It is common to hear preachers “finding Jesus” in every text of Scripture. Many popular Bible Scholars and writers advocate a Christocentric hermeneutic that finds Christ in every text. Albert Mohler, in He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World, wrote:
Every single text of Scripture points to Christ. He is the Lord of all, and therefore He is the Lord of the Scriptures too. From Moses to the prophets, He is the focus of every single word of the Bible. Every verse of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Him, and every story in the Bible ends with Him.[1]
Tim Keller, in his Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism, also promotes the Christocentric hermeneutic. Keller states that: “Paul hasn’t preached a text unless he has preached about Jesus, not merely as an example to follow but as a savior: ‘Christ Jesus, who has become for us . . . our righteousness, holiness and redemption’ (1 Cor 1: 30).”[2]
Young theology students are enamored with these highly influential leaders. These leaders, however, are jettisoning the Historical/grammatical hermeneutic in the process. This paper's thesis is that the Old Testament's Christocentric hermeneutic is not the Historical/grammatical hermeneutic of God’s Word.
This is no small hermeneutic or theological issue. Keith Essex captures the two main hermeneutics concerning interpreting the Old Testament regarding Christology:
Although all Evangelicals agree that OT Narrative Literature has a definite theological intent, there is a division between those who relate all of that intent generally to God with only a few direct or indirect references to Christ (Theocentric) and those who would relate every passage to Christ (Christocentric). According to Christocentric exponents, there is a definite “Redemptive-Historical” view of hermeneutics built upon, but distinct from, a merely historical-grammatical-theocentric hermeneutic. My evaluation of this distinction between a Theocentric and Christocentric hermeneutic is shaped by thinking of who is before the text. There seems to be general hermeneutical agreement by Evangelicals of what is behind the text (historical background) and in the text (literary structure and meaning).
However, the Theocentric hermeneutic views ancient Israel, and ancient Israel alone, as being before the text in an interpretive sense. The hermeneutical question is, “What did this text mean to the original audience?” The contemporary hearer joins with ancient Israel in receiving the message and from the application to the first audience gains insight into the significance for himself.
The Christocentric hermeneutic views the audience in front of the text to include ancient Israel and the new, true Israel, the Church.
Essex next quotes two Christocentric advocates which helps us understand what is in front of the Christocentric hermeneutic. Sidney Greidanus writes, “All the foregoing presuppositions support the final principal presupposition of the New Testament writers in preaching Christ from the Old Testament, and that is to read the Old Testament from the perspective of the reality of Christ.” Graeme Goldsworthy states, “What went before Christ in the Old Testament finds its meaning in him. So the Old Testament must be understood in its relationship to the gospel event.” Essex summarizes what the Christocentric hermeneutic means: It seems that for the Christ-centered interpreter, the exegetical process of OT narrative has not been completed until Christ is discovered in the specific OT text being studied.[3]
The topic of preaching Christ from the Old Testament either reflects Covenant or Reformed Theology in the Christocentric hermeneutic or Dispensational Theology in the Historical/Grammatical Theocentric hermeneutic. These are two different hermeneutics.
THE CHRISTOCENTRIC HERMENEUTIC
According to Sidney Greidanus in his Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, the Christocentric Hermeneutics finds Christ in every passage. Sidney Greidanus refers to the David and Goliath story in 1 Samuel 17 as an example of the Christocentric hermeneutic.[4] This view is based on the Covenant of Grace, which has the full gospel message of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection in the Old Testament, ignoring progressive revelation. For example, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him in Genesis 15:6 which does not include the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus but rather the special revelation concerning the number of his descendants that will be as numerous as stars in heaven in 15:1-5.
The History of the Christocentric Hermeneutic
This hermeneutic has a long history that ignores the normal sense of language. Justin Martyr, in the mid-second century, in his Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, A Jew, said that “when Moses lifted his hands supported by Aaron, this was an imitation of the cross. It was this sign of the cross that gave victory that Moses held his hands up until evening typified that Christ would be buried in the evening.”[5] Augustine allegorizes the ark to find Christ in the Ark in The City of God:
Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man, and, as the truthful Scripture says, a man perfect in his generation — not indeed with the perfection of the citizens of the city of God in that immortal condition in which they equal the angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in their sojourn in this world — inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which he might be rescued from the destruction of the flood, along with his family, i.e., his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law, and along with the animals who, in obedience to God's command, came to him into the ark: this is certainly a figure of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to say, of the church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5
For even its very dimensions, in length, breadth, and height, represent the human body in which He came, as it had been foretold. For the length of the human body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times its depth or thickness, measuring from back to front: that is to say, if you measure a man as he lies on his back or on his face, he is six times as long from head to foot as he is broad from side to side, and ten times as long as he is high from the ground. And therefore the ark was made 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height.
