Part 2
tyrant of the earth - to strip him of power; to occupy his
land, to destroy his achievements and works. Jesus
promises the most radical new order of all things,
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including things political and social, cultural and
agricultural, ethnographical and geographical. A new
order for all things - this is the substance of his words.
His will is always one thing: that God's will become
history on earth as it is in heaven - that God, who until
now has been blasphemed, might at last be honored. He
wants God's rulership and harmony, which already
governs the circling of the stars and the laws of matter,
to prevail amongst men. That heaven come to earth - that
the earth itself become the kingdom of heaven - that is his
goal.
All of Jesus' parables about the kingdom of heaven
point to this goal. Think of the ruler who goes away on a
journey: he first hands his realm over to his co-workers,
entrusting to each certain duties and responsibilities.
When he comes back, he calls them together and
celebrates joyfully with those who have fulfilled their
obligations. In the same way, God entrusts the earth to
us until his return.
Lecture, Saxony, 1924
Arnold was revolutionary not only in principle, but in
practice - and down to the smallest details. His colleagues were horrified when he discarded his business suit for the
tunic and knee britches sported by young radicals, but they
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were even more shocked when he and his wife Emmy de cided to exchange their middle-class existence for a life of
voluntary poverty. Emmy writes:
We had no financial basis of any kind, either for starting a
new business or for buying the villa at Sannerz to use as a community house. But that made no difference. It was
time to turn our backs on the past and start afresh in full trust. Well-meaning friends shook their heads: What rash
irresponsibility - and five small children at that! Frau Michaelis, the wife of the former Reich-Chancellor, even
offered to care for me and the children in the event that Eberhard would really take such an "unusual" step. But
after talking with me, she reported to a mutual friend: "She is even more fanatical than he is! There is nothing we can
do."
The New Justice
Arnold's life-long preoccupation with the Sermon on the
Mount was as practical as it was profound. Yet his writings about these words of Jesus have nothing to do with
interpretation or analysis. Instead, they point to simple obedience, and to a manner of living apart from which no
can call himself Christian.
Not a New Law
How do we respond to the Sermon on the Mount? The
Sermon on the Mount is the first step on the way of dis
cipleship, and as such we must consider it deeply. If we
fully grasp the Sermon on the Mount and believe it, then
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nothing can frighten us - neither our own self-recognition,
nor financial threats, nor our own personal weaknesses.
And the Sermon on the Mount is not high-tension
moralism, but the revelation of God's power in human
life. If we truly surrender to God and allow him to enter
our lives, then we will be able to live the new life. But if,
like the Tolstoyans, we see the Sermon on the Mount as
five new commandments, we will fall right into a trap.
For Leo Tolstoy interprets these commandments of
Jesus as five new laws: peacefulness with others, sexual
purity and marital faithfulness, the refusal to swear
oaths, nonresistance to evil, and love to one's enemies.
But Jesus did not make new laws; rather, he sharpened
the clarity and demands of the old. And the things he
touched on are only examples that reveal the powerful
effect of God's work - he could have used five hundred
or five thousand.
His righteousness is better than anything scholars or
theologians can offer. It is something absolutely different;
it does not depend on moral intention. It can be fulfilled
only through a new way of living: through the life from
God that flares up like light, that sears and purifies like
salt, that pulses like sap through a tree. It is life, life,
life! And community has no purpose if it does not
receive its life from the Sermon on the Mount.
Address, October 1935
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The Sermon on the Mount reveals Jesus' heart and
confronts us with his will. He knows that all are poor
and empty, but he will bring happiness and wealth to
those who - because they feel their poverty - are open to
what he gives. His sermon is not a law, nor does it
require any moral effort or exertion of energy. It
requires only emptiness, a vacuum of utter spiritual
poverty.
In Luke this is written without qualification: Happy
are you poor! Blessed are you who hunger and thirst!
Blessed are you who weep! Blessed are you who are
persecuted! Here there is no hint of a specialized
religious life. Rather, the citizens of the kingdom are
marked by their poverty, and by the fact that they are
despised and maligned - that they hunger and thirst and
know suffering.
Luke goes on: Woe to you who are rich! Woe to you
who are full! Woe to you who laugh! Woe to you who
are praised by men! And this "Woe!" applies to all who
hang on to their possessions, no matter how admirable
or necessary. The prerequisite for the kingdom is
poverty. This poverty is not only poverty of material
things, but also poverty of spirit, and emptiness of
religion and moral wisdom - a mourning for the world
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and for ourselves, for collective and individual guilt, for
material need and for the deepest need of the soul.
The persecution and contempt that must come to
those who are poor in this sense will be a persecution for
the sake of the new justice. This justice will be hated
most of all by those who feel righteous in their wealth
and moral rectitude, because it condemns to death their
present life on earth.
The nature of this new justice is at the heart of Jesus'
teaching. It is blissfulness in poverty. It is the mystery
of the changed heart, that radical change proclaimed by
John, the last prophet of the first Judaism. He foretold
the new order of things envisioned by all the prophets
before him, and he proclaimed God as joy and justice
and fellowship for all people. Jesus himself was
immersed in this future justice, which is God himself.
The entire Sermon on the Mount shows this new
justice to be a gift of God. Thus it cannot coexist with
the goodness and achievement of people. It appeared
only once, in the Son of Man, in Jesus. But it is present
today in the risen Lord, active in his spirit, working as
the power of the creator, the God of resurrection. The
Sermon shows us, then, the character of Jesus himself
and therefore the character of his kingdom, which
tolerates no awareness of human goodness or nobility,
no standing on rights, and no strife between people.
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Only those who recognize their dependence on God,
and who have reverence before him, can understand
this.
Becoming a new person in Christ has nothing to do
with human effort. Jesus does not say that we should be
salt or light. Rather, he knows that new birth comes
from God. Thus he says we are salt and light. But unless
salt is salty, it is fit only to be thrown out. And unless
light burns and shines and warms, it is not light. Light,
like salt, does its task by consuming itself. Love as selfless
devotion is the essence of Jesus and his kingdom.
