Part 2
ever does not seek the holy of holies, will never understand that
God wants only one thing. He will never understand that in spite of
the fact that in history God has appointed a bloody, diplomatic
world government anchored in the right to property, God wants
only one thing in the end: love without violence, freedom from all
possessions and property rights, simple truthfulness and brotherly
justice, community of all people without self-interest and prop
erty – that is, the kingdom and the church.
Whoever is estranged from the heart of God will be just as per
plexed when confronted by the mystery of the human heart. For
that is where the likeness of God shall be revealed. Such people will
never be able to grasp:
The greatest wonder in all creation,
Of time and space the masterpiece:
The human heart with its elation,
The heart with all its ecstasies.
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The Bible, which speaks of the heart in such a rich and profound
way, is of all books the only one that can satisfy the inner life and
fill the heart. If it is not seen superficially according to its letter
but deeply in its heart and soul, it witnesses everywhere to the
heart as the innermost mystery. It even goes so far as using the
Hebrew expressions for "heart" and for "that which is within" as
synonyms. In the Bible the heart is the antithesis of superficiality
and pretense. What penetrates to the inmost depths does not sim
ply stay on the surface.
What comes from the inmost depths is the noblest and sincerest
of all. If our heart is corrupt, nothing we touch remains incorrupt.
But the outer life resists the inner life and strives against it. There
is seldom harmony between them.
A pure, creative spirit expresses what is within very clearly and
intelligibly by outward and visible signs. An impure and untruthful
spirit, on the other hand, misuses the outward expression to falsify
the true state of affairs. Then the outward appearance is there only
to hide what is within, as public economy and politics reveal so
painfully in war and in peace.
We in our days have had to look on with horror while spirits who
have fallen prey to hate and hostility, of whatever party or nation,
have practiced the most hateful misuse of the spoken, written, and
printed word. They all, every one of them, practice it to this day,
dishonestly exaggerating and inventing failures and mistakes in the
enemy's camp, and, just as much, exaggerating and inventing ad
vantages and elements of truth in the home camp. Every honest
person must be warned of the daily flood of printed matter: Cave
canem! Here you will get barked at and bitten; there is no sense, no
understanding, and no insight here because there is no justice. Pass
by! Words desecrate the truth! Here the heart is cloaked in lies.
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The scriptures call the heart the part hidden in the inner being.
The thought is even intensified by terms like the "inmost" heart
and the "depths" of the heart. The secrets of the heart are known
to the scriptures. In the scriptures, anyone is marked as unhappy
who has to hide in an armor of lies and dishonesty in order to
appear different from what he or she truly is. Whoever gets
entangled in hypocrisy and deceit cannot open up and pour out his
or her heart even before God – the very one who wants to make
the heart glad because he loves it and wants to give it truth and
genuineness.
Ultimately, however, our innermost being cannot be hidden – we
must do what is in our heart. And even if we do not want to admit
it, our deeds will finally reveal whether our hearts are right or
wrong.
War and postwar times have brought surprises for many of us:
they should be stamped on our hearts as unforgettable warnings.
We must not be indifferent to the abysses that have yawned in
front of us: impure and unbridled passions, boundless lies and
deceptions, the unrestrained fury of murder and looting, the love
less triumph of ruthless profiteering, the renewed increase of
social injustice and oppressions, and the deception of class hatred
and racism! All that, and still more, breaks out with the most fear
some violence in war and in the revolutions and violent repression
that often follow it, with inflation and with heated political opin
ions. The shock of these things must be engraved unforgettably on
our memory. The dreadful nucleus of these events is something we
have to recognize even when it tries to hide behind the glittering
armor of the most idealistic words and goals. Not the program but
the deed discloses what powers drive the heart on and control it.
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All we do is bound to be powerless and evil if the heart is parched
and diseased, burdened and faint, or worst of all, if it is hostile,
filled with the impure fires and poisonous smoke of blind hate.
Only an inner life that is recollected and that lives in the strength
of concentrated peace, only a harmonious heart that does not
disintegrate in quarrels and strife, can give proof of strength to
act. For only good works are constructive. Everything else is
destructive. We can see outward effects, but God tests and knows
the inner recesses of the heart. He wants to lead our hearts away
from murderous demolition to the living work of building up. He
alone knows how to guide them, just as we guide streams of
running water to one place or another in our gardens. God wants
to let all hearts flow together into one great garden, into the king
dom of his unity, love, and justice, where all do what is good
because their hearts move them to it and the Spirit leads them and
urges them on.
The Bible makes the heart responsible for bringing something
new to us. As the Bible sees it, everything of significance is decided
in the inner recesses of the heart. From the heart flow not only the
streams of blood that fill our veins –no, also the pure winds and
waters of the Spirit. That can be seen in the contrasting statements
about the heart in prophetic and apostolic writings: what defiles
the heart is not what enters it from without but what comes from
within, from the inner being. It is false to maintain that our nature
can be influenced by food taken in by the body or by hygiene or
gymnastics. This is in distinct opposition to the word and life of
Jesus. It leads to this thoughtless and deceptive saying: "A man is
what he eats," set up in opposition to the truth of Jesus. Those who
believe this have had to realize only too often that the defilement
of our inner being lies deeper than in eating and drinking. The true
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food, the food of the spirit, remains decisive, though to be sure the
abuse of eating and drinking through luxurious living can also
burden the heart.
In truth it is quite the other way round: a luxurious and volup
tuous life has its origin in the heart. What we do, we are. There are
deeper signs of this than diets and rules of hygiene. As long as we
think first and foremost of our health and our own well-being, we
remain unredeemed, with a sick and self-seeking heart. Because we
love our life, we lose it. Only when we give it up, do we find it.
What comes to light out of the heart is of vital significance.
