Preaching from the book of Hebrews

Last Tuesday, Dr. Ben Witherington wrote an excellent post on The Relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament According to John Chrysostom on his blog. I just had a chance to read it today, and a paragraph of his post jumped out at me:

Chrysostom is putting his finger on some important Christian guidelines for properly reading the OT, namely that it must be seen in the light of its sequel, but it must not be confused with that sequel. The OT is not the NT in advance and the conditions, terms of discussion, theological rubrics and ethical categories are all preparatory, sketchy so to speak, not final, full, or completely revealing. The ’shadows’ or ’sketches’ are true as far as they go, but they must not be confused with the full bodied portraits of Christ, the Christian life, the nature of reality, the ultimate and full character of what God demands of those saved by grace and so on.

As I preached from the assigned Revised Common Lectionary texts taken from the book of Hebrews these past four weeks, I have tried to communicate the very point made by Witherington (and Chrysostom) . (Whether I’m successful or not, you’ll have to decide!) The “heroes” of the faith so famously highlighted in Hebrews 11, the allusions to Moses and Mount Sinai in Hebrews 12, and indeed, our earthly existence, all find their fulfillment and completion in the person of Jesus Christ.

I’m grateful for folks like Dr. Witherington who bring to our attention the wisdom of the Church Fathers in order to help us “think on these things” so that we pastors may have a greater theological depth in our ministry of the Word.