Part 7
All the gifts of his spirit are gifts of peace, to be used in the service
of the pure unity of his church.
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The house of God upholds peace. It tolerates no breach, no
irritation and strife within or hate and enmity to those without. All
unpeace is banned from this house. Joy in all God's gifts, in all the
objects of his love, lives in it. Where God grants his gift of joyful
hearts, born of love that includes everybody, his peace gathers a
people in creative unity. God brings about his righteousness of
faith that grants peace with God, which is his will for all. The Holy
Spirit who fills the church of faith means life and peace from God
for all. The fruit of the Spirit is love and peace, the joy of a life in
God.
Peace is the daughter of faith. It surpasses all human understanding.
As an offspring of the spirit of Jesus Christ, peace keeps the heart
and mind in him. Unity born of the spirit of God can accomplish
what the thoughts and demands of the understanding never can.
Faith conceives this unity, just as Mary conceived. Now as then, it is
the body of Jesus Christ, the united church, that is born of God's
creative spirit through faith. She surpasses everything that is
human. Starting with the hearts of believers, she has power to rule
and direct them; and she brings peace into all the world. Like the
birth of Christ, every commission to the church of God is given in
peace and unity. Her ways are ways of peace, just as the ways of
Jesus Christ were, are, and always will be peace among all nations.
Therefore the sons and daughters begotten of God delight in
creating and in bringing peace alone. The kingdom of God belongs
to peace.
God himself is in his sons and daughters; for they carry his blessing
as peacemakers, carry out God's commands, live to give him joy,
and do their utmost to keep peace with everyone. Yet they know
that peace on earth can only be the fruit of faith in God and Christ
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and that the godless cannot keep peace, as long as they remain far
off from true life. The goal of all Christ said and did, and the goal
of his ambassadors, was unity with God and peace among all people
as a way of life.
The ambassadors of Jesus Christ proclaim a peace that rules over
all areas of their life. They bear the name of the prince of peace
because Christ is the lord and king of divine peace, and because he
holds the universal kingdom of eternal peace in his mighty hand.
For them, his kingdom does not exist in sterile words but in the
strength and power of unity, creating the peace of his future world.
Sent out from the spirit of the church where peace rules, they carry
its power into all the world. They fight and make every effort to
improve conditions to help build up the holy peace of God.
For them, peace is the hope of their faith, their expectation for
the future, and a power here and now. Peace is for them the sum
total of all God's wisdom and decrees. God as the Lord, Christ as
their expectation, and the Holy Spirit as the power that reveals all
future things fill them with the most confident joy and inviolable
peace. Their peace is not of the moment, for it comes from him
who is, and was, and is to come.
Peace as God's future is proclaimed by the whole prophecy of the
old covenant and the prophetic mission of the new church. All war
and hostility are to come to an end. The old prophecy and the new
prophecy are one. The prophets of the old covenant and the new
covenant bring to bleeding humanity the divine kingdom of God's
peace, putting an end to the violent, predatory nature of all ruling
powers. Bestial malice and ferocity will be completely banned.
The predatory nature of brute force is overcome by long-suffering
with its sacrificial nature. The reign of the Lamb replaces espionage
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and violent killing. The love that lays down its life fills the new
person and replaces the injustice of the old one, who alienates God
and destroys life. From the time of the first Adam and the first
fratricide, our true image had been forgotten. The Son of Man, the
last Adam, leads the way to our ultimate state, in which we are
truly God's people. The heart and soul of the Bible is filled with this
certainty. All of divine history in the Bible and all the history of
humankind lead to God's goal.
The book that reveals God in history begins and ends with
peace. The inmost depths of the Bible, its life and soul, is and
remains peace. Loss of community with God always leads to
murderous unpeace. Yet Christ, the morning star of the coming
peace and unity, is never extinguished. After the breach with our
origin in the first kingdom of peace, the next step follows immedi
ately – fratricide, which must not be avenged. The descendants of
the man who murdered his brother proceed to found cities. The
fellowship of the metropolis – as in the soaring structure of Babel –
leads to dire confusion, disintegration, and warlike tensions
between nations. Revolt against God leads nations to insurrection
and war. Yet God revealed his heart once more: the deluge of his
judgment swept over humankind, disunited and resistant to his
spirit; but under the colorful symbol of the rainbow, he established
the covenant of peace.
Abraham, the father of faith, is consecrated as a prince of peace
by a mysterious priestly figure who belongs to the united dominion
of peace. The faith of the patriarchs turns again and again to peace
because the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the one God
shows itself as a uniting power. So the greatest blessing of these
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patriarchs and later of Aaron (the first priest of atonement) is the
blessing of peace. Even in the war years of the lawgiver, the
blessing of the first high priest culminates in the peace that the
last high priest was to turn into reality: "May Jehovah establish,
work, and give thee peace!" Through Moses the law comes to God's
people. In its wake come war and the sword. The military power of
the Israelites reaches its zenith through the kings, given them at
their demand by God – in his wrath. But despite all battle songs, at
the heart of the psalms of the people and the songs of the kings
there lies a longing for the peace that shall come from God.
The prophets proclaim peace as justice from God that shall take
possession of the whole world. In the midst of the storm of devas
tating historical events, the prophetic message of peace stands like
a rock that cannot be broken. The coming helper and leader of
God's people will calm the raging sea of nations. As the bringer of
peace, Jesus is given the name "Our Peace." Faced with his strength
and truth, every illusion vanishes. The Old Testament prophet sees
the contrast between the conditions of his time and the divine
justice of the coming one who judges and saves. It must shine
relentlessly through all the evil of the present time; it is love at
work, and its fruit is peace.
When God is involved, so is his creation. Where God's peace
appears, human unpeace is struck at the root. Social discord is
revealed as human injustice – enmity to God and an obstacle to
peace – which must be identified and ruthlessly exposed. Whoever
sins in this way commits an outrage against God. The spirit of peace
demands justice. The divine spirit in prophecy strikes society at the
root of its poisonous growth. It exposes the economic injustice of
hardworking people shamefully robbed of all meaning in life and
condemned to a life of unhappiness.
