Theological term
Hypostatic Union
319 sermons · All terms
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.
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.
The Scourging and Mockery of Jesus
What was Pilate attempting when he ordered Jesus scourged and permitted the soldiers' mock enthronement? This exposition of John 19:1–4 argues that Pilate's scourging of Jesus was a failed act of crowd appeasement by a governor who knew he was condemning an innocent man, while the soldiers' mockery staged a deliberate parody of royal investiture against one they took for a pretender to Jewish kingship. The sermon draws Isaiah 50 and 53 and Psalm 109 into the foreground to show that these sufferings were neither accidental nor outside the decree of God — the Father delivered up the Son, the Servant of Yahweh gave his back to those who struck him, and the imprecatory prayer of Psalm 109 illuminates the inner life of Christ before his accusers. The application presses the congregation to feel the weight of substitutionary suffering, to resist a superficial Christianity untouched by the cost of redemption, and to confess Christ's lordship now rather than in the judgment.
The Second Commandment - Deuteronomy 5:8-11
The Second Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8-11) prohibits both the making of images to represent God and the worship of those images — two distinct but related offenses against the infinitely simple, spiritual, and incomprehensible God. Because God cannot be captured in creaturely form, any visible representation of Him, including pictures or films of the Lord Jesus Christ, violates the commandment: the hypostatic union cannot be depicted by an artist's rendering, and Christ is to be set forth through preaching, not imagery. The positive demand of the commandment is worship regulated strictly by divine command — the regulative principle — which restricts the church to the elements God has prescribed in Scripture, excluding both the inventions of men and the traditions of Rome.
The Trial Before the Jews
John 18:13–27 presents the trial of Jesus before the Jewish authorities alongside Simon Peter's three denials, and John's deliberate interweaving of the two scenes forces the reader to measure Peter's cowardice against his Master's composed, unflinching faithfulness. Jesus, the true high priest, stands before the illegitimate proceedings of Annas and Caiaphas — proceedings marked by false witnesses, unprovoked violence, and a verdict predetermined by envy — and yet he defends his disciples, demands lawful evidence, and maintains his identity without wavering. Peter, by contrast, cannot acknowledge his Lord to a servant girl, illustrating the fickleness that characterises even redeemed sinners. The sermon closes by calling believers to remember both the rooster's rebuke of unfaithfulness and the grace of a Saviour who restores the very disciples who forsook him.
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 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.
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.
CTF 2025 - Session 7 - Pastoral Reflections on Classical Theism
The prologue of John's Gospel (1:1–18) discloses both the divine perfections and the eternal relations of the divine persons — the very realities that classical theism and the Second London Confession articulate in Chapter 2. This address draws that exegetical foundation into pastoral practice, arguing that a robust theology proper is not abstract speculation but the necessary ground for faithful ministerial function and focus. The preacher identifies six areas — the salvation of sinners, the catechesis of children, the perseverance of the saints, assurance of salvation, communion with God, worship, and the knowledge of God — each of which depends inextricably on a well-formed doctrine of God.
CTF 2025 - Session 8 – Q&A Panel
A Q&A panel from a theology conference on the doctrine of God addresses questions arising from the preceding lectures on classical theism. Three theologians field questions on divine impassibility (including whether God can be grieved), the eternal decree and the covenant of redemption, divine aseity and the Son's relationship to the Father, the nature of time in the eternal state, the role of philosophy and natural theology in arriving at the classical doctrine of God, and whether genuine evil exists within God's sovereign economy. The discussion throughout presses for formulations of doctrine that protect divine simplicity, immutability, and impassibility while preserving the integrity of biblical language and confessional categories.
