God Loves… Himself

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

It is the devil, it is the world, it is our flesh that are raging and raving against us. Therefore, dear sirs and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent. Truly, this evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring. Use the gift that has been entrusted to you, and reveal the mystery of Christ. (Martin Luther)

Here is another serious and vital point of Gospel preaching. It is the realization that we are in a spiritual battle and that the Gospel will always be fought against and be in a spiritual battle. It is the realizations that sinners are truly going to hell and that the glory of God is under attack. Gospel preaching is not some easy method where the mind and heart never have to work and fight the flesh, but instead it is precisely at this point where the battle rages. Those who are going to preach the Gospel in earnest must be those who are in an earnest battle against their own flesh, the world, and the devil. It is only when the preacher is at war with those things that he will understand the battle well enough to be one who is a Gospel preacher in the midst of the war. It is far easier to come up with a lecture that is theologically correct and perhaps even interesting to the hearers than it is to fight with the flesh, the world, and the devil in order to preach in a way where those things are fought.

The Lord Jesus was at war with the devil in His time on earth and He is still at war in and through His people. Prayer is a means of grace, yes, but it is also a means of war. The Gospel is a means of grace, but it is also a means of war. If we pray in accordance with the Lord’s Prayer we will pray for His kingdom to come, but for His kingdom to advance and to gain is for it to advance against the power and dominion of darkness. The Gospel is the means God uses to bring sinners out from under the dominion of Satan and to bring them into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col 1:13). The preaching of the true Gospel is an attack on the evil one and the preacher that truly attacks the evil one must be one who is somewhat used to the battle.

The evil one does not care if people preach in a general way and even if they casually preach the truth, for that means that the ones doing the preaching (so-called) are not at war and are not preaching as if they are in a way or battle. II Corinthians 4:4-12 shows us something of this war and it would behoove all who stand up and say they are Gospel preachers to study those verses.

4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death works in us, but life in you.

In v. 4 it is the evil one who is blinding the minds of the unbelieving, but not so that they cannot see the truth, but that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. It is God (v. 6) who must shine this light in the heart. Behold the battle on at least two fronts. The battle for Gospel preaching is not just over truth, but it is over people beholding the glory of Christ. The battle for Gospel preaching is over who can overpower the evil one and bring this light into their souls. But also notice the battle that is going on with the preacher. He was afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and so on. Why is that? It was so that the power of this Gospel could be seen as the power of God and not the preacher. It was so that the life of Christ could be manifested in the dying of the preachers. The Gospel of glory must be preached, but it must be preached in the midst of a battle. Only then will it be in earnest.

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They rely on these and other good books to get a sermon out of them. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. It is just as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose. They use such books as offer them homiletical helps in order to earn their yearly living; they are nothing but parrots and jackdaws, which learn to repeat without understanding, though our purpose and the purpose of these theologians is to direct preachers to Scripture with such books and exhort them to plan to defend our Christian faith after our death, against the devil, the world, and the flesh. (Martin Luther)

One point that must be set out in terms of what distinguishes Gospel preaching from a lecture or some other kind of preaching (if there really is another kind of biblical preaching), is that of preaching from the intellect alone and preaching with spiritual wisdom and understanding. It can exercise the intellect to high levels when one sets out to wrestle with Christian doctrine, but if one wants to preach Christian doctrine one must understand it. Using understanding in this way it includes the whole soul which must be enlightened by the Spirit and it includes having a spiritual understanding which goes far beyond the mere five senses of men.

Ephesians 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;

The text is quite clear that unbelieving sinners are darkened in their understanding. This darkened understanding is linked with being excluded from the life of God. This darkened understanding is linked with ignorance that is in them. This darkened understanding is linked with hardness of heart. While there is not enough space in this type of setting to expound much at all on those topics, we can see that the unregenerate sinner can know a lot of intellectual things about Christianity. But the unregenerate sinner has a darkened understanding that is linked with having no life of God and hardness of heart. The heart is involved with a true understanding of Scripture and the life of God in the soul is also linked with this true understanding.