And its having a door made in the side of it certainly signified the wound which was made when the side of the Crucified was pierced with the spear; for by this those who come to Him enter; for thence flowed the sacraments by which those who believe are initiated.
And the fact that it was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies the immoveable steadiness of the life of the saints; for however you turn a cube, it still stands. And the other peculiarities of the ark's construction are signs of features of the church.[6]
Augustine illustrates that the sky is the limit when finding Jesus in a text. Even our beloved Charles Spurgeon had a blind spot here.
Charles Spurgeon conveyed his Christological hermeneutic in the following illustration: A young man had been preaching in the presence of a venerable divine, and after he had done he went to the old minister, and said, "What do you think of my sermon?" "A very poor sermon indeed," said he. "A poor sermon?" said the young man, "it took me a long time to study it." "Ay, no doubt of it." "Why, did you not think my explanation of the text a very good one?" "Oh, yes," said the old preacher, "very good indeed." "Well, then, why do you say it is a poor sermon? Didn't you think the metaphors were appropriate and the arguments conclusive?" "Yes, they were very good as far as that goes, but still it was a very poor sermon." "Will you tell me why you think it a poor sermon?" "Because," said he, "there was no Christ in it." "Well," said the young man, "Christ was not in the text; we are not to be preaching Christ always, we must preach what is in the text." So the old man said, "Don't you know young man that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?" "Yes," said the young man. "Ah!" said the old divine, "and so from every text in Scripture, there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is Christ. And my dear brother, your business in when you get to a text, to say, 'Now what is the road to Christ?' and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis—Christ. And," said he, "I have never yet found a text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if I ever do find one that has not a road to Christ in it, I will make one; I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savior of Christ in it."[7]
In other words, the venerable divine will force his Christocentric method of hermeneutics onto the passage instead of allowing the text to speak for itself.
Arguments for the Christocentric Hermeneutic
There are two arguments for the Christocentric hermeneutic of the Old Testament. The two arguments are that the advocates of the Christocentric hermeneutic or the Redemptive-historical hermeneutic accuse followers of the Historic/grammatical hermeneutic of moralizing the Bible and ignoring key passages that teach all Scripture points to Christ.
1. The advocates of the Christocentric hermeneutic or the Redemptive-historical hermeneutic accuse followers of the Historic/grammatical hermeneutic of moralizing the Bible. Those who hold to the Historic/grammatical hermeneutic are sometimes accused of “exemplary preaching,”[8] moralistic preaching, or anthropological preaching. Edmund Clowney stated that the moralistic view of, for example, preaching on David and Goliath is as if one preached “on Jack the Giant Killer.”[9] Gredianus refers to moralistic preaching as contemporary, popular biographical preaching that “tends to look for attitudes and actions of biblical characters which the hearers should either imitate or avoid.”[10] Goldsworthy condemns such a sermon as “at worst demonic in its Christ-denying legalism.”[11] Tim Keller also argues against moralistic preaching in his book on preaching.[12]
Abraham Kuruvilla, former Senior Research Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, refutes this argument against exemplary preaching by arguing that “all biblical genres in the OT engage in moral and ethical instruction; they do not serve exclusively as adumbrations of the Messiah, and neither do they solely establish salvific truths.”[13] See footnote. The classic verse on inspiration teaches us that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for” what? To show us Christ in every passage? No! “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” In other words, “all Scripture,” which certainly includes the Old Testament in 2 Timothy 3:16, is spiritually beneficial, morally and ethically “that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:17).
2. The advocates of the Christocentric hermeneutic or the Redemptive-historical hermeneutic accuse followers of the Historic/grammatical hermeneutic of ignoring key passages that teach all Scripture points to Christ.
For example, Sidney Greidanus writes that
In one of his last “sermons,” Jesus scolded two of his disciples on the way to Emmaus, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). The Jewish people were looking for a victorious Messiah, not a suffering Messiah. But, says Jesus, the prophets had predicted his sufferings. “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Jesus believed that Moses and all the prophets bore witness to him, the incarnate Christ. How, then, was Jesus present in the Old Testament centuries before he was born? He was “present” basically as promise. The concept of “promise” turns out to be much broader, however, than the predictions in a few messianic prophecies. In his last “sermon” in Luke (24:44-49), Jesus says, “…everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Notice, Jesus refers to the three main sections of the Old Testament; not just a few prophecies but the whole Old Testament speaks of Jesus Christ. And what does it reveal about Jesus? At a minimum, it speaks of his suffering, his resurrection, and his teaching. Jesus says, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” In John 5:39, similarity, we hear Jesus say to the Jews, “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf [about me, NIV].” Not just a few isolated messianic prophecies, but the whole Old Testament bears witness to Jesus.”[14]
Tim Keller advocates, “To preach the gospel every time is to preach Christ every time, from every passage.”[15]
Jesus could not have expounded Himself from every text on a 7-mile walk on the road to Emmaus or even referred to the 1,189 chapters in the Old Testament. So, what was Jesus referring to in Luke 24:27 and 44?
