Heavenly Mindedness (60)

 

“Finally the highest thing that can be spoken about this city is that it is the city of our God, that He is in the midst of it. Traced to its ultimate root heavenly-mindedness is the thirst of the soul after God, the living God. The patriarchs looked not for some city in general, but for a city whose builder and maker was God.

 

“It is characteristic of faith that it not merely desires the perfect but desires the perfect as a work and gift of God. A heaven that was not illumined by the light of God, and not a place for closest embrace of Him, would be less than heaven. God as builder and maker thereof has put the better part of Himself into his work. Therefore those who enter the city are in God. The thought is none other than that of the seer in the Apocalypse:

 

“I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. And that city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the throne of God and the Lamb are therein: and his servants shall do Him service, and they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.”

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

 

This is the concluding quote from Vos’s sermon, Heavenly – mindedness. I thought it would be good to include this lengthy conclusion so that we could meditate on the many threads that Vos ties up and weaves together. While we will drop back and look at these elements, for now, as you ponder the above, what do you see? What is the big picture? What does the forest look like and what are the trees you see in the forest?

 

How does Vos’s description of the heavenly – mindedness of the Patriarchs compare with our lives? With the way we think and feel and live?

How does our life - orientation compare with the Patriarchs?

 

Please take some time pondering Vos’s conclusion. What are the final images and thoughts he wants to leave with those who first heard him speak this at Princeton Seminary? What are the thoughts and images that Vos wants to leave with us?

 

Heavenly Mindedness (59)

 

“No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God. This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb. The river that makes glad the city of God is the river of grace. The believer’s mind and heart will only in heaven compass the full riches, the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God.

 

“No one can drink so deeply of it here, but he will more deeply drink hereafter. Blessed be God, no stream of Lethe flows this side of his city to wash away from our minds the remembrance of redeeming grace! The life above will be a ceaseless coming to Jesus, the Mediator of a better covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than Abel. The Lamb slain for our sins will be all the glory of Emmanuel’s land.” G. Vos

 

Continuing with the quote from the previous post:

 

“The river that makes glad the city of God is the river of grace.”

 

“And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” (Rev. 22:1).

 

“Then he brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house toward the east, for the house faced east…and he led me through the water, water reaching to the ankles…and [he] led me through the water, reaching the loins…and it was a river that I could not ford, for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be forded.” (Ezekiel 47:1 – 5).

 

 

It is said that C.S. Lewis was once walking through the rear of a lecture hall in which a discussion was taking place regarding what, if anything, set Christianity apart from other religions. Hearing the discussion Lewis stopped and said, “Grace,” and then went on his way.

 

Why is it that Paul begins so many of his letters with the blessing of “Grace and peace to you”? I think it is more than a literary style, I think it is because to live in God’s grace in Christ Jesus, and to live in the holistic peace of Christ Jesus, is to live in the Presence of God and to be on pilgrimage to the Throne. To learn to swim in the waters of grace is to experience Ephesians 3:14 – 19, in which Christ lives in our hearts through faith, that we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breath and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

 

Perhaps there are few passages on grace quoted to the extent of Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Then there is Romans 5:1 – 2, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”

 

And yet, to quote Ephesians 1:8 without its context is to often fall into Galatianism, the error of thinking that while our life in Christ may have been birthed in grace, that it is now up to us, by our own efforts, to ensure that we are acceptable to God and that we make it to heaven. Consider the comprehensiveness of Ephesians 2:1 – 10:

 

We are dead in our trespasses and sins – the dead cannot will themselves to life.

 

In our death we were following the ways of the “prince of the power of the air.”

 

But God, in His great mercy and love, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive with Christ – “by grace you have been saved.”

 

The Father not only raised us up from death, He also raised us up into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, “so that in the ages to come He night show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

 

“We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.”

 

What a comprehensive salvation (compare with Romans 5:1 – 11 and 1 Peter 1:9). The grace of God permeates every portion of Ephesians 2:1 – 10, just as His grace saturates every thread of our lives in Jesus Christ. We are called to do more than walk in this river of grace up to our ankles, or to wade in it up to our loins – we are called to swim in this grace, to be soaked in it, drenched in it, to have it dripping from our hair, our clothes, our conversations.

 

“No one can drink so deeply of it here, but he will more deeply drink hereafter.” There are some things we can talk about even if we haven’t experienced them, and this is as it should be, for our hearts ought to always desire more of God; but I think there is a sense in which grace is different, maybe not, but I think so. It is said that mercy is not receiving what you deserve, and that grace is receiving what you don’t deserve. While it may be helpful to think in these terms, it may also be harmful. It is harmful if we think that once we know that grace is receiving what we don’t deserve that we go on our way and stop thinking about grace. Grace is more than a definition, it is an experience, a way of life, that grows deeper and deeper in Jesus Christ – until the waters are so deep that our understanding cannot ford them, the waters overwhelm us – grace becomes an overwhelming Way of Life. As we swim closer to the Throne, God’s grace defies definition it is so comprehensive and overwhelming and permeating.

