Geerhardus Vos Quotes

The best proof that He will never cease to love us lies in that He never began.

Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore.

Magic is that paganistic reversal of the process of religion, in which man, instead of letting himself be used by God for the divine purpose, drags down his god to the level of a tool, which he uses for his own selfish purpose.

The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide to contemplative prayer. "Be willing to be blind, and give up all longing to know the why and how, for knowing will be more of a hindrance than a help." This 1912 edition was edited by Evelyn Underhill, and contains her introduction.

All temporal, partial experience of God inevitably leaves a sense of dissatisfaction behind.

What is envisaged is a point or stretch lying at the end of history; it forms part of what are called “days”; that thereafter there shall be no more days, but something of a different nature is not implied.

The heaven in which the Christian by anticipation dwells is not the cosmical heaven, it is a thoroughly redemptive heaven, a heaven become what it is through the progressive upbuilding and enrichment pertaining to the age-long work of God in the sphere of redemption.

The necessary consequence of this life of the Christian in hope is that he learns to consider the present earthly life as a journey, a pilgrimage, something necessary for the sake of the end but which does not have any independent value or attraction in itself. This is a thought which pervades and colours the entire epistle. Peter in the very opening words addresses the readers as sojourners of the dispersion – two terms which strikingly express that they are away from home, a colony with regard to heaven, scattered in a strange world as truly as the scattered Jews were a diaspora to the holy land and Jerusalem. He tells them to gird up the loins of their minds as befits a traveller journeying through. And again he says: ‘Pass the time of your sojourning in fear’ (1:17). Once more: ‘Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul’ (2:11). Without a certain detachment from this world, other-worldliness is not possible. Hope cannot flourish where the heart is in the present life.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’ God had mercy upon us because he saw us leading a life without hope. And therefore by a new birth he radically changed our world for us so as to make it a world of hope. The peculiar way in which the apostle expresses this fact ought to be carefully noted. He might have said, ‘God gave us a new hope,’ or, ‘God brought us into a new hope.’ But what he says is, ‘God begat us again unto a living hope.’ Undoubtedly this representation is chosen in order to emphasize the comprehensiveness and persuasiveness of the hope which the Christian obtains. It means a change as great as the crisis of birth, a transition from not being to living, when the hope of the gospel breaks upon our vision. The change is not partial. It does not affect our life in merely one or the other of its aspects. It revolutionizes our whole life at every point. What this means is a total regeneration of our consciousness, a regeneration of our way of thinking, a reversal of our outlook upon things in their entirety.

Man belongs to two spheres. And Scripture not only teaches that these two spheres are distinct, it also teaches what estimate of relative importance ought to be placed upon them. Heaven is the primordial, earth the secondary creation. In heaven are the supreme realities; what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things. Because the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive, heavenly-mindedness can never give rise to neglect of the duties pertaining to the present life. It is the ordinance and will of God, that not apart from, but on the basis of, and in contact with, the earthly sphere man shall work out his heavenly destiny. Still the lower may never supplant the higher in our affections. In the heart of man time calls for eternity, earth for heaven. He must, if normal, seek the things above, as the flower's face is attracted by the sun, and the water-courses are drawn to the ocean. Heavenly-mindedness, so far from blunting or killing the natural desires, produces in the believer a finer organization, with more delicate sensibilities, larger capacities, a stronger pulse of life. It does not spell impoverishment, but enrichment of nature. The spirit of the entire Epistle shows this. The use of the words "city" and "country" is evidence of it. These are terms that stand for the accumulation, the efflorescence, the intensive enjoyment of values. Nor should we overlook the social note in the representation. A perfect communion in a perfect society is promised. In the city of the living God believers are joined to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and mingle with the spirits of just men made perfect. And all this faith recognizes. It does not first need the storms and stress that invade to quicken its desire for such things. 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.

And every philosophy of history bears in itself the seed of a theology.

all eschatological interpretation of history, when united to a strong religious mentality cannot but produce the finest practical theological fruitage.

