The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation
THE EXPECTANCY OF AN ETERNAL SALVATION [IV 139]
II CORINTHIANS 4:17-18
Tell someone who your friends are, and he will know you; confide your wishes to him, and he will understand you; not only is your soul manifest in the wish, but inasmuch as the wish craftily betrays to him your inner state he sees through you in another way also. In other words, as you articulate the wish, he is checking to see whether it may be wished. If this is not the case, then he not only knows your wish, but he also draws a conclusion about a confusion in your inner being. In this sense, it has been said that wishing is an inferior art, and one is readily tempted to compare anyone who wishes in this way to one who out of indolence resorts to the beggar’s staff: both live on charity, both are unstable, both have nothing but supplications, both are suspect in the eyes of justice. But wishing can also have a more beautiful side. Who has forgotten the priceless enjoyment of childhood—wishing, which is the same for the poor child and for the rich child! Who has forgotten those beautiful stories from a vanished period in which, just as in childhood, wishing is the meaning of life and a blissful pastime! When a man or woman in those legends was granted the opportunity to delight his or her soul by wishes, it was the custom and practice, a sacred tradition, to wish first of all for heaven’s salvation. Once that was assured, one could properly abandon oneself to the hilarity of wishing. Of course, the whole thing was only a jest, but let us never forget that in the midst of life’s earnestness there really is and ought [IV 140] to be time to jest, and that this thought, too, is an upbuilding observation. He who is properly thankful and humbly grasps the profundity that all his busyness, divinely speaking, still only betrays the misrelation between that and what he must accept as a given in life, he also has time for innocent and God-pleasing jest—he will also know how to wish. He does not spoil the beauty of the gift or the indubitability of the giving grace by bringing up his own merits; he does not himself bring along his confusion. From the very inordinateness of the gift, he learns the happy calmness that is not intrusive with tireless activity, that is humble even in thankfulness. Just as the pagans make long and redundant prayers about what God already knows (Matthew 7:7138), so it is also a pagan defect always to be busy, always enslaved in earnestness.
It may be a merit of our present age that in many ways it has known how to work the wish weary and in that way to wean the soul from wishing; it may be to its advantage if it thereby has developed an honest earnestness that for the good renounces the fraudulence of wishes. We do not reproach the age for having made the idea of the power of the wish into playing with words if it thereby motivates someone to work with his own hands instead of with the borrowed energy of the wish.139 But the wish for heaven’s salvation—is this, too, a play on words, as wishing for heavenly help has become for the frivolous, who think that we ought to depend upon God the way we depend upon people—that is, if you help yourself, then God does the rest. And if the wish for heaven’s salvation has become playing with words, has the aim in it been to incite people to work all the harder to gain it? This seems not at all to be the case. Instead, eternal salvation seems to have become what the thought of it has become, a loose and idle phrase, at times virtually forgotten, or arbitrarily left out of the language, or indifferently set aside as an old-fashioned turn of speech no longer used but retained only because it is so quaint. And whereas in the old days one received heaven’s salvation by the grace of God, nowadays heaven’s salvation often seems to have become like an old, decrepit person who in the house of the mighty sustains his life on the miserable bread of charity.
To whom, then, shall someone turn who wishes to deliberate on what consequences the expectancy of an eternal [IV 141] salvation has for this earthly, troubled life; with whom shall he consult? Everyone in our age knows enough about civic affairs, so let us by speaking of them for a moment clarify the answer for ourselves. If some state official wants one or another issue to be considered and deliberated, he does not call together aliens and foreigners who have no connection with the fate of the country whose welfare they are supposed to consider. But neither does he call together loafers and irresponsible tramps, “who learn to run idly from house to house, but not only idly but with gossip and useless traffic” (I Timothy 5:13), because the recommendations of such people only “give rise to questions” (I Timothy 1:4) instead of providing the answers. Finally, he does not call together robbers and agitators in order to give them the opportunity to discuss at leisure how best they could devour the country. He makes another choice; he assumes that a certain concern is desirable, that having one’s own welfare as closely related as possible to the welfare of the country is the best guarantee that the recommendation, just like the inventor of the recommendation, will not turn out to belong nowhere. It is the same with our deliberation on the subject of which we speak.
