Part 12
himself without human words; we hear no one but God speaking to
us, God alone, "God absolutely unconcealed." Only then shall we
be certain what his will and nature is.
Only those who have the living law of truth written in their
hearts through the Holy Spirit have received the new covenant, the
living covenant of God. Only such are truly just, for righteousness
belongs alone to God, to the living one. It neither belongs to people
nor comes to us through people. All righteousness of our own
collapses. To quote Denck again: "Those who presume to think they
can walk straight up to heaven in their own strength will fall and
plunge in the opposite direction. But if I walk in the strength of
truth, my walking will not be in vain." God himself makes it
possible to walk the way of his righteousness. He does it through
the free will of his believers. God alone can make us want his word
and the works of his righteousness, and he alone can bring their
fulfillment.
To believe means to be obedient to the word of God – come
life, come death. Whoever believes follows God with the utmost
confidence that everything his Spirit prompts in us will lead to the best.
Those who have been sent by God know God; their word is one
with God's word. They realize there is no contradiction in God. They
are able to grasp that the living word in believing hearts is in
complete agreement with all the prophets and with all the
apostolic scriptures. That is the goal – the unity of the truth.
All who have received the Holy Spirit are one with Christ in God.
They are so united among themselves in the unity of his word that
what concerns one concerns all. What Christ did they also do. In
their unity they have Christ as their one Lord and master.
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The truth has always been revealed in God's heart. He showed the
truth to his prophets at all times. But through Jesus Christ it was
revealed again to everyone in all its fullness. He became man and
took a sacrificial death on himself for this reason, that from now
on, through the Spirit, all people everywhere would have the one
united witness of the truth. God has been good from the very
beginning. In Christ, though, he lets his loving-kindness be known
to all. Wherever trust in the loving-kindness of God's heart arises
and grows through the living word of God amongst us worldly
people, truth as love and justice looks down from heaven on us all.
Christ reveals the heart of God.
As soon as we have experienced the righteousness of God in
Christ, we realize that not we but rather the spirit of God, dwelling
in us and at work in us, has given back to the Father what we had
stolen from him. Then there is peace – as unity with God, unity with
his apostles and prophets, and unity among ourselves. Yet free as
we now are from everything else in the confidence this love gives
us, from this moment on we can do nothing good except "in the
way of suffering." We willingly let happen to us what God does;
held captive by God himself, we are able to submit in absolute
freedom of will and heart to what Christ as the word does in our
hearts and in our lives. God's loving-kindness, the truth of his love
and justice, the unity of his peace, and the freedom of his life are
the foundation of all that the holy scriptures testify. The writings
of the Old and New Testaments are of divine origin. Therefore no
one can understand them except those enlightened by the divine
spirit, because only in such does this same living source well up.
Only when our will is moved by God are we in living harmony with
Christ's voice, for asthe word of God, it lives in our hearts. Then we
understand the scriptures.
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Divine enlightenment takes place in the depths of the heart, and
yet it is recognizable. Every evil and unenlightened heart betrays
itself through arrogance and impatience. Every heart filled with
God's loving-kindness shows Christ's humility and the patience of
his love. If the divine spirit is not at work in us, cooperating with
our faith, if he does not help us recognize loving humility and make
it a genuine reality in us, the holy scripture – because it remains
something apart – proves a shaky foundation for faith. Only those
who bear within themselves the living word as the divine source of
all the holy scriptures are in living contact with the great stream of
all that God reveals: they live in the truth.
The holy scriptures testify that the new covenant can be re
ceived only by those who have the law of freedom (again, testified
by scripture) inscribed in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. But those
who imagine that they will succeed in following the law of
righteousness on their own ascribe to the dead letter what the
living spirit does. Those who want to glorify the scriptures, yet
have let divine love grow cold within them, should take heed lest
they make an idol of the scriptures, which is what all those scholars
do who are not taught by the Holy Spirit and not led to the
kingdom of God. Hans Denck continues:
I esteem the scriptures above all human treasures; yet I do not esteem them as highly as the word of God, which is living, strong, and eternal, free from all elements of our world, whereas the scriptures are not. God himself is spirit and not letter, and he writes indelibly, with no pen and paper but in such a way that it can never be blotted out. Therefore salvation does not depend on the scriptures, however good and beneficial to that end they may be. This is the reason: it is not possible for scripture alone to
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make an evil heart good, however well educated in the scriptures it may be. A heart is truly believing only where a spark of divine zeal is alive. Only a heart burning for God is improved by all things, above all by the holy scriptures. Christ alone, as the inner light, changes life.
As long as I approach the scriptures out of my own ability, I understand nothing. To the extent that I am driven by truth itself and its life-giving spirit, however, to that extent do I comprehend the holy scriptures; but then not out of my own ability and merit but out of God's grace. First of all, the foundation of faith must be laid; then everything built on it can resist wind and water…Your life will show whether God's word is living in you. Good can never be achieved by anyone without God being at work in the heart. It is impossible to do it alone. God will do it through Christ.
Yet God forces no one. Long ago he did everything possible to help
us. He gave up his son Jesus Christ to a sacrificial death. He made
him the means. Christ is the means to liberation and union. We can
accept him or we can reject him. He remains the same. He wants
nothing but the love, freedom, and unity that he himself is. Christ
paved the way that no one could find. Now we can tread it of our
own free will to reach the goal of life. The way is love. When
selfishness is overcome, our heart is won over by the gospel. We
listen to it – and faith is born. Christ has not only proclaimed or
written the gospel, but from the beginning of the world, he speaks
and writes it in the heart. Those who have it in their hearts are free
and act in freedom.
