About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on chapter 4 of Geerhardus Vos’s The Kingdom of God and the Church, on the kingdom as present and future. Some scholars, starting from the assumption that nothing supernatural happens, taught that Jesus expected the kingdom to come all at once and was mistaken. Scripture shows the kingdom coming in two stages: Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, and his second coming, with the kingdom growing between them. Christ reigns now until his enemies are his footstool, then hands the kingdom to the Father.
Sermon transcript
Okay, just for, we have some visitors, we have some people who aren’t here weekly, so I should let everybody know before I get into things what we’re doing. What we’re doing today is we are reading a book, well, for this quarter of Sunday school, or as they call it here, morning instruction, we’re reading The Kingdom of God and the Church by Gerhardus Voss.
Though he was not one of the OPC’s founding members, his theology is that upon which much of OPC theology was founded upon. It is grounded in a lot of his understanding. So, aside from being Calvin and the confession and things like that. So we are reading the Kingdom of God and the Church. This book is 108 years old, but it’s still really good. This is, I think, somewhat early in Voss’s career. He had written plenty of other things beforehand.
Also by way of housekeeping, there are a lot of theological books that have been sitting in other languages for a long time, and they are not in English yet. A lot of them in Latin, a lot of them in Dutch. and a fair amount in German. Johannes Voss, if you look at his books, there are about five or six of them, ultimately, that you can get these days. He also wrote a systematic theology, and it’s not been translated into English yet. So there’s a website, I can send it to anyone who’d be interested, but They’re trying to get interest in translating his systematic theology, his five volume systematic theology.
The way that they’re doing that is trying to get people to pay up front, I think it’s gonna be $70 for all five volumes. If you do it at the pre-translation price, you would be locked in. Then they can show, they can get the, the publishers and the translators interested. If not, they project it to be about 170. So, lots of interest in this man. We could say our patron saint, Gerhardus Vos. Now, I have one other thing that is as far as housekeeping is I ought to vindicate Voss.
Those who were here last week, I found myself needing to disagree with him reluctantly with the first chapter. Now, keep in mind, I don’t desire to make my disagreements public, or I certainly, I actually just wanted to pass over it and say, oh, that’s fine, I won’t focus on that. But if what he said hadn’t been a lynchpin, in the whole chapter, I would have been glad to do so, but I honestly was having a hard time making sense of it as it was. But I thought I had made sense of him and I had to disagree, but it’s right for me to say publicly that I now disagree with myself. So, let me just say this. Let me just explain what I was saying last week.
There is the Old Testament kingdom and the New Testament kingdom. We would say that the New Testament kingdom is, the word kingdom has to do with the reign of Jesus, Jesus’ kingdom. his exaltation, the fact that he is a king, we can talk about his kingdom in an abstract sense.
But we also can talk about Jesus’ kingdom in a concrete sense. By concrete, we mean his kingdom, like the borders of his kingdom. Basically, his kingdom is the whole earth and the whole heaven. So we can talk about it abstractly and concretely when we talk about kingdom in the same way that we could say about a king, you know, the kingdom of, you know, Henry the, you know, pick a number lasted from this year to this year. That’s an abstract way of saying it. We also could say you enter into the kingdom of England, you know, by crossing the border. Jesus’s kingdom is presented to us in an abstract and a concrete sense, both.
What Voss said was that God’s kingdom in the Old Testament is abstract, talking about his reign, But it is not concrete, it’s not talking about the place where he ruled and reigned. And I was taking that to mean, well, it seems that it is because the borders of Israel are very important in the Old Testament. Within the borders of Israel, you have a supernatural kingdom outside of that, you have common grace nations. So, I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I must say, dear brother Keister, Bruce Keister and I, we went round and round in circles with this, and he finally showed me, not that I was resisting, I’m glad to be shown so.
But ultimately, I was misreading Voss because The Old Testament kingdom, or we could say the kingdom of God, is that heavenly kingdom, which is not the same as the kingdom that David ruled in. The abstract reign of God in heaven is him reigning in his throne room in the heavenly court. being praised by the angels as a king.
Does that make sense? Is that clear? I hope so. I want to vindicate Vos. I want to let you know that I certainly don’t take, would not disagree with him lightly, and I didn’t want to do so. But I found myself needing to, and now I’m glad to say I was wrong. Won’t be the first time. It wasn’t the first time, probably won’t be the last. Okay, on to that.
So everything now I think that Voss has said so far in this book is true. You hear that, Bruce? Everything that is in this book is true. I was singing your praises. We just had the vindicating Voss section of our discussion today. Okay, thank you all for your patience with that. I found myself morally obligated to do so.
