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THE PREACHING OF CHRIST (part 1)
Applying the Whole of Scripture
A friend once told me of a preacher who
had taped to the inside of his pulpit the following verse:
"Sir, we would see Jesus" (John 12:21). This is the
simplest definition of preaching I know. It is also perhaps the
most powerful.
The task of the preacher is to display Christ before the congregation. He must preach the One who is their Savior, their Redeemer, their Rock, their Stronghold, their King, their Lord. The people do not come because they need "practical" tips on day to day living. (The weakness of the flesh makes such tips impracticable anyway.) They can get that from the Roman Catholics or the Mormons or the Rotary Club.
They come because they need life, and they need it abundantly. They must know the One who is their life. They must know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, having been conformed to his death if somehow they may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Php 3:9,10). Only the word of Christ, preached, attended by the power of the Holy Spirit can confer such exalted results.
In the next chapter we will explore the details of the preaching and its authority. But first let us understand the nature of the preacher, of the message, and of the hearers.
The Importance of the Preacher
The preacher is the man to whom God has given his word. In the last chapter, we dealt with 1 Timothy 3:16, noting that all Scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Now let's look at the next verse where Paul completes his thought: "…that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work" (1 Tim 3:17).
In verse 16, Paul defined for us what the Bible is useful for. In verse 17 he now defines who is to use the word of God for this purpose—"The man of God." Often, we read this statement generically. "The man of God" refers, we suppose, to anyone who belongs to God. But Paul has something more specific in mind.1
The Hebrew equivalent of this phrase—"man of God"—occurs at least 70 times in the Old Testament. Every time it refers to someone with a special calling to declare the word of God. Every time.
The phrase is used five times to refer to Moses, the lawgiver (Deut 33:1, Josh 14:6, Ezra 3:2, 2 Chr 30:16, Ps 90:title). Three times it refers to David, speaking twice of his commandments from God concerning the temple worship (2 Chr 8:14, Neh 12:24) and once of his musical instruments, reminding us of his role as the inspired psalmist (Neh 12:36). And twice it refers to the angel who announced the coming birth of Samson (Jdg 13:6,8).
That leaves at least 60 references to various prophets, including Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha. Most notably, in the case of Elijah, the widow he helped declares, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth" (1 K 17:24). It would appear that "man of God" is the ordinary Old Testament way of referring to the prophetic office. That is, "man of God," refers to the one who has been set apart to declare God's word.
Paul writes to Timothy, a preacher, with this in mind. In his previous letter he already called Timothy a "man of God" (1 Tim 6:11). (This is the only other New Testament use of the phrase.) He is telling Timothy that his gift of preaching—conferred on him "through prophecy by the laying on of hands of Presbytery" (1 Tim 4:14)—has a basic continuity with the Old Testament office of prophecy. Timothy also must declare God's word.
The gift of preaching is more powerful. The man of God is no longer dependent on receiving a new word from God to speak to the present situation. (We will see later how the "application" theory makes preaching less powerful than prophecy. Instead of having an inspired word addressing the present situation, under this theory the preacher is left to his own devices.) God has revealed himself fully and finally in Jesus Christ. To expect a new word now would be like expecting a better messenger than Jesus.
Now the word of God is complete. The man of God may consult God's entire self-revelation. Nothing we need to know is missing from this word. Therefore the minister himself is made "complete" by this word and "thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim 3:17).
The minister of the word must take the completed, inerrant, infallible word of Christ and handle it for the congregation and offer it to them. This is what Paul repeatedly tells Timothy to do, e.g. 1 Tim 4:11-16 and 2 Tim 4:2-4. Paul even tells Timothy to guard the word as a treasure entrusted to him (1 Tim 3:13,14).
By this, we are not suggesting that laypeople may not look at the word without a preacher present. We may have private devotions, family worship, Bible studies, membership classes, and Sunday Schools. Properly used, such exercises prepare us to hear the preaching of the word or help us to benefit from it.
