Christ in the Old Testament

This is an address I hope to give to our ministers' fraternal on Wednesday.

Christ in the Old Testament

There are three reasons that led me to this subject. The first is a seminar in two parts given by Dominic Smart of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland earlier this year, the day after an address he gave at the Lakeland Christian Fellowship meeting in Parr Street. This was very thoughtful, stimulating and yet left me still with some questions. The second reason is that a little before that I had purchased Graham Goldsworthy’s latest book entitled Christ-Centred Biblical Theology. Goldsworthy has been writing about a Christ-centred approach to Biblical Theology for many years and this is perhaps his final word on the subject. If I might mention an earlier book of his, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture is also extremely valuable and thought-provoking. The third reason is simply that how and in what way we are to see Christ in the Old Testament are perennial questions for any expositor of the Bible.

PART 1

First of all, in order to set the scene, I want to say that I have some doubts about a Christ-centred biblical theology, at least if that is set out as the primary way in which we are to approach the Bible and, in particular, to handle and preach from the OT. Biblical theology is not the final form of theology; it is a discipline on the road to theology. Biblical theology explores themes and periods of revelation, but the whole has to be systematic theology. That, after all, is the meaning of the word ‘systematic’; it brings all the different parts together into one overarching system. My own approach would be along these lines, I think. If I have to put the whole Bible into a nutshell I would describe it as the revelation of the redeeming God. It is not simply about a big story; if you want to use the word story, it is a story about a great God. Nor is it just a revelation of God per se, but in particular it reveals a triune God as a God who redeems. So care must be taken not to focus on one person of the Trinity to the exclusion of the other two.

The problem with biblical theology, as Goldsworthy points out, is to work out what, if any, is the central, cohesive theme that unites all the other themes together. If God has spoken at many times and in many ways to our fathers by the prophets, and in these last days has spoken to us by his Son, how do we bring all that together into a unity? Moreover, as he also acknowledges, how does the wisdom literature fit into the picture? Even if we can trace a storyline through the OT what do we do with Proverbs, for example? So while there is much that is thought-provoking and indeed valuable about his books I am not sure that they are the last word – though he would probably agree with that himself.

On reflection I think that I have also been influenced in my understanding by writing a biography. In a biography you tell a story which develops over time through many different events. But through all that happens you are seeking to bring out the character of the subject about whom you are writing. The events, the actions and reactions of the person concerned reveal the essential person. Moreover, in some cases, as with Ernest Kevan, the subject of the biography has himself written various books. But what he has written also reveals more about him and therefore his writings are not a problem, they add to an understanding of his personality and priorities. However, there is this vital difference when it comes to the Bible. Any human being will develop and change over time, but this is not the case with God. His acts and words are appropriate to the times in which they take place, but in himself he is always the same.

So if we see the Bible as the revelation of the redeeming God, what does that mean? Firstly, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and, as Dominic Smart emphasised, all the works of God outside of himself involve all three persons of the Trinity. Within the Godhead the persons act in love upon each other. In divine dealings with the created universe, including the angelic universe, the persons all act together, though not necessarily all in the same way. So in creation, the Father speaks and acts by the Word who executes the will of God by the Spirit. God is one in willing and one in acting, though there may be order and differentiation within the willing and acting. When it comes to divine dealings with human beings, in general we can say that God makes himself known, speaks and acts in and through the Son and by the Spirit. So to say the Bible is Christ-centred is at the same time to say that it is God-centred, but I think that this needs to be made explicit.

The Bible reveals God in two ways. It is an inspired record in which human authors reveal God to us by their words about him, including of course reporting his own words, but also by recounting his acts. In this case actions do not speak louder than words, but both words and acts combine together to complete our understanding. From the first verse, speaking of creation, until the last verse, speaking of what is yet to take place, we have a record of a God who has spoken to us, as we saw before, at many times and in many ways. However, through all that God has revealed runs the thread of redemption, or if you prefer it, salvation – I use the word redemption because it speaks of deliverance by a price or cost. The opening chapters set the stage on which we see the fall of man into sin, and from then on we see God at work in various ways, leading up to the climactic occasion when on the cross, God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. That, of course, still awaits a final consummation, as is testified in the now completed word of revelation.

The theme of redemption is particularly important in two ways. Firstly, an act of redemption is not what we would necessarily expect of God. Anyone who believes in one God is likely to think of him as all-powerful, eternal, all-knowing, creative and above us in every way. But that he should deliver those who have sinned against him, and do it himself by incarnation and an atoning death goes beyond human expectation and imagination. General revelation tells us nothing about a God who redeems. Incidentally, a Unitarian god could never have redeemed by incarnation and an atoning death. If he died he would remain dead. Secondly, it is just at this unique point that so many who profess to be Christians go wrong. Redemption is compromised by the idea that we have to pay for our own sins, or that our good deeds count towards salvation or that God simply lets us off, especially if we do our best. However, a redeeming God is a uniquely biblical revelation and this truth must be zealously guarded and made known as widely as possible.

There are three important themes bearing on this subject that I believe must be considered before we go any further. The first is the place and, I think, the priority of the Father. What I mean by that is best brought into focus by reminding ourselves of the most well-known verse in the Bible: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Supremely it is the love of the Father which is manifested in the incarnation and saving work of Jesus Christ. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Similarly, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That is extraordinary, isn’t it, not Christ shows his love for us by his death, but God shows his love for us.

 I am also struck by the way in which God speaks in Isaiah: Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. And at the beginning of the fourth servant song: Behold, my servant shall act wisely, he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. It is God the Father himself who delights in his Son and draws our attention to him. We are to look at the Son because his Father tells us to. The New Testament equivalent is: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.

There are two aspects to this which I think we need to reflect on. Firstly, does a Christ-centred biblical theology adequately express, or make room for, this truth? Some years ago there was a book written with this title, The Forgotten Father. I haven’t read it so I do not know what it says, but sometimes it does appear as if the Father is rather overlooked. Is the human Jesus more appealing in these days to people than a gracious and loving God? I think we have to be careful not to forget the Father or his love.