Colossians 1:9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

The passage just above shows us that to have the knowledge of His will it is required that we have spiritual wisdom and understanding. If we don’t have spiritual wisdom and understanding, then we will not have the knowledge of His will. Now this may indeed get people nervous as they read this and think that surely this is some form of mysticism, but we must remember that this is Scripture. There is an earthly form of understanding and wisdom, but there is also a spiritual wisdom and understanding. This is an understanding of the things of the Holy Spirit and His work in the inner part of man.

1 Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

The passage just above tells us that Christ Himself has come and given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. In John 17:3 we are told that eternal life is to know the Father and the Son. But it is Christ who has come and has given us understanding so that we may have this eternal life. It is not that Christ came and gave us intellectual information only, but He came and has given us understanding so that we may have eternal life.

Colossians 2:2 that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself,

In Colossians 2:2 we see that the wealth of believers (in this sense) comes from a full assurance of understanding. This understanding results in a true knowledge of God’s mystery and that is Christ. We simply have to see that this is not talking about intellectual information alone; it is speaking of the great spiritual truths that are found in Christ. Gospel preaching, then, involves the preacher having a spiritual understanding of Divine things (the Gospel) and speaking of them in such a way that believers are build up in a true knowledge of God’s mystery. If Gospel preaching is nothing but information alone, then unbelievers can understand the truths of the Gospel. Surely it is obvious, then, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has great and grand truths and teachings of Christ that are foolishness to the unbeliever and s/he cannot understand them at all. Gospel preaching is rare in our day because it takes suffering and a true dying to self before one can begin to have a spiritual understanding of Christ. One cannot find out the spiritual wisdom of Christ in a commentary, but instead God has to teach these things before one can preach them in a spiritual manner.

Romans 1:9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They rely on these and other good books to get a sermon out of them. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. It is just as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose. They use such books as offer them homiletical helps in order to earn their yearly living; they are nothing but parrots and jackdaws, which learn to repeat without understanding, though our purpose and the purpose of these theologians is to direct preachers to Scripture with such books and exhort them to plan to defend our Christian faith after our death, against the devil, the world, and the flesh. (Martin Luther)

Luther made several good points in this passage, but one of the most powerful that speaks to the modern day is that men who use books alone and do not pray or study the Scriptures for their sermons are really nothing more than parrots. They use the books to learn what to repeat and yet they are repeating things without understanding what they are repeating. This can happen when men write out their sermons and when their sermons are more academic than spoken from the heart. This can happen when men have good memories and they memorize the sermon for the most part. But the point is that a man should not preach what he has not understood, or perhaps it should be said that a man should not preach what has not pervaded his heart by meditation and the power of the Spirit.

It is true that this type of thinking is built upon the idea that lecturing or speaking in some way information is the same as preaching. Martin Lloyd-Jones spoke of preaching as logic on fire. The fire, we can safely assume, was not the fire of human passion, but the fire of the Holy Spirit in the soul of the preacher. The one who is preaching cannot truly preach (as more or less defined above) apart from understanding and apart from the fire of the Spirit in the soul. It is true that the Spirit may not give fire at all times and is certainly not at the whim of man to empower his preaching as the man pleases. Nevertheless, there is no preaching apart from a preacher who has been taught of the Spirit and so has some understanding of what he is preaching.

What does it mean to understand Scripture? It is the Scriptures that the Psalmist cries out for understanding for. It is the Scriptures that the Psalmist said he meditated on day and night. It is the Scriptures that make us wise for salvation. But what we must understand is that the Scriptures cannot be truly understood apart from the Christ who is revealed in them. There is no understanding of the Scriptures in any spiritual sense apart from the work of the Spirit in enlightening men to understanding the glory of God in Christ. A man may know much of the Scriptures as to the letter of them, but he will still be deeply ignorant of them if he is ignorant of the Christ that the Scriptures were given to manifest.

The scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees were learned men regarding the letter of the Scriptures. Yet Jesus told the Pharisees that they were “mistaken not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mat 22:39). The issue, as usual, goes back to the nature and power of God. Not only did these learned men not understand the Scriptures, they did not understand the power of God. They probably had many arguments and discussions about the nature of God, but they did not understand Him. Understanding is more than the intellectual arguments; it has the idea of discernment and spiritual sight in the soul. An understanding of the heart also includes the affections.

