Book Details
- Author: Frank Viola
- Publisher: David C. Cook (2009)
- Category: Church Life
Discerning Reader Editorial Review
Reviewed 04/30/2009 by Chad Vandervalk.
Recommended. Not as provocative as post-modern books go, but not without its serious flaws.
There has been a recent interest in trying to explain the overarching story of the Scriptures again. It seems that the verse-by-verse exposition that so many of us grew up with has caused us to lose sight of the whole and left us stranded in a world of short aphorisms and moral snippets.
This, however, causes a major problem in a post-modern society that thrives on story and narrative. I have found this movement extremely helpful in my pastoral ministry and was really looking forward to digging into Frank Viola’s new book From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God.
Viola structures the book in three parts, examining three different overarching themes from the Bible: the Bride of Christ, The House of God, and the Body of Christ/Family of God.
The first theme is the Bride of Christ. Viola makes a connection between the creation of Eve from the side of Adam in the garden on the eighth day, and the creation of the Church from the side of Christ when we "rose" on the eighth day. It was in this section that I took most issue with Viola. From a Reformed perspective the church was not started by Christ but redeemed. The Church began with Adam and Eve, because the Church is a group of people loved by God and loving him, saved by the blood of Jesus (the Bible portrays Jesus as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world, i.e. before Adam and Eve were created). Viola sometimes goes too far in describing Jesus as a lovesick fool drooling over his bride-to-be, and he seems to perceive the Western view of marriage as something done in the heat of romantic passion rather than something which comes out of deep commitment to each other. I did appreciate his exposition of the church as Christ’s bride, but since he assumed the church was "created" by Christ, he missed the aspect of lovingly restoring a bride who had been unfaithful (the image often given of the Israelites).
The second theme Viola explores is the House of God. In this section he does a wonderful job of tracing the theme of building a house for God all the way from Adam through Jacob, Moses, Solomon, and Jesus, to John and the book of Revelation. Here he shows how the temple and city in Jerusalem were foreshadows of Jesus and then the final kingdom.
The third theme is the Body of Christ and the Family of God. Viola lumps these two together because they seem to be used interchangeably throughout the New Testament. I appreciated his constant efforts in this section to remind us of the corporate nature of the Christian faith, how the church is not a building where individuals gather, but is a collection of people who follow Christ.
He describes the church as a “new species" in a corporate sense, which isn't quite accurate. We are not entirely new, something never seen before, but are redeemed and made holy, remade into the people we were before humans fell into sin. Viola also argues for a certain structure to worship gatherings which I am not sure is necessary. He argues for an “open” or “participatory” meeting where everyone (in an orderly manner of course) is free to express words of grace and challenge to the others assembled there. While I agree that many of our churches have become spectator focused, I am not sure that the scriptures advocate one certain structure.
Viola’s book is a rough and dirty over view of a few of the common themes of the Bible. He brings the whole story together in a way that makes it more readily accessible to a general audience. Two overall weaknesses in the book include too much of a contrast between the Old and New Testaments, and the continued emphasis on the church being "created" at the time of Christ. Christians being something entirely new is not quite accurate. Aside from those concerns this is a provocative read and something which will help increase our awareness of the unity of the scriptures.
