Theological term
Imputation
654 sermons · All terms
Very man: "Now my soul is troubled"
John 12:27–28 records the Son of God incarnate declaring 'Now my soul is troubled' — words that are simultaneously a window into his true humanity and a display of his sinless obedience at the threshold of Calvary. This sermon works through the four clauses of those verses, arguing that Christ's soul-trouble was real and holy, arising not from cowardice before mere bodily suffering but from his contemplation of the divine wrath he would bear as the substitute for sinners. Drawing on Cyril of Alexandria's principle that 'what is not assumed is not healed,' the sermon shows that Christ's sinless experience of grief, agitation, and soul-anguish recapitulates every stage of fallen human experience so that he might procure both the forgiveness of guilt and the positive righteousness his people need in every circumstance of life. The congregation is called to rest its entire confidence — prayer life, grief, daily obedience — in the blood and righteousness of the one who said 'For this purpose I came to this hour.'
Ask FGBC #8 - How could one man pay for the sins of the world in 36 hours?
How could one man's death over a finite span of time pay for the sins of billions who deserve eternal punishment? The answer turns on two doctrines: federal headship and the infinite dignity of Christ's person. As Adam stood as covenant head for his posterity, so Christ — the eternal Son of God united to human nature in one person — stands as the last Adam, whose active and passive obedience together provide both forgiveness and a righteousness imputed to all who believe. The infinite nature of the sin and the infinite nature of the person who bears it are the key to understanding why the atonement is sufficient.
The Nature of the Holy Spirit, Part 2
Jesus' promise in John 14:17–18 — that the Spirit of truth cannot be received by the world, yet dwells with and will be in his disciples — grounds the church's dependence on sovereign grace for all gospel ministry. The sermon works through the doctrine of inseparable operations and appropriations to protect both the unity of the Godhead and the distinction of persons, before applying the Spirit's indwelling to the perseverance of the saints and the sufficiency of the gospel. The closing exhortation presses both believers and unbelievers: the Spirit abides forever, justification is by faith alone, and the righteousness of Christ is imputed — not merely forgiveness extended — to all who come to him.
The Depths of Sin and the Riches of Grace
Psalm 130 moves from the depths of spiritual distress to the heights of pardoning grace, and this exposition traces that movement through three divisions: the psalmist's cry of distress (vv. 1–2), his recognition of divine justice and divine forgiveness (vv. 3–4), and his patient exhortation to all Israel (vv. 5–8). The sermon establishes that the believer's remaining corruption should drive him not to silence but to earnest prayer, since the only remedy for sin is the grace of God. The justice of God is never mitigated in the gospel: at the cross, strict justice was satisfied upon Christ as substitute and curse-bearer, so that God is simultaneously just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The sermon closes with an appeal both to the struggling believer — do not make peace with remaining sin, but cry out to God — and to the unconverted, for whom the same abundant redemption is freely available in Christ.
The Great Commission
Matthew 28:11–20 presents two responses to the resurrection of Christ: the fraudulent suppression of the evidence by the chief priests and elders, and the Great Commission given by the risen Lord to his disciples. The passage exposes the lie concocted by the Sanhedrin as historically incoherent and theologically revealing — a judgment of God upon covenant-breaking Israel. The Great Commission is then unfolded through its four-fold use of 'all': Christ's absolute authority as mediator grounds the command to go, make disciples, baptize believers as new covenant members, and teach them to observe all that he has commanded.
Justification by Faith Alone
What does it mean to be justified before God, and on what ground does that justification rest? Working through Romans 4:23–5:1 against the broader backdrop of Romans 3:19–5:5, this sermon expounds four heads: the nature of justification, the receiving instrument of justification, the perfect ground of justification, and the blessed result. Justification is by an act of imputation — the sins of all who believe are reckoned to Christ and His righteousness is reckoned to them — not by any admixture of human works. The resurrection of Christ stands as the divine vindication that the work of atonement is complete, and the call goes forth to believer and unbeliever alike to rest in Christ alone.
Peace with God Through Justification
Romans 5:1 declares that justification by faith produces peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ — a peace that assumes a prior condition of enmity, guilt, and divine wrath. This sermon traces that peace through the whole of Scripture, from its Old Testament promise in Isaiah and Micah, through its announcement at the nativity, to its accomplishment in Christ's active and passive obedience. The principal pastoral application is that Christian assurance rests not on the ebb and flow of one's walk but on the immutability of the divine decree, the intercession of the ascended Christ, and the covenant of grace.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification
How is a guilty sinner declared righteous before a holy God? This study of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 11 works through the six paragraphs on justification, giving careful attention to the three pairs of denials and affirmations in paragraph one. The confession is set against the Roman Catholic conflation of justification and sanctification, Socinian and Arminian errors regarding faith and evangelical obedience as the ground of justification, and the doctrine of eternal personal justification. The sole ground of the sinner's acceptance before God is the imputed active and passive obedience of Christ, received through faith alone — itself a gift of God — so that God is glorified as both perfectly just and richly gracious in the justification of sinners.
