civil magistrates. Romans 13 is read as the New Testament's clearest statement that the sword entrusted to the civil magistrate is God's instrument for executing wrath upon evildoers in history, not merely a sign of general authority. Hearers are called to think biblically about the proper and limited role of civil government, to resist the conflation of civil submission with capitulation to tyranny, and to uphold the abiding moral normativity of capital punishment for murder and other heinous crimes.
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.
A Psalm of Thanksgiving
Psalm 103 calls God's people to bless the Lord with the whole soul and to forget none of His benefits — a command that presupposes the constant human tendency toward spiritual amnesia and ingratitude. The sermon works through David's threefold structure: a reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God (vv. 3–18), and a reflection on God's universal kingdom (vv. 19–22). The reasons are organized around the gifts God gives (spiritual and physical), the recipients of those gifts (the oppressed and covenant people), and the character of the giver Himself — merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Thanksgiving is not a seasonal sentiment but the daily reflex of those who know their guilt before a holy God and have received forgiveness through the blood of Christ.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Civil government is divinely ordained, not diabolical — a claim the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) sets out in chapter 24 and grounds in Romans 13:1–7 and the Noahic covenant. This study works through the confession's three paragraphs to establish the divine origin of the magistrate's authority, the lawfulness of Christian participation in civil office, and the Christian's duty of submission and prayer toward governing authorities. Against both Anabaptist withdrawal and statist overreach, the confession teaches that the magistrate is under God and over the people for God's glory and the public good — charged with maintaining justice and peace, wielding the sword against criminals and foreign aggressors, and accountable to God and the governed alike. Christians must yield subjection in all lawful things, yet obey God rather than men when civil law transgresses divine law.
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
The confession's chapter on marriage (2LCF 25) rests on the foundation of Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, defining marriage as an exclusive covenant between one man and one woman, ordained by God before the fall and therefore neither a social construct nor a second-rate reality beneath celibacy. The chapter serves four structural functions: establishing the monogamous design of marriage, grounding its divine origin and pre-fall holiness, articulating its threefold providential purpose (companionship, procreation toward the inhabitation of creation, and a hedge against sexual immorality), and setting its regulative bounds with respect to both consanguinity and the Christian obligation to marry in the Lord. The placement of this chapter immediately before the chapter on the church (2LCF 26) is deliberate: God's use of marriage to populate the earth is the providential means by which He gathers the elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation unto Christ.
The Emphasis on Justice for All
Exodus 23:1–9 sets out the judicial law's demand for impartial, honest justice within the covenant community — a demand binding not merely on courts but on every member of the body politic. The passage divides into three subsections: general principles of justice for the people (vv. 1–3), the requirement of common decency even toward enemies (vv. 4–5), and specific warnings to judges against partiality, false accusation, bribery, and oppression of strangers (vv. 6–9). The confession's principle that the judicial law has expired as a binding institution yet retains general moral equity frames the exposition throughout. The sermon closes with two applications: the necessity of personal courage and grace-enabled obedience, and the dependence of any stable civil order on individual integrity, honest testimony, righteous judges, due process, and equal protection under the law.
2LCF Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant
Covenant theology stands or falls on the careful distinction between the covenant of works, the covenant of grace, and the historical covenants that progressively reveal it. This lesson works through 2LCF Chapter 7, tracing the terms, parties, and rewards of each covenant from Adam through the Abrahamic and Mosaic administrations, and grounding the whole in the eternal covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son. The controlling argument is that the Abrahamic covenant — entered by natural generation, maintained by works, and breakable — cannot be identified with the covenant of grace, and that this distinction exposes the internal contradictions of paedobaptist covenant structures. The practical takeaway is that salvation has always been by grace through faith alone, because Christ as the second Adam is the only one who has met and can meet the terms of the covenant of works on behalf of the elect.
The 6th Commandment
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — is one of the briefest commands in the Decalogue, yet it carries profound theological and legal weight. This expository Bible study examines the precise Hebrew terminology that distinguishes murder from other forms of killing, establishes the internal disposition (hatred, unrighteous anger, character assassination) as equally condemned by the sixth commandment alongside the external act, and then surveys three exceptions to the prohibition: capital punishment, just war, and self-defense. Each exception is grounded in both Old and New Testament texts, with sustained attention to the Noahic Covenant, Romans 13, and Exodus 22, demonstrating that the civil magistrate's sword is a God-ordained instrument of justice rather than a violation of the commandment.
The 5th Commandment
Exodus 20:12, the fifth commandment to honor father and mother, stands as the first commandment of the second table of the law and governs the entire structure of human authority relations — in the family, the church, the workplace, and the civil commonwealth. The command's scope extends beyond parent-child dynamics to all lawful superior-inferior relationships, a point the Westminster Larger Catechism makes explicit. The sermon traces the commandment's explanation, scope, and sanctions through the Old Testament case laws, the prophets, and the New Testament vice lists, before treating the covenant promise of longevity as a general principle of divine providence rather than an unconditional guarantee. The application presses parents to discipline their children by word and rod, warns of the social consequences of failing to do so, and qualifies submission to authority where superiors command sin.
Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 7 traces the biblical and theological architecture of God's covenant: from the necessity of divine condescension (paragraph 1), through the gracious character of the covenant of grace (paragraph 2), to the three theological covenants — grace, redemption, and works — and their progressive historical unfolding (paragraph 3). The session contrasts covenant theology with dispensationalism and New Covenant theology as competing hermeneutical frameworks, argues that the Old (Mosaic) Covenant functioned as a republication of the covenant of works rather than an administration of the covenant of grace, and demonstrates from Genesis 3:15 through Jeremiah 31 and Matthew 26 that all historical covenants advance a single promise of redemption finally and fully disclosed in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. The practical payoff is a robustly confessional case for believers-only baptism: the new covenant community is defined by inward regeneration, universal knowledge of the Lord, and definitive forgiveness — marks that exclude the external-and-internal covenant structure required to justify paedobaptism.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 3
Matthew 27:45–46 records the fourth of Christ's seven words from the cross — the cry of dereliction, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' — and its interpretation demands both exegetical precision and doctrinal care. The darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour was not a solar eclipse but a supernatural sign of divine judgment, recapitulating the ninth plague pattern and marking the moment the Passover antitype was slain. The cry itself does not imply any ontological division within the Trinity, any dissolution of the hypostatic union, or the suffering of all three persons; rather, it expresses the withdrawal of divine consolation from the Son according to his true humanity as he bore, in our place as surety, the full weight of penal wrath. Believers are called to ground their assurance not in felt divine presence but in the covenant faithfulness of the God to whom Christ still cried 'my God' even in the depth of his substitutionary suffering.