PMW 2024-049 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Bill Boney, a good friend of mine, and I have co-edited a book that should be released later this Summer. I hope this work will be well received not only in the Reformed world, but also more widely in the evangelical realm. We are thankful for the skillful competence of our publisher Kyle Shepherd who has pressed us to complete and release this work

What is this book? And what is it all about? It’s working title (which could change) is The Reformed Eschatology of Geerhardus Vos.

INTRODUCING GEERHARDUS VOS

We have edited several of Geerhardus Vos’ works on eschatology. Vos (1862–1949) was a theological genius with many ground-breaking and invaluable insights into the covenantal structure of Scripture and redemptive history. Fortunately, his memory and works have been kept alive over the seventy-five years since his death. But unfortunately, his works are not as widely read as they deserve, or as they need to be in this confused time in which we live.

Perspectives on Pentecost (Richard Gaffin)
A careful examination of the New Testament teaching on the gifts of the Spirit by Vos scholar, Richard B Gaffin, Jr. Gaffin makes a case for the cessation of tongues at the close of the apostolic era. Gaffin is professor emeritus of biblical and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

There are perhaps two leading reasons Vos has not been as widely read in popular circles in recent times.

First, the scholarly depth of Vos’ exegesis and the philosophical nature of his argumentation. His books were highly technical and not written for church-growth seminars. Sadly, in most modern seminaries today practical theology (though important) has elbowed systematic and exegetical theology out of the way, despite these being foundational to the Christian faith.

Second, since Vos wrote a century ago, his grammar and style are at times antiquated and cumbersome. As with all scholarly writings of that era, he employed quite lengthy sentences organized into painfully long paragraphs. His sentences present a formidable challenge for even the ablest English grammarian to diagram (if anyone this side of hell still diagrams sentences). Many of his paragraphs stretch on for several pages. For instance, the second paragraph in The Pauline Eschatology extends for over four pages — and he is just getting started! Almost no paragraph is less than a page in length. And imbedded in these long sections are footnotes that themselves are sometimes a page or more long. And they are only that short due to the type font being so small that many leading ophthalmologists suspect they may be a cause of the growing problem of macular degeneration among Reformed scholars. I (Ken Gentry) myself have long suspected that the Library of Congress may be a footnote to one of Vos’ lost books.

But now, why have we, the editors of this present work, taken the time and effort to produce this book on Vos’ eschatology? Both editors have a strong interest in eschatology, and especially from a Reformed perspective. And as Vos demonstrates, eschatology is foundational to soteriology and thus to the very gospel itself (note the beginning of eschatology in the first promise of the gospel in Gen. 3:15). Gentry has written numerous books on eschatology. Boney is not only an avid student of Reformed theology but has proof-read several of Gentry’s eschatological books before their going to press. And both editors are Vos enthusiasts — even though Vos is amillennial and we are postmillennial.

Predestination Made Easy
(by Ken Gentry)
A thoroughly biblical, extremely practical, and impressively clear presentation of
the doctrine of absolute predestination.
See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Because of our mutual interest in both eschatology and in Vos as a Reformed scholar, we are bringing together several of his articles and chapters that are so needful in today’s theological environment. Eschatological discussions today are dominated by large-scale dispensationalism on the one hand and troubled by tiny-but-tenacious hyper-preterism on the other. These theological systems stand at opposite ends of the eschatological spectrum, hyper-preterism even standing outside of orthodoxy, though being tempting to some incautious evangelicals.

In our book we have included the most relevant chapters from Vos’ 1930 book The Pauline Eschatology (chs. 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12). These appear in our book as chapters 1–2 and 4–9. Also incorporated within is an important article by Vos titled “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit,” which appears as chapter 3. This was first published in the journal Biblical and Theological Studies in 1912, and more recently in Gaffin’s Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation in 1980.

In Appendix 1 (“The New Heavens and the New Earth”) we have included several paragraphs from Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics as well as one of his articles from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: “Eschatology, of the New Testament” (1915). These important studies touch on the biblical teaching of the ultimate consummation order. This doctrine is an important counter against the new Gnosticism currently impacting some in modern popular theology. This new Gnosticism is denying the physical resurrection of the body. And it even re-formulates the physical resurrection of Jesus by denying his perpetual incarnation which continues in heaven since ascension. It also rejects a corporeal consummate order, arguing that God will do away with the material world as we live forever in heaven as spiritual beings. Appendix 2 presents chapter 9 from Vos’ book The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church (1903).

