Part 6
Finally, the hour of his "redemption" strikes. With the power of conviction he is now able to "bear witness" before the congre gation that in Christianity there is salvation and redemption – he lands a pastorate.
What happens? He discovers that his salary is 150 dollars less a month than he expected. The game is up. The unfortunate man is almost in despair. It's not quite what he expected. How ever, it remains at that, and he keeps the call. He is ordained, and the Sunday arrives when he is to be officially presented to the congregation. By a stroke of genius, the Dean chooses for his text the words of the Apostle Peter: "Lo, we have left all and have followed Thee." He then explains to the congregation that precisely in times such as ours there must be men like Ludwig who are knowledgeable in God's Word, and in this connection he recommends this young man – despite the fact that he is re miss about the 150 dollars.
Ludwig himself now mounts the pulpit, and strangely enough, the Gospel reading for the day is, "Seek first the king dom of God." He delivers his sermon with all he's got. "A very good sermon," says the Bishop, who himself was present, "a very good sermon indeed, and it produced the proper effect – that whole part about first the kingdom of God, and the way you stressed the word first." You may be of the mind to question the Bishop, "But does it not seem to you that in this instance a cor respondence between speech and life is called for? Upon me this word first made an almost satirical impression." "What an absurdity!" replies the Bishop, "Ludwig is called to preach the doctrine, the sound, unadulterated doctrine of seeking first the kingdom of God, and that he did very well." What a dreadful mockery!
Whoever you are, think only on this word of God, "First the kingdom of God." Then reflect on this little novel, which is so tragically true. You will soon realize that this whole official Christianity business is a morass of falsehood and illusion. It is something so unregenerate that the only thing that can truly be said about it is that by refusing to take part in the public worship
54 "First the Kingdom of God"
of God as it now is, you have one sin the less, and that a great one: you do not take part in treating God as a fool.
God's Word reads, "Seek first the kingdom of God." We, however, prefer to read it as, first everything else, and last the kingdom of God. And we do this under the guise of religious piety. Only after the earthly life is first secured, then one should become a minister or a Christian. The clergy's whole profession (not to mention the rest of us good Christians) is a constant practice of this: first the earthly and then the kingdom of God, first regard for what the fear of man bids or forbids and then the kingdom of God, first a living and then a funeral oration, first a salary then a wedding sermon, first a pension then I will visit the sick, first money and then virtue. And the kingdom of God becomes something so last that it doesn't come at all. The whole thing stops with securing a living – the only case where one does not feel the need of "going further."
There is nothing so displeasing to God as taking part in all the "religious" Christianity with the claim that this is worship ing God. If you believe, as surely you must, that to steal, rob, commit adultery, and slander is displeasing to God, then official Christianity and its worship is infinitely more abhorrent to him. Again, it is my duty to exclaim, "Whoever you are, what ever in other respects your life may be, by refusing to take part in all this public worship of God as it now is, you have one sin the less, and that a great one." You have been warned.
55 Childish Orthodoxy
The Christianity that is usually recited to a child is actually not Christianity but idyllic mythology. It is the idea of childlikeness raised to the second power. And, sadly, the child's lovable misunderstanding of what is essentially Christian often transmutes parental love into a piety that is nevertheless not ac tually Christianity.
A Christianity based on a child's piety is not the spirituality of a disciple. This gets everything mixed up – as if the mother should try to get nourished by the milk that nature provides the child. If this is the parents' entire religiousness, then they lack authentic faith. This "childlike" piety, which we so often laud, and this blessedness are lovely and lovable, but it is not really Christianity. It is Christianity in the medium of idyllic fantasy. It is a Christianity from which the cross has been removed. It is a sentimental view of faith which forgets that Christ's call pro vokes the consciousness of sin.
Let us look more carefully at what Christ actually says with regard to children: "Let the little children come and do not for bid them to come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 19:14). The whole chapter speaks of the difficulty of entering the kingdom of heaven, and the expressions are as strong as possible: "There are eunuchs who have castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
55 Childish Orthodoxy
to enter the kingdom of God." It is no wonder that the disciples become so terrified that they exclaim: "Who then can be saved?"
After Christ answers the disciples, he goes on to speak of the reward awaiting those who have left houses and brothers or sis ters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for the sake of his name. All of these teachings are salty expressions depict ing the collisions in which a Christian can and will be tested. Consequently, Christ makes entering into God's kingdom as difficult as possible. But if entering this kingdom is supposed to be about the loveliness and innocence of being a little child, a proper little angel, then what could this possibly mean in the presence of the apostles who were called to pick up their cross and follow?
A childish view of Christianity is ludicrous. If the assertion about being a child must be understood literally, then it is non sense to preach the cross of Christ to adults. Yet this is the way Christianity is defended by orthodox fencers. Childlike Chris tianity, which in a little child is lovable, in an adult is childish. Faith such as that confuses everything. If a little child (literally understood) is to provide the definition of what Christianity is, then there is no terror; it ceases to be an offense, as the apostle Paul says, to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.
When a child is told about Christ it naturally appropriates everything that is gentle, endearing, and heavenly. He lives to gether with the little Jesus-child, with the angels, and with the three kings. He sees the star in the dark night, journeys the long road, and now is in the stable, wonder upon wonder, and always sees the heavens open. With all the inwardness of the imagina tion he longs for these pictures. And now let us not forget the candy canes and all the other magnificent things that come along with such religiousness! Christ becomes the little divine child, or for the somewhat older child, the friendly figure with
the kindly face. The child-conception of Christ is essentially a fantasy-perception.
With regard to being Christian, then, childhood is not the true age. On the contrary, adulthood – in the truest sense – is the time when it is to be decided whether a person will be a Christian or not. To become a Christian is a decision that be longs to a later age. The child's receptivity is so entirely without decision that it is no wonder people say: A child can be made to believe anything. This is because they do. This does not mean we should rigorously coerce a child into decisively Christian qualifications. By no means! If this happens, such a child will suffer a great deal. Such an upbringing will either plunge him immediately into despondency and anxiety or later into the anxiety of lust on a scale unknown even in paganism.