Only out of such love can any fellowship arise. To try
to manufacture communal life is just as impossible as to
produce a tree in a factory. The building up of community
is always the work of God, and does not depend on
human striving. Creation's law of growth and life stands
in contrast to human works, just as the law of the spirit
of life is contrasted with the law of sin and death in
Paul's Letter to the Romans.
What we cannot accomplish, God can. His creative
spirit governs the law of life, for he is a God of all that is
living, not a God of death. The resurrection of Jesus is
the ultimate revelation of this law. His words can be
grasped only where he is proven powerfully to be the
Son of God. Otherwise, it remains an impossibility, a
utopia or fantasy, self-deception or madness.
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The life that springs from the Spirit is like a seed: it
must be buried in the soil to die, but then bursts forth
bearing fruit. It is the mortal enemy of death and hatred,
murder and human effort. Liberating love is life's only
fulfillment. Only the love of God can lift us above our
human sphere to affirm life and bestow its gifts on all
that is living. And God sends his sun on all - on sinners
and moralists, on the just and the unjust, on those who
seek him and those who blaspheme him. His justice is
far removed from that of the moralists and theologians,
who emphasize boundaries and differences.
God's heart is mercy. His love goes out to all. He
wants justice in external things as much as he wants to
shower us with mercy. Thus Luke summarizes the
attitude of the citizens of the kingdom with the simple
words: Love! Be merciful! Hold on to nothing for
yourselves. Do not judge or seek faults in others. Give
to all and be generous to your enemies!
The way of reconciliation and nonresistance means
giving up all rights. It means expending more time,
more strength, and more life, even if this provokes
nothing but enmity. For love to one's neighbor - which
Jesus equates with love to God - is inseparably bound to
unconditional love for one's enemy. The love of God
turns to both with equal power. Thus opposition must
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stimulate love to greater effort; hostility should only
strengthen our urge for dedication.
Those who dare to live by this spirit will stand again
and again before what is infinite and boundless. They
will tremble as before a bottomless abyss, and yet at the
same time their lungs will be filled with endless purity
and strength - with the eternal breath of God. Their
prayer will not be loud and conspicuous, but chaste and
hidden. For the Father looks for life in the remote
mountain, the barren steppe, and the closed room.
The Sermon on the Mount lies at the heart of John's
proclamation: Change yourselves fundamentally, for
the kingdom of God is near! Gather no riches for
yourselves! Know only one treasure, the treasure in
heaven. Do not set your heart on things, for a divided
heart leads to darkness and judgment. You cannot serve
both God and money.
Worrying about material things is no less godless
than accumulating wealth, because God provides
abundantly for those who trust in him. He cares for us
in the same way that he cares for the birds and flowers,
and liberates us from both worry and possession. Thus
he gives us a simple rule of living: never burden yourself
by looking far ahead. Live one day at a time. If you can
do this, you will live like children, birds, and flowers,
for whom each day is a lifetime. You may break down in
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guilt and failure, but each day will bring new joy and
hope. There will be shadow and nightfall, but sun and air
and grace as well.
This is why Jesus tells us to pray and believe again and
again. He promises that if we ask, we will receive. The
door will be opened to those who knock. The gate is
narrow, but it is there for all. And Luke says clearly
what the object of this asking, believing, waiting, and
daring is. It is the Spirit! And if we who are evil give our
children good things, we can rely on God to give us what
we need: the Holy Spirit.
Only this Spirit can bring about the material realization
of God's new creation. It transforms wolves into lambs,
and turns the predatory world of man into the kingdom
of God's peace. And its fruits are plainly seen in deeds
of love, for action is what marks the new life of the Ser
mon on the Mount.
Essay, 1922
At the time of Jesus, as today, people were waiting for a
new world order. They longed for the kingdom of
justice of which the prophets had spoken. Then Jesus
came, and he disclosed to them the nature and practical
consequences of this justice. He showed them a justice
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completely different from the moral order of the pious
and holy - a living, growing power that conformed to
the sacred laws of life. He did not give them commands
about conduct, but instead radiated the spirit of the
future with his very character.
That character was unity. That is why it is fruitless to
take any one command of Jesus out of its context and set
it up as a law on its own. It is not possible to take part in
God's kingdom without purity of heart, without vigorous
work for peace; the change of heart must extend to all
areas. It is foolishness to try to follow Christ in only one
sphere of life.
The Beatitudes cannot be taken apart. They begin and
end with the same promise of possessing the kingdom of
heaven. Those who are blessed are characterized by
poverty and need, hunger and thirst. And at the same
time they possess wealth in love, energy for peace, and
victory over all resistance. Their nature is single
heartedness. They are people of inner vision, and they
are able to see what is essential. They bear the world's
suffering. They know that they are beggars in the face
of the Spirit and that they have no righteousness within
themselves. But they look to righteousness, and they
hunger and thirst for the Spirit.
This is the essence of true religious experience: richness
in God and poverty in oneself; becoming one with God
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and yet always longing for him; firmness of heart and
weakness of soul; the justice of God's love and the
suffering of injustice.
But wherever there is religious satiety and moral
self-satisfaction, wherever political achievements or
other good works create self-righteousness, where anyone
feels rich or victorious, happiness in the fellowship of
the kingdom has been lost. Those who believe in God's
future keep their hearts fixed on the Spirit and his
prophetic justice of love, yet they still feel the injury of
injustice in themselves and all around them. They are
comforted by the certainty that love shall conquer the
earth, but they also know poverty of spirit in themselves
and in all humankind.
So they are both poor and rich at the same time. They
are people of faith who have nothing in themselves and
yet possess everything in God. In spite of failing again
and again, they try to reveal God's invisible nature
through their deeds. Just as they themselves receive
mercy, so they pour out mercy on all in need. They are
on the side of poverty and suffering, and are ready to be
persecuted for the sake of justice. They know that their
opponents' slander will fall on them like hail, yet they
rejoice; they overcome opposition with peace and conquer
enmity through love.
