Part 10
son. As the risen Christ, he grants his people the spirit of his
sonship. In him alone is the power of a renewed and unified life.
The king of the kingdom is himself the life of God's people, the life
in the kingdom of God. Only he whose life was without any incon
sistency or hint of darkness brings the harmony of the kingdom of
God, without which all people and all nations remain in the power
of death and destruction, the power of the devil.
Christ alone is God's crowned one. Only he was so completely
inundated and penetrated by the Spirit that no spark of his life was
separated from the living flame of love. This fiery life of the spirit
of Jesus Christ is the love in the coming kingdom: his final kingdom
is love as justice. For this reason the life of Jesus, in holy fire,
belonged to the poor and wretched. Jesus is the only one to whom
the prophetic word of Isaiah applies completely, and with it Jesus
proclaimed his messianic mission: "The spirit of the Lord is upon
me. He has anointed me king of the kingdom; he has sent me to
bring the poor a decisive message"(Isa. 61:1).
This anointing of Jesus is his coronation as ruler of the kingdom,
the imparting of the Spirit as the sovereign power of love, which
alone brings true freedom. His gospel is the joyful tidings of the
coming one, who leads to freedom all the oppressed and enslaved –
freedom for God's kingdom! In Jesus, the king anointed by the Holy
Spirit, the kingdom of God has come to forsaken people in a world
growing cold. As perfect love it has come to drained and empty
hearts, in which the flame of love was trampled to the ground by
cold and sinister powers. The spirit of hate had extinguished
human love. In Jesus, the spirit of divine love overcomes the
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demonic spirit of servitude. Jesus Christ is the one, the only one,
who has driven out the murderous spirit of this world and all his
subordinate spirits through the spirit of perfect love. Where the
ruler of God's kingdom intervenes, their rule comes to an end.
Those held captive by emotions and their own blood, however,
perceive nothing of this decisive action of the victorious spirit.
Only the Holy Spirit himself recognizes the Holy Spirit. Without the
spirit of God, no one can acknowledge the liberating rule of Jesus
Christ or see how he has already taken it up for all time. Outside
the Holy Spirit, the rule of Jesus Christ and the power of love in it
are not given recognition. Only the Spirit reveals the divine king
and the freedom under his rulership; only in the church of the Spirit
is his kingdom at work on earth today.
Only through the Holy Spirit, only in the spirit of the church, can
Christ be called upon as lord and king. In their uniting with the
church, all those who want truly to acknowledge Christ as their lord
must have received the spirit of the church, must be immersed in
the strength and reality of the spirit that creates the church. They
must prove themselves free children of the one pure Spirit in their
common action. Only in the unity of the Spirit can they call upon
the holy name in communal prayer.
The Holy Spirit establishes his work as God's work. Only believers
can grasp this. They should accept and act upon it as God at work;
they should bear it serenely as God's doing. In the strength of
another world working in them, they acknowledge Christ as their
only lord. In this spirit, the voice from the eternal throne answers
them, "You call me Master and Lord; and you say so rightly, for so I
am." This recognition can come to those estranged from God only
when they accept the Holy Spirit – God's spirit. The church covenant
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of this king and his kingdom can be established, strengthened, or
sealed in no other way than through the Holy Spirit, in a life lived
in God. From God, through Christ as the ruling Lord of God's
kingdom, he comes to a believing church. Only in this way will
enslaved humankind become free once and for all from any
self-glorification. There is freedom where the spirit of the King is.
His covenant separates the sons of freedom from servile slaves. This
difference is there for all eternity. Those who are prompted by
God's spirit have become God's free children; those who are not do
not belong to God.
There are no slaves in God's church; all those who live there are
children of equal birth. The covenant of sonship is established. All
the unchildlikeness of human greatness or degrading servitude is
banned from this covenant. All its members are promised an amaz
ing perception, granted only to trusting children by virtue of the
childlike spirit. It remains closed to those who are great and wise in
their own estimation or enslaved by servile fear. God's spirit bears
witness to and does what God has in mind for everything free and
childlike. When this covenant is made, the superficiality and
darkness of our own nature has to disappear, whether domineering
or servile. In the freedom of Jesus Christ their authority has been
broken forever.
The light shows the way to childlike freedom in the power of its
spirit. The slaves freed by Christ now become his free property.
Nothing that is or might become theirs can belong to them or to
any other, only to him. In life and in death they belong to their
master. As freed people who would have remained in ignoble
servitude without his intervention, they take their place with a
freed will in his household. They belong forever to the spirit of his
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house, with a right to his gifts as free children. They honor their
liberator as the only sovereign of the only kingdom they may serve.
The Holy Spirit is the pledge of a future inheritance, given by their
royal liberator. With the covenant of the spirit in their hands, they
have a passport to the people's community of God's kingdom. The
spirit of the church is a free pass and certificate of citizenship for
the kingdom of God. When they show his seal, the gates of the
final kingdom are opened.
All members of the church seek the Spirit with their whole life.
They live for the king of God's kingdom. They strive for his freeing
and uniting justice and righteousness. In the spirit of Jesus Christ,
they represent the perfect justice of the future. The Holy Spirit
seals their faith in the king he has crowned. This king has come in
advance of his kingdom; in him they have accepted its coming. As
strength arising from absolute freedom and unity, his justice and
righteousness are the ultimate reality of their lives. In the dynamic
presence of the spirit, they taste the powers of a future world, of a
different being ruling their lives here on earth.
The seal of the Holy Spirit is the presence of God, his future, as it
can be experienced in the church of Christ. The spirit of Christ is
certainty of God. The power stemming from faith in the future
makes the church firm and steadfast in all the storms of the present
day. In this spirit she is certain that in his own good time God will
redeem the firm promise he gave in Christ. Faith is as certain of this
promise as if it is already fulfilled. In the reality of the spirit, it is.
