In this episode, we open pp. 360–365 of Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology to discuss his profound insights into Jesus’s relationship with the Old Testament. How did Christ use the Scriptures in his teaching? What did he mean when he said he came to “fulfill” the law? And how does his doctrine of God affirm the continuity of divine revelation from the Old to the New Testament?

Whether you’re a student of Reformed theology, a pastor, or simply curious about the biblical foundations of Christ’s teaching, this episode offers a rich and insightful exploration of key theological themes. Tune in now and be equipped to see Scripture through the lens of redemptive history.

Watch on YouTube and Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 09:08 Claims that Questions the Authenticity and Historicity of the Gospel of John
• 15:20 Disjunctive Views of the Old and New Testaments
• 21:04 Spirit and Truth
• 28:25 Jesus as Fulfillment of the Old Testament
• 38:46 Continuity between Old and New Covenants
• 42:44 Jesus’s Doctrine of God
• 49:11 Recap of Major Points
• 51:01 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

In this episode, we consider the profound theological insights of Geerhardus Vos as found in pp. 355–360 of his Biblical Theology. Camden Bucey and Lane Tipton explore the Johannine concept of truth, which transcends human-centered definitions like coherence or correspondence theories. Instead, John presents truth as an intrinsic, divine attribute embodied in the Logos, Jesus Christ, and rooted in heavenly realities.

The discussion highlights how Jesus is both the fulfillment and culmination of the Old Testament, uniting Christocentrism and Christotelism to show that all Scripture points to him. From heavenly realities and earthly shadows to worship in Spirit and truth, the episode unpacks the eschatological depth of John’s Gospel and the organic unity of God’s redemptive revelation.

We also reflect on Jesus’ own hermeneutic, his attitude toward Scripture as the “most orthodox of the orthodox,” and how his approach undergirds the Reformation’s emphasis on the open access of Scripture to all people. This rich conversation will deepen your understanding of biblical theology, worship, and the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

Join us as we uncover how Christ is not only the center but also the goal of all Scripture, illuminating God’s unified message of redemption across the ages.

Watch on YouTube and Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 05:27 Upcoming Oklahoma City Seminar
• 10:12 True and Truth in the Gospel of John
• 19:57 Heavenly Realities and Earthly Shadows
• 31:47 Jesus’ Attitude toward the Old Testament
• 35:16 Christo-Centrism and Christotelism
• 47:28 The Fulfillment of the Scriptures
• 55:26 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

In this episode of Christ the Center, Daniel Ragusa leads us in a consideration of nativity through the lens of Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology. As this season prompts reflection on the incarnation of Christ, this conversation explores the eight aspects of the nativity highlighted by Vos, including its linguistic and redemptive-historical continuity, non-political and gracious character, eschatological significance, and missional scope. Along the way, we examine how Vos’s insights foster a deeper sense of wonder and worship, connecting the nativity to God’s covenantal promises and his grand redemptive plan.

Whether you’re a student of biblical theology or seeking to enrich your understanding of the birth of Christ, this episode offers profound insights and a timely celebration of the wonder of Christ’s coming. Listen in for a thought-provoking conversation that ties the nativity to the broader redemptive narrative and stirs your heart to worship this season.

Watch on YouTube and Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Sponsor: Five More Talents
• 00:01:04 Introduction
• 00:13:17 Vos on the Nativity
• 00:15:59 Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions
• 00:26:21 The Structure of Revelation regarding the Nativity
• 00:31:55 Aspects of the Nativity
• 00:33:36 Organic-Linguistic Continuity
• 00:35:26 Historical Continuity
• 00:37:49 The Redemptive Aspect
• 00:42:16 The Non-Political Aspect
• 00:46:56 The Aspect of Grace and Obedience
• 00:56:30 The Eschatological Aspect
• 01:02:07 The Universal/Missional Aspect
• 01:06:44 The Supernatural Aspect
• 01:11:53 Bonus: A Covenantal Aspect
• 01:14:24 Practical Application
• 01:22:43 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Dan Ragusa

In this episode of Christ the Center, we continue our Vos Group series with an in-depth discussion on Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology, focusing on Jesus’ use of parables and allegories on pages 352–355. Camden Bucey and Lane Tipton explore the unique role of parables in Jesus’ teaching, emphasizing the contrast between parables and allegories and unpacking their function, purpose, and the theological depth within each form.

They also discuss the eschatological significance of the natural-spiritual parallel Vos identifies, highlighting how Jesus’ parables point to a heavenly reality beyond earthly expectations. The conversation also touches on the implications for Christian eschatology and the proper focus of hope within reformed thought.

Join us as we explore the richness of Vos’s thought and its relevance for understanding Jesus’ mission and message. Listen now to deepen your grasp of the parabolic teaching method and its place in Reformed theology, and catch up on past Vos Group episodes.

Watch on YouTube and Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 03:27 Parables and Allegories
• 17:31 The Purpose of Parables
• 30:07 The Natural-Spiritual Parallel
• 38:44 John’s Theological Distinction
• 51:24 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

In this episode of Christ the Center, Camden Bucey leads a discussion with Lane Tipton and Danny Olinger on Geerhardus Vos’s sermon, “The Christian’s Hope,” from his book Grace and Glory. The group explores the profound eschatological themes of 1 Peter 1:3-5, examining the nature of Christian hope as rooted in the resurrection of Christ and the believer’s heavenly inheritance. They unpack how this hope should shape the Christian life, influencing how we view suffering, earthly success, and our ultimate calling. The conversation highlights how Vos’s insights are still relevant for modern Reformed believers, particularly in a world distracted by temporal concerns. Tune in for a rich discussion on how our eschatological hope fuels a life of faithful pilgrimage toward the new heavens and new earth.

Watch on YouTube and Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 05:01 The Pilgrim Life and 1 Peter 1:3–5
• 07:49 The Historical Context of 1904
• 10:42 The Nature of Hope
• 21:15 The Christian Perspective on American and European Culture
• 27:02 Postmillennialism and Amillennialism
• 35:14 The Characteristics of the Heavenly Inheritance
• 40:48 The Powerful Witness of Christian Hope
• 48:17 Christ’s Blessing upon the Church
• 53:42 The Christian Purpose
• 57:42 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

Rev. Dr. Daniel Ragusa, pastor of Messiah’s Reformed Fellowship in New York City joins Camden Bucey for this thoughtful episode of Christ the Center. Together, they explore the profound impact of Dutch Reformed theology on American Presbyterianism, focusing on key historical moments and figures, including Cornelius Van Til and Gerhardus Vos. Ragusa shares insights from his recent work translating and editing Van Til’s “Dutch Letters” and discusses the lasting influence of Dutch Reformed thought on the formation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).

