Theological term
Consubstantiality
38 sermons · All terms
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 1
The 2nd London Confession of Faith Chapter 8, 'Of Christ the Mediator,' stands at the structural and theological center of the confession — all that precedes it tends toward it, and all that follows flows from it. This session examines paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 7, and 9, focusing on the identity, deity, and divine relations of the Son of God as the appointed mediator. Drawing on the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds and the biblical witness, the study argues that the Son is very and eternal God, eternally begotten of the Father, of one substance and equal with him, the creator and sovereign governor of all things — and that this high Christology is the necessary foundation for understanding the incarnation and saving work that follows.
Ask FGBC #42: What Words Aren't In The Bible But Help Protect Its Teachings?
Scripture and theology regularly employ concepts that require precise extra-biblical vocabulary to guard against error and heresy. This Q&A session works through a range of theological terms — Trinity, consubstantiality, partitive exegesis, inseparable operations, and more — explaining why the church has historically coined and defended such language rather than restricting itself to bare biblical words. The discussion traces how heretics from the Arians to the Anomeans exploited the refusal to use extra-biblical terms, and why the apostolic mandate to 'earnestly contend for the faith' requires the full use of theological grammar inherited from the church's confessional tradition.
The Example of the Savior, Part 1
Philippians 2:5–6 presents both a profound Christological confession and a direct ethical demand: the church is to pursue unity and love by imitating the mind of Christ. This sermon expounds the divinity of the Son — his eternal existence in the form of God and his equality with the Father — as the theological foundation for Paul's call to selflessness and others-mindedness in the local church. Christ's equality with God was not seized by usurpation, as Adam and Lucifer attempted, but was his by eternal generation and consubstantiality with the Father. Because the superior condescended to serve the inferior, those who are inferior to one another have every reason to renounce selfish ambition and conceit.
The High Priestly Prayer, Part 1
John 17:1–5 records the opening of Christ's high priestly prayer, in which the Lord Jesus — praying according to His humanity as the Mediator of the New Covenant — petitions the Father for glory, because glory given to the Son redounds to the glory of the Father. The sermon works through the occasion of the prayer, the derived and delegated authority granted to Christ over all flesh, and the particular redemptive purpose for which that authority was given: that He should grant eternal life to all whom the Father has given Him. Particular redemption is grounded in the text itself, and the sermon closes by pressing the definition of eternal life in verse 3 — the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ — as a summons to pursue theology, Scripture reading, and corporate worship with renewed seriousness.
Ask FGBC - Dec 2024 Podcast with Pastors Butler and Porter, Batch 4
A panel of two pastors works through a batch of listener-submitted questions spanning baptism and the Lord's Supper, the eternity of hell, church membership, faith and fear, the unpardonable sin, images of Christ, dry preaching, and extra-biblical theological vocabulary. Across each topic the answers are grounded in Scripture and the 1689 London Baptist Confession, with particular attention to second-commandment concerns, the nature of saving faith, and the perseverance of the saints. Listeners are urged to anchor their assurance not in the strength of their own grip on Christ but in the immutable decree of election and the intercession of the Triune God.
The Spirit's Ministry to the Apostles
John 16:12–15 presents the Spirit's ministry to the apostles as the continuation and completion of Christ's own self-disclosure to the disciples. The sermon expounds Jesus' promise that the Spirit of Truth will guide the apostles into all truth, situating that promise within the doctrine of the Trinity — specifically the eternal processions of the Son and Spirit and their corresponding temporal missions. The Spirit's 'not speaking on his own authority' is shown to mirror Christ's own language about receiving all things from the Father, testifying not to any inferiority of persons but to the consubstantiality of the three divine persons, each possessing the whole divine essence undivided. The congregation is called to pursue the knowledge of the triune God as the foundation for every other duty of the Christian life.
The Testimony Concerning Christ
John 15:26–27 presents the Holy Spirit as both sent by the Son in a temporal mission and as one who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son — the filioque. This sermon works through the distinction between God's eternal processions (theology proper) and his temporal missions (economy), arguing that the Western church's confession of the Spirit's double procession preserves both the consubstantiality and the personal distinction of the three persons of the Trinity. The apostolic witness of verse 27 is grounded in and empowered by that same Spirit, whose singular purpose in both the sending at Pentecost and the inscripturated Word is to testify of Christ — and that testimony calls sinners to receive eternal life by faith in him alone.
