Part 5
subtle – it even attacks all weariness and neglect. It punishes all
dead works, for they actually prevent the spirit of God from filling
our hearts with the breath of life.
As long as God's spirit is at work in his church among believers,
consciences work and speak without respite and without delay. A
conscience that is as still as the grave is not a good conscience.
Everything would be lost if this voice were to fall silent. It is only
by a twofold deception that false prophecy can bring the
conscience to the point of being deathly quiet. First of all, the
conscience is lost when we allow ourselves to be persuaded to the
false belief that evil and all consequent injustices are unchangeable –
that their supremacy is inviolable. Educated to false humility in the
face of evil and to false submission to alien gods, the conscience
gives up the struggle and forfeits its fighting spirit. The god of this
world and its zeitgeist has dazzled the conscience: he has cheated
it of its goal.
If there is anything more dangerous than this submission to the
influence of evil over the world, it is the second deception prac
ticed by false prophecy: soothing the conscience with feigned self-
assurance. It is another weapon, just the reverse of the first, but it
is the same enemy. It attacks the front from the other flank.
Through a morbid, imagined holiness it leads to the same result:
the blunting and deadening of the conscience. Our conscience is
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inevitably struck dumb as soon as we see ourselves as sanctified and
our own life as equal to Christ's. With such delusions we are farther
than ever from God's kingdom. Being self-satisfied, we no longer
have the hunger and thirst without which there can be no God-
given life , without which the righteousness of his kingdom cannot
reach us. In both types of deception, there is a deadly similarity in
the end: we belong to those who are seared, as it were, with a
branding iron and hardened to their own conscience.
Among the personal testimonies through which Paul gives us a
glimpse into his inner life as an apostle, the most striking is that his
conscience too did not rest: through the free gift of God, Paul's
conscience became as active as it was good. Because of the lively
activity of his conscience, it was made free of all offense through
grace. The testimony of Paul's conscience is confirmed by the
simplicity and sincerity of everything this apostle of Jesus Christ
does and says. It is through the grace of God that this happens. The
grace of God makes the one who is sent out able to carry out his
commission among people. It can be carried out by no human
strength or wisdom.
It is forgiving grace that frees us undeserving people from all
guilt. Only this grace can give an active conscience the help that
protects and strengthens it. It is only by being acquitted that the
one arrested can find a new freedom for work. It is the same today
before the judgment bar of the conscience as it will be on the day
of judgment at the end of history: only grace that forgives through
the blood of the crucified one, exoneration from all guilt through
the deed of the innocent one who was put to death, will lead to
acquittal.
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This undeserved gift of an acquittal is given, not because of
anything in the conduct or the inner life of the accused, but as a
final, judicial pardon from the highest power. The life and blood,
spirit and soul of Jesus must be accepted by the condemned,
becoming part of their very nature. Only in this way can they
expect new life instead of death.
It is quite different with Christ. With him, it is not created
matter that is decisive but the spirit of the Creator. There is no
transfusion of a material substance here: it is not blood that is
given to blood. Spirit is given to spirit. The spirit who is God comes
to the spirit of humankind. It is not a material thing but life from
God. Jesus lived in the spirit of God. He brought his kingdom in this
spirit. At the climax of his life, his soul, filled with the Holy Spirit,
was poured out for us. This pure life of Jesus is the starting point
from which his quickening spirit streams out to our spirit. The cru
cified one gave his spirit into the hands of the Father. From the
Father, he sent out the Holy Spirit to his church. Now he who is lord
and ruler is the spirit of the church. In the spirit Christ imparts
himself to us. Through this spirit, we no longer lead our own lives
but his life, and his life alone.
In this spirit, Jesus is in the midst of those who believe in him. In
this Holy Spirit, he is present with everything he has accomplished
by his life and death. In this spirit, strength comes to us – that
strength with which he shattered all the instruments and weapons
of death and exterminated all the poisons and germs of evil. The
historical reality of the deed that blotted out all guilt brings us
strength through the Holy Spirit.
From the death of Christ we receive the strength to break with
things as they are and to die to the dead life within us and around
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us. This dying requires the utmost strength. It is given to us in Jesus.
Then in all we are and do, what is decisive is no longer our life, or
the life of others, but his life alone. Whatever we were and did
before, we are now absolved and pardoned. Where the old life has
come to an end, the new life begins.
The inner life is brought into community with God through
the gift of purification – purification of the conscience through the
death of Christ. The Holy Spirit does this. In faith, the innermost
soul has access to God. The believing spirit has intercourse with the
presence of Jesus Christ. Our spirit brings its witness into agree
ment with the spirit of God. Our conscience lives in the Holy Spirit
from now on. Our spirit and conscience are led by the spirit of God.
Christ proves himself as the risen and the living one in the powerful
working of his spirit. Through him, the new life corresponding to
the kingdom of God is brought into being in and around us. This
life demands a supreme strength. It is given to us in Christ, the
living one.
In the spirit of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God as justice, peace,
and joy spreads over the whole of life. Whoever believes in him in
this way is able to exert himself to keep his conscience alive and
preserved from offense at all times before God and man. When we
have turned resolutely and steadfastly away from evil, we can turn
again and again to loving justice and to peace-making unity – to
the purity and truth of God's kingdom. This life in Christ is possible.
Wherever we believe in Jesus Christ, it will be given through the
Holy Spirit.
Once it is bound to Christ, the conscience has found its goal and
its destiny. In the word and example of Mary's son, the picture of
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the longed-for justice and righteousness engraved on the hearts of
all people finds its perfect original. In his work it has found its
consummation. This holy truth does not want to be a mere
onlooker outside the conscience. The life and work of Jesus is
planted into the heart and all it does. Those who have faith become
a living letter from Jesus Christ: the truth of Jesus has become an
inner word written on the pages of our hearts. Deeds are what
make this handwriting legible to everyone – deeds that are
imprinted on a life as they spring from the heart, one letter of the
spirit after another. The conscience is made clear and new, in that
the holiness of God's will is alive in every heart and becomes a
reality in every deed. Our whole life is illuminated by the in-dwelling
Christ. He transforms every sphere of our life from within to
without. He makes everything new and different.
