Written by David S. Steele |
Friday, July 7, 2023
We fail to meet the divine standard. The Divine Representative stands in our defense. All these things clear the path for the divine accomplishment, which John unfolds in 1 John 2:2 – “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). When the gavel falls, a verdict will be rendered. Will you bear the weight of your sin and thus, endure 10,000 degrees of white-hot wrath? Or will you trust Jesus to stand in your defense? 

It has been said that one of the greatest problems that plagues contemporary people is unresolved guilt. Sin squeezes the life out of unwitting victims. Sins of omission, sins of commission, sins of regret, neglect, fear, ungodly anger, broken relationships, and insubordination pose a massive threat to the well-being of well-meaning people.
No one is excluded from this sinful parade. We have all committed sin. We are sinners by nature and by choice – and as a result, guilt rears its ugly head. Sometimes the guilt waits to surface until we’re all alone. For some of us, guilt is a constant note on the musical score sheet of our lives. For others, the only time we feel guilt is when we hear a preacher remind us about our sin.
Here is the problem: Apart from the grace of God, we all stand before the bar of God’s justice – and we stand condemned. Apart from the grace of God – we are guilty.
The sound of the gavel is unmistakable in a courtroom setting. When the gavel falls, it reminds us that a verdict has been reached. It announces the guilt or innocence of the defendant.
In 1 John 2, the apostle John ushers us into the celestial courtroom and answers the question, “What is the greatest need of sinners when the gavel falls?” As we enter the heavenly tribunal, I invite you to encounter the divine standard and the divine representative.
The Divine Standard
If you ever have the opportunity to attend a trial in a courtroom one of the first memories you will have is when the Judge enters the courtroom. The bailiff announces, “All rise!” John the apostle introduces the presiding Judge of the universe in 1 John 1:5. He writes, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
The Presiding Judge of the Divine Standard
He is the majestic God of the universe. The psalmist proclaims, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens” (Ps. 8:1, ESV). Moses says, “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exod. 15:11).
He is the transcendent God of the universe. “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isa. 57:15).
He is the sovereign God of the universe. The psalmist reminds us, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3,).
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How could we not long to know more of our God’s good Word, especially when it is through His Scriptures that we come to know Him? Indeed, being captivated by God’s goodness will never fail to drive us ever deeper into His Word, for in them we are able to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8)!

You are good and do good;teach me your statutes.
Psalm 119:68 ESV

This is a marvelous verse and a mighty confession for all of God’s people to make alongside the psalmist. First, he confesses a deep truth regarding God’s nature: God is good. As with all of God’s attributes, we must take care not to think simply that God possesses goodness, as if goodness were an ethereal force outside of God Himself. Instead, God is good. The source and standard of goodness are found within His very nature. He does not merely meet the specifications of what it means to be good; He is good. Everything else is judged to be good based upon His person and evaluation.
Second, God does good. We often remember God’s passing by Moses in Exodus 34 as the revealing of His glory to the prophet, and so it was. Yet it was also the revealing of God’s goodness, for God told Moses “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name” (Exodus 33:19).
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In dealing with the text of Scripture, Lucas offers a lesson for preaching: hold the line. “The line” in his metaphor refers to Scripture’s plain instruction. He urges us against deviating above the line, saying more than the Bible says, and below the line, saying less than the Bible says. Below the line, we might imagine such errors as liberalism, partisan neo-evangelicalism, church-growth pragmaticism, etc.; above it, fanaticism, pietism, emotional Pentecostalism, etc. Against all of these deviations, our expository emphasis should be on the plain teaching of God’s Word.

When we consider examples of preaching in the Bible, many of us go immediately to the New Testament—and we’re not wrong to do so. It may surprise us, though, to discover that the Old Testament is replete with early examples of expository preaching. Consider this one from Nehemiah:
All the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. … They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. (Nehemiah 8:1–4, 8)
Ezra’s preaching was far from dull, for we’re told that “the ears of all the people were attentive” to him as he both read God’s Word and “gave the sense.” He proclaimed divine truth with a sense of liveliness that any preacher would do well to imitate. John Calvin, remarking on what happens in the act of preaching, wrote,
It is certain that if we come to church we shall not hear only a mortal man speaking but we shall feel (even by his secret power) that God is speaking to our souls, that he is the teacher …. He so touches us that the human voice enters into us and so profits us that we are refreshed and nourished by it ….
… [God] calls us to him as if he had his mouth open and we saw him there in person.1
Does the average church member have this picture in mind when he or she comes to hear the Word preached? Those under Ezra’s preaching certainly did. And if we wish for this to be true in our churches, we must pray zealously that God would break into our congregations, revealing His strength by His Word to our people. Getting to this place will require the hard work of diligent exposition.
So, what are the basics of expository preaching? To answer this question, we’ll examine its definition, dangers, and lessons through a biblical lens.
A Definition of Expository Preaching
Simply put, expository preaching is preaching that begins with the Bible. This doesn’t mean that every sermon must begin with the phrase “Please turn in your Bibles to such and such a passage,” although that is a good practice. Rather, beginning with the text means that regardless of the introductory content—whether a current event, a song lyric, or a pastoral issue—it’s immediately clear to our people that the biblical text has established the sermon’s agenda. The expositor allows Scripture to frame every part of his sermon. For this reason John Stott contended that “all true Christian preaching is expository preaching.”2
Exposition is more of a method than a style of preaching. Topical, devotional, evangelistic, textual, apologetic—these are all preaching styles. But as a method, exposition can be applied to a wide variety of sermon types as the occasion demands. What’s important in exposition is that the preacher and his people are anchored to the Bible, allowing the text to establish both the sermon’s framework and content.
Looking at it from another angle, we might ask of ourselves: “Does this sermon answer the ‘So what?’ question?” Exegesis answers the “What?” of the biblical text, exposition the “So what?” As such, it’s possible to preach exegetically without preaching expositionally. True exposition bridges the gap between, for example, Paul’s first-century letter to the Corinthians and the twenty-first century Christian. It always fuses the horizons of the world in which the individual lives with the world out of which the Scriptures come.
The Dangers of Expository Preaching
Given the case for exposition made above, considering its dangers may seem odd. But even good things can pose dangers if handled improperly. As preachers, we must guard against two assumptions: on the one hand, that our message is irrelevant; or, on the other hand, that our message is immediately relevant.
With the first assumption in mind, we should realize that we will almost always be preaching to at least a handful of skeptics. As we preach, they’ll think, This is irrelevant! This is nothing but a religious man giving a religious talk. Therefore, we must strive not only to offer good exegesis (helping the listener understand the text’s meaning) but also to establish its relevance in our hearer’s world.
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