Abraham Kuruvilla answers: Examining that text, one must ask what the extent of “in all the Scriptures” (24: 27) is: Is it every portion of Scripture, or every book, or every pericope, or every paragraph, or every verse, or every jot and tittle? The subsequent statements by Jesus to the Emmaus disciples suggest that what is meant is every portion of Scripture— a broad reference to its various parts, primarily the major divisions: Law, Prophets, and Psalms (writings)…. Indeed, in 24: 27, Jesus mentions only those matters from the OT that actually concern himself “the things concerning himself”); so also in 24: 44, “all things which are written about me”). Thus, a selectivity and choice of material is explicit in the text. Jesus is not finding himself in all the texts of Scripture, but rather finding just those texts that concern himself in all the major divisions of Scripture.[16]
Jesus probably preached the prophecies and the types from the Old Testament. He most assuredly preached Genesis 1:1-3 (because of John’s reference to Christ as the creator in John 1:1-2); 3:15, Psalm 22, 110, and Isaiah 53, as well as the Rock that Moses struck, the Passover Lamb, and the Brazen serpent (anti-types are referred to in the New Testament); the many Messianic Psalms and the prophecies concerning Jesus first and second coming.
My colleague, Dr. Jerry Hullinger, gave this advice in Excursus #22: on Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: How do we do this? This can turn into a hermeneutical straight jacket to where we think we have not properly preached Christ unless we have seen Him in every OT Passage. The danger is that to do this is to allegorize scripture. Those who do this think that there is a real meaning below the literal meaning (Dr. Hullinger’s notes on Isaiah).
In the next post, The Historical/Grammatical Herneneutic, Part Two, we will discuss how to interpret the OT in light of the NT.
[1] Albert Mohler, He Is Not Silent, Preaching in a Postmodern World, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008), 96.
[2] Keller also adds that Paul sees Christ as the key to understanding each biblical text. Sometimes, then, you can’t help but think about Christ even if the text you are looking at doesn’t seem to be specifically a messianic prophecy or a major figure foreshadowing Christ or an intercanonical theme or part of a key biblical image or metaphor. Yet you just can’t not see him.
Here’s an obscure passage in the Bible where we see this played out. At the end of Judges, in chapters 19 through 21, we read a terrible story of a cowardly Israelite with a concubine, a second-class wife, as it were. He comes into a town where some ruffians from the tribe of Benjamin threaten him, and to save himself he offers this woman to them to have their way with. He goes to bed and all that night the men rape her and abuse her. In the morning the husband comes out of the house and finds her on the doorstep, dead. He is furious, and he takes her body home, cuts it into several pieces, and sends one to each of the other tribes of Israel, to inflame them to go to battle against the tribe of Benjamin over this outrage. The husband conveniently fails to tell everyone of his own cowardice. The resulting civil war is bloody and devastating. What a bleak and terrible passage!
How in the world could you preach Christ here? Actually, there is more than one way to do it. Put this passage into the context of the whole book’s theme. What is the theme of the whole book of Judges? The answer to that question is easier to find than in many other books, because the narrator ends his account of this event, and of the entire book of Judges, with this sentence: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25). The social disorder and moral degradation revealed the desperate need for good governance. …. How can we not see, even in such a dark pool, a reflection of something beyond it? When we see a man who sacrifices his wife to save his own skin— a bad husband— how can we not think of a man who sacrificed himself to save his spouse— the true husband? Jesus gave himself for us, the church, his bride (Ephesians 5: 22– 33). Here is a true spouse who will never abuse people of their sin and rebellions (Timothy Keller. Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism. Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2015, 16).
So the Levite who callously handed over his wife to the Benjaminite perverts to gang rape all night, who then cut her abused body into 12 pieces and mailed those pieces to the 12 tribes of Israel, is a type of Christ? That is a huge hermeneutical stretch! This is not the authorial intent of the passage in Judges 19-21, nor is there any New Testament basis for this episode being an Old Testament type. This is a Christocentric interpretation of high jacking a text because the hermeneutic demands that every text must present Christ.
[3] Essex, Keith. MSJ 26/1 (Spring 2015) 3–17. Interpreting and Applying Old Testament Historical Narrative: Survey of the Evangelical Landscape.