If anyone thinks that this present life is a life not only of labor but also of reward, a life not only of sowing seed but also of harvesting, then we must let him follow the rules of sagacity that are in harmony with his view of life. But we would not care to ask his advice, since he is, after all, an alien and a foreigner who has no knowledge of, no connection with, that far country about which we are asking. If anyone only light-mindedly and just in passing lets his thoughts wander about, curiously and fitfully occupied with the future, then we must leave him to seek the company and the collaboration of the like-minded, “whose loose talk only eats its way like gangrene” (II Timothy 2:17). Finally, if anyone, no matter for what reason, is living in conflict with that future, so that he is not merely ignorant like the alien and the foreigner, not merely light-minded like that romantic knight of thought, but with all his might wants to have it destroyed, then he certainly would be least suited to sit in a deliberative council. So, then, one chooses otherwise; one assumes that the concern not only does not make a person partisan but in a special way makes him competent to deliberate; one assumes that the very close connection between his welfare and that future makes him especially entitled to do that. Therefore, the person who owns treasure in heaven140 and whose soul is with this treasure, one who has gained friends here on earth who are able to receive him in the next world,141 one whose thought has gone ahead [IV 142] and is going ahead to prepare a place for him,142 one whose concern foresees an explanation that life denies, one whose longing holds the beloved firmly and does not let him go in death, one whose grief continues to follow the dead to the grave, one who would be shocked by the horror of his being canceled out of heaven’s salvation, more shocked than the citizen is if the country, whose son he is, were to be wiped off the earth: such a person is a good citizen, a well-intentioned person, from whom the inquirer dares to expect guidance and help, the question an answer.
But perhaps we have been mistaken about this whole matter; perhaps heaven’s salvation is something that to such a degree follows of itself that it is foolish to talk about what follows in turn from that. Salvation is a matter of course; nothing follows in turn from it. Therefore, let us not waste time by first making doubtful something that is a matter of course, and then by allaying the doubt that never brings the assurance one has when one lets it come as a matter of course, and finally lose time because of what follows from the concern of doubt. But whether or not it is a matter of course, this point of view still does not deny that heaven’s salvation is a good and can disapprove of the wish for it only insofar as the wish already is a kind of unnecessary concern, since salvation is a matter of course whether one wishes it or not. Basically every human being has the wish, except that the individual does not invite attention to the fact that he is wishing; in like manner every human being breathes, but for that very reason it would be foolish for the individual to go into a transport of joy because he is able to breathe.
For a moment, my listener, let us speak foolishly, or rather let us continue for a moment to speak foolishly; presumably you already perceive that in its considerable acumen this discourse borders on foolishness. Let us, then, foolishly assume that God in heaven resembles a weak human being who does not have the heart to deny eternal salvation to anyone, whether one desires it or not—indeed, so weak that he forces it on everyone, as it were, whether one wishes it or not. Such a weak human being is seen occasionally in life. He possesses some kind of goods, and in the little circle that is the object of his solicitude everyone knows that in time he will distribute these goods to everyone. So they all receive of the goods—this constitutes the commonality, but what is the difference? Some of them become callously indifferent, virtually ridicule the weakling in their hearts; unconcerned about him, they [IV 143] look after their own affairs, exempt themselves from any prior concern about whether they are making themselves worthy of it and are not exploiting his goodness, exempt themselves from any subsequent concern about whether their thankfulness is appreciative of the giver and the gift. Others, however, make the reception doubtful to themselves by wishing for it, and even though they do not think they deserve the gift, such nevertheless is their attitude and goodwill toward the person through whose goodness they receive it; and even though they see that the goodness is a weakness, they conceal this from him and from themselves, feel justified and obligated to act this way, because thankfulness is the only expression of their relation to him, since it is a gift, and a gift it remains.
If the receiving of heaven’s salvation were like this, my listener, how would you wish to receive it? Could you wish to receive it as those first persons received the earthly gift? Even if you thought your salvation was ever so secure, you nevertheless would feel deeply ashamed every time you compared your life with theirs for whom concern about this issue time and again filled many a moment, many an hour, whether it was the wish that occupied them now or the heart that was moved in thankfulness or the disposition that they formed in order to be, according to their best insight and ability, pleasing to the giver, and by which they prepared for the transition. A sudden transition is a terrible hazard. At times one visualizes how terrible it must be for the drunken person to wake up suddenly in confusion of thought; one has pictured the horror that must have gripped the rich man when he awakened in hell.143 But if with heaven’s salvation it were the case that a person awakened to it the moment he breathed his last sigh, it seems to me that a person who has been as remote from it as the abyss is from heaven would have to die again of shame, would have to wish himself elsewhere again, since heaven’s salvation and his unworthiness could not correspond; it seems to me that this person would inevitably feel as unhappy as someone who in a strange country wishes only to leave it.