Every sort of idolatry will inevitably be exposed. The words uttered
by the mouth (outward speech) come from the overflowing of the
heart (the inner being). What we speak about, we are – that is, of
course, provided we are speaking from our hearts. Nevertheless,
the sincerity or insincerity of our words cannot be hidden in the
long run. A watchful spirit, clearly discerning the spirits, hears the
tones of the heart and sees the lights of the soul. All empty talk is
useless, however lofty the words. What use is all outward service
to God if our inner being, our heart, stays at a distance? Only what
we do for the Lord with all our heart has any value. What point is
there in letting our feet take paths and steps if our hearts do not
go along too? All that is done and carried out in imagined strength
remains a mere nothing if the living heart does not beat and pulse
in it. As long as our heart stays quick and alive, even the weakest,
those incapable of productive work, can have the strongest influ
ence. The heart is the inner core that does not rest even when the
outer person is inactive. God does not look at outward appearance
but at the heart.
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Strength and weakness lie in our innermost being. Although our
inner attitude can be hidden or disguised on the outside, it never
theless makes all the difference to our character. Only what passes
through one heart to another has any value or strength, because it
comes from the heart. Whoever has experienced how complete or
almost complete strangers open their innermost hearts to one
another will feel again and again the genuine heartbeat in each
true word and turn away from empty words in which the heart
does not speak.
The living church receives its unity and unanimity from the
continual outpouring of the Spirit. It is there that the harmony of
all hearts reaches its climax, for there all have become one heart
and one soul. And this they will be over and over again, every time
they believe in the Holy Spirit.
Whoever wants to forgive with the mouth only or preach with
the lips can only disappoint us. "A preacher must have a heart on
fire before preaching." With these words Francis of Assisi revealed
the secret of his fruitful life. "For anything that is to move hearts
must come straight from the heart." That is what Phorkyras
demands in Goethe's Faust.
The heart is rich in strength. What a wealth and diversity of lively
emotions are embedded in the heart! Many people associate the
heart only with feelings. And indeed, language does not go far
wrong when it speaks so often of the emotional life as the heart's
affair. The best and deepest feelings are seated in our innermost
being, but just as much our most wicked and harmful ones.
All true joy comes from the heart and fills it with jubilant exulta
tion or quiet happiness. All genuinely good deeds touch the heart.
Every joyful hope has its life in the heart. The refreshing of the
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spirit, and not only that but also the refreshing of body and soul, is
a gift for the inner life, for the heart. For the heart is grateful for
every consolation that offers bread and not stones. The heart really
does have to fight against fear and unrest, pain and sadness.
Our times have shown us all too clearly that the heart does not
burn with love and joy only. All too often it plunges into the
consuming fires of discontent and hate. We must be surprised to
the point of being horrified how for one reason after another
passion causes the heart to flare up in rage and distress! What a
catastrophe it would be for the heart if it were to exhaust all its
wealth on its conflicting feelings! And how deluding these storms
are even though they are often only big enough to fill a teacup!
Strong impressions produce shaking emotions. Miserable lusts
cramp the heart. Deep emotion alternates with very petty feelings.
It can happen that unclarified, unconscious, and subconscious
feelings lead to something good. But often they veil urges that are
dangerously apathetic and can lead the heart to destruction.
It is not true that the heart can only feel. No, the heart as the
inner core is more than feeling: it is intention and will. It is the seat
of all deep thoughts, which have meaning only if they move our
inner being. "Great thoughts come from the heart." Everything
that is great seeks the living core. The heart is not only inner
feeling: it is also inner thought. There is a speaking and talking
going on in the heart that tries to bring inner clarity to all its
thinking. Reason is not alien to the heart. To be sure, there are
some unreasonable hearts who by their errors show nothing but
folly. But what the sensible and understanding heart thinks out is
wisdom. It understands how to know and recognize the best
counsel. Just in the inconceivably heavy things that war and its
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historical consequences bring upon us all, just in the incalculable
and unfathomable tasks that confront us, the heart needs the
greatest and deepest thoughts. These God alone can give.
There are indeed thoughts that will always be alien to the heart.
There are indeed hearts that hate thinking. But without a certain
rich and deep fusion of thoughts there is no fruitful inner life. The
whole wealth of life intended for the heart is available to it only
when the heart is ready to open itself to the deepest thinking and
reflection. It is in the nature of the heart to think and reflect.
"Your heart is you yourself. Blessed are you if understanding
always dwells in your heart." Only the consecrated thoughts of a
dedicated life lead to this deep understanding. True understanding
is given solely in the thoughts of God, which turn his will into the
holy "thou shalt."
The effect that thoughts have on the heart's feelings provides a
certain criterion of their value, though not always an infallible one.
As Ruskin expressed it: "Literature, art, science – they are all
fruitless and worse than fruitless if they do not enable us to be
glad, and glad of heart at that." A heart that is truly alive passes a
kind of higher judgment about those intellectual ideas that cannot
fit into our life at the moment, and perhaps never will. "Like a sun,
the heart goes through our thoughts and on its way extinguishes
one constellation after another!" Jean Paul saw his inner life
before him in this picture. All knowledge related only to the
thinking brain is dead, including mere intellectual knowledge of
biblical things. Such knowledge brings life into deadly danger
unless the heart takes a stand and unless it is so moved and alive
that it is capable of making a choice between light and darkness,
bright and dark rays, evil stars and good stars. Only thoughts that
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have glowing warmth and strength penetrate a pure heart and
stream out from it again. Mirza-Schaffy's search for a completely
integrated inwardness comes to expression when he proclaims:
Head without heart breeds bad blood;
Heart without head is still no good.
For joy and blessing to last forever,
Heart and head must go together.*
This cooperation of two instruments demands an inner energy
to hold together what so often threatens to disintegrate. No heart
is without energy. Yes, the heart is will. God's heart – being love –
is the will to gather, the will for his kingdom. The heart of Jesus
wants to gather everything that is to be united in his church: in the
same way, the human heart that is healed in him is the clarified will
to gather and unite. If our inner being is not to let the precious
wealth of truly great thoughts go rushing by, we must have a heart
with a will that is active and glowing, able to accept words of truth
and hold on to them firmly, just as Mary did. A will made weak by
brooding and a nature ruled by feelings have never yet been ca
pable of anything great. Faith received the word of the Holy Spirit
into the heart. This is the only way the word can penetrate our life.
