When Exposition is no longer Preaching; The dangerous
Error of ‘Orthodox Formalism’
By Jay Wegter
When we read the epistles of Paul we begin to see just how much time he spent at the base of the cross. His passion was to know Christ (Phil 3:7-14). He saw no dichotomy between a cross-centered message and a cross-centered life. Think about how he describes his experience and that of the apostles. He said they were fools for Christ, a spectacle to men and angels, regarded as the off-scouring of the world (1 Cor 4:7-13). When he preached the cross, he preached it with a crucified demeanor (1 Cor 2:1-5)
Paul saw that his own sufferings were intimately tied to the sufferings of Christ (Rom 8:16-18; Col 1:24). He also saw that these sufferings were gradually conforming him to Christ (2 Cor 4:7-12). I wonder if this isn’t missing in the majority of expository sermons we hear today. Much propositional truth is uttered from pulpits within our evangelical circles. But, I fear for the bulk of the listeners that it has become an exercise in auditing the truth rather than doing the truth (note the statistic that 90% of the ministry in Evangelical churches is done by 5% or less of the church members).
Where is the trauma of deep repentance, wherein the sinner is knocked off balance, devastated, aware of the urgent need to do business with God? A truly biblical pulpit will preach the reality that manageable Christianity is a farce. Listeners will from time to time undergo withering disillusionment as they are jolted out of their malaise, realizing that their ‘God concept’ was merely a magnificent category and not the knowledge of God Himself. For, God cannot be known unless the creature is first prostrate in the dust.
What does it take to stagger an Evangelical listener? It has been years since I’ve seen a churchgoer leave after the sermon in a state in which he is eager to speak of being lost in wonder, awe, and fear of God. It’s been years since I’ve talked to a church member who after the morning message can say “God’s majesty is filling the horizons of my mind and heart.” “I am marveling at the wonder and the mystery that is Christ.” “And, as I consider the transcendent holiness of God, I am staggered at how low God has stooped to make me His.”
Perhaps part of the problem is this; we have far too much admiration for our celebrity pastors with their sprawling homes, inflated salaries, and endless publicity (how differently were the Apostles treated! See 1 Corinthians 4:9-13). The bigger-than-life status of today’s mega-pastors tends to obscure a clear view of our exalted Savior. I suspect something is amiss here. I see autograph sessions and photo-ops with these celebrity pastors and wonder if we’ve used orthodoxy to cloak our clericalism. No doubt Martin Luther was correct when he said that Christianity inevitably degrades into a system of honoring men. Please do not get me wrong, I am grateful for faithful teachers of the Word who labor faithfully labor in the Scriptures. But, I want to hear the theme of Isaiah echo from our pulpits again; that God is majestic in all His ways—in providence, in history, and in judgment as well as in redemption. I want to hear about the unfathomable depth to which God is committed to His own holiness—a depth so great that it demands an eternal hell.
In our Evangelical pulpits, exposition is often reduced to the transmission of information and not actually aimed at the conversion of the listener. I use the word, ‘conversion’ not only to speak of initial salvation, but also to speak of the transformation and consecration that Christ requires of His people. Without preaching which aims to reach mind and heart—that is, without truly calling men to repentance, orthodoxy will not ensure orthopraxy. Much of what passes for exposition today can by its very casual, even complacent delivery suggest to the listener that he is spiritually well and quite sound because he sits in an orthodox church at the base of an orthodox pulpit. Preaching an unfounded peace to unconverted hearers has always been a temptation (Jer 6:14; Mic 3:5).
Every pastor faces the temptation of entering an unspoken contract with his listeners in which he receives the praise of his congregation in exchange for pronouncing them well and free from spiritual sickness. The unspoken contract is entered in a subtle manner. As their ministries “succeed” many pastors begin covertly ‘mainlining’ the opiate of human recognition. Buoyed up by the honors they receive, it becomes increasingly difficult to obey Isaiah 58:1 – “Cry loudly, do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their transgression . . .”
For too long these complacent ministers have believed their own ‘press releases’—namely that they are indispensable. As a consequence their sermons have not broken up the fallow ground of the heart of their hearers. There has been no plowing of the hardpan soil of the heart to make a place for the good seed of the gospel. Instead these ministers have accepted the authority and the honor granted them by their parishioners. The constant input of their larger-than-life personalities has displaced a clear view of Christ as rightful owner, ruler, and judge of His church.
