Theological term
Hypostatic Union
319 sermons · All terms
The Reformation of the Church
What does it mean for the church to be 'the pillar and ground of the truth'? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon examines the identity and confession of the church through three descriptions Paul gives in verse 15 — the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth — before applying the doctrinal legacy of the sixteenth-century Reformation to the contemporary church. The great Christological confession of verse 16 is shown to be the theological center around which all church conduct, worship, and proclamation must orbit. The sermon calls the church to guard sola scriptura, justification by faith alone, the regulative principle of worship, and a proper Christology against the perpetual drift toward pragmatism, experientialism, and Romanizing errors.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 7
Matthew 24:22–28 addresses the days of the great tribulation surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and Jesus' warnings against false Christs who would arise during the siege. Taking a preterist hermeneutic, this exposition argues that the shortening of those days (v. 22) reflects God's sovereign limitation of covenant judgment for the elect's sake, and that the lightning metaphor of verse 27 describes not Christ's final physical return but a judgment-coming executed from His enthroned position at the Father's right hand. The carcass-and-eagles image of verse 28 is read against Deuteronomy 28 and Habakkuk 1 as a covenant-curse idiom for the Roman armies as instruments of divine vengeance. Throughout, the passage is applied evangelically: the only refuge from any coming judgment is flight to Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.
Genesis 3:15
Genesis 3:15, the protevangelium, announces a Redeemer who would be born of a woman, accomplish victory through suffering and death, and crush the serpent's head — not a vague, undefined figure but a precisely identified Messiah. This Bible study traces the progressive covenantal narrowing of that promise from the seed of the woman (Genesis 3) through the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, the Psalms, and the prophets, demonstrating that Old Testament believers possessed substantial, detailed knowledge of the coming Christ. The study draws on Paul, John Owen, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession to show that salvation has always been by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, with no separate Old Testament economy of law-keeping. The closing application presses hearers toward Simeon-like doxology in response to the Christ who fulfills every promise of the Old Testament.
The Astonishment of Paul
Paul's opening salvo in Galatians 1:6–9 is a study in holy alarm: the apostle marvels not with wonder but with grief that the Galatian churches are so quickly defecting from the gospel of grace to a Judaizing corruption that mingles law-keeping with faith. The Judaizing heresy — like Roman Catholicism, the New Perspective on Paul, and the Federal Vision after it — does not abolish Christ but supplements him, which Paul declares is no gospel at all, because justification is either entirely by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, or it is not justification at all. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: Paul's astonishment at the defection, the nature of the false gospel as something that is 'not another,' and the double anathema pronounced on all who pervert the gospel regardless of their authority. The application calls hearers to a 'blessed intolerance' toward gospel corruption, to precision in doctrine, and to the personal embrace of Christ's doing and dying as the sole ground of acceptance with God.
2LCF Chapter 30 - Of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper, as confessed in chapter 30 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is examined across all eight paragraphs under four headings: its nature, administration, elements, and reception. The session expounds the Confession's positive affirmations — that the Supper is a divine ordinance of perpetual remembrance, proclamation of Christ's finished sacrifice, and a means of grace by which the risen Christ spiritually nourishes His people by the Holy Spirit — alongside its sharp rejection of Roman Catholic transubstantiation, the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, and Lutheran consubstantiation. The 17th-century polemical context is traced, showing that the particular Baptists aligned with Presbyterian and Congregationalist confessionalism against both Roman Catholic sacerdotalism and the anti-Trinitarian Socinian memorial-only reduction. The session closes with an urgent call to faithful, frequent participation in the Lord's Supper as an act of communion with Christ and with one another, refusing both careless neglect and the errors of Rome.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 24, 2016 PM
Matthew 4:1-11 is not primarily a moral example but a substitutionary act: Christ enters the wilderness as the second Adam and the true Israel, undergoing probationary testing in order to render the perfect covenantal obedience that Adam and Israel failed to render. Seven interlocking theological observations — divine sovereignty, the Spirit's ministry in Christ's life, the hypostatic union, the probative nature of the episode, Christ's fulfillment of Old Testament types, the seed-and-serpent motif, and the substitutionary character of his obedience — are drawn from the text to show that this wilderness battle is a prelude to Calvary's victory. The primary application is not moralism but adoration: Christ did all these things for his people, and his imputed obedience is the ground on which sinners may confidently rest.