The ultimate nature of the heart is in fact its inner urge, and its
yet deeper will. This will is able to comprehend all that is said and
to transform it into dynamic life values. All intentions and wishes
have their root in the heart. There is not only desire in the heart:
deeper than that lie its intentions and resolutions. With its will, the
heart holds on to the objects of its love and devotion. It is the inner
disposition, the deeper direction of will, that makes the character
of the heart what it is. Where our treasure is – the treasure that
fills our inner life – there is our heart also.
*Mirza-Schaffy (pseudonym for Friedrich von Bodenstedt), –.
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"There is something in every character that will not let itself be
broken, that forms its backbone."* This backbone that is inwardly
so firm and stable is the moral, loving, and uniting will. Without a
decided will there is no character. Character is moral order. It is all
the elements of the heart, ordered according to the laws of divine
and human morality, according to the will to unity, and therefore
in the active spirit of pure and warm love. The backbone of this
order is the will. As will, the heart is the school of character. True,
it needs the stream of the world in order to grow strong. The will
has to prove itself in work that is a product of active love by help
ing to build up a life consistent with the unity it aims at. It is
steeled for this task in the hard struggle against all the powers op
posed to unity. But if our will is not rooted in our inmost being, in
our heart, we will be swept downward with the stream.
If it is true that character depends on personality, then
personality has its life and strength in the inner will. Only in the
inmost recesses of the heart do we become truly free. It is only
there that we take a decisive attitude, one that means either moral
stability or spineless instability. It is the direction the inner atti
tude takes that makes the personality. As long as this direction
seeks nothing but itself, it will lead the personality astray. Person
ality is "the greatest happiness of earth's children" only when the
will no longer seeks itself but comes into action and sets to work
for what is greatest of all – God's unity in his kingdom and his
church.
In the end, only deeds reveal the inner attitude of the heart. Only
those actions that require the concentration of all the heart's
energies can be called deeds. The true deed unites all genuine
*Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, –.
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powers of each individual, bringing togetherness and community
to all: the kingdom of God among us is the concentration of all
powers in united deed. Only when we do not seek our own
advantage but that of another are our deeds in keeping with the
powers of God's spirit at work in us: when in our deeds we sacrifice
our own life so that community life may be established in unity,
purity, truth, and righteousness.
The greatest deed of the strongest heart was accomplished by
Jesus. When he died on the cross, his resolute determination ac
complished it. Here an energy of the will found nowhere else – a
fire of love, a steadfastness in carrying out God's perfect will – is
revealed. Christ's struggle in Geth-semane and his cry of God
forsakenness on the cross give a significant glimpse into what
willpower was necessary for the heart of the Son of Man not to be
broken by the anguish of his pain. Yet his love remained strong and
unbroken till the end. In the very torment of death, the divine life
in this heart was marked by a will to unity, consummation of the
work of unification, trust in the Father, prayer for his enemies,
concern for a criminal, tender care for his own, and the commend
ing of his spirit into the hands of the Father.
Just before that, Jesus' High-Priestly Prayer, as the profoundest
speaking of any heart, had proclaimed unity to be the essence of
his will. "May they all be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in
thee, so that in this – their being one – the world may know and
believe that thou hast sent me!" The farewell words of Jesus –
those words with such an inexhaustible wealth of thought, spoken
to those who were his disciples in community and missionary
work – also revealed the spirit of this relationship of unity. This
spirit, the Holy Spirit, was revealed to be the living representative
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of Jesus Christ, the advocate of his kingdom and his church, the
power that thoroughly overwhelms in the conviction that the love
that comes from unity is the truth. The spirit of truth is the one
who calls to mind every word that Jesus said, including his last
words, which prophesy the approaching kingdom of divine unity. It
is the quickening breath of life who communicates the content and
form of the future kingdom for us today. Last but not least, the
significant symbolism of the Last Supper proclaims the death of
Jesus as atonement and liberation; it proclaims his death as the liv
ing creation of the new body of Christ, which shall bring the whole
of life into perfect unity.
All this shows, in a profound wealth of feeling and will, the in
vincible power of God's thoughts in Jesus Christ, the power to ac
complish this deed, the most dynamic deed that ever a heart ac
complished. As a revelation of God, this deed of Jesus demonstrates
the concentration of all powers on the one goal that is their task.
And this goal is nothing more or less than peace, reconciliation,
and unity!
The heart is the inner character. In Jesus it is so firm and clear
that by sacrificing his life he accomplishes the greatest deed of lib
eration, uniting, and gathering that can ever be imagined. In Jesus,
the accomplished deed reveals his inner perfection. In all of us, the
nature of our deeds reveals our heart. Deeds reveal the character
of the heart. If the heart is not clear and undivided – "single," as
Jesus puts it –then it is weak, flabby, and indolent, incapable of ac
cepting God's will, of making important decisions, or of taking
strong action. That is the reason why Jesus attached the greatest
significance to singleness of heart, simplicity, unity, solidarity, and
decisiveness. Purity of heart is nothing else than absolute integrity,
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which can overcome desires that enervate and divide. Determined
single-heartedness is what the heart needs in order to be receptive,
truthful and upright, confident and brave, firm and strong.
Yet the spirit of Jesus is seldom accepted. The strength of charac
ter that comes from him is seldom achieved. Weakness and
dividedness of heart are to blame. How often the heart tries to
overcome its own cowardice and faintheartedness through cold
pride! The divisive callousness of pride is a weakness that destroys
everything, making the inner self numb and stubborn, yet torn and
disrupted too. The self-will that splits and divides itself has an arro
gance that is the enemy of the love of God.