Whoever is a true disciple of Christ has a living word in his heart:
the fiery, loving word whose liberating strength loves nothing but
God alone. This word leads them; all they do and leave undone is
directed according to this burning love. Even without written
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commands they would have to do what this love commands. All
written laws must give way to love; they were given for love's sake,
not love for theirs. Laws are made and broken. But true love is the
one God, who cannot create himself although he created all things.
He cannot break himself. He is love that is unbreakable. In this or
that individual – in the one more, in the other less – a living spark
of this love can be felt. Unfortunately, in our times this fiery spark
seems to be extinguished in almost everyone!
So much is sure: because love is of the Spirit, the smallest spark,
however dimly it may glimmer in us, never comes from us. It can
come only from the perfect love that is God himself. Love is spiritual,
whereas we are all carnal. Often the spark is very dim. Only perfect
love can help. The one person in whom love has been proved to be
perfect and at its most sublime, Jesus of Nazareth, is the savior,
redeemer, and healer of his people, in accordance with the will of
eternal love. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, he showed
openly by all he did or left undone what befits love. He proved himself
as the promised savior in the midst of Israel. As promised by the
true God in the holy scriptures, he was brought forth when his time
was come. In Christ Jesus, perfect love conquers the human race.
In these loveless times, we can see that what is now scarcely to
be felt came to fulfillment long ago in Christ Jesus. In him, the love
that we lack came to fulfillment. Through the spirit of God we
know for certain that God's love toward us, and our love toward
God, can never be more sublimely shown than it was in Jesus. In the
living word of the Spirit, we are certain that God in his compassion
for the world will cast aside all the judgment his righteousness calls
for in the face of our sin if only we do not despise the one thing:
what took place in Jesus. In the course of history the essence of
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perfect love has been thoroughly taught and sufficiently proved –
not by us but by God.
All those who have sought and found the way of God have
become one with God, but this One, who never stumbled in going
this way, was never disunited with him; from the very beginning he
was at one with God and remained at one with him. What this one
love taught and did in Christ Jesus is truly right and good – nothing
else. In the old and the new law, one and the same love is hidden,
but in the new covenant through Jesus it is shown at its most sublime.
Whoever longs to recognize and find true love must experience
it through this Jesus Christ in the most intimate way. There is no
other. Love consists in knowing and loving God. That takes place in
Christ. His new law of life makes us sons of God, which is beyond
our achieving. The merciful God himself as our one true Father
must draw us into Christ so that we are born in him in the very
depths of our soul. He himself allows his children to know his
innermost will through the living word. This is nothing less than
love itself, as it came in Jesus Christ and as it shall continue to be
proclaimed by the gospel of his glorious grace. The living word of
perfect love is nothing less than Jesus Christ himself.
Those who teach anything different from what love, and love
alone, has given us do not build on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
They will not be able to answer before love for their actions.
Moreover, if they happen to have recognized this foundation and
source of all that is good, and yet teach otherwise, they will still
less be able to defend themselves before love, which is God
himself. Children of love neither say nor do, for love's sake,
anything that is contrary to love. Everything that means life
streams to them from perfect love, which is Jesus Christ himself. By
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this it is possible to find out who has the spirit of truth; whoever
understands this and yet teaches otherwise is an antichrist; who
ever does not understand it has not yet recognized Christ, the Lord.
Faith is no faith where Christ is not present. Christ is God's love and
his living word.
God alone can kindle the light that is faith. Whoever is not
ready to do God's will, whoever will not accept Christ's attitude,
whoever does not receive the Spirit, will never be enlightened and
instructed by God to understand the scriptures. Bible in hand, such
people hold nothing but a manger without the Christ Child, a
wooden cross without the crucified one; a scabbard without a
sword, a platter without bread! All our own efforts to grasp the
dead letter are in vain. There is no other key to the Bible except the
key to the kingdom of God. This key is Christ and his Holy Spirit.
Whoever does not have this key stands before firmly locked gates.
He is kept out of God's garden by the iron bars of the letter,
blocking the way.
The letter makes people dull, rigid, obstinate, cold, and cruel.
Anyone whose head is stuffed full of the leaden letters of the Bible,
devoid of the Spirit, is as capable of killing the son of God and his
people as the scribes and Pharisees were. To this day, all apostles
and truly living members of the church of Christ are punished as
liars and put to death with the help of the letter of the Bible. As
long as the Bible is understood literally, it continues to be the
murderous sword of the Antichrist and the dead throne on which
he sits. The Antichrist uses the cunning dagger and the blunt,
leaden sheath of the letter against the drawn sword of the Spirit.
He uses the darkened lantern against the light that belongs in it.
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The spirit of the Antichrist has the letter on its side against the
spirit of the scriptures. Black printer's ink is its favorite color, playing
off one wooden letter against another. It splits the Bible, bent on
making the witness of the Bible divided within itself by means of
the literal word of scripture.
It tries everywhere to annihilate the most important attributes
of the word: judgment, mercy, and faithfulness. Those who try to
represent biblical truth by excelling in knowledge of the text will
become loveless by nature and godless in knowledge. Becoming
more and more learned, they never become better. They fight
against those who worship God. They pay court to the letter, which
God appointed as a tool. They render service to externals instead of
accepting them as a help. What was meant as a picture, as a
semblance or a sign, has been made into into an object of idolatry.
Whoever will not ask God humbly and reverently for the true
spirit of the Bible, whoever will not beg for the light of the Holy
Spirit to show clearly the deepest meaning of the scriptures, will
keep on being misguided and led astray by the external word. To
such the same happens as to the scribes in the time of Jesus: with
all their knowledge of the Bible they did not understand the
scriptures – they grasped neither their power nor their meaning.
They understood to perfection all the words of the Bible from cover
to cover, yet always from outside only! They knew everything that
could be found in the holy scriptures according to the letter of hu
man words. But not one in a thousand could grasp the mystery of
the one true word hidden behind the words, which is God's mystery.