We can see something of this from John 20:9 where it says “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” They had been with Jesus and heard from Him that He would rise from the dead, but they did not understand the Scripture. This should teach us that Gospel preaching must come from men who understand the Scriptures in a scriptural way. They must be taught of the Spirit and they must understand the Gospel with their whole being in order to be a Gospel preacher who preaches the true and understood Gospel.

Romans 1:9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They rely on these and other good books to get a sermon out of them. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. It is just as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose. They use such books as offer them homiletical helps in order to earn their yearly living; they are nothing but parrots and jackdaws, which learn to repeat without understanding, though our purpose and the purpose of these theologians is to direct preachers to Scripture with such books and exhort them to plan to defend our Christian faith after our death, against the devil, the world, and the flesh. (Martin Luther)

As pointed out in the previous post, one great difference between those who preach sermons of some kind and Gospel preachers is not always the content alone, but the preacher himself. It is vital to have Gospel preachers if there is to be Gospel preaching. Some who practice the art of preaching as opposed to the spirit of preaching are able to give orthodox lectures of truth, yet they cannot penetrate into the spiritual depths because they are not looking beyond an orthodox statement of truth. When a man is not seeking the face of the Lord to give Him a taste of Himself and spiritual understanding of the Scriptures, that man is essentially doing nothing but what a parrot does. They learn to repeat true things but are never taught of the Spirit the depths of the things of God.

The use of good books is important, yet they are not to be used in order to avoid prayer and the study of the Scriptures themselves. Good writers and commentators will point men to the Scriptures and men must be driven to the Scriptures by those they read. It is also the case that preachers are to preach Christ and Him crucified as the heart of their sermons, yet they are to preach Him in such a way that avoids using men’s wisdom instead point to the Spirit and His power. When men preach orthodox sermons and do so without a true seeking of the mind of God and a seeking Him for themselves to be conformed to Christ, their sermons will rest on the wisdom of men.

One man can preach away and give learned lectures about the truth of Christ and yet I would argue that it is not Gospel preaching as long as it is something which can rest in the wisdom of men. What must happen is that the preacher must be transformed according to Christ during the week by the Spirit during prayer and prayerful study. When the Spirit has transformed the man and has spoken to the man, then the man is a preacher and in his preaching he will preach a Christ that he has tasted and he will point to the need of all men to have the Spirit work this understanding in them as well. The power of Gospel preaching is when the Spirit is speaking through His man and the man is pointing back to the real power.

The Gospel appears to have been reduced to some basic facts about history and so preaching has grown dull and insipid, which is to say it is no longer Gospel preaching. The Gospel is the power of God to save and so Gospel preaching must not be dull and certainly not without power. The true Gospel goes forth with power when a Gospel preacher is preaching Christ and Him crucified in the power of the Spirit. There is no Gospel preaching when men give little more than a historical lecture and there is no Gospel preaching when the preacher has not been gripped with the Gospel of Christ alone and His grace in that Gospel.

When the Gospel has been reduced to some basic facts of history as opposed to the risen Christ who is presently on the throne, the power has been lost. Preachers begin to give some information about history and simply ask people to believe those things instead of declaring that the living God applies those things in our day. This is one reason why a Gospel preacher is different and that is because he is gripped with the living God of the Gospel. That man is not speaking of something in a distant past, he is speaking of his communion with the living God.

Romans 1:9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They rely on these and other good books to get a sermon out of them. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. It is just as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose. They use such books as offer them homiletical helps in order to earn their yearly living; they are nothing but parrots and jackdaws, which learn to repeat without understanding, though our purpose and the purpose of these theologians is to direct preachers to Scripture with such books and exhort them to plan to defend our Christian faith after our death, against the devil, the world, and the flesh. (Martin Luther)

At issue here are some vitally important points regarding Gospel preaching. A man cannot really preach the Gospel of Christ alone and grace alone if all he does is to read books to figure out a sermon in order to have a sermon because he is supposed to do so on Sundays. A man cannot really preach if he does not search the Scriptures for his sermons, but even more to instruct his own heart with prayer and meditation. A man cannot really preach the Gospel from a heart that does not pray. When a man can come up with a sermon quite without prayer and the Bible, that is a sermon that is not from God and is not Gospel preaching.