This conversation examines the connections between the nineteenth-century Dutch secession movements, particularly the Afscheiding of 1834, and their influence on the theological and ecclesiastical landscape in America. With a focus on confessional integrity and the challenges posed by modernity, Ragusa highlights the ongoing relevance of these historical developments for Reformed theology today.

Listeners will also hear about exciting new publications from Reformed Forum, including Ragusa’s forthcoming book, The Joyful Fellowship, which traces the theme of “God with us” throughout Scripture. This episode provides a rich, historical, and theological exploration of the Dutch Reformed legacy in American Presbyterianism.

Watch on YouTube or Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:04:16 The Joyful Fellowship
• 00:13:08 Van Til’s Dutch Letters
• 00:21:43 First Impressions of the Letters
• 00:29:09 The Afscheiding of 1834
• 00:47:42 The Doleantie
• 00:50:10 Holland-Mania
• 00:54:51 Vos as a Connecting Figure
• 01:06:30 American Presbyterian Influence on the Dutch Reformed
• 01:11:57 A Struggle for Faithfulness to Confessional Identity
• 01:21:12 Teaching at MARS
• 01:23:24 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Dan Ragusa

In chapter 5 of Geerhardus Vos’ Biblical Theology (pp. 343ff), the focus is on the various aspects of Jesus’ revelation during his public ministry. Vos argues that the revelation mediated by Jesus is often mistakenly confined to his earthly life, ignoring his pre-existence and post-existence, both of which are integral to the comprehensive scheme of divine revelation.

Vos outlines that Jesus’ earthly revelation functioned within a specific framework, implying limitations that did not exist in his pre-existent and post-existent states. These limitations were not due to any inadequacy in Jesus’ knowledge or power but were part of a divine scheme that required a progressive unfolding of revelation. Vos emphasizes that Jesus did not intend to reveal the entire volume of divine truth during his earthly ministry but functioned as a pivotal link within the continuum of revelation that includes both the Old and New Testaments.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:04:31 The Revelation of Jesus
• 00:20:57 The Generation of the Son
• 00:32:51 The Son as a Divine Person
• 00:44:07 Jesus’ Post-Existence
• 00:48:25 The Progressive Covenantal Character of Christ’s Ministry
• 00:55:24 Beyond the Incarnation
• 01:01:34 Kenosis
• 01:08:20 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

In this thought-provoking episode, we dive deep into the intriguing account of Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the wilderness. Join us as we explore the profound insights offered by Geerhardus Vos on pages 339–342 in his work Biblical Theology and unpack the ultimate issue at stake in this cosmic confrontation: Who should be God, and whose Messiah would Jesus be?

We grapple with the perplexing questions surrounding Jesus’ temptability and peccability. How could a sinless Jesus be tempted, and what does this imply about his ability to sin? We examine Vos’s argument that the things Satan suggested were not inherently sinful, only wrong due to God’s prohibition, and consider how this differs from modern interpretations that see the temptations as allurements towards a worldly, political messianic role.

Vos’s work invites us to ponder the profound mystery of a fully human Jesus who is intimately united with the Holy Spirit and possesses a divine nature. We consider how these unique aspects of Jesus’ identity make his sinlessness even more unthinkable than Adam’s, and we wrestle with the implications for our understanding of Jesus’ impeccability.

Through a careful analysis of Vos’s insights and a lively discussion of the theological complexities involved, we aim to shed light on this pivotal moment in Jesus’ earthly mission and its significance for our faith. Join us as we explore the depths of Jesus’ commitment to the path of humiliation and suffering, and the ultimate triumph of his messianic glory.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:02:33 Calvinism: The Plan of Salvation
• 00:07:31 Camden’s Trip to Budapest and Vienna
• 00:14:09 Temptability and Peccability
• 00:22:50 Bavinck and Vos on the Person of the Son
• 00:37:59 The Nature of Jesus’ Temptation
• 00:42:48 Other Theories of the Messianic Nature of the Temptation
• 00:46:41 Christ’s Victory Comes through Suffering unto Glory
• 00:52:06 Satan’s Intent to Circumvent Redemption
• 01:00:17 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Geerhardus Vos mounted a heavenly vantage point from which he surveyed the world and all its happenings. From the high tower of God’s Word, he saw with eagle-eye clarity the beauty and majesty of the Lord in nature and history, creation and providence. “The whole earth is full of his glory!” was his theme (Isa. 6:3). With his heart brimming with seraphic wonder, he addressed his verses to the King (Ps. 45:1).

In Vos’ nature poems, he saw the mystery of the gospel reflected in creation as in a mirror. To highlight this, he entitled one volume of his nature poetry Spiegel der Natuur (Mirror of Nature). In the mirror of nature, through the spectacles of Scripture, Vos saw that death never had the final say. He saw that the path of life was the path of the cross. He saw evil deeds ironically reversed to bring about good by the providence of God. He saw the truth of Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 42 that he had learned as a child:

Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?
A. Our death is not a payment for our sins, but only a dying to sins and an entering into eternal life.

In sum, he saw the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

Vos shares with us a glimpse in his poem “Ex Arbore Navis.” In this poem, he finds the hope of resurrection life in Christ reflected in a tree torn from the earth’s embrace but made into a beautiful ship for the open seas of eternity. Isaiah, the “salvation-poet,” as Vos called him, had once prophesied,

For the coastlands shall hope for me,
the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your children from afar,
their silver and gold with them,
for the name of the LORD your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has made you beautiful (Isa. 60:9).

EX ARBORE NAVIS[1]

Bound is the tree in all his growing;
Sprouting and his flowers showing,
His evening and his morning glowing,

His winter sleeping, summer waking,
His silence and the sounds he’s making.

Still grounded in his mother’s place,
Confined within a tiny space;

Until one day a tragedy,
An axman swings with cruelty.

His market value lights his face,
And tears him from the earth’s embrace.

A woeful groan he then raises,
A fit of death through him races,
Down to his roots it abases.

But behold! the cry he utters,
From the pain of death he shudders,
Finished, it forever severs,

Makes for him, a state to hope in,
A wondrous new world to open.

In the woods a hidden pillar,
Now he journeys to the miller,

Who from the thickness, round and broad,
Of his large trunk cuts plank unflawed,

And for the beams of higher estate,
The right measure he must calculate.

Then onward from the miller’s yard,
Coastward goes he to the shipyard;

There the fragrant wood, like a vow,
Is built for keel and hull and bow.

Secured from wind and weather far,
Sealed with wax, baptized with tar.

The master sees him with delight,
Glide down the slope now to alight,

Like a bird over ocean blue
To his new element he flew.

Longing for the wonders at sea,
Ready to sail, restless lies he,

Tighter and tighter pulling on
The anchor that he might be gone.