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The people of the Beatitudes are the people of love.
They live from God's heart and feel at home in him. The
spirit of life has set them free from the law of sin and
death; nothing can separate them from the love of God
in Jesus. And what is most remarkable and mysterious
about them is that they perceive everywhere the seed of
God. Where people break down under suffering, where
hearts long for the Spirit, they hear his footsteps; where
the revolutionary desire for social justice arises, where
protest against war and bloodshed rings out, where
people are persecuted because of their socialism or
pacifism, and where purity of heart and compassion can
be found - there they see the approach of God's kingdom
and anticipate the bliss to come.
Essay, 1920-1921
Away From Compromise and Shadow
The following essay, written in 1925, is Arnold's response to leaders of the German Youth Movement, who had
attacked his efforts for community as "self-delusional, foolish, and mad." Members at the Sannerz community
had revoked all rights to private property, and held that the way of love, peace, and nonviolence could solve all
problems of war and social injustice. They rejected reform as ineffective and held that a new society must be built
from the ground up.
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Their critics, however, maintained that while it might be possible to avoid holding public office or resorting to law,
everyone was tied to the system of oppression and taxation because everyone had to use money, at the very
least to buy food. They justified the taking of life "to save perhaps thousands of fellowmen," and defended war as
"responsible sinning." Further, they argued that body and spirit were in opposition and could never be brought into
harmony; that a life of nonviolence in the modern age was "absurd," and that man could never "leap over his own
shadow." A certain Max Dressler even stated that "the demands of Jesus are not really demands in the actual sense
of the word" and that "one cannot speak of discipleship without compromise."
Arnold's answer to these claims is based on the Sermon on the Mount and the First Letter of John.
We must wrestle with the question of compromise
because it comes up everywhere and concerns serious-
minded people again and again. Behind it the fundamental
problem of life lies dormant: the question of evil and
death. Evil and death are so oppressive that goodness
and life are constantly threatened by them. But it is
frightening to see an increasing apathy and compromise
with darkness - an avoidance of the either/or of life and
death.
There can be no compromise with evil! The word
"compromise" has its origin in the language of law. It is
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a mutual settlement between contending parties - the
only solution when legal conflict cannot be resolved.
The question is whether or not one can replace this
legal justice with a higher justice - the justice of Jesus'
heart as revealed in the Sermon on the Mount. This
means that when faced with the threat of a legal battle,
we who want the way of life and love must give up
everything and allow our opponents to take everything
away. If we do this we will be met not by hard demands,
but by opportunities for love and joy.
This is the news of the new life: that joy excludes
murder; love hates no one; truth strikes no compromise
with lying; the heart remains pure only by making no
concessions. God makes no settlement with mammon.
Joy in life and love for all tolerates no compromise with
evil, no concession to loveless indifference or murderous
injustice, because love touches all things and changes all
relationships. This is the message of the kingdom, the
character of Jesus' words. Here is his heart.
Every movement that stems from God points to this
way. But whenever Christ's way is forsaken, these
movements begin to die. And this process of dying
reaches its final stage when there is no more wrestling
with death, when the struggle for life is deserted and
people surrender unresisting to the shadow of death
when materialism and mediocrity gain a foothold and
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we avoid the struggle to which Jesus has called us. Such
dying threatens every movement.
Today people try to live simultaneously on the basis
of law and grace. A life of nonviolence is called absurd
even though Jesus lived such a life. People oppose an
uncompromising stand, calling it legalism and fanaticism.
They affirm materialism without qualification, are
infatuated with sin, and take pains to show that they can
never rid themselves of it. And it seems to make little
difference to them whether there is more compromise
or less, which shows all the more how far they are from
the Way.
Only the love experienced in the full forgiveness of
sin can bring us healing! In this atmosphere the legalistic
"thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" cease to exist. This
cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Yet the experience
of this love must lead to consequences in practical life.
He who is forgiven much, loves much. And how can we
love God, whom we do not see, if we do not love the
brother or sister whom we do see?
There is only one way: the way of love that comes
from forgiveness and has its essence in forgiveness.
This way is the absolute discipleship of Jesus. It makes
no compromises with our cold and loveless age. This
does not mean that the person gripped by love never
makes compromises; rather, the love that has gripped
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him can make no compromises. If evil deeds are done,
they come from depravity and weakness of character.
But when love takes hold again, the highest goal reappears
and the heart lives again - full and glowing. The words
of Jesus bring back the power of perfect love.
The First Letter of John describes this uncompromising
attitude: whoever claims to be without sin is a liar. We
are told this so that we may not sin. But if we do sin, we
have an advocate who expiates the sin of the whole
world. Whoever abides in him does not sin. If any one
sins, then in this sin he has not seen and known him. "We
know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the
power of evil."
Those who defend sin show that they have gone astray
and lost sight of Jesus. They neither see nor recognize him.
There is a great deal of difference between doing evil,
or turning our backs on it and forgetting it. For Paul it
was essential to leave everything behind and to race
single-mindedly toward the goal. Certainly it was
always clear to him - and he testified to this strongly
that he was not without guilt. But for him, the forgiveness
of Christ meant liberation from wrong and evil. Paul
was a fighter in full armor who fought against all evil
and even against death itself.
It is significant that uncompromising love has nothing
to do with softness or indecision in the face of battle. On
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the contrary, those who are full of life and gripped by
love must be fighters to the point of death. Their battle
must be waged most sharply in themselves, against
everything that is injurious to life, hostile to fellowship,
and to God. Yet they can never be hard toward others,
though it may be felt as hardness when they struggle
with glowing and passionate love against the evil in
others, and in public affairs. And their fight cannot
remain a private matter; it must become a public striving
against all evil in all human and social conditions.
Those who work for love in this way will be wrongly
seen as moralistic or even legalistic. But their attitude
toward people and institutions has been defined by the
goal of God's kingdom. Their ethics will be determined
by the character of the Son of Man and his followers, by
the truth of love, and by the will of God's heart. They
must live a life of love in the attitude of the future world
and in the perfection of God, because there is no other
life.
