Topic
Atonement
36 sermons · All topics
2LCF Chapter 8, Of Christ the Mediator, Part 4
Chapter 8 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession sets forth the person and work of Christ the Mediator, and this study works through its latter paragraphs (4–10) covering the historical description of Christ's obedience, the specific operation of His atoning work, the retrospective application of redemptive benefit to Old Covenant saints, the communication of idioms, and the effectual application of redemption to the elect. The confession grounds definite atonement, active and passive obedience, and penal substitutionary atonement in Christ's willing entrance into the state of humiliation and His perfect fulfillment of the law, establishing the foundation for the confession's later treatment of justification by faith alone. The threefold office of Christ as prophet, priest, and king is shown to be not an imposition on Scripture but its exegetical fruit, meeting precisely the threefold need of God's people for revelation, reconciliation, and kingly rule.
The Decision of Pilate, Part 2
John 19:9–16 records the exchange between Jesus and Pontius Pilate that culminates in the verdict of crucifixion. This sermon works through Pilate's confusion and arrogant assertion of authority, Christ's counter-declaration that all governing power derives from God Most High, and the theological weight of the greater sin belonging to those who delivered Christ up. The death of the Lamb of God at the hour of Passover preparation is no accident — it is the predetermined plan of the Father, the fulfillment of every Passover sacrifice, and the ground of forgiveness for wretched sinners who look to Christ in faith.
The Atonement at Gibeah
The atonement made at Gibeah — where seven descendants of Saul were executed to satisfy the blood-guilt incurred by Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites — is expounded as a typological anticipation of penal substitutionary atonement. David's inquiry of God, the Gibeonites' insistence that no silver or gold could ransom a murderer (Numbers 35:33), and the hanging of the seven men before the Lord all illustrate that atonement is the satisfaction of divine justice through blood. The sermon argues that Rizpah's grief beside the bodies of her sons is a solemn, sin-cursed scene designed to strip away abstraction and force the reader to feel the horror of what atonement costs. Only when the gore of Gibeah is taken seriously does Golgotha regain its proper weight: Christ, the greater Son of David, stood in the place of his people to quench the wrath of God and secure the covenant safety of all whom the Father gave him.
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.
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.
The Necessity of Christ's Passion
Matthew 16:21–23 presents the first formal announcement of what Christ himself calls a divine necessity: he must go to Jerusalem, suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests, be killed, and be raised on the third day. The sermon traces this necessity through the covenant of redemption, the Old Testament prophetic witness — Psalms 22, 69, and 110, Isaiah 52–53, Daniel 9, Zechariah 9–14 — and a series of informal anticipations across Matthew's Gospel. Peter's sharp rebuke is examined as a representative failure to grasp the messianic agenda of a suffering Servant, and Christ's equally sharp response — 'Get behind me, Satan' — is shown to be the definitive affirmation that substitutionary curse-bearing is non-negotiable: error here is not a skin disease but a disease at the heart. The congregation is urged to hold fast to the doctrine of Christ crucified and risen as the only stable ground of perseverance in the Christian life.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 encapsulates the whole gospel in a single verse: Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. This sermon expounds the redemptive purpose behind both the death and the resurrection of Christ, showing that the cross satisfies divine justice through substitutionary atonement while the empty tomb confirms that satisfaction was accepted and justification accomplished. The doctrine of justification by faith alone — the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness — rests inseparably on the historical and theological reality of the resurrection. Believers are called to live daily in light of the finished work of the Son, and those without Christ are urged to look to Him in faith for everlasting life.
Live Stream - June 05, 2022
Romans 3:21–28 is expounded in the context of a communion service, grounding the Lord's Supper in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The sermon traces Paul's argument that all humanity stands guilty before God, that God's own righteousness demands the punishment of sin without exception, and that the cross of Christ is the propitiation by which God is both just and the justifier of the ungodly. The righteousness credited to the believer is entirely the work of Christ — received through faith, purchased by blood, and offered freely to all without merit or prerequisite.