Therefore, all these things must occur within the context of the weekly ministry of the word. Without that context, all other pursuits of God's word become empty. They lead to arrogance, divisiveness, and confusion. The preacher ministering the word is the primary, ordinary, and indispensable means by which God brings his word to his people.
Having established the importance of the preacher, let us now understand the importance of preaching.
The Importance of Preaching
Consider how Mark describes the beginning of Christ's public ministry. Christ went into the synagogue and taught the people from the Scriptures (Mark 1:21,22). Then he went out and began casting out demons and healing people.
It is a wild and powerful scene if you let yourself imagine. Throngs of people crowd around him. The lame are being carried to him, the blind grope their way toward him, the deaf silently beseech him, and demons cry out using their victims' tongues. In the silent center, in the eye of this storm, Jesus commands and is obeyed. The lame walk. The blind see. The deaf hear. And the demons are banished. One by one, people are relieved of this or that aspect of living in a cursed, fallen world.
In the midst of such a spectacular display, it's easy to miss the significance of it all. So Mark tells us. Here is the result of these signs and wonders: "They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, 'What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him'" (Mark 1:27). These miracles do not happen for their own sake, but to confirm the word of Christ.2 It is by his powerful word that Christ shall truly repeal all aspects of the curse and fall.
Jesus confirms this interpretation. The next morning, Jesus is off praying. His disciples seek him out to let him know that the crowds are seeking him. Well of course they are! They want to see another visible display of power. Jesus replies, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out" (Mark 1:38). He did not come to do miracles. He came to preach. The miracles bear witness to the truth of his preaching, but it is in his preaching that the true power comes.
The apostles followed the example of their Lord. They considered their ministry of preaching central and indispensable.
Recall one of the first conflicts in the church. The church had begun acting in mercy towards the widows in the congregation. This was the natural outworking of being conformed to the image of their Savior. This work of caring for widows was central to the ministry of the church in the name of Christ. James would later describe such care as "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27).
Yet central as it was, something else was more central still.
A dispute arose in the church. Some complained that widows who spoke Aramaic and were thus more "Jewish" received better treatment. They felt the Greek-speaking (though still ethnically Jewish) widows were comparatively neglected. The controversy threatened to destroy the unity of the church and turn a work of ministry into an opportunity for snobbery and envy. The problem was serious indeed.
How did the apostles handle this grave problem? "It is not right that we should neglect the word of God to wait tables," they said (Acts 6:2). Caring for widows may be "pure and undefiled religion," but who would grow in such purity if the apostles did not preach the word? So instead, they told the people to select godly men who would resolve the dispute. And the apostles themselves would continue to devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
So important was the ministry of that word that the apostles did not dare neglect it, even for the necessary, honorable, and utterly Christlike task of caring for the physical needs of the oppressed.
(From this we learn one way the members of a congregation may serve one another. They must seek zealously to keep their pastor from taking on any task that will divert his attention from ministering the word. For above all else, the congregation needs that word.)
The Purpose of Preaching
The purpose of preaching is to save the hearers. By this we mean more than simply that preaching calls the lost to Christ. Paul tells Timothy to give careful attention to his teaching. In doing this, he says, "You will save both yourself and those who hear you" (1 Tim 4:16).
Consider that for a moment. The word of Christ, offered by the preacher to his congregation, is the means by which God saves his people. The people are already "saved" in the sense of being justified or made right with God. But God intends to continue saving them by conforming them to Christ, enabling them to persevere through trials, and at last taking them up bodily into glory. God intends to do this by feeding them on the word of Christ through men who are called as preachers.
Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15. He speaks of the gospel that was preached to them "through which also you are being saved" (1 Cor 15:2). Not only did the word save them; the same word continues to do so.