This brings us to an age-old topic: perfection. Certainly
we are not sinless. But today people speak about the
necessity of evil and humanity's common bondage in
guilt, and this leads to consent to involvement in guilt.
Ironically, people dismiss the world peace to which the
prophets witness. They reject the elimination of
government proclaimed in John's Revelation, and the
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transformation of the present social order through
church community. They discount community as the
expression of true love.
The fact that they dismiss all these things shows that
they no longer take a stand against evil. They are avoiding
the decisive choice that Jesus represents: God or mammon.
They have turned away from the clarity of Jesus, who
challenged us to say yes or no and nothing in between.
They have accepted a paradoxical situation in relation
to God; all they can say in their vanity is "yes and no" or
"no and yes" simultaneously. We must fight against
this!
They challenge us: Surely you don't want to wage a
general campaign against all evil? And we answer, Yes,
this is exactly what it is all about. That is why Jesus
came into the world; he called us and sent us out to fight
against all evil in all things. He came to destroy the
works of the devil. God is light and in him there is no
darkness!
Arnold discerned the spirits of good and evil clearly, and
though he was compassionate towards those who struggled with sin, he would not compromise when it came
to fighting those spirits that opposed life and community. Once, at a retreat center in London, he got into a heated
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argument with a Swiss theologian. The proprietor, Doris Lester, begged Arnold to calm down. Gandhi had been
there the week before, she said, and he had been gentle and quiet - a model guest; couldn't he be the same? But
Arnold was not interested in what people thought of him. If he was to call himself a servant of God, he must protest
evil, even if by shouting.
God's Kingdom - Future and Present
"This is the Sermon on the Mount in the full force of its impact, in its undiminished relevance, in unconditional
absoluteness. Here there is no compromise. Whoever wants to belong to the kingdom must give himself wholly
and go through with it to the last!" So writes Erwin Wissman in a 1919 issue of the German periodical Die
Furche praising a recent lecture by Arnold at a youth conference in Marburg.
In fact, Arnold cared little for glowing literary reviews, but Wissman is right about "unconditional" and "absolute":
this address led to the founding of Sannerz, Arnold's community, only a year later. To Arnold, words without
deeds were more than foolish; they were dishonest. Scripture was not to be analyzed or interpreted, but to be
lived and obeyed. This was hard - even inconceivable - if it depended on human strength or moral will. But it did not;
it depended only on new life from the Spirit.
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The phrase "future state" is used frequently and under lines Arnold's belief that the kingdom of God is a govern
ment, a state in which God rules over human beings.
John the Baptist proclaimed a future state of social
justice - God's kingdom - which would come to the
earth. He insisted on complete transformation because
he believed that God's kingdom was near.
Although crowds of people flocked to him to find
forgiveness and renewal, John knew that someone else
had to bring the transforming, sanctifying Spirit,
without which God's revolution could not take root.
This person was the longed-for Messiah, Jesus, whose
works followed John's prophetic proclamations. Jesus,
too, was directed by the imminence of God's kingdom.
Everything he said pointed to the revolutionizing of the
earthly life by God.
Jesus baptized in the spirit. If we allow his words to
work in us, we will be stirred by a refreshing wind that
penetrates our very bodies. About God's kingdom he
said, "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born
of the Spirit is spirit." And, "Anyone who is not born of
water and the Spirit cannot enter the kingdom of God."
Thus he declared that without new birth the future
kingdom would be impossible. In this, as in everything
else, he lived in the truth that society could be transformed
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only through a renewal of the spiritual life.
Jesus told us more clearly than any of the prophets
what the characteristics of the Spirit are, without which
we can gain neither inner renewal nor the future state
on earth. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says that the
poor, the suffering, the merciful, and the loving are
blessed and will inherit the kingdom of heaven. He
commands us: Do not lay up treasures on earth for
yourself. Turn the other cheek and give away your coat
as well as your jacket. Show love to neighbor and enemy
alike, help without restraint, and give blessing
unconditionally.
How few consider what Jesus really means - what
moral demands his words imply! The Sermon on the
Mount is known by most Christians, but for many it
remains completely closed. Yet in it, Jesus characterizes
the inner life that alone can bring about true social
justice. It holds the secrets to God's kingdom, and as
such can only be revealed in God himself. Only in
communion with God we can hope for and take hold of
the future kingdom.
It is incredibly dishonest to pray daily that this
kingdom should come - that God's will be done on earth
as in heaven - and at the same time to deny that Jesus
wanted this kingdom to be put into practice on earth
now. Whoever asks for the rulership of God must be
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wholeheartedly resolved to carry out his commands.
Those who deem the Sermon on the Mount impractical
should remember its concluding words: "Not all who
say 'Lord' shall reach the kingdom of heaven, but only
those who do the will of my Father in heaven."
God's kingdom is the kingdom of love. This love
makes no exceptions, because it is free and cannot be
held back. We are surrounded by the relative, the
imperfect, the conditional - all that accommodates to
circumstance. But whoever lives like Jesus lives in the
absolute, the unconditional, and the perfect. He
possesses God and his kingdom in the present. He is free
of the influences of his surroundings. What he is, and
what he possesses, has a transforming effect on his
environment.
Expecting God's future means believing in God's
absolute will for the present. The same intensity of inner
experience belongs to both; the two are interdependent.
And the kingdom of God cannot be of the world as it is
today. Yet it is for the world, and in the end must
transform it completely. Christ's people are sent out to
work among humanity, to have an effect in the world,
just as Jesus himself did. They must represent the future
kingdom, and their task and their actions cannot be
different from Christ's: to deliver both soul and body,
and to heal all suffering and torment.
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
Like Jesus, they must overcome the temptation to
produce bread by evil means or win control in the realm
of politics. All this would be contrary to God's spirit.
They have been sent like defenseless sheep among
ravenous wolves, and reject all ways of aggression. In
obedience to the word of their Lord they have sheathed
their swords, for love and the Spirit are their only
weapons. They know that this spirit of Jesus is the
mightiest power, which no other power can withstand.