This leads, secondly, to this question: isn’t the gift of the Son by the Father actually the highest and greatest demonstration of love? This is a tricky point, and we must not try to contrast the roles of Father and Son unnecessarily and we must acknowledge that we are in the realms of the mystery of a triune God. However, the language of John 3:16 clearly picks up the language used by God to Abraham: Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. Wouldn’t it have been easier for Abraham to have offered himself, rather than his only son? What father, with an only son, would not prefer to give his life – perhaps already half-lived – rather than sacrifice his only son? Surely, we can’t help thinking like that. In the mystery of God in our nature forsaken by God, there is a depth of suffering, love and grace that goes beyond anything that we can imagine. We dare not overlook this greatest aspect of the love of God.

John Owen addresses this matter in a slightly different way. ‘The foundation of the whole [we might say, at this point, the whole of salvation] is laid in a sovereign act of the will, the pleasure, the grace of the Father. And this is the order and method of all divine operations in the way and work of grace. They originally proceed all from him; and having effected their ends, do return, rest, and centre in him again.’ He bases this statement on Ephesians 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Has anyone ever published a book on a Father-centred biblical theology? I’ve never heard of one. Yet isn’t that precisely what Ephesians 1 presents?

The second important theme concerns how we are to understand the Wisdom literature in its relationship to the overall theme of the Bible. In this connection it is really the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon that are in question. It may be helpful to look at each briefly in turn.

Job is about the problems which arise when a godly person suffers, greatly, randomly and exceptionally. It describes inadequate, mistaken and hurtful attempts by friends to understand and explain what has happened. It pictures the fluctuations of hurt, doubt and faith experienced by the godly. It finishes with the greatness, sovereignty and grace of God. All this is of lasting importance.

Proverbs is primarily about ordinary life. It promotes wisdom in daily life not only by basing it on the fear of the Lord, but by bringing it right down into details. Proverbs are not promises or absolute statements of truth, but general principles and wise instructions which are generally true and have to be understood and applied with wisdom.

Ecclesiastes is about the uncertainty, fragility, frustration and emptiness of life as it is under the sun. Though this is primarily true for the unbeliever, who has no hope above and beyond the sun – that is from outside the universe – the believer too lives in the same world. To fear God is the answer; this radically alters the way the believer lives, but it does not alter the world in which he lives, for that he has to look for a better world.

The Song of Solomon is a song, or songs, in praise of love. It pictures the highest form of human love, the joyful, ecstatic love of a man and a woman. Coming immediately after Ecclesiastes it presents an astonishing contrast and reminds us that – if I can quote this – ‘love changes everything’. It is firstly the love which is expressed by a man and woman in marriage, but this can point us to the love of God for his people – at the time of writing this was Israel of course.

It seems to me that the only one of these books which can be fully made to fit a Christ-centred biblical theology is the Song of Solomon understood as an allegory. If, however, we think of the Bible as a revelation of God – ultimately Father, Son and Holy Spirit – then we have God expressing himself through history, through the words of the prophets and through wisdom literature. This does not sideline Jesus Christ and his saving work; it simply puts it in a fuller context. We must remember in particular that redemption is not merely justification and forgiveness, it continues in sanctification and a life which aims to be well-pleasing to God. This continuing process belongs to both Testaments and the wisdom literature is very valuable in this connection. My feeling is that when people talk about Christ in the OT they are almost always thinking simply in terms of a message of salvation to unbelievers without reference to the ongoing life of the redeemed community.

So, for example, it is not moralism to preach from Proverbs, it shows how God’s people, ultimately all saved by Jesus Christ, can live in the details and nitty-gritty of everyday life. Actually Christians often need such detailed guidance and perhaps don’t always get it as they should. You know the acronym WWJD – what would Jesus do? It is interesting to remember that Jesus would have known the Law, the prophets and Proverbs. What he would do would be the outcome of his knowledge and perfect understanding of the OT. We don’t need to guess what Jesus would do – we have the Word he sanctioned, Old and New Testaments, to guide us.

This leads to the third important theme which concerns the OT law in its fullness. It is now nearly forty years since Chris Wright’s ground-breaking book, Living as the People of God was published. This has now been enlarged and superseded by a much bigger book, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. I confess I have only dipped into it but I did read the earlier book and also his commentary on Deuteronomy which I found very helpful. What Wright did was to show that all the OT laws enshrine principles and moral perspectives that are valid and timely throughout history for the people of God. I am not going to enlarge on this; all that I am maintaining is that redemption has always issued in an ongoing life of holiness. In a certain sense, too, the initial saving act of faith is continually recapitulated as people confess their sins and receive forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

To sum up so far in a sentence: any overall approach to the OT must be able to embrace the priority of the Father’s love in a redemption which only reaches its finale in glorification, the full range of the Mosaic law, and the wisdom literature. I think it is doubtful that a Christ-centred approach, by itself, is adequate to that task. I am also fearful that an over-emphasized focus on Jesus can lead to a reduced impression of what the Bible actually says.

However, there is another very important side to our whole subject which I acknowledge has to be taken into account. There are two aspects to this. First, redemption is the specific work of Jesus Christ and has been accomplished by him: his incarnation, atoning death, resurrection and glorification were essential to it. Second, we can only come to know God in and through Jesus Christ. We cannot know the Father apart from the incarnate Son. It is, of course, the Spirit’s ministry to show Christ to us and to enable us to embrace him in faith, but it is to Christ himself that we must come, and through him we come to the Father. Both these points mean that insofar as preaching the gospel is concerned the focus is, and must be, on Jesus Christ, but it should not stop there. Nor, for that matter, does it need to begin there. In fact, unless you bring in God the Father at some point you are going to distort the gospel message. To love our Lord Jesus Christ means to love the Father too, with a love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Let me sum up this first part of my address with three quotations. The first is from Vern Poythress [The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses]: ‘To be Christ-centred in interpretation is not, however, to be Christomonistic.’ So is the second: ‘To read the Old Testament Christocentrically need not mean collapsing creation into redemption or suppressing the revelation of God the Father in the Old Testament. Rather, it means appreciating the Old Testament for what it is in the design of God: a witness, foreshadowing, anticipation and promise of salvation as it has now been accomplished by the work of the triune God in Jesus Christ incarnate.’ Personally I would want to add to this that while in a vital sense salvation has been accomplished it has not yet been fully implemented or brought to its grand conclusion. Thirdly, Thomas Schreiner, writing on New Testament theology [in Introducing Scripture] says: ‘New Testament theology, then, is Christ-centred and God-focused, for what Christ does on earth brings glory to God.’ Perhaps we might say about Old Testament theology that it is God-centred and Christ-focused because it is the Christ who will fulfil all the saving purposes of his Father.

