Part 1
INNERLAND
A Guide into the Heart of the Gospel
Eberhard Arnold
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Contents
PREFACE 4
INTRODUCTION 6
THE INNER LIFE 15
THE HEART 36
SOUL AND SPIRIT 61
THE CONSCIENCE AND ITS WITNESS 89
THE CONSCIENCE AND ITS RESTORATION 115
THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD 152
THE PEACE OF GOD 191
LIGHT AND FIRE 248
THE HOLY SPIRIT 300
THE LIVING WORD 346
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Preface
It is hard to exaggerate the significance of Innerland, either
for Eberhard Arnold or his readers. The author's magnum opus, it
absorbed his energies off and on for most of his adult life – from
World War I, when he published the first chapter under the title
War: A Call to Inwardness, to 1935, the last year of his life. The fruit
of this long labor of love was not only a book, but a wellspring of
remarkable depth.
Packed in metal boxes and buried at night for safekeeping from
the Nazis, who raided the author's study a year before his death
(and again a year after it), Innerland was not openly critical of
Hitler's regime; nevertheless it attacked the spirits that animated
German society: its murderous strains of racism and bigotry, its
heady nationalistic fervor, its mindless mass hysteria, and its vulgar
materialism. In this sense Innerland stands as starkly opposed to the
zeitgeist of our own day as to that of the author's.
At a glance, the focus of Innerland seems to be the cultivation of
the spiritual life as an end in itself. Nothing could be more misleading.
In fact, to Eberhard Arnold the very thought of encouraging the
sort of selfish solitude whereby people seek their own private peace
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by shutting out the noise and rush of public life around them is
anathema. Thus he writes in the section "The Inner Life:"
These are times of distress. We cannot retreat, willfully blind to the overwhelming urgency of the tasks pressing on society. We cannot look for inner detachment in an inner and outer isola tion… The only justification for withdrawing into the inner self to escape today's confusing, hectic whirl would be that fruitful ness is enriched by it. It is a question of gaining within, through unity with eternal powers, a strength of character ready to be tested in the stream of the world.
Innerland, then, calls us not to passivity, but to action. It invites us
to discover the abundance of a life lived for God. It opens our eyes
to the possibilities of that "inner land of the invisible where our
spirit can find the roots of its strength and thus enable us to press
on to the mastery of life we are called to by God." Only there, says
Eberhard Arnold, can our life be placed under the illuminating light
of the eternal and seen for what it is. Only there will we find the
clarity of vision we need to win the daily battle that is life, and the
inner anchor without which we will lose our moorings.
The Editors March 1999
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Introduction
The object of this book is to make an appeal in the midst of
today's political, social, and economic upheaval. It is an appeal for
decision in the area of faith and beliefs, directed to the hearts of
all those who do not want to forget or lose God and his ultimate
kingdom. This book attempts to point out that God's approaching
judgment is aimed at our hearts, that the living Christ wants to
move our innermost being through his quickening spirit. Through
this spirit, who moves and stimulates everything, we are meant to
gain, from within, a life that outwardly demonstrates justice,
peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, as a way of life shaped by God's
active love.
In contrast to the path generally trodden today – one that tries
to reach the inner life from the outside – this way must shine out
ward from within. Our spirit, received by the first man as God's
breath, must first of all be at home in our innermost being; our
spirit must find the living roots of its strength there before it can
press on to the periphery of life. Yet its calling – to gain mastery
over all external things – has been to a large extent lost in the
world of today. We have lost rulership over the earth and the just
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use of its wealth and resources because, through deep inner revolt,
our spirit has been estranged from the breath of God and his love.
This book, then, should indicate a way into the inner land of the
invisible; it should bear witness to the way of God and of the
Spirit – to the way of love. Fichte says:
Blessed for me the hour when I decided to think about my des tiny. All my questions are answered; I know what it is possible for me to know; and I have no worries about what I cannot know. I am satisfied; there is perfect agreement and clarity in my spirit, for which a glorious new existence begins. What the whole of my destiny will be, I do not know: what I am to be and will become is beyond my comprehension. Part of this destiny is hidden from me, visible to one alone, the Father of spirits, to whom it is en trusted. I only know that it is secure, and that it is eternal and glorious, as he himself is. But that part which is entrusted to me, I know thoroughly, and it is the root of all the rest of my knowl edge.*
In recognizing this destiny, which the Father of spirits alone sees
quite clear and open before him, Fichte came progressively closer
to the Bible. For him it was the book of those witnesses who were
filled with the spirit of all good spirits, the book in which God's
spirit has found the deepest and purest expression.
Innerland is meant as a guide into the heart of the gospel.
The heart of the gospel is more than its letters. Even with the Bible,
literal interpretation leads to spiritual death, to inner untruthful
ness. Only the spirit that fills the words of the Bible can lead us to
its heart in spiritual freedom, and through that, on to the holy
bond of a divine calling. The path this calling is to take starts in the
*Johann Gottlieb Fichte, –.
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human soul. Yet not for a moment must this calling draw the soul
away from God's history in the whole of humankind, away from his
calling in the world outside. What is said in the Bible about the
stirring of life in the soul, about the workings of the soul, and
about its goal is to be interpreted and clearly presented in a
concentrated form here. With this, the book's task and its limita
tions could be considered well enough described. And yet Innerland
is not meant to serve some purely abstract purpose. Rather, as with
the prophets and apostles of the Bible, its real task is to take hold
of life vigorously and master it – not by means of theoretical
discussion, but through something much more important: through
witnessing to an inner energy that finds practical expression in
work that is vital and has visible results.
