Preaching Christ
Many
claim to be preachers of Christ, saying, “we
preach Jesus.”
But the preaching of Christ is not the mere repeating of His name. It
is not just saying, “Believe
on Jesus...” It
is not saying the name “Jesus”
and leaving men to put to it their own views to it as to who He is or
what He has done. No,
to preach Christ is to declare what the scriptures say about who He
is. He is God
manifest in the flesh. He is the One who is the “Wisdom”
that was in the beginning. He is the Angel of the Covenant, the
eternal Son, the holy One and the Author and Finisher of the eternal
salvation.
The
scriptures tell us what God says He has done. As the angel said, His
name is called JESUS
because He has saved His people from their sins (Matthew
1:21). We are to preach Christ “crucified.”
We preach who He was crucified for, the design of His sufferings and
also the glory that must follow! What did He accomplish? He suffered,
the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. He died a particular
death, “even
the death of the cross.”
His being “obedient
unto death”
is the act by which God has justified all His people and at the same
time satisfied His just Self in the matter of their sins.
If
Christ is all and everything in God’s salvation, and He is, then
let us hear more and more about who He is and what He’s done! No
true preacher need fear running out of material or can ever think he
has said all that can be said about the Him whose name is “Wonderful,
Counselor,
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”
(Isaiah 9:6).
Through the preaching of Christ, the Spirit of God will take the
“things” of Christ and show them to His people. He will show them
the things that are freely given them of God!
-Gospel report by preacher Gary Shepard
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