The Trial Before Pilate, Part 3
Matthew 27:24–26 records the sentencing of Jesus by Pontius Pilate — the culmination of a trial in which the governor thrice declared the accused innocent yet delivered him to crucifixion anyway. The sermon examines Pilate's hypocritical self-absolution by the washing of hands, the crowd's willing acceptance of blood-guilt and its ominous extension to their children, and the formal scourging and condemnation of Christ. Throughout, the exposition presses the double benefit of the gospel: the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness received by faith alone, both grounded in the penal substitutionary atonement symbolised by Barabbas going free while the just one goes to the cross.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 declares that Christ 'was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification' — a verse Charles Hodge called a comprehensive statement of the gospel and Matthew Poole called an abridgment of the whole. The sermon works through two inseparable redemptive realities: the substitutionary, particular atonement accomplished in Christ's death, and the five-fold testimony of the resurrection to the validity of that work. The central application is that a robust grasp of justification by faith alone — the imputation of Christ's righteousness received through faith — is the irreplaceable foundation for Christian stability, comfort, and peace with God.
The Nature of the Gospel
Galatians 1:1–5 is not merely a conventional greeting but a compressed summary of the gospel itself. Working through each clause of verses 4–5, this exposition identifies five defining features of Christ's death: it was voluntary, it consisted in penal substitution, it secured deliverance from this present evil age, it was determined by the Father according to His eternal will, and it promotes the glory of God alone. The sermon presses toward the Lord's Supper, calling each hearer to examine whether they can say with Paul in Galatians 2:20, 'He loved me and gave Himself for me,' and to receive the bread and cup only on that ground.
July 01, 2018 - PM
What is the gospel, and why does its content matter for the Lord's Supper? Expounding 1 Corinthians 15:1–20 with focused attention on verses 3–4, this sermon argues that the gospel is defined by three inseparable historical and theological events: the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Each event carries precise atoning weight — the death is substitutionary, propitiatory, and expiatory; the burial confirms the reality of that death and sets the stage for resurrection; the resurrection vindicates Christ's saving work, bears witness to the justification of his people, and establishes him as judge of the living and the dead. Delivered in the context of the Lord's Supper, the sermon calls believers to a wonder-filled, theologically informed observance of the ordinance, and warns unbelievers that the risen Christ who died for sinners will also be their judge.
July 01, 2018 - AM
1 Peter 1:18–20 presents the redemption accomplished by Christ as grounded in the infinite value of his sinless sacrifice, the eternal decree of the triune God, and the certainty of its historical occurrence. This sermon expounds three dimensions of the 'precious blood of Christ': its surpassing worth measured against corruptible earthly things; its origin in the determined counsel of God before the foundation of the world; and its singular reality as a manifest historical event attested by eyewitnesses. The Lord's Supper, observed the same evening, provides the pastoral occasion for calling both believers to joyful reflection on the blood that cleanses from all iniquity and unbelievers to repentance and faith in the one Lamb without blemish and without spot.