At this point we cannot speak simply about the outward effects
of this work, about the community life that arises out of it and the
public responsibility involved. First of all, we have to speak about
what is individual and personal – precisely this land of our inner
being. Then it will become clear that a soul filled with the spirit of
love cannot get stuck in individualism (which is the starting point),
let alone in the private sphere of subjectivism. This soul, impressed
by events in God's history, will gain power in its innermost depths
from the Holy Spirit to intervene in history, making God's kingdom
a reality.
For this, however, the deepest feeling, thought, and will of the
soul has to be enlightened and clarified. The conviction basic to this
book is this proverb: "As a man thinks in his heart, so he is." Our
attention should not be arrested by the dreary mixture of those
outward habits, relationships, and subserviencies with which the
life of an unfree soul exhausts itself. What is not clarified cannot
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lead us to God's kingdom either in inward or outward events. Only
the pure spirit of God can do this. He does it through the true
human nature to which our innermost destiny calls us, hidden or
buried though it often is. It is with this final nature, the nature of
the spirit created by God, that we must encounter God's spirit
calling us to his kingdom.
My earthly deeds flow away in the stream of time, perceptions and feelings change, and not one can I hold on to. The scene I set up so easily for myself vanishes, and the stream always bears me on its steady wave toward new things. As often as I turn my gaze back into my inner self, though, I am immediately in the kingdom of eternity; I look upon the work of the Spirit, which no world can change and no time destroy, which itself creates world and time first of all.*
If Schleiermacher's words imply that the depths of God and the
depths of the soul are one and the same depth – or that men are
part, breath, and motion of God's spirit – I do not share his view.
Even the outward events of world history point to God's kingdom;
and in any case our inner being is never to be placed on a level with
God or seen as a part of God. We are convinced that there is a way
to get rid of this conception, which is given new emphasis nowa
days and leads in the end to making the soul into the creator of
God or into a nascent Christ.
There is, however, only one way. It must be taken seriously that
our highest calling is to have personally, in our inmost heart, a
common will with the inmost heart of God. When God enters my
innermost being, life comes to me, the all-embracing life of God as
the life that has become mine, the life that now I myself may live
and must live. The approach of God's kingdom in his mighty,
*Friedrich Schleiermacher, –.
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world-embracing history is bound up with the penetration of his
spirit into my heart. Consequently my life is so completely trans
formed from within to without that, as it goes in the direction of
the coming kingdom of the last times, it comes nearer and nearer
to it in outward form.
Pascal therefore was right in saying,
"Knowledge of our true nature, knowledge of our real happi ness and true virtue, as well as knowledge of true religion, are inseparably bound together."*
When we had not yet broken community with God, God himself
was to be found on all the paths of the soul's inner land. And at
that time He was to be encountered in the garden of creation. It
was meant to be preserved and built up by the hand and spirit of
man and woman for God's kingdom, yes, penetrated in all its parts,
named, and mastered as well. Today, the deeper the way leads us
into the hiddenmost recesses of the inner land, the more we are
bound to come across the recollection of God and the longing to
renew our bond of life with him. It is in these innermost regions
that God enters into the soul and wants to win over and penetrate
our whole life. The book of nature, of visible creation, remains our
task just as much as the book of history and of end-history – these
gifts laid before our eyes and given to us by God. Through them we
can recognize him even though they often seem still sealed with
seven seals. Yet nature and its origin, history and the end of
history, eternity and infinity, the beyond and the future, the
kingdom of God – all these should light up for us not only in an
outer way but just as much, and even more, in an inner way.
From all this, it follows clearly that this book has nothing to do
*Blaise Pascal, –.
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with discussions on psychology and least of all on experimental
psychology, which deals with the physical senses. The efforts made
by researchers need to be mentioned only where the new psychol
ogy of religion and modern psychoanalysis touch on the deepest
areas of the life of the soul. In spite of all recent work, the hidden
ways into the inner land of our being remain so similar in the most
dissimilar people and times, and so hard to describe, that part of
the task of this guide must be to recall those precious old tablets
set up hundreds and thousands of years ago on Mount Sinai.
Every deep experience must lead to deep self-examination. Then,
from within, we will be equal to the onslaught of unaccustomed
events. War, for instance, is a challenge to inwardness in the sense
of self-examination because the developments that lead up to war
lead us further and further away from the roots of true strength.
The increasing prosperity of any country and all the work that is
achieved are significant outer blessings for which we cannot be
thankful enough. But they lose their value entirely and turn
immediately into a ruinous curse as soon as they begin, like a top-
heavy load, to crush the inner life. With precipitous speed, we are
being deprived of the inner blessing of our human calling by the
outer blessing of our rapid development. Our public life has lost its
human character; and inwardness has been damaged as a result of
the rush and hurry of all the work there is to do on the one hand,
and on the other hand by the luxury, excess, and feverishly
accelerated pleasure-snatching that has become part of life.
The distress of our times can help us forward only if we remem
ber our divine calling, only if instead of haste and excitement we
learn to seek the roots of strength again: an inwardness founded in
God. God has already awakened spiritual movements that have
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wanted to turn away from what is false in our corrupt civilization
and seek a more genuine life, which was to be more truthful, more
inspired, more inward, human, brotherly, and communal. The
intoxication of a superficial existence, however, has led us again
from one injustice to another, from one soulless action to another,
from one spiritual murder to another, from death to death.
Without a deep inner uplift at the heart of the people, we will
not have the staying power to cope with the effects of all this.
Without an examination of our hearts in the light of God's
kingdom, we will continue to fall prey to new errors, expecting
society to be lifted up by a human kingdom devoid of God's spirit.
Jesus saw into a time when the earth was to experience the
horrors of universal war and bloody revolts, severe privations and
plagues. In this connection, he predicted that love would grow cold
and lawlessness and injustice would increase. The truth of this
prediction has been seen in those who wage war and prepare for it.