Through the imparting of the Holy Spirit this faith is sealed, as if
in the safest of documents, in each who lets himself be informed of
the truth through God's word and believes in the kingdom of God.
The spirit of Jesus Christ is the only certainty of the kingdom of
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God: this is the meaning of the saying of Jesus that no one can
enter the kingdom without being born anew from above through
the Holy Spirit.
It is the Spirit who makes alive; through him, we are engrafted
into the divine nature. That applies to all who belong to God's
covenant and are to inherit his kingdom. God's word becomes true
through them. All the promises of the living God find their yes and
amen in him. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all that God wills in those
who receive him with joy and delight. From him comes the joy that
seeks out and loves all that is God's word, and God's work. The
believing church finds God at work in her in power and in truth,
purifying hearts and whole lives for his will. The Spirit implants
what is true and good, what is just and holy. Under his protection it
shall take root, grow, and bear fruit. For this reason, everything in
our nature that prevents his plantation from growing must be
suppressed and killed like weeds, rooted out by the Spirit. He not
only abolishes evildoing; he takes away any desire for it.
Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the old person dies, and
the new starts to live in its place. The law of the spirit, the law of
life, annuls the law of sin and death. Only through baptism by the
spirit can this be done. The spirit himself does these works;
everything is inspired by him, prompted by him, and urged on to
new life by him. A new creation has arisen – a new plantation, a
new birth!
This re-creation and purification, this rebirth and renewal, take
place as baptism in the stream of the Spirit, poured out in Jesus
Christ over the church. The covenant of the Holy Spirit is a promise
of the freedom of sonship. By virtue of this birth and impelled by
the spirit of God, we live in the covenant of sonship. Only the spirit
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creates children of God. His impelling power is proof of sonship and
its freedom.
Flesh and blood have nothing in common with birth through the
spirit. The Holy Spirit has an abhorrence of all unfaithful idolatry
and false appearances. He withdraws in the face of the demonic
lack of discernment in all religious mishmash. He disappears where
our own greatness takes over, where sin gains authority in opposition
to God. With this, every possibility of sonship, of being a Christian,
is blotted out. Whoever lacks the spirit of Christ does not belong to
him. The nature of humankind and God's nature are opposed to
each other. Where flesh and blood are allowed to dominate, God
must keep his spirit apart and refuse to recognize any sonship.
God's pure breath reveals the genuineness of all God's children.
He never allows children to be passed off onto him. He acknowledges
no bastards. Only the lordship of the Spirit reveals the image of
God. It alone is genuine. Everything else is deception. The nature
and character of God is revealed in his children by the purity of
their spirit. Only God's spirit has this purity. Where the truthful and
genuine nature of a child of God is found, it governs the whole of
life and gives it shape according to the image of God. Genuine
truth is God himself; his sons and daughters bear his image and
display it as their light as long as they allow themselves to be ruled
and led in all things by his spirit. They are his heirs in the spirit
alone – God never denies his own nature. The divine nature
becomes truly and effectively rooted in those born a second time,
replacing the old carnal nature of their soul and blood. As a result,
with this divine spirit, the completely different and entirely new
life of the kingdom of God is given them. The Holy Spirit is the first
witness to the last kingdom. It is he who establishes living community
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with God and causes it to begin in truth and deed. It is he who
brings the divine nature of the kingdom of God into the believing
church. It is this spirit who assures the church of Jesus Christ that
her members are God's heirs. Like a royal anointing in the final
kingdom, the pouring-out of the Holy Spirit belongs to baptism in
the name of the coming king.
The so-called baptism of those who have not perceived anything
of this spirit can have no validity for Christ even if it pointed
toward him, as baptism by John the Baptist did. On the other hand,
Peter held baptism in the name of Jesus Christ in readiness for all
those prepared for a change of spirit in their hearts and lives,
making them ready for the kingdom of God. He promised they
would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at baptism. What had
happened? The king crowned with the Spirit had been killed and
had risen from his grave. After these earth-shaking events, the
reality of the outpouring of God's spirit heralded the breaking-in
of God's kingdom as promised by the prophets. This was the
content of the Pentecostal address: the one who has arisen and
been glorified has received the Holy Spirit from the Father. Now he
has poured it out: you can see it! You can hear it! The Jesus you
have executed is the Messiah of God's kingdom. Now at last he
pours the spirit of his kingdom over all flesh. The spirit is there; the
kingdom breaks in!
The world-shaking question of the believers at Pentecost – what
they should do in the face of this overwhelming fact – led to Christ
and his kingdom. The forgiveness of sins that prepares the way for
the kingdom culminates in a longing for the Holy Spirit, that
through him it would be possible to lead a life worthy of God's
kingdom. Longing for Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God created
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the readiness for the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ can never be separated
from his spirit. The early Christian gospel of the forgiveness of sins
cannot be separated from an apostolic life in the Holy Spirit. The
church of Jesus Christ cannot be severed from the kingdom of God.
The king of God's kingdom, as the spirit of holy unity, is the sap
of life that brings unity to the living organism called the church.
From Christ as its root, the Holy Spirit rises into its branches and
vines and makes of the believing church a single, undivided plant in
God's kingdom, an integrated growth that is one with the crowned
king. Christ is God's vine; the believers are his branches. The spirit,
as the sap, rises from the roots and fills the branches; he makes
them fruitful and keeps them alive for the kingdom of God.
At the first Pentecost, from the one who had died and risen
again, the life of the spirit broke in as the coming of the kingdom.
The open tomb proves that God rules. He does this through the
spirit of the risen one. Jakob Böhme bears witness to it in his own
imagery:
As a candle is consumed by fire and, out of that very dying, light and strength go forth as powerful life, so should and must the eternal, divine sun rise out of Christ's dying, out of his death. When Christ arises, when the sun comes up, night is swallowed up by day and there is no night anymore. So it is with the for giveness of sins.
