Theological term
Remaining Corruption
93 sermons · All terms
2LCF Chapter 15 - Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation
Repentance unto life is not a work that precedes salvation but an evangelical grace sovereignly given by God in the covenant of grace, inseparable from faith as two sides of the same coin. Working through 2LCF Chapter 15, this study examines the nature, necessity, and elements of saving repentance, tracing the confession's teaching that remaining corruption and the prevalency of temptation make ongoing repentance a permanent feature of the Christian life, not merely its entry point. The session also challenges the assumption that a crisis conversion is more credible than a non-crisis one, arguing that the same effectual power of God works in the child catechized from infancy as in the most notorious convert. Hearers are urged to hate sin, apprehend the mercy of God in Christ, and avoid both antinomianism and the error of treating repentance as a meritorious condition for acceptance with God.
The Citizenship of the Believer
The enemies of the cross of Christ are not merely mistaken but are heading toward eternal destruction — and the Apostle Paul warns of them with tears. Expounding Philippians 3:18–21, this sermon identifies the Judaizers as those enemies: their god is their belly, their glory is in their shame, and their minds are set on earthly things. Against that dark backdrop, the believer's citizenship in heaven is a present legal possession that demands an eager anticipation of Christ's return, a purifying of life in light of that coming, and a deliberate seeking out of godly examples to follow rather than the many who walk the broad road to destruction.
The Conversion of Paul, Part 4
Philippians 3:10–11 presents sanctification and glorification as necessary and inseparable consequences of justification by faith alone (v.9). The knowledge of Christ described in verse 10 is experiential, practical, theologically correct, and constitutes the very essence of eternal life — but it includes not only the power of Christ's resurrection (newness of life, union with Christ, definitive breach with sin) but also the fellowship of His sufferings and conformity to His death, which are not redemptive but inevitable for all who side with a crucified Savior in a hostile world. Verse 11 then sets forth glorification — the resurrection of the righteous — as the confident hope that sustains perseverance through the difficulties of sanctification. The sermon draws on 1689 LBCF 11.2 and Westminster Larger Catechism 77 to show that faith which justifies is alone as an instrument, yet never alone in the person justified, being ever accompanied by all other saving graces.
2LCF Chapter 9 - Of Free Will
2LCF Chapter 9 ('Of Free Will') presents the doctrine of human will through four covenantal states: innocency, sin, grace, and glory. Reformed Christianity does not deny free will but insists that the will is conditioned entirely by the state in which man finds himself — created upright yet mutable, fallen into total inability, sovereignly freed by effectual grace, and finally made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in glory. The session traces this framework against the errors of Pelagius, Arminius, the Socinians, and the Jesuits, grounding the Reformed Baptist rejection of paedobaptism in the same biblical anthropology: there are only two states for man, dead in Adam or alive in Christ, leaving no room for an external covenant category for the children of believers.
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.
2LCF Chapter 5 - Of Divine Providence
Divine providence — God's upholding, directing, disposing, and governing of all creatures and all their actions — is the subject of 2LCF Chapter 5. The chapter moves from a general statement of providence in paragraph 1 through the relationship of first and second causes, the use of means, and the hardest pastoral question: how God's sovereign decree relates to sin in general, in believers, and in unbelievers. The session closes by grounding the doctrine in the particular care God exercises over his church, whose history is the key to all human history.
The Importance of Spiritual Exercise
Philippians 2:12–13 is not a self-salvation passage but a call to Spirit-enabled perseverance rooted in the sovereign grace of God. The sermon expounds the believer's responsibility to 'work out' a salvation already given — not to attain it, but to live in conscious, fear-driven obedience to the God who both justifies and sanctifies. Against hyper-Calvinist passivity on one side and Arminian self-effort on the other, the text holds together human duty and divine empowerment: God works in believers both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. The practical summons is to pursue sanctification — the whole of it, fear, trembling, cross-contemplation, and dependence on the Spirit — as those destined for glorification.