Thus, the default mode is a net loss in the perception of the priesthood of the believer and the high priesthood of Christ. The minister unwittingly has become the mediator of the Mediator Himself—he stands between Christ and the flock like a cloud in front of the sun. And, due to the illness inherent in our fallen natures, we heap misplaced praise on our leaders instead of upon our Chief Shepherd (Heb 13:20). It is interesting that Luther saw this ailment so clearly—that the church tends to degrade into a system of honoring men—for he was up close to it in his years as a Roman Catholic monk. Why are we drawn to honoring mean as a moth to a flame? It is because we have a hunger to receive glory from men (Jn 5:43-44). If that hunger for glory is not crushed into the dust by the majesty of God, we too will fall ineffably into that trap. In Evangelicalism we pride ourselves on an expository pulpit. But in so many cases the minister’s handling of the Word is tainted with semi-rationalism wherein it is implied that the Word of God is an inspired technical manual. Thus, principle-izing has become equated with expository preaching. Truth marches in single file to the beat of the sermon, but where is the unfolding of God’s character which drives us to our knees? Where is the setting forth of God’s attributes so that we are arrested at the thought of who God is and what we owe Him? When semi-rationalism reigns, biblical truth is divorced from the character and attributes of God. In that state, truth becomes so many spiritual laws with which we may cooperate in order to be blessed. The principalized Christian life does not knock us off balance, it doesn’t decentralize the self. Without God’s transcendence filling our minds and affections, we become like our leaders: managers of our compartmentalized lives. We’re religiously managerial. Duty is the rule of the day but devastation is rare, and delight in God is scarce. Even in our Calvinistic pulpits the principalizing of truth without an accompanying sense of urgency tends to leave the listener with the impression that appropriating the grace of God, and the God of grace is the sinner’s prerogative. Therefore, there is no heart-crushing fear that only the movement of God’s sovereign pity can remedy one’s case. Orthodoxy becomes the substitute refuge itself.
But, the orthodox church, and the orthodox pastor can become a ‘refuge’ short of Christ Himself. As a consequence, our listeners are blind to the reality that we are practicing a cultural form of Christianity in which self is held together with the ‘bailing wire’ and ‘duct tape’ of self-esteem and human aspirations. One hundred plus years of psychology have told us to preserve self at all costs, to guard and adore the self, for that is where your greatest loyalty must be found. Anything that is perceived as an incursion upon self must be discouraged. Anything that discourages self must be bad. Therefore, the trauma of true repentance where Christ does His deepest surgery is shunned.
But what is genuine salvation? Christ dismantles the imagined sovereignty of self and reconstructs us around His own Person. It is in Christ alone that the believer is complete (Col 2:10). But our celebrity pastors are marketing a subtle form of cultural Christianity. In many cases it is dressed as orthodoxy and concealed behind ‘Bible exposition’. The truth is that our brand of cultural Christianity offers undisturbed personal respectability in which the self is impervious to divine invasion. How differently did the Puritans preach! They spoke of closing with Christ; of dealing with Him directly whose eyes are a flame of fire (Rev 1:12-18).
To have any direct dealings with Christ is to experience His surgical work as a frequent and unsettling intrusion that disrupts and invades—bringing disillusionment, trembling and contrition (Is 57:15). It imparts a full hardiness in destroying our heart idols. It inclines one to welcome examination by the Chief Shepherd (Heb 4:12-13).
In our Evangelical circles, the unspoken contract with parishioners is far more nuanced than the overt collusion between liberal pastors and their cosmopolitan flocks. Ours is an unspoken agreement that we will not frighten the flock, scare or alarm them, or unnerve them with views of God that would terrify sinners. The Gospel has been so fully pushed through a filter of consumerism that it has become more about your religious options than what you owe God. It has become more about personal fulfillment than your sin predicament. Much more about a new direction than your dilemma of deserved damnation.
Thus, our species of contract is very sophisticated. It suggests, no, even states, that the sheep are safe within the orthodox walls of the organization—and that the church itself is a viable refuge for their souls. David Wells was correct, when he stated that the church has replaced God. Our pastors have become too delicate to make their listeners feel their nakedness before God, their exposure to His wrath, their inability, helplessness, and rebellion. Megachurch roles are growing, the corral is filling with sheep, and new members are being assimilated into the institution. But what if we found out to our horror that we’ve been converting people to an organization rather than to Christ? Is it possible to be orthodox and have orthodox ministers and yet be rocking people to sleep instead of establishing them on the rock of Christ?
The words of Paul Washer should sober us all; you can only keep them by how you got them in the first place. If we’ve adapted our message to spiritual consumers they will chafe at the prospect that you cannot be Christ’s unless you hate your life in this world and are willing to lose it for Christ’s sake and the sake of the Gospel (Jn 12:24-26).
