The New Birth Stillborn: Easter, Improvement, and the Failure to Preach Deliverance

The Heathmont Presbyterian Church Easter Sunday sermon, preached by Rev Brian Harvey, sincerely affirms the resurrection. It does not treat Easter as myth, metaphor, or vague religious encouragement. It proclaims that Christ is risen, that the tomb is empty, and that the women who came to the grave became witnesses of the risen Lord. In that respect, the sermon is recognisably evangelical and should not be dismissed as liberal or unbelieving.

Yet the deeper concern is not whether the sermon affirms the resurrection as an event. The more searching question is whether it preaches the resurrection in a way that confronts sinners with their death in Adam and summons them to life in Christ through the new birth. Using this rubric, which is also the purpose of The New Birth in Exile series, it is clear that an Easter sermon must do more than ask, “Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?” The devil believes in the resurrection. Bare historical assent is not saving faith. The real Easter question is: When you stand before the risen Christ as Judge, what are you trusting in?

This is where the sermon falters. Its appeal moves toward belief, encounter, witness, life-change, and even “life improved,” but it does not sufficiently expose sin as guilt, bondage, corruption, spiritual death, and liability to judgment. As a result, the necessity of the new birth is not denied, but it is functionally undermined.

The Sermon’s Real Strengths

The Easter sermon has genuine strengths. It proclaims the resurrection as an event in history. It follows Matthew’s emphasis on sight and witness: the women see the stone rolled away, the angel, the empty tomb, and finally Jesus Himself. The sermon’s repeated refrain that “the king is not dead” gives it a clear and memorable centre. It also connects the angelic announcement at the tomb with the earlier angelic announcement in Matthew that Jesus would save His people from their sins.

These are not minor strengths. A sermon that affirms the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and calls hearers to reckon with the risen Jesus, is not to be treated as empty moralism. The preacher is plainly concerned that people take Easter seriously.

But the problem lies in what the sermon does not do with these truths. It affirms resurrection, but does not sufficiently preach ne necessity resurrection life. It mentions sin, but does not define sin. It calls for belief, but does not sufficiently distinguish saving faith from mere assent. It speaks of life changed and improved, but not clearly enough of sinners delivered, justified, regenerated, and raised with Christ.

“Dying for My Sin”: Orthodox Phrase, Undefined Reality

One of the most revealing moments comes near the end of the sermon, where the preacher speaks of Jesus “dying for my sin.” The phrase is formally orthodox. It belongs to the language of the gospel. But in the sermon, it appears to be the only explicit mention of sin, and sin remains undefined.

That matters profoundly. If “sin” is left undefined, hearers may fill the word with almost anything: mistakes, regrets, bad choices, emotional brokenness, lack of purpose, personal imperfection, or vague distance from God. But biblical sin is far more serious. Sin is rebellion against God, transgression of His law, guilt before His holiness, corruption of nature, bondage under Adam, spiritual death, and exposure to final judgment.

The problem, then, is not that the sermon never uses the word. The problem is that sin never governs the sermon’s account of the human condition. “Dying for my sin” appears as a late evangelical phrase, but the operative categories of the sermon are sight, witness, personal encounter, life-change, and improvement. The result is a sermon in which sin is mentioned but not diagnosed; Christ’s death is affirmed but not expounded; resurrection is celebrated but not pressed as the only hope for those dead in Adam.

Where sin is left undefined, the cross is left partially unexplained. And where the cross is partially unexplained, the new birth becomes optional, assumed, or invisible.

Why “Do You Believe in the Resurrection?” Is Not Enough

The sermon’s evangelistic appeal appears to move toward the question: do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? But that question, by itself, is not sufficient.

The devil believes in the resurrection. The demons know Christ is risen. They know He is Lord. They know judgment is coming. But they do not trust Him, love Him, worship Him, or flee to Him for mercy. Therefore, the issue is not merely whether one accepts the resurrection as fact. One may believe the resurrection historically, doctrinally, culturally, or apologetically, and still remain in Adam.

The proper Easter diagnostic is sharper:

When you stand before the risen Christ as Judge, what are you trusting in?

That question exposes false refuges. Are you trusting in decency, sincerity, church attendance, inherited Christianity, emotional religious experience, doctrinal correctness, or moral improvement? Or are you trusting wholly in Christ crucified and risen — His blood, righteousness, mediation, and mercy?

The resurrection is not merely an event to be believed. It is God’s public vindication of the crucified Christ and the guarantee that all men will stand before Him. Easter preaching must therefore move from fact to judgment, from judgment to refuge, from refuge to repentance and faith, and from faith to new birth in union with the risen Christ.

The Atonement Thinned by a Weak Doctrine of Sin

A weak view of sin produces a weak account of salvation. If sin is mainly coldness, distance, unbelief, lack of impact, failure to respond, or emotional forsakenness, then salvation can be preached as impact, response, meeting Jesus, life-change, or improvement. But if sin is guilt before God, bondage under sin, corruption of nature, spiritual death in Adam, and exposure to final judgment, then salvation must be preached with corresponding doctrinal fullness.

The guilty require substitution: Christ standing in the sinner’s place. The wrath-deserving require propitiation: Christ bearing and turning away divine judgment. The condemned require justification: Christ’s righteousness counted to them before God. The enslaved require deliverance: Christ breaking the dominion of sin, death, Satan, and this present evil age. The dead require resurrection: life in union with the risen Christ. The blind and unwilling require regeneration: the sovereign work of the Spirit by which sinners are born from above.

