Topic
Covenant Theology
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The Confirmation of His Death
John 19:31–37 records the confirmation of Christ's death by Roman soldiers and the apostle John, providing decisive historical and theological testimony against any swoon theory or denial of His true humanity. The soldiers' breaking of the legs of the other condemned men — but not of Jesus, who was already dead — and the piercing of His side with a spear fulfills two strands of Old Testament prophecy: the unbroken bones of the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12) and the piercing of Israel's Messiah (Zechariah 12:10). John's eyewitness testimony is given with a stated evangelistic purpose — 'that you may believe' — grounding the gospel call in verified historical fact. The sermon closes with an exhortation to confident, prayer-filled gospel proclamation on the basis of Christ's finished, sovereign work of redemption.
The Conversion of Paul
Paul's pre-conversion résumé in Philippians 3:4–8 reveals that the 'chief of sinners' was not a libertine but a fastidiously religious man — circumcised, a Benjamite, a Pharisee, blameless by the external standard of the Mosaic law, and violently zealous in persecuting the church. This sermon traces that résumé through Acts, Galatians, and 1 Timothy to establish a single point: it is not one's sins but one's trust in one's own righteousness that keeps a sinner from Christ. On the road to Damascus, Paul counted every credential as loss, because acceptance with God is grounded solely in the active and passive obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ received by faith alone.
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 Signs and Wonders Following Jesus's Death
At the death of Jesus, Matthew records four signs: the tearing of the temple veil, an earthquake, split rocks, and the resurrection of Old Testament saints — phenomena unique or extended beyond what the other Synoptics report. This exposition works through Matthew 27:51–56, arguing that each sign carries distinct theological weight: the torn veil announces the abrogation of the old covenant by fulfillment and the opening of free access to God through Christ's flesh; the earthquake signals divine judgment and vindicates the Son; the resurrection of the saints demonstrates Christ's power over the grave, confirms the bodily resurrection hope, and shows the retrospective efficacy of his atoning work for old covenant believers. The sermon closes at the Lord's Supper table, where the confession of Gentile soldiers and faithful women together display that Christ's blood avails for every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
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 5th Commandment
The fifth commandment — 'Honor your father and your mother' (Deuteronomy 5:16) — demands far more than a recipe for happy families; it is a covenantal obligation rooted in God's own authority and binding on every generation. This study examines the command under three heads: its explanation (the Hebrew word for 'honor' connoting weightiness and reverence), its scope (extending beyond the family to all superior-inferior relationships in church, workplace, and commonwealth), and its sanction (from the rod of correction in Proverbs to the capital sentence of Deuteronomy 21). The promise appended to the command — long life and general wellbeing — is understood as a principle of divine providence, not an absolute guarantee, and the study closes with the duty of superiors to govern those beneath them in a godly and nurturing way.
The Glorious Curse Bearer
Galatians 3:10–14 presents the law's curse as a judicial sentence of divine condemnation from which no sinner can escape by obedience, since perfect and perpetual law-keeping is universally failed. Christ, the covenant champion, redeemed his elect by becoming a curse in their place — bearing the wrath due them, answering on a mountain at a tree the curse that entered the world on a mountain at a tree. The blessing of Abraham — the imputation of Christ's righteousness received through faith alone — comes not through circumcision, ceremony, or ethnic connection to the covenant community, but through union with the crucified and risen Christ. Those outside Christ remain justly under divine condemnation; those in him are freed from the curse and heirs of all the promises of God.
The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 4
The sixth saying of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross — 'It is finished' (John 19:30) — is not a cry of defeat but a declaration of completed victory. The single Greek word tetelestai, a perfect tense verb signifying a past completed action with abiding present results, encompasses the fulfillment of all Old Testament Scripture, the completion of Christ's earthly suffering, the full accomplishment of the Father's will, and the definitive salvation of his people. The sermon works through the typological witness of the law (Passover, Day of Atonement, the bronze serpent, the sacrificial system), the prophetic witness of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the Psalms, showing that Christ's cry from the cross brings every shadow and promise to its intended end. The application presses the finished work as the sole ground of justification, assurance, peace with God, and security against every accusation — calling both believer and unbeliever to look to Christ alone and live.
