Augustine and First John (1)

 

 

Life is short, and Augustine’s writings are so massive! Well, we do what we can with Augustine and the Fathers. I note that a man just found a nine-carat diamond in Arkansas (at first he thought it was just a piece of glass), you’ll never know what you’ll find unless you make searching a way of life.

 

In his first homily on First John, Augustine writes, “And the life was manifested, and we have seen and are witnesses…” (1 John 1:2). Picking things up into the homily:

 

“Where have they seen? They’ve seen in the manifestation. What does “manifestation” mean? It means in the sun, that is, in the light of day. How should He be seen in the sun who made the sun, except as ‘in the sun He has set His tabernacle; and Himself as a bridegroom going forth out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run his course’ [Psalm 19:1 – 6]?

 

“He is before the sun, who made the sun, He is before the daystar, before all the stars, before all angles, the true Creator, (for all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made [John 1:1 – 3] ) that He might be seen by eyes of flesh which see the sun, set His very tabernacle in the sun, that is, showed His flesh in manifestation of this light of day…”

 

Augustine not only points us to the Incarnation, the obvious context of 1 John 1:1 – 4, but he takes us back to Christ as Creator, and to Psalm 19 with its complementary witnesses of the Creator and the Creator’s Word, and to John’s Gospel which also portrays the Word and the Word’s creation. In other words, the Incarnation occurs within the world which the Word created. The Son is seen in the light of the sun which the Son created. Or, the Son created the light within which His greater light might be manifested (compare Acts 22:6; Psalm 36:9). Augustine sees the Son in the sun of Psalm 19 (see also Malachi 4:2). When Augustine reads the Bible, he sees Jesus Christ everywhere.

 

            However, Augustine isn’t finished, he isn’t satisfied with his exploration, and so he continues:

 

            “…and that Bridegroom’s chamber was the Virgin’s womb, because in that virginal womb were joined the two, the Bridegroom and the bride, the Bridegroom the Word, and the bride the flesh; because it is written, ‘And the two shall be one flesh’ [Genesis 2:24]; and the Lord said in the Gospel, ‘Therefore they are no longer two but one flesh’ [Matthew 19:6].

 

            But he still isn’t finished, “And Isaiah remembers quite well that they are two: for speaking in the person of Christ he says, ‘He [Yahweh] has set a miter upon me as upon a bridegroom, and adorned me with an ornament as a bride” [Isaiah 61:10].

 

            “One seems to speak, yet makes Himself at once Bridegroom and Bride; because ‘not two, but one flesh:’ because ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us.’ To that flesh the Church is joined, and so there is made the whole Christ, Head and body.”

 

            I will add that all of this echoes Ephesians 5:22 – 33, where we see that the “one flesh” of marriage speaks to us of Christ the Bridegroom and His Bride, the Church.

 

            In a few sentences Augustine weaves a tapestry of Psalm 19, John 1, Genesis 2, Matthew 19, and Isaiah 61 – with 1 John 1 as his portal. Not only that, but the patterns that he weaves portray facets of the Incarnation that reflect the glory of God in the Son, the glory of the Son in the Church, the glory of the Bridegroom in the Bride. This movement, this dance, in Christ and the Scriptures is typical of the preaching and writing of the Church Fathers. They lived in the mansion of the Bible and their people were called to live in that same mansion – this enabled them to preach and teach in an expansive fashion that leaves the North American church in the dust. We find much the same expansive experience in subsequent Christian history, but this Niagara seems to have dried up in our own day.

 

What does Augustine mean when he says, “One seems to speak, yet makes Himself at once Bridegroom and Bride; because ‘not two, but one flesh:’ because ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us.’ To that flesh the Church is joined, and so there is made the whole Christ, Head and body.”?

 

Consider Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, thought they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.”

 

When Augustine writes, “One seems to speak, yet makes Himself at once Bridegroom and Bride” he is asking, “Is this Christ, the Head of the Body speaking? Is this the Church, His Body speaking? Or, is this the unified Voice of the Body of Christ speaking – as both the Bridegroom and the Bride?” Perhaps you have not pondered this before, but as Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:12 – “so also is Christ”. The Head and His Body are joined together in an organic union (see also Ephesians 4:14 – 16; Colossians 2:18 – 19). The Bride is bone of the Bridegroom’s bone, flesh of the Bridegroom’s flesh.