The heart tries in vain to close itself to the knowledge that it is
too weak, too rotten and wicked, too disunited, too divided, and
too hostile to help itself. For all its blindness to its own nature, and
against its own will, time after time the heart has to uncover pride
and arrogance, wickedness and cunning, ruthlessness and deceit, as
the self-will and self-interest that continually divide it. Debasement
of the heart can go so far in rigid obstinacy that all pretense comes
to an end: God is tempted and cursed until darkness fills the heart's
inmost recesses.
The heart, however, longs for the opposite – for a development
of the inner life that leads to honest self-recognition, single-
hearted simplicity, and unfeigned humility. In this spirit of
modesty, the consciousness of one's own smallness unites with the
divine call to true greatness. Such a development, brought about
by God, requires a penetrating insight into everything that is base
in one's own heart, an insight that in fact means a revolution in the
heart. No one has an innocent heart when faced with this radical
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revolution.
Consciousness of guilt and unfulfilled longing for God, however,
may not only soften the heart but positively tear it apart and crush
it. Many people have shattering things to say about the consuming
fire of this longing of the heart. Many call it the deepest thing in
themselves, the thing they want to gain a glimpse into:
In my heart there burns an eternal lamp,
quiet and steady;
only once in a while it flares up high,
rises to a flame,
to a blazing fire
raging and consuming and destroying –
then I summon all my energy,
only one wish have I then,
only one hope,
only one thought –
and the eternal flame flickers and smokes
for a long, long time
until it is appeased and becomes quiet:
my eternal longing!*
The blazing flame of longing is certainly there, but it will have to
flicker, restless and unappeased and impure, until the heart submits
to the inner influence of the sharp, clarifying word and cutting
wind of the spirit of God. Then the smoky blaze can give way to the
perfect light of the "Christ in us." Nevertheless, because the heart
is as weak as it is obstinate and only too used to its own divided
*Michael Grabowsky, –.
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and disrupted state, it will not surrender lightly. It tries by every
possible means to defend itself. It tries passionately to cling to
self-chosen, human ideals meant to bolster its self-will and hostile
self-assertion – either alone or in community with equally selfish
kindred hearts. But it is all in vain, even though the heart can cover
up or postpone the decisive battle for a long time.
All attempts to lift the heart up in human, emotional enthusiasm
for some god other than the Father of Jesus Christ are made in vain.
In spite of every effort, all that the natural state of the human
heart reveals is how far it has fallen away from God. Today more
than ever this is unintentionally revealed by many movements.
Inflamed hearts give rise to movements that use hatred, injustice,
and godlessness to pursue the goal of unity and social justice – but
in vain. Other movements pay homage (supposedly patriotic but in
reality hostile and restricted) to a deity opposed to the living God –
a deity alien to Christ and inimical to him.
The veil has to fall away. It darkens the heart and restricts it to
itself or to groups bound together by blood ties or a common lot.
Nothing must hinder the outlook toward God. God, the Father of
Jesus Christ, can be seen only by looking with a resolute and
unfaltering heart toward the perfect unity of his kingdom, a unity
free from all arbitrary boundaries, its one goal an all-embracing
justice – the result of the divine joy of perfect love to friend and
foe. This free outlook presupposes and demands a complete liberation
of the heart from every false emotional tie, yes, a complete change
of heart, the new birth brought about by the Holy Spirit.
The heart must not be allowed to remain as it is. It must experi
ence the healing transformation that frees it from all rank and
impure growth, all egotistical isolation. If it wants to be really free,
the heart must be circumcised – pruned – and the weedy growth of
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self-will and self-glorification around it must be thinned out and
cast away.
The Odes of Solomon, an early Christian collection of hymns from
the second century, witness in a profound way to this circumcision
of the heart:
My heart was circumcised and its flower appeared. Grace sprang up in it, And brought forth fruit for the Lord. For the Most High cut me by his Holy Spirit And opened my reins toward him. He filled me in his love And his circumcision became my salvation – I hastened on the way of his peace, On the way of truth. From beginning to end I received his knowledge. I was firmly established on the rock of truth, Where he himself set me up. The Lord renewed me with his raiment And created me by his light. From above he refreshed me with immortality So I became like a land That blossoms and rejoices in its fruit. Like the sun upon the face of the earth, The Lord gave light to mine eyes, And my face received the dew; My breath delighted in the precious odors of the Lord. He led me into his paradise, Where the pleasure of the Lord abounds. I threw myself before the Lord For the sake of his glory, and I said: "Blessed are they that are planted in thy land,
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That have a place in thy paradise,
That grow like the growth of thy trees
And have stepped from darkness into light!
Behold, all thy workers are fair And do good works. From unkindness they turn to the strength of thy love. They cast off the bitterness of the trees When they were planted in thy land. For there is much room in thy paradise, And there is nothing that is useless therein,
But everything is filled with thy fruits!"
Therefore Fichte said: "As long as we want to be something for our
own sake, our true nature and our true life cannot develop in us,
and for this very reason we also remain cut off from blessedness."
Fichte sees all selfishly isolated existence quite rightly as nonexist
ence, deadly restriction, cut off from the only true existence. It is
only in blessed community with the divine being that the greatest
inner freedom can exist, replacing the unhappiness of sensual self-
love and the insensitivity of moralistic legalism. Circumscribed self-
love and heartless legalism are the enemies of the gospel of unity
and freedom. The true freedom of a heart ruled by God does away
with superficial legalism. An inner urge that comes from perfect
love replaces it: the impulse of the Holy Spirit, leading to the
divine order of a common life in complete community. Here all
isolation and all arbitrary limitations are thoroughly overcome.
Through the unity of the Holy Spirit, the church and the kingdom
are proved to be the only true existence, the only true life. For it is
God's love that reveals itself in the unity of his church and his
kingdom.
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This experience of God is a decisive enrichment of the inner life.