 

When our lives are reduced to definitions, when grace is mainly a definition and not an ongoing and progressive experience, we remain as children – but as we grow as the sons and daughters of the Living God in Jesus Christ, grace becomes that for which words fail us, we can articulate in part, in a measure, but we cannot express the fulness of grace in words. And here, as pastors or brothers or sisters in Christ, we can often discern where we are in our growth in Christ, for if I am with Christians who must fall back on a definition of grace found in a study Bible or in a commentary or in a small group lesson, then I am with Christians who are, at best, walking in water only up to their ankles. I do not write this critically, but rather pastorally, for my desire is to see us all swimming in the depths of the river of Life, the river of Grace flowing from the Throne of God and of the Lamb.

 

I cannot conceive of a true definition of grace, for grace is so far beyond us, it is on such a higher plane, that we don’t have language to communicate it in its fulness – but we are called to experience it, to live in it, to swim in it, and to show others how to receive the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing and experiencing grace takes a lifetime and beyond, and Vos has us anticipating our continuing delight in the grace of God, as Reepicheep would say, “Further up and further in.”

 

What a joy and peace to know that today we can swim in the grace of God in Jesus Christ!

 

Heavenly Mindedness (58)

 

“No one can drink so deeply of it here, but he will more deeply drink hereafter. Blessed be God, no stream of Lethe flows this side of his city to wash away from our minds the remembrance of redeeming grace! The life above will be a ceaseless coming to Jesus, the Mediator of a better covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than Abel. The Lamb slain for our sins will be all the glory of Emmanuel’s land.” G. Vos

 

Continuing with the quote from the previous post:

 

“No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God.” I’m reminded of a song, titled The Song of the Soul Set Free, I first sang as a new Christian in 1966 in a camp meeting choir outside of Frostburg, MD. Some of the words are (relying on memory), “Angels cannot sing it, this song of joy and freedom, for mortals only know it, the ransomed and the free.” Peter writes that “angels long to look” into the things of the Gospel and salvation (1 Peter 1:12).

 

Sadly, when we repudiate the image of God we abandon the glory of God’s creation, including His creation of mankind. We abandon that special place God has placed man (see Psalm 8) and man’s special calling to live in koinonia with God, with one another, and to live as a steward of creation. For the Christian, the restoration of the image of God in us through Jesus Christ should be one of the unfolding delights of our lives – and yet our earthbound “Christianity” has the practical effect of stunting our growth in Christ, we are like the seed sown among thorns who allow the things of this earth to choke our growth (Mark 4:18 – 19).

 

 “This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb.” Our lives are to be about knowing Jesus and making Him known to others. Knowing Jesus is our calling, not engaging in perpetual self-improvement projects. Paul’s great desire was “…that I may know Him…” (Phil. 3:10). Jesus says to the Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

 

As I look back over my life, I see irony in the fact that as a young professing Christian I often said that there is a difference between knowing about Jesus Christ and really knowing Him. I have heard this throughout my life. The irony is that I was often in situations in which I didn’t know Jesus, I didn’t display a life in Jesus, and in which I was substituting a Christian “lifestyle” or a set of doctrines or teachings for koinonia with the Trinity. (Please don’t misunderstand me, doctrine and dogma are critical to our life in Christ and with one another – one of our problems is that because we are ignorant of the Bible and its dogmas we make things up as we go along and therefore live in confusion.)

 

Let me tell you a common sense thing, if we really know someone we’ll talk about him or her, we’ll talk about character, we’ll talk about our relationship, we’ll talk about our joys, and we’ll talk about the things we don’t understand. We talk about the people and things that are important to us; are we talking about Jesus Christ? Are we sharing our life in Christ with others, both those who know Him and those who don’t?

 

I think of a song titled, Knowing You, or All I Once Held Dear. The chorus goes, “Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You, there is no greater thing. You’re my all, You’re the best, You’re my joy, my righteousness, and I love You Lord.” Is this our heart’s desire, to know Jesus and to make Him known to others?

 

Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known” (1Cor. 13:12).

 

Heavenly Mindedness (57)

 

“No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God. This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb. The river that makes glad the city of God is the river of grace. The believer’s mind and heart will only in heaven compass the full riches, the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God.

 

“No one can drink so deeply of it here, but he will more deeply drink hereafter. Blessed be God, no stream of Lethe flows this side of his city to wash away from our minds the remembrance of redeeming grace! The life above will be a ceaseless coming to Jesus, the Mediator of a better covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than Abel. The Lamb slain for our sins will be all the glory of Emmanuel’s land.” G. Vos

 

God possesses us, and we possess God. God is glorified in us, and we are glorified in God. God took upon Himself our nature, yet without sin; and in Christ we are given His Nature. We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ – to be a joint heir is to possess fully what Jesus Christ possesses, and we possess our inheritance in Christ, in the Lamb. To be a joint heir means that our inheritance is indivisible, it cannot be divided, it cannot be fragmented.