 

This is one of the ways that Augustine lives in the Scriptures. In his exposition on the Psalms, he takes his hearers and readers along with him as he works through various passages with the three questions noted above – all of which are asking, “Who is speaking? Whose voice do we hear?” There are times when Augustine concludes, “Well, it could be one, it could be the other, or it could be the third.” In essence Augustine says, “They all three reveal Christ, enjoy them!”

 

            This raises a question that we seldom consider, but which is at the forefront of Augustine’s Biblical thinking, “What is the nature of the relationship of the Bridegroom and the Bride? What is the nature of the relationship of Christ and the Church? What is the nature of the Body of Christ?”

 

            The nature of life, of the Trinity, of Jesus, of the Church, was at the center of Biblical thinking in the time surrounding Augustine. The question of the nature of life is one that ancient philosophers pondered again and again. The fancy word for this is “ontology” – what is the nature of God, of the universe, and of all that is in it? If we don’t understand the nature of a thing, including ourselves, how can we understand the purpose of a thing? How can we understand the unfolding purpose of a thing? How can we understand its intended trajectory?

 

            When Paul wrote that in Christ we are new creations, that old things have passed away and all things have become new (2 Cor. 5:17), this was, among other things, an ontological statement that actually meant something in the ancient world! We fail to grasp the Bible’s ontological truths because, at least in part, we are conditioned to live by our natural minds and natural eyes, rather than by faith (2 Cor. 4:16 – 5:10).

 

            When Jesus makes statements concerning his disciples such as “they have kept your [the Father’s] word” (John 17:6) just before the disciples abandon Him, Jesus is seeing something that we would not naturally see; He is seeing the ontological reality of those men in Him, He is seeing His Divine Nature in them. This is why, in a manner of speaking, Jesus can use the language of Trinitarian intimacy in the Upper Room (John chapters 13 – 17); as Peter says, we are partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4).

 

            Augustine sees this, he believes it, and he rejoices in this Divine mystery. The Incarnation that was manifested in Bethlehem, should be continually manifested in us, it should be ongoing – for this is the Divine Nature of the Bridegroom and Bride, the Head and the Body, Christ and His Church.

Heavenly - Mindedness (8)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

 

“As to its negative side, the feeling of strangeness on earth, even in Canaan, the writer could base his representation on the statement of Abraham to the sons of Heth: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you,” and on the words of the aged Jacob to Pharaoh: “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years : few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

 

“As to the positive side, the desire for a heavenly state, there is no such explicit testimony in the narrative of Genesis. None the less the author was fully justified in affirming this also. It is contained by implication in the other. The refusal to build an abiding habitation in a certain place must be due to the recognition that one’s true, permanent abode is elsewhere. The not-feeling-at-home in one country has for its inevitable counterpart homesickness for another. The writer plainly ascribes this to the patriarchs, and in doing so also ascribes to them a degree of acquaintance with the idea of a heavenly life. His meaning is not that, unknown to themselves, they symbolized through their mode of living the principle of destination for heaven. On the contrary, we are expressly told that they confessed, that they made it manifest, that they looked for, that they desired. There existed with them an intelligent and outspoken apprehension of the celestial world.

 

Vos point that while “there is no such explicit testimony in the narrative in Genesis. None the less the author was fully justified in affirming this also,” is something that, the Lord willing, we’ll reflect on in the next meditation.

 

Vos writes of the Patriarchs having a “feeling of strangeness on earth” and that a “not-feeling-at-home in one country has for its inevitable counterpart homesickness for another.” Vos is writing of feelings; a feeling of strangeness, a feeling of not being at home, a feeling of homesickness. How we “think” is important, how we “feel” is also important. Yes, we can have unreliable feelings, but we can also have unreliable thoughts. I suppose I’ve known just as many folks who are prisoners of questionable thoughts as I have known who are prisoners of questionable feelings. Can we really separate the two?

 

The Church Fathers, believing that we are made in the image of God, did not think that we can fully understand our own inner persons, our own inner workings (if you will), anymore than we can understand the Trinity. Yes, we can obtain glimpses, we can touch and experience dynamics, but we can’t really and truly comprehensively understand the mysterious goings – on within us. This is one of many reasons we are called to surrender to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, so that the Divine work of transformation into the image of Christ may be accomplished in us (Hebrews 4:12 – 13; Romans 8:26 – 30; 1 Corinthians Chapter 2).

