Based on that, of course, we have promise fulfillment. There’s the promise of Christ in the Old Testament. As Christian preachers we don’t just stop at the promise because we live after the fulfillment. And so we would utilize promise fulfillment to preach Christ.
Or we could use typology, which was used already in the early church, in Antioch. When we have a type of Christ in our text, we move forward to the Coming of Christ. And then further you could use analogy, which I think is a little more general than typology but also an important way to move from the message in the Old Testament to the New.
Or one could use longitudinal themes, which is a technical term in biblical theology where you trace a theme from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Or contrast—because of the progression in redemptive history, there could be a contrast between the message of the Old Testament and the New. Those are six ways that I think can be backed up, should be backed up, if at all possible with New Testament references. But my theory is that if you really want to have a strong bridge to Christ in the New Testament, you have to do that along the theme—along what some people call “The Big Idea”—rather than through incidental details in the text.
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: Oh sure. The prophets would be the easiest—especially a prophet such as Isaiah because you find so many messianic promises in there, or even promises of the coming kingdom. The Book of Psalms when it speaks about the king, and the king usually is the title for the great coming King, which would be Christ. So preaching Christ from those books is not all that difficult.
Where it gets more difficult is when you get into Hebrew narrative. And the most difficult, I think, is wisdom literature. Of course, that’s where my whole problem started in Delta, British Columbia!
Preaching: As a follow-up to the first book, you wrote Preaching Christ in Genesis,
which is a great contribution to the church. What are some of the insights you gained on preaching in Genesis?Greidanus: I was looking for an important Old Testament book. Of course, all are important, but I think some are more important than others. Genesis is not only the first book in the Old Testament but also foundational for the Old Testament as well as the New and also for theology.
I was not really aware of how foundational it is until Eerdmans (the publisher) asked that I make a more detailed subject index to it once I had
finished. I put under the subject index, for example, God’s providence, God’s faithfulness, God’s grace, God’s election. It speaks totally about God—the concepts that we use in systematic theology that are further expanded on in Scripture.