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Through the toil of the poor, unearned privileges are piled up,
only nourishing strife and discord. Social distinctions and class
consciousness rob us of soul and spirit. The injustice committed
daily arouses the wrath of the God of peace until it reaches white
heat. The prophets of God expose the depravity of assessing human
beings in terms of money values. We are all responsible for those
who have hardly any dignity or joy in life or vestige of peace left.
As outcasts from the love of human society, they are delivered up
to discord and unpeace.
The prophecy of peace is directed against this debasing of human
love, this degeneration of the social conscience. Prophecy rises up
against the loveless will to possess. The prophet of peace attacks
pride of rulership, making slaves of others. The rich person's cold
love of money and heartless will to possess – which results in eco
nomic exploitation of the poor – summon the prophet of peace to
the Spirit's battlefield, where it fights all greed, force, and wealth.
The prophet recognizes that one who gathers possessions at the
expense of others, often violently, is nothing other than a cheat.
The prophetic spirit calls to account all who helped trample the
poor, who sided with the rich against those with nothing. The
prophet Amos says every luxury is won at the expense of the poor
and needy. The wealthy enjoy expensive furnishings, rich food and
drink, and spacious rooms only through tyrannizing and crushing
the poor and needy. Other prophets too hurl their "Woe betide
thee!" at those who, by amassing clothing and furniture from the
poor through seizure, become enemies of their own people: "You
tear the skin from the body and the flesh from the people's bones."
"You feed upon the flesh of my people."
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The prophet exposes the enormous outrage of people planning
to gain new land and houses to consolidate and increase private
property. Isaiah cries "woe!" to all "who join house to house, lay
field to field until there is no place for others." Moses had spoken
the word of the Lord: "The land is mine." "The whole earth belongs
to me." It must not become heritable property. Taking interest, like
owning land, is unmasked as godlessness: they are the two hands of
greedy mammon. All taking of interest is condemned by Ezekiel
through God's word: "You have forgotten me!"
Ezekiel proclaims God's justice at work only where no one is
harassed by poor wages or demands for money, where goods are
not seized for debts, where people give their bread to the hungry
and their clothes to the naked, where money is borrowed and lent
without interest: that is, where the right to own property has been
supplanted by love.
All prophets want economic oppression to be overcome, slavery's
yoke removed, freedom for the degraded, the homeless led home,
and the ill-clad given new clothes. Hosea puts the prophetic
demand into one brief sentence: "Hold fast to love and justice and
wait steadfastly for God!" All prophets know that for this a new
spirit has to come over humankind. The spirit of God must be
poured out over the crushed and downtrodden also to remove their
suffering. The God of the stars and all their heavenly hosts will rule
on the earth. He has laid his spirit on one whose righteousness and
justice will never be exhausted until firmly established over all the
earth as peace: it shall begin with one and shall come upon all. The
spirit-bearer will judge the lowly and wretched justly and protect
them. But he will overthrow the oppressors with the word of
justice. He is called "God is our righteousness." His justice and
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righteousness will bring peace; swords and spears will be beaten
into tools for peaceful work. No nation will lift up weapons against
another. No one will prepare for war anymore. The king of justice
will obliterate all war chariots and weapons, for the earth shall be
filled with the knowledge of God as the waters fill the sea.
Through the centuries, the prophets' call for justice resounds
like an echo heralding the peace to come. For thousands of years
peace is the direction of the prophets for the earth and humankind.
This call is more distinct than the stamping and roaring of all the
wars of the world. The approaching day of the prince of peace is
mightier than any throughout all history. The works of humankind
come to a halt! The work of God comes over humankind and over
the whole torn earth in final and all-embracing peace! The work of
God breaks straight in! It penetrates to the depths and spans the
breadths! In the midst of collapse, Jesus, the man of peace, arises
without whom no peace can be achieved.
The people of peace follow the Master whose nature is the life
blood of their order of life. His spirit, which stands up for the mean
and lowly against the great tyrants, inspires their unity. This spirit
of peace opposes war. His journey of peace on the humblest beast
of burden displaces cavalry, breaks the weapons of war, and
inaugurates national peace. This peace bearer sets prisoners free
and redeems the downtrodden. The majesty of his divine peace is
framed by the princely forms of justice and well-being and gracious
kindness that shines out on the poor.
No peace and disarmament without social justice! No prophet
recognizes peace and disarmament or the changing of deadly
weapons into tools of civilization without social renewal and recon
ciliation, giving back to the poor the use of all tools and products.
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The prophet Moses had already proclaimed: "There shall not be
any poor found among you anywhere!" Yet he knew there would
be poor people in this world until every remnant of injustice had
disappeared, when all hearts and all energies would be concen
trated on peace, giving brotherly love unlimited authority. Because
Jesus sees this approaching, he can and must say, "Blessed are the
poor! Woe to the rich!"
The majesty of God comes very near to this earth! Kindness and
faithfulness, righteousness and well-being kiss each other. Faithfulness
springs out of the earth! Righteousness comes down from heaven!
(Ps. 85:8–13). Going out from the heart, peace penetrates into all
lands because it comes down from God's highest heaven like
lightning. It comes as justice. It reveals its clear and simple nature
as the love expressed in fairness and brotherliness. This descending
ball of lightning annihilates unpeace in its blazing flames.
When peace conquers, it means the abolition of wealth as much
as of armed force. Both powers wield enormous influence, but faith
stands against them and conquers. Faith meets with deeper under
standing among the poor than among the rich. The will to peace is
strongest and most genuine where poverty of goods goes hand in
hand with the hunger and thirst of spiritual poverty. The kingdom of
God will bring fairness and brotherliness. It will bind in complete unity
all those whose longing hearts hunger for justice and righteousness.
For this reason wealth and all surfeit must be dispersed.
The prophets make inflexible demands to cut out all ostentatious
extravagance in clothing, housing, and social life, root and branch.
Utmost simplicity shall be established in everything. Unity demands
it. The style of unity is expressed in the beauty of the simple line.