 

This acknowledgment of the mystery of being made in the image of God ought to caution us against adopting a static approach to the inner – person; we simply cannot produce a schematic of who we are internally anymore than we can produce a schematic of the Trinity. We are not machines, we are living beings created in the image of God, and there is more to life than a “garbage in, garbage out” mechanistic view of humans. I’ll leave you to consider the implications of this in the areas of counseling and pastoral care.

 

The Psalmist writes, “I am a stranger in the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me” (Psalm 119:19). Peter appeals to his readers as “aliens and strangers” (1 Peter 2:11).

 

Have you ever visited a culture different than your own? There are cultures within the U.S.A. that are different. We’ve lived in New England and we’ve lived in Virginia – those are two different cultures. Northern Virginia has a different culture than Central Virginia. Eastern Massachusetts has a different culture than Western Massachusetts. When I lived in Baltimore, Little Italy had a different culture than the Polish section of town. Cultural changes can be, of course, more pronounced when one travels abroad, especially when not understanding the language. Coming home is often associated with coming back to a place of comfort, of familiarity. When we take a road trip outside Virginia, it is always nice to cross the state line back into Virginia. When we travel outside our country, it is always nice to go through customs when we return – to be back home.

 

But now for a question, “Are we, followers of Jesus Christ, comfortable in the world in which we live? Are we comfortable in our culture? Are we comfortable in our nation?”

 

If the answer is “Yes”, then how can this be? Have we become so enculturated that we have lost the sense of our identity, that we are no longer strangers and pilgrims on earth, that we are no longer living the “tent – life”?

 

It has been observed that the Church has its most effective witness when it is countercultural. When we are “not of the world” (John 17:16) we can better be a blessing to the world. I frankly think that the idea that we can be “so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good” is an insidious lie that causes us to be embarrassed at the notion that we (like Jesus!) are not of the world, that we are strangers and pilgrims, citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20).

 

To accommodate ourselves to the world is to avoid and negate the Cross of Christ. Any way of life, any “Christian” movement or teaching, that is not centered on Jesus Christ and His Cross, that is not cruciform in its pattern and fashion, is simply not Biblical. “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

 

Where there is no Christ of the Cross, and Cross of Christ, there is no Biblically – Christian message. That is, where Christ and His Cross is not our way of life, there is no Christian way of life.

 

Well, I wanted to touch on the “desire” of the Patriarchs that Vos speaks of above, but this is a blog and I’ve written enough. Perhaps next time.

 

The New Eve

 "Above all, the Church is the power of resurrection, the sacrament of the Risen One who imparts his resurrection to us; the new Eve, born from Christ’s open side as Eve was born from Adam’s rib."  Olivier Clement

Heavenly - Mindedness (7)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

 

“The other-worldliness of the patriarchs showed itself in this, that they confessed to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth. It found its visible expression in their dwelling in tents. Not strangers and pilgrims outside of Canaan, but strangers and pilgrims in the earth. The writer places all the emphasis on this, that they pursued their tent-life in the very land of promise, which was their own, as in a land not their own. Only in this way is a clear connection between the staying in tents and the looking forward to heaven obtained. For otherwise the tents might have signified merely that they considered themselves not at home when away from the holy land.

 

“If even in Canaan they carried within themselves the consciousness of pilgrimage then it becomes strikingly evident that it was a question of fundamental, comprehensive choice between earth and heaven. The adherence to the tent-life in the sight and amidst the scenes of the promised land fixes the aspiration of the patriarchs as aiming at the highest conceivable heavenly goal. It has in it somewhat of the scorn of the relative and of compromise. He who knows that for him a palace is in building does not dally with desires for improvement on a lower scale. Contentment with the lowest becomes in such a case profession of the highest, a badge of spiritual aristocracy with its proud insistence upon the ideal. Only the predestined inhabitants of the eternal city know how to conduct themselves in a simple tent as kings and princes of God.

 

When I sit down to reflect and write on Heavenly – Mindedness, I often anticipate covering a few paragraphs, but it can’t be done; it’s too rich, too deep, too fascinating, and simply too beautiful to not linger, and ponder, and allow Vos’s heavenly message to envelope me.