 

When John the Baptist cries, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29), he is crying out our eternal calling – for we are eternally called to behold the Lamb, to glorify the Lamb, to worship the Lamb, to delight in the Lamb, and to live in the light of the Lamb. This is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, the Lamb who was slain and is worthy to open the seals, the Lamb whom we are to follow wherever He goes, the Lamb who, along with His Father, is the Light of that City. This is the redeeming Lamb, who has purchased us with His own blood, who has given His life for us, who is both Priest and Sacrifice, who has justified us, sanctified us, made us holy, made us the righteousness of God in Himself, who has transformed us from sinners to saints, who has taken us out of Adam and into Himself, in whom we are buried in baptism and are raised to newness of Life, who we are now married to instead of the Law (because we have died to the Law). This is the Lamb who leads us into the koinonia of the Trinity.

 

To be heavenly – minded is to seek the Lamb, to follow the Lamb, to hunger for the Lamb, to eat His flesh and drink His blood, to live by His Life, to love Him with all that we have and all that we are, to be possessed by Him, owned by Him, devoted to Him, marked by Him, lost in Him in everlasting joy.

 

Our lives are to be a ceaseless coming to Jesus. Every morning should begin with Jesus, everyday end with Jesus, and every moment be lived in Jesus. After all, if this is how we will live in eternity, ought we not to live this Way now? This Way today? This Way in this moment, and the next moment, and the next?

Heavenly Mindedness (56)

 

“The other point to be observed is this, that heaven is the normal goal of our redemption. We all know that religion is older than redemption. At the same time the experience of redemption is the summit of religion. The two have become so interwoven that the Christian cannot conceive of a future state from which the redemptive mold and color would be absent. The deepest and dearest in us is so much the product of salvation, that the vision of God as such and the vision of God our Savior melt into one. We could not separate them if we would. The simple reason is that precisely in redeeming us God has revealed to us the inmost essence of his deity. No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God. This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb. The river that makes glad the city of God is the river of grace. The believer’s mind and heart will only in heaven compass the full riches, the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God.”  G. Vos

 

Continuing to work from the above quote from the last post:

 

“We all know that religion is older than redemption.” I would love ask Vos what he means by this, but since I can’t ask him I’ll have to take it as it is written, and it is problematic as it is written. After all, we see redemption in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” We also see redemption in Genesis 1:2 – 3, for just as the earth was formless and void and in darkness, so were our lives before the work of the Holy Spirit, therefore Paul can write (2 Cor. 4:6), “For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

 

“At the same time the experience of redemption is the summit of religion. The two have become so interwoven that the Christian cannot conceive of a future state from which the redemptive mold and color would be absent.” In the previous post we noted that Vos uses the term “redemption” in a comprehensive manner, encompassing all of salvation.

 

“The deepest and dearest in us is so much the product of salvation, that the vision of God as such and the vision of God our Savior melt into one. We could not separate them if we would. The simple reason is that precisely in redeeming us God has revealed to us the inmost essence of his deity. No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God. This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb.”

 

I want to add the following quote as we ponder the above, we’ll see it again in the next section of Vos’s message, “The life above will be a ceaseless coming to Jesus…”

 

The foregoing is an example of how difficult it is for us to speak of our future state in eternity, a condition, a manner of life, which is far beyond our comprehension and vocabulary. Paul was “caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak” (2 Cor. 12:4). We also might wonder what Paul saw in addition to what he heard. And yet, the door of future vision is not entirely closed to us, for Paul also wrote, “…Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God” (1 Cor. 2:9 – 10).

 

Then of course we have John’s vision throughout Revelation, and in particular chapters 21 and 22. However, if we miss the point of the Presence of God Almighty and the Lamb in these chapters, and try to reduce this description to the material, to the physical, we will fail to see their glory – this is about what the eyes of our heart see, not what our natural eyes see.

 

In Dante’s Paradise we read;

 

“This way of speech best suits your apprehension,

   Which knows but to receive reports from sense

   And fit them for the intellect’s attention.

So Scripture stoops to your intelligence:

  It talks about God’s ‘hand” and ‘feet’, intending

  That you should draw a different inference;”

            Canto IV:40-45 (trans. Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds, Penguin)

 

The reason I want us to think about this is that Vos, strictly speaking, contracts himself as he moves toward the close of his message, and he even makes a statement that, upon reflection, he may have edited out had he had the chance. Yet, considering that Vos is writing about the future state of those in Christ, this is understandable and we ought not to have heartburn about it – for to contemplate the Trinity is to be at a loss for consistent words. Images often convey more than words, and words within images often find their texture and meaning. Hence, we have vivid images in John’s Apocalypse, and within these images we have words – images drive the book of Revelation, words are supporting characters. Or perhaps we could better say that words and images dance together and we see their patterns and interactive beauty.

 

Vos writes “God has revealed to us the inmost essence of his deity,” but he also writes, “The life above will be a ceaseless coming to Jesus.” Then we have, “the vision of God as such and the vision of God our Savior melt into one. We could not separate them if we would.”

 

What do you see in the above paragraph?

 

If we have a ceaseless coming to Jesus then we must be able to distinguish Jesus from the Father. Also, if we have a ceaseless coming to Jesus then what does this say about us seeing the inmost essence of his deity? And yet, may we not be so caught up in the Divine Presence that one moment (if we can speak of “moments”) we see the Father and the Son, and the next moment we simply behold God’s ineffable Trinitarian glory? Furthermore, how does our ceaseless coming to Jesus relate to our seeing the inmost essence of his deity? In other words, do we “see” God once and for all, and is that vision, that seeing, static? Or do we abide in a continuing deepening and heightening relationship and revelation with Him?

