This Good Friday sermon, preached by Rev Russ Grinter at the East Bendigo Presbyterian Church, offers a commendable emphasis on Christ as the Passover Lamb and victorious King, rightly rejecting political nationalism and affirming the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom.
However, it suffers from a profound theological deficiency: a failure to adequately articulate the doctrine of sin from a God-ward perspective.
This omission critically undermines the gospel’s power by neglecting to expose the full horror of sin before the holiness and justice of God, the imputation of Adam’s guilt to all humanity, and the consequent righteous wrath that sinners deserve.
Furthermore, the sermon downplays the physical suffering of Christ, thereby diminishing the portrayal of the atonement’s depth and the gravity of eternal judgment.
Every theological and pastoral point in the sermon must be measured against this missing foundation, for without a clear and forensic treatment of sin’s horror and Christ’s suffering, the gospel call lacks urgency, clarity, and transformative power.
A faithful Easter sermon should begin with a clear and unflinching presentation of the horror of sin before God. The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) in Chapter VI teaches that Adam’s original transgression resulted in the loss of original righteousness and communion with God, rendering all his descendants “dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.” This total depravity means that every human being is born under sin’s dominion, inherently corrupt in every aspect of their being, and utterly unable to save themselves. Sin is not merely external misbehavior but a pervasive condition of the heart, encompassing pride, unbelief, rebellion, and enmity against God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines sin as “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (WSC Q14). This definition underscores that sin is a fundamental failure to meet God’s perfect standard, not merely a series of wrongful acts.
This sermon’s failure to articulate this doctrine of sin leaves the sins of the heart largely unexposed and the hearer’s conscience insufficiently awakened. The sermon mentions that Jesus will judge but does not unpack what will be judged or why faith in Christ as the Passover Lamb is necessary to avoid condemnation. Without such forensic clarity, hearers may not perceive their personal peril or the necessity of Christ’s substitutionary atonement. The experiential theological framework governing the analysis in the “New Birth in Exile” series insists that preaching should bring hearers beneath the realities of God’s holiness, human guilt, and divine judgment, leading to a conscious reliance on Christ’s atoning sacrifice. It was the realization of the lack of clear preaching on sin that gave rise to this series.
For, the doctrine of total depravity is not merely about human inability but about the radical corruption of human nature. The WCF states that this corruption affects “all the faculties and parts of soul and body,” meaning that sin permeates every dimension of human existence—intellect, will, emotions, and physical being. This comprehensive defilement results in spiritual death, alienation from God, and bondage to sin. The sermon’s omission of this reality risks presenting sin as a superficial problem rather than a profound existential condition requiring divine intervention. A common thread in all of the sermons within this series has been a focus on behavior modification, which if examined in the light of Scripture, is an anti-Christian perversion of the gospel.
Imputation of Guilt and Divine Wrath
Closely connected to the horror of sin is the doctrine of imputed guilt, whereby the sin of Adam is legally charged to all his descendants by ordinary generation. The WCF teaches that “the guilt of this original sin is imputed; and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all posterity descending from him by ordinary generation” (WCF VI.3). This forensic reality means that all humans are born guilty before God, deserving His wrath and condemnation. The sermon’s neglect of this truth leaves a critical gap in understanding why all need Christ’s atoning sacrifice and the new birth wrought by the Spirit.
The WCF further teaches that every sin, original and actual, brings guilt and exposes the sinner to God’s wrath and curse, subjecting them to death and all spiritual, temporal, and eternal miseries (WCF VI.6). The sermon’s passing reference to judgment fails to communicate the severity of this divine wrath or the eternal consequences of sin. Without a clear exposition of guilt and wrath, the gospel call risks becoming a vague invitation rather than a summons to flee from wrath to come.