He who sent them does not want to destroy life but to
save it, and, as children of the spirit, they cannot forget
to which spirit they belong. So, too, they cannot send
destructive fire on people and cities. The only fire Jesus
kindled is the fire of love. There was nothing he wanted
more than that this warming light and fire spread over
the whole earth.
Jesus knew the resistance in the spiritual realm that had
to be overcome before victory could be won. The life of
God can be won only by complete firmness of will. The
absolute can be won only by totality. This is why the old,
degenerate life must be abhorred. One must hate father
and mother, wife and child - indeed one's own life
wherever it disturbs and destroys the new life.
This is why Jesus advised the rich young man to sell
his possessions, follow him, and live for the poor; and it
is why he himself did not have anywhere to sleep. Jesus
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
said to his friends, "Sell what you have. Whoever does
not renounce all he has cannot be my disciple."
To see this only as a negation of earthly things is to
misjudge what is real and essential. Jesus contrasted the
richness of gathering treasures to the richness of life in
God. Bringing in the richest harvest or erecting the
biggest building cannot benefit us if we lose eternal life.
Ownership or abundance of earthly goods can never
give life. To find true happiness on earth we must be
filled with God's love and gather treasure in heaven.
Love, which makes life fully alive, must generate
love. It is life's only wealth. The man who overcomes
selfishness gains life. Jesus says that the love of God is
the greatest love in a person's life, and that we love God
whenever we love others as much as we love ourselves.
Jesus had the greatest compassion for the sick and for
sinners. Those who have his spirit will be drawn to the
victims of prejudice, and to those who suffer either
through their own guilt or that of others. They will
never feel like benefactors, but will know the fulfillment of
their deepest calling in service to all people.
He says that such people will remain unconscious of
the Christ-like character of their lives. They will live
for the hungry and the thirsty, the homeless and the
naked, the sick and the imprisoned, and yet they will not
know what they have done until they are told, "What
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
you have done to the least of these, you have done to
me."
Their lives will be so deeply immersed in the spirit of
community that none among them will strive for a high
position. They will seek the simplest way of serving, and
help as many as they can. They will love their enemies
especially, and overcome resistance by genuine affection,
by acts of practical service, and by honest intercession.
A life of this nature is possible only if we can become
young again and again - if we can become spontaneous
and trusting, unconstrained and genuine, loving all
people the way children do. Only through childlike
trust can we become one with God. "Those who do not
receive the kingdom of God like children cannot enter."
The kingdom of God belongs to children!
And the kingdom of God rushes in wherever the spirit
of childlike love is alive. It is like a man buried alive in
an earthquake: at first he flails in the foul, stale darkness,
but when he suddenly breaks through the rubble, fresh
air rushes in. He is once again united with the world for
which he longs, even if he cannot climb out into it. In the
same way, we who are imprisoned in the present moment
will be overwhelmed by the powers of eternity as soon
as we dare to open ourselves to the eternal and absolute,
the divine and perfect.
Essay, 1919-1920
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
Those who turn their thoughts away from the
physical world and set all of their hopes on life after
death are counterfeiters of truth. The new redemption
is intended for us. The new will is to be realized here on
earth!
Many people over the centuries - most decisively,
Jesus - have shown this to be true. But he was murdered,
and this was bound to happen. He was killed by the
military; by the most organized legal system in history;
by the most religious people that ever lived; by the
leaders of the church and the voice of the people. And
this was no accident. He was murdered because people,
bound by their possessions, could not tolerate his
witness for truth.
Still today we cannot bear his truth, and so we twist it
every way possible. We no longer dare to accept the
clarity of his words about loving our enemies, even
though everything he taught is contained in his simple
words, "What you wish for yourself, do to others."
I am always astonished at those pious people who are
concerned for the souls of others and yet have no eye for
the need of their starving neighbors. They know quite
well what those needs are, and yet they leave them
unmet. How can such people confess Christ? We go the
way of Jesus only when we leave everything in order to
go with him. That means standing up for all men, first of
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
all for the oppressed. This is how he himself lived, and
this is how many people have conducted their lives in
the course of the centuries.
The nineteenth century distorted the image of Jesus in
an amazing way. We are now in a crisis; our actions no
longer fit our words. Those who call themselves atheists
bear witness to the future of love and to solidarity with
the deprived and dispossessed, while those who call
themselves Christians are for the most part the possessors
and preservers of the status quo. This was not always the
case. In earlier centuries not only individuals such as
Francis of Assisi but throngs of others hastened to help
each other in mutual fellowship.
In this materialistic age we see that the commandment
Jesus gave us in his Sermon on the Mount, "Strive first
for the kingdom of God and his justice, and everything
else shall be yours as well," has not gripped Christendom.
Therefore the coming revolution will have to be the
overturning and re-evaluation of all values, the revolution
of all revolutions.
This revolution must be such that it brings with it the
brotherhood of mankind. And brotherliness can arise
only from the spirit of brotherhood; it will not come unless
the starting point and goal and means of fighting are led
and determined by the spirit of brotherhood. Therefore
I confess to the most decisive and deepest revolution of
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
all: the enormous world catastrophe of all time, the
overturning of all things and all relationships, which
Jesus called the kingdom of God.
Jesus saw and felt that this coming of the living God
to men was the only way to true humanity. But this way
demands that we enter through the narrow gate. It
means the loss of all privilege and property. It means
that we perish, that we suffer what amounts in the eyes
of others to a personal downfall so severe that it seems
we are committing a sort of social suicide. And in a
certain sense we are: "Those who love their life will lose
it; but those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
We have to lose life in order to find it. This means that
our corrupted lives are overcome; that we are freed
from the love of possessions, from covetous desire. It is
a dying, but it is a dying which allows us to rise to a new
life. And this life is not an otherworldly, heavenly life,
but a physical life on the earth. It is the life to which the
early Christians testified: the life in which our bodies
become temples of the Holy Spirit; the life that leads to
community of work and goods.
