To say the sermon appeared to ramble at times is a charitable understatement
A Sermon That Names the Cross but Does Not Consistently Expound It
This sermon is right to insist that Christianity cannot survive the removal of the cross. Preached by Rev Kyung Ee at Shepparton Presbyterian Church, it is a warning that a church without the cross becomes a social club and is rhetorically memorable and fundamentally true. Paul did indeed preach “Christ crucified,” a message offensive to self-righteous religion and foolish to autonomous human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:23). The sermon also rightly affirms that sinners cannot save themselves and that Christ’s sacrifice satisfies divine justice.
Yet its central difficulty is not simply that some doctrines remain underdeveloped. The sermon repeatedly declares profound truths without allowing its biblical text to establish, explain, or govern them. It is therefore marked by serious disconnects: between the stated text and the sermon’s movement, between its scriptural citations and their actual meaning, between its claims about grace and its appeals to the congregation, and between the cross it announces and the gospel it finally offers.
The sermon’s forceful tone should not obscure these weaknesses. A sermon can confront its hearers often while failing to bring the actual biblical offense of the cross to bear upon conscience.
The sermon begins by attributing Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” to Romans 1:6. This is a minor citation error in itself, but it signals a larger problem. Romans 1:16 concerns the gospel as God’s saving power, revealing the righteousness of God from faith to faith. The sermon immediately turns it into a searching test of whether believers speak boldly in public. Christian courage is surely necessary, but the text’s primary emphasis is not the hearer’s boldness. It is God’s saving righteousness revealed in the gospel. The sermon begins, therefore, with an imperative directed at the congregation where Paul begins with the objective power of God in Christ.
The sermon then identifies Galatians 5:7–11 as its principal text. But it does not carefully expound Paul’s argument here either. In Galatians, the offense of the cross arises because Paul refuses to make circumcision or law-observance necessary for justification. To require circumcision is not merely to add a difficult religious practice; it is to obscure the sufficiency of Christ and to make human obedience a ground of acceptance before God.
The sermon recognizes this basic issue when it says that Christians were being urged to follow the law “in order to be made right before God”. But it then cites Galatians 2:4 and Galatians 1:6–8 in ways that do not establish the claims being made. Galatians 1:6–8 warns against deserting the gospel for another gospel; it does not directly say that believers are “fully forgiven and accepted by God.” That truth can be taught from Scripture, but it needs to be shown from the text rather than attached to a reference that says something different.
The same disconnection occurs when Romans 6:22 is invoked to say that “God called you with peace” and “does not twist your arms”. Romans 6:22 teaches that those freed from sin and enslaved to God bear fruit leading to sanctification and eternal life. It does not offer the sermon’s stated account of divine calling. The result is that Scripture is frequently mentioned, but its argument is not allowed to speak with clarity and authority.
The sermon repeatedly says that salvation is wholly gracious. Christ died for the weak, powerless, hopeless, and ungodly. God acted first and did not wait for sinners to become worthy. These are strong affirmations of divine initiative.
But the sermon’s handling of God’s saving action is unstable. It says that God does not “twist your arms” to bring you to himself. In one sense, this may be intended to reject coercive human manipulation. God does not save by external pressure or mere emotional force. Yet in context it risks weakening the very grace the sermon has proclaimed. The spiritually dead do not need mere permission to come; they need the Holy Spirit’s life-giving work. God effectually calls sinners not by violating their will, but by renewing it, giving them a new heart, and making them willing to come to Christ.
The sermon later speaks of believers being “predestined … to be saved by faith through grace alone and by the power of Christ Jesus”. This compresses election, grace, faith, Christ’s accomplishment, and the Spirit’s application into an unclear formula. Predestination is not simply a religious way of saying that people are saved by faith. Scripture distinguishes the Father’s electing purpose, the Son’s atoning work, and the Spirit’s effectual application of redemption. Faith is necessary, but it is the Spirit-enabled reception of Christ, not an independent human contribution that completes salvation.
The Cross Announced but Not Fully Explained
The sermon says that Christ died “in your place for your sin”. It says that Christ “completely satisfied” God’s demands for payment. It again declares that his sacrifice satisfied God’s justice. These statements point toward penal substitution, the biblical truth that Christ bore the judgment due to sinners and satisfied divine justice in their place.
But the sermon never carefully explains why God’s justice required Christ’s sacrifice, what sin deserves before a holy God, or how Christ’s righteousness becomes the believer’s righteousness. “Only faith in Christ can make anyone righteous before God” is potentially misleading language. Faith does not make a person righteous by transforming it into a meritorious work. God justifies the ungodly by pardoning sin and imputing Christ’s righteousness to them. Faith receives and rests upon Christ alone.
That distinction is not technical ornament. Without it, hearers may understand the cross as providing a pathway that they must now activate by sufficient belief, commitment, or public boldness. The sermon opposes salvation by works, but it does not adequately explain the difference between Christ’s finished work as the ground of acceptance and faith as the instrument by which sinners receive him.
The Resurrection and the Gospel Appeal
The sermon rightly confesses that Christ rose from the dead. Yet it then says, “The power of cross comes from the resurrection”. This reverses the proper relation. The resurrection does not supply saving power to an otherwise incomplete cross. Rather, the Father raises the Son as the vindication of his person and the confirmation that his atoning work has been accepted. The cross and resurrection are inseparable, but the risen Christ is not required to make his sacrifice effective after the fact. He rises because death could not hold the sinless Son whose saving work was complete.
Finally, the sermon calls hearers to “accept the message” of grace and love through the cross. Again, this is an inadequate gospel summons. Scripture calls sinners to repent and believe in Christ. Repentance means turning from sin to God with grief for sin as rebellion against him. Faith means receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation. To tell hearers merely to accept a message risks leaving the cross as a religious idea rather than pressing its demand and promise upon the conscience.
The result of these disconnects throughout the sermon makes for a very confusing Good Friday sermon. The sermon is correct that the cross offends human pride. But its own preaching needs a more searching encounter with that offense. The cross does not merely challenge people to speak more boldly, appreciate Good Friday more deeply, or resist an attractive church culture. It declares that sinners are guilty, helpless, condemned apart from Christ, and unable to contribute anything to their acceptance with God. It announces that the crucified and risen Christ alone is sufficient. Only when that gospel is clearly expounded can the congregation be truly confronted, comforted, and called to faith.
Like many sermons in this New Birth in Exile series, this sermon has more in common with a moral-improvement programme,despite its explicit opposition to self-salvation, than with the message of Easter. Its controlling burden falls upon becoming bolder, more discerning, more publicly faithful, and more obedient, rather than upon the sinners’ death in sin, their need for the sovereign new birth, and their union with the crucified and risen Christ.