The contrast is conclusive. The letter is of service in reading aloud
and reciting Biblical passages, to preserve the Bible in the true Old
Testament tradition. But it knows nothing about the new covenant
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of the life-giving word. Everything it repeats is stolen. Nothing it
says comes from the source, nothing comes as God's free gift. Its
ungenuineness denies the power of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Its
works are empty and unprofitable, and all its efforts are superfluous.
It hauls water to the river; it brings more and more letters where
there was already more than enough preaching and writing. Yet it
can never bring fresh water – the life-giving word – into anyone's
heart, no matter how intensely they thirst for God's flowing spring;
if everything depended on service to the letter, people would die of
thirst in a wilderness of dead words.
God's true word works quite differently. It lives in the Holy Spirit,
who is the eternal well of life. Only the Spirit gives new life to what
was once written under his guidance; he makes it rise from the
dead. He is the only teacher of the covenant of resurrection. He
shows the way out of the labyrinth of dead letters to the organic
tree of life. In the Spirit, Christ brings to our hearts the unanimous
agreement of all God's witnesses as the spiritual unity of all living
truth.
As soon as the Holy Spirit reveals God's light, God's cause
becomes bright and clear. Pure white light is its color. The Holy
Spirit brings all the bright colors of the truth together. In the unity
of Jesus Christ, the Spirit reveals the complete accord of God's
word. Freed from the letter's deadly law, he makes all truth living
and united, united with the living Christ, united with all his prophets
and apostles, united with the living church. The understanding of the
scriptures given by the Spirit leads to the bond of Christ's peace:
absolute unity in all living truth. The unifying light becomes visible as
soon as it streams in – when light appears, it can be recognized.
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Only God has command over light. Only directly from God himself
can we receive what God alone can accomplish. Whenever the
personal word of Christ, the voice of the Lamb of Bethlehem, the
call of the Lion of Judah, begins to speak in people, it is God who
wants to consummate his work in us. God alone is able to do this. In
Jesus Christ, God himself descended to lost humankind. Through
the Holy Spirit, the word of God became flesh of Jewish blood in
Bethlehem, but it did not want to remain flesh. It became creative
life. In the Spirit the word is heard and recognized, so that it once
again becomes flesh: a new people drawn from all nations – the
new body of Christ.
Jesus was the immortal word taking on mortality. He was and is
the human incarnation of the spiritual word. He gives shape and
form to what is eternal. He is the one we must listen to, the one we
should grasp. God's eternal and everlasting word was brought to
the earth through the Jesus who took on human shape in time and
space. In him, the word of God became flesh and voice – the eternal
rock on which the church, as the renewed incarnation of the
spiritual word, is built – the almighty word, which is of divine
nature and created everything.
In the spirit of Jesus Christ, God's word shows itself afresh as
God's arm and God's finger. Something new is created time and
again and is there, so to speak, in a twinkling. In Christ and in his
spirit, the unity of the first or old creation with the new creation is
given. There is only that one word of God, which restores all things
so they are kept on the path of his creative will. If God did not speak
the word of creation or of the new creation anymore, everything
would fall back into nothingness. The word that God speaks in the first
creation and in the new creation is the raison d'être of all existence.
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Only in God's immediate presence does his word stay unveiled.
For those who have forsaken God, however, it has long been sunk
in concealment. Only to a few in each epoch has the word broken
through, pierced the heart, and become available. But when the
time was fulfilled, it was brought once again out of its deep
concealment to the light of day. Jesus, as the word become flesh,
disclosed in a new creation the vanished word of the first creation.
The seals were broken. At long last God's letter could be read again.
Rediscovered, it brought an overwhelming revelation. God's light
no longer glimmered in the distance, enveloped in a fog that
spread for miles. In Christ Jesus and his spirit, the word as ultimate
clarity emerged out of the depths of the worldwide fog into close
proximity.
In Christ Jesus, people began to serve the new covenant, near to
God. The new covenant is the new revelation. The apostles of the
revealed truth of Jesus Christ were sent out. To the far-off, they
brought his nearness (Eph. 2:13). Openly and clearly they testified
to God's revealed mystery. Where people formerly held writing in
their hands (though they decidedly did not have what they thought
they had), now the ultimate was unveiled and offered to them.
People were from now on doubly convinced: first of all through the
testimony of the witnesses sent out, but far above everything else
through the direct witness of the all-revealing Spirit in the depths
of their own hearts.
With the coming of the Holy Spirit, the new covenant begins. The
new word comes down to earth. Its rulership is established in the
heart, in its deepest depths. Whoever is in Christ, whoever is a child
of truth, hears this voice within his or her innermost heart – and
obeys it. So all that had formerly been quite unknown is now
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spoken audibly in the heart. The night is over. Where Christ – the
spoken will of God – is seen and heard, day breaks in.
Now it is a question of understanding Jesus Christ – his whole life
and his words. That means receiving the Spirit into the depths of
our heart. We have to live according to this Spirit in the strength of
Jesus Christ. Christ wants to open up undreamed-of things in the
hearts and lives of the believers. What no one can believe comes to
us. With forgiveness and with the suffering of Christ, what was
unknown before comes to our hearts as faith, as the eternal nature
of God. What was always present in God's heart – the kingdom of
heaven – is opened up and given to us.
Everything changeable and transient, everything human and
made by us, must give way before him. It must vanish before the
eternal and immutable peace of Jesus Christ, in which God has
opened his heart. God's love was sent to benumbed and frightened
hearts. The almighty word came to the weak. God's love became
our brother. Jesus brought the true picture of God into our midst
and still recognized us as brothers and sisters. Everything God's
inmost heart ever was or willed among people from the beginning
comes with Christ to them. In Christ, everything will be accomplished
among them and perfected according to God's will.