Social peace can be achieved in no other way. The circle and the
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straight line are symbols of the love that gathers and the genuine
truth that goes with it. When no one outspends another, when no
one embellishes life to suit his vanity, everyone will be drawn into
the community of shining clarity. When privileges and luxury are
abolished, justice has broken through.
Social inequality, the result of rifts in society, destroys the sense
of community and all possibility of community. It must be attacked
with the sharpness of the Spirit if the cause of peace is to go for
ward. Luxury and greed, property and wealth are the roots of
discord. So the beginning of the great prophecy of Amos
mercilessly assails the unequal distribution of the joys and goods of
this world. Hosea and all the other prophets follow his example
with the same sharpness.
What applies to the root applies to the fruit as well. The violence
of killing and warfare is and will always be the height of unpeace,
the bitterest fruit of injustice. Isaiah therefore points to the law of
peace: "The violent shall come to their end." But the peace of
Christ's justice shall never cease. The kingdoms of this world shall
all be destroyed because they are warlike kingdoms. Dominion,
power, and might over all things under heaven shall be given to the
holy people of the Most High. For they are the people of peace and
justice. The kingdoms of this world with their predatory nature will
be swept away without distinction, whether their emblem is the
eagle, the lion, the bear, or other beast of prey. The Son of Man has
come to destroy the works of the devil.
The hour of decision approaches: "Ask of me, and I will give you
nations as your spoil and the ends of the earth as your possession."
"The nations will be glad and sing for joy: for thou dost judge the
people justly and govern the nations upon the earth." "Sing among
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the nations that the Lord is king; he will judge the people justly."
"Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad. The Lord is king."
In the kingdom of this king, justice is loved. "He helps the weak
gloriously."
The new covenant takes up this proclamation and makes it a reality,
as Ezekiel had foretold: "I will make them one nation in the
land…and one king shall be king over them all; and they shall be no
longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms." In
Christ, Isaiah's words became reality: "O thou afflicted, tossed by
the tempest, I will teach thy children great peace. Violence shall no
more be heard in thy land, nor destruction within thy borders." In
the church of Jesus Christ, Jeremiah's word is fulfilled: "The days
are coming when the city of the Lord shall be uprooted no more."
The Spirit says through Peter: "Change from the root up! Make a
complete turn in your life! Your sins must be wiped out. Let the
time of new life break in! It comes from the presence of the Lord of
all worlds! The coming time sends the Ruler! He will be announced
to you beforehand. In heavenly power, Jesus Christ waits until the
time has come when everything shall be fulfilled that God has spo
ken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began."
Jesus Christ is the goal of our history. God's prophecy with its
all-commanding view proclaims the final peace of Jesus Christ. In
this peace all enmity is extinguished, all war put down, and all strife
brought to an end. Christ is the beginning of God-created human
kind and its life-bringing end. He is the first and last of the living
letters that spell out the divine plan of peace. In Jesus, the whole
course of history turns toward its conclusion, when everything will
be renewed. The long-awaited unity of peace, approaching at last
with the coming of Jesus, will lead in the completely different and
entirely new rule of God.
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The kingdom of God draws near. God's will shall at last prevail.
What is hidden in his heart will reveal the mystery of his name.
Jesus' first and last concern, the entire content of his will to live
(which was also a readiness to die) was the glory of God, that is,
the glory of God's heart.
Jesus, who revealed the heart of God, knows that the future is
dedicated to it. From now on, all those who believe in this future
reign of God are dedicated to his perfect will of peace. For the
deeply longing hearts of Jesus' inner circle, the first petitions of
the Lord's Prayer show the old covenant's prophecy of peace
endowed with new and final perfection.
Everything Jesus says and does makes the rule of peace foretold by
the prophets a reality. It confirms the truth of all their promises. In
the church of Jesus Christ, the long-prophesied community, bound
by common covenant, becomes reality now, precisely as it will in
the coming kingdom. The word of the prophets of old has paved
the way for the messianic rule of peace. Now from all nations, the
future citizens of the kingdom of peace stream together. They
gather around Christ. A call to the power of perfect peace goes out
from the church to the whole world.
God's people of old are and will be the starting point for the new
people of unity. Yet in Jesus all national barriers have fallen and his
kingdom of unity spreads unimpeded. In the presence of the unit
ing spirit of the future, the divisive spirit of this age is of no signifi
cance. Through the spiritradiating from the church, all national
boundaries are abolished forever. The heirs of the old covenant,
now consecrated in Christ, extend the work of peace over the
whole earth. All land belongs to God. Jesus has burned his fiery rule
of peace from the other world into this world.
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In Jesus Christ, the fiery spirit of the old prophecy of peace comes
to perfect expression for all time. It starts in the present: the peace
foretold by the prophets penetrates into the church of Christ as
love, justice, and truth, present here and now down to their last
consequences. Jesus, like all the prophets, knows no reconciliation
with destructive opposition. His prophetic truth knows no giving in
or making of concessions. He does not work for peace by making
compromises. His peace makes no covenant with unpeace. He never
joins any hostile opposition. He destroys unpeace. His opposition to
the roots of unpeace is inexorable.
Jesus, sparing none, hurls his sevenfold woe at the hypocritical
destroyers of all true unity. Their answer is murderous. As foretold
by the prophets, every government and all powers of world economics
are bound to fight with the most deadly violence against the perfect
expression of peace in Jesus Christ and his church. In this way, the
character of unconditional peace shines out more strongly and
clearly than ever and delivers up the peace bearers, unarmed, to
the flaming sword of the enemy. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the
most powerful prophecy of the kingdom of peace, stands for the
will to peace with its resistance unto death – any death. Against the
peace-disrupting power of the whole world it sets the passive
resistance of the cross: the cross versus the sword!
