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?