PART 2

In a sense all that I have said so far is introductory to the main theme of Christ in the OT, but I believe it is essential to try and sort out the parameters within which we are to consider our subject. Now, in the second place, I believe we need also to clarify our approach to Christ and the Old Testament. You will see what I mean from the points that I cover.

Firstly, we need to look at the word ‘Christ’ itself. The trouble is that we often give to the word a broader connotation than it has in Scripture. We frequently use it in a general way to refer to the whole person, Jesus Christ our Lord. We use it as a name rather than as a specific title. For us preaching Christ covers preaching on any aspect of the person or work of Jesus Christ, but not in the Bible – or at least, not generally. In Acts 8:5 when Philip went to Samaria and, in the words of the AV, preached Christ unto them, what he did was to demonstrate that the Messianic hope was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. So also when Paul came to Thessalonica he went into the synagogue and reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’

As you all know, Christ is the anglicised Greek for the anglicised Hebrew ‘Messiah’. The word means ‘the anointed one’. In the OT three sorts of person were anointed: prophets, priests and kings. This is why the work of Jesus Christ is generally considered under these three heads. Personally I think it is best to think of Jesus under these headings as Messiah rather than to add others. For example, wise man – or wisdom personified – and shepherd, both come under the heading of king; Solomon was the wisest man and David the shepherd king. Also, I do not think it is wise or right to speak of Jesus being in the OT. The OT points in various ways to figures, institutions and actions which all prove to be summed up in the one person of Jesus. There is much in the OT that leads us to Jesus, but we should not import him back into the OT. However, as we shall see, the Son of God is in the OT, but that is to anticipate.

Secondly, I believe we need to understand Luke 24 in a realistic way. In v.27 we are told that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted to the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. This surely does not mean that we are to find a reference to Christ in every verse or even in every chapter in the OT. It means that all through the OT you will come across persons, institutions and events which in various ways anticipate and point to the Christ. I have heard some extraordinary applications of various verses and passages to Christ which I am sure are simply evidence of a vivid imagination – I only wish I had made a note of some of them to demonstrate what I mean, but you have probably come across some yourselves. Regrettably, these sorts of ‘interpretations’ have done great harm and turned expositors away from legitimate anticipations of Christ. Finding Christ in the OT is not an exercise in human cleverness but in searching out real connections between the Testaments.

Thirdly, the flow of history and development of the people of God in the OT, with the gradual and deepening revelation of truth, is important in its own right. The first question we ask when we come to an OT passage is not necessarily, ‘How can I get to Christ from here?’ The OT deals with real people and their relationship with God; there is therefore much that we can learn about how God deals with people from its pages. Incidentally, when we read the word ‘God’ in the Old Testament we are actually reading about the divine nature of Jesus Christ, though not the person. I shall say more about this later.

Dominic Smart, in his seminars, sought in particular to show how Boaz functions in a way that clearly prefigures Jesus Christ. He was very persuasive in presenting his case, and quite clearly wished to honour Christ, but I still find what he said unsatisfying. So I want to say something about the book of Ruth, though it must be very brief. The hero, or rather, heroine, of the book is surely Naomi. Through great sorrow she nonetheless won the affection of her two daughters-in-law so that both desired to return with her to Bethlehem; their testimony to her is deeply impressive. Eventually she persuaded Orpah to go back but Ruth clung to her and spoke those immortal words, Your people will be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. I don’t think we should judge Orpah too harshly; after all, how would three widows make ends meet back in Israel? I wonder, too, whether there aren’t people somewhat like Orpah around today.

Moving on, it was Naomi who took the initiative in gaining Boaz as a husband for Ruth, not Boaz himself, nor God. She was rewarding Ruth for her faithfulness to her. Was Boaz a widower, I wonder, or an older single man – surely unlikely in that culture – or would Ruth even be a second wife? The way Naomi told Ruth to go about gaining a night-time rendezvous with Boaz seems strange and a little dubious – especially if you know anything about customs in rural England only a few generations back. To be truthful, by what she did Ruth put Boaz on the spot; ‘you can have me if you want me’. The story then becomes complicated. Why did Boaz bring a field into the situation, so far nothing has been said about Naomi selling any land? Although in the event Boaz bought both the field and Ruth with it, it looks as if he could have married Ruth – assuming the nearer kinsman did not want to as was obviously the case – without making any payment. Moreover the fact that there was a nearer kinsman at all seems to militate against too close an analogy with Christ.

The main point of the book is clearly to show that Ruth, a Moabitess, features in the genealogy of David, and hence of course ultimately in the genealogy of Christ himself. We should not overlook the remarkable words of the people and elders of Bethlehem: May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give to you by this young woman (4:12). Here was another woman, one who became pregnant by pretending to be a prostitute, almost certainly a Canaanite, who was accepted into Israel and became the example for Boaz and Ruth. So the book ends with the line from Perez down to David who in a number of ways prefigures the Christ.

So, I have doubts about making too much of Boaz as a picture of Christ. The Lord acts in this book twice. In 1:6 he visits his people again to give them food, and that brings Naomi and Ruth back to Bethlehem. In 4:13 he visits Ruth and gives her conception and that secures the line from which the Christ will come. The flow of the whole book points towards the Christ who is yet to enter the world. God is already at work in preparing for the redeemer and the introduction of a Moabite indicates that, while born from Judah, he is a redeemer for the whole world, including nations however pagan and excluded.

Fourthly, I believe it is important not to marginalise or downplay the importance of the giving of the law. The law was written on the heart of Adam and Eve at the very beginning; but the fall and indwelling sin means that man also needs an external, objective writing of the law. The law delivered by Moses and enshrined in the 10 commandments is not another or lesser law. Paul’s words in Romans 2:12-16 cannot possibly be understood in that way. Because conscience itself is affected by sin an external, unbiased standard of right and wrong is essential. I like the words of John Collins: ‘The “law”, given through Moses, plays a vital role in the Old Testament. It is uniformly presented as an object of delight and admiration (e.g. Psalm 119), because it is a gift from a loving and gracious God. The law is never presented in the Old Testament as a list of rules that one must obey to be right with God; rather, it is God’s fatherly instruction, given to shape the people he has loved and saved into a community of faith, holiness, and love, bound together by mutual support and care.’ As such it has a continuing role in the life of the Christian church and its members.