The cross is the radicalism of love. The peace of the Sermon on
the Mount tackles everything at the root. Out of love it gives away
the last remnants of property, right down to jacket and shirt, and
gives every bit of working strength to the community spirit of
absolute unity. As often as love demands it, this peace sacrifices
itself and goes serenely twice the distance and gives twice the
working time. Without pause, the church of peace conducts an
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active and creative general strike against all the surrounding injus
tice of outward unpeace. In this break with the status quo, Jesus
recognizes no claims justified by law. He does not allow his church
to carry on any lawsuit or to sit in judgment in any court of law. He
demands that the church should drop or interrupt its religious worship
whenever brothers need to be reconciled, whenever the genuine
ness of brotherly unity is in question. He places the restoring and
maintaining of the unity of love over and against the insincere cult
of disunited piety.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives an absolute mandate
never to resist the power of evil. Only thus can evil be turned to
good. Jesus' will to love prefers rather to be struck twice than to
counter with even one blow. Love matters more than anything else.
Love allows no other feelings to come in. In marriage too, love
keeps faith and fights against any separation or divorce. Because it
is forgiveness, love governs private prayer (Matt. 6:6). As complete
reconciliation, this absolute and all-embracing will to love determines
our attitude to society (to our enemy as well – yes, particularly to
him). Love does not take the slightest part in hostilities, strife, or
war, nor can it ever return curses and hate, hurt and enmity –
neither in the individual nor in the community. Love is not
influenced by any hostile power. No change of circumstance can
change the attitude of Jesus and his followers; he does nothing but
love, make peace, wish and ask for good, and work good deeds.
Where the peace of Jesus Christ dwells, war dies out, weapons are
smelted down, and hostility vanishes. Love has become boundless
in Jesus; it has achieved absolute sovereignty.
Here at last the justice and righteousness that was begun in the
prophets becomes complete reality in Jesus Christ, which is better
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than that of all moralists and theologians, of all socialists, communists,
and pacifists. For the sap of life flows in it for the plantation of the
future, for the living community of perfect peace. Here the salt of
the divine inner nature is at work in strength. Here the light of
God's heart streams out as the beacon of the city church whose
towers proclaim freedom, unity, and dedication. Here what each
one wants is wanted and done for all. Here no one lays up possessions
and no ones heart is cold with icy fear for their own existence or
how to make ends meet. Here the peace of love reigns.
In this city church, all citizens are gathered with one goal in
mind: God's will and God's rule, God's heart and God's nature. No
one is in opposition to another here and no one is condemned. No
one is coerced here; no one is despised; no one is violated. And yet
love rules as truth and the nature of our inmost heart is recognized
by the fruits, by deeds. Here everybody knows well that such a
determined common will provokes the sharpest opposition from
the surrounding world. Perfect unity, which gathers and binds, is
seen as a provocation. It is regarded with enmity because it is
misunderstood as an infuriating exclusiveness. It makes all those
resentful who, like most people, feel that they are neither able nor
willing to accept the call to such complete community. So a clash is
inevitable. No one can escape it.
This living community of hearts, this combining of goods and
working strength, stands out in absolute contrast to the attitude of
the whole world. This is bound to cause resentment, especially in
others whose ideals drive them to violent action for which they
want support. For in this community of love every hostile act is
rejected, whatever the circumstances and however weighty the
reasons. Any participation in warlike action, police activity, or law
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proceedings is out of the question, however justified it may seem
on the grounds of protecting the good. This community of peace
has nothing in common with violent revolt, however necessary it
may seem in the name of suppressed justice. The very fact that such
a life exists, symbolizing the kingdom of peace and love, challenges
all (both right and left) who regard government by force as the
primary duty of the hour.
Because the expectation of the coming peaceable kingdom
leads to a life in full community, all those who look upon community
as impossible are affronted by it. As long as they are determined to
refuse the continuing fellowship of the wedding feast, as long as
they cannot accept what is so great and yet so intimate – the bond
of peace, the common table, the unity of life, the cooperation in
work, and the church that carries responsibility – they have no
other choice than to fight it. In the end, though reluctantly, they take
measures to destroy it. So, in spite of the church's unconditional peace
stand in all situations, severe struggles and clashes are bound to
result from the will to community, precisely because of its uncom
promising nature. They are bound to grow in number and intensity
the nearer the church of peace draws to the final kingdom of peace.
In the true church, the beginning of the coming kingdom is present
in full force and challenging clarity. Before the final extension of the
rule of peace, there has to be a last battle between the power of
strife and discord and the strongest power, the power of peace. The
severity and dreadfulness of the last battles will be more and more
startling as the peace witness of the church reaches its consumma
tion and her martyrs once more go unarmed to their death. But
under no circumstances can the opposition be left in repose. For
there, people will not give up their selfish separation as individuals
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or as national groups. People cannot or will not let the root of sin,
of curse-laden unpeace, be taken away from them. They maintain it
is absolutely indispensable.
People cannot trust peace, want nothing of faith, and reject the
better future. They would rather trust the idols of brute force than
the spirit of love and the God of peace. Property needs the protec
tion of law and force. People want to hold on to what belongs to
them, and will not accept anything from others. They demand their
rights and reject grace. Under the law, sin continues and unpeace
remains. The law's iron hand holds on to bloody judgment and the
sword. It strikes down individuals and mows down whole nations with
its ghastly weapons, which poison continents and will in the end
destroy the whole earth. Sin and the law make death inevitable.
Finally God himself, against the ultimate will of his heart, must assent
to this judgment of wrath, which is necessary according to the justice
of the law.
When the nations harden their hearts completely against the one
way God wants, the way of pure love, they call down judgment on
themselves. They are the origin of all those abnormal events that
happen as unavoidable natural catastrophes. When they despise
the creative will, God has to give people up to their degenerate,
impure, and depraved love-life. When people of their own free will
reject the will to peace, the raging torches of civil war will flare
over them. God in his wrath brings on the judgment precipitated
by self-will. The old state of affairs is repeated: God in his wrath
once gave his beloved people a warlike king because his own kingship
had been rejected by war-lust and greed for the status of a major
power; still earlier, God's law had allowed blood vengeance and the
death penalty to replace the rejected leadership of the spirit; and
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the flood had buried the flesh that had turned away from the spirit.
So now, as antichristian strife reaches its inevitable climax, the
judgment of God will let loose a fiery flood of war.
