1 Corinthians 2:1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
If it is true that Jesus the Christ is the testimony of God and is the very Truth about Him and from Him, then we must look to Christ as set forth in Scripture to know God. The Scripture declares that eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3). The Scripture also declares that Christ is the One who explains God to human beings (John 1:18). The study of Scripture and preaching, then, if the study and preaching are going to be in accordance with eternal life and the truth of God, must be a setting forth Christ as the truth of God. It is a severe neglect in the study of Scriptures to look for truth in them apart from the truth of who God is and how He reveals Himself in and through Christ. That would also reflect a great neglect in the area of preaching as well.
Jesus the Christ is the manifestation of the glory of God incarnate, which means that we cannot know the glory of the Gospel apart from beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ. While it may be interesting or not and it may be scholarly or not, yet the study of the Bible and the preaching of Truth must involve something of the glory of God rather than just some dry thinking about some abstract truths about God. Preaching is far more than just setting out some basic truths (even biblical truths) before people, it is supposed to be about setting out and pointing to the very glory of God. The souls of the people should be hungry for God and the very good of their souls require them to be feasting on Christ Himself, so surely that is what preaching should do.
If it is true that the cross of the Divine Son of God and the blood of God is the center of history and the Gospel, then there is a lot more about Christ and the cross than can be declared in a lifetime of preaching. It may be the case that for eternity in heaven the glory of God in the face of Christ and the cross will be what captures the attention, affections, and adoration of saved sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ is more than some facts about Him, but He was God incarnate moving around on this planet shining forth the glory of God for all who had eyes to see. In the parables and the miracles the point was (and is) to set forth the glory of God. The glory of the cross was not in Christ saving sinners in and of itself, but it was that God saves sinners for His own glory. The glory of the cross is all about how the Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father and the cross sets out and displays that.
The wonder of the cross and the preaching of that should be all about the glory of God rather than the glory of man. It appears that men have lost sight of the true glory of God in the cross and have made it all about man, which is a humanization of the cross rather than seeing the Divine glory and truth of the cross. If we focus the cross on how Christ died for me, then we have just (by deduction) demonstrated how Christ was an idolater in loving a human rather than God. If we point to how God the Father loved human beings so much that He sent the Son to die for them, then we have just (by deduction) demonstrated how God the Father loved human beings more than the Son. Apart from the cross being where the glory of God shines in and through Christ, the cross will be humanized to the point where humanity becomes the focus rather than God.
The preaching of the churches, then, must learn to preach Christ and Him crucified if they are going to preach the Bible at all. While it is sad, preaching can take the stories of the Bible and turn them into little more than humanized Bible stories that we tell kids. Apart from preaching Christ and Him crucified in the context of the Gospel of the glory of God, we will humanize the Gospel and make it no more than a Bible story as well. Instead of the Gospel of the glory of God being the focus of all history and the whole of Scripture as it should be, it is now not even the center of preaching and it is not even mentioned much either. This is to say that the professing churches have humanized the teaching of Scripture and so it is no wonder if the world has humanized all things.
God Loves... Himself 
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