Thus Saith the Word: The theological relationship between biblical exposition and prophetic utterance in preaching

I. Preaching and Exposition

To venture a theological definition for what preaching actually is, then: Preaching is saying what God wants to say now, based upon what God has already said. Preachers seek to say something because the God for whom they speak has willed that something be said. Preachers are entrusted to speak out this ‘something’ in the faith that it really is from God and not a topic of their own imagination or personal preference. Indeed, the faith of correctly hearing the divine will over one’s own is foundational to any act of preaching. However, preachers do not receive this divine will in an entirely ad hoc fashion. The message they are prompted to speak out has actually been expressed already, many times – and far better than a meagre sermon ever could – in Holy Scripture. The Bible – in one way or another – has always been the preacher’s primary text:

Preaching is that sort of public speaking that strives never to be original. Preaching is Christian only when it is biblical, when it is obviously derivative of, submissive to, and controlled by the biblical word…No preacher speaks without having first prayerfully allowed Scripture to speak…Scripture is not merely a helpful resource for preaching. It is the genesis of preaching, the rationale for preaching. ⁵

Indeed, Scripture is the genesis of preaching because it is the very deposit of God’s Word, as divinely inspired in an entirely unique way to other forms of divine speech. As this unique deposit of God’s Word, then, Scripture is the place from which God’s Word might be proclaimed, again and again. This puts a significant constraint upon the content of the Christian sermon; as Barth says: ‘There has to be absolute confidence in holy scripture. If preachers are content to make their sermons expositions of scripture, that is enough.’ ⁶ Barth’s acute statement is a clear echo of the Reformation tradition to which he – in one way or another (!) – belonged. Indeed, although the Reformation certainly did not ‘invent’ the notion of biblical expository preaching, it has certainly been its most ardent defender. Luther is often noted as pioneering a new form of the expository sermon, ⁷ in which the biblical text is central to the sermon’s form and its content; as Wood notes:

The salient feature of Luther’s preaching was its biblical content and reference. It was subject to Scripture throughout…He was bound by the Word. His preaching was never merely topical…it was always a move from the text to [people]. The matter never determined the text: the text always determined the matter. ⁸

Similarly, Calvin’s sermons were, primarily, ‘attempts to explicate and apply the words of the biblical text.’ ⁹ Parker notes: ‘Calvin’s intention…was to expound each passage. Usually this entailed the continuous exposition of sentence by sentence, sometimes of clause by clause.’ ¹⁰ Calvin’s own normative method has often led to the misguided notion of ‘expository preaching’ as being rooted to a particular form or style of sermonic structure. ¹¹

In fact, ‘expository preaching’ need not be conceived of, exclusively, as the enslavement to a line-by-line crawl through the passage (though it may certainly involve such closely analytical forms of exposition in particular texts). Expository preaching more broadly relates to the deliberate focus to ensure that the content of the sermon echoes what the biblical text is saying, both within itself and within the canon as a whole: ‘What matters is what we do with [the text]. Whether it is long or short, our responsibility as expositors is to open it up in such a way that it speaks its message clearly, plainly, accurately, relevantly, without addition, subtraction or falsification.’ ¹² Preaching is authoritative only insofar as it maintains its message from the biblical text. If preaching has any message at all, or any right to speak at all, it can only be on the basis of the Word of Scripture. Preaching rests upon this Word in the faith that preachers speak on the shoulders of Scripture’s own unique authority by its divine inspiration. ¹³ It is impossible, then, to separate preaching from the message of Scripture. As homiletician Fred Craddock has put it, sermons divorced from Scripture are ‘orphans in the world, without father or mother.’ ¹⁴

II. Preaching and Teaching

Yet it becomes apparent that if a sermon can be nothing more nor less than an exposition of Scripture, can any exposition of Scripture be considered preaching? What about biblical expositions which occur in a mid-week Bible study, in one’s personal Bible reading, or in a historical-critical biblical studies seminar? Is any ‘exposition’ of the text sufficient for the kind of theological event that preaching seeks to become? Unless we wish to annihilate any particularity from the act of preaching, the answer must be ‘no’. Any activity in which Scripture is interpreted (however faithfully or accurately) does not necessarily constitute the same act as that in which Christian believers gather around the Word in order to have it proclaimed in faith that God will speak afresh. The famous Edinburgh preacher, James Stewart, said of preaching: ‘We want that thrilling sense of immediacy, that directness of touch, that spiritual drive and momentum, which only a personal encounter with God can ever impart.’ ¹⁵ Although such immediacy could (and does) occur in other forms of speech, it is normatively reserved for the event of proclamation. ¹⁶

