Theological term
Noahic Covenant
40 sermons · All terms
The Maintenance of Justice
Deuteronomy 16:18–17:7 establishes the framework for civil justice in Old Covenant Israel: the appointment of impartial judges, the prohibition of idolatrous practices that precede full apostasy, and a carefully guarded procedure for prosecuting capital offenses. The passage demonstrates that God's theocratic ordering of Israel required both judicial righteousness and cultic holiness, since Yahweh was simultaneously God and King. Israel's repeated failure to maintain this standard drives the expectation forward to Christ, the true Israel, who alone executes judgment with perfect righteousness. The enduring principles of due process, equal application of law, and capital punishment remain binding norms for civil government in every age, grounded not in Mosaic theocracy alone but in the Noahic covenant and the New Testament's own teaching on the sword.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
2 London Baptist Confession Chapter 24 examines the divine origin, proper scope, and Christian obligations relating to civil government. Civil magistrates are ordained by God, under his authority, for his glory and the public good, with their power limited to maintaining justice and peace through the sword — encompassing criminal punishment, capital justice, and defense against foreign invasion. The sermon argues that Christians may lawfully serve as magistrates or soldiers, directly contra the Anabaptist tradition, and that the Confession's three paragraphs provide a sufficient framework for navigating contemporary political crises. Believers are called to submit to lawful commands, resist unlawful ones, and pray persistently for governing authorities so that the church may worship freely.
The Sixth Commandment, Part 2
The sixth commandment's prohibition of murder raises pressing questions about the lawfulness of capital punishment — questions this study addresses by examining common objections, both biblical and pragmatic. Working through passages in Genesis 9, Romans 12–13, Matthew 5, and John 8, the study argues that none of these texts undermines the death penalty; rather, each, rightly interpreted, confirms that the civil magistrate is God's ordained avenger, armed with the sword to execute retributive justice. The account of the woman caught in adultery is shown to uphold, not overturn, the law of Moses, since Jesus' appeal to qualified witnesses is itself a requirement of that law. Believers are called to embrace the whole counsel of God on civil justice, including its consistency with — not contradiction of — the free offer of the gospel.
The Sixth Commandment, Part 1
The sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder' (Deuteronomy 5:17), forbids not only the external act of unlawful killing but also the internal dispositions of hatred, unwarranted anger, and the assassination of another's character. The sermon establishes that the Hebrew term rendered 'murder' carries the specific sense of premeditated, intentional killing, thereby distinguishing murder from accidental homicide, negligent homicide, and three categories of lawful killing: capital punishment, just war, and self-defense. The bulk of the study undertakes a biblical theology of the death penalty, tracing it from the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9:6 through the Mosaic legislation and into the New Testament witness of Acts 25 and Romans 13:1–4, arguing that capital punishment is a non-abrogated, common-grace ordinance binding on all civil governments. Christians are called to think biblically about civil government, to pray for just magistrates, and to reject the cultural sentimentalism that has displaced God's revealed standard for the punishment of murderers.
The Regulations for Life in Canaan
Numbers 32–36 closes the book with regulations governing Israel's entry into Canaan: the Transjordanian tribal allotments, the itinerary of the wilderness journey, the boundaries of the land, Levitical cities, cities of refuge, and the inheritance rights of female heirs. The legislation on cities of refuge anchors a sustained exposition of the distinction between murder and manslaughter, grounded in the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9:6, and carries forward the biblical case for capital punishment as a perpetual civil obligation. The study closes by tracing Christ through Numbers — as the guiding presence, the compassionate shepherd, the greater Joshua, the great high priest, and the brazen serpent lifted up for the life of the world — and applies the wilderness pattern to the new covenant people who must persevere through present affliction toward an eternal Canaan.