The disturbances of our time now let disorder, lovelessness, and
injustice of all kinds increase. All the consequences of war – even if
they seem only outward events – will develop into the most
terrible judgment ever to fall on humankind. All inwardness will be
destroyed if our love to God grows cold with icy fear for our
individual or collective existence, our so-called security. All inward
ness will perish if we no longer love God, if the glowing love to
brothers and sisters, as well as the radiant energy of love to our
enemies, is drowned because of boundless sin and the struggle for
material advantage – so coldly calculating yet so madly passionate
at the same time. Further, it will be the end of all inwardness if
greed for power and the resulting violence gain the upper hand
once more; they are born of hate and severed from the depth of
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the soul and the spirit of God at work in it. They seek only external
things, exhausting themselves in superficialities. And if there is
such destruction of inwardness it means destruction altogether.
In the same context in which Jesus spoke about war among all
nations and kingdoms, about lawlessness, and about love growing
cold, we hear from him about enduring to the end, about a move
ment truly born of God, about mission, and about the working of
the Spirit throughout the world. In hard times like these, nothing
but a thorough and deep-going revival of our inner life, a great and
full awakening to God and his all-determining rulership, can bring
the gospel to the whole world – the joyful news that Christ alone
matters. For that to happen, however, the life of a missionary
church must be given: a life that is in keeping with the kingdom of
God from its core to the last detail of its outer form, as peace,
unity, and community and as love and joy in the Holy Spirit.
This hour of world history is a challenge to inwardness. It repre
sents a call to be at work in the world; it implies tasks that are
literally boundless. Therefore it is high time that we gather our
selves for serious thought, going deeper and deeper, in order to
gain clarity about our inner life. We have to know the foundations
and laws of inwardness. Then we will also gain more and more
clarity for the whole shaping of life – in what divine order, under
what rulership of Christ, and under what decrees of the Holy Spirit
we are to set about this shaping of life, and how to carry it out.
Most of all, it is important that we experience the power of God in
our inner being, because only then are we capable of standing firm
and holding out in the storms to come. Only when our inner life is
anchored in God can we gain the strength to take up the enormous
tasks of the future with the courage of faith. When unity and
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clarity bring order in our innermost being, then, and only then, can
our life attain the warming and radiating power of the light on the
lampstand. Then, representing the unity and freedom of the city on
the hill, it will become a light for the whole world.
Eberhard Arnold
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The Inner Life
In the first decades of this century, the will to power has
asserted itself in the most diverse forms. It has ensnared everyone
in the bustle of outer activity, making them devote all their energy
to increase material possessions. More and more, the will to live
our own life as a nation or as individuals has laid claim on our whole
being, just for the upkeep and improvement of our material
existence; it has not provided us with any inner foundation. On the
other hand, a will for the innermost life and for the all-commanding
power of the kingdom of love and justice – a will for God – forces
us into an inner detachment. In this detachment, the solitariness of
the soul with God should become a community of two, and then,
with his church, a community of many.
This is why Eckhart (who in many ways knew the inner life as few
others have done) said:
"Nowhere is there perfect peace save in the detached heart. Therefore God would rather be there than in any other being or in any other virtue."*
*Johannes Eckhart, c. –.
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Yet this saying is true only when detachment is a separation from
the unfruitful and dead works of darkness, when it leads to the liv
ing building-up of the city of light. In this city of light, the nature
of the kingdom of God will be revealed to everyone. It will be seen
as unity, shown in all the diligence and courage of the loving works
of community.
Wherever God is, his kingdom – the final kingdom –draws near.
He is the God of peace, whose presence brings freedom from all
inner restlessness, all dividedness of heart, and every hostile im
pulse. However, Eckhart forgets all too easily that the living God is
action just as much as peace. His peace is indeed the deepest unity
of heart, the harmonious accord of the great diversity of all the
gifts and powers of the soul. But on this foundation he brings into
being as the goal of his creation an outer unity of all action, a unity
that rejoices in every object of love, brings justice into operation
for all, and builds a material world that makes peace a reality on
every front through the Holy Spirit.
God wants to bestow an indestructible harmony upon our inner
life: harmony that shows itself in mighty melodies of love. The en
ergy born of inner gathering empowers. When hearts are gathered,
people are gathered. Their industrious work shows that the king
dom of God is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Today we must emphasize it once more: our capacity for work is
sure to become exhausted and mechanical – our strength will be
sapped at the core – if no deepening is given to the inner life. As
soon as inner stillness and quiet are lost, the holy springs of the
inner world that bring life-giving water to our spiritual life are
bound to fail at the very source. Like people dying of thirst, the
overburdened long for their inner life to be strengthened and
quickened. They feel how miserably they will die otherwise.
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Inner strength comes from the source. In tranquil silence it lets
God himself speak and act. Instead of letting the believer sink in
death, it lets him rise again to a life that flows outward in streams
of creative spirit, without losing itself in externals. This strength,
this "active stillness," leads the believer to work for the world in
such a way that he does not become "worldly," yet never becomes
inactive.
These are times of distress. We cannot retreat, willfully blind to
the overwhelming urgency of the tasks pressing on society. We can
not look for inner detachment in an inner and outer isolation, as
Eckhart's easily misunderstood sayings seem to imply. We are
thankful that the highly mechanized nature of world economics
today does not allow this pious selfishness anymore. It gives us
more protection from self-deception than we had in earlier times.
But the lack of vital and effective action shows us when our striv
ing after detachment has not penetrated to the inmost springs of
creative power. Where this power is at work, there is a detachment
which is a thorough letting-go of self and therefore a freedom for
the hardest work; this gathers believing people into the most living
kind of community. Their love to all now presses forward out of all
isolation to the ends of the earth. Yet they will never be able to
give up the common gathering at the focal point of strength.
