NOTE FROM KEN GENTRY

Bill Boney and I have taken several of Geerhardus Vos’ most insightful studies on eschatology and brought them into this one book. But we did not simply cut-and-paste Vos’ articles: we updated their early 19th century style and grammar to fit with 21st century publishing standards. We did not change any of Vos’ arguments in the process. If you love Vos, you will love this updated version of his eschatological writings. This book will ship in October but can be pre-ordered today at: https://axeheadpress.com/products/reformed-eschatology-in-the-writings-of-geerhardus-vos

NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER, AXEHEAD PRESS

Our latest title Reformed Eschatology in the Writings of Geerhardus Vos, edited by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr. and Bill Boney, is available for pre-orders now. (Get your copy while it is called “today”!)

In this quick email, I’d like to share something I personally found interesting from reading this book.

A key element of Vos’s thought is that Paul’s doctrine of the future is foundational to the four main strands of thought in his writings—resurrection, salvation, judgment and justification, and the Holy Spirit.

It seems like we’d think of eschatology as being the future consummation of present realities—meaning, that the future flows from the present—but in Paul’s thought, it was the reverse. Vos adds, “Living, then, in a world of semi- futurities there is every reason to expect that the thought of the earliest Christians should have moved backwards from the anticipated attainment in its fulness to the present partial experiences and interpreted these in terms of the former” (p. 43).

Eschatology isn’t something to be tacked on as the last bit of systematic theology; it’s actually the starting point, not the ending point, of a number of doctrines.

In Chapter 2, “The Interaction Between Eschatology and Soteriology,” Vos investigates this idea, and I want to explore some of his points.

I can’t possibly do his complex thought and argument justice in this email, so let this serve as an encouragement for you to pick up your own copy.

RESURRECTION (pages 42–49)

Vos writes that “Christ through his resurrection is the firstfruits of them that sleep (1 Cor. 15:20)”.

He points out that this can’t be metaphorical, based on other passages from Paul, and that “the phrases ‘to be raised in or with Christ’ can bear only the one meaning: to have through a radical change of life one of the two fundamental acts of eschatology applied to one’s self.”

The man or woman who has become “in Christ” has truly undergone a real resurrection! But, Vos continues,

Talking about 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature,” Vos writes:

“The context clearly shows that Paul in Corinthians means something far more specific than the metaphorical statement about someone’s having been made ‘a new man’ would ordinarily convey. For the one who has undergone this experience of having become ‘in Christ,’ not merely individual subjective conditions have been changed. Rather ‘the old things are passed away, new things have come into being.’ There has been created a totally new environment. Or, more accurately speaking, there has been created a totally new world in which the person spoken of is an inhabitant and participator. It is not in the first place the interiority of the subject that has undergone the change, although that, of course, is not to be excluded. The whole surrounding world has assumed a new aspect and complexion….Christ nowhere with the Apostle figures merely as a productive center of new individuals: He is everywhere, where the formula in question occurs, the central dominating factor of a new order of affairs. He is in fact nothing less than the originator and representative of a new world- order.”

Thus, a biblical understanding of eschatology directly shapes our view of what it means to become “in Christ” and the totality of its extent.

SALVATION (pages 49–52)

Vos writes, “According to Romans 5:9–10, after and because being justified by Christ’s blood, the readers shall be saved from the wrath of the judgment through Him.” Thus the origin of salvation is inherently in the future—there’s nothing to be saved yet, for God’s wrath hasn’t been fully and justly poured out yet.

Vos says that although we are “destined to an impending salvation”, we also have “the foretaste of the same each day”. It’s a present reality because of its future reality, not the other way around.

“There are not a few instances where the application to the present life lies plainly on the surface. The most unequivocal of these are: Ephesians 2:5, ‘By grace are ye saved ones [perfect tense]’ (cp. v. 8: ‘For by grace are ye saved ones through faith’). Titus 3:5: ‘According to his mercy He saved us’ (aorist tense). Second Timothy 1:9: ‘According to the power of Him who saved us” (aorist tense).”

Interestingly, this means that the idea of “working out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) has a bit of a different twist. This verse “is most easily relieved of its difficulty through allowing ‘salvation’ its future reference. At any rate the verb ‘work out’ does not as a rule bear the sense, so frequently given it in the exposition of this text, of unfolding through strenuous effort the potentialities contained in something. Rather it relates that of achieving, accomplishing a thing: the readers are exhorted to fit themselves through the diligent practice of obedience for and assure themselves of the salvation at the end with its varying degrees of glory”.

Thus, a biblical understanding of eschatology should spur us on to fit ourselves in daily life to match the coming reality of being saved when that time comes.

JUSTIFICATION & JUDGEMENT (pages 53–56)

According to Vos, Paul considered “the act of justification to all intents, so far as the believer is concerned, a last judgment anticipated”. In contrast to the Judaistic concept of justification as fairly “unstable, subject to constant modification,” Paul “made both the negative element of the forgiveness of sin and the positive element of bestowal of the benefits of salvation unqualified”.

“If the act dealt with present and past sins only, leaving the future product in uncertainty,” as the “Judaistic scheme” held, “it could not be regarded as possessing such absoluteness, and the comparison with the last judgment would break down at the decisive point.”

But because the last judgment is in the future, all our sins are covered by this mercy!

Of course, the believer is already in possession of this reality, this grace flowing from the future to the present:

“The Apostle often speaks of the consciousness of justification as necessary for those who, within the Christian sphere, are subject to a daily sense of sin. In Romans 5:2 he affirms that believers through Christ have received and now are in actual possession of (eschēkamen, ‘we have’) access to the grace wherein they stand. That is, they have the grace of peace through justification (cp. also the present tense echomen (‘we have’) in Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14).”

Thus, a biblical understanding of eschatology gives us confidence in our standing despite our ongoing struggles with sin, giving us boldness to continue seeking righteousness.

THE HOLY SPIRIT (pages 56–59)

Vos only gives a brief sketch of his argument, since he devotes the entirety of Chapter 3 to this point.

In Paul’s writings, there’s an “immense widening out” of the Spirit’s influence in the people of God. “As is generally recognized, the specific character of Paul’s doctrine of the Spirit lies in the universal and equable distribution of his operation over the entire circle of believers. And he operates within the life of every believer over the entire range, subconscious and conscious, religious and ethical, of this life.” The depth and breadth of the Spirit’s work in the New Covenant era is almost “atmospheric” in nature.

What causes this? Vos writes that a solution can be found through “supposing that the pneuma was in the mind of the Apostle, before all else, the element of the eschatological or the celestial sphere. This characterizes the mode of existence and life in the world to come and consequently of that anticipated form in which the world to come is even now realized in heaven.”

The New Covenant era with the outpouring of the Spirit and “the Comforter” having been sent by Jesus sees the “breaking in” of the pneumatic presence of the Holy Spirit, progressively pervading the world and bringing things into conformity with the eschatological and heavenly reality.

Thus, a biblical understanding of eschatology causes one to recognize the pervasive scope of the Spirit’s work and His influence on believers’ lives and throughout the world.

CONCLUSION

This is all very thought-provoking book, and I encourage you to pick it up. There’s nothing like it. Shipping in October! Pre-order today at: https://axeheadpress.com/products/reformed-eschatology-in-the-writings-of-geerhardus-vos