Okay, now we move on then in the Kingdom of God and the Church to the fourth chapter, which is the concept or the idea of the present and the future reign of God, the present and future reign of Jesus, in the kingdom. Now, what Voss begins with is talking about an old view. This, this, I think this, this should be fun. He begins talking about the old view of the kingdom. We must understand that That’s with a C, right? A polemicist. Okay. What we must understand is that in one sense, Voss is a polemicist. His writings are polemical.
That is to say, he’s not just being constructive and building up, but being that he wrote this book 108 years ago, he was in a theological, milieu that was filled with liberals, people who didn’t believe that the Bible, when it said that Jesus walked on water, actually walked on water. They assumed that Jesus was either faking it or that the disciples were just wrong or being deceptive or whatever the case. This, Vos is defending Biblical, Reformed Christianity, and saying that the things that happen within the Bible, when we are told about them, they actually happened. He wants to emphasize the history of salvation from Genesis to Revelation.
From first Adam to second Adam, he wants to say that these really happened, this is one story of God’s redemption of his people, and it really happened. That was rare in that day for academic university types, seminary types, to be saying these kinds of things. Almost all the seminaries have been taken over by liberalism in the United States, other than Princeton, up to a point, some of Calvin Seminary. All of the Dutch seminaries, pretty much, have been taken over by liberalism, other than pretty much one, Amsterdam.
And so this is what he’s coming out of. So he’s writing polemical theology, he’s showing that he’s vindicating Jesus ultimately. So he’s going to talk about the old view. The old view, tell me what you think about this. The old view of the kingdom is that its coming happens with a lengthy process. The old view of the kingdom is that it was inward, it is spiritual, and it takes place with invisible changes in the people of God.
It ends with a final crisis, and the kingdom coming is equal to the gospel spreading, it’s equal to hearts being changed, it’s equal to sin and error being overcome, the kingdom coming is equal to righteousness being cultivated. It is equal to communion with God being established. We would also, in the old view, see that the kingdom began with the public ministry of Jesus. Let’s just say that this is the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus and his death. Jesus’ death is a part of the public ministry of Jesus.
And as we continue on, well, let me just say, After that time, we have the rest of church history, the last, for Voss’s case, 1900 or so years. Church history was the gradual extension, the gradual growth of that kingdom. And we are part of its movement and organization.
So that’s the old view that Voss talks about. But then he talks about the fact that there is a new view on the horizon of what Jesus’ kingdom looks like. Let me see. Let me see what. So what’s the new view of the kingdom? New view of the kingdom, this would be the second paragraph of our reading. Let’s call this the new perspective on the kingdom, right?
The old view is unhistorical. This is the new view’s critique of the old, saying that view is not historical in the sense of historical. we ought not to believe that the Bible is historical in what it says. That’s the sense in which the new view, the new school is saying that it’s not historical. Jesus believed, this is the new view, that Jesus believed his prophetic activities and the spiritual changes that were going on would not bring about the kingdom. That’s very significant.
Jesus didn’t believe that his ministry or his acts were bringing about the kingdom. He was simply preparing for the kingdom. And he was introducing the kingdom. Jesus is simply trying to serve God, but God is going to bring about the kingdom Not Jesus. This is a new view that Voss talks about. The kingdom was to come in one single stroke. Jesus thought it would come supernaturally by a world crisis, by a world crisis, and then the present world would end. Jesus expected the kingdom in his lifetime or after he had attained certainty of death. Jesus expected the kingdom to fully come either in his lifetime or within a generation of the people of his time.
That’s what’s going on. So old view, new view. Any questions on those before we There’s clearly a divergence between these two, really in a couple of ways that are significant to us. Notice that in the new view, Jesus has an eschatology. He believes that what he’s doing will in some sense be used of God to bring the kingdom, bring the end of the world, bring the eternal state. Really, it’s going to happen in one installment. It’s just one and done.
The old view sees the kingdom coming in stages, gradually, but two major events are going to be signifiers of it or signs that say it has come first. First being his life and his ministry and his death. And then the second, his second coming. And the time between that, a great growth of this kingdom.
Both recognize Jesus and the end of the world to come together. This is what these two have in common. That Jesus and the end of the world are like They’re tethered together. They both are very eschatological in their nature. They both have a view of the end times. There’s the point of dispute. The former affirms something that the latter does not.
