Podcast: An Introduction to Christocentrism

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

I’m going to borrow an analogy from Chris Rosebrough over at Pirate Christian Radio. I hate to do that, but I can’t think of a better one, so here we go. Have you seen the movie The Sixth Sense? If you haven’t I’m about to ruin the ending for you, but you’ve had years to see it by now, so it’s your own fault. In the movie, Bruce Willis plays this child psychologist who is trying to help out a boy who can see ghosts. So we follow Willis around as he tries to live his normal life, tries to save his failing marriage, all while also trying to help this boy who has this weird supernatural ability. Only at the end of the movie, it is revealed that Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time. He is one of the ghosts that the boy is seeing. The reason his wife wouldn’t talk with him is because she didn’t know he was there.

When you watch the movie a second time, the entire story has a different feel. You watched it the first time, and it was a really good movie, but you had no idea what was really going on. The second time, though, you are seeing the real story.

The Bible is like that. We read the stories and the commandments and the genealogies, and we’re understanding the text in a certain way. But at the end, we may catch on to something profound – we didn’t understand completely what the Book was about at all.

So what is it about? In short, it is about Jesus. He tells us quite directly this it is about Him in two places. First, on the road to Emmaus, after Jesus has risen from the dead, He meets up with a couple of the disciples on the road and walks with them. He makes it so they don’t recognize Him at first, but talks with them about Himself and hears them doubt His resurrection.

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
-Luke 24:25-27

Did you catch that? He takes them through the Old Testament and explains where and how it is talking about Him.

The other passage is more clear still. He is speaking to some Jews who are criticizing Him for healing on the Sabbath. In the middle of His lecture, He says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

It is for this reason that Paul says to the church in Corinth, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Christocentrism is just a fancy word that means that we believe that the Bible is about Jesus. Every part of the Bible, in context, speaks to Him.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you can take a verse out of context and apply it to Him directly. It doesn’t mean that the clear, primary meaning of the verse about Him directly, but every passage points to Him. So we won’t, for example, say that Jesus was guilty of trying to build a tower to heaven with the people at Babel. But we would learn from that event that no man can reach heaven on his own, but Jesus will become our bridge to get there.

There are a few places where the New Testament writers apply this doctrine, and we’ll look at a couple of examples. When Adam sinned, he brought a curse down upon the whole of the human race, and none of us even have the opportunity to live without sin as he could have done. But how does that point us to Jesus? Well, Paul explains, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). That story is about Jesus too, for Jesus came to undo the problems that began with Adam.

In Genesis, Abraham meets up with this strange fellow named Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God. He doesn’t appear very long, but comes in, and Abraham gives this guy a tenth of the stuff he plundered in a battle.

This would be a rather forgettable episode except that David prophesies about the Messiah, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” This goes unexplained until the author of Hebrews picks up on this and goes into great detail about how Melchizedek points the way to Christ.

You see? You think you are reading about some random priest nearby, but in truth we are reading something that points to Jesus.

Let’s run through the Book of Genesis briefly and give some examples. This is not exhaustive, but just a few examples. We spoke of Adam, the tower of Babel, and Melchizedek already, so we won’t look at those again. But we don’t get very far in Genesis before we meet Cain and Abel. Like Abel, Jesus is killed because of his righteousness. Like those in Noah’s ark, those in Jesus will be saved from the judgment of the earth. What about Abraham? Well, like Abraham, God’s people are born through Jesus. Like Isaac, Jesus is led to be a sacrifice by His Father. Like Jacob, Jesus will stoop to become a servant to earn His bride, which is the Church. Like Joseph, Jesus will endure terrible things so that people can be saved.

Those are quick examples, but they illustrate the point. There is wonderful depth in the Scriptures when you learn what they are really about. When we read them with the understanding that it all points to our Lord and Savior, it is like watching The Sixth Sense for the second time – this time, you’ll understand it on a deeper level.

A quick word of warning – let’s not take this to an extreme by making every passage into an allegory or ignoring the plain text. We don’t forget the primary focus of the passage. But we do come to it with an understanding that it will point to Jesus in a meaningful way. So we shouldn’t forget that the Flood really did happen, and that people were punished for their sin, and that God really did show mercy to Noah and his family. It’s not an allegory – it happened. And we also shouldn’t forget that this generation will also be punished for their sins, but that Jesus will have mercy on those who believe on Him.

Most importantly, Christocentrism keeps our focus where it should be, assuming we are applying it properly. So many sermons today speak of the Scriptures as a guidebook for life. They preach about what you need to do, and how to fix this in your life, and how God wants you to have money and power, and how you can rebuke all the bad stuff in your life. Christocentrism tells us to turn back to the Cross, turn back to Jesus. It’s about Him. It’s not about us. It’s for His Glory, for His name. And it is about not what we do, but what He has already done.

We can lose that focus so quickly, but when we lose it, we have lost the point of the Scriptures. It is all about Him. When we learn about the Bible, but do not recognize that focus in the Word, then we haven’t really understood it fully.

It takes some time to begin seeing Scripture in this way. That’s okay. Begin by praying that God will guide your understanding. Read and listen to Christ-focused teachers rather than the man-focused ones. And above all, have faith in Him and not in yourself.