Should every sermon talk about Christ? Is the gospel so central to Scripture that it must somehow be worked into every sermon?

Although this book finds Christ in the Old Testament in places where even my strongest imagination could not find Him, this book has convinced me of Christ-centered preaching more than any other.

The author...

As a sixteen year professor of New Testament theology and ordained pastor of many years, as well as a man passionate to spread the gospel “to the ends of the earth” (494), Dennis E. Johnson carries the medals needed to make the hermeneutical and historical case for a return to apostolic preaching. Drawing his book title from Paul’s declaration in Colossians 1:28, Johnson writes to convince the read to refocus “biblical interpretation on Christ, the center of gravity who holds the Bible together and the key who unlocks Scripture’s meaning from Genesis to Revelation” (3).

The thesis...

Johnson sets forth his thesis in chapter one, contending that three tragic divorces have birthed the void of apostolic preaching today: first, the divorce of the Old Testament from the New Testament, second, the divorce of apostolic doctrine from apostolic hermeneutics, and third, the divorce of biblical interpretation from biblical proclamation (3-4). Johnson blames the death of apostolic preaching mostly on culture shifts: the 18th century Enlightenment’s worship of the scientific, historical criticism’s rejection of Scripture’s objectivity, and Nazism’s de-humanization of the Jew (4-7).

The breakdown...

Johnson briefly identifies the cause of each “divorce” and calls for a “remarriage.” He sections his book into two parts. Part one defends apostolic preaching, making “the case for apostolic hermeneutics and homiletics exegetically, historically, and polemically” (19). Part two applies apostolic preaching, providing a “theoretical framework and concrete strategies for preachers who desire to reflect the Christ-centered confluence of apostolic hermeneutics and apostolic homiletics in their own pulpit ministries” (20).

Compared to other books...

Johnson’s work strikes a bell you won’t find in a book like Robert Thomas’ Evangelical Hermeneutics: The New Versus the Old (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003) which restricts hermeneutics to a set of principles, avoiding the apostles’ example of seeing Christ as the ultimate reference point for all the Bible. On the other hand, Johnson’s work is almost a twin to Graeme Goldsworthy’s Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), though far more historically backed, scholarly informed, comprehensive in its use of the Old Testament, and practically applied for preaching. If Goldsworthy’s favorite shield for defending his position was progressive revelation then Johnson’s is the apostles' use of the Old Testament.

The content...

Johnson demonstrates acute insight into postmodernism and culture shifts that influence worldviews, which develops his thesis far beyond one man’s view set up against another’s (chapter 1). He understands his opponents’ chief arguments against his position, and this creates a very balanced and sensible response instead of emotional caricaturizing of those who disagree with him.

In chapter two, Johnson categorizes all preaching into three categories, listing their strengths and dangers. First, preaching only to convert brings souls to Jesus but may leave them spiritually malnourished. Bill Hybels and Rick Warren would be examples of this. Second, preaching only to edify may help believers become actively obedient but may create an attitude of Christless legalism. This approach also ignores the unbelievers present in the congregation. Many expositional churches of a dispensational leaning or the traditional "Bible" churches tend to fit this category. Jay Adams heralds this approach. Finally, preaching only to instruct (giving knowledge and doctrine) may nurture theological acuteness and cultural influence but also tends to nurture pride and doctrinal elitism. Many of the reformed bent lean this direction.

Johnson lists a fourth kind of preaching which he calls the “redemptive historical approach” (47), the kind that he mostly champions in this book (51). Yet even this approach he challenges with valid questions, such as reading Jesus into the text (eisegesis) or obscuring the distinctiveness of each text preached. Johnson then offers a modified version of this last approach which he calls the “Gospel Changes Everything,” a Neapolitan type of preaching that is Christ-centered, redemptive-historical, aims for change, proclaims the doctrinal center of the Reformation, and speaks in a language that connects with the un-churched in today’s postmodern culture (54).

Using Tim Keller’s ministry philosophy and homiletic style as a model, Johnson sets forth preaching that always proclaims the gospel, exposes the root of sin and misery in both the religious and non-religious (idol worship), and incorporates apologetic sidebars and lingo that bring “the Bible’s alien message into the indigenous language and thought-forms of those to whom God has sent him” (59). Johnson’s conclusion that this type of preaching is desperately needed is convincing, because he extracts the finest gold from every position and with that crafts his final masterpiece that still speaks to people in a postmodern mindset.

