Heavenly - Mindedness (13)

 

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

“Ever since the goal set by the Covenant of Works came within his ken [perception, knowledge, understanding], man carries with him in all his converse with this world the sense of appurtenance [subordinate to, accessory of] to another. This is but to say that supernaturalism forms from the outset the basis of true religion in man. Man belongs to two spheres. And Scripture not only teaches that these two spheres are distinct, it also teaches what estimate of relative importance ought to be placed upon them. Heaven is the primordial, earth the secondary creation. In heaven are the supreme realities; what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things.

 

“Because the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive, heavenly-mindedness can never give rise to neglect of the duties pertaining to the present life. It is the ordinance and will of God, that not apart from, but on the basis of, and in contact with, the earthly sphere man shall work out his heavenly destiny. Still the lower may never supplant the higher in our affections.”  G. Vos.

 

Vos writes that “man carries with him in all his converse with this world the sense of appurtenance [subordinate to, accessory of] to another.” That is, humanity has a sense that there is something higher than what we see, taste, and feel with our bodily senses – there is a higher “sense” that comes into play in our lives. This world is subordinate to a higher world and in the interchange between this lower world and the higher world, the higher world takes priority – in fact, the present world only experiences its fulness, and rightly understands its nature and glory, as it places itself in service to the higher world.

 

Earth is called to serve heaven, and heaven desires to bring earth into completeness and perfection. There is a mutuality between heaven and earth, an ongoing conversation, and perhaps in one sense we have a dance of the bride and bridegroom. Earth is to reflect the glory of heaven, and indeed in passages such as Revelation chapters 21 – 22 we see the consummation of this relationship.

 

However, there is a “however” and that “however” is that much of humanity has had this “sense” that Vos writes of educated and programmed out of it. This brings to mind C.S. Lewis’s essay, The Abolition of Man, in which he writes of “men without chests” – that is, a humanity which is having its heart and soul ripped out of it – so that we have soulless men and women, boys and girls.

 

If memory serves me well, Francis Schaffer wrote of a house with an upstairs and a first floor, but in which the inhabitants only live on the first floor, never venturing upstairs. This is a good image of us living in the material world and never venturing to explore the world of the unseen, never exploring the meaning of life, never nurturing our souls, never walking through the portal that leads from earth to heaven.

 

When the material world is “just” the material world, we lose much of what creation can teach us (Romans 1:20) and we degrade, destroy, and consume the world around us.

 

Vos writes, “This is but to say that supernaturalism forms from the outset the basis of true religion in man.” Can we hear Jesus saying to the Woman at the Well (John 4:24), “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth”?

 

What does this mean for evangelism? How do we speak to a world whose sense of the “other,” the transcendent, the Divine, has been deadened, whose souls have been imprisoned? (Of course, this is primarily in the West and those places where Babylonian Western thinking has been exported – other cultures have their own challenges. We are living in Babylon, Rev. chapters 17 – 18, and don’t know it).

 

For evangelism I think it means that we speak of God’s purpose and destiny for humanity, that we speak of the image of God within mankind – even though that image has been defaced and marred. We must also speak of how God desires to restore His image in us through Jesus Christ. We pray that the Holy Spirit will awaken the latent knowledge within humanity that there is an upper floor, and that a beam of Light will penetrate the heart and soul, growing a desire to discover what is at the top of the stairs. In other words, we must offer hope in Jesus Christ.

 

This is akin to C.S. Lewis’s experience of being “surprised by joy.” A difference is, with many of us, is that any hope and sense of “joy” has been smothered by our materialistic and hedonistic society. We often find ourselves seeking to uncover a sense of “joy” in others, rather than (as Tolkien and Dyson did with Lewis) work with the pursuit of “joy” already active in others.

 

There is a danger in speaking about destiny, purpose, and nature that I want to address. Yes, we were created in the image of God. Yes, God has a purpose and destiny for everyone. Yes, God loves every individual. But unless this message is grounded and centered in Jesus Christ, unless this message is focused on Jesus Christ and not on the individual and not on humanity, then it becomes an idol and false hope. All preaching and teaching must be centered in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, for the Gospel is not about us living our “best lives now,” it is about us losing our lives for the sake of Christ and the Gospel…only in Christ do we find the image of God restored in us, only in Christ do we find our purpose and destiny…which in Christ entails, to one degree or another, rejection and suffering.

 

The stairs that lead from the first floor to the upper floor contain a deep awareness of our sins and sin – the things we’ve done and the people we are. It is only as we see ourselves outside of Christ that we can learn to see ourselves in Christ, and the more we learn to live in Christ, the greater degree of revulsion we’ll have when we see ourselves outside of Christ.

 

I am writing about this because there are messages and churches that tell people they are loved and special without calling them to crucified lives in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20). (To be sure, there are other caricatures of the Gospel in the professing church). These messages and churches are serving people placebos rather than eternal life in Jesus Christ, and I suppose this is like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s time saying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”

 

Well, I’ll need to circle back in the next post on the above quotation from Vos because there is a bit more I want to cover.