Aion” may mean “age” in the New Testament and it may mean “world.

For to Paul the chief actor in this drama had come upon the scene; the Messiah had been made present, and could not but be looked upon as henceforth the dominating figure in all further developments.

We hope presently to show that, as a matter of fact, not only the Christology but also the Soteriology of the Apostle’s teaching is so closely interwoven with the Eschatology, that, were the question put, which of the strands is more central, which more peripheral, the eschatology would have as good a claim to the central place as the others.

The underlying idea is none other than that the times preceding the parousia require a unique concentration of the minds of believers upon the Lord and the manner in which they may best please Him.

There are in the Pauline teaching four important structural lines and in connection with these it will prove easiest and most convincing to test our thesis. These consist of the idea of the resurrection, the thought of salvation, the doctrine of the judgment and justification, the conception of the Spirit.

This life is first hid with Christ, because it is a disembodied life; at the last day it will become manifest through union with the eschatological body.

The Spirit’s work in the renewal of things proceeds according to a fixed, systematic method, in certain distinct stages.

Redemption reconstructs the relation of man to God.

there is already wrapped up a judging-process, at least for believers: the raising act in their case, together with the attending change, plainly involves a pronouncement of vindication.

Whether one says: the body of humiliation is transformed into a body of glory, or says, the corruptible puts on incorruption, the mortal immortality, makes no difference whatever as to the principle of continuity.

The first resurrection, then, takes place at the parousia, the second when Christ abdicates his kingdom.

Who at the present time thinks of Easter as intended and adapted to fill the soul with a new jubilant assurance of the forgiveness of sin as the guarantee of the inheritance of eternal life?

The resurrection constitutes, as it were, the womb of the new aeon, out of which believers issue as, in a new, altogether unprecedented, sense, sons of God: “They are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection,” therefore they neither marry, nor are given in marriage (Lk. xx. 35-36).

We have found that the Spirit is both the instrumental cause of the resurrection-act and the permanent substratum of the resurrection-life.

In order to perceive this the reader should endeavor to make clear to himself how intimate a connection there exists between the Holy Spirit and Eschatology.

the Spirit appears as the source of the future new life of Israel, especially of the ethico-religious renewal, and thus first becomes suggestive of the eschatological state itself.

He who is united to Christ and lives within the circle of his love, to him the eternal retention of the supreme eschatological life is absolutely secure.

there is something about these expectations and visions of the last things, that will send them into the light and focus of the consciousness of believers, whenever storms of persecution arise and hard distresses invade.

In the period of the Reformation the problem of the obtaining of righteousness before God filled hearts and minds.

human nature of their origins runs counter to the prevailing cultural view of the ancient Near East. In the Genesis narrative, we see man becoming a contributor under God in the ongoing work of creation, through the development of culture. We learn that city life is not to be seen as simply a punishment for humanity after the banishment from the garden. Rather the city has inherent capacities for bringing human beings together in such a way that enhances both security and culture making. However, as can be seen in the line of Cain, these capacities, under the influence of sin and rebellion against God, can be generators of great evil. The song of Lamech, Cain’s descendant, shows the Cainite city dwellers using all their advances to form a culture of death (Gen 4:23 – 24). Here is the first clear indicator of the dual nature of the city. Its capability for enormous good — for the culture-making creation of art, science, and technology — can be used to produce tremendous evil. Henri Blocher does not consider it a coincidence that the first mention of anti-God culture making is tied to the first instance of city building, but he warns against drawing the wrong conclusion: It is no doubt significant that [in Genesis 4] progress in arts and in engineering comes from the “city” of the Cainites. Nevertheless, we are not to conclude from this that civilization as such is… the fruit of sin. Such a conclusion would lead us to Manichaeism or to the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau… The Bible condemns neither the city (for it concludes with the vision of the City of God) nor art and engineering.14 Blocher may be responding to writers such as Geerhardus Vos, who in his Biblical Theology points to “the problem

