Theological term
Eternal Processions
8 sermons · All terms
The Power of the Word of God
Isaiah 55:10–11 declares that God's word, like rain and snow sent from heaven, does not return to him void but accomplishes precisely what he purposes. This sermon expounds that promise under two heads: the power of the written word and the glory of the incarnate word. The written word is shown to be efficacious in gospel proclamation — bringing either the aroma of life or of death — while the incarnate word, the eternal Son proceeding from the Father, accomplishes a definite redemption that cannot be frustrated. Both heads converge in a call to sinners to seek the Lord while he may be found and to believers to renew covenant at the Lord's Supper with confidence in the abundance of divine pardon.
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 Spirit's Conviction of the World
Jesus declares to his sorrowing disciples that his departure is to their advantage — not despite the coming persecution, but precisely because it secures the gift of the Holy Spirit. This sermon works through John 16:5–11 under two heads: the departure of Christ (vv. 5–7) and the conviction of the world (vv. 8–11), pausing to develop the first at length. The Trinitarian logic of the temporal missions — the Father sending the Son, the Father and Son sending the Spirit — is shown to be the very theology that sustained the apostles under hostility and that sustains the church today. The sermon closes with a call to rest in the Spirit's power rather than human eloquence or celebrity, because the Paraclete is the disciples' power, protection, and advantage.
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 Believer's Race, Part 2
Hebrews 12:2 presents Jesus as the supreme object of faith for the believer running the Christian race. This sermon examines five dimensions of Christ to which the runner is directed: His person, His work as author and finisher of the faith, His mission under the covenant of redemption, His suffering and shame on the cross, and His exaltation to the right hand of God. The central pastoral application is that the believer neither enters nor sustains the race by personal effort, but by faith in Christ alone — and that the pattern of the cross preceding the crown should brace believers for mounting opposition to their identification with 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.
The Nature of the Holy Spirit
How does Jesus comfort his disciples in the upper room by pointing them to the Holy Spirit, and what does that reveal about who God is? Expounding John 14:16–18, this sermon works through four aspects of the Spirit's nature drawn from the text: the distinction of persons in the Godhead, the unity of the Godhead, the world's ignorance of the Spirit, and the believer's knowledge of him. The eternal processions — the Father unbegotten, the Son eternally begotten, the Spirit proceeding from Father and Son — ground the temporal missions in which the Father sends the Son and the Father and Son send the Spirit for the salvation of God's people. The congregation is called to hold fast to the Trinitarian guardrails of the creeds and the 1689 confession, to resist the modalism and Arianism that perennially distort who God is, and to rest in the gospel of free and sovereign grace through faith in the one who declared 'I am.'
Nations Rage, God Mocks
Psalm 2 confronts the rage of earthly rulers against God and His anointed with a sober theological question: why do the nations engage in so futile an endeavor? The sermon expounds the psalm under three headings — the rebellion of earthly kings, the reign of the heavenly king, and the recognition of the true king — tracing the Davidic covenant through its fulfillment in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ. The Covenant of Redemption grounds the certainty of Christ's present reign at the right hand of the Father, and that certainty is the sole comfort available to God's people as nations continue to rage and the history of the church runs red with the blood of martyrs. Hearers are called either to kiss the Son in filial fear and find blessing, or to perish in the way of the ungodly.