Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos

And that was something Gerardus Vos himself grew up on, right? So that preceded Vos, right? Uh, and Vos himself learned that, the Heidelberg Catechism, and learned to understand that and, and in many ways developed it, utilized it in response to what Lane had mentioned previously regarding, uh, the rise of a kind of liberal bib- biblical theology that didn't take the scriptures in its own right and in its own story, but instead sought to impose some kind of historical narrative upon it in order to bring about contradictions and, and different, uh, um, differences within the text itself.

And, and so Vos, um, is, is drawing, I, I would say from that rich Dutch Reformed history, um, along with Herman Bavinck and others, um, and then you have a, a, a plethora of Dutch Reformed writers, um, in Dutch, then some later in English, even think of like a Herman Ridderbos later on, um, del- developing these things.

Um, and so it's, it's, it's a wonderful, uh, tradition, um, and a very helpful one.

Now, thinking, you know, there's a number of ways in which that approach to the scriptures is helpful.

The king who is designated and anointed at his baptism, beginning his reign in the combat of the prince of this world, or the god of this world, which is the temptation of Christ.

So if you start reading through Matthew with the mindset that we're actually looking at what a Dutch Reformed scholar by the name of Ridderbos, he said, if you understand, basically the gospel contains, the whole message is summed up in that kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God.

So how should we understand this? Furthermore, we come into some problems.

For example, in Luke's gospel there is a reference where the Pharisees come to and they demanded when the kingdom of God should come.