The Lament Over Jerusalem
Matthew 23:37–39 records Christ's lament over Jerusalem — a cry of sorrow that follows directly upon the severest condemnations he has pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees. The sermon traces Jesus' prophetic lament through its Old Testament antecedents in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalms, arguing that Christ speaks here according to his human nature, expressing genuine grief over a city that has killed the prophets and now rejects the Messiah himself. The declaration 'your house is left to you desolate' marks a decisive redemptive-historical shift: as in Ezekiel 8–11, the withdrawal of God's glory precedes the destruction of the temple, and that withdrawal is enacted when Christ departs to the Mount of Olives. The sermon closes by refuting the Arminian use of 'you were not willing' as a proof text for free will, showing instead that the text confirms total depravity and that the free and genuine offer of Christ to sinners is fully consistent with the Reformed doctrine of sovereign grace.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 26, 2016 PM
Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission, grounds the church's mission in the sovereign authority, command, and presence of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon works through three points: the post-resurrection exaltation of Christ as mediator — established by Philippians 2:5-11, Daniel 7:13-14, and Hebrews 1 — demonstrates that all authority given to the ascended Son pertains specifically to his mediatorial office rather than to any deficiency in his eternal deity. The sovereign command to make disciples of all nations, to baptize in the triune name, and to teach obedience to all Christ has commanded establishes the church's mission and the regulative principle of worship against human traditions. Christians are called to confidence and courage in a hostile world on the basis of Christ's abiding promise — 'lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age' — while unbelievers are confronted with the same authority as the ground of coming judgment and the only sufficient ground of saving grace.
2LCF Chapter 27 - Of the Communion of Saints
What does it mean for believers to share communion with one another, and on what foundation does that communion rest? Working through 2LCF Chapter 27, paragraphs 1 and 2, this study establishes that the communion of the saints flows necessarily from the believer's union with Christ: because every saint is vitally joined to the same head, they are thereby joined to one another. The chapter's two qualifications — that union with Christ does not divinize the believer, and that spiritual communion does not abolish private property — guard the doctrine against historic errors ranging from pantheism to Anabaptist collectivism. The practical weight falls on concrete duties: faithful attendance at corporate worship, private mutual edification, material relief of the needy, and a willingness to extend fellowship beyond one's own congregation to all who call on the name of Christ.
The Condemnation of the Religious Leaders, Part 4
Matthew 23:25–28 presents Jesus' sixth and seventh woes against the scribes and Pharisees, condemning their emphasis on outward religious compliance while their hearts remain filled with extortion, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, and lawlessness. The cup and the whitewashed tomb function as related analogies: both expose the fatal gap between external religiosity and inward moral corruption, with the tomb analogy adding that such teachers actively defile those who come under their influence. The sermon draws the contrast through the Old Testament's consistent demand for heart religion — from the Shema to the prophets — and presses the application that the only cleansing of the inward cup comes through faith in the blood of Christ. Believers are warned equally against the twin errors of antinomianism and mere externalism, since justification produces progressive sanctification that reforms the outside as well as the inside.
The Ascension of Christ
The bodily, visible, local ascension of Christ into heaven forty days after his resurrection is not a peripheral doctrine but the hinge on which the entire exaltation of the Mediator turns. This sermon expounds Acts 1:9–11 in three movements: the historical reality of the ascension (real, visible, bodily, local, and glorious), its theological significance (fulfillment of Scripture, completion of Christ's priestly work, his enthronement at the Father's right hand, and the glory given to him as Mediator), and its practical benefits for the church (the gift of the Holy Spirit, the perpetual intercession of Christ, and the guaranteed second coming). Believers are called to draw courage from Christ's present reign, flee to the cross before the judgment that the ascension makes inevitable, and rest in the advocacy of the enthroned Savior who always lives to make intercession.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 1, 2016 PM
The precious blood of Christ as the sole ground of Christian redemption is the focus of this Lord's Supper meditation drawn from 1 Peter 1:18-19. The sermon first establishes the necessary denial — that redemption cannot come through corruptible things such as silver and gold, idolatrous religion, the ceremonial law, or the aimless traditions of the fathers. It then unfolds the proper assertion, showing that the blood of Christ is called 'precious' because of the high value Peter assigns it, the identity of the one who sheds it (the God-man, Christ Jesus), the manner in which it is shed (the cross death), and what it accomplishes (the definite redemption of guilty sinners). Believers are urged to approach the Lord's Supper with cheerful and examined compliance, knowing they congregate on the Lord's Day not out of mere tradition but because the God-man shed his blood for sinners on Calvary.