2LCF Chapter 8, Of Christ the Mediator, Part 3
The sinlessness of Christ, the efficient and instrumental causes of the incarnation, and the hypostatic union are examined through a clause-by-clause exposition of 2LCF Chapter 8, paragraph 2, with supporting analysis of paragraphs 3 and 7. The confession's language — 'yet without sin,' 'conceived by the Holy Spirit,' 'of the seed of Abraham and David,' 'without conversion, composition, or confusion' — is unpacked against the background of patristic Christology, Chalcedonian definition, and Reformed theological precision. The ministry of the Holy Spirit throughout the entire mediatorial life of Christ is recovered as an often-neglected dimension of Christology. Incarnational and interpretive rules drawn from paragraph 7 equip hearers to handle Scripture passages that appear to diminish Christ's deity, by distinguishing what is predicated of a nature from what is predicated of the one person according to a nature.
The Command from the Mount
Matthew 28:16–20 presents the risen Christ commissioning his disciples from a mountain in Galilee — a location Matthew treats as theologically laden with the entire biblical theology of mountains, from Eden to Sinai to Zion. The sermon traces that mountain typology across Genesis, Isaiah, Hebrews, and Zechariah to show that the Great Commission is nothing less than the eschatological commencement of the new covenant. Christ's declaration — 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth' — is expounded as the mediatorial kingly inheritance he receives by virtue of the perfection of his redeeming work, not a restoration of suppressed divine glory. The commission therefore binds the church to gospel proclamation, believer's baptism, and the continual instruction of the baptized, all undergirded by the abiding presence of the exalted Christ through his threefold office of prophet, priest, and king.
2LCF Chapter 8, Of Christ the Mediator, Part 2
The incarnation of the Son of God — his taking to himself a true and complete human nature — is the greatest of all gospel mysteries and the life and soul of the church. Working through paragraphs one, two, three, seven, and nine of the Second London Confession chapter eight, this study examines the timing, manner, and extent of the Son's assumption of humanity, arguing that the incarnation was neither a subtraction from deity nor an addition to it, but a terminative assumption by which the eternal Son united human nature to his own divine person in the hypostatic union. The full extent of that assumption — body, reasonable soul, human will, human affections, and the common sinless infirmities of our nature — is not a speculative nicety but a soteriological necessity: what is not assumed is not healed.
The Clarity of Apostolic Preaching - Galatians 3:1-4
Paul's rebuke in Galatians 3:1–4 confronts the Galatian churches for being 'bewitched' away from a gospel that had been proclaimed to them with unmistakable clarity. The sermon traces three elements: the pastoral severity of Paul's charge of folly, the transparent sufficiency of apostolic preaching that set Christ crucified visibly before the Galatians, and Paul's measured appeal to their own experience of receiving the Spirit through faith rather than works. The central burden is that any addition to the finished work of Christ — however subtle — is not a lesser error but a bewitching delusion that empties the cross of its glory and replaces the peace of the gospel with bondage.
The Power and Wisdom of God
How can God justify the ungodly without compromising his justice, and why does the design of salvation leave no room for human boasting? Expounding 1 Corinthians 1:30–31 against the backdrop of Paul's extended contrast between divine and worldly wisdom, this sermon traces the source, content, and goal of every spiritual blessing the believer possesses. Christ is shown to be the believer's righteousness, sanctification, and redemption not as a description of the Christian's progress but as an objective account of what he accomplished as the covenant head of his people. The sermon concludes that because union with Christ is the sole ground of salvation, all glory belongs to God alone — a truth Paul anchors in Jeremiah's call to glory only in the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
2LCF Chapter 8, Of Christ the Mediator, Part 1
The 2nd London Confession of Faith Chapter 8, 'Of Christ the Mediator,' stands at the structural and theological center of the confession — all that precedes it tends toward it, and all that follows flows from it. This session examines paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 7, and 9, focusing on the identity, deity, and divine relations of the Son of God as the appointed mediator. Drawing on the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds and the biblical witness, the study argues that the Son is very and eternal God, eternally begotten of the Father, of one substance and equal with him, the creator and sovereign governor of all things — and that this high Christology is the necessary foundation for understanding the incarnation and saving work that follows.
The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 2
The crucifixion scene in John 19:23–27 contains two theologically freighted details: the seamless tunic cast for by lot, and Christ's provision for his mother from the cross. The tunic, described in terms that evoke the high-priestly garments of the Old Covenant, calls the reader to see Christ functioning as the perfect, perpetual high priest whose once-for-all sacrifice accomplishes what Leviticus 16 could only foreshadow. The division of his garments fulfills Psalm 22:18 exactly as God predetermined, underscoring that the cross was never plan B. The sermon concludes by pressing four implications of the gospel: substitutionary atonement, justification by faith alone, the reordering of priorities at the foot of the cross, and the binary demand that every hearer either look to Christ in faith or remain under divine wrath.
