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T H E

SHAKINGO F T H E

FOUNDATIONSBy

PAUL TILLICH

N E W Y O R K

C H A R L E S S C R I B N E R ' S S O N S

1 9 5 3



CO PYR IGHT , 1948, BY

C H A R L E S S C R I B N E R ' S S O N S

Prin ted in the Uni ted States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this book

may be reproduced in any form without

the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons

$5%



To

E R D M U T H E



Preface

THERE ARE two reasons why I agreed to the

publication of a book of sermons at this time. Manyof my students and friends outside the Seminary havetold me of the difficulty they have met in trying topenetrate my theological thought. They believe thatthrough my sermons the practical or, more exactly, theexistential implications of my theology are more clearlymanifest. I should like to think that the sermons in-cluded here help to show that the strictly systematiccharacter of a theology does not need to prevent i tfrom being "practical"—that is to say: applicable tothe personal and social problems of our religious life.

Th ere is, how ever, a m ore im po rtant reason for thepublication of this volume. A large part of the con-gregation at the Sunday services came from outsidethe Christian circle in the most radical sense of thephrase. For them, a sermon in traditional Biblical termswould have had no meaning. Therefore, I was obliged

to seek a language which expresses in other terms thehuman experience to which the Biblical and ecclesias-tical terminology point. In this situation, an "apolo-get ic" type of sermon has been developed. And, sinceI believe that this is generally the situation in whichthe Christ ian message has to be pronounced today, Ihope that the publicat ion of some at tempts to meetthis situation may not be useless.



The sermons in this collection are printed as theywere del ivered, with only minor changes; I did notrewri te them for publicat ion. Most of them were de-

livered at Union Theological Seminary, either in theSunday chapel service or in daily chapel. Only thosesermons are included which evoked such a responsefrom the s tudents that the sermons had to be mimeo-graphed.

The Biblical texts are taken from several differenttranslations: the King James, the Moffatt , the Smithand Goodspeed, the Revised Standard Version, and

some commentaries. For permission to use the lastthree vers ions I am indebted respect ively to Harper &Brothers, The University of Chicago Press, and TheInternat ional Council of Religious Educat ion. In manycases I have combined several different translations toform the text given.

I wish to acknowledge my thanks to Christendomfor permission to reprint the sermon, "Nature, Also,

Mourns for a Lost Good"; to The Protestant for per-mission to reprint "The Escape from God"; and to theUnion Review for permission to reprint "The Theo-logian" and "The Two Servants of Jahweh."

The volume could not have been publ ished wi thoutthe intensive work of several of my former studentsin revis ing and organizing the sermons with greatunderstanding and creative crit icism. I wish to express

my deep thanks to Miss Mary Heilner, Miss ElizabethCooper, Miss Caroline Speer, the Reverend WilliamO. Fennell and the Reverend Will iam R. Coleman.

P A U L T I L L I C H

N E W Y O R K C I T Y

DECEMBER, 1947



Contents

P R E F A C E v i i

C H A P T E R P A G E

1 . T H E S H A K I N G O F T H EF O U N D A T I O N S

1

2 . W E L I V E I N T W O O R D E R S 1 2

3 . T H E P A R A D O X O F T H E B E A T I T U D E S 2 4

4 . T H E T W O S ER V A N TS O F J A H W E H 2 9

5 . M E D I T A T I O N : T H E M Y S T E R Y O F T I M E 3 4

6 . T H E E S C A P E F R O M G O D 3 8

7 . T H E D E P T H O F E X I S T E N C E 5 2

8 . O N T H E T R A N S I T O R I N E S S O F L I F E 6 4

9 . " N A T U R E , A L S O , M O U R N S F O R A L O S T G O O D " 7 6

1 0. T H E E X P E R I E N C E O F T H E H O L Y 8 7

1 1 . T H E Y O K E O F R E L I G I O N 9 3

1 2 . T H E M E A N I N G O F P R O V I D E N C E 1 04

1 3 . K N O W L E D G E T H R O U G H L O V E 1 0 8

1 4. D O I N G T H E T R U T H



15.

16.

17.

18.

t ^ l 9 .

20.

21.

%/' 22.

T HE T HE OL OGIAN

T HE W IT NE S S OF T HE S P IR IT T O T HE S P IR IT

H E W H O I S T H E C H R I ST

W A I T I N G

You AR E ACCEPTED

BORN IN THE GRAVE

T HE DE S T R UC T ION OF DE AT H

B E H O L D , I A M D O I N G A N E W T H I N G

118

130

141

149

153

164

169

173



THE SHAKING OF THE

FOUNDATIONS



1THE SHAKING OF THE FOUNDATIONS

/ look out on earth . . . lo, all is chaos;I look at heaven . . . its light is gone;

I look out on the mountains , . . they are trembling;

And all the hills are swaying!I look out . . . lo, no man is to be seen;All the birds have flown!I look out . . . lo, the sown land lies a desert;And the towns are all razed by the Lord's rage.

For thus has the Lord said:

The whole land shall be desolate . . .

And for this shall the earth mournAnd the heavens above be black . . .

I have purposed it and will not repent;Neither will I turn back from it.

At the noise of the horsemen and the archersThe land is all in flight,Men taking refuge within woods and caves,And climbing upon the rocks.Every city shall be abandoned,And not a man dw ell therein.You ruined creature, what will you do!

JEREMIAH 4:23-30.

1



2 The Shaking of the Foundations

For the mountains shall depart,

And the hills he removed.But my kindness shall not depart from thee;Neither shall the covenant of my peace he removed,

Saith the Lord that has mercy on thee!ISAIAH 54:10.

The foundations of the earth do shake.

Earth breaks to pieces,Earth is split in pieces,Earth shakes to pieces,Earth reels like a drunken man,

Earth rocks like a hammock;Under the weight of its transgression earth falls

down

To rise no more!

Lift up your eyes to heaven and look upon the earthbeneath:

For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke.And the earth shall grow old like a robe;The world itself shall crumble.

But my righteousness shall be forever,And my salvation knows no end.

ISAIAH 24:18-20.

IT IS HARD TO SPEAK AFTER THEprophets have spoken as they have in these pronouncements. Every word is like the stroke of a ham mer. There

was a time when we could listen to such words without



The Shaking of the Foundations 3

much feel ing and without understanding. There weredecades and even centuries when we did not take them

seriously. Those days are gone. Today we must takethem seriously. For they describe with visionary powerwhat the majority of human beings in our period haveexperienced, and what, perhaps in a not too distantfuture, all mankind will experience abundantly. "Thefoundations of the earth do shake." The visions of theprophets have become an actual, physical possibili ty,and might become an historical reality. The phrase,

"Earth is split in pieces," is not merely a poetic metaphor for us, but a hard reality. That is the religiousmeaning of the age into which we have entered.

The Bible has always told us of the beginning andthe end of the world. It speaks of eternity before theworld was founded; i t speaks of the t ime when God laidthe foundations of the earth; it speaks of the shaking ofthese foundations and of the crumbling of the world.

In one of the later books, Second Peter, it says that "theheavens will vanish with a crackling roar, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, the earth also andthe works therein shall be burnt up." This is no longervision; i t has become physics. We know that in theground of our earth, and in the ground of everything inour world that has form and structure, destructiveforces are bound. Laying the foundations of the earth

means binding these forces. When the unruly power ofthe smallest parts of our material world was restrainedby cohesive structures, a place was provided in whichlife could grow and history develop, in which wordscould be heard and love be felt , and in which truthcould be discovered and the Eternal adored. All thiswas possible because the fiery chaos of the beginningwas transformed into the fertile soil of the earth.




But out of the fertile soil of the earth a being wasgenerated and nourished, who was able to find the key

to the foundation of all beings. That being was man. Hehas discovered the key which can unlock the forces ofthe ground, those forces which were bound when thefoundations of the earth were laid. He has begun to usethis key. He has subjected the basis of life and thoughtand will to his will . And he willed destruction. For thesake of destruction he used the forces of the ground; byhis thought and his work he unlocked and untied them.

That is why the foundations of the earth rock and shakein our t ime.