This stipulation of a sermon’s eventful uniqueness evokes an age-old dispute over the difference between preaching and teaching, often spoken of in relation to C. H. Dodd’s distinction between the kerygma and the didache. ¹⁷ Although perhaps, at times, too clear a distinction has been made between these two, there is a clear delineation within Scripture itself, even as there are also moments of correlation between the two. ¹⁸ In the present instance, the distinction will be maintained to emphasise that there is indeed a unique difference between explanation and proclamation, even if proclamation requires explanation in the first place. ¹⁹ Clearly the reformers also found this distinction a necessary one. Although preachers were required to have the same exegetical skills as those who wrote commentaries on Scripture, ²⁰ there were evident differences between commenting upon a text and proclaiming a text. Calvin himself believed that one of the key distinctive elements of a sermon should be the addition of preacherly ‘vehemence’ as the text is proclaimed before the hearers, ‘that the message will penetrate the heart.’ ²¹ The preacher, Calvin says, ‘speaks in a way that shows he is not pretending.’ ²² Indeed, this is not just a point about rhetoric, but about the act of proclamation itself as essential to conveying the Bible’s doctrinal content in the particular mode of preaching. Again, Calvin says: ‘If doctrine is not supported by exhortations it is sterile and will not pierce our hearts.’ ²³ This further differentiates preaching from the explanatory lecture; it carries more of the authority of a prophetic word than a relaying of doctrinal information. ²⁴

III. Preaching and Prophecy

William Perkins, who wrote the first ever homiletics treatise translated into English (1606), titled this influential book, The Arte of Prophesying. ²⁵ It was this notion of preaching as ‘prophetic’ that distinguished it from mere exegesis. The preachers of this time saw themselves in the guise of the Hebrew prophets, disturbing and comforting their congregations with a fresh word from God. Of course, it wasn’t fresh in any original sense, but it was – as Calvin put it – the need to exposit the Word of God in such a way as ‘to fit it to the immediate need of the people.’ ²⁶ This opened the sermon up to speak not only from the text of Scripture, but into the situation of the day; even though, as is evident from Calvin’s own sermons, this openness remained strictly within the confines of authentic exegesis. Although the reformers did allow for a significant difference in the form of the sermon to any other exegetical activity, the real ‘event’ taking place was Scripture itself. ²⁷ Thus, even though it is evident, particularly in Luther and Calvin, that the Holy Spirit must be present for the purposes of illumination, this work of the Spirit is nothing more than the efficacy of the inspired text in the heart of the believer, rather than any ‘new’ word from God.

However, we can see connections between the activity of the Old Testament prophets and that of contemporary preachers. Calvin, commenting on Jer. 26:4-5, draws an interesting analogy regarding the Law and the Prophets, which he relates to that of Scripture and preaching:

The law alone must be heard, and with it the prophets who continually interpret it. For God did not send his prophets to correct the law, to change something in it, to add to it or subtract from it…What then was the purpose of prophecy? Truly, it was to explain the law more and more fully, and also to fit it to the immediate need of the people. Since, then, the prophets do not invent any new teaching, but are faithful interpreters of the law, God is not combining here two separate commands. He wishes his law and his prophets to be heard simultaneously…[I]t is through the prophets that God adapts to our need whatever might seem to us remote and of no concern to us…God wishes his law to be our guide and rule, and he binds it to his prophets. ²⁸

This is an important insight in that it upholds the authority of both the text and the action of the prophet, even as the respective authority of both is separated and rightly ordered: the prophets call Israel back to the God of the Law rather than revealing a different God or a different Law. However, perhaps a weakness in Calvin’s analysis here is that this doesn’t account for what the Old Testament prophets said that was genuinely ‘new’, such as predictive events, or theological expressions which had no rhetorical precedent. Although the prophets do not add anything to the Law doctrinally, they also declare what will happen in light of Israel’s disobedience or obedience, with words of specific judgement and hope. Are these new revelations? Not in a general sense, since Israel always knew the potential of blessing or cursing in obedience or disobedience of the Law (cf. Deut. 28), but the prophetic utterances are certainly ‘new’ to the extent that they had not appeared before and could not have been spoken from the Law without reference to the contextual situation in which the prophet initially spoke them. And yet the ‘newness’ of a prophet’s revelation does not impinge upon their faithfulness to the Law, because they still act within its doctrinal confines and never seek to move beyond it. The same could be said then, analogously, for contemporary preaching. If it is true that God still speaks today, He does so not beyond Scripture, but through Scripture. The prophets speak a new word in consequence of the prior word of the Law and previous prophecies. The prophets never come to contradict what God has said, but to fulfil and reclaim what God has said in the present moment. Proclamation itself, then, is also an act of reclamation as it lays hold of (and interprets) what God has said in light of the contemporary moment.