[4] The essence of this story, therefore, is more than Israel’s king defeating the enemy; the essence is that the Lord himself defeats the enemy of his people. This theme locates this passage on the highway of God’s kingdom history which leads straight to Jesus’ victory over Satan. This history of enmity began right after the fall into sin when God said to the serpent (later identified as Satan): “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel’ (Gen 3:15). Thus the battle between David and Goliath is more than a personal scrap; it is more that Israel’s king defeating a powerful enemy; it is a small chapter in the battle between the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent --- a battle which reaches its climax in Jesus’ victory over Satan, first with his death and resurrection, and finally at his Second Coming when Satan will be thrown “into the lake of fire and sulfur” (Rev 20:10). In the sermon, then, one can travel the road of redemptive-historical progression from the battle of David and Goliath to the battle of Christ and Satan (Sidney Greidanus. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999, 239).
Was this Samuel’s intent when he 1 Samuel 17? Samuel is giving us the three leaders that God raised up: Samuel, Saul, and David. David defeated Goliath right after being anointed to be Israel’s next king. God enabled David to defeat Goliath to show Israel he was qualified to be their God-appointed king.
[5] Justin Martyr. “Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, a Jew.” In The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Vol. 1. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885) Chapter 40.
[6]Augustine. City of God .xv.xxvi, 312 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120115.htm)
[7] Charles Spurgeon. Christ is Precious to Believers. Accessed March 12, 2018. https://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0242.htm
[8] Sidney Greidaus. Sola Scriptura: Problems and Principles in Preaching Historical Texts (Toronto: Wedge, 1970), 8.
[9] Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching and Biblical Theology, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 82.
[10] Sidney Greidaus. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 293.
[11] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 124.
[12] What if you are preaching a text on Joseph resisting the temptation of Potiphar’s wife, or of Josiah reading the forgotten law of God to the assembled nation, or of David bravely facing Goliath, and you distill the lesson for life— such as fleeing temptation, loving the Scripture, and trusting God in danger— but you end the sermon there? Then you are only reinforcing the self-salvation default mode of the human heart. Your sermon will be heard as encouraging the listeners to procure God’s blessing through right living. If you don’t every time emphatically and clearly fit that text into Christ’s salvation and show how he saved us through resisting temptation, fulfilling the law perfectly, and taking on the ultimate giants of sin and death— all for us, as our substitute— then you are only confirming moralists in their moralism (Keller, Timothy. Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism, 2015, (p. 61). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Christ did not save us by resisting temptation, fulfilling the law, but by dying as our substitute on the cross. This is the active obedience of Christ view of imputation that sinners are saved by the life obedience of Christ in addition to his passive obedient death on the cross. This makes every passage salvic.
[13] The same situation pertains to other genres of the OT, as well. For instance, while not denying the employment of the psalms for messianic purposes, they are often applied to believers: Ps 2, for instance, is applied both to Christ and to Christians (Acts 4: 25– 27; 13: 33; Heb 1: 5; 5: 5; Rev 2: 26, 27; 12: 5; 19: 15); also see Ps 44: 22 (Rom 8: 36); Ps 95: 7– 11 (Heb 3: 7– 11, 15; 4: 3, 5, 7); etc. Prophecy, too, is applied to the believer: Gen 3: 15 (Rom 16: 20); both Jesus and believers are called “light of the world” (Matt 5: 14 and John 8: 12; 9: 5; from Isa 49: 6; 60: 3); and Isa 45: 23 is used both of Jesus’ ultimate victory (Phil 2: 10) as well as to motivate believers to remember the final accounting and, therefore, to treat one another decently (Rom 14: 11). Wisdom literature is also employed in the NT for instruction in godly living— the book of Prov, for instance: Prov 3: 7 (2 Cor 8: 12); Prov 3: 11– 12 (Heb 12: 5– 6); Prov 3: 34 (Jas 4: 5; 1 Pet 5: 5); Prov 11: 31 (1 Pet 4: 18); Prov 25: 21–22 (Rom 12: 20); etc. In other words, Scripture is more than just a witness to the fulfillment of messianic promises; there are ethical demands therein as well that must be brought to bear upon the lives of God’s people. Christocentric preaching tends to undermine the ethical emphasis of individual texts (Abraham Kuruvilla. Privilege the Text!: A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching, 2013, (p. 243). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition).
[14] Sidney Greidaus. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 56.
[15] Keller, Timothy. Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (pp. 56-57).
[16] Kuruvilla, Abraham. Privilege the Text!: A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching (248- 250). Abraham Kuruvilla also gives a refutation of the Christological interpretation of 1 Corinthians 1: 22– 23; 2: 2; and 2 Corinthians 4: 5.