When this greatest event of all history took place, it had to be
written down so that we ignorant people should believe that this
word of love, born in the land of Israel – this Christ of Jewish history –
can be grasped by people today for their present lives. The same
Jesus Christ has to be given the same form and life again
everywhere through the life-giving spirit.
Here the one way becomes visible, the one door opened. Through
Jesus – the Jesus of Roman and Jewish history, who became flesh,
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was slain, and rose again from the dead –through this Jesus, everyone
can have direct access to God. In him, all God's mysteries are
revealed. Everything God does and everything we are meant to do
with God for others is given in Christ. He who has gained mastery
over human life, through the Spirit and the word, overcomes death.
He brings the Spirit to victorious rule over all flesh. This Christ
penetrates hearts as the peace of God's kingdom, in the power of
the resurrection, and with the renewal given by the Holy Spirit.
From there, he wants to lead all created things into a life of new
justice. Christ is the new justice of God's creation. Through the Holy
Spirit, his origin, his life, and his suffering – victorious over all
evil – are shown again as God's righteousness. The church is the new
Christ. The former Christ has risen. He is present as the life-giving
energy of the church. In the new Christ, the birth, the life, the
suffering and death, and the resurrection of the former Christ are
repeated as the all-embracing justice of God's kingdom.
The beginning of Christ's way, its course, and its end cannot be
altered for any member of the church. Every member of the church
is filled with the unchangeable Christ, as he always was, as he is
now, and as he will be eternally. He fills all members with his death
and with his life. If we refuse to let Jesus Christ live and die in us,
then Jesus was crucified in vain. Even chopping Jesus into a
thousand pieces would not help us. Nothing can help, nothing can
be called the saving word of God but letting the crucified Christ
penetrate our hearts. Then, going out from there, his spirit and life
determine everything as they did in the life of Jesus.
Christ alone is the purpose and meaning of the holy scriptures.
Christ filled the disciples when they wrote the scriptures. He alone
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is the golden scale for testing the spirits. On them, he proves all
other spirits to be misleading. As the living word, the Son reveals
the Father through the Holy Spirit. He confirms the Christ of the
Old and the New Testaments. He alone gives them meaning. He
does so by entering our hearts with his word and life, through the
new reality of his death and resurrection.
Thus the history of Christ becomes a power in the present: here
and now, Christ enters in, faith receives him, we live according to
his spirit; here and now we experience in Christ that God is uniting
the world with himself completely. God enfolds us in his love. The
power of his heart is shown clearly. By grasping the Father in Christ,
we reach the Father's heart in the Holy Spirit. In Christ, what God's
heart is and what God's heart can do is made clear. In the living
spirit of Jesus Christ, God speaks to our hearts.
The written scripture speaks to our hearts in a way we can
understand. It speaks directly to our hearts. All it says leads to the
revelation in which the Holy Spirit will be poured out over all flesh.
This revelation is needed. Whatever God does and says is for its
sake. The word had to be written and has to be proclaimed afresh
all the time for the sake of this revelation. Christ is the revelation
of God. Its perfect and most living, its first and last picture is and
will be to all eternity the life of Jesus. God in all his fullness dwelt
in a body. Jesus is the Christ. He is what he teaches. He gives what
he promises. He is the source of what he reveals.
This revelation of God in Christ Jesus is the inner light of the Holy
Spirit. From within, it illuminates the whole of life right to its
outermost aspects. In the power of this light, the same deeds done
by the historical Jesus will be done again. There is nothing here but
Christ. The revelation of Christ as the perfect light tolerates no light
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and no work of humankind. God carries it out himself. His truth
needs no human support. The truth of Jesus Christ needs no
masters – what it needs is pupils. The revelation of God's truth
needs simply a gathering of listeners, who, without this light, sit in
the dark. The only demand God's truth makes on people is that they
shake with hunger and are parched with an agonizing thirst.
As human beings, we can never be masters of the divine. We have
lost the source of light that was originally given. Through dark
covetousness, through self-will and ownership, the will to the light
that used to flow freely in everyone dried up. Of their own free
will, people deviated from the light of God's will constantly breaking
in. Alienated like this, they could not reconcile themselves to their
position. They became overbearing and presumptuous. Out of their
own dark power they wanted to steal for themselves what belongs
to God alone.
But the new man, Christ Jesus, has taken upon himself the guilt
of this defection. In Christ it is eliminated. We are reinstated into
the supreme freedom of God's will through the degradation and
suffering of the son of God. It is for Christ's humble love that we
are won. All presumption dies away. Covetous self-will and arrogant
ownership are buried with Christ. From now on, everything belongs
to God. In unity with Christ, with God's heart and spirit, the new
life breaks in – the light of the risen Christ that frees. In this revelation,
all believers are brought to complete unity. There are no masters,
only brothers. Wherever the truth is taught, God's unity exists. God
alone is listened to and obeyed; we allow him to speak and work.
That is why all true brothers and sisters are united; for God never
contradicts himself. The revelation of God's truth leads to the
complete unanimity that is within God himself.
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When supposedly brilliant preachers obviously contradict them
selves or each other, it proves that they have risen before they were
awakened, they have set out before the sun came up. Without
being appointed, they have taken liberties with what they do not
understand (Jer. :). They have gone to work at nighttime: they
want to thresh without light and have no idea what they are
hitting – they thresh nothing but empty straw. They hit out at each
other; no light has united them and led them to work together.
The Holy Spirit never brings into being his life (which is creative
and unites) by means of an unenlightened and disunited spirit. He
uses means that correspond to the end. He does what is good only
through good. He awakens life only through the living. He proclaims
the kingdom of God only through those who live according to it.
Only those servants who are filled by Christ and as God's
mouthpieces speak out of the Holy Spirit – only they are able to
sow Christ in people's hearts, implant and inscribe Christ in their
innermost being and bring Christ in renewal and rebirth. To
proclaim the word of God means bringing Christ with it and im
parting the Holy Spirit.