It is important, of course, to make distinctions between the revelatory authority of a canonical Old Testament prophet and a contemporary preacher. John Stott cautioned: ‘Today’s preachers are neither prophets nor apostles, for we are not the recipients of any fresh, direct revelation.’ ²⁹ However helpful this may be as a distinction between canonical authority and the Church’s prophetic authority, this does not account for a full understanding of preaching as revelatory ‘event’. The contemporary preacher will often be led into interpreting the Scriptural text in such a way that the Holy Spirit does in fact speak uniquely, even as the sermon remains expository in derivative content. ³⁰ Even within a lectionary cycle, the very choice of Scriptural text taken by the preacher requires prophetic discernment. ³¹ More pertinently, the choice of sermonic direction within that chosen text will not be precisely the same for any two sermons in any two pulpits in the world. There is a contextual, prophetic responsibility in every step of sermon preparation and delivery. This is the case even for the most miniscule and seemingly arbitrary interpretative decisions, such as the length of time spent on a particular verse, or the use of illustrations or certain turns of phrase. If God can be said to speak uniquely through these interpretative decisions in preaching, sermons can indeed be genuinely revelatory and prophetic, without diminishing their creaturely ontology as human activities. ³² Barth, who, we have seen, held to the necessity of expository preaching, also held to this characteristic of the contingent ‘event’ of preaching as totally unique. ³³ He says:

It is a human activity like any other. [But] It is not only that. It has its own special necessity and its own special promise, in virtue of which it is a work of God, indeed the Word of God Himself; and this no less than His revelation in Jesus Christ and its attestation in Holy Scripture. ³⁴

Preaching, then, is not ‘magical’; it is not entirely supernatural (however well the preacher thought they preached last Sunday!). But this ‘special necessity’ reserved for preaching elevates its status as a unique prophetic event that – somehow – takes it beyond the merely natural. It is only in faith that this expectation for preaching can be apprehended and experienced. In such an expectation, preaching itself becomes the Word of God, through the fallible lips of the preacher. But again, this is by virtue of its faithful adherence to Scripture, not by its departure into derivative content which moves excessively beyond the text’s intentions.

The notion of sermon as ‘prophecy’ has been considered far more radically by other movements which also remain indebted – in one way or another – to reformation emphases. Contemporary Pentecostal and Charismatic preaching has a long tradition of understanding the sermon not only as a Word from Scripture, but as a fresh Word from God. In some Pentecostal traditions, there has been a tendency for the supposedly ‘prophetic’ sermon to drift into the preacher’s own subjective moods and fads whereby the biblical text is cited nominally, as if the text’s mere reference gives their own subjective expressions a divine authority. ³⁵ Here, one may be dubious in detecting any genuine pneumatological movement since the Spirit never acts or speaks apart from the Word. In such preaching there can be no tension between biblical text and prophetic event because the importance of ‘event’ has virtually eradicated the concern for genuine Scriptural content. Of course, this is not just a Pentecostal problem – what preacher hasn’t at one point or another used their text as a mere ‘launchpad’ into what they really wanted to get off their chest? The submission of sermon to text is by no means a given in most pulpits. But where expository preaching is practised, this is not always followed by an equally strong gravitation towards the prophetic role of the sermon – perhaps due to a cautious desire to avoid the potential abuses of prophetic responsibility.

It is particularly within Reformed Charismatic traditions that this tension between biblical text and prophetic event can be seen most clearly. In such conceptions the expository and pneumatological elements of preaching are upheld with paradoxically equal importance. ³⁶ Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who has had significant influence upon preaching within both Reformed and Charismatic movements, held a ‘high’ view of the Bible’s unique authority as well as the separate but equally unique authority of the preaching event: ‘[T]hough you may go into the pulpit with what you regard as an almost perfect sermon, you never know what is going to happen to it when you start preaching.’ ³⁷ It is in the very moment of preaching, then, that the Spirit can elevate the sermon to genuine divine proclamation, even as its content is entirely Scriptural:

[Preaching] is based upon exposition, but it is this exposition turned or moulded into a message…The message has come to the prophet as a burden, it has come to him as an entire message, and he delivers this. That is something…which is never true of an essay or of a lecture, and indeed is not true of a mere series of comments upon a number of verses. ³⁸

Although the idea of a ‘prophetic burden’ can be misused or abused, ³⁹ this concept still plays a pivotal role in all preaching which seeks to be genuinely prophetic. That is, the preacher is to feel a sense of gravitational pull towards a particular text or truth for the purposes of contextual application. Many preachers have identified with Jeremiah’s burning fire shut up in his bones that he cannot hold in (Jer 20:9), or Paul’s sense of ‘necessity’ or ‘obligation’ laid upon him to preach the Gospel (1Cor 9:16). But the preacher cannot simply preach out of this subjective burden alone; they are to bring this revelatory message through the exposition of the text. Lloyd-Jones did not identify how such a conjunction of exegesis and prophecy within preaching is possible. No doubt the language of paradox might be appropriate here; but it seems that it is not enough simply to say both without saying why. I contend that there is, in fact, one way of understanding why we might hold these two concepts together theologically, by virtue of Scripture’s own intentionality.