Live Stream - April 13, 2025
Philippians 2:9–11 sets forth the exaltation of Christ as the direct consequence and divine vindication of his humiliation. The sermon works through three considerations in the nature of that exaltation — the consequences of Christ's humiliation for the sinner (freedom from sin's penalty and power, from Satan's bondage, from the law's curse, and free access to God), the Father's approbation of the Son's finished work, and the manifestation of Christ's divine identity in the name given above every name. The significance of the exaltation presses toward a universal, unavoidable submission: every knee will bow and every tongue confess, whether in saving faith now or in compelled acknowledgment on the last day. The sermon closes by pressing sinners to confess Christ willingly in the present day and by reminding believers that the pattern of Christ's humiliation leading to exaltation both grounds their salvation in his active and passive obedience and shapes their life of humble, others-centered love in the church.
The High Priestly Prayer, Part 9
John 17:24–26 records the final petition of Christ's high priestly prayer: that those given to him by the Father would be with him in glory and behold his mediatorial splendor. The sermon traces the theological logic from election and effectual calling through justification to glorification, grounding the certainty of the believer's future glory in the Father's eternal love for the Son and the irreversible decree of God. Along the way, the sermon addresses the relationship between sovereign election and the free offer of the gospel, arguing that the doctrines of sovereign grace are the very foundation of evangelism, not a barrier to it. The practical exhortation is twofold: let the hope of future glory fuel present sanctification, and let the love and presence of God sustain patient endurance through affliction.
The Example of the Savior, Part 3
Philippians 2:8 presents the humility of Christ not as incidental biography but as the doctrinal and ethical foundation for the church's conduct. This sermon examines first the declaration of Christ's humility — that he humbled himself voluntarily, according to his human nature as covenant mediator, in active obedience to every demand of God's law from his mother's womb — and then its demonstration in the extent of that humiliation: even the death of the cross, a death cursed by the law and laden with shame. The active and passive obedience of Christ, taken together, are the sole ground of justification by faith alone, which is why the Lord's Supper is received not as a reward for good conduct but as a proclamation of what the Savior accomplished on behalf of his people.
The High Priestly Prayer, Part 8
John 17:21–23 records Christ's high priestly petition for the unity of all believers across every age — a unity patterned on the mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son. The sermon works through the petition ('that they all may be one'), the divine paradigm (the perichoretic union of the Father and Son as the exemplar for creaturely unity), and the missional purpose (a unified church publishes to the world the reality of the Incarnation and the love of the Father). Believers are called to pursue a common faith, a common orientation, and a common goal — the glory of God — knowing that their corporate life is itself a testimony to the mission of the sent Son.
Galatians 2:17–21 — Justification by Faith Alone
Galatians 2:17–21 closes Paul's autobiographical defense of justification by faith alone, and these five verses press three weighty questions: Is Christ a minister of sin when believers forsake the Mosaic ceremonies? Who is the true transgressor? And what does Judaizing heresy actually do to the cross of Christ? The sermon argues that to impose any measure of works upon the economy of salvation — whether old-covenant ceremony or its modern legalistic counterpart — is to render the incarnation, the perfect obedience, and the atoning death of the Son of God as vanity. The single ground of the believer's justification, assurance, and perseverance is the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us, in whom alone everlasting righteousness is found.
The Example of the Savior, Part 2
Philippians 2:7 sets forth Christ's incarnation as the supreme argument against selfish ambition and conceit. This expository sermon works through four statements in the verse — Christ made himself of no reputation, took the form of a bondservant, came in the likeness of men, and was found in appearance as a man — with careful attention to the kenotic controversy, the hypostatic union, and the patristic formulations at Nicaea and Chalcedon. The heresy of kenotic Christology (that Christ emptied himself of his divine attributes) is refuted from 2 Corinthians 8:9, John 1:14, and Hebrews 2, while docetism is equally rejected in favor of Christ's true and complete humanity. The doctrinal weight is carried in service of Paul's pastoral concern: the one who was in the form of God and equal with God voluntarily humbled himself, and that reality demolishes every claim to selfish priority among his people.