Underlying the statements of Luther are some basic thoughts or presuppositions about preaching. Gospel preaching is not the same thing as giving a lecture on a topic or a text of Scripture (or something else) where the intent is simply and only to disseminate some information. Of course even if the intent is to disseminate information that is preferable to those who simply want to say some good things in order to keep their jobs. They view “preaching” as something they are supposed to do so that they can get paid. But of course that is not limited to liberals and those who obtain a living and some honor among men because they are ministers, but this is true of conservative as well. It may not be at the level where the man thinks about these things in this way, but it is his primary motivation whether he admits it or not or even recognizes it or not.

A Gospel preacher must be a man who loves the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of grace alone from the heart and has experienced it. Not only must this man have experienced the Gospel at some point in the distance past, he should have fed upon Christ and His Gospel of grace alone that very week in preparation of the heart in order to preach. It is only the heart that Christ has prepared though the means of grace (prayer and Scripture) that the soul of the man will have grace to preach Christ and grace with more than intellectual knowledge. Only the man that has tasted of Christ and free-grace will be able to preach Christ and free-grace. The man who knows about Christ can speak about Christ, but the man who has tasted Christ can speak of the taste and how the affections and desires of the soul are moved by Him.

It takes a true Gospel of Christ alone and grace alone to feed the souls of spiritual people. Natural men can give information, but only spiritual men can preach in a spiritual manner where spiritual men can feed upon Christ and the grace of the Gospel. Only men who have true faith can speak in such a way to build faith. Only those who have tasted of their inability to keep the law and have been slain by the law can preach of what it means and what it feels like to be slain by the law. Men who use their brain alone can speak with great information about Christ, but men who have tasted of Christ can speak of spiritual things to the hearts of others.

Gospel preaching requires a man who can speak from a heart that is prepared and taught of God. When this is the case, it is in a very real way Christ Himself speaking through the man to His people or the people. This is to say that the man who is going to be a Gospel preacher must be a man that spends time with God in prayer and prayerfully studying His word in order to become clay that is formed as God pleases to speak His words.

Romans 1:9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

A preacher who is not simple in his preaching preaches [not Christ, but] himself. And any one preaching himself preaches people into perdition, even when they say of his preaching: “Ah, but that was beautiful! That man is an orator!” Even a true, honest preacher is visited by thoughts of vanity that spring from his sinful flesh. But as soon as he notices this, he casts these cursed thoughts of vanity from him and cries to God to rid him of them. He enters his pulpit a humble man. People can tell whether his preaching comes from the heart or not. (Martin Luther)

The very nature of Gospel Preaching in some ways will be determined by whether it comes from a man who is preaching based on a formula that is built on public speaking principles or is built to bring attention to a preacher or something or someone else. A man can bring great praise on himself in our day if his preaching can make some people to say about him that he is “Christ-centered” in his preaching. Others can bring great attention to himself by preaching in such a way to get people to pray prayers or to walk aisles. I would argue that the greatest preacher among men must preach in such a way as for people to virtually forget the preacher and be lost with the greatness and glory of the Savior.

Luther notes that anything but simple preaching is a type of preaching that points to the man himself and not Christ. Now of course most if not virtually all preachers would deny that they are preaching in a way that points to themselves. They would point to the content of the sermon as proof, but Luther wants more than that. He wants the preacher to be simple and also to be one who fights this wicked vanity that is in the heart. It is no use denying that preachers preach themselves, that is part of being a fallen human being. What is needed is for preachers to see this wicked attitude of their own heart and to seek humility from the Lord so that they can preach in a simple way that points to Christ and Christ alone.

In this Luther is pointing to a vital principle of Gospel preaching. It is that of a humble preacher instead of one that is proud of his hard preaching, of his gentle preaching, or even of his humble preaching. It takes a humble man who is fighting that pride of his heart to preach a humble Savior. A proud man can preach about a humble Savior, but a proud man cannot preach a humble Savior with a humbled heart that is full of Christ. Instead a proud man will preach about a humble Savior from a proud heart full of self and pride. A man can know a lot about Christ and a lot about humility and yet be a preacher full of self and pride. One cannot really be a preacher of Gospel preaching when he only knows about Christ and knows about humility, but instead a true Gospel preacher is one who knows Christ and is humble. Knowing about humility does not make one humble and it can even make one prouder of knowing about it and deceiving himself that he has what he knows about.