Those with this service, therefore, must carry everything they say
as coming from the Holy Spirit within their hearts. What they
proclaim, they prove in their lives by the visible working of the
Spirit. As apostles of Jesus Christ, they must be able to say to
others, "You are my handiwork in Christ; it was Christ who called
you and re-created you when the word came to you. You are God's
handiwork, just as I am." Actual life proves the truth of Christ's
saying: "If you do not want to believe words, you must believe
works" (John 10:38). Whoever believes Christ, will do the same
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works as Jesus and greater works than he. Love is mightier than
anything else. Where the unity of Christ's love is not demonstrated
in harmony between word and life, there is neither faith nor vocation
to the service of his word. Peter was not allowed to approach the
flock until he had been asked three times whether he loved; he was
not allowed to work until he had received the spirit of perfect love.
We need to wait for the Holy Spirit. It means waiting for love.
And it is not only at the beginning of the way that we wait for it:
whoever has once been gripped by the spirit of love must become
the hand and mouthpiece of God daily; he must learn again and
again to say and do everything, not in his own strength, but in
God's. Only in the Christ-spirit of love are we given the reverence
not to say or do anything earlier or later than God's hour dictates –
not even to want to do it. God's word leads to God's Sabbath.
When we rest from all our own words and works, we let God alone
speak and work.
It is through the serpent, who is God's enemy, that free will was
corrupted and turned into self-will. Through his poison, man and
woman were weakened and wounded to the quick. The word
implanted in them as the breath of God has been swamped and
buried by poisonous, muddy tides of the hostile abyss. Yet the word
has never been completely lost; God is mightier than the devil. In
spite of the serious poisoning of the human heart, the breath that
God breathes into us is by nature indestructible. God has never for
a moment forsaken his work, the work that has become unfaithful
to him.
Christ steps in at this God-ordained point. As the new word of
love, Christ raises the old word of the first creation out of the mud
of the hostile forces that had buried it. Then new birth from God
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becomes possible. The deeply hidden image of God comes to light
again. Like a spark from stone, it is coaxed out of hearts that have
grown cold. The kindling word that is Christ falls from God with its
bright new fire into the sparks of the old creation, which were
threatening to die out under the smothering ashes, and makes
radiant flames flare up again…Through the new, the old is roused
to new life insofar as it was truly of God as the first creation: the
new word of the final revelation is stronger than the old word of
the first creation. The greater deed is that the new Christ sets
human nature free from the self-will, self-chosen power, and
possessions that have buried it since time immemorial. What had
slipped almost completely out of God's hands is brought back
through Christ to unclouded community with God!
What matters is God, the beginning of creation, his prophetic
word given to people's inmost heart, the word that became flesh in
the historical Jesus, the renewing word of the spirit of the indwell
ing Christ (the end of all human works and interpretations), and
the recognition of God's word in Jesus Christ as the sole authority –
all this is what matters, and quite especially for a real understanding
of the holy scriptures!
In this regard, the case of the radical reformer Thomas Münzer is
instructive. At first Münzer was a follower of Luther; later he
became a social-religious revolutionary. As a leader in the
Thüringian Peasants' War, he was taken prisoner and executed.
A supporter of armed insurrection (though this was only an
unfortunate footnote to his activites as a leader), Thomas Münzer
was not only an enemy of the princely authorities of his day; he
was an enemy of the gospel they loved so much: the gospel that
merely edifies, maintains the status quo and offends no one.
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Münzer protested this gospel. Not only did he feel it was false – he
felt it had become petrified.
Münzer believed that the word of God must sound through
every age anew, in a living way. As people become open to it, they
hear it as God's voice in their hearts. According to him, faith in
Christ is more than a state of mind: it means willingness to become
his pupils. As believers, we must be ready to be taught by God himself:
Each one has to learn the wisdom of God, the powerful word of the Father, from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. We have to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the length, breadth, depth, and height of our soul. Through him, we must learn to suffer the works of God. We must be so completely ready for our own nature to be exterminated that our name is made to stink spiritually among the godless, and only then may we preach God's name. Christ must preach in our hearts first; only then can we give a witness to his word. God's hand must first bring us to humility before him; otherwise we are unable to recognize the truth. We must be taught by Christ himself. We must go to the original source so that fire is sent into our hearts and consciences. Then the word of God will enlighten us; the Spirit will explain the truth to us and transfigure it in such a way that we are ready to give our lives for it. We must call to God in prayer until he reveals himself and is ready to show himself to our hearts and reveal his word. Then we must give witness to this innermost revelation of the divine. Only like this can we understand the holy scriptures.
To Thomas Münzer the worst sin of the institutional church was its
attempt to monopolize God's word. Where freedom of the word is
forbidden, he felt, we must do everything to bring it back; and we
should not allow ourselves to be restricted in or diverted from this
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freedom. The teaching of the Spirit and the word is so universally
understandable that its demands can be grasped by the humblest
and lowliest. Its uniting sparks leap past the letter, past human
erudition, to reach and kindle even the dullest heart.
God wants to speak into our hearts, says Thomas Münzer, though
we shall not be able to hear it, until we gain an insight into our
own innermost hearts. First of all, after we have conquered our
fear, we must be ready to crucify completely all our desires, our
urge for ownership, our covetous urge for possession, otherwise
the field of life stays full of thorns and thistles. Before the seed of
the living word can enter into us, the plowshare must break up the
field and root out the weeds. Without this new plowing and turning
over from rock bottom up, no one can be a Christian. No one can
become sensitive to God's work and God's word without
overthrowing all feelings, ways of thinking, and will. The pious
want nothing to do with all this because they reject the bitter
Christ, they gorge themselves to death on the honey of their sickly-
sweet piety.
