Proclaimer Blog
Preaching Christ from the OT, part 4
Summer series #1. Some years ago, we asked Sinclair Ferguson to write a brief paper for us on preaching Christ from the Old Testament. Over the next week or so, we’re going to publish an edited version online as part of our summer series. It’s worth some time. Christ is the prism where all light converges Given that we are not to become ‘method’ preachers applying a programmatic formula for biblical preaching, there are nevertheless very important principles that help us to develop Christ-centred expository skills. As we work with them, and as they percolate through our thinking and our approach to the Bible, they will help us develop the instinct to point people to Christ from the Old Testament Scriptures. The most general principle is one for which we might coin the expression fillfulment: Christ fulfils or ‘fills full’ the Old Testament. He came ‘not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them’ (Matt. 5:17). As Christians standing within the light of New Testament revelation and looking back on the Old Testament, Christ himself acts as a hermeneutical prism. Looking back through him, we see the white light of the unity of the truth of Jesus Christ broken down into its constituent colours in the pages of the Old Testament. Then, looking forwards we see how the multi-coloured strands of Old Testament revelation converge in him. When we appreciate this we begin to see how the constituent colours unite in Christ and are related both to each other and to him. In this way we see how the Old Testament points forward to him. We see how sometimes one ‘colour’, sometimes another, or perhaps a combination of them, points forward to Jesus Christ, is related to Jesus Christ, and is fulfilled by Jesus Christ.