We have spoken foolishly, but even so it has indeed been shown that the thought of heaven’s salvation dare not become a matter of indifference to a person. How would salvation become a matter of indifference to him for whom the discourse need not venture out to the outermost boundary of thoughtlessness, but whose soul is well educated to hear the serious words of earnestness “that God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7), whose soul is prepared by considering what presumably would completely overwhelm the confused, “that no one can [IV 144] serve two masters, since he must hate the one and love the other” (Matthew 6:24), whose soul is fully awakened from sleep to understand what presumably would hurl the sleepwalker into the abyss, “that love of the world is hatred of God!” (James 4:4). Such a person has the spiritual sense to be disgusted at the thought that heaven’s salvation, despite its gloriousness, could be nonsense, has the maturity of understanding to grasp that heaven’s salvation can no more be taken by force144 than it can be redeemed like a fine in a game of forfeits. Such a person has the time to consider the one thing needful,145 the heart to wish for heaven’s salvation, the earnestness to reject the flirting of light-minded ideas, the fear and trembling in his soul to be terrified at the thought of breaking with heaven or of taking it in vain. But to him, then, the thought of this salvation will not be wasted, either, the wish will not be futile, the concern not be fruitless trouble, and, like the inactivity of the lily, which does not spin, and the improvidence of the bird, which does not gather into barns,146 the prayer will not be without blessing; the work will not be without gain even though he does not deserve heaven’s salvation but becomes qualified to inherit it only by vigilance in expectancy. And this employment will also become a gain for him in this life, and the consequence of this expectancy will become a blessing for him in time, because the expectancy of an eternal salvation is able (which otherwise seems impossible) to be in two places at the same time: it works in heaven and it works on earth; “it seeks God’s kingdom and his righteousness and gives the rest as an over-measure” (Matthew 6:33). If the expectancy does not do this, then it is fraudulent, the craftiness of a sick soul that wants to sneak out of life, and is not the authentic presence of a healthy soul in the temporal; then it is not the expectancy of the eternal but a superstitious belief in the future; then the person does not rest in the trustworthiness of the eternal but dupes himself with the possibility of the future, which merely engrosses one as does the solving of a riddle. Then the expectancy is an ingratiating hankering that has not consulted with earnestness about the fulfillment’s different decision. The more profoundly earnestness comprehends the anxiety of separation—if the latter does not destroy responsibility and force the soul to go bankrupt, as it were—the more genuine is the expectancy.
The consequence of the expectancy, then, is twofold, but for the time being let us confine ourselves to deliberation on the consequence for the present life; in the deliberation, let us continually keep before our eyes the apostolic words just read, while our thoughts dwell on the Apostle Paul, the concerned and powerful witness to the future, and so let us speak about:
The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation with Regard to the Meaning of this Expectancy for the Present Life. [IV 145]
The expectancy of an eternal salvation will help a person to understand himself in temporality. The tested eye of experience is often justly extolled as being able to help someone in life in quite another way than is the eye of youth, which is in the service of imagination, is misled by mental deception, is clear-sighted at a distance, whereas its deceptive second sight [andet Syn] cannot sustain the inspection [Eftersyn] of observation. In contrast to youth’s precipitousness, it is to the advantage of experience that it is strong in piecemeal observation. For this very reason, it is important as a guide in life, because temporal life is piecemeal and is like a dark saying147 that is best understood when it is understood little by little. Experience has the advantage of always having a goal [Maal] by which it measures [maale], a goal toward which it strives, and as it divides up the range of finitude it always knows how to measure out [udmaale] the particular, and as it proceeds from the certain it knows how to calculate the uncertain. It knows how to make a rough estimate, to determine the length of the way and of the time; it has a criterion [Maalestok] for power and endurance, for resistance, for dangers and difficulties, and, whether life enters in favorably or disturbingly, it knows how to cope with it accordingly; it is not easily caught napping, and if it is, it quickly rallies and measures again. Perhaps many a human life goes on in this way, actively engaged in the service of temporality, but also belonging totally to temporality.
