Our Last Battle (11)

 Eleven – More Real Than Ever

“The wonder of walking beside creatures from another world made him feel a little dizzy: but it also made all the old stories seem far more real than they had ever seemed before…anything might happen now.” The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis, page 694, One Volume Edition.

A while back my friend, Michael Daily, introduced me to the writings of Geerhardus Vos (1862 – 1949), through a collection of six of his sermons preached at Princeton Seminary chapel, titled, Grace and Glory. While I appreciate all six sermons, Vos’s message on Hebrews 11:9 – 10, Heavenly Mindedness, captured my heart and mind, and resulted in me doing a blog series on it. This was one of the longest series I’ve written over the years, with the current Upper Room series, an early series on C. S. Lewis, and one on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, probably being the only ones of greater length over the past 15 years. 

As we’ll hopefully see later in our reflections on The Last Battle, there are places in which the inside is greater than the outside. We see this in the manger, the Cross, the Upper Room, and I experienced this with Vos’s Heavenly Mindedness, as he experienced it with Hebrews 11:9 – 10. Vos took me on a transcendent journey with him, a journey of communion with the saints, a journey that captured the essence of not only Hebrews 11: 9- 10, but also of Hebrews 12: 22 – 24:

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angles, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” 

Heavenly Mindedness was an expression of Jesus’ words to the Sadducees, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” To Vos, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not only living, but we can also experience the communion of the saints with them, we can experience Hebrews 12:22 – 24, we can live within a heavenly mindedness in Jesus Christ and with one another. 

As I worked through Heavenly Mindedness I was continually amazed at the experiential transcendence of Vos’s message and I wondered what his original audience heard and saw as they listened to him. It also struck me that his preaching departed from what most of us find acceptable in today’s Evangelical circles, for it is most certainly not the product of the historical – grammatical method. This is not to say that Vos didn’t do his homework, far from it; it is not to say that along the way Vos did not do his grammatical or his historical work, but it is to say that the life and vision and trajectory of Vos’s preaching far exceeded any method which, at its core, is humanistic. 

I couldn’t help but wonder if Vos, had he been a seminary student, would have received a passing grade for his sermon. 

(My apologies if you are not quite following me, I will try to follow this up with some posts that try to flesh this out, but I do have a point, so please be patient. And besides, it doesn’t hurt to touch on things difficult to grasp.)

To Vos, Hebrews 11:9 – 10, was not a text, it was a life, and that life led him to the City of Hebrews 12:22 – 24, a City that was as real to him as the city or town where you live is real to you. Except, that City to Vos was more real, more permanent, and more assured that any of our earthly cities and towns and villages – for its Builder and Maker is God. 

So much of our theological education, and our Bible teaching material, Sunday school and small group material (whether printed or video), our commentaries, our preaching and teaching, is akin to people reading cookbook after cookbook, recipe after recipe, looking at photo after photo of dishes on a table – but without ever preparing and eating the food. 

What may be worse, is that we look at folks who prepare delicious meals that their grandparents taught them to make, using recipe cards with faded pencil on them, or instructions on old notebook paper which is disintegrating, and we think that they don’t know what they are doing – even though they are making tasty food and we are simply reciting recipes again and again without ever producing anything that gives life. We may even have fancy kitchen gadgets while others may have old cast iron skillets and muffin pans and hand-powered eggbeaters – and we think we are better equipped…even though we produce nothing to give life to others, nothing to truly feed the souls and spirits of others. 

There is joy in their cooking…there is taste…there is texture. People eat their food with conversation and smiles. 

These unrefined (to our thinking) folk can look at a recipe in a popular best seller and see the errors and instantly know what makes sense and what doesn’t. 

(And again with apologies, but I want to make this point; Vos’s preaching reminds me of the Fathers, it sees Scripture holistically in Christ, it is transcendent, lifting us above the earth and its humanistic gravity. You cannot teach someone to preach and teach like Vos and the Fathers, you can model it, but you simply cannot teach it, there is no method to it, it is born of the Spirit, and it requires a marriage of the Word and the man or woman – the two become one in Christ. It is organic.)

Now, what about Tirian? 

“The wonder of walking beside creatures from another world made him feel a little dizzy: but it also made all the old stories seem far more real than they had ever seemed before…anything might happen now.”

We are called to live in the reality of “anything might happen now.” Isn’t it time we live in the awe of the “old stories” being more real than ever? 

Our Last Battle includes the battle of living in presence of Jesus Christ and His saints today; not looking back at history as simply history, and not looking forward to a future that may or may not unfold in certain ways, but living in communion and friendship with Jesus Christ and His saints today – living in the reality of Hebrews 12:22 – 24, living in connection with “creatures from another world.” 

Yes, it can make us dizzy, and the numinous ought to do that. Yes, it ought to humble us. Yes, it means that the Word of God must master us, instead of us being so foolish as to think that we can master the Word. 

Yes, if we live as strangers in this world, we will be a bit strange. 

Ah, but what joy we will have with Jesus, with Abraham, David, Paul, Peter, Augustine, Fenelon, Vos…and with one another.