Even still, we must do everything we can to guard against changing Christianity into a beautiful, innocent recollection, instead of being what is most decisive in a person's becoming. Genuine Christianity is an offense to the religious and foolish ness to the wise. It is not some complacent something that of fends no one, where people smile at it instead, and where defense of it only incites them.
It is beautiful and lovable that Christian parents, just as they otherwise take care of the child, should also nourish the child with childlike ideas of the religious. But a stupid, sentimental, and clumsy misunderstanding of childhood is reprehensible. It is immense stupidity to say that childhood itself is the time for really deciding to become a Christian. And insofar as this urge and inclination to push becoming a Christian back into child hood becomes common, this in itself is proof that the decisive ness of Christian faith is on its way to dying out.
56 Kill the Commentators!
Today's mass of Bible interpreters have damaged, more than they have helped, our understanding of the Bible. In reading the scholars it has become necessary to do as one does at a play where a profusion of spectators and spotlights prevent, as it were, our enjoyment of the play itself and instead we are treated to little incidents. To see the play, one has to overlook them, if possible, or enter by a way that has not yet been blocked. The commentator has indeed become a most hazardous meddler.
If you wish to understand the Bible, then be sure to read it without a commentary. Think of two lovers. The lover writes a letter to the beloved. Is the beloved concerned about what oth ers think of it? Will he not read it all alone? In other words, would it ever occur to him to read this letter with a commen tary! If the letter from the lover were in a language he did not understand – well, then he would learn the language – but he would certainly not read the letter with the aid of commentar ies. They are of no use. The love for his beloved and his readi ness to comply with her desires, makes him more than able to understand her letter. It is the same with the Scriptures. With God's help we can understand the Bible all right. Every com mentary detracts, and he who sits with ten open commentaries and reads the Scriptures – well he is probably writing the elev enth. He is certainly not dealing with the Scriptures.
Suppose now that this letter from the lover has the unique attribute that every human being is the beloved – what then? Should we now sit and confer with one another? No, each of us should read this letter solely as an individual, as a single indi vidual who has received this letter from God. In reading it, we will be concerned foremost with ourselves and with our relation ship to him. We will not focus on the beloved's letter, that this passage, for example, may be interpreted in this way, and that passage in that way – oh, no, the important thing to us will be to act as soon as possible.
Isn't it something to be the beloved, and doesn't this give us something that no commentator has? Think about it. Aren't we each the best interpreter of our own words? And then next the lover, and in relation to God, the true believer? Lest we forget, the Scriptures are but highway signs: Christ, the beloved, is the way. Kill the commentators!
Of course, the commentators are not the only ones at fault. God wants to force each one of us out again into the essential, back to a childlike beginning. But being naked before God in this way, this we do not want at all. We all prefer the commen taries. So with each passing generation we grow more and more spiritless.
What we really need, then, is a reformation that sets even the Bible aside. Yes, this has just as much validity now as did Luther's breaking with the Pope. The current emphasis on get ting back to the Bible has, sadly, created religiosity out of learn ing and literalistic chicanery – a sheer diversion. Tragically this kind of knowledge has gradually trickled down to the masses so that no one can read the Bible simply any more. All our Bible learning has become nothing but a fortress of excuses and es capes. When it comes to existence, to obedience there is always something else we have to first take care of. We live under the
56 Kill the Commentators!
illusion that we must first have the interpretation right or the belief in perfect form before we can begin to live – that is, we never get around to doing what the Word says.
The Church has long needed a prophet who in fear and trembling had the courage to forbid people to read the Bible. I am tempted, therefore, to make the following proposal. Let us collect all the Bibles and bring them out to an open place or up on a mountain and then, while we all kneel, let someone talk to God in this manner: Take this book back again. We Christians, such as we are, are not fit to involve ourselves with such a thing; it only makes us proud and unhappy. We are not ready for it. In other words, I suggest that we, like those inhabitants whose herd of pigs plunged into the water and died, beg Christ "to leave the neighborhood" (Mt. 8:34). This would at least be hon est talk – something very different from the nauseating, hypo critical, scholarship that is so prevalent today.
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to under stand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accord ingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget every thing except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend it self against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
I open the New Testament and read:"If you want to be perfect, then sell all your goods and give to the poor and come follow
me." Good God, if we were to actually do this, all the capitalists, the officeholders, and the entrepreneurs, the whole society in fact, would be almost beggars! We would be sunk if it were not for Christian scholarship! Praise be to everyone who works to consolidate the reputation of Christian scholarship, which helps to restrain the New Testament, this confounded book which would one, two, three, run us all down if it got loose (that is, if Christian scholarship did not restrain it).
In vain does the Bible command with authority. In vain does it admonish and implore. We do not hear it – that is, we hear its voice only through the interference of Christian scholarship, the experts who have been properly trained. Just as a foreigner protests his rights in a foreign language and passionately dares to say bold words when facing state authorities – but see, the interpreter who is to translate it to the authorities does not dare do so but substitutes something else – just so the Bible sounds forth through Christian scholarship.
We declare that Christian scholarship exists specifically to help us understand the New Testament, in order that we may better hear its voice. No insane man, no prisoner of the state, was ever so confined. As far as they are concerned, no one de nies that they are locked up, but the precautions regarding the New Testament are even greater. We lock it up but argue that we are doing the opposite, that we are busily engaged in helping it gain clarity and control. But then, of course, no insane person, no prisoner of the state, would ever be as dangerous to us as the New Testament would be if it were set free.
It is true that we Protestants go to great efforts so that every person can have the Bible – even in their own tongue. Ah, but what efforts we take to impress upon everyone that it can be understood only through Christian scholarship! This is our current situation. What I have tried to show here is easily stated:
56 Kill the Commentators!
I have wanted to make people aware and to admit that I find the New Testament very easy to understand, but thus far I have found it tremendously difficult to act literally upon what it so plainly says. I perhaps could take another direction and invent a new kind of scholarship, bringing forth yet one more commen tary, but I am much more satisfied with what I have done – made a confession about myself.
57 Church Militant
A Church triumphant is nothing but a sham. In this world we can truthfully speak only of a militant Church. The Church militant is related to and feels itself drawn to Christ in humble obedience. The Church triumphant, however, has taken the Church of Christ in vain. How can we better grasp the difference?
