Preaching, Unction, and the Holy Spirit in Lloyd-Jones

Introduction

To preach is to be called by God — to serve in the glorious undertaking of disseminating scriptural truths. Unlike any ordinary endeavor, preaching requires spiritual strength and conviction. Most importantly, preaching depends on the Grace of God, received as the Holy Spirit, as well as by and for the Holy Spirit. To take preaching lightly would be to commit the sin of pride, assuming that the undertaking is about charisma or even just about spiritual counseling. As admirable as charisma is, and as noble as counseling, preaching is something different altogether.

In the 40th anniversary edition of his classic book Preaching and Preachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones explicates the nature of preaching with dutiful attention to scriptural authority. Ultimately, Lloyd-Jones shows how preachers can transform their sermons from mere motivational speeches into the transformative means by which listeners can achieve union with God. Lloyd-Jones presents the purpose of preaching as reaching towards unction, or anointing.

Preparation and the Work of the Preacher

Without discounting the importance of preparation in planning a sermon, Lloyd-Jones also extols the need to remain open to being moved by the Spirit during delivery. The unction "will come upon" the body of work completed by the preacher during the planning and preparation phases (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304). There is a chronology to the process of sermon development and delivery, according to the author, which is grounded in scripture — traceable to the story of Elijah but also to "many other examples of the same thing" (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304). God ascribes a certain order of things, paralleling the divine order and structure of Creation. First one thing happens, then another; first Moses obeys God's will in detail, and then Moses receives the unction in the form of the burning bush.

The novice preacher will recognize a more mundane parallel in Lloyd-Jones's analysis, in the saying "God helps those who help themselves" (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304). First, the preacher does the hard work — careful scrutiny of correspondences and deep textual research. Then the preacher transmutes that learning and knowledge into a purer form of wisdom guided by the Holy Spirit. The more prepared the preacher, the more powerful the sermon. Through the sermon, God is "giving power," an act of Grace (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304).

Scriptural Support for Preparation and Anointing

Scripture unequivocally stresses the importance of the Holy Spirit in enlightened preaching, beginning with the Old Testament and reaching a peak with the ministry of Jesus Christ. All the Old Testament prophets were exemplary in their receptivity to the Holy Spirit — the anointing — even prior to God's revelation in Christ (Lloyd-Jones, 2011). When the prophets of the Old Testament preached, there was a deep-rooted conviction that their work was preparatory in nature: starting from Elijah and continuing on to John the Baptist, who truly paved the way for Christ's ministry.

As Lloyd-Jones points out, John the Baptist received the Holy Spirit, consumed with the love of God, which he was able to transmit to a wide enough audience to prepare them for the coming of Christ. Thus prepared, "the people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah" (Luke 3:15). Of course, Luke knew full well that John was only the first course — the appetizer to a special spiritual feast. "I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Luke 3:16). Herein lies the crux of the reason why the anointing remains critical to all preaching. All preaching is the delivery of Christ's baptismal font — not the baptism in water, but that of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

To preach means to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit. For this to occur, the preacher needs to take certain specific steps. Those steps begin with the calling, the willingness to heed the calling, and then the actions necessary to prepare the intellect for the role of preacher. Theological seminary and any other preparatory means by which the preacher becomes immersed in the scholarly approach to Scripture constitute the next step. From hermeneutics comes the real work of the preacher: the anointing.

The anointing is the reception of the Grace of God — the blessing of the Holy Spirit that Christ made possible through his life, death, and resurrection. Knowing this, the preacher humbly accepts the unction and brings it forth to the community, joyful in the knowledge that his work is aligned with God's will. The transformative, redemptive power of Christ depends on preaching the Truth.