John’s activities have been previously observed by others. Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949) explains: Notwithstanding the preeminence thus ascribed to John, it is plain from the reason given for this preeminence that he was not so much a revealer of new truth as a recapitulator of the old. At the point where the old covenant is about to pass over into the new, John once more sums up in his ministry the entire message of all preceding revelation and thus becomes the connecting link between it and the fulfillment which was to follow.42  It appears that John was re-enacting Israel’s post-exodus entry to the Promised Land. However, given Israel’s sinfulness, he was calling the nation to repentance.43 Israel needed to prepare for the second (or eschatological) exodus that would come by the ministry of Christ. Evidently, John was preparing for this eschatological exodus because of his description of Christ’s ministry. John told the people that he baptized only with water, but the One who was to come would baptize them with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8).44 This statement, as well as John’s overall activity, is reported on the heels of what some have called the thesis statement of the Gospel of Mark, namely, the quotation of Isaiah 40:3: “Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (cf. Matt. 3:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23). God drove Israel into exile, but He promised in the book of Isaiah that they would return to the land in a second exodus, the exodus from Babylon. However, the ultimate goal of the typical second exodus was the final exodus led by the Anointed of the Lord. It was the Servant of the Lord on whom God would put His Spirit (Isa. 42:1; 61:1; Matt. 3:13–17; 12:18–21).45 This Servant would lead Israel on the final exodus, and

El contenido interior de la mente de Dios solo puede llegar a ser posesión del hombre a través de una revelación voluntaria por parte de Dios.

La Creación, por lo tanto, fue el primer paso en la producción del conocimiento teológico.

Por lo general, la teología se ha dividido en cuatro ramas: la teología exegética, la teología histórica, la teología sistemática y la teología práctica.

La teología bíblica es la rama de la teología exegética que trata del proceso de la auto revelación de Dios depositada en la Biblia.

De esta manera, el Antiguo Testamento provee una palabra preparativa, los Evangelios registran el portento redentor y revelador y las Epístolas proveen la subsiguiente y final palabra interpretativa.

Creer en la inspiración de las Escrituras se puede considerar un acto de adoración en ciertas circunstancias.

Cotéjese Deissmann, quien enfrenta la LXX y el Nuevo Testamento al Antiguo Testamento como si de dos Biblias distintas se tratara; y también a Behm, quien afirma que la idea de contrato tiene aquí el carácter de sinergismo, lo que ahora da paso a la idea más elevada de monergismo.

En numerosos ejemplos Dios hace solo el acuerdo, y se llama berith a causa de la solemne ratificación religiosa. En Génesis 15, pongamos por caso, la primera promesa hecha a Abraham fue simplemente una promesa, y a petición de Abraham añadió una ceremonia religiosa mediante la cual Dios hizo de la promesa un berith. De manera parecida, las promesas hechas a Noé, acompañadas por el signo del arco iris, forman un berith. También en Sinaí, el acuerdo entre Dios e Israel, ratificado por una solemne transacción, es un b

En numerosos ejemplos Dios hace solo el acuerdo, y se llama berith a causa de la solemne ratificación religiosa. En Génesis 15, pongamos por caso, la primera promesa hecha a Abraham fue simplemente una promesa, y a petición de Abraham añadió una ceremonia religiosa mediante la cual Dios hizo de la promesa un berith. De manera parecida, las promesas hechas a Noé, acompañadas por el signo del arco iris, forman un berith. También en Sinaí, el acuerdo entre Dios e Israel, ratificado por una solemne transacción, es un berith.

Gálatas 4:24 se parece mucho a 2 Corintios 3 en cuanto se introduce un contraste. Aquí Pablo usa una alegoría contrastando las dos madres, Agar y Sara, y las dos localidades, el Jerusalén que está aquí en la tierra y Jerusalén que está en los cielos. La primera adoración conduce a la esclavitud y la otra a la libertad. La primera representa particularismo y la segunda universalismo.

