In his new book, Your Old Testament Sermon Needs to Get Saved (Moody Publishers, 2021), David King makes the case for what he calls a “Christ-centered approach” to interpreting and preaching the Old Testament. According to King, the Old Testament can only be interpreted and applied rightly when done so in light of the New Testament revelation of the person and work of Jesus. For this reason, King argues that we must preach Christ from every Old Testament passage. His book presents “a simple and practical guide” for this kind of Christ-centered exposition, and it suggests several different ways that preachers can faithfully proclaim Jesus as the fulfillment of every single Old Testament text.
King’s approach stands in contrast to those who believe in the sufficiency of the grammatical-historical hermeneutic, which affirms the need to discover the meaning communicated to the original audience by interpreting each passage in its own historical and literary context, without consulting subsequent revelation. King does not reject the grammatical-historical method, but he does reject the sufficiency of this hermeneutic, at least for the Old Testament. According to King, the faithful interpreter has not completed his task when he has ascertained how the original audience would have understood an Old Testament passage; instead, he must then determine how that passage has been fulfilled in Christ, which can only be done faithfully when it is read in light of the New Testament.
As one who disagrees with the Christo-centric hermeneutic and who wholeheartedly affirms the sufficiency of the grammatical-historical method for interpreting all of Scripture—including the Old Testament—I would like to offer a brief critique of the exegetical basis for King’s position, specifically his appeals to Luke 24 and John 5. But first allow me to make a brief observation about the polemical approach taken by King in arguing for his Christ-centered hermeneutic.
Raising the Stakes of the Debate
In the midst of his otherwise friendly and light-hearted tone, King uses some strong language to describe those who reject his Christo-centric approach. According to King, such preachers are thickheaded (9), obtuse (9), negligent (42), unloving (42), and unfaithful to Jesus (39). They preach in the dark (39); and their sermons are unsafe (42), sub-Christian (9, 10, 55), spiritually deadly (24-25), Christ-less (81), moralistic (81), impure (127), and suitable for the synagogue and the mosque (9, 10, 32, 41, 55). Their sermons dishonor Jesus (116); lead people astray (116); stunt the Church’s growth (128); perpetuate a Christ-less notion of the Old Testament (116); lead to moralism, deism, materialism, nationalism, and liberalism (127); direct listeners to rely on themselves apart from Christ (116); and withhold from them their only means of access to God (10). In King’s view, such a preacher “isn’t ready to preach” and “ought not [to] preach” (59).
Taking these words at face value, one can only conclude that King believes anyone who rejects his hermeneutical approach is simply not fit for the pulpit, at least not in a Christian church. This is quite a serious claim. In light of such condemning indictments of brothers in Christ who reject his view, one would expect King to provide a robust exegetical basis for his hermeneutical approach to the Old Testament. This, in fact, is the purpose of the very first chapter of his book, and this is where I’d like to focus my critique. After all, if King cannot establish that Scripture itself requires his Christo-centric view of interpreting the Old Testament, then perhaps a retraction is in order.
An Evaluation of the Exegetical Basis
In arguing for the “exegetical necessity” of his hermeneutical approach, King highlights a handful of New Testament passages that are said to require the Christo-centric method he argues for in his book. Among them are Luke 24:25–27, 44 and John 5:39–47, two passages that are commonly cited by advocates of a Christ-centered hermeneutic. According to Richard Hays, for example, Luke 24 and John 5 call for “a retrospective rereading of Israel’s Scripture, a reading backwards that reinterprets Scripture in light of a new revelation imparted by Jesus and focused on the person of Jesus himself” (Reading Backwards, 77). This is King’s view as well. In contrast to this claim, however, a careful consideration of these two passages reveals that they provide no exegetical support for the Christo-centric hermeneutic advocated in this book.
The Argument from Luke 24
King’s exegetical argument starts in Luke 24, which is said to contain “two of Jesus’ most familiar statements about Old Testament interpretation” (21). In the first statement, the resurrected Christ encounters two disciples on the road to Emmaus and rebukes them for their failure to embrace the Old Testament teaching that the Messiah must suffer and die: “You foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to come into His glory?” (vv. 25–26) This is followed by Luke’s description of what happened next: “Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures” (v. 27).
In the second familiar statement, Jesus tells the eleven disciples: “All things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (v. 44). According to King, these two statements in Luke 24 provide an exegetical basis for insisting that “the entire Old Testament speaks of [Jesus]” (22) and therefore that every Old Testament passage must be interpreted in light of Him.
In response, there are two main difficulties with King’s argument. The first problem is that Luke 24 falls way short of proving that every passage in the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in Jesus. A simple reminder of the verses themselves makes this very clear. Luke 24:27 says that Jesus explained “the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures,” but it does not say that everything in the Old Testament was written about Jesus. Likewise, Luke 24:44 says that “all things which are written about [Jesus] in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled,” but it does not say that everything written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms is about Jesus. King’s failure to recognize this simple but important distinction leaves his exegetical argument from Luke 24 utterly lacking.
