The blog series “Redemptive-Historical Method” is an outgrowth of the “Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World”, by Tim Keller and Edmund Clowney, available on iTunes. These are the notes from the course.
HOW? A CHRISTO-CENTRIC FOCUS
INTRODUCTION
For theological, pastoral, and missiological reasons we should read the Bible as 'Redemption History' and not simply as a body of spiritual and moral information. This means that every part and text of the Bible is part of the 'Big Story' of salvation and attests to God's saving purposes which climax in Jesus Christ. Therefore, every text is 'really about Jesus'. But how do we 'get to Christ', practically speaking, when preaching a text that is not directly about Jesus? How can we actually read each text 'Christologically', with a Christo-centric focus?
The preacher feels this most acutely when preaching from the 3/4 of the Bible called the 'Old Testament'. When most people think of "Preaching Christ" from such a text, they think of doing so by typology. They look in the text for a 'type' of Christ within it. So, for example, we might preach Isaac as a type of the sacrificed son, or David as the type of the warrior-savior, and so on. This practice (as we have seen) is still somewhat controversial, but even if it were granted it would not suffice. Most texts of the Bible do not provide a classic 'type' of Jesus. The vast majority of psalms are not clear and consensus 'Messianic' psalms, for example. So in order to 'get to Christ' preachers may very lamely and artificially tack him on to the end of the sermon (e.g. 'You shouldn't lie, but if you do, through Jesus you can be forgiven.") Or they force him in through finding superficial similarities, which really boil down to allegorizing.
But it is important to see how many different ways there are to 'preach Christ' besides direct typology. Sidney Greidanus lays out a number of 'ways' to preach Christ besides typology in his book “Preaching Christ from the Old Testament”. Goldsworthy too writes:
'The essence of typology is the recognition that within Scripture itself certain events, people, and institutions in biblical history bear a particular relationship to later events, people, or institutions. The relationship is such that the earlier foreshadows the later, and the later fills out or completes the earlier ....[But] I want to suggest that behind –the technical uses [of the term 'typology'].. . there is a principle that is far-reaching in its application. We may refer to this as macro-typology because it indicates that we are not dealing mainly with scattered examples but with a broad pattern ... The typological correspondence is not simply between persons, events, and institution, but between whole epochs of revelation ...”
What does Goldsworthy mean? I believe he means something like the following. (Note: I acknowledge both Goldsworthy and Greidanus' works as the basis for my following summaries and categories:
PREACHING CHRIST - BY INTERPRETIVE: METHOD
One way to prepare to preach with a Christ-centered focus is to ways to identify gospel 'pieces' that only Christ can resolve (themes), receive (law), complete (stories), or fulfill (symbols). If I were you I would create my own collection of ways to preach Christ in these ways from:
E. Clowney The Unfolding Mystery (Presbyterian and Reformed)
S. DeGraaf Promise and Deliverance (Four Volumes-Presbyterian and Reformed)
Carson is editing a series of books on these intercanonical themes.
Alec Motyer's Look to the Rock chooses seven of these redemptive themes and shows how Christ is the fulfillment of each.
See the last section of each chapter in Longman and Dillard's An Introduction to the Old Testament (Zondervan. 1994)
See Christopher J.H.Wright. Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament (IVP, 1992)
Upcoming posts on this subject will include:
THEME -RESOLUTION. Only Jesus resolves redemptive themes.
LAW- RECEPTION. Only Jesus lets us truly receive the law's requirements.
STORY-COMPLETION. Only Jesus completes the great stories of the Bible.
The preacher feels this most acutely when preaching from the 3/4 of the Bible called the 'Old Testament'. When most people think of "Preaching Christ" from such a text, they think of doing so by typology. They look in the text for a 'type' of Christ within it. So, for example, we might preach Isaac as a type of the sacrificed son, or David as the type of the warrior-savior, and so on. This practice (as we have seen) is still somewhat controversial, but even if it were granted it would not suffice. Most texts of the Bible do not provide a classic 'type' of Jesus. The vast majority of psalms are not clear and consensus 'Messianic' psalms, for example. So in order to 'get to Christ' preachers may very lamely and artificially tack him on to the end of the sermon (e.g. 'You shouldn't lie, but if you do, through Jesus you can be forgiven.") Or they force him in through finding superficial similarities, which really boil down to allegorizing.
But it is important to see how many different ways there are to 'preach Christ' besides direct typology. Sidney Greidanus lays out a number of 'ways' to preach Christ besides typology in his book “Preaching Christ from the Old Testament”. Goldsworthy too writes:
'The essence of typology is the recognition that within Scripture itself certain events, people, and institutions in biblical history bear a particular relationship to later events, people, or institutions. The relationship is such that the earlier foreshadows the later, and the later fills out or completes the earlier ....[But] I want to suggest that behind –the technical uses [of the term 'typology'].. . there is a principle that is far-reaching in its application. We may refer to this as macro-typology because it indicates that we are not dealing mainly with scattered examples but with a broad pattern ... The typological correspondence is not simply between persons, events, and institution, but between whole epochs of revelation ...”
What does Goldsworthy mean? I believe he means something like the following. (Note: I acknowledge both Goldsworthy and Greidanus' works as the basis for my following summaries and categories:
PREACHING CHRIST - BY INTERPRETIVE: METHOD
One way to prepare to preach with a Christ-centered focus is to ways to identify gospel 'pieces' that only Christ can resolve (themes), receive (law), complete (stories), or fulfill (symbols). If I were you I would create my own collection of ways to preach Christ in these ways from:
E. Clowney The Unfolding Mystery (Presbyterian and Reformed)
S. DeGraaf Promise and Deliverance (Four Volumes-Presbyterian and Reformed)
Carson is editing a series of books on these intercanonical themes.
Alec Motyer's Look to the Rock chooses seven of these redemptive themes and shows how Christ is the fulfillment of each.
See the last section of each chapter in Longman and Dillard's An Introduction to the Old Testament (Zondervan. 1994)
See Christopher J.H.Wright. Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament (IVP, 1992)
Upcoming posts on this subject will include:
THEME -RESOLUTION. Only Jesus resolves redemptive themes.
LAW- RECEPTION. Only Jesus lets us truly receive the law's requirements.
STORY-COMPLETION. Only Jesus completes the great stories of the Bible.
SYMBOL – FULFILLMENT. If a feature has symbolic significance for the author (symbolizing God's saving activity in some way) then it may be seen as a type of Christ, even if the author does not evidently have Christ consciously in mind.
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