The Question Concerning the Messiah
Matthew 22:41–46 records the final public controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders, in which Jesus turns from defendant to questioner and asks: 'What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?' The Pharisees answer correctly but incompletely — 'the Son of David' — and Jesus presses Psalm 110:1 upon them to show that David, writing in the Spirit, calls the Messiah his Lord, which demands that the Messiah be not merely a human descendant but also the divine Son of God. The sermon traces Matthew's sustained identification of Jesus as both Son of David and Son of God, explains the Hebrew distinction between Yahweh and Adonai in Psalm 110:1, and grounds the hypostatic union in that one verse. Believers are called to love this God-man with whole-hearted devotion; unbelievers are urged to reckon with the Christ who alone could fulfill the law and bear the wrath owed to sinners.
Free Grace Baptist Church - March 20, 2016 AM
Galatians 4:4–5 announces that when the appointed fullness of time arrived, God the Father sent forth his eternal Son — not to become his Son, but as his Son — born of a woman and born under the law. The sermon traces the fourfold structure of the text: the timing of the sending (sovereignly predetermined by God), the fact of the sending (the pre-incarnate Son dispatched from the Father), the condition of the sending (the Son assuming human nature and human legal obligations), and the twofold purpose of the sending (redeeming those under law's condemnation and restoring them to adoptive sonship). Against every religion that offers man a path upward to God, Christianity declares that God came down in the person of the incarnate Son to accomplish what no fallen creature could — perfect obedience to the law's precepts and perfect satisfaction of its penalty — and freely bestows that righteousness on all who believe.
A Sure and Proven Creed
First Timothy 1:15 presents what Charles Spurgeon called 'the whole gospel in one verse' — a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance. This sermon expounds the verse under three headings: the introduction to the creed (its truthfulness and trustworthiness), the creed itself (Christ Jesus as champion, his incarnational coming, and his consummate saving work), and the demonstrable confirmation of the creed in the conversion of the Apostle Paul, the self-declared chief of sinners. Believers are exhorted to ground assurance not in inward experience but solely in the person and finished work of Christ Jesus, the Lord.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 14, 2016 PM
The Apostle Paul concludes his most confrontational letter with the fullest Trinitarian benediction in the New Testament — the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14). This sermon works through each phrase of that blessing, showing why Paul orders the persons of the Trinity as Son, Father, and Spirit: it is only by the grace of Christ that believers may enter into the love of the Father and receive the communion of the Spirit. The benediction is not a reward for good behaviour but a word of gospel pronounced upon an entire fractious congregation, demonstrating that the life of the church must be grounded not in moral resolve but in the being and acts of the Triune God.
The Darkness and the Derelict
Mark 15:33–34 presents two interlocked realities at Calvary: the supernatural darkness over the land and the cry of dereliction from the lips of the Son of God. The darkness is both a portent of coming judgment upon the generation that rejected the Lord of glory and a sign of the terrible deprivation the suffering servant endured as God withdrew from Him. The cry — 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' — is examined under four questions: who is crying, why He cries, what He has done, and for whom, establishing that Christ was made the derelict so that all who believe in Him might never themselves be forsaken by God. The sermon closes with exhortations to fear the judgment if you reject Christ, to rest in the assurance that God will never forsake His people, and to never neglect the ordinances — especially the Lord's Supper — through which that assurance is sealed.
