Book Review: The World-Titling Gospel | Part 3

Dan Phillips is a pastor at heart. He preaches, teaches, and works with computer. He blogs at Biblical Christianity and Pyromaniacs. He's also written God's Wisdom in Proverbs (which is on my reading list). He also has one of the coolest sidebar logos I've ever seen at Biblical Christianity. 

 In part 1 of my review, we discussed Dan's assertion about the bad news--we're dead "like zombies" (67), bad, wicked, depraved and we need a Savior. In part 2 Dan talks about the good news:

A Man of infinite worth, offering a soul of infinite worth, to a God of infinite holiness, for rebels with infinite guilt--and bang! just like that, they are saved and reconciled and set apart to God by that one sacrifice. (131)

Now we'll look at parts 3 & 4 where Dan discusses two towering truths and cautious against some wrong views of the gospel and expounds on the work of the Spirit among other things.

Part 3 starts with the first towering truth--justification. He asks the question that spawned the reformation: "How can guilty sinners stand before the holy God without eternally disastrous  consequences?" (138). He goes on to argue convincingly that repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation.

If Jesus is not Lord, pick your worldview, if you still imagine you have freedom to do so. Of course, if you're just matter in motion, you don't actually have freedom...but you do have the illusion. So, go with that. Embrace the absurdity. Run around, little cockroach. I'll join you. Because if Jesus is not Lord, then He is irrelevant, except as an odd historical footnote (157).

It's so important that we do not separate "justifying faith" (167-168) from repentance. The young rich ruler believed Jesus and was following him but Jesus focused on his lack of repentance and sent him packing.

Dan follows up the discussion on justification, faith, & repentance with a discussion on the doctrine of regeneration. It truly dansical fashion:

Without regeneration, God would just be hosing off the pig and watching it head right back for the muck. With regeneration, the pig is no longer a pig. God does not merely make us clean, He makes us new (171)

Dan makes short order of the issue by strongly arguing that regeneration is a sovereign act of God by which God changes a man's nature enabling him to believe.

Part 4 starts off focusing on the necessary fruit of justification--sanctification. Sanctification is hard work because of our flesh but it's grounded in the gospel. "Justification is the necessary ground of sanctification while sanctification is the necessary confirming fruit of justification" (193). Dan follows up the discussion on sanctification by describing three faults views of sanctification:

1. Gutless Gracers -  the gutless gracers teach that grace doesn't necessitate change.
2. Crisis Upgraders - crisis upgraders teach you might be a "carnal" Christian until you reach a crisis point where you transform in a "spiritual" Christian.
3. Muzzy Mysticism - the muzzy mysticism teach "let go and let God." Better to not do (yield passively) then to work (obeying actively) in the flesh.

Dan then provides a condensed Biblical theology of the term flesh. Bottom line our flesh is our worst enemy. He then discusses the work of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 13 is the only chapter I found myself disagreeing with Dan. His interpretation of the Holy Spirit's work seems more prevalent in dispensational theology** [edited after his brief clarification; see his comments below]. Dan first says "[The Holy Spirit]  is not expressly said to have an ongoing work inside all believers at large, or a permanent ministry of indwelling" (261). I find statements like this from Reformed dispensationalist** confusing because Dan so strongly argues for the sovereign act of regeneration which ushers in saving faith and then again that the work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary for sanctification. If the OT believers didn't have the indwelling power of the Spirit how did they grow in faith and put to death their indwelling sin? Again Dan says "The Spirit has not been put on all the people--and not even all believing Israelites...."[G]arden variety" saints were not objects of [the Spirit's] regular working" (262).

Dan goes on to say:

[W]hen the Spirit came in Acts 2, ushering in the promised age of the Spirit under the New Covenant. Now, as promised, all believers without exception are baptized with the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), indwelt by the Spirit (John 14:!7; Rom. 8:9), and sealed with the Spirit (Eph. 4:30).

Remember, these are not the marks of a subset of Christians.

They are definitional of being a Christian. Before you find me a Christian who has not been baptized with, indwelt by, and sealed with the Holy Spirit, you're going to have have to find me a lake full of water that isn't wet.

If it isn't wet, it simply ain't water.

And if one hasn't been baptized by the Spirit, he's simply not a Christian (264-265)

I heartily amen these words but then I'm perplexed because he said the Holy Spirit didn't indwell the OT believers. So are they not Christians? I'd be interested to hear Dan expound this more. My waning intellect may have missed something or misinterpreted his meaning. I won't argue positively for my position here but you can read this, this, & this which gives you an idea where I land the work on the Holy Spirit in the OT. His subsequent exposition on the Holy Spirit's work from relevant NT passages was spot on. He wraps up TWTG with nine very important truths. I won't spoil the fun but I will give you this cutting insight:

[T]he degree of energy and ingenuity professed Christians put into getting around some of the plainest and most potent trust of Scripture. Here I have particularly in mind the Gospel and its implications. We fudge on the holiness of God, the inexcusable heinousness of sin, and the raging fire of God's wrath against sin. As a consequence, we are unprepared for the slack-jawed astonishment of God's rescue plan in Christ, haven't a clue about the centrality of the cross, and this haven't the categories to process the real sheer grace with which God applies His salvation to lost sinners (296)

In conclusion, you should read TWTG. Not because the book in itself has any value but because it so succintly focuses on the gospel and it will deepen your understanding of the thing Paul said was "of first importance" (1 Cor. 15:3). Soak in the truth of the gospel. Marvel that in your condition God acted on your behalf in regenerating, justifying, and granting you the gift of faith. Tremble at the holiness of God and what was sacrificed to appease God's infinite wrath. Plus the guys got a sword, you don't mess with a guy who has a sword.
 
**I attended dispensational churches throughout my formative years and also attended a school who's hermeneutical presuppositions were dispensational. This observation is merely from my own experience and the idea of the Holy Spirit not working the same in the OT seems to be more prevalent in dispensational theology than say in Reformed covenant theology.