The Meaning of “Preaching Christ”

“On the basis of this New Testament testimony, we can sketch the contours of what ‘preaching Christ’ means. To clear the deck, it may be well to state first what it is not. Preaching Christ is not, of course, merely mentioning the name of Jesus or Christ in the sermon. It is not identifying Christ with Yahweh in the Old Testament, or the Angel of Yahweh, or the Commander of the Lord’s army, or the Wisdom of God. It is not simply pointing to Christ from a distance or ‘drawing lines to Christ’ by way of typology.

“Positively, preaching Christ is as broad as preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. One has only to look at a concordance to see how often the New Testament speaks of ‘the gospel of the kingdom,’ ‘the gospel of Christ,’ ‘the gospel of Jesus Christ,’ ‘the gospel of the grace of God,’ and ‘the gospel of peace.’ In these terms two characteristics stand out. Preaching Christ is good news for people, and preaching Christ is as broad as preaching the gospel of the kingdom—as long as this kingdom is related to its King, Jesus.

“More specifically, to preach Christ is to proclaim some facet of the person, work, or teaching of Jesus of Nazareth so that people may believe him, trust him, love him, and obey him. We shall take a closer look at each of these aspects.”

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 8.