This is precisely where the Good Friday and Easter sermons are thinnest. Their phrases “Christ died for our sins” and “dying for my sin” are formally evangelical, but sin remains largely undefined and the atonement largely unexplained. Wrath and propitiation are not pressed; guilt and justification are not developed; bondage and deliverance remain muted; death in Adam and new birth in Christ are not made unavoidable. The result is a sermon pair in which the events of redemption are affirmed, but the necessity and nature of redemption are under-preached.

Passover Is Not Improved Slavery

The Easter sermon’s language of “life changed and improved” is especially revealing. The problem is not merely stylistic. It exposes a reduced canonical imagination.

Easter takes place within the Passover horizon. Passover is not about improving the conditions of slaves in Egypt. It is not about making bondage more bearable, emotionally meaningful, or spiritually inspiring. Passover is about judgment, blood, deliverance, exodus, liberation from slavery, and the formation of a redeemed people under God’s covenant rule.

To preach Easter as “life improved” is therefore to speak far too small a word. It is like telling Israel that Passover meant better working conditions in Egypt. But the Passover was not given to improve slavery. It was given to end it.

Likewise, Christ did not die and rise to make sinners more comfortable in Adam, more functional in exile, or more religiously optimistic under bondage. He died and rose to bring His people out. He is the true Passover Lamb. His blood shields from judgment. His death breaks the tyranny of sin and death. His resurrection inaugurates the new exodus and new creation.

This is a major canonical weakness in the sermon. Matthew’s Gospel is deeply shaped by Exodus and Passover patterns: the child called out of Egypt, the true Israel, the wilderness testing, the mountain teaching, the Passover meal, the crucified King, and the risen Lord who now sends His disciples to the nations. Easter is not merely a personal moment of encounter. It is the climactic act of divine deliverance.

Where Passover is not allowed to govern the meaning of Good Friday and Easter, redemption is easily reduced to improvement.

Good Friday as Supporting Evidence

The Good Friday sermon confirms that the Easter Sunday weakness is not isolated. It too contains real evangelical material. It opens with the gospel formula from 1 Corinthians 15: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised. It speaks of the final sacrifice, the torn curtain, access to God, and the blood of Jesus.

Yet its functional emphasis appears to fall more on witness, emotional identification, and personal response than on the judicial and liberating meaning of the cross. Jesus’ cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is moved quickly toward human experiences of abandonment and forsakenness. That pastoral move is not illegitimate in itself, but it is dangerous if it comes before the atoning meaning of the cry has been established.

The cry of dereliction is not first a general human lament. It is the cry of the covenant Mediator bearing the curse in the place of His people. Christ is not merely showing that He understands abandonment. He is enduring divine judgment for guilty sinners.

The Good Friday sermon also refers to Passover, but more as chronological background than as redemptive structure. Passover explains the timing, but it does not appear to govern the sermon’s theology of the cross. That omission matters. If Passover is reduced to background, then the cross is detached from its canonical framework of blood, judgment, deliverance, and release from bondage.

That helps explain why this sermon can later speak in terms of life “improved.” Where Good Friday under-preaches Passover, the Easter Sunday sermon under-preaches exodus. Where Good Friday under-preaches wrath and propitiation, Easter Sundayunder-preaches judgment and new birth.

The New Birth Stillborn

The new birth is not explicitly denied in these sermons. That is not the charge. The problem is more subtle: the sermons do not make the new birth necessary.

If sin is not preached as death, then resurrection becomes inspiration. If sin is not preached as bondage, then salvation becomes improvement. If sin is not preached as guilt, then the cross becomes comfort without propitiation. If sin is not preached as corruption, then conversion becomes decision without regeneration. If judgment is not preached, then faith becomes assent rather than refuge.

This is why the new birth is stillborn in these sermons. It never comes to full theological life because the sermons do not first slay the hearer in Adam. They do not sufficiently show that the natural man is not merely unimpressed, cold, drifting, or unimpacted, but dead in trespasses and sins. They do not press that the sinner does not merely need a better life, but a new heart; not merely a changed outlook, but a new creation; not merely improvement, but resurrection.

The sermon says the King is not dead. That is gloriously true. But it does not press with equal clarity that the hearer is dead unless made alive in Christ.

Conclusion: Easter Must Preach Deliverance, Not Improvement

The Heathmont Easter Sunday sermon is sincere, warm, and recognisably evangelical. It affirms the resurrection and calls hearers to reckon with Jesus. The Good Friday sermon likewise contains true statements about Christ dying for sins, the final sacrifice, the blood of Jesus, and access to God.

But taken together, the sermons reveal a structural weakness. Sin is mentioned but not defined. Wrath and propitiation are absent or muted. Passover is under-read. The resurrection is affirmed, but not sufficiently preached as the only hope for sinners dead in Adam. The hearer is asked to believe, but not searched concerning the ground of his trust before the risen Judge.

Easter preaching must do more. It must not merely ask, “Do you believe Jesus rose?” As was said above, the devil believes that. It must ask, “What are you trusting in when you stand before the risen Christ as Judge?”

It must not offer improved life in Egypt. It must proclaim the blood of the Lamb, the overthrow of bondage, the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness of Christ, the turning away of wrath, the defeat of death, and the sovereign miracle of being born again.

The gospel is not that Christ improves the conditions of slaves. The gospel is that Christ delivers captives, raises the dead, and brings His people into the liberty of the children of God.

 A copy of the full sermon is available at The Reformed Pastor's YouTube channel

More articles in "The New Birth in Exile" series