It came at last the hour set,
By tugboat pulled to an outlet,

With flag and pennants high he’s free
To sail into the open sea;

Bedecked in white, his bridegroom sail,
On crested billows rides his tail,
Like were his own currents and gale;

Like every droplet in the slough
Of despond was his servant low;

Freer than the sea from bonds and bands,
Up rivers rushes he to distant lands.

You say this is a poetic device,
In real life groundless, it cannot suffice.

Believe me I know of what I sing,
A ship is also a living thing.

Lord, when death soon draws itself near,
Through trunk and branch goes his shear,

Freed from this narrow earthly space,
Let me go to a wider place;

After the escape, make of me,
A ship for Yourself graciously,

Assembled and made beautifully,
For the grand sail of eternity.

Reflected in this poem is that what the axman meant for evil, God meant for good (Gen. 50:20). Vos personifies the tree in the same way trees are found clapping their hands and singing for joy in Scripture (Ps. 96:12; Isa. 55:12). But here the tree is mercilessly torn from the nurturing arms of the earth. He groans and convulses in death. But death is not his destiny.

But behold! the cry he utters,
From the pain of death he shudders,
Finished, it forever severs,
Makes for him, a state to hope in,
A wondrous new world to open.

A kind of resurrection is reflected in the master shipbuilder raising the tree to new life as he forms and fashions him into a beautiful ship. Now the tree, once bound and confined, is loosed upon the open seas. Through a kind of death, his previous narrow existence has now opened into a broader existence of boundless currents of joy.

For Vos, this is more than a mere poetic device. It touches reality. It is the lifepath of the believer in Christ reflected as in a mirror. So, with the seaways to Zion in his heart (Ps. 84:5), he prays to the Lord in the final eight lines. He asks him that when he is torn from the earth by death’s cruel blow,

After the escape, make of me,
A ship for Yourself graciously,
Assembled and made beautifully
For the grand sail of eternity.

It is the true Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will raise his people from the dead to a more beautiful, more glorious existence. “[O]ur citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20–21). Glimmering in Vos’ prayer is the good news that though we die, yet we shall live, that by grace alone we will be resurrected “at the hour set” to glorify and enjoy our Lord forever in the boundless joys of heaven—joys which earth cannot afford and none but Zion’s children know. The sea of crystal is forever before us. On its still, clear waters glisten the eternal glory of the gospel of Christ, the firstborn from the dead. With this end in mind, Vos encourages us in his sermon “Heavenly-Mindedness,” saying,

Being the sum and substance of all the positive gifts of God to us in their highest form, heaven is of itself able to evoke in our hearts positive love, such absorbing love as can render us at times forgetful of the earthly strife. In such moments the transcendent beauty of the other shore and the irresistible current of our deepest life lift us above every regard of wind or wave. We know that through weather fair or foul our ship is bound straight for its eternal port.[2]

Carried along by heavenly winds, even the Spirit of Christ in our sails, we pray: “In accord with Your covenant promise, O Lord, make of me a ship for Yourself.” Those last two words reach the apex of the religious longing of our hearts. For God, we were constituted as his image bearers in creation. From God, we fell in the sin of the first Adam. To God, we are restored and perfected by our union with the resurrected Christ in redemption. In Christ, we confess by his Spirit that even the glory of the escape of death is outshone by our God who has made us beautiful in his Son “for the grand sail of eternity.”

[1] Geerhardus Vos, Spiegel der Natuur en Lyrica Anglica (Princeton, NJ: Geerhardus Vos, 1927), 33–34. The translation is my own. I attempted to maintain the meter and rhyme scheme of the original.

[2] Geerhardus Vos, “Heavenly-Mindedness,” in Grace and Glory: Sermons Preached at Princeton Seminary (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2020), 120–21, emphasis mine.

Today, we turn to pages 318–322 of Vos’ Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to explore the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Our goal is to offer a nuanced understanding by identifying both the similarities and differences between John’s baptism of Jesus and the baptisms John performed upon the people.

Vos aims to steer clear of two misconceptions: the first being that Jesus’ baptism and the people’s baptisms were entirely distinct events, and the second that they were essentially the same.

The baptism of Jesus holds dual significance. Firstly, it serves as a public and objective revelation of the Holy Spirit’s glory, manifested as the Spirit descended from heaven onto Jesus. Secondly, it has a sacramental meaning for Jesus himself, as he received something from the Spirit that furthered his earthly mission, which was a journey of suffering leading to glory.

In addition, we’ll examine the connection between Jesus’s baptism and his role as the Messiah, offering insights into both pneumatology—the study of the Holy Spirit—and eschatology—the study of end times.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 00:37 Discussing the Recent Course on Aquinas’ Trinitarian Theology
• 09:49 John’s Baptism of Jesus
• 23:22 The Redemptive-Historical Roles of Jesus and John
• 27:05 Jesus Identifies with His People
• 29:55 The Objective Office of Messiah
• 41:42 The Descent of the Spirit upon Jesus
• 46:54 The Sacramental Significance of Jesus Baptism
• 50:31 The Beginning of the New Creation
• 58:49 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

We turn to pp. 315–318 of Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss revelation connected with John the Baptist. Our discussion examines the complexities of John’s role in the grand scheme of Biblical theology, unearthing profound insights about revelation and prophecy. We explore John’s unique connection with Elijah, and the significance of his testimony to Jesus and baptism.

Join us as we ponder Vos’s interpretation of Biblical revelation, shedding light on how it relates to the shadowy figure of John the Baptist. We navigate the delicate interplay between Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment, guided by the astute scholarship of Vos.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:02:49 Thoughts on Studying Vos
• 00:14:10 John the Baptist and Elijah
• 00:21:50 Dispensational Interpretations of OT Prophecy
• 00:30:11 Repent in Preparation of the Coming of Christ
• 00:34:37 John’s Baptism
• 00:43:47 The OT Background to the Baptism of John
• 00:51:27 Considering John’s Baptism Redemptive-Historically
• 01:01:50 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

We turn to pp. 311–314 of Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss revelation connected with John the Baptist. In this section, we are reminded of the importance of being methodologically self-conscious in our biblical theology. Vos provides valuable insights into John the Baptist’s mission and his place in the unfolding of God’s plan of salvation.