In the language of the prophets , i t is the Lord Whoshakes the mountains and melts the rocks. This is a language that modern man can not understand. And soGod, Who is not bound to any special language, noteven to that of the prophets, spoke to the men of todaythrough the mouths of our greatest scientists, and this iswhat He said: You yourselves can bring about the endupon yourselves. I give the power to shake the foundations of your earth into your hands. You can use thispower for creation or destruction. How will you use it?This is what God said to mankind through the work ofthe scientists and through their discovery of the key tothe foundations of l ife. But through them He did even

more. He forced His Word upon them, as He hadforced it upon the prophets, in spite of their attemptever to resist it . For no prophet likes to say what he hasto say. And no scientist who participated in the greatand terrible discovery liked to say what he had to say.But he could not but speak; he had to raise his voice,l ike the prophets, to tell this generation what theprophets told their generat ions: that earth and man,

trees and animals , are threatened by a catastrophe




which they can scarcely escape. A tremendous anxietyexpresses itself through the words of these men. Notonly do they feel the shaking of the foundations, butalso that they themselves are largely responsible for it.They tell us that they despise what they have done,because they know that we are left with only a slightchance of escape. Wavering between l i t t le hope andmuch despair, they urge us to use this chance.

This is the way in which God had spoken to our generation about the shaking of the foundations. We had

forgotten about such shaking. And it was science, morethan anything else, which had made us forget it . Itwas not science as knowledge, but rather science forthe purpose of hidden idolatry, for the purpose of persuading us to believe in our earth as the place for theestablishment of the Kingdom of God, to believe in ourselves as those through whom this was to be achieved.There were prophets of this idolatry—false prophets, asthey were called by Jeremiah—who cried: "Progress,infinite progress! Peace, universal peace! Happiness,happiness for everyone!" And now what has happened?That same science, in the saving power of which thesefalse prophets believed, has utterly destroyed that idolatry. The greatest triumph of science was the power itgave to man to annihilate himself and his world. And

those who brought about this tr iumph are speaking today, like the true prophets of the past—which is to say,not of progress, but of a return to the chaos of the beginning ; not of peax^e, b u t of disrup tion ; an d not of ha pp iness, but of doom. In this way science is atoning for theidolatrous abuse to which it has lent itself for centuries.Science, which has closed our eyes and thrown us intoan abyss of ignorance about the few things that really

matter, has revealed itself, has opened our eyes, and has




pointed, at least, to one fundamental truth—that "themountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed",

that "earth shall fall down to rise no more", because itsfoundations shall be destroyed.

But still we hear voices—and since the first shock,they have been increasing—which try to comfort us,saying: "Perhaps man will use the power to shake thefoundations for creative purposes, for progress, forpeace and happiness. The future lies in man's hands, inour hands. If we should decide for constructivenessinstead of destruction, why should we not be able tocontinue the creation? Why should we not become likeGod, at least in this respect?" Job had to become silentwhen the Lord spoke to him out of the whirlwind, saying, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations ofthe earth? Declare if thou hast understanding!" But ourfalse voices continue: "Perhaps we can answer where

Job could not. Have not our scientific discoveries revealed the mysteries of the ways in which the earthwas founded? Are we not, in thought and knowledge,able to be present at this event? Why should we beafraid of the shaking of the foundations?" But man isnot God; and whenever he has claimed to be like God,he has been rebuked and brought to self-destructionand despair. When he has rested complacently on his

cultural creativity or on his technical progress, on hispolitical institutions or on his religious systems, he hasbeen thrown into disintegration and chaos; all thejoun-dations of his personal, natural and cultural life haveFeeh shaken. As long as there has been human history,This is what has happened; in our period it has happened on a larger scale than ever before. Man's claim

to be like God has been rejected once more; not onefoundation of the life of our civilization has remained




unshaken. As we read some of the passages from theprophets, we might easily imagine that we were read

ing the reports of eye-witnesses from Warsaw or Hiroshima or Berlin. Isaiah says: "Behold, the Lord makeththe jearth em pty an d m aketh i t w aste, and turn eth i tupside down and scattereth i ts inhabitants. . . . TownsfalT to pieces; eac h m an bolts his door; gladness hasgone from the earth and pleasure is no more. The citiesare left desolate; their gates are battered down; andfew are left. . . . For earth has been polluted by the

dw ellers on its face . . . break ing the E tern al Co ven ant.Therefore, a curse is crushing the earth, and the guiltypeople must atone." Every one of these words describesthe experience of the peoples of Europe and Asia. Themost primitive and most essential foundations of lifehave been shaken. The destruction is such that we, whohave not experienced it , cannot even imagine it . Wehave not experienced i t ; and we cannot believe that we

could be caught in such a destruction. And yet, I seeAmerican soldiers walking through the ruins of thesecities, thinking of their own country, and seeing withvisionary clarity the doom of its towns and cities. I knowthat this has happened, and is st i l l happening. Thereare soldiers who have become prophets, and their message is no t very different from th e messag e of the an cien t

Hebrew prophets. It is the message of the shaking ofthe foundations, and not those of their enemies, butrather those of their own country. For the propheticspir i t has not disappeared from the earth. Decades before the world wars, men judged the European civilizat ion and prophesied i ts end in speech and print . Thereare am ong us people like these. Th ey are like the refinedinstruments which register the shaking of the earth on

far-removed sections of its surface. These people regis-




ter the shaking of their civilization, its self-destructivetrends, and its disintegration and fall, decades before

the final catastrophe occurs. They have an invisible andalmost infallible sensorium in their souls; and they havean irresistible urge to pronounce what they have registered, perhaps against their own wills. Fox

n ot r u

e

prophet has ever prophesied voluntari ly. I t has beenforced upon him by a Divine Voice to which he hasnot been able to close his ears. No man with a propheticspirit likes to foresee and foresay the doom of his ownperiod. It exposes him to a terrible anxiety within himself, to severe and often deadly attacks from others, andto the charge of pessimism and defeatism on the partof the majority of the people. Men desire to hear goodtidings; and the masses listen to those who bring them.All the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, andothers during the history of the Church, had the same

experience. They all were contradicted by the falseprophets, who announced salvation when there was nosalvation. "The prophets prophesy falsely, and my people love to have it so", cries Jeremiah in despair. Theycalled him a defeatist and accused him of being anenemy of his country. But is it a sign of patriotism orof confidence in one's people, its institutions and its wayof life, to be silent when the foundations are shaking?Is the expression of optimism, whether or not it is justified, so much more valuable than the expression oftruth, even if the truth is deep and dark? Most humanbeings, of course, are not able to stand the message ofthe shaking of the foundations. They reject and attackthe prophetic minds, not because they really disagreewith them, but because they sense the truth of their

words and cannot receive it . They repress it in themselves; and they transform it into mockery or fury




against those who know and dare to say that which theyknow. In which of these two groups do you consideryourselves to be? Among those who respond to the

prophetic spirit , or among those who close their earsand hearts against i t? I have always felt that there mightbe a few who are able to register the shaking of thefoundations—who are able to stand this, and who areable, above all , to say what they know, because theyare courageous enough to withstand the unavoidableenmity of the many. To those few my words are par

ticularly directed.Why were the prophets able to face what they knew,and then to pronounce i t with such overwhelmingpower? Their power sprang from the fact that they didnot really speak of the foundations of the earth as such,but of Him Who laid the foundations and would shakethem; and that they did not speak of the doom of thenations as such, but of Him Who brings doom for the

sake of His eternal justice and salvation. As the 102ndPsalm says: "Thy years are throughout all generations.Of old thou has laid the foundations of the earth, andthe heavens are the work of thy hands. They vanish,b u t thou shalt endure; they wear out l ike a robe, thouchangest them l ike garments . But thou art the same andthy years shall have no end. . . ." When the earth growsold and wears out, when nations and cultures die, theEternal changes the garments of His infinite being. Heis the foundation on which all foundations are laid; andthis foundation cannot be shaken. There is somethingimmovable , unchangeable , unshakeable , e ternal , whichbecomes manifest in our passing and in the crumblingof our world. On the boundaries of the finite the infinitebecomes visible; in the l ight of the Eternal the transi-

toriness of the temporal appears. The Greeks called



10 The Shaking of the Found ations

themselves "the m ortals" bec ause the y experienced thatwhich is immortal. This is why the prophets were able

to face the shaking of the foundations. It is the onlyway to look at the shaking without recoiling from it.O r is it possible to be conscious of the approachingdoom, and yet to regard it with indifference and cynicism? Is it humanly possible to face the end cynically?There are certainly some among us who are cynicaltow ard most of tha t which men create and praise. Thereare some among us who are cynical about the present