Fifthly, and simply in passing, we need to be guided by the NT in our understanding of Christ in the OT. But that requires another paper!

PART 3

So, at last, we get to what you thought was the subject of this paper! Firstly, if Jesus Christ is God, then whenever we read about God in the OT we are learning about the divine nature of the Christ. This is important for several reasons. To start with it means we cannot talk about a great, remote, overwhelming Being in the OT and contrast that with a near-at-hand, loving Christ in the New. Liberals and unbelievers would often make the contrast even more stark than that, but we ourselves need to take care that our language does not actually promote such an idea. This reaches its heretical climax in the idea that a loving Jesus interposed himself on the cross to appease an angry God. In order to avoid such a conclusion it is vital to have a God-centred theology in which the Father has a certain priority all the way through, as we were thinking earlier.

What we find in the OT about God is also important for seeing the deity of Christ in the NT. So often what Jesus does in the NT reflects on the activity of God in the OT. Sometimes this is made explicit, as in John 1:3: All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 shows Jesus is the creator, and the turning of water into wine shows him as the active power at work in the natural world, as also does the stilling of the storm. Psalm 107 says: He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Sometimes OT descriptions of God are actually fulfilled in a remarkable way in Jesus Christ, for example: For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’ (Isaiah 57:15). It is One who was high and lifted up who came down very literally to dwell with those of humble and contrite spirits.

Secondly, all the theophanies in the Old Testament, that is appearances of God in angelic or human form, are actually Christophanies, or to be even more accurate, appearances of the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. In Genesis 16 we have the first appearance of the angel of the Lord. This figure is both identified with God and yet is distinguished from God by his very title. In the light of further OT evidence and the NT it is not difficult to see that this must be God the Son. The key passage is Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees the Lord, high and lifted up. In John 12, John writing about the unbelief of the Jews of his own day quotes from Isaiah 6 and then, referring to Jesus, writes: Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. These early appearances of God the Son are anticipations of the incarnation, but they are also indications that the Son was present and active in the world in the OT period.

Thirdly, there are explicit messianic promises. When I say, explicit messianic promises, I do not mean that the word Messiah is actually used, but there are promises of someone to come which are clearly only fulfilled ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, though in some cases there might be a preliminary and partial fulfilment. For example, there is the seed of the woman, Gen.3:15; the prophet like Moses, Deut.18:15,18,19; the Davidic king, 2 Sam. 7:12-16; the servant of Jahveh, Is.42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13 to 53:12; the branch, Jer. 23:5,6; 33:14-16; the priest like Melchizedek, Ps.110:4; wisdom personified; Prov.8:2-31.

This, I think, also enables us to see that there are other specific figures which point us forward ultimately to Jesus Christ. For example, Joseph, the saviour of his people, would come into this category. This would be the case with other deliverers also, and in this connection we can think of the judges, who were much more military figures than our judges. The deliverances of Joseph and the judges, in my estimation, would come under the heading of kingly rule, even though there were not anointed kings.

At this point, however, we have to consider a very important principle, that of contrast as well as continuity. All, whoever they were, who came before Jesus were failures – that’s why Jesus had to come. Eli was the high priest but the man of God who came to rebuke Eli and his sons said, in the name of the Lord: And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind (1 Samuel 2:35). I will come back to this point a little later.

Years ago I heard a minister whom I respected apply what we are told about Samson to Christ: at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron. I think he applied, or rather misapplied, this picture to Christ storming and overthrowing the gates of hell. In the context Samson had been spending the night with a prostitute and it seemed to me utterly inappropriate to try and introduce a reference to the Son of God at this point, even keeping in mind the principle of contrast. I think, therefore, that we have to be careful in our applications.

I recently read Henry Law on both Joseph and Judah. He took Joseph to be a type of Christ and Judah to be a type of Judas Iscariot. Yet Psalm 78:67,68 says of the Lord: He rejected the tent of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves. It is Judah, the fourth son of Leah, not Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel, who features in the line that leads to Jesus – how remarkable! The truth seems to be that while Joseph as a deliverer does foreshadow a greater deliverer, it was because Jesus Christ came to save sinners that he came from the line of Judah – a saved sinner par excellence.

Having introduced the word ‘type’ this brings us to the fourth way in which we see Christ in the OT. Vern Poythress defines the word like this: ‘A “type”, in the language of theology, is a special example, symbol, or picture that God designed beforehand, and that he placed in history at an earlier point in time in order to point forward to a later, larger fulfilment’ (Introducing Scripture). The word type originally meant the mark made by a seal, so the image made was the exact representation of the letter, word or symbol on the seal. Paul uses the word several times in his letters, as in 1 Corinthians 10:6,11, generally translated as ‘example’. Though, of course, in this case Paul does not want the Corinthians to follow the example set by the Israelites.

A type, in the sense it is usually used in biblical interpretation, can be a person, Melchizedek, for example; an event, such as the exodus, or an institution, the sacrificial system. In every case the type is only an inexact approximation; Christ and his work constitute the reality, the fulfilment. Personally, I think there is an ambiguity in using the word ‘type’, particularly in sermons, because in English ‘type’ generally means ‘sort of’’. It is not helpful for people to get the idea that an OT character is a ‘sort of Christ’ – and I believe that some do begin to think like that. So I much prefer to speak of someone or some thing pointing towards Christ, or picturing some aspect of his person or work; an indication given by God of future grace and salvation.

Another word, used in Hebrews, is the word ‘shadow’. We often speak about ‘types and shadows’. I think generally the idea that most people have is that, as with types, various people, institutions and events in the OT foreshadow what comes through Jesus Christ and his work. There is nothing wrong with understanding it in that way. I have wondered whether it isn’t better to look at it slightly differently and start with the New Testament – perhaps with Hebrews. The light of Christ casts a shadow backwards over the OT, drawing attention to those things that relate to him. What is helpful about this is that it means we take our starting point as the NT and then look at the OT from that perspective.

We have to be careful when we talk about types, though. We can say that the temple is a type for it is a picture of Jesus, who is the dwelling place of God. We find this made explicit in John’s gospel. But the temple is also a type of the church, of the Christian and of a Christian’s body – all these uses are found in 1 Corinthians. These other uses are related to Christ and come about because of Christ, but they do not directly refer to him.

