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.