If, however, a person’s soul is expecting an eternal salvation, this expectancy will no doubt disturb him momentarily, cause him to disdain experience, since its goal is too low for him, its criterion on too small a scale. But youth’s impetuosity and the giant stride of imagination will not help him, either, and yet he cannot be without a goal and a criterion, since a life without them is inconsolable and disordered. Yet one who has only the criterion of temporality perishes with temporality and perhaps does not even hold out with that. Even if one’s life proceeds quietly and peacefully, events can still come along that are beyond the scope of experience. If this happens to him, he is prey to despair. On the other hand, even if he manages to slip through life without having any such [IV 146] misfortune challenge his calculations, then, if he has learned nothing higher in life, he is still a child of temporality for whom the eternal does not exist. But if a person sustains that expectancy in his soul, he has a goal [Maal] that is always valid, a criterion [Maalestok] that is always valid and valid in itself; by means of this goal and this criterion he will always understand himself in temporality. Just as good fortune and prosperity, popular favor, success and gain will not trick him out of his goal and give him the false goal [falske Maal] of vanities in its place and wildly teach him to enjoy himself as one who has no hope,148 so will neither sorrow nor the counterfeit [Falskmaal] of suffering teach him to sorrow in despair as one who has no hope.
“Our hardship, which is brief and light, procures for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”149 These are the apostle’s words that we read earlier. My listener, if you had never heard Paul’s name mentioned, if this name, far from being the revered and saintly name it has become for you from earliest childhood, were unknown to you—suppose this, and then suppose that these words were laid before you with the request that you deduce from them what must have been the lot of the man who could give such a witness to life on earth and salvation beyond. You would probably examine the words, compare them with the witness of others concerning the distress of life and the glory of eternity, and then would probably deduce that this man had lived a fairly quiet and serene life in honorable obscurity, removed from life’s great decisions, presumably not entirely unfamiliar with suffering’s hidden wisdom that is for the initiates, but nevertheless not tried in the extreme test, in the mortal danger of earthly distress, of spiritual trial. If you were asked to exchange this statement for a similar one, you might take a somewhat familiar line that we cannot use here since it is in a foreign language, but the beautiful meaning of the felicitously chosen words is approximately this: that the earth is beautiful enough as a biding place150 for the person who expects an eternity, but not sufficiently beautiful to cause someone to forget that one is still only on the way.
This explanation presumably would satisfy you and the others—and now suppose that just then a man came in who said: These words are by the Apostle Paul, and then went on to tell you—which no one, of course, needs to tell you—that this man was halted on the road of offense and consequently was indeed tried in the mortal dangers of the soul, that he was caught up into the third heaven151 and consequently was indeed tempted to have a distaste for earthly life, that he witnessed with an enthusiasm that made him seem a raving man [IV 147] to his hearers,152 that for forty years he was knocked about in the world, without a fixed residence, outlawed and abandoned, to the Jews an offense, to the Greeks foolishness,153 rejected by the world, in mortal danger, in hunger, in nakedness, in prison,154 and that he finally was executed as a criminal—would you not be startled, would it not make your head swim because your criterion could not produce such a combination!
Let youth try its hand at this! Yes, youth is quick to admire, and its opinions are no less swift; when it comes to a round number, it is quickly at its goal and in a hurry to put two and two together. Even if it is inspired by the thought of Paul, oh, its enthusiasm does not understand him and only deceives itself. Let experience spell it out syllable by syllable, and it probably would say: A life like that is certainly an everlasting affliction and not to be endured—an everlasting affliction—is this the illuminating interpretation of the words of the text, “our affliction, which is brief and light”?
Yet Paul certainly was not without a goal and without a criterion, since eternity was his goal and its salvation his criterion. When the storm clouds of affliction began to gather and to threaten with their terror, when the soul was about to perish of fright and anxious apprehension, then, I think, if we dare to speak this way, he took his criterion, felt his way, and see, the affliction was brief and light. When the congregation went astray, when false teaching and human fickleness jumbled meanings together so that the way of truth became impassable and there was no goal, then heaven was his goal.
When he himself is sitting in prison, when error is growing and thriving while he is unable to do anything, when the goal of his activity is foolishness to experience because it goes backward, then heaven is his goal. When the degree of his suffering unsettles his soul, then, I think, he takes out his criterion, and see, his suffering becomes brief and light, whereas it probably would have been unendurable if he had sought guidance in human grounds of comfort. When life’s burdens rest heavily upon him, when thought adds to that the burdens of past days and he almost collapses under the weight, when experience has long ago lost courage and is ready to declare him “the most miserable of men” (I Corinthians 15:19), when even the otherwise God-surrendered person has no other comfort than “the wish that all his calamities might be laid together on the scale in order to be weighed” (Job 6:2), no other alleviation than to know how heavy the burden is—then Paul weighs his, and see, it becomes light, because heaven’s salvation is an eternal weight of blessedness beyond all measure, and he was [IV 148] the most miserable of men only when he “hoped only for this life” (I Corinthians 15:19).