The Sixth Commandment
The Sixth Commandment — 'You shall not murder' (Exodus 20:13) — addresses far more than the physical act of killing; it presupposes the dignity of every human being as an image-bearer of God and condemns unrighteous hatred of the heart. This sermon expounds the Hebrew word for murder, distinguishing it from lawful killing in capital punishment, just war, and self-defense, before pressing the command's indictment of abortion and euthanasia as violations of the sanctity of life. Jesus's teaching in Matthew 5 extends the commandment's reach to unwarranted anger and character assassination, and the three uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — frame both the church's public witness and the believer's ongoing sanctification. The sermon closes by insisting that the most faithful response to a death culture is to preach both the law and the cross of Christ.
Ask FGBC #19: Should Christians engage in politics?
Should Christians engage in politics? This Q&A addresses the Christian's dual citizenship — as a member of both the church and the civil body politic — and argues that while political engagement is neither commanded nor forbidden by Scripture, it is entirely lawful. The discussion distinguishes the church's spiritual sword (the gospel and the keys of the kingdom) from the civil state's coercive sword, drawing on the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9 as the foundational charter for justice, family, and enterprise in society. The threefold use of the law is applied to show why preaching against abortion or civil injustice is ethics and theology, not partisan politics.
Leviticus 20 - the Death Penalty
Leviticus 20 catalogues capital offenses under the Mosaic law — idolatry, witchcraft, adultery, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality — and provides the occasion for a sustained biblical-theological treatment of the death penalty across the covenants. The study traces the authorization of capital punishment from the Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9 through the Mosaic legislation and into the New Covenant via Acts 25 and Romans 13, arguing that the death penalty remains a binding obligation upon civil magistrates. Romans 13 is read as the New Testament's clearest statement that the sword entrusted to the civil magistrate is God's instrument for executing wrath upon evildoers in history, not merely a sign of general authority. Hearers are called to think biblically about the proper and limited role of civil government, to resist the conflation of civil submission with capitulation to tyranny, and to uphold the abiding moral normativity of capital punishment for murder and other heinous crimes.
Wednesday Night Bible Study - November 8, 2023
Leviticus 20 prescribes specific penal sanctions for covenant violations, and this study surveys those sanctions before turning to the broader biblical teaching on capital punishment. The Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9:6), understood as a universal common grace covenant never abrogated, grounds the death penalty for murder in the imago Dei and assigns its execution to the civil magistrate. Old Covenant Israel adds further distinctions — between accidental homicide and murder, between first-table and second-table offenses — and Numbers 35 establishes that no monetary ransom may substitute for the execution of a murderer. The study closes by noting that blood guilt defiles the land and can only be expiated by the blood of the one who shed it, setting up a subsequent session on the New Testament's treatment of capital punishment.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate, Part 2
The institution of monarchy in Israel, recorded in 1 Samuel 8, exposes the perennial danger of substituting a new form of government for trust in God—a sin Israel had already committed in 1 Samuel 4 and against which God had vindicated himself in chapter 7. The passage illustrates that total depravity applies not only to individuals but to corporate institutions, and that governments possessing legitimate divine sanction can nonetheless exploit those they govern. The sermon concludes with a survey of four historic approaches to the church-state relationship—Erastianism, Roman Catholic theocracy, theonomy, and the two-kingdoms framework—arguing that the two-kingdoms distinction, wherein Christ rules the church by his Word and the civil order by natural law, provides the most scripturally defensible framework for Christian citizenship.
The Sixth Commandment
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — receives a full exposition covering the Hebrew term ratza, the threefold division of law, the three uses of the law, the internal dimensions of the commandment, the three biblically warranted exceptions to the prohibition against killing, and the theological foundation of all human life in the imago Dei. The sermon moves from careful lexical and exegetical analysis to a sustained application across abortion, capital punishment, just war, self-defense, and the protection of every stage of human life from womb to grave. Hearers are called to pray for civil government, preach the law as a tutor to the cross, and hold fast to a biblical anthropology in a culture that systematically devalues image-bearers of God.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Civil government is divinely ordained, not diabolical — a claim the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) sets out in chapter 24 and grounds in Romans 13:1–7 and the Noahic covenant. This study works through the confession's three paragraphs to establish the divine origin of the magistrate's authority, the lawfulness of Christian participation in civil office, and the Christian's duty of submission and prayer toward governing authorities. Against both Anabaptist withdrawal and statist overreach, the confession teaches that the magistrate is under God and over the people for God's glory and the public good — charged with maintaining justice and peace, wielding the sword against criminals and foreign aggressors, and accountable to God and the governed alike. Christians must yield subjection in all lawful things, yet obey God rather than men when civil law transgresses divine law.