A second important point is to notice that when we speak of an OT person being a type of Christ, we are not actually referring to the person as such, but to some status, action or experience that is true of the person. All the people we meet with in the OT were sinners who needed salvation by Christ. All of them did things which do not point to Christ; all of them were guilty before God and needed the salvation which was to come through Christ. This means we must never give the impression that some people are types of Christ because they were generally better than others. This, I think, would be to miss the point. After all, David was in many ways a type of Christ, and wrote some amazing messianic Psalms, most notably Psalm 22, yet his fall into sin was terrible, even though he was pardoned.

Speaking practically, I think we need to say that there are often different ways of looking at and preaching from the same passages of Scripture. You can hear several different preachers taking the same text – I don’t necessarily mean ‘verse’ by that – and yet the sermons may be quite different in their emphasis. This is quite possible and we should not think there is only one way of tackling a portion of Scripture.

Let me take Genesis 43 as an example, the passage which refers to the second visit of Joseph’s brothers to Egypt and Joseph. Some time ago this passage featured in a series of sermons on Joseph by Jeff, so his main emphasis in the passage was on Joseph. On the other hand I preached a sermon on Judah and focussed on the opening verses and the astonishing change which took place in Judah since he last appeared in chapter 38. In Northern Ireland earlier this year I heard a sermon on the chapter which began with the famine and ended with the feast and was very definitely gospel oriented and to that extent brought Christ into the picture. I also remember hearing a sermon in which the way Joseph dealt with his brothers was used to picture the way Jesus Christ often deals with sinners in bringing them to conviction of sin. In each case I believe that what was preached was valid and helpful – at least I hope it was in my case.

Conclusion

So, to sum up: In our treatment of the OT we must be Trinitarian in our understanding of God. We must not be reductionist in our preaching; there is a great variety of ways in which much of the OT can be handled. There is more than one way of discerning the Christ in the OT and we must be sensitive to this. We must take care not to reduce Jesus Christ by our usage of typical persons, but always show that he is superior in every way to all OT figures. Moreover, while salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ is clearly revealed in the OT and therefore can be preached from the OT, conversion to Christ is only the beginning of a lifelong saving experience and there is much in the OT that helps us in our understanding of living a Christ-centred, Holy Spirit empowered, godly life.

Pastoral Apologetics - another ministers' fraternal paper

In the ‘Banner of Truth’ magazine for May of this year there is an article by Theodore Cuyler, who lived from 1822 to 1909, entitled ‘Advice for Young Preachers’. In the course of a generally very helpful article he says this: ‘In one respect I have not followed the practice of many of my brethren, for I have never wasted a single moment in defending God’s Word in my pulpit. I have always held that the Bible is a self-evidencing book; God will take care of his Word if we ministers only take care to preach it. We are no more called upon to defend the Bible than we are to defend the law of gravitation. My beloved friend, Dr Maclaren, of Manchester, has well said that if ministers, “instead of trying to prop up the Cross of Christ, would simply point men to that Cross, more souls would be saved”. The vast proportion of volumes of ‘Apologetics’ are a waste of ink and paper. If they could all be kindled into a huge bonfire, they would shed more light than they ever did before. It is not our business to answer every sceptic who shies a stone at the solid fortress of truth in which God places his ambassadors.’

This quotation well illustrates the way some Christians think about apologetics. To be truthful, I think that most of us at times have at least been ambivalent about apologetics. We feel the force of sentiments like this, and yet at the same time we may be unsure about their validity. After all, most of us have probably had periods of doubt or uncertainty. Perhaps at school we had teachers who maintained that there were three ‘Isaiahs’. Or we may have been worried about how exactly Judas died or whether the last supper was the Passover meal or not, and we were grateful to those who tried to set our minds at rest. Some of us in our ministries may have come across real Christians who nevertheless have been greatly troubled about some matter of truth and we have felt it right to do our utmost to help them over the difficulty. It is not only sceptics, is it, who need an answer?

Paul in Pisidian Antioch and Athens

In Acts 13 we find a sermon, I think we can call it that, preached by Paul in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia. Here were people, Jews and proselytes, who had met to worship God and who knew the Old Testament. Paul’s sermon, therefore, began with the early history of Israel and soon led up to the coming of Jesus as the Saviour, his life, death and resurrection. The truth of the resurrection was backed up by three Old Testament prophecies, and the sermon ended with a warning from Habakkuk. Four chapters later Paul is in Athens and he is called to explain his teaching before the council of the Areopagus. It is likely that the reason for this was not merely interest, nor just that they wanted to hear what he taught because it sounded new, but rather to see whether it was acceptable to them or not. This was a critical congregation in the most highly educated city in the ancient world.

Before we go any further, I would like to turn aside from the main theme just for a moment. Because of the background of Christianity and church-going in our country we still tend to think in terms of preaching the gospel in the Pisidian Antioch setting. I am becoming more and more convinced that this is a mistake. I know that some unbelievers do come to church services, some regularly, and for that reason there is a place for evangelistic sermons and evangelistic application. The modern pagan, however, has no idea of Christian worship and I doubt that we should be attempting, in the first place, to bring him or her into worship services in order to hear the gospel. Worship is predominantly directed to God. The gospel, however, is directed to sinners as sinners and I believe we should be looking for other settings in which to make it known. I wonder whether both worship and evangelism are harmed by the way we sometimes try to do both at the same time.

To return to Acts 17 and Paul in Athens: here Paul was not in a synagogue and he was not preaching a sermon as such. There are four aspects of Paul’s address that I wish to comment on. Firstly, he established a point of contact, and this came about by observing what was important to the Athenians. Secondly, he used logic. Thirdly, he quoted from two Greek poets, Epimenides and Aratus. Finally, he came to judgment and the resurrection. Let me comment on his use of logic. In v.24,25 he says: The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Paul’s conclusion is inescapable; but he is not quoting Scripture, he is using logical reasoning. Or again, v.29: Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Again, the reasoning is unanswerable. If God made us human beings, and is greater than we are, as he must be, then he cannot possibly be like anything that we can make with our hands or even construct in our imagination.

