Category Archives: Gospel

Why will people not come to Christ?

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Joel Beeke and Mark Jones, in A Puritan theology: doctrine for life, outline some of the human impediments in the way of a person coming to Christ for salvation.

1. Neglecting the Christ of the Bible.

Some people fail to come to Christ because they pay little or no regard to the Christ of the Bible.  They seek a Christ of their own imagination; they seek Christ on their own terms.  We do not urge such people to read the Bible as a mere duty, or because in doing so they will have some kind of mystical experience.  …

Mark 1:1-20 – Four witnesses – sermon notes

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A book by Philip Pullman : ‘The good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ’.  This reflects the popular distinction between ‘the Jesus of history’ and ‘the Christ of faith’; the simple Galilean teacher, as depicted in the Gospels, and the exalted object of the church’s worship, as found in the Epistles.

How is Jesus actually presented in this, the earliest and shortest of the Gospels; the one that most emphasises his humanness?  Let’s call four witnesses.…

God so loved the world…

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John 3:16 has been called by Luther ‘the Bible in miniature’.  It reveals the following aspects of God’s love:-

1.  Its character.  The intensity and energy of divine love is hinted at in the word ‘so’.  The emphasis in the original is, ‘So loved God the world…’.  God loved to an immeasurable degree and in a transcendently glorious manner.  The little word ‘so’ signifies, ‘so greatly, so much, so dearly’.  God’s love is not only deep and pure, it is also powerful and active. …

Isaiah 56:1-8 – Welcome the stranger – sermon notes

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Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8:27ff.  He asked, “Of whom is the prophet speaking?”  He might also have asked, “To whom is the prophet speaking?”  The answer is here.

Last section of Isaiah – addressed to those returning from exile.

1. Gospel welcome

Addressed to all (v1-2), but specifically to ‘eunuchs’, v4, and ‘foreigners’, v6.

Gen 12:2 – “All people on earth will be blessed through you.”

Rahab, Ruth.

Cf. Deut 23.  ‘Special measures’, cf. Ezra, Nehemiah.

Jn 10:16 “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.…

Insights into idolatry

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Summarising a recent post written by J.D. Greear:-

We tend to think of idolatry as something practiced long ago by primitive peoples.  But idolatry is just as alive today as it always has been; it just wears different clothes.

A reading of Acts 19 prompts the following thoughts about idolatry, ancient and modern.

1. An idol is anything that promises you a life of security and joy apart from God.  In Acts 19, Artemis is described as the ‘protector’ and prosperer’ of Ephesus.  …

New Testament preaching

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Robert Mounce, in his 1960 book The Essential Nature of New Testament Preaching, explains that the in outline form kerygma consisted of three parts-

1. A historical proclamation of the death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, seen as the fulfilment of prophecy and involving man’s responsibility.

2. A resulting theological evaluation of Jesus as both Lord and Christ.

3. An ethical summons to repent and receive forgiveness of sins.

This summary is derived from an analysis of Peter’s five speeches recorded at the beginning of Acts.…

Conviction precedes conversion?

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It has often been thought, in evangelical circles, that Christian conversion is normally preceded by intense conviction of sin and awareness of one’s perilous state outside of Christ.  This has been documented Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley in their recent book, Prepared by Grace, for Grace: The Puritans on God’s Ordinary Way of Leading Sinners to Christ, and is discussed here by Donald Macleod.

The template is summarised by Jonathan Edwards: ‘God makes men sensible of their misery before he reveals his mercy and love.’  …

The gospel is the story of Jesus

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Many Christians feel a tension between the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels and that of Paul in his Epistles.  The central theme of Jesus, it would appear, was ‘the kingdom of God’, and the main focus of Paul was ‘justification by faith’.  These themes are so different that any attempt to reconcile them seems futile.  We then allow Jesus and Paul to be set up in opposition to one another, and end taking sides in favour of one or the other.…

Law and gospel

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The relationship between God’s law and his offer of salvation through Christ is a tricky one.

In the Middle Ages, law and gospel were often unsufficiently distinguished.  Many were taught to regard law-keeping as essential to be right with God.

Protestants taught that the law was given to Adam as a way of life.  After the fall, however, humankind was unable to keep the law perfectly and so a way of salvation was provided whereby the Sinless One kept the law in our place, bore the penalty for our transgression, and that forgiveness and new life are received by faith in Christ.…

Owen: what does it mean to preach the gospel?

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The teaching of the great Puritan writer John Owen on this subject is summarised by J.I. Packer:-

Preaching the gospel, [Owen] tells us, is not a matter of telling the congregation that God has set his love on each of them and Christ has died to save each of them, for these assertions, biblically understood, would imply that they will all infallibly be saved, and this cannot be known to be true. The knowledge of being the object of God’s eternal love and Christ’s redeeming death belongs to the individual’s assurance, which in the nature of the case cannot precede faith’s saving exercise; it is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed, not proposed as a reason why one should believe.…