The Christocentric Gospel
John 20:30–31 gives the purpose statement for the entire Gospel of John: that readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they would have life in His name. This sermon examines, first, the deliberate divine design behind gospel revelation — that God superintended the inscripturation of Scripture not to disclose all things, but to set forth with clarity the saving knowledge of Christ — and, second, the Christocentric character of that revelation, tracing how the whole of Scripture, from Moses through John, has Christ as its intended terminus. The sermon closes with a direct call to believe on Christ, warning that rejection of such a glorious Savior issues in eternal condemnation, while faith issues in spiritual life now and eternal life in the age to come.
The Incarnation and True Humanity of Christ
Philippians 2:5–11 anchors a study of the incarnation and true humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Drawing on the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds together with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, the study traces three aspects of the incarnation — assumption of human nature, the virgin birth, and the union of two natures in one person — before marshalling seven biblical proofs of Christ's full humanity. The central argument throughout is soteriological: the Son of God must be truly and perfectly man, body and soul, yet without sin, because only such a mediator can make propitiation for guilty sinners and be their faithful high priest.
The Deity of Christ
Who is Jesus Christ, and what does Scripture mean when it confesses that He is God? This Bible study on John 1:14–18 opens a series on Christology by examining the deity of Christ from three angles: its precise meaning, the breadth of its biblical testimony, and the doctrinal affirmations necessary for confessing it rightly. The study moves from definitional clarity—ruling out Arian, adoptionist, and Mormon distortions—through exegetical survey of Christ's self-identification, apostolic statements, Old Testament Yahweh texts applied to Christ, and divine attributes predicated of Him, before concluding with four essential affirmations: His essential identity with the Father, His personal eternal distinction as the eternally begotten Son, His unchanging post-incarnation deity, and the specific role His divine nature plays in assuming, personalizing, and sustaining His human nature.
An Introduction to Christology
What does it mean to study Christ, and why does it matter above every other theological discipline? This introductory Christology study, anchored in John 20:24–31, argues that the doctrine of Christ is not one branch among many but the integrating center of all Christian theology — the terminus of the Old Testament's canonical trajectory, the non-negotiable content of apostolic proclamation, the sole ground of salvation, and the pattern for the believer's practical life. Hearers are called to fill their minds with precise Christological knowledge so that their hearts may be both warmed in worship and guarded against the errors that have always threatened the church's confession of Christ's full deity, full humanity, and undivided person.
The Usefulness of Scripture
Paul's claim in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable is examined across four categories of usefulness — doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness — before turning to Scripture's specific function in completing and thoroughly equipping the man of God for every good work. The sermon challenges the anti-doctrinal sentiment prevalent in contemporary evangelicalism, arguing that indifference to biblical doctrine is indifference to God himself. Ministers in particular are shown to be completed not by leadership models or charismatic gifts but by deep saturation in the word of God. The hearer is called to approach Scripture not as a duty to discharge but as a daily feast — mining its treasures with diligence and gratitude.
The Purpose of the Incarnation
Jesus' declaration before Pontius Pilate — 'For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world' (John 18:37) — frames the Incarnation not as a seasonal sentiment but as the entry of the eternal Son into his mediatorial kingship. The sermon expounds Christ's kingdom as non-terrestrial in origin yet universal in scope, advancing not by armed revolt but by the truth he himself embodies and proclaims. Pilate's cynical shrug — 'What is truth?' — is set as a mirror before the hearer: indifference to the truth of Christ is indifference to the only ground of liberation from the wrath of God. The sermon calls every listener to receive the King through faith in the gospel, and every Christian household to press children toward Christ through diligent engagement with Scripture.
Good Tidings of Great Joy
Luke 2:1–14 sets the birth of Jesus Christ within precise historical coordinates and a dense web of Old Testament prophecy, demonstrating that his coming was no accident of history but the fulfillment of promises stretching from Genesis 3:15 through Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 7:14. The sermon moves through three movements: the natal exposition of verses 1–7 (the period, the lineage of David, and the nativity itself), the angelic proclamation of verses 8–12 (the recipients, the herald, and the content of the gospel announcement), and the doxological exclamation of verses 13–14 (the heavenly choir and the meaning of 'peace on earth'). Christ is shown to be the true Savior over against the counterfeit claims of Roman imperial cult, truly divine, born of a virgin, in the house of bread, to those who are under the law, that he might redeem them. The sermon closes with a direct call to believe on Christ as the only source of true peace and to rejoice in him not merely at Christmas but throughout the year.