To the conscientious soul, the only justification for withdrawing
into the inner self to escape today's confusing, hectic whirl would
be that fruitfulness is enriched by it. It is a question of gaining
within, through unity with eternal powers, a strength of character
ready to be tested in the stream of the world. That alone can cope
with the demands of this age.
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Not flight but gathering for attack is the watchword. We must
never withdraw from the rushing stream of present-day life into a
selfish life. That would make love grow cold in the face of need and
the countless paths of guilt connected with it. Our detachment,
turned into coldness of heart, would then reach such a height of
injustice that it would exceed the injustice of the world. Unless we
share the distress and guilt of the world, we fall prey to untruthful
ness and lifelessness, to eternal and temporal death. And those pre
pared to share only the inner need of their fellows, and not their
outer need as well, fully and completely, cut life into halves. Then
they lose the inner half of life, the very part they are supposed to
gain or hold on to. Jesus Christ is forgotten, who took on outer just
as much as inner need: in his eyes the two are inseparably one.
It is possible to share lovingly and militantly in the life of our
times. But we can do this only when we respond with every fiber of
our being to the work demanded, when in every drop of our heart's
blood we feel the distress, want to share in suffering it, and so
actively overcome it. It is in quietness that we find the way to give
this help.
Jean Paul* describes a raging tempest in which the surface of the
water is broken up in jagged and foaming confusion. Yet the sun
still shines on it, and turbulent clouds do not hide it. With all the
seething activity in which we are obliged to live and carry on our
work, the mirror of our feelings cannot help becoming stormy and
agitated. Yet our hearts know of a heaven with a sun which in radi
ant quiet preserves an untouched and inviolable strength. This
heaven is the rising sun of God's approaching reign. Jesus Christ,
the morning star of the future, not only proclaimed it to us – he
*Jean Paul (pseudonym for Jean Paul Friedrich Richter), –
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also brought it close to us all in his life and death, in his word and
deed. The following words of Fichte will be understood by anyone
who sees this heaven: "Do you wish to see God face to face as he
himself is? Do not look for him beyond the clouds; you can find him
everywhere, wherever you are." The kingdom of God draws near
over all the earth. God is near wherever a complete reversal of all
things is looked for –the reversal that brings his rule with it. His
kingdom has no territorial boundaries.
We are not Christians (in the only sense in which it is possible to
be Christians – the inner sense that affects all outward things as
well) until we have experienced in our own hearts the following
decisive words about the presence of Christ. Righteousness based
on faith says: Do not ask in your heart, "Who will ascend into
heaven?" (that is, to bring Christ down) or "Who will descend into
the abyss?" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). Instead it
knows: The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (Rom.
10:6–8). The word comes into our hearts because it has come into
the world. The eternal word became temporal flesh; God's son
became the Son of Man. Every time that you act sincerely, believe
wholeheartedly, and confess openly, the word will again become
body and flesh in your mouth, in your heart, in the work of the
believing church, in the loving, active community – its organism. It
is through the Holy Spirit that this comes about, just as it did when
the Son came for the first time.
In order to penetrate our lives, the word goes to our inmost
hearts again and again. The kingdom has no time boundaries. No
eye can see light apart from itself, only in itself. Light comes from
outside, and its rays illuminate the inside. God's morning star and
his rising sun draw near to us from the other world. When we
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believe this fact – when this news reaches our inmost life – the
morning star has arisen in our hearts. We are filled with light be
cause Jesus, the light of the world, has reached us from afar. So it
gives light to everyone who comes into this world. Seeing takes
place only when the eye receives light-rays in its own deepest
depths. To quote Fichte again: "Therefore you cannot grasp God
apart from yourself. In order to know him, he himself must let the
rays of his spirit pierce deep into the depths of your heart to stamp
his image there." In Jesus, the image of God has appeared so clearly
and so undeniably that from now on it is from him that we receive
a calling in our hearts. The image of God that Jesus brings to us is
love: love that wants unity. We are called to be images of God, and
through this calling his spirit wants to rule all people and all things,
forming them into one united whole. The kingdom has no subjec
tive boundaries.
As soon as the light is no longer eclipsed by all the busyness of
our ego obstinately pushing its way to the fore, we see God directly
before our inmost heart. God shows himself to us as the beaming
sun that alone can bring abiding life. He brings in the new day,
which as his day brings judgment on the dark life of self. He seeks
to bring everyone into redeeming light and unite them under his
rulership.
We find the focal point of our inner life in God, the central sun of
our existence, because in him we recognize the central fire of all
creation, of history, and of the history of the last things. Without
him, collectedness of spirit in the depths of our soul will be cast to
the winds again and again. Only through becoming one with God
in the depths of our being will it become possible.
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A battle can be won only when the field marshal and his staff
keep completely calm in the midst of all the turmoil. Each one of
us, too, is able to cope with the demands of today's need and dis
tress only by finding an inner collectedness in God. And we shall
find this only when lightning from the kingdom of God has struck
and lit up the whole horizon.
There is no life that does not have a center. The earth without
its glowing center would be as dead as the moon; the inner core
contains the life-strength of the fruit; a flower's beautiful petals
shield the organs of fertilization – in the same way there can be
only one center for all life-energy: the hidden and the inner. The
power of God's kingdom lies hidden in its innermost core, in the
heart of God. It comes to light in Jesus, the hidden focus of all history.
Jesus reveals this power at the very heart of faith to the simple
and to children. It remains hidden from the wise and clever because
only the childlike heart is able to grasp the plan of love. The only
way our soul can know God and be known by him is for us to
become one in our own inner depths with the center of all worlds
and all life in them. The inmost core decides between life and
death.