The Glory of the Lamb of God
John 1:29 — 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' — cannot be rightly understood apart from the Prologue that precedes it. The eternal Word who was with God and was God became flesh, was eternally begotten of the Father, and stands as the covenantal head of the new covenant before he is identified as the Lamb whose violent, substitutionary death takes away the sin of the world. The scope of that sin-bearing is not every individual without exception but persons without distinction — Jews and Gentiles alike — as the consistent use of 'world' in John's Gospel and the song of the redeemed in Revelation 5 make clear. The proper response is to place the cross in its full Trinitarian, Christological, and covenantal context and to worship the one who left the eternal life of God to enter our flesh and save us from our sins.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 4, 2018 PM
Romans 4:25 encapsulates the whole gospel in a single verse: Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. Working through the context of Paul's argument from Romans 1:18 through chapter 4, this exposition traces the redemptive purpose of both the death and the resurrection of Christ, showing that the cross satisfies divine justice through propitiation and substitution while the empty tomb testifies that the sacrifice was accepted, satisfaction was rendered, and redemption was accomplished. The sermon concludes with the Lord's Supper, where the congregation rehearses these same truths through the ordained signs of bread and wine.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 3
Matthew 27:45–46 records the darkest three hours of history and the lone saying of Christ that Matthew preserves from the cross: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' This sermon works through the cry of dereliction with careful attention to what the text does and does not teach, ruling out any ontological division within the Trinity, any dissolution of the hypostatic union, and any notion that all three persons suffered at Calvary. The forsakenness Christ voiced was real — a qualified withdrawal of the Father's consolatory smile and favour, not an abandonment of love — because Christ stood as the covenant surety of his people, bearing the punishment of loss that sinners deserve. The gospel comfort that follows is decisive: because Christ cried 'Why have you forsaken me?' those united to him by faith will never have to.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 is, as Matthew Poole observed, 'an abridgment of the whole gospel' — binding Christ's penal death for specific offenses to His bodily resurrection for the justification of those who believe. The sermon expounds the redemptive purpose of both events: the Father delivered up the Son to satisfy divine justice for the sins of the elect, and raised Him to testify that the sacrifice was accepted, that satisfaction was rendered, and that redemption was accomplished. Against the moral-exemplary reduction of the atonement, the sermon insists on substitution, propitiation, and particular redemption as the irreducible ground of peace with God. Hearers are called to look away from every incapacity of their own — as Abraham did — and to rest entirely on the one who was delivered up for offenses and raised for justification.
Of Christ the Mediator 2 (2LCF 8)
The person and work of Christ as Mediator, as confessed in chapter 8 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is the most central locus in all of Christian theology — to be wrong here is damnable. This session surveys paragraphs 3 through 10 of that chapter, tracing Christ's anointing and suitability for office, the active and passive obedience by which He fully satisfied divine justice, the retrospective application of His redemption to the elect of all ages under the old covenant, the communication of idioms in His two natures, and the effectual application of salvation to His people by His Spirit and Word. The threefold office of prophet, priest, and king supplies precisely what the elect need in their ignorance, alienation, and inability — and no other mediator may share or transfer any part of that office.
The Atonement at Gibeah
2 Samuel 21 presents a famine in David's Israel caused by Saul's covenant-breaking slaughter of the Gibeonites, resolved only when seven of Saul's sons are executed as a blood-atoning sacrifice before the Lord. The passage illuminates the costliness of covenant-breaking, the terror of divine wrath, and the nature of substitutionary atonement — themes that point unmistakably to Calvary. David's protection of Mephibosheth in the midst of judgment typifies Christ's covenant-keeping faithfulness toward his own people, while the death of the seven sons at Gibeah typifies the penal substitution of the innocent for the guilty. The sermon presses believers to resist domesticating the atonement into a bloodless abstraction, and to confront afresh the drippy, bloody, smelly reality of what the Son of God endured in the place of sinners.
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.
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.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 4, 2015 AM
Matthew 20:17–19 records the third and most specific formal announcement by Jesus of his coming death — naming the betrayal, the Sanhedrin, the Gentiles, the scourging, and the crucifixion — before closing with the triumph of the resurrection. The sermon argues that the necessity driving Christ to Jerusalem rests on three pillars: the eternal Covenant of Redemption between the Father and the Son, the prophetic fulfillment of all that the law and prophets had written, and the salvation of his people from their sins. Penal substitution and justification frame the cross-work: Christ bore the wrath due to sinners and was raised for their justification. The sermon closes with a threefold application to the church — receive the gospel, respond in worship, and imitate Christ's focus on his redemptive work — and a direct call to unbelievers to believe.
The Precious Blood of Christ
What is the value of Christ's blood, and why does the New Testament insist that nothing corruptible — no silver, gold, or human religious tradition — can redeem a sinner? Drawing from 1 Peter 1:18–19 in the context of a Lord's Supper meditation, this sermon works through three considerations: the vanity of any bloodless redemption, the aimless sinfulness that necessitated a blood redemption, and the exclusive and infinite worth of Christ's precious blood. The application is direct — because believers have been purchased at such an infinite price, they are to hold Christ alone as precious and to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of that redemption.
