Resources:
Episode: Is Christ-Centered Preaching Dangerous?
"The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant & His Kingdom" by Samuel Renihan
"Preaching Christ in All of Scripture" by Edmond Clowney
"The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament" by Edmond Clowney
https://youtu.be/QIwtBtf9-EA
Semper Reformanda Transcripts
Justin Perdue: Welcome to Semper Reformanda. Here we are talking with our people, and we want to continue the conversation about whether or not the whole Bible is really about Jesus—and obviously our conviction and our position is that yes, it absolutely is all about Jesus.
We talked about typology, we talked about Biblicism and some other things in the regular episode. We're just gonna keep this going. I know Jon gave us a couple of things that he wants to discuss in terms of the fallout of not reading the Bible the way that we are advocating.
But before we even go there, I said something in the 32nd intermission between the end of the regular podcast and the start of us recording this one that Jon wanted me to say to everybody. For me, from my perspective, there is nothing more important for preaching than this understanding of the Scriptures. I think that this understanding of the Bible is more transformative for a pastor's preaching than almost anything else. I know there are some other big theological categories that could be put alongside this in the conversation, but this legitimately Christ-centered, redemptive-historical hermeneutic is so critical to gospel preaching from the entire Bible.
I'm a part of various groups of pastors in various ways, and I see a lot of email correspondence flying around—and these are seminary graduates, some of them have PhDs—and I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus but these are educated guys that are aiming to do faithful gospel ministry in their local contexts. They are asking questions of other pastors like, "Hey, guys. I'm wanting to do a series through this book of the Bible, kind of do a fly over it. It's an Old Testament book. Can somebody just help me figure out how to preach the gospel from this book? I want to do a gospel-centered fly over of this. Can anybody help me think about resources that I can look at?" Of course it's always good to reach out for help, but it's sad to me that so many guys come out of seminary and are in pulpits, they are highly educated and very bright people, but they're legitimately asking questions like, "How do I preach Jesus from Genesis?" Or, "How do I preach Jesus from 1 Kings?"
Jon Moffitt: I think the reason they ask that too is because what they think we mean is, "So here's the exodus and here's the data of what happened. Now I need to preach an altar call Jesus of repent and believe."
Justin Perdue: Or the plan of salvation or something.
Jon Moffitt: Right. And there are even weird connections. I've seen people try to preach Jesus from the Old Testament—I've never heard this, I made this up—but, "As the children trusted the Lord and walked across the water, we need to trust the Lord and walk across the aisle and give our lives and dedication to the Father." That's a bad illustration, but people will do that. They make connections.
Justin Perdue: Or they'll say, "Even if you're afraid, you need to trust God and His promises," which is true but there are a lot of better ways to preach it, like if we're talking about the exodus.
Jon Moffitt: Again, this has to do with when you go to preach a redemptive-historical understanding of Scripture. This is why I think 2 Corinthians 1:20 is so important, because as I mentioned in the podcast, all the promises find their yes in Christ. What is promised in the Old Testament? Do this and live, basically—and Jesus did it, and now we live.
Justin Perdue: And the promise of a Redeemer ultimately. All the covenants that are contained in the Old Testament are pointers to that redemption.
Jon Moffitt: We allude to this often, but even Genesis 3:15, where it talks about the promises given to Eve, you'll see that there are no stipulations that are in that promise of the snake crusher that's coming.
Justin Perdue: I'm preaching through Genesis right now in our local church. If somebody were to ask, "Hey, Justin. How are you going to preach Christ from Genesis?" Are you kidding me? I can't wait to preach Genesis. There are sermons about Christ and messages about Christ all throughout this book. We've only made it through the first eight chapters and there's Jesus in every single piece in creation.
Jon Moffitt: Verse one of chapter one: it's Jesus. John 1:1.
