For those of us who preach the Word of God, it is our duty and privilege in every sermon to show how each text ultimately points to Christ and how application of the sermon can only be obeyed by the enablement of Christ.

In his book, Preaching Christ From the Old Testament, Sydney Greidanus writes, “[O]ur concern is not to preach Christ to the exclusion of the ‘whole counsel of God’ but rather to view the whole counsel of God, with all its teachings, laws, prophecies, and visions, in the light of Jesus Christ."¹

I once surveyed every sermon preached in the book of Acts and was struck by one element common to all: every sermon centered on the person of Jesus. Whether it was Paul on the hill at Athens, Peter preaching to the Jews at Pentecost, or James before the converted Pharisees in Jerusalem, every man preached Jesus. When Paul ministered to the people of Corinth, he later wrote, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified!” (1 Cor 2:2). You will never find the apostles talking about the Old Testament apart from Jesus. This should teach us something very important: a Christless Old Testament is a purposeless Old Testament.

The dangers of Christless preaching

It teaches legalism to the believer.  

I’ve preached literally thousands of sermons, and I shudder to think of how many were so moralistic that even a Jewish rabbi or an Islamic mudarris would have agreed with every word I said. But unless we interpret and preach Scripture in light of redemptive history, we risk presenting the Bible as a rules book of morals and commands that only crush the hearer’s heart and motivate him by guilt. Commands and morals are good, but apart from Christ they are pure legalism.

It teaches a false gospel to the unbeliever.

If an unbeliever walks in on Sunday and hears me deliver three steps for conquering selfishness but hears nothing about Jesus Christ, the ultimate Selfless One who died for His sins and made it possible to not only live selflessly but to be forgiven of past sins of selfishness, he may walk away believing that if he tries hard enough and is moral enough he can become Christian by being unselfish. This is no different than the false gospel Paul condemned in Galatians 1:8-9 where some Jews claimed that one needs Christ plus circumcision to be saved.

How do we do this practically in sermon preparation without slaughtering the original meaning of the text and yet not preaching a morals-driven sermon that leaves consciences heavy with guilt but no escape through Jesus? Dennis E. Johnson provides a very helpful five step method for getting from text to sermon² and Sidney Greidanus offers seven “ways” of Christocentric interpretation.³ These formulas are helpful. At the same time, we must remember that the Bible never broke down the messianic Old Testament passages into different types. Christ-centered Bible interpretation and preaching is more a way of viewing the Bible than it is a list of rules to follow. Sinclair B. Ferguson in his article, “Preaching Christ From the Old Testament” makes the excellent point that we need to focus more on developing a heart and instinct for Christ-centered preaching than formulaic rules:

...it is a far greater desideratum [something needed] that we develop an instinctive mindset and, corresponding to that, such a passion for Jesus Christ himself, that we will find our way to him in a natural and realistic was rather than a merely formulaic way.⁴

In an effort to avoid legalistic formulas, following are three big questions I have found extremely helpful to ask myself when trying to figure out how God would have me preach His Son from the passage I’m studying:

Question #1: What is the immediate problem in the passage?

What does my preaching text teach me about humanities’ weakness? Put another way: What is the problem in the text? This let’s the historical context of the passage speak for itself, rooted in historical-grammatical interpretation. Exegesis of the text will reveal the answer to this question. Jonah’s problem was a lack of compassion. David’s problem was lust. Solomon’s was a divided heart. Peter’s was self-trust. Israel’s problem in the wilderness was ingratitude. This is especially helpful when preaching Old Testament texts. But even in New Testament letters there is always a problem the author is addressing, if not an area of spiritual improvement he hopes to see in his readers such as the Galatian church’s legalism or the Corinthians’ carnality. Even behind the most theological beefy passages we find behind Paul’s pen the motive of helping his readers grow in a practical way. This is also true of the genealogies where we encounter the problem of tarnished reputations marking every generation, not one worthy to take away humanities’ sins until the birth of the Messiah (1 Chron 1-9; Mat 1:1-17). Once we have identified the problem, we move to the next question…

Question #2: How does the gospel ultimately fulfill the passage?

No solution works forever but the gospel. And if every passage ultimately points to Jesus as Jesus Himself claimed (John 5:39; Luke 24:27), then it is vital that we find out how this passage finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Five questions can help uncover how the gospel ultimately fulfills the passage:

1) How does this passage fit into the backdrop of redemptive history?