Experience, of course, understands weights and measures, but of what is it capable? It is scarcely capable of lifting the apostolic sufferings to place them on the scale, but Paul understands that heaven’s salvation has an eternal overweight. Experience certainly knows how to comfort in many ways, but only heaven’s salvation knows how to comfort beyond all measure. Experience certainly has long known how to think of some cheer for the troubled, but, as is natural, it does not know a joy that passes all understanding.155 Experience knows all the many inventions of the human heart, but a rapture that did not arise in any man’s heart156 it does not know. And yet the life that is without a goal and a criterion is inconsolable and disordered, and yet the life whose experience did not end with verifying that experience is inadequate, is only aimless running that becomes lost on the wrong path, is shadowboxing in the air157 that the wind blows away, writing in the sand that the sea erases. Anyone who has experienced this will no doubt seek a goal that is always valid, a criterion that is always valid. And the expectancy of an eternal salvation is a refuge in distress, a fortress that life cannot take by storm, an assignment that distress and sufferings cannot cancel; and life together with this conception is more nourishing for a person than mother’s milk to the nursing child, and he returns from this conception strengthened, strengthened most of all precisely when his striving is not to wean himself from this nourishment but to make it his wont.158
When life’s demand exceeds experience’s understanding, then life is disordered and inconsolable, unless the expectancy of an eternal salvation orders and calms. When the rich young man is required to go and sell all his property and give it to the poor,159 experience does not know how to help, because a portion of it is not what is required. And if there was someone who was not required to sell everything in order to become perfect, since what he had was of such quality that scarcely anyone would buy, what would experience know then? And the person who does not need to bury the dead first of all160 because they were buried long ago, but his grief only increased with the years, what compensation does experience have for him if he is not comforted by the thought that there are always more births than deaths? And if there is a solitary [IV 149] pain, which indeed gnaws the deepest, alien experience will not comfort it, since it of course does not hear the scream, and even if it is heard, the dimensions of the pain cannot always be determined by the scream. Personal experience cannot help it, inasmuch as the scream was suppressed because the pain was not understood. And the person whose mouth was bound in a way in which not even the ox’s mouth is bound when it threshes out the grain161 for others, and the person whose soul was troubled even though he gave others joy, and the person “whose lips’ front door was closed” (Ecclesiastes 12:10) even though he knew that his words would surround him with the curiosity of the crowd but scarcely win for him the sharing of his pain—how will experience comfort him? But the expectancy of an eternal salvation comforts beyond all measure. There is a covenant of tears with God, and this covenant is not seen, is not heard, except by him who sees in secret162 and understands from afar, but it is in a covenant with salvation in the God who will wipe away the tears.163 And there is a fellowship of sufferings with God,164 the secret of which is the assurance of an eternal salvation in trustful understanding with God. —An eternal salvation in the next world—my listener, do you ask in what it consists and what it will bring? Is it not sufficient for you that here it is already capable of making your affliction brief and light, that it is capable of making a union of your troubled soul with the inwardness of joy, inseparable like everything God has joined together, fruitful like the covenant God himself blesses?165
The expectancy of an eternal salvation will reconcile everyone with his neighbor, with his friend, and with his enemy in an understanding of the essential. The child wants to have everything it sees, and youth is not much better, wants everything to conform to it and the whole world to indulge its wishes, but experience knows how to partition and divide; it distinguishes between mine and thine, gives Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,166 the neighbor what is his, the enemy what befits him, and keeps its own. This is why we extol experience for this ordering of life, which in the land of temporality goes on in mere interaction. Perhaps many a human life is tirelessly employed in this way until it finishes with temporality. But if this is the way it goes on, then such a life is only miserable, however much it is prinked up and polished; it is niggling, whether it deals in millions or in pennies, is as pitiable as children’s play if it is supposed to be earnestness. If the prospect is that people’s lives will go on in this way, then it is even fortunate if distress and danger break into this monotonous security, into which the better and more noble sink in lethargy as if by a spell. When a common danger stands at everyone’s door, when a common calamity teaches people to hold together [IV 150] and drums reconciliation into them, then it certainly is seen how they are reconciled in the understanding of the same things and how this reconciliation would benefit them jointly and