The pure Gospel is arresting, disturbing, stunning; even traumatic. It drives us out of our false refuges. It exposes our false coverings as filthy rags (Is 64:6). It unnerves us because it shows that what God demands we cannot provide. It attacks our complacency. It strips us of the false hope that God will accept our decency, moral efforts, and religious activities as contributing to our favor with Him (or even obligating Him to forgive and accept us). The Gospel devastates because it dashes to the ground the false peace we have created for ourselves. It overturns our presumptions. The pure Gospel is not a formula for getting people to heaven. It is not a scheme that takes the best of God and the best of a person and weaves them into a support for the soul. No, the pure Gospel places the sinner in the dust as a ruined wretch. There is no putting on of Christ unless every fiber of a man’s own covering is stripped away and every remnant of self-righteousness is removed by the Spirit’s conviction. This is why Calvin said that the first response of the natural man to the Gospel is rage. The Gospel disturbs deeply by showing us we are under God’s wrath. It bankrupts us until under the Spirit’s verdict of damnation the sinner reaches a place of desperation. But today we see shallow imitation conversions in which the knowledge of God is merely gaining a casual acquaintance. We don’t see a deep humbling of the proud self. The Gospel has been adapted to our 21ˢᵗ century sensibilities. It has been streamlined and made void because it is offered as something to which men may attain by their own powers (1 Cor 1:17) (i.e. a form of godliness but the denying the power thereof—2 Timothy 3:5). It has become a Gospel without repentance and without the necessity of a sovereign call. Today’s Gospel allows people to keep their respectability. It suggests man may manage the grace which God offers. But the knowledge of God, to know Him as He is, the Lord of all, transcendent in holiness, is not a manageable thing. For when God gets a hold of a man in true conversion He turns Him upside down. I picture a little farm boy wearing overalls. If his father turns him upside down—out would fall a host of things: yo-yo’s, rocks, candy wrappers, frogs. So also when God brings a man down into the dust there is a removal of old worldviews and ideas, cherished ways of doing things, and high opinions of self are all jettisoned (2 Cor 5:17). This work is infinitely above the power of man. No man ever transcended his own pride to become a true worshipper of God (Jn 4:23-24). No, the power of the Gospel alone can displace self with Christ. The true Gospel in its might involves a genuine heart transplant. No wonder the Gospel devastates, for it slays the sinner’s view of himself and shows him that he is a ruined wretch. The sinner is ejected from the throne of self. That alone is a miracle. For every son and daughter of Adam and Eve regards it as his or her duty to be unwavering loyal to self. This self-orientation is the form of religion we choose by nature. But the Gospel rends the heart—for it tells us that God is right, and we are terribly wrong, for we’re not only condemned for what we do, but for what we are (Mt 7:15-23).
Now consider the cross; the heart the Gospel. At first blush the message of God the Son dying in agony in our own nature appears as the very opposite of power. For it is a display of reproach, weakness, ugliness, ignominy, shame, dishonor, and injustice. How could that spectacle unseat the sinner from the throne of self and install Christ as Lord? How could the scandal of the Calvary wipe away sin, bestow a new nature, adopt, justify, and raise us from the grave of our own depravity?
Such is the infinite wisdom and power of God (1 Cor 1:24). For Christ in His passion takes into His own being all the separations caused by sin; separation from God, separation from others, separation from ourselves, and separation from creation—He becomes the curse of the Law (Gal 3:10-13. He absorbs those separations into Himself as sin-bearer. He does so that the relationships ravaged by sin might be restored.
Now what is clearly missing in our Evangelical pulpits? Is it permissible if I ask, “Are the bulk of the people in my church genuinely saved?” I wonder aloud in regard to this question, for I see the Gospel cast in humanly acceptable categories—as if it were a happy meal, a quick fix, a formality, a step in one’s spiritual journey, an initiation into a religious institution. I believe this is a very dangerous disservice to our hearers. If the Gospel is cast as a painless vaccination then we’ve completely redefined it.
Actually the Gospel is the most invasive thing imaginable. There is a tearing open of the soul’s chest cavity—a heart transplant takes place in which the throne of Christ is installed in the center of man. There is no true worship without this miracle; but it is traumatic beyond words. Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul, did not eat or drink for three days he was so astonished at the Gospel (Acts 9:9).