The Apostolic Magnitude of Justification
Paul's confrontation of Peter at Antioch in Galatians 2:11–16 is not merely a biographical episode but a defence of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Peter's hypocritical withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentile believers, driven by fear of the circumcision party, was not an open denial of the gospel but a compromise of it — and Paul's rebuke exposes how even the appearance of impropriety can bring the truth of the gospel into disrepute. The sermon then turns to the apostolic doctrine set forth in verses 15–16, tracing the five-fold reiterative negation and affirmation of justification by faith and not by the works of the law, grounding Christian peace in the imputation of Christ's active and passive obedience. Hearers are exhorted to carry the doctrine of justification beyond the service itself, resting their peace not on any measure of personal performance but on the sole and complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Unity of the Church
Philippians 2:1–4 grounds the church's unity in the Trinitarian realities of consolation in Christ, the comfort of the Father's love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit — not in human sentiment. The passage moves through a commendation of unity (vv. 1–2) and a cultivation of unity (vv. 3–4), showing that selfish ambition and conceit are the precise enemies of the love and one-mindedness the apostle commands. The sermon concludes that humility, self-denial, and others-mindedness are not optional graces but the indispensable conditions for a church that advances the cause of Christ — and that none of these can be pursued apart from the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
The Priority of the Gospel for the Apostle
Paul's imprisonment in Rome, far from silencing the gospel, became the occasion for its advance — to the Praetorian Guard, and through the emboldened preaching of the wider brotherhood. Philippians 1:12–18 presents a progress report that reveals Paul's singular priority: the proclamation of Christ, regardless of the motives of those who preach him or the circumstances that surround the preacher. The sermon works through the paradox of fruitful suffering, the anatomy of bad and good ministerial motivation, and the theology of providence that sustains both. The congregation is called to the same pattern — faithfulness and perseverance to the end, interpreting all circumstances through the lens of God's sovereign purpose for the gospel.
The Requirements for Religious Life
Numbers 15 interrupts the narrative of Israel's rebellion in chapters 11–14 with renewed covenant obligations — laws of offerings, provisions for unintentional sin, and the command to wear tassels. The placement is deliberate: faithfulness to God's ordained means of grace is the proper remedy for the kind of corporate collapse just witnessed. The sermon traces how God's judgment on one generation does not exhaust His covenant mercy, and draws a typological line from Mosaic sacrifice and priesthood through to the once-for-all offering of Christ and the believer's advocate before the Father.
The Reconnaissance of the Land
Numbers 13 records the reconnaissance of Canaan, in which twelve tribal leaders are sent to survey the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ten of the spies return with a report grounded not in the word of the living God but in an appeal to fear, functioning as anti-prophets who slander the land and paralyze the congregation — while Caleb calls the people to immediate, faith-driven obedience. The chapter exposes the difference between faithless fear and faithful courage as the decisive interpretive divide among those who witnessed the same evidence and held the same promise. The narrative calls believers to ground their courage not in the absence of obstacles but in the sovereign faithfulness of God, who has promised, guided, and proven himself in redemptive history.
The Love of Christ and Love to One Another, Part 2
John 15:12–17 presents Christ's command that His disciples love one another as He has loved them — self-sacrificially, constantly, and toward sinners undeserving of that love. The sermon works through four elements of the passage: the command to love as a summarizing and comprehensive statement of the second table of the law, the pattern of self-sacrificial love set by Christ's laying down His life, the privilege of friendship with Christ rooted not in conditional obedience but in sovereign grace and divine revelation, and the reminder that election humbles pride and equips disciples for fruitful, costly mission in a world that hates Christ. The application presses believers to love one another with a love that does not wait for the beloved to merit it, and points the unconverted to the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith alone as the only ground of acceptance before God.
The Believer's Race, Part 3
Hebrews 12:3–11 presents three reasons believers must persevere in the race of faith: the example of Christ who endured hostility from sinners, the forgotten exhortation of Proverbs 3 concerning divine discipline, and the Father's sovereign purpose in chastening every son He receives. The sermon argues that suffering and hardship are not evidence of God's absence or anger, but proof of the Father-son relationship and the means by which God conforms His people to the image of Christ. Believers are called to neither despise nor be discouraged by chastening, but to receive it as the painful yet fruit-bearing discipline of a loving Father, whose corrections are light in comparison with the sins that deserve them.
2LCF Chapter 15 - Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 15, treats repentance not as a human achievement that merits divine favor but as a sovereign gift granted by God in effectual calling, rooted in the covenant of grace, and ratified by the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ. The chapter distinguishes saving repentance — an evangelical, Spirit-wrought change of mind toward sin — from both mere Judas-like sorrow and the moralistic performance of good works in place of bad. Five structural concerns of the chapter are examined in sequence: the place, necessity, outflow, duration and duty, and result of repentance, culminating in the assurance that no sin is so great as to bring damnation upon those who truly repent. Hearers are called to daily, particular repentance for known sins, to pray for strength and supplies of the Spirit, and to embrace the ministry of reconciliation as the abiding means by which God renews sinners and saints alike.