 

In the above passage, Vos turns our attention to his sermon text, Hebrews 11:9 – 10. “By faith he [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

 

As I wrestle with Hebrews Chapter 11, and with Vos’s message, it strikes me that we’ve turned Christianity, at least in the West, into a religion designed to enable our living the “good life” right here, right now; with the idea of heaven, of being with Christ, a retirement plan that we don’t think much about. Christianity is here to give us vocational success, marital bliss, material prosperity, bigger and more entertaining churches, the right houses, the right cars, the best vacations. We are not here to serve Christ, Christ is here to serve us. No wonder Christians in the West have little conflict with the world, for we are consumers of the world – the world feeds us and we are what we eat.

 

Would people who are aliens and strangers really invest their lives in the things we invest them in? Would they really have the priorities that we have? I write this piece in the midst of a presidential election in the USA, and I have friends and acquaintances who speak and act as if the universe hangs on who wins the election – every election seems to be “the most critical election this nation has ever faced.” Can this really be the priority of those who profess to follow the One who says, “My Kingdom is not of this world”?

 

Vos introduces a wonderful term to me, “tent – life.” Strangers and pilgrims live their lives in tents. Paul writes of his own tent – life in 2 Cor. 5:1 – 10, quoting in part, “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this [tent] we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked…Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge [down payment]…”

 

Vos says that those who live the tent – life have made a “fundamental, comprehensive choice between earth and heaven”. This is the call to discipleship (Mark 8:34 – 38); this is selling all to purchase the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45); this is putting our hand to the plow and not looking back (Luke 9:62). I have not always lived this Way. Am I living this Way today? What about you? Jesus lived this way for us, are we living this Way for Him?

 

May I confess the most frightening way I have not lived this Way? In ministry, in church, in seminary. How often has my focus not been on the Cross but rather on the praise of man? How often have I thought that I, and my congregations, needed to measure up to not only the world’s expectations, but the religious world’s expectations? How often have I constructed a sermon that was fine – tuned in delivery and exegesis, but not communicated with a heart fine – tuned with the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ? Well, only God knows these things, I don’t know myself; but I know enough of myself in the Spirit and Word to confess and surrender these things to God.

 

Vos challenges us with the thought that when we have made this “fundamental, comprehensive choice between earth and heaven” that we will “scorn compromise.” Well, as John writes (1 John 2:15), “If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him.” Then we have James (James 4:4), “Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” This attitude of no compromise is not likely to win friends an influence people in the manner of public relations, but it just may lead others to know Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus wants to know where we are going to invest ourselves, on earth or in heaven (Matthew 6:19 – 21)?

 

Vos preaches, “Contentment with the lowest becomes in such a case profession of the highest..” Paul writes that he and his companions are “as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:10). Solomon writes, “There is one who pretends to be rich, but has nothing; another impoverishes himself, but has great wealth” (Pro. 13:7). We see our Lord Jesus, who “though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). This is the same Jesus who “emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a slave” (Phil. 2:7).

 

No wonder Vos says that those who follow this Way of life “know how to conduct themselves in a simple tent as kings and princes of God.” Dear friends, we are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). We are not the sinners we once were, we are now, in Christ, the saints of God. Shall we live as who we are in Christ? Shall we embrace our heavenly Lord Jesus and our heavenly calling?

 

O Lord Jesus, teach us to live the tent – life!

Heavenly Mindedness (6)

 

Reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

 

 

“In our text, however, we meet faith in its more simple and direct mode of operation. It appears as dealing with the unseen and future. From the life of the patriarchs the more militant, strenuous features are absent. In their lives it is allowed as in a region of seclusion and quietness to unfold before our eyes its simple beauty. Faith is here but another name for other-worldliness or heavenly-mindedness. Herein lies the reason why the writer dwells with such evident delight upon this particular part of the Old Testament narrative.

 

“The other figures he merely sketches, and with a rapid skillful stroke of the brush puts in the highlights of their lives where the glory of faith illumined them. But the figure of Abraham he paints with the lingering, caressing hand of love, so that something of the serenity and peacefulness of the original patriarchal story is reproduced in the picture: “By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, for he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” The charm spread over this part of the subject to the author’s vision also appears in this, that, after having already dismissed it and passed on to the portrayal of Abraham’s faith in another form, as connected with the seed of the promise, he involuntarily returns to cast one more loving glance at it: “They died in faith, not having received the promises, but seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. And if indeed they had been mindful of the country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared them a city.”  G. Vos.