This fate is inescapable – a matter of cause and effect. War is
karma, the necessary consequence of discord, unpeace, and lack of
community. It is the deadly fruit of the broken fellowship with God,
the inescapable judgment over the causes of war – separation from
God's unity, division of life into hostile opposites, injustice and
disunity. It all arises from property and selfishness. War judges
itself. It is based on unpeace with God and disunity among people.
War is the monstrosity born of the covetous will, the hell of
disunity. War intensifies this compulsion to sin to the point of self-
destruction. It drives the law, which kills, to the point of
massacring nations. In war, loveless injustice surpasses itself. It be
comes murderous lawlessness.
War is the insane culmination of the clash between judging law
and unbridled lawlessness; its ultimate purpose is to reveal sin. The
judgment of war should crash down on us, hammering and shaping us,
so that at last a longing arises for the cause of death to be overcome,
for community in God to become everything. To be rid of war, the
roots of sin must be exposed and eradicated. Once the cause of
separation is overcome, unity and community will break in – then
not a hand will be lifted, not a foot will be stirred, to serve the
monstrosity of hell that is called war. With sin destroyed, brothers
are no longer killed. The way ahead is made free, and in the empty
space, the peace of God arises. Repentance gives birth to faith; faith
brings peace. Ending separation to establish unity – that is the gospel.
To sin belongs the law. To law belongs killing (1 Cor. 15:56). These
three uphold each other. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit and
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in the name of God, has conquered this triple alliance of death
forever and ever. He broke the weapon of death – sin. He tore up
the writ of accusation and judgment. His death unmasked the
origin of all killing: he tore out its root cause. He plants resurrec
tion and the unity of the Holy Spirit in the places where dissolu
tion, separation, and sin are eradicated.
The law of Moses brought war, which it then had to control. The
grace and truth of the gospel bring unity and the order of commu
nity (John 1:17). Because national and international laws determine
the prosecution of all illegal conduct, they require war, imprison
ment, and death. The sons of Christ's spirit keep peace, bring free
dom, and are responsible for the forgiveness of sins. Through the
mission of their spirit, they spread abroad unity of life.
Where Christ takes over the government, the rule of all other
death-dealing powers is annulled. Where the spirit of grace rules,
the law of governmental authority withdraws. Death's judgment
retreats before the salvation and resurrection of life. Gathering
replaces enmity. So it is in the church, and so it will be at the end
when the first and last fruit of separation from God, death itself, is
swept away. All the works of enmity will be destroyed and last of
all the final enemy himself. Before then, all enmity and hostility
must be given up; it leads to death. The auxiliary troops of death
will be the first to be surrounded; first the tree with its roots will
be torn up. Then the poisonous fruits of death will be attacked to
the very last seed, till death itself is done away with.
However, evil and murder are still on the increase, gaining more
and more influence. The stronger the power of love grows, the
more it drives poisonous hostility to a peak. The reverse is also true.
When evil has matured, it is time to clear out what has ripened in
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death's plantation and make room for the laying-out of God's
garden. This dual development of completely opposed events
forces decision. It leads to tearing-down and rebuilding. The course
of all history runs up from below and down from above. From both
directions it converges on a single point. Apostolic prophecy (in the
book of Revelation) follows this dual line of development to the
end. The point where they meet is the end: the judgment and the
kingdom. Both lines are drawn by "religiously" motivated hands:
"satanism" and "faith" are the mysterious forces that direct this
dual line of development.
Siding with the deadly power of evil, the godlessness of a life of
hypocrisy and murderous corruption mounts to the maddest
heights of arrogance: with amazing pomp and splendor, it claims
the highest place of all in the house of God. It is the false prophecy
of a church that has fallen away from God. It hypocritically flaunts
the raiment and the mien of the animal of peace, like a sacrificial
lamb, while making propaganda for the dragon of war. In the form
of the lamb it speaks like the dragon against the lamb. To wage war
against the church of peace, it joins forces with the warring
monster of worldly power, the power of all armed nations.
The church of peace sets out against this overwhelming and twofold
power without the protection of murderous weapons. It refuses to
worship either power and knows that the whore of Babylon will
fall. Certainly, this false and faithless woman is still firmly seated
on the throne of the world's ruling powers and authorities. Elated
by power, she is still intoxicated with the blood of the martyrs she
has sacrificed. But the breath of the coming reign of Christ sweeps
her off. The twofold world power from below is broken from
above. The lying dragon of unpeace is expelled and war is banned.
The reign of peace comes.
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The last outburst of war from humankind's major powers storms
out of the night. Like every war, it bears afresh the marks of Satan's
power let loose and so is bound to assault the kingdom of God once
more before it is overthrown. This final war, this last world confla
gration, must forever annihilate all states based on force and all
major world powers. The new aeon begins by putting a final end to
all the powers of war. The joyous unity of the wedding feast and
the gathering of love at the common table of God's kingdom
replace the horrors of war, enmity, and death.
In solitary greatness amidst a world full of enemies, the prophets
of old felt compelled to make known their opposition to the
priesthood of established religion and to the sovereignty of their
state – all this to the same degree that these two powers expanded
their double-faced rule on the lines of the great heathen powers
with all their wars and magnificent pomp. In the same way, the
apostolic prophets of early Christianity have had to fight with ever-
increasing ardor against the bloody violence of political power and
against all religion that hypocritically supports them but in truth
has fallen away from God.
To the prophets, the God of Abraham is and always will be the
God of the kingdom. According to the faith of the apostles, the
Father of Jesus Christ does not want to be forever a God of the law.
He is the same God as he was at the time of the lawgiver and
prophet Moses; but the way of his heart (love) triumphs over the
ways of his wrath. His peace supersedes the law. What the law
could not achieve, God accomplished in Christ. Through Christ's
spirit, faith in the God and Father of Jesus Christ is obedient to
peace, because faith – perfected – has as its object the God of
perfect love. It is the God of history who makes all the threads of
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history run together and come to an end in the one, single way of
peace – the peace of his Christ.