Do we have a right to ascribe to Jesus a conception of the kingdom that has its beginning and the arrival of purely spiritual results and labors and that extend its gradual coming over the world? That is to say, should we see the coming of the kingdom as purely spiritual? That’s an important question. We’re gonna come back to that. What are the consequences of how we answer the question of what the nature of the kingdom is, both in its future and in its present aspect, the future to Jesus? First of all, is Jesus infallible?
Yes, new view. No, excuse me, yes, on the old view. No, on the new view. The new view, really, Jesus makes mistakes. The old view, no mistakes in Jesus. If he preached one coming of the kingdom, he was mistaken. These guys, Jesus is preaching a one coming, and he was wrong. These ones, the old view would say there are in a sense two comings of the kingdom or two major redemptive historical epoch changing installments of the kingdom and therefore it’s consistent with what Jesus taught.
Also, what is central? In the old view, That which is central is the kingdom itself. And what flows out of the kingdom? Righteousness, communion with God. So let’s say that the kingdom is central in the old view and We wanna say that which is central is the kingdom and that which flows out of it is righteousness. The kingdom comes, therefore righteousness comes. The kingdom comes, therefore union and communion with God, those things come. This is central and these come out of it.
But is that the idea in the new view? Not really, not at all. view, righteousness and communion with God really become a means to the end, hopefully, of attaining the kingdom. So let’s just say we have Jesus doing righteous deeds, and he’s hoping that that will in some sense be used by his Heavenly Father to to bring about the kingdom. You see the difference there?
One, kingdom is central and things flow out of it. Another, that which we would say flows out is the means to the end of reaching this. There’s a big difference here, big difference between the old view of the kingdom and the new view of the kingdom.
Also, it affects how we ought to understand the Lord’s understanding of ethics, and his ethics. In the New View, Jesus’ view of the soon coming end colored his ethics. It prevented him from contributing positively to this life. This is what the New View would say, that there’s a shred of truth to the idea that If you have an apocalyptic worldview and you have an understanding that this world is not going to be around much longer, you’re going to live your life differently.
Think about, if you are, you’re not sure when the kingdom is coming, you will plant food, you’ll grow crops, you’ll look to educate your children. If you knew that Jesus, if you knew that the end of the world is coming tomorrow, you’re not going to be worried about planting your garden. You’re going to be worried about getting other things set up first. You want to be ready for when that comes. What the New View is essentially saying is that Jesus set up an apocalyptic ethic that says you have to be ready for the soon-coming kingdom. Jesus, in the New View, didn’t care about the long-range plan for handing down the truth for generations.
Really, we have to live ready for today, you know, and be ready for the end of the world tomorrow. It’s the same, I mean, I don’t want to make light of people who made major mistakes, but it’s a good illustration. When people were, when some people were very afraid of Y2K, they you know, sold everything and they put their, they stocked up food and some people stocked up guns and they bought land away from town just in case bad things happened. Their understanding of the imminent future affected how they were going to live their lives in the immediate future.
Essentially, Jesus, in the new view, is like those Y2K people. Jesus is mistaken. He doesn’t know any better. He thinks he does, but Jesus is living for the here and now because the kingdom is about to come. Whereas in the old view, they would say that Jesus has a long range view of the kingdom’s slow growth and its eventual culmination.
What do the two views say about Jesus’s character, about Christ’s character? In the new view, Jesus is an ecstatic visionary, whereas in the old view, he is a calm teacher and he has an equitable spiritual temper. So there’s a, you know, the different view of who he is. I mean, people who have had, who have been in cults or people who have contact with cults, especially the cults that, you know, that have an apocalyptic idea or agenda to them, Jim Jones, Waco, those kinds of things, they have a charismatic teacher who is ecstatic and he’s energetic and he really wants to see things change now. That’s the new view of Jesus.
Whereas the old one, there’s a, an understanding of Jesus being a little bit more reserved, plotting, planning, and carefully executing the history of redemption. So, what Voss is talking about, the old view, the new view, they’re very different. Very different.
Any questions on those before we proceed? Yes, Mark? A Jewish view? Well, actually, I’m glad you asked that. This is very good. We’re going to get to that. A song comes to mind, Chairman of the Board. Give me just a little more time. Some of you may know that song. 1970. I thought I saw another question. Mike, did you have a question? I’m using your phrase.
It’s all there. It’s done. It’s completed. That doesn’t mean that it’s in its fullness in its revelation and its implications. I get the sense that it’s completed, it’s all there, but in the new view, in terms of the two biblical views. Is that right? Is that fair? I think that is fair. Basically, what’s going on here is, I think the old view, Voss is saying, is simply just the Reformation view.