La principal idea del escritor en Hebreos 9 no es que la muerte haga las cosas invariables, sino que las hace efectivas. En segundo lugar, si aplicamos esto a Cristo, veremos que la idea es incongruente. Cristo es el testador. ¿Pero nos enseña la Epístola que Cristo es inoperante? No, todo lo contrario; su actividad no fue afectada por la muerte. Fue precisamente muriendo como Cristo actuó, como se hizo sacerdote para siempre. Entonces encontramos estas dos ideas en el pasaje (1) la muerte de Cristo; y (2) mediante la muerte la cosa se hizo ipso facto o

que la muerte haga las cosas invariables, sino que las hace efectivas. En segundo lugar, si aplicamos esto a Cristo, veremos que la idea es incongruente. Cristo es el testador. ¿Pero nos enseña la Epístola que Cristo es inoperante? No, todo lo contrario; su actividad no fue afectada por la muerte. Fue precisamente muriendo como Cristo actuó, como se hizo sacerdote para siempre. Entonces encontramos estas dos ideas en el pasaje (1) la muerte de Cristo; y (2) mediante la muerte la cosa se hizo ipso facto operativa.

Queda por constatar que el autor insiste además en el aspecto social del diatheke. Esto sirve como corrección del falso individualismo, demostrando que no podemos servir a Dios individualmente. El autor describe que los creyentes pertenecen a la familia de Dios, y esta familia se declara una tanto en el antiguo como en el nuevo diatheke, 3:2-6. Esto tiene también un aspecto escatológico en el concepto de la ciudad adonde ir. Observen la descripción de la gran asamblea escatológica en 12:22. De esta manera se afirma, con respecto a los creyentes, que no solamente se han unido en la adoración, sino que han sido incorporados a la comunidad que adora.

And of ancient paganism Paul already summed up the whole sad story in the double statement that it was without hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12), an exile from what is the noblest birthright of humanity. Now if this is so, how imperative becomes the duty of every true believer in the present age to cultivate the grace of hope; to make himself remember and to make others feel, not so much by direct affirmation but rather by the tone of life, that the future belongs to us and that we belong to the future; that we are children of the world to come and that even now we allow that world to mould and rule and transform us in our thoughts, desires and feelings. If we could only learn again what Peter calls ‘to hope perfectly’ (1:13), what a witness of the reality of the Christian religion, what a powerfully attractive influence might proceed from this one manifestation of our spiritual life! People without such hope would feel the difference between themselves and us, and their regret at not having it might in many instances offer the first inducement to regain an interest in Christianity and inquire about it.

Finally, the living hope of which the apostle speaks has this for its peculiarity: that it possesses a personal centre in Christ and God. All through the epistle this is strikingly brought out. That which controls and attracts the believer in this hope is not a confused mass of expectation, not a medley of fantastic dreams. There is a unifying idea in it; it is, in the last analysis, the certainty that there is a state in store for us which shall bring us face to face with God and Christ. The Christian is a sojourner here and must live in the future because he knows full well that under the present conditions he can never attain to that full possession of God and his Saviour for which in his best moments his heart and flesh cry out. The veil of sense lies between; the barrier of sin lies between. Even though he may lay hold of God as Moses did – seeing the invisible – there is something that lies beyond his reach, that eludes his grasp. And the believer knows, moreover, that as long as he cannot fully possess God, God cannot fully possess him nor be completely glorified in him. This sentiment lies at the basis of all genuine God-born Christian hope – the sentiment which enabled even the psalmist under the old covenant to transcend the darkness and mystery of death and then say, ‘Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. …As for me I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness’ (Psa. 16:11; 17:15).

The love of heaven must drive out the inordinate love of what is earthly.

