Relocating To Elfland

In 1929, The Princeton Theological Review published an essay by Geerhardus Vos entitled, “The Structure of the Pauline Eschatology” (available here). One can hardly overstate the importance and influence of this essay, the central insight of which was that while Jewish and Old Testament eschatology were organized on a “scheme of successiveness” (one age of history being followed by another, the messianic age), by a “gradual transition” a new eschatological structure emerged in the apostolic writings (notably those of Paul). On one hand, the venerable scheme of two ages continued, only now the age of Messiah “unfolded itself into two successive epochs.” That is, the Old Testament expectations regarding the age of Messiah had (in light of what actually happened when Jesus came) to be understood as unfolding in two stages: one present, another still to come. In Vos’ own words:

“The scheme of successiveness had not been entirely abrogated but simply been reapplied to the latter half of the original scheme: the age to come [described in the Old Testament] was perceived to bear in its womb another age to come, so that with reference to the mother and the as yet unborn child, as it were, the category of what is and what is to be not only could, but had to be retained.”

But this apostolic revision of the ancient scheme of successiveness did not end the matter. Also a truly new element – and a deeply complicating one – emerged in Paul’s eschatological structure. For him, eschatology was not simply a matter of two ages, one following upon another. It was as well a matter of two worlds, or two states, which may (unlike successive ages) exist side by side, so that it is possible for a person to belong to both at once (though, as Vos says, “preeminently to one rather than to the other”). In Christ, it is not simply that believers have entered into the future age; perhaps even more importantly, they have entered the higher world. The focus for Paul is as much “spatial” as “temporal”: we are now in the world of heaven above, and it is around this fact that Paul’s eschatology is organized. Vos once again:

“What was logically impossible [the contemporaneous existence of two successive ages] became practically unavoidable through the shifting of the center of gravity from the lower to the higher sphere, as brought about by the removal of the Messiah to the higher world and his abiding there in permanence.”

It is in this way, says Vos, that the realities of the future age can be already present – because the new world is “above” (heavenly), it can intrude in all sorts of ways into the present age, while as a historical-chronological matter it remains future, following Messiah’s second coming. (Readers should look at page 440 in the PTR article reference above, to see how Vos diagrams this.)

Believers, then, are “in principle” in heaven; their citizenship is presently in the world above, for Christ is in heaven and they are “in Christ.” Precisely because this is the case, they yearn eagerly for the “second stage” of the age of Messiah, when He returns to consummate the new heavens and the new earth. They are fixed upon that which is historically future, because they are located presently in the world above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God.

That Vos has provided us with valuable, even brilliant, insights into the structure of the Pauline eschatology is beyond question. Every serious student of scripture should wrestle with and digest his essay. There remain however, some troubling questions, and it is clear from the way Vos ends his essay that he himself felt some of these. Two in particular stand out: (1) Is there a danger here of devaluing the “lower” world as God’s good creation, as His designed habitat for mankind, and as the theater of His redemptive work? (2) Is there a danger here of devaluing the “present stage” of Messiah’s reign, in that most of the content of the Old Testament messianic “visions” must be deferred to the “second stage,” after He returns (e.g., kings and nations paying homage to Him)?

If Vos were still alive to ask, he might well respond, “If I have correctly interpreted the apostolic writings, you will have to take up these questions with the apostles themselves”! The real issue is what the apostles said, however much it might perplex us. I would like to explore in another post whether other data in the apostolic writings might qualify Vos’ proposed structure, but it is only fair to point out, first, that he himself saw no dualism in his interpretation of Paul:

“Notwithstanding a certain formal resemblance in the two-sidedness of the Christian life [in heaven, upon earth], it stands at a far remove from Greek philosophical dualism. Its very genesis forbids identification with this even to the slightest degree. It mother-soil lies in eschatological revelation, not in metaphysical speculation.”

As to whether his interpretation leaves Paul without a very robust set of expectations regarding the present transforming effects of the gospel in nations, cultures, and institutions – i.e., whether he has Paul’s hope so rigorously fixed upon the future parousia that we are left to wonder about other, more this-worldly concerns articulated by the apostle – Vos offers this cryptic conclusion:

“What is usually charged against the age of Constantine and the rise of Protestantism would actually have its root in a Pauline Hellenizing speculation, which under the guise of directing to heaven would have in its actual effect meant a worldly recurrence from the future upon the present. There is nothing of this in the Apostle’s intent: the Christian has only his members upon earth, which are to be mortified; himself, and as a whole, he belongs to the high mountain-land above, Col. iii. 5.”

I generally despise this kind of psychologizing, but one muses whether Vos’ disparagement here of certain this-worldly projects in historical Christendom might have arisen from reaction to the rise of liberalism in North American Presbyterianism. It is worth noting that the “Presbyterian Conflict” reached a fever pitch at Princeton in the very year Vos published this essay.