We must distinguish between the innermost heart of God and his
waist that is girded with judgment (Isa. 11:5). For hidden in the
somber flames of judgment lives the ray of his pure love. The
deadly accurate judgment of his presence is nearer to love than the
cold distance of a god who hides his face. The brazen footsteps of
God's wrath are dreadful. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands
of his judgment. But secretly his pulsing heart spreads out a mantle
of love for all his enemies. Beautiful are the feet of his messengers,
spreading joy as they come from the mountains and bring the
message of God's heart to the valley of judgment. Their greeting to
everyone is peace. Their message is clear: the judgment of God is
fulfilled in his heart. He himself has been met by it. God's heart
becomes king! His ambassadors wept bitterly because peace had
been lost. For them, there is no harsher judgment than the loss of
peace. But now they hand over this sealed message: that miracle,
the heart, is stronger than all judgment.
Though mountains were to melt in volcanic eruptions and hills
laid low by appalling earthquakes, and even if the earth itself were
to totter and crack and the judgment of his mighty wrath were to
demolish great powers – still, the love of God's heart, the rainbow
of his perfection, will never waver. The sun of his heart shines upon
the devastating storm-curtain of his wrath and the rainbow of
peace spans it. What if leagues of nations and world peace itself
suffer shipwreck, what if all treaties be torn up – the seal of God's
covenant will not break. Times of judgment will come and sink into
the grave. But peace will arise and remain. That will not change.
Peace is God's final word; it is his heart. Peace is and always will be
the ultimate will of God.
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We should stop looking merely at the historical instruments of
judgment, at the human vessels of wrath, and with deep discern
ment turn to the heart of God in all his works throughout history.
Then in spite of the murderous chaos of war and the injustice
raging around us, we have entered the garden of peace. The
historical Jesus is the heart of God. As the coming Christ, he shows
the importance of God's heart for the whole world. His command
empowers us to sheath the sword and put it away forever. The
heart of Jesus foresees with fearful clarity the catastrophe ahead:
it will devastate all the kingdoms of this earth and the whole world
economy through major international wars and bloody revolutions.
He knows that because of strife and discord, the hour of wrath
must precede the day of peace. The approaching fall of civilization
with the final war of judgment is one of the main themes of his
great prophetic speech, which John and Paul have enlarged upon so
powerfully in apostolic prophecy.
The dreadful cup cannot be avoided. The plowland must be cleared;
the corrupting weeds must be burned. After they have run riot for the
last time, they must never again be able to spread their seeds of
murder. If evil is to be uprooted, it must be exposed for what it is.
Political chaos, outbursts of war and revolution, economic depres
sions, and frightful natural catastrophes shall once more deliver
humankind to the knife of its own unpeace. But in the midst of all the
hellish tumult, the paradise of peace is revealed. Those who hold out
and shed no blood in spite of the mounting horrors of the final desola
tion, doing God's holy work in pure, brotherly love, will come through
the sharpest judgment and the last catastrophe.
The old world collapses in terrible self-destruction, but the
church of Jesus Christ takes no part in all this horror. The frenzied
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power of the world loathes the unassailable peace stand of Christ's
church. In their fury, all warlike powers persecute the gathered
unity of God's peace. Even in the battering storm of extreme need,
the church rejects the slightest sign of militarism – the inhuman
beast of prey. The power of love opposes the violence of unpeace.
Just for this reason, persecution reaches the heights of its fury. The
prophetic spirit of the king of peace sees through the tension
between these ultimate and diametrically opposed powers of love
and hate as the shaking force at work everywhere in world history
and in end-history. This spirit sees that the throes of extreme need
must precede the birth of world peace.
The dreadful birth-pangs of the end times are part of the curse of
death, brought by the loss of our original peace. The peace of God
and of the great advent cannot be born without a final judgment
over frightening unpeace, bringing forth its last monstrosity. Just
before the new breaks in, all that is old must be shattered by
appalling need. All institutions made by human society must be
overthrown. Every form of their power and slavery must be oblit
erated. No peace can be planted on the unchanged soil of unpeace.
The plow sets to work. It breaks up the sod again. The beginning of
God's rule leads to the frightening end of world history so that on
its ruins, purified of all adulteration, the justice and righteousness
of eternal peace will be able to rise.
Right into a world driven frantic with unpeace and injustice, Christ
will let the unblemished kingdom of peace break in. But this future,
coming directly from above, is already present in the spirit of Jesus
Christ: in his church, the will to peace is put into practice here and
now. God's world judgment annihilates the evil powers of unpeace in
order to sweep through the last and greatest catastrophe in
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humankind's history of war. It brings in eternal peace. God's rule
has to make this final step because it cannot make any alliance with
the powers of injustice. Under the trampling boots of soldiers,
God's heart, as Christ crucified once again, beats on in unchanging
love; as the church of the risen one, it carries God's peace inviolate
to meet the coming day.
The spirit of Jesus Christ lets the fresh air of the ultimate kingdom of
peace blow right into this sultry, disaster-laden atmosphere. His
gospel brings purity, reconciliation, and unity. His new spirit is the
authentication of the kingdom of peace. Through the signet and
seal of the spirit, what is decreed for the future is already entrusted
to the church. The church of Jesus Christ is the body of the community
of perfect peace, through which life and immortality are revealed
in our time. As the bearer of the kingdom of peace, the church is
freed from all killing and murdering.
When we are gathered in the church and God's love fills our
hearts, we cannot be tempted by any power that belongs to force.
As Jesus can never be thought of as a Roman soldier, so members of
his church can never belong to the artillery, air force, or police.
Neither poison, bombs, pistols, or knives, neither the executioner's
sword nor the gallows can be our weapon. As the revelation of the
heart of Jesus, as Christ's letter, our task is simply to pass on the
image of absolute love in all its clarity (2 Cor. 3:2–3). Standing in
the presence of Christ, we must represent that he has arrived; when
Christ reveals himself now, we must proclaim his future coming.
What is invisible in the world of peace to come becomes visible
in the church. Everyone shall see this work of God. Everyone shall
honor the Father of Jesus Christ through it. This unadulterated
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image of Jesus is the only hope for the future. The church is his
uplifted torch, the radiant city on the hill.