Without it, even the most gifted heart starves inwardly. The inner
acceptance of the divine means rebirth for a dead heart, so that it
then becomes a new, different heart. It cannot be a good and
upright heart until it has experienced a complete turning, a whole
hearted conversion that leads away from false narrowness within
its own self to true breadth, to the experience of God, who is
greater than our hearts. The heart needs to be redeemed from its
stubborn self-life. Only in community with the perfect life can it be
restored to health. The perfect life is love. The omnipotent breadth
and depth of God's greatness is revealed as love. In Christ and his
spirit, a complete uniting (as the church and the kingdom) is
brought so near to us by love that together we are able to go this
way of love.
On the path of faith, the heart is led away from the inner
resistance it puts up against perfect love, and closer and closer to
openhearted, voluntary obedience. The obedience that springs
from faith opens up to the heart of God and to the heart of his
kingdom. It is only through experiencing the free gift of God's love
that the human heart can be purified of its stubbornness and
despair. Only unfeigned love from the purest spheres can oust those
hostile elements that are the opposite of love: self-will, wrapped
up in itself, and impure passion of all kinds that destroys root and
branch its own life-energy as well as that of its victims.
The gift that comes from the purifying and liberating love of the
Most High is grace. In this one short word, the Bible encompasses
the wealth of God's heart, which wants to give itself to us in love.
It is in grace that God draws near to us. The hardship of our times
and the abundance of tasks it brings show us how forlorn we are in
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the world, and how helpless, without God. In judgment, grace
becomes the deepest need of our hearts. It is only through the free,
communal gift of the Holy Spirit to his church that the hardship of
our times becomes an invigorating mineral bath, immersing us in
the salty strength of the future kingdom of God. Then, in complete
community, we can carry out here and now the tasks of justice. The
greater the need and distress, the nearer draws the kingdom of
God.
The nature of grace is made clear in the bitter fate of the one
who was crucified, in the way he sacrificed himself completely to
the greatest of all tasks. When the heart experiences the freeing
power of his death, scripture calls it being sprinkled with the blood
of the redeemer. The heart, taking firm hold of unity with Christ
through his death, puts the whole of life into militant action
against the powers that put Jesus to death. Consequently, this bap
tism of blood means not only being ready to die for him, but some
thing even more immediate – being prepared time and again to risk
life itself in the fight against powers that oppose the kingdom of
God. For us there is no other basis for true peace of heart than this
fight to the bitter end. Right to the point of death by martyrdom,
the strength for this fight comes from unity with Christ in his
death, from the direct nearness of God's heart. Only the cross
brings perfect trust in God. Here, in the sharpest judgment of his
wrath over all that is evil, God reveals loving grace to all as his
innermost nature.
Through his spirit, God himself lives in a heart united in this way
with the cross. His love is poured out in it. In the midst of murder
ous opponents of peace and justice, a heart filled like this remains
joyful in love, in a love that includes all enemies. To this joy and
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this love the martyrs of both early Christianity and the radical
Reformation have testified a thousandfold. This fundamental
strengthening of character, proven at that time in death, lets the
heart unfold all its powers-to-be with the zeal of inner fire in order
that in life as in death they may make an impact on the whole
world.
The reason Christ died for all was so that those who live may no
longer live for themselves but for him who died and rose again for
their sakes (2 Cor. 5:15). That the whole of life up to the very brink
of death is meant here – life with all its capabilities and activities –
is shown by the other word of the same apostle of Jesus Christ.
According to this word, the same people who have just previously
let themselves be used in the service of unrighteousness from now
on give themselves to God in the service of righteousness (Rom.
6:13, 19). For this is the only way the work of the Holy Spirit can
and will be continually built up anew as it once was in Jerusalem,
no matter how often Jerusalem is destroyed and no matter how
often his church is violently driven apart.
Yet this wealth of power and effective action up to the very
threshold of death cannot be won unless complete inner concen
tration and perfect accord prevail in the heart, as in the primitive
church. We know from the history of war that the strongest politi
cal power is nothing but a helpless mass of people if a united will is
lacking or has been lost. Such was the case with Germany in World
War I. Such was the experience of cities and countries in times of
siege. And so, too, the Protestant princes and cities were once
"wonderfully favored by circumstances" for the Smalkaldic War:
never, since the time of the emperors of Hohenstaufen and the
Salian emperors, had the tribes of North and South Germany united
in such a compact mass against the crown. At that time too, a war
5 8 I N N E R L A N D : A G U I D E I N T O T H E H E A R T O F T H E G O S P E L
council torn by conflicting interests was to blame for the inevitable
catastrophe of defeat.
Consequently, only when the heart refuses to let opposing inter
ests split it apart can even the richest powers and gifts be a help
and blessing to it. If the heart wants to win the victories of a faith
that has courage unto death, it needs the wholehearted decisive
ness of a unified will. We cannot serve two masters at once. We
cannot pursue two ideals. We cannot seek two goals in two direc
tions. The kingdom of God, as the final kingdom, does not tolerate
in any heart any other kingdom besides itself. The way of Jesus is
the only way that knows no byways, no wrong ways, and no
devious ways. However many roads may lead to Rome or anywhere
else – there is only one kingdom, there is only one way: the
complete uniting of all believers in all the activity that goes on in
the heart and in life as a whole. Through the decisive outpouring of
the Holy Spirit, all believers became so much one heart and one
soul that they proved the uniting of all their powers, not only in
the word of the apostles and in prayer, but also in the breaking of
bread and in community – in full community of goods too.