situation of the world and the leaders of the world. Wemay be cynical, of course, about the true motives behind all human action; we may be cynical about ourselves, our inner growth and our outer achievements.We may be cynical about religion and about ourChurches, their doctrines, their symbols and their representatives. There is scarcely one thing about whichw e may not be cynical. Bu t we can not be cynical aboutthe shaking of the foundations of everything! I havenever encountered anyone who seriously was cynicalabout that. I have seen much cynicism, particularlyamong the younger people in Europe before the war .But I know from abundant witnesses that this cynicismvanished when the foundations of the world began toshake at the beginning of the Eu ropea n c atastrophe. W e

can be cynical about the end only so long as we do nothave to see it, only so long as we feel safety in the placein which our cynicism can be exercised. But if the foundations of this place and all places begin to crumble,cynicism itself crumbles with them. And only two alternatives remain—despair, which is the certainty of eternal destruction, or faith, which is the certainty of eternalsalvation. "The world itself shall crumble, but . . . my

salvation knows no end," says the Lord. This is the al«




tentative for which the prophets stood. This is what iwe should call religion, or more precisely, the religious j

ground for all religion.How could the prophets speak as they did? Howcould they paint these most terrible pictures of doomand destruction without cynicism or despair? It wasbecause, beyond the sphere of destruction, they sawthe sphere of salvation; because, in the doom of thetemporal , they saw the manifestation of the Eternal . I twas becau se they w ere certain that they belonged w ithin

the two spheres, the changeable and the unchangeable .For only he who is also beyond the changeable, notbound within it alone, can face the end. All others arecompelled to escape, to turn away. How much of ourlives consists in nothing but attempts to look awayfrom the end! We often succeed in forgetting the end.But ultimately we fail; for we always carry the endwith us in our bodies and our souls. And often whole

nations and cultures succeed in forgett ing the end. Butultim ately th ey fail too, for in their lives an d g row th theyalways carry the end with them. Often the whole earthsucceeds in making its creatures forget its end, butsometimes these creatures feel that their earth is beginning to grow old, and that its foundations are beginningto shake. For_the earth always carries its end within it .We happen to live in a time when very few of us, very

few nations, very few sections of the earth, will succeedin forgetting the end. For in these days the foundationsof the earth do shake. May we not turn our eyes aw ay; 1may we not close our ears and our mouths! But may werath er see, throu gh th e crum bling of a world, the rock Iof eternity an d the salvation w hich has no end ! J



2WE LIVE IN TWO ORDERS

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your Cod.Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto herThat her warfare is accomplished,That her iniquity is pardoned:For she hath received of the Lord's hand

Double for all her sins.The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,Prepare ye the way of the Lord,

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted,And every mountain and hill shall be made low:

And the crooked shall be made straight,And the rough places plain:And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,And all flesh shall see it together:For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

The voice said, Cry.And he said, What shall I cry?All flesh is grass,

And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the

field:

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:

Because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it:12



We Live in Two Orders 13

Surely the people is grass.The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:

But the word of our God shall stand forever,O Zion, that bringest good tidings,Get thee up into the high mountain;O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings,Lift up thy voice with strength;Lift it up, be not afraid;

Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand,

And his arm shall rule for him:Behold, his reward is with him,And his work before him.He shall feed his flock like a shepherd:He shall gather the lambs with his arm,

And carry them in his bosom,And shall gently lead those that are with young.Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his

hand,

And meted out heaven with the span,And comprehended the dust of the earth in a

measure,

And weighed the mountains in scales,And the hills in a balance?Who hath directed the Spirit of the LordOr being his counsellor hath taught him?With whom took he counsel, and who instructed

him,

And taught him in the path of judgment,




And taught him knowledge,

And shewed to him the way of understanding?Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket,And are counted as the small dust of the balance:Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,Nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.All nations before him are as nothing;

And they are counted to him less than no thing, andvanity.

To whom then will ye liken God?Or what likeness will ye compare unto him?The workman melteih a graven image,And the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold,

And casteth silver chains.

He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblationChooseth a tree that will not rot;He seeketh unto him a cunning workmanTo prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.

Have ye not known? have ye not heard?Hath it not been told you from the beginning?

Have ye not understood from the foundations of theearth?It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,And the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers;That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,And spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:That bringeth the princes to nothing;

He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.




Yea, they shall not be planted;

Yea, they shall not be sown;

Yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth:And he shall also blow upon them, and they shall

wither,And the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.To whom then will ye liken me,Or shall I be equal:' saith the H oly One.Lift up your eyes on high,And behold who hath created these things,That bringeth out their host by number:He calleth them all by names by the greatness of his

might,For that he is strong in power;Not one faileth.

Why sayest thou, O Jacob,And speakest, O Israel,My way is hid from the Lord,

And my judgment is passed over from my God?Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard?That the everlasting God, the Lord,

The Creator of the ends of the earth,

Fainteth not, neither is weary?There is no searching of his understanding.He giveth power to the faint;And to them that have no might he increaseth

strength.Even the youths shall faint and be weary.

And the young men shall utterly fall:




But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their

strength;

They shall moun t up with wings as eagles;

They shall run and not be weary;

And they shall walk and not faint.

ISAIAH 40.

T H E S E T R E M E N D O U S W O R D S W E R Ewritten by that unknown prophet of the Babylonianexile, w hose sayings are un ited w ith those of the pr op he tIsaiah and whom we therefore call the Second Isaiah.Let us imagine that these words are being spoken to theexiles of our time, to those in prisons and concentrationcamps, separated from their husbands or wives, theirchildren or parents, to those toiling in despair in foreign

countries, to those in the hell of modern warfare. Howwould they respond to such words, and how should we,if they w ere spoken to us? Pro bab ly w e should c hallenge ,ironically or angrily, their seeming pretentiousness; andwe should point to the immense gap between the idealsituation, dramatized by the prophet, and the catastrophic reality in wh ich w e live. W e sh ould dismiss him

as an annoying optimist, not worthy of our attention.Perhaps we should become bit ter and full of hatred toward him. That would be our natural response to someone who desires to comfort us in a situation in which wedo not see any possible comfort and desperately disbelieve any possible hope.

But the situation of the exiles in Babylon, sitting bythe rivers and weeping, was one of just such hopeless

ness. The prophet must have expected this kind of reaction, for he spoke in a way that made the exiles listen




to him, 2500 years ago. And his words should be significant for us, the exiles of today. He was not less, butrather more, realistic than we are. He knew that such asituation was not a matter of chance and bad luck, butthat i t is the human si tuation, which no man and noperiod can escape. The human situation is one of finite-ness—all flesh is grass and the grass withereth. It is oneof sin—we receive double for all our sins. It is one ofvanity and pride—we are brought to nothing and fallutterly. But in spite of his realistic knowledge of human

nature and dest iny the prophet gave comfort and consolation and hope to the exiled nation, to the exiles ofall nations, to man who, as man, is exiled in this world.

The words of this great chapter sound like the risingand falling waves in a turbulent ocean. Darkness andlight follow each other; after the depth of sin and punishment, the prophet announces forgiveness and liberation.But the wave falls, and the prophet asks himself how

he could hav e m ade such an announc em ent, wh en al l thegoodness of mortal men is as the flower of the field,which fades because the breath of God blows upon i t .But he does not remain in the depths of his melancholy:over against human mortality the word of God shallstand forever. There is something eternal to which wecan cling: Be not afraid, the Lord God shall come withstrong hand. So the wave rises, and then again it falls:

the nations are as a drop of water and a piece of dust;all the nations are as nothing before Him, they arecou nted as less than no thing . . . . Ag ain the w ave rises:God stands above the circle of the earth, above allcreated things, above the highest and the lowest! Andwhen once more the wave falls and the servant of Godcomplains that he does not receive justice from God, thpanswer is that God acts beyond human expectat ion. He




gives power to the faint and to him that hath no mightHe increaseth strength. He acts paradoxically; He acts

beyond human unders tanding .How shall we interpret these words? Is there a way

to unite the heights and depths contrasted in this chapter? Shall we understand the words of consolation andhope as vain promises, never fulfilled in the past andnever to be fulfilled in any future? Shall we understandthem as an escape from the realization of man's realsituation, through mysticism and poetic elevation? If so,what about the probing realism of the prophet 's analysisof the human situation? He saw history as it is, but atthe same time he looked beyond history to the ultimatepower and meaning and majesty of being. He knew twoorders of being: the human, political, historical order,and the divine, eternal order. Because he knew thesetwo ord ers, he could speak as he d id, m oving continually

between the depth of human nothingness and the greatheight of divine creativity.