Justin Perdue: The creation of light before there's a sun is about Christ, who is the light of the world and who will be the lamp of the new heavens and the new earth. We could go on and on and on about this. The promise of him in Genesis 3:15; we've referenced the ark and the flood and all of these things, and how ultimately the ark is a type of Christ, the flood is about baptism and being brought safely through water. How are you going to preach Jesus from Genesis? He's everywhere. So that's how we would approach any book of the Bible. This understanding gets you there. It's not artificial. It's not weird.
Even about the seven days of creation, and the seventh day about God's rest and how it does not, like the other six days, have that formula. It doesn't say there was evening and there was morning on the seventh day. Christians through history have understood that's because the seventh day and the rest was awaiting its fulfillment that was coming: the rest of that has ours in Christ that the writer of the Hebrews picks up on. He is our Sabbath rest.
Jon Moffitt: Just to clarify what you're saying, people hear that and they say, "No, no, no, no. Seventh day? No, that's part of creation." The creation account was written 1,500, almost 2,500 years after creation and Moses is writing it for a purpose. I agree with Justin's explanation that post-fall is when Genesis was written.
Justin Perdue: Even Genesis. Genesis is historical; it is not a documentary, it's not a history textbook, it's not National Geographic. It is written from the perspective of redemption and what God did and is doing, and so we need to understand it accordingly and preach it that way. We're not trying to insert Jesus in weird places, but we're reading the Bible the way the apostles did, and we are seeing Christ appropriately and pointing people to him. We're preaching the gospel and the plan of redemption that God has accomplished through Christ every single time we open the book—which is what we should be doing.
For me, as a preacher, nothing has changed my preaching more than this understanding. I am no longer asking the question, "Where am I going to insert the plan of salvation?" in a sermon. That never even occurs to me because every passage is preached in light of Christ and in light of his coming. It's preached with respect to him. It's oriented towards him. I think it is the way to understand the Scriptures.
Jon Moffitt: One of the things that is hard for people to hear, and these are people that may not come from a conservative background or one that emphasizes historical theology, where there's an emphasis on what has happened before... If you've ever seen the movie The Book of Eli, all books are burned and there's like one Bible left in the world, that is not where we find ourselves. We aren't finding ourselves where there's a complete disconnect historically, we don't have any background, or we don't have history to tell us and inform us. But that's how modern evangelicals have read their Bibles, and been taught to read their Bible: " I have the Holy Spirit in me. He is my educator. I can read English. Therefore, I will read my Bible and I will understand it." they assume that they're reading it with no bias imprint on it, like they have no lenses that govern the way in which they are reading the text.
Everybody has a bias in life in general. If you listen to how Americans think about government, and then you listen to how Europeans think about government, they are different. Even just the difference between a Canadian and an American in how they process and see things is different. Another example of this is Democrats versus Republicans. Where you were born and who your parents are often influenced your political view. I know a lot of people are saying, "No, it's not." But it's true. Just understanding anthropology, it's true. How you understand the Bible, uh, has been handed to you by the influence of, what I would say, American history, as in regards to how the Bible has been taught in churches, broadly speaking. And broadly speaking, in the last 150 years, covenant theology has not been the dominant theology when it comes to understanding Scripture; it's been a dispensational perspective, whether they knew it was dispensational or not. It is a dispensational perspective because it has been the dominant perspective in the United States for over a hundred years.
When you realize that one, people ignore the Old Testament, or they moralize the Old Testament, or they bring applications that have nothing to do with the authorial intent, you can understand that that's what's been handed to them. The danger in it, as Justin and I have already said, is that I think this is what has caused this huge pietistic uprising within the modern church. Christ is not our savior, but Christ is our example—and that's where pietism comes from.