We are infinitely far away from this goal. But we have
to trust in the spirit of life; in the spirit of love and unity,
solidarity and justice. In this trust we shall attain not
mere equality, but brotherliness and true love.
Lecture, Hannover, 1923
Becoming Human
Nature needs to be redeemed. This does not mean we
should be redeemed from nature, in the sense of becoming
detached from nature, but that nature itself must be
redeemed - so that matter, the stuff of the first creation,
may be freed from the spirit of murder and all other
evils. Jesus Christ, the true man, the Son of Man,
embodied this redemption in human life.
Unlike those who follow eastern religions, we who call
ourselves Christians need not shed our human nature in
order to advance into higher and holier spheres. To the
contrary: God became man in Jesus, and this incarnation
brings full redemption to us. So we, too, desire nothing
else but to become truly human...
Address, June 1935
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
Buddha calls: Leave this world and go to the other! And
Jesus says: The kingdom of God will come to this world!
Buddha speaks of movement from this world to the
other world; Jesus speaks of movement from the other
world into this one. Buddha wants us to give up being
human, but in Jesus, the opposite happens: God becomes
man.
Just by this - by God becoming man - we who were
inhuman now become truly human. And just this is what
Jesus commanded: that his will be done on the earth as it
is in heaven; that his will, which is reality in heaven,
becomes reality on the earth.
May thy kingdom come! May it come here! May it
come to us!
Buddha was not able to say anything like this. Rather,
he could only say: Lift me up, out of this earth! Take me
away from this earth, so that I might enter your kingdom!
Address, August 1934
The Better Righteousness
Like his contemporary Herman Hesse, who wrote, "We are not yet men; we are still on our way to humanity,"
Arnold felt that even twentieth-century man - with all his cultural and technological advancement - was not yet
truly human. If man was not yet perfect, however, Jesus
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
was - and he exhorted his disciples to be as perfect as his Father. In this essay from 1919, Arnold challenges us to the
same perfection. He reminds us, however, that it must be born of the Spirit, and can have nothing to do with the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus brings us a new ethic in the Sermon on the
Mount. Whereas the morality of the scribes and Pharisees
is an outward righteousness - the product of legalism
and the coercion of society, church, and state - the new
righteousness shows its nature as inner freedom.
Independent of outward circumstances, it rejects the
impositions of mammon. Instead, it builds upon God
and on fellowship with God.
Those who belong to God's kingdom differ so sharply in
character from everyone else that they can be compared
only to the Father in heaven: "Be perfect, as your
heavenly Father is perfect." God is the wellspring of life
and love. We become his children and gain his character
when we are reborn in his spirit. But the only way to
attain this new life is through liberation from the old.
Jesus himself is the new man, the second Adam - the
life-giving spirit who leads us from the deadness of the
old nature into the warm, powerful life of the new
humanity. In fellowship with him we become the salt
which overcomes the decay of death. In him we are the
light, spreading life-giving warmth and clarity of
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
vision. In him we gain the nature of God himself, the
new nature of spirit and love.
This new life in God is a paradox. We must be decisive
and single-minded, but at the same time remain humble
in the awareness of our utter smallness. God alone can
free us from vanity and arrogance, from the piety and
moralism of our own strength. Face to face with him we
will recognize our neediness, and become beggars before
him. We will thirst for the righteousness of God.
The righteousness of the moralist is pressured and
compulsive, but the righteousness of Jesus is spontaneous.
His deeds are driven by enthusiasm for life and by an inner
urge for action. And his parable of the good tree with its
good fruit - and of the rotten tree with its bad fruit
shows us how to distinguish what is new from what is
old. Only those deeds that spring spontaneously from
within can be regarded as good. We live the better
righteousness only when we bring forth good fruit.
God cannot lie; therefore the new justice is truth that
seeks expression in everything. The moralism of the
world, the assertion of force and rights, is now replaced
by love that stops at nothing - not even in the face of the
enemy. This love establishes life and justice. It demon
strates fidelity and purity of thought, and is patient and
merciful, full of compassion to the whole suffering
world.
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
God's will is peace and justice. Only those who
live by it can claim to be part of his new kingdom. In the
same way, Jesus demands deeds and work. We deceive
ourselves if we think otherwise. Those who only hear
his words are compared to the foolish man whose house,
built on sand, collapsed. But those who hear him and act
are like the man who builds on rock.
The Conscience
There is a modern tendency to call even the healthiest
reactions of the conscience a sign of sickness that
should be ignored. But that must be repudiated most
decisively. The conscience must never be silenced.
Instead, it must be led to health by being directed
toward the kingdom of God. Far from being despised, it
must gain positive recognition through being filled with
new clarity and new content. This freeing and fulfillment
will lead to lively activity in all areas of life, including
areas of public responsibility and vocational activity. In
these areas especially, the conscience that is bound to
Christ and his kingdom can lead us on completely new
ways.
But we live in confusing times, and what was once
considered abnormal is now felt to be not only normal
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
but even necessary. The present-day confusion of
conscience with regard to sex is typical. In the circles
influenced by Sigmund Freud, people attempt to draw
all kinds of sexual perversions out of the slumbering
subconscious. They actually regret that these perversions
have been repressed into the subconscious by the
conscience. And what is even worse is the way in which
spiritual leaders explain away this ever-increasing
confusion, with the result that no one even feels uneasy.
Certainly the word "repression" is enough to deprecate
the whole activity of the conscience and throw suspicion
on it. In fact, this dangerous word does not apply to a
healthy conscience. Yet it is not without significance.
There would indeed be a fatal repression, a morbid
suppression of all vital impulses, if the conscience were
not able to spur the powers of body and soul to positive
and creative tasks.
There is a reason why the whole idea of repression is
so misunderstood in our sick age: the concept of the
family, as it is almost universally accepted today, no
longer corresponds to God's creative will. Both young
people and their parents lack that sense of inner
responsibility that puts the whole of life, including all
interpersonal relationships, into God's hands.
Most people today suffer no pangs of conscience
when the soul's deepest need for faithfulness is destroyed.