The Closing Doxology of Jude
Jude closes his epistle not with a warning but with a doxology — an ascription of praise that draws the beleaguered saints away from contemplating false teachers and upward toward the triune God who alone can keep them. This sermon works through Jude 24–25 under three heads: the omnipotent, preserving God who keeps his people from apostasy; the faithful God who presents his people faultless before divine glory on the ground of Christ's imputed righteousness and substitutionary work; and the sole-wise God to whom glory, majesty, dominion, and power are due both now and forever. The doxology is shown to be not merely a liturgical flourish but a confession of triune preservation, definite atonement, and the utter sufficiency of Christ's active and passive obedience.
The True Vine
When Jesus declares 'I am the true vine' in John 15:1, he is not merely offering a pastoral metaphor — he is making a claim that draws together the entire sweep of Old Testament revelation. This sermon traces the two categories of 'I am' statements in John's Gospel, first the absolute 'I am' without a predicate (rooted in Exodus 3:14 and the Isaianic Yahweh-speeches), and then the seven predicative 'I am' statements, culminating in the vine. The second half sets that declaration in its biblical-theological frame: Old Covenant Israel was named God's firstborn son (Exodus 4:22), and Matthew's Gospel deliberately patterns the opening of Jesus' ministry — the flight to Egypt, the passage through water, the wilderness temptation — on Israel's national history, identifying Jesus as the true and obedient Israel who succeeds where Adam and Israel failed. The sermon calls hearers to believe on the one who says 'if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins,' and to worship him as the fulfillment of every covenant promise.
The Departure of Christ
John 14:28–31 presents Christ's departure not as cause for sorrow but as grounds for rejoicing, because it leads through the cross to his exaltation at the right hand of the Father. The sermon gives sustained attention to the clause 'my Father is greater than I,' defending Trinitarian orthodoxy against Arian misreading by deploying two hermeneutical guardrails: the consubstantiality of the divine persons (each having the whole divine essence undivided) and partitive exegesis (predicating statements of Christ according to whichever nature is in view). The Father is not greater than the Son in respect of the divine nature, but is greater with respect to the Son's assumed humanity and mediatorial office in the covenant of redemption. Believers are called to rejoice in Christ's departure, to stand in awe that the Spirit has been sent so they are not left as orphans, and to receive the peace Christ bequeaths as their stable foundation for mission.
The Blessing of Communion with God
John 14:19–24 sets before the disciples the blessing of communion with the triune God as the ground of their mission and perseverance. Jesus distinguishes what the world cannot see — the significance of his life, death, and resurrection — from what believers perceive by faith: imputed righteousness, substitutionary atonement, and life grounded in his own. The sermon traces two movements: the believer's communion with Christ (vv. 19–21), including the blessing of eternal life and the blessing of obedience-born love, and the triune God's communion with the believer (vv. 22–24), where the plural pronoun 'we will come and make our home' discloses Father, Son, and Spirit indwelling the justified. The chief application is that sanctification — love to Christ expressed in keeping his commandments — is the natural reflex of justification, not its condition.
The Mission of the Disciples, Part 2
John 14:16–18 presents Christ's promise to send the Holy Spirit as the resource by which the disciples would carry out the greater works of the gospel mission. This sermon works through the foundation of that promise — salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, the love that flows from justification as the animating power of obedience and mission — before pausing to mount a sustained defense of Trinitarian theology proper. The preacher argues that biblicism without creedal guardrails, anti-intellectualism, and laziness have left the contemporary church vulnerable to the same Trinitarian errors the Nicene and Chalcedonian fathers labored to foreclose, and calls the congregation to pursue the knowledge of the triune God as the very substance of eternal life.