The Laws Concerning Homicide & Bodily Injury (Part I)
Exodus 21:12–21 applies the Sixth and Fifth Commandments through the judicial law of Israel, treating the capital offenses of murder, parental assault, cursing of parents, and kidnapping, then moving to laws governing non-fatal bodily injury and the discipline of servants. The sermon draws on the Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9:6), the abiding authority of civil government to bear the sword (Romans 13), and the general equity principle to argue that these case laws carry enduring moral weight even outside the Mosaic theocracy. Listeners are called to pray for civil governments to discharge their God-ordained duty of punishing criminal offenders, and to take seriously the fifth commandment's demand that parental authority be honored and enforced in the home.
Book introduction: The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom
Samuel Renihan introduces his book 'The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom,' explaining its origins in his seminary-era dissatisfaction with both pedobaptist and Baptist covenantal literature. He argues that historical particular Baptist covenant theology has been largely forgotten, and that modern Reformed Baptist literature has suffered from poor historical theology, excessive polemicism, and conclusions stated without premises. The book is structured by biblical theology rather than systematic theology, tracing three covenantal kingdoms — creation, Israel, and Christ — and contends that the concept of mystery in Paul is essential to a properly calibrated covenant theology that distinguishes the old covenants from the new covenant without collapsing the progressive development of divine revelation.
The 6th Commandment
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — is one of the briefest commands in the Decalogue, yet it carries profound theological and legal weight. This expository Bible study examines the precise Hebrew terminology that distinguishes murder from other forms of killing, establishes the internal disposition (hatred, unrighteous anger, character assassination) as equally condemned by the sixth commandment alongside the external act, and then surveys three exceptions to the prohibition: capital punishment, just war, and self-defense. Each exception is grounded in both Old and New Testament texts, with sustained attention to the Noahic Covenant, Romans 13, and Exodus 22, demonstrating that the civil magistrate's sword is a God-ordained instrument of justice rather than a violation of the commandment.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 9
Acts 18:12–28 traces the close of Paul's second missionary journey through three episodes: his trial before the Roman proconsul Gallio, his departure from Corinth back to Antioch, and a preview of the Alexandrian Jewish teacher Apollos. The exposition treats Gallio's dismissal of the Jewish charge against Paul as a model of properly bounded civil authority — punishing wrongdoing, not regulating theology — while also exposing Gallio's failure to protect Sosthenes as a departure from impartial justice. Paul's continued residence in Corinth after the hearing illustrates faith in the sustaining promises of Christ, and the sermon closes with a call to pray for faithful gospel preachers and an obedient people who respond to their ministry.
The Christian's Duty toward Non-Christians
Titus 3:1–3 sets out the Christian's duty toward both civil government and all people outside the church. The sermon traces the divine origin of civil government from Genesis 9 through Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, arguing from Francis Turretin's two-kingdom framework that Christ rules both the civil and spiritual spheres, and that the civil state therefore has no authority to command the church as church. Verse 3's catalogue of pre-conversion vices — foolishness, disobedience, malice, hatred — is read as a theological reason for patient, peaceable, and humble conduct toward non-Christians: believers were once exactly what they now struggle to bear in others, and those others may yet become objects of the same sovereign grace.
The Sixth Commandment
The sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder,' forbids not only the external act of taking innocent life but also the internal dispositions of hatred, unwarranted anger, and character assassination that flow from the same malicious heart. The sermon distinguishes murder from three lawful forms of killing — capital punishment, just war, and self-defense — grounding each in the abiding authority of Scripture from the Noahic Covenant through the New Testament. The image of God in every human being is the theological foundation for the commandment's reach across abortion, euthanasia, and the neglect of capital punishment. Hearers are called to clarity on the law's three uses, to renounce internal murder within the church, and to find in the gospel the only remedy for sinners who have violated this commandment in heart or deed.
