Doctrine and Preaching
Sacred Text and Theological Framework
The relationship between doctrine/theology and preaching is one of immense significance, because the interchange between the preacher’s doctrinal framework and his sermon preparation will profoundly elevate both his theology and his preaching in its depth, accuracy, fidelity, clarity, richness, and gospel power.
Here is how it works. On the one hand we have the inerrant text of God’s Word, while on the other hand we have a theological framework that we have come to trust and depend upon (say, Calvin’s Institutes, or more recent theologies like those of Louis Berkhof, Herman Bavinck, or Wayne Grudem). As we prepare our exposition, both the text and our framework refresh and inform one another. On one level, our exegesis of the text shines new light on theological systems, allowing clarification and adjustment in order to develop doctrine that is both more consistent and more helpful. At the same time, our theological framework cannot help but influence the themes and priorities that will shape the flow of our sermon as we expound the text at hand.
Theological Framework and Sacred Text
For the preacher of the Word, theology is like an ancient yet living coach who has been gathering refinements and pointers over the centuries from early creeds and formulations, church councils, confessions, creeds, and Reformational theology, down to the precise dogmatics of the last century and the carefully wrought systematics of our day. J. I. Packer says this of systematic theology:
It is called systematic . . . because it takes all the truths, visions, valuations and admonitions with which the Holy Spirit feeds the church through the Scriptures and seeks to think them together in a clear, coherent and orderly way. It separates out seven main topical fields—revelation; God; man; Christ; the Holy Spirit; the church; the future—and fills in all that Scripture is found to say about each.1
Beyond this, systematic theology analyzes and orders each of these fields so as to present them as clearly as possible and to relate them to the life of the church and the world.
Thus the refined theological wisdom of the millennia affords a vast treasure trove for the church and proven coaching for today’s preachers as they expound the sacred text for their flock.
Accuracy. Paul’s command to Timothy is to “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). “Rightly handling” is based on the Greek word orthos (“straight”), so the exact charge is to impart the word of truth “without deviation, straight, undiluted,”2 to get it straight and to give it straight! Of course, we must remain open to improving our theological understanding through exegesis. At the same time, a good theology can be of immense help in understanding Scripture.
Take, for example, Hebrews 6:4–6: “It is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” On the surface, the writer seems to be saying that true believers can commit apostasy. But systematics can help us here, as Donald Macleod explains: “Dogmatics alerts us . . . to the fact that such an interpretation is untenable, and closer examination of the passage itself confirms that it is pointing in the direction of another doctrine altogether—the doctrine of temporary faith.”3
As another example, an initial read of 2 Corinthians 5:21 (“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”) may suggest to some that when Christ was “made . . . to be sin,” he was made to be sinful. But the christological and soteriological sections of our systematics clearly explicate the sinlessness of Christ, so that we understand that he was sinless through all of his 33 years and that when he was made to be sin on the cross, he nevertheless remained outwardly and inwardly impeccable as our sins were imputed to him and he, as our sinless Savior, bore the fiery wrath of God.
Elucidation. Another primary way that dogmatics informs our reading of Scripture is by demonstrating how Scripture relates to and interprets itself. This function of dogmatics is often beyond the range of grammatical study and exegesis and is termed the analogy of faith, about which the Westminster Confession of Faith states: “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture, it must be searched and known by other passages that speak more clearly” (1.9). In other words, doctrine formulated from other sections of Scripture will help us to understand a more difficult passage at hand.
A choice text for demonstrating this principle is Paul’s command in Ephesians 5:18 to “be filled with the Spirit.” Here Macleod demonstrates the benefit of systematics as follows:
The only way to expound [Eph. 5:18] is by taking account of the whole doctrine of the believer’s relation to the Spirit: the facts are that (1) every believer has been filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4; 1 Cor. 12:13), (2) believers may be filled repeatedly (Acts 2:4; cf. 4:8), (3) the Lord promises that in every emergency the Spirit will teach us what to say (Luke 12:12), (4) there is an abiding in Christ as well as receiving of Christ, and (5) the ideal condition for a Christian is to be full of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5). Unless we draw upon the whole doctrine we cannot possible elucidate Ephesians 5:18.4
This is not to suggest that a pastor should preach all of the above when he preaches the command of Ephesians 5:18 in its context; rather, his preaching of the command will be enlightened and deepened by the analogy of Scripture.