Through an exposition of Matthew 11:2-15, we explore Jesus’ correction of mistaken views and his explanation of John’s significance as “more than a prophet” as well as Vos’ biblical theology, emphasizing the redemptive event as preceding the interpretive word. Whether you’re a biblical scholar or simply interested in the history of special revelation, this episode is sure to provide you with valuable insights and a deeper understanding of John the Baptist’s role in the unfolding of God’s plan of salvation.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:01:32 Join Our New Online Community
• 00:07:37 New Course Available on Van Til and Barth
• 00:16:10 Vos, John the Baptist, and Methodological Considerations
• 00:23:32 Baldensperger and the History of Religions School
• 00:29:04 John the Baptist in Luke 1
• 00:36:54 Baldensperger’s View of Luke 1–3
• 00:44:45 The Christian Philosophy of History
• 00:50:14 John the Baptist in Matthew 11:2–15
• 00:57:46 John and Impending Judgment
• 01:01:45 John Living under the Old Covenant
• 01:05:46 Rejoicing in Suffering for Christ
• 01:18:16 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

We turn to pp. 309–310 of Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss aspects of the nativity. The convergence of the coming of Jehovah and the coming of the Messiah is found in Jesus Christ and revealed particularly at the time of the nativity. Two Old Testament roots support this convergence: the circle of Mary and Joseph, who stand in the line of David, and the circle of Zacharias and Elizabeth, where the idea of Jehovah’s coming prevails.

Additionally, Vos notes that the name “Jesus” means “Jehovah is Salvation,” signifying Jesus’ divine identity as the one who delivers his people from the guilt and power of sin. Finally, Vos emphasizes that the inclusion of the Gentiles into God’s covenant people is another important aspect of Jesus’ redemptive work revealed with the incarnation.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 01:31 The Coming of the Son of David
• 11:41 The Coming of the Lord
• 15:43 John the Baptist’s Ministry
• 21:45 The Name of “Jesus”
• 27:54 Simeon and the Inclusion of the Gentiles
• 36:42 Jesus Has No Earthly Father
• 39:52 Creation and Incarnation
• 50:09 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob returns to a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 7, “The Essence of the Kingdom continued: The Kingdom in the Sphere of Righteousness,” Vos explains the relationship between the kingdom and righteousness.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

In this episode, we bring you the third plenary address from our 2022 Theology Conference wherein we considered, “The Covenantal Tale of Creation, Christ, and Consummation: The Life and Work of M. G. Kline.” This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Meredith G. Kline. We will take the opportunity to consider his unique contributions by exploring several covenantal and eschatological themes he identified throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Danny Olinger is General Secretary for the Committee on Christian Education for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He is the author of Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian.

Links

• Nathan Feldmeth, S. Donald Fortson III, Garth M. Rosell, and Kenneth J. Stewart, Reformed and Evangelical Across Four Centuries: The Presbyterian Story in America
• Mark Noll, America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911
• Jeffrey S. McDonald, “Advancing the Evangelical Mind: Melvin Grove Kyle, J. Gresham Machen, and the League of Evangelical Students“

Chapters

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:08:01 The Biblical Theology of Vos-Kline-Gaffin
• 1:00:45 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob returns to a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 6, “The Essence of the Kingdom as the Supremacy of God in the Sphere of Saving Power,” Vos explain why the concept of the kingdom of God is so thoroughly God-centered and God-glorifying.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey turn to pages 289–296 of Geerhardus Vos’ book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. In this section, Vos introduces several significant interpretive practices which are critical for a proper understanding of the eschatology of the prophets. These are the principles of (1) finality and consummation, (2) prophetic idiom, and (3) the coming of the Messiah as the “gift of God.”

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:48 Finality and Consummation
• 13:53 The Forshortening of Prophetic Insight
• 22:54 Prophetic Idiom and the Future Glory of Isaiah
• 42:58 The Coming Messiah as the Gift of God
• 51:06 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey turn to pages 267–269 of Geerhardus Vos’ book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments, to consider the collective sin of the nation during the time of the prophets. Vos addresses several passages in this section, including Amos 5:25, Isaiah 1:10–17, and Hosea 6:6.

Links

• OPC Report of the Committee to Study Republication

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 05:13 Critics, the Prophets, and the Old Covenant
• 12:28 The Passover and Redemptive-History
• 19:32 Amos 5:25
• 28:33 Isaiah 1:10–17
• 36:17 Hosea 6:4–10
• 40:47 Israel’s National Sin
• 49:06 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Danny Olinger delivers an address at the 2021 Reformed Forum Theology Conference. The event was held October 8–9, 2021 at Providence OPC in Pflugerville, Texas.

The conference theme was, “The Promise of Life: God’s Plan for His People in the Covenant of Works.” In contrast to Roman Catholic, modernist, and evangelical approaches, we explored a thoroughly Reformed understanding of God’s relationship to Adam as he was created. We learned how Jesus Christ ultimately brings us to the glorious future which God originally offered to Adam in the garden of Eden.

Danny Olinger is General Secretary for the Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He is the author of Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian and the editor of A Geerhardus Vos Anthology: Biblical and Theological Insights Alphabetically Arranged.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:46 Geerhardus Vos and the Covenant of Works
00:10:49 Summary in The Eschatology of the Psalter
00:16:20 Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15
00:26:06 The Promise of Life in the Covenant of Works
00:41:28 The Nature and Destiny of Man
00:48:43 Reformed and Roman Catholic Theology
00:59:15 Theology from Genesis 2:16–17
01:02:22 The Sabbath Day
01:12:25 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey turn to pages 264–266 of Geerhardus Vos’ book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments, to consider the collective sin of the nation during the time of the prophets. Vos speaks particularly of the prophet Amos, and his indictment of false worship practices among the people.

Links

• OPC Report of the Committee to Study Republication

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:09:14 Collective National Sin
• 00:17:33 Oppression of the Poor and Sexual Immorality
• 00:24:40 Licentious Idolatry
• 00:28:24 The Covenant-Historical Context
• 00:35:26 The Motivation of the Apostates (Amos 8:1–6)
• 00:42:04 A Critical Interpretation of the Prophets’ View of Sacrifices
• 00:45:57 Manners of False Worship
• 00:55:17 Cultural Forces and the Church
• 01:00:33 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Danny Olinger, Lane Tipton, and Camden Bucey discuss Geerhardus Vos’s sermon, “Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness” from Matthew 5:6. This sermon is included in Grace and Glory: Sermons Preached at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 5, Vos discusses current misconceptions regarding the present and future kingdom.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

We turn to pages 243–244 of Geerhardus Vos’s book Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss the prophet’s view of God’s relation to time and space. In terms of God’s relation to time and space, two relations occur. What we have to affirm first of all is that God is everywhere present in all of his fullness. But Vos speaks of a special relation to Zion (on earth) and heaven itself as the temple dwelling of God. Two things help us grasp the significance of this: the notion of covenant and the location of the fellowship.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

We turn to pp. 238–243 of Vos’s book, Biblical Theology, to speak about the Old Testament prophets and their understanding of the nature and attributes of God. Vos affirms that God is Spirit. This brings into view not that God is immaterial per se, as Vos notes, but rather the “energy of life in God.” This is critical to appreciate. That God is Spirit reminds us that while he is immutable in his being, he is impassible in his actions.