Among other things, the Church militant never arrives. It is in the process of becoming. By contrast, an established Chris tianity is. It refuses to change. It is rooted in the conceit of hu man impatience that wants to take in advance that which ultimately comes later – the kingdom of God. It is blind to what Christ said about his kingdom not being of this world. Though his is truly enough a kingdom in this world, it is not of this world. His Church, therefore, is militant. As soon as Christ's church makes a deal with this world, Christianity is abolished.
The triumphant Church assumes that the time of struggle is over; that the Church, because it has expanded itself, has noth ing more about or for which to struggle. With this, the Church and the achievements of the world become synonymous. This is not the way of Christ. He promised only one thing: hatred and opposition from the world. Christ's Church, therefore, can only endure by struggling – that is, by every moment battling the world and battling for the Truth.
57 Church Militant
The triumphant Church, or established Christianity, re sembles the Church militant no more than a square resembles a circle. It would be utterly impossible for the first Christians to recognize Christianity in its current distortion. Yes, they would hear Christianity preached and hear that what was said was en tirely true, but to their great horror they would see that the ac tual conditions for being a Christian are exactly opposite of what they were in their day. To be a Christian now is no more like being a Christian in their day than walking on one's legs is like walking on one's head.
To be a Christian in the Church militant means to exist or to place oneself within an environment that is the opposite of be ing Christian. To be a Christian in a triumphant Church, how ever, means to live within an environment that is more or less congruous with being Christian. In the first case, to be Chris tian is to be inversely recognizable by the opposition I experi ence. In the second case, being a Christian means to be directly recognizable by the favor, honor, and esteem I win in this world – all on account of good Christian virtue.
Imagine a youth that has been well taught in Christianity and has been told that the requirement for being Christian is to confess Christ before the world. Imagine too that he is well in formed of what the result of this will be. Having well considered all this, the youth is determined to arrange his life according to these instructions. But what happens? He happens to live in es tablished Christendom. As he makes a move to risk taking the step, a kindly man, a kind of spiritual mentor, comes to him and "delivers sort of a speech": "Young friend, you are striving un der a delusion. You do not realize that you are among Chris tians, and there really is no need to confess Christ. Just between us, we are all Christians, we all affirm good Christian values, and the really serious Christian is the one who keeps all this most hidden."
Consider a youth brought up on fairy stories and thus famil iar with the idea of monsters that lived in forests but who were slain. If that youth now started out into the real world armed for battle, with an enormous sword at his side and an equally enormous courage in his heart, nothing stranger could happen to him than happened to that youth who finds himself in estab lished Christendom. In other words, if he were to encounter a monster even stranger than those about which he had heard or read, it would not amount to a thing in comparison with the strange thing that happens to him in Christendom – namely, that he could not catch a glimpse of anything that resembled a monster.
But then the kindly, elderly Christian mentor would come to him and say, "My young friend, you are striving under a delu sion. You are not in the world of fairy tales but in the modern, scientific world, where there are no monsters like that, where you are living among well-educated Christian people, and where in addition, the police watch over your security and the clergy your morality, and where the lights make the night just as safe as the day. Therefore, put away your sword and learn that your task, now that the age of monsters is long since past, is to be polite and pleasant and civil just like the rest of us. Learn that you must now see yourself and God in every other person and that every other person must see himself in you. Don't you see how everything is now so nicely in order?"
Lest we forget, it was not some petty squabble between Christ and the world that put Christ on the cross. No, love of God is hatred of the world. And the day when Christianity and the world become friends – yes, then Christianity is abolished. Then Christ will have to be judged for being only a dreamer, a fanatic. If he had not been so intolerant, he would have gotten on quite well with the world and with its religious authorities;
57 Church Militant
he would then not have been put to death, something that would have been totally unnecessary. Instead, he would have become someone great, or at least much appreciated, just as his followers eventually became when the Church triumphed – an occurrence that indeed makes a lie of the saying that the pupil is not above the teacher.
But as long as this world lasts and Christ's Church is in it, it is to be a militant Church. Although it has the promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, woe to the Christian Church when it is triumphant in this world, for then it is not the Church that has triumphed but the world. Then Christ is no longer the God-Man either but some kind of distinguished hu man being, a noble teacher whose life is but an example of what each of us and the human race can become. Then eternity is abolished, and the sphere for the completion of all things is transferred to the temporal order. Then the way to life is no longer narrow and the gate small, nor are there only a few who find it. No, the way is broad and the gate wide open. And the gates of hell prevail, and many, indeed all, are admitted. Is this what it means for Christ to be triumphant in this world? Did he not come into the world in order to suffer; is not that what he called being triumphant?
I do not assert nor have I ever asserted that every Christian must be a martyr, even though I think that every true Christian should – and here I include myself – make the humble admis sion that he has been let off far more easily than true Christians in the strictest sense. Without authority, Christianity now creeps around in worn-out, shabby clothes, and we do not know whether we should take our hats off to it in the name of progress, or whether it should bow to us, whether we need its compassion, or whether it needs ours.
vi t h o u g h t s
t h a t
r a d i c a l l y
c u r e :
e x c e r p t s
a n d
a p h o r i s m s
58 Anxiety and Despair
Learn to be satisfied with little – will you deny that this is much?
It is not only the poor who hunger. There is a hunger that all the treasures of the world cannot satisfy, and yet this hunger is for them. There is a thirst that all the streams of overabundance cannot quench, and yet this thirst is for them. I know very well that there is an anxiety, a secret, private anxiety, about losing.
"Cast all your care upon God." You are to cast all care away; if you do not cast all care away, you retain it and do not become absolutely joyful. And if you do not cast it absolutely upon God, but in some other direction, you are not absolutely rid of it. In one way or another, it returns again, most likely in the form of a still greater and more bitter sorrow. For to cast care away, but not upon God – that is distraction. But distraction is a most doubtful and ambiguous remedy.
Anxiety for the next day is commonly associated with anxiety for subsistence. This is a very superficial view. The next day – it is the grappling-hook by which the prodigious hulk of anxiety gets a hold of the individual's light craft. If it succeeds, he is un
der the domination of that power. The next day is the first link of the chain that fetters a person to that superfluous anxiety that is of the evil one. The next day – it is strange indeed, for ordinarily when one is sentenced for life the sentence reads, "for life," but he who sentences himself to anxiety "for the next day," sentences himself for life.