Paul says this another way right before the 2 Timothy text to which we have referred several times. He reminds Timothy, "from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:15). Notice again how Paul speaks in the presence tense. The Scriptures are not merely something that instructed Timothy how to be saved. They continue on instructing him in the way of salvation.
The way of that salvation is "faith in Christ Jesus." The very means by which Timothy gained salvation becomes now the means by which he continues in it. If he began his new life by faith in Christ, then by all means, Paul urges him "continue in what you have learned and firmly believed" (2 Tim 3:14).
Thus we learn that we cannot separate the instrument of our justification—our being made right with God—from the instrument of our sanctification—our growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ. The faith by which we are justified is the faith by which we are being sanctified. The message which our faith laid hold of for justification becomes the message our faith clings to for sanctification. Having begun by the Spirit of Christ, we will now be perfected by that same Spirit (Gal 3:3).
To state the purpose of preaching another way, preaching must feed the living and wake the dead.
Jesus rebuked the devil by reminding him, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt 4:4). The word of Christ is more necessary for life than food. The Israelites who ate the manna in the wilderness are dead. But those who feed upon Christ have eternal life (John 6:49-51) (The Lord's Supper presents this truth palpably to us, so that in faith we feed upon Christ. For that reason the Lord's Supper is rightly called the "visible word." It says to our eyes and fingers and noses and tongues what the preaching says to our ears.)
Peter also speaks in this fashion. "Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk of the word, so that by it you may grow into salvation" (1 Peter 2:2). Like Paul, Peter sees salvation not merely as an event in the past but as something that is happening. It is the environment in which we grow. And once again, the word of Christ is the means by which we grow in that environment of salvation.
The word not only feeds the living, it wakes the dead. Those who were "dead in their trespasses and sins" hear "the word of truth," "the gospel of [their} salvation," and by it are made "alive together with Christ" and "raised up with him" and "seated with him in the heavenly places" and "given the seal of the promised Holy Spirit" (Eph 1:13; 2:1,5,6).
How this happens is a mystery. How can they hear the word if they are not alive? And how can they be made alive if they do not hear the word?
It is like when Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus. He cried out, "Lazarus! Come forth!" And Lazarus obeyed. But how did this happen? Did Lazarus wake up seconds before the command so that he could hear the word and obey it? Or did the word itself awaken him? And if so how did he hear a command that came to him while he was yet dead? As we said, it is a mystery.
It is appropriate, then, that the rising of Lazarus takes place in darkness in a cave. We do not know what happened in there and the Bible offers no description. But this we do know: somehow a dead man heard the word of Christ and believed it and by that word was made alive.
This is the way it was with us as well when we were made alive by the word of Christ.
Preaching the Message of Christ
"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ," Paul tells us (Rom 10:17).3 This means two things. First, it means that the message comes from Christ, by his Holy Spirit. Second, it means the message is about Christ—who he is, and what he has done, is doing, and is about to do. It is by this means that the congregation is nourished in their faith. For the object of faith is Christ (and him alone), so preaching will encourage faith when it focuses on Christ.
Further, God's word tells us that "anything that is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:21). So the preaching of Christ is the means by which the congregation will be enabled not to sin. It is the doctrine of Christ that Paul calls "the mystery of godliness" (1 Tim 3:16). He does not confer that title on "practical" tips for clean living or on rules and regulations produced by human wisdom. In fact, Paul calls such discipline of the flesh "self-made religion" and even "doctrines of demons" (Col 2:23; 1 Tim 4:1).
Paul's letters to the Corinthians address this distinction between human wisdom and the "foolishness" of the message of Christ. He compares himself to others who came with great eloquence and the appearance of great wisdom. In contrast, he says, "I determined to know nothing among you except Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2). This foolishness, he claims, is wiser than men's wisdom; and this weakness is stronger than men's strength (1 Cor 1:22-25).
But then, is the preacher's message even narrower than we have stated? Can we really only know Christ as crucified, not as raised, ascended, and coming again in glory? Perhaps Paul is overstating his case for effect. Or perhaps we're missing something.