 

There are 39 verses in Hebrews Chapter 11. The author of Hebrews picks the story of Abraham up in verse 8 and doesn’t move on with Isaac until verse 20. However, as Vos notes, there is a short interlude in verses 13 – 16 in which the author looks back at what he has surveyed, from Abel through Abraham, “These all died in faith…” Then “he involuntarily returns to cast one more loving glance” at Abraham’s faith.

 

Vos also wants us to see that in the lives of the Patriarchs faith has a, “more simple and direct mode of operation. It appears as dealing with the unseen and future. From the life of the patriarchs the more militant, strenuous features are absent.”

 

The lives of the Patriarchs take us through verse 22, concluding with Joseph. Then we have Moses in verses 23 – 29; and from 30 – 39 we have a crescendo of action, what Vos terms, “the more militant, strenuous features” of faith. Moses is a transition from the contemplative, simple, and direct faith of the Patriarchs to the militant faith that characterizes the chapter’s conclusion. In Moses we see both “simple and direct faith” and “militant and strenuous faith.” In verse 27 we note that Moses “endured, as seeing Him who is invisible;” this echoes the Patriarchs. In verses 28 – 29 we see Moses keeping the Passover and leading God’s people through the Red Sea; this anticipates the crescendo of militant and strenuous faith.

 

Vos says that the faith of the Patriarchs deals “with the unseen and future”. Faith as “heavenly mindedness,” as a framework of life, a way of life, is the thrust of Vos’s message – living supernaturally in communion with the True and Living God, in Jesus Christ. This is the way we are called to think, to feel, to see, to touch, to breathe, to make decisions – we learn to see the unseen and to live in that reality.

 

What is the “future” of which Vos speaks? While our inclination is toward future “events” in the nature of newspaper headlines, the primary sense that Vos is thinking of is the Patriarch’s desire “for a better country, a heavenly one, the city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (verses 10 and 16). We’ll explore this primary sense in the next post.

 

However, the primary sense not only does not exclude the sense of future events as the unfolding of specific events in history, it lays its foundation. “By faith Noah, being warned  [by God] about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the saving of his household…” (11:7). The Flood was a specific event, Noah saw it coming in some fashion, he sensed it, because he was heavenly – minded.

 

But here’s the thing we usually miss; our propensity is to ignore the simple faith of the Patriarchs, the cultivation of heavenly – minded faith, and move directly to faith that is militant and strenuous and faith that sees and anticipates future events. This is akin to a new hire at a company, who is just out of school, insisting that he be promoted to president of the company after a week’s experience. What we would shake our heads at within a company, we often embrace in the Kingdom.

 

Why is it that many people who preach and write about “prophecy” are constantly churning out books and videos, constantly updating (though they might deny they are “updating”) their teaching? One reason is that they’ve promoted themselves to be president of the company. They are chasing events and adjusting their teaching when they ought to be modeling a stable and grounded faith, a heavenly – mindedness in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

I think the structure of Hebrews 11 demonstrates that the simple faith of the Patriarchs is the foundation of the militant and strenuous faith that propels us in verses 30 – 39. We often miss this because we are attracted to action, we want things to happen. Lasting things do not happen, as a rule, without a solid foundation. Certainly, a life of eternal significance is not lived apart from a firm and deep foundation in Jesus Christ, it is not lived apart from a heavenly – minded life in Him.

 

The prominence of Abraham in Hebrews 11 is in harmony with Abraham’s role as our father of faith (Romans 4:16; Galatians 3:29, 4:28). In Romans Chapter 4 we see that Abraham’s simple and heavenly – minded faith resulted in his faith perceiving and believing that the future event of Isaac’s birth would indeed happen. In Hebrews 11:19 we see that Abraham’s simple faith caused him to believe in a potential future event, the raising of Isaac from the dead. He saw the potential event as clearly as he saw the actual future event. (Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in Daniel 3:17 – 18. They saw two potential outcomes of their trial by fire – it appears that they were good with either one, for they were heavenly – minded.)