Out of the wellspring of Jesus Christ, out of the power of his resur
rection, the forgiving spirit of the crucified one flooded over the
people at Pentecost. The word broke forth. All divine spirits and
powers were set on fire:
As the breath determines the word and gives it shape and sound, so the breath, wind, and spirit of God makes the word
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become active and alive in us and leads us into all truth; the power of God does, works, and accomplishes everything, strengthens everything, and welds everything together. It as sures us through God's works that we are children of God.
What Peter Rideman attested about the unity of the Father and the
Son in the Holy Spirit became a fact at Pentecost:
Just as in speaking we exhale and let our breath out with words so that a living breath of wind blows from both the speaker and the spoken word and a voice comes out and makes a sound, so the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and the Son or from the truth and the word. But just as the Son, or word, proceeds from the Father and yet remains in him, so the Holy Spirit proceeds from them both and yet remains in both for all eternity.
And as fire, heat, and light do not separate or part from each other (for where one is, there are all three, and where one is lacking, all are lacking), so it is with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit too: where one of them is, there they are all three; but if we lack one of them, we lack them all; for just as little as heat and light can be taken away from fire and yet leave it a fire, just so little and even less can the Son and the Holy Spirit be taken away from the Father.
So the great movement toward brotherhood throughout all centu
ries, a continually renewed Pentecost, has witnessed vigorously to
unity in God. God is unity. Only those who remain in unity remain
in God and God in them. Böhme goes on:
The eternal Father is revealed in fire in its entirety; the Son in the light of fire; and the Holy Spirit in the power of life and move ment in the light of the kingdom of joy, as the power streaming forth from the flame of love. Imagine then that the Father is the fire of the celestial bodies; that the Son is his heart as the sun,
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which bathes them all in blissful light; and that the Holy Spirit is the breath of life, without which there could be no sun and no stars.
Perfect unity in God is the spiritual reality of his love within himself. It
can be comprehended only in the very center of his heart. Only by
the central fire of his love can God in his unity be known. He
cannot be recognized by the nature of the first creation, nor by its
wrathful fire of judgment, nor by its laws (necessary in the coercive
rule of governments). The central light of God's heart has been
revealed in Jesus. The Son, as an independent person, yet in the
Father, is the inmost depths of the Father's heart. Jesus Christ is the
loving center of the heart of God. From there proceed the all-
compelling powers of the Holy Spirit.
In the spirit of Jesus Christ, the Father's heart as the joy of perfect
love comes down to a love-impoverished earth shaking in the
judgment of God's wrath. In Christ, God's heart comes as spirit, the
Holy Spirit, to those who had become estranged from God's love. In
this spirit the church is created, whose unity is God's unity. The king
of the kingdom of God is the spirit of the church. His church knows
no other commission than peace and unity. She is charged with the
commission of love and justice, the heart of God's kingdom. At
work in her is the eternal power of love in its radiant glory, coming
from Christ.
He who has gone out from the heart of God has been exalted to
become the ruler of God's kingdom. At the same time, he is the
spirit of the church. Here he brings about the transformation of
believers into light. Now they have the task of representing the
coming kingdom in the power of this spirit of love. Where the heart
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of God's love prevails, the spirit of Jesus Christ rules. But where the
thoughts and deeds of hot-blooded people have broken with the
heart of God in anger (however justified), where they have broken
with Christ's nature of love, his Holy Spirit retreats, filled with
indignation and aversion. It was the same when the law with its
bloody sentences was first introduced and when human monarchy
first arose in Israel. The spirit calls for God. The spirit of Jesus Christ
flees from human greatness and power. He seeks the humble, those
with a childlike spirit. In them he glorifies the inmost heart of God.
Only in Christ, in the perfect love of God's heart, only in the way
that leads to the cross, does God show his unity. He does this
through the Holy Spirit. Without Christ and his way, without
apostolic poverty in absolute simplicity and dedication, without a
love that has nothing to do with rights or violence, people will
always be far from the kingdom of God and far from the workings
of his spirit in the church. Only those who abide in God and God in
them live in the unity of a love that sacrifices everything. Ulrich
Stadler, a contemporary of Peter Rideman, witnessed to this truth
with these authoritative words:
Whoever does not follow Christ on his way and walk in his foot steps, whoever is unwilling to carry his cross, does not have or know the son; and whoever does not have the son does not know the Father; nor can he be enlightened through the lovingkindness of the Holy Spirit. It is into Christ, who dwells in us, that we must be incorporated in order to become partakers of the one Trinity through the solemn justice of the cross of Christ. Through this we become incorporated in the body of Christ, of which Christ is the head.
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The church of his Holy Spirit, as the body of Christ, is the only place
where the unity of God is revealed in Christ, that is, in the Holy
Spirit. The nature of God is shown so clearly and unitedly here that
his one will is done on earth. His kingdom comes as the unity of the
church. Here the way of Jesus is followed to the end – death on the
cross in the name of love. Here we receive the Holy Spirit as
community with God in Christ:
God cannot forsake those who are spiritually poor, who hunger and thirst after righteousness; he will feed them through the spirit with his body of unity. They must thereby be transformed into the community of Christ's body. To such shall be revealed the third part in God: the loving-kindness and mercy of the Holy Spirit. Such people do not live for themselves, however, but for Christ in them, and they are therefore glad and joyful in the Holy Spirit, through whom they truly know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
What then do they actually see through the Holy Spirit? The Father in the power of his omnipotence, by whom they were created; they see and know the Son in whom they are tested, purified, justified, and circumcised, in whom they have truly become children of God. Therefore they have free access to the Father and are now one with Christ and all their fellow members: they are all one church and one body in Christ. They are in the kingdom of God and have Christ as their Lord. In this unity, everything is held in common; nothing is privately owned. Here it comes to pass that the Lord pours out his spirit over all flesh, and all are taught by God to live to all eternity according to his will, filled with all good things.
