The Good Friday sermon preached by Rev Nick Arundel presents a theologically orthodox outline of the gospel, rooted in the biblical typology of the burnt offering in Leviticus and culminating in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. It aims to teach key doctrines such as the necessity of atonement, the insufficiency of animal sacrifices, and the sufficiency of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. The preacher calls sinners to trust in Christ and exhorts believers to respond with gratitude and consecration.
Yet, despite these strengths, the sermon is experientially and doctrinally incomplete in ways that significantly affect its pastoral impact with necessary gospel clarity. This essay will argue that while the sermon is sound in its forensic framework, it lacks the necessary doctrinal depth and experiential urgency that undergird the gospel from a Reformed perspective.
At the heart of the sermon is the biblical narrative of God’s covenantal provision for sinners to approach Him on His terms.
The preacher rightly begins by recounting the Fall of Adam and Eve, emphasizing their rebellion against God and the resulting alienation from His presence. He notes that “neither can we approach God and live in his presence in our natural condition,” citing the example of Moses who, despite his unique role, could not enter the tent of meeting without divine provision. This sets the stage for the exposition of Leviticus 1, where God commands the Israelites to bring a burnt offering—a male without blemish—to make atonement by dying in the sinner’s place. The preacher explains that laying hands on the animal symbolized identification with the substitute, who bore the judgment deserved by the sinner.
This forensic framework is biblically and confessionally sound. The burnt offering typifies Christ’s substitutionary death, which alone can reconcile sinners to God. The preacher correctly acknowledges that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins,” citing Hebrews to affirm that salvation comes only through the offering of Christ’s body once for all. He uses a helpful pastoral metaphor of God putting the price of forgiveness on a credit card, which Christ pays in full on the cross. The sermon culminates in a call to trust Christ alone for forgiveness and freedom from sin’s guilt and power, assuring hearers that God is compassionate and able to cleanse and transform from within.
Despite these strengths, the sermon falls short in several critical areas that diminish its experiential force and doctrinal completeness. First, the preacher does not explicitly teach the imputation of Adam’s sin to all humanity, a foundational Reformed doctrine that explains why all are under condemnation and wrath apart from Christ. While the sermon describes alienation from God and the impossibility of approaching Him in our natural state, it skirts the forensic reality that Adam’s original sin is judicially charged to all his descendants, rendering every human being guilty before God (Romans 5:12–21). This omission is significant because it undergirds the necessity of Christ’s atonement and the urgency of the gospel call. Without a clear presentation of inherited guilt and condemnation as our default state of being, hearers may perceive sin primarily as alienation or separation, or even their own personal misdemeanors, rather than as a judicial state of wrath and eternal punishment.
Second, the sermon’s treatment of God’s wrath and the eternal consequences of sin is insufficiently developed. The preacher mentions God’s anger and that the burnt offering serves to “placate the righteous wrath of God,” but the reality of eternal damnation as the fearful consequence of impenitent sin is only implicitly stated and appears late in the sermon. The forensic alarm that sinners stand under God’s just condemnation and face eternal hell apart from Christ’s atoning work is not pressed with necessary clarity or urgency. This weakens the gospel’s power to awaken the conscience and drive sinners to repentance. Reformed theology, as articulated in the Westminster Confession(WCF VI.6) insists that the knowledge of God’s wrath and eternal judgment is essential to the law’s function in preparing sinners for the gospel.
Third, the sermon’s presentation of the new birth and regeneration is underdeveloped and remains inconsequential. This is not to imply that every sermon must preach the necessity of being born again, but in such a sermon dealing with the Atonement, new birth should be the logical implication. Instead, the preacher calls believers to respond with gratitude and to present themselves as living sacrifices, which is a fitting application of Romans 12:1. However, the necessity of being born again as a radical spiritual resurrection from death to life (John 3:3–7; Ephesians 2:1–5) is not explicitly taught or connected to the atonement. The new birth is framed more as a grateful response to Christ’s sacrifice than as the indispensable means by which sinners are united to Christ, justified, and enabled to escape wrath. This experiential gap risks reducing the gospel call to a moralistic or emotional appeal rather than a forensic summons to be born again by the Spirit.
Fourth, while the sermon asserts that Christ’s substitutionary atonement is the only sufficient payment for sin, it does not fully unpack this truth in its forensic and covenantal dimensions. The preacher affirms that Christ bore God’s wrath and satisfied divine justice, but the atonement is not explicitly presented as an act of divine mercy that removes wrath and reconciles justice with grace. The metaphor of God putting the price on a credit card is pastorally helpful but softens the sober reality of God’s righteous judgment and the infinite value of Christ’s satisfaction. The sermon’s warm and encouraging tone, while pastoral, lacks the sober alarm of the law that Calvin and the Reformed confessions emphasize as necessary to drive sinners to Christ.
In sum, the sermon is theologically orthodox in its outline but experientially and doctrinally incomplete. It faithfully teaches substitutionary atonement and calls for faith and gratitude, but it does not fully confront hearers with the forensic realities of imputed sin, inherited condemnation, and eternal wrath. It does not clearly teach the necessity of the new birth as a radical spiritual resurrection, nor does it unpack the atonement as the only sufficient payment that satisfies divine justice and removes wrath. These omissions diminish the gospel’s power to awaken conscience, provoke repentance, and produce true conversion.
From a Reformed perspective, the gospel call must be both forensic and experiential. It must awaken sinners to their judicial guilt and condemnation, alarm them with the reality of God’s wrath and eternal judgment, and summon them to flee to Christ alone for mercy and new life. The new birth must be taught not merely as gratitude but as the indispensable spiritual resurrection that unites sinners to Christ and enables them to walk in newness of life. The atonement must be presented as the infinite satisfaction of God’s justice and the propitiation of His wrath, accomplished by Christ’s substitutionary death.
Such omissions fundamentally misrepresent the nature and efficacy of the atonement as revealed in Scripture. It leads hearers to underestimate the seriousness of their sin and the holiness of God’s judgment, thereby diminishing the gospel’s power to awaken genuine repentance. Moreover, without the imputation of righteousness, the believer’s new standing before God and the assurance that flows from union with Christ remain obscured, making the call to faith vague or incomplete.
The final reason here why these omissions are profoundly important are that the neglect of the new birth doctrine disconnects the atonement from the necessary experiential transformation. The new birth is the Spirit’s sovereign work that unites sinners to Christ, making the forensic realities of justification effectual in the ongoing sanctification in the believer’s life. Without this, hearers may intellectually assent to Christ’s death but fail to embrace the new life He offers, resulting in passivity, confusion, or false assurance rather than true conversion and sanctification.
In sum, while the sermon provides a solid forensic framework for understanding the burnt offering and Christ’s atonement, it requires fuller doctrinal teaching and experiential application to fulfill the gospel’s redemptive purpose. Only then will hearers be brought beneath the realities of sin, wrath, and death in Adam, and summoned to life in Christ through the new birth; this is the gospel’s power and the preacher’s calling.
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