Book review
Turning Back the Darkness
Full description of book:
Richard D. Phillips, Turning Back the Darkness: The Biblical Pattern of Reformation (Crossway Books, Wheaton, Il. USA, 2002). ISBN 1-58134-398-1.
Rating:
Scholarship: 10/10
Information content: 10/10
Spiritual content: 10/10
Overall rating: 10/10
Review:
This excellent book by Richard Phillips shows from the Bible through the entire history of Israel and the Church the biblical principles of Reformation; depicting the ever repeating patterns of formation, deformation and reformation in the lives of God's covenant people. In this, Phillips has masterfully proven his case, and thus call us who love the cause of Christ to join in the continuing reformation of the Church — to be reformed and ever reforming (Reformata et semper reformanda). Deuteronomy has never been so exciting before, as Phillips shows also how the message of grace alone was hidden already within the pronouncements of blessings and curses in it, thus showing that even in the OT, salvation has never been by works at all but by grace alone. Phillips' books thus deserve a 10 in all categories as it is well written for the edification of the saints.
Quotable quotes
"I recently heard an older minister comment that he wasn't sure from his experience if it was true that the heavenly-minded are of less earthly value, but he has learned unfailing that those who are earthly-minded are never of any heavenly good at all."
"The first work of the church is always to teach about God and His great saving deeds. This must take precedence over every competing value, including the church's mandate to service and good deeds." (p. 49)
The example of Saul, admired by men but rejected by God (1 Sam. 13:14), exhorts us to measure our success in the church not in terms of numbers or money or political strength — the kinds of things the Sauls of the world provide — but in the knowledge of God, in our devotion to Him, and in our holiness before the world. (p. 51)
Of all the lessons Solomon provides, none is more relevant to our time than one of the great levers of deformation — namely, the use of the pragmatic yardstick. To get at this, let me make one simple observation: Solomon engaged in the most heinous forms of idolatry. "Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites .... Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem" (1 Kings 11:5-7). Yet nowhere do we read that God removed His blessing from Solomon and his kingdom. Quite the contrary! The great summary of Solomon's reign comes just before this record of his idolatry, but chronologically they overlap:
King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God has put into his mind. Each one of them brought his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year —1 KINGS 10:23-25
All this time Solomon was being blessed abundantly beyond all imagination. Yet if we take this to be a divine endorsement of his actions and attitudes, we are sadly mistaken. Nonetheless, this is the kind of argument used to justify any number of unbiblical methods of church growth and success today. We hear this justification for the grossest abuses, the most blatant disregard for biblical teaching: "God seems to be blessing it" Use of the pragmatic yardstick instead of the biblical yardstick — what we think is right in terms of means and ends rather than what God has said is right — is one of the great and enduring principles of deformation. (p. 58-59)
Whenever God's people forget that salvation is by grace from an all-powerful God who is willing and able to meet all our needs, to protect us from all our foes, the inevitable result is an alliance with the world that proves costly through betrayal of the Lord. What choice do we have, people will say, their eyes fixed not on God in His power but on the powers arrayed against us in the world? We face the same choice given to the king [King Ahaz cf Is. 7] at the crossroads: whether or not to receive and keep the pattern of worship and service laid down by God in the Bible, looking to Him and relying on His power and ever-faithful love.
God gives us a choice; indeed, it is always this choice that more than any other defines a given age. In our choice of the invisible God or the visible powers of the world, we reveal not merely our professed theology but also our practiced theology. If we believe truly in the God of the Bible, the one who is mighty to save, then that choice will bear out in what we do and in the weapons we yield. The apostle Paul, speaking to another generation in difficult straits, set forth in practical terms what it means to trust God: "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every though captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor. 10:3-5) (p. 88-89)
God sent Jeremiah to confront the religious institutionalism that stood in the way of true worship of the Lord. This truly is a stunning message, because it takes place at the temple that God Himself had established for true religion, the dwelling-pace where His shekinah glory had once shone and where He had commanded the priests to make offerings to Him.
What was wrong, then, with the people's chant, "The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD" [Jer. 7:4]? The problem was that the people were trusting simply in their great religious heritage, in the physical presence of the great temple, and because of this they gave no attention to turning their hearts to the Lord. The temple had been established to lead the people in worship of the Lord, not to be a substitute for God and for a living faith in Him ...
