As Easter approaches, many churches will mark its beginning with a Palm Sunday service. This is more than just a nod to the tradition of the church; it is an acknowledgement that each detail of the gospel record has vital…
How can the believer reconcile the suffering, trials, and persecution they are guaranteed with the astounding assurance in Psalm 121 that the Lord will keep them from all evil? Some might misinterpret this passage and claim a false gospel of…
Puritan pastor Walter Marshall concludes his magisterial work on a believer’s sanctification, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, with the simple but profound dictum that “Sanctification in Christ is glorification begun as glorification is sanctification perfected.”[1] What makes this statement work…
Johann Heermann and the Comfort of the Cross In the spring of 1630, while the Thirty-Year War raged around Europe, pastor and poet Johann Heermann wrote a hymn to inspire his congregation to meditate on Christ’s suffering. Ah, holy…
After rising from the dead, ascending into heaven, and being enthroned at God’s right hand, Christ poured out the Holy Spirit on the church. The significance of this event cannot be exaggerated. It is the culmination of Christ’s exaltation short…
One vital component to the humiliation and exaltation of Christ is His ascension into heaven. The ascension is as central to the work of Christ as His death and resurrection, yet today it is largely unnoticed by the average evangelical…
Jesus’ exaltation hinges on his bodily resurrection from the dead. The conquering of death by Jesus demonstrated that he is the Son of God (cf. Rom. 1:4) and all subsequent acts of his exaltation are because he has conquered sin…
Following his death on the cross, Scripture affirms that Jesus was buried. All four Gospels included an account of his burial,[1] and it is mentioned in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. But why is this fact included in every…
As we grow nearer in our series to the end of Christ’s humiliation, his death, then, his burial, it is, at this time, we begin to see a growing dissonance between who we know him to be and the events…
There is a logical progression when one moves from the doctrine of the incarnation to the doctrine of Christ’s obedience. As Jeff Stivason argued in a previous post, Christ Jesus not only came into the world to save sinners (1…