The soul has received the truth into its innermost depths, into its
spirit. The conscience honors the truth by being obedient to it and
gaining support from it. The conscience can be compared to a
tender climbing plant: without a support it sprawls on the ground
and withers. It needs something high and strong. No matter what it
climbs on, it does not change its nature. Ivy never adopts the form
of leaf and growth that belongs to the tree it clings to in order to
live. And yet its laborious climbing serves to glorify the object to
which it is attached. Its destiny is that of the object it clings to.
Should the tree fall, the ivy is inevitably involved in its fall.
The conscience seeks the Rock that cannot fall and can never
change. It seeks God. It longs for Christ; it presses on toward his
spirit and his truth. It can never find peace and it can never find
stability in other ideals, especially when they whip up emotional
enthusiasm to the point of racial fanaticism. Certainty of con
science dwells in absolute truth alone.
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Within itself, the conscience has no guarantee that it is right. It is
like a pair of scales that has no weights. Give them false weights,
the more accurate and sensitive the scales are, the bigger will be
the lie. It is more deceptive to weigh with false weights than to lie
and deceive in other ways. Only true weights give the conscience
any value. Without them it keeps on vibrating and wavering
unsteadily, deceiving and misleading in the most dangerous way.
Only absolute truth gives the conscience any authority or guarantee
of being right. The truth and what the truth demands in life is all
the conscience can represent with confidence.
The Vehmgerichte – medieval Germany's secret courts –did untold
harm. What they lacked was the clear foundation of an authoritative
standard that had been objectively determined. We have experi
enced what confusion of conscience is caused by contradictory
orders and their unforeseeable consequences, even when they have
been issued by well-meaning governments and authorities. If it
cannot prove itself before the conscience to be an objective expres
sion of absolute justice, the most carefully thought-out legislation
is pernicious.
The horrors of the Vehmic courts have been directly brought
home to us by the murderous commands of courts-martial, by the
unbelievable opinions of excited reporters, the appalling injustice
of misinformed journalists, and the confusing slogans of fanatical
parties and civil war organizations. The murders committed by
secret courts in our day are no mere coincidence. They have
revealed the evil spirit of our day. Fanaticism is uncertainty run
amok. That is the only reason why it out-Herods Herod in senseless
and exaggerated hate. It has forfeited all light and warmth. It has
no heart. The conscience has lost its criterion. Without any
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objective reason, it rages against everything that goes counter to
its morbid obsessions.
After a recent election I read of one man who had to be taken
to a mental hospital as a result of his desperate efforts to make up
his mind in the utter confusion of his political ideas. That was more
than a grotesque and isolated incident. He had made the daring
attempt to go along with the convention policies of all parties and
all factions. It may well be that he was more sensible and reasonable
than the blind mass of voters. How much weaker are the
consciences of those who cast their vote without ever having
recognized the real nature of party candidates and party platforms.
How many there are who make no attempt to go into the policy
or motives of the party that is overthrown by their vote! People
throw their votes into the scales of world history without being
able to weigh up one party against another. Conscience has been
thrown to the winds. People have incurred responsibility for
incalculable guilt. Without looking for guidance from their
consciences, they have presumed to make weighty decisions of
worldwide importance.
Our conscience warns us: do nothing without sufficient reason;
never act without a firm basis of fact; go into action only when you
know what you are doing! The only way to safeguard our lives from
the curse of irresponsible action is to accept the unfalsified
weights – truth. God's justice, alive in the heart, is the only
criterion that carries authority in every decision. Otherwise there is
no ground under our feet. When God's nature – his unchangeable
righteousness – is firmly imprinted on our conscience, then, and
only then, can our conscience pass judgment and give witness.
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Conflicting human opinions of relative right and relative wrong
do not help the conscience to make well-founded decisions. It can
take a clear stand through the weight of God's truth only. It is only
on the rock of the genuine Christ that the conscience finds any
stability. Christ alone is the example, guide, and liberator. He alone
gives the conscience the foundation, the basis, and the reason for
responsible action. There is no other righteousness – only that of
his coming kingdom.
Everything else fluctuates, uncertain. It changes its nature, for it
is inadequate. It has no stability, no adequate foundation. Even in
the most educated families and the finest schools, human ideas
totter and fall. Everything that is human fluctuates between limp
docility and rigid opposition. Nothing is certain. Everything is
relative. The result is clear: in this relativism, which gives equal
recognition to quite irreconcilable opposites, humankind loses all
sense of values.
In the face of all this confusion, Jesus Christ remains today and
forever exactly the same as he was in the time of Augustus and
Herod and Pilate, no matter how many thousand times his clear
picture is changed and falsified by this relativism. What his will
brings about today is exactly the same as he will establish in his
final kingdom at the end of time. Only he who is immutable is
decision – everything else is delay and displacement. The relativism
and fickleness of our own opinions can have only one result: the
will to live sickens and breaks down. Life gains health only through
the absoluteness of Christ's will, which is always and forever the
same. Health is strength to act and power to create, born out of a
sure instinct for life and well-considered decisions. It calls for
something firm and constant to fill the whole of life.
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Only when it is completely bound to Christ will the conscience
become healthy. True life is not to be found anywhere else: only in
this divine influence, which is immutable. Only when Christ, unlim
ited, has become the anchor for our consciences can life recover.
Only when the inner life regains health in Christ can the distress in
our time be tackled. The conscience looks to Christ for healing. It is
Jesus who heals the people of our day and age just as he healed the
sick in his day. It is Christ who shows our generation the way of
salvation. It is the same way along which he, the king chosen by
God, will lead everything to the goal at the end of all days. The
tremendous tasks facing us today can never be accomplished by the
hopelessly confused spirit of our times – only by the spirit of the
future, the spirit of Christ's kingdom.