 

Will we really see the inmost essence of his deity? Perhaps it will seem to us as if we see Him this way, but perhaps it will seem like this one moment, and then it will be deeper the next moment, and the next, and the next (do you see how limited we are? I speak of “moments” when there is no time in that Place, but I am a creature of time…at least for “now”.)

 

Vos is doing what we all are likely to do, we simply can’t speak or write about these things except in a limited way – but we do the best we can to communicate the glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ.

 

Our calling, our heart’s desire, ought to be to see the Face of God. As we previously pondered, Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall go to heaven,” but rather, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This is where Vos is headed, this is where Vos has always been headed in this message of Heavenly – Mindedness; this is where we ought to be headed.

 

O dear friends, let us not be as children playing with things such as extravagant schemes of prophecy that change with the headlines; let us not be as infants focused on ourselves and what we want; let us not be so foolish as to think we can conjure up lasting transformative programs that will sustain us through this lifetime – but let us find our heart’s desire in beholding Jesus Christ, and in so doing we will find ourselves transformed from glory to glory into His image – and we will know this joy together in Him (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; Hebrews 12:2; Matthew 17:5).

 

 

Heavenly Mindedness (55)

 

“The other point to be observed is this, that heaven is the normal goal of our redemption. We all know that religion is older than redemption. At the same time the experience of redemption is the summit of religion. The two have become so interwoven that the Christian cannot conceive of a future state from which the redemptive mold and color would be absent. The deepest and dearest in us is so much the product of salvation, that the vision of God as such and the vision of God our Savior melt into one. We could not separate them if we would. The simple reason is that precisely in redeeming us God has revealed to us the inmost essence of his deity. No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God. This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb. The river that makes glad the city of God is the river of grace. The believer’s mind and heart will only in heaven compass the full riches, the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God.”  G. Vos

As we move toward the conclusion of the sermon, Heavenly Mindedness, preached by Geerhardus Vos at Princeton Seminary in the fist part of the 20^th century:

 

“The other point to be observed is this, that heaven is the normal goal of our redemption.” In the previous section Vos warned us about making Christianity a thing of the temporal and the material, a thing of this earth; now he focuses our attention on the goal and source of heavenly mindedness, that City whose Builder and Maker is God, that Place where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb dwell in their glory, splendor, and fulness. Heaven is heaven because it is where Jesus is – any El Dorado, whether it be in the seen or unseen realm, is nothing but dust and vanity without Jesus Christ and our Father. Jesus does not say, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will go to heaven,” but rather, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Seeing and being with God and the Lamb is our calling, it is the heart of heavenly mindedness, not simply arriving at a special city, whether that city is of toy building blocks or of gold and jewels. Heaven is what it is because God is there, the New Jerusalem is what it is because the Father and the Lamb are there; and the only reason we ever are anything worthy in this or any other life is because the holy Trinity is in our lives – the holy and glorious Presence of God means everything today and tomorrow and for eternity.

 

When Vos speaks of “redemption” he means so much more than we usually do when we use the word, for to Vos redemption encompasses the fulness of our salvation, which moves us into the glory of the Presence of God in eternity. Vos sees that redemption and salvation include our vision of God and the Lamb.

 

How does our view and teaching of redemption and salvation compare to Vos’s? How does our idea of redemption and salvation compare to Vos’s in terms of scope and of trajectory?

 

Is it fair to say that we mostly look at redemption and salvation in the context of being saved and the new birth? That is, do we typically view these two words as focusing on our initial experience of entering the Kingdom of God, the Church of Jesus Christ? Yet, this is not the Biblical view of either redemption or salvation, for in the Bible redemption speaks to us of the Lamb purchasing us to be His own, buying us with His blood so that He may give us salvation; and salvation speaks to us of the total work of the Lamb’s grace and glory in our lives, from ages past to ages future (see 1 Peter Chapter One for a passage that encompasses salvation from ages past to ages future).

 

Consider that songs in heaven speak of redemption, “And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9.”

 

What is the practical effect of limiting our ideas of redemption and salvation to our initial entrance into the Church and Kingdom? (And this is true whether our focus is a “new birth” experience or a sacramental happening such as baptism). The effect is to orient our lives and thinking to the foyer of a great mansion or palace, we typically live the rest of our lives in the foyer, pondering the threshold over which we’ve crossed. What is worse, we play mind games in which we wonder if we have really made it over the threshold into the house; or we become concerned that we might be pushed out of the house, back out the front door. Hence, so many professing Christians spend their lives obsessed as to whether they are going to heaven, obsessed as to whether they might do something that will put them back on the outside of the palace, obsessed with themselves.

 

Our preaching and teaching then caters to this obsession and we have professing Christians who may have come to Christ 40 or 70 years ago, and yet they have never moved from the foyer into the glory of the palace. Or, if they have moved from the foyer, it has been to the nursery and in the nursery they have remained, eating baby food and drinking infant formula (Hebrews 5:11 – 14; 1 Cor. 3:1 – 3). Just as infants and toddlers and children, life must revolve around us – our whims and our wants must be catered to or we will cry and shout and scream and throw tantrums. (How else can we account for the immature behavior we see in so many congregations, including in so-called leadership?)