It is tempting to try and give an extended exposition of this passage, but that is not my concern. However, I will make one or two more comments. In evangelism we often, I think, tend to start with what is important to us, or with what we think ought to be important to people, rather than what is important to them. The wrong starting point can easily be a turn off or lead to an expression of derision. Notice, too, that Paul did not directly contradict the beliefs of the Athenians, he simply undermined their use of temples, altars and images by his logic. That seems to me to be remarkably clever. The fact that he could quote from two Greek poets is interesting. He didn’t know that he was going to have the opportunity to address the council and I’m sure he didn’t carry copies of these poets around with him. He knew them well enough, however, to be able to use appropriate quotations. I doubt whether most of us could come up with suitable quotations from, say, Shakespeare or Milton, if we were put on the spot. I also doubt, however, whether Paul could have quoted the songs that were sung in the taverns of Athens.

Why we need Apologetics today

To get back to the theme of apologetics let me repeat the last sentence from the Banner of Truth article with which I began: ‘It is not our business to answer every sceptic who shies a stone at the solid fortress of truth in which God places his ambassadors’. The fact is, though, that nowadays very many people indeed are sceptical. They believe that the Christian faith is outdated, irrelevant and untrue, and probably in that order. This belief is constantly fed and encouraged by most of the media. In these circumstances I believe it is right for us to give considerable attention to apologetics; giving a reason for the hope that is in us, seeking by the help of the Holy Spirit to destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ. In this connection I was interested in John Wesley’s address to the reader at the beginning of the 1771 edition of his works: ‘In this edition I present to serious and candid men my last and maturest thoughts, agreeable, I hope, to Scripture, reason, and Christian antiquity.’ It was the little word ‘reason’ in this sentence which struck me, especially bearing in mind the revival atmosphere in which Wesley carried out most of his ministry.

A number of translations use the word ‘reasoned’ of Paul’s ministry. For example the ESV uses the word in Acts 17:2. In the synagogue in Thessalonica Paul reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead. In v.17, while in Athens he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. His speech in Athens is clearly an example of reasoning. In Acts 18 vv.4,5 in Corinth he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Gentiles. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Mesopotamia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. In chapter 19 when he was in Ephesus he entered into the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks (verses 8-10). With Jews his reasoning was based on the Old Testament, but not with Gentiles.

What happened at Berea is often, in my opinion, misunderstood by some people, (17:11): Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. The emphasis that is often put on this is that the Bereans were checking up on Paul because they were suspicious of him – the application then seems to be that we should check up on preachers. But that is a negative way of understanding what happened. Surely the point is that Paul was telling them things from the Old Testament that they had never realised before and they were thrilled to see for themselves the meaning and fulfilment of passages that they had never previously been able to understand.

This sense of the joy of discovery reminded of a book that I will refer to again later. The Book that Made Your World is written by an Indian Christian. It was written largely in response to a book by a noted Hindu intellectual, Dr Arun Shourie, who condemned missions as a conspiracy of British imperialism. Vishal Mangalwadi as a student had had his own battle over this and had decided to check out the facts for himself. The result proved to be astonishing: ‘My investigation of whether God had truly blessed India through the Bible yielded incredible discoveries: the university where I was studying, the municipality and democracy I lived in, the High Court behind my house and the legal system it represented, the modern Hindi that I spoke as my mother tongue, the secular newspaper for which I had begun to write, the army cantonment west of the road I lived on, the botanical gardens to the east, the public library near our garden, the railway lines that intersected in my city, the medical system I depended on, the Agricultural Institute across town – all these came to my city because some people took the Bible seriously.’ The truth can always stand scrutiny and we should not be afraid of helping people to overcome their prejudices and misunderstandings.

So I have three modest suggestions to make. Firstly, I think it is good for pastors to have as good an understanding of apologetics as is possible, bearing in mind our limitations of time and dependent, to some extent, on the nature of our ministry. Secondly, I think those who have evangelistic gifts, or who find themselves often involved in outreach should try to make themselves as aware as possible of the objections and difficulties which people raise in these days and be able to answer them. Thirdly, I think there can often be a more apologetic edge to our preaching than may frequently the case. It is this that I want to particularly dwell on.

Very often, I think, we associate apologetics simply with arguments for the existence of God. Perhaps this is not surprising, but I believe that the subject is much wider than that. I am not against considering or using such arguments and I do remember Dr Lloyd-Jones preaching some of those arguments evangelistically. This is not very easy to do, especially if you are going to speak in a way that does not leave ordinary people wondering just what on earth you are talking about! Also many of the current arguments used by atheists are based on scientific considerations and most of us are not competent to understand or convincingly rebut detailed questions about radiometric dating or DNA or mutations or string theory or the Higgs boson. So what I am going to do is to mention briefly several apologetic books, and then try to give examples of some apologetic strategies that can be used in preaching.

Apologetics books

I take it for granted that you are aware of the booklets of John Blanchard and especially of his large volume Does God believe in Atheists? One of the most recent of big books is by Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Apollos). This is certainly comprehensive and takes a while to get through. His approach is to present the Christian worldview, thus giving a holistic apologetic that takes in every area of life. This is important for it is easy for those with a scientific bent to present their scientific arguments for evolution, but much more difficult for them to account for the worldwide existence of religion, for morality and the whole area of human culture. An early chapter is entitled Distortions of the Christian Worldview – Or the God I Don’t Believe In. This was a wise chapter to write, but it is too brief and I did not feel he always adequately answered some of the questions he raised. It is disappointing to find this early on in the book.

A second very recent book is Confident Christianity by Chris Sinkinson (IVP). This has an excellent sub-title, Conversations that lead to the cross. I have met Chris several times and enjoyed the book, perhaps especially the earlier chapters. Just occasionally I think he could have been a little more definite in his conclusions. Turning to an older book, but still available – and you can get it on Kindle – there is Scaling the Secular City, by J. P. Moreland (Baker). This is a very thorough and cogent defence of the Christian faith. I think it is probably still one of the best books on the subject, though not an easy read.

These are primarily books for Christians. What about suitable books for unbelievers? This is much more problematic, because unbelievers can come in many different shapes and sizes – if you see what I mean. As far as booklets go, I am impressed by Evidence for God by Andy Christofides, Seven reasons to believe in the existence of God (Day One). However, I come back to the point that, as far as possible, you need to know the person you are trying to help, have some idea of what are real problems – as opposed to mere debating points – and what level of book is required. I suspect that many books ask too much of the ordinary man or woman. The best apologists are those who can answer questions which people are actually asking, and so conversation with unbelievers is the best way to find out where the main difficulties lie. At this point I want to turn to some examples of apologetic approaches that can be incorporated into sermons. The purpose of this, of course, is not just for unbelievers, but also to reassure and establish believers and give them ammunition to use in discussion and witness.