L et us look at these orde rs, these different na ture s, a ndtheir interrelation. In speaking of them we speak of ourselves, because we belong to both of them in every moment of our life and history.

The human order, the order of history, is primarilythe order of growing and dying. "Surely the people isgrass". Man's experience of melancholy, awakened byfading and perishing nature, is symbolic of his transi-toriness. Generations after generations grow up, struggle, suffer, enjoy and disappear. Should we take all thisseriously? Should we take it more seriously than thegrowing and fading of the grass? The prophet , whenhe was asked to speak to his nation, raised the question:

W hy speak to them ? Th ey are grass. W e could co ntinu e:Why write and work and struggle for them? They are




grass. What matter, when after a few years all thosefor whom we wrote and spoke and struggled will havevanished? They were grass, the grass withered, the

flowers faded. That is the order of history. But the otherorder appears at the horizon: the word of God shallstand forever.

Second, the order of history is an order of sin andpunishment. The exile, following the destruction ofJerusalem, was, as all the prophets said, the punishmentof the people for their sins. We do not like words such

as "sin" and "punishment". They seem to us old-fashioned, barbaric, and invalid in the light of modern psychology. But whenever I have met exiles of high moralstandards and insight, I have discovered that they feelresponsible for what has happened within their owncountries. And very often I have met citizens of democratic countries, citizens of this country, who have expressed a feeling of guilt for the situation of the world

today. They were right, and the exiles were right: theyare responsible, as are you and I . Whether or not wecall i t sin, whether or not we call i t punishment, we arebeaten by the consequences of our own failures. That isthe order of history. But at the horizon the other orderappears, saying that our struggles are not in vain, thatour iniquity is pardoned.

There is a third element in the order of history, unit

ing fmiteness and sin: the tragic law which controls thehistorical process, the law which ordains that humangreatness utterly fall. There is human greatness in history. There are great and conquering nations and empires; there are even nations and empires which manifest a certain righteousness. There are princes and evengood princes; there are judges and even just judges.There are states and constitutions and even states and




constitutions which provide a certain amount of freedom; there are social orders and even some which provide a certain amount of equality. There are creative

spirits and even some which have the power of knowledge and understanding. But just in being great andpowerful and righteous they touch the divine sphere,an d they becom e arrogant, and the y are brou ght to nothing. They are without roots; they wither; the divinestorm blows over them, and they vanish. That is thesubject of Greek tragedy. That is the message of theprophet to the nations of the world. They are all subjectto the law of tragic self-destruction—the bad and thegood, individuals and nations, the weak and the heroic.And again the other order, the order beyond history andtragedy, appears at the horizon: He gives power to thefaint and their strength is renewed, so that they shallm oun t up w ith wings as eagles.

The order beyond the order of history is the divine

order. And it is paradoxical: men are like grass, but theword of God spoken to them shall stand forever. Menstand under the law of s in and punishment, but thedivine order breaks through it and brings forgiveness.Men faint, falling from the height of their moral goodness and youthful power, and just when they havefallen and are weakest, they run without weariness andrise u p w ith wings as eagles. G od acts bey ond all hum an

assumptions and valuations. He acts surprisingly, unexpectedly, paradoxically. The negative character of thehistorical order is the positive character of the divineorder. The weak and despairing, the sinful and tragicin the historical order are the strong and victorious inthe divine order.

A few chapters later, the prophet speaks of the paradoxical destiny of the servant, the elected nation. De-




scribed as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, it isdespised and rejected in the human order. Who does

not think, hearing these words, of the exiles not only ofIsrael but of all nations of the world? But the divineorder appears. The exiled nation, or (as the Christianslater, historically w ron g, spiritually right, inte rpr ete d it)the Man on the Cross, represents another order, an order in which the weakest is the strongest, the most humiliated, the most victorious. The historical, humanorder is overcome by the suffering servant, the crucified

Saviour.If we doubt this paradox, if we despair about our

human situation, if our exile is without hope or meaningfor us, the prophet should fill us with shame for the arrogance of our rationalism and the narrowness of ourmoralism. He points to the creation of the world, ofmankind, of history. He asks, "Who has directed the

Spiri t of God? With whom took He counsel and whoinstructed Him and taught Him the path of justice?"We always wish to teach God the path of justice. Wetel l Him that He must punish the bad and reward thegood, especially in relation to ourselves. But He acceptsno counsel concerning the course of history, as He tookno counsel concerning the structure of the world, withall its natural destruction, cruelty, and transitoriness.

The divine order cannot be judged according to themeasures of the historical order, the measures of humancomfort and morality, democracy and civilization. Thatwas the answer Job received from God when he struggled with Him about the unintelligible injustice of hishistorical fate. God did not justify Himself in moral categories; He tr iumphantly pointed to the unexplorable

greatness of nature which cannot be measured according to the measure of human righteousness.




But if the divine order and the historical order havenothing to do with each other, how can the divine orderconcern us at all? H ow can eternity a nd forgiveness an ddivine help concern us if we are in the other order, thehistorical order, standing under the law of finiteness andweakness and punishment? How can the divine ordercomfort us in our misery? How can we listen to thewords of the prophets which tell us of the end of ourwarfare? There are three answers to this question. First,

the divine order is not the historical order; and weshould not confuse these two orders. No life is able toovercome finiteness, sin, and tragedy. The illusions ofour period have been that modern civilization can conquer them, and that we can achieve security in our ownexistence. Progress seemed to have conquered tragedy;the divine order seemed to be embodied in the progressive, historical order. But for nearly three decades ourgeneration has received blow after blow , destroying tha tillusion, and driving to despair and cynicism those whowanted to transform, and thought they could transform,the historical order into a divine order. Let us learnfrom the catastrophe of our time at least the fact that nolife and no period are able to overcome finiteness, sin,and t ragedy.

The second answer is that there is another order towhich we, as human beings, belong, an order whichmakes m an always dissatisfied with what is given to him.Man transcends everything in the historical order, allthe heights and depths of his own existence. He passes,as no other being is able to pass, beyond the limits ofhis given world. He participates in something infinite, in

an order w hich is no t transitory, no t self-destructive, no ttragic, but eternal, holy, and blessed. Therefore, whenhe lis tens to the prophetic word, when he hears of the




everlasting God and of the greatness of His power andthe mystery of His acts, a response is awakened in thedepth of his soul; the infinite within him is touched.

Every man knows, in some depth of his soul, that thatis true. Our despair itself, our inability to escape ourselves in life and in death, witnesses to our infinity.

The third answer is that the two orders, the historicaland the eternal , a l though they can never become thesame, are within each other. The historical order is notseparated from the eternal order. What is new in theprophets and in Christianity, beyond all paganism, old

and new, is that the eternal order reveals itself in thehistorical order. The suffering servant of God and theenemies because of whom he suffers, the Man on theCross and those who fainted under the Cross, the exiledand persecuted in all periods of history, have all transformed history. The strong in history fall; the strengthof each of us is taken from us. But those who seemweak in history finally shape history, because they are

bound to the eternal order. We are not a lost generationbecause we are a suffering, destroyed generation. Eachof us belongs to the eternal order, and the prophetspeaks to all of us: Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people!



3THE PARADOX OF THE BEATITUDES

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said,

Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall hefilled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shalllaugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, andwhen they shall separate you from their company,and shall reproach you, and cast out your name asevil, for the Son of Mans sake. Rejoice ye in that

day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward isgreat in heaven: for in the like manner did theirfathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that arerich! for ye have received your consolation. Woeunto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. W oe untoyou that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of

you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.LUKE 6:20-26.

READERS AND STUDENTS OF THE NEWTestament often find that it is not the refined argumentof Paul or the mystical wisdom of John, but the simple

sayings of Jesus, as recorded by the first three evangelists, which are the most difficult to interpret. The words

24



Paradox of the Beatitudes 25

of Jesus seem so clear and straightforward and adequate that i t is hard to imagine that anybody couldmiss the meaning. But when we are asked to express

the meaning in our own words, we discover one levelof meaning after another. We realize that words ofJesus which we have known since our earliest childhood are incomprehensible to us. And if we try to penetrate them, we are driven from one depth to another;we are never able to exhaust them. Nothing seems simpler, and yet nothing is more perplexing, than, for instance, the Lord's Prayer, the Parables, and the Beati

tudes.We have heard the four Beati tudes and the four

Woes as Luke reports them. Their meaning seems unmistakable. The poor, those who are hungry now,those who weep now, those who are isolated and insulted, are praised, congratulated, so to speak, becausethey can expect precisely the opposite of their presentsituation. And the rich, those who are full, those wholaugh, those who are popular and respected, are pit ied,because they must expect precisely that which is contrary.