The imputation of guilt is not a mere theological abstraction but a practical reality that shapes the sinner’s standing before God. It explains why infants, incapable of personal transgression, are nonetheless under condemnation and in need of the election of redemption. It also grounds the necessity of Christ’s substitutionary atonement, for only One who is both God and man can bear the penalty due to sinners and satisfy divine justice.
The missing theology of sin in this sermon directly impacts the sermon’s treatment of the new birth and faith. Faith is not a mere intellectual assent or a general invitation to “look into Jesus,” but a Spirit-enabled, effectual trust that unites the sinner to Christ and appropriates His righteousness. The Westminster Standards and Calvin’s Institutes both emphasize that faith is a gift wrought by the Spirit, inseparable from regeneration. The WCF states that “those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit” (WCF X.1). This effectual calling includes regeneration, whereby the sinner is made spiritually alive and enabled to believe.
The sermon’s insufficient emphasis on the horror of sin and the imputation of guilt weakens the call to this Spirit-wrought faith and new birth, leaving hearers without a clear understanding of the radical transformation required to escape judgment and enter the covenant of grace. Without a proper diagnosis of sin’s depth and guilt, faith risks being reduced to mere intellectual assent or moral improvement rather than a life-altering union with Christ.
Another significant omission in the sermon is the downplaying of Christ’s physical suffering. While affirming Christ as the victorious King, the sermon does not adequately emphasize the reality and severity of His bodily sufferings. The Reformed confessions affirm that Christ endured “most grievous sorrows in his soul, and most painful sufferings in his body” (1689 London Baptist Confession 8.4). This suffering is essential to His atoning work, fulfilling the curse of sin and bearing the full penalty deserved by sinners.
Although there is a temptation by some preachers to focus on the physical sufferings of Jesus, perhaps because we can so easily identify with the physical, the remedy is not to downplay its significance. The physical suffering of Christ stands in stark contrast to the eternal physical and spiritual torment awaiting the unrepentant in hell. To minimize Christ’s bodily suffering risks diminishing the full extent of His substitutionary atonement and the profound cost of redemption. The tension between Christ as the slain Lamb and the triumphant King must be maintained, for these truths are complementary. Christ’s death was a real, painful sacrifice, yet it was also a victorious conquest over sin, death, and Satan. The sermon’s phrase that “Jesus does not die as a victim but as a victor” requires careful theological balance to avoid confusion or reductionism. After all, the Passover lamb in Exodus, prefiguring Christ, was indeed a victim of sacrifice.
The physicality of Christ’s suffering is not incidental but central to the gospel. The atonement involves the whole person of Christ—body and soul—bearing the curse of sin in its fullness. This includes the physical agony of crucifixion, the abandonment by the Father, and the experience of hell’s wrath in Christ’s soul. Fleeing the wrath to come also includes horror of the lake of fire where eternal suffering takes place. The Scriptures deliberately include physical and spiritual eternal suffering of the damned. The gospel proclaims that Christ “was pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5), bearing the punishment that we deserved. To neglect this dimension is to risk a diminished understanding of the gospel’s power to save.
The absence of a clear and vivid exposition of sin’s horror and Christ’s physical suffering diminishes the sermon’s pastoral effectiveness. Without confronting hearers with their sinfulness and the just wrath of God, the call to repentance and faith may lack the necessary urgency and clarity. The invitation to faith, while commendable, is insufficiently compelling without a clear contrast between life in sin and life in Christ, showing what sinners are turning from and what they receive.
Moreover, an experiential theological framework emphasizes that genuine conversion arises from a heart deeply aware of its sin and desperate for forgiveness through Christ’s atoning blood. The sermon’s failure to expose the personal nature of sin and guilt risks leaving hearers with a vague or incomplete gospel understanding, which may result in superficial or therapeutic responses rather than true repentance and faith.
The pastoral task of preaching the gospel is not merely to inform but to awaken conscience and provoke repentance. This requires a forensic presentation of sin’s guilt and the reality of divine wrath, followed by the proclamation of Christ’s substitution