would benefit the individual. But when the danger is over and the calamity has had its day, then there is all too quickly a relapse into the old way of life, and the reconciliation coerced by the need sometimes carries within itself the seed of a deeper separation than the one that was eliminated. And even if that reconciliation casts an enhancing radiance over a period of the individuals’ lives, it nevertheless belongs essentially not to them but to the observation and the observer who inherits it, until the story about it is also forgotten. Even though it is beautiful to envision this, such a life is a life of temporality, is the fruit of temporality, but also the prey of temporality, and the most that can be said of it is that it was a beautiful moment. But compared with eternity, this beautiful moment of temporality is nothing but the silver flash [Sølvblink] of imitation metal. But he whose soul is expecting an eternal salvation always has present something that is intrinsically valid and in comparison with which everything petty shows up as petty; he is continually influenced by something that in his aspiring for it does not bring him into conflict with anyone or with anything of this world, something that in being possessed does not shut out anyone else. In other words, he can lose the earthly, and if he loses it in the right way, the loss will make easier the difficulty of a camel’s going through the eye of a needle;167 and if he himself is properly concerned, he will not want to shut anyone out.
“Because we do not esteem the things that are seen but the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”168 These are the apostle’s words that we read earlier, and this may well be our procedure also. While heaven’s salvation is usually left in abeyance with regard to what it may eventually be, it might be better to do this with earthly and temporal things, let them go for what they are and not esteem them. One who esteems the temporal will gradually be rendered incapable of being attentive to the eternal, and one in whose eyes the things of this earth remain estimable will gradually lose the capacity to prize the things of heaven. But the visible things are temporal, and the temporal is not only perishable but is at odds with itself and therefore must be dissolved and cannot last.169 This is why the treasure causes the miser pain while he is collecting it, pain [IV 151] while he possesses it, pain when he must leave it. This is why the spendthrift scatters without joy what the skinflint hoards without joy; this is why the new wine bursts the old wineskins;170 this is why forgetfulness erases the vainglorious enterprises, yes, even all the toil and care with which a person fancies he is becoming important; this is why time eats away earthly love, indeed, even the hate, powerless as it is, that wants to bully its way into eternity. But the person who turns away from the temporal to the eternal and is concerned about his salvation is reconciled with himself and with everyone else, because the eternal is always in agreement with itself, and its agreement shuts out only that which shuts out itself.
But “concerned about his salvation”—is not this expectancy a new burden one takes upon oneself instead of being the eternal remedy that heals all sickness, even the sickness unto death?171 It is true that at times people chose another kind of certainty than that of this concern. They specified particular distinctive marks, set up conditions, and by means of these were convinced of salvation just as one is convinced of the existence of something that one holds in the hand. They did not perceive that this temporal assurance was precisely the illusion; they did not perceive that “they suspended eternity in a spider web”;172 they did not perceive that it was a bird in their hand that they had captured, a bird that wanted to fly. But while they were more and more forfeiting heaven’s salvation through all this certainty, they were winning—the right to make their stipulations decisive for others, the right to shut out others. Let them keep this right; after all, it would truly be the most tragic misunderstanding if someone in his zeal to shut out others was so lulled to sleep that he did not dream of being shut out himself. No wonder, then, that temporality was again recognized, proclaimed in its prescriptive right, that hate and anger and earthly prejudice and secular considerations again forced their way into eternity in order to set it at odds with itself and divide it against itself! Who is not horrified at such distortion! I for my part have always sought in vain to understand it.
But let us nevertheless seriously consider this matter; heaven’s salvation is and still remains the settlement that settles everything. Indeed, even though the concern did not provide a person humble entrance, it is still worth endeavoring to gain it so that there may be an inwardness, a hallowed place in the soul, where the consciousness retreats, lets the world go, incloses itself in itself, becomes reconciled with itself and [IV 152] thereby with the differences in life, an inclosure where thoughts of finitude, insofar as they presumptuously want to force entry, are found every morning to be overthrown, like Dagon’s statue at the foot of the Ark of the Covenant,173 before the sublimity of the concern that is solely concerned about the intrinsically valid, and that is not the expectation that wants to enter heaven triumphantly and wants its festive entrance to be decisive for others.