Two questions arise. What is promised and to whomis i t promised? What is the kingdom which is to beowned by the poor, and who are the poor who shall ownit? And who are the rich against whom the Woes shall

be directed, and what shall happen to them?Matthew tried to answer these questions. He saidthat the poor are the poor in spiri t , and that those whohunger, hunger after righteousness. He said that thosewho weep, mourn for the state of the world. And tothem is promised the kingdom of heaven, the vision ofthe Divine Spirit , the comfort and mercy of the realmof God.



26 The Shaking of the Founda tions

Is Matthew's in terpretat ion r ight? Or has Matthew,and have the official Christian Churches, following him,

spiritualized the Beatitudes? Or, on the other hand, hasLuke, and have the many sectarian and revolutionarymovements, following him, distorted the Beatitudesfrom a materialistic point of view? Both assertions havebeen made and both are wrong. If we want the trueanswer, we must look at those to whom Jesus spoke. Hespoke to two kinds of people. One kind lived with their

hear ts turned toward the coming stage of the world.They were poorly adjusted to things as they were. Theywere suffering under the conditions of their lives. Manywere disinherited, insecure, hungry, oppressed. Thereis no distinction made in the Beatitudes between spiritual and material want, and there is no dist inction madebetween spiritual and material fulfillment. Those towhom Jesus spoke were in need of both. Neither the

pro ph ets nor Jesus spiritualized th e message of the K ingdom. Nor did they understand i t and interpret i t to saythat the Kingdom would come as the result of a merelymaterial revolution. Christ ianity pronounces the unityof body and soul. The Beatitudes praise those who willbe fulfilled in their whole being. But the other kind ofpeople to whom Jesus spoke were those to whom He

promised the Woes. They were unbroken in their relation to the present stage of the world. They lived withtheir hearts in things as they are. They were well-established in their lives; they enjoyed prestige, power andsecurity. Jesus threatened them spiritually and mater ially. They were bound to this eon, and they were tovanish with this eon. They had no treasure beyond it .

The situation of the people of Galilee to whom Jesusspoke is still our situation. Th e Wo es are promised toda yto all of us who are well off, respected, and secure,



Paradox of the Beatitudes 27

not simply because we have such security and respect,but because it inevitably binds us, with an almost irresistible power, to this eon, to things as they are. And

the Beatitudes are promised today to all of us who arewithout security and popularity, who are mourning inbody and soul. And they are promised not simply because we lack so much, but because the very fact ofour lacks and our sorrows may turn our hearts awayfrom things as they are, toward the coming eon. TheBeatitudes do not glorify those who are poor and inmisery, individuals or classes, because they are poor.

The Woes are not promised to those who are rich andsecure, classes or individuals, because they are rich.If this were so, Jesus could not have promised to thepoor the reversal of their situation. He praises the poorin so far as they live in tw o worlds, the present worldand the world to come. And He threatens the rich in sofar as they live in one world alone.

This brings a tremendous tension into our lives. Welive in two orders, one of which is a reversal of theother. The coming order is always coming, shaking thisorder, fighting with it, conquering it and conquered byit. The coming order is always at hand. But one cannever say: "It is here! It is there!" One can never graspit. But one can be grasped by it. And whenever one isgras ped by it, he is rich, even if he b e poor in this orde r.

His wealth is his participation in the coming order, inits battles, its victories and defeats. He is blessed, hemay rejoice and leap even when he is isolated and insulted, because his isolation belongs to this order, whilehe belongs to the other order! He is blessed, while theywho cast out his name are to be pitied. By their dreadand despair , and by their hatred of him, they provethat the Woes Jesus has directed against them have




already become real. They lose the one and only orderthey have; they disintegrate in body and spirit . Perhaps

we are right to consider the catastrophe of our presentworld as a fulfillment of the Woes which Jesus directedagainst a rich, abundant, laughing, self-congratulatingsocial order. But if we believe this, we can also believethat those who have become poor and hungry and sorrowing and persecuted in this catastrophe are those inwhom the other order is made manifest . They may betray it , but they are called first . Only through the para

dox of the Beatitudes can we begin to understand ourown life and the life of our world.



4THE TWO SERVANTS OF JAHWEH

Now, the Eternal cries, bring your case forward, ...Now, Jacob's King cries, state your proofs.Let us hear what happened in the past, that we may

ponder it,Or show me what is yet to be, that we m ay watch

the outcome.Yes, let us hear what is to com e, that w e m ay be

sure that you are gods;Com e, do something or other that we m ay m arvel at

the sight!Why, you are things of naugh t; you can do nothingat all!

Here is one I have raised from the north;I have called him by name from the east.He shall trample down rulers as morter, like a potter

treading clay.

Now, we predicted this beforehand.Who foretold it, that we might hail it true?No one predicted it, no one announced it,Not a word ever fell from your mouths. . . .As for your idols, 1 see no one, not a prophet in their

midstTo answer my inquiries.

29




They are all an empty nothing; all they do is utterly

inane.

Their m etal images are all futile, all vain.

ISAIAH 4 1 :2 1 - 2 6 , 28-29 .

A DR AMAT I C SC E NE I S DE SC R I B E D I Nthe words of the prophet. Jahweh, as judge and partyat the same time, calls the gods of the nations to a heavenly disputation, to be witnessed by the peoples of theworld. They are to discuss which god has proved to bethe t rue God. The t rue God must be He Who is theLord of history. The final decision is that Jahweh is theGod of history, and therefore the god who is really God.Jahweh is the God of history, because He has shownthrough His prophets that He understands the meaning

of history, and that He knows the past and the future,the beginning and end, of all things. In showing that,He proves that He makes history, and that it is He Whohas raised Cyrus, the destroyer of the power of the Jewish nation and the liberator of its remnants. The godsof the nations cannot answer. For they did not know ofthat act; they did not predict it; and they did not perform it . The disputation ends with the pronouncementthat these gods are all vain, that their works are as nothing, and that their images are as mere wind and illusion.It is Jahweh alone Who is God, for He is the God ofhistory.

Seldom in history have men been as disturbed abouthistory as we are today. We desire urgently to catch atleast a glimpse of the future, of wisdom and prophecy.

It is not just a few thousand Jewish exiles, to whomour prophet speaks by the rivers of Babylon, but ten



Two Servants of Jahweh 3 1

million exiles from all over the world, who try passionately to penetrate the darkness of their future. Andwith them, a great many other men long for a strong,inspiring word concerning the future of mankind.

But those who have the power to shape the futurefundamentally contradict each other. Political leadersdeclare solemnly that it is almost impossible to carrythe burden of their office at this time. Ministers at homeand in the army can only describe in negative termsthe object of their people's death and sacrifice. Those

who have to speak to the people of the enemy soonrealize that they can say nothing of real promise on thepolitical plane. Only the prophets of disaster-without-hope give evidence of complete certainty. But they arenot the prophets of God.

We should not expect the darkness of our history tobe dispersed soon, either by new conferences or byclever political strategy. Our darkness, uncertainty, and

helplessness in regard to the future have depths that aremore profound. We do not receive an answer concerning the future, because we ask questions of those whocannot know the future, the gods who are as vanity, thegods of the nations, who are as nothing beside the Godof history. Every man tries to wrest an oracle from thegod of his nation through the mouths of his priests, themighty and wise. And every man succeeds. All men

throughout the world are flooded with oracles from thegods of their nations and the gods of other nations. Allmen compare their oracles with others, and attempt todetermine the most credible ones. But the darknesssimply increases. All men speak of the future in termsof their own nations. Yet even the greatest nation isas nothing to the God of history. For no nation or alliance of nations can say that it is the meaning, the pur-




pose of history, that it is the nation or alliance whichholds the knowledge of the past and the power to shape

the future. The entire assembly of national gods mustfall finally under the Judgment of Jahweh, which condemns it as a thing of naught, as a thing incapable ofdoing anything at all. We receive so many oracles, butno prophecies, only because we refuse to turn to thesource of prophecy, the God of history.

Jahweh revealed Himself through Israel 's pain as

the God Who is the first and the last, the beginning andthe end, of history. A complete national breakdownalone made the remnants of Israel ready to receive thisrevelation in its univ ersal significance. B ut w hen eve r theJewish nation used that revelation as an excuse for national pride, and transformed Jahweh into a merelynational god, another breakdown followed. For Jahwehas a national god is always condemned by Jahweh the

God of history. The mystery of Judaism today lies inthat fact.

