Greidanus, a professor emeritus (retired) of preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary, has written a comprehensive textbook on preaching Christ from the Old Testament from a Reformed perspective. When I say comprehensive, I mean that this book is an academic resource filled with insightful information; it's one of those books that you find yourself consulting throughout the lifetime of your preaching ministry. Greidanus begins by arguing for the need to preach Christ from the O.T. and from all of Scripture because of the nature of progressive revelation. The first 60 pages of this work provides a mini-biblical theology which includes the inter-textual relationship between the O.T. and N.T. He then pours out almost 100 pages of ink providing a history of preaching Christ from the O.T. He explains the different methods used by the Apostolic Fathers, all the way through to Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Spurgeon among others. What I appreciated was his critic of the abuse of allegorical and typological forms of preaching and he rightly argues for the combination of literary-historical interpretation of O.T. passages with canonical, redemptive-historical, and Christ-centered interpretation. He presents seven ways of preaching Christ from the O.T.: redemptive-historical progression, promise-fulfillment, typology, analogy, longitudinal themes, New Testament references, and contrast. He then explains and demonstrates the hermeneutical process he calls the "Christo-centric method." What I appreciate most is that this book is laced with example after example of the right and wrong ways to preach various passages from the O.T.
One example is the famous story of Abraham and Isaac from Genesis 22. Greidanus warns against the dangers of ignoring Genesis 22 as written for Israel and it's ramifications for Israel. The author warns against the dangers of biographical preaching which tends to look for attitudes and actions of the biblical characters and drawing contemporary applications based on these attitudes and actions, rather than focusing on the biblical author's intent of Israel. He warns against generalizing and universalizing the text, where God's testing of Abraham is applied to every Believer. God does not test all of his saints the way Abraham was tested; God does not call us to lay down our Isaac's as an atonement, and God does not reward our obedience by rescuing us. These are not unbiblical points, but it's not the point of the text. God putting for his Son for us was not contingent on our obedience. And God did not reward our obedience by putting forth Christ. God put forth Christ, and as a result we are able to obey God by trusting in Christ. The story of Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22 was originally written to Israel to:
1) Teach Israel that it lives only by the grace of the Lord's covenant
2) move Israel to gratitude for the Lord's grace in providing a substitute offering
3) encourage Israel to fully trust their faithful covenant Lord to provide redemption
These three points can easily be applied through the New Covenant. There are many example such as this one throughout the text of this book.
The only critique I have is that Gredianus seems to press the necessity of preaching Christ in every single sermon. This is evident in his critique of John Calvin's preaching.
Gredianus writes: "According to John Leith, Calvin's purpose in preaching was to render transparent the text of Scripture itself. Although this goal is admirable in itself, from our perspective Calvin did not sufficiently focus on producing Christ-centered sermons in the context of the whole of Scripture."
Calvin probably did not always focus on producing Christ-centered sermons, because the scriptural text does not always produce a Christ-centered sermon. Yes, all Scripture eventually points towards Christ, but on this point Calvin was right to focus more readily on the immediate context of Scripture rather than forcing every passage into the grid of redemptive history.
Due to the text-book nature of this work, as well as it's length, I recommend this book as a resource for preachers.
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david h kinnon
Not too sure about this
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 24, 2021Benedict Tan
A must-read on the topic of preaching the Old Testament.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 6, 2016George Owusu-Sekyere
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 9, 2017
