Words That Kill and Make Alive
The compelling task of preaching.
In his definitive work, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Baptist pastor and theologian Mark Dever aspires to identify and explain the characteristics of a “healthy” local church body. He quickly eschews the notion of ever locating a “perfect” church, especially since every congregation on this side of glory is comprised of sinner-saints. However, healthy churches are those that endeavor to be conformed to the image of the Son of God by the Spirit of God as they typify the kingdom of heaven in the world. Chief among these marks is expositional preaching, which, Dever insists, is “not only the first mark” but is “far and away the most important of them all.”1
Throughout the opening chapter, Dever exhorts the reader to see and affirm the centrality of God’s Word in the heart and life of God’s people, that is, the church. Insofar as the Word is the central and essential stimulus for the creation and the gathering of the people of God, it ought to remain situated in a place of primacy for all that God’s people are and do. Utilizing texts from both the Old and New Testaments, Dever conveys the preeminence of the Word of God throughout the epochs of history and providence. From the beginning of creation (Gen. 1) to the dawn of a covenanted people (Gen. 12) to the magnificent vision of dry bones being raised back to life (Ezek. 37), God has always been at work in the world through his Word. “God,” Dever asserts, “has chosen to use his Word to bring life.”2
Consequently, as Dever maintains, given the distinctive superiority of the Word, those who are united to Christ are those who continue to trust in and submit themselves to its authority. “A healthy church,” Dever says, “is a church that hears the Word of God and continues to hear the Word of God.”3 The lifeblood of the community of faith, that is, the church, is the revealed will of God, which is distinctly and uniquely conveyed through Scripture. Rather than resort to the latest gimmicks or philosophies that find mainstream acclaim, those appointed to shepherd the people of God do so by unfolding God’s words for them. “The great task of the preacher,” Dever insists, “is to ‘hold out the word of life’ to people who need it for their souls.”4
This is the great undertaking of expositional preaching, which, to be sure, is no holdover from a bygone ecclesiastical age but is and remains the quintessential means by which God’s people are remade and renewed by God’s grace, truth, and life. From the heralded reforms of King Josiah (2 Chron. 34) to the revival under Ezra (Neh. 8) to the ecclesiological advancement realized through the apostle Paul (Phil. 1:12–14), it was the Word that deserved all the credit, in particular, the preached Word. Just as Ezra “gave the sense” as he preached to the people (Neh. 8:8), so, too, did Paul insist that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). It was this very Word that Paul’s protégé Timothy was to preach uncompromisingly (2 Tim. 4:2).
Accordingly, the Word of God is no mere prop or ingredient that is added to a church’s more critical programs. Neither is it a relic that only a certain learned few are qualified to handle. Rather, God’s Word is that which undergirds everything that a church is and does. After all, the Word by which all things came into being (Heb. 1:2–3) and which became incarnate in the person of Jesus (John 1:14) is the same “living and active” Word (Heb. 4:12) that continues to speak to dead sinners, creating life in them and giving them righteousness where there was none before. This is what occurs whenever the Word of God is preached in the Spirit by faith. The Word that raised dry bones still raises hearts of stone. The Word that called Lazarus out of the tomb still calls sinners from the grave.
Preachers, therefore, are in a position of far greater significance than mere verbal navigators. They are not spiritual impresarios, nor are they mere curators of moralistic advice. Rather, preachers are heralds. Just as Peter stood and “lifted up his voice” to address the masses on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14), so do preachers stand to bring to bear God’s words for God’s people. Accordingly, far from a mere lecture or exegetical gloss on Scripture, the faithful preacher’s sermon actively deploys the words that kill and make alive (2 Cor. 3:6). “The sermon,” writes Carl R. Trueman, “may be made up of words, but what takes place is far more than the mere transmission of information; the Holy Spirit uses those words to point to Christ, to create faith in Christ, and thus to unite individuals to Christ.”5
In the end, the task of the preacher is part and parcel of the church’s health and vitality. Nothing is more essential for the preacher to preach or the church to hear than the words of God faithfully exposited and delivered — words that raise the dead, absolve sin, transform hearts, and gesture to the foolish wisdom of the cross, which is the very power of God.
Grace and peace to you.
Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, 4th edition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 44.
Dever, 47.
Dever, 60.
Dever, 61.
Carl R. Trueman, Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2000), 84.