The sixteenth-century Anabaptists bore witness with Ulrich Stadler
that the indivisible unity of the church was first created in Jerusalem
in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As a revelation of this spirit,
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her life and work show the perfect unity of the eternal will of God –
and his coming rulership –with the way of Jesus Christ. That God is
in himself indivisibly united (as the Father with the Son and the
Spirit) is revealed today in the complete unity of the church, and
here alone – until at the end of time the kingdom of God will
spread the rule of his unity over the whole world.
The pentecostal spring of the first Christian church contrasts
sharply with the icy rigidity of our Christianity today. Everyone
senses that at that time a fresher wind blew and purer water
flowed, a stronger power and a more fiery warmth ruled than
today among all those who call themselves Christians. We all know
that in spite of the different churches, in spite of all the various
religious alliances and societies for moral edification, the community
life of faith and love represented by the early church is almost not
to be found today. What has Christianity in general lost? What was
the all-important event that took place in Jerusalem? The word of
Jesus, and even more, his life and deeds from the manger to the
cross, were alive and present in that first circle of the Christ-
movement. What the apostles had to say and do was drawn directly
from the same reality that comes to meet us today in the four
gospels. This community of faith and community of life in the first
love was marked by the presence of Christ – the Christ who had
said, "I am with you always."
Jesus devoted himself to people's outer need just as much as to
their inner need. It was the same in the early church. It is not true
that Jesus' Christianity is exclusively concerned with souls, despising
the body as our lot in life, a purely outward matter. When Jesus
cast out all demonic spirits through the spirit of God, the kingdom
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of God came to people. When John sent someone to ask Jesus
whether it was he who would bring in the future state of justice, or
whether they should wait for another, he answered by referring to
his deeds: "The blind see again, the lame walk; lepers are healed
and the dead are brought to life again. Tidings of joy are brought
to the poor."
In Jesus' presence, the invisible kingdom of God had become
visible reality. The word had taken shape, love had become real.
Jesus showed what love meant. His word and life had proved that
love knows no bounds. Love halts at no barrier. It can never be
silenced, no matter what circumstances make it seem impossible to
practice it. Nothing is impossible for the faith that springs from
love. For this reason, the call of Jesus does not stop at property.
When he felt a love for the young man who was rich in possessions,
he looked into his heart and said the word of perfect love, "One
thing is still lacking: sell everything you have; give it to the poor
and come, go with me."
Yet what gave his friends strength to put into practice the will to
love, as he had given it to them, was the experience of the spirit.
When this spirit was given by the risen one to the new church-to-be,
he overturned everything and set it on fire. Then they were able to
become a life-sharing community, and only then did their love as
unity in the Holy Spirit overflow. They were all on fire with the
same burning love, which drew them irresistibly and for always
together. Love had become in them a holy "thou must." Just as
Jesus had always wanted round him his nearest friends and pupils,
whom we call disciples, so his spirit drew the early Christians close
to one another. Together they felt compelled to live the life of
Jesus, and together, in complete community, they had to do the
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same as he had done. Because they felt this absolute inner must, all
questions concerned with living together found an answer that
accorded completely with the perfect unity and purity of love.
Jesus challenged each individual to leave everything and be with
him wherever he went. He traveled from village to village with the
band he had called together, and they shared their daily experiences.
What their leader had asked for was kept – a common purse. Yet
his mission was never meant to be limited to a narrow circle. The
band of itinerant followers of Jesus became his embassy. The twelve
apostles expected and represented his kingdom of justice as the
approaching brotherhood in God. The resurrection confirmed the
power of this mission. As soon as the spirit of Jesus flooded so
unhindered over his first church, its first outward form was bound
to take shape according to the way of Jesus and the commission
entrusted to his embassy. The early Christians held absolutely
everything in common. Whoever had possessions was filled with
the urge to share them. No one had anything that did not belong to
the community. Through the Holy Spirit, a steadily growing circle
found unity and commitment in Christ.
This could never be an exclusive unity: all living things grow. Life
begets life and spreads. Perfect love is never exclusive. Open doors
and open hearts were significant characteristics of the early Christians.
Therefore they had access to everyone and gained the love of
whole peoples. They were a light that shone for all. The fiery spirit
that filled them wanted to pour itself out over all flesh as God's
will for his empire: the spirit of God's kingdom wants to be victorious
over all peoples to draw them together as one. In this spirit, the
early church was burning and alive, all heart and all soul; only in
this could so many become one heart and one soul. No hard light of
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cold intellectual knowledge was to be found here, but the illumi
nating spirit who sets the heart aglow and quickens the soul with
burning, fiery love.
Only in this way could isolation and its ice-cold existence be over
come. Communal life with its white-hot love began. In its heat,
property was melted away to the very foundations. The icy sub
structures of age-old glaciers melt before God's sun. The only way
to abolish private property and personal assets is through the
radiant power of the life-creating spirit. All ownership feeds on
stifling self-interest. When deadly selfishness is killed by love, and
only then, ownership comes to an end. Yet it was so in the early
church: under the influence of the spirit of community, people did
not think their goods were their own. Private property was an
impossibility; here the spirit of love and unity ruled.
Love overlooks no need or suffering. In such a life-sharing
community no one could suffer a lack of clothing, food, or any
other necessity of life. Those who want to keep goods and
valuables for themselves in spite of the need around them must
have done violence to their own hearts. God's heart is never limited
in its sphere of action. Those who held their goods in common at
Jerusalem gave generous hospitality to thousands of pilgrims.
Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit poured out upon them,
they were able to care wisely for many, for very many, with the
slenderest means; soon the early church itself experienced the sup
port of her apostolic daughter churches in this enormous service.
The early church had an immeasurable effect far and wide. It
shook whole worlds. It established a completely different and
undreamed-of new world. But the spirit burning with love is more
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delicate than the hard edifices of calculating reason or its coldly
organizing social structure. It is more delicate also than the powers
of the soul and the blood, which so many extended families and
national communities try to use as a foundation. Because the Holy
Spirit is supremely noble and supremely divine, he is free from all
bondage to other elements. He drives them all away; or he withdraws
before they can offend him.