The Mission of the Disciples, Part 1
John 14:12–15 addresses the mission Christ assigns to His disciples and the obedience He requires of them in light of His imminent ascension. The 'greater works' the disciples will perform are not a competition with Christ's own ministry but are the works of the ascended, reigning Christ accomplished through His disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit sent from the Father. Prayer in Christ's name is examined in its tight missional context — the asking that drives the greater works — and is shown to be governed by the will of God rather than functioning as a blank check. The sermon closes by distinguishing loving obedience as the fruit, not the ground, of justification by faith alone, grounding the entire missionary enterprise in the grace that has already been given.
The Revelation of the Father
John 14:7–11 presents Christ's claim that knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father, and that the Father dwells in the Son and the Son in the Father — a claim no mere creature could make. The sermon works through three confirmations of this unity: the nature of the Son (his consubstantiality with the Father), the words of the Son (which are the Father's words by virtue of shared essence, not mere instrumentality), and the works of the Son (which the Father performs through the Son as one divine operation). The Trinitarian theology at stake is not speculative — it is the doctrinal ground upon which the disciples, and all believers, stand when the world collapses in on them, because the Son who is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, is the one who came down 'for us and for our salvation.'
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 2
The deity of Jesus Christ is not a late ecclesiastical imposition but the irreducible confession of Scripture, the early church, and the Reformed confessional tradition. This lesson, the second in a series through 2LCF Chapter 8, opens by reading paragraphs 1–2 of the confession before working through both what the orthodox doctrine of Christ's deity does NOT mean — rejecting polytheism, social trinitarianism, homoiousian subordinationism, modalism, and kenoticism — and what it positively asserts: that Christ is very and eternal God, of one substance with Father and Spirit, equal to the Father, personally distinct within the Godhead, and unchanging in deity through the incarnation. The biblical witness is then marshalled under five categories — explicit statements, Christ's self-witness, NT application of OT divine texts, divine perfections predicated of Christ, and divine works ascribed to Him — to demonstrate that the deity of Christ is axiomatic rather than argued in Scripture itself.
The Conclusion of Jesus's Public Ministry, Part 2
John 12:44–50 records the conclusion of Jesus' public ministry, and in it He reiterates the three controlling themes of the entire Gospel: His identity as the eternal Son who is consubstantial with the Father, His mission as the Light of the world who came not to judge but to save those abiding in darkness, and His authority as the one who speaks the very words of God. The unbelief described in the surrounding context — including the merely historical faith of rulers who loved the praise of men — sets the stage for Jesus' final public proclamation. Those who reject the Son reject the Father; those who receive Him by grace through faith pass from darkness into everlasting life.
The Exhortation and The Exemplar
Philippians 2:5–11 sets forth the Lord Jesus Christ as the supreme exemplar for Christian humility, but the apostle's purpose is not merely moral instruction — it is to ground the call to others-mindedness in the incomparable descent of the eternal Son from pre-incarnate glory to the shame of the cross. The sermon works through five aspects of what has been called the 'hymn to Christ as to God': his consubstantiality with the Father, his equality with the Father, his condescension in the incarnation (the assumption of humanity), his active and passive obedience unto death, and his subsequent exaltation above every name. Christians are exhorted to exercise humility and conduct themselves worthy of the gospel, precisely because their redeemer — who was in the form of God and equal with the Father — willingly descended to the lowest ignominy in order to accomplish their salvation as the second Adam.
The Future King of Zion
Micah 5:2–5a prophesies a coming king whose identity encompasses both true humanity and eternal divinity — a king born in the obscure village of Bethlehem, yet whose goings forth are 'from of old, from everlasting.' This sermon traces two movements in the passage: first, the identification of the king in verse 2, where the hypostatic union is set forth in prophetic form through the doctrines of incarnation and eternal generation; second, the mission of the king in verses 3–5a, where Christ is shown to be the Shepherd who feeds and protects his remnant people, and himself their peace. The congregation is pressed to nourish perseverance through the ordained means — reading Scripture, prayer, and corporate worship — trusting the covenant faithfulness of the God who announced his Son seven centuries before he arrived.