 

O dear friends, consider the glory of Romans Chapter 8, the beauty of John 17, the fellowship of His sufferings and resurrection of Philippians Chapter 3, the calling of Hebrews Chapter 11, our commission in Isaiah chapters 40 and 42; our Father and Lord Jesus want to move us out of the foyer, out of the nursery, and into the placing of sons and daughters, raising us up into completeness in Jesus Christ, into the fulness of Christ – for it is Christ in us which is the hope of glory and the hope of Creation (Colossians 1:25 – 29; Ephesians 4:1 – 16; Romans 8 12 – 39).

 

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

 

Isn’t it time to move beyond the foyer? Isn’t it time to leave the nursery?

 

Heavenly Mindedness (54)

 

“This also is an important principle in need of stress at the present day. If there is danger of Christianity being temporalized, there is no less danger of its being materialized. How easily do we fall into the habit of handling the things of our holy faith after an external, quantitative, statistical fashion, so that they turn flesh under our touch and emit a savor of earth? If at any time or in any form this fault should threaten to befall us, let us revisit the tents of the patriarchs and rehearse the lesson, that in religion the body without the soul is worthless and without power.” G. Vos

 

Considering that Vos gave this message at Princeton Seminary in the early part of the 20^th century, the above is prophetic; for we have certainly made Christianity something of the temporal – a creature of time, as well as of the material – a statistical creature where we count the numbers and the money. In contrast to the Holy of Holies, we are a people of the Outer Court at best, and a people living outside the Tabernacle at worst. We have Christian celebrities, programs for about everything under the sun, therapies in place of the work of the Spirit and the Word, and Jesus is our marketing icon and not our Lord.  

 

We quantify, quantify, and continue to quantify; this is a hard thing not to do because we live in a world that gauges success by quantities, by numbers, by money, by the pragmatic, by the things that we can see. But friends, Jesus says, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 6:13 – 14).

 

We are called to make disciples, not increase our church membership. We are called to teach others to “obey” what Jesus commands us (Matthew 28:18 – 20), we are not called to pretend we don’t see sin in our lives and fellowships. We certainly are not called to invite others to the broad way that leads to destruction, but I wonder if we are effectively saying, “Ignore this small gate, ignore this narrow way, Jesus didn’t mean what He said”?

 

The pressure to conform to the world is great, the pressure to operate successful churches is tremendous, the pressure to please people so they will remain in congregations is significant. The pressure to operate seminaries so that they will appeal to students who pay tuition is real.

 

It isn’t that we shouldn’t care about numbers, but rather that we should care about Jesus more than anything; we should care about the Biblical Gospel and Biblical discipleship more than all these other things. If we are faithful to Christ and have hundreds or thousands with us, let us rejoice; if we are faithful to Christ and have a few with us, let us rejoice no less, let us worship no less, let us give no less.

 

When we touch the things of God “they turn flesh under our touch and emit a savor of earth.” In other words, we make holy things stink, but we are so accustomed to the stench that we don’t notice. We market a lifestyle, we do not call men and women and young people to repent, bringing the fruits of repentance, and to take up the cross, deny themselves, and follow Jesus Christ in obedience (Mark 8:34ff; Matthew 28:18 – 20). We measure the success of a congregation or a ministry by numbers – the bigger the better, the more in the bank account the more convinced we are that God is blessing.

 

Because we are an anemic and powerless people, we devise and adapt programs based on the shifting sands of the social sciences to give a measure of healing and help to others; rather than allow the Holy Spirit to work in us as the People of God so that the true healing elements of the Body of Christ become a way of life for us. Beloved – there is healing in koinonia, there is holistic healing when we, as God’s People and by God’s grace, live collective lives of faithfulness and obedience to Jesus Christ.  

 

“If at any time or in any form this fault should threaten to befall us, let us revisit the tents of the patriarchs and rehearse the lesson, that in religion the body without the soul is worthless and without power.” Here is a frightening thing, we are so good at what we do that we don’t need the Holy Spirit. We have become so marketing oriented, so entertainment oriented, so oriented to the social sciences – we have so many tubes hooked up to the patient, that we don’t know that the patient is dead. The doctors and nurses and medical techs are generally fine with this because it keeps them employed. The people are happy because it requires little, if nothing, from them. We are allowed to live as we wish, without regard to Jesus Christ and His Cross, but at the same time we can feel smugly spiritual – we have enough deodorant and air freshener about us so that we don’t smell all that bad.

 

And yet, there are times the world can smell the stink. It smells the stink when we align ourselves with political parties. It smells the stink when we claim to be prolife and yet don’t care for the babies that are born – don’t care for health care, education, housing, equitable employment opportunities, or when we don’t care for those at and beyond our borders (I speak to my own tribe, there are other tribes with their own smells about them). The world smells the stink when we are as materialistic, if not more, as the world in the marketplace and with our checkbooks. And where, O where, is that church or movement that will embrace the clear teaching of 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 that we are to materially care for one another in the Church across social, ethnic, and national lines? How can we say we preach the entire Bible and not preach and practice the clear teaching of these two chapters, chapters written to Christians in the economic powerhouse of Corinth? We cannot even practice these chapters locally, let alone globally (though perhaps it is easier to send funds abroad, or go on short-term trips abroad, than to really get to know others locally who are not like ourselves…that would require too much, just too too much).