Only when there is an integrated will – one that is decided for
God and united with all similar wills – can the heart profess to seek
God and his kingdom. He will reveal himself powerfully only
through those who have turned an undivided heart toward him. An
undivided heart does not tolerate a divided life. Only he is truly
with God who surrenders to him as his king with all his thoughts
and feelings, all his powers, gifts, and goods in order to live truly
for God –an integrated character with an integrated life. The whole
heart has to be converted before it is possible to follow him. Where
the whole heart is turned toward him, it means that a life that is
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undivided (with all the powers of the spirit and all the wealth and
capacities of soul and body) devotes every area of its existence to
his rulership and to the church. That includes professional and vo
cational activity with all the skills involved in it; it includes all
worldly belongings and all temporal possessions.
Unless we stand firmly with God, we cannot carry out our service
to him; only when we love him heart and soul can we do his will in
everything. Not one of us can do this in our own strength. If we are
going to give all our strength and goods, we need strength from
the Holy Spirit. It does not proceed from us. It is given to us in the
word of the apostles, the community of prayer, and the breaking of
bread. Whoever knows what it is to pray from a simple, undivided
heart becomes grateful to God for his works and words and finds
his happiness in worshiping the greatness of God and doing his will.
Nothing will be impossible to one who prays this kind of prayer, the
prayer that listens to God with heart and soul. Such prayer gives
the inner life the boundless wealth of the truth of God. It leads the
heart to the knowledge that truth is unshakable because it is the
very essence of life. It has the power to accomplish everything. The
impossible becomes possible. Unity is given a place in a torn world.
Community in the fullest sense is created and built up, making the
unity of God's spirit shine out in truth and deed as the church, the
city on the hill.
If we want to wage the spiritual wars of Jehovah and win the
land for him, we must acclaim him with our whole heart! When his
will rules in our heart, he will give our inner being a wealth of ex
perience and action that it can attain only under his rulership.
When our heart is ruled by Jesus Christ as our master, then and only
then will we be equipped and qualified for the great tasks that will
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inevitably confront us in the difficulties of these times and the
hardships of the future. These tasks are nothing less than a call to
the kingdom of God and the tasks of his church.
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Soul and Spirit
The question of life and death is bound to concern us more than
ever before: war has brought death to so many who were in the
prime of life. Crime against life has increased atrociously, also
crime against unborn children. The question of life and soul is one
that people have wrestled with throughout the ages, but the
present time is so serious that it should make everything else fall
into the background. Then we can concentrate fully on what soul,
spirit, and life mean to us.
Is it not an astonishing fact that death overcomes life? Children
cannot understand death. Least of all can they see how it is pos
sible to kill people in the service of a higher cause. But even apart
from this, to children the thought that human life can one day
come to an end is always unreal –contrary to the truth. The unnatu
ralness of dying is too remote from the simplicity of their affirma
tion of life. For the same reason, the heathen of old with their zest
for life believed in the immortality of the soul. Goethe, too, who
was very much akin to them, said "Those who have no hope for a
life beyond are dead to this life as well." Life itself witnesses to its
own invincible power. Hope is the hallmark of all living things.
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As long as we want to deny that life is eternal, everything that
belongs to life remains cloaked in tormenting riddles. Eternity re
mains the deepest longing of the human spirit. When we know that
we are immortal, everything we experience is great and under
standable; when we see ourselves as mortal, it all becomes dark and
futile. If there is no other future and no other world (which is
bound to be victorious because it is the better world), then the in
justice that prevails makes nonsense of human existence by giving
final victory to "the worst of all possible worlds."
In the inner and outer circumstances of life, every living person
can learn to recognize this other world. Fichte has declared that we
only need to rise to the consciousness of a pure, moral character to
find out who we ourselves are, to find out that this globe with all
its glories, this sun and the thousands of thousands of suns that
surround it, this whole immense universe at the mere thought of
which our sentient soul quakes and trembles – that all this is noth
ing but a dim reflection in mortal eyes of our own eternal exist
ence, hidden within us, to be unfolded throughout all eternity.
And the other way round, this is the truth given to people since
primeval times: our so very small world can be nothing else than a
likeness – bungled, it is true, but nevertheless recognizable – of a
bigger, truer, and more genuine world without limits of time and
space. Our small world belongs to this bigger one. It must corre
spond to it once again. For all of us, as Kant has said, there is the
moral code within us and the starry heavens above us to bring
home a living intimation of this fact of eternity.*
Our life has its roots in eternity. Its nature presumes imperish
ability. In space, the human spirit goes far beyond all comprehen
*Immanuel Kant, –.
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sible limits. And similarly, the absoluteness of the moral demands it
makes knows no limit. The most certain of all certainties known by
our spirit is this: that the ray of truth, the power of life, and the
demand of the holy "thou shalt" keeps on coming to us from a
living world that lies beyond all space and nevertheless embraces
all space. With this energy that comes from absolute authority, the
human spirit follows the stream of time long before the beginning
and far beyond the end, going outside all boundaries. This is the
spirit's most crying need: the origin of all things before the begin
ning of time and the goal of the future at the end of time.
The thirsting soul pants for its original fountainhead and for its
estuary ahead. Once awakened to consciousness of its true self and
its divine destiny, it sees in death an enemy of life – an unnatural
enemy that fights against the very nature of things. And it sees the
same in everything else that tries to sully and destroy the clarity
and purity of the eternal.
Everything in our present time and in our earthly space that
opposes the soul's holy "thou must" and "thou shalt" must and
shall be overcome (as the soul ultimately believes it will be) by the
kingdom of God at the end of all ages and beyond all earthly things.
The "heavenly kingdom" of the other world intervenes in temporal
and earthly life as the power of the future world. It wants to trans
form life here and now according to the image of what is beyond
and to come. This happens as soon as and as long as the soul lets
faith rule in it, whenever and wherever that may be.
This other life, which is already possible here and now, means
freedom for the soul. But there will never be any such soaring of a
free soul as long as an atmosphere antagonistic to life robs it of its
breath, obscuring its view into the eternal and everlasting.