Now in this sense also, I take it, Peter affirms that believers have been begotten again unto a living hope. In all probability the representation, while applicable to all believers, was influenced to some extent by the apostle’s memory of his own experience. There had been a moment in his previous life when all at once, in the twinkling of an eye as it were, he had been translated from a world of despair into a world of hope. It was when the fact of the resurrection of Christ flashed upon him. Under the two-fold bitterness of his denial of the Lord and of the tragedy of the cross, utter darkness had settled down upon his soul. Everything he expected from the future in connection with Jesus had been completely blotted out. Perhaps he had even been in danger of losing the old hope which as a pious Israelite he cherished before he knew the Lord. And then suddenly, the whole aspect of things had been changed. The risen Christ appeared to him and by his appearance wrought the resurrection of everything that had gone down with him into the grave. No, there was far more here for Peter than a mere resurrection of what he had hoped in before. It was the birth of something new that now, for the first time, disclosed itself to his perception. His hope was not given back to him in its old form. It was regenerated in the act of restoration. Previously it had been dim, undefined, subject to fluctuations; sometimes eager and enthusiastic, sometimes cast down and languishing; in many respects earthly, carnal and incompletely spiritualized. Apart from all of these defects, his previous hope had been a bare one, which could only sustain itself by projection into the future, but which lacked that vital support and nourishment in a present substantial reality without which no religious hope can permanently subsist. Through the resurrection of Christ, all these faults were corrected; all these deficiencies supplied. For Peter looked upon the risen Christ as the beginning, the firstfruits of that new world of God in which the believer’s hope is anchored. Jesus did not rise as he had been before, but transformed, glorified, eternalized, the possessor and author of a transcendent heavenly life at one and the same time, the revealer, the sample and the pledge of the future realization of the true kingdom of God. No prolonged course of training could have been more effective for purifying and spiritualizing the apostle’s hope than this single, instantaneous experience; this bursting upon him of a new form of eternal life, concrete and yet all-comprehensive in its prophetic significance. Well might the apostle say that he himself had been begotten again unto a new hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And, of course, what was true of him was even more emphatically true of the readers of his epistle, who, if they were believers from the Gentiles, before their conversion had lived entirely without hope and without God in the world.

I love the definition for image-bearers that Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949) gives, and I’ll be repeating it throughout the book: “That man bears God’s image means much more than that he is spirit and possesses understanding, will, etc. It means above all that he is disposed for communion with God, that all the capacities of his soul can act in a way that corresponds to their destiny only if they rest in God.

The law in the hands of Jesus becomes alive with God's own personality. Majestic and authoritative, he is present in every commandment, so absolute in his demands, so observant of our conduct, so intent upon the outcome, that the thought of giving him less than heart and soul and mind and strength in the product of our moral life ceases to be tolerable to ourselves.

Noten, también, el hecho de que aquellos a quienes los lectores sirvieron son llamados “santos”. Aunque “santos” era un término aplicable a todos

los cristianos, también era un término semi técnico aplicable a los cristianos de Jerusalén. Eran los santos por excelencia.

Admitiendo lo arriba expuesto con detalle, podremos decir en principio que la principal característica de la epístola a los Hebreos es su relación con el Antiguo Testamento y la prominencia del Antiguo Testamento en ella.

El contraste se plantea así: las obras muertas se oponen a la adoración del Dios verdadero.

El autor habla allí de los primeros principios sobre los cuales han sido instruidos los lectores cuando primeramente se convirtieron en cristianos. Estos primeros principios son: arrepentimiento, fe, bautismo, imposición de manos, resurrección y juicio eterno. Ahora bien, los judíos no tenían que ser instruidos en estos asuntos elementales puesto que los conocían desde el comienzo.

Cuando el autor establece una comparación entre el Antiguo y el Nuevo Testamento, nunca lo hace en el sentido de advertir a los lectores en contra del Antiguo Testamento. Sólo pretende demostrar la superioridad del Nuevo Testamento;

Puede decirse, claro está, que el autor ha actuado aquí simplemente de manera diplomática, no para despreciar el Antiguo Testamento sino más bien para demostrar la superior bondad del Nuevo Testamento.

especialmente al decir que la condición de los lectores originales era de externalismo religioso.

