Topic
Covenant Theology
1,714 sermons · All topics
The Astonishment of the Apostle
Paul's opening salvo in Galatians 1:6–9 registers apostolic astonishment at the speed with which the Galatian churches were deserting the gospel of free grace for a Judaizing supplement of circumcision and Mosaic law-keeping. The sermon expounds why any addition to the finished work of Christ — however small — is not a variation of the gospel but its outright denial, because a man must choose either perfect law-keeping or the wholly sufficient righteousness of Christ received by faith alone. The anathema Paul pronounces in verses 8–9, drawn out through the Hebrew concept of ḥērem and its New Testament cognate anathema, exposes the perverter of the gospel not merely to church discipline but to the judicial wrath of God. The sermon closes with an urgent call to doctrinal vigilance: to resist indifference, imprecision, compromise, and novelty, and to hold fast to justification by faith alone as the very heart of the Christian religion.
The Promise of the Conquest
Exodus 23:20–33 records God's promises and warnings to Israel on the eve of the conquest of Canaan. The passage presents God as the divine initiator of the conquest — sending the Angel of the Lord (identified as the pre-incarnate Christ) to guide and fight for Israel — and then enumerates blessings contingent on covenant obedience: provision, health, fruitfulness, and the gradual dispossession of the Canaanites. The sermon exposes the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works in which blessings follow obedience and curses follow infidelity, and closes by contrasting Israel's inevitable failure under that arrangement with the covenant of grace secured by Christ on behalf of his people.
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 Sabbaths and Annual Feasts
Exodus 23:10–19 legislates two kinds of Sabbath and three annual feasts within the Book of the Covenant, each designed to order Israel's life around the worship of Yahweh alone. The seven-year land Sabbath provided for the poor and beasts through a system of crop rotation, while the seventh-day Sabbath — whose moral principle is perpetual and now observed on the first day of the week in the new covenant — extended its restorative benefit to every member of the community, including servants and resident aliens. The three annual feasts (Unleavened Bread, Harvest/Weeks, Ingathering) were not merely ceremonial obligations but instruments for rehearsing redemptive history, promoting communal joy and reciprocity, and guarding the covenant people from idolatry. As judicial and ceremonial laws, these specific institutions have expired with Old Covenant Israel, yet their general equity and the moral principle of Sabbath rest continue to bind the new covenant community.
The Children of the Devil, Part 1
John 8:37–41 records Jesus systematically dismantling the religious establishment's claim that physical descent from Abraham constitutes spiritual standing before God. Working through the Jews' twofold assertion — that Abraham is their father and, in verse 41, that God is their father — Jesus marshals three evidences that expose the claim as groundless: their murderous intent toward him, their refusal to receive his word, and their rejection of the one he came from. The sermon drives toward the conclusion that membership in the family of God is secured not by race but by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the promised seed of Genesis 3:15, and calls every hearer to examine whether they have received or rejected that word.
November 19, 2022 - Wedding Stream
A wedding homily grounding the institution of marriage in the creation account of Genesis 2 and the redemptive promise of Genesis 3:15. The sermon traces God's good gift of companionship in creation, the disruption of the fall, and the protoevangelium as the first announcement of the gospel — that Christ, born of a woman, would crush the serpent's head through substitutionary suffering and resurrection. The couple is charged to embody in their Christian marriage the relationship between Christ and his church as depicted in Ephesians 5, and all hearers are called to trust in Christ's righteousness received by faith alone.
2LCF 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Second London Confession of Faith chapter 23 treats the doctrine of lawful oaths and vows, distinguishing Reformed Baptist practice from the Anabaptist rejection of oath-taking and from Roman Catholic monastical vows. The sermon argues that swearing by God's name is itself an act of religious worship — acknowledging his omniscience, omnipresence, and vindictive justice — and that Scripture warrants oaths in matters of weight and moment while condemning their careless everyday use. Matthew 5:33–37 is shown to address the abuse of casual, trivial oath-making rather than solemn oaths before lawful authority, as confirmed by Christ's own oath before the Sanhedrin, God's oath to Abraham, and Paul's repeated appeals to God as witness. The sermon closes by exposing popish monastical vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience as superstitious devices of men that contradict Scripture's positive assessment of marriage, honest labor, and just remuneration.
