Christ-Centered Expository Preaching: The Logos in All Scripture

Introduction

As Christ is the center of the Gospels and Epistles—the ultimate endpoint of the Old Testament, the epicenter of all human history, and the One Being upon Whom our salvation depends—it is imperative that Christ ultimately be the center of all expository sermons. Even if Christ is only indirectly the heart of expository preaching, the fact remains that nothing else can occupy that place. Christ is the "way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). No sermon can be complete without Him.

One way to include Christ in one's preaching, no matter the subject, is to approach the sermon through the theological lens of Fallen Condition Focus (FCF). This approach frames the message within the recognition that we are all in need of saving—because of our fallen condition—and that only Christ offers the grace by which we can be saved (Chapell, 2005). Thus, even if a sermon focuses wholly on Old Testament scriptures, it is possible to make Christ the center of the sermon by way of FCF (Wright, 1992). This paper argues why it is necessary to always preach Christ, in some meaningful way, in all expository sermons.

Christ as Logos

"In the beginning was the Word," John 1:1 reminds us, "and the Word was God." Christ is the Logos—the Word of whom John speaks—and He existed from all time as the second Person of the Holy Trinity. This mystery is foundational for understanding how Christ can be the center of all expository sermons, even when the exposition focuses on a passage of Scripture that does not explicitly reference Him. All Scripture—from the Old Testament to the New—is directly related to Christ, because Christ is like the North Star, shining light upon every word of God. Christ is the One Who makes the words meaningful: He is the Lamb of God, foreshadowed through the various characters of the Old Testament, and the One Who takes away the sins of the world in the New Testament.

A connection can be drawn to Christ from the simplest verse in Scripture to the most complex. Christ is the heart of Scripture because He is, as John says, the Word from the beginning—the Logos that illuminates the world with life, grace, and meaning. In textual or topical sermons, a preacher uses a specific idea found in Scripture to make a larger point. These types of sermons are in many ways easier to relate to Christ, as Christian living is the message most sermons aim to communicate. In such cases, Scripture serves as support for the main idea. In expository preaching, however, the Scripture verses themselves are the main idea. They are the focus of the sermon, not merely supporting material for a separate idea developed by the preacher. In expository preaching, the preacher examines a particular passage, places it in context, studies its grammar—the words used and their significant meaning—and the historical setting of the verses. All of this serves to give clarity to the passage and to help the preacher explain it more fully to the audience.

How, then, does the Logos tie into expository preaching? The answer is straightforward: the Bible is the Word of God, and Christ is the Word of God. Even in Scripture passages that do not clearly identify the Person of Christ, the Word operates to bring souls to God—and thus to Christ—through the Holy Spirit. As Chapell (2005) notes, "Precisely how the Holy Spirit uses scriptural truth to convert souls and change lives we cannot say, but we must sense the dynamics that give us hope when we preach God's Word. The Bible makes it clear that the Word is not merely powerful; it is without peer or dependence" (p. 27). The Word has a hand in creating, controlling, convicting, purposing, and overriding weakness. Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that the Word has forever been linked to Christ through John 1:1. Chapell (2005) makes this point explicitly: "By identifying Jesus as his Word, God indicates that his message and his person are inseparable. The Word embodies him" (p. 27).

Christ as Logos is the ultimate subtext of every word in Scripture. He is the seed from which the life of the Bible springs—the soil and life-giving nutrients that the message requires in order to grow into the fruit-bearing tree it is meant to become. Chapell (2005) explains: "Christ's redemptive power and the power of his Word coalesce in the New Testament, with Logos (the incarnation of God) and logos (the message about God) becoming so reflexive as to form a conceptual identity" (p. 28). The person of Christ is explained by His divinity, His eternality, His presence from the beginning, and His omniscience. Nothing in history—in any time or place—is hidden from His mind. Every piece of Scripture, every passage and verse, is ultimately oriented toward Him, because His grace and beauty run through it like a thread that is invisible to eyes that do not comprehend the larger canvas unfolding before them.