Just as he was the spirit of the early church, Christ's spirit of
the future wants to be the spirit of community here and now. It is
in the living Christ of the prophets and apostles that the stream of
future riches comes to us. It is in the apostolic word that Christ
comes to us. It is in the prophetic word that his spirit purifies our
conscience. He wants to submerge us in the truth as in a bath of
invigorating waters. In the spirit of the prophets and apostles, the
spirit of Jesus Christ reveals himself always and everywhere as
unchangeably one with himself. What he instills into our conscience
today is no less than the substance of this constant accord with
himself. He brings unanimity to the church today in one and the
same way as to the prophets and apostles and to the church in all
ages, inscribing on their hearts the one way of truth and of life.
In all ages, the spirit of Jesus Christ proclaims the same things of
the future. He brings the powers of the same future world to all
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generations. All those who accept these powers are able to live by
them at all times. The spirit constantly reminds us of the eternally
valid words of Jesus Christ. They can and shall be carried out by all
generations on earth. The conscience of all believers becomes firm
and sure through the direct uniting with the word of the Spirit,
which is spoken into the conscience and is always the same as the
word of the apostles and prophets. In this supreme unity, the con
science is equal to any new and unexpected event.
The conscience becomes lively and firm through this spirit, who
glorifies Christ as the unchanging lord in the entire church of all
times: past, present, and future. Out of faith, the spirit of God
awakens courage to do unflinchingly what this spirit wants done.
In this way, faith becomes joy in fruitful work and activity. This
work corresponds to the kingdom of the same Christ who was and
is and is to come.
In the very beginning, the conscience got its voice from the vital
fact that the first man was a living soul whose breath came from
God. Since the fall of the soul, the conscience can do justice to this
divine origin only when the quickening spirit has taken possession
of souls who are slowly dying (Rom. 5:12, ff.). The old conscience –
the conscience given to every human soul by nature – is by no
means an authority for the apostolic task. The apostle of Jesus
Christ bases his conscience on his witness in the Holy Spirit.
The witness Paul uses to prove the truth of his statements is not a
divided one. On the contrary, the uniting influence of the holy,
quickening spirit heals the conscience that stands before God from
all the dividedness it has fallen into through the corruption of the
soul. God's spirit purifies our spirit to such a clarity that the one
can unite with the other to make one witness. In the Holy Spirit,
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the conscience regains health to form a unanimous witness with
this spirit-above-all-other-spirits, who is the spirit of God.
When the conscience lives in the Holy Spirit, it is so completely
immersed in him that it breathes no other air than that of the Holy
Spirit. From then on, the nature and character of this spirit deter
mines the conscience. As a conscience in the Holy Spirit, it glorifies
Christ, brings to mind all that Jesus said, and leads to the active
expectation of his future. In this way, the conscience rouses people
to a most intent watching and praying so that they might not
succumb to other spirits in times of danger nor be tempted again
by foreign influences to a new downfall. To fall again would mean
not only the loss of their living soul but also the loss of the
quickening spirit.
Yet this spirit is stronger than all other spirits. The sole purpose
of the Holy Spirit in waking and protecting the conscience is to win
a conclusive victory over all the powers that enslave people. The
Holy Spirit is at work when Christ is glorified, when God is revealed,
and when his rule is recognized. God's power liberates the con
science from all other spiritual powers. No one but God himself,
the Omnipotent, can win this victory.
When the original Greek speaks of "the conscience that is bound
to God," it relates the conscience so firmly and closely to God that
to be accurate we would even have to translate it as "God's
conscience." The inner life has the same feeling: "the conscience
that is bound to God" is a conscience before God, toward God, and
in God: a conscience of the spirit of Jesus Christ, God's conscience.
In God and through Christ, it has become free from every false
direction and from every tie that enslaves. It lives in God and has
become God's. God is the freedom of the conscience.
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Today when all the impassioned movements among peoples take
their stand on the struggle for freedom, what they have in mind is
one of the ultimate thoughts of God's will. Freedom is God's
thought for humankind. Without freedom, no one is a real person.
Only those are free who are not compelled to do what goes against
their consciences. Emancipation gives back to the conscience the
possibility of working without restrictions. Only when life as an
integrated whole asserts the freedom to fulfill its destiny in every
area, spiritual and material, can we speak of freedom.
Only when it is lived in accordance with the deepest and
ultimate calling is life free. This applies not only to religion and
morals (the more specific area of the soul's activity) but also to
public relationships in society and economic life; not only to the
innermost life of faith but also to vocational and family life. The
last battle for freedom is waged for a conscience that embraces all
aspects of life. Any other fight for freedom is a delusion. Any
restriction of the goal of freedom brings unfreedom. We should
know that true freedom consists in the unhindered development of
the whole destiny of the whole person. Freedom lives in being
whole.
Before the call to battle for freedom goes out, against the
danger of permanent subjugation threatening our spirit and
working strength, it should be made clear first and foremost that
the destiny of the human spirit is universal freedom of conscience.
Only then can steps be taken leading to freedom. The task must be
clear before we can devote ourselves to it.
The call to freedom stimulates freedom for everything a
healthy conscience wants; otherwise it is a lie and a delusion. We
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must know what we are freed for before we can be told what we
must be freed from. The question is, "Free for what?" Freedom
without a goal is bondage. What must become free is the will for
the good; what it must become free for is good deeds. It is the
purpose and meaning of a deed that make it good. A conscience
cannot be called to freedom as long as it is lying bare and fallow,
aimless and empty. Truth alone will make us free. Only the task that
truth sets us gives meaning to our free dedication. Half-truths are
untruths. The tasks they ask of us are worthless. Only the whole
truth is freedom.