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The freedom and power of a believing soul goes so far that it
expects – with the prophetic spirit – a holy transformation to
justice and unity. It expects this also for every detail of material
existence in space and time. It is in the hope of the kingdom of God
that the soul discovers its life. To the soul, the end of all the ways
of God is unity in a tangible and visible form. For that reason, the
Bible traces the death of the body back to the fact that sin as sepa
ration – as division and isolation – has brought a fatal breach into
the living cohesion of creation. To the soul, evil is a power hostile
to life, one that carries with it the danger of eternal death by sepa
ration from God and people from each other. Sin is crime against
life and love. That was the reason why the first son born to those
human beings who separated themselves from God inevitably
became his brother's murderer.
Nevertheless, the ancient scriptures of truth maintain that it is
impossible to extinguish the life that God has given out of his own
nature. From generation to generation, physical death comes to
everyone as a consequence of separation from God. The body does
indeed die when the soul leaves it. The body that is left behind
without the soul must fall to dust. Death can never deny that its
nature is to separate by division and disintegration. This it has
proved since the very beginning through man's separation from
God. Yet death is not annihilation.
The writings of both the Old Testament and the New Testament
speak again and again about the souls of the dead. Every living soul
has a capacity for future life. All vital movements of humankind
look to the future. Whenever the soul comes to new life in the
Spirit, it waits for God's future. And even if the soul cannot believe
wholeheartedly in the coming kingdom, faith tries to salvage this
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or that small fragment of the world-to-come and then clings to it
all the more passionately. If people are not yet ready to fight and
die for the final kingdom of love and justice, they cling to a com
munistic state of the future or to a nationalist government of
patriotic and racial alliance. And in the same way, a remnant of
faith in immortality and the other world emerges again and again,
even in the most unbelieving, and this they can never lose entirely.
Something in our being is meant to continue as an active force
forever. Our divine home calls us homeward. The spirit wants to
return to God, in whom it has its origin. And though God himself is
not yet recognized, there is at least an attempt to represent a little
of his infinite significance even when it is done by idolatry.
Today we have every reason to recall the faith in eternity and
infinity that characterized the early Christians. If we want truth
and seek it regardless of the unfounded prejudices of our time, we
must and will recognize that here among the early Christians a
glimpse into ultimate reality is given. In the face of this reality, no
living soul can maintain its opposition. For here the soul is face to
face with the life-giving spirit of Jesus Christ. Whoever believes in
Jesus will live even through death. And the day is coming when they
will awake and arise to a perfect life in an immortal body.
The spirits of the just who have departed this life are at rest in
the living God. They wait for the day of his future. The character of
this perfect life in the kingdom of God is shown by the parable of
the wedding and its joyful uniting, by the comparison with the
meal of fellowship, and by the establishment of the thrones (Rev.
20:4); it is a life ruled by a love and a justice that bring about com
plete unity. In this kingdom, at the end of all things, the one Holy
Spirit will master and pervade everything. What constitutes life
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now is man's soul (that is, the life) in the blood (Lev. 17:11, 14), but
then it will be his spirit. Instead of ruling over the soul's human
body, the spirit will rule over a spiritual body.
In the kingdom, the Holy Spirit takes the place of the coursing
blood. The Spirit does away with fluctuating emotional ties and
puts in their place a unity kept constantly alive, a unity that is just
as active as it is perfectly clear. In such a body of unity, those who
are at all times united in God and serve him under his rulership live
in a radically different way from those who are far away from their
master and are thus headed toward ruin, body and soul. Because
these last have rejected the unity of life, they themselves have chosen
death and separation. But even this second death cannot mean
annihilation: even this death must show that its nature is separa
tion and division. No more dreadful fate for a living soul can be
imagined than to be cast out for all eternity from the life that is in
God.
To be excluded forever from the center of life is eternal death.
Hell is nothing but the continuation of the lives of those who live
for themselves. Their whole existence consists in the worm of
decomposition and decay, the worm that does not die, the burning
and consuming fire that is not quenched, and the judgment that
means dissolution and separation. Simply because he had kept his
riches to himself, the rich man – outside whose door the beggar
Lazarus lay –met this eternal death. Ignoring the need of others, he
had enjoyed his riches as his rightful possession. All he had
neglected to do was to give up his goods to become one with the
poor.
Only the one who sells everything and gives it to the poor can
gain treasure in heaven – life in God. Jesus challenges everyone who
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is rich to this absolutely necessary action. That is the only way to
join the itinerant, property-free community of Jesus, the unity of
those who follow him. Humanly speaking, to go this way is and
always will seem quite impossible for those who own house and
land. But with God all things are possible. History proves it. Wealth
is death because it isolates the heart from need and distress and so
isolates it from love. But God can give life even to the richest by
calling them out of death. He can free anyone by leading him or
her to the love that surrenders everything in perfect trust.
How does it happen that God with his unlimited life takes hold of
our limited existence and fills it? We must be perfectly clear about
the answer to this question and all its consequences. God is life.
Only in him do we live, move, and have our being. Physical life
throughout nature, like all life, has its origin and being in God
alone. God does not disown his creation. He will lead it through
fire to a new day. But the souls of people owe their decidedly
unique life in a very special way to a direct communication from
God. It is from God that we have the breath of life. He is the Father
of spirits: just as he created the hosts of heaven with his breath, so
on earth we received spirit from him.
Life is not limited to the blood that courses through our veins.
The blowing breath of God, breathed into us as spirit, is deeper. It
is this spirit that takes up our calling in life. It is this spirit that has
to determine the life of the human soul. The blood must not be
allowed to rule – it has to serve. Otherwise it ruins the spirit. The
breath we have from God is spirit and soul. For this spirit that was
breathed into our soul is the soul's unique life, its deepest life.
What distinguishes the soul and gives it a direction is the spirit.