Therefore, the most dangerous sickening does not halt at exter
nals. It proceeds to attack the innermost core with decay and
destruction. In fact, if the core of our being were to be untouched
by sickness, life could not really be affected by it. We are sick, and
we do fall prey to death, because we are estranged from the fire at
the core of all life, the core of all that takes place. In this state of
sickness we understand nothing of God's judgment in his history.
Through this sickening, our inner eye is blinded so that it cannot
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see the kingdom of God. Every weakening of inwardness strikes at
the source of our life-power. Every strengthening of our outward
existence that is won at the expense of inwardness squanders our
vital strength and endangers our inner existence. Only wealth of
life gathered in the innermost depths makes us capable of that
quality of generosity that finds its happiness in giving.
The innermost core of God's kingdom is the pure life that surren
ders and sacrifices everything in love. In the same way, it is in the
innermost core of our life that the love of the sacrificed Christ
kindles the rich fire of renunciation, letting go and surrendering
everything given us in the way of personal abilities and possessions.
Every impoverishment and sickening of our inner being means a
loss of warmth and depth. It shows up plainly in all our efforts and
activities. Every healing of the inner life leads to loving sacrifice,
that is, to purer and more vigorous action.
Jesus has wielded the sword of speech more powerfully than any
other against the danger of religion (as an inward treasure) becom
ing a merely outward form. No one has stressed more than he did
the vital importance of the actual state of our inner life. Because
he is the heart of God, he brought the kingdom of God. This king
dom seeks to gain authority over everything, touching hearts and
changing everything, starting with the heart. That is why he seeks
the inner life. We know from him that even the most untruthful,
even those farthest from God, have an inner being.
God seeks with all the means of judgment and love to move each
heart: he wants the approach of his day, the effect of his love, to
bring each one to look in his or her own heart and turn around. In
this way, everything will be changed – overthrown and set up new.
And he sees our hearts as they are. All purifying or whitewashing
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of externals is in vain. "Inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and
lawlessness." "Inwardly they are full of greed and self-indulgence,
full of dead men's bones and all kinds of rottenness" (Matt. 25–28).
Jesus hates the outward appearance of piety and holiness when the
heart dishonestly boasts of spiritual values it does not possess,
sinking further and further away from God. He himself said the
most serious thing that can be said about this: "This people draws
near to me with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but
their hearts are far removed from me. But they serve me in vain
because they teach teachings that are nothing but the command
ments of men" (Matt. 15:8–9).
As a result of all the bloodshed in our century and its consequent
chaos and confusion, we should feel that God wants to use the
heavy burden of our times to make us examine ourselves. Again it
is all important that it is not with our mouths only that we promise
to change and not with our lips only that we honor the Ruler to
whom alone all power is given. The will of the heart must be turned
into deed if it is serious and sincere. Sincerity is decisive. Through
the judgment of his earnest love, God wants to bring about a real
transformation in all who are ready for it – a change of heart, a
change in actual inner condition, and with that a change in our
whole attitude to life.
And what glimpses into the dark recesses of our hearts have war
and its savagery given us! Fear for existence, greedy possessiveness,
nationalistic fervor, and revolutionary passions – all these are
stirred up by war and continue to work on and on. Our times have
once more revealed the state of our inner life, filled with every
thing but God. Yet he alone fulfills our destiny. And we still deceive
ourselves.
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People speak of dedication and sacrifice of life – devotion unto
death for the sake of brothers, friends, comrades, the homeland,
freedom, or justice. What they mean by all this is killing and plun
dering all those they look upon as enemies of what is so precious to
them. Just this is what makes Jesus give such a strong warning
about those who come in sheep's clothing: "Inwardly they are rav
ening wolves!" Their hearts are set on plunder and destruction be
cause the essence of sin – unbroken self-seeking – rules in them as
much as ever in spite of all Christian disguises and all quasi-pro
phetic banners of justice. The gruesome violence that fills people's
inner being exposes the condition of any war-torn nation in an ap
palling way – also the subsequent opportunities for power politics.
Truly, our condition today appears just as in the words of the psalm
on which the Letter to the Romans throws so serious a light: "Their
heart is destruction," destruction that we prepare for ourselves and
others.
Like the fate of countries devastated by war, our inner being to
day can be compared to a deep mountain ravine: dark shadows of
judgment are spread over it. Only withered trunks and bony roots
betray to a discerning eye the fact that death did not always rule
here. The water that used to be the life of this valley has been
blocked. Stones and boulders fill the ravine and seem to have bur
ied every hope.
The deeper and more truthfully we see into the actual condition
of our inner life, the more hopeless and desperate our fate seems.
What amazement must have filled the Samaritan woman when the
infallible mouth of the Messiah declared that her buried inner life
was to be completely renewed and filled forever with fresh
strength and rich content! There is a life-giving water that today
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too transforms the darkest abyss or the most awful desolation into
a place of joy and surging life. It is the spirit of him who said: "The
water I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling
up to eternal life." From this deepest of all springs even the utter
most devastation that has come upon lands and peoples shall be
transformed everywhere into a region and people filled with far-
reaching peace, a place where the powers of God's future world
shall be poured out through the Holy Spirit.
God does not want our inner self to remain bleak and deso
late – a dark abyss. He is able to change the storms of his judgment,
which threaten the terrified soul, into the sunshine of undeserved
love. He wants to bring peace and clarity to the heart where until
now disruption and darkness have reigned. God's day of judgment
threatens to smash conquered and unconquered nations alike; yes,
the entire mammonistic world economy. But once we renounce the
kingdom of mammon and murder and lying and impurity in order
to belong from then on to the kingdom of God, his day of judg
ment, the day of the Lord, will become the day of salvation.