That view that came out of the Reformation, really, the view that came out of Augustine and the early church, that Jesus is going to bring two installments. He comes in two installments. The new view, just to try to put a face on it, Voss doesn’t, he doesn’t mention specific people, at least in this writing, but who he’s after here is the 19th century German liberal theologian, who are glad to just say Jesus made mistakes, but they come to the Bible with an understanding that All of supernatural things are beyond us. They come into a world, they come to the Bible with assumptions, what some would say a post-Kantian understanding of the world, where anything that’s supernatural is beyond what we can touch or see.
There is no supernatural. All we have is the phenomenon that is, that are right before us. And so because supernatural things are beyond us, even if they even exist, they exist in another realm, miracles don’t happen. And supernatural things aren’t true. They don’t happen. So since I don’t experience it, this is what they would say, since I don’t experience supernatural things, it’s beyond me to do so.
The same is the case with Jesus. And so what we need to do is read the Bible with that in mind, that it might be a first century, an archaic, pre-scientific understanding of things. But they were essentially wrong. That’s who he is talking about. So this is just basically.
Biblical Christianity before the 19th century, but this new view that he talks about, it’s just so pervasive, it’s everywhere. There’s almost nowhere to go study theology in an academic setting. All of the seminaries have been liberalized. It’s like the nothing, the never-ending story, it just clears through everything. Yes? Well, I might qualify that. I wouldn’t want to correct you, but I might qualify.
We don’t have an OP seminary. There are a number of reformed seminaries that are parachurch ministries, and there are a few that are tied to denominations. In my seminary time, I was very much taught this being, this was put forward far more as being true. There were a couple professors who were saying things similar to this, but they’re not working right now.
I don’t say that to make fun of them, especially in this economy. However, you know, I mean, these were men who took a vow saying the Westminster Confession is my understanding of how the Bible ought to be interpreted. And then they were saying things. Not exactly like this, but similar to these things. But seminary, they try to tell you everything. Like, they try to give you the full understanding of everything that’s out there. They want you to just at least get your toes wet in it. Not that they want you to believe in everything, but…
I mean, my time in seminary, I was taught the… I grew to even more appreciate the old school and the… the faithful reformed men of the last, you know, four, 500 years. So I very much appreciate it. And I appreciate your question. Now let’s move on to Mark’s question that is the Jewish understanding. Does the Old Testament have an understanding of two views, two installments for the kingdom? Let me just put it that way. Does the Old Testament have that?
The Old Testament, we could say, does not really distinguish two stages for the coming of the kingdom. Voss wants to admit that. It doesn’t distinguish it. It doesn’t say, the Old Testament prophets don’t ever say, okay, just so you know, the kingdom’s gonna come twice. It’s gonna come in humiliation first, it’s going to come in exaltation. It’s going to come in cross bearing, and then it’s going to come in glory. The Old Testament doesn’t per se do that.
Those things are in there, but they’re not spelled out specifically in the same way that the apostles do and the way that Jesus does. But also, neither does first century Judaism. I’ve read a lot of the books, and I must say, he knows his first century sources. It’s great to read him. He knows what he’s talking about, not just the Bible, but also other sources. So he can say that the Old Testament first century Judaism did not distinguish two comings, one in humiliation and the other in exaltation. The question is, was Jesus equally limited in the same way that Old Testament Judaism was? Was Jesus influenced by first century Judaism? Where’s this question coming from? Was Jesus influenced by first century Judaism?
Well, I mean, not in ways that, I mean, his divinity is primary. I mean, he is fully God and fully man. But his fully man and fully God, attributes, his nature, those are not equally ultimate. Really, to be orthodox, we must understand that the divine nature is primary over the human nature and who he is. So, insofar as he was influenced, it did not, as these ones would say, as the new view would say, affect his theology, to change it in any sort of way.
The Jews were looking for a higher form of the kingdom, not so much a first arrival. Jewish people in the first century were looking for, really, the culmination. They were looking for a time when, literally, physically, their nation would be ruled by the Messiah. That’s what they were looking for. not just, you know, a time period in which they would have a kingdom. They were looking forward to a time in which the kingdom would bring about a higher form of existence for all people. Jews were looking for that, a two-age view may have been present in Judaism, he does say. It is present in Paul, a classic passage that we have. Let me just read 1 Corinthians 15, 23. Feel free to go along with me if you want to stand back and just listen. That’s okay. 15, 23. For purposes of time, I’m just going to get there.
23 but each in his own order first Christ the first fruits after that those who are Christ’s at his coming then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to the to the God and Father of when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that he will abolish is death, for he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who put all things in subjection to him. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him so that God may be all in all.