Here lies the boundary between humankind and beast. Animals too
6 8 I N N E R L A N D : A G U I D E I N T O T H E H E A R T O F T H E G O S P E L
have blood and a soul. What they lack is spirit, which is more than
reason and understanding. To shed the blood of animals is a respon
sible business, but anyone who sees the sacrifice of slaughtered
animals as similar to killing people, acknowledging only a relative
difference between the two – a difference of degree – has
misunderstood the spirit God has given to us, and us alone, of all
terrestrial beings. We have been placed above animals. Our spirit is
meant to rule over the animals. However, we can do so only under
one condition, and we can accept the ultimate sacrifice from
them – the sacrifice of their blood – only under this one condition:
that our life is given to the tasks of the spirit and that, as images of
God, we conquer the earth for God's kingdom. But whoever kills
people lays violent hands on the countenance of God, committing a
sacrilege against the task of the spirit, for the spirit wants to bring
everyone together in unity. For no one is without spirit. When
people cooperate with every breath of God's spirit, it becomes
impossible for them to fight with murderous intent and kill each
other. We are given to each other to become united in life, because
human spirit belongs to human spirit. The spirit of God unites one
human spirit to another by ruling over them.
The spirit is meant from now on to rule as the higher power over
all lower powers of the soul and unite them under its dominion.
Aristotle knew this even in his time. It is simply impossible for a
mere product of the soul's lower faculties to be the distinguishing
feature of the human soul. The spirit cannot deny its origin. There
fore to be ruled by the blood or to allow base or superficial things
to satisfy us completely is unworthy of our calling. Everything that
betrays and destroys community in the spirit must be seen as base.
Therefore we see as bestial – and worse than bestial –every debase
ment that takes place through the unbridled urges of the soul in
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the blood. More than any madness, it tramples our true identity in
the dust.
The human spirit has the very greatest of destinies: God and his
kingdom. Like the satanic spirit Lucifer, however, this spirit with
such a high destiny has turned away from the highest and precisely
for this reason has become a rich breeding ground for the antigod
principle. Separated from God, we seek ourselves and our own king
dom. From now on we profess what is high and noble but without
the rule and unity of God. We strive for our own exaltation with
out giving recognition to God's deeds. We live for human self-
redemption, without honoring and accepting the deed of Jesus
Christ and his redemption. For the people of our own race and
blood and our own class, we are even ready to sacrifice human life,
rejecting God's kingdom and God's people.
It should be plain to everyone that all these ideals of the human
spirit that are separated from God have come to nothing. They have
come to nothing in their concept of world peace without Christ.
They have come to nothing in their efforts toward justice and free
dom without his kingdom and his church. They have come to noth
ing in their illusion of an international unity without unity in the
spirit of truth. Prosperity in a people united by race is founded on
property and selfish advantage. In just the same way, the world
wide economic unity of high finance has been built up on the mate
rial prosperity of individuals and their mutual advantage. Even the
proletarian Internationale has used its solidarity much more for
material advantage in the present, for a fraction of the underprivi
leged (even if it is a large fraction), than for the greater justice of a
future that could embrace everyone.
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Now when in the face of all this, the policy of isolation makes
nations try to close the frontiers of the earth in an effort to establish
their economic self-sufficiency, they deny that the earth belongs to
God. They deny that God's will is to be the God of all people and
that the will of his kingdom is to unite all nations in mutual service
and make the products of their work the common property of all. It
is impossible, though, for humankind to become an integrated
world society, a world community of the Spirit, unless it allows
God's spirit to reprove it, judge it, and rule it. God's rule, however,
means that people no longer seek their own advantage or privileges
anymore, and that self-preservation is nowhere placed above the
Spirit's cause – that of unity.
Right up to the present day, there is no political element of
worldwide importance that follows this way of God's world
rulership. Consequently, every great movement with a hope for
justice has inevitably met defeat again and again. In just the same
way, every kind of national self-redemption has come to grief – and
will repeatedly come to grief – because, in setting up an idolatry
that is supposed to bring recovery to the world, it rejects and even
spurns the very nature of divine liberation and healing. As long as
the rulership of God and his kingdom are left in the background,
efforts toward human progress of any kind will inevitably break
down over and over again. All human efforts toward salvation are
doomed to fail because, deluded as they are, they presume to lead
to the heights – not with God, but with the power of idols. Faith in
the masses, faith in blood, faith in any power other than the spirit
of God, will be annihilated in the fire of the future. All kinds of
false beliefs break down under the horrors of war, but annihilation
in the fire of the future will be still more thorough.
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However, what remains indestructible in all the waves of battle
that surge around us is our spirit – the first thing to surrender to
God's will. Here and there in all parties, the inner depths of the
spirit are already beginning to open up. Man's spirit is awakening.
Its will is aroused. It is still blinded by confusion and unclarity. It is
still benighted by separation from God. But the hour is near when
our spirits far and wide will be gripped and called by God.
The fact that the soul is pulled in two directions is the cause of all
the confusion that hinders this call. Through the spirit the soul is
drawn to God on the one side, and through the blood it is bound to
what is physical and material on the other side. In this dilemma, it
remains dangerously exposed to unspiritual movements that
continually attack it and try to sever it from the spirit of God.
The physical and material is not the real enemy of the soul. It is
merely the area that the soul has to bring under control as its task.
The real enemy of life is the corruption of soul that thwarts all
efforts to accomplish this task. It is only since the soul has become
degenerate that it has come under the oppressive power of the
physical and material. From the beginning, it has been an accepted
fact that body and soul pervade each other, but originally it was
the spirit that was meant to rule over body and soul. Through
repressing the spirit, the diseased soul has brought things to such a
pass that the spiritual life nowadays is enslaved to physical
conditions.
From the turbulence around us today we can see much more
clearly than we might in more settled times: no movement that
arises from a human spirit can ever boast of having freedom and
independence on account of its own efforts.
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Today we are bound to peculiarities of race and nation, depen
dent on economic situations and on privileges – or lack of them –
for our standard and mode of life. We are influenced by powers of
suggestion that originate with other people and movements. Not
least of all, we are swayed by psycho-physical circumstances and by