2LCF Chapter 13 - Of Sanctification
Second London Confession of Faith Chapter 13 examines sanctification as an inseparable fruit of justification, rooted entirely in the sovereign grace of God rather than human merit or striving. The confession teaches that sanctification is real and personal moral transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit through the Word, yet remains imperfect in this life — a continual war between flesh and Spirit in which remaining corruption may at times prevail. The critical distinction between justification (Christ's forensic work for us) and sanctification (the Spirit's transforming work in us) guards against both Roman Catholic conflation and Protestant antinomianism, keeping Christ's righteousness alone as the ground of acceptance before God.
2LBC Chapter 17 - of the Perseverance of the Saints (part 2)
The 1689 London Baptist Confession's seventeenth chapter on the perseverance of the saints is honest about the real threats that confront the believer: the devil, the world, and the remaining corruption of the flesh, compounded by neglect of the means of grace. The life of David—adultery, murder, temporal judgments, and the sword that never departed from his house—is held up as a biblical case study for every consequence the confession names. Yet the chapter does not end in the catalogue of ruin: repentance itself is an evangelical grace given by God, and the preservation of God's elect is grounded not in their free will but in the immutability of election, the intercession of Christ, and the nature of the covenant of grace. The practical force of the doctrine is a call to use the ordained means—word, prayer, baptism, the Lord's Supper, corporate worship—as God-given instruments for persevering to the end.
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 Necessity of Brotherly Love
John 13:31–38 presents Jesus addressing his disciples immediately after Judas's departure, speaking with striking intimacy on three subjects: the glory of the Son secured through the cross, the new commandment to love one another, and the foretelling of Peter's denial. The new commandment does not merely repeat the Levitical call to love one's neighbor as oneself — its newness lies in the standard, the self-sacrificial, constant, sinner-directed love of Christ himself. The passage closes with an irony the sermon drives home: Peter boasts he will lay down his life for the Savior, but the entire point of the hour is that the Savior lays down his life for Peter — a pattern that distinguishes the Christian religion from every other.
2LCF Chapter 6 - Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
The fall of man, sin, and the punishment thereof — explored through 2LCF Chapter 6 — answers the fundamental question of why the Lord Jesus Christ came in His first advent. This study traces the confession's argument from the fall as God's wise and holy counsel in paragraph 1, through the representative sin of Adam and its covenantal consequences in paragraphs 2–3, to the doctrine of original sin, total depravity, and total inability in paragraph 4, and finally to the remaining corruption that persists in the regenerate throughout this life in paragraph 5. The doctrine of imputation — both of Adam's guilt to his posterity and of Christ's righteousness to His people — is shown to be the theological nerve running through the whole chapter. The study closes with the pastoral application that an honest reckoning with one's own remaining corruption ought to produce charity and grace toward fellow believers rather than a Pharisaical demand for perfection in others.
Live Stream - October 15, 2023
Ephesians 5:15–17 calls believers to walk circumspectly — not as fools but as wise — by redeeming the time in days that are evil. The sermon distinguishes biblical wisdom from mere intellectual knowledge, defining it as the skillful application of God's word to the whole of life. The twin remedy against folly is the regular study of Scripture (with particular attention to the Book of Proverbs as a manual of wisdom) and persistent, faith-filled prayer for wisdom as commended in James 1. The new man in Christ is not left to himself but is given the pattern and the means to navigate a present evil age in a manner consistent with his calling.
The Riches of God's Grace
David's fall into adultery and murder in 2 Samuel 11 sets the stage for one of Scripture's most striking displays of divine grace in 2 Samuel 12:1–15. Nathan's parable exposes David's sin through the unstoppable initiative of God, and the prophet's indictment demonstrates that David's wickedness was aggravated, not mitigated, by the abundant grace God had already shown him. David's two-word confession — 'I have sinned against the Lord' — is met immediately with pardon, not because the confession was elaborate, but because forgiveness rests entirely on the atoning work of Christ, to whom David looked in faith through the promises of the Davidic covenant. The sermon calls both believer and unbeliever to receive the same grace: real forgiveness for real sinners, grounded in the righteousness of Christ imputed through faith alone.
The Transition from Darkness to Light, Part 1
Ephesians 5:3–7 calls believers to a radical break from the sexual sins that characterised their former life in darkness. Working through the three prohibited actions (fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness) and three prohibited forms of speech (filthiness, foolish talking, and coarse jesting), the sermon demonstrates that these sins are not merely behavioural failures but expressions of idolatry—putting creaturely gratification above God. The consequences are grave: those who unrepentantly practice such things have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, a warning grounded in both general revelation and the consistent testimony of the apostolic letters. Believers are called to resist deception through the word of God, to replace vile speech with thanksgiving, and to ground their ethical obedience not in moral effort alone but in the imputed righteousness of Christ.
