Theological term
Incarnation
167 sermons · All terms
The Sacrifice Remembered
What does it mean to remember the death of Christ at the Lord's Supper? Examining 1 Peter 1:18–20, this sermon traces three dimensions of that remembrance: the incomparable value of Christ's precious blood over all corruptible earthly things, the eternal and love-driven divine purpose behind the atonement foreordained before the foundation of the world, and the singular historical reality of the incarnation and sacrifice. The congregation is called to prize Christ above every earthly attachment and to observe the Lord's Supper with the gravity and joy befitting so great a Savior.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 26, 2017 PM
Titus 3:3–7 expounds the full arc of sovereign grace: the grave former state of all believers in foolishness, disobedience, and depravity; the divine condescension by which God's kindness and love appeared in Christ; and the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit in washing and regenerating dead sinners to new life. Salvation is not by works of righteousness which we have done but entirely according to divine mercy, secured through Jesus Christ alone and applied by the Holy Spirit — a triunely accomplished redemption that eliminates all boasting in self and grounds the believer's perseverance in the immutability of God's electing love.
2 Kings 11
Second Kings 11 records one of the most acute threats to the Davidic covenant: the usurper Athaliah nearly extinguishes the royal line that would ultimately produce the Messiah. The chapter is examined under four headings — the preservation of the Davidic line, the coronation of Joash, the execution of Athaliah, and the renewal of the covenant — tracing how God's providence, not direct intervention, defeats the murderous scheme through the obscure faithfulness of Jehoshabah. Covenant renewal in verse 17 carries an immediate implication: genuine fidelity to Yahweh requires the total destruction of idolatry, a principle that applies with equal force to the believer's ongoing war against sin. The session closes by anchoring the believer's confidence not in the hidden reign of Joash but in the present, absolute reign of his descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 17, 2017 PM
How do we know the gospel is true? First John 1:1–4 opens with John's answer: the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ is grounded in direct sensory experience — hearing, seeing, and handling the Word of life. This sermon works through the introduction to First John under three headings: the messenger, his message, and the benefits of that message. The exposition confronts early docetism (the denial that Christ came in the flesh), insists that eternal life is found only in the incarnate, crucified, and risen Son of God, and calls hearers to hold fast to the apostolic gospel as the only ground of true fellowship with the Father and the Son and of lasting joy.
The Unsurpassed Value of the Gospel
Paul's exhortation to Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel in 2 Timothy 1:8–10 rests on the unsurpassed worth of the salvation it announces. The sermon works through the divine authorship of salvation, the basis of election in God's eternal purpose and grace rather than human works, and the pre-temporal covenant of redemption executed in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. Because Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, believers have every reason to suffer for it without shame, and unbelievers are called to look to Christ alone for justification by faith apart from works.
The Exalted Servant
Philippians 2:5–11 presents the humiliation and exaltation of Christ as both the ground and pattern of Christian humility. Working through Paul's 'Christ hymn,' this sermon expounds the pre-incarnate glory of the Son, his kenotic condescension in taking the form of a bondservant, his obedient death on the cross under the wrath of God, and his subsequent exaltation to the name above every name. The christological argument is anchored in the Chalcedonian distinction of two natures in one person, guarding against any suggestion that the incarnation required Christ to surrender divine attributes. The congregation is called to cultivate the mind of Christ — not as a means of earning salvation, but as the fitting response of those who have been saved by sovereign grace.
The Anointing at Bethany
Matthew 26:6–13 records the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by Mary, sister of Lazarus, who poured a flask of costly spikenard worth a year's wages upon his head. Matthew places this account between the conspiracy of the chief priests and the betrayal by Judas for deliberate theological reasons: where the cross is associated with treachery on every side, it must also be associated with wholehearted worship and adoration. The disciples' indignant charge of 'waste' is exposed as both a direct insult to Mary and an indirect slight upon the dignity of Christ himself, while Jesus' fourfold response vindicates her act as a beautiful thing, a prophetic preparation for his burial, and a deed to be proclaimed wherever the gospel is preached. The sermon calls believers to imitate Mary's extravagant, undivided devotion to Christ, resisting the tendency to reduce Christian faithfulness to either social concern or piety alone.