I find each of Johnson's arguments well supported except for his objection against Jay Adam’s approach to preaching primarily for believers. Johnson never explains why preaching should focus both on the saved and the unsaved. He simply admits that unbelievers are likely to be present. But this answer is only pragmatic and needs serious theological backing.

On the other hand, Johnson seeks to protect believers from legalistic behavior change apart from Jesus. He proposes a type of preaching that offers Jesus as the only solution to salvation for the sake of unbelievers who may attend that Sunday morning as well as the only One through whom the believer’s life can be changed (see 41). Johnson accurately asserts that “Scripture warns that external conformity of action or speech apart from internal allegiance and affection of heart fails to please God” (43). At the same time, he fails to mention that Christ and John and Paul repeatedly stated that the evidence of a changed heart is one’s actions (John 13:35; John 14:15; John 14:21; 1 Cor 6:9-10; 1 John 2:4-6). Johnson defends only one side of the theological coin, asserting that Christ is central, but almost ignoring the constant New Testament teaching that changed behavior is the evidence that Christ truly lives in one’s heart.

I could not agree more with Johnson that, “The Christian preacher must never preach an Old Testament text (narrative or other genre) in such a way that his sermon could have been acceptable in a synagogue whose members do not recognize that Jesus is the Messiah” (51). Yes! But this does not invalidate Paul’s or Jesus’ use of Old Testament stories to drive home a moral principle (Matt 10:15; 1 Cor 10:6).

In chapter three, Johnson delivers his thesis on the type of preaching he believes is the most effective and biblical. Unpacking Colossians 1:24-2:7 as his anchor, Johnson presents the purpose of preaching as completeness in Christ, the listeners of preaching as both saved and lost, the content of preaching as God’s message summed up in Christ, the application of preaching as a right response to the gospel, the suffering of preaching as the cost of proclaiming the Word, the power of preaching as the Holy Spirit of God, and finally the accountability of preaching as excellent stewardship of God’s Word. Johnson extracts his backing from the Word alone, and presents a philosophy of preaching so biblical that it cannot be argued with. I have yet to read a man from the reformed crowd so convincing and fair in his defense of apostolic preaching!

Johnson surveys apostolic preaching through the history of the church in chapter four, breaking it into three stages. In the first stage, stretching from the church fathers into the medieval ages, Johnson notes the healthy Christological focus on interpreting Scripture as well as the dangerous slip into extreme allegorism. In the Reformation stage, he applauds the return to a unified approach to Scripture as well as the renewed attention to historical grammatical interpretation. In the third stage, Johnson laments the enlightenment’s birthing of historical criticism which no longer viewed Scripture as one thematic story from promise to fulfillment, but instead as a “collection of diverse human documents that belonged to a unified but evolving religious and historical tradition and trajectory” (115). Johnson proposes Geerhardus Vos’ position and reformed biblical theology as the most worthy approach to interpreting Scripture, an approach that lets progressive revelation restrain the reader from reading Christ into the text, let’s the relevant context of the text itself guide its interpretation, and finally placing the “text’s message in the broader context of the biblical canon as a whole” (124).

In chapter five, Johnson surveys and interacts with the most popular challenges to apostolic preaching, particularly, the apostles’ use of unexpected Old Testament passages to point to Jesus. Johnson wisely asserts that those of the dispensational rite and “historical-grammatical hermeneutics only” camp go too far when they claim that the apostles misused the Old Testament. Since the apostles were writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what man has authority to make this accusation? Johnson goes one step further and rejects the idea that we can agree with the apostles’ conclusion but reject their method: “Is it intellectually consistent to stand with the apostles at their hermeneutic ‘destination,’ when we cannot in good conscience walk with them on the path that led them there?” (150). Although his question deserves a response, I find Johnson’s conclusion that we are to look for a “subterranean substructure” invisible to us (162) a rash move that leaves open all of the Old Testament for fanciful interpretation. Though I highly doubt that Johnson would abuse his own exhortation, it is likely that many of his disciples would take his conclusion to its logical end and abuse the very thing he was trying to protect: historical grammatical interpretation of Scripture that looks to Christ as its ultimate fulfillment.