The High Priestly Prayer, Part 4
What grounds the prayers Jesus offers for his people, and why does he explicitly exclude the world from his intercession? Working through John 17:9–11a, this sermon examines the focus and rationale of Christ's high priestly intercession: he prays specifically for the elect whom the Father gave him, not for the reprobate world, and he does so as the mediating priest who both sacrifices and intercedes on behalf of his own. The mutual possession declared in verse 10 — 'all mine are yours and yours are mine' — establishes the full equality of the Son with the Father, while 'I am glorified in them' frames the church as a trophy case of divine grace displayed before angels and nations. The sermon closes with an exhortation to treasure the blessedness of election: a Savior who intercedes, a triune God who is known, and a security that nothing can sever.
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.
Trinitarian Assurance
Ephesians 1:3–14 presents a Trinitarian doxology in which the Father's election and predestination, the Son's redemption through His blood, and the Spirit's sealing together constitute the full ground of the believer's assurance. The passage resists any reduction of the three persons to isolated roles, insisting on inseparable operations even as Paul shines distinct light on each person's work. The sermon argues that the Christian's assurance must be anchored not in self-examination of fruit-bearing but in the objective, Trinitarian work of God accomplished entirely outside of us in Christ.
2LCF Chapter 32 - Of the Last Judgement
2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 32 examines the doctrine of the Last Judgment under three heads: the concept of the Day of Judgment (its divine appointment, its agent in Christ, and its comprehensive scope over angels and all humanity), the goal of that day (the manifestation of God's mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and his justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate), and its practical relevance (deterring sin, consoling the afflicted people of God, and keeping believers watchful). The session concludes with a survey of the three millennial positions and four interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation, explaining why the Confession deliberately avoids resolving those disputes in order to function as a broad consensus document. The consistent ethical burden throughout is that contemplation of the coming judgment should shape present conduct: purifying the elect, driving evangelism, and giving the suffering saints confidence that divine justice will prevail.
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.
The Glory of Christ's Departure, Part 2
John 16:29–33 closes the Upper Room Discourse with two movements: the disciples' partial yet progressing confession of Christ's omniscience, authority, and divine origin, and Christ's triumphant declaration that he has overcome the world. The disciples' imperfect understanding — soon to be perfected on the day of Pentecost through the Spirit's coming — is met not with rebuke but with Christ's desire for their peace, even as he foreknows their abandonment of him at the cross. The sermon grounds Christian courage in the face of tribulation not in human resolve but in the objective, accomplished victory of the enthroned Christ, whose current session at the Father's right hand is the only sufficient foundation for the church's advance through suffering.
2LCF Chapter 30 - Of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper is a perpetual ordinance instituted by Christ on the night of his betrayal, appointed for the corporate observance of the church until his return. This confession study works through all eight paragraphs of 1689 LBCF Chapter 30, surveying the historical positions on Christ's presence in the Supper — transubstantiation, consubstantiation, Eastern Orthodox epiclesis, Anglican via media, exclusive memorialism, and the Reformed spiritual presence held by the Particular Baptists — before examining what the confession affirms and opposes. The Supper is shown to be simultaneously a memorial, a proclamation of the gospel, a means of grace conferring spiritual nourishment, and a bond of communion both with the ascended Christ and with fellow believers. The Roman Catholic Mass is rejected as abominable, injurious to Christ's finished and unrepeatable sacrifice, and productive of gross idolatry and manifold superstitions that flow inevitably from the doctrine of transubstantiation.
The Free Offer of Eternal Life
Paul's defense of his ministry in 1 Thessalonians 2:1–4 is not merely self-vindication but a demonstration that the gospel he preached is categorically different from the self-serving philosophies of his day — it came without error, without moral corruption, and without deceit. The message cost Paul greatly to deliver, yet it costs the hearer nothing to receive, because Christ paid the full price. God himself, through appointed ambassadors, freely offers eternal life to sinners who will lay aside their rebellion and receive the gift by faith alone.