Of Christ the Mediator 1 (2LCF 8)
The person and work of Christ as mediator stands at the center of Christian theology, as this study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 8 makes clear. Working through all ten paragraphs of the chapter in overview, the session traces the pre-temporal appointment of Christ as mediator in the covenant of redemption, the historical stages of his mediatorial work, and the necessity of his threefold office as prophet, priest, and king. Particular attention falls on paragraph 2's account of the incarnation — the eternal Son taking true human nature with all its essential properties yet without sin — and paragraph 7's careful rule for reading Scripture passages that attribute what belongs to one nature to the other, guarding against both a divinized humanity (Lutheran ubiquitarianism) and a humanized deity. Hearers are called to hold fast the church's historic confession of Christ as one person in two natures, whole, perfect, and distinct, without conversion, composition, or confusion.
The Incarnation and the Victory of Christ
Revelation 12 presents three symbolic figures — the woman (the messianic community and church), the dragon (the devil), and the male child (Christ) — to narrate the decisive victory won at Christ's first advent. The chapter demonstrates that the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God accomplish what was promised in Genesis 3:15: the crushing of the serpent's head. Against prosperity-gospel distortions, the sermon insists that Christ's enthronement does not remove the church's trials but rather explains them, calling believers to resist the devil through the blood of the Lamb and to identify themselves as those who keep the commandments of God.
The Riches and the Poverty of Christ
Second Corinthians 8:9 presents the incarnation of the eternal Son as the supreme theological ground for Christian generosity: though he was rich in essential deity, Christ became poor by addition — taking on humanity — that his people through his poverty might become rich. The sermon exposits the riches of Christ in his divine nature and the poverty of Christ in his state of humiliation, drawing on the Chalcedonian definition of the hypostatic union as articulated in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 8. Doctrinal appropriation of Christology is shown to be the indispensable spring of practical Christian living, including sacrificial giving, mortification of sin, and love within the home.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 4, 2016 AM
Philippians 2:8–11 presents the obedience of Christ as the crux of the gospel: the Son of God, fully God and fully man, humbled himself unto the cross death in substitutionary obedience to the law of God in the place of all who believe. This sermon works through three movements — the reality, the crux, and the result of Christ's obedience — grounding each in the theology of the two Adams: as Adam's disobedience plunged mankind into sin and condemnation, so Christ's perfect obedience as the second Adam restores and surpasses all that was lost. The obedience of Christ is not merely a doctrinal category but a free gift of righteousness received by faith alone, the very lifeblood of the gospel, received with joy and answered in humble service to others after the pattern of the Lord.
The Hymn to Christ as to God, Part 3
What does it mean that Christ 'emptied himself' in Philippians 2:7? This sermon works through the first clause of Christ's condescension, arguing that the self-emptying was not a divestiture of deity but an addition of humanity — Christ took on what he was not without ceasing to be what he eternally was. The incarnation is treated under two headings: his self-emptying by assuming man's nature, and his self-humiliation in engaging that nature as a bondservant. The sermon closes by drawing out the practical weight of Christ's true humanity for worship, perseverance under suffering, and help in temptation.
The Hymn to Christ as to God
Philippians 2:5–11, known in scholarly and devotional tradition as a hymn to Christ as to God, opens a series of expository studies through one of the most concentrated christological passages in the New Testament. This sermon establishes the exhortation's context within the letter to the Philippians — a message of thanksgiving and rejoicing addressed to a church facing external persecution but inward temptation toward pride and disunity — and then examines the exordium of verse 5: 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.' Three qualifications govern the use of Christ as example: He is not only nor primarily an example, Christians are called to imitate His disposition rather than duplicate His saving work, and this lowliness of mind is not the pathway to salvation but the characteristic mark of those already saved by grace through faith. The sermon closes with a direct call to humility modeled on Christ's condescension and an evangelistic summons to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ before that day when every knee shall bow in judgment.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 31, 2016 AM
Hebrews 10:19–25 presents the doctrinal foundation and practical exhortations that flow from Christ's high priestly office. The passage opens with two grand encouragements — the believer's boldness to enter the holiest of holies by the blood of Jesus, and the possession of a great high priest over the house of God — before issuing three corresponding imperatives: draw near, hold fast the confession of hope, and consider one another. The sermon insists that the access to God secured by Christ's atoning death and the tearing of the veil is a present possession to be actively used, not a theoretical privilege to be admired from a distance. Believers are urged to attend the public assembly, maintain private and family worship, and pray for one another with the urgency appropriate to those who see the day approaching.
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.
Gospel and Doxology for the Galatians
Galatians 1:4-5 presents both a summary of the true gospel and a call to doxology, set against the backdrop of the false gospel threatening the Galatian churches. The sermon works through three movements in the gospel itself: Christ who gave Himself (His free act, His assumption of human nature, His vicarious obedience, and His sacrificial death), the substitutionary and cleansing effect of that giving 'for our sins,' and the deliverance from this present evil age effected according to the sovereign will of God the Father. The exposition closes with Paul's doxology, arguing from Job, Acts 17, and the 1689 confession that God does not stand in need of glory but that His creatures are called to ascribe to Him the glory eternally due His name. Hearers are exhorted to know the triune God, guard against every false gospel, and train themselves now in the ascription of glory that will occupy the saints forever.