If we want to fight through to the freedom of our ultimate
destiny, we must put aside all dependence on human beings and
human standards. Only this freedom gives purpose and meaning to
our conscience. To the healthy conscience, voluntary subjection to
human powers is bondage. It demands a dedication that is in fact
purposeless and meaningless. The apostle of Jesus Christ challenges
us never again to become slaves to people. Only in the one
freedom, the freedom for which Christ has freed us, can we throw
off once and for all servitude aping freedom and slavery hiding
beneath a mask. The obedience springing from faith in Christ is
freedom. It leads to a life that is in harmony with the holy "thou
shalt" coming from the healthy conscience. God's holy "thou shalt"
is our holy freedom. It is the true essence of our soul and conscience.
Jesus Christ is the only leader to freedom. He does not bring
bondage in disguise. He does nothing against the free will of the
human spirit. He rouses the free will to do what it must be
challenged to do by every truth-loving conscience. The Lord is the
Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is freedom. It is power that is
free to act freely.
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Anyone who wants to hand over the responsibility for what he or
she does to another – anyone who wants to obey a human leader –
has betrayed freedom, become enslaved. And when this leader, this
seducer, calls to a freedom that is no freedom, it spells complete
ruin for enslaved consciences. Consciences are ruined by all leaders
whose authority is human. It is for this reason that Jesus said: "You
shall not call each other leader. Only One is your master, but you
are brothers." The foundation of freedom on which the conscience
can regain health is brotherliness, sisterliness, and equality before
God. This alone guarantees that love – the pure love that springs
from faith – is put into practice.
When the church is free, it means healing and health for the
conscience. This freedom is given by the only spirit that is free: the
spirit of God. It is God's rule that brings freedom to the conscience.
The kingdom comes. The healing of all hurt begins. The conscience
bound to God becomes free and healthy. Then it becomes active –
then the way is cleared. Work begins. The whole of life becomes
free. The work of the Spirit will be established. Those made free by
Christ are indeed free.
The freedom of Christ masters reality. Through him, the conscience
becomes healthy in this freedom coming from clear and objective
decisions. The gift of creative powers is the result of this instinctively
sure way of life. The conscience has found substance and meaning
in the will of the Spirit. The healing of humankind is the kingdom
of God.
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The Experience of God
The more shaking the events in the world around us, the more
necessary it is to recognize the forces at work in them – that is the
spiritual powers that determine their course. Outward events as
violent as those of our day call for an insight into this ultimate will
and its aim. But the more agitated the times, the more temporary
matters push to the fore; the more tense, the more impossible it
seems to get clear about the ultimate answer. Issues are utterly
confused. Mounting pressure leads to emergency measures –
imperative, or so it seems. Limited to the times, they are not able
to turn the tide of need and distress. One attempt follows another,
misery increases, and nothing can overcome it; people go under in
the day-to-day struggle and lose all hope of a change.
Some think they have to give priority to patriotic ideas and the
historic task laid on the nation. The longed-for freedom of the
national community seems the only goal, demanding that every
thing else is subjected and sacrificed to it. Others, however, believe
in a historical development in every nation to raise to power all
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those oppressed and exploited by competition and private enter
prise: They are to be given a power that for a time is unlimited. In
comparison with both of these, the champions of liberty and free
dom for the individual retreat into the background. No state
protection preserves them from the approaching insignificance. In
the end, a classless society based on justice and peace and uniting
all extremes falls almost completely by the wayside in the struggle
for quickly-won power.
Not one of these three directions with their struggles and fluctu
ating hopes expects anything from the prophetic power of the
Christ-proclamation. Those of the third and middle way between
the first two extremes have no fears that their egotistical life might
be shattered by the kingdom of God. And where an individual tries
to comply with the economic system, his or her conscience becomes
too dull to be aware how universal need and distress are. But to the
right and to the left, people think more seriously. To the right, in
contradiction to Christ, they want religion to uphold unconditionally
the power structure they have fought for. Christian consciences are
meant to surrender to it in willing submission; the conscience
becomes the slave of political power. To the left, all they see in the
Christian confession is their most hated opponent and the social
power of class privilege. All they know of Christianity is a power
which, contradicting Christ, covers up social injustice with a
hypocritical mien and refers the tormented to a better world
hereafter. The Christian conscience represents the height of
injustice. Therefore it should be exterminated.
To all this, Christian confessions in general, apart from a few rare
exceptions, have nothing to say. The prophetic clarity of intense
and confident waiting for a final kingdom – a kingdom of loving
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community in God – has given way to feeble imitations. People no
longer believe that the peace, justice, and brotherliness of the
kingdom of God are a present reality, eclipsing all other hopes of
the future. And yet all these prospects of a better future are
borrowed from the hopes of prophetic early Christianity. They
would not exist without them. But not even the historical signifi
cance of early Christian prophecy is taken seriously. In practice, the
general run of Christianity just accepts existing conditions of social
order, or disorder, including any new ideas people come up with.
The early Christian expectation is being forgotten. Because it is no
longer seriously believed, it has for present-day Christianity lost
the dynamic to overturn and transform everything.
True, there are still some who point out seriously that God is quite
other than humankind, quite other than all they of themselves want
or do. But there are very few who so really and truly believe in this
quite different God that they see the approach of his reign and
comprehend it. Only these very few lend a hand in faith so that a
fundamental change, affecting everyone and all conditions,
actually begins. The inner thinking born of faith in God's kingdom
is completely other than the thinking of human religion: those with
faith in God's kingdom approach everything with a certainty from
God himself that the impossible can become possible, in outer
circumstances just as much as in the innermost. This faith in God
may be as small as a grain of seed, yet it will remove obstacles of
the weightiest nature.
Such faith lets the future and the beyond penetrate the present –
this earth. Out of the strength it derives from this source, it sets to
and gives everything shape and form. The believer has realized that
to leave God in the world beyond is to deny Christ. For Christ has
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said and proved that God draws near, so near that everything has
to be changed "from the very foundation" (Mark 1:15). Yet Jesus
knew that this triumphant joy would be accepted by only very few.