One who rows a boat turns his back to the goal towards which he labors. So it is with the next day. When by the help of eternity one lives absorbed in today, he turns his back to the next day. The more he is absorbed in today, the more decisively he turns his back upon the next day, so that he does not see it at all. If he turns around, eternity is confused before his eyes, it becomes the next day. But if for the sake of laboring more effectually to wards the goal (eternity) he turns his back, he does not see the next day at all. By the help of eternity he sees quite clearly today and its task.
If you are to labor fruitfully today, you must be in this posi tion. It always involves delay and distraction to want to look im patiently every instant towards the goal, to see if you are coming a little nearer, and now a little nearer. No, be eternally and seri ously resolved, turn completely to the labor and turn the back to the goal. Such is one's position in rowing a boat, but such is also the position when you believe.
You might think that the believer would be very far from the eternal when he turns his back to it and lives today, while the glimpser stands and looks towards it. And yet it is the believer who is nearest the eternal, while the apocalyptic visionary is far thest from the eternal. Faith turns its back to the eternal in or der precisely to have this with him today.
58 Anxiety and Despair
Father in heaven! Draw our hearts to you so that our longing may be where our treasure is supposed to be. Turn our minds and our thoughts to where our citizenship is – in your king dom, so that when you finally call us away from here our leavetaking may not be a painful separation but a joyful union with you. We do not know the time and the place, perhaps a long road still lies before us, and when strength is taken away from us, when exhaustion fogs our eyes so that we peer out as into a dark night, and restless desires stir within us, wild, impatient longings, and the heart groans in fearful anticipation of what is coming, oh Lord God, fix in our hearts the conviction that also while we are living, we belong to you.
59 Becoming Christian
One best becomes a Christian – without "Christianity."
A Christian cannot be born. No, the individual becomes a Christian.
It is a dubious thing to bring up a child in Christianity. The child has no actual consciousness of sin. What then? Take an analogy. Describe the family physician to a child as a very rare and lovable man. What happens? The child thinks it is very pos sible that there is such a rare man. I would gladly believe it, but I would also rather stay clear of him. The fact that I might be came the object of his special love means that I am sick, and to be sick is no fun. Therefore, I am far from being happy at the thought that he has been called.
When one is actually sick and the sickness is serious, then one is very happy that there is a physician, but when one is not sick, or has no idea at all of what it is to be sick, then "the physi cian" is really a disagreeable thought. In the Child's relation to Christianity, therefore, either what is really Christian must be left out, and then what does upbringing in Christianity mean? – or it must be taught the truth, and then the child is prompted more to be afraid of Christianity than to be happy for it.
59 Becoming Christian
If the whole matter of bringing up children in Christianity is not to be humbug, people need to be aware of this. Scholars want to make Christianity into mythology. We do not notice, however, that what generally passes as Christian education of children is also mythology.
Not until a person has become so wretched that his only wish, his only consolation, is to die – not until then does Christianity truly begin.
When Christianity entered into the world, people were not Christians, and the difficulty was to become a Christian. Nowa days the difficulty in becoming a Christian is that one must cease to become a Christian.
Everyone knows that to jump from the spot where you are standing and then to come down again on the same spot is one of the most difficult jumps to do. The jump becomes easier only if there is a space between the spot where your are standing and the spot where your jump is to be made. Similarly, the most dif ficult decision is the one in which the person deciding is not distanced from the decision (as is the unbeliever who has to de cide whether he wants to be a Christian) and where the decision seems to have already been made.
If I am not a believer, and the decision is to become a Chris tian, then Christianity can help me make a decision. The dis tance between me and it helps just as the running start helps the jumper. But if the decision seems to have already been made, if I am already a "Christian" (that is, am baptized, go to church, etc., which is still only in the realm of possibility), then there is nothing to help me become properly aware of the decision. In
short, it is easier to become a Christian if one is not a Christian than to become a Christian if one is already supposed to be one.
No one can make a direct transition into being a Christian. No, born in sin, every person lives in a sinful world. So-called natu ral human goodness is actually just as bad as defiance. As soon as authentic Christianity is brought into contact with this natu ral human goodness, this goodness becomes infuriated. Beware of human goodness!
Only a person of will can become a Christian; for only a person of will has a will that can be broken. But a person of will whose will is broken by God is a Christian. The stronger the natural will, the deeper the break can be and the better the Christian. This is what has been described by the expressive phrase: the new obedience. A Christian is a person of will who no longer wills his own will but with the passion of his crushed will – radically changed – wills another's will.
Christianity is not so much related to transforming the intel lect – but to transforming the will. But this transformation is the most painful of all operations, comparable to a vivisection. And because it is so appalling, to become a Christian was changed long ago. Now it is only a matter of remodeling the intellect.
Biblical Christianity is concerned with our will, with changing the will. Everything touches this, all the instructions (renounc ing the world, denying one's self, dying to the world, and so on, also to hate oneself, to love God) are connected with this funda mental idea: the transformation of the will.
59 Becoming Christian
To be a Christian is, in an upward sense, as different from being a human being as, in a downward sense, to be a human being is dif ferent from being a beast. A Christian is literally a stranger and a pilgrim. Everyone feels that this individual is a stranger to him.
Relationship to Christ is the decisive thing. You may be thor oughly informed about Christianity as a whole, may know how to explain it, to present it and to expound it – but if with all this you think that your own relationship to Christ is a matter of in difference, you are a pagan.
This is Christianity: Let a person begin seriously to realize his need for Christ. Let him literally give all his fortune to the poor, literally love his neighbor, and so forth, and he will soon learn to need Christ. Christianity is a suit that at first glance seems attractive enough, but as soon as you actually put it on – then you must have Christ's help in order to be able to live in it.
On the subject of pilgrimages, Gregory of Nyssa says most ex cellently: "You do not come closer to God by changing your place." Oh no, it is all too clear that this is done only by chang ing yourself.
Christianity did not come in order to develop the heroic vir tues in the individual but rather to remove selfishness. It is not a matter of improving yourself up to a certain maximum. Why, this can so easily be nothing but selfishness and pride.