The Warning Against Judaizers
Philippians 3:1–3 contains the only sustained polemical section in the epistle, and the apostle Paul deploys it as a warning against Judaizers — those who insisted that faith in Christ must be supplemented by Mosaic ceremonies such as circumcision for acceptance with God. Working through Paul's strategy in verse 1, his three-fold warning in verse 2, and his corrective in verse 3, the sermon demonstrates that the Judaizing error — whether in its first-century form, in Roman Catholicism, or in modern movements such as the New Perspective on Paul and Federal Vision — nullifies the grace of God by refusing to let Christ be a whole Savior. The church's only boast, identity, and worship are grounded in Christ alone, received through faith alone, apart from any confidence in the flesh.
2LCF Chapter 7, Of God's Covenant
God's covenant with humanity is not an afterthought to the fall but the divinely ordained means by which the Creator bridges the infinite distance between himself and the creature. This study of 2LCF Chapter 7 traces three movements: the necessity of covenant rooted in the creator-creature distinction, the necessity of a covenant of grace arising from man's fall and God's sovereign pleasure to save, and the progressive revelation of that covenant from the protevangelium in Genesis 3 through its ratification in the blood of Christ at Calvary. The sermon insists that the covenant of grace is not merely administered across multiple Old Testament epochs but revealed through them and finally ratified — not administered — in the new covenant, a distinctively Reformed Baptist reading of covenant theology. The hearer is called to rest entirely on the covenant obedience of Christ, the only mediator, rather than on any obedience of their own.
Positive Law vs. Moral Law: Understanding The Sabbath
The fourth commandment contains both a moral element and a positive-law element. The moral element — that one day in seven is owed to God in worship — is binding on all creatures by nature. The positive element — which specific day — is determined by the covenant one stands in: Saturday under the old covenant, Sunday under the new, the latter established by Christ's resurrection on the first day of the week. This distinction answers why the church's day of worship changed without abandoning the creational obligation to Sabbath rest.
The Bronze Serpent
Numbers 21:1–9 records Israel's sin of grumbling in the wilderness, God's judgment through fiery serpents, and the divinely prescribed remedy: look at the bronze serpent lifted on a pole and live. The sermon traces this narrative in two movements — the defeat of the Canaanites in verses 1–3, where Israel prays and trusts God, contrasted with the failure of verses 4–9, where they grumble despite God's provision. The bronze serpent functions as a type of Christ, as Jesus himself declares in John 3:14, and the sermon presses the application that justification is by faith alone — not by prior works, not by self-examination of the wound, but by looking to the one lifted up. Weak faith does not disqualify the sinner; even a feeble look at the appointed remedy brings the sinner into peace with God.
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 Decision of Pilate
Pilate's encounter with the condemned Christ in John 19:5–16 exposes three interlocking realities: Pilate's own tension between justice and political cowardice, the divine authority behind all earthly power, and the sovereign verdict that sends the Son of God to the cross. The crowd's cry "Crucify him" and Pilate's capitulation, far from frustrating God's plan, enact it — the last Adam standing in judgment to accomplish what the first Adam forfeited. The sermon calls every hearer to look in faith to the one delivered up by divine appointment, receiving through his blood the forgiveness and imputed righteousness that alone secures acceptance before God.
Redemption, Restoration, and Righteousness
Isaiah 61 presents the anointed Messiah declaring his own mission of redemption, restoration, and righteousness for his people. The sermon works through all eleven verses, arguing that Christ alone — anointed by the Spirit without measure as prophet, priest, and king — fulfils the role foreshadowed by every Old Covenant anointing and reverses the covenantal curses of Deuteronomy 28. His saving work springs up the church, the true Zion, from the ruins of Old Covenant desolation, and clothes her not in her own merit but in the imputed righteousness of the Mediator. The sermon closes with the church's response of rejoicing and a call to the unbeliever to believe on Christ and receive everlasting life.
2LCF Chapter 6: Of the fall of man, of sin, and of the punishment thereof
The fall of Adam and Eve was not an unforeseen catastrophe but an event God sovereignly permitted according to his wise and holy counsel to order to his own glory. Working through all five paragraphs of 2LCF Chapter 6, this study traces the anatomy of the fall — from man's original uprightness under the covenant of works, through the willful transgression of the law of their creation, to the imputation of guilt and conveyance of corrupt nature to all of Adam's posterity by ordinary generation. The totality of sin's consequences — total depravity, total inability, spiritual death, and the inheritance of wrath — makes the second and last Adam, Jesus Christ, the only and necessary answer, whose active and passive obedience reverses both the imputation and the inheritance fallen humanity bears in the first Adam.