The Whole Armor of God, Part 1
Ephesians 6:10–17 calls the believer to armed, active resistance against a spiritual enemy whose power and cunning exceed any merely human opposition. The sermon works through three movements in the passage: the necessity of the armor (vv. 10–11a), the reason for it in the reality of demonic spiritual warfare (vv. 11b–12), and the meaning of each defensive piece — truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation — drawn from both Old Testament background and Paul's wider corpus. Against the tendency toward either passive Christianity or an obsessive preoccupation with demonic activity, the text calls every believer to stand, hold ground, and advance, doing so entirely in dependence on the power of the risen and ascended Christ who reigns over all principalities and powers.
The Promise of Blessings and Cursing, Part 2
Leviticus 26:14–46 sets forth the covenant curses God threatened against Israel for breaking the Mosaic Covenant — a covenant of works — escalating through drought, wild animals, war, cannibalism, wholesale destruction, and exile. These curses came to historical fulfillment in the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria in 722 BC, the fall of the Southern Kingdom to Babylon in 586 BC, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70 — events prophesied in the Olivet Discourse and confirmed by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2. The chapter closes with a promise of restoration conditioned on Israel's humble repentance and God's fidelity to the Abrahamic covenant. Believers under the New Covenant are freed from these covenant curses because Christ bore them fully, fulfilling the demands of the law and standing as the surety of a better covenant.
The Ministry in Pisidia Antioch
Paul's evangelistic address in the synagogue at Pisidia Antioch reaches its climax in Acts 13:38–43 with two inseparable gospel blessings: the forgiveness of sins and justification by faith alone apart from the works of the law. The sermon traces the inability of the Mosaic law to justify — not because the law is defective, but because sinners cannot render the perfect, entire, and perpetual obedience it demands — and shows how Christ's active and passive obedience supply precisely what the law exposes as lacking. The response of the Gentiles, who begged to hear the gospel again, is held up as a rebuke to any preaching that substitutes self-help or moralism for the proclamation of free acceptance with God through Christ alone.
The Demonstration of Servanthood
John 13:4–17 presents the foot washing not merely as an act of hospitality but as an emblem pointing simultaneously to the incarnation, the passion, regeneration, justification, and sanctification. The Son of God who stoops to wash the dirty feet of dirty men is the same Son of God who goes to the cross to wash the dirty hearts of dirty sinners. Peter's initial refusal and subsequent capitulation illustrate the sinner's need for union with Christ — a union granted only through being washed, born again, and cleansed by the blood of Christ. Disciples who have received this washing are therefore obligated to go and serve others in humility, self-sacrifice, and love as the means by which they advance the gospel.
The Promise of Blessings and Curses (Part 1)
Leviticus 26:1–13 opens with a promise of blessing conditioned on Israel's obedience — a structure that raises the question of how the Old Covenant relates to the New. This study expounds the covenantal framework underlying Leviticus 26, arguing that the Old Covenant operated as a covenant of works at the national level, distinct from the covenant of grace realized in Christ. The blessings of rain, peace, and God's presence promised to Israel find their fulfillment in the New Covenant, where the obedience that secures blessing is Christ's own, imputed to his people by faith alone.
The Child and Parent Relationship, Part 1
Ephesians 6:1–3 addresses children directly within the gathered congregation, a detail that itself carries ecclesiological weight: Paul assumes children are present under the preaching of the Word, not segregated from it. The sermon works through two movements — the rightness of obedience grounded in the light of nature and created order, and the requirement of God's law grounded in the fifth commandment (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16), which Paul universalizes from Old Covenant Israel to Gentile children in Ephesus and, by extension, to every generation. The three uses of the law are carefully distinguished: the law cannot justify, but it restrains, reveals sin and the need for Christ, and then normatively patterns the sanctified life of the believer. Children are urged to search their hearts, see their failure to honor and obey, and flee to Christ for the righteousness they lack.
