In many respects, these emphases are commendable. The sermon refuses to sentimentalize Good Friday. God’s wrath is not hidden. Hell is not dismissed. Christ is not presented merely as an empathetic sufferer or moral example.
The Father’s judicial action against sin remains central throughout much of the sermon. Indeed, compared with many modern Easter sermons, this message possesses a seriousness and doctrinal gravity that deserves genuine recognition.
Yet the sermon also reveals a significant theological reduction at precisely the point where the Cross ought to open into its deepest biblical and Reformed dimensions. Beneath its strong treatment of penal substitution lies a controlling absence: the Cross is presented primarily as payment for sins committed rather than as God publicly vindicating His own holiness against fallen humanity.
That missing dimension affects everything else. It affects the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of God, the sermon’s experiential penetration, and ultimately the necessity of the new birth itself.
The issue is not that the sermon denies these things explicitly. Rather, the controlling structure of the sermon causes them to recede into the background. The Cross repeatedly functions as the mechanism whereby guilty individuals may have their sins forgiven, but less as the divine judgement of fallen humanity beneath the holiness of God.
This becomes especially important when one considers the texts chosen by the preacher himself. Hebrews 10 does not merely discuss sacrifice in transactional terms. It repeatedly presses into deeper categories: conscience, sanctification, inward cleansing, perfected worshippers, and the law written upon the heart. Likewise, Leviticus 1 is not simply about legal payment. It concerns approach to a holy God, acceptance before Him, substitution beneath His judgement, and the problem of how sinful humanity may dwell in His presence.
Yet these deeper dimensions remain comparatively underdeveloped throughout the sermon.
This profoundly shapes the sermon’s doctrine of sin. Sin is treated predominantly as criminal liability. Human beings commit sins, incur guilt, deserve punishment, and therefore require substitutionary atonement. Again, all of this is true. Yet sin rarely descends beneath behaviour into nature. The sermon explains what sinners do more than what sinners are.
The repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament already imply something deeper than isolated acts of wrongdoing. The continual shedding of blood morning and evening testified not merely that human beings occasionally commit sins, but that humanity itself remains fundamentally unclean before God. The problem is not only behavioural failure. The problem is fallen humanity itself.
This is precisely where Adamic theology matters. The Fall did not merely produce guilty actions. It corrupted human nature. Man became alienated from God, spiritually dead, resistant to holiness, darkened in mind, disordered in affection, and enslaved to self-rule. The repeated sacrifices of Leviticus silently testify to this ongoing corruption. The sinner must continually return because sin is not accidental to fallen man. It arises from what he is.
The sermon approaches this reality but never fully enters it. The hearer is told repeatedly, “You are guilty.” Yet he is rarely brought consciously to say, “My very nature is corrupt before God.” One can feel guilt while still preserving self-love. Even Judas experienced guilt. But the new birth becomes existentially necessary only when the sinner begins to despair not merely of his record, but of himself.
This weakness in the doctrine of sin naturally produces an inadequate doctrine of man. The sermon’s anthropology remains heavily forensic and behavioural. Man appears primarily as a moral agent who commits sinful actions deserving divine punishment. What receives comparatively little attention is man’s inward condition, his instinctive resistance to holiness, his love of darkness, his spiritual deadness, and his corruption inherited through the Fall.
Yet the preacher’s own chosen texts press toward these realities. Hebrews 10 explicitly speaks of “consciousness of sins,” of worshippers not being perfected, and finally of the new covenant promise: “I will put my laws on their hearts.” The problem being addressed is not merely legal guilt but the inability of fallen worshippers to stand rightly before a holy God.
Although the sermon speaks seriously and often vividly about the shedding of blood, its treatment of blood remains predominantly judicial and sacrificial. Blood is explained as signifying death, substitution, wrath, and payment beneath divine judgement. Yet Hebrews 10 itself presses beyond these categories into something far deeper. The problem confronting the worshipper is not merely external guilt but inward uncleanness. This is precisely why the blood of bulls and goats could never truly “take away sins” or cleanse the conscience. The repeated sacrifices testified that the worshipper himself remained fundamentally unchanged. He left the altar still fallen, still inwardly corrupted, still conscious of sin, and still unable to stand perfected before a holy God.