People are readier to believe in the autonomy of things than the
message of God that overturns everything. They experience things
more forcibly than they experience God. They are idolaters, for
they serve the creature more than the creator. But faith has to step
in and unite our life with the creative power. This alone remains
superior to any created power.
God stands above all that happens. Only when we are one with
God can our faith withstand all powers that storm it. It is not we
who stand firm. Only God is invincible. In him alone is freedom of
soul found, saving us from being enslaved, however mighty the
power. God has drawn near. We can be in God. God wants to be
known and experienced. Yet we quake before it. It is terrifying:
truth is disclosed as a consequence. Because God's light shows up
our darkness, we are afraid of it.
God begins – that is the end for us. When in fear and trembling
we know God and are known by him, we are shocked, and God
draws near. When the Most High descends to us, the degraded, all
cloaks and barriers are torn away. God is revealed only through this
fearful experience. When we experience God, we appear before
God as we are. As long as we shrink from being exposed for what
we are by God's unhindered recognition of us, we remain hope
lessly lost and helpless in the supremacy of the world outside. As
long as we submit to things as they are and remain their slaves,
terror of God repels us and keeps us at a distance.
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God is indeed other than we are. It is true that to our unbelief, he
is far removed. We have lost sight of his image. But it was not
always like this and must not stay so. We were once created to be
near to him. God began – that was our beginning. There was a time
when God's drawing near did not spell terror. God's image was once
entrusted to man and woman so the Spirit would rule. This rule of
God's spirit was to be recognized as the creative power of unity, as
love and community. We have forfeited all this. We have lost God.
Only God himself could give us back what we have lost: he himself
and his image. In Jesus Christ he did this. In Jesus, God's heart has
come into our midst once more. Once more it became clear in him
what will and spirit God is. He revealed afresh what purpose and
what reality of unity and love live in God. He came to do the will of
the Father. He brought the Father down to us. He carries out his
decree. He and the Father are one. In Jesus, God is near once more.
This message has to be believed.
When Jesus brings God near, God can be recognized as God, and
men and women become men and women. God's approach changes
us, without us becoming God. We stand in terror before God who is
quite other; even in the gift of his presence, one decisive thing
remains unchanged: we cannot become God. We remain other than
God.
Therefore, although we might understand it, we cannot embrace
the sort of mysticism that deifies nature or people. Such deifica
tion is a delusion: it leads people to the mistaken notion that hu
man life can be subsumed in some grandiose conception of a divine
All. To a follower of Jesus it is clear that the spirit of the living God
comes not only to save but to judge. As the law and the prophets
testify, he is the good and the just, the pure and the holy one. But
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we are not good, not just, not pure, and not holy. God's nature is
the opposite of our nature.
God is spirit and will in a way we are not. He is the will of what is
good and perfect. This we are not. Yet his judgment is our salvation.
Out of the rubble of our degenerate lives he wants to salvage the
life of the creation. God demolishes our nature as it is and with it
the way we have lived and carried on. Out of these ruins, he wants
to bring to light the human race as it originally was and is finally
meant to be. We are lying under the mountain. The boulders are
being blasted. The debris must be cleared away. The vein of gold
cannot be laid bare unless the mountain is blasted. This freeing is
love. The place for gold is in the sun; without the sun, gold is as
black as coal. God is merciful to us in our poverty, for we are
suffering under it, burdened by it, and buried in it in spirit and in
will. He releases us from every need and supplies all we lack.
God has drawn near as power, liberating and drawing us close.
He accomplishes this in Christ. He is the God of uniting love for
people who were not free, not united, and not loving. He leads to a
future that allows his will, as his spirit, to rule over everything else.
God's future wishes to rule over us here and now. Through this we
will be transformed and made true. His kingdom of unity shall take
possession of everything that has been disunited. Here is Christ:
God remains God, we become God's people.
We cannot be merged with God as a drop is merged with the
ocean or a spark with a sea of fire. For we are not part and parcel
of his nature. There is no "we" between us and God. There is only
"thou." But there is this "thou," and that is greater. God goes out
to us, and a personal community is the result. It is a moral relation
ship of unity in will and deed between God and his people. Just this
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is so unspeakably great in Jesus Christ: unity becomes a reality in
that the truth is unveiled. The light of truth shines on us in all its
sharpness. When we experience God in Jesus Christ, we experience
his nature as holiness – a holiness that judges our sin yet draws us
into unity with him. God makes us conscious of our corrupt state as
unholy unrighteousness yet leads everything to holy righteousness.
Because God is a creative spirit, he cannot let his works come to a
standstill when he has brought us to realize with horror our own
unrighteousness. It is quite a lot, even a great deal, to know our
selves condemned and absolutely opposed to God and hostile to
him in our very nature, in our actions, and in all the relationships
that condition what we do. But it is still not enough, not nearly
enough. First it has to become clear that we (with all we have and
do) are absolutely different from God and his works, absolutely
different from how he wants us to be. Then his spirit, who makes
all things new, insists that we with all our doings become at long
last as God means us to be. Our own works have to stop in order for
his to begin. In us his work has to begin. With us it has to be
established.
Some reject faith in the intervention of God in his creation here
and now as a mystical faith based on personal experience. Others
cannot believe that God makes himself known as a living God in the
hearts and lives of those who receive him. They have forgotten the
gospel as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and in a special way John passed it
on. They deny the power of God as it was revealed in Jesus. Some
want to exalt the limited theological thinking of the human brain
and elevate it as the only faith to be experienced. But they reject
unity with God and the works of love springing from faith – not
only for our time and our contemporaries. They reject the apostles
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of Jesus Christ and therefore Jesus himself. And whoever rejects
Jesus rejects God who sent him.
By bringing God near to us, by coming himself with power, Jesus
exposed our smallness and hostility more clearly than all human
dialectic can do. So one thing is and remains right about these theo
logical reflections, something fundamental with regard to the gos
pels: faced with God's greatness we become terrifyingly aware of
our smallness. This absolute feebleness and smallness applies as
much to our feeling, willing, and doing as to our thinking.