Insofar as that lamentable misunderstanding “that became a prey of worldly wisdom” (Colossians 2:8) consisted in its binding heaven’s salvation to finite conditions, it could perhaps by another misunderstanding seem that the light-mindedness, the careless rashness, that is not inconvenienced by any condition would be preferable. This, however, is far from being the case, and we did agree that anyone who has no concern is once and for all shut out from considering an issue to which only concern gives access for deliberation. That misunderstanding, then, was not that one assumed the conditions but that the concern to determine them was so quickly satisfied that the single individual even gained the time and the opportunity and the disposition to decide the question with regard to others. And yet as soon as the concern ceases, the single individual to whom this happens is shut out from the deliberation. But someone who is truly concerned surely grasps that there must be a condition, but he will never be able to fathom it finitely, since the concern will prevent a finite fathoming. Even when he has thought about it the most, he must still admit that he cannot determine in a finite way what the conditions are, because it is precisely finitude that the concern takes away from him. An uncertainty will always remain in everything he finds out, and this uncertainty nourishes the concern, and the concern nourishes the uncertainty. This uncertainty can be expressed in this way—that he expects eternal salvation by the grace of God. But he does not in turn expect God’s grace by virtue of some finite condition, because then it is not grace, and then the concern will also quickly turn into earthly security. Now if he is continually concerned in this way but is also continually saved in grace, if he perceives that it would be a bad sign if the concern ceased, how could he ever have enough conceited certainty to decide this question for another?
But suppose also that there were particular conditions that could be expressed accurately in words and by means of which observant thought could test the state of the single individual; [IV 153] how then could he, if he were again concerned—and if he is not, then he is surely taking the whole thing in vain—how then could he ever with finite certainty be able to decide whether these conditions were present in him? Now, let these conditions be acts, specific conceptions, moods—who really knows himself so intimately that he would take the responsibility for guaranteeing that these conditions are present in him just as they ought to be and are not illegitimate children of doubtful parentage! Who could do this if he were truly concerned, and who would not have to be truly concerned if he earnestly considered this matter! But if there continually remains an uncertainty in his soul, because of which he resorts to grace, how could it enter his mind to want to decide this for others, inasmuch as before one begins on that, one must first be altogether certain about oneself. But one who is altogether certain through grace—something we indeed wish for the single individual—is, humanly speaking, quite uncertain.
For a moment, let us speak metaphorically and by means of an imperfect metaphor direct our attention to the eternal validity under discussion. An army sometimes has a select little troop called the immortal battalion,174 and a warrior esteems it a great honor to be accepted into it. Let us suppose that there was a man (we are well aware, of course, that this would be a lamentable aberration that probably never happened, and we trust that any similar aberration might never happen) who was just as concerned about being admitted into that battalion as everyone ought to be concerned about being an heir of heaven’s salvation. The conditions were sufficiently known; distinction in battle was required, but also a certain appearance, a specific height, physique, etc. He would then examine himself to see whether he filled all these requirements, not in general, not casually, because he would be too concerned for that, and he knew that if he was deficient in merely the slightest way he would not be accepted. And whether anything was lacking or everything was present in the right proportion the commander would decide in his appraisal. In his appraisal—because all the conditions could very well be present singly but together would not produce that noble harmony required for admission. I certainly think that this appraisal would create in him the disquietude of concern. But suppose that he felt perfectly secure; yet we do not forget that he was just as [IV 154] concerned about that admission as a person ought to be concerned about heaven’s salvation. But one difficulty remained. The admission could not take place immediately; he had to wait a few days. What could not happen in those days? And even though those passed without mishap, at the very moment he entered the commander’s palace, he might stumble—do you suppose that such a person would have the time and the opportunity and the disposition to go around observing other men to see whether they were qualified to be admitted into that battalion? Do you suppose that he would not perceive with deep concern that to be quite close to being admitted was still a rejection? Would he not perceive this with deep concern if he was just as concerned about being admitted into that battalion as everyone ought to be concerned about being an heir of heaven’s salvation?