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
They are affected just as little when the smallest souls
that want to be called into life are prevented or annihilated.
Little souls wait in vain to be called out of eternity.
Living human souls wait in vain to be called by constancy
and faithfulness. And there seem to be fewer and fewer
people in whom the conscience protests clearly and
sharply against contempt for the creative spirit, against
the profaning of faithfulness and constancy.
The inner protest of the conscience calls us to respon
sibility and faithfulness in our love-lives. Anyone who
calls this "repression" casts suspicion on creation itself.
The activity of the conscience provides us with our only
safeguard against the fall that threatens us, a fall that
would make us lower than the animals. The conscience
is not repressed but healthy when a person suppresses
uncreative and life-thwarting urges toward his own
body or the body of his companion. We should be
thankful whenever "repression" wipes out degenerate
or murderous desires.
Enlightened persons do not allow the sultry urges of the
subconscious mind to influence the thoughts of their soul.
They condemn sinful urges as irresponsible. And they do
not regard their sense of responsibility as morbid. Rather,
they feel that it is a sign of a healthy mind. A conscience
working like this is on its way to recovery; it knows that
life's energies are intended for great and noble tasks,
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
tasks that cannot be hindered or desecrated.
As the moral function of the human spirit, the
conscience affirms everything prompted and inspired by
the Spirit of God. It takes a prophet's place in the human
heart: it becomes the mouth of God and must therefore
repeat and pass on whatever God has to say. The
conscience that is on the way to recovery calls out, "God
says it; God wills it; therefore it will come to pass."
The conscience represents the uniting of the human
with the divine spirit in the liveliest way. God's spirit
wants to unite with the human spirit to witness to the
truth together. Our conscience will be clear and healthy
to the same degree that we have accepted the spirit of
Jesus Christ. Keeping a good conscience depends
entirely on keeping the holy faith.
Faith and a good conscience are so closely bound
together that rejection of the one means shipwreck to
the other. For this reason, baptism of faith testifies to
the bond of a good conscience with God. The conscience
is made good by faith. Without faith, it goes astray. It
becomes a bad conscience. Therefore the apostles of
Jesus Christ say about those who do not have faith that
they are tainted in mind and conscience alike. This is
inevitable because without faith the conscience has no
anchor. And the opposite is just as true: if we ignore the
compass of the Christ-directed conscience, the ship of
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
faith will be dashed without warning on the next reef.
If we want to fight the good fight to the end, it is just
as important to protect our faith as it is to protect our
conscience. Faith in the freely given love of Jesus Christ
needs to be treasured. A good conscience needs to be
protected with the utmost watchfulness. True faith
demands a tender and delicate conscience as a fruit of
the spirit. Faith gives birth to a victorious decisiveness
against all evil. Faith is served by a sound conscience.
Faith demands deeds of love. It is, in fact, love of God,
love of Christ, and love of the Holy Spirit. When we
take pains to keep our conscience free of offense at all
times, then we are given growth and activity in the
grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, then our inner life
becomes anchored in God and in all the powers of his
spirit. Only love is without offense.
Yet we should not make the mistake of thinking that
when our conscience steadily gains health and purity in
love, we become sinless! Sinfulness remains characteristic
of our nature. But the grace of the sacrificed life of Jesus
- the grace of his blood - continually purifies our
conscience through the Holy Spirit. Again and again,
grace purifies it from all dead works and all offensive
actions, from everything that violates the justice and
love that go hand in hand with faith. The spirit of Jesus
Christ leads believers to a life that steadily increases in
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
clarity. And yet the believer continues to be bound to all
others by a common guilt.
Nevertheless, this guilt has been wiped out. People
have the freedom to do good and to avoid evil and to
fight it. Step by step, there is an advance toward the
kingdom of God. In the life of Jesus, God gave us the
gift that takes one burden after another from our
conscience. It makes us free, without making us sinless.
We do not become gods, but we allow the kingdom of
God to come to us.
We can accept God's will in our life only when we are
freed from the curse of a bad conscience. We can be one
with God's holiness only when our hearts are
unburdened, sprinkled, and consecrated. The heart is
ready to come before God only after it has been touched
by the sacrificed life of Christ in the closest and most
intimate way, after it has been met by Christ himself and
united with him as he was and is and will be.
Jesus is the way to God. There is no other God than
the one who is the God and father of Jesus. Wherever we
seek him, we will find him in Jesus. Unless we are freed
in Jesus from all our burdens, we try in vain to draw near
to the Father. We have no access to God without
forgiveness of sin. And Jesus forgives us by sacrificing
his life - by sacrificing his body, his soul, and his blood.
Through Jesus, Satan, the accuser of our brothers, is
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
silenced. The conscience also is no longer allowed to
accuse. Even the most murderous accusations that
human blood can raise are stilled. If he, the Son of Man,
is for us, no one can condemn us. From now on, no
accusation can prevent us from approaching God.
The conscience that used to be our enemy becomes in
Christ our friend. Before it was in Christ, it had to
condemn our life; now it affirms the new life given in
Christ. Freed from all impurity through community
with Christ, it accepts the assurance and certainty
given in Jesus Christ. So the conscience becomes a
representative of God. It becomes the voice of the one
who is sent by God into the inner land of our soul.
And where the Spirit of God proclaims forgiveness
and peace, the conscience will be roused to action. No
area of life will escape, for the conscience wages its
campaign against all evil. It will advance to the attack
so that where there is no peace, peace will be made;
where everything is in chains, freedom will dawn.
Where injustice rules, justice will take its place; where
love has grown cold, joy will break through; where
people live for themselves, community will come into
being.
Innerland
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
To fall away from faith, to deny Christ and his love, is
the most terrible thing that can happen to us. We are all
weak and can fall into sin unless we are protected by the
goodness of God. But our love and our confession to
Christ should stand unshaken as the deepest thing in our
hearts.
Christ is the ultimate voice in our hearts. We can
never deny this. If we look into the depths of our hearts,
we will find him. We may forget everything else, but not
our love to him, our confession to him, our longing for
him and our dedication to him. Christ alone can save us.
