Heavenly Mindedness (28)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10, and returning to the passage from our last post:

 

“Because it had this effect for the patriarchs, faith had so intimately joined to it the exercise of hope. It is no less the assurance of things hoped for than the proving of things not seen. It annihilates the distance of time as much as of space. If faith deals with heaven as it exists, hope seizes upon it as it will be at the end. Hope attaches itself to promises; it sees and greets from afar. As the Epistle describes it, it does not contemplate purely provisional and earthly developments, does not come to rest in the happenings of intermediate ages, but relates to the end. In one unbroken flight it soars to the goal of God’s work in history, which is none other than the finished heaven.” G. Vos

 

Let’s work through this passage:

 

“Because it had this effect [see the previous passage in post 26] for the patriarchs, faith had so intimately joined to it the exercise of hope. It is no less the assurance of things hoped for than the proving of things not seen.”

 

In Hebrews 11:1 we read, “Now faith is the assurance/substance of things hoped for, the conviction/evidence of things not seen.” Vos tells us that faith and hope are “intimately joined”. What does it mean that we are assured of the things we hope for? Perhaps we can derive two meanings from this; one meaning is that we are assured that the things we hope for truly indeed do exist, they are not wishful thinking, they are not fabrication – they are of substance and we can, in some measure, touch that substance; we can also testify that the substance touches us. Faith makes eternal substance palpable; we touch it and it touches us.

 

Another dimension of this assurance is that, in Christ, we are assured that we will experience and inherit the things of God that we hope for; we are convinced that this is the will of our Father and that Jesus Christ, the Firstborn among many brethren, has permanently secured this inheritance for us to the glory of God our Father. Writing of our fathers and mothers of faith, the author of Hebrews tells us, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (Heb. 11:16).

 

Early in Hebrews the author discloses the heart of our Father when he writes, “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren…” (Heb. 2:10 – 11). In 2 Thessalonians 1:12 Paul writes that at the parousia “…the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the eternal unfolding of the prayer of Jesus, the Firstborn Son, to the Father in John 17:22, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them…”

 

Paul confidently writes, “…I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have committed to Him until that day” (2 Tim. 1:12). Our trust and assurance is rooted in a Person, “I know Whom I have believed.” Our faith and hope are grounded in the Ground of all that is and ever shall be.

 

An often misquoted verse is 1 Cor. 1:9, “…but just as it is written, 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.” This verse is misquoted every time it stands alone, every time it is quoted without its context. The “eye” and the “ear” and the “heart” in this verse are those of the “natural man” who cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14); for we see in verse 10, “For to us [those born of the Holy Spirit] God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” While it is certainly true that we do not yet see all of the glory that is yet to be unveiled, this passage does not teach that; it teaches that, at least in some measure, God is revealing those things which He is preparing for those who love Him to those who love Him (see also John 14:2).

 

Fanny Crosby wrote what she experienced, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, O what a foretaste of glory Divine!”

 

I hope that this is your experience today. God our Father loves you with an everlasting love and He deeply desires you to bathe in His love as you would bathe in crystal clear waters – without fear, and with deep peace, joy, and contentment. Jesus tells us that we are not to fear, because it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. We have a depth of inheritance in Jesus Christ that we can touch, that we can taste, that we can breathe; an inheritance that…if we will be still before God…will envelope us in the secret places of the Lord our God.

 

We’ll continue working through this passage in the next post.

Heavenly Mindedness (27)

 

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

 

“Because it had this effect for the patriarchs, faith had so intimately joined to it the exercise of hope. It is no less the assurance of things hoped for than the proving of things not seen. It annihilates the distance of time as much as of space. If faith deals with heaven as it exists, hope seizes upon it as it will be at the end. Hope attaches itself to promises; it sees and greets from afar. As the Epistle describes it, it does not contemplate purely provisional and earthly developments, does not come to rest in the happenings of intermediate ages, but relates to the end. In one unbroken flight it soars to the goal of God’s work in history, which is none other than the finished heaven.” G. Vos

 

Please read the above carefully, for it is likely that Vos is introducing concepts that are unfamiliar to some of us. What does Vos mean when he speaks of the annihilation of “the distance of time as much as of space”? What does he mean when he speaks of “heaven as it exists” and “as it will be at the end”? What does “the finished heaven” mean?

 

Have you ever thought about these things? What is your reaction to them? Have you ever thought that heaven is a work in progress? Have you considered that heaven as it is, is not heaven as it will be? Have you experienced the annihilation of the distance of time and of space? In coming passages Vos will continue this line of thought, in fact, in the next passage Vos beings with, “For heaven itself is subject to a process of preparation…”

 

A challenge with engaging Vos as he engages the Word of God is that this is a blog, and we are therefore limited in how much we can reasonably ponder in a posting. Another challenge is that, even if we were all in a room together, Vos’s preaching is so dense that it requires time to ponder and absorb it – it deserves to be read and considered again, and again, and again.

 

Vos’s language will resonate more easily with some of us than with others; some of us may be more inclined to give a fair hearing to Vos than others of us. After all, how many of us think this way? How many of us have experienced these things? How many of us have heard teaching concerning heaven being a work in process?

 

In Vos we see a disciple of Jesus Christ in whom there is a holistic dynamic of the rigorous Spirit-directed intellectual and the heavenly-minded mystic. Let us not forget that Vos taught theology, a rigorous and thorough-going theology. Vos is an example of the wisdom Paul writes of in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, a wisdom imparted by the Holy Spirit, a wisdom that is discerning, seeing the relationship of elements of the Word of God and the Kingdom of God, “righting dividing the Word of Truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). In the Trinity there is no separation between knowledge and experience, the deeper we move into the koinonia of God and His Word the more our thinking, seeing, knowing, and experience meld together in Christ Jesus. As our eye is single our temple becomes full of light. Not only is there no disconnect between Vos the intellectual and Vos the mystic, the intellectual informs the mystical and the mystical informs the intellectual.

 

Consider Paul, who in 2 Corinthians 10:5 can write of “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” surely with an emphasis on clear thinking and the intellect; and then in 2 Corinthians 12:4 writes of being “caught up to Paradise” and hearing “inexpressible words,” surely a mystical experience – mystical to the point that Paul writes, “whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows” (2 Cor. 12:3).

 

While it is natural that some of us are inclined to the mystical and others are inclined to the intellectual, that some of us are predominately thinkers and others feelers, that some of us tend to look backwards, others to the future, and others are more rooted in the present – these myriad propensities we all have should not be insurmountable barriers to us all tasting the good things of God in Christ and inheriting the promises of God. We are all called to be the sons and daughters of the Living God in Jesus Christ and we can trust the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to us in all of His glory, restoring the holistic image of God in Christ in our hearts, minds, and souls. Let us remind ourselves that in Jesus Christ all the promises of God are “Amen” (2 Cor. 1:19 – 22).

 

What are your thoughts concerning this passage in Vos’s message? In the next post we’ll look at this again.