In the miracle of regeneration spiritual eyes and ears are implanted within a person. Apart from the bestowal of these faculties there is only ignorance, speculation, and outward religion—a form of religion the flesh is capable of. By contrast, the true Gospel brings us all the way to God (1 Pet 3:18). The false Gospel is adapted to carnal reasoning, for it reduces the Gospel to a transaction, “If you do this then God will do such and such.”
But, the good news of the Gospel is only good news to a person who has heard and received the diagnosis of his sin dilemma. The Gospel reveals that the sinner sits in the tomb of His depravity and the grave clothes of his dead works. He has no clue as to the seriousness of His predicament. He still imagines that the key to his hope of heaven is tucked in his own hand—and that by personal reformation and religion he can use the key whenever he wishes. Therefore, he is more than content to settle for half measures, a little personal reformation rather than a complete resurrection from spiritual death. So he adapts the Gospel to what he’s capable of performing.
Millions of church-goers are led astray into this false hope and ruined forever because of this error. By contrast the pure Gospel is designed to tear up self-righteousness by the roots. In the true Gospel, Christ is displayed as perishing in our nature, expiring under the wrath of God in torment. The true Gospel is a monumental statement that man deserves death and damnation. But it is this doctrine or account of Christ suffering in our place which God uses to flood the heart with light and give the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6).
Christ our substitute is the light of the Gospel. This overturns natural religion completely. For, the Gospel proclaims the good news of the appeasement of sin’s penalty. Thus its message stirs the conscience and the Holy Spirit brings conviction. This calls for the response of faith and repentance and the commitment to Christ and His work (Andrew Kern). In contrast to that, the false Gospel says by inference that God will let you find Him through your desire to be a better person. He let you find Him through your moral and religious aspirations. Today’s gospel infers that God can be found through your desire to bring some rest and peace to your conscience through religion and morality.
But in the pure Gospel God is ‘hiding’ within the cross of Christ. God refuses to be found by the sinner’s intuitions about religion. God is concealed behind the scandal of Calvary. He will not let you find Him until you find your own condemnation in the sentence which Christ received at the cross. God stays concealed until you see that your sinful thoughts drove that crown of thrones into Christ’s head, your deeds pinned his hands and feet to the cross, your malice produced His abandonment, your habitual law-breaking occasioned the crushing wrath he incurred.
At times I wonder how much good our Evangelical Gospel conferences accomplish. As ministers we must exercise great care, we must guard against two errors: 1) resting in our pure Gospel orthodoxy, as if we occupy the virtual summit of theological Everest. That can produce a form of smugness especially if we are not pleading with souls as Paul did (Acts 20:31; 2 Cor 5:19-20). 2) A second error to avoid is inadvertently apologizing for the Gospel by expecting the unregenerate in our congregations to recognize the wisdom, beauty, and power of the Gospel. We need to stop apologizing for the stumbling block that is inherent in the Gospel. God has designed the Gospel to wreck and demolish our religious sensibilities and not to retain and hallow, or alter those sensibilities. Remember, your unsaved hearers in your congregations listen to the Gospel through an all-pervasive filter. Their religious instincts always lead them in the following direction: “It is reasonable and rationale that the conscience of man should find rest and peace in faithfulness to religious and moral duties.” To rest in that mindset before conversion is deadly.
We are apologizing for the Gospel if we fail to uproot this innate sentiment. If we fail to root out that sentiment, we are allowing the natural man’s optimistic opinion of his moral powers to remain undisturbed. Therefore, it is likely he will come short of salvation in Christ when he joins the church. We are indirectly letting him retain his fine opinion of himself—how he regards his decency, respectability, and patterns of reasoning (Note that Spurgeon excelled at surgically excising all of the sinner’s legal hopes).
We also err in apologizing for the Gospel when we imply a churchgoer’s riches and love of money may be sanctified if he gives regularly to the church. How different did Christ preach (Mt 6:19-21). We must remember that we are preaching to members of a consumer society. Consumerism does not evaporate when a person walks through the door of the church. The unsaved consumer in our churches tends to see the divine as the largest ‘corporation’ with the most important ‘product’ (heaven). On his end of the unspoken contract, he wants you to preach so as to ‘market’ God—as if He needs better polling numbers, better public relations, and improved public perception (i.e. what He can do for them). Religious America has become a vast panorama of false spiritual hope, built upon an idol of a domesticated god who is too genteel to actually ignite the fires of eternal hell out of a commitment to His own holiness. The benign god of American religion inspires no reverential fear and awe and wonder. I believe this problem exists because his preachers lacks these three postures (of fear, awe, and wonder) in their own religious experience. The religious landscape in the West has undergone a slow erosion of truth just as deep ruts from a deluge cut gashes into the earth. The therapeutic has been devouring the transcendent. The familiar and imminent have eclipsed the holy and infinite. Religious America has made a god in its own likeness who views sin much as we do and who is happy for any attention he can garner from us. This therapeutic god is helpful, but does not elicit reverential fear.