All this was revealed in the gross immorality of these would-be worshippers. The people were violating God's commandments with vigor, without a thought as to how it might affect their relationship with God, simply because they had the temple in their midst. ... The record of Jeremiah's era shows that it was not safe to do these detestable things — it is never safe for God's people to flout His laws — for God removed even a glorious institution like the temple when it was serving as a cover for godlessness, both in terms of truth and lifestyle.
This brings us a sober message to Christians in every era, but especially to our own age when so many are convinced of God's blessing regardless of our fidelity to His Word. How much of our religious confidence today is invested in institutions rather than in God — in this parachurch organization, in that college or seminary, in our denominations and even in our church buildings, good things that cease to be good when put in God's place. Yet none of our institutions compare to the spiritual glory of the temple of the Lord. God's people vigorously supported the alumni fund of the temple of the Lord. It was the temple they lauded, and on its very presence they trusted; but God was willing to tear the temple down when the people turned their hearts from Him to it. How much more willing is He, then, to take His Spirit from our midst and send our congregations and organizations into the spiritual exile that looms so near? (p. 99-100)
Shiloh looms before every faithless generation. Regardless of how impressive religious institutions are, when God abandons them they can be lost in a moment. Once our hearts have turned away from God, once we stop living in holy ways, once we seek not His approval through truth and godliness but rather seek the ABCs of worldly success, we stand in grave jeopardy of losing the things we have so fondly trusted in the place of God — our institutions and endowments and buildings and empires. When these are placed first, when success nudges aside what is faithful to God, then God may write Shiloh upon our churches and organizations, having delivered us over to the world we have loved. (p. 101)
Few of us are eager to proclaim ourselves prophets, and yet is the duty of Christians — and especially of ministers in the church — to serve in the office of prophets, voicing truth from God's Word to the church. Yet there is a great principle of deformation that always opposes this calling, a principle that is especially influential in our own day. This is the idea that it is more important to be winsome, more excellent to be pleasing in the sight of men, regardless of what you do or say, than it is to guard and proclaim the truth of God. Just as in Jeremiah's day, the pragmatists and the lovers of the new and the allies of the world hate and attack the prophetic voice because it unsettles the people. "Your words mark you as a traitor," they said to Jeremiah, and so they still say today.
If there is one certainty in the Evangelical Movement today, it is that those who confront error and compromise, those who deliver bad though biblical news, just like those reformers the prophets, will be cast aide, will be mocked and abused, will be denied access to major media, will be ridiculed and marginalized, just as the prophets of old were put to death with stones and cast into cisterns. Indeed, as Jesus Himself lamented, this treatment of prophets is veritably the spectator sport of deformation history. (p. 107-108)
true reformers today are motivated primarily by theology and doxology and only afterward by more practical concerns (p. 141-142)
Since these were Paul's objectives, his means were chosen appropriately. To glorify God he used the means given by God. To lead people to faith in the Christ of the Gospel, he made the Gospel itself his instrument. When people didn't like it — as often happened — he did not mold his message according to their consumer tastes. Instead, he warned them of the judgment awaiting those who reject God's Gospel (see Act 13:40) (p. 161)
When Paul says the false teachers are seeking to avoid persecution for the sake of the cross, he reminds us that it is the cross that makes people antagonistic toward Christianity. The cross tells the man on the street that he is not basically good, that his guilt demands a sacrifice that he himself cannot offer, that he needs a substitute, even the perfect Son of God. The cross tells proud people that they had better humble themselves, confess their total failure and profound guilt, and place all their hope in the blood of Jesus Christ. (p. 162)
The Gospel is relevant; it is always relevant, as long as there are sinners, as long as God sits upon a holy throne of judgment, as long as lawbreakers are under the condemnation and in the bondage of sin. The Gospel is relevant to the ultimate and greatest needs of every man and woman, needs that do not change with the generations or intellectual fashions. (p. 167)
Surely this tells us that we must disabuse ourselves of the possibility of neutrality when it comes to matters of truth. There are good reasons to avoid controversy; surely we should neither seek it nor love it. But we are called to realize that in a world such as ours, in a time like that in which we live, when truth is up for sale, there is no neutrality. There is fidelity to Christ, and there is friendship with the world. (p. 173)