hungering and thirsting
Geerhardus Vos served as Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Seminary from 1892 to 1932. A collection of the sermons he gave in chapel between 1896 and 1913 is available as Grace and Glory, now being published by Banner of Truth (2020).
Below are some excerpts from his sermon, "Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness", taken from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five...
"It is God's inalienable right as God to impress his character upon us, to make and keep us reflectors of his infinite glory. But in a state of sin this can only intensify a thousand times the consciousness of man's utter inability even to begin to realize what nevertheless is the very core of his end in life, the sole ultimate reason for his existence."
"[T]he purpose of this demand of God-likeness is not to be primarily sought in the desirability for man of patterning himself after the highest example; it has its deeper ground in the right of God to possess and use us as instruments for the revelation of his supreme glory. If God desires to mirror himself in us, can it behoove man to offer him less than a perfect reflection? Shall we say that he must overlook the little blemishes, the minor sins, the mixed aspirations, the half-hearted efforts, must take the will for the deed, and an imperfect will at that? Or shall we confess with the speaker in Job that the heavens are not clean in his sight (Job 15:15)? Once this point of view is adopted, our whole estimate of sin and righteousness undergoes a radical change."
"To hunger and thirst after a thing means the recognition that without that thing there can be no life. It involves that in this one desire and its satisfaction the whole meaning of life is centered, that the whole energy of life is directed towards it, that the goal of life is identified with it. To the sense of this fundamental spiritual craving all other things are obliterated."
"And let us remember that this intensified desire has for its object the righteousness of God as previously described. What renders this thing desirable is the vision of it as associated with God. In its ultimate analysis, it is the passion for God himself."
"Herein lies one of the chief glories of the work of redemption—that it produces in the heart and mind of the sinner such a profound, ineffaceable impression of the realities in God."
"The true disciple does not seek to be made better for his own glory, but in the interest and for the glory of God."
"The believer, therefore, sanctifies himself, that God's purpose may not be frustrated in him, but find glorious fruition. Only he does so in constant reliance on divine grace. It were a mistake to confine the province of faith to justification. All progress in holiness depends on it."
"He that gave the thirst likewise provides the water, and the one exactly meets the other. It is not the will of our heavenly Father that any longing in our hearts, prompted by himself, and therefore sincerely seeking him, shall perish unsatisfied. A satisfying righteousness therefore must be provided for the people of God. And it must be provided outside of us. To eat means to be nourished from without. Since the sinner is devoid of all righteousness, it is self-evident that the source of his supply must be sought beyond the confines of his own evil and empty nature."
"In one sense the Sermon on the Mount was a sermon preached out of [Jesus'] own personal experience. The righteousness he described was not a distant ideal, it was an incarnate reality himself."
-- Geerhardus Vos, Grace and Glory
Comments
Post a Comment