The Emphasis on Justice for All
Exodus 23:1–9 sets out the judicial law's demand for impartial, honest justice within the covenant community — a demand binding not merely on courts but on every member of the body politic. The passage divides into three subsections: general principles of justice for the people (vv. 1–3), the requirement of common decency even toward enemies (vv. 4–5), and specific warnings to judges against partiality, false accusation, bribery, and oppression of strangers (vv. 6–9). The confession's principle that the judicial law has expired as a binding institution yet retains general moral equity frames the exposition throughout. The sermon closes with two applications: the necessity of personal courage and grace-enabled obedience, and the dependence of any stable civil order on individual integrity, honest testimony, righteous judges, due process, and equal protection under the law.
Live Stream - November 13, 2022
John 8:33–36 presents two and only two conditions for humanity: slavery to sin or freedom in the Son. Expounding Christ's exchange with the unbelieving Jews after the Feast of Tabernacles, this sermon argues that every person outside of Christ is a slave to sin in the most absolute sense — dead in Adam, under the dominion of the devil, and liable to the wrath of God — not merely imperfect or morally deficient. The illustration of the slave who does not abide in the house forever is applied to the national judgment upon Israel for rejecting the Messiah, while the Son who abides forever is shown to be the only ground of permanent standing before God. The remedy for this tyranny is neither moral reform nor religious heritage but the liberating work of the Son himself: 'if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.'
The Prayer and Praise of the Apostle
Ephesians 3:14–21 presents the apostle Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church and a concluding doxology, and this exposition works through the prayer's occasion, posture, and first two petitions. Paul prays from his knees before 'the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' drawing on the boundless storehouse of divine glory, for two things treated in this sermon: that believers would be strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ dwells in their hearts by faith, and that they would comprehend the boundless love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The sermon grounds both petitions in Trinitarian structure — strength flowing from the Father through the Spirit issues in the presence of the Son — and in the confession that God is 'most loving,' whose love neither increases nor diminishes. Hearers are urged to imitate the apostle by praying not only for temporal needs but for the spiritual strength and knowledge of Christ's love that alone sustains perseverance in a world hostile to the gospel.
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.
The Miscellaneous Laws Concerning Society, Part 2
Exodus 22:21–31 sets out miscellaneous civil laws for Old Covenant Israel that bear directly on how God evaluates any society's treatment of its most vulnerable members. The sermon works through two major divisions: the laws prohibiting the abuse of aliens, widows, orphans, and the poor (vv. 21–27), and the laws preserving the honor of Yahweh through respect for authority and consecrated service (vv. 28–31). God's threatened covenant sanctions — enemy invasion, exile, and the widowing of the oppressor's own family — reveal that abuse of the powerless is not a private moral failing but a covenantal crime that invites divine judgment upon an entire nation. Hearers are called to embody "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27) by actively rendering aid to the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor, while maintaining reverence for lawfully exercised authority in the family, civil, and ecclesiastical spheres.
2LCF 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 22 grounds all religious worship in the regulative principle: God alone determines the acceptable manner of his own worship, and nothing not warranted by Scripture may be introduced. This session surveys the chapter's four movements — the regulative principle (paragraphs 1–2), the specific elements of worship (paragraphs 3–5), the appropriate location for worship (paragraph 6), and the Christian Sabbath as the appointed day (paragraphs 7–8). General revelation establishes the duty to worship; special revelation alone prescribes the way. The practical application is that Christians are bound neither to ecclesiastical tyranny (Rome, Anglicanism, independent pastoralism) nor to the inventions of men in God's house, but only to what God has commanded in his Word.