God knows of the inner fight: how it goes on with deep pain in
the hidden recesses of the heart. He knows that the conscience lives
there, bringing its witness again and again to the heart's aware
ness. He knows the hidden thoughts, how they accuse and excuse
each other. He knows how many wrestle in vain with inner ties that
bind them to what is base. He knows with what lying power false
demonic ideals and idols try to assert themselves. He knows that
the ravening beast of prey confuses the conscience in the guise of
an angel of light and so-called liberation.
The inward person delights in God's law and so would gladly live
according to it. At the same time, along with the demands made by
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God's justice, other claims stir them – the claims of their own lives
and nations, or of the oppressed classes. They would like to be free
for God's justice in both the inner life and the outer circumstances.
And they cannot. The spirit draws them toward the heavenly city
of God's church and God's kingdom. But they are bound by the
heavy weight of the iron-fisted autonomy of those other things –
bound to the earthly cities of human community and human sover
eignty and their bloody interests. God knows that all nations, all
people, live in this inner struggle. For God has written the book of
the law on the hearts of even the remotest nations. He alone, and
whoever is in unity with him in the all-discerning spirit, can judge
and discern the hidden depths in people. The Father sees into what
is hidden. He delights in the truth that is within the heart. He wants
to teach us to know the truth in the hidden depths, in the inner
most recesses of the heart. And only God's pure truth in his perfect
love, as it took shape in Jesus and his first church, has the power to
set us free. Everything else is lying and deceit.
The fate of so many countries today brings to mind a remarkable
story about a remote, parched valley whose impoverished inhabit
ants vaguely remembered a time when it had been different and
better. Once upon a time, a life-giving mountain stream had flowed
there and brought wealth and happiness to the valley. But guilt, in
which all who lived there had a share, had ruined everything; the
great mountains began to move. Huge boulders plunged into the
valley. It seemed as though absolutely everything was about to be
buried under the debris. Neither buildings nor rows of houses were
any protection. Then the hurtling masses of rock stopped. They
halted in front of the houses. But the river was blocked. The life
that had flourished seemed destroyed forever. Poverty and distress
began their rule. Even memories of the past began to fade slowly
away.
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But a son of the valley grew up, despised by the others. He was
moved by the fate of his people. Day and night he thought about
delivering them, ready to attempt it. He knew about the stream
and where it was blocked. He accomplished the colossal task, mov
ing the mountainous weight of rocks; but as he moved the last
boulder, letting the water flow once more into the valley, he, the
savior of his people, was buried under it. Yet he rose to life again,
this man who had risked his life for their sake. He ruled forever
more over his people, who had had everything given back to them.
It is Jesus who has moved the boulder of our mountainously
heavy guilt so that the river of life can flow unhindered into our
inner being. As lord over our innermost being, Jesus brings riches
and happiness to our inner life. And just as he healed the bodies of
the sick and possessed, also now in this relentless catastrophe of
world history he wants to set free the buried bodies and ruined
workplaces and make a new life possible in his land. Our hearts
cannot be set free from the deadening pressure of hidden sin until
his liberating action, given as his gift, gains room in our innermost
being. And when this experience has become ours, it is essential for
us to allow him to take command and have more and more authority.
When his kingdom comes to us in this way, we live from within
according to the spiritual laws of this kingdom, also in our work
and in the communal order of our life. Even the outer shape of our
life will be in accord with the kingdom of God as his prophets
portrayed it. When his word rules in us, when his nature unfolds in
us, it is wealth of life undreamed of. It floods the parched depths
of our inner being and pours out into the world outside as living,
active love. The cloud of judgment that threatens everything is
replaced by the superabundant light of revelation. This light shows
the living way. Then the church of faith and love today has the
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possibility of judging and ordering all details of life, the innermost
as well as the outermost, according to the justice, peace, and joy of
his kingdom.
Jesus' light reveals the somber darkness of life without him – all
its causes and consequences. In so many people in so many places,
guilt causes the river of life to be blocked. They forget the life that
he alone can bring. Because they seek vitality from other sources, it
is inevitable that everything becomes blocked and buried. Then
God must let chaos loose over them in a divine attempt to awaken
them through radical intervention. But it turns out as the Revela
tion of John foretold about the last times: "And those that
remained, who were not killed by these plagues, still did not repent
of the work of their hands. Neither did they repent of their
manifold murders. Indeed, they blasphemed God in heaven instead
of repenting of their deeds."
Untold numbers continue to turn from the way of Jesus. They seek
out the way of idols so that they can continue to worship mammon
all the more zealously – mammon, the murderer from the begin
ning, the father of lies, the prince of impure spirits. They endeavor
to make themselves strong through nationalism, racism, and
imperialism instead of at long last looking for the one pure spring.
Through collapse on all sides, we are directed more earnestly than
ever before to the one who took upon himself our poverty and
distress to make us pure and strong in his spirit. Every person should
be able to recognize at least at one time or another that no human,
self-made effort can bring peace and life to the earth. Only the
sovereign reign of God can do this. In the midst of our serious
situation today, God himself wants to be the savior and helper in
our inner life, also in every other area of our life. There is only one
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gospel for all creation, one and the same gospel for everyone, for
every class of people, and for every tribe and nation. Those who
represent a different gospel for themselves, their class, or their
nation bring a curse with them.
The reality of God is proved – it is he who renews and strengthens
our hearts. Without him it cannot happen. The unity of Jesus with
the Father is the living reality of his divine sonship. It is the same as
the unity of God and Christ with the Holy Spirit. This unity shows
itself in our innermost life. For there his spirit works the powerful
religious and moral transformation that we could never attain
without him. He is unity in himself and in us. Therefore his spirit
can represent and spread only unity and peace, also in outer life.