 

We are called to belong to Jesus Christ; not to an economic system, not to a political party, not to a celebrity – whether political, religious, or otherwise – we are called to be the People of Jesus Christ. We are not even called to primarily identify with a parochial Christian movement – for all of these things will capture our hearts and minds, when we are to have only one Husband, one true Friend, one Lord, one Master – Jesus Christ. Isn’t it about time that we remove the dollar sign from our churches and hearts and minds, and replace it with the Cross of Jesus Christ?

 

Well, enough of this, I don’t enjoy writing it and you should not enjoy reading it; let us be encouraged that God always has a remnant, He always has a People who will remain faithful to Him and will pass the torch to others. Here is the next section of Vos’s message, we’ll look at it in the next post, in the meantime please draw encouragement from it – for this is where Vos is headed, indeed, it should be where we are all headed:

 

“The other point to be observed is this, that heaven is the normal goal of our redemption. We all know that religion is older than redemption. At the same time the experience of redemption is the summit of religion. The two have become so interwoven that the Christian cannot conceive of a future state from which the redemptive mold and color would be absent. The deepest and dearest in us is so much the product of salvation, that the vision of God as such and the vision of God our Savior melt into one. We could not separate them if we would. The simple reason is that precisely in redeeming us God has revealed to us the inmost essence of his deity. No one but a redeemed creature can truly know what it is for God to be God, and what it means to worship and possess Him as God. This is the fine gold of the Christian’s experience, sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb. The river that makes glad the city of God is the river of grace. The believer’s mind and heart will only in heaven compass the full riches, the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God.”

Heavenly Mindedness (53)

 

In the word that God speaks we can taste all his goodness and grace. 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. The heavenly world does not appear desirable as simply a second improved edition of this life; that would be nothing else than earthly mindedness projected into the future. The very opposite takes place: heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk with God. Each time faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of the subtle fragrance that there prevails. G. Vos.

 

Continuing to ponder: “Each time faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of the subtle fragrance that there prevails.”

 

I find it difficult at times to speak of some elements of my own life in Christ, of our life in Christ, and of the life in Christ which those who have influenced me have had – both because there are so many facets to living in Christ and because misunderstanding seems to come with the territory. I am so thankful that men and women of many Christian traditions have influenced me, from Roman Catholic, to Eastern Orthodox, to most all Protestant groups, to Pentecostals. Perhaps this is one reason why I continually look to the Scriptures, and to Christ in the Scriptures, so that in Christ these many influences can find their integration and harmony.

 

There is a subtle deviation from Scripture in the idea that we go “behind the veil.” Can you see it? To be sure this deviation is understandable, considering the baggage that most of us have inherited. Also, in one sense this idea of “behind the veil” may be classified the same way we’d classify the phrase “sunrise” or “sunset” – more a matter of optics than astronomy. Nevertheless, I think it important enough to spend some time on it, because if Vos can make this deviation in the midst of his glorious message on Heavenly Mindedness, a message that we’d all do well to meditate upon and absorb, then what deviations might I be unconsciously making? What is particularly interesting to me is that the deviation in Vos’s message on Hebrews 11 comes right after Hebrews 10:19 – 22 in which, as we saw in a previous post, we are taught that the veil is no more – there is no longer a barrier separating us from the Holy of Holies. Therefore, to speak of going “behind the veil” is to speak of something which it is impossible for us to do – other than in our minds, for the veil no longer exists.

 

To be sure, the phrase can express entering into intimacy with the Trinity, but it is, nevertheless, not an accurate phrase – after all, much of the point of Hebrews is that the veil has been removed and we are living in a New Covenant, we are living in the reality of which the Old Testament Tabernacle was but a reflection. Alas, we are so accustomed to thinking of barriers between us and our heavenly Father, we are so accustomed to living in the Outer Court, or on a good day in the Holy Place, that we cannot consistently conceive of living in the Holy of Holies as a Way of Life.

 

And yet, Jesus Christ calls us to live in union with the Father as He lives in union with the Father, He calls us to be in the same place in the Father that He is. In John 13 we see the Laver of the Tabernacle in the Outer Court, the washing; in John 17 we find ourselves in the Holy of Holies, and in that Holy of Holies we hear (John 17:24), “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

 

When Jesus prays “be with Me where I am,” He is not praying that we would be in Jerusalem, or in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, but rather that we would be with Him in His relationship with the Father. “…that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved me” (John 17:21 – 23).

 

O dear friends, as long as the veil remained, separating us from the Holy of Holies, the heart’s desire of Jesus Christ for us to know the koinonia of the Trinity could not be fulfilled, but He made a way on the Cross and the curtain, the veil, the barrier in the Temple has been torn in two from top to bottom! When the earthly veil was rent, it signified that the heavenly veil had been rent – what was accomplished in the heavens was manifested on earth; what happened in the Heavenly Temple was announced in the earthly Temple.