The Danger of Rejecting the Son, Part 2
John 8:25–29 confronts the persistent Jewish rejection of Jesus by pressing two questions: who is he, and what does his coming death mean? The sermon expounds Christ's identity as the eternal Son sent by the Father — God from God, light from light, true God from true God — and shows that his crucifixion and resurrection will vindicate that identity before the very men who condemned him. The active obedience of Christ, summarized in his declaration that he always does what pleases the Father, grounds the imputed righteousness sinners need for justification. Hearers are called to rest in the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, the knowledge of whom is itself the substance of eternal life.
The Light of the World
In John 8:12, Jesus declares 'I am the light of the world,' a claim that situates him within the great 'I Am' tradition of Exodus 3:14 and the Isaianic servant songs, asserting both his full deity as the eternal Son and the universal scope of his messianic mission to Jew and Gentile alike. The sermon traces the 'I Am' statements across John's Gospel, showing that Jesus consciously identifies himself with Yahweh and that the light-imagery of the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in his person and work. Darkness in John is not physical but ethical — the guilt, depravity, and rebellion of a world that hates the light — and the follower of Christ, by grace through faith, passes from that darkness into the light of life. The church is therefore called to hold forth the word of the gospel as light in a morally darkened age, trusting that God is able to transfer sinners from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his Son.
The Feast of Tabernacles, Part 4
On the last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood and cried out two declarations that divide all of humanity: 'Where I am, you cannot come,' addressed to those who persist in unbelief, and 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,' addressed to all who would believe. This sermon expounds John 7:32–39, tracing the murderous intentions of the Pharisees and chief priests, the sovereign rejection of the reprobate by Christ himself, and the astonishing mercy that leads him to offer living water to the very crowd seeking his arrest. The evangelist's commentary in verse 39 is shown to be a post-resurrection theological statement linking the abundant giving of the Holy Spirit to the glorification of Christ, drawing on the Old Testament water-and-Spirit passages and fulfilled at Pentecost according to Joel's prophecy.
2LCF Chapter 17 - Of the Perseverance of the Saints
The perseverance of the saints is not grounded in the will or strength of the redeemed but in the immutable decree of election, the finished work and ongoing intercession of Jesus Christ, the oath of God, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, and the inviolable nature of the covenant of grace. Working through chapter 17 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession, this study traces the "golden chain of redemption" from predestination through glorification, demonstrating that every link is secured by the triune God rather than by human willing. The session also addresses the reality of backsliding — its causes in the world, the flesh, and the devil — while insisting that the means of grace (prayer, the Word, the ordinances, and the fellowship of the saints) are the appointed instruments by which God preserves His people. Christians are called to heed apostolic exhortations to diligence precisely because perseverance is God's work, not a license for antinomian presumption.
The Feast of Tabernacles, Part 2
John 7:14–24 presents two confrontations: the Jews question Christ's authority, and Christ in turn questions the Jews' ethical integrity. The sermon works through three grounds of Christ's authority—his unity with the Father, the regenerate hearer's capacity to receive his word, and his mission to glorify the Father rather than himself—before turning to Christ's indictment of the Jews for plotting murder while professing fidelity to the Mosaic law. The exposition closes with Christ's appeal to righteous judgment over mere appearance, and the preacher applies the whole passage as a call to sinners to come and drink from the one who alone satisfies the soul's thirst.
The Ministry of the Holy Spirit
What is the Holy Spirit's relationship to the Father and the Son, and why does it matter that Christians understand this precisely? Working through Ephesians 1:13–14 as the destination, this sermon first establishes the full personal divinity of the Holy Spirit by tracing his presence and activity across both Testaments — from creation in Genesis 1 through the baptism of Christ, Pentecost, and the apostolic letters — demonstrating that the Spirit is not a force or a lesser deity but the third person of the one undivided triune God. The sermon draws on the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 2 paragraph 3, the Nicene Creed, and a wide range of triadic New Testament texts to guard against the heresies of Sabellianism and Arianism. The congregation is called to pursue the knowledge of this triune God as the irreplaceable foundation of assurance, evangelism, and Christian perseverance.