Many texts can be illumined and clarified by drawing from the deep wells of systematics. The doctrine of providence, for example, helps us to understand Joseph’s words to his brothers concerning their selling him into slavery: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20). Likewise the doctrines of the Trinity and adoption shed light on Romans 8:15—“You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry ‘Abba! Father!’”
Protection. The danger of falling into heretical beliefs and teaching is ever-present. For example, the Trinitarian mystery of God’s eternal being as three persons subsisting in one nature (Father, Son, and Spirit) has suffered from those who have attempted to shrink it to comprehensible terms, thus once again opening the door to the ancient heresy of modalism (that God is one person playing three parts or roles), a version of which Oneness Pentecostalism espouses. Others flirt perilously with undercutting the unique singular nature of God. Because old heresies tend to resurface, theology helps us to avoid the pitfalls of putting biblical data together in a way that replicates past errors.
For example, some are in danger of misusing the truth of perichoresis (which argues that the three divine persons equally share the same, undivided divine nature or essence [ousia] and thus the persons are truly in each other, interpenetrating and indwelling each other). Some propose instead that the divine persons are one not in their sharing the same, identical divine nature but more in terms of a freely willed relational unity, which, if not careful, tends in the direction of tritheism.
Orthodox Trinitarian theology helps us to preserve both the unity of God’s nature and the personal distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thus allowing us to do justice to the biblical data that presents the one true and living God in all of his triune glory.
The siren song of such teaching has intrinsic appeal to a contemporary culture that seeks to obviate distinctions in traditional roles and authority, which are properly modeled after the revelation and activity of the Trinity in creation and redemption. Here, the faithful pastor will find essential help from the past in order to discern errant theology in the present, and thus guard his own thinking and that of his people. The help extends all the way back to the declaration of the Nicene Creed concerning “the only-begotten Son of God . . . of one substance (ousia) with the Father . . . who for us men and for our salvation came down from the heavens,” on to the statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith that “in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, of one substance” (8.2), and then to the painstaking explications of contemporary dogmatics.
The Wise Use of Theology in Preaching
When it comes to preparing a text and expounding it for the people, the preacher must make sure that his theological framework (as excellent as it may be) does not blunt the force of the text. For example, when preaching on 1 John 3:9 (“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God”), the preacher could possibly so stress the doctrine of perseverance in such a way as to mute the sobering force of John’s warning and thus promote a false security in his hearers. In doing this, the preacher would be working against the Holy Spirit who authored the warning.
Likewise, the magnificent doctrine of election could be misappropriated so as to cast a pall over the universal offer of salvation in John 3:16 or to dim the declaration of 1 Timothy 2:3–4 that “God our Savior . . . desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” These texts are not about perseverance or election. Those grand doctrines are pillars in the sovereign architecture of our salvation, but they must not be used to soften or diminish the force of God’s Word.
Along with this, the preacher must not preach his dogmatics, as beautiful as his system may be. Dogmatics synthesizes the truth of the Word and organizes it in a coherent and orderly way to serve the church. It is not the Word of God; it is about the Word of God. And moreover, the imposition of its structure on the preaching of a text will abuse the divinely given thrust and contours of the sacred text and evacuate it of its intended power. The divine call to preach the Word is to preach it in its context.
The Blessed Interface
As the preacher approaches the text, he knows that his job is to preach the text in its context, preaching no more and no less than what it says. Thus as he studies the text in its context, he will necessarily employ the lexical and grammatical tools of the trade, as well as respected commentaries. And during his careful study he will assess the text’s place in the context of the book, discerning its contours, central theme, and meaning to the original audience. Throughout the process, the preacher will have been reflecting on the text through the lens of redemptive history, discerning how it reveals Jesus Christ and making the appropriate intra-canonical connections.
All of this dovetails with the interface of exegesis and dogmatics as the preacher rummages through the treasure trove of his theologies for insights and wisdom that are beyond the range of exegesis. This might include insights such as the biblical coherence of textual themes that run throughout Scripture, enlightening summaries of how the text has been applied (or misapplied) over the centuries, brilliant theological observations, clarifying explanations, needed adjustments and corrections, memorable expressions of truth, and, of course, usable quotations.
What a beautiful interface takes place as the pastor writes his sermon, an interface between (1) the raw exposure to the texture and polychromatic light of the living Word, (2) the unfolding revelation of Jesus Christ from the axis of redemptive history, and (3) the deep reservoirs from the millennia of theology. What is the result of this interface? Nothing less than the glorious preaching of the Word and the ongoing growth of pastor-theologians.