The Death Penalty
Genesis 9:6 grounds the biblical mandate for capital punishment in the image of God: to shed human blood unlawfully is to assault God himself, and the prescribed penalty reflects the weight of that offense. This sermon works through the Noahic covenant as a common-grace ordinance never abrogated, traces the continuity of capital punishment into the New Testament through Romans 13, and then systematically answers both biblical and pragmatic objections — including the mistranslation of Exodus 20:13, the pacifist reading of Matthew 5:38–42, and the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Believers are called to submit to the whole counsel of God on this issue, even where it cuts against cultural sentiment, because consistency with Scripture requires affirming what God has commanded for the governance of civil society.
Free Grace Baptist Church - March 20, 2019 Bible Study
Genesis 16 exposes the impatience of Sarai and Abram as they resort to human ingenuity — surrogate motherhood through Hagar — to secure the seed God had promised rather than waiting upon him to fulfill it in his own time and means. The passage is set against the backdrop of Genesis 15, where God had already specified that the heir would come supernaturally from Abram's own body, making their scheme not merely socially problematic but a failure of faith in the very word of God. Yet the same chapter that records their faithlessness also records God's faithfulness: the angel of the Lord meets the fleeing Hagar, names her unborn son, and promises a multitude of descendants — a display of divine common grace extended even to the non-elect. The exhortation is to believe the promises of God, use lawful means, and refuse to substitute human engineering for patient trust in divine sovereignty.
The Bible and Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is not a relic of Old Testament severity but a universal, creation-order ordinance grounded in the image of God and confirmed in the New Testament — and therefore not in tension with a pro-life ethic but demanded by it. Expositing Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:1-4, this sermon argues that God commissioned the civil magistrate to wield the sword as His appointed agent of retributive justice precisely because human life bears divine dignity. Common objections — from the Sixth Commandment's 'thou shalt not kill,' to Christ's handling of the woman caught in adultery, to the fear that execution forecloses repentance — are examined and answered on biblical grounds. Hearers are called to embrace the full counsel of God's Word on civil ethics, to resist the moralizing of secular humanism, and to see in God's hatred of bloodshed the very reason every sinner needs the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
Remembered in the Land
Genesis 22:20–23:20 records the death of Sarah, Abraham's purchase of the cave of Machpelah, and the first parcel of land the patriarch ever owned in Canaan. The sermon unfolds under three headings — God's people pass, wander, and dwell — showing that even in the silence of ordinary providence, where God's name goes unmentioned, he is keeping covenant by securing a burial place in the promised land. Christians still mourn, still sojourn as exiles in this age, but the purchase of Machpelah points forward to the resurrection hope Abraham already believed, a hope now confirmed on the far side of Christ's coming.
Genesis 9:8-28
Genesis 9:8–28 divides into two sections: God's establishment of the Noahic Covenant with its sign of the rainbow, and the sin of Ham with the subsequent prophetic curse upon Canaan and blessing upon Shem and Japheth. The Noahic Covenant is identified as a common grace covenant securing the stability of the created order so that the covenant of grace may be proclaimed. Noah's prophetic pronouncement in verses 25–27 is treated as programmatic for redemptive history, tracing the two seeds of Genesis 3:15 through the flood into the post-diluvian world, culminating in the Gentile inclusion foreshadowed by 'Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem' and confirmed at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15.
Genesis 9:1-17
The Noahic covenant establishes not only capital punishment but a comprehensive framework for criminal justice that the civil magistrate is bound to apply. Drawing from Genesis 9, Ecclesiastes 8, and the Mosaic civil law, this sermon traces three lesser forms of punishment — restitution, indentured servitude, and corporal punishment — demonstrating that each is governed by due process, proportionality, and a concern for the dignity of the offender as an image-bearer of God. The modern prison system is evaluated against these biblical categories and found to undermine restitution, rehabilitation, and human dignity alike. Hearers are called to think carefully about what Scripture actually teaches concerning crime and punishment rather than dismissing it as barbaric.