The Spirit alone is inviolable, the most delicate element of all,
never forcing himself on crude, earthy matter. On earth what lasts
longest belongs to the realm of the crudest. The finer the organs,
the more endangered is their life. The kingdom Jesus brought,
which has to do with the pure spirit, is not of this gross world.
Unless this world is smelted and remolded, his spirit cannot touch
it. The spirit of Jesus broke into a world grown alien to him. He
overcame all other powers as the mightier one, who is and always
will be inviolably pure. He cannot deny his nature. He never
becomes part of any mixture. He cannot and will not let himself be
changed by anything alien to him.
The Spirit is alive as the power of love at work without violence,
as an inner voice of the utmost delicacy. He is perceived with the
inner eye of pure faith alone. He retreats when the inner vision is
not concentrated on him alone, when other spirits are given room
beside him. He would rather see a spirit-filled witness murdered
than allow alien and violent spirits to gain room beside him. What
if this earthly life is taken from those who confess him? What does
it matter? He himself cannot be killed. He is invincible. He rules
forever. But he does not impose his rule on any opponent. He seems
to flee from a gross and violent world. His church must suffer the
same fate as Christ on the cross.
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It almost seemed as if the form of life brought about by the Spirit
at Pentecost fled forever from this world with its extermination at
the second destruction of Jerusalem. Yet throughout the centuries,
we see the same perfect form given by the same spirit again and
again like a very rare gift of God. In fact it never has fled from this
earth. But each individual filled with the Spirit has only a limited
span of life in this time-bound world. So also the pure form in
which the church took shape has been wiped out again and again
by violent enemies. Individual churches were brought to a bloody
end. Witnesses were slain. Yet the Spirit remained alive. Just as
Jesus had to die and the apostles were murdered, the early church
and the subsequent churches of the Reformation were also allotted
a very limited time on this blood-drenched earth.
Yet new children are continually being born to the Spirit. The
gaps made by death are filled by newly engendered life. As more
are murdered, more follow on. The blood of martyrs is always the
seed of the church. The living seed is always the mystery of the
church and the kingdom. It would be entirely wrong to force an
imitation of the form of life this mystery takes; such efforts can
only lead to a lifeless caricature without the one essential element:
the freely moving spirit, the life born of God! One thing alone
matters: to become open to the living God, to the life-giving spirit
of Jesus Christ, so that he – and he alone – can bring into being the
same life he gave the early Christians. Then new life-units will
constantly arise, in which the love that comes to expression in full
community encompasses and penetrates everything. Full community
is a question of rebirth and resurrection.
It has been given even in our times by the spirit of Jesus Christ, in
the power of eternal birth and continual resurrection. The one
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decisive thing is the spirit which that unique circle, the early
church, lived in – the quickening spirit that alone decided every
thing. It is a matter of recognizing the working of that spirit and
how strong and pure it is. Spirit! Who is he? And what does he do?
The essence of the Spirit is unity. His love is born of that joy
which pours out of the heart of God. Where people have to be
disciplined, even forced, the spirit of love retreats, taking with him
the unity of life he brings. Unity cannot be "made." Joy and love
cannot be forced. It was the free and living spirit of joy that filled
those people with the urge to be together daily and for always in
love, in the bright radiance of community in God. This spirit of
unity, love, and joy made community of goods and work inevitable.
There was no class hatred there; no sinister ferocity coming from
a joyless, demanding power; no hint of bitterness, the result of
disappointed claims; no talk of demanding human rights whereby,
even as people look after others, they want to look after themselves
and their own. The free impulse to give away wealth was alive
there: all wanted to give themselves to the cause with all they had
and all they could do. The mystery of this early church is revealed
in the fact that here the spirit of Jesus Christ has disclosed God's
heart. The most profound heart of all gives itself. In the church is
revealed the creative spirit of a love that never fails.
In the name and reality of Jesus, a believing circle had gathered
around the heart of God, a church that made God's perfect love
clear and recognizable by her complete unity. God had formed an
organism and the apostle was given a significant metaphor for it:
"the body of Christ." It is the second and new embodiment of love
and the word. The word goes forth from the heart of the Father
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through his life-giving and uniting spirit. Christ is the word. It takes
new shape. When believing people live in full community, the word
becomes the church.
The Holy Spirit can reveal himself only as the spirit he is: the spirit
of unity. All members of the one body are filled with the same
spirit streaming through them. That is how they know they are
united as one organism. The life of the believing church is unity
and community in the Holy Spirit, characteristic of the church
endowed with his gifts. She proves it through the organic working
together of all her diverse powers. When these powers of the
unifying spirit work together creatively, the constructive peace of
the church and of the coming kingdom comes into being and forms
a firm bond.
We can talk about the church only when her structure corresponds
to the glad tidings – the glad tidings of the all-embracing kingdom.
As one heart and one soul, she must stand united for the inviolability
of God's peace. In the brotherliness of the uniting spirit, she has to
fight for God's justice to conquer the whole world. Because she is
united and God is her strength, the church is able to hold out until
this last battle. She unites all her members in the same love for the
same task.
In the authority of the Holy Spirit, the whole church is of one
heart and one mind. She is united in faith and common expectation
for God's whole universe. Her unfeigned love and boundless faith
long to put everything to the service of God. She wants to summon
all the nations of the world to partake in God's kingdom. Where
God gives the courage of faith, where Christ's mission lives as
community, the love that comes from God's spirit proves to be
power. It subjects everything to the rulership of God.