Our prophet describes two very great figures: Cyrus,the founder of the Persian Empire, the world-figure ofhis t ime, called by the prophet the shepherd and theanointed, the man of God's counsel; and the servantof Jahweh who represents the saving power of innocent

suffering and death. The glorious founder of the Empirehad to be the servant of the servant of Jahweh. He hadto liberate the remnants of Israel, out of which the suf

fering servant arose.

I feel that the only solution of the historical problemtoday lies in that prophetic concept. For there are twoforces in our battered world. One is the force of thosewho, like the suffering servant of God, exist, unseen, inall countries. We do not know where these servantslive, or what they will make of the future. But we know



Two Servants of Jahweh 33

that they exist, and that their suffering is not vain. Theyare the hidden tools of the God of history. They are theaged and the chi ldren, the young men and the young

women, the persecuted and the imprisoned, and allthose sacrificed for the sake of the future, for one smallstone in the building of the Kingdom of God, the cornerstone of which is the perfect Servant of God. Andthe second force of the world is the force of those who,l ike Cyrus, rule Empires, and incorporate al l the shameand greatness of Empires. They are the men of God'scounsel , because they carry through His purposes in

the service of the suffering servants of Jahweh. But theyare not aware that they are instruments, as Cyrus wasnot aware that he was God's man of counsel . They donot know what shall become of their deeds. And if welook to them in our attempts to grasp the future, weshall no t know either; if we look to them , we shall alw aysremain in darkness. But if we turn to the true servantsand to the true God whom they serve, the God of history, we shall know of the future. We can find the solution of the riddle of history as a whole, and of our particular history, in the figure of Cyrus in the service ofthe servant of Jahweh.



5MEDITATION: THE MYSTERY OF TIME

L E T U S M E D I T A T E ON THE MYSTERY OFtime. Augustine points to the depth of this mystery,when he says, "If nobody asks me about it , I know. IfI want to explain it to somebody who asks me aboutit , I do not know." There is something unspeakableabout t ime, but this has not prevented the most profound religious minds from thinking and speakingabout it . It is not vain speculation when the writer ofthe first part of the 90th Psalm confronts the eternity ofGod with the transitoriness of human existence. The

melancholy experience of human finiteness drives himto utter the tremendous words of the psalm. I t is notempty curiosity when Augustine tries, in his most personal book, the Confessions, to penetrate the ground ofour temporali ty. We are not making an abstract statement, but are rather expressing a profound religiousfeeling, w hen w e sing, "Tim e like an ever-rolling streambears all its sons away". It is not mere philosophy, but,a tragic feeling of life, which impels the earliest Greekphilosophers to say that all things must return to theirorigin, suffering punishment, "according to the order oft ime". It is no t merely in the in terest of system atic theo rythat the Fourth Gospel uses again and again the phrase"eternal life" as the expression of the highest good,which is ever present in Christ. It was a religious event

when Meister Eckhardt pointed to the "eternal now"within the flux of time, and when Soren Kierkegaard

34



Meditation: The Mystery of Time 35

pointed to the infinite significance of every momentas the "now" of decision.

T ime is as inexhaustible as the ground of life itself.

Even the greatest minds have each discovered only oneaspect of it. But everyone, even the most simple mind,apprehends the meaning of time—namely, his own temporality. He may not be able to express his knowledgeabout t ime, but he is never separated from its mystery.His life, and the life of each of us, is permeated in everymoment , in every experience, and in every expression,by the mystery of t ime. Time is our destiny. Time is our

hope. Time is our despair . And t ime is the mirror in

which we see eternity. Let me point to three of the

many mysteries of t ime: its power to devour everythingwithin its sphere; its power to receive eternity withinitself; and its power to drive toward an ult imate end, a

new creation.

Mankind has always realized that there is something

tearful about the flux of t ime, a r iddle which we cannotsolve, and the solution of which we could not stand. We

come from a past which is no more; we go into a futurewhich is not yet; ours is the present . The past is oursonly in so far as we have it still pre sen t; and the futureis ours only in so far as we have it already present. We

possess the past by memory, and the future by anticipation. But what is the nature of the present itself? If we

look at it closely, we must say: it is a point withoutextension, the point in which the future becomes the

past; when we say to ourselves, "This is the present ," the

momen t has already been swallowed by the past. The

present disappears the very instant we try to grasp it.

The present cannot be caught ; it is always gone. So it

seems that we have nothing real—neither the past nor

the future, nor even the present. Therefore, there is a




dreaming character about our existence, which thepsalmist indicates, and which religious visionaries have

described in so many ways.Time, however, could not even give us a place on

which to stand, if it were not characterized by thatsecond mystery, its power to receive eternity. There isno present in the mere stream of time; but the present isreal, as our experience witnesses. And it is real becauseeternity breaks into time and gives it a real present. We

could no t even say "now ," if eternity did n ot elev ate thatmoment above the ever-passing time. Eternity is alwayspresent; and its presence is the cause of our having thepre sen t at all. W he n th e psalmist looks at God, for W ho ma thousand years are like one day, he is looking at thateternity which alone gives him a place on which he canstand, a "now" which has infinite reality and infinitesignificance. In every moment that we say "now", some

thing tempo ral and som ething eternal are united. W hen ever a human being says, "Now I am living; now I amreally present", resisting the stream which drives thefuture into the past, eternity is . In each such "now",eternity is made manifest; in every real "now", eternityis presen t. Le t us think for a mo m ent of the w ay in w hichwe are living our lives in our period of history. Have wenot lost a real present by always being driven forward,

by our constant running, in our indefatigable activism,toward the future? We suppose the future to be betterthan any present; but there is always another futurebeyond the next future, again and again without a present, that is to say, without eternity. According to theFourth Gospel eternal life is a present gift: he, wholistens to Christ, has eternity already. He is no longersubject to the driving of time. In him the "now"

becomes a "now eternal". We have lost the real "now",



Meditation: The Mystery of Time 37

the "now eternal"; we have, I am afraid, lost eternal lifein so far as it creates the real present.

There is another element in t ime, its third mystery,which makes us look at the future; for time does not

re turn, nor repea t itself: it runs forward; it is alwaysunique; it ever creates the new. There is within it a

drive toward an end, unknown, never to be reached in

t ime itself, always intended and ever fleeing. Time runstoward the "future eternal". This is the greatest of all

the mysteries of t ime. It is the mystery of which the

prophets, Christ ,and the

Apostles have spoken.The

eternal is the solution of the riddle of t ime. Time doesnot drive toward an endless self-repetition, nor to an

empty re turn to its beginning. Time is not meaningless.I t has a hidden meaning—salvation. It has a hiddengoal—the Kingdom of God. It brings about a hiddenreality—the new creation. The infinite significance of

every moment of t ime is this: in it we decide, and are

decided about, with respect to our eternal future.



6THE ESCAPE FROM GOD

O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me.Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,

Thou understandest my thought afar off.Thou compassest my path and my lying down,And art acquainted with all my ways.For there is not a word in my tongue,

But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before,And laid thine hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;It is high, I cannot attain unto it.Whither shall I go from thy spirit?Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there;If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.If I take the wings of the morning,And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,Even there shall thy hand lead me,

And thy right hand shall hold me.If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,Even the night shall be light about me.Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee,

But the night shineth as the day.38



Escape from God 39

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.For thou hast possessed my reins;

Thou hast covered me in my mothers womb.I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully

made;M arvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth

right well.My substance was not hid from thee, when I was

made in secret,And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the

earth.Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unper-

fect;And in thy book all my mem bers were written, which

in continuance

Were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.How precious also are thy thoughts unto m e, O God!How great is the sum of them!If I should coun t them, they are more in number

than the sand.

When I awake, I am still with thee.Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God:

Depart from me, therefore, ye bloody men.For they speak against thee wickedly,And thine enemies take thy name in vain.Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?And am not I grieved with those that rise up against

thee?1 hate them with perfect hatred.




I count them m ine enemies.Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my thoughts;And see if there he any wicked way in me,And lead me in the way everlasting.

PSALM 139.

"W H E RE CO U L D I G O F RO M T H Y S P IRIT ,

and where could I flee from Thy Face?" These are thecen tral words of the great 139th Psalm. Th ey sta te in th eform of a question the inescapable Presence of God. L etus consider this statement, and the powerful images inwhich the psalmist tries to express it. God is inescapable.He is God only because He is inescapable. And onlythat which is inescapable is God.