He acts, and his actions condition all that he acts upon, without he himself being mutually conditioned by that on which he acts. That is, God is pure act in the sense that he immutably and sovereignly acts in such a way that he is not acted upon, and in that action, changed by the creation on which and in which his actions terminate. Vos says in his Reformed Dogmatics, there is no time distinction in God, yet his acts fall in time. And they fall in time as the acts of an all-conditioning God, who is living and active, but in a way that he is not acted upon or changed by the creature.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that God is a Spirit, “infinite, eternal and unchangeable.” This helpfully distills the essence of what Vos is after. While immutable, God is active and living and all of his acts express his immutable being and purpose. So, a key here is that immutability and spirituality require one another: God is immutable in his life; immutable in his purposes; and his agency in creation expresses immutable but living and acting Trinitarian persons, who are exhaustively and entirely the one true God.

Isaiah 57:15 is a key text: “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 4, endeavors to test two opposing views about the kingdom of God to determine which one is in accord with the teaching of our Lord.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 3, Vos discusses the nature of “kingdom” as well as the difference between the usage of “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob finishes reading from the 1922 edition of Grace and Glory, a collection of sermons delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Geerhardus Vos. The sixth of these sermons is on Hebrews 11:9-10, “Heavenly-Mindedness.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues reading from the 1922 edition of Grace and Glory, a collection of sermons delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Geerhardus Vos. The fifth of these sermons is on 2 Corinthians 3:18, “The More Excellent Ministry.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues reading from the 1922 edition of Grace and Glory, a collection of sermons delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Geerhardus Vos. The third of these sermons is on Luke 19:10, “Seeking and Saving the Lost.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues reading from the 1922 edition of Grace and Glory, a collection of sermons delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Geerhardus Vos. The second of these sermons is on Matthew 5:6, “Hungering and Thirsting After Righteousness.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob continues reading from the 1922 edition of Grace and Glory, a collection of sermons delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Geerhardus Vos. The fourth of these sermons is on John 20:16, “Rabboni!”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

We take a brief break from our regular schedule in Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments, to discuss Vos’s sermon “Rabboni,” on John 20:16. This sermon is found in Grace & Glory, a collection of Vos’s sermons preached at the chapel of Princeton Seminary.

John 20:1–18 (ESV)

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. ² So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³ So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. ⁴ Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, ⁷ and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹ for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to their homes. 

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. ¹² And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴ Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her. 

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob begins reading the 1922 edition of Grace and Glory, a collection of sermons delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Geerhardus Vos. The first of these sermons is on Hosea 14:8, “The Wonderful Tree.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

We turn to pages 224–229 of Vos’s book, Biblical Theology, to speak about the intra-mental state of the prophet, by which Vos means to inquire into “how the soul felt and reacted under the things shown within the vision” (p. 224).

Far too much attention has been given to what is represented by the Greek term ecstasis. The term served first as a translation of the Hebrew tardemah (cf. Gen. 2:21 with Adam and Genesis 15:12 with Abram). In Adam’s case, there is no visionary state. In Abram’s case, there is such a vision (expound the theology of the theophany). But tardemah does not throw any light on Abram’s state of mind.

Ecstasis, on the other hand, has a very definite conception in Greek consciousness that leads in the direction of error. That conception is that of “insanity or mania” and was applied to the oracular process—the process of receiving visions and the resultant state in which it put the seer-prophet. This led to a close association between the prophet and some feature of instability—some manic tendency that seems inherent to the process of receiving a vision.

Vos points us to God’s inspired, inerrant, and infallible revelation in history, which does not bypass the human mind or allow the recipient to escape his humanity, but elevates him to greater communion with God.

Danny Olinger, author of Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theology, Confessional Presbyterian, joins us for a special conversation. We take a brief break from Vos’s book Biblical Theology to discuss the influence of Vos upon several other theologians. We then open the floor to questions from people participating in our live webinar.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

Today we provide an introduction to the doctrine of justification with a consideration of several basic categories. We begin with a confessional doctrine of justification from the Westminster Standards. We then consider justification’s relationship to faith. Then we turn to the believer’s relationship to the person and work of Christ and consider how we are united to him. Finally, we speak about the relationship of that union to faith.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Q. 29. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.

Q. 30. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

Q. 31. What is effectual calling?
A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

Q. 32. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
A. They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption and sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them.

Q. 33. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11—Of Justification

1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

4. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Danny Olinger speaks about the life and thought of Geerhardus Vos. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. has identified Vos as the father of Reformed biblical theology and we take the time to speak of his contribution and legacy. Rev. Olinger is General Secretary for the OPC Committee on Christian Education. He has written a tremendous biography of Vos, titled Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian. The book is published by Reformed Forum and available for purchase.

Participants: Adam York, Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Jim Cassidy

Rev. Danny E. Olinger lectures on the connection Geerhardus Vos and J. Gresham Machen. This lesson was taught at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois as part of the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference.

Participants: Danny Olinger

Camden Bucey delivers the concluding address at the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois.

Lane Tipton delivers the first plenary address at the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois. Download the lecture notes to follow along.

Participants: Lane G. Tipton

We have compiled a list of suggested reading to help those coming to the 2018 Theology Conference. We realize people like have neither the time nor financial budget to work through each of these titles in advance of the conference. Nonetheless, even a first-level reading of a few of these resources will help attendees make the most out of the conference. One of the things we love most about our events is the personal interaction. Working through the issues together is what makes the Reformed Forum community so special. Study and contemplate the deep mysteries of the God-man relationship and the future consummation. In October, let’s take the discussion to the next level.

Primary Sources

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics
  • CD I/2, section 14.
  • CD II/1, section 31.3
  • CD I/1, section 6
  • CD III/1, section 41.2
  • CD III/1, section 45.1
• Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, Preface to the Second Edition
• Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1: Theology Proper
• Logos Resources
  • Barth’s Church Dogmatics: https://www.logos.com/product/5758/barths-church-dogmatics.
  • Vos: https://www.logos.com/product/48797/reformed-dogmatics
  • Van Til: https://www.logos.com/product/3994/the-works-of-cornelius-van-til

General Reading on the Beatific Vision

• Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition

Thomas Aquinas

• Daria Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace: Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas
• Dominic Legge, The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas
• Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters
• Levering and Dauphinais, eds., Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments

Karl Barth

• Keith L. Johnson, Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis
• McCormack and White, eds., Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Catholic-Protestant Dialogue
• James J. Cassidy, God’s Time For Us: Barth on the Reconciliation of Eternity and Time in Jesus Christ

Catholicism and Protestantism

• Cornelius Van Til, The Confession of 1967
• Cornelius Van Til, The New Synthesis Theology of the Netherlands
• Cornelius Van Til, The Great Debate Today
• John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II?
• William M. Shea, The Lion and the Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in America

* Check back for updates.