El autor empieza inmediatamente con un fragmento de cristología relacionado con los dos oficios de Cristo: su sacerdocio y su soberanía. De ello se deduce que la dificultad de los primeros lectores era, al menos en parte, cristológica. Lo que representaba su particular dificultad cristológica aparece en el segundo capítulo, es decir, que Cristo no se les mostraba externamente como ellos habían esperado. Y ellos incluso encontraban algo censurable en la humillación y sufrimientos de Cristo. Por consiguiente, a partir de 2:5 se pone de manifiesto lo razonable y necesario de la humillación de Cristo.

El autor muestra ahora que la humillación de Cristo era necesaria para su glorificación. Nosotros le vemos coronado de gloria y honor, a causa de sus sufrimientos y muerte.

Estaban interesados en la escatología hasta el punto de la incredulidad, y ésta se debía al aplazamiento del día que ellos esperaban. La característica especial de la escatología es que siempre trae algo nuevo. Descubre el lado eterno de las promesas de Dios. El autor instruye a los lectores en el sentido de que deben confiar más en el cumplimiento que en la promesa. Lo que ellos necesitan es una escatología de fe, no una escatología de imaginación o de fantasía. Este es el defecto de toda falsa escatología, que trata de descubrir el cumplimiento de las promesas con detalles realistas.

La fe es el gran principio espiritual, el estado mental que nos mantiene en contacto con un mundo superior a nosotros.

La Epístola distingue dos diathekai, siendo el primero el instituido en el monte Sinaí y el segundo el instituido por Cristo.

El punto de separación entre el antiguo y el nuevo diatheke es la muerte de Cristo. El fin del viejo pacto y el principio del nuevo radica en la muerte, o tal vez sería más correcto decir en la ascensión de Cristo

Pablo presenta así una bisección de la historia universal, con la resurrección de Cristo como punto de separación. En Hebreos, sin embargo, la vieja época es el Antiguo Testamento.

Echemos ahora un vistazo a los pasajes paulinos a fin de notar los contrastes éticos presentados en los escritos de Pablo: Romanos 12:2; Gálatas 1:4; 1 Corintios 1:2; 2:6; 2 Corintios 4:4 “la más fuerte de todas las declaraciones, pues llama a Satanás el dios de este mundo; Efesios 2:2, “la corriente (curso) de este mundo”; Colosenses 1:13; 2 Timoteo 4:10, “amando este mundo”.

Heaven, so to speak, has received time and history into itself, no less than time has received unchangeableness and eternity into itself.

The Man-of-Sin is the irreligious and anti-religious and anti-Messianic subject par excellence.

the swallowing up of death in victory, and death is here pointedly named as the penalty for sin imposed by the Law, so that the resurrection is the final removal of the condemnation of sin.

we are not received by Jesus into a school of ethics but into a kingdom of redemption.

If we are true believers, though we ourselves should sometimes forget, the world will not fail to remind us of the difference between it and us. And, on the other hand, if we at any time feel perfectly at home in the world, if our consciousness of its necessary antagonism to us is entirely in abeyance, then there is abundant reason for us to examine ourselves. And the probability is that we have been backward in cultivating our hope upon God and the world to come.

92. Is self-love permitted in the creature in the same way that it is in God’s holiness? a)God can and must love Himself as the highest good. The creature may not aim at making itself the highest good and final purpose of its aspirations. In us absolute self-love is forbidden; indeed, strictly taken, so is absolute love for another creature where the honor of God would be left aside. b)Still, one may speak of self-love in a good sense. The obligations, through whose fulfillment we must glorify God, must vary in nature. There are some that call us to self-sacrifice, others that we must have a regard for self-preservation. Ill-considered self-sacrifice can become sin. Nobody may hate his own flesh. Matthew 22:39; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8

Biblical Theology: That branch of Exegetical Theology which deals with the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible. ~ Geerhardus Vos

The genuine believer takes the whole of Scripture as a living organism produced by the Holy Spirit to present Christ to him. On every page of Scripture, he finds traits and traces of the Mediator.” —Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics