This episode is an introduction to redemptive-historical preaching. The proponents of this kind of preaching argued that Old Testament narratives are not given – primarily – to us by God to be moral examples, but as revelations of the coming Messiah. The narratives, the stories, of the Old Testament served as types and shadows pointing forward in history to the time when Israel’s Messiah would be revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
In support of this view, the advocates of redemptive-historical preaching drew heavily upon the text of Luke 24:27 (where Jesus is teaching the disciples on the road to Emmaus), “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (English Standard Version). Along with this verse, also invoked was v. 44 of the same chapter where Jesus says, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
In this way, then, the bible is seen not as a collection of abstract moral principles, but rather as an anthology of the events of God’s great works in history. The bible is dynamic, so the redemptive-historical advocate claim, and it progressively unfolds revealing more and more of Christ to us as it progresses through salvation history. This, then, is to be the way in which the narratives are to be preached – preached with a view towards showing how the text points towards Christ.
Visit http://www.calvary-amwell.org/sermons.htm for more history on redemptive-historical preaching.