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In the power of the Holy Spirit, joy in the kingdom of God will
show itself in every situation. It will show absolute certainty. It will
never draw back in dismay from any ruling power, however widely
recognized. The supreme justice of God's constructive peace should
alone prevail! Love arises from it and out of love arise joy and faith
as fruits of the Spirit. What grows out of the Holy Spirit has divine
strength and knows no limits. A courageous assurance of victory
fills the whole church with militancy. With exultant joy in the Holy
Spirit, she takes up what is humanly impossible – the word of
omnipotent authority. This affects everything and applies to
everybody. So does the overwhelming certainty of the believing
church about the future.
Equipped with the courage of the Holy Spirit, the church dares to
do spiritual battle with all powers that withstand her love. All
resistance of the present age is insignificant in her eyes. The Spirit,
who guides and instructs her, is himself the utmost encouragement.
He sends out a summons to take up the cause, the cause that
matters more than anything else. As its appointed representative,
he is the administrator and advocate, interceding everywhere for
the church. He leads her in battle. He tells her what to say. He fills
her with courage to represent his mission resolutely in the most
dangerous situations. The members of the church become his organs,
for he pours the love of God into their hearts. He uses the church in
word and in work as the instrument of his inmost will.
The church receives a royal promise especially meant for the dangers
of persecution: the spirit of the all-commanding Father will go with
his sons and daughters to speak to his enemies through them. He
will instruct them at every decisive moment. Under his leadership,
they will be masters of any situation until the last hour comes. He
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puts into their hearts what they have to do and suffer, what they
have to say and be responsible for. They are filled with the Holy
Spirit, ardently longing for the final revelation. In the face of
death, they proclaim and represent the eternal truth as it is given
to them by the Holy Spirit, who prompts them, moves them, and
impels them. So to their last breath they give witness to Jesus, that
he is the messiah-king of the long-promised kingdom.
Through the Spirit, everything the prophets attested about the
kingdom of God is brought to everyone by the long-suffering
church. Those holy prophets, as people of God, acted in all they did
according to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In the same way,
the commission and authority of the kingdom is now entrusted to
those sent out by the church. When they speak, they utter his word.
The apostolic spirit is the prophetic spirit: his word brings his kingdom.
The apostolic mission is a matter of the prophetic embassy of God,
which brings the future kingdom to everyone here and now. As
prophecy, the apostleship of the church embraces the whole truth
of Jesus and his future.
The Holy Spirit determines where those on this mission should go
and what they should say: speaking within them, it tells them which
people they should speak to, which land they should go to or avoid.
The Spirit's guidance gives final certainty. Under his leadership, no
matter what it points to, fear is unknown. Often he leads into the
midst of the plain of death (Ezek. 37:1), making the downfall of
humankind horribly clear; at decisive moments in his history, he
leads us into extreme danger in the wilderness, where we are
tempted by the devil. Yet everywhere he demonstrates the triumphant
reality of the resurrection: victory over the temptations of hell.
To venture anything with the Spirit is more serious than death,
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more powerful than when all the hosts of God draw near, over
whelming in their power. He descends on people like lightning. He
falls upon the weak as the strong one. Those who receive him are
thrown to the ground and put on their feet again, new people. The
strong one stays and dwells in them. The weak body becomes the
dwelling of the strong spirit: for the church, as the body of Christ,
is the temple of the Holy Spirit. All those who receive her spirit
belong to her. All believers are living members of the church,
pervaded by the spirit, which fills her whole body. Like Gideon, the
church wears the armor of the spirit over her whole body.
From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has filled everything
that belonged to the church or was to prepare the way for it. The
last prophet of olden times, who preceded the coming Christ, was
filled with him while still in his mother's womb; his father and
mother had become full of the Holy Spirit for him. Before Jesus'
life began, Mary received the spirit; so, from the time the apostolic
church began to follow Jesus Christ, it was filled with the Holy
Spirit. "When they had prayed, the place where they were
gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and spoke the word of God with joyful courage."
Whoever came within the church's domain had to receive the
Holy Spirit – the "servants of temporal needs" (those responsible
for administering economic and social justice), just as much as the
servants of the word, or pastoral leaders. Their work, as a concern
of the church, was to be filled with the Spirit's divine wisdom, as
testified of Stephen (the first to do this service) who until the last
moment of his martyrdom was filled with the Holy Spirit. What
was true of him was true of all: even Paul, the late-comer among
the apostles, like all the other serving members of the church, was
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filled with the Holy Spirit as soon as the blindness inflicted by its
initial lightning was taken away from him.
God gives the Holy Spirit to the whole church; he fills her entirely. In
her body he lets the complete image of Jesus Christ shine out. He
penetrates every area of her life with certain knowledge of what
sin, justice, and judgment are; what faith and love are; and what
work it is that Christ has accomplished and how it can be done
through him alone. The spirit of Jesus Christ wants to reach and
convict each member of the church, teaching and educating.
The Spirit is given to all believers – it is imparted by God to every
member united with his church. He wants to make all of us people
with faith. Their united action makes the justice of Jesus a reality.
It is God who is called upon by the whole church, God who does
everything connected with Christ's cause. God's works are done
when the unity of the believers calls for them to be done. God is
the one who acts. He acts through the Holy Spirit by virtue of the
apostolic gospel of Jesus Christ.
The church's unity of action springs from its community with the
Father of Jesus Christ. It is founded on the teaching of the apostles,
on their spirit, word, and life. It is alive in prayer to God in the
name of Jesus Christ. Without the apostolic spirit and without his
teaching and community, no Christian can draw near to God, there
is no Christian prayer. Only in the authority of this spirit can God
be called upon: God shall intervene. His unity shall shine out, and
his kingdom shall draw near. His will shall be done, and his nature
shall be revealed. His forgiveness shall take effect, and his omnipo
tence shall break the power of evil. He shall give bread and life. He
shall be victorious over the hour of temptation every time it comes
over the earth. It is God who wills and accomplishes everything,
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but it can happen only through the call of the apostolic spirit of
Jesus Christ, who is the spirit of God.
