Having looked yesterday at the Puritan principles of redemptive-historical preaching, this fifth and last post in the series will consider the Puritan practice of redemptive-historical preaching, as exemplified by Jonathan Edwards.

There is no substitute for reading Edwards’ History of the Work of Redemption. However, here I would like to highlight just a few extracts to give you samples of what I believe is an even more Christ-honoring kind of “redemptive-historical” preaching. Notice that Edwards preaches Christ from Old Testament histories without always linking these histories to Christ’s first coming. Edwards’ History does advance step-by-step to Christ’s physical comings, but he also finds Christ in each and every step along the way.

The First Salvation
Edwards finds Christ as early as Genesis 3, in the first salvation of the Bible:

Edwards goes on to show how Genesis 3:15ff revealed Christ to Adam and Eve in His three offices, of prophet (the promise of a seed to defeat the devil), priest (the institution of sacrifices), and king (the salvation of Adam and Eve).

The First Sacrifice
From the life of Abel, Edwards establishes that sacrifices were appointed by God to be a type of Christ, and that when offered through faith in Christ they were pleasing to God. (more…)

Modern redemptive-historical preaching makes Christ the end-point of the Old Testament. It sees all of history leading to Christ. As we have seen (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), this is true, but also somewhat limited. The Puritan version of redemptive-historical preaching sees Christ not just at the end of redemptive history, but in it and throughout it. For the Puritans, Christ was not just the last chapter that all the others were setting the scene for, but rather Christ was present from the very first chapter, and in every chapter of redemptive history.

Modern redemptive-historical preaching tends to invest significance in Old Testament people and events, only insofar as they relate to Christ’s incarnation. It tends to see little significance in the people and events in and of themselves. Rather, they are but stepping-stones to be quickly skipped over in order to reach the summits of Christ’s first and second comings. Passages and verses are but springboards to spectacular retrospective and prospective surveys of the Bible.

Blossom, bud, and fruit
The Puritans, on the other hand, preached Christ from Old Testament events and people without consciously and deliberately relating them to Christ’s first and second comings. They did not underestimate the climactic nature of Christ’s incarnation. They did not deny that Christ’s person and work at His first coming was necessary to give redemptive significance to the Old Testament. They agreed that no Old Testament saint could ever have been saved without Christ’s coming to this earth. However, they freely preached Christ from the Old Testament historical narratives without seeing the constant need to whisk everything and everyone backwards to the Fall and forwards to Bethlehem and Calvary. They did not view the Old Testament events as only stepping-stones to Christ. They saw Christ in the stepping-stones themselves. They did not see the need to relate everything to “the big picture,” as they could find the “big picture” even in the “small pictures.” They could appreciate the beauty of the blossom without having to relate it backwards to the bud and forwards to the fruit.

Jonathan Edwards is perhaps the most obvious exponent of Puritan redemptive-historical preaching. (more…)

Exponents of redemptive-historical preaching (see yesterday’s introduction for definition) have many worthy aims and desires in promoting it as a valid form of preaching. For example, they say that:

1. It shows how the whole Bible witnesses to Christ
Redemptive-historical preaching has the great and worthy aim of showing Christ in all of Scripture. It aims to bring Christ to sinners from every part of His Word. Greidanus corals Luther’s support for this view:

Thus exegetes of Scripture must go beyond asking, “What was the original meaning?” and ask, “How does this relate to and lead to Christ?” This is vital for, as Greidanus warns, “If we fail to preach Christ from the Old Testament, we have missed its essence.”[2]

2. It demonstrates God’s redemptive purpose in all history
Instead of viewing redemptive history as beginning with Christ, redemptive historical preaching shows that God has been acting redemptively from the beginning of history, and that He had the end in view from the beginning. Greidanus points to the way that Donald Miller likens God’s design in redemptive history to a play.

This is why the Christian is interested in Old Testament history far more than in American, African, or Indian history. It is because it is the prequel to the climax of Christ’s incarnation. It is because you cannot understand the climax without knowledge of the prequel. 

3. It widens the meaning of preaching Christ (more…)

Today, I’d like to introduce a short series on redemptive-historical preaching from the Old Testament, a genre of preaching that focuses on Christ as the end of redemptive history, as someone whom all redemptive history was pointing towards.

Definition of “redemptive-historical preaching”
By linking Old Testament redemptive events to Christ’s first and second comings, redemptive-historical preaching emphasizes how Christ is the destiny and climax of Old Testament history, the one that everything else was preparatory for. 

While reformed theologians have always viewed Christ as the destiny and climax of Old Testament history, and reformed preachers have always attempted to incorporate this fact into their preaching, the idea of this becoming the sum and substance of Old Testament preaching is a relatively recent development. It came to prominence in the Reformed churches in the Netherlands in the early part of the 20th century, as an over-reaction to what was called “exemplarist” preaching – preaching in which the lives of Old Testament characters were set forth as examples (or anti-examples) of how a Christian should (or shouldn’t) live. 

Redemptive-historical preachers assert that God did not give the Old Testament narratives to set forth moral examples, but rather to reveal the coming Messiah in prophecies, types and shadows. They propose that Old Testament narratives should be understood at three levels – personal history, national history, and redemptive history. In other words, the personal history must be seen as part of the greater story of Israel’s national history, which, in turn, is part of the even greater story of redemptive history.  

Defense of “redemptive-historical preaching”
Advocates of redemptive-historical preaching point to a number of New Testament texts to support their practice. (more…)