Any time we read a Bible story it is important to ask: “How does this story fit in with the larger story of God redeeming a people through whom His name will be praised? What is God’s ultimate purpose in this text?” Without an answer to this question, many Old Testament passages become purposeless stories, floating in midair. But God never intended any story in Scripture to be viewed as an isolated or static event. Each smaller story is a thread weaving into the great web of the bigger story of God calling a people to Himself. What does this have to do with Christ? Everything! Without Jesus, no people can be brought to God and forgiven. For Jew or Gentile, religious or pagan, Jesus Christ is God’s single agent through which forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God is achieved.  
This means we’ll have to read enough of the story or narrative to get to the answer of this question. The Bible student must back up until he sees where the story is headed and how it finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. The original Scriptures were not separated by chapter numbers, but one long narrative. Chapter numbers are helpful for finding passages, but can subtly break up stories as if they were isolated events instead of part of a longer theme.

Dr. T. J. Betts of Southern Baptist Theological Seminar illustrated this with the late TV show, “24” featuring the interrogating, terrorist hunter, Jack Bauer. Each season untangles a new terrorist plot that usually falls on the shoulders of Jack to unwind and defuse. If you jumped into one of the middle episodes without seeing the previous one, you’d have a little trouble figuring out what’s going on. In fact, you might misinterpret several characters and events. The same is true of Scripture. Although the books of the Bible are written in various genres (poetry, narrative, prophecy, letters, etc.) they all ultimately have the same Author with the same big story, placing Christ at its center.
For example, take the story of Joseph being thrown into a pit by his brothers (Gen 37). Our interim preaching pastor called me one Sunday morning, terribly sick. By the time I knew I was preaching Genesis 37 for him, I had five minutes to prepare. That quick of preparation can do more harm than good, so I prayed instead. God’s Spirit carried me through the message like a child in the arms of his Dad. I simply walked through the text, made observations as I went, and then closed off with the purpose of the story.

Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t have more time to prepare. Had I done so, it’s unlikely I would have preached on so many verses in one sermon. But taking on a huge chunk that morning forced me to see the point of the story. Instead of using the passage as a lesson in the dangers of jealousy, the importance of not tattletaling, or how to avoid disunity in the home, I found myself expounding the text in light of the story of redemption. This story is not ultimately about jealousy or family unity but about God using the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers to bring him from the pit, to Egypt, to prison, to second ruler of all Egypt, through which Joseph’s brothers would later be saved from starvation. One might conclude that the theme is this: God provides.

Theologically, this is true. But that still falls short of the ultimate message from the text. We must ask ourselves, “Why was God preserving the Israelites?” To fulfill His promise to Abraham, to establish a nation through whom the Messiah would come and die for the sins of the world. So the theme I concluded with was this: God’s ultimate provision is none other than Jesus Christ. Suddenly, an ancient Old Testament text had become not only practical but possible for people of the twenty-first century to apply.  And they could see that this story had way bigger purpose than to simply teach lessons on familyhood and brother love. This experience was the dawn of a new approach to preaching for me.

A negative example of a passage’s fit into the backdrop of redemptive history could be Judah sleeping with his daughter-in-law, Tamar, who was posing as a prostitute. Even through this Bible-times soap opera, God continued the line that would some day produce Jesus Christ (Mat 1:3). 

2) What does this passage reveal about God’s character ultimately revealed through the person of Jesus Christ?

Every passage teaches us something about God’s character that is more vividly  revealed through His Son (see John 14:9). The story of Jonah teaches us that God sheds great mercy on the undeserving and He never demonstrated this more beautifully than through Jesus Christ on the cross. Just as God sent Jonah to preach a message of repentance for forgiveness to the Nineveites, so He sent Jesus Christ to bring a message of hope to a lost world. The story of Jacob teaches us the remarkable faithfulness of God even though Jacob lived a life of deception. In Christ God showed His faithfulness both to Israelite and Gentile, by sending redemption personified.

3) How is the victory of the actor more fully accomplished by Jesus?

The actor could be the flock being written to, the patriarch hero, or an entire nation. Parallels between the life of the actor in the story and the life of Jesus during His three year ministry abound like snow in Alaska. Just as David conquered Goliath so Jesus conquered Satan. On that dreaded journey up the mountain, Abraham told Isaac, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (Gen 22:8). Through Jesus His own Son, God provided a perfect sacrifice, paying the debt for all sin. In his lecture, “Preaching the Gospel” at the 2006 Resurgence Conference, Tim Keller brought this concept out beautifully:

Jesus is the more and better… Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing whether he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, "Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me," now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, "Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us."