When in our human weakness we are at a loss to know how to
stand before God in his omnipotence, when we cannot see how our
pleading is to count for anything before Christ and his rulership, it
is the Spirit alone who comes to the aid of our weakness. We of
ourselves do not know what to pray for. Our manner of praying
does not in the least correspond to what is fitting before God; but
the Spirit himself represents the believers powerfully with cries
that soar up, cries we are unable to utter. The one who searches
hearts knows what the Spirit has in mind: therefore it wants and
does what God wants and does. He is one with God. He sanctifies
the unholy and represents them as holy in those things that please
God.
Only through the Spirit does God want to be honored. The
church, gathered in silence, waits for the Spirit's prompting; if we
want to learn from him, we must be able to listen. It is those who
listen, whom he wants to teach. He is their master. He wants them
to call upon God in such a way that the listener becomes the
speaker and the speaker, the listener. Thus God listens to believers;
because he listens, they will receive the Spirit, and the Spirit's cause
will be theirs, just as they have requested. This is the only way of
speaking with God. All other so-called prayer is an abomination to
God. Whoever turns his ear away so that he cannot hear God's voice
prays in vain: God rejects his prayer. Whoever wants to combine
other plans with what God has in mind fails to meet God. Whoever
gets diverted loses the way. Whoever is divided remains far from
God. Whoever wants to appear in God's presence with a double
heart will not gain anything Christ-like from him.
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The Holy Spirit is a spirit of reverence. The holiest things, such
as calling on God in the name of Jesus Christ, can be dared only
through the prompting of the one Holy Spirit and only when all
human wishes are completely silenced. Christians remain men and
women – they do not become gods. Their own and other spirits
never stop harassing and oppressing the new life given them. For
this reason they are in continual need of the unchangeable Spirit.
They must pray daily for him to move and fill their hearts again and
again. God listens to them. This is quite certain: he gives his Holy Spirit
to all who call upon him in dedicated reverence and expectant faith.
God gives his spirit wholly. God cannot mete out his greatest gift
with weights and measures – it is not a substance that can be
divided. The Spirit is the living God himself, as the Father and the
Son are. The three are one, they are God. The indivisible God gives
himself in all his fullness to those ready to obey him. Where he can
act and work as he wills, he gives himself wholly and remains the
one he was and always will be. He never contradicts himself: he
says the same to all believers. He wants to lead all of them into the
complete truth without withholding anything: he has no intention
of giving them half-truths. He is the whole truth of God, as the
Father has revealed it for all time in Christ.
It is God's will, through the power of his spirit, to fulfill every
word spoken by Jesus. It is God's purpose, through the church of his
spirit, to accomplish once more the perfect works of Jesus Christ.
He lays the fullness of the Spirit on the whole church of Jesus
Christ; with her, he wants to make his history among us: the history
of his heart as the history of Jesus Christ. The history of the church is
the history of God. The history of the last times, of his kingdom, is
present reality in the church. Whoever despises the representatives
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of the church despises not people but God, who has entrusted to
the church of his spirit the task of representing his holy cause.
God's administrator, the representative of Jesus Christ, is the
advocate of the church.
The Holy Spirit is the sign of the church, and shows that it
belongs to the kingdom of God. By the Spirit she knows she remains
in Christ. God, as the spirit of his kingdom, is in the church of Jesus
Christ: the Spirit is unmistakable. He is the spirit of the Father! His
heart of perfect love is a present reality. He is the spirit of the Son!
The unmistakable word and nature of Jesus Christ, his perfect act
of sacrifice, and his future are revealed in the Spirit.
This spirit is one of counsel and wisdom. Through the life of Jesus,
he makes God's will known in all that happens, in every situation.
God and his wisdom, Jesus and his counsel never become reality
outside the province of the Spirit. In work and in life it becomes
clear that without the spirit of new life and new works we can
know neither the Father nor the Son, however wisely we talk or
write about the highest things with our human knowledge. The
work of the Spirit honors no one but God. Everything he does
contrasts the greatness of God with the smallness of men and
women and proves everywhere that God's kingdom is completely
different from our world. God's heart is greater than our heart.
God's spirit is absolutely different from our spirit. The divine power
of the Holy Spirit can be recognized in contrast to human weakness.
Like rain on parched land, the Spirit comes down to ignorant and
feeble creatures. From God's free heights it pours itself out over them.
The Spirit reveals God's cause as an undeserved gift, as a grace
descending directly from above, the actual fact of a direct
pouring-in. God's spirit is the grace of Jesus Christ. Nothing in those
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who receive the Holy Spirit could possibly justify a claim that it
belongs by rights to them. The Spirit comes to the undeserving and
unworthy; it is a grace given to those who are humble.
The spirit of God never grows out of our zeitgeist. In all the human
aberrations of today, he proves that his divine character belongs to
the ultimate future. God's spirit never grows out of our works. He
comes from another world. Like a heavenly dove, he comes from
above to those who are below. He is the spirit of a kingdom ruling
in God's heavens, and from here alone he comes to the earth. As
the spirit of prophetic speech, he turns all eyes to the last things,
to all things that through God shall be brought to pass at the end
of days.
In contrast to the zeitgeist of any human epoch, this spirit is always
untimely, pointing ultimately to the world peace of the future. He
sees beyond all contemporary history. He belongs to no earthly
kingdom. Every state and every nation looks upon him as an alien.
Everywhere, he is the different spirit. He reveals a divine justice
that can be expected only from afar. His rule comes from a world
outside our space. His truth is not to be grasped by human thinking.
God's light from the world beyond gives an insight that infinitely
surpasses all our knowledge and experience of time and space.
Jesus brought us the spirit of the creator. Only the spirit who
created all things can understand this. Only he sees into all things.