They lack the whole Christ because they have lost the bitter cross. The teaching of the bitter Christ, the witness of the completely revolutionary cross of Christ in all its seriousness is in sharp contrast to the imaginary faith held by the general run of the pious. Only when the Holy Spirit speaks into the depths of a purified and freed spirit can the bitter Christ be revealed as the redeemer. The lying fabrications of false Christianity must be torn up so that the true and authoritative epistle of Christ can take its place.
Addressing the miners of Mansfeld, Thomas Münzer declared:
It is impossible to say anything to you in God's name as long as these tyrants rule over you. The oppression is so great that the
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poor are no longer capable of reading things that might move their hearts and make them glad. And then the false prophets come along and preach in the most shameless way from their pulpits that the poor should continue to let themselves be worked to the bone by the tyrants. That, they say, is the right way of Christ, to be made humble. When should the poor read the scriptures, then? When should they come to a recognition of the truth? When will the false prophets tell the rich and the princes to divest themselves of all their power and riches and humble themselves? And when will they tell them that they are not going the way of Christ, because they keep aloof from poverty and degradation?
Thomas Münzer was admittedly a bitter enemy of the economic and
political tyrants of his day, yet it should be noted that his enmity
sprang from opposition to that metaphysical, meta-political, meta
economic, and superhuman tyrant, the devil.
The most thorough liberation from the ultimate tyranny is liberation from the power of the devil. People become free from this power only when they wait with eager, expectant hearts for the living word of God, the liberating word of Christ, with which Jesus put Satan to flight. We need outward freedom in order to gain inner freedom; we need stillness for God, room for his liberating inner word.
We must first become quite empty before God in Christ can enter
into us through the Holy Spirit. Stripped of all comfort and all
pride, we must lie prostrate at God's feet before God can come to
lead us, the dead and the slain, to resurrection. An utter agony of
despair must knock at the doors of our heart – only then are we
allowed to hear about faith. Those who dare to speak about faith in
any other circumstances have stolen it; they preach what has never
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been tested in themselves. In truth, they are completely devoid of
faith and love; they even hinder the working of the Holy Spirit with
their vain talking. Everything they preach about faith and love is
stolen goods, which can go to no heart. Therefore, instead of
preaching empty words and dead Christianity to people, our aim
must be to bring them first of all to ignorance. They shall no longer
know anything, no longer be capable of anything, so that they can
now be taught by the Holy Spirit himself, the spirit of truth.
The false prophets of today want us to burst suddenly into faith; they do not want the experience of fighting their way through disbelief and despair. But anyone who refuses to go through this experience really knows absolutely nothing about faith. He is nothing but a treacherous scribe, who uses the stolen scriptures for his own honor and glory. He knows nothing of what God himself says. He gladly accepts the written word itself, but he will not accept the One who inspired it.
Those who have never had faith without any faith, hoped against
all hope, loved against all love, know nothing of God. They have
not yet seen the lamb who alone has the power to open the Book.
Faith begins only when the word becomes flesh in us, when Christ
is born in us, when we are transplanted from Adam into Christ,
when we are reborn, and when the love of God is poured into our
hearts. The word that is merely heard and read, kills; it never gives life:
Reading and hearing alone is ape-like mimicry; to accept the outward scripture is to feast and drink at Christ's expense; just as the most cunning thieves manage to steal the best books, faith in the Bible is like the empty faith of rogues and scoundrels…
All popes and tyrants, whether in Rome or Wittenberg, must be overthrown, for it is they who cannot understand Christ
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because they themselves want to be preachers of the gospel. They are puppet popes, who cannot change for the good be cause they preach for their own glory with heart and soul, flesh and blood, bone and marrow. Those who are gripped by Christ, however, must follow in Christ's footsteps; and no commentary on the Bible, no man-made glossary of the holy scriptures is a help. All these defenses of human faith can only be a hindrance.
The son of God has said, "The scripture gives witness." The scribes
say, "The scripture gives faith." Witness it can give, but never faith.
It can be a help or a service – therefore it should be read and
proclaimed – but it can never itself be the cause of faith.
In an interpretation of Psalm 19 addressed to one of his best
pupils, Thomas Münzer says that the word of God must be taught
afresh practically, not according to an outward understanding of
the word, but rather from the living voice that comes down to us
from heaven.
We must understand everything with our eyes fixed on the dawn of Christ. After the long night, the sun must rise out of its true origin – God. We must first of all know that we are in the night, and then after this night the true word will be shown abroad in full daylight, and the beloved Bridegroom will come from his chamber like a strong man. We have to make a sharp distinction between this inner word of our beloved Christ and the outward scripture. The latter is a pointer, an interpretation, a convenience, or a witness to the innermost treasure – an instrument. But then the Spirit must supervene, for he alone can give the melody, impart the vital content. Therefore you must not take one passage from one place in the Bible and another from another place, out of context. You have to grasp the whole spirit of the scriptures, zealously comparing passages with each other, which is possible only with the help and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
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Therefore in truth no scholar understands the Holy Writ. The universities are the greatest confusers of the word of the Bible and always will be to the end of days. They give all kinds of meanings to outward things, but they do not recognize the es sential meaning. Nothing will be disclosed to them because they do not yet walk in the Spirit. They cannot come to faith because they are still rich in their own spirit. They are not yet shrouded in the deepest darkness, therefore the nightingale of the Holy Spirit does not sing for them. They lack the inner word in the depths of their souls because they imagine they already have enough big books. They lack the true word, on which the Holy Spirit depends, because at the bottom of their hearts is nothing but scholarship of the letter. They want to conjure the spirit out of the letter of the scriptures, like magicians telling fortunes with cards. They want to make the true dawn of the new day arise out of tattered pages. They want to place the outward testimony above Christ. They are not even as far as Moses, for Moses was conscious of the strength of God in the depths of his soul. They think they can teach faith with human theology, and they have not yet realized that faith can be given only in the cross of utter poverty of Spirit. For them, dawn cannot break because they deny the night. The day cannot dawn in their hearts because in the midst of night they imagine themselves already in the day.