The Fourth Commandment, Part 3
Hebrews 4:9's use of the word 'Sabbatismos' — Sabbath-keeping as a practice to be observed — anchors the argument that a weekly Sabbath rest remains binding on the New Covenant people of God. The sermon traces the theological rationale for the day-change from Saturday to Sunday through the resurrection of Christ, arguing that the Son's rest from the work of new creation mirrors the Father's rest from the work of creation. Three alleged anti-Sabbatarian texts — Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2 — are examined in turn and shown to address Jewish ceremonial calendar observances, not the moral fourth commandment. The burden of proof, the speaker argues, lies with those who would remove one commandment from the Decalogue, not with those who keep all ten intact.
The Fourth Commandment, Part 2
What does Jesus's ministry teach about the continuing obligation of the Sabbath commandment, and how does the resurrection determine which day Christians must observe? This study works through the Fourth Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:12–15) in its New Covenant application, examining Christ's relation to the law in Matthew 5:17–20, his correction of Pharisaic Sabbath-keeping in Matthew 12, and the testimony of all four Gospel accounts that the resurrection occurred on the first day of the week. The moral principle of one day in seven devoted to God is shown to be trans-covenantal and perpetual, while the positive-law element — which day — shifts from Saturday to Sunday with the resurrection of Christ, establishing what the 1689 London Baptist Confession calls the Christian Sabbath.
June 15, 2025
What does God require of Christian husbands and fathers? Drawing from Proverbs 3–6, 12–13, 18–19, 22–23, 27–29, and 31, this sermon argues that the fear of the Lord is the indispensable foundation for a man's calling in the home — governing his love for his wife, his provision and protection, his sexual fidelity, and his faithful instruction and discipline of his children. The sermon addresses the transgenerational character of biblical Christianity, insisting that fathers who neglect to instruct and discipline their children not only harm their households but contribute to civilizational moral decay. Men are called to see their wives as gifts from God, to deal honestly with their own sin before their families, and to raise children who are shaped by law and gospel rather than left to their Adamic nature.
The Trial Before Pilate, Part 3
John 18:39–40 records Pilate's offer to release Jesus under the Passover custom, and the crowd's choice of Barabbas instead — a transaction that serves as an emblem of substitutionary atonement: the just taking the place of the unjust, the holy bearing what the unholy deserves. Drawing on Matthew 27:15–26 to amplify the scene, the sermon traces the envy of the religious leaders, the warning of Pilate's wife, the manipulation of the multitudes, Pilate's cowardly self-absolution, and the crowd's terrible cry of blood-guilt. The central application is that the believer stands before God not on the ground of personal righteousness but solely on account of Christ's vicarious obedience and death — the glorious exchange in which our sin is laid on him and his righteousness is credited to us.
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 Christian Husband and Father
Proverbs 4:1–9 opens a sermon that traces the pattern of transgenerational wisdom-transmission from David to Solomon to Solomon's children, and uses it as the framework for a thorough biblical account of what faithfulness looks like for a Christian husband and father. Drawing extensively from Proverbs, the sermon argues that a godly husband fears the Lord, deals honestly with his sin, loves his wife as a gift, provides for and protects her, communicates with kindness, and maintains sexual fidelity; and that a godly father extends that same godliness toward his children through love, instruction, and both verbal and corporal discipline exercised within an orbit of affection. The sermon is marked throughout by a Reformation soteriology — salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone, not by exemplary parenting — and closes with direct exhortations to fathers, mothers, and young men preparing for marriage.
The Fourth Commandment Part 1
The abiding validity of the Fourth Commandment is defended through a biblical theology of the Sabbath that traces the institution from creation through the old covenant. The sermon argues that Sabbath rest is grounded not in the Mosaic economy alone but in the creation ordinance of Genesis 2 and the redemption of Exodus, making it binding upon all humanity — not Jews only — as Christ himself teaches in Mark 2:27. The positive and moral character of the commandment is distinguished from its ceremonial and positive elements, with the day change to the Lord's Day deferred to the following session. Hearers are called to receive the Sabbath as the gift it is declared to be in Isaiah 58, not as a Judaizing imposition.