Justin Perdue: I think a very law-centered reading of the Old Testament produces this stuff too. That's what most people do when they approach the Old Testament: they look at it through the lenses of the law. By that, I don't just mean the law proper, but I mean a law kind of mentality or a law economy where you're going to every passage in the Old Testament, looking for what it says to you about what you need to do or not do. It's not that that is entirely illegitimate to do; of course, we're instructed by God's law. No argument. And we talk regularly about the third use of the law that guides our lives in Christ, so we're not refuting any of that at all by saying this. But if you approach the Old Testament that way, then you're going to see it as a wasteland with very little life at all in it. Occasionally, there'll be a promise of grace or there'll be a passage about the coming of Christ or something—and you'll cling to that. But generally, the Old Testament is just rocks, desert, and it's barren, and it beats you to death. There's not much encouragement or refreshment to be found.
What we are contending for is to read the Old Testament through the lenses of Christ and the gospel, and God's promise of redemption that is promised in the Garden of Eden after the fall. This is really what the rest of the Scriptures are about—it's the fulfillment of that promise made to Adam and Eve. It changes the way that you read the Old Testament because it gives you different lenses to put on. You look at it differently and then things come alive. You start to see life, you start to see grace, and you start to see redemption, promises, and salvation, and all these things found throughout.
Even the people that exist in the biblical record. There are things that we can glean from their lives at the level of secondary application, but ultimately they're there because they're either the line through which the Christ is coming or they point to Jesus and something about him. Like David—Jesus is going to be a greater king who will be a shepherd of his people and who will represent his people. It's really good. It's freeing. It's life-giving.
Jon Moffitt: I am not criticizing pastors; I will criticize charlatans who are preaching for money's sake all day long. I agree with a lot of the criticisms that discernment ministries have out there. But Justin, you and I have been connected to enough pastors, and even more so now because of Theocast. You can hear the tenor in their voice of, "I can't believe I used to say..."
Justin Perdue: Brother, you and I would both say that.
Jon Moffitt: I agree. 100%. I was thinking about a series I did when I first started my church and wow, my perspective has changed since then. I need to go back and rethink about doing that series over.
So when I say these things, I'm not attacking pastors as if they know better. It's like when I tell my kids not to eat ice cream before dinner, and then they'd eat ice cream before dinner—that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about guys that are trained, but this theology is lost. This is why it's called Semper Reformanda. Always reforming. We're trying to change the world's perspective of the Bible and the gospel. That's what we're trying to do in this ministry. It's what Justin and I are trying to do in our churches.
I feel like when people don't see what we're talking about, they walk into a doctor's office and they are not being given the real substance of what they need. Their diagnosis is wrong. I'll go use the David and Goliath illustration. They walk in as sheep who are hungry, needed to be fed Christ to be sustained. And what are they handed? They are handed not something that gives life, but something that drains them of life, which is law. "Be like David," when we should hear Jesus is the fulfillment of David, Jesus is the one who empowered David, and ultimately is the one who, where David failed, succeeded. That's what we want.
I know the listener who's on the other side of this, hearing Justin and I right now, is being fed and encouraged because you guys tell us that. Justin and I are very passionate and we will not back down because if you aren't understanding the Bible this way, I'm just going to say you're wrong. It's going to rob people of hope and joy, and really it's going to rob them of the power of Christ being real in their life to sustain them until his return. We don't take this subject lightly.
If you haven't joined the SR Facebook group, do that. We're going to be moving that group off to its own thing. That's all I can say.
Justin Perdue: Friends, we appreciate all of you. We're grateful for you. We don't take it for granted that you've partnered with us in meaningful and significant ways, and we're thankful that we all agree about Christ and the fact that he's the point of the Scriptures. We want to herald him in as many good ways as we can, and this ministry is one of those. Let's continue to partner together to these ends. We're excited about the future of things, should the Lord tarry. We trust we'll talk with you again next week about something else.
Jon Moffitt: We're going to finally record an overview or some thoughts that we have about John MacArthur's book on The Gospel According to Jesus and lordship salvation.
Justin Perdue: Look forward to that. There's been some stuff in the Facebook group lately about it, so we're gonna try to speak to some of it and hopefully we'll be able to do that well.
Jon Moffitt: See you next week.