As Wright (1992) points out, the Old Testament is best understood in the light of the Christian revelation, and Christ is best understood in the light of the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament narrative—the promised climax, long delayed. He is foreshadowed by characters from Adam to Isaac to Moses to David. The Old Testament points to Him just as He points to His Father in Heaven. The movement is circuitous: the Father creates, man falls, Christ redeems and restores man to the Father. Yet Christ is truly present throughout the entire narrative, as He is the Logos Who exists from the beginning: "So when we turn the page from the Old to the New Testament, we find a link between the two that is more important than the attention we usually give it. It is a central historical interface binding together the two great acts of God's drama of salvation. The Old Testament tells the story that Jesus completes" (Wright, 1992, p. 16).

Identifying the Theme in Scripture

Christ also speaks to us and to the preacher's audience through themes that recur throughout all of Scripture—themes of Redemption, Covenant, Inheritance, and others. The overarching theme running through Scripture is, of course, the fall from grace. Scripture constantly reminds the reader of the fallen human condition and the need for grace and redemption. A preacher who adopts the FCF approach to Scripture and to expository preaching cannot fail to find Christ at the heart of whatever passage he examines. Christ's heart pulses within every word of Scripture because the entire history of the Jewish and Christian peoples is bound to the heart of God by this pulse—the pulse of the fallen, in need of the Blood of the Lamb for renewal.

As Chapell (2005) states, "Since the Word is the mediate presence of Christ, service is due" to the text of Scripture in the same sense that service is due to the Church, to God, to the faithful, and to one's neighbor (p. 28). Just as the Holy Spirit finds in each person a temple, the preacher must find in the words of Scripture the heart of Christ, and must meditate on those words. "Scriptural truth is not a passive object for examination and presentation," as Chapell (2005) explains; it is a goal that must be actively sought. It requires understanding, prayer, contemplation, diligence, and perseverance—just as following in the way of God requires fasting, prayer, petition, and all the virtues God extols. By engaging with Scripture through expository preaching, the preacher engages with the Word dynamically—just as God intends. God is not static and Christ is not stagnant; Christ is for all people in all times. The preacher can bring this realization to life through expository preaching, but only if he remains conscious of the fact that Christ is not only the Word—the Logos—but also the source of recurring themes that illuminate every passage of Scripture from beginning to end.

By adopting the Fallen Condition Focus as a lens for interpreting Scripture, the preacher can turn that lens toward the horizon and bring into focus the Christ Who is there—waiting to be identified as the Redeemer, the One Who cleanses those who accept Him. With this lens, "expository preaching presents the power of the Word" (Chapell, 2005, p. 30) to the audience and grants them a much deeper and clearer understanding of the passage, of themselves, and of their relationship with God.

Conclusion

Christ is the center of all things—the center of history, the center of Scripture, the center of all preaching. He is the Word of God—the Logos—identified by John in the first verse of his gospel. In expository preaching, it is necessary for the preacher to communicate this fact in some way to the audience, regardless of which passages are used for exposition. Christ is the Word that runs through all things, and He must therefore be proclaimed at some point in the sermon in order to give it its fullest and most complete meaning.

Christ cannot be left out of any expository preaching exercise. Focusing only on details—on academic juxtapositions, on various interpretations of certain words or phrases, or on historical minutiae—will leave something to be desired. The audience comes waiting for the Word; they are there because they have desired to hear the Word of God, and Christ is the Word made flesh. Christ therefore cannot be excluded from the expository sermon. The exposition must be shown, in some way, to be related to Christ, because in truth it is. Christ is the Redeemer, and the Scriptures exist to remind us that we are in need of saving—that we all need His redemption.

References

Chapell, B. (2005). Christ-centered preaching: Redeeming the expository sermon. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Wright, C. (1992). Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.