Yet even if a person knew the conditions down to every jot and tittle and perceived that without a doubt he qualified (let us suppose this)—then would there be the time and the opportunity and peace of mind for him to decide the question for others? How? Is not heaven’s salvation so great a good, then, that it needs no increment by means of some external circumstance? The person who has salvation certainly can neither wish to become more blessed by some irrelevant thought nor wish to be disturbed by any irrelevant thought. If, then, a person who thinks that his salvation is assured nevertheless thinks about something like this, it simply shows that he is not thinking about salvation, and this other thought may very well make him lose salvation, just as the consciousness of the good deed causes one to lose the reward.175 Then a person who is himself concerned would scarcely wish to shut out anyone, but would he, as we sometimes hear, perhaps be sympathetic enough to wish another to be admitted? Oh, spare your sympathy for a better occasion, and if you can do something for a person, then do it, properly ashamed, for we are all unworthy servants,176 and even our good deeds are nothing but human fabrications, fragile and very ambiguous, but every person has heaven’s salvation only by the grace and mercy of God, and this is equally close to every human being in the sense that it is a matter between God and him; and let no third person, himself having been restored to grace, forfeit this by unwarranted interference.
If there was a person who embittered my life early and late [IV 155] (something I have not actually experienced) and thought nothing but the worst of me, would his also being saved be able to disturb my salvation, or would I be so conceited as to want to help him to that end by my sympathy! Oh, the concern about an eternal salvation turns the mind from all misplaced considerations! If there was someone who had taken the brunt of the heat and the toil of the day and I was hired at the eleventh hour and our reward was the same,177 do you suppose this would be able to disturb him if he bore in mind that the reward is an eternal salvation? He would indeed have great sufficiency and overabundance and would receive no more if I were shut out. If he was a righteous man who from his youth had kept the commandments178 and throughout a long life had expected heaven’s salvation (which truly is an unusually glorious posthumous reputation) and I was a robber who “this very day,”179 consequently in the same moment, came just as far as he, do you suppose this would be able to disturb him? Well, if I thought it was because of my own righteousness, then it certainly would disturb him and disturb heaven itself so that it would push me out again, but if I, observing all the formulations and without any reservation, am now willing to admit that it was grace, do you suppose that that righteous man would continue to be so unreasonable, not toward me, because I, after all, had slipped in—but toward himself by retaining his anger? And if he was not what in a more elevated way is called a simple man, but what in plain, everyday speech is called a real simpleton, and you, my listener, were a wise person who profoundly asked, “What is truth?”180 and restlessly pondered the question with competence and success—do you suppose it would disturb you if he became just as blessed as you and heaven’s infinite salvation made you both equal?
Indeed, when you eventually die, there will be a difference; then it will be said, and justly said, that scholarship goes into mourning and its devotees lament the loss, and your funeral will be different, since it is a beautiful custom that the deceased is dressed in his best suit, but the question still remains whether death does not in turn undress him. And if he was what is called a husband, a man who in modest circumstances had lived happily with his wife and had begotten children with her and had enjoyed the company of other men but had seldom been moved by the thoughts that would have made you forget everything by day and kept you sleepless by night, do you suppose it would disturb you that he became just as [IV 156] blessed as you? Oh, “if God held all truth in his right hand, and in his left eternal striving”181 . . . . . no, if God held salvation in his right hand and also held in his left hand the concern that had become the content of your life, would you not yourself choose the left although you nevertheless became like someone who chose the right? There must indeed be an equality, and what is more inconsolable than the equality in which people sometimes take refuge, the equality of death that makes everyone equally poor, and what is more blessed than the equality that makes everyone equally blessed?
Is this not the way it is, my listener, and therefore within yourself you presumably said to your God: Father in heaven, when I think about the matter of my salvation, I do not take out the accounting, because I know very well that I cannot repay one in a thousand,182 and I know very well that Peter stood more securely on the billowing sea183 than someone who insists on his rights before you. And I will not build my salvation on any work, not on the very best I may have done, since you alone know whether it was a good work; and not on the best I could do, since you alone know whether it will become a good work. Save my soul from the niggling spirit that wants to diminish you and your gift, to diminish me by making me greater than anyone else; save my mind from the pondering that wants to fathom what is not given to be understood; root out of my thought the sophistry that slyly takes the best and gives me the worst. What I did as a child easily and naturally, that I believed without understanding; what I did later (and this I know I have done), that I believed a person contrary to the understanding; what I will continue doing even though being sagacious is deemed greater than believing; what I will apply myself to with all my might, lest the glory of the understanding beguile me and make me harm my soul—should I not be willing to do this in relation to you! Since I am capable of nothing myself, should I not desire the concern and confidence and courage to believe you and in this faith to expect your salvation!