“Inside the pulpit in London where I learned to preach was a little inscription meant only for the eyes of the preacher as he stepped up to his task: “SIR, WE WOULD SEE JESUS.”
Those words from John 12:21 (KJV) made clear what I was there to do. Yet simple as the message was, it was not shallow. Indeed, it reflected the deepest wells of Christian thought.
For Jesus Christ is the truth and glory of God; in Him the grace and life and wisdom of God is found. In His face, we see “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Cor. 4:6).
He is the revealing Word sent forth by the Father, and the One about whom the Spirit of truth testifies.
Indeed, God breathes out the Scriptures through the Spirit precisely so that through the Word of Christ we might be made “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
That is why the law finds its fulfillment in Him (Rom. 10:4) and why the prophets, the apostles, and all the Scriptures testify about Him (Luke 24:27, 44-46; John 5:39-40, 46).
He is the Lord of Israel, the rock of Moses, the commander of the Lord’s army, the suffering servant, the end of the law, the true temple, and the promised Messiah.
He has always been the one true object of saving faith, for He is, exclusively, the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).
He is the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5), so that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
He is the beginning, the middle, and the end of our salvation. He is the one we were made for.
He is not the peddler of some other truth, reward, or message, as if through Christ we get to receive the real blessing, whether that be heaven, grace, life, or whatever.
“Life” is not something to which He merely points the way. No! He is the Living One: the life and wisdom of the Father now shared with us in the Spirit. He is life, and life is to be found only in Him.
For the preacher, the application is straightforward: if the desire of the Father, the work of the Spirit, and the purpose of Scripture is to herald Jesus, then so must the faithful preacher.
If the Son’s great and eternal goal is to win for Himself a bride, then His heralds must woo for Him.
They are like Abraham’s servant in Genesis 24, commissioned to find a bride for his master’s son. Only when we take our eyes off ourselves and herald Him will we truly glorify God.
But when we do that, we may be sure that our preaching will always be evangelistic and, at the same time, always edifying to the saints.”
–Michael Reeves, Preaching: A God-Centered Vision (Bridgend, UK: Union, 2024), 47-49.
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