He knows of only one way and one leadership. Jesus Christ, who is
lord and spirit, goes no roundabout way and knows no separate
mediator.
God gives himself in the certainty of direct contact. In him alone
the heart's need for security finds the firm ground of the here and
now, for which it must long continually. The presence of Christ is a
wonderful gift of God. In it we receive perfect unity with God in
love and faith. Through this experience, however, the stark differ
ence between his purity and our guilt dawns on us just as power
fully. We stand in the midst of disunity between people, classes,
and nations, while he is and remains one. It is in this oneness that
we become aware of the abysmal difference that separates our
nature from his.
The writings of the apostles call this experience the illumination
of our hearts by God. It brings the brightness of his glory into our
inner being. God shines in Christ and in his countenance. Illumi
nated by the presence of God, the hidden recesses of the heart are
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revealed, so that we have to cast ourselves down and worship him.
What overpowers us is the fact that the light of his incomprehensibly
glorious nature makes us feel all the more deeply the darkness of
our own being. If we accept the life of Jesus with his unmistakable
words and deeds, if we accept them unadulterated and without any
devious interpretations, our entire life, private and public, will be
revealed as utterly opposed and hostile to him.
Only in Jesus can our inner being find happiness and inmost satis
faction: nothing else corresponds to what our innermost being is
and should be, in the light of its origin. Only when our life is hid
den with Christ in God do we experience our real, unique destiny,
which without him has to remain buried in the dark. This destiny is
to be God's image: to be led by his spirit in everything through
love's creative power. The more we experience his wealth of life,
the more we long with all our heart to grow in this inner experi
ence and this creative shaping of life. For the experience of God's
gifts and the knowledge of his divine rulership over everything can
never reach a conclusion in this life. It needs to be renewed every
day.
The great agitation in the world of today makes it more and
more urgent to gain inner strength in those quiet encounters with
Christ that make it possible for us to remain under his rule and au
thority. Situated as we are in the midst of a world that is so terribly
unpeaceful, we need constant nourishment for our inner life. It is
important to look upward and outward beyond confining exter
nals, even in direct contrast to the outward form they take today.
Instead of following the weak and alien spirits of hatred and vio
lence, of lying, impure, and greedy possessiveness, we must learn
to follow the one spirit who alone is stronger than all other spirits.
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Only the strongest power of inner resistance can prevent our inner
life from being buried by what is happening around us now on the
earth.
Without a rebirth in our hearts, we will glean from fluctuating
world events either a false meaning – based perhaps only on material
considerations or on emotional or racial ties – or no meaning at all.
The course of history is interpreted falsely by very many in the
interests of their own nation, for example, or their own society.
For most people, though, it never has any meaning at all. There is
only one possible way of bringing this confusion to an end: the
whole person, for the whole of life, must undergo a complete
about-face toward the kingdom of God.
Rebirth is the only name we can give to such a radical change
with its childlike trust in God's intervention and firm, manly expec
tation of it – the complete opposite of our former life. Only
through such a complete change – by undergoing judgment – can
we see in all that happens the approach and intervention of God's
rule. We can never see the kingdom of God or have any part in it
without a rebirth of heart, breaking down the whole structure of
our life and then making a completely new start. Only a new begin
ning that proceeds from the very bottom – only a rebirth that goes
back to the very beginning – is able to prepare us for the kingdom
of God. We need a new foundation for our entire personal life.
It is only through the spirit who embraces all the powers of the
future kingdom of God that this can happen. Only the spirit of the
kingdom of God can put a seal on the passport. Without this pass
port to God's kingdom, which confirms that we already live in the
Spirit now, the door into the kingdom remains shut.
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But just as a tiny newborn baby is far from being able to cope
with life on its own, so the rebirth brought about by the Holy Spirit
is only a beginning; we will still need to be nourished and strength
ened. In our weakness, however, this is possible only as a slow pro
cess of being made fit for God's kingdom and his righteousness.
Even after rebirth has given us the first glimpse into the kingdom
of God, our hearts may still remain subject to old inhibitions and
restrictions.
This weakness has been called "the flesh" by Paul, that methodi
cal thinker of early Christian times. He explicitly said of himself that
his flesh had no peace, not only because of struggles from without
but just as much because of fears from within.
What is incomplete in our existence gives us as believers a
powerful incentive to deepen our inner lives. It is of the utmost
importance, therefore, that in these extremely serious and menac
ing days we grow clearer about the state of our inner life. We
cannot let our emotional nature deceive our hearts in these
agitated times. Even when it has been touched by the Holy Spirit,
our excitable inner nature remains weak. Our hearts are flooded as
the blood circulates; our emotional life flows in this bloodstream
and is often determined for as long as we live by its urges and feelings.
If our blood is gripped and swept along by the excitement in
those around us, we will fall prey to it. We are not able to put up a
true resistance born of the Spirit. The distress of our own class or
our own nation has a particularly strong effect on us. Mass sugges
tion as utilized by great national movements appeals to blood ties
and class solidarity. It often works on us so decisively that we
utterly forget the call to the kingdom of God and his spirit, or we
completely falsify it. Even if we continue to profess him, emotional
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ties and fear for survival drive the Spirit from us. In order to face
all fears, and still more, in order to resist the impure and bloody
"raptures" of fanaticism, our consciences need steady healing. This
healing can be given solely through the all-holy and completely
true spirit of Jesus Christ. He unites all good in himself. His objec
tivity is sober and clear.