We discuss how a return to sola scriptura through confessional Reformed theology spares us from the errors of Roman Catholicism and modernism. Reformed covenant theology, broadly considered, is facing a crisis regarding what constitutes “reformed” theology. The situation currently is one of chaos and confusion. Some claim that the way forward is by way of retrieving the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor of the Roman Catholic church, in the service of a so-called “Reformed” apologetic. The line of this argument is that if you follow the Roman Catholic theology and method of Aquinas, you will arrive at Protestant conclusions. Others enlist Aquinas in conversation with the likes of John Webster and Karl Barth, in the interest of retrieving “catholic” tradition in the development of a reformed theological identity. Still others, outside of our reformed circles, are engaged in ecumenical dialogue between Thomas and Barth (Bruce McCormack and Thomas Joseph White’s Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Dialogue, or Keith Johnson’s Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis, which helpfully to my mind points out the significant points of convergence between the two theologians). It is very much worth pointing out that Van Til virtually predicted this in advance in his sadly neglected but highly important work Confession of 1967, where he says, “If now we live in a dialogical age and if only the church as ecumenical can meet the needs of such an age, then surely the Roman Catholic too must learn to see this fact. As Martin Marty says, “If Protestants and Roman Catholics wish to make possible a creative coexistence, to enrich our pluralistic society, and to profit from each other’s separate histories, they will have to participate in dialogue.…” And what does such “dialogue” look like? Again, Van Til says, “It was Hans Urs von Balthasar who, more than anyone else, has helped Barth to see that Roman Catholicism also begins its theology from the Christ-Event. Roman Catholicism, says von Balthasar, does not believe in direct revelation any more than does Barth. To be sure, Rome does speak of “faith and works,” of “nature and grace,” of “reason and revelation.” But this “and” is not, as Barth thinks, fatal to the idea of the primacy of Christ and of faith in Christ. The whole discussion between Barth and the Roman Catholic position may therefore start from the idea that revelation is revelation in hiddenness. ”The difference between Barth and Roman Catholicism will therefore be not of principle but of degree” (Confession, 119).

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy, Lane G. Tipton

Our resident book hound, Ryan Noha, speaks about several rare books to be added to the Reformed Forum online store.

Select Titles:

• Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (signed by the author)
• John Murray, Divorce (first edition, 1953)
• Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (first edition, 1955)
• Geerhardus Vos, The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuchal Code (first edition, 1886)

Participants: Camden Bucey, Ryan Noha

Teaching on the eternal state of the world to come may sound from the outset to be speculative and useless for practical living in the present. How can heavenly contemplation help me raise my children or motivate me at work Monday morning or mend my broken relationship with my brother? Yet, Geerhardus Vos was convinced of the very opposite. In fact, he believed that “it becomes the profoundest and most practical of all thought complexes…” (The Pauline Eschatology, 294). He goes on to give a reason for this statement—which may seem at the moment to be an overstatement, but in reality is actually an understatement—but I think before getting there we need to think over a few things he gleaned from the apostle Paul on the eternal state.

Formal Aspects of the Eternal State: Unending and Imperishable

In the final chapter of The Pauline Eschatology, Vos begins his discussion on the eternal state by discussing its two formal aspects: unendingness and imperishableness (pp. 287-92). First, Paul characterizes the eternal state, on the one hand, as precluding any time limitation so that it does not consist of a relative duration as is true of the present age. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the coming eternal age are not deified so that they cease to exist in a mode of duration and time ceases to be divided for them into units of past, present, and future. There continues in the supernal sphere the movement of time and duration. We might then speak of the formal aspect of the eternal state as absolute duration. This stands opposed to the relative duration of the present age, which consummates in what Paul terms the “fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). Vos understands this phrase not to signify “ripeness,” but “the completion of what was ‘time’ and the succession of it by what is different from time through the mission of the Messiah into the world” (289n3). The eternal state will never arrive at a “fullness of time” as it is perpetual and unending duration. Eternity is not pregnant with other eternities. The second formal aspect pertains to the imperishable nature of the things belonging to the eternal state. “The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17). While the things of the present age are transitory and corruptible, the things of the eternal state are permanent and incorruptible. Hellenistic thought understood imperishability to be inherent to whatever was invisible. But Paul essentially distinguished himself from this teaching by way of his two-age scheme. For him, imperishability does not pertain to the invisible as such, but to the world to come that is unseen at the present. In Vos’ words, “[H]e has learned to recognize in the things unseen to the present [age] the enduring things of the world to come, a world already in principle present, the contemplation of which can consequently render solace and support in the affliction of the moment” (292). The world to come will not remain unseen forever. Its present invisibility is a matter of the present redemptive-historical situation of God’s people, for today “we pilgrimage through a land of faith, not of sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). So while today the things of the world to come are both invisible and imperishable, when in Christ we enter the eternal state the same things of the world to come will cease to be invisible, but will continue to be imperishable. Paul does not see imperishability and invisibility as requiring each other as was true in Hellenestic thought; the one can cease (invisibility), while the other remains (imperishability).

Substantial Content of the Eternal State: God Himself

We would be deeply mistaken if we thought that it was merely these formal aspects of the eternal state that excited Paul. If this was the case, Paul’s eschatology would be useless, abstract speculation and provide no vital power for the present life. But what stirred Paul’s eschatological longings at their very core and what gave meaning and value to the unendingness and imperishability of the eternal state was nothing less than its central object and substantial content: the Eternal One, God himself (pp. 292-94). The formal aspects of the eternal state were not ultimate in Paul’s thinking; God was. Unendingness and imperishability serve to express the absoluteness of the acme of religion, communion with him. The present redemptive-historical state does not furnish the believer with a sense of fullness or satisfaction, but with intense longing for God. Our souls long, yes, faint for the courts of the Lord (Ps. 84:2). Because God is eternal

there can be no thorough, no adequate reception of Him into our finite consciousness, unless there by some assurance of the unceasingness of our communion with Him. He is not a God of the dead but of the living. All temporal, partial experience of God inevitably leaves a sense of dissatisfaction behind (293).