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God's justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people's victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn't just risk leaving an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn't just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He's the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.⁵

4) How did Christ succeed where the actor in the story failed?

Where Jonah failed to show mercy to the Ninevites, Christ became that ultimate act of mercy for the whole world. Where Solomon failed to honor God through his kingdom of indescribable wealth, Christ will some day rule a kingdom on earth with riches beyond description. Where Job questioned God’s justice in allowing him to suffer so painfully, Jesus never questioned God even in the Garden of Gethsemane, but simply asked for God’s will to be done.

5) How is this text’s message interpreted by the New Testament?

Of course, this applies to Old Testament passages only. This can be found through the New Testament author’s references to the New Testament. The most obvious example will be found in prophecies directly fulfilled such as Isaiah 9:6 predicting Jesus’ birth or Micah 5:2 predicting Jesus’ place of birth. More analogous examples can be found in Peter making Noah and the ark a type (something in the Old Testament foreshadowing something greater in the New Testament) of Jesus’ death for our sins (1 Pet 3:18-21), or allusions to Jesus such as the bronze serpent being lifted up as Jesus was (John 3:14). Again, the most important key is not identifying whether the Old Testament passage is a type, analogy, or direct prophecy, but seeing how the Old Testament event or message points to Jesus the Messiah.

This can also be accomplished by word studies. When you come upon a key word in the Old Testament, find how it is translated into the Greek in the LXX (Greek version of the Old Testament) and see if this influenced the New Testament authors’ interpretation of that Old Testament passage. Both Jesus and the New Testament authors quoted from the Greek Old Testament instead of the Hebrew Old Testament, so this can give us helpful insight into how the New Testament authors interpreted the Old Testament stories. With even the most basic Bible language programs, when you come upon a key Old Testament word, you can search every use of that word in the LXX and then see if that passage or key word is quoted in the New Testament.

A helpful example of this is the LXX’s translation of virgin from the Hebrew Old Testament in Isaiah 7:14. The Hebrew uses the word almah, a word that does not specifically refer to a woman’s physical virginity, but more directly to her state of singleness. However, the LXX translates almah into the Greek parthenos, a word which always means “virgin.” Now although the LXX was not God-breathed, Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 reflects the LXX instead of the Hebrew Old Testament.

Even though Isaiah referred to a young, unmarried woman, Matthew’s interpretation of this passage shows us that Isaiah 7:14 ultimately pointed to Mary who was not just unmarried but a physical virgin when she conceived Jesus Christ. The New Testament does not change the meaning of Isaiah 7:14, but simply brings the full implications of that prophecy to fruition in the person of Jesus. 

Question #3: How can my flock apply the gospel to their problem?

This moves into application. We may preach that David’s problem was lust, but telling our flock to stop lusting is not going to help them for long. Temporary guilt may hold their lust-cravings at bay for a while, but until they understand the root of lust and the only solution that works, they will fall soon and come back next Sunday for another spiritual lashing. So we must let the gospel diagnose the source of the problem and then offer the solution. Graeme Goldsworthy’s wrote, “[The gospel]…shows us the real nature of our human problem as well as God’s answer to it.”⁶

When David gazed at Bathsheba, his deepest problem was not lust but finding his joy in a woman instead of Yahweh, his savior. For a moment, he allowed Bathsheba to fulfill his desires instead of God who had so richly blessed him already. This is no different than looking for ultimate satisfaction in money, fame, drugs, caffeine, marriage, family, or ministry. All of these are different versions of the sin of idolatry, which the first two of the Ten Commandments address (Ex 20:2-6). Having identified the real issue, we can now show how the gospel fixes this problem. Just as David’s only hope was to run to God for forgiveness and seek his satisfaction in Him so that He would not fall again, so our flock can run to Christ for total forgiveness no matter how far they have fallen (1 John 1:9), and then let Christ be so precious to them that even when lust feels more satisfying, they can remember that in the end, it never is, but will only leave them empty and ashamed.

Tim Keller’s Application of the Gospel

Tim Keller’s article, “Keller on Preaching in a Post-Modern City,”⁷  is extremely helpful as he offers a basic outline for Christ-centered, gospel-motivated sermons:

1. What you must do
2. Why you can't do it
3. How He (Christ) did it
4. How, through Him, you can do it.

Keller closes his article with three case study sermons, one of them being an outline he provides for the sermon on Abraham:

1. We must put God first in every area of life, like Abraham did. (This is where the traditional sermon ends!!)
2. But we can't! We won't! So we should be condemned.
3. But Jesus put God first, on the cross—His was the ultimate and perfect act of submission to God. Jesus is the only one that God ever said—"Obey me and as a result I will send you to hell." Jesus obeyed anyway—just for truth's sake, for God's sake. The only perfect act of submission.
4. Only when we see that Jesus obeyed like Abraham for us can we begin to live like Abraham. Let your heart think like this...