Knowledge puffs up or “knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies” (I Cor 8:1). We must be taught this of the Spirit, yet it is vital for Gospel preachers to learn this. Learning a lot about the Bible can make us quite arrogant. Learning about preaching can make us very arrogant. A man who is arrogant about what he knows and his preaching is a man that is not preaching Christ in truth regardless of what the content of his sermons are. The picture of this, or at least this is how I conceive it to be, is that a man is in his study during the week puffing himself up with knowledge if he is not truly humble. He then stands in the pulpit on Sunday and delivers a “sermon” about what puffed him up which just puffs him up even more. This man is not preaching Christ but is growing in pride in both his knowledge and his preaching each week. In order to preach Christ, however, which is what a Gospel preacher must do, one must humble study during the week seeking to know Christ. One must also seek humility that one may preach Christ humbly. This is to say that preachers will preach what fills their heart and what their greatest love is regardless of the content. Either self or Christ fills the heart and is the greatest love.

Romans 1:9 For God whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,

I Corinthians 2:2 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.

It would seem quite obvious that if the Word is the eternal and only begotten Son of God who took human flesh in order to make the Father known, that should determine the primary aim and goal of preaching. It would seem just as obvious (if not more so) that if the human flesh that the Word took was the very tabernacle of the glory of God that should point us in the direction of the primary aim and goal of true preaching. Preaching appears to have become a profession with many aims and goals that do not fit with the primary aim and goal of preaching. There are many things that a modern “church” must do and get done if it is going to have the proper buildings and the proper programs to build on its “success.” Where are those who will preach Christ and Him crucified as the central core of their sermons? Where are those who will preach Christ in demonstration of the Spirit so that the faith of men would not rest on them and their preaching but on God?

The modern day seems to have many good speakers and educated men giving educated lectures. We can hear branches of theology stressed here and there, though it seems as if the end times is far more interesting to people than Christ and His Gospel. The seminaries seem to be churning out people who are instructed in how to make “sermons” interesting and to hold the interest of people, but it seems as if people are not interested in Christ. “Sermons” are given that have been made to be “relevant” to the modern day, but that is only if one thinks Christ and His Gospel are not the most relevant for any day. We have so many books and so many techniques on and about preaching, even books on Christ-centered preaching, but the focus of those things seem to be how men are to focus the content of the preaching. One can have a focus of a “sermon” that is supposedly centered upon Christ when indeed the focus is on the preacher and his preaching rather than Christ Himself. In other words, the main desire of the sermon may be regarding the sermon about Christ rather than Christ Himself. It can be that the sermon on Christ may be about how the preacher crafts the sermon to be about Christ rather than Christ. It can also be how a preacher preaches Christ so he can be known as a preacher about Christ rather than just preaching Christ.

The great weakness of preaching in our day has to do with preachers and preaching being the focus rather than Christ Himself. This happens when churches and preachers have things that they want to accomplish rather than seeking Christ to see what He wants to accomplish. This happens when preachers are more concerned about how they are seen by the people or other preachers than how they stand before God. This happens when preachers are not broken from pride and self and so they preach self regardless of what they are saying. A true sermon cannot truly be Christ-centered unless the heart of the preacher is captured by Christ. A true sermon cannot be one that exalts Christ as long as the heart of the preacher did not exalt in Christ during the preparation and is not exalting Christ during the preaching. But again, the heart of the preacher must be prepared by the Spirit rather than by the preacher himself. Christ is not truly preached unless the heart of the preacher is full of Christ and is speaking from the life of Christ that fills him and the abundance of life flows over his lips.

In a sense true Gospel preaching cannot be done by anyone but Christ Himself who speaks through a man that He has broken and prepared for preaching in general and even particular sermons. Paul asked for the Colossians (4:3) to pray for him so that he could speak forth the mystery of Christ and make it clear. It was not just information that he learned in the past, but it was something he had to obtain from Christ by His Spirit each time he preached. In Ephesians 6:19 he asked for prayers that utterance would be given to him: “and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.” Preachers have to learn that if Paul was so needy for each sermon and for words of each sermon, that they are that needy too. We must depend on Christ for our justification, our sanctification, and for each word of sermons. Preachers can preach and it will be nothing but foolish preaching, but when they become vessels for Christ to preach through, real preaching occurs.