The moral argument for the existence of God

To start with there is one argument or reason for belief in God that I do want to mention because of its importance for the present day. In this case I am going to quote from an article entitled Aggressive Atheism by Kieran Beville in the current issue of Foundations, the Affinity theological journal:

‘In Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov there is the famous argument that if there is no God all things are permitted: ‘But what will become of men then?’ I asked him, ‘without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?’

‘In his Templeton Prize address Alexander Solzhenitsyn said: ‘Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened”.’

‘Well-functioning human beings are typically aware of actions as being right and wrong. Furthermore, this awareness binds them to certain obligations. A proposition such as, ‘torturing babies for fun is wrong’ is generally regarded as a statement of fact, a position known as moral realism. The existence of God provides a better explanation for this than various alternatives. Social organisation strategies in the West (such as systems of jurisprudence) have evolved over time and are based on the transcendent ethical code of the Commandments. If morality is transcendental in nature then theism provides the best explanation for this.

‘Thus, the existence of morality provides good grounds for belief in God. He made people in his image and morality reflects something of his nature. Thus morality is best explained within a theistic hypothesis; if God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. But objective values do exist and thus we must conclude that God exists.’

The logic of this argument is very difficult to deny. Many young people are idealists; they want to save the planet, they want to stop wars, they want love and peace and fairness, they’d like to change the world. But why? If we are just animals who have gradually evolved what is the reason for such desires? Why do we think there are such things as universal human rights, why do we believe in right and wrong at all? If right is just what most people think is best at any given time and in any given circumstance, then it is either just a matter of personal preference or of following the crowd. There is no such real distinction as right and wrong, good or evil. On the other hand if we are made in the image of God and all have his law written on our hearts and have been given a conscience, that not only chimes in with our experience, it means that right and wrong have universal significance. Some things are always right, others are always wrong, just as most people think and most people have always thought.

The importance of the resurrection

I remember a few years ago Brian saying that he thought that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the best argument to use to demonstrate the truth of the Christian faith. Quite clearly if Jesus did actually rise from the dead then that means his words and claims are true. It means he is the Son of God and his death has saving significance and he is the Lord before whom every knee should bow and every tongue confess. How do we know for sure that he was raised from the dead?

What is the earliest reference that we have in the New Testament to his resurrection? Almost certainly the first mention in point of time comes in the first verse of Galatians: Paul, an apostle – not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. We will return a little later to the date of this letter. For the moment we note that Paul is explaining how he became an apostle, and therefore where his apostolic authority came from. His apostleship came through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.

When we look further on into this chapter we can see that Paul is referring to his experience on the road to Damascus: God was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach among the Gentiles. He had known that the apostles had filled Jerusalem with the teaching that Jesus had risen from the dead, and he was present when Stephen called out, Lord Jesus receive my spirit, and almost certainly in the council earlier than that. But it was not until the risen Jesus met with him on the road that he was forced to acknowledge the truth and bow in subjection to the Lordship of Jesus.

Who was this man, Paul? Was he someone gullible, someone who might be taken in, in some way? Was he likely to hear voices or have strange experiences? Everything we know about him suggests the opposite. He came from a respected and probably quite well off family. He was born a Roman citizen, so his father was already a citizen of Rome himself, and that was an unusual status for most people in those days, perhaps particularly for Jews and those who lived in the provinces.

Though Paul was a Jew his home was Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. This means that he was brought up in two cultures, Greek and Jewish, though neither of these was native to Tarsus. So we can add to these the basic, pagan culture of that area as well as the overlay of Rome. He was probably educated in a synagogue school in Tarsus until his Bar Mitzvah, and it is very likely that it was then that he went to Jerusalem and learnt from the most respected and influential Jewish rabbi of the day, Gamaliel. We have also noted from his address to the Areopagus that he was familiar with some Greek literature at least.

To this picture of Paul we can add the fact that prior to his Damascus road experience he was thoroughly convinced of Pharisaism and an outspoken and even fanatical opponent of the Christian church. It may be, however, that he had never actually heard or seen Jesus himself as he tells us that what he did was done ignorantly in unbelief. We also add in that his letters demonstrate him to be someone of considerable intellectual ability, someone, too, who had very high moral standards.

The point of all this is to establish what sort of person it is who tells us that he met with the risen Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. It is not credible to say that he was taken in about this experience, nor that he was lying about it. There is no doubt that an extraordinary turnaround took place in his life. How else can it be explained? On what grounds is it possible to deny that he is speaking the truth – apart from prejudice and unbelief?

Earlier I said that this was most likely the first explicit mention of the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament. Most scholars believe that this was the first letter that Paul wrote and that it was written around AD 50, give or take a year or two. Probably the letter of James is the only earlier document in the New Testament, and though the resurrection of Jesus is implied in that letter it is not explicitly mentioned. Now AD 50 is only about twenty years after the resurrection itself took place. So this written evidence for the resurrection is extremely close to the actual event. The only way to deny the force of this argument is to say that this letter – and by implication, the whole New Testament – is a deliberate fabrication. No alternative explanation is even possible.

Manuscript evidence

Nevertheless, some would say that even if Galatians was written so early what about the fact that we don’t have the original manuscript. This leads us on to some discussion about manuscript evidence. One of the earliest, if not the earliest, manuscript of Galatians is the Chester Beatty papyrus p.46, which is dated around 200 AD. However, it is important to keep the question of manuscripts in proportion and in this connection it is interesting to make comparisons with other ancient writings.

Take, first, a book written by the Roman historian Tacitus. He has a short book on Agricola, who became the Roman governor of Britain in AD 77. He was noted for his building of forts in order to establish Roman authority and it is likely that it was he who was responsible for the first one to be built on the banks of the river Lon – hence, Lancaster. Tacitus wrote about 100 AD. There is only one manuscript copy of his minor works in existence and that is dated to round about the year 1000, 900 years later.

