This entry in the series of Gospel Coalition booklets is co-authored to provide explanations of distinct views concerning the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. In turn, Anyabwile and Duncan helpfully discuss the origins and various interpretations of these ordinances and then expound how they are used in churches today. While solid, this is a mere introduction to these issues and will only rehash old ground for all but the newest of initiates into this area of study. 

Baptism reminds the church and the individual Christian of Jesus’ cross, where Jesus took away and nailed our sins and where Jesus’ triumph becomes our triumph. Baptism reminds us that Christ has suffered our judgment and made peace with God for us. [10]

Without in any way diminishing the importance of baptism of its necessity for Christian obedience, we deny that water baptism regenerates of that it causes the new birth. In the Bible, uniformly, covenant signs, sacraments, or ordinances signify and confirm the spiritual realities that they represent; they do not produce those realities. [16]

The Lord’s Supper belongs to the weak Christian. No one comes to the Table in unblemished worthiness or undiminished strength. We come to the Table in need. We come to the Table fresh from battles with sin, discouragement, unbelief, and the world. We need to be fed again. We need to receive the sustenance that Christ affords. By faith we receive the nourishment we need as we imbibe the benefits of Jesus’ atoning work for sinners and weaklings. [20]

The bread and wine do not change in any real way. Yet the Supper represents more than mere commemoration. In calling the statements figurative or symbolic, this view does not downplay the reality and importance of the thing signified. The Lord’s Supper combines tremendous mystery and genuine spiritual blessing. [24]

A sacrament is an action that God designed to sign (symbolize) and seal (ratify) a covenantal reality that the power and grace of God accomplished; the Word of God has communicated its significance, and people received or entered into its reality only by faith. [27]

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This collection of addresses from the 2010 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology focuses on the ‘last days’—a period that began with the resurrection of Christ and will continue until His return. Specific emphasis is put on the Christian hope amidst this present age of evil. Featuring contributions from a wide range of authors, this book has some strong chapters and others that fall a bit short of the mark, but the overall effort is helpful.

So often we want to build God’s kingdom. But the Bible never uses that language of us in relation to God’s kingdom. The New Testament insists that there is only One who builds the kingdom—and it’s not you or me. It is God. We may pray for the kingdom, we may preach for the kingdom, and we may live for the kingdom, but it’s God who builds and brings the kingdom. [75]

Worship is essentially giving to the Lord the glory due His name. But it’s very important for us to understand that Christians are not the only people that worship. Everybody worships something. We worship what we value most. [85]

The unbeliever chooses heaven only because he is scared of hell. But the believer chooses heaven over earth. [86]

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In the tradition of Preaching The Cross, this book features the collected transcripts of the messages given at the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference. Each speaker focused his sermon on the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ and what his death means in terms of both doctrine and application. Although the variety of writing styles occasionally disrupts the continuity of the book, the overall message is coherent and their unified proclamation of the Gospel remains clear. 

Your life is an extension of your systematic theology and doctrine. You are what you believe. If your life does not adorn your biblical doctrine, it suggests not that the Bible’s doctrine is untrue but that at some profound level, that truth has not taken hold of you yet. [19]

We cannot know like God knows (archetypal), but we can know as God wants and allows and helps us to know (ectypal). [32]

Disciples are made by sitting under apostolic (biblical) teaching that conveys all the truth that Jesus taught his disciples with a view to that truth being lived out. Doctrine is to be practiced, lived, obeyed, and observed. [40]

Original sin, and all the actual sin that flows from it, and God’s just condemnation of the wicked have been made (in the inscrutable wisdom of God) to show, demonstrate, display, evidence, and magnify his grace to the objects of his mercy. In other words, God has used spectacular sins and relentless judgment to display the glory of his grace. [53] 

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Is suffering the evidence that God is unaware or unable to act in our lives, or is there something else we are meant to learn? Duncan answers these types of questions, showing the reality of suffering in light of Scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ. There is a purpose to suffering, and we must be prepared for the suffering that will inevitably come our way. To that end, this book (although short) is useful.  

When you are facing a long and enduring struggle, you need to be equipped with something bigger to fight against it, and there is nothing bigger than the glory of Jesus Christ. Your desire to see Jesus magnified in one of your great weapons in the war against suffering. You must learn how to suffer in such a way that Christ will be great in your eyes and in the eyes of all who see your suffering. [13]

Even in your darkest days, God is still 100 percent for you. He is not against you, and everything that you need to endure, you already possess in Christ Jesus. But this truth is easier to say than it is to believe. It is easier to profess the truth than it is to rest in the truth during some difficult and dark time. But you need to begin a journey toward fully embracing it even in your darkest hour. [14]

Learn to hate sin like we all hate suffering. [23]

We do not rejoice in suffering because we are masochists. We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that God the Holy Spirit is working in us according to His sovereign plan. God uses suffering to build something in us that would not have been there otherwise. [31]

Though we seek comfort in answers to our question of why we suffer, God brings us comfort by answering the question to who is working mysteriously in our suffering. [58] 

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Adapted from a series of messages, this book is a brief look at death and the afterlife from a Christian perspective. Although it is primarily a surface-level introduction to the issues of heaven, hell, and how to be prepared for death, it provides solid information delivered in a helpful way. There isn’t much content here for those seeking an in-depth study of these issues, but Duncan has put together a serviceable overview of an oft-neglected topic.

Death is actually the way things were never intended to be. Death is a judgment of God against sin. Death is the most unnatural thing in this world. [17]

Approach it with a biblical understanding: not in denial or escapism; not in stoic, emotionless detachment; but in realism and in hope, recognizing what death is, but also recognizing what Jesus’ death has done to death for all who trust in Christ. [21]

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Where is the Lord? He is at the right hand of God. Where is the right hand of God? I do not know, but my Lord is there, and that is all that matters. I am to be with Him. [29]

Hell is the fairest doctrine in the world. In hell, you not only get what you want, you get what you deserve. In hell, you are paid your wages. In hell, you reap what you have sown. It is the fairest doctrine in the world. Heaven, that is unfair. A sinner enjoying Christ for all eternity is unfair. Give me unfair! I will take heaven by grace. [39]

In glory, you will be exonerated from every false charge that has ever been made against you, or that ever will be made against you in this life. But not only that, you will also be exonerated from every true charge that has been or ever will be brought against you in this life. Jesus Christ will publicly avow you as His. [56] 

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A compilation of messages delivered at a Together for the Gospel conference, this book addresses the notion of preaching from the perspective of several men who have been called to the preaching ministry. Filled with practical advice and timely exhortation concerning the proclamation of the Word, this book is easily recommended to anyone who stands behind a pulpit, or for any who would seek to better understand what preaching should be and what preaching should do.

It is important for us to grasp that so much of the New Testament is a hermeneutical manual to help Christians understand the Old Testament and to help Christian preachers understand how to preach and apply the Old Testament. [42]

We ought to be able to preach Christ naturally and exegetically from all of the Old Testament. That does not mean that we force Christ in an odd way into places where he is not found in the Old Testament, but that we realize that there is always a way to Christ and to his cross from every passage in the Old Testament. [47] 

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