Romans 1:7 to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. 9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, 10 always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; 12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,

What should be the topic of preaching if not Christ and the Gospel? What should men be preaching if not the Person and works of Christ as magnified in the Gospel? Should men be preaching through books of the Bible rather than Christ and the Gospel of Christ? If one is preaching through a book of the Bible and does not preach the main point of the book, then one is not preaching that book with the same intent as the original author did. The Old Testament pointed to Christ and the Gospel of Christ as Christ Himself taught in Luke 24. Perhaps it is easier to preach books of the Bible in a scholarly way than it is to pray and seek for light and understanding so that one can preach the grace of the Gospel as set forth in and by Christ. But we are still commanded to preach Christ and the Gospel of Christ and nothing else is Gospel preaching. The glories of Christ far exceed what a man can preach if he had 100 lives to live and do nothing but preach. One is not preaching as he ought to preach (though no one preaches even close to what should be done) unless he is preaching Christ and Him crucified.

“Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:44-47).

Can one preach morality without preaching Christ and the Gospel? I would argue that one cannot preach true morality without preaching Christ and the Gospel. There is no morality apart from the Greatest Commandment and there is no keeping the Greatest Commandment (at any level) apart from the work of Christ in the heart. A great aspect of the Gospel is the good news that sinners may be turned from sin and their inability to love God to a heart that does love God by the power of God. A sinner that has reached the point of understanding sin feels the weight of his enmity toward God and knows that he must love God and that all he does is out of a motive that is for self and pride rather than love for God. An unconverted sinner may not love God but feels the power of his enmity toward God and knows that he must have a changed heart to love God as part of his conversion. This is simply another way of saying that a person must preach Christ and the Gospel of Christ if a person is going to preach true morality. To put it a different way, true morality is to glorify God in all we do and that cannot be done apart from sinners being saved to the glory of God and having the life of Christ manifested through them.

What other reason can men have for not having Christ and the Gospel of Christ as the center of their preaching? It is possible for one to strive to be a doctrinal preacher and so the person thinks that he is preaching doctrine as commanded by the Bible. But what doctrine can be conceived of that is not set forth in its fullness in and by Christ? What doctrine is not intended to glorify God or to set out the glory of God? Christ Himself is the shining forth of His glory (Heb 1:3) and the human flesh of Christ was the very tabernacle of His glory (John 1:14) and it was Christ who has explained the Father (John 1:18). If one is to preach about doctrine which is all meant to set forth the truth of God in some way, then one must preach Christ and the Gospel of Christ. It is the Gospel where God has most fully manifested Himself. One cannot preach doctrine in truth apart from Christ and His Gospel.

Romans 1:7 to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. 9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, 10 always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; 12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,

The Gospel cannot be preached apart from preaching Christ and Him crucified. The Gospel cannot be preached apart from preaching a whole Christ. We cannot take it for granted or assume that people know much of Christ at all, and even if they do they still need to hear the wonders and glories of Christ. There is no preaching the Gospel apart from preaching Christ and there is no preaching Christ apart from the Gospel. People are not saved by hearing a message about some acts that took place, they are saved by Christ Himself. People are not saved by agreeing that a few facts are true, but they are saved or they are given the power to become children of God when they receive Christ Himself. It is Christ who saves as opposed to anything or anybody else.

People are sanctified through the preaching of Christ because He is our sanctification. People are sanctified through the preaching of the Gospel because sinners always need the Christ of the Gospel and they always need to be cleansed from their sin. Paul was not eager to preach the deep things and the mysteries to people apart form Christ to the Romans, but instead he longed to preach the Gospel of God’s Son to them. He wanted to give them what they needed to mature and grow, so he preached Christ and the Gospel to them. He wanted to have them be established in the faith, so he sought to establish them according to the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. This surely shows that Gospel preaching should never stop in the churches, but once it does biblical preaching has in truth stopped regardless of whether men are doing expositions or not.

Hebrews 6:1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.