John's Incarnation Theology
John 1:1–18 presents the most concentrated incarnation theology in the New Testament, and this sermon works through that prologue under four headings: the eternality of the Word, his personal distinction from the Father, his full and essential deity, and his true humanity. The Word who has always existed as God, distinct from the Father yet of one undivided substance with him, took to himself man's nature — not by casting off deity, nor by confusion of the two natures, but by a condescension in which he remained what he always was while becoming what he was not. The sermon guards each heading by naming and refuting the classical heresies that have distorted each truth, drawing on John 8, John 18, John 20, Philippians 2, and 1689 LBCF 8.2. The application calls believers to deepen their knowledge of this Christ and urges the unconverted to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ before that same Christ comes as the sovereign judge of Revelation 19.
The Redeemer of God's Elect
Galatians 4:4–7 presents the person and work of the Redeemer in covenantal context: Christ's pre-existent eternal Sonship, incarnation, and role as mediator under the law provide the basis for redemption, adoption, and the indwelling of the Spirit. The sermon traces the obsolescence of the Mosaic covenant as designed and purposed by God, giving way to the full privileges of sons in the new covenant. The triune God is shown to be the sole initiator and executor of salvation — the Father sending the Son, the Son accomplishing redemption, and the Spirit sealing the adopted heirs. The sermon closes with a call to robust Trinitarian theology as inseparable from knowing and worshipping the God who saves.
The Triumphal Entry
Matthew 21:1–11 records the triumphal entry of the Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem — a deliberate, public, acted parable in which Christ publicly declares himself the Messiah foretold by the prophets. The sermon examines the destination, preparation, and reception of the Messiah under three headings, showing how Christ fulfills the composite prophecy of Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9 in his lowliness, his justice, and his salvation. The crowd's cry of Hosanna draws on Psalm 118:25–26 and points beyond a Jewish Messiah to a universal King whose dominion extends to Jew and Gentile alike. Hearers are called to reckon with the one who fulfilled prophecy at his first advent and who will fulfill it again at his return in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 1, 2015 PM
Acts 7:44–8:4 presents the Christ of Stephen — the Christ that the proto-martyr sees, preaches, and dies gazing upon. Working through five headings drawn from Stephen's speech and vision, the sermon establishes that Christ is the scope of all Scripture, was foretold by the prophets, is perfect in his righteousness (in nature, conduct, and obedience), was betrayed and murdered by determined divine purpose, and is now risen and exalted as both helper and judge. The sermon is delivered as a Lord's Supper meditation, calling believers to a burning remembrance of Christ's substitutionary death and exaltation, and warning unbelievers that the same exalted Son of Man who is joy to his people is dread to all who reject him.
The Believer's Gratitude toward God
Colossians 1:12–14 presents thankfulness not as a general Christian virtue but as an identifying mark of the believer — the fourth of four participles Paul uses to describe a walk fully pleasing to God. This sermon works through the structure of Paul's prayer in Colossians 1:9–14 before expositing the two great grounds of the believer's gratitude: the inheritance of the saints in the light, and the threefold deliverance from the power of darkness — comprising rescue from spiritual darkness, transfer into the kingdom of the Son of His love, and redemption from bondage through the blood of Christ. The Lord's Supper serves as the sermon's occasion, pressing the congregation to come to the table not as a religious routine but as those who genuinely reckon with what forgiveness, deliverance, and a heavenly inheritance cost the Son of God.
The Importance of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper is a divine commandment, not a recommendation, instituted by Christ on the night of his betrayal and binding on his church until he comes again. This exposition of 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 moves through four aspects of the ordinance's importance: its nature as a positive and sovereign institution, its character as a commanded act of remembrance, its object as Christ himself in his person, life, and atoning death, and its quality as a means of grace through which the risen Christ spiritually nourishes his people by his Spirit. The sermon calls believers to joyful, cheerful compliance with the Lord's table — to come, take, eat, and be fed by the exalted Savior who blots out the sins of all who trust in him.