No experience, however agitating, and no shock, however
violent or bitter, must be allowed to sweep past without the rule of
Christ in us gaining ground in our hearts and in our whole lives. The
aim of his rule is to fill our inner life with an objective clarity so
that no force of circumstance can shatter it. His word and his spirit
want to work in us uninterruptedly as his instruments in order to
make us strong in every battle, capable of the hardest work. The
blessing of all good shall conduct us so firmly and clearly on the
way of Jesus Christ – the way that leads straight ahead – that
neither successes nor failures in the world can make us swerve into
false ways.
We have to follow the same way as Jesus; we must follow it just
as he did. Then no seductive call will divert us from this mission,
which he left to us as his mission. In just the same way as the Father
sent him into the world, he sends us: in just the same way, with the
same stand in life, completely free from adulteration by other
elements! Only in this way will our life be fruitful. He wants all our
gifts to come to life and unfold in order to equip us for the new
tasks of the changing world situation.
The rulership of Christ means strength for the inner life through
inner gathering and consecration. Through this, alone, also
strength for an outer life with a living influence in the right work
or occupation.
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To become strong in our inner being can mean only one thing:
that Christ lives in our hearts through faith because we are being
grounded and rooted in love. We need Christ all the time in our
inner being, the Christ who was crucified for us, the Christ who is
alive for us. He invades us with his fullness, with all the fullness of
God, which wants to pour itself over all spheres of our activity as
the supreme authority of love.
God is love. Only he who remains in love remains in God and God
in him (1 John 4:16). God's rulership is the kingdom of love. Love is
his justice. Because his kingdom knows no frontiers, his Messiah-
king has put the love of God to friend and foe into our hearts. It is
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Whoever betrays
this by shutting out love to their opponents or to enemies of their
class or nation drives away the Holy Spirit. They deliver up their
hearts to deceptive spirits. Love wants to flood our private as well
as our public life and rule in such a way that there can be no rival
authority. Paul prays for this for everyone because it is the true –
the only – strengthening for our inner being. In our inner life we
need an experience of Christ that transcends all knowledge. This
means that as king of the final kingdom he rules over our lives al
ready here and now in exactly the same way as he will in his final
kingdom.
We need people who pray – people who, like Paul, bend their
knees and lift hands unstained with blood or any kind of impurity
so that through the spirit of God in them, others may be strength
ened in their inmost being – strengthened in their whole attitude
to life. We need to be reminded daily that our inner selves must be
renewed from day to day even if the outer self, the body, perishes
in hunger, distress, and misery or is carried off and destroyed by
persecution and death for the sake of truth. If we want to keep a
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clear, firm course instead of inwardly suffering shipwreck in the
storm of public opinion and the towering waves of chaos, then our
hidden inner being needs daily the quiet haven of communion with
God.
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The Heart
World war and crisis bring deep affliction. They test our
endurance to its very limits, bringing in their train the loss of
national wealth and the disruption of whole economies, unemploy
ment and impoverishment, mutual hostility, and untold ills that
shatter public confidence. Even the most indifferent must feel that
whether they will pass the test or not depends on what their hearts
are able to bear. Those who had nothing but a smile for demands
made by the inner life then feel how important it is that their
hearts are firm. They realize that their ability to stand strong
depends on the heart's capacity to keep hold of good energies,
while warding off destructive ones. They see that they need stout
hearts if they are to be able to bear the consequences of upheaval
and distress without permanent injury.
Suffering is an appeal to our hearts. It forces us to be on the
watch for ways of finding necessary strength and courage. For the
heart affects the whole person. Being the inmost core, it means
more than anything else, not only for the spirit, but just as much
for the body. Even physical capacity depends on strength of heart.
No feeling, thought, or motion of the will is without influence on
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the body. Ovid recognized this even in his ancient times: "Even in
the human body, the heart counts more than the hand; the strength
that gives life to the body is in the heart."
Life radiates from the heart. It preserves the center of its
strength in this innermost core. The outer shell perishes. The heart
decides between life and death. It is so closely linked with the soul
and so attuned to the life of the spirit that, like the soul, it has
everlasting life.
People who are guided by superficialities cannot stand up to any
hard trial: their concept of what wealth and strength of life can fill
the heart is too feeble. The most important things in life are lost to
them. Only events that have a powerful outer effect give them
some idea of what power the inner life can have.
The wide mouth of a mighty river once showed a great explorer
what riches must lie hidden in the interior beyond the newly
discovered coast. This coast could not possibly be mistaken any
longer for the edge of a small island. It promised to lead to the
heart of a continent – and no one could remain indifferent to that!
The sun that shone above it might have been familiar; so were the
clouds gathering over it. But no longer could the discoverer be
satisfied with a mere shoreline – a beach strewn with shells and
wreckage and pounded monotonously by the sea of the world. No,
the explorer could not rest until the secrets of the interior lay
visible before his eyes.
By the stream of light radiating from the seven lampstands of
John's Revelation, the whole world will recognize the secret land
of light, the as yet undiscovered part of God's kingdom that is
given to the church of Jesus Christ. The city of God – the city on the
hill – must be made visible far and wide so that all seeking people
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may be stirred in their longing to know the center of its inner life,
the secret of its free citizenship and its church-like unity. Over all
the earth, people will ask about the citizenship of the kingdom of
God, about his embassy here and now, and about the future order
it represents. And they will recognize one thing above all –that
they must become one with the heart of this church, this city of
God, before they can enter its gates.
World history shows us: neither foreign rule nor home rule will
come to any good unless the heart of a country is won. All wealth
lies hidden within. Whoever does not learn to understand the heart
of God in Jesus Christ, whoever will not begin to journey through
all the outlying regions of God's world rule to the very center in
order to become one with the ultimate will of God's heart, who