While the vision of God with the soul was the chief and highest good of man for the Dutch Reformed, it was also accompanied by a vision of the glorified human nature of Christ with enlightened physical eyes. This meant that man’s blessedness was a complete blessedness. In other words, man would be blessed in both body and soul, in both intellect and eyes. It was in this end that they sought their ultimate and true happiness.

From Ursinus to Bavinck

Man is meant to find his happiness in God. Man, as a finite creature, has a desire that can only be fulfilled by the infinite God of all creation. The very essence of sin and idolatry is finding happiness in creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). Yet man, as a natural creature, was created with a natural end of delighting in God in a natural mode. This natural communion with God consists in knowing God through His general revelation by reason, by which man knows that God ought to be worshipped as his Creator. Thus, the natural end of man is a natural knowledge and love of God that yields a natural happiness in God.

To this natural end and happiness that man had through natural means, God, by His grace, granted to man a supernatural end through supernatural means. The supernatural end that God offered to man was immediate union and communion with Himself in the beatific vision. The supernatural means that God gave to man to reach this supernatural end was His gracious act of covenantal condescension, revealed through supernatural revelation, that set the terms of how man would merit his supernatural end by a meritum ex pacto (merit by virtue of the covenant). It is under the category of man’s supernatural end that the beatific vision belongs.

Though foreign to many Evangelicals today, the Dutch Reformed tradition articulated a doctrine of the beatific vision. Recovery of this doctrine can redirect us who live in an age of idolatry to the blessed hope of seeing God. Said recovery may act as a theological buttress to any doctrine of eschatology that does not emphasize the visio Dei as a central component of Reformed theology and hope.

Dutch exposition of this doctrine can be seen through three successive stages. First, the confessional tradition. Important here is the Heidelberg Catechism and the Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism by Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583). The second stage is the Early Modern Period (1500-1800) in the development of Reformed orthodoxy and the work of Antonius Walaeus (1573-1639) in the Synopsis of A Purer Theology. The final stage, the Modern Period (1800-present), features a particular expression in the Neo-Calvinist movement. This will include Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) and his Reformed Dogmatics.

The Heidelberg Catechism

The Dutch Reformed tradition can be defined by its confessional commitments. The theological standards that the Dutch Reformed have traditionally affirmed have been the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort (Three Forms of Unity).

The Heidelberg Catechism is traditionally thought to have been written by Zacharias Ursinus and first published in 1563. The catechism was commissioned by Frederick III for the Reformed church to have its own identity apart from Lutheranism. The catechism itself follows the pattern of man’s guilt before God, God’s grace in redemption in Christ, and how man ought to be grateful for such redemption. Under these headings are the divisions of the Apostles Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.

In the catechism’s exegesis of the Apostles Creed, is the topic of “Life Everlasting.” It is under Q&A 58 that the catechism deals with the nature of man’s life in eternity or his ultimate end and happiness. The catechism asks the question, “How does the article concerning ‘life everlasting’ comfort you?” The answer: “Even as I already now experience in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, so after this life I will have perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God forever.”

The catechism does not use the language of the “beatific vision” but rather uses the concepts of “eternal joy” and a “perfect blessedness” that no man can even begin to comprehend. Notice as well that the blessedness consists in praise and God as the object of that praise forever. God is the object of happiness. Examination of Zacharias Ursinus’ Commentary will further illuminate what is intended by the catechism.

Zacharias Ursinus

Ursinus makes a distinction in his commentary between the way that man has natural life and spiritual and eternal life. He defines natural life as “the existence or dwelling of the soul in a body which is animated, and the acting of a living being.” This natural life exists by “virtue of the union that exists between the body and the soul.” He then moves on to define eternal life as the “eternal being of man, regenerated and glorified, which will consist in having the image of God perfectly restored in him, as it was when he was first created, having perfect wisdom, righteousness, and happiness, or being endowed with the true knowledge and love of God, in connection with eternal joy.” For Ursinus, eternal life consists in knowing and loving God. He says that knowing and loving God belong properly to spiritual life and not to natural life, stating that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” Thus, for Ursinus, natural life consists in the union of soul and body and eternal life consists in the union of body and soul with God.

For Ursinus, the union between God and man comes about by “the eternal habitation of God in the faithful through the Holy Spirit; in a true and perfect knowledge of God, and of his works and will, kindled in the heart immediately by the same Spirit.” The Spirit is the bond of union between God and man, which leads to a true and perfect knowledge of God. This knowledge of God, for Ursinus, does not consist in knowing God through means, but rather consists in the beatific vision, stating that, “we shall attain in the resurrection of our bodies, when we shall ascend into heaven perfectly redeemed and glorified, and see God as he is, face to face.” For Ursinus and the Heidelberg Catechism, the beatific vision is essential to what it means to experience eternal life.

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