To stress that mankind needs Christianity and then prove it and demonstrate it is all wrong. The Christian stress is: I need Christ.
The will of Christ is this: an examination in which one cannot cheat.
Although the scribes could say where the Messiah should be born, they remained quite unperturbed in Jerusalem. They did not accompany the Wise Men to seek him. Similarly one may know the whole of Christianity, yet make no movement. What a difference! The three kings had only a rumor to go by. But it moved them to make that long journey. The scribes were much better informed. They sat and studied the Scriptures like so many scholars, but it did not make them move. Who had more truth? The three kings who followed a rumor, or the scribes who remained sitting with all their knowledge?
What a vexation it must have been for the kings, that the scribes who gave them the news remained quiet in Jerusalem! We are being mocked, the kings might have thought. For indeed it is serious self-contradiction that the scribes had the knowl edge and yet remained still. It is just as serious as if a person knows about Christianity, and his own life expresses the oppo site. We are tempted to suppose that he wishes to fool us, unless we admit that he is only fooling himself.
In following Christ, there is no chattering about what happens afterward.
60 The Bible
What must you do to look honestly in the mirror of the Word? The first requirement is that you must not look at the mirror but look in the mirror and see yourself. God's Word is indeed the mirror. But oh how enormously complicated we make it. How much belongs to God's Word? Which books are authentic? Are they really written by the apostles, and are the apostles really trustworthy? As for ways of reading, there are thirty thousand different ways. And then there is this crowd or rush of scholars and opinions, and learned opinions and unlearned opinions about how the particular passage is to be understood. Is it not true that all this seems to be rather complicated? God's Word is the mirror – in reading it or hearing it, I am supposed to see myself in the mirror – but look, this business of the mirror is so confusing that I very likely never come to see myself.
If God's Word is merely a doctrine, then it is no mirror. An ob jective doctrine cannot be called a mirror. It is just as impos sible to look at yourself in a doctrine as to look at yourself in a wall. And if you want to relate intellectually to God's Word, there can be no question of looking at yourself in the mirror. It takes a personality, an I, to look at oneself in a mirror. While reading God's Word you must incessantly say to yourself: It is I to whom it is speaking; it is I about whom it is speaking.
What makes such great confusion is how everyone feels com pelled to formulate a theory and obligate everyone else to it. Someone gets an impression of Christianity. Presto! Now there has to be a theory, and everyone must subscribe to his theory. Then he gets busy developing his theory further. Then his theory is attacked, and he defends it – constantly moving away from true religiousness. He does not personally get around to acting according to the theory but manages to introduce a theory about the opposition to the theory.
No, what should be insisted upon is that I feel obligated to obey the New Testament, not to theorize about it. I cannot obli gate others. I simply say: I feel obligated in this way and will ex press it in action. Truth does not try to get a random bunch of people obligated to me or to my conception. No, each person must be alone before God and become obligated by it.
What is the New Testament? A handbook for those who are to be sacrificed.
According to the mentality of our day one would think that God might have postponed being born until after the invention of the printing press, that he then would have gotten himself one, two, three high-speed presses. What a satire on the human race that God's word was put into the world as it was! What a satire on the human race that everything grows worse and worse as the means of communication grow greater and greater!
Father in heaven! You, oh God, you give your Word as a gift. And if you find only some willingness on our part, you are
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promptly at hand. With divine patience you spell out the Word for us so that we may understand it aright; and then you are the one who, again with more than human – indeed, with divine – patience takes us by the hand, as it were, and helps us when we strive to act according to it. You, our Father in heaven!
A young girl is at age sixteen and it is her confirmation day. Among various other gifts she also receives a beautifully bound New Testament. Look, this is what we call biblical Christianity! Actually we do not expect her to read it, not any more than the rest of us. She receives this book as a safeguard in her life: "Here you will find consolation if you should ever need it," we tell her. Of course we do not expect her to really read it, otherwise she might discover that here are true terrors. For in comparison to the persecutions witnessed here, the ordinary hardships of this world are but a jest.
To see yourself is to die, to die to all illusions and all hypocrisy. It takes great courage to dare look at yourself – something which can take place only in the mirror of the Word. You must want only the truth, neither vainly wish to be flattered nor selftormentingly want to be made a pure devil.
61 Christ
The birth of Christ is an event not only on earth but also in heaven. Our justification is likewise an event not only on earth but also in heaven.
Christ is God just as much as he is man – just as the sky seems to be deep in the sea as it is high above the sea.
Christ walks in history as he walked in life – between two thieves.
Christ does not always sit at the Father's right hand. No, when dangers threaten, he arises, he stands erect, just as Stephen saw him standing at the right hand of the Father.
Christ is not love, according to the human notion of love. He is the truth, absolute truth. Therefore he does not defend himself. He permits us to become guilty of his death which reveals the truth in the most radical way.
Why cannot Christ be called a martyr? Because he was not a witness to truth but was "the truth", and his death was not a martyrdom but the Atonement.
61 Christ
Christ is the paradox, the God-man. He is the very compound ing of God and a socially insignificant man. But this is not the way we Christians like to think about it. We regard Jesus Christ as a great man who lived misunderstood, but after his death be came somebody great. And this is how we want to be. Aha! This is why today's Christianity is nonsense. All the danger is taken away. No, Jesus Christ is the sign of offense and the object of faith. Only in eternity is he in his glory. Here upon earth he must never be presented in any other way than in his social in significance – so that everyone can be offended or believe.
Christ willed to be the socially insignificant one. The fact that he descended from heaven to take upon himself the form of a servant is not an accidental something which now is to be thrust into the background and forgotten. No, every true fol lower of Christ must express existentially the very same thing – that insignificance and offense are inseparable from being a Christian. As soon as the least bit of worldly advantage is gained by preaching or following Christ, then the fox is in the chicken house.
Christ humbled himself – not: was humbled.
It must be firmly maintained that Christ did not come to the world only to set an example for us. If that were the case we would have law and works-righteousness again. He comes to save us and in this way be our example. His very example should humble us, teach us how infinitely far away we are from resembling him. When we humble ourselves, then Christ is pure compassion. And in our striving to approach him, he is again our very help. It alternates: when we are striving, then he is our example; and when we stumble, lose courage, then he is the love that helps us up. And then he is our example again.