 

I want to conclude this post by looking at the above words from Vos, “The charm spread over this part of the subject to the author’s vision also appears in this, that, after having already dismissed it and passed on to the portrayal of Abraham’s faith in another form, as connected with the seed of the promise, he involuntarily returns to cast one more loving glance at it…”

 

Now I don’t know that the writer of Hebrews had “already dismissed” the portrayal of Abraham’s simple faith; the author of Hebrews may very well have simply been going with the flow, as I suspect Vos was doing. And I don’t know if the author “involuntarily” returned to cast another glance at Abraham’s simple faith. But I don’t have any problem at all with Vos’s suggestion that it had been dismissed and that the author involuntarily returned to it, because Vos is a man possessed by the Word of Hebrews 11 and he is also a man possessing Hebrews 11. In other words, Hebrews 11 has made its home in Vos and Vos is making his home in Hebrews 11. This is the incarnation of the Word of God – and this is the way life in Christ ought to be with us.

 

You cannot write something like “The charm spread over this part of the subject to the author’s vision” unless you are living within the Word, and unless the text has become the Word, living and breathing and enveloping your very soul – and unless you are communing with the saints.

 

When the Word is living and incarnational we have a liberty to communicate the Word as Vos is doing; a joy, a freedom, which passes our understanding and leaves us at a loss for words.

 

How is it that Christians can be in church all their lives and never be possessed by the Bible, or by even one book of the Bible? How is it that so many do not experience the incarnation of the Living Word? How is it that we do not possess the Bible to the point where we can say with Paul, “My Gospel (Romans 2:16; 16:25), my Romans, my Psalms, my Hebrews”?

 

We can teach exegesis all we want, producing pedantic teachers and preachers. We can teach how to preach, using three points or a big idea or image or other approaches. But if we cannot model the communion of the saints, if we cannot lead others into the incarnation of the Word, if we cannot lead our brothers and sisters in possessing the land of the Word of God (Joshua 1:1 – 9) we shall remain wrapped in grave clothes. Can we not demonstrate joy in the incarnational Word? Can we not romp and jump and rejoice and sing in the Word? Can we not walk with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others in and through the Word? Can we not see and feel charm where there is charm, agony where there is agony – and above all, see Christ everywhere and in everything?

 

Heavenly Mindedness (5)

 

Reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

 

This is the goodly company of patriarchs and prophets and saints, who endured the reproach of Christ, of whom the world was not worthy, who form the line of succession through which the promises passed, who now compose the cloud of witnesses that encompass our mortal strife, men of whom God is not ashamed to be called their God, with whom the Savior Himself is associated as the leader and finisher of the same faith. G. Vos

 

 Vos speaks of “the cloud of witnesses that encompass our mortal strife”. What does he mean? Of course this is a reference to Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us…” This is one of those mysteries that we can experience but cannot, I think, articulate very well because it is beyond natural experience. It is in keeping with Hebrews 12:22 -24, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…”

 

We “have” a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us; we “have come” to Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem”. While there is undoubtably a more complete experience of these things yet to come, the Scripture is clear that this is also to be our present experience.

 

If we read Hebrews, and indeed the Bible, as primarily history, we will miss the invitation of salvation and of communion with God and the saints. If we fail to know what we call the Old Testament, we will fail to enjoy the company of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in our present pilgrimage. Why speak and sing of the “communion of saints” if we do not desire to experience this transcendent communion?

 

In Vos’s message, The Wonderful Tree, based on Hosea 14:8, he says concerning the union of God and man, “There is an inner sanctuary of communion, where all else disappears from sight, and the believer shut in with God gazes upon His loveliness…” Vos later speaks of a “sweet privacy and inwardness which forms the most precious possession of every pious soul.”

 

Later in The Wonderful Tree, Vos says, “And finally my hearers, from this falls some light upon the mystery that a finite creature can receive and possess the infinite God…when we try to resolve the figure into the thing itself, the reality grows so great and deep that it transcends our minds, and we must resign ourselves to an experience without understanding.”

 

Vos makes the point in The Wonderful Tree that, “There is even such as thing as worshipping one’s religion instead of one’s God.”

 

Now I want to carefully, I hope, tread on some ground on which I may be misunderstood.

