Deliverance from Darkness -- By: Richard D. Patterson

Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 08:1 (Spring 2004)
Article: Deliverance from Darkness
Author: Richard D. Patterson


Deliverance from Darkness

Richard D. Patterson

Richard D. Patterson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and has served as a translator for the New Living Translation and the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Dr. Patterson has written commentaries on Joel in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Zondervan, 1985) and on Habakkuk in the Evangelical Commentary on the Bible (Baker, 1989).

The Common Darkness

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Thus Snoopy would begin his novels. Physical darkness is a simple fact of our common experience, occurring not only with the coming of the evening but also often heralding the onset of a storm. Anyone who has visited a deep cave where the lights are turned off or has experienced a total eclipse of the sun can testify to the depth of the impenetrable blackness. Under such conditions flashlights or even automobile headlights prove to be of little use. Darkness can provide an occasion for lovers to meet or for one to encounter a robber. It is too often the time when things that would not be done in the light are carried out. The Apostle John observes that an unbelieving mankind “loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19–20).

As in the Scriptural citation, darkness and light often form opposites that are brought together. The motto of the Christopher Society reminds us that “it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.” In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (V, i, 90) Portia remarks, “How far that candle throws his beams. So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

The thought of darkness can evoke many responses. Little children, those with poor eyesight, or those who live in dangerous neighborhoods can fear the dark. The image of darkness occurs in many of our expressions. We speak of the Dark Ages as a period of cultural decline, intellectual stagnation, or ignorance. If we are “in the dark” about something, we are uninformed or unfamiliar with the details of a given matter or subject. We can speak of a “leap in the dark” as a venture into the unknown. The last words of the great political theorist Thomas Hobbes are reputed to have been, “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.” If we say that a given sentence or saying has a “dark meaning,” it can indicate something that is not easily understood or one that may have a hidden, possibly even sinister, agenda. If we “keep someone in the dark,” we hold back information from him. That which is unexpect...

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