OUR METHOD

We have included the above materials from Vos with editorial changes. We have (hopefully!) not altered any of his theological commitments or changed his arguments. Rather, our intent was to make several stylistic and grammatical modifications so that he might be read more easily today. We have also slightly modified some of Vos’ original article or chapter titles either to make them a little more expressive or a little less cumbersome.

Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond
(ed. by Darrell Bock)

Presents three views on the millennium: progressive dispensationalist, amillennialist, and reconstructionist postmillennialist viewpoints. Includes separate responses to each view. Ken Gentry provides the postmillennial contribution.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

All of the materials contained in our book has already been published elsewhere. So, why are we compiling them in our book? It is not because retirement for each of us has gotten boring (though it has). We will explain the editorial alterations that we have made under five headings: (1) Modern Style Issues. (2) Publishing Convention Issues. (3) Foreign Language Issues. (4) Bible Version Issues. (5) Bibliographic Reference Issues.

Modern Style Issues

Presentation style. We have used a modern type font which is more attractive and easier to read than Times New Roman; we have used Amerigo BT. Thus, upon opening the book, this change leaps out at the modern reader. Furthermore, being newly typeset, the text has not suffered any generational loss of clarity due to numerous reprintings from old proofs.

At several places the editors have even pulled some of Vos’ long footnotes into the main body of the text. We intended this to make it easier for the reader to keep moving ahead without having to pause and look to the bottom of the page, which can be disrupting and annoying. In addition, a few of his footnotes simply provided additional verses to those already listed in the main text. This is unnecessary, so we simply inserted them into the parenthetical listing in the main text, then deleted the footnote.

Particularly aggravating in today’s world are Roman numerals, which Vos always used in references from Scripture and other ancient works, such as apocalyptic writings, Philo, Josephus, and others. These have been replaced by Arabic numerals. The Roman Empire has fallen, so we have taken it upon ourselves to banish the cumbersome Roman numerals. This will prevent the problem of modern Americans from walking into a bar in Italy, holding up two fingers, and then receiving five beers. Furthermore, as has been noted in our day, there are II types of people: those who understand Roman numerals and those who do not. Thus, today we must ask: What are Roman numerals good IV in a text such as ours?

Writing style. As noted above, scholarly writings from Vos’ era involved lengthy sentences and large paragraphs. Not only so, but in Vos’ case, his native language was Dutch. Though English and Dutch are related Germanic languages, structural differences between the two languages are evident. One of the biggest differences is the matter of sentence word order. We have reduced the size of his long sentences and paragraphs that we deemed too unwieldy in our modern context. Where we broke his long sentences into shorter ones, we have added appropriate transitional words to maintain the proper flow. This was most easily done when he used semi-colons, which we often replaced by periods then separated the semi-colonized (!) material into new sentences. We also added frequent bolded section headings to help break up the material for the reader.

As Danny Olinger notes: “Vos was a complex man, and his writings are no different. Gaffin, who assigns major portions of Vos for his students to read at Westminster Seminary, is fond of saying that every semester a student reading Vos for the first time comes up to him and asks when Vos is going to be translated into English.”

In a number of places, antiquated or unusual words in the original were replaced with more modern or familiar terms or spellings. Such words include, for example, “whilst” (changed to “while”), “art” (“are”), “nigh” (“near”), “no wise” (“no way”), “needful” (“necessary”), “thither” (“to” or “toward”), “phantastic” (“fantastic”), “periculous” (“perilous”), “Saviour” (“Savior”), “mould” (“mold”); “practise” (“practice”); “focussed” (“focused”); and so forth. Older style compounds are updated: “fountain-head” has become “fountainhead,” “age-long” (“agelong”), “can not” (“cannot”), “where as” (“whereas”); “None the less” (“nonetheless”); and others.

Older verbal expressions have also been altered. For instance, “it were wrong” becomes “it was wrong”; “it were foolish” (“it would be foolish”); and so forth.

We often find Vos’ word order to be contrary to contemporary expectations, causing some exasperation as the sentence has to be re-read in order to capture its point. However, we generally did not alter these since it would have involved much more extensive editing impacting virtually every sentence.