An Encouragement to Look unto Jesus
Hebrews 12:2 calls the struggling Christian to run with endurance by looking unto Jesus — not merely as a moral example, but as the author and finisher of faith, the one who both originates and secures the believer's perseverance to the end. The sermon works through five aspects of Christ presented in the verse: his person, his work as author and finisher of faith, his resolve in enduring the cross for the joy set before him, his shame and suffering in the crucifixion, and his present exaltation at the right hand of God. The cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11 testifies unanimously that God is faithful, but the believer's gaze must ultimately rest on Christ himself, in whom all hope, trust, and confidence are grounded. The practical summons is to use the means of grace — Scripture, prayer, the Lord's Supper, and the gathered assembly — to keep the eyes of faith fixed on Jesus and to press on without coasting.
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.
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.
A Tomb for a Testimony
Why was Jesus buried? The burial of Christ, recorded by all four evangelists and confessed in the Apostles' Creed, is far more than narrative filler between the cross and the empty tomb. This exposition of Luke 23:50–56 argues that the burial of Jesus is a historic apologetic for the Christian faith: it proves the reality of the incarnation, illustrates the full depth of his humiliation, certifies that his atoning death was genuine, and serves as the necessary prerequisite for the bodily resurrection. Because Christ sanctified the grave by lying in it, believers may face death and burial without fear, assured that the penalty for sin has been discharged and that bodily resurrection awaits them as it awaited him.
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.
The Vision of the Unrivaled Majesty, Part 2
Isaiah 6:1–7 confronts the reader with the unrivaled majesty of the triune God and the radical grace that answers the creature's ruin. This exposition completes an earlier morning sermon by examining the third point of the passage: the blessed atonement from the altar of the Lord, in which a seraph carries a live coal from the altar to purge Isaiah's unclean lips. Atonement comes from the Lord alone, through sacrifice alone, and it comforts, confirms, and fits the pardoned sinner for renewed service — a pattern illustrated by David in Psalm 51, Peter in John 21, and codified in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 18. Hearers are called to reflect often on the greatness of God, to refuse self-atonement, to use the means of grace faithfully, and to flee to Christ whenever despair lays them low.
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 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.
The Shedding of Innocent Blood
The sixth commandment's prohibition of murder, grounded in the doctrine of man as image-bearer of God, applies with full force to abortion. This sermon works through Exodus 21:22–25 to demonstrate that the Mosaic civil law affords explicit legal protection to both mother and pre-born child, and that the correct translation of the passage — 'she gives birth prematurely' rather than 'she miscarries' — is exegetically decisive for the abortion debate. The sanctity of human life is established across the full range of human existence: before the fall, after it, in children, the pre-born, the handicapped, the sick, and the elderly — and is ultimately grounded in the Incarnation, by which Christ assumed and thereby dignified human flesh. The sermon closes by calling the church to informed prayer, chaste living, and flight to the cross, where there is full forgiveness even for those implicated in abortion.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 3
What role did the Holy Spirit play in the earthly ministry of Christ, and why does it matter for the doctrine of salvation? Expounding 2LCF Chapter 8, Paragraph 3, this session traces the Spirit's work across every stage of the Mediator's mission: the virginal conception, the public ministry, the cross, and the resurrection. Because Christ executed his mediatorial office in his human nature — not merely by the immediate operation of his divine nature — the Father's gift of the Spirit without measure to the man Christ Jesus is essential to orthodox Christology and to the assurance that a genuinely human Mediator has met every demand of the covenant on behalf of the elect.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 2
The deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, as confessed in 2LCF Chapter 8 paragraphs 1–3, stand as the twin foundations of orthodox Christology. This session from a series on the 1689 London Baptist Confession works through what the confession affirms — and what it denies — regarding both natures of the one Mediator, showing how its language recapitulates the early church's creedal formulations. The study demonstrates the deity of Christ from his self-identification as the divine 'I Am,' his equality with the Father, explicit New Testament declarations, Old Testament Yahweh texts applied to him in the New Testament, and divine prerogatives predicated of him. The humanity of Christ is then established from the birth narratives, apostolic declaration, and Christ's own evidential self-disclosure, preparing the ground for a subsequent session on the incarnation proper.