There is no place to which we could flee from Godwhich is outside of God. "If I ascend to the heavens,Thou art there." It seems very natural for God to be inheaven, and very unnatural for us to wish to ascend toheaven in order to escape Him. But that is just whatthe idealists of all ages have tried to do. They havetried to leap towards the heaven of perfection andtruth, of justice and peace, where God is not wanted.That heaven is a heaven of man's making, without thedriving restlessness of the Divine Spirit and withoutthe judging presence of the Divine Face. But such aplace is a "no place"; it is a "utopia", an idealistic illusion. "If I make hell my home, behold, Thou art there."Hell or Sheol, the habitation of the dead, would seemto be the right place to hide from God. And that is

where all those who long for death, in order to escapethe Divine Demands, attempt to flee. I am convinced



Escape from God 4 1

that there is not one amongst us who has not at sometime desired to be liberated from the burden of his existence by stepping out of it . And I know that there are

some amongst us for whom this longing is a daily temptation. But everyone knows in the depth of his heartthat death would not provide an escape from the innerdem an d m ad e upon him . "If I take the wings of the da w nand dwell in the midst of the sea, Thy Hand would evenfall on me there, and Thy r ight Hand would grasp me."To fly to the ends of the earth would not be to escapefrom God. Our technical civilization attempts just that,in order to be liberated from the knowledge that it lacksa centre of life and meaning. The modern way to fleefrom God is to rush ahead and ahead, as quickly as thebeams before sunrise, to conquer more and more spacein every direction, in every humanly possible way, tobe always active, to be always planning, and to be always preparing. But God's Hand falls upon us; and it

has fallen heavily and destructively upon our fleeingcivilization; our flight pro ve d to be vain. "W he n I thinkthat the darkness shall cover me, that night shall hidem e, I know at the same time that the darkness is notdark to Thee, and that night is as bright as day." Toflee into darkness in order to forget God is not to escapeHim. For a time we may be able to hurl Him out of ourconsciousness, to reject Him, to refute Him, to argue

convincing ly for H is non -existence, an d to live very comfortably without Him. But ultimately we know that itis no t H e Wh om w e reject an d forget, bu t th at it is rathe rsome distorted picture of Him. And we know that wecan argue against Him, only because He impels us toattack Him. There is no escape from God throughforgetfulness.

"Where could I go from Thy Spirit? O, where could




I flee from Thy Face?" The poet who wrote those wordsto describe the futile attempt of man to escape God cer

tainly believed that man desires to escape God. H e is no talone in his conviction. Men of all kinds, prophets andreformers, saints and atheists, believers and unbelievers,have the same experience. It is safe to say that a manwho has never tried to flee God has never experiencedthe God Who is really God. When I speak of God, I donot refer to the many gods of our own making, the godswith whom we can live rather comfortably. For there

is no reason to flee a god who is the perfect picture ofeverything that is good in man. Why try to escape fromsuch a far-removed ideal? And there is no reason to fleefrom a god who is simply the universe, or the laws ofnature, or the course of history. Why try to escape froma reality of which we are a part? There is no reason toflee from a god who is nothing more than a benevolentfather, a father who guarantees our immortality andfinal happiness. Why try to escape from someone whoserves us so well? No, those are not pictures of God, butrather of man, trying to make God in his own imageand for his own comfort. They are the products of man'simagination and wishful thinking, justly denied by everyhonest atheist. A god whom we can easily bear, a godfrom whom we do not have to hide, a god whom we do

not hate in moments, a god whose destruction we neverdesire, is not God at all, and has no reality.

Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous atheist and ardentenemy of religion and Christianity, knew more aboutthe power of the idea of God than many faithful Christians. In a symbolic story, w hen Zarathustra, the pro ph etof a higher humanity, says to the Ugliest Man, the murderer of God, "You could not bear him to see you, al

ways to see you through and through. . . . You took re-



Escape from God 43

venge on the witness. . . . You are the murderer ofGod", the Ugliest Man agrees with Zarathustra and re

plies, "H e had to die." For God, according to the UgliestMan, looks with eyes that see everything; He peers intoman's ground and depth, into his hidden shame andugliness. The God Who sees everything, and man also,is the God Who has to die. Man cannot s tand thatsuch a Witness live.

Are we able to stand such a Witness? The psalmistsays, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me."

Who can stand to be known so thoroughly even in thedarkest corners of his soul? Who does not want to escapesuch a Witness? And who does not want to become onewho can deny God in theory and practice, an atheist?"Thou knowest when I s i t down, and when I s tand up.. . . Walking or resting, I am judged by Thee; and allmy ways are open to Thee." God knows what we are;and He knows what we do. Who does not hate a com

pan ion w ho is always presen t on every road and in everyplace of rest? Who does not want to break through theprison of such a perpetual companionship? "Thou dis-cernest my thoughts from afar . . . Lord, there is not aword on my tongue which Thou knowest not ." TheDivine Presence is spiri tual. It penetrates the innermostparts of our own spirits. Our entire inner life, ourthoughts and desires, our feelings and imaginations, are

known to God. The final way of escape, the most intimate of all places, is held by God. That fact is the hardest of all to accept. The human resistance against suchrelentless observation can scarcely be broken. Everypsy chia trist and confessor is familiar w ith the trem en dous force of resistance in each personality against eventrifling self-revelations. N ob od y w an ts to be knoum, evenwhen he realizes that his health and salvation depend




upon such a knowledge. We do not even wish to beknown by ourselves. We try to hide the depths of our

souls from our own eyes. We refuse to be our own witness. How then can we stand the mirror in which nothing can be hidden?

Is the Ugliest Man right? The Ugliest Man is a symbol of the ugliness in each one of us, and the symbol ofour will to hide at least something from God and fromourselves. The Ugliest Man seems to be right, when weconsider the support he receives from saints, theolo

gians, and reformers. Martin Luther was as stronglygrasped as the psalmist by the penetrating Presence ofGod. He stated that in every creature God is deeper,more internal, and more present than the creature is tohimself, and that God embraces all things, is within allthings. But this most intimate Presence of God createdthe same feeling in Luther that i t did in Nietzsche. Hedesired that God not be God. "I did not love God. Ihated the just God . . . and was indignant towards Him,if not in wicked revolt, at least in silent blasphemy."Following St. Bernard, the great master of religious self-

observation, he continued, "We cannot love God, andtherefore we cannot will Him to exist . We cannot wantHim to be most wise . . . and most powerful." Lutherwas terribly shocked when he recognized this hatred

for God within himself. He was not able to escape asshrewdly as his theological masters, who recommendedthat he not think constantly of the searching Presenceof God, and thus avoid the blasphemy of hating God.Luther knew with the psalmist that no escape is possible. "Thou art behind and before me, and on everyside of me, laying Thy Hand upon me." God stands oneach side of us, before and behind us. There is no

way out .



Escape from God 45

The pious man of the Old Testament, the mysticalsaint of the Middle Ages, the reformer of the ChristianChurch, and the prophet of atheism are all unitedthrough that t remendous human experience: man cannot stand the God Who is really God. Man tries to escape God, and hates Him, because he cannot escapeHim. The protest against God, the will that there beno God, and the flight to atheism are all genuineelements of profound religion. And only on thebasis of these elements has religion meaning andpower .

Christian theology and religious instruction speak ofthe Divine Omnipresence, which is the doctr ine thatGod is everywhere, and of the Divine Omniscience,which is the doctrine that God knows everything. It isdifficult to avoid such concepts in religious thought andeducation. But they are at least as dangerous as they areuseful. They make us picture God as a thing with super

human qualit ies, omnipresent l ike an electric powerfield, and omniscient l ike a superhuman brain. Suchconcepts as "Divine O m nipresence" and "D ivine O mniscience" transform an overwhelming religious experienceinto an abstract, philosophical statement, which can beaccepted and rejected, defined, redefined, and replaced.In making God an object besides other objects, the existence and nature of which are matters of argument, the

ology supports the escape to atheism. It encouragesthose who are interested in denying the threateningWitness of their existence. The first step to atheism isalways a theology which drags God down to the levelof doubtful things. The game of the atheist is then veryeasy. For he is perfectly justified in destroying such aphantom and all i ts ghostly qualit ies. And because thetheoretical atheist is just in his destruction, the practical




atheists (all of us) are willing to use his argument tosupport our own attempt to flee God.