He is perfect, forgiving love. Everything depends on
this one thing: do you believe in him? Do you love him?
What good is lamenting our sin? Only one thing matters
- that we believe in Christ and that we love and trust
him. If we now feel how the whole unhappy world is
going to pieces and what an illusion such words as love,
peace, and justice are, then we know there is only one
true Man, who called himself the Son of Man, the Child
of Man. For us, only Christ remains.
I have nothing else to hold on to in life or death; nothing
else to believe in for my neighbors, for the people close
to my heart; nothing else to trust in for our community;
nothing else to hold on to in a world going to pieces. I
must confess: I have nothing but Christ alone!
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
The Holy Spirit is grieved whenever human worthiness
- or unworthiness - is put in the forefront. Therefore we
ought to look not to man, but to Christ. This is
especially true for the one trapped in a pit, the one sunk
deeply in the mire. All he can do is wait patiently for the
Lord. He must wait until he sees the hand stretching
down to him, the hand that will pull him to safety and
firm ground. That is the right attitude of faith: to wait
for God with absolute certainty and with innermost
clarity. And such a man, once pulled out of his pit, will
not long to return there. No, he will have only one wish:
to stay with Christ and share in his love. Christ's love
pierces even into the deepest gloom.
That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why he died on
the cross; why he took on the agony of God-forsakenness.
And he did this all out of love. That is the Gospel. That is
why he arose from the dead: so that he might reign over the
living and the dead; so that now we may no longer live for
ourselves but for him. This is forgiveness of sin: being sure
that his love is greater than all else. However invincible the
powers of sin seem to be, however dark the forces of
sickness appear, greater than all is the power of love, the
forgiving, restoring love that was revealed in Jesus Christ.
Therefore let us love him, for he loved us first. Let us
believe him, love him, follow him!
Address, October 1935
Unless You Become a Child
Arnold was perhaps unique in the attention he paid to the
words of Jesus about children and about becoming childlike. For this reason, he often bemoaned his theological bent,
which he saw not only as a gift but also as a curse. He was drawn to children and those people whom others looked
down on as simple-minded. And he urged his friends, theo logians and philosophers alike, to bow down before God
and become children.
Ernst, we are fellow sufferers. We both have a theological
vein. This is a gift from God, but it is at the same time a
great danger that makes it very hard to live completely
from what is genuine, from the depths of one's being,
from the direct source of being.
Years ago I wished that I had grown up as an industrial
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
worker. But that was a foolish wish. We cannot change
who we are. And yet we must become free from
theological introspection; we must be won for the holy
cause by a glowing, inner fire. You must become free
first from your pronounced tendency to theologize, and
second from your own markedly cramped will. Accept
your fate: you are a theologian. But now you must be
come a child!
Talk, March 1933
The kingdom of God belongs to children. For this
reason we can be led to the divine truth only if we have
the childlike spirit. Certainly that does not mean that we
should not be real men and women; the childlike spirit is
not childish but rather unites itself with real manhood
and real womanhood. It is the spirit of confident trust,
of humility and endurance - the spirit that rejoices and
loses itself in the object of its love and is released from
self-contemplation. It gives itself completely, unaware
of strain and sacrifice, and spends itself as though
absorbed in play. It is the spirit of courage, for the true
child - like the true man or woman - is never afraid or
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
fearful. It is the answer to all our needs, for the childlike
spirit comes from the Holy Spirit. And we must believe
that this Spirit really exists and that we can receive it.
Talk, August 1933
Children are open, like open books. They stand in front
of us with wide-open eyes; they let us look freely into
their little souls. As long as we let them be children,
they will tell us right away what they feel: what they like
and what they do not like. Genuine children never keep
quiet in front of a person's face and then talk about him
behind his back. Such cowardly deception is simply not
found in children. Children are completely open. They
always reveal whatever is in their hearts. And this is
how a childlike soul acts in the church of believers. If
they see something that should not be, they speak their
mind - directly and at once. They are completely honest
and straightforward.
The eighteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel contains
deep words of Jesus about the childlike spirit. To be a
disciple should mean to be a learner, to be a child. But
the disciples were often unchildlike. They wanted to
learn from Jesus, but they were still not of a childlike
spirit. They came and asked, "Who is the greatest
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
among us? Who will play the main part; who will play
the first violin? Who will be the greatest in the kingdom
of God?" That was when Jesus called a little child
before them and said, "Unless you turn around and
become like little children, you will never enter into the
kingdom of heaven."
If we are like children, we will not think of asking
who will be the greatest in the kingdom of God. If we
demand to be the greatest and first, we will end up being
smaller than the smallest. Those bent on having the right
of disposal, on speaking the final word in the church,
will not enter the kingdom of God...
Jesus said, "Whosoever receives a child, receives
me." When the church receives a tiny child, she receives
Jesus, truly Jesus himself. And the word "child" includes
all those who have childlike hearts: those who are
chaste, who have pure hearts, who do not want to be
great, who are unable to show any great accomplishments.
Whoever receives such people receives Jesus. Whoever
has respect for such a person has respect for Jesus.
The only spirit Jesus acknowledges is the childlike
spirit. Thus one of the sternest things Jesus ever said
becomes clear: "If anyone corrupts one of these little
children, so that he can no longer be a child, it would be
better for him to be drowned with a millstone around
his neck." Jesus says it would be better for him not to
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D - W R I T I N G S S E L E C T E D
live: "Woe to the man who is the cause of this corruption!
If your hand or foot causes you to sin, chop it off and
throw it away. If your eye entices you to evil, pluck it
out and throw it away." And he warns us not to hold
little children in contempt: "Their angels always have
access to my Father."
Remarkable words! How infinitely deep was the
insight that set these words, about cutting off the hand
or foot and tearing out the eye, next to the words about
children. It is better for the church to have the eye that
oversees everything torn out, or the hand that guides
cut off, than for a child to lose his childlike spirit. It is