The Introduction to the Upper Room Discourse
John 13:1–3 functions as the theological introduction to the entire Upper Room Discourse (John 13–16), establishing three controlling realities: the arrival of Christ's appointed hour, the opposition of the devil through Judas, and the resolute authority and mission of the Son of God. The love of Christ for his own — unchanging, constant, and infinite — is the motivating force behind everything he teaches his disciples in those chapters. Those whom the Father gave to the Son are not a morally superior class but guilty sinners chosen in sovereign grace, loved to the uttermost through the cross, resurrection, intercession, and into eternity. Sound Trinitarian doctrine, far from being merely academic, is the very fuel that moves the church to worship, witness, and perseverance.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 5
The work of Christ as Mediator — his active and passive obedience, definite atonement, and threefold office as prophet, priest, and king — is the subject of this exposition of 2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 8, paragraphs 4 through 10. The confession traces Christ's voluntary humiliation, his satisfaction of divine justice as a propitiation, and the retroactive efficacy of that work for Old Covenant saints who looked forward to him through promises, types, and sacrifices. Paragraph 8's teaching that Christ certainly and effectually applies redemption to all for whom he obtained it grounds the assurance of salvation entirely in the sovereign purpose of God rather than foreseen conditions in the sinner. The threefold office — prophet to instruct the ignorant, priest to reconcile the alienated, king to subdue and preserve the unwilling — frames the believer's comprehensive dependence on Christ alone.
Live Stream - January 14, 2024
Exodus 12 sets forth the institution of the Passover as a type pointing forward to the atoning work of Christ, the true Lamb of God. The sermon works through the preparation for the Passover (vv. 1–11) and its twofold significance in judgment and mercy (vv. 12–13), before drawing out the antitypical fulfillment: the identification, nature, appropriation, and particular benefits of Christ's sacrifice. A closing illustration from D. A. Carson presses the pastoral application that the ground of the believer's assurance before God is not the strength or quality of faith but the blood of the Lamb alone.
Israel, the Unturned Pancake
Hosea 7:8 delivers a striking verdict against Israel: 'Ephraim is a cake unturned' — a half-baked pancake, burnt on one side and raw on the other, displeasing and fit to be pushed away. The sermon expounds this image as God's indictment against a people who had mixed the practices of surrounding nations into their moral, civil, and ceremonial life, violating the law that was meant to reflect the character of Yahweh. The analogy is then pressed upon every hearer: all humanity, created as image-bearers, has similarly mixed sin into the batter of life and stands displeasing before a holy God who demands perfect obedience. The remedy is not self-reformation but Christ alone — the one who lived in perfect obedience, presented himself as a sweet-smelling offering, and paid for every failure of his people, so that all who believe are accepted in him and then called to pursue intentional conformity to his image.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 4
The person of the Lord Jesus Christ — his true humanity, sinlessness, and mediatorial office — is examined through paragraphs 2, 3, and 7 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 8. The session works through the Virgin birth by the power of the Holy Spirit, the essential properties and common infirmities of Christ's assumed human nature, his sinlessness according to that nature, and the role of the Holy Spirit in equipping him for his mediatorial task. Paragraph 7's doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum is then treated, establishing what may and may not properly be said of Christ given the hypostatic union of two natures in one person.
The Wisdom of Little Things
Proverbs 30:24–28 presents four creatures — ants, rock badgers, locusts, and spiders — that are little on the earth yet exceedingly wise, each compensating for weakness through a distinct form of wisdom. The sermon argues that these creatures function as divinely appointed patterns for human imitation, both temporally (in diligence, self-defense, unity, and perseverance) and spiritually (in preparing for the day of judgment, fleeing to Christ as refuge, advancing together as the church, and persisting in heavenly ambition). Self-awareness of one's own weakness is the prerequisite to each form of compensatory wisdom, and pride is its chief enemy. The great spiritual application is that the weak and feeble, who have no righteousness of their own, find their only refuge in Christ — the rock of salvation who hides them from the torrent of God's just wrath.
The Priority in the Believer's Life
Jesus prohibits anxiety over material provision in Matthew 6:25–34, grounding that prohibition in the sovereign care of a Father who already knows what His people need. The passage is expounded under two heads: the repeated prohibition against worry concerning life, body, and tomorrow (vv. 25–32), and the governing principle that believers are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (vv. 33–34). The sermon argues that chronic anxiety about temporal things is functionally Gentile thinking — a failure to translate sound doctrine of divine sovereignty and providence into the ordinary rhythms of daily life. The remedy is not mere willpower but a rightly ordered theology: what a man truly believes about God will determine whether he lives as a kingdom-seeking servant or as one paralyzed by the concerns of this world.
The Defense of the Faith
Jude 3 commands every believer — not merely clergy or scholars — to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This sermon expounds the exhortation, its rationale in the infiltration of ungodly men who pervert grace and deny Christ, and the practical readiness required: remembering apostolic warnings, building on Scripture, praying in the Spirit, and looking for the mercy of Christ at His return. The defence of the faith is not optional, not confined to specialists, and not finally dependent on human faithfulness — it is God's fight, and He keeps those who contend.