Bible scholars say that the written word is the voice of Christ. They take the birdcage for the bird. The bird is no longer inside though. They put a music box in the birdcage to make sounds like a bird, but with that, the living bird is by no means there. They make a trumpet of the letter, but they cannot blow it be cause the right sound is not in it. The right sound has to be added to it, otherwise the trumpet must be thrown away.
So the Bible is not to be understood through semantics but through
the Holy Spirit, who alone gives us understanding and grants
certainty in divine things. Here is a way toward the interpretation
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of all mysteries; an explanation of ecstasy; the revelation of the
innermost word; the unlocking of divine treasures; and the
omnipresence of God.
What no one is able to perceive from without or experience from
within is given as a revelation – how good God is, how he loves to
speak to each one who will truly listen to him.
Only those, then, who have a revelation from God may speak of
the word of God. There has always been this revelation. The wise
men of the East had heard the word speaking within them and had
seen it shining above them; and so they came to the Christ who,
although he was still to be born, was already born in their hearts.
Things become known that in the coming kingdom of God are to
become reality. When Jesus said, "My words will not pass away,"
he was not speaking of the print in books, for that is not at all
important. He meant that those words spoken by him as Mary's son
on the way to the cross, to the resurrection, and to his ascension –
that these words of his will be spoken in the hearts of believers
everywhere and at all times through the Holy Spirit. Therefore we
may not say with the false prophets: Jesus said that, for it is writ
ten in the Bible. Rather, we have to say with the true prophets: This
is what the Lord says; he says it at the present time; now, in the
present, he is doing it. With God, nothing is in the past;
everything is present. The revelation that goes on in the church is
the revelation of this inner word. God is always ready to speak to us.
Everyone can read the scriptures, the word that is in his or her
heart, and yet Münzer says:
Christ is never born in a greedy heart. God speaks his holy word in our inmost soul. He points the despairing soul to the new
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birth. Our inmost heart is like the document on which God writes his immovable will and eternal wisdom. The word begins to dawn on the conscience. It is spoken into the soul. It is born there. But what is then born is not just anything general, indefinite, or incomprehensible – but the king of the Jews, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ, the son of Mary. He reveals his fullness in the depths of the human soul. In the coming kingdom, it is he who will lead in the rulership of God over all the earth.
The word of Jesus Christ and the truth the prophets and apostles
represented from the beginning can only truly come into its
rightful authority when it is carried out in a life that has been
renewed, a life lived in common with others, filled and guided by
the fire of the Holy Spirit and the fiery light of the living word.
This is the way God's truth is revealed. We see it in the unity of
the church in the early Christian times. It is always a question of
hearing the living word of God directly from the mouth of God
through his Holy Spirit. This faith by revelation as a recognition of
the truth goes hand in hand with the holy scriptures. This, then, is
the unity of the apostolic church: taking hold of the perfect unity
of the kingdom of God through the living word and at the same
time recognizing this word in the Bible, as it was once given di
rectly to the prophets and to the apostles.
The church of Jesus Christ must be built up new again and again
through the word of God. She must be kept from going astray
through the word of God; she must recognize error and must
receive into her heart the pure wisdom of the living seed, that is to
say, the direct word of God given through the Holy Spirit. The
church of Jesus Christ expects this revelation daily. What the Spirit
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says directly to the open and expectant church cannot be said by
any man or woman. The divine will is made known to her by God
himself. When that really and truly takes place, we are completely
at one with the Bible of the prophets and the apostles. Everything
the Spirit says to the church now has long ago been put into words
by the holy scriptures, only it is hidden and inaccessible until we
are taught directly by the Holy Spirit. We must let ourselves be
instructed by him in all the things asked of us. But we can do that
only when we receive Christ.
God wants to speak again and again, otherwise he would be a
dumb god, a dead god. We have to turn to God again and again.
Any insight grasped through the Holy Spirit is absolutely one with
the holy scriptures. Christ is one with the Spirit. He gives the key to
the written and printed word. We have to be ready for the word
through letting the Holy Spirit move our hearts. Whoever does not
know the Holy Spirit is blind, no matter how often he or she may
read the Bible.
When God himself speaks his holy word into the depths of our
hearts, the working of the spirit in the depths of the heart will
become deeds, so that in everything God's work is done. That can
only happen when we have become dwelling places for God and his
Holy Spirit. Then in the whole of life God's witness is turned into
works and deeds.
The whole of life will represent what God imparts directly to our
hearts through his living word. It emerges from the innermost
recesses of our hearts and becomes a visible reality in life. If that
does not happen, then what arises within us does not come from
the Holy Spirit. The picture such a life presents, however, will very
clearly and definitely agree in every detail with the whole of the
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Bible and with all the words of Christ. In this way, everything the
Holy Spirit reveals in our hearts will be God's work and not ours.
The power of God's word will show itself in God's works.
Those who have been taught by the Holy Spirit accept the
living word into their hearts and agree with one another in utmost
harmony. In all the words the Spirit has spoken they are united with
all those who are likewise called, with the whole clear history of
the apostles and the messengers of God and all the prophets.
Just as any work requires suitable tools and materials, the spirit
of Christ needs the word of the apostles and prophets as his
instrument. He reminds us of all the sayings we find in the gospels.
Through our conscience he urges us to deepen our knowledge and
acceptance of the word through constant reading and listening. In
our heart he turns the inwardly comprehended word of the gospel
into a living expression of his nature. Just as the living word testifies
to the powerful influence of Christ's presence, the spirit of Christ
turns written or printed letters into an expression of his very
being, coming directly from Christ himself.
