One approach to signaling the redemptive scenery upon which biblical texts are laid is demonstrating how a passage predicts, prepares for, reflects or results from the person and/or work of Christ. This approach seeks to identify how the passage furthers our understanding of what Christ will do or has done in redemptive history. These four categories of redemptive/historical explanation are not, should not be, rigidly categorized. Other classifications also function well in relating the many varieties of Scripture passages to the person and work of Christ. The goal is not to determine a master metaphor or universal scene that will provide a proper niche for all passages. Such inflexible categorizing of texts typically limits the implications of the Bible’s own rich variety of metaphors that are used to relate redemptive truth (e.g., kingdom, family, Sabbath, tree).

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As long as we observe the text through spectacles whose lenses focus how the Holy Spirit is 1) revealing the nature of God that provides redemption and/or 2) the nature of humanity that requires redemption, we will interpret as Christ did when He showed His disciples how all Scripture spoke of Him (Luke 24:27). Asking these two questions (i.e., using these two lenses) maintains faithful exposition and demonstrates that redemptive interpretation does not require the preacher to expand every text’s scene from Genesis to Revelation in every sermon to show a text’s redemptive context.

While there is nothing wrong with such macro-interpretations, it is also possible — and often more fruitful — to expound the doctrinal statements or relational interactions in the immediate text that reveal some dimension of God’s grace. The relational interactions can include how God acts toward His people (e.g., providing strength for weakness, pardon for sin, provision in want, faithfulness in response to unfaithfulness) or how an individual representing God provides for others (e.g., David’s care for Mephibosheth, Solomon’s wisdom recorded for others less wise). The scene can be narrow as well as broad and still adequately reveal the contours of grace.

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In essence, redemptive exposition requires that we identify an aspect of our fallen condition the Holy Spirit addresses in the passage He inspired for our edification, and then show God’s way out of the human dilemma. Such a pattern not only exposes the human predicament that requires God’s relief, it forces the preacher to focus on a divine solution. He is alone is the agent of our deliverance. Thus, His glory is always the apex purpose of the sermon. The vaunting of any human agent and puffing of human pride vanish in such preaching, not because the imperatives of the law are minimized but because God is always the hero of the text. He enables our righteousness, pardons our unrighteousness, and provides for our weakness. Thus, he remains the central agent of our exposition even if other characters are on the scene.