 

Prior to the rending of the veil we might be excused for living outside the Tabernacle, we might be excused for living in the Outer Court and only occasionally entering the middle space known as the Holy Place; but O dear friends, now our calling is to live in the Trinity as the Trinity lives in us (John chapters 13 – 17) – and in the Trinity we are called not to live from the outside to the inside, but from the inside to the outside. We are not born again from the outside in, but from the inside out. We are not made new creations from the outside in, but from the inside out.

 

Why then do we spend so much time in the Outer Court? Why do we focus on the natural? Can we not hear Jesus saying, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6)? Can we hear Jesus saying, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24)? Listen to Jesus when He says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).

 

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:14 – 15).

 

Do we desire to live in the natural? Having met Jesus Christ do we still insist on living from the outside to the inside? Then let us hear Paul, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). Do we insist on living as children, as infants, playing with the things of this earth when we could be living in intimacy with our Heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed Holy Spirit?

 

How will it sound, when we leave this life, instead of hearing, “Well done good and faithful servant, blessed son! Blessed daughter!” Instead to hear the words, “Where have you been?”

 

The veil is no longer! Christ has wrought a perfect and complete and glorious salvation for His brothers and sisters – He calls us to come know the Father, to live from the inside to the outside, to be in Him a source of light and life to others.

 

“I am writing to you, fathers, because you have known Him who bas been from the beginning…” (1 John 2:13).

 

“He said, ‘It is finished!’” (John 19:30).

Heavenly Mindedness (52)

 

In the word that God speaks we can taste all his goodness and grace. 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. The heavenly world does not appear desirable as simply a second improved edition of this life; that would be nothing else than earthly mindedness projected into the future. The very opposite takes place: heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk with God. Each time faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of the subtle fragrance that there prevails. G. Vos.

 

I want to conclude our consideration of the above section of Vos’s message on Heavenly Mindedness by looking at, “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 invoked by “behind the veil” is, of course, that of the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon (along with its subsequent rebuilding). For simplicity’s sake we’ll look at the Tabernacle of Moses because the Temple in its various permutations is structurally complicated. The Tabernacle had three spaces, three areas: the Outer Court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies – that Most Holy Place. We may recall that there was a veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies and that only the High Priest could go into the Holy of Holies, and he could only do so once a year, on the Day of Atonement.

 

The Holy of Holies represented that Place where the Presence of Yahweh dwelt in a particular fashion – for while God’s Presence was certainly in the Holy Place and in the Outer Court, as well as beyond the Tabernacle with the People of Israel – His Presence was in the Holy of Holies in a most particular fashion. Within the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat as its covering, or lid, with two cherubs with wings outstretched on the lid of gold. Within the Ark was Aaron’s rod, a bowl of manna, the Ten Commandments, and the Law as given in Deuteronomy. When the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement he brought sacrificial blood with him, to atone for his own sins and for the sins of the people.

 

Now there is much we could say about the above, for it all speaks of Christ and His glory, but the thing I’d like us to ponder is the image that the veil was a barrier to the Holy of Holies; not only could not the average person enter the Holy of Holies, but the average priest also couldn’t go inside it. Only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, but even he could only go into it once a year, on the Day of Atonement. In other words, access to the Personal Presence of Yahweh was barred by the veil, just as, in a similar sense, access to the Garden of Eden was blocked by cherubim with a flaming sword (Gen. 3:24). (Note that cherubim were embroidered on the veil of the Holy of Holies, Ex. 26:31).

 

The average Israelite probably would have never considered the possibility of entering the Holy of Holies, just as the average priest would have never considered the possibility. Yahweh was holy and there was a barrier between Yahweh’s particular Personal Presence beyond the veil and the people of Israel. Generation after generation lived with this mindset, God lived in the impenetrable, He could not be approached beyond the veil. This was the Law of Moses, this was the way people were raised, this was the way the priests ministered, and anyone who suggested otherwise would have been thought a fool, a blasphemer, and a candidate for death as a false prophet.

 

(I need to parenthetically point out that the religious sentiments of Israel and Judah were hardly pristine and faithful to Yahweh; there was idolatry, human sacrifice, and idols were even brought into the Temple of Solomon – so the preceding paragraph does not encompass all the sentiments and practices from Moses to Christ, though it may be fair to say that after the Babylonian Captivity rampant idolatry was not likely to be tolerated.)

 

With the above as a backdrop, one of the first teachings of Jesus Christ is about communing with God in prayer, and it begins with “Our Father.” What must have some people thought when they heard those words? What must have His disciples thought as He told them that the Father would come and live within them? Consider the words of intimacy with the Father that Jesus uses throughout the Gospel of John, an intimacy first used of His own relationship with the Father, and then with our relationship with the Father in chapters 14 – 17. What must His hearers have been thinking?

 

Some of His hearers thought His language blasphemous and attempted to kill Him, finally succeeding. Perhaps we should not judge these people too harshly, after all, they were conscious of the veil barring the way to the Holy of Holies, who was this man Jesus that He should presume to speak of intimacy with God? Another reason for our caution in judging them is our own attitude, our own experience – for do we really believe that we are called to know the Father in such intimacy? Do we readily experience this, share this, and confidently affirm this as a core element of the Gospel? Is this the tenor of our worship gatherings?

