Redemptive-Historical Preaching

Definition and Meaning

Redemptive history is the history of God's saving work in delivering people from sin. It refers to the course of God's saving acts, beginning with creation and the fall and continuing through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ to his second coming. Redemptive-historical preaching is a method of preaching that interprets each text as part of this larger narrative and centers on how the text connects to Christ. The term is often used as roughly synonymous with "Christ-centered preaching."

The contrasting approach is "exemplary preaching," which treats the actions of biblical figures as examples to imitate or to avoid. In the account of David and Goliath, for example, exemplary preaching urges listeners to imitate David's bold faith. Redemptive-historical preaching instead reads the account as an event in which God saved his people through the king he had appointed, and it sees this event as pointing to Christ.

Biblical and Historical Background

Proponents of redemptive-historical preaching appeal to passages such as Luke 24:44–46, where Jesus says that things were written concerning him in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. Typology, which holds that Old Testament persons and events prefigure Christ, and covenant theology provide the theological foundation for this method.

As a method, it is generally said to have taken clear shape in a controversy over preaching in the Reformed churches of the Netherlands during the 1930s and 1940s. In that debate, Klaas Schilder and others criticized exemplary preaching and advocated a redemptive-historical reading. Through the biblical theology of Geerhardus Vos and the homiletical writings of Edmund Clowney and Sidney Greidanus, the approach was subsequently introduced to the English-speaking world and to Korea.

Practice in the Korean Church

In South Korea, the approach has spread mainly through homiletics courses at Reformed Presbyterian seminaries and through translated books. It is reportedly emphasized especially among pastors of Korean denominations with a strong Reformed orientation, such as the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Kosin) and the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapshin).

Other Korean denominations have embraced it to varying degrees. The Methodist and Holiness traditions emphasize sanctification and holiness as understood in Wesleyan theology. Pentecostal churches emphasize the experience of the Holy Spirit and the transformation of life. Some pastors in these denominations also make use of Christ-centered interpretation, but it is not a preaching method officially prescribed by those denominations.

Assessments of redemptive-historical preaching differ.

• Proponents hold that it guards against moralism, which reduces the text to moral lessons, and that it presents the gospel clearly.
• Critics point out that sermons may drift toward similar conclusions and become monotonous, and that concrete application to life may be weakened. Some also warn that forcing Christ into a text where he does not appear risks sliding into excessive allegory.

Many take a mediating position that seeks to combine both approaches.