The translation doesn't bring out that missing something, unfortunately. A more accurate (though awkward) translation would say that Paul determined to know nothing but Christ and him having been crucified. In other words, the crucifixion is a past event, but with ongoing implications. (A dynamic equivalent that brings out the sense in English might be, "I determined to know nothing among you except Christ the crucified.")
One of those implications is that, having died once, he cannot die again. "The death he died, he died to sin once for all" (Rom 6:10). Now he lives eternally at the right hand of God. To preach Christ the crucified thus means not only to preach the sufferings of Christ, but also the glories that have come (and are coming) now that his suffering is completed.
So Paul resolved to know nothing except the sufferings of Christ and the glories that followed. Putting it that way clarifies matters. We remember from the last chapter that the whole Bible is about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that followed. Naturally, then, this must be the message of the preacher. Another way to say this is that the minister must preach nothing but Christ the crucified.
To sum up, we learned in chapter 1 that the whole Bible is about Jesus. So the minister who preaches the Bible must preach only about Christ. Any other message does not come from God's word.
Preaching Only the Message of Christ
Many people balk at how exclusive such a statement is. May the minister really preach nothing else? They suggest that Paul's resolution among the Corinthians was a special case. After all, the Corinthians needed milk and could not take solid food (1 Cor 3:2). So of course they had to be babied and kidded along with the message of Christ until they grew strong enough to be nourished by a different message.
Well, no one puts it quite that baldly, I suppose. But how else can we interpret the desire to somehow get beyond the need for an exclusively Christ-centered message?
I have heard a Reformed minister say, "I think you should preach Christ, but I don't think that's all you should preach." That is unfortunate, but at least the minister made it a point to preach Christ in every sermon. If his congregation could discard the chaff, at least the kernel message of Christ was nourishing.
I have heard another Reformed minister say, "You can't necessarily tell from just one sermon whether I preach Christ or not. That may not be the focus of that particular sermon. But if you listen to me over the course of weeks and months, you will definitely hear the message of Christ." That is appalling.
What do these men have that can share equal billing with the message of Christ the crucified? They have "practical application." We put this phrase in quotation marks because "practical application" has become a buzzword in the church, and one with troubling implications.
We do not wish, in other words, to deny the legitimate application of God's word. Legitimate application arises from the text itself and centers on Christ the crucified. But the message of the crucified One appears foolish and weak. For this reason many hearers seek for something else. And many preachers are willing to give it to them.
That something else is "practical application." The very word "practical" betrays the meaning. "Practical application" means something the hearers can decide to implement in their own strength. Of course at this point, a lot of lip service is given to the idea that one needs to be saved before one can do such things. "We are presuming the presence of the Spirit of Christ in our hearers," they insist. (This is rather like a mother bird presuming the presence of wings and instructing her young on the non-wing-related aspects of flying. Happily, God gave birds more sense.)
Since they "presume" the Spirit of Christ, they rarely mention that Spirit, or Christ from whom he comes. They have gone on to the more important things. In the end, most of the advice they offer could be gotten from a rabbi. And it has just as much power to effect a real change in one's life.
"Practical application" offers routines by which a man may himself conquer sin rather than offering Christ's victory over sin at the cross. "Practical application" offers advice on how to appear godly rather than offering true inner godliness that comes from being conformed to the death of Christ and longing for the day of his appearing.
In short, "practical application" offers "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" Such rules give the appearance of godliness but are useless in restraining the sinful flesh (Col 2:23). This is because "practical application" actually appeals to the flesh for what the flesh can do. People who sit under such preaching (or lust for it) become proud of all the things they can do. They claim to give all glory to God for their accomplishments. So did the Pharisee in Jesus' parable when he said, "I thank you that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:9).