Three Objections to Christ-centered preaching

Objection 1: You’re reading Jesus into the text!

This is also called “eisegesis” which means “putting into the text” better quoted as, “I see Jesus!” I have listened to many sermons that justify this objection. Even Spurgeon himself, the man who loved the gospel more than his own life, made this mistake. He often preached the right sermons from the wrong texts. He loved the gospel so much he found it in places where it wasn’t! But Christ would not want us to force Him into a passage, but to find how each passage ultimately points to Him.

Christ claimed to be central to all of Scripture. Referring to the Old Testament scriptures, He said, “It is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39; Luke 24:25-27). Jesus said that if one believed in Moses he would believe in Christ and one who rejected Christ was also rejecting Moses. This astounding claim asserts that the Old Testament—and even the first five books of the Bible—so clearly testify of Jesus Christ, that if someone rejects Christ, he has also rejected the entire Old Testament.

Objection 2: Here comes the Jesus bit!

This objection justifiably protests preachers that tag on a gospel presentation to the end of every sermon to cover his bases just in case there’s an unbeliever out there. But this commits two dangerous errors. First, it treats Jesus as if He wasn’t already central to the whole theme of Scripture, as if he could not have preached Christ from his text, so instead, he had to tag Him onto the end. Second, this implies that Jesus is only relevant to the unbeliever, but as soon as the unbeliever gets saved, now he moves on to obedience and no longer needs Jesus. This is problematic. One meal may save a starving man. But if he doesn’t keep eating meals, he will perish. In a similar way, Jesus Christ, our Bread of Life is not just the One who saves us, but the One who sustains us.

The most direct answer to this objection is this: Adding Jesus to the end of a sermon is not Christ-centered preaching. The preacher must back up enough from the text to show how this story or teaching falls into the history of God’s plan of calling a people out to Himself to bring praise to His name. Then he can show how obedience to the moral lesson of the sermon and forgiveness for breaking it is only possible through Jesus.

Objection 3: Christ-centered preaching obscures the distinctiveness of each text preached.

This is a fair reaction to many who have abused the practice of Christ-centered preaching like a child might abuse his Dad’s new iPhone. Behind every passage--narrative or letter, poetic or law-giving, is a real historical setting and thousands of gems on God and life. The preacher should preach these. To make one’s sermon so broadly redemptive historical that the listener feels like his is experiencing déjà vu from last Sunday is to cheat him out of oceans of truth and nuggets of wisdom offered in every page of Scripture.

As Greidanus, Johnson, and Goldsworthy advocate, the preacher should start in the historical setting of the passage, unpack the details of the text, and then show how this text points to the Savior and application of it is only possible through Him.

Having addressed typical objections to Christ-centered preaching, here is my objection to preaching that is not Christ-centered:

The shrouded assumption behind rejecting Christ-centered preaching is that it treats Jesus and His gospel as one-dimensional. It implies that Jesus is simply the entry-point to a relationship with God, and then we move on to moralism and behavior modification. But the gospel is not only the beginning of the Christian life but the heart of it! Like a many-faceted diamond with one hundred million doors into the same room, the gospel is central to everything in existence, from the tiniest atom to the most adored virtue.

In his lecture, “Preaching from the Old Testament,” at the 2006 “Together for the Gospel” conference, Ligon Duncan told the story of several young men being ordained for the ministry. Each man gave his testimony. After they finished, the oldest pastor on the ordination board stood and said, “The Scriptures teach that there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus Christ. This is true. But through the dazzling variety of these men’s testimonies we realize that there are many ways to Christ!” The same is true of the Old Testament. It offers a thousand trails to the person and work of Jesus.

Endnotes

1. Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ From the Old Testament (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 228.

2. Dennis E. Johnson, Him We Proclaim, “Appendix A: From Text to Sermon—A Step-by-Step Guide to Biblical Interpretation in Sermon Preparation,” (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007), 397-407.

3. Greidanus, pp. 227-277.

4. Sinclair B. Ferguson, “Preaching Christ From the Old Testament” (High Street, London: The Proclamation Trust, 2002), 5.

5. The Resurgence, cited 10-3-2008. 

6. Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), 61. 

7. Tim Keller, “Keller on Preaching in a Post-Modern City,” cited on August 26, 2008.