Heavenly Mindedness (38)

 

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

 

“But the faith of heavenly-mindedness in yet another, even profounder, sense surmounts time. In contrast with what is transitory it lays hold of the unchanging and eternal. The text expresses this by describing the city looked for as the city which has the foundations. The difference between the well-founded enduring edifice and the frail, collapsible tent has induced this turn of the figure. Already in the prophet Isaiah Jehovah declares: “Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a precious cornerstone of sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” In this word the two ideas of sure foundation and faith are brought into close connection. Because the foundation is sure the believer can lay aside all disquietude and impatience in regard to the working out of the divine purpose.

 

“He need not make haste. It is of the essence of faith to crave assurance; hence it cannot come to rest until it have cast its anchor into the eternal. And heaven above all else partakes of the character of eternity. It is the realm of the unchangeable. In this lower world Time with its law of attrition is king. Nothing can escape his inexorable rule. What is must cease to be, what appears must vanish, what is built must be broken down, even though human heart should cherish it more than its own life.

 

“And this applies not merely to objects of natural affection; it involves also much that is of transitory purpose in the service and Church of God. Even our religion in its earthly exercise is not exempt from the tragical aspect borne by all existence in time. The summons comes again and again: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house,” and after a brief spell of comfort and delight we anew find ourselves in tents roaming through an inhospitable world. There is no help for these things. Like Abraham we must resolutely confess, that we are strangers and pilgrims in a land of time, and that the best this land can offer us is but a caravanserai to tarry in for a day and a night.

 

“Abraham would have undoubtedly rejoiced in the vision of the historical Jerusalem around which gather so many glories of God’s redemptive work. But, suppose it had risen up before him in all its beauty, would that have been the soul-satisfying vision his faith desired? No, there is neither quietness nor repose for the believer’s heart except on the bosom of eternity. There and there alone is shelter from the relentless pursuit of change.” G. Vos

 

As I’ve written before, a challenge in working through Vos’s message is that it is incredibly rich and dense. It does not lend itself to short quotations because it is tightly woven and the threads cannot be separated. It is difficult to know where to begin and end a section for consideration; if the quotation is too short the context and interconnectedness is lost; if the quotation is too long it is difficult to hold the images in tension and to focus on particular elements. A blog has its limitations, as does a Sunday morning sermon, and just with a Sunday sermon the wise hearer will ponder the Scripture passage during the ensuing week, so with a blog series like this one, the wise reader will meditate on Vos’s sermon, Heavenly – Mindedness, for an extended period – I frankly find Vos’s message overwhelming.

 

In the above quotation I have underlined the thoughts I want to focus on.

 

“Because the foundation is sure the believer can lay aside all disquietude and impatience in regard to the working out of the divine purpose.

 

“He need not make haste. It is of the essence of faith to crave assurance; hence it cannot come to rest until it have cast its anchor into the eternal.”

 

Vos presents us with Isaiah 28:16, “Therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be in a hurry.” This Stone is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4 – 8; Ephesians 2:19 – 22).

 

The context of Isaiah 28:16 is Yahweh’s judgment sweeping through the land, a judgment styled “an overwhelming scourge,” “overflowing waters,” and “decisive destruction.” In the midst of this comprehensive judgment is a Stone of refuge and those who believe in that Stone will not be anxious, they will not be disturbed, they will not be in a hurry.

 

Contrast this image of not being anxious, of not being disturbed, and of not being in a hurry, not only with today’s society, but with today’s professing church. Is the professing church today a place of peace or of anxiety? Are our congregations places of peace or do we exhibit the same tensions and fears and consumerism and drivenness that we see in the world? Are we drawing our life from the Eternal Vine (John 15) or from the present evil age? Are we building upon the one Sure Foundation (1 Cor. 3:10) or are we building on the shifting sands of the temporal?

 

We have just witnessed an election year in the United States in which much of the professing church aligned itself with the turmoil and anxiety of this present evil age and justified this alliance. Those who profess allegiance to Jesus Christ have been major purveyors of fear and anxiety and of violence – physical violence and moral and spiritual violence. This headlong plunge into the abyss of hatred and violence by professing Christians shows no signs of abating, in fact, as with the rest of society, it is accelerating – hatred feeds off hatred, violence feeds off violence, self-righteousness feeds off self-righteousness. Rather than casting our anchors into the eternal, we have cut loose our anchors from Jesus Christ and now sail with a pirate fleet whose admiral is Satan.

 

“The summons comes again and again: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house,”” There are two dimensions to this “going out,” one is with respect to the church in time and space, the other is with respect to the culture in which we live. We will consider the church in time and space in the next post; concerning the culture in which we live; from Yahweh speaking to Abram (Genesis 12:1), “Get out of your country and from your family and your father’s house, to the land which I will show you,” to Paul echoing Isaiah, “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you” (Isaiah 52:11; 2 Cor. 6:17), to an angel crying (Rev. 18:4), “Come out of her [Babylon] my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues”; God’s People are called to a perpetual coming out from this evil age so that we might be a holy People to the Holy God (1 Peter 1:13 – 16) and that we might not participate in the sins of the Babylonian system which permeates every generation. This rebellious and evil system has one supreme aim, to overthrow the moral, ethical, and spiritual government of the Messiah (Psalm 2) and to enslave the souls of mankind (Rev. 18:13).

 

The slavery of the souls of men becomes such that those who “dwell on the earth” are made to actually make “an image to the beast” (Rev. 13:14). In other words, the people of this world make an image to that very entity that destroys their souls, that robs them of the image of God within them – and they offer themselves and their children to this hideous idol and the powers of evil it represents.

 

Do we see this today? Can we see this? Can we identify it? We are enslaved to comfort. We are enslaved to pleasure. We are enslaved to sports and entertainment. We are enslaved to power and recognition and wealth. We are enslaved to politics and nationalism. In the United States, we have traded goodness, truth, and beauty – elements that reflect the image of God - for the American Dream made of mud and straw.

 

When we respond to the command of God to “come out” we see the world for what it is – a land of false promises, false pleasures, false priorities, empty idols, a land of slavery, of promiscuity, of darkness, of ultimate despair.

 

Explain it away as we might in our sermons, our Sunday school and small group material, our congregational decisions, our calendars and our bank accounts, God’s Truth remains, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4; see also 1 John 2:15 – 17). As Revelation 18:4 teaches, if we refuse to “come out” of Babylon we will not only participate (koinonia/have fellowship with) in her sins, we will also receive her judgments. (See also 2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1; 1 Cor. 10:14 – 22).

 

What must the angels think when they see professing Christians attempting to defend the image of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2) which the Stone is destroying?

 

Where are we living? How are we living? Are we living as permanent residents of Babylon and this present evil age, or are we on pilgrimage with Abraham, David, Paul, Peter, John – living in that City which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God? Are we living as slaves of the City of Man, or are we living as the sons and daughters of the Living God?