The Promise of the Messiah
Genesis 3:14–24 contains the first announcement of the gospel — the proto-evangel — in which God promises that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent, though at the cost of his own suffering and death. The sermon traces four observations from verse 15: the Redeemer would be a man born of a woman, would accomplish victory through suffering, through death, and in total victory over the devil. The latter half of the passage is then examined for the hope that extends beyond the fall: Adam's naming of Eve as 'mother of all living' as an act of faith in God's promise, and God's provision of tunics of skin as a typological foreshadowing of blood atonement. The hearer is urged to cast faith upon the seed of the woman — the Lord Jesus Christ — who has done what Adam and Eve, and what every sinner, could not do for themselves.
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 Husband and Wife Relationship, Part 2
What does it mean for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church? Expounding Ephesians 5:25–27, this sermon argues that the husband's headship is never a license for domestic tyranny but is always to be exercised as a reign of love, patterned after Christ's self-sacrificing, sanctifying love for his bride. The sermon works through the nature and explanation of the command to love, the characteristics of that love (faithful monogamy, consistent self-sacrifice, joyful commitment to the wife's well-being), and its threefold expression: praying for her, providing for her, and protecting her. The passage then opens into the broader Christological vision of Ephesians 5:26–27 — Christ's definite atonement, his sanctifying and cleansing of the church, and his purpose to present her to himself without spot, wrinkle, or blemish — held up as both the ground and the standard of the husband's love.
The Unsurpassed Value of the Gospel
The gospel of Jesus Christ is worth suffering and dying for — not because of its abstract beauty, but because of its origin, its author, and its achievement. Expounding 2 Timothy 1:8–10, this sermon traces Paul's exhortation to Timothy through three movements: the pattern for gospel ministry (refusing shame and embracing suffering in God's power), the origin of God's plan of salvation (purposed before time began, not according to works but according to divine grace), and the execution of that plan in the appearing of Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. The Lord's Supper frames the entire meditation, giving the congregation cause to rejoice that the one who purposed their salvation in eternity has accomplished it decisively in history.
The Problem of Sin and the Mercy of God
Proverbs 28:13 identifies sin as the universal human problem and prescribes confession and forsaking of sin as the divinely appointed remedy. The sermon examines four aspects of the problem — the twin assumptions of universal sinfulness and the instinct to conceal it, biblical examples of attempted cover-up from Genesis to Acts, the common methods by which sinners suppress or redefine sin, and the cursed outcome of impenitence in both this age and the age to come. The remedy is traced through the exercise of faith (confession as agreement with God and trust in Christ's blood and righteousness), genuine repentance (forsaking sin rather than merely regretting it), and the certain merciful result — not a possibility but a promise — for all who lay hold of Christ as surety.
Live Stream - November 26, 2023
Colossians 1:13–20 sets forth one of the richest concentrations of Christology in the New Testament, and this exposition works through it under three heads: the concise statement of salvation as divine deliverance from darkness into the kingdom of the Son, an expansion on the identity and work of that Son (his essential Divine Majesty, his mediatorial kingship, and his Redemptive Excellence in the crosswork), and finally the apostolic proclamation of this same Christ as the proper content of all Christian preaching. The sermon argues throughout that the errors threatening the Colossian church — and the church today — are answered not by novelty but by a high and uncompromising Christology that refuses to bring Christ down from his throne. The closing application draws from Hebrews 5: Christians are to press on from milk to solid food, growing in the knowledge of Christ so as to speak truthfully of the King of Kings to a world that in the Christmas season catches only a blurred glimpse of a babe in a manger.
The Psalmist's Prophetic Anticipation of the Apostolic Proclamation of Christ
Psalm 19 is read not merely as a declaration of general and special revelation but as a prophetic anticipation, interpreted by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10, of the apostolic proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Working through seven points across the psalm's three movements, the sermon traces the symbol, referent, and message of each image: heavens and firmament pointing to the apostles, the sun pointing to Christ the Bridegroom and Son of Righteousness, and the law, testimony, statutes, and judgments pointing to the gospel itself. The Word of God is shown to be perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, and righteous — qualities that belong to the gospel, not the Mosaic law — and its effects of conversion, wisdom, rejoicing, and enlightenment call both believer and unbeliever to rest in Christ, the Son of Righteousness, whose glory has gone out to the ends of the earth.
The Explanation of the Jews' Unbelief
John 12:37–41 presents a theology of unbelief: despite the abundance of miraculous signs performed before their eyes, the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus refused to believe. The sermon examines their question about the Messiah's death in verses 34–36, shows their partial but deficient grasp of Old Testament prophecy, and then expounds John's double appeal to Isaiah — Isaiah 53:1 on the rejection of the servant's report, and Isaiah 6:9–10 on the divine judicial hardening of those who persistently resist. The unbelief of Jesus' hearers was not a failure of his ministry but the precise fulfillment of what God had foretold through his prophet, confirming that regeneration and faith are gifts of sovereign grace, not products of evidential persuasion. The sermon closes with a direct call to believe in the light while it may be found, grounded in the glory of the incarnate Son that Isaiah himself beheld in the throne room.