# Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos



## RamistThomist (Mar 12, 2018)

While a collection of individual essays, in many ways this is a coherent whole of Vos’s larger theology. We can review the material around several themes: biblical theology, covenant, and eschatology. While the prose is dense, and Vos does spend quite a bit of time dealing with dead Germans, there are numerous insights of biblical wisdom.

Biblical theology

The first feature of supernatural revelation is its historical progress (7). God doesn’t communicate the calm light of eternity all at once. God’s self-revelation proceeds in a sequence of words and acts. “By imparting elements of knowledge in a divinely arranged sequence God has pointed out to us the way in which we might gradually grasp and know Him” (7). Revelation is interwoven and conditioned at every point by the redeeming activity of 

Eschatology

The two ages are increasingly recognized as answering to two spheres of being which coexist from of old, so that the coming of the new age assumes the character of a revelation and extension of the supernal order of things (28). Contrary to Platonism, where there is an ideal first and a physical (and probably inferior) copy later, Paul’s resurrection thought places the pneumatikon last, not first. 

Covenant

His essay on the Covenant in Reformed Theology is worth the price of the book. The covenant idea dominates the work of redemption. Is this the equivalent of positing a central dogma? Maybe, but so what if it is? The question is whether it is correct or not. The work of salvation corresponds to the unfolding of the covenant and proceeds in a covenantal way. The CoR is the pattern for the CoG. Covenantal relation unfolds as the essence of the riches of the ordo. Image of God in man: for the Reformed image is not identified with the moral qualities of the soul.

Nota Bene

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is Vos’s exegesis of Romans 1:3-4, which overturns older manuals. Vos argues this can’t refer to two existing states in the constitution of the Messiah, but rather to two eschatological modes (104). The two prepositional phrases have adverbial force: they describe the mode of the process. The resurrection is a new status of Sonship.

Problem with the older view: it has to restrict σαρξ to the body, because Spirit is already psychologically conceived and thus takes the place of the immaterial element. Yet, this is the Apollinarian heresy. Secondly, it is compelled to take the κατα clauses in two different senses.

Conclusion:

Like all of Vos’s work, this is difficult, but it repays careful reading.


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