 

Matthew writes, “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom…” (Matthew 27:50-51a; see also Mark 15:38). What does this mean?

 

“Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water,” Hebrews 10:19 – 22.

 

While we may not understand this, the veil in the Tabernacle represented the body of the Incarnate Son of God, and when Jesus Christ completed His perfect sacrifice on the Cross, as the High Priest who did not need to make an offering for His own sins – for He had none (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 Peter 1:19) – the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, opening the Way for us to enter into the fulness of the Presence of God through Jesus Christ. (See Hebrews for an exposition of the glorious priesthood of Jesus Christ and the surpassing greatness and glory of the New Covenant).

 

Ponder the words of Hebrews 10:19 – 22: “confidence,” “full assurance of faith,” “a great priest over the house of God,” “let us draw near.” Earlier in Hebrews 4:16 we read, “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

 

There is a great chasm between the Old and New Covenants, and sadly much of what passes for Christian thinking and teaching today has its roots in the Old Covenant, the Law of condemnation and death (2 Cor. 3:4ff). The New Covenant sprinkles our hearts from an evil conscience, while the Old Covenant maintains a message of sin and guilt and distance from God our Father. Old Covenant thinking wants to motivate us to sew the veil up, again and again and again. It is akin to the perpetual sacrificial system of the earthly Tabernacle and Temple, with sin consciousness pervading the minds and hearts of the people. How blessed we are to have a Great High Priest who, by one sacrifice, in which He is both Priest and Offering, has sanctified us “once for all” (Heb. 10:10).

 

This is the heart of justification and our being made holy and set apart for God – this is the heart of our transformation from sinners to saints, this is our invitation and calling to live not outside the Tabernacle, nor in the Outer Court of the Tabernacle, not even in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle, but to live in the koinonia of the Trinity beyond where the veil once was – for there is no more veil!

 

Sadly, many of us insist on sewing the veil up week after week, while others preach a message that acts as if there never was a veil, that denies the Atonement and the justice and judgment of God and the penalty of sin – both of these messages fall short of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The former message keeps people in a prison of sin consciousness; the latter promises people a deceitful freedom which leads to the bondage of the self. All the while the Father calls us to Himself through Jesus Christ, all the while the Father desires us to know koinonia with Him, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit. We are called to live within the Holy of Holies as our way of life.

 

I will come back to this in the next post in this series.

 

Heavenly Mindedness (51)

 

In the word that God speaks we can taste all his goodness and grace. 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. The heavenly world does not appear desirable as simply a second improved edition of this life; that would be nothing else than earthly mindedness projected into the future. The very opposite takes place: heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk with God. Each time faith soars and alights behind the veil it brings back on its wings some of the subtle fragrance that there prevails. G. Vos.

 

Continuing to work with the quote from the previous post, let’s pick things back up with:

 

“The heavenly world does not appear desirable as simply a second improved edition of this life; that would be nothing else than earthly mindedness projected into the future.”

 

The title of Vos’s message is Heavenly Mindedness, but O what a difficult concept to grasp if we are not cultivating a life in the Holy Spirit, if we are not seeking the Living Christ in His Word, if we are not striving for koinonia in our Christian gatherings and relationships. When our center of gravity is this world and its affairs, its headlines, its financial systems, its accolades, what it considers success – it is hard, so very hard, to touch what Vos is saying, and to allow what Vos is saying to touch us. Vos holds up Hebrews Chapter 11 for us, a procession of men and women who lived in heavenly mindedness – they were not looking for “a second improved edition of this life” they were looking for the City of the Living God.

 

If we read Revelation chapters 21 and 22 and simply see a street of gold and dazzling jewels, or pearly gates – and equate these things to a better and second edition of this life, we have missed the glory of the Living God and the Lamb who are the Light of the City.

 

Paul writes, “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’ You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else…So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body…As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.” (1 Cor. 15).

 

We are not looking for a second edition of this life, nor are we looking for a better edition, we are looking for a New Creation, a New Way of Living – for we have been taken out of Adam and placed in Christ and the old creation is passing away (Romans 5:12 – 19; 1 Cor. 15:20 – 28; 45 – 49; 2 Cor. 5:16 - 21).

 

But how hard it is to understand these things when we continue to think as mere men (1Cor. 3:1 – 3); even though God has given us the mind of Christ, we continue to live as natural men, looking to improve that which has been put to death by the Cross (1 Cor. 1:18 – 2:16; Galatians 2:20, 6:14).

 

Regarding “heaven spiritualizes in advance our present walk with God,” we will never be anymore complete than we are now in Christ, we will never be anymore more perfect than we are in Him now; and yet the completeness and perfection are being worked out in our lives as we follow Jesus Christ – and the deliverance of creation from the bondage of corruption hinges on Christ being unveiled in us and on us being unveiled in Him (Romans 8:18 – 25; Colossians 3:1 – 4; 2 Thess. 1:10 – 12; 1 Peter 1:3 – 9).

 

We’ll continue with this quote in the next post.