The Lord Who Treads the Waves
John 6:16–21 records the fifth of the seven signs in John's Gospel: Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee toward his storm-tossed disciples. The sermon works through two movements — the disciples' vulnerability in the storm and the Savior's sovereign approach across the water — to establish that Jesus, by treading the waves, enacts what the Old Testament attributes exclusively to Yahweh (Job 9:8; Psalm 77:19; Isaiah 43:16), thereby demonstrating his consubstantiality with the Father and his lordship over the natural order. The divine self-disclosure 'I am' (ego eimi), voiced both here and at key junctures throughout John's Gospel, is shown to be Jesus' deliberate appropriation of the covenant name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The sermon closes by pressing the theological remedy for the fear that afflicts God's people: a right knowledge of Christ as the great I AM displaces anxiety about trials, persecutions, and earthly circumstances.
The Rejection of the Son
John 5:41–47 records Christ's closing rebuke to the Jewish religious leaders who rejected Him despite the testimony of John the Baptist, His works, the Father, and the Scriptures. The sermon expounds two principal charges Jesus levels against His opponents: their refusal to receive the honor that comes from God alone, and their complete absence of love for God — demonstrated precisely by their rejection of the One the Father sent. Working through the accusation by Moses in verses 45–47, the exposition shows that to reject Christ is simultaneously to reject Moses, to reject the Father, and to worship an idol in place of the living God. The sermon closes with a call to receive Christ by faith, in whom alone eternal life is found.
The Witnesses for the Defense
In John 5:31–40, Jesus faces charges of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking and responds not by deflecting but by calling four corroborating witnesses to establish his consubstantiality with the Father: John the Baptist, his own works, the Father's testimony, and the Scriptures themselves. The sermon traces each witness in turn, showing that Christ's equality with God is not a later theological invention but the central claim of his own ministry, attested by every strand of divine revelation. The passage culminates in a sobering indictment: those who search the Scriptures seeking eternal life while refusing to come to Christ have missed the entire point of revelation, for Christ is the telos of all Scripture. Hearers are called to reckon with the gravity of sin and to come to Christ by grace through faith as the only ground of everlasting life.
The Consubstantiality of the Son, Part 3
John 5:27–30 presents the Son of God claiming the divine prerogatives of life-giving and universal judgment as proof of His consubstantiality with the Father — the same divine nature, not a derivative or lesser deity. The sermon works through the distinction between the present spiritual resurrection of verse 25 and the future general resurrection of all mankind in verses 28–29, establishing that the 'good' who rise to life are those justified by faith alone, whose works are the fruit and evidence of that faith rather than its ground. Christ's declaration in verse 30 — 'I can of myself do nothing' — is shown to be not a confession of subordination but an assertion of the unity of the divine will across the three persons. Hearers are called either to take refuge in Christ's blood and righteousness before the day of judgment, or, if already believing, to long with biblical legitimacy for the coming of the just Judge who will vindicate His church and right every wrong.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 2
Christ the Mediator, as confessed in chapter 8 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is examined through Hebrews 10 and supporting Scripture, tracing the pre-temporal appointment of the Son in the covenant of redemption, his hypostatic union, his anointing for the mediatorial office, and the execution of his saving work. The confession's account of Christ's perfect obedience, sacrificial death, and resurrection is shown to satisfy divine justice, procure reconciliation, and secure an everlasting inheritance for all the Father has given him. Particular attention is given to the retrospective communication of Christ's redemptive benefit to elect saints under the old covenant, demonstrating that salvation has always been by grace through faith in Christ alone. The study exhorts believers to find stability, comfort, and assurance in a precise knowledge of who Christ is and what he has accomplished.
The Consubstantiality of the Son, Part 2
John 5:24–30 presents Jesus responding to the Jewish charge that he made himself equal with God — not by retreating, but by affirming it through two divine functions: authority over life and authority over judgment. This sermon works through the declaration of that authority in eternal life (vv. 24–25), the rationale grounded in the eternal generation of the Son from the Father (vv. 26–27), and the promise of his authority on the final day of judgment (vv. 28–30, previewed). Central to the argument is the doctrine of consubstantiality — that the Son shares the one simple undivided divine essence with the Father from all eternity — which grounds both his power to effectually call dead sinners to life and his right to preside as judge of all the earth. The sermon calls hearers to receive Christ by faith, since only God himself can save sinners, and it is the voice of the Son of God alone that awakens the spiritually dead.