Christ is anything but an assistant professor who teaches to parroters or dictates paragraphs for shorthand writers – he does exactly the very opposite, he discloses the thoughts of hearts.
Christ is himself the way. There were not many ways, of which Christ took one – no, Christ is the way.
Lord Jesus, there are so many things that attract us, and each one of us has his own particular attraction. But your attraction is eternally the strongest! Draw us, therefore, the more power fully to you.
Whenever I think of the insipid, sweet, syrupy concept of the Savior, the kind of Savior Christendom adores and offers for sale, reading his own words about himself has a strange effect: "I have come to set afire," come to produce a split which can tear the most holy bonds, the bonds God himself has sanctified, the bonds between father and son, wife and husband, parents and children.
Christ did not teach about dying-to-the-world; he is himself what it means to die to the world.
When the doors were locked, Christ came to his disciples. So the doors must be locked, locked to the world – then Christ comes, through the locked doors; in fact, he also comes from the inside.
61 Christ
One might ask: How was it possible that Christ could be put to death, one who never sought his own advantage? How is it pos sible that any power or person could come into collision with him? Answer: It was precisely for this reason that he was put to death. This is why the lowly and the powerful were equally exasperated by him, for every one of them was seeking his own advantage and wanted him to show solidarity with them in self ishness. He was crucified precisely because he was love, that is, because he refused to be selfish. He was as much of an offense to the powerful as to the lowly. He did not belong to any party, but wished to be what he was, namely, the Truth and to be that in love.
Christ was born in a stable, wrapped in rags, laid in a manger – so unimportant was this child apparently, so meagerly valued. And immediately afterward this child was so valuable that it costs the lives of the children in Bethlehem. Such is the squan dering that can take place in connection with this child.
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Gold and silver I do not have, but I give you what I have; stand up and walk," said Peter. Later on the clergy were saying: Gold and silver we have – but we have nothing to give.
The existence of the Established Church is a money question, and the solemn silence of the clergy has a perfectly simple ex planation, corresponding to what happens in business when a debtor is asked for money and perhaps first tries to get out of it by pretending he did not hear.
Christendom is a society of people who call themselves Chris tians because they occupy themselves with obtaining informa tion about those who a long time ago submitted themselves to Christ's examination – spiritlessly forgetting that they them selves are up for examination.
One would think that the omnipotence of money would run aground on the rock of Christianity, which proclaimed that a rich man would have difficulty entering the kingdom of God. Yes, so it was originally, but then the ordained hired-servants, the money changers of Christianity, got hold of things, and
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Christianity was improved practically and it triumphantly spread over kingdoms and countries.
The established Church is far more dangerous to Christianity than any heresy or schism. We play at Christianity. We use all the orthodox Christian terminology – but everything, every thing without character. Yes, we are simply not fit to shape a heresy or a schism. There is something frightful in the fact that the most dangerous thing of all, playing at Christianity, is never included in the list of heresies and schisms.
Imagine a fortress, absolutely impregnable, supplied with pro visions for an eternity. A new commandant comes. He gets the idea that the right thing to do is to build bridges over the ditches – in order to be able to attack the besiegers. Charming! He transformed the fortress into a village, and the enemy cap tured it, naturally. So it is with Christianity. We changed the method – and the world conquered, naturally.
Christianity has been abolished somewhat as follows: life is made easier.
Christendom plays the game of taking God by the nose: God is love, meaning that he loves me – Amen!
When we receive a package we unwrap it to get at the contents. Christianity is a gift from God, but instead of receiving the gift, we have undertaken to wrap it up, and each generation has fur nished a new wrapping around the others.
Imagine a family of noble blood demoted to slavery as punish ment for a crime. Imagine someone of the tenth generation with a background of eight or nine generations who have lived as slaves. The result will probably be that the tenth-generation man is well satisfied with the conditions of life, he feels at home in his station by birth, which was his father's before him, and grandfather's before him. Now if someone were to come to this tenth-generation man and explain to him that he is of noble lineage, he would be laughed to scorn and would discover that the persons involved care least of all. Yes, they even become em bittered because someone seeks to disturb their routine, the routine in which they had contentedly lived for a long time.
So it is with Christianity. Christianity points to the fall (Gn. 3) as its presupposition. But in the meanwhile, through the conse quences of repetition, the fall has burgeoned into such a fright ful habit that it is like an enormous parenthesis, so colossal that no one has sufficient range of vision to see that it is a parenthe sis. And within this parenthesis life goes on lustily. The degra dation continues, and in constantly increasing proportion from generation to generation. The next generation becomes less sig nificant than its predecessor, with whose insignificance it be gan, and also more numerous. And now the two greater powers, insignificance and numbers, join to reduce humanity to such a triviality that the Christianity of the New Testament, if brought into touch with it, is looked upon as nonsense.
We, however, have long ago forgotten that the fall is a paren thesis into which we have entered, and that Christianity was introduced precisely as the divine in-breaking. No, we live pleasantly within the parenthesis, propagate the race, and organ ize world history – and it is all a parenthesis. Question: is a parenthesis-man immortal?
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Think of a very long railway train – but long ago the locomo tive ran away from it. Christendom is like this. Generation after generation has imperturbably continued to link the enormous train of the new generation to the previous one, solemnly say ing: We will hold fast to the faith of the fathers. Thus Christen dom has become the very opposite of what Christianity is. Christianity is restlessness, the restlessness of the eternal. Any comparison here is flat and tedious – to such a degree that the restlessness of the eternal is restless. Christendom is tranquil lity. How charming, the tranquillity of literally not moving.
In so-called Christianity we have made Christmas into a great festival. This is quite false, and it was not at all so in the Early Church. We mistake childishness for Christianity – what with all our sickly sentimentality, our candy canes, and our manger scenes. Instead of remaining conscious of being in conflict that marks a life of true faith, we Christians have made ourselves a home and settled down in a comfortable and cozy existence. No wonder Christmas has become little more than a beautiful holiday.