Or if they do not become proud, they are driven to despair. "Practical application" becomes a yoke of bondage to them. They want to walk in godliness, but know themselves too weak to do so. The preacher constantly harangues them with the news that if they were godly, their behavior would be different. But godliness, which is bound up in Christ, he does not offer them.
The true glory to God comes when the minister does not preach what the congregation can do but what Christ has done, is doing, and is about to do. True application arises out of such a context and fosters utter dependence upon Christ for his work and all his benefits.
If someone knows something more practical than the cross of Christ, let him say what it is. But if not, let us consider "application" to mean taking up our cross and following him.
The Relevance of Preaching
Another reason given for requiring "practical application" is that we must make the Bible relevant. (Apparently the Bible is not relevant until we make it so.) This theory postulates a gap between the modern hearer and the ancient text. The ancient text speaks of things that we find conceptually and culturally foreign. The job of the preacher, then, is to bridge that gap by bringing Scripture into the context of the modern hearer. This theory is called the "application bridge."
Under this philosophy, having an unchanging word of God becomes a liability rather than an asset. The farther we get in time from the ancient text, the more updating the text requires.4
We will pursue an opposite approach. Namely, we will not bring the word of God into the context of the hearers. We will bring the hearers into the context of the word of God. Then the unchangeableness of the Scriptures becomes an asset. Though separated from other saints by time or culture, we are united to them by an identical context—the context given to us all by the word of God.
To put it another way, you and I have more in common with the apostle Paul than with the unbeliever next door. We reject any theory that makes Paul distant and irrelevant (until contextualized). And we reject any theory that allows the concerns of modern unbelievers to determine our message. (There can be a value to knowing these concerns when addressing unbelievers, as Paul's sermon in Acts 17 indicates. But there is never a suggestion from Paul or anyone else in the Bible that the man of God should apply himself diligently to learning such things.)
The "application bridge" theory encourages pastors to spend their time reading The Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone. By doing so, the pastor is supposed to gain a point of contact with his congregation. But surely this misses the point. The pastor is not supposed to seek just any point of contact. It is not his politics or his economics or his hipness that constitute his message.5 His point of contact is the one word of God concerning Christ. This is what he comes to preach. This is what the congregation comes to hear.
To put it still a third way, if the apostle Paul were alive today, he should be able to preach to us. We would not need to first subject him to a crash course in United States history, culture, politics, and economics for fear he would otherwise be irrelevant. The minister of the word must have the freedom to be just as relevant as Paul.
In saying all this, we presume the relevancy of the historical context in which Scripture was revealed. The message of Scripture is timeless, yet it is anchored in time. God, in his sovereign wisdom, chose and shaped the historical eras in which he revealed his word. He chose those historical eras and cultural settings, and no others, to be the context for his timeless, inerrant, now completed word.
Therefore, we encounter a paradox. The timeless word of God may be better understood when we understand the time in which that word was revealed. The culture in which Abraham lived, or Daniel, or Jesus—especially Jesus—is thus more relevant to us than the culture in which we ourselves live.
Realizing all this, we are encouraged to turn our backs on our own culture and find our true identity in the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven.
If this all seems too theoretical, let me offer an example by way of illustration. A few years back, when I was a seminary student, I delivered a sermon to a room full of ministers and elders. Their purpose was to hear and then critique my sermon. I chose as my text the first chapter of Haggai.
I launched the sermon by describing the historical context into which Haggai writes. He writes to the faithful remnant of Israel, returned from the Babylonian captivity. The people of God had sinned and so had been enslaved by the Babylonians. Now, they have repented, and God has restored them to their land. In that land they have begun to rebuild the temple of the Lord so they may worship him there.
But there's a problem. Their farms have yielded few crops. This is more than just a problem of survival (though it is that). It is a problem regarding their relationship with God. God had promised that when his people obeyed him, he would give them grain, wine, and oil in abundance. Now here they were, obeying him by rebuilding the temple, and … no grain, wine, and oil. The poorness of the harvest reflected, they felt, the curse of God.
