Introduction: Today we are commemorating the Lord’s Ascension into Heaven, the time when He received universal dominion, absolute and unfettered, from the hand of His Father. But we must never forget that His Ascension is built on the bedrock of His Descent. We are told that He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men, …
Departure from Bethany/Easter 2018
Introduction: The message that we Christians have for the world is a message that concerns certain key historical events, and we include with that message the theological import, the theological meaning, of those key events. We preach and declare that Christ died and rose, and we also declare that this same Christ was the God/man, …
Clean From Unclean/Good Friday 2018
Jesus is the Lord of reversals. To understand this, we have to understand the backdrop of the older covenant. Throughout the Old Testament, if someone came into contact with an unclean body—a leper or a dead man—mere contact made him unclean himself. The disease, the death, the corruption was all contagious. “Thus saith the Lord …
A Meditation: Christmas Eve 2017
As Christians we confess the reality of the true and living and triune God on two levels. The ultimate level is God-as-He-is-in-Himself, independent of any creation. The infinite God is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit—God the Speaker, God the Spoken, and God the Interpretation. This is simply and solely the way …
The Night Before Whatsit
So here is some festive doggerel I wrote some time ago, and which I periodically post at appropriate times of the year — and now it is the turn of 2017. Have a merry Christmas. Comments are open, but only if you want to say merry Christmas back. ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all …
The God Who Stoops
Introduction: The message of the gospel is one that not only brings us forgiveness of sin, but also one that upends all our categories. God unmakes our tawdry pasts, and replaces them with a fresh start, a new birth, a clean slate. But He also intends to unmake our officious assumptions about what all those …
500 Years of Cumulative Grace
Introduction: So we have now come to the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. What I want to do is briefly remind you of certain key elements in that Reformation, and then address the meaning of time and anniversaries. What are we doing when we commemorate things like this? Recall that 500 …
The Mines of God Go Deep/Pentecost 2017
Introduction: Last week we marked Ascension Sunday, the crown of the objective gospel. When we point to the objective gospel, we are talking about those elements of the gospel that would have been true had you or I never been born. But an objective gospel by itself saves no man—there has to be application. And …
A Series of Coronations
Introduction: On Ascension Sunday, we mark the departure of the Lord Jesus into Heaven, where He was received in great glory, and where He was crowned with universal dominion. This is our celebration of His coronation proper. But there were a series of glorifications prior to this, each one building on the last—at each stage …
Good Friday Homily 2017
As we meditate of the death of the Lord Jesus, as we consider what He has done for His people in this glorious substitutionary sacrifice, one of the things we may reflect on with profit is how many times Scripture juxtaposes blood and water, and on the different ways it does so. One of the …