Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

In the penultimate chapter of his book, The Word Became Fresh, Dale Ralph Davies rightly insists, “We must read Old Testament narrative with a theocentric focus.” Where we disagree is his addendum, in which he defends his view that although we should preach Christ from Old Testament texts, there is no reason why we must, from every text.

He makes the fair point that in Luke 24, Jesus is teaching that all parts of the Old Testament testify of Christ, not necessarily that every Old Testament passage or text does. But if Jesus Christ is the melodic line running through all the Scriptures, if the (Old Testament) Scriptures that bear witness about him (John 5.39) and if the sacred writings (again, the OT is primarily in view) are able to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3.15), why in our preaching of the Old Testament (along with the rest of the Bible) would we not want to try and preach Christ from every text? In all our preaching, is not Christ to be our subject?

Moreover, I think Davis is wrong in his assessment that not every Old Testament text is about Christ. I think it is possible to preach Christ from every passage, without losing the riches of the texts as narratives in their own right. I have found Sinclair B Ferguson’s little booklet, which I picked up from the Cornhill Summer School a couple of summers ago a great help in this regard (It may be downloaded for free HERE).

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, he says, should be instinctive, not formulaic – we don’t just do our work on exegesis of the text, put it through a machine so that out pops a sermon on Christ. Nevertheless, he gives us four principles to start us off.

1. The relationship between promise and fulfilment (e.g. Genesis 3.15 and much of the rest of the Bible after that; the Quad Promise can be seen as an elaboration of this)
2. The relationship between type and antitype (in, for example the sacrificial system, as well as in pattern repetition between events in Old Testament history and events in the life of Christ)
3. The relationship between the covenant and Christ (both covenant and gospel follow the principle that imperatives are always rooted in the indicatives of God’s grace, the covenant at Sinai in its weakness pointed forward to a greater and fuller deliverance and a better consummation, and the covenant principle of blessing and cursing points us forward to the eternal consequences of acceptance or rejection of the gospel)
4. Proleptic participation and subsequent realisation (Old Testament saints were justified by grace through faith in the Saviour, and they are sanctified as saints who live since the coming of Christ are – their lives are shaped around the form of Christ’s death and resurrection.

I agree with Ferguson’s conclusion:

“If these principles hold good, then it must be possible along different lines, sometimes using one, sometimes using a combination, to move from any point in the Old Testament into the backbone of redemptive history which leads ultimately to Christ its fulfilment and consummation. In this way, the context and destination for all our preaching will be Jesus Christ himself, Saviour and Lord.”