Preachers who wrestle with what it means to preach a Christ-centered sermon from the Old Testament might be surprised to learn that John Calvin did not see the need to make every Old Testament sermon explicitly Christ-centered!
Sidney Greidanus’s volume, Preaching Christ From the Old Testament, provides a masterful study of Calvin’s approach to preaching the Old Testament (see pages 127-151). Greidanus, by the way, eventually finds Calvin’s model inadequate (pages 149-151). However, my views on preaching the Old Testament closely resembles Calvin’s view.
Basically, Calvin’s focus on the sovereignty and glory of God as his interpretive center made his sermons implicitly Christ-centered. In his ‘Institutes,’ Calvin writes: “When we profess to believe in one God, under the name of God is understood a single, simple essence, in which we comprehend three persons, or hypostases. Therefore, whenever the name of God is mentioned without particularization, there are designated no less the Son and the Spirit than the Father” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.13.20). As Greidanus notes, Calvin emphasized the unity of the Old and New Testaments whereas Luther saw the relationship mainly as a contrast between law and gospel (Preaching Christ, 132).
Believing, then, that a God-centered sermon is implicitly Christ-centered, Calvin insisted on unfolding the mind of the author in a passage of Scripture. Nothing more, nothing less! He was concerned about any interpretive approach which might lead people away from the meaning of the biblical author.
Wherever you end up on the issue of Christ-centered vs. God-centered sermons, listening to Calvin, and noting his differences with Luther, will help you see clearly the issues at stake as you wrestle with what it means to preach the gospel from the Old Testament.
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Posted by Steve Mathewson at 9:23 AM on June 20, 2008