Or take Suetonius, another Roman historian, who wrote his book about the Twelve Caesars some time between AD 75 and160. There are 8 manuscript copies of this in existence, the earliest being dated around 950, some 800 years later. Then there is Plato. He wrote somewhere between BC 427 and 347. There are 7 manuscript copies of his work in existence and the earliest copy is around 900AD, some 1,200 years later.

I have taken these figures from Moreland’s Scaling the Secular City, and there are other ancient books that he cites. When you consider that the earliest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament go back to the third century AD, with some fragments even earlier, and that there are 5,000 of them, as well as 8,000 copies of the Latin Vulgate and several hundred in other languages you can see that the evidence for the New Testament is of a completely different order from that of other ancient books whose authenticity is taken for granted.

The fact is that we have huge numbers of manuscripts and the differences between them are not very great, so that we can be certain of most of the text as it stands. Where there are some textual uncertainties these do not affect any major doctrine and do not make any significant difference to Christian faith and practice at all.

Thus the idea that the deity of Christ was something that developed in the church after a period of time during which he was glorified more and more is impossible in the light of the evidence. So also is the idea that his resurrection was influenced by pagan ideas of the death and resurrection of gods. Let me quote from another book, God is Great, God is Good.* ‘The fashionable charge that stories of crucified and risen saviours were rampant in the ancient world prior to Christianity has been dismissed by critical scholars, especially during the last few decades… it cannot be demonstrated that there is even a single pagan resurrection account prior to Jesus, whether mythological or historical.’

Clearly, we cannot preach about manuscripts or become too technical, but I think it is possible to insert facts like some of the ones I have mentioned into our sermons from time to time. After all, we want to answer genuine questions that some may have or have heard. We want to remove obstacles which might keep some from taking the Gospel record seriously, and we want to take away from unbelievers the spurious reasons that they give for their unbelief.

The influence of the Bible

The final apologetic strand that I want to explore briefly is the influence of the Bible. It is easy, of course, to say that the Bible has had a great influence on our own history in Britain, but that is general and vague. The 400^th anniversary of the King James, or Authorised, Version of the Bible produce a rash of books on its influence, both by believers and unbelievers. It is very interesting to see how much, for example, Lord Bragg, well-known on radio and TV and in literary circles, attributes to the influence of that book. He even has a chapter entitled The Royal Society (1660): Early Modern Science and the Bible. He concludes it like this: ‘Christianity assumed that the world was intelligible. So, and perhaps, therefore, did modern science. There had to be a first cause because Newton knew it was there: It was God. In the formative years of the seventeenth century it could be said that the King James Bible joined religion and science together in a marriage which has just about held despite massive bombardment.’

However, I want to go back to the book I mentioned at the beginning of this address, The Book that Made Your World. Its author has an incredible knowledge of history on a worldwide scale and also of the present intellectual culture in the Western world. The fact that he is an Indian allows him to say things that most of us would never dare to. For example, my breath was taken away when I read these words: ‘This chapter will examine how the Bible changed the European idea of a hero during the last millennium. A thousand years ago, “Christian” Europe’s idea of heroism was expressed in the first international conflict of the second millennium. It was a crusade in which Christian soldiers tried to purge the Muslims from the holy City of Jerusalem. The last major conflict of the second millennium was Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait, in which Western soldiers risked their lives to liberate Kuwaiti Muslims from Iraqi Muslims.’

He gives a short answer in a paragraph, and then he works it out in much more detail: ‘The answer is that the Bible replaced the classical idea of the hero as a world conqueror and the medieval idea of the hero as a courageous knight with the idea of a hero as someone who sacrifices himself for the good of others.’

Again, because the author is an Indian he sees things that we are not so likely to understand or take notice of. He has a chapter on ‘True Wealth’ which he illustrates by the invention of the reaper – for grain – by the American Cyrus McCormick. He points out that McCormick came of Puritan stock and was himself a dedicated evangelical Christian. He says: ‘McCormick’s reaper reinforces the point made in an earlier chapter – that necessity is not the mother of invention. All agricultural societies have needed to harvest grain. But no other culture invented a reaper. Most cultures met this need by forcing into backbreaking labour those who were too weak to say no – landless labourers, servants, slaves, women, and children. McCormick struggled to find a better way. The driving force of his life becomes apparent when you notice that he gave substantial portions of his income to promote the Bible through several projects including newspapers and the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago, which was renamed the McCormick seminary.’

Later on he writes: ‘McCormick was nurtured on the biblical idea that through godly and creative work human beings can roll back the curse of sweat and toil and re-establish their dominion over nature. To repeat, my ancestors did not lack intelligence, but our genius was expressed in a philosophy that taught us to worship nature instead of establishing dominion over it. Economic development involves not worshipping but harnessing natural resources and energy for human consumption, albeit with foresight and a sense of stewardship.’ This is not a book that you could preach, of course, but it contains many illustrations of the way the Bible has changed the world that can be incorporated into sermons.

The quotation I began this address with contained this sentence: ‘We are no more called upon to defend the Bible than we are to defend the law of gravitation’. There is, however, a difference between simply defending the Bible and demonstrating its relevance to life and showing the beneficial effects it has had over the centuries. Even when we are not using illustrations from the sort of book I have been quoting from, I believe we ought in our preaching to show the match that exists between what the Bible says and our human experience. Isn’t the Bible accurate when it speaks about people being slaves to sin? Don’t we have many incidents recorded which show us typical human behaviour – Eve looking at the fruit of the tree, Lot’s wife looking back, King Jehoiakim cutting up Jeremiah’s book and throwing the pages into the fire, Peter denying the Lord. All human life is in the Bible and yet sometimes we seem to make it irrelevant to people, rather than bringing out its truthfulness and application to our hearers.

Finally, I believe we ought not to make too much of a contrast between apologetics and trusting in and looking for the power of the Holy Spirit. Why cannot the two go hand in hand? It is of course true that we can over-rely on reason and argument, but that is an example of relying upon ourselves. If both preparation and preaching ought to take place in reliance on the Spirit then we can fail in that while preaching solely on the Bible, just as we can if we try and add an apologetic element.

Personally, I would like churches to try and make more use of apologetics in preaching and also in non-worship situations. Paul at Athens didn’t quote the Bible at all, but he did quote two pagan writers. Not surprisingly, given his mention of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ That, surely, is at least a good start.

* IVP; 2009