Laws Concerning Marriage and Capital Offences
Exodus 22:16–20 presents two distinct legal categories: the seduction of an unbetrothed virgin and three capital offenses — sorcery, bestiality, and idolatry. The sermon works through each law in its ancient Israelite context, drawing on Deuteronomy 18, 22, 27, and 13 to amplify and clarify the Exodus text, and defends the coherence of the bride-price legislation against the charge that it sanctions rape. All three capital offenses are shown to be covenant-destroying acts that strike at both the religious and civil foundations of Israel's polity, carrying the theological weight of treason against the Lord of the Covenant. The general equity of these laws presses the church today toward a high view of marriage, a total rejection of the occult, and recognition that first-table faithfulness to God is the indispensable ground of second-table obligations to one's neighbor.
The Mystery and God's Eternal Purpose
Ephesians 3:8–13 presents Paul's apostolic ministry and God's eternal purpose as two inseparable realities: Paul's grace-given charge to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles flows directly from God's comprehensive plan to display His manifold wisdom through the church. The mystery once hidden in ages past — that Jew and Gentile stand as one new man in Christ — is now made known not only to humanity but to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, as the church serves as a living trophy case of divine wisdom. God's eternal purpose, accomplished in Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, secures for believers boldness and access with confidence to the Father. The sermon calls saints to resist despondency, to use the access purchased by Christ's blood, and to find stability in the sovereign God who governs creation, providence, and redemption.
October 23, 2022 - Sunday School Confessional Study - 2LCF 21
Christian Liberty, as confessed in 2LCF chapter 21, encompasses freedom from sin's guilt, power, and punishment through the finished work of Christ, as well as freedom in worship and obedience under the New Covenant. The study traces the confession's three-fold account of expanded New Testament liberty — release from the ceremonial law's yoke, greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and fuller communications of the Spirit — over against the identical substance of liberty enjoyed by Old Testament believers. Liberty of conscience is distinguished from Christian liberty proper: the former is a natural right grounded in the image of God, the latter a gospel privilege; both together guard against ecclesiastical tyranny, civil totalitarianism, and the demand for implicit faith. The session closes by warning that Christian liberty must never be perverted into licentiousness, but rather issue in joyful, cheerful obedience — serving the Lord without fear in holiness all the days of one's life.
The Stewardship of the Mystery of Christ
Ephesians 3:1–7 presents Paul simultaneously as prisoner and steward — his imprisonment for preaching Gentile inclusion in the covenant of grace is inseparable from the divine commission that caused it. The sermon traces the apostolic stewardship of the mystery of Christ: a truth partially disclosed in the Old Testament through types and promises, but fully unveiled in the New Testament through the Spirit's revelation to the apostles and prophets. The content of the mystery is that Gentiles are fellow heirs of the same body, not a parenthetical people of God, but full partakers of the covenant promise in Christ through the gospel — a reality that demolishes any two-peoples-of-God framework. The power enabling that ministry is God's alone, not the orator's persuasion, so that faith rests in divine power rather than human wisdom.
The Danger of Rejecting the Son, Part 2
John 8:25–29 confronts the persistent Jewish rejection of Jesus by pressing two questions: who is he, and what does his coming death mean? The sermon expounds Christ's identity as the eternal Son sent by the Father — God from God, light from light, true God from true God — and shows that his crucifixion and resurrection will vindicate that identity before the very men who condemned him. The active obedience of Christ, summarized in his declaration that he always does what pleases the Father, grounds the imputed righteousness sinners need for justification. Hearers are called to rest in the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, the knowledge of whom is itself the substance of eternal life.
2LCF21 - Of Christian Liberty (partial recording)
This exposition of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 21 (Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience) examines what freedom Christ secures for his people and what that freedom does not permit. The sermon works through three liberties from sin's bondage — from its guilt, its power, and its punishment — before turning to freedom in worship and obedience, distinguishing what Old and New Testament believers share and what New Testament believers enjoy in greater measure: freedom from the ceremonial law, greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and fuller communication of the Spirit. A substantial section treats liberty of conscience — freedom from ecclesiastical tyranny, civil totalitarianism, and moral impositions of men — and the sermon closes by warning against the perversion of Christian liberty into licentiousness.
