Heavenly Mindedness (47)

 

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

 

“There are two more aspects of the patriarchal faith of heavenly-mindedness to be briefly considered. The first is its spirituality. Heavenly-mindedness is spiritual-mindedness. This pervades like an atmosphere the entire Epistle. We have already seen that even in the promised land the patriarchs remained tent-dwellers. God had a wise purpose in thus postponing for them personally the fulfilment of the temporal promise. Although Canaan was a goodly land, it was yet, after all, material and not of that higher substance we call spiritual. While capable of carrying up the mind to supernal regions, it also exposed to the danger of becoming satisfied with the blessing in its provisional form. 

That this danger was not imaginary the later history of Israel testifies. In order to guard against such a result in the case of the patriarchs God withheld from them the land and its riches and made of this denial a powerful spiritualizing discipline. By it they were led to reflect that, since the promise was theirs beyond all doubt, and yet they were not allowed to inherit it in its material form, that therefore it must in the last analysis relate to something far higher and different, something of which the visible and sensual is a mere image. 

Thus the conception of another sphere of being was introduced into their minds: henceforth they sought the better country. Not as if the things of sense were worthless in themselves, but because they knew of something transcendent that claimed their supreme affection. Their tastes and enjoyments had been raised to another plane. The refinement of grace had been imparted to them. For bodily hands there had been, as it were, substituted spiritual antennae, sensitive to intangible things. They had come to a mountain that could not be touched and yet could be felt. In all the treasures and promises of religion the one valuable thing is this spiritual core.”  Geerhardus Vos

 

Now we come to yet another “dense” passage in Vos, but of course the entire message carries a gravitas and density that we are unaccustomed to, whether we find ourselves in pews, in small groups, or standing behind a pulpit or lectern. I image we’ll take a few posts to work through the above…I wish I could teach this in person to a group.

 

As you carefully read and reread the above, what do you see? What attracts your attention? What makes little sense to you? What questions do you have? If you could speak to Vos right now, what would you ask him?

 

I’m sure we’ve probably heard the statement, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.” That is a lie that we ought not to believe. Yes, some people are more practical than others, and some live in the abstract more than the concrete, but in the Biblical sense, to be supremely heavenly – minded is to be equipped to make a difference in the here and now. Peter, Elijah, Isaiah, Deborah, Mary Magdalene, Paul – they all had distinct personalities and distinct ways in which they displayed Christ and His glory; they were heavenly–minded and they made a difference to the people around them. Let me assure you, that the church’s problem isn’t that it’s people are so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good; it is that we are so earthly-minded that we have lost our identity as the sons and daughters of the Living God.

 

Here is a little principle; to be earthly-minded seals us off from the heavens, while to be heavenly-minded opens up for us a sacramental view of earth. When we are earthly-minded we can’t see the heavens, but when we are heavenly-minded we see both the heavens and the earth.

 

What was the immediate effect of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked…” (Gen. 3:7). Now I don’t fully understand this, I probably don’t understand it even a little, but what I do know is that the way Adam and Eve saw life changed when they disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is irony in the words, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened,” in that this opening of their eyes to physical and material realities blinded them to eternal things, to the realm of the unseen.

 

And so Paul writes of not looking at things that are seen but unseen, for the things that are seen are temporal, while the things that are unseen are eternal (2Cor. 4:18). In other words, Paul learned, by the grace of God, to “see” differently than he had prior to knowing Jesus Christ. We can identify this theme throughout Scripture; from Noah, to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, to Samuel (a seer!), Elijah and Elisha, to Paul, and to John’s Revelation – throughout the Bible there are men and women who live in the heavens, see in the heavens, and who act and speak on earth with the Voice of Heaven.

 

Paul often speaks his of hearers receiving his teaching as the Word of God. The people who heard Jesus were amazed because He taught them with authority, and not as the scribes. If we are going to teach from heaven then we are called to do so with authority, as we live under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Have you ever noticed that people who claim spiritual authority often have no business doing so, making things up as they go along, exercising their communication and marketing skills over people; while others who love Christ and His Word do not have the confidence in Him to speak as the Word of God?)

 

Paul writes that the “mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). Paul also writes, “fix your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). Vos says that heavenly – mindedness is the atmosphere of the entire Epistle of Hebrews; indeed the entire Bible has this atmosphere but we often lack the eyes to see and the ears to hear. God wants us to see what only He can see, what only He can reveal (see 1 Cor. Chapter 2).

 

Ponder this for a moment, have you ever considered that your heavenly Father wants you to see what only He can see? Have you realized that our Lord Jesus Christ wants us to hear what only He can hear?

 

“At that time Jesus said, I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:25 – 27).

 

If we know anything that is eternal, we do not know it because we are smart or intelligent or have spent countless hours plumbing the depths of the cosmos; if we know anything of worth it is because it has been given to us by God. Most certainly, in any degree that we know the Father and Son, it is because they have chosen to reveal themselves to us through the Holy Spirit and the illuminated Word.

 

“Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13 – 14).

 

What is our source of life? Our source of water? Do we find it in the earthly or the heavenly? Vos tells us that to be heavenly-minded is to be spiritual.

 

Do we believe him?

 

More importantly, do we believe Jesus Christ when He tells us that we are not of this world? (John 15:18ff; 17:13ff).