Basically, What Voss is saying by mentioning this is that Jesus rules the kingdom. And Jesus, that present kingdom that he rules, there will come a time when he will have fully ruled and reigned. He will hand the kingdom back to his father. So clearly Paul, if not first century Judaism, has a concept of a present kingdom, and a future understanding, a future installment of it, a change when it’s handed to the God the Father. Right now, Jesus is ruling and reigning.
He has been seated at the right hand of God the Father. And he is, as the Bible says, has made the nations his footstool. He’s waiting for the nations to be conquered, all of his enemies to be conquered. That’s what he’s waiting for. So after he’s done doing that, he’s going to hand that kingdom over.
The two-age view did not lie outside of the horizon of Judaism. There was a difference, well, just the difference between Jesus and the Jews. The Jews thought the kingdom was always there. You just need to take it upon you. But Jesus saw it in two stages. He transformed the Jewish view. He improved it.
Both old and new view believe Jesus believed in a spiritual provisional kingdom. To deny this would be to say that the evangelists were unhistorical. But the present spiritual kingdom is assumed. Jesus had an understanding that his kingdom was spiritual and it was present. and he also had an understanding that it was future.
If you were to just go through the gospels with an eye toward this, does Jesus speak in present tense terms or does he speak in future tense? Which will it be? You’re going to find a whole bunch of passages that speak of the kingdom as future and a whole bunch that talk about it as present. The old view just says, well, that’s easy. This is no problem because it comes into its installments. What do these two, what do the new view people do with the idea of Jesus having a, speaking of present and future?
They say, well, what Jesus is wrong. He just was mistaken, because he was human and not divine, or he was God-like, but he wasn’t the second person of the eternal Godhead. So that’s really the big difference between these two. One assumes that Jesus is right, and the other assumes that he is not.
1228, we’ve talked about that. I mean, here’s a passage that talks about the presentness of the kingdom. Matthew 1228, Jesus has just cast out demons, and then he says, if I cast out demons, then the kingdom has come upon you. Present tense. Jesus has an understanding of the kingdom being present. Luke 1721, says, Jesus says to the Pharisees, the kingdom of God is within you or in your midst.
Many would like to take that and say within you, but Vos takes it as in your midst. Why? Because it would be certainly strange for Jesus to say that the kingdom of God is within you. and to be talking to Pharisees. The thing is, the Greek phrase can go either way, within you or in your midst.
Old view wants to say, the kingdom is in your midst. How is the kingdom in your midst? Because I’m the king and I’m the king of the kingdom. Jesus is the kingdom, right? The new view wants to say, the kingdom is In you, it’s something that we can all just have a part of because they have an understanding of the universal fatherhood of God. God is father to everyone and we’re all brothers. Universal brotherhood of mankind.
The present kingdom is spiritual and we are told in Matthew 6.33 to seek first the kingdom of God. So it is something that is present. The parables assume the present kingdom.
It is hard to deny the Lord and understanding of the present and future kingdom. It seems just so much easier, and not that we believe things because they’re easier to believe, but it’s so much easier to just make view to hold to ultimately. Now what some will try to do, we just have a minute, what these will do in response to the old view is they’ll say okay you say Jesus spoke in the present and the future, what they want to retort is they want to say that Jesus underwent development in his lifetime. Jesus started off talking about the kingdom being present, and then when he realized that it wasn’t coming to fruition like he thought it would, He begins to put it into the future.
So Jesus is changing. He’s changing his mind. He’s beginning to doubt. And because he’s doubting, he puts it beyond his own scope, beyond his own ability to verify it. And he puts it beyond his critics’ ability to verify it or refute it by putting it into the future. Why? Because the new view, they don’t believe that Jesus had a messianic consciousness. They don’t believe that Jesus is conscious of the fact that he is Messiah.
So this is just to compare these two views. We have the old reformed and biblical view, Ultimately, you know that Voss believes this, mostly 19th century German liberal theologians and university types believing in a new view. We’ve compared and contrasted those. I think that doubly, I think that Voss has vindicated and I think that he’s absolutely right. He basically takes the liberals to task here, and I think he undoes them. If you haven’t read the chapter, I’d recommend it. The first five chapters, as I said, of this book are free online.
Let me just end with this thought, that I believe it’s the second, it’s the last verse of 1 Corinthians 2, says that we have the mind of Christ. I think that’s really what Voss is saying. We have the mind of Christ. We understand God’s revelation because he gave it to us. The new view, I think they go a step further than that. I think they really believe that they know better than the mind of Christ. That’s a tragic place to be.
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