Think of a hospital. The patients are dying like flies. Every method is tried to make things better. It's no use. Where does the sickness come from? It comes from the building, the whole building is full of poison. So it is in the religious sphere. One person thinks that it would help if we got a new hymnal, an other a new altar-book, another a musical service, and so on. It's no use. It comes from the building. This whole pile of lumber of an established Church, which from time immemorial has not been ventilated, spiritually speaking – the air confined in this
lumber room has developed poison. And for this reason the re ligious life is sick or has died out.
In talking with a pupil, a teacher sometimes expresses himself in lower terms while meaning something higher, but he does so in such a way that the pupil understands it. He says, for ex ample, "Tomorrow will be a fun day" and means by this that it will be a rigorous day with much to do, which in a certain higher sense can also be fun. But suppose that a pupil takes the liberty of pretending he did not understand and loafs all day long.When the teacher rebukes him he answers,"Didn't you say that tomorrow should be a fun day?" Would the teacher put up with this?
So it is with Christianity. In his majestic language God has proclaimed a great joy to us – a great joy. Yes, God cannot speak in any other way about the high goal he has for us. And what is Christendom? Christendom is a tricky boy who pretends he does not understand what God meant but thinks that since it is a great joy the task must be to enjoy life thoroughly. Does God put up with this?
Once upon a time learning to read was a rigorous matter; it took a lot of hard work. But eventually the theory was devised that everything ought to be enjoyable. So the practice of having a little party after each hour of reading was introduced, and the A B C's were decked out with pictures, etc. Ultimately that hour was also dropped, and the A B C's became simply a picture book. But still people went on talking about learning to read, even though the children did not learn to read at all. Learning to read was now understood to mean eating cookies and looking at
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pictures, which became an even more pleasant experience just because it was called "learning to read." So also with the transfor mation of Christianity in Christendom, except that here (which is not the case in the illustration) "the teacher" (i.e. preacher) is also interested in this transformation, it suits him best of all.
Christianity is proclaimed in Christendom in such a way that obedience is taken away and reasoning put in its place.
No one can be the truth; only the God-man is the truth. Then comes the next: the ones whose lives express what they pro claim. These are witnesses to the truth. Then come those who disclose what truth is and what it demands but admit that their lives do not express it, but to that extent still are striving. There it ends. Now comes the sophistry. First of all come those who teach the truth but do not live it. Then come those who even alter the truth, its requirement, cut it down, make omissions – in order that their lives can correspond to the requirement. These are the real deceivers.
The world does not want to eliminate Christianity, it is not that straightforward, nor does it have that much character. No, it wants it proclaimed falsely, using eternity to give a flavor to the enjoyment of life.
Just as the statement, "Everything is true," means that nothing is true, so to exclaim that all are Christians means that no one is a Christian.
Christianity has been made so much into a consolation that people have completely forgotten that it is first and foremost a demand.
We humans have ingeniously turned God into a humbug. We talk about the fact that God is love, that we love God (who does not love God, what "Christian" does not love God, etc.) and even rely on him, and yet we refuse to see that our relationship to him is purely and simply a natural egotism, the kind of love which consists of loving oneself. We try to get this loving God's assistance, but only to lead a right cozy, enjoyably religious life.
Think of a father. There is something he wishes his child to do (the child knows what it is); so the father has a plan: I will come up with something that will really please my child and give it to him. Then, I am sure, he will love me in return. The father believes that his child will now do what he asks. But the child takes his father's gift and does not do what he wills. Oh, the child thanks him again and again and exclaims: "He is such an affectionate father"; but he continues to get his own way.
And so it is with us Christians in relationship to God. Be cause God is love, we turn to him for help but then go our own way. Although we dance before him and clap our hands and blow the horn and with tears in our eyes exclaim, "God is love!" we go on our merry way doing what it is that we want.
The apostasy from Christianity will not come about by every body openly renouncing Christianity; no, but slyly, cunningly, by everybody assuming the name of being Christian.
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When there is something distasteful to us we look to see if the power that commands us is not too great for us to pit our power against it. If we are convinced that it is not too great, we revolt in defiance. But if the power is so superior that we despair of making a revolt, we resort to hypocrisy. This certainly applies to Christianity. The fact that the apostasy from Christianity oc curred long ago has not been noticed because the apostasy came about, the revolt was made, in hypocrisy. Christendom is precisely this apostasy.
Think of a fisherman who owns a splendid net that he inher ited from his father. Year after year he puts out his net – but gets no fish. What is the matter? What can it be? "Sure enough, I know," says the fisherman. "The fish have changed; in the course of time they have decreased in size. If I want to catch them, I must get hold of a net that is not made for large fish."
Now think about eternity in terms of salvation. From gen eration to generation, steadily, incessantly, the cost of being Christian has become cheaper and cheaper, the terms of salva tion have become easier and easier. A generation of jubilant millions, served by huckster clergy, has replaced Christianity with a religion of easy terms. It has rendered Christianity worthless and taken Christianity in vain, all in the name of per fecting Christianity. Eternity quietly looks on and observes: I am catching no one. But eternity is not like the fisherman. It does not need us. It is we who need eternity, to be caught is to be saved. Moreover, eternity is at one and the same time the fisherman and the net – consequently it does not change.
The Moral: The fisherman needs the fish; ergo, he changes the net. If, on the contrary, it is the fish that need to be caught – and this is the Christian way – then to be caught is to be saved.
But then the fish must change, which is impossible as far as the metaphor is concerned but not in respect to what the metaphor signifies.
The definition of "Church" found in Protestant Confessions, that it is the communion of saints where the Word is rightly taught and the sacraments rightly administered, grasps only two of the points. It overlooks the foundation, the communion of saints.
It is simply comical to think that one can "introduce" Chris tianity into this or that situation, just as one introduces im proved sheep breeding. Christianity is precisely the one thing that cannot be introduced.
Christianity received its first blow when the emperor became a Christian. The second, and far more dangerous blow, came when the "extraordinary Christian" emerged. The error lay not in entering the monastery but in the title of extraordinary Christian.
Everything has become reversed. There was a time when the world wanted to fight Christianity – then Christianity fought back. Now the world is in fraudulent possession of Christianity. Its tactics are, with all its power and at any price, to prevent a showdown. It is as when a swindler has misgivings – if the mat ter goes to court, he has lost – and therefore all his tactics are directed toward keeping it from going to court. In the realm of the spirit this happens far more easily than in the actuality of civil life, for the technique consists in the world continually
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counterfeiting Christ's position so that it is kind of saying the same thing – but good God, then the world and Christ are agreed!