A Defense of Self-Defense
Matthew 5:38–42, the fourth antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount, is frequently invoked to condemn self-defense, capital punishment, and military service — yet a careful reading reveals that Jesus is not contradicting the lex talionis of the Mosaic civil code but rather correcting the Pharisaic habit of applying that courtroom principle to personal, day-to-day relationships. The contrast is not Jesus versus Moses but Jesus versus bad hermeneutics: what the civil magistrate is authorized to do with the sword (Romans 13:1–4) stands entirely intact, and Exodus 22:2–3's legitimization of self-defense is nowhere repealed. The sermon works through Jesus' four illustrations — insult, property disputes, conscription, and benevolence — to show that Christ is calling his disciples to a disposition of patience and forbearance in ordinary life, not to a pacifism that would render them incapable of functioning in civil society.
Of the Gospel and Extent Thereof (2LCF 20)
2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 20, 'Of the Gospel and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof,' addresses a chapter absent from the Westminster Confession but added by the Congregationalists in the Savoy Declaration and retained by the Particular Baptists to combat incipient deism and the General Baptist doctrine that sinners may be saved through general revelation alone. The sermon traces the chapter's four paragraphs through Romans 10, Luke 24, John 5, and Psalm 19 to demonstrate that the gospel of Christ has been the sole substance of special revelation since the protevangelium of Genesis 3:15, that general revelation is categorically insufficient to make Christ known, that God distributes gospel light with absolute sovereignty, and that effectual grace is indispensable alongside that revelation for the conversion of dead sinners. The double theme of the chapter — the necessity of special gospel revelation and the necessity of the Spirit's insuperable work — magnifies divine grace, grounds the missionary enterprise, and exposes the doctrine-of-sin deficiencies latent in every scheme that allows salvation apart from hearing Christ proclaimed.
The Gentiles and the Covenant of Grace, Part 3
Ephesians 2:19–22 closes Paul's argument about the equal standing of Gentile believers within the covenant people of God. This sermon works through three aspects of the temple Paul constructs in these verses — its foundation (apostles and prophets), its cornerstone (Christ himself), and its materials (believers united to him) — showing that Gentile inclusion is not second-tier membership but full citizenship in the kingdom and full membership in the household of God. The sermon presses hard on the corporate nature of these privileges, arguing from David's anguish in 1 Samuel 26 that to be cut off from public worship is to be cut off from the inheritance of the Lord, and that Christians who treat gathered worship as optional have surpassed David in privileges while falling far short of him in appetite.
The Laws Concerning Homicide and Bodily Injury, Part 2
Exodus 21:22–32 contains Israel's civil laws governing bodily injury to a pregnant woman, the discipline of servants, and liability for a goring ox — all concrete applications of the sixth commandment. The passage's language for premature birth employs the same Hebrew vocabulary used elsewhere in Genesis for childbirth, establishing that both mother and child (or children) are protected persons under the law, which the sermon applies directly to the ethics of abortion. The lex talionis (life for life, eye for eye) is examined not as a mandate for literal replication of injury but as a principle requiring proportionate punishment — neither too lenient nor excessive — a standard grounded in the dignity of every person as an image bearer of God.
Live Stream - September 25, 2022
Ephesians 2:14–18 presents Christ as the one who is our peace, who makes peace, and who preaches peace — accomplishing the reconciliation of both Jews and Gentiles to God through the blood of his cross. The abolition of the ceremonial law removes the middle wall of separation between the two peoples, creating one new man in Christ without distinction of privilege or standing before God. Access to the Father through the Son by one Spirit is inherently trinitarian, and the corporate assembly of God's people is the apex of that New Covenant blessing — making unexplained absence from gathered worship a forfeiture of the very Redemptive benefits Christ secured.