The stars of prophecy have shone through the night of unpeace,
moving for centuries across the celestial sphere of world history.
As history draws to a close, the starry heavens of prophecy will let
the great gods of military power spread their twilight. When the
days were fulfilled, the morning star – the king of peace – rose in
the firmament of prophecy. He heralds the dawn of the coming
day. The church is wedded to the sun of peace. Whoever lets the
morning star rise in his heart is freed from all warlike powers of
this world and belongs with every beat of his heart to the coming
day of God's great peace.
The dawn of the new age lights up the invisible city of peace. The
hidden land of community appears. In the Holy Spirit of the church,
the new Jerusalem comes down from above. Only the perfect city
without a temple has done away with cultic religion. In this city,
community life is the temple of peace, the temple of the great
king. The church bears the seven-armed lampstand of the Sabbath
of peace, on which our own works shall rest forever because the
mighty works of God have begun. The city of peace and justice and joy
reveals the radiant brightness of the new creation. The old order has
passed away. The new order comes into force – everything becomes
new.
This is the gathering and uniting from all four ends of the earth
to the ends of heaven, the unity of those still alive with those
living in glory – God's kingdom of peace. Its power in the future
begins in the unchangeable community of life and spirit, which in
our time bears the name "church." In the peace of the city-church,
the bride, the church, prepares herself to receive the bridegroom,
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Jesus. She will go to his wedding feast carrying the blazing torches
of the spirit.
This feast day of the king of peace establishes the throne of his
government; his infinite joy makes it possible for his reign to
begin. The places of work for his kingdom are already there; will
and deed crown his feast. When we celebrate our freedom from
the hideous monster of bloody violence and from the powerful
woman of seduction and unfaithfulness, a fruitful life arises with a
clear authority. On the foundation of the atonement, which brings
unity and enthusiasm, the reign of the priestly king begins, inaugu
rated by his feast. It is a feast celebrating the perfected reign of
peace. The bride of the king has prepared herself for it.
This message of apostolic prophecy was entrusted to John as
certain tidings of the approaching time. It is "the revelation given
to Jesus Christ by God to show his servants what must very soon
take place." The Christ who appears among the seven candlesticks
of the church receives the book of the future from the sovereign of
the world, who is surrounded by the twenty-four elders and the
four radiant living creatures of the star-world. Only he who is the
faith of the church is able to open it. So his present is the ultimate
future of the dawning kingdom of peace. This is true in the church,
so that John had to write his revelation to the seven churches as a
reality in the present and a certainty for the future: what exists
now is a picture of what shall be. To the seer whose eyes are open,
faith's present and hope's future are one and the same. What unites
them is love.
In the church of the Holy Spirit, the future kingdom of God is
present with its perfect justice, its absolute peace, and its joy in
love and unity. In the midst of the church, the king of peace brings
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here and brings now her inviolable community of peace both within
and without – nothing but peace. Where there is redemption and
reconciliation through Christ, even the locking-up of Satan for the
thousand years of rejoicing is present reality because peace is here
and now put into action. The church is the door of peace, open in
the present as an entrance into the kingdom of the future. So for
the believing and united church, Satan is already bound; in the
church, his divisiveness and hostility have been done away with.
The kingdom of peace has been won. Weapons are laid down. Christ
is king, and he is king here and now as the head and the heart of
the church.
From the church, Christ's spirit of love and his will to unity press
outward into all the world. This fact, in the present, guarantees
certainty about the future: he is the one to conquer and renew all
creation, to make the whole torn cosmos into a new and living unit.
In Christ the old world passes, and the new creation arises. Jesus is the
new man of the church, as the son of man in the coming kingdom. In
Jesus, God's rule has now become love to our brothers and to our
enemies through faith. For those who have eyes of faith to see, the
life in his church shall be the living parable of the unity and peace
for which God wants to conquer the earth. In the church, the world
of today can see the image of the city of peace. It is the signpost to
the future, and everyone will see it. No corner on earth is to be left
in darkness; the light, held aloft, floods into all rooms. The city of
light sends out bearers of light. Community in the city on the hill
and constant traveling for the sake of mission are identical.
The unity of the early Christian church and the apostleship of
peace are one. From churches formed in brotherly love, power is
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sent out to all inhabitants of the earth – the power to create peace
and harmony. Rays from the small sun-city light up the whole
world. From apostolic times, the early Christian church has been
assigned the world-embracing task that the one cause of the
kingdom of God shine out in all directions with unalloyed clarity.
She is to represent nothing else. Not only the generation immedi
ately following the apostles makes this abundantly clear: the clear
light of the original Christian truth through succeeding generations
checked the slow but persistent growth of darkness till far into the
third century.
The post-apostolic elders of the earliest times took apostolic mission
as their authority. About a.d. 150, Justin also took the prophetic
spirit as proclaiming a future begun with the apostles. That swords
should be beaten into plowshares and lances into sickles, that nation
should no longer lift up sword against nation, and that we should
forget how to wage war – for him, all this had already begun. As he
writes, "from Jerusalem men and women went out into the
world…not mighty in speech, but sent through the power of God
to the whole human race."
Justin describes Christian life around a.d. 160 in just the same
way, as an expression of reverence, justice, love to all, and confident
expectation of the future. Here again he testifies: "We also were
once just as conversant with war and murder as with everything
else that is evil. But all of us, wherever we happen to live in the
whole wide world, have all exchanged our weapons of war: swords
for plowshares, lances for farm implements."
Theophilus writes still more strongly to Autolycus around a.d.
180: "Even to watch fights that are dangerous to life is forbidden
to us. We can be neither active participants nor conscious specta
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tors of acts that lead to death. Not even our eyes or ears shall take
part in any act of murder. We must avoid witnessing any death-
dealing act and also listening when such deeds are glorified, even if
it is only in song." Every outward but also every inner participation
in war is impossible. Any kind of propaganda for the glory of
shedding blood is rejected. For "in the church of Jesus Christ,
justice is put into practice and faith is testified by deeds; here grace
keeps watch and peace protects. Here God is king."