How will God respond to this concern through his prophet Haggai?
That was how I introduced my sermon. By describing the plight of God's people in that era, I hoped to draw the hearers into the story. These particular hearers did not care for that approach.
The approach was fine for them, a group of ministers and elders, they opined. But your average Joe in the pew isn't going to put up with it. The introduction must draw him in by speaking to the things that he is concerned about. Then, when I had shown how this passage might be relevant to his situation, I was free to introduce the context of the passage. He would be willing to sit patiently through this since I had convinced him by the introduction that there was something in it for him.
Now let me say that I'm sure there were many legitimate criticisms to level against my sermon. For example, they might have told me that my introduction had taken inherently interesting material and somehow made it boring. That would have stung my pride (which is never a bad thing); but it would have been a reasonable thing to say.
What they did say seemed not so much a criticism of my sermon as of the passage itself. The passage was inherently uninteresting, at least to the average Christian. Something had to be done about that.
I had to make the passage interesting by talking about something else first. It felt as though I was being asked to take part in a bait and switch operation. First I dangle the bait of a funny story or some sharply observed political comments. Then I switch to the topic of the text itself. If I do it smoothly, the hearer will suddenly find himself learning what the Bible has to say, even though he thought he wasn't interested.
We object, naturally, to any implication that Scripture is inherently dull. Some reply to this objection by blaming the hearer. The Scripture is inherently interesting, they say, but the average hearer does not find it so. He will be interested in God's word once he sees how it is relevant to his own life.
But what "life" are we referring to? His earthly life which is passing away? God forbid! But if we mean his heavenly life in Christ, then Scripture is relevant by definition. And those who belong to Christ must surely want to hear what he says to them, what identity he confers on them, what assurance he offers, and what direction he gives.
Graeme Goldsworthy succinctly states this objection to the "application bridge": "The danger is that relevance becomes a subjective judgment rather than one based on the biblical analysis of things. After all, God is the most qualified to say what is relevant."6
For this reason we reject the theory that the preacher must "make application." The phrase itself betrays the danger of the position. The "application" becomes something external to the text itself. It is not required by the passage being expounded. The preacher must make it up.
The sermon then becomes equal parts the word of God and the word of man. And ultimately, does this not mean that it becomes all the word of man? (This is the logical result of our thinking. But God preserves his poor sheep and allows them often to feed on the Christ-centered portions of sermons and discard the parts that the preacher himself invents.)
Preachers who attempt to "make application" must beware lest they preach what the text should say rather than what it does. Preachers who preach what the text does say will surely present the true application—that which God intends—in any given passage.
We will now describe the audience to which the preacher preaches this essential, relevant word of Christ (and nothing but).
Preaching to the Kingdom of Christ
The Context of the Hearers
Some say the preacher preaches to a group of businessmen, machinists, soccer moms, drug store clerks, secretaries, doctors, schoolteachers, elementary school kids and who knows what else. The message, then, must be tailored to meet the needs of businessmen, machinists, soccer moms, etc.
This is the view of those who clamor for "practical application" or an "application bridge." The word of Christ, so remote in time, must be brought to bear on the earthly situation of each hearer. Of course, the chances of hitting such scattered targets with a single sermon are remote. To focus on one hearer's context is to exclude many others. But to focus on none is to reach no one at all.
Indeed, preachers encounter many difficulties when they allow the earthly contexts of their hearers to determine the content of their message.
So let us pursue a different theory of preaching, one that puts the horse before the cart. Let us allow the word of Christ to determine the context of the hearers rather than the other way around.
Then the preacher will find he no longer preaches to shoe salesmen and stockbrokers. Neither, to be clear, does he preach to toga-wearing Greeks or Jewish fishermen in Galilee. Such may have been the earthly situation of some of the original recipients of the message. But their real context is not the physical setting in which they heard the message. Rather, their real context is conferred on them by the message.