In his sixth chapter, Johnson uses the book of Hebrews as a paradigm for preaching from Christ-centered hermeneutics, noting that Hebrews is unique from the other epistles since it’s a sermon more than a letter (171-174). It is true that Hebrews sheds tremendous light on the centrality of Jesus to all of Scripture and demonstrates vividly how to exhort believers to obedience without falling into the trap of legalism. But Johnson fails to mention that this book’s Jewish audience largely explains why Christ is so central to this book. Indeed, Christ is central to all of Scripture, but I am convinced that Hebrews is not overtly Christ-centered because the letter is oratorical, but because the audience is Christian Jewish.

In chapter seven, Johnson lists five categories for New Testament interpretations of Old Testament texts, from the most obvious to the most vague: direct types (like the flood pointing to Jesus’ baptism of salvation), direct quotations applied to Jesus (like Hosea 11:1 quoted by Matthew), unmistakable allusions (like the bronze serpent and Jesus being lifted up), subtle allusions (like Moses’ tabernacle and Mary’s womb), and Old Testament patterns fulfilled in Jesus (like all the psalms of suffering pointing to Jesus’ suffering). Johnson’s conclusion that the apostolic hermeneutic demonstrated in the New Testament is not only to teach doctrine and interpretation of Old Testament texts, but to “acclimate our minds to a way of viewing all of God’s dealings” as ultimately being fulfilled in His Son (216), clarifies his position without overstepping the importance of the immediate context of every passage. Johnson uniquely promotes a Christ-centered apostolic hermeneutic still grounded in historical-grammatical interpretation.

Johnson humbly demonstrates tremendous restraint in his defense of apostolic hermeneutics, being careful to not make the same mistake the allegorists of the patristic and medieval age made. For chapter eight, He promises to address “how to implement apostolic proclamation today” (238), but instead, gives a theological treatise in defense of Christ as the head of the new creation and mediator of the new covenant, which he soundly backs with Scripture, but fails to make practical as he promised to do. Johnson finally turns his thesis into practical steps in chapter nine which includes observing the text in both its close and canonical contexts. He urges the reader to become familiar with the Septuagint, since Jesus and the apostles quoted from it voluminously, and also suggests the reader reflect on how the passage fits into the pattern of covenants. He then applies this exhortation by observing passages from five Old Testament genres.

In his final chapter, Johnson demonstrates how gospel narrative, parables, doctrinal discourses, ethical instructions, and wisdom literature can be preached in an “apostolic way” (334). I end with a quotation of the most convincing example of the apostolic hermeneutic in the entire book:

Matthew’s application of Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” to the sojourn of Joseph and Mary with the child Jesus in Egypt is often cited as an egregious example of the irresponsible absurdity of apostolic hermeneutics (Matt. 2:15). Hosea plainly spoke not prospectively of the Messiah but retrospectively of the Exodus, say Mathew’s critics. In one sense they are right: Hosea’s text does indeed look back to the Exodus. But Matthew’s critics ignore (or simply reject) a more foundational conviction to which Matthew is leading his readers: Jesus is the true Israel, delivered from infant death, brought out of Egypt, tested in the wilderness, and finally exalted as Son of Man, invested with all authority as representative head of the eschatological “saints of the Most High” (Dan. 7:13-14 is echoed in the Great Commission, Matt. 28:18-20) (208).

Over-sized but convincing...

Johnson’s work is the most convincing piece of literature I’ve ever read that defends Christ-centered preaching. The most powerful element of this book is its persuasion that hermeneutics is far more than a set of rules to follow. It is also a way of viewing Scripture, an example established by the apostles’ use of the Old Testament. Johnson brings us a masterpiece on this topic, so thick it’s like reading three volumes in one. But its strength is also its weakness. How many non-scholars who don’t agree with Johnson’s thesis will take the time to read a 493 page volume with a thesis they don’t embrace? Were Johnson to write a shorter volume without the plethora of exegesis of passages that really don't add much to strengthen his thesis (particularly chapters 6, 8, 9, and 10), he might gain a wider reading and persuade more preachers to his position.

Dennis E. Johnson. Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ From All the Scriptures. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007. 493 pp. $24.99.