The Spirit of Christ bearing witness in our hearts moves us to say, Amen. But God has been and will forever remain the Eternal One, while we remain finite creatures of temporal duration. We long for the One, and only one, who is eternal, while ourselves existing as the very opposite. How can this problem be met? According to Vos, it is met by

God’s imparting a reflection of his unique eternal existence to our life as creatures, through admitting us into the realm of the aionion [eternal]. In this He not merely confers a boon [something beneficial] upon man, but at the same time provides a true satisfaction for Himself. Although in the abstract being self-sufficient as God, He has freely chosen to carry his concern with us to the extreme of eternal mutually appurtenance of which the creature is capable (293).

Although Vos does not use the term here, he has in mind the covenant relationship that God has freely and voluntarily entered into with his people (see WCF 7.1). At the heart of this covenant is the promise of shared life: I will be your God and you will be my people. So not only are we supremely satisfied in having God as our God, but (and this is an amazing thought!) God is truly satisfied in having us as his people. This mutual satisfaction is realized in a heightened, eschatological sense in the eternal state. Paul affirms both of these ideas. On the one hand, God is the only immortal Being (1 Tim. 6:16) and, on the other hand, “He has appointed as the eschatological goal of religious fellowship with Himself, among other things, the prize of an incorruption [Rom 2:7], such as is equivalent to eternal life” (293). Vos, however, does not blur the Creator-creature distinction here as if just as God is eternal, so we become eternal in the exact same way. Note in the above quote that it is an “eternal mutually appurtenance of which the creature is capable.” He goes on to utilize the common theological distinction of an archetype and ectype. He affirms that this attribute of eternality exists in God alone in its archetypical form, but exists in the creature “in an ectypical form.” For both God and for man more than mere endless existence is meant. It also includes a content commensurable with its eternity. Again, the formal aspects of eternity, unendingness and imperishableness, are not abstractly considered as empty concepts, but serve the concrete objects indwelling eternity. For this reason Paul does not use the empty term “immortality,” but “chooses as a larger, deeper receptacle the term ‘life’” (293). (While Paul says mortality puts on immortality in 1 Cor. 15:53-54, Vos notes “the very form in which this is expressed is such that it could never have been applied to God, who is the Only One who has immortality [1 Tim. 6:16].”) “Life” is a concrete term that encapsulates the dynamic relationship between the formal aspects (unendingness and imperishableness) and substantial content (God himself) of the eternal state.

The Practicality of the Eternal State

We began with Vos’ statement that teaching on the eternal state is “the profoundest and most practical of all thought complexes.” We can now appreciate the whole sentence:

We find that the [eternity-concept], thus understood, belongs to the acme of religion, serving to express its absoluteness. Eschatology ceases for those who have learned, and in principle experienced this, to be an abstract speculation: it becomes the profoundest and most practical of all thought-complexes because they, like Paul, live and move and have their redemptively-religious treasures in God (294).

For more check out this article on the book of Hebrew’s teaching on the vital connection the believer already has today with the world to come.

Jim Cassidy and Camden Bucey discuss theological methodology in light of Calvin’s view of natural theology. As a starting point for the discussion, they turn to Thiago M. Silva’s article, “John Calvin and the Limits of Natural Theology,” Puritan Reformed Journal 8, 2 (2016): 33-48.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

The Westminster Larger Catechism defines justifying faith as

a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation (72).

Faith is not merely the intellectual assent of the mind to the redemptive revelation of God, it is also a receiving and resting upon the person of Christ. By this definition the Reformed go beyond Rome’s demand for nothing more than an historical assent to the truth by including a heartfelt trust of the whole person. This personal and active dimension of faith is evident in the words used throughout the Old Testament to express the concept of believing. We’ll turn to Geerhardus Vos’ survey of these words in the fourth volume of his Reformed Dogmatics on soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) to see this.

אמן (“To Believe”)

The first and most often used word is אמן. Vos notes that in the hiphil form the word is best rendered as “demonstrating faithfulness,” “generating faithfulness,” or “establishing oneself.” It has to do with “an active disposition of the soul, an action that produces change” (72). The word also takes on certain nuances depending on the preposition connected with it. With the preposition לְ (“to”) it generally has to do with holding something to be true. This is seen in Deuteronomy 9:23, which speaks of Israel’s failure to actively believe: “you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and did not believe him…” With the preposition בְּ (“by,” “in”) it usually denotes a trustful resting in a person or in a truth. This is used of Abraham in Genesis 15:6, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Now Abraham’s faith was more than just his holding the promise of God to be true. “As this promise was a matter of life for Abraham, so this promise was also a living testimony for him, and his faith was not merely concerned with the truth in the abstract but with the God of the truth. A personal relationship came about between the consciousness of Abraham and God. Thus we may already say in general that [Abraham’s believing here] is the trustful acceptance of the testimony of a person that becomes a basis for certainty for us through the conscious conception of that person” (73).

בטח (“To Trust”)

A second word that is used in the Old Testament is בטח which means “to be sure,” and so with the preposition בְּ (“in”) it means to trust in someone. So Psalm 28:7, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped.” Vos comments, “Here, too, the personal relationship comes out. Depending on the testimony is accompanied by and derives its strength from this personal relationship” (74). The imagery of the Lord being the psalmist’s personal shield is a helpful picture of what it means to trust in him.

חסה (“To Take Refuge”)

We find a third word used in Psalm 57:1, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.” The Hebrew word here is חסה, which means “to hide” or “to take refuge in.” This trust of the psalmist’s soul is not a mere intellectual assent to the truth, but an active trusting in God. The intense imagery of taking refuge in the midst of a destructive storm would be incongruous with a mere acceptance of the truth with the mind. The whole trusts in the Lord and so seeks refuge in him.

קוה (“To Wait”)

A fourth, and final, word used is קוה—an intense, active word that can mean “focusing the mind on something.” At times it might carry the sense of “hoping” in the biblical sense that carries certainty and conviction or “an intensive focusing of the intellect that definitely expects the realization of what is desired” (74). It is usually translated as “wait”: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Ps. 27:14). “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. 40:31). “This waiting … is not a passive state, depleted of all expression of life. Rather, it is an extending and securing of the heart, a reckoning on Jehovah connected with the inner strength of the soul” (74).

Summary and Conclusion

Vos summarizes the various elements that belong to the concept of believing in the Old Testament (pp. 74-75):

1. Faith is an activity of the intellect as it accepts the testimony of another.
2. Faith can be much more than an activity of the intellect. As trust it is that deeply moral action by which, in order to have stability, man, as it were, puts himself into another.
3. As such, faith does not have a passive but an active, dynamic form.
4. As trust, faith is accompanied to a greater or lesser degree by a sense of security. Faith not only seeks certainty but finds it and also produces certainty. It knows itself to be certain and safe and lives in a reality with its conceptions that is not yet present.