The Significance of the Resurrection
Romans 4:25 presents what Charles Hodge called 'a comprehensive statement of the Gospel': Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. This sermon expounds the two parallel clauses of that verse, arguing that the death of Christ was a particular, substitutionary, propitiatory sacrifice for the definite sins of God's elect, and that the resurrection is the Father's public attestation that the atonement was fully accepted and justification secured. The practical implication is that justified sinners — not improved moralists — have peace with God and an unshakeable hope grounded not in exemplary preaching but in the historical, redemptive work of Christ.
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
John 18:1–11 records the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, yet John's Gospel frames the scene not primarily as a display of suffering but as a revelation of divine glory. The great I AM steps forward to meet his captors, causes a detachment of soldiers to fall to the ground by the mere utterance of his name, and willingly drinks the cup of God's wrath — not as a victim, but as the covenant mediator and surety who executes the eternal decree of the Father. The sermon calls hearers to resist a narcissistic reading of the passion narratives and instead to bow in worship before the obedient Son of God, whose vicarious, substitutionary death is the sole ground of the sinner's justification.
From Alienation to Reconciliation
Colossians 1:21–22 sets the alienation and enmity of sinners against the sovereign, monergistic reconciliation God effects through the incarnate death of His Son. The sermon moves through three aspects of the Colossian believers' transformation: their previous state as those alienated from God, hostile in mind, and outwardly manifesting wicked works; their present status as those God has reconciled through the physical, substitutionary death of Christ; and their future blessedness as those being presented holy, blameless, and above reproach — a goal that is the consequence of reconciliation, never its cause. Communion is the occasion for this exposition, pressing believers to remember the depth of the grace that drew them out of enmity and into fellowship with God.
Hebrews 1
Hebrews 1:3 declares that Christ 'by himself purged our sins' before sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high — a compressed statement of the entire work of redemption. This Bible study exposition unpacks that purging under four aspects: it was a thorough cleansing of sin, an expiatory sacrifice removing legal guilt, a propitiatory sacrifice satisfying divine wrath, and a substitutionary act in which Christ bore the curse in the place of his people. The finality of the work is sealed by Christ's session at the Father's right hand — a posture no Levitical priest could assume because their work was never complete — and by his own word from the cross, 'It is finished.'
Who is Jesus?
Hebrews 1:1–3 presents Jesus Christ as the final and supreme revelation of God — prophet, priest, and king — whose identity is not negotiable. This sermon exposes the bankruptcy of reductive or sentimental views of Christ and argues that the message and the messenger are inseparable: to accept Jesus is to accept his exclusive claims. The exposition works through Christ's appointment as heir of all things, his role as creator and sustainer of the universe, his purging of sin as the perfect high priest, and his present session at the Father's right hand as the ground of the believer's confidence.
The Nature of the Gospel
Galatians 1:1–5 is not merely a conventional greeting but a compressed doctrinal statement of the gospel that Paul deploys as the foundation of his polemic against the Judaizers. Working through five truths embedded in verses 4 and 5, the sermon demonstrates that Christ's death was voluntary, substitutionary, and divinely ordained, that it delivers the elect from this present evil age, and that it exists ultimately for the glory of God. The doctrines of penal substitution, divine sovereignty in salvation, and the deity of Christ are examined in detail, with supporting texts drawn from across both Testaments. The doxological response of Revelation 4–5 is held up as the pattern for how a right understanding of the cross necessarily issues in worship.
The Cross as the Manifestation of God's Love
John 3:16 — the most familiar verse in Scripture — is not a proof text for universal atonement but a declaration that the cross is God's appointed remedy flowing from His own gracious initiative toward a sinful world. Working through the passage in six movements, the sermon grounds God's love in the particular design of definite atonement: 'world' denotes all men without distinction, not all men without exception, and the believing one — regenerated by the Spirit before he ever looks to Christ — receives eternal life. The sermon calls both the unbeliever to flee to Christ and the Christian to return constantly to Calvary as the only sufficient display of God's immeasurable love.