In God's light our baseness and smallness, our weakness and dark
ness, must constantly be exposed to him and to ourselves. Before
him, we can appear only as we really are. In his presence, the last
shreds of self-idolatry, self-redemption, and self-seeking vanish. His
sunshine reveals our life as night. His clarity opens our darkened
eyes to see the mountains of filth that bury us. His loving justice
shows up the injustice of our rule with its mammonistic nature. His
all-inclusive will for peace reveals the will to murder and the urge
to set limits that characterize all our ideals. Whether they are based
on individualism, patriotism, proletarianism, or any other "ism"
makes little difference. God's truth and God's essential nature
throw into sharp relief the untruthfulness and insignificance of our
lives, private and public.
The experience of God unites and divides at the same time.
The deeper his love leads into community with his heart and into
brotherly uniting, the more sharply do we become aware of the
absolute difference between our sin, which is separation, and his
purity, which is unity. There is all the difference in the world
between God and us. God wants unity without glossing over the
differences.
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Uniting with God is possible only through the radical destruction
of all powers that oppose God, of everything in conflict with him
or done in antagonism to him. Therefore, fundamental in any expe
rience of God is forgiveness and the taking away of sin (remission
and freeing). Forgiveness is the taking away of what is present
(that is, sin). When God unites, what is against him cannot be
present. He wants absolute purity in uniting. Therefore everything
that opposes purity must first be given up and then taken away.
That is forgiveness. God's kingdom will not come without it.
Whoever accepts God in Jesus, or receives in Jesus the forgive
ness and the works of God, embraces God himself directly. God is
embraced by the faith of the heart. For the heart has been gripped
by God himself. But God never divides himself when he gives
himself. He gives himself completely. Acute consciousness of our
utter insignificance, dividedness, and sinfulness makes it possible
to accept the utterly different and eternally indivisible one. The
believer is completely one with God, because only God is
completely one. Faith is truth, because the object of faith is God.
Because God is truth, our self-deception vanishes. The heart knows
only too well: my small "I" has not been merged into the great "I."
Still less has this very small "I" been puffed up into something
great. Lightning from above has shown up the tension: the human
heart remains a very small "I," and that very small "I" dedicates its
will to God completely and worships the great "thou" that gives
itself to us in ineffable loving-kindness.
The believer does not surrender his or her feeble consciousness to
the almighty consciousness. In experiencing God, Christians are not
seeking an opiate for their intelligence. They do not see in the spirit
of God a fading-out of human senses. But just as little do they
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presume to comprehend the spirit of God through the powers of
understanding. They do not believe they can know God through the
insight of their own powers of thinking. Believers do not presume
to think they can grasp God through the intensity of their inner
life, their emotions, or their willpower. Their faith places God's
greatness before them as something so inviolable that feeble
human strength has no chance of touching him. All human efforts
to achieve union with God are in vain. If faith were a human
function, it would be nothing. It could have nothing but a human
object; it could never grasp God.
At this point, however, God intervenes. The union so impossible
for us ever to achieve takes place through his intervention. If the
word "faith" is to keep its meaning, it must be a certainty about
what God – not people but really God – is and does. Faith belongs
to God; it does not stem from people. It is God who gives us faith
and brings it about. That is where we are one with God.
In the soul, faith is expressed in a heart-to-heart relationship that
God brings about. In this uniting through faith, God is the one who
wills, God is the one at work. Faith is expressed in an active and
effective love in outward circumstances and public life, but it is
God at work. God is the loving, the active one in these new works
of love.
The believer acts according to God's nature, what God wills, and
what God is. Without God, faith is nothing. Wherever community
is given through faith, its works are vital and effective because they
are God's works. Through faith, God's power is made clear by our
incapability, God's greatness by our smallness.
In every decisive experience, our insignificance is confronted
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with God's greatness, our inadequacy with God's mightiness, our
incapacity with God's power. This experience of God runs through
the whole history of humankind: God's supremacy overpowering
us. When we stand in reverence before God, our first, intuitive
experience of him is of an almighty power, before which all human
strength is a mere nothing.
Like Elijah, the first prophets veiled their heads in shuddering
awe when God was about to draw near to them. The thought of
seeing God fills all genuine people with terror. In the times of the
prophets, the sight of God cast the beholder to the ground, dead.
In all ages, the mystery of God's greatness has been awesome
beyond measure. Whenever an overpowering sense of this comes
over us, all human powers are conquered. We are bound to shake
with terror whenever God draws near.
God's greatness, majesty, and might are beyond all powers
of our imagination. If we were to see God, we would perish – God
is so far beyond our capacity to see him face to face. With whom
could we compare God? How could we give a picture of this incon
ceivable greatness and power? God is unattainably great and
glorious. The prophets know very well that beside him no other
power can endure. His divine decree can never be fulfilled by
anything human. No human power can stand before him. The life
of God goes far beyond all boundaries of beginning and end. It
towers immeasurably above all created things.
God has power over all nations on earth. He gains authority over
all human powers. He will eventually rule over all worlds. Such an
overpowering greatness of majesty makes corresponding demands
that are unspeakably serious. Those gripped by prophecy sense with
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awestruck reverence the inviolable and adamant nature of this
overwhelming will. As Job had to lay his hand on his mouth, we
have to be silent before the greatness of this power.
The greatness and majesty of God is so overwhelming that the
whole earth along with all humankind will become his footstool –
the footstool on which God's foot rests. Under God's feet lies
everything that is visible and invisible. In human eyes, creation is
overwhelmingly great and supremely powerful, a shatteringly
magnificent prospect through which God draws near to our small
human hearts. In the childlike minds of primeval people, God is
never confused with nature. Even the earliest beginnings of faith
are far from deifying nature. But childlike people do not experi
ence God's majesty and greatness without nature. They cannot
disregard creation when they stand before the creator. In the
mysterious coherence of created worlds, as believing creatures we
sense the might of the creator, which gives all created things their
greatness, life, coherence, and unity. In nature, we in our smallness
have an intimation of God in his greatness.