Faith is a free gift from God that is kindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. All of the benefits we have spoken of are not true of faith in the abstract—our faith is not in faith itself—but because of the concrete object of our faith, namely, Jesus Christ. By faith we are united to him (you might say with Paul we are put in him) as our living and personal Savior, in whom we have died and in whom we have also been raised to new life. Today he not only supplies us with a place of security and rest as we navigate the tempestuous waters of this present age, but also works in us faith by his Spirit so that we do not fail to arrive on the shores of the crystal waters flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1).

In a previous post, we considered the way in which Geerhardus Vos’ doctrine of Christ impacted his redemptive-historical hermeneutic for reading the Old Testament. In the triune God’s eternal counsel of peace, the Son assumed his role as Mediator and Surety of the covenant of grace. Therefore, the Old Testament revelation that had him as its center and goal was never of him as the Logos in the abstract, but always as the Logos to be incarnate in time. For this reason the Old Testament revelation with its types had to point forward to Christ as the antitype. And not only did it point forward to the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), but also heavenward. For the prophets, priests and kings were messengers and representatives of the great antitype, the eternal Son of God anointed as Mediator from eternity. “They derived their official authority from the person Himself whom they as office bearers proclaimed in a shadowy fashion” (Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:90). This means that believers under the old covenant were not saved “otherwise than by the official activity of the Messiah” (90). Building on this, we notice a further integration that Vos develops with Christology and Covenant: he grounds the stability and certainty of the covenant of grace in the hypostatic union. By this union we affirm that the divine person (the Logos) assumed a human nature. It was not the union of a divine person and a human person, but the union of the divine nature and a human nature in the divine person of the Logos. In possession of both a true humanity and true divinity, he was fully God and fully man, the God-man. This person, and no other, is the Mediator and Surety of the covenant of grace. The question, then, is what impact does Christ being a divine person, the God-man, have on the covenant of grace? Or, how does the covenant of grace differ from the covenant of works by having Christ as its Mediator? While the church has always affirmed and defended the necessity of Christ being both truly God and truly man (see e.g., Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 6), the implications are sometimes left unturned. Vos will argue that the covenant of grace derives its certainty not in the abstract, but from the person of its Mediator.

Only because the divine person is the subject in Christ does His mediatorial work obtain the stability required by an eternal, immutable covenant of grace. We now know, however, that this human nature in itself is an abstraction that did not exist for a moment without personal subsistence in the Logos (48).

Note, first, the careful distinction Vos makes between person and nature. He is not saying that the attribute of immutability that belonged to the divine nature was communicated to the human nature.[1] The divine nature remains divine and the human nature remains human. The unity of the two natures lies solely in the divine person of the Logos (see p. 42).[2] Again, the Logos did not assume a human person but a human nature. On this basis, Vos can write, “[I]n Christ’s human nature there was not a mutable human person but the person of the Son of God. Will or intellect or emotion in the human nature could not have sinned unless the underlying person had fallen from a state of moral rectitude. There can naturally be no thought of the latter for the Mediator, considering the deity of His person” (58). Second, note how Vos understands the covenant of grace as eternal and immutable to require a certain kind of mediatorial work, namely one that is stable. Where does this stability come from? Vos says it comes from the Mediator being a divine person; particularly, from the human nature subsisting in the Logos, the second person of the Trinity. “The human nature of the Mediator did not exist for an instant apart from the person of the Son” (62). In short, the immutable nature of the covenant of grace required the assumption of a human nature by none other than an immutable divine person. So Vos goes on to say,

Thus the person of the Logos with its personality provides His human nature with the steadfastness and immutability by which the covenant of grace is distinguished from the first covenant, the covenant of works. The oneness and the deity of the person are of importance for the affirmation that Christ could not sin (48).

The impeccability of Christ that stabilizes the covenant of grace in its immutability is not owing to the deification of his humanity, but from the fact that his humanity subsists in a divine person. The covenant of works did not possess such stability because it did not have the God-man as its mediator. So while the covenant of works could be broken, the covenant of grace is indestructible. The practical import of all this is that the immutable and guaranteed nature of the covenant of grace is given a concrete and real ground in the person of Christ himself. We do not affirm the certainty of God’s covenant in the abstract, but on the basis of who Christ is as its Mediator and Surety. The promise of God in the covenant of grace to be our God and for us to be his people is as unbreakable as the unity of the two natures in the divine person of the Logos. His two natures would first have to be ripped apart before the threads of God’s promise could be unravelled. The covenant of grace, in which we find the complete forgiveness of ours sins and eschatological fellowship with the triune God forever, is founded upon nothing less than divine omnipotence. So in Christ we can be absolutely sure that all of God’s promises are, in fact, Yes and Amen.

[1] For Vos’ critique of Lutheran Christology with respect to the communication of attributes see pp. 65-74, esp. 70ff. [2] Vos asks, “Is this one subject, this one person in the Mediator, a divine or a human person?” He answers, “This person is divine, and not human or divine-human. In order to be immediately convinced of this, one may take the following into consideration. In the Logos, a divine person, who is immutable, is present from eternity. If now there can be but one person in the Mediator, and the divine person cannot be eradicated or changed, then it is self-evident that this one person is the divine person of the Logos. One can only maintain the immutability of God if one holds to the deity of the person in the Mediator. The choice lies between two persons or one divine person” (42).

Reformed theologians have regularly underscored the relationship between Word and sacraments. The sacraments are appended to the Word for the purpose of confirming or sealing it. The sacraments do not exist independently of the Word. It’s the Word that throws life into the sacraments. Moreover, there is no grace that is unique to the sacraments. The same grace that is received through the Word is also received through the sacraments. So Word and sacraments belong together as “two sides of the same divinely instituted instrumentality,” as Geerhardus Vos put it. Even though Vos did not produce a lengthy treatise on the sacraments, he occasionally addressed the subject in his writings. In a sermon entitled “The Gracious Provision,” Vos has the following to say about the relationship between Word and sacrament.

The word and the sacrament as means of grace belong together: they are two sides of the same divinely instituted instrumentality. While addressing themselves to different organs of perception, they are intended to bear the identical message of the grace of God—to interpret and mutually enforce one another…. Let us therefore be careful to key our preaching to such a note that when we stand as ministrants behind the table of our Lord to distribute the bread of life, our congregation shall feel that what we are doing then is only the sum and culmination of what we have been doing every Sabbath from the pulpit.

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey speak about theophanies before turning  to pages 72–76 of Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology to speak about the Angel of Jehovah, or the Angel of the Lord. The presence of the Angel punctuates epochal moments in covenant history, and his presence is critical during the patriarchal period. Camden’s article, “The Lord and His Messengers: Toward a Trinitarian Interpretation of Malachi 3:1–4,” which was mentioned during the program, was published in The Confessional Presbyterian, Volume 7 (2011).

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton