Vos: Christian Hedonist

When reading Vos, one cannot but notice the similarities between Vos’ understanding of the eschatological reward in Pauline theology and Piper’s Christian hedonism… even more interesting is that Vos uses the word hedonism in reference to delight in God in a footnote that appears on page 71, Chapter 3, on “The Religious and Ethical Motivation of Paul’s Eschatology” in “The Pauline Eschatology”.

In this chapter, Vos is defending Paul’s motivation of eschatological reward against the egotism being imputed by the liberal theologians of his day (the target in this section is Richard Kabisch). The liberals have honed in on Paul’s emphasis of the body in eschatological reward and have charged him with a perverse hedonism in his insistence of the resurrection of the body.

Vos argues that Paul’s eschatological reward has its endpoint in God’s glory and that the reward is for God’s sake: “the motive underlying Paul’s championship of grace is at bottom not different from that binding him to the forensic principle of eschatological reward. The two are at one in this that they both aim at securing the revelation of the supreme glory of God, the one in the ethical sphere, the other in the soteric sphere. The eschatological reward-idea is simply one of the twin forms in which the Apostle gives expression to the absolute ascen­dancy of the divine glory in religion. The law of recompense for righteousness is intended to express that the ethical process (no less than the soteric process) exists for the sake of God.” -- Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, p.67 fn. 4.

Vos further argues that the eschatological reward, the bestowal of eternal life, is on the basis of fulfillment of the divine law (a la Romans 2) and necessarily involves the body: “All that is related in the Messianic prophecies concerning the enjoyments of the future age is inseparable from the existence and functioning of the body. It is not otherwise with Jesus, who likewise associated with the resurrection the reendowment of the heirs of the age to come with a true body.” -- PE, pg. 69.

And because the eschatological reward involves the body, Vos cites 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians as “explainable only from the standpoint of one to whom a bodiless existence in the world to come would have fallen short of the ideal of supreme blessedness.” -- PE, pg. 70.

The conclusion for Vos is self-evident: Paul is not a hedonist in the sense that his understanding of the next world includes the resurrection of the body in order to gratify his flesh in eternal self-satisfaction. “…to say that the Apostle loved his body, and loved it for specific eschatological reasons, is by no means equivalent to saying that this love sprang from hedonistic desire. Other things might very well have come under consideration. For one thing the wish for redemptive consummation should be taken into account. Paul was not a man easily satisfied with half-way attainment in the redemptive sphere. He was governed by the absolutistic impulse, which is in the same manner characteristic of the teaching of our Lord. Nor should we dismiss in such a connection the ideal of a fuller measure of glorification of God through the completely restored organism of man than would be possible in a disembodied state. Not the slightest evidence, however, can be produced of an anticipation of, far less of a legitimate, eschatological satisfaction cherished by Paul apart from God and the enjoyment of communion with Him.” -- PE, pg. 70 (emphasis mine).

Paul is not interested in eschatological reward as an individual as much as he is in the collective body of Christ. Vos conclusion? “The intense Christ-ward bent of the Apostle’s piety… is irreconcilable with the type of hedonism laid to his charge… because…If hedonism be principially individualistic, then the inclusion of additional egos would be bound to break its force.” -- -- PE, pg. 71 (emphasis mine).

The eschatological reward of eternal life is not about individual self-satisfaction. The endpoint for Paul is Christ himself. “The climacteric consolation extended to the Thessalonians in connection with their ultimate deliverance is that they shall “be forever with the Lord,” Where the note of joy and glory enters it is not seldom produced by the sense of pride arising from the presentation of believers in holiness and blamelessness at the parousia rather than from any hedonistic prospect opening up for the Apostle himself, 1 Thess. 2:19, 20.” -- PE, pg. 71

Having made his point that Paul’s eschatology is not motivated by an eglomaniac, Vos adds this caveat that rings Piperian. This comment was written some 50 years (1930) before Piper unleashed his "Christian hedonism". In the footnote attached to the 1 Thessalonians passage, Vos quotes Augustine in suggesting that one might speak of Paul’s eschatology in terms of “spiritual” hedonism: “Of course, it is not intended to deny to Paul that transfigured spiritualized type of ‘hedonism,’ if one prefers so to call it, as distinct from the specific attitude towards life that went in the later Greek philosophy by that technical name. Nothing, not even a most refined Christian experience and cultivation of religion are possible without that. It is concreated with ‘the seed of religion’ in man. Augustine speaks of this in his Confessions in these words: ‘For there exists a delight that is not given to the wicked, but to those honoring Thee, 0 God, without desiring recompense, the joy of whom Thou art Thyself! And this is the blessed life, to rejoice towards Thee, about Thee, for Thy sake.’ Conf. X, 32.”

For Vos, this spiritual hedonism consisted in a delight and joy of God himself… toward God, about God, and for God’s sake. And this view of God in Paul’s eschatology permeates the entire body of Vosian work. Example: Vos finishes one of the greatest sermons ever preached on the subject of satisfaction in God (The Wonderful Tree) with this: “when that picture, which Hosea saw as in a glass darkly through the tracings of the imagery of lily and olive tree and grain and wine, when that picture shall have resolved itself for us into the spiritual realities of the life to come, then also the covenant climax will have been reached, every sacrament shall fall away, and our fruition shall be of God within God; we shall at last be like him, because we know him as he is.”