63 The Cross
Christ has not only spoken to us by his life but has also spoken for us by his death.
Christ certainly died for all people, and also for me; but that "for me" must be understood in the sense for "all people."
As far as power is concerned, to rule the whole world with a scepter is nothing compared to ruling it with a reed – that is, by impotence – that is, divinely.
The objective reality of Christ's atonement, independent of its personal appropriation, is most clearly shown in the history of the ten lepers. All of them were healed, though only of the tenth, who thankfully returned to give honor to God, is it said: your faith has made you whole. What was it that cured the others?
Just try to imagine that the Pattern is called a "Lamb." That alone is a scandal to the natural mind. Who has any desire to be a lamb?
63 The Cross
Just because Christ was upon the cross proves that he is the Son of God. But humanity cannot grasp the divine mind. It would rather conclude that he was the Son of God, if only he had come down from the cross.
You have no doubt felt that however wearing the grief of repen tance is, the grief that seizes us when we suffer innocently – when we bear the consequences of other's guilt – is far deeper. Such is Christ's sorrow.
The desire to make Christ king is itself a part of his being crucified.
"Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the night he was betrayed…" Must not the thought of that night knit the church together, make it watch carefully to see whether the night of betrayal threatens once more?
When God had created the world, he looked at it and, behold, it was very good. When Christ died upon the cross, he said – "It is finished."
When Christ had drunk the vinegar offered to him, he said: It is finished, that is, now the law's requirement is fulfilled. But these were not Christ's last words. He also prayed for his en emies, and this is of the gospel.
Lord Jesus! How often have I gone astray from the right way or, even if I remained on the right path, nevertheless stumbled
along the right way or gone creeping forward so slowly on the right way. Infinite patience! Infinite suffering of patience! How many times have I been impatient, wishing to forsake you, wishing to give up, to take the terribly easy way out, the way of despair: but you did not lose patience. Alas, the words of your servant Paul that he "filled up that which was lacking in your sufferings" do not apply to me. No, I can only claim that I have increased your sufferings, added new ones to those you once suffered in order to save me.
64 The Crowd
God is as infinitely concerned with one person of intensity, yes, as he is infinitely indifferent to the millions and trillions. We humans believe numbers mean something. For God, it is precisely numbers that mean nothing, nothing at all.
To compensate for the emptiness of nuts, we clever human be ings get all the more of them. This is ridiculous compensation and also a curse. If the nuts are hollow, it would be better if there were just three or four of them. What agony to have to crack a million empty nuts in order to be convinced that they are hollow! So it is with us human beings: compensation for specimens or copies devoid of ideas – we get all the more of them. Everyone is in the service of the substitute, served by multiplying. The numerical is the most ridiculous parody of the truth. By addition we are supposed to achieve that for which addition is really subtraction. But, of course, in the brute sense, numbers have power.
The specimen-man tranquilizes himself with human numbers. If something is true, he needs no higher proof than that such and such a number have regarded it as true.
There are insects that protect themselves against attackers by raising a cloud of dust. Likewise man instinctively protects himself against truth and spirit by raising a cloud of numbers. If you want to be insured against having to deal with truth, with spirit, simply get together battalions, legions, millions who strive, perhaps with united powers – then spirit vanishes and you achieve what you really want: a life lived on the animal side of human nature.
Animal-man has the courage to do the most frightening things as long as he simply has human numbers with him. Christ points to the very opposite. To suffer courageously means pre cisely to fear God in contrast to fearing the crowd, in contrast to what we as animal-creatures fear most of all – human numbers.
No one dares to be himself; everyone is hiding in "togetherness."
There are people who have the fortunate gift of managing suc cessfully with everyone – they have no sharp edge. Such people God never uses. God is no friend of the cozy human crowd – no, the one he wants to use is promptly blocked off.
We are no longer salt, we are a mass.
The numerical is the conspiracy. Just as in civil life, when crowds of people collect in the street, the police respond imme diately, regardless of whether or not a crime has been commit ted – for the massing together of lots of people is suspect – so
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also, and with a completely different kind of right, the higher police immediately and directly attack wherever a hoard of Christians show up. The greater the number, the more certain the lie, the more certain that there is a falsification. Let this be regarded as a counter-proposition to what has delighted the clergy for a long time now – the spread of Christianity.
The single individual is decisive in forming community. He can at any moment become higher than community, specifi cally, as soon as "the others" fall away from the eternal. The co hesiveness of community comes from each one's being a single individual before the eternal. The connectedness of a public, however, or rather its disconnectedness, consists of the numeri cal character of everything. Only the single individual guaran tees community; the public is a chimera. In community the single individual is a microcosm who qualitatively reproduces the cosmos. Community is certainly more than a sum, but yet it is truly a sum of ones. The public, on the other hand, is non sense – a sum of negative ones, of ones who are not ones.
If someone in public happens to pass gas loudly, people are so startled, it is as if it were the voice of a spirit. So intoxicated are we when we are a public.
The majority of the people are not so afraid of holding a wrong opinion, as they are of holding an opinion alone.
To be like the others is humankind's degeneration, the degra dation to copies.
If it is true that human beings alone have received speech in or der to conceal their thoughts or, as I put it, in order to conceal the absence of thoughts, then something like this can truthfully be said about the crowd: The crowd is used in order to conceal how empty all existence is. The "many" transfer us into an ex alted state just as opium does, and we are tranquilized by the tremendous trustworthiness of millions.
The crowd is like an envelope. One receives a large package, thinks it is something important, but look, it is a package of envelopes.
Everything that needs numbers in order to become significant is by that very fact insignificant. Everything that can be ar ranged, executed, completed only with the help of numbers, the sum of which startles people in amazement, as if this were something important – precisely this is unimportant. The truly important is inversely related, needs a progressively smaller and smaller number to implement its completion. And for the most important of all, that which sets heaven and earth in motion, only one person is needed. And what is most important of all? What interests angels and demons most is that a person is actu ally involved with God – for this one single human being is enough.