And in that context, we share.
That is to say, we like them are kings and priests who are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Like them we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. Like them we are hated by that world and must take up our cross and follow Christ. Like them we live in this world as pilgrims and set all our hope on the grace that is coming when he is revealed. And like them we exist in basic human relationships as husbands and wives, children and parents, slaves and masters (or, less drastically, employees and employers). But whether male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, we are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gone then is the problem of having so many different occupations and lifestyles to address. We all have one identity in Christ, and the message is for us all.
The Nature of the Hearers
The preacher preaches primarily to believers, not unbelievers. This should be clear from the ground we have already covered. If the people of God must live from week to week (and moment to moment) on the word of Christ, then the word must be for them. How else can they continue in the salvation that they have received?
Nevertheless, preaching to believers can also have the effect of converting those who do not believe. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul describes prophecy—a gift related to preaching as we showed above—as "a sign for believers." Yet the result, startlingly, can be the conversion of unbelievers. The unbeliever "is reproved by all and called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are revealed. He will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, 'God is really among you'" (1 Cor 14:22-25).
In short, the unbeliever will know that God is among us when he hears of the identity God has given us. He will know that this is not his own identity and will long for it to be so.
The preacher does not address the congregation as those who need to repent and turn to Christ. He addresses them as those who have repented and have come to Christ for everything they need.
The preacher does not address the congregation as though their salvation is in doubt. Some preachers attempt to motivate their congregation to love and good deeds by warning them that they might not really be Christians after all. Thus, out of fear, the congregation produces "good works" as the evidence of their salvation. But these are far from the free, uncompelled, joyful good works that the Spirit of Christ works out in us.
My wife and I have sat under such preaching. The preacher warned us that no one knows his own heart. Anyone might fall away. This led us to an unhealthy self-scrutiny—prompted by an interpretation of 2 Corinthians 13:5 that wrenched that verse out of context—rather than focusing our eyes on the objective assurance of our salvation in the person and work of Christ.
The preaching greatly distressed my wife, who had a tender conscience and a timid heart. "If anyone might apostatize," she thought, "then surely I might." And so she faltered. Like Peter walking on the water, she stopped looking at Christ and began to look at herself. And so, like Peter, she realized how impossible it was for her to walk the path she was being called to walk. She began to sink. But God be thanked that Christ reached down to her as well and lifted her up again by a better preaching from a different preacher.
The same preaching that distressed my wife made a Pharisee out of me. "You tell them, preacher!" I thought self-righteously to myself.
In the next chapter we will explore in more detail the doctrine of the indicative and the imperative. But let us turn briefly to that doctrine now. Before the preacher can tell us what to do (the imperative), he must tell us who we are (the indicative). If he does not assure us of who we are, we will have no confidence to do what we are called to do. The power of our obedience comes from our identity in Christ.
Any preaching that addresses us as potential apostates, robs us of that identity. It tells us "You may not really be in Christ. So all these things may not be true of you." The imperative that follows must then drive us toward despair (as with my wife) or to finding our righteousness in our own obedience (as with myself).
To state the point again, the congregation must be sure of the indicative (who they are) before they can receive the imperative (what they are called to do).
This is how Paul treats those to whom he writes. We shall see this in some detail in the following chapter. But for now, let us remember how often Paul calls his audience "saints" (i.e. holy ones). The preacher must address the congregation thus as well.
Hebrews gives a similar example. The author warns his audience of the dangers of apostasy. But he concludes that warning with this assurance: "Even though we speak in this way, beloved, we are confident of better things in your case, things that belong to salvation" (Heb 6:9).
Some object to this, though it is the Bible's own way of addressing its hearers. They fear being too expansive in assuring the congregation of the blessings that are theirs in Christ. Perhaps by doing this they will offer false assurance to those who don't deserve it. (As though anyone could deserve the grace of God.)
