It has been a
while since we’ve worked with Geerhardus Vos and his message at Princeton
Seminary, Heavenly Mindedness, based on Hebrews 11:9 – 10; it’s time to
pick this back up. Let’s try working through the above quote.
“In the word
that God speaks we can taste all his goodness and grace.” David writes that
the Word of Yahweh, in its myriad expressions, is “Sweeter than honey and the
drippings of the honeycomb,” (Psalm 19:10b). The author of Psalm 119:103 says
to Yahweh, “How sweet are Your words [or promises] to my taste! Yes, sweeter
than honey to my mouth!” Then we have David again in Psalm 34:8, “O taste and
see that Yahweh is good…!”
Our senses are a
bit more complex than we usually think; for we can taste, touch, smell, hear,
and see not only what Paul terms as “the things which are seen,” but also what
he calls “the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). While acknowledging
that this can be true in the realm of common human experience, it should be
especially true in those who are in a relationship with Jesus Christ, for we
are called to “live by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).
So we taste a
good meal, but we can also taste a better meal – God’s Word. In fact, we can
partake of the most heavenly and Divine meal – the Person of Jesus Christ, for
He says that we are to eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:48 – 58). Partaking
of Jesus Christ is to be our way of life, our continuous meal. It is also to be
that special and particular sacrament that we celebrate as His People around
His Table:
“While they were
eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to
the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ And when He had taken a
cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you;
for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness
of sins’” (Matthew 26:26 – 28).
We also have the
bread of doing the will of God (John 4:31 – 34). When we eat of His Word, His
Son, and His will – we have a full meal indeed; and of course His Son is His
Word and His will – we find our all in all in Jesus Christ.
“Hope itself
is spiritualized, remaining no longer the hope of imagination but grasping
in God the ideal root from which the whole future must spring and blossom
in due time.”
I wish Vos had
used a word other than “spiritualized,” because I’m not quite sure what he
means. He also writes that “heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk
with God.” In some sense I think he means that our hope and our present
life in God are made real and manifest by taking things to fully come and
making them, to some degree, our present experience. This has a Biblical
foundation in that we are tasting the good things to come and the Holy Spirit
is the seal and deposit of our inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:11 – 14).
Our imaginations
may conceive of an idea of the future, but there can come a time when we begin
to grasp, to lay hold of, to wrap our arms around, “the ideal root.”
This root is that “from which the whole future must spring and blossom in
due time.” What does Vos mean? I think we can see his meaning in what
follows:
“Each time
faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of
the subtle fragrance that there prevails.” The image is of us going beyond
the veil into the Holy of Holies, communing with the Trinity, and then returning
to our spheres of life, bringing with us elements of the fullness of the
Presence of God. There is a sense in which we see the fulness of the Divine, we
touch it, we taste it, we smell it, we hear it; and we bring a seed of it, a
cutting from it (a root), back to our pilgrimage on earth – and allow what we
have brought back to grow within us. As what we have brought back grows within us,
the fulness of what we touched in the Holy of Holies grows within us to the
glory of God and the blessing of others.
This is an
example of the truth that, in Christ, “we are becoming who we are.” It is an
example of what it means to “sit in the heavenlies in Christ” and then to “walk
in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Ephesians
2:6; 4:1). This is an example of knowing that we are “complete in Him” (Col. 2:10)
and of our being “perfected in Him” (Heb. 10:10), and yet we are called to live
out this completeness and perfectness on our pilgrimage.
Note that the
catalyst for our growth in Christ is not a focus on the past, nor a
focus on our deficiencies, nor a focus on sin – the catalyst is the Person of
Jesus Christ and His perfect and complete work toward His Father and toward His
People. I’m going to pick this back up in the next post as we continue to
ponder this quote from Vos.
While I realize
that what Vos is saying, and what the Bible teaches, is foreign to most
Christians, I hope that you will take the time to ponder the greatness of Christ’s
redemption and purification in His People, and the glory of His inheritance in
us and our inheritance in Him.
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