At the end of this early period, Origen writes in no uncertain
terms about what the consequences of this attitude of faith were
for the early Christians: a Christian may never use the sword against
anyone; the church of Jesus has a completely different politeia. It
has a completely different public responsibility from that of the
military and judicial power of state authority, a completely different
political task, a completely different citizenship, and a completely
different form of community life.
For this reason, according to Tertullian, the holder of a govern
ment office could be regarded as a Christian only if he exercised his
duty "without condemnation, without punishment, without chains
and prisons and torture, without capital punishment, and without
depriving anyone of civil rights." In spite of the ascendance of the
institutional church, the third century still held the same view as
Athenagoras in the second century, who expressed it in these sharp
words: "To force people through lawsuits in which their lives are at
stake is a crime against human flesh." Anyone committing this
crime against Christians attacks those who are not allowed even to
withdraw from blows, let alone return one.
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As late as a.d. 248, Origen wrote to the anti-Christian Celsus:
"Military service should not be demanded of Christians." This
attitude was still as clear to post-apostolic Christians as it had been
to the early Christians of the first church. After all, military service
is not demanded of priests. "We do not go with the emperor to the
battlefield, not even when he demands it." Christians support the
governmental authorities only through their prayer, which is
determined by Christ; only through prayer for peace; only through
prayer for the community of the new humanity; only in the prayer
that all inhabitants of the earth shall be given peace and harmony;
only in the request that the governments of all nations shall exercise
their authority with reverence, in peace and benevolence, and
without violence; and only in the faith that the peace of a new life
is brought about by the power of the resurrection from the dead.
The First Letter of Clement (written before a.d. 100, yet strictly
in line with the institutional church) and also the much less ecclesi
astical "Acts of Thomas," written soon after a.d. 160, express
complete agreement with Origen. Justin, too, declared that all the
kingdoms and powers of the world look upon Jesus with fear and
yet must recognize that everywhere believers in Christ are peace
bringers. Moreover, around a.d. 150 Justin wrote, "We, more than
any others, are your helpers and allies for peace." Tertullian sums
up the attitude of early Christianity from the time of the apostles
right into the third century with the words: "Only without swords
can Christians wage war. The divine and the human banner do not
go together – the flag of Christ and the flag of the devil!"
War is in fact the most powerful act of violence, the work of
demonic power. Under the banner of war, measures of the most
murderous kind (coming from a hostility that even without war is
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constantly present) are carried so far that they become an
unbridled storm. "World peace" is a state of war waged by other
means; it is not peace. Not only war is satanic; satanic is also the
root of war – unpeace in times of political "peace." Under the false
name of peace, it commits demonic crimes against life everywhere.
The outbreak of military hostilities in civil and international war is
not by any means the only evil the peace bearers of the church must
stand against. They must stand as much against the widespread
damage done in private life, seen most clearly in the destruction of
nascent life, which was labeled "murder" and "child-murder" by
early Christianity. It calls those women "murderesses of human
life" who "procure a miscarriage through medicine" or those who
in tacit agreement allow it to be done to them.
Bearers of peace are familiar with all the murky sources of death-
bringing division. They fight money's power to buy and rule as
passionately as they fight unfaithfulness in love relationships
because there they see the dangerous seat of murderous unpeace.
Tertullian testifies that the Spirit "makes everything communal
with one exception – love for women." In essence, the dragon's
teeth of covetousness, in privileged ownership and in unfaithful
love relationships, is the power at the root of the widespread state
of war – latent or active – between people who are meant to live a
pure life together in God as brothers and sisters.
Money, according to the prophetic faith of early Christianity, is a
"source of godlessness and license, an inciter to war, and an instru
ment for waging war. It is the hated plague and torment that
belongs to what is falsely called peace." "As long as the earth is
divided among the rich by defrauding others, as long as the
wealthy possess this earth that could feed so many, the poor will be
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exploited and the downtrodden kept in oppression." Then justice
can never be achieved, and peace is a sheer impossibility. Without
justice or love, peace cannot last a moment.
According to this early Christian prophecy (which gained wide
spread recognition) and according to Justin's testimony, that power
is important which proclaims the approaching time, when people
live together as brothers and sisters on the land God has promised
them. Defying death, the martyrs declared before their prosecutors
that they could recognize no kingdom of this present world-age;
that they knew only one lord, the king of all kings, the ruler over
all nations. In the third century still, according to Hippolytus, the
conditions of acceptance into the early Christian church decreed
that anyone should be rejected or excluded who was unwilling to
refuse all killing, even killing required by law. From all this it is
clear how state power and the church were bound to provoke the
sharpest opposition in each other.
Hermas, an exceptionally sober-minded prophet (influential in
Rome in post-apostolic times – perhaps before a.d. 100 but certainly
before a.d. 155), summarizes this state of affairs in the following
urgent challenge:
You know you live in a foreign country. Your own city-state is far away from the state surrounding you here. Those who acquire land, houses, perishable dwellings, and costly furnishings (as the custom is in the world state) can never expect to be at home in the quite other city-state to which they should belong. Unhappy people! Do you not realize that not one of all these things can belong to you, that with all these possessions you place yourself under a power foreign to your calling, by its very nature? Do you want to forswear the laws of the city you are called to? Will you really do this for the sake of property – fields and other things?
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Do you really want to live according to the laws of the city-state that rules here? Then you cannot be accepted into the other city-state you long for as your home. You have denied its laws. You have to be expelled. Let it be quite clear to you that you are living in a foreign country! Be satisfied with the bare necessities! You may not accumulate more than is enough to live on. At all times, be prepared!
Such stringent demands can be made only where people's hearts
are alive with the spirit of perfect love and completely filled with
the highest calling – the kingdom of God. The peace stand taken by
the early Christians is possible only in the strength of the gospels.
Only where the call to the church of peace takes over the whole of
life can concentration on mission lead to a break with the status
quo. Only where the spirit of unity establishes inmost peace can
the fight be ventured upon for peace and against unpeace all over
the world.
The center of life-energy that makes this stand possible is given