The issue was therefore not simply the need for punishment to fall, but the need for polluted worshippers to become fit for the presence of God. Hebrews moves repeatedly into these inward categories: conscience, sanctification, perfected worshippers, and the law written upon the heart. Christ’s blood therefore accomplishes what animal blood never could. It does not merely symbolize death beneath wrath; it cleanses the conscience, sanctifies the worshipper, inaugurates the new covenant, and creates a people able to draw near to God. Yet these dimensions remain comparatively underdeveloped throughout the sermon. As a result, the blood functions primarily as the cost of forgiveness rather than as the holy cleansing necessary for fallen humanity to dwell in communion with the living God.
This is where the sermon begins to feel incomplete. It explains substitution clearly, but less fully why fallen humanity requires inward transformation. The hearer may leave believing, “I need Christ to pay for my sins,” without concluding, “I must become an entirely new creature.” And this naturally weakens the necessity of the new birth. Regeneration becomes doctrinally adjacent rather than existentially unavoidable.
The same reduction affects the sermon’s doctrine of God. To be fair, the sermon’s doctrine of God is stronger than that found in much contemporary evangelicalism. God is presented as holy, wrathful against sin, judicial, and unwilling simply to overlook evil. The Father’s role in pouring out judgement upon the Son is explicitly acknowledged. These are genuine strengths.
Yet God remains primarily judicial rather than majestically overwhelming. The sermon explains God’s wrath more than it unveils God’s holiness.
That distinction is critical. The seriousness of sin is always proportional to the glory of the One sinned against. The burnt offering was not merely a mechanism of payment. It was a terrifying declaration concerning the holiness of the God before whom the worshipper stood. The flames consuming the sacrifice revealed what divine holiness thinks of sin.
The sermon explains the mechanics of sacrifice carefully, but the hearer is less frequently brought consciously beneath the unbearable purity and majesty of God Himself. Consequently, the Cross risks becoming primarily about how sinners may escape punishment rather than about God publicly upholding His own holiness against fallen humanity.
This directly affects the sermon’s experiential element. The sermon contains vivid illustrative material. The hearer is asked repeatedly to imagine laying hands upon the animal, slitting its throat, watching the carcass burn beneath divine fire. These are powerful pedagogical images.
Yet vividness is not identical with experiential preaching.
The sermon explains sacrifice more than it anatomizes the soul beneath the sacrifice. The hearer is shown guilt, but not deeply searched. The sermon rarely probes why man naturally resists God, why holiness feels foreign, why self-rule is cherished, why sinners instinctively flee exposure, or why fallen humanity hates divine authority.
Consequently, the conscience is informed more than wounded.
The older experiential tradition sought not merely awareness of guilt but hatred of indwelling corruption. The sinner was to feel not only condemned for sinful acts but horrified at the inward principle of sin itself. This sermon, by contrast, often leaves the hearer functioning mainly as an observer of atonement rather than as a ruined sinner collapsing beneath the holiness of God.
That is why the sermon can feel simultaneously doctrinally serious yet strangely educational in atmosphere. It often resembles a theological lecture explaining sacrifice rather than prophetic preaching exposing the soul.
And this leads finally to the diminished necessity of the new birth. Because the sermon’s controlling framework remains guilt, punishment, substitution, and forgiveness, rather than fallen humanity, divine judgement, death of the old man, and new creation.
Yet Hebrews 10 itself presses beyond external sacrifice toward inward transformation. The old covenant sacrifices could not perfect the conscience. They could not create holy worshippers. They could not write the law upon the heart. Those categories already point beyond forgiveness alone toward regeneration and new covenant life.
This is where the sermon ultimately feels incomplete within the broader aims of the Easter series. It explains atonement clearly and often faithfully, but it does not bring the hearer consciously into death and resurrection. The sinner is taught that he needs pardon, yet not sufficiently brought to despair of the very self that requires pardon.
As a result, the sermon’s application remains comparatively external. The hearer is told to recognize his need, trust Christ, and celebrate God’s provision. A fuller experiential Reformed sermon would aim deeper. It would seek hatred of indwelling sin, collapse of self-righteousness, awareness of Adamic corruption, longing for inward renewal, consciousness of spiritual deadness, and desperate dependence upon the Spirit to create an entirely new man fit for the presence of a holy God.
That, ultimately, is the great absence here. The sermon preaches substitution robustly, but not the death of fallen humanity beneath the holiness of God. It proclaims forgiveness more strongly than new creation. And therefore, despite its many doctrinal strengths, it stops short of the fuller biblical vision already present within its own chosen texts: that sinful humanity does not merely require payment for sins, but inward transformation if it is ever to dwell before the living God.