We also changed Vos’ capitalized grammatical notices to lower case. For instance, “Present Tense” is now “present tense”; “Imperfect Tense” (“imperfect tense”); “Niphal Participle” (“niphal participle”); and so forth. We also dropped periods from these common abbreviations: “O.T.” has become (“OT”), “N.T.” (NT), “B.C.” (BC), and “A.D.” (“AD”).

Publishing Convention Issues

We have attempted to bring greater harmony to Vos’ text. Publishing conventions today are much more exacting in this respect than in the early 1900s. Sometimes the original publishers of Vos’ work used italics for foreign words, sometimes regular font but in quotation marks, and at still other times they were bolded. We have replaced all of these with italics.

We have also used contemporary abbreviations for books of the Bible and standardized all of these. For instance, we use “Eze.” instead of “Ezek.” or “Ez.”, and “Matt.” instead of “Matth.” — since these (and other biblical references) were sometimes varied in Vos’ text. We have also dropped “Jno.” in John and 1 John abbreviations, in that these were not only based on the Latin (“Johannes”) but not very helpful in that they only shortened the title (“John”) by one letter but then replaced that by a period (“Jno.”).

Furthermore, we dropped Bible book abbreviations when appearing in the main text. Abbreviations are properly used today only in parentheses or footnotes. We also did this with the mention of “chapter(s).” In the main body, “chapter” or “chapters” is spelled out, whereas in parentheses and footnotes they are abbreviated “ch.” or “chs.” — and not “chap.” or “chaps.”

The Truth about Postmillennialism
By Ken Gentry

A group Bible study guide for explaining the optimistic prophetic hope for this world to be accomplished before Christ’s Second Coming. Establishes the postmillennial system in both the Old and New Testaments. Touches on key eschatological issues, such as creation, covenant, interpretive methodolgy, the great tribulation, the Book of Revelation, the Jewish Temple, and more. It presents and answers the leading objections to postmillennialism.Twelve chapters are ideal for one quarter of Sunday School.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Foreign Language Issues
Transliteration. We have transliterated Vos’ original-language citations from the Hebrew and Greek. Even his scholarly statements sometimes needed transliteration for our purposes, such as “διά cum genitivo” (“dia with the genitive”).

We updated his transliterated Greek words to the modern transliteration style — and put them in italics. For instance, his “ta ethne too kosmoo” has become “ta ethne tou kosmou”; “pleroma too chronoo” (“plerma tou chronou”); “ho aion hootos” (“ho aion houtos”); etc.

Translation. To make it easier for the lay reader to follow Vos’ thought, we translated Latin sentences and unfamiliar Latin phrases, which were often sprinkled throughout older scholarly works. For example, via oppositionis (has become “the way of opposition”); pro forma (“formality, as a matter of form”); nihil immutans in figura eorum (“not change their shape”); Ecclesia triumphans in aeternum (“church triumphant in eternity”); articulo mortis (“at the moment of death”); e mente sua (“out of his mind”); and “viz.” (“that is”); etc.

We also translated his scholarly German words and phrases. For example, “Grenzbegriff” (“boundary concept”); “Zeitlichkeit” (“time expanse”); “Gottwesen” (“deity”); uberhaupt nicht mehr Mensch (“no longer human at all”); vor der Hand (“before hand”); etc.

We changed “chiliasm” to the more familiar “premillennialism” where we could do so. If he referred to a title of a book with “Chiliasm” in it, we did not do so since that would change the book’s title.

Editorial Comments
We have added a few (very few) editorial footnotes. For instance, footnote 1 provides bibliographic information for Danny Olinger’s book on Vos. Plus we added a few notes for historical context in the introduction to the Appendix.

CONCLUSION

Again, we must say with devotion: Vos was a theological genius. His works need to be more widely read and considered in our day. And especially his works on eschatological issues, which he powerfully demonstrated were soteriological issues and even foundational to the whole Bible. We hope we have helped make Vos a little more accessible to contemporary Christians. We do not want current-day Christians to suffer the loss endured by Paul’s companions on the Damascus Road: when modern Christians have seen Vos mentioned today, unfortunately, they “saw the light . . . but did not understand the voice” (Acts 22:9).

If you would like to be notified when it is available, paste this link in your browser:

https://axeheadpress.com/pages/coming-soon-vos

If not, don’t! It’s that simple.