[3] Ibid.
[1] David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary, The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996), 2:210.
[2] Interview, Marianne Vos Radius by Charles G. Dennison, February 27, 1992, at the Raybrook Assisted Living Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, archives of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
[3] Ibid.
[4] February 6, 1903, New York Times, in The Letters of Geerhardus Vos, ed. James T. Dennison Jr. (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2005), 43.
[5] Email, Raymond Vos to Danny Olinger, December 12, 2016.
[6] Charles G. Dennison, taped comments to Vos Monday Group, meeting in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, July 21, 1996, archives of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
[7] Interview, Marianne Radius, archives of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
[8] Calhoun, Princeton Seminary, 210.
[9] Interview, Marianne Radius, archives of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
[10] George Harinck, “Vos as an Introducer of Kuyper in America,” in The Dutch–American Experience, ed. Hans Krabbendam and Larry J. Wagenaar (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij), 244.
[11] Calhoun, Princeton Seminary, 210.
[12] Marianne recalled, “For two years we had German governesses, and we spoke nothing but German in the house.” Interview, Marianne Radius. Interestingly, according to George Harinck, once Geerhardus was at Princeton, he hardly spoke Dutch anymore. Harinck, “Vos as an Introducer of Kuyper,” 244.
[13] Ibid. In 1914, J. Ross Stevenson became the second president of Princeton Seminary.
[14] Geerhardus Vos, “The Ministry of John the Baptist,” in The Bible Student 1 (1900): 26–32. Reprinted in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1980), 299–303.
[15] Geerhardus Vos, “The Kingdom of God,” in The Bible Student 1 (1900): 282–89, 328–35. Reprinted in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1980), 304–316.
[16] Vos, “Ministry of John the Baptist,” 300.
[17] Ibid., 303.
[18] In “The Kingdom of God,” Vos wrote, “In a previous article we endeavored to discuss some of the formal questions that cluster around the conception of the kingdom of God. We must now look for a moment at the content of the idea from a material point of view” (310).
[19] Geerhardus Vos, review of Das Reich Gottes nach den synoptischen Evangelisn, by W. Lütgert, Presbyterian and Reformed Review 11:171–74. Wilhelm Lütgert (1867–1937) was professor of New Testament at Griefswald. He would move to the University of Halle in 1901 and serve there as professor of Systematic Theology. In 1929 he succeeded Reinhold Seeberg as the chairman of Systematic Theology at the University of Berlin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would serve as Lütgert’s academic assistant at Berlin, and Lütgert as Bonhoeffer’s advisor would help Bonhoeffer publish his postdoctoral dissertation, Act and Being.
[20] Geerhardus Vos, review of Die Reichsgotteshoffnung in den altesten christlichen Dokumenten und bei Jesus, by Paul Wernle, Princeton Theological Review 1:298–303. Paul Wernle (1872-1939), professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Basel, was the most influential Swiss theologian of the early twentieth century. A History of Religions proponent, Wernle befriended and mentored Karl Barth for the period leading up to World War I. Richard Burnett has argued that Barth had no modern theologian more in view when writing his commentaries on Romans than Wernle. See, Richard Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 136.
[21] Although Vos’s Reformed Dogmatics included a section on the relationship of the kingdom of heaven and the church, he did not repeat the same line of argumentation in The Teaching of Jesus Regarding the Kingdom of God and the Church. See, “Chapter One: Essence,” and “Chapter Two: Organization, Discipline, Offices,” in Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 5, Ecclesiology, the Means of Grace, Eschatology, trans. and ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. with Kim Batteau and Allan Janssen (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2016), 3–74.
[22] Page 1 below.
[23] Page 9 below.
[24] Page 11 below.
[25] Page 17 below.
[26] Page 18 below.
[27] Page 21 below.
[28] Vos did not name Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) directly, but it is unmistakable that he was contrasting Schweitzer’s view of the kingdom with the traditional understanding of the kingdom throughout this section. For an analysis of Schweitzer’s views, see Robert Strimple’s The Modern Search for the Real Jesus (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1995).
[29] Page 33. Although Vos did not make direct reference to Westminster Shorter Question and Answer 102, it is clear that he had this in view with this statement. Q. 102. What do we pray for in the second petition? A. In the second petition which is, Thy kingdom come, we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed; and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened.
[30] Page 44 below.
[31] Page 87 below.
[32] Pages 98–99 below.
[33] In many ways Vos’s statement in his Biblical Theology provided more of a summary of The Kingdom of God and the Church than his review did. Vos wrote, “The kingdom is in its intent an instrument of redemption as well as the embodiment of the blessedness of Israel. To it the Messianic expectations attach themselves. It is a serious mistake to conceive of the kingdom as something accidentally arrived at, and merely tolerated for a time at the expense of democracy. The thing was too large and deep to have aught of the unessential and dispensable about it. It touches, through the kingship of Christ, the very acme and perfection of the Biblical religion.” Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 185–86.
[34] John Murray, review of The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom and the Church, by Geerhardus Vos, Westminster Theological Journal 14:230–31.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid., 231.
[38] Ned B. Stonehouse, Review of De Komst van het Koninkrijk, by H. N. Ridderbos, Westminster Theological Journal 14:160.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid.
[42]Ibid. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., a student of Stonehouse in the late 1950s at Westminster Seminary, testifies that Stonehouse declared more than once in the classroom that every minister of the gospel should read Vos’s Kingdom of God and the Church annually. Email to author, March 10, 2017.
[43] Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1980), 78.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ibid., 90. Richard Gaffin Jr. echoes Vos and Van Til in his article, “The Bible and the Whole Counsel of God,” which honored Vos’s son, Johannes. Gaffin wrote, “The kingdom of God is the fundamental and all-encompassing category. Accordingly, the gospel (of God’s grace) is the gospel of the kingdom and its coming. Repentance and faith are the primary blessings of the kingdom. Worked by the grace of God, they are the way of entrance into and continuance in the kingdom of God.” See, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., “The Bible and the Whole Counsel of God,” in The Book of Books: Essays on the Scriptures in Honor of Johannes G. Vos, ed. John H. White (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1978), 21.
[46] Ibid., 121.
[47] Manuscript of comments made to Vos Monday study group in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, September 21, 1998. See, A Geerhardus Vos Anthology, ed. Danny E. Olinger (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004), 27.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Charles Dennison, comments made on December 15, 1997, at the “Vos Monday” gathering in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.
[51] Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1986), 41.
[52] Dennison, “The Life of Geerhardus Vos,” 55.
[53] Matthew 16:18–19 (KJV), “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
[54] George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 263–264. Ladd repeats the same statement verbatim in A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 112.
[55] Ladd, The Presence of the Future, 264, and A Theology of the New Testament, 112.
[56] Page 77 below.
[57] Page 77 below.
[58] Page 77 below.
[59] Page 84 below.