We have responded to this above by showing how Scripture itself addresses us this way and how impossible it is to receive the imperative if one's indicative is in doubt. We now make a further response.
Unbelievers cannot feed upon Christ. Therefore the minister who assures his congregation of salvation in Christ offers nothing of value to those who do not believe. They can't use what he's giving them. He offers them a life of being conformed to the cross of Christ, and then, at the last day, glories that far outweigh those sufferings. What use has an unbeliever for such things? He wants his blessings now and in material form. The blessing of a treasure laid up in heaven is useless to him.
But suppose the unbeliever does misapprehend the message? Suppose he twists it into a false assurance for himself in which heaven becomes merely an insurance policy rather than the longing of his heart. So what? The preacher has not encouraged him in this understanding. The unbeliever perverts the word to his own destruction.
Remember the parable of the wheat and the tares. (Tares, if you recall, are a sort of weed that looks like wheat but bears no fruit.) The owner sowed good seed in his field. But while he slept, the enemy crept in and sowed tares. The workers in the field want to uproot the tares but the owner says no. Nourish them both or you might accidentally uproot the wheat with the tares. Wait until the harvest and then separate them (Matthew 13:24-30).
This is what the preacher must do with his congregation. It is better that he "nourish" a hundred tares than that he destroy the assurance of one trembling grain of wheat who is weak in the faith. God will sort them out at the last day.
The Children of the Kingdom
Children too ought to hear the preaching of Christ. We have baptized them into Christ Jesus and given them a right to the blessings of the kingdom.
We will not be like the apostles when the mothers brought their infants to be touched by Jesus. The apostles tried to prevent this. Jesus is a busy man, they must have reasoned. And how can an infant benefit from Jesus' mere touch? Let them come back when they are old enough to understand.
But Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16).
What benefit did these children gain from being touched by Jesus? They grew up as those who belonged to him. Their mothers told them, "Long ago, when you were too little to remember, Jesus touched you; and you are his." As the children grew older, they understood this more and more. Perhaps some rejected this testimony and brought condemnation on themselves. But surely many received it with joy. At the proper time they professed their own faith in Christ, never having known a day when they did not belong to him.
This is how it must be in the kingdom of God. We baptize our children when they cannot understand or remember what is happening. And we remind them of that baptism every time we bring them to the place where God is worshiped and heard. "You belong here," we tell them, "among the saints who worship God. He is speaking to you as well."
I can remember when my own son was less than two years old. He had learned the answer to the question "Who made you?" "God," he replied (although the "d" was silent). In the service one evening he heard the minister say that word, "God." "God," he said, recognizing the word. Again the minister said "God." Again our boy echoed him. Though he could understand very little, still he was beginning to know that this was the place where a man spoke to him about God. And he belonged there.
How young is too young? There is no such thing. We touch them with the word of Christ even before they can remember it. They grow weekly into an awareness of their heavenly surroundings and identity.
The presence of infants is good for us as well. It reminds us that we too must enter the kingdom as helpless children (Luke 18:17). (Because of fussiness, feeding and nap schedules, etc., it is not always possible to have our children in the service. We will not worry about that, for all things are in God's hands. But whenever it is possible, we will rejoice to bring them there.)
As our children grow, we help them to understand the preaching. We take up the past Sunday's sermon in our family worship and conversations about the things of Christ. Slowly the children become able to understand the sermon on their own. Thus the centrality of preaching is preserved. It is not the Sunday School or Vacation Bible School that is their primary source of their being nourished on Christ. It is the preaching of Christ from the pulpit. Just as it should be.
Conclusion
We conclude with Paul that the Scriptures are all the preacher needs to know. Knowing them, the man of God is "complete" and "fully equipped for every good work" (2 Tim 3:17).
This is
more than
enough for one chapter. But we have not yet said as much as we
might about preaching. In the next chapter we will explore in
more detail the content and authority of the preacher's message.
NOTES