He who is still at work today is and always will be above everything
that happens and unfolds in creation. Only the creative spirit
manifests the power that is unending and eternal. Only he knows
the depths of the Godhead, for he alone is the living bond that
unites the first creation with the new future, the final creation. He
grants superlative clarity and power from beyond to the feeblest
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of creatures: in spite of a hostile and murderous age and the
narrow confines of space, despite our weakness, he helps us live in
keeping with the kingdom of heaven and its holy future.
Whoever accepts the spirit of the new creation receives the eternal
powers of the one God who formed the first creation in the same
spirit. Wherever the end that will transform everything is expected,
God's future is alive now – the spirit of strength in an aging
universe. The new day has already dawned. All shall see it: a new
creation is arising! Its gospel is there for every creature. The
groaning of the old creation meets the children of the new world.
The power of heaven, as the authority of the Holy Spirit, is at
work in a church of the new creation. It lives in her as a promise of
the sunny days to come over an earth growing cold. In the midst of
an aging world, the church, impregnated with eternity and filled
with the future, gains strength for God and his kingdom through
the Spirit. The church receives eternal and infinite majesty as a first
beam of light from the future. Going forth from the throne of
God's rule, the Lord of light fills the church eternally.
The Holy Spirit descends from the throne of God to a small
and weak band gathered in expectant faith to receive him. Faith in
the Spirit is faith in the church of light around God's almighty
throne. Here the old has passed away. All creatures can see the new
creation! Whoever believes in the Holy Spirit has faith in the one
Christian church of the kingdom of heaven, which is united and
common to all believers. And he has faith in the church of God,
which as the community of saints has the authority to forgive sins
and believes in the resurrection of the body. This faith in the church
lives in the realm of the eternal.
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The sin and death of the old creation must retreat. New life
arises. The church shows the newborn creation. The Holy Spirit and
the mother church giving birth to eternal life are one. From the
city church of the Jerusalem above, spirit and church come down as
one. This oneness is new in the approaching day of creation. The
spirit of the church carries the gospel to all creation. In new birth,
he lets his children see the light of day – God's new day.
The church in heaven is the source of all faith. Like Mary the
virgin, the church is, through the Holy Spirit, the eternal mother.
Without her there are no children. Not just any gathering of
contemporaries gives birth to life out of its circle. As far as life is
there, it comes from union with a higher unity through birth in the
Spirit. The church takes shape only where the Holy Spirit has
brought about a life and faith completely at one with the whole
glorified band of martyrs and witnesses, with the apostolic mother
church of all centuries.
The church is built from above. This unity of the spiritual church
around the throne of God is brought down to the earth by the Holy
Spirit. In no other way or place can church life come into existence,
or the structure of the church be built. The unanimity of the believing
church is in the perfect unity between her members living now and
the one truly united church of all time. The unity comes from the
Holy Spirit. God's upper world becomes one with the church on
earth. The secret of the city on the hill is the Spirit. There is no city
below except through the Spirit's one way of unity with the city
above. Apart from this there is no church. God's city-church lives
only in the mountain air of her eternal hill. Her citizenship and her
politics are in heaven. She expects everything from heaven and is
governed from there.
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Through the spirit of the city of God, worship of God begins. Only
in the one city of God does true worship begin. It begins in Christ.
All other ways of honoring God have come to an end. Their places
of worship fall into ruins, and their towers are laid low. The houses
of God built with stone are done away with – the Spirit is there
instead. God does not recognize any church – or congregation or
Christian community – unless it is pervaded by the one church,
established and gathered by the one spirit sent by God. The wind of
the Spirit blows down from above. Thus only in those who open
themselves to it – who let themselves be swept clean by it – can the
Spirit work.
As a house of the Holy Spirit, built by God, the church of Christ is
free of belfries and all architectural show. In all the houses of
religious worship we build, the spirits are mixed. In the house of
God there are never many spirits: only one is acknowledged there.
No person can stay in this house who does not receive in his own
heart the one spirit who fills the whole house. God himself has built
this church. It stands there without towers made by human hands
as the simplest house of God. His church bears the lowly and
childlike spirit that alone is of God. It is with Mary in the stable. It
comes into being by the side of Christ on the cross. It goes the way
of apostolic poverty. With one heart and one mind, it glorifies no
one but God in Christ Jesus.
Through this united spirit, all the members of this church prove
they are Christ's disciples. Their perfect unity of heart and mind
shows the true character of Jesus Christ. He stripped himself of all
greatness and laid aside all privileges; so does the church. He
refused to hold on to anything that might seem to be his as a
special right; so does the church. It seemed to him like robbery to
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own anything that did not also belong to those he loved from his
heart; to the church also it seems like this. He took the lowliest
place of a hanged slave; so does his church. All her members deny
themselves as he denied himself. They bear his cross.
They are his friends, for they do what he commands. His spirit
has called them to his way, to discipleship; he keeps them on it and
holds them to it. In unity with the life of Jesus, they are led in the
fight by the Spirit. With the authoritative word of his absolute rule,
the spirit of Jesus Christ regulates everything that takes place
among them. On the way of Jesus Christ no person rules but only
the Holy Spirit, through the power of Christ's sacrificial love. Unity
lives in the readiness for death that comes from utmost freedom.
Here the miracle of a dictatorship of love comes into being;
prompted and guided by the Spirit, it is a supreme freewillingness,
a freedom whose deepest longing is to sacrifice everything.
There is no other church of Jesus Christ than the one completely
free of human authority, built and directed by the spirit of Christ's
sacrifice. She remains at one in the Holy Spirit, the one foundation
of truth, the very soul of readiness for the cross. In the church, the
truth of God proves itself to be the perfect love that comes from
the Spirit. The Holy Spirit continually confirms, fortifies, and
purifies the church, this perfect work of God and of Jesus Christ's
love, completed on the cross. Those who willingly suffer a renewal
of this work in the church and surrender to it patiently and
serenely, those who are prepared to lose their life for God's cause
as Jesus lost his, are members of his body. But whoever does not
find the courage and endurance to accept this work does not
belong to the church of Jesus Christ.
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