Therefore when our life has been renewed by community with
Christ, we will not demand the appearance of Christ's body, as if it
were necessary to bring Christ down from heaven or even up from
the kingdom of the dead. Instead, we will experience the living
presence of Christ's spirit through the word that has directly
pierced our hearts. The life-giving word, as the fullest expression
of the experience of our hearts, is spoken out and confessed with
our mouth. Faith in Jesus Christ and the confessing of his name are
alive as soon as the word, like a living seed, is planted directly into
our innermost hearts. When the word is near, it means that God is
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near. For the word is Jesus Christ himself; out of his spirit is born
every sentence of the truth. From the beginning, Jesus Christ is the
revelation of the Father, which reached its culmination in history
when he became flesh and dwelt among us. His life brought the
word among us as the will of God put into practice in actual life.
And therefore the keeping of the word can be no blind, outward
obedience but is unity of life with Jesus Christ, energetically being
put into practice here and now.
Life can be given only through the living and abiding word of
truth. If his word is not in us, we directly oppose life and truth: we
belong to death and lies, we are enemies of life and reality. When
we are truly renewed, our strength comes from every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God. Our inner life will be strong and
victorious to the same degree that we make his triumphant word
real. Our life exists and gets its power from every word of God.
The indivisible spirit of God is alive and at work in the whole
word. When we suppress parts of his scriptures, push them aside,
or refuse to acknowledge them, we withdraw our life from the
light of truth. If we are unable to see how to apply some part of
the Bible to our life because it has not yet become important to us
in an inner way, we should remember in what way God's life came
into our hearts. What we have experienced from Christ as an inner
word used to be mere letters, cold and alien to us. Out of the
unfathomable depths of the word (which are perhaps still remote
to us), the Spirit wants to let undreamed-of aspects of the living
reality of God and Christ sink into our hearts. If we try to avoid
God's working in any area of our life, we avoid the way of truth.
We lose the life God gives. "Man lives by every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God." Life from God wants the whole of the
written word to become alive in his church.
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The word is the seed of life. The state of the soil is decisive for its
well being and growth. Whoever receives the word with joy and
tries to have faith for a time, only to fall away again and lose
everything in a moment of temptation, is left with nothing in the
end. The hour of temptation tests whether or not the word has
been deeply planted in us and has taken root. Those who after they
have heard the word cherish it are like the good soil. They love him,
and in them the Father and the Son make their dwelling.
Love and loyalty to the word are determined through the innermost
direction of the will. That is why Teresa of Avila describes love as
an arrow shot by the will. In his word, God makes known his will,
which is love. He lets the truths of this word pierce our hearts as
the sharp arrows of his love. In the same way, only a firm and
taut-strung will is capable of sending our love toward God's heart
and of showing the same love to all by carrying out his word faithfully,
using love's weapons. Only such a decisive will can recognize the
word of Jesus as the true expression of God's nature: "If someone
wants to do the will of him who sent me, he will know whether this
teaching is from God." The energy for all acts of obedience is born
out of a common inner will with God, in which the heart says to
God, "What wilt thou have me do?"
For this reason, the power of our inner life shows whether the
word of God is alive in us. Without the inner word alive within us,
no prayer will be answered and no evil overcome. Through the
sword of the spirit, the Lord has overcome the Tempter. The firm
word of God in the hearts of the disciples is the rock foundation on
which they feel secure. It fills their hearts with certainty: they have
the fulfillment of their prayers before anyone else can see it. Without
the living word within us, there is no victory over sin; "I have kept
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thy word in my heart so that I do not sin against thee!" There is
only one way of abiding in the Father and in the Son: letting the
word we have heard from the beginning abide in us.
The written word becomes so alive in a believing heart that at
every crossroad and in every danger it is ready to be our unerring
guide. Through his word, Jesus comes to meet us as our Lord. His
authority to lead us and to direct our lives in all things is felt in our
innermost hearts to be his holy right, and to obey it is our highest
calling.
In today's culture, the ideal of a "born leader" is sometimes
glorified as a noble personality, a character of charismatic grace
and authority and strength. Above all, it is emphasized that leadership
is an avocation, which no one can be given from without; that a
true leader is not chosen by his followers but appears among them,
and chooses them.
Only Jesus is this real leader. In truth and purity, he fulfills the
longing of youth – of all people. Spirit and love are united in him in
one person. It was Jesus who came up to his people and called out
with unhindered authority, "Follow me!" "Whoever does not leave
everything and follow me is not worthy of me." Today his word
brings his presence near and sends the same call of discipleship to
his chosen. For the word is his personal will, through which he
shows his authority, overpowering all those who hear his call and
winning them for himself.
Imitation can never replace the Spirit's leading. When one hears
of an accident in the mountains, the first question is always
whether the victim has been climbing without a guide, trying to
imitate as best he could those who, though no more capable, were
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still safely led. No one is able to manage without a guide in the
dangerous regions through which the narrow way leads us. Anyone
who ventures into the rugged paths of life without the clear inner
leading of the word is traveling toward certain disaster, no matter
how much he or she keeps the example of others in view.
In other words, the Holy Spirit must speak anew in every heart.
Like an illuminating flood of light, the Spirit pours onto our path,
where in spite of our human light we had lost our bearings. When
the word comes over us in this way, it is like the sun suddenly breaking
through the fog to show the lost traveler the way.
The living word within us wants to lead, master, and rule the
whole of our life. It wants to put God's will into action. And in
truth, it is only in deed that we can show that we are truly letters
of Christ, written with the spirit of the living God.
Our lives can be transformed only from within. Yet the aim of
the word alive within us is that it should be put into practice in
deeds and in truth. Only so will it be proved that we are an epistle