Of God's Law (2LCF 19), part II
The moral law of God — given to Adam at creation, codified at Sinai in the Ten Commandments, and written on the hearts of New Covenant believers — perpetually binds all people everywhere, justified and unjustified alike, by virtue of God's authority as Creator. This study of 2LCF Chapter 19, paragraphs 5–7, works through 1 Timothy 1:8–10 to distinguish the three uses of the law (civil, pedagogical, and normative) and expounds Jeremiah 31, Matthew 5, Romans 3, Romans 6, Galatians 3, Romans 13, and Ephesians 6 to demonstrate that Christ and the gospel do not dissolve but rather strengthen the law's obligation. The session exposes the errors of dispensationalism and antinomianism, showing that the Spirit of Christ enables believers to obey freely and cheerfully the very law that condemns the unbeliever. The application presses Christians to declare God's law publicly — to believers for sanctification and to unbelievers for conviction — never separating law from gospel in proclamation.
Of the Law of God (2LCF 19)
The law of God — its origin, divisions, and enduring obligations — is examined through 2LCF Chapter 19, tracing the moral law from its inscription on Adam's heart in the garden through its codification at Sinai and into the life of the justified believer. The confession distinguishes three categories of Mosaic law: the perpetually binding moral law, the abrogated ceremonial law, and the expired judicial law whose general equity retains moral usefulness. A sustained argument from Galatians demonstrates that the law's demand is personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience — a standard no sinner meets — establishing the absolute necessity of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. The session closes with Machen's warning that a low view of the law produces legalism rather than grace, pressing the congregation to preach the Decalogue faithfully so that sinners see their need for the Savior.
The Gentiles and the Covenant of Grace, Part 1
Ephesians 2:11–13 presents the former covenantal destitution of Gentile believers and the transforming power of Christ's blood that brought them near to God. The passage shows that Gentiles suffered two compounding liabilities: individual deadness in sin and corporate exclusion from the commonwealth of Israel and the covenants of promise. Against this bleak background, the apostle's 'but now' in verse 13 declares that union with Christ — secured through his atoning blood — has abolished the alienation and incorporated believing Gentiles into the one new humanity. The sermon argues that this covenantal reversal should evoke perpetual humility and gratitude in every believer, and calls the unbeliever to come to the Father through the Son in the Spirit.
The Law Concerning Servants
Exodus 21:1–11 opens what is commonly called the Book of the Covenant, the concrete judicial application of the Ten Commandments to Israel's civil life. The sermon situates this passage within the threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — explaining why the judicial law expired with the Israelite commonwealth while its general equity retains moral use, and why the theonomic demand that modern civil magistrates enforce the Mosaic penal code lacks New Testament warrant. Working through three features of the law concerning servants — the limitation on service, the acquisition of a family during service, and the protection of female servants — the sermon argues that far from being barbaric, these laws reveal God's wisdom and kindness in restraining exploitation and protecting the vulnerable in a post-fall world.
Live Stream - September 11, 2022
Ephesians 2:8–10 sets out the application and consequence of redemptive grace, arguing that salvation is entirely God's act — given by grace alone, received through faith alone, and issuing in good works that are themselves God's gift. The sermon works through the grammar and theology of the passage to demolish every form of human contribution to salvation, whether by faith conceived as a human offering or by works, so that God alone receives the glory. Believers are shown to be trophies of divine grace, created in Christ for good works God prepared beforehand — works that confirm justification rather than cause it.
The Saving Grace of God, Part 3
Ephesians 2:8–10 demolishes every notion that the sinner contributes to his own salvation, whether by supplying the faith or by bringing meritorious works. This sermon works through the passage in two movements: the application of redemptive grace in verses 8–9, where salvation is shown to be by grace alone through a faith that is itself God's gift and not the sinner's offering, and the consequence of redemptive grace in verse 10, where the good works of the justified are presented not as the cause or condition of salvation but as its God-prepared effect. The controlling purpose is doxological — that in every age where sinners are saved, the exceeding riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus are displayed, and God alone receives the glory.