Spiritual consumers who have been fed the husks of this benign god welcome the Bible’s helpfulness. They are fine with the idea that the Bible offers them assistance with their finances, marriages, and parenting. But religious consumers do not want to feel the authority of God upon their consciences. Divine authority is too disturbing for them. They don’t like their options being limited to only two: do this or perish (Deut 30:19-20).
How distinct Christ’s discourses were from the religious leaders of the 1ˢᵗ century. Jesus riveted the truth of God to the hearts of His hearers as He preached with authority (Matt 7:29; Luke 4:32). The authority of God in preaching narrows and then removes all options but two. To preach with authority devastates spiritual consumerism because God turns the tables on the listener. When the Word is preached with authority, it is God exegeting the hearer. This is what Jesus did constantly. His listeners sought to evade conviction. They demanded proof, credentials, and miracles because they were resisting the message. When Jesus accepted the hospitality of sinners, they accused Him of being a drunkard. When He fasted in the desert, they accused Him of being demon-possessed. This was their failed attempt to escape divine authority. Faithful preachers who follow the example of Jesus will remove options from their listeners. This is precisely what consumers hate. For in our culture consumers are told that they are king. A thousand jingles and promises flatter them and reinforce their imagined independence. After all, in a consumer society we vote with our feet and our dollars; either making or breaking corporations by our patterns of consumption and patronage. Corporations are there to serve us.
Thus, to preach with authority is to inflict a deep cutting insult on a spiritual consumer. For it says your hearer, “Your heart is an open book before God, a quagmire of stinking idols and lusts.” “If you stay in your present state your life will remain an offense to God and you are headed towards eternal ruin.” But, the spiritual consumer reasons back, “How dare you evaluate me, I am in charge here, I pay this pastor’s salary by my giving; I am faithful to my church.” Think for a moment how absurd it is that today’s pastors often thank churchgoers from the pulpit for coming to church. For it says to the consumer, “Thank you for your patronage. You are helping us to perpetuate this institution. I hope you are happy with our product.” I fear that sin-sick parishioners are in collusion with their physician pastors in order to give a favorable diagnosis when actually the state of their souls is critical. But if the truth be known, flattering sinners is the fastest way to build a megachurch.
In order to illustrate this, imagine for a moment a terrible auto collision— the broken body of the driver is brought to the hospital in an ambulance. There are fractures, fading consciousness, and profuse bleeding. Then the doctor’s first words are, “Thank you for coming.” This is a picture of how we treat ruined sinners at church.
To our consumer congregations, how awkward it would appear from the pulpit if we preached like Paul, Peter, and Christ. “I am warning you day and night with tears, I am imploring you to be on guard, for from your own midst false teachers will arise.” “Crushing suffering is coming upon the impenitent.” “Your love of self will sink you to hell.” “And to you who are lukewarm, Christ will vomit you out of His mouth.” “Your blood is on your own head if you do not repent.”
No, we will never preach that way—for we are ‘under contract’ to pronounce our hearers well. For if we attracted you as a consumer we must keep you as a consumer. That means never insulting your imagined autonomy and love of self and never limiting your options to life and death. To preach to the tastes of consumers is to never disturb their lofty self-concept. As a consequence, we have promised consumers we will avoid all dogmatism, and everything we say will be for them to evaluate—for ultimately it is product for their assistance, and welfare. “We have a product for you to consume and we have a business to keep solvent.” “Therefore, your approval of our product is our highest priority; and that must never be dislodged by the authority of God.”
We have said much about the current tendency to avoid the diagnosis that the Gospel pronounces. And in a future article we will endeavor to display the beauty of Christ as Friend of sinners. For, there is no greater happiness than the abundant life Christ offers. The ultimate joy of the Lord is to hear the eternal ‘well done’ echoing in your soul forever, knowing your sins are washed away, you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness, and the Holy Trinity wants to spend eternity with you (Andrew Kern). The Creator is the lover of the believer’s soul; He loves your whole being. Through Christ He has accepted you into His own presence. The glory that will fill eternity is this: through Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection and exaltation human nature has been brought into the Trinity itself (in the Person of Christ) in order that we might share joy and life in the Trinity forever. God has brought endless glory to Himself by giving Christ in order that elect sinners might have His eternal favor, love, and presence.