IV. Scripture and Proclamation

The nature of the Bible itself is aimed towards prophetic proclamation; indeed it is inspired for the very purpose of being spoken, as God’s Word. As Goldingay states:

In taking the Bible into the pulpit…we are not doing something inherently problematic, something alien to its nature. It belongs there. We open it before a congregation with a similar concern to the one which motivated its own authors, a concern with people encountering God. ⁴⁰

This is similarly echoed by Willimon: ‘When we preach from the Scriptures, to the congregation, the Bible is living in its natural habitat. It is functioning as it was intended.’ ⁴¹ There could be problems with this, of course. Are we to say that the Bible out of the pulpit is always, necessarily, a fish out of water? Berkouwer perhaps says exactly this when he says: ‘Scripture may not be isolated from preaching.’ ⁴² Although we may be uncomfortable placing such a radical limitation upon the Church’s use of Scripture, it is true that – bound up in the very ontology of Scripture itself – is an impulsion towards proclamation. Scripture is not merely objectively true in an abstract sense; it is objectively true for the distinct purpose of subjective illumination by the power of the Spirit; to speak not merely its own repeating word, but a renewing word to its hearers. This is why Scripture is ‘living and active’ (Heb 4:12), ‘useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training’ (2Tim 3:16), and ‘a lamp unto our feet’ (Psalm 119:105). It is living, active, light-giving and challenging precisely by its inseparability from the Spirit who breathed it. As Schwöbel notes:

Behind the written word is the living word and the written word is meant to become alive again by being spoken. It is here that preaching has its place. It underlines that God’s word is a personal address to us, a living act of communication relating us to God’s life. In order to become God’s living word for us preaching relies on the work of God’s life-giving Spirit to communicate God’s word in the confidence of faith that God will utilise their words in order to make his word heard. ⁴³

In the Spirit’s re-breathing of the Word in the event of preaching it does not move beyond Scripture. ⁴⁴ Rather, it merely embodies what Scripture is designed to do; that is, to speak into the lives of its hearers for the purposes of justification, sanctification and edification. This means that exegesis on its own – though essential – is not in itself a fully faithful rendering of the biblical text. This is because the text itself requires that it be spoken beyond its own linguistic parameters. It is meant to be spoken into that strange cocktail of congregational eccentricities which present themselves at the foot of each pulpit. Acknowledging the ongoing activity of the Spirit to highlight, emphasise and even to shock us from time to time (as no doubt He should) does not put this eventful activity in competition with a faithful reading of the biblical text. Rather, it consummates this faithful reading as the Word which speaks both from and through the text in its truest form, as prophetic proclamation. ⁴⁵ It is in this way that preachers are authorised to speak ‘as those who utter oracles of God’ (1Peter 4:11) precisely because they are uttering oracles of God (if, indeed, they remain faithful to the biblical text). Such textual faithfulness relates not only to the transmission of doctrinal content but also to the text’s uniquely prophetic intentions, which aim to speak into the subjective dramas of each and every contemporary congregation with the morning dew of God’s Word (Lam. 3:23).

In brief conclusion, we can indeed say that God speaks through the Scriptural message of preaching uniquely and prophetically. This is because Scripture is not made of fairy dust, and neither does it intend to be. ⁴⁶ God declares that this biblical content is authoritative and powerful not simply in itself, in abstraction (as though the mere words could remain unspoken in the closed book and have the same intended impact); rather, Scripture is powerful when it is proclaimed, received and applied in the midst of a community of believers. This echoes the Sower’s seed, which is thrown to various places but is only consummated when it takes root in fertile soil (Matt. 13:8-9). When we come to Scripture in the event of preaching with the expectation that God will speak powerfully and uniquely, we are saying that this expectation of hearing God is an inherent part of our faithfulness to Scripture: ‘[T]he Church rests, not on the presupposition, but very definitely on the recollection and the expectation that God in fact has spoken and will speak the Word to us in the Bible.’ ⁴⁷ By inclining our ears thusly we are not predicating authority to the text as such (as if our listening in such a manner makes Scripture ‘seem’ more meaningful or authoritative), rather, this is the very way we are instructed to approach Scripture in the first place, allowing and expecting it to work upon us, as it is proclaimed to us.