 

Is it possible that we are worshipping our religion instead of our Lord Jesus Christ? Is it possible that we are more concerned with identifying with Paul, Apollos, or Cephas rather than with Jesus Christ (in the sense of 1 Cor. 1:12)? Do we realize the constraints, some subtle and some not, inherent in our adoption of religious and cultural paradigms that move beyond the Nicene Creed (that is, the Basic and Mere Christianity of our faith)?

 

I am not suggesting that we should not have distinctive expressions and understandings of our faith, but I am suggesting that if we are not aware of our propensity to allow these expressions and understandings to limit our Scriptural experience with the Trinity and communion with the saints – both the saints here and those who have gone before us – that we run the danger of closing ourselves off from growth in Christ and with one another.

 

I suppose we require some examples. In my pastoring, pulpit supply, and interim pastoring experience; as well as in my general experience with Christians, I have consistently found that church members often think of themselves as Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Assembly of God, and the like before they think of themselves as members of the Body of Christ – if they think of the Body of Christ at all. Not only that, but they often think of themselves as members of a group within a group – for instance, a sister in Christ recently told me not that she was just a Presbyterian, but that she was PCA.

 

If we allow this type of thinking to define us, which it usually does, then our perspectives on the Kingdom are necessarily limited and the possibilities of communing with saints on earth who have different flavors are lessened. If we cannot commune with the saints on earth, how can we possibility know communion with the saints who have gone before us? How can we possibly sense the great cloud of witnesses?

 

To take this another step; when we cut ourselves off from the historical life-flow of the Church of Jesus Christ, from the Apostolic and Church Fathers, and from those who lived for Christ and in Christ between then and today, we once again limit our openness to the communion of the saints for we (speaking to Protestants)  act as if the Church began during the Reformation, or during one of the times of renewal since the Reformation. Among other things, we fail to recognize that the Reformers were rooted in the Church Fathers as well as the Bible. While many of us may not hold to Apostolic Succession in terms of individual prelates, we should all hold to Apostolic Succession in terms of both doctrine and the manner in which doctrine was fashioned and articulated. When we cut ourselves off from Apostolic Succession in this latter sense, we limit our consciousness of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us.

 

Then there are those who say, “I’m a New Testament Christian and I don’t need the Old Testament.” In addition to that being a heretical teaching worthy of Marcion, it once again cuts us off from the cloud of witnesses we see in Hebrews 12:1. Sadly, whether we say it or not, many of us live as if the Old Testament doesn’t matter – it isn’t likely that we can behold Jesus Christ in the New Testament if we don’t behold Him in the Old Testament – you might as well try to fly a plane with only one wing.

 

Let me return to a quote from Vos above, “And finally my hearers, from this falls some light upon the mystery that a finite creature can receive and possess the infinite God…when we try to resolve the figure into the thing itself, the reality grows so great and deep that it transcends our minds, and we must resign ourselves to an experience without understanding.”

 

While this may be troubling to the mind birthed from the Enlightenment, wedded to the natural man’s rationalization (see 1 Corinthians Chapter 2), what might we expect when we encounter the I AM THAT I AM? The man or woman who encounters the Holy One often has nothing to say, because there are places where words fail us. There are also encounters so sacred, so holy, that to speak of them is to profane them.

 

Of course, there are those who merchandise experiences and who make certain experiences the litmus test of fellowship and spirituality. This is childish at best, and heretical at worst. The Word of God in Christ is our standard, not our experience of that Word (in the sense in which I’m writing). Certainly, the Word is ever and always transformative, but its transformative work in me may not have the form that it has in you.

 

Above Vos speaks of an inner sanctuary of communion, do we respect this in one another, or do we insist, whether explicitly or implicitly, on conformity of experience? George MacDonald wrote of each one of us having a special place in God, and therefore a special and particular expression of our God – one that is for God’s glory and the blessing of others. Do we make it our goal to bring the best out of each other, which is who we are in Christ and who Christ is in us, or do we insist on caricaturing the communion of the saints into something created in our own image and our own tastes?

 

We are not called to journey on this pilgrimage alone. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, from whom we can gain strength and encouragement. Perhaps we cannot explain the fulness of this wonderful fellowship, perhaps we cannot explain any of it – but we are most assuredly called to experience it in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The next time you receive the Bread and Wine, consider that in partaking of Christ you are partaking of His Body and of that Great Cloud of Witnesses.