The agent for securing this heavenly dynamic, according to Vos, is the Spirit of God.87 Christ is equipped by the Spirit for his mission; now, the Spirit equips the Church for her mission. The Spirit is the epitome of the age to come. The Spirit is the communication of that life which pertains to the world to come. The distinctiveness of the Christian religion as it is lived by those who embrace it and the ethic derived from it is through the Spiritual realm. The Spirit's proper realm is the future age, but from there he projects himself into the present, and becomes a prophecy of himself in his eschatological operations.88
Reading the Scriptures, then, in light of Christ's accomplishment (which means the dawning of the new age and outpouring of the Spirit upon the elect of God), Vos challenged his readers to see the Christian's heavenly citizenship in all of its fullness. As Vos stated in The Pauline Eschatology, the church is used to thinking and theologizing out of the present into the future, because its base of existence is in the future. However, the more biblical way to think and theologize and live is out of the future—a future which has become a reality with Christ's resurrection. Vos preached, then, that the Christian must bring the ultimate things which are now his to the forefront of his consciousness in order that in light of these he might learn the better to understand the provisional and preparatory.89 Consequently, Vos argued that the gauge of health in the Christian is the degree of his gravitation to the future, eternal world.90 The Christian possesses the goal in principle even as he moves towards it and is directed in his thinking by it.
Every task of Christian service is at the same time a means of grace from and an incentive to work for heaven.91 The Christian's outlook is not bounded by the present life and the present world. The Christian sees that which is and which is to come in their true proportions and in their proper perspective. The center of gravity of the Christian's consciousness lies not in the present but in the future.92 What Vos challenged his readers to see, then, was that the end conditions the present existence of the believer. Vos wrote, "eschatology posits an absolute goal at the end of the redemptive process corresponding to an absolute beginning of the world in creation: for then, no longer a segment but the whole sweep of history is drawn into one great perspective, and the mind impelled to view every part in relation to the whole."
From here.
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