Notice that in the passage above we are told to leave the elementary teaching about Christ. But what does the writer then do? He starts chapter 7 with speaking about Christ and Melchizedek. Chapter 8 speaks of Christ as our new High Priest and moves into how that relates to the New Covenant. Chapter 9 is about how Christ is the One whom all the sacrifices pointed to and how this is how people enter into the presence of God. Chapter 10 speaks of how the law cannot make anyone perfect, but Christ can. Without going on, the point is that the writer did not stop speaking of Christ and the Gospel and then to on to more mature things, but instead the writer continued to speak of Christ but in more than elementary ways. He did not stop writing about Christ and the Gospel. In the same way preachers are not to stop preaching Christ and the Gospel but they are to move on to things where people can grow in their knowledge of Christ and the Gospel rather than always remaining at the basic level.

No person ever matures beyond the desperate need of hearing Christ preached. Truly converted people are still sinners and after conversion they see far more of their sin than before conversion. Sinners are attacked and wounded and they must hear about the blood and righteousness of Christ for sinners such as they are. Wounded sinners don’t need to hear more moralism, but they need to hear of Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that He saves sinners from beginning to end and it is all by grace alone. Sinners are not saved because they become better, not because they praise God, and not because they attend worship services. Sinners are saved when God looks to the blood of Christ that covers the sinner. Sinners, converted or not, need Gospel preaching.

Romans 1:7 to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. 9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, 10 always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; 12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,

The Gospel of His Son which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of God, the Gospel of the glory of God, and the Gospel of the grace of God is utterly glorious. However, modern day theories of preaching have found better ways of doing things. The Gospel is thought to be for unbelievers and so dry intellectual sermons are prepared for believers. People are given duty after duty and law after law in order that they will be useful in the kingdom and serve the church. People are prepared in the intellect to know things line upon line. People may be taught some theology in some circles, but that is of the intellectual kind only. But of course in some places certain things are taught that sneer at theology and do things that are called “practical.”

What must be seen in our day and all other days is that the Gospel is what all sinners need. People are not converted and then they have no need of the Gospel, but believers need the Gospel as bad as unbelievers. It is the Gospel that weak believers need to hear. It is the Gospel that believers with tender consciences need to hear. It is the Gospel that believers with hard hearts need to hear. It is the Gospel that intellectual believers need to hear. It is the Gospel that non-intellectual believers need to hear. What they don’t need to hear is what is termed “the gospel” in our day because it is no gospel at all. It is a message that depends on the will and power of man as if God had worked all He could do and now it depends on what man does. But that is not a true Gospel at all, it is a false message with false hope. What all people need to hear is a steady diet of the true Gospel of Christ alone and grace alone over their entire life span.

What did Paul want to go and preach to the believers at Rome? He wanted to preach the Gospel to them. As seen in Romans 16:25, the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ is what establishes believers. It is not all the things that people do and carry out in the modern day that establishes people, but it is the preaching of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ that builds them up and puts them on firm footing. It should also be noted that preaching the Gospel and preaching Jesus Christ are one and the same thing. No matter what is preached of Jesus Christ it will always be related to the true Gospel. No matter what aspect of the Gospel is preached it will always be the preaching of Jesus Christ. The problem today is that people attempt to preach a message to get people saved that is quite apart from the true Christ and the true Gospel. People don’t need to hear a plethora of watered down nonsense, they need to hear the glories of God in Jesus Christ and the Gospel of grace alone.

Modern preaching also focuses on morality and expositional preaching. There are word studies and history in the sermon, but precious little of Christ and the Gospel. There is a lot of showing how things fit together in a section of Scripture, but there is almost nothing showing how all Scripture is to fit together and manifest Christ Himself. There are many words of application as to doing moral things, but so little of how to seek Christ for more of Himself by grace alone. It would seem that in modern preaching there is little of Christ, little of the Gospel, little about the cross, little about imputed righteousness, and certainly little on sin. But Paul was eager to preach the Gospel to believers and to see them established according to the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. Yes, preaching the cross is offensive to men. Yes, preaching Christ is offensive to men. But not preaching them thoroughly Sunday after Sunday is offensive to God. Oh for men to be broken and preach Christ and His Gospel!