Here we have to pause for a moment. In the rush of a life cut off
from nature, we must remember – stop and take it in – how
overwhelmingly God's power comes to meet us in nature. No
scientific progress has changed this mighty fact. The whole history
of humankind proves it. Through the great and visible creation, the
infinitely greater and invisible nature of God dawns on our
insignificance. Creation makes known the power and divinity of the
creator.
If we live on the land, the terrors of the powers of nature above
all else bring us to quake before God's might. In earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions, huge mountains melt like wax beneath God's
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feet. Thunder and lightning, storm and tempest, scorching desert
wind and blazing fire are powerful signs of the awe-inspiring
approach of his greatness. Whatever the mighty phenomena of
nature, it is the greatness and majesty of God that shakes us. The
created world has elemental power. But we sense that over and
above it all stands God, the creator who is infinitely greater and
mightier than the greatest powers of creation.
As God's creations we quake before these superior forces, but no
less before the tremendous mystery of life. Truly reverent people
sense an ultimate mystery in all living things, aware that the living,
creative spirit must be greater than all created life. Full of wonder,
they stand in awed reverence at the tree bursting with life; at the
lively, bubbling spring; under the lightand life-dispensing constel
lations of day and night; and in the midst of earth's fruitfulness
and life. How great and powerful God must be to create and
sustain all this life! Every deeply shaken and moved heart is struck
by the challenge that God the great creator must become undis
puted sovereign over all this power and life.
In the midst of nature, history reveals the overwhelming power
of God, both as violent wrath-filled terrors and as the life-giving,
uniting power of love. Awaking with trembling awe to a sense of
this, we can look back to the beginnings of our own history. The
profoundly mysterious beginning of the human race comes from
God. It is God who has in his hand also the end of the human race.
Without God, the end is shrouded from human eyes in the same
darkness as the beginning.
The mystery of God the creator is experienced in all living things,
but particularly in the life of human beings. It is the same in the
middle as it is at the beginning and the end of the way: God is
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always drawing terrifyingly near when death and catastrophe
break in, as in the destruction of the world in the Flood, or the divi
sion into nations at the peak of Babel's civilization. In the history
of humankind, as in the whole of nature, it is God who is breaking
in with mighty power when people are shaken by terrifying events.
When God's greatness strikes nations to the ground, empires and
world powers are the instruments of his wrath. All the nations of
the world must come to fall at the feet of the God of all worlds.
The creator of the universe rules over all ages with his decree. In
history as in nature, coherence of life, community of life, peace,
unity, and life itself shall be revealed (in spite of all opposition) as
God's nature and God's power. So God appears to the prophetic eye
as the leader and shepherd of history. He guides the actual history
of humankind toward the one goal: that all nations are united in
one fold.
Thus the people of Israel experienced God as the God of history
in all world events, in all the whirlpools of international politics,
and in the collapse of whole peoples. Only God the creator has right
and might over all peoples. Whatever happens, God is arising and
claiming the world dominion that is his right alone.
As humankind develops, its dawning perception finds the same
traces of God in history as in nature. When the conscious mind wins
through to greater clarity, it turns to history. It cannot find peace
until it has wrested the ultimate meaning from past and present
events and those yet to come. So it is clear that nascent faith never
confuses God and history (as if the course of events could be God
himself), yet God is never experienced without history. Behind all
the shattering events in history, awakening humankind senses God.
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Gripped by faith, they see God at work, intervening and ultimately
determining everything, behind all the mysteriously tangled
threads of history, behind every event, great or small. God is at
work in all that happens. His majesty towers above all history.
In all this, Jesus Christ shines out in prophecy and in the apostolic
mission: Jesus, the decisive point of all history for the whole of
creation! Through Christ, the eye of faith is opened and a discerning
eye for history is given. Then we see how far creation and history
belong to God and how far they are estranged from God and even
hostile to him. Faith catches sight of the coming hour of decision.
In Jesus Christ, prophetic truth becomes reality. Those illuminated
by him see the approach of the kingdom of God as a historical
event. The creator breaks in upon his degenerate creation. The Lord
of all worlds draws near to history with all its devious ways. Jesus
Christ intervenes in history and turns it into the history of the end
time.
The end goes back to the beginning. The Morning Star of the new
beginning appears. The secret of life is the sun of the future. God's
aim is not the destruction of all things; his ultimate will is the
resurrection of life. Resistant humankind must go through judgment,
death, and annihilation. In the fire of judgment, the beginning of
the new shines out as the end of the old. Renewal and restoration
are revealed as the goal of all that happens. The experience of God
is resurrection from the dead.
The small world of the individual is meant to mirror the great
world of God's history. To experience God means to give ourselves
to the goal of his kingdom in such a way that we accept his death
sentence and believe in his resurrection. Strength from the future
comes to the believer. The spirit of the coming Christ is at work and
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charges us now with the task of the future. In the reawakening of
faith, the prophetic spirit works toward the establishment of God's
kingdom. New life begins at this given place, at this very moment.
The nature of the coming kingdom shall be represented in the
course of history itself and on this very earth.
Through the experience of God, people living today will be drawn
into the end history of creation. The fire baptism of God's judg
ment will raise the phoenix from the ashes. The dying of the old
world announces the rising of the new. Just because life comes to
the heart when it is touched by God, it is near to death. Christ's
death brings resurrection. The false life, which in any case bears
the seeds of death within it, comes to an end. Life that rises in God
begins and presses on to the future.
In Persian mysticism, those who become sacrifices to the passion
of love destroy their lives forever, as the dying moth surrenders to
the singeing flame, leaving nothing but ashes. It is quite different
in Christ. In his flame, no loving believer shall perish in silence. In
him, the weaker life is not meant to lose itself in the stronger. The
stronger has no wish to overpower the weaker and swallow it up.
