Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2021. 139 pages.
“Why should I read a book review on preaching?” That’s a great question. In fact, I’m glad that question didn’t stop you from reading this far. Yes, this is a review of a book on preaching, but the value of the book moves beyond the task of preaching. This book helps us see Christ rightly in the Old Testament and glory in the gospel in all of Scripture. And even if you do not regularly preach from the pulpit, I want to challenge your assumptions. You might not spend several hours a week studying one passage so you can preach a 40-minute sermon on Sunday morning, but you do preach every day. You preach to yourself. You proclaim some message, whether true or untrue, and, as you seek to follow Christ, my guess is that you toil to preach what is true to yourself, though you might not have thought of this effort as preaching before. Every time you open the Word, you preach to yourself. And when you’re tempted to give up reading Leviticus around the end of February, the problem may not be the boring, repetitive nature of Leviticus as much as you aren’t sure how to “preach” Leviticus to yourself. Enter Christ.
In this book, Pastor David King argues that the decision to preach Christ from the Old Testament is not a homiletical (preaching) decision but a hermeneutical (interpretation) decision. And this is an important distinction, because if the Bible is unified by the story of redemption through Christ, and if we must read all texts, even the Old Testament, in light of Christ’s work of redemption, then any sermon (or personal reading of Scripture) that doesn’t make much of Christ is sub-Christian; it’s a sermon (or reading) for the synagogue, not for the church. So, we must answer the question: “Does every text in the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God and Savior of the world?”
King takes the first third of the book to show that the Scriptures themselves assume a Christ-centered reading of the Old Testament and to build a coherent theology that proclaims the same message. And as we investigate the Scriptures, this is exactly what we find. Take time to look at the following Scriptures. Jesus himself not only believed that the Old Testament anticipated his redemptive death and resurrection (Luke 24:25-27, 44-47) but also that those who rightly understood the Old Testament would come to him for salvation (John 5:39-40). Jesus himself is the fulfillment of what we find in the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17-20). The apostles understood that Jesus read the Old Testament in this way, and they not only interpret Scripture similarly (as we see in the great sermons of Acts 2, 3, 7, and 13 to name a few) but also instruct others to read the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, that is, Scripture that points to Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 10:1-11; 2 Tim. 3:15-17). If we want to read the Old Testament rightly, we must read all of it as finding fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
King takes the next section of his book and answers the question of how we rightly see Christ as the fulfillment of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. And lest you think that such a practice merely jumps over the original meaning, King reminds us that we can’t understand how the text finds fulfillment in Christ unless we understand its original intent. Once we grasp this original intent (and are fed by it), we then ask how the text finds fulfillment in Christ. Since the Old Testament was Jesus’ to fulfill before it was ours to read, we should read the Old Testament “over Jesus’ shoulder” (p. 60), asking how he intended to fulfill the text as he read it. King finds six general ways that Old Testament texts find fulfillment in Christ:
Prophetic Promise – Perhaps the easiest category to identify, some texts “contain promises of a coming Savior.”
Ethical Instruction – A category we may overlook, but whenever we read law or wisdom literature, we read something Christ himself fulfilled.
Fallen Humanity – Whenever the text exposes human sinfulness, it points to our need for the Christ who comes to meet the need our sin creates.
Typological Revelation – Types are pictures, people, or patterns that point to some greater reality, and the Old Testament is filled with pictures, people, and patterns that point to and find fulfillment in Christ.
Narrative Progression – Jesus read the Old Testament and understood that it moved toward fulfillment in himself. How do the twists and turns in the narrative of Scripture move history toward fulfillment in Christ?
Theological Theme – The acts of God and his attributes point to Jesus, who is the exact imprint of God’s nature.
King then gives a few case studies before delving into the question of application and laying out a few problems to avoid and benefits to enjoy when we preach Christ from the Old Testament (or read our Bibles with eyes fixed on fulfillment in Christ).
I hope you see now how a book on preaching can change the way you read your Old Testament. Going back to our example of Leviticus, it is in Christ that Leviticus finds its fulfillment, its greatest intention, for all its sacrifices and religious regulations point to our need of a sacrifice to cleanse us and a priest to intercede for us, and the New Testament declares to us that this sacrifice and priest are one and the same, Jesus Christ (Heb. 4:14-5:10; 8:1-10:18). And it is through Jesus, then, that we must, as Peter quotes Leviticus, “Be holy” as the Lord our God is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). The holy obedience Leviticus demands is only possible through faith in the one to whom the sacrifices and priests point. Thus, the commands of Leviticus, to walk reflecting the holiness of God to others, find both fulfillment and immediate relevance through Jesus Christ.
If all Scripture is one story of redemption in and through Christ, then I only understand each text of Scripture as I understand how it fits into this one overarching story. As I preached recently from Psalm 41, it’s great that David found comfort in God through his suffering, but what says I can benefit from the same comfort? It’s only when I understand the meaning of the text within the redemptive trajectory that leads to Jesus that I realize David and I share the same hope, the same promises, the same covenant Lord, all through our shared salvation in Jesus.
So, if your question is, “Should I read this book?” my answer is “Probably.” But if your question is, “Should I read my Bible this way?” my answer is “Absolutely.” This is how Jesus and the apostles intend you to read your Bible. And if you feel the need for help in reading your Bible in this way, your pastors would love to talk to you, and this book would be a helpful companion for seeing Christ as you read your Old Testament.