When Luke writes that Jesus explained the Old Testament passages containing “the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27), that simply means that He explained those passages that do indeed speak of Him; and when He said that “all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44), that simply means that all those things that were indeed written about Him within these three major sections of the Old Testament will certainly come to pass. A faithful application of the grammatical-historical method is sufficient to identify and understand these messianic passages, and thus there is nothing in Luke 24 that even remotely suggests either (a) the insufficiency of the grammatical-historical approach to the Old Testament or (b) the need for a Christ-centered interpretive lens when reading the Hebrew Scriptures.
The second problem is that Luke 24 actually indicates the exact opposite of what King argues from this passage. According to King, the Old Testament can be rightly understood only by reading it in light of the New Testament revelation of its fulfillment in Jesus. But in response to the failure of the disciples to understand that the Messiah must suffer and die, Jesus did not claim that He was the hermeneutical key to unlock the otherwise hidden meaning of the Old Testament—He rebuked them for not believing all that the prophets had written about Him (Luke 24:25)!
In other words, the clear expectation of Jesus was that these men could read and understand—and therefore must believe—all that the Old Testament taught about Him apart from subsequent revelation. Why would Jesus rebuke them for not believing what would have been inaccessible to them (according to King’s view) without the needed light of the New Testament? Luke 24 does not undermine the sufficiency of the grammatical-historical method to interpret the Old Testament on its own terms—it actually argues in favor of it. Luke 24 provides no exegetical support for the Christo-centric approach advocated by King.
The Argument from John 5:39–40
The second passage that King cites as exegetical support for Christ-centered preaching is John 5:39–40, where Jesus says to the Jews: “You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is those very Scriptures that testify about Me; and yet you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” According to King, the claim of Jesus that the Old Testament Scriptures “testify about Me” provides evidence that preachers “should feel compelled to relate every text to Jesus, not just the texts that are obviously about Him” (p. 23; emphasis original).
The first problem with King’s argument is that the statement, “the Scriptures testify about Me,” simply does not equal “every passage in Scripture testifies about Me.” King insists that the language of Jesus in this verse “suggests that He has in view more than obvious messianic texts” (24; emphasis added), but nowhere does he provide any support for this assertion. Where exactly in the words of Jesus—“the Scriptures testify about Me”—does King find the suggestion that He is referring to more than messianic texts about Himself? Where in the words of Jesus does he find the requirement that preachers “relate every text to Jesus, not just the texts that are obviously about Him” (p. 23)? If Jesus had said that the Scriptures testify about God creating the universe, would that mean that every passage in the Old Testament testifies to His work of creation and should somehow be the focus of every sermon? John 5:40 simply does not say what King says it does.
The second problem with King’s argument requires a closer look at John 5:39–47. In the context of John 5, Jesus is responding to the Jewish leaders who sought to stone him because of His claim to be the Son of God (v. 18). In response to the Jews, Jesus appeals to four witnesses to verify His identity as the promised Messiah: John the Baptist (vv. 33–35), His miraculous works (v. 36), God the Father (v. 37–38), and the Old Testament itself (v. 39–47). In appealing to the Scriptures in John 5:39–47, the purpose of Jesus was not to provide a hermeneutical key to interpret the Old Testament, but to diagnose the heart of unbelief behind the Jews’ rejection of Him as the promised Messiah:
You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another shall come in his own name, you will receive Him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words? (John 5:39–47)
According to this passage, the reason the Jews did not receive Jesus as the Son of God is not because of a lack of clarity in the Old Testament, and not because they lacked the interpretive lens needed to understand the Hebrew Scriptures correctly. The reason they rejected Jesus as Messiah is because their pride, their unbelief, and their lack of love for God made them “unwilling” to come to Him (v. 40). According to Jesus, if the Jews had actually believed what the Old Testament taught—on its own terms, in its own context, and without the subsequent light of the New Testament—they would have believed His claim to be the Messiah, for that is what was clearly revealed throughout the Old Testament: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (vv. 46–47). How then can King and others claim that the Old Testament can be rightly understood only when read in light of the New Testament?
Conclusion
In the end, King and other Christo-centric advocates must recognize that it’s not enough to merely cite these passages as proof-texts. Instead, they must be willing to revisit this issue and answer more carefully an absolutely pivotal question: Where exactly in Luke 24 or John 5 do either Jesus or the Gospel writers say that every Old Testament passage is ultimately about Christ? Where do they say that every Old Testament passage must be interpreted in light of the New Testament revelation about the person and work of Jesus? Until advocates of the Christ-centered approach to the Old Testament are willing to address this question more carefully, those who affirm the sufficiency of the grammatical-historical method will find their exegetical arguments unpersuasive.
For further study, see Abner Chou’s “A Hermeneutical Evaluation of the Christocentric Hermeneutic” (link takes you to the table of contents, where you can then open a free PDF of the article) and Brad Klassen’s “Is the Old Testament Unintelligible without the New?”