Christ kills the old in order to give life to the new. Self-will, which
is sick unto death, must die. A renewed and transformed will shall
come to life. The old will, already turned toward death, falls prey
to it. The new will becomes free – to belong to the other life. It is
roused in order to live. In God, strength is given to the will to serve
this life in deed and in truth.
God's will is for our resurrection so that we can live to the full
extent of our powers. Basic to the new life is its voluntary nature.
Resurrection from death leads to a life of freedom. When this
becomes a reality, it means that the greatest of tasks has been
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effectively assigned. Whoever proclaims judgment and death
without commitment to life turns God into a judge pronouncing
the death sentence or into a cold, indifferent stranger. The living
God has been denied. The quickening spirit of Jesus Christ does not
allow himself to be relegated to a distance. In him, superabundant
life, with all its powers of renewal through love, remains concentrated
on the earth and its inhabitants. God's creative power, calling forth
new life, draws near to all who want the life that is in God. This life
is the worldwide rule of God.
The life-creating spirit blows where he wills. He comes as he wills.
He knows where he wants to go. Everywhere, he seeks out anyone
with a determined faith who accepts no other spirit than this one
and only spirit of life. To such he reveals himself as a power that
breaks in across all distances. He proves himself as almighty power;
our strength, compared, is a mere nothing. It is not we who awaken
him: he awakens us.
In the face of his direct breaking-in, all our delusions must give
way, vanquished by ultimate reality. Truth dispels all illusions. The
sick and misguided spiritual life will be cast aside. The selfish
psychophysical life, going headlong to ruin without light or
warmth, is overpowered. Selfish life, in and of itself already
condemned to death, is destroyed in the consuming fire of God's
approach. Severed from the divine core of life, it was lost before it
was abolished.
Even though it had died long ago, the life of the individual in its
own nature was still wrongly called life. The madness and deathly
stupor that makes an individual think that he or she is "the only
one" must be shattered. In morbid presumption, those individuals
who think they are "the only ones" claim as their property what
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belongs to God. This self-conceit must die. The other life, God's life,
has to begin. The individual is freed from his or her own life and
won for the greatness and power of God – received into the sphere
of God's power. What was dead wins community with life.
Here in this personal contact with God's life, an existence begins
that encompasses everything. It cannot become sick and cannot
pass away. The life that has its source in God puts its boundless
energy to work in a practical way: all its members and powers come
to life in the service of justice and righteousness. Then we are
received into the sphere of God's kingdom. The nature of this
kingdom is the rule of love. God's life is love. It is the social and
moral life of perfect love. Divine love in believers brings it forth. It
wants justice and righteousness first and foremost. Anyone set free
in this way experiences a transformation. He comes nearer and
nearer to the perfect image of love's radiant power, the reflection
of the Lord and creator of life alone.
Such an experience of God brings about a new birth that lifts us
high above all deadening enslavement. Rebirth is the gateway into
the kingdom of God. From a new relationship with God, an absolutely
new energy and joy in life begins. The beginning of life is birth:
new life begins with rebirth. Only in God can life, real life begin.
Life is free to unfold only where God has absolute rule. God is life.
Because he was one with God, Jesus could and had to say, "I am the
life." Because he fills us with his life, the fountainhead of strength,
he had to say, "He that believes in me has life."
We are able to and should live his life because he sends his spirit
into our hearts and he himself, with the Father, makes his dwelling
in us. Through his strength, we keep his word and do the deeds of
his love. Whoever claims that he abides in him is duty-bound to live
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as he lived. Because he brought God to us as working and unham
pered life, Jesus alone can satisfy the hunger and thirst for living
righteousness. Only Jesus, in his human existence, has put into
action the vital energy that comes from perfect love. Only he can
reveal God to us as life. Only Jesus, who is one with the Father, who
made the life of love an historical reality on earth – only Jesus can
disclose to us human beings the mystery and the power of life.
Through the power of the indwelling spirit of God, by which Jesus
drove out all other spirits, the rule of God has come to us. Through
the life of Jesus, we shall know what it means to belong to the
kingdom of God. How dare we speak of this kingdom if we are not
prepared to live here and now, in deed and in truth, as Jesus lived,
to place here and now all circumstances of our life under God's
rule? When we pray for God's kingdom to come, we ought to stop
and ask ourselves whether we are prepared, whether we want to
accept and represent all the changes that God's rule involves.
Jesus shows us that the kingdom of God means recognizing
the absolute supremacy of the highest will, the will to love. The
final kingdom is the perfect realization of the will of God, who is
life and love. The unconditional nature of God's life and God's love
will not let itself be restricted. God's will does not allow any other
will to stand. The rule of love will not ally itself with anything that
curtails love, restricts it, or limits it. God's rule will not tolerate any
rival authority. The kingdom of God is power because it is the righ
teousness of God, the peace of Jesus Christ, and joy in the Holy
Spirit.
For our day and age, God's rule can already begin in hearts where
he and his peace reign because Christ has made his dwelling there.
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God has sent the spirit of the Son into our hearts. That carries an
obligation and an authority with it – all those gripped by this spirit
must drive all other spirits from every sphere of life. The kingdom
of God means power to make its spiritual laws valid, also for the
outward form of human life. The justice and righteousness valid in
God's eyes rules so effectively through the Holy Spirit that it can
build up social justice – spoken about by the prophets – in the
entire surroundings of those who let their lives be governed by it.
All spirits of human privilege and social injustice are cast out by
the Holy Spirit.
Peace ruling in people's hearts as God's unity enables them to
become builders and bearers of outward peace. From the church of
God as the center, the driving-out of all spirits of unpeace, war, and
civil war, like the spirit of competition and private property, will
take place. Joy in the love of God fills the believing heart with such
overflowing joy that it must go out to all in love. As recipients of