The Suffering and Glory of Christ
Psalm 22 presents the suffering and glory of Christ with a precision and detail that exceeds even the Passion narratives of the four Gospels. The psalm's first half expounds the dereliction Christ endured on the cross — not as a breach of the Trinity or a dissolution of the hypostatic union, but as the penal withdrawal of the Father's sensible favor while the Son bore the curse due to his people's lawbreaking. The second half moves from that suffering to the exaltation of the Redeemer, the adoption of his brethren, the extension of his kingdom to all nations, and the generational advance of his church — all grounded in the finished work of the cross. The sermon calls believers to make much of the Psalms in both private devotion and corporate worship, hearing in them the very voice of Christ.
The Enthronement of the King-Priest
Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted Old Testament text in the New Testament, and for good reason: it presents the Lord Jesus Christ in his twofold office as enthroned King and eternal Priest. This exposition works through all seven verses under three headings — the enthronement of Christ at the Father's right hand (vv. 1–3), the Melchizedekan priesthood sworn by God's oath (v. 4), and the triumph of Christ over all his enemies (vv. 5–7). The sermon calls believers entering a new year to fix their minds on the reigning King-Priest rather than on the hostility of the present evil age, and urges the unconverted to come to Christ in faith on the grounds that God's saving purpose is irreversible.
CTF 2025 - Who are the 2025 Speakers? Dolezal, Renihan
This preview conversation introduces two speakers for a confessional Reformed Baptist theology conference: James Dolezal, whose scholarly work on divine simplicity and classical theism has centered on the 1689 LBCF's confession that God is 'without body, parts, and passions,' and Samuel Renihan, whose accessible treatments of divine impassibility grew out of a significant doctrinal controversy within ARBCA beginning around 2014. The discussion traces how that controversy, though disruptive, proved a providential catalyst for deeper engagement with theology proper — the doctrine of God in His nature, perfections, and triunity — and how both speakers represent a recovery of classical theism within the broader Reformed Baptist world.
The Glory of Christ's Departure, Part 1
John 16:25–28 records the climactic doctrinal statement of the Upper Room Discourse, in which Christ declares His eternal generation from the Father, His incarnation into the world, and His impending ascension back to the Father. The sermon works through three heads: the manner of Christ's instruction in figurative language and the Spirit's coming role in illuminating the disciples; the access believers have to the Father through the Son in prayer; and the doctrinal creed embedded in verse 28, treating eternal generation, incarnation, and ascension in sequence. The unchanging love of the Father for those who are in Christ by grace through faith is held out both as the chief encouragement for disciples going into a world of tribulation and as the ground of the gospel call to sinners to look to Christ for blood and righteousness.
The Future Prospect of the Apostle, Part 2
Philippians 1:21–26 presents Paul's conviction and anticipation as an apostle facing imprisonment and the real prospect of execution. The sermon works through Paul's declaration 'for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,' showing that his union with Christ in life and his glory with Christ in death make it impossible for any earthly power to harm or stop him. The intermediate state — the soul's immediate presence with Christ at death — is set against the benefit of continued gospel ministry, and Paul's others-minded anticipation of release grounds his confidence that the Philippians' progress in faith and joy will abound. The sermon closes by pressing the question whether each hearer can say with honest self-examination that Christ is their all in life and death.
The Joy Associated with Christ's Departure
John 16:16–24 records Jesus preparing his disciples for the grief of his death and the joy of his resurrection, framing both under the single announcement 'a little while.' This exposition works through two movements: the announcement of Christ's departure and the disciples' confusion (vv. 16–18), and then the benefits of that departure — lasting joy grounded in the resurrection, and direct access to the Father through prayer in Christ's name (vv. 19–24). The sermon argues that the joy promised here is not the absence of suffering or temporal prosperity, but an indestructible joy rooted in Christ's finished work of life, death, resurrection, and ascension, a joy no adversary can strip from the believer.