https://open.spotify.com/episode/10ixCt2aXnH8iECb8n5SyN?si=X9jPa16qRP67WwheSw_jYA After expressing that our Redeemer must be both truly God and truly human, Question 22 addressed why the Redeemer must be truly human. Our present question brings us to the second part of that blessed truth: Why must the Redeemer be truly God? Since Jesus revealed Himself to be the eternal Son of the …
Continue reading Question 23: Why Must the Redeemer Be Truly God?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0j3bGOn2BZvGGXXuNrGT2V?si=9pDFDn4tRf2hEMgWcJg6LA Questions 21-23 are particularly bound together. In Question 21, we confessed the truth that Christ’s hypostatic union, His true humanity and divinity, makes Him uniquely capable of being our Redeemer. He alone is able to mediate between the Holy One and sinful men because He is both God and man. Questions 22-23 now address …
Continue reading Question 22: Why Must the Redeemer Be Truly Human?
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death. Proverbs 10:2 ESV All people must wrestle to understand the perennial question of why the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer. Thankfully, God does not leave us to grapple with that question alone. The Book of Job is the most obvious example. …
Continue reading Treasures Gained by Wickedness Do Not Profit
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5envUKev3Ayr9b60O79BpG?si=nF4_KAWnQ3m_mO3tdsYXNw In the garden, Adam and Eve needed neither redeemer nor mediator. They were free to bathe in the presence of God and to enjoy the world that He given them to steward. But they rejected their communion with God in a feeble attempt to seize even more power than God had already granted them. …
Continue reading Question 21: What Sort of Redeemer Is Needed to Bring Us Back to God?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KsMAyIAiPhbYwS6NApizi?si=yAGRzZ36QHi7VdD90uUKFw Although much of the New City Catechism so far has been establishing the reality of our sin and condemnation that makes the gospel necessary, we finally arrived at that good news in the previous question, where we confessed that there is indeed a way for us "to escape punishment and be brought back into …
But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Hebrews 11:16 ESV With preaching through the entire Epistle to the Hebrews, my thoughts for sermon-text divisions has been to choose large chunks …
Continue reading Not Ashamed to Be Called Their God | Hebrews 11:16
Let your steadfast love comfort meaccording to your promise to your servant. Psalm 119:76 ESV As we have already seen, the psalmist is clearly writing from a place and time of affliction. His enemies encircle him like wolves, taunting him. Yet, like Job, he has not cursed God; rather, he has pointedly declared his absolute …
Continue reading Let Your Steadfast Love Comfort Me | Psalm 119:76
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5JdQsZpRhSguoT7EL6Zzyx?si=dcYo3aeeTCOhKcZJSvCX4A The New City Catechism is divided into three parts. The first part focuses upon God the Father, creation, the Fall, and God's law. The second part concerns Christ, redemption, and grace. The third part instructs us on the Holy Spirit, our restoration to God, and our growing in His grace. Although this is the …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6aB9296UvJlkSJY3wAumXK?si=F0AoM0wmS7qHqeENoENHDg Since Question 6 our catechism established God's law and our inability to keep it as God requires, forcing us to conclude that we are, in our very nature, sinners and idolaters. Our present question follows logically and ought to be of the utmost importance: will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished? …
Continue reading Question 18: Will God Allow Our Disobedience and Idolatry to God Unpunished?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4M3WQ8BtkuGKoDfZLplB9I?si=FNEWPYbrTViwoH7JThg9Ng This question is a subdivision of the previous but is also a further explanation of the first part of Question 9. The First Commandment (which reads, “You shall have no other gods before me”) is, at its core, God denouncing idolatry, condemning it as sin. He will not have us trusting in created things …
B. C. Newton 