The Warning Against Apostasy
Hebrews 10:26–31 contains one of the New Testament's starkest warnings, and the question it raises is precise: who has committed the sin of willful apostasy, and can it be the believer who struggles with remaining corruption? This sermon works through the nature and judgment of apostasy, distinguishing between the sensitive saint who sorrows over indwelling sin and the apostate who openly tramples the Son of God underfoot, counts the blood of the covenant a common thing, and insults the Spirit of grace. Drawing on Calvin, Owen, Gill, and Ursinus, the sermon argues that the persons in view are not struggling believers but outright rejecters of the gospel — in the original context, Hebrew Christians who publicly renounced Christ to return to the Levitical system. The chief comfort the passage affords is precisely this: the believer who fears he has committed the unpardonable sin almost certainly has not, and is called to draw near, hold fast, and consider one another in the confidence of a once-for-all sacrifice that saves to the uttermost.
The Good Shepherd, Part 1
John 10:1–10 stands in direct continuity with John 9: having healed and saved the man born blind, Jesus turns to indict the Pharisees as thieves and robbers who exercised illegitimate authority over the sheepfold of God. The sermon works through Jesus' parabolic illustration in verses 1–6, showing that the true shepherd enters by the door (granted access by God the Father), calls his own sheep by name with a specific and effectual summons, and leads them out — while the sheep, made alive by the Spirit in regeneration, hear and follow his voice and flee the stranger's. The application is double: believers are called to seek the shepherd's voice in Scripture, family worship, and the preaching of the Word, and the unconverted are called to ask with the blind man, 'Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?'
The Believer's Response to Trials
James 1:2–8 addresses the believer's proper response to trials in a fallen world, pressing two demands: a joyful disposition toward suffering and a prayerful request for wisdom to navigate it. Drawing on John Calvin, Thomas Manton, and John Gill, the sermon distinguishes the trials of verse 2 (divine testing aimed at maturity) from the temptations of verse 13 (solicitations to sin), and traces the progression from endurance through testing to the perfection of verse 4. The sermon closes with a gospel call: the one who mastered suffering perfectly was Christ himself, whose righteousness is given to the believer by grace alone through faith alone.
The Two Builders
Matthew 7:24–29 concludes the Sermon on the Mount with a parable of two builders whose contrasting foundations — rock and sand — expose the decisive difference between saving faith and mere hearing. The sermon argues that true faith, sovereignly granted and resting on Christ alone, produces a life of obedience to his word, while the mere hearer — however impressed by the teaching — builds on shifting ground and faces a great and final ruin. The devil, the world, and remaining indwelling corruption all beat against both houses, but only the house founded on Christ stands. Hearers are urged to close with Christ now, trusting not in works or false religion but in his righteousness alone.
The Lord's Prayer
True prayer is distinguished from hypocrisy and paganism not merely by form but by motivation, manner, and theological grounding. Matthew 6:5–13 exposes the Pharisee who prays to be seen by men and the heathen who employs vain repetition to coerce a god, and sets against both the secret, faith-driven communion of the genuine child of God with his Father. The Lord's Prayer is not a liturgical formula to be recited but a structured outline — ordering petition rightly, with God's name, kingdom, and will before any human need — rooted in the sovereignty of a Father who knows what his children require before they ask. The sermon calls believers to examine their own prayer lives: whether prayer functions as worship and dependence upon the triune God, or as a merely transactional exercise.
The Preservation of Love and Unity
Ephesians 4:1–3 opens Paul's extended practical section (chapters 4–6) with a call to walk worthy of the effectual calling by which God has saved His people. This sermon expounds the three virtues—lowliness, gentleness, and long-suffering—that must characterize the redeemed, and the two corresponding conducts—bearing with one another in love and zealously keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace—that follow from those virtues. The theological order is insisted upon throughout: justification precedes sanctification, the indicative grounds the imperative, and none of these commands are the basis of salvation but the fruit of it. The practical burden is that disunity, bitterness, and the failure to pursue reconciliation according to Matthew 18 or to let love cover offenses according to 1 Peter 4 grieves the Holy Spirit and undermines the church's witness as the end-time temple of God.
The Freedom in Receiving the Son, Part 2
John 8:33–36 sets two irreconcilable conditions before every person: slavery to sin or freedom in the Son. Working through Jesus' response to the objecting Jews — His declaration of spiritual slavery in verse 34, His illustration from the household in verse 35, and His promise of true liberty in verse 36 — this sermon argues that sin's bondage is total, that the sinner is constitutionally blind to his own condition, and that freedom comes exclusively through the only-begotten Son who abides in the Father's house forever. The law of God must be pressed upon the conscience so that sinners know their malady before they can receive the remedy: the Son who makes men free indeed.