Genesis 9:1-7
Genesis 9:1–7 establishes the Noahic Covenant, which mandates capital punishment as a universal and perpetual ordinance rooted in the image of God — not merely an Old Covenant provision for Israel. This study addresses common biblical objections (Exodus 20:13, Matthew 5:38–42, John 8) and pragmatic objections (deterrence, innocence, forgiveness), arguing that none successfully overthrow the divine mandate of Genesis 9:6, which is confirmed and not abrogated by the New Testament. The session urges listeners to think carefully from Scripture rather than from cultural sentiment, trusting that God's law concerning criminal justice reflects his character and serves the stability of the created order.
Genesis 9:1-17
Genesis 9:1–17 records the establishment of the Noahic covenant, a common grace covenant God makes with all flesh — universal in scope and perpetual in duration — to preserve the created order as the stage for the proclamation of the gospel. The passage divides into the covenant's stipulations (vv. 1–7) and its sign (vv. 8–17), with the stipulations covering the propagation of life, provision through diet, and the protection of life via capital punishment. The theological ground of the death penalty is the image of God: to murder a man is to assault the divine image, and the only commensurate response is execution by the civil magistrate. Romans 13:1–4 confirms that this mandate is not confined to the Mosaic economy but continues wherever civil government wields the sword as God's appointed avenger.
Genesis 8:1-22
Genesis 8 records the abatement of the flood, the exit of Noah's family from the ark, and God's covenantal promise never again to destroy every living creature by water. The chapter is structured as a mirror image of chapter 7: everything that came upon the earth in judgment now reverses in restoration. Noah's first act upon leaving the ark is not to secure food or shelter but to build an altar and offer burnt offerings — the response of a man who walks with God by grace through faith. God's promise in verses 21–22 establishes what will be developed in chapter 9 as the Noahic Covenant, a common-grace covenant that stabilises the created order so that God's redemptive purposes may unfold until Christ comes to deal definitively with sin.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 19, 2018 Bible Study
Genesis 6:8–22 presents the flood narrative not primarily as natural history but as a theological tableau of human depravity, divine justice, and sovereign grace. The passage establishes a foundational biblical pattern: grace precedes and produces righteous conduct, so that Noah is not found righteous because he earned grace, but rather found blameless because God first granted him grace. The sermon traces the stark literary contrast between Noah, a man made just by divine mercy, and an earth filled with corruption and violence ripe for God's wrathful judgment, while drawing typological connections between Noah as a second Adam and the Ark as a figure of Christ, the shelter from divine wrath. Hearers are called to recognise that the same grace operative in Noah is the only distinction between the redeemed and the condemned, and to remain faithful in a faithless generation by looking beyond present trials to the God who sovereignly guides his people through judgment to life.
Genesis 5:1-32
Genesis 5 presents the genealogy of Adam through the godly line of Seth, tracing the covenant community from creation to Noah and ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. The relentless refrain 'and he died' across eight patriarchs confirms the execution of the curse pronounced in Genesis 3, while the singular exception of Enoch — who walked with God and was translated without death — serves as a visible foretaste of resurrection and eternal life. Walking with God, as Enoch's life demonstrates, is not reserved for extraordinary vocations but is the calling of every believer in every station of life, actuated by faith in Christ and ordered by the law of God as the rule of life.
Of the Civil Magistrate (2LCF24)
The civil magistrate exists by divine appointment, not by social contract or popular consent, and this confession-study exposition of 2LCF Chapter 24 establishes the theological ground for that claim from Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, Proverbs 8, and Genesis 9. Three questions are addressed in sequence: the divine origin of civil government, the lawfulness of Christian participation in public office, and the Christian's duty of submission to governing authorities. The power of the sword — including capital punishment and just war — is shown to belong to the magistrate's God-given office, rooted in the Noahic covenant and confirmed in the New Testament. Christians are called to submit to all lawful civil commands, to refuse only what requires disobedience to God, and to pray persistently for those in authority.