Let us therefore forget these concepts, as concepts,and try to find their genuine meaning within our ownexperience. We all know that we cannot separate ourselves at any time from the world to which we belong.There is no ultimate privacy or final isolation. We arealways held and comprehended by something that isgreater than we are, that has a claim upon us, and thatdemands response from us. The most int imate motions

within the depths of our souls are not completely ourown. For they belong also to our friends, to mankind,to the universe, and to the Ground of all being, the aimof our life. Nothing can be hidden ultimately. It is alwaysreflected in the mirror in which nothing can be concealed. Does anybody really believe that his most secretthoughts and desires are not manifest in the whole ofbeing, or that the events within the darkness of hissubconscious or in the isolation of his consciousness donot produce eternal repercussions? Does anybody reallybelieve that he can escape from the responsibility forwhat he has done and thought in secret? Omnisciencemeans that our mystery is manifest. Omnipresencemeans that our privacy is public. The centre of ourwhole being is involved in the centre of all being; and

the centre of all being rests in the centre of our being.I do not believe that any serious man can deny thatexperience, no matter how he may express it . And if hehas had the experience, he has also m et som ething w ithinhim that makes him desire to escape the consequencesof it. For man is not equal to his own experience; heattempts to forget it ; and he knows that he cannot forget it.

Is there a release from that tension? Is it possible to



Escape from God 47

overcome the hatred for God and the will that therebe no God, that there be no man? Is there a way to tr i

umph over our shame before the perpetual Witnessand over the despair which is the burden of our inescapable responsibility? Nietzsche offers a solution whichshows the utter impossibility of atheism. The UgliestMan, the murderer of God, subjects himself to Zara-thustra, because Zarathustra has recognized him, andlooked into his depth with divine understanding. Themurderer of God finds God in man. He has not suc

ceeded in killing God at all . God has returned in Zarathustra, an d in the new period of history which Zara thustra announces. God is always revived in something orsomebody; He cannot be murdered. The story of everyatheism is the same.

The psalmist offers another solution. "I praise Theefor the awful wonder of my birth; Thy work is wonderful. For Thou didst form my being, and weave me to

gether in my mother 's womb. None of my bones werehidden from Thee, when I was made in secret andmolded in the lowest parts of the earth." Using the oldmythological idea that men are formed in the abyssbelow the earth, he points to the mystery of creation,not to the creation in general, but to the creation of hisown being. Th e Go d Wh om he cannot flee is the Grou ndof his being. And this being, his nature, soul, and body,

is a work of infinite wisdom, awful and wonderful. Theadmiration of the Divine Wisdom overcomes the horrorof the Divine Presence in this passage. It points to thefriendly presence of an infinitely creative wisdom. It isthis mood which runs general ly throughout the OldTestament. A great scholar, with whom I conversedonc e on th e will to dea th in every life, exhibited th e sam emood, when he said, "Let us not forget that life is also




friendly." There is a grace in life. Otherwise we couldnot live. The eyes of the Witness we cannot stand are

also the eyes of One of infinite wisdom and supportingbenevolence. The centre of being, in which our owncentre is involved, is the source of the gracious beautywhich we encounter again and again in the stars andmountains, in flowers and animals, in children and mature personalities.

Bu t there is som ething m ore to the psalmist 's solution.He does not simply consider the creative Ground of hisbeing. He also looks to the creative destiny of his life."Thine eyes saw the sum total of my days, and in Thybook they were all writ ten. They were counted beforethey ever came into existence." The psalmist uses anothe r old my thical symbo l, w hich is the reco rd of earthlyevents in an heavenly book. He expresses poeticallywhat we today call the belief in an ultimate meaning of

our life. Our days are written and counted; they arenot merely accidental. He Who sees us most intimatelylooks at the vision of our whole life. We belong to thisw hole; we have a place of the utmost im portance w ithinit. As individuals and as a group, we have an ultimatedestiny. And whenever we sense this ultimate destiny,whether or not it appears as great or insignificant, weare aware of God, the Ground and centre of all meaning.We can join in the psalmist 's cry of admiration: "Howmysterious Thy thoughts are to me, O God! How greatthe sum of them is! If I we re to cou nt the m , they w ouldoutnumber the sands; and if I were to come to the endof them, the span of my life would be like Thine!" Thepsalmist thus conquers the horror of the all-reflectingmirror and of the never-sleeping Witness by his recog

nition of the infinite mystery of life, its Ground andits meaning.



Escape from God 49

But suddenly, at the climax of his meditation, thepsalmist turns awa y from God. He remem bers tha t th ereis a dark element in the picture of his life—enmityagainst God, wickedness, and bloody deeds. And sincethis element disturbs his picture, he asks God to eradicate it . In sudden rage, he shouts, "If Thou wouldstbut slay the wicked, O God, and make the men of blooddepart from me, who oppose Thee in their thoughts,and utter Thy name in their cr imes! Should I not hatethem that hate Thee, O Lord? Should I not despise

them? I hate them with the deadliest hatred. They arealso my enemies!" These words should disturb anyonewho thinks that the problem of life can be solved bymeditation and religious elevation. Their mood is quitedifferent from that of the previous words. Praise turnsinto curse. And the trembling of the heart before theall-observing God is replaced by wrath towards men.This wrath makes the psalmist feel that he is equal with

God, the God from Whom he wished to flee into darkness and death. God must hate those whom he hates;and God's enemies must be his enemies. He has justspoken of the infinite distance between his thoughts andGod's thoughts; but he has forgotten. Religious fanaticism appears, that fanaticism which has inflamed the arrogance of Ch urch es, the cruelty of the moralists, and th einflexibility of the orthodox. The sin of religion appears

in one of the greatest Psalms. It is that sin which has distorted the history of the Church and the vision of Christianity, and which was not fully avoided even by Pauland John. Of course, we whose religious experience ispoor and whose feeling of God is weak should not judgetoo harshly those who se lives bu rn ed w ith th e fire of th eDivine Presence and spread this fire ardently all overthe world. Nevertheless, the sin of religion is real; and




it contradicts the Spirit of Him, Who forbade His disciples again and again to hate His enemies as the ene

mies of God.Yet, a chan ge of thou gh t an d feeling b rings the p salm

ist suddenly back to the beginning of his poem. Hefeels quite obviously that something may have beenwrong in what he has ut tered. He does not know whatis wrong; but he is certain that God knows. And so heconcludes with one of the greatest prayers of all time:"Search me, O God, and know my heart . Try me andknow my thoughts. And see if there be any false wayin m e; and lead m e the perfect w ay." At this m om ent heasks God to do what, according to the first words of thePsalm, he does relentlessly anyway. The psalmist hasovercome his wavering be tw een the will to f lee God an dthe will to be equal with God. He has found that thefinal solution lies in the fact that the Presence of the

Witness, the Presence of the centre of all life within thecentre of his life, implies both a radical attack on hisexistence, and the ultimate meaning of his existence.We are known in a depth of darkness through which weourselves do not even dare to look. And at the sametime, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision. That infinite tension is theatmosphere in which religion lives. In that tension

L u th e v conquered his hatred for God, when he discovered in Christ the Crucified the perfect symbol for ourhuman situation. I t is the tension in which modern manlives, even though he may have lost the way to tradit ional religion. A hum an b eing can b e ult im ately judge dby whether or not he has reached and can stand thattension. To endure it is more horrible and more difficult

than anything else in the world. And yet, to endure i tis the only way by which we can attain to the ult imate



Escape from God 51

meaning, joy, and freedom in our lives. Each of us iscalled to endure. May each of us have the strength and

the courage to bear that vocation! For it is to that vocation that we are called as men.



7THE DEPTH O F E X I S T E N C E

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit:

for the Spirit searche th all things, yea, the deep

things of God. i CO RI N T H I A N S 2 : 1 0 .

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

P S A L M 1 3 0 : 1 .

F R O M T H E W O R D S O F P A U L 'S L E T T E R T O

the Corinthians, let us concentrate on one verse: "TheSpirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."And from this verse, let us make one word—the word"deep"—the subject of our meditation.

And from the 130th Psalm let us concentrate on thatone verse: "Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee,O Lord"; and let us make one word—the word "depth"—also the subject of our meditation.

The words "deep" and "depth" are used in our dai lylife, in poetry and philosophy, in the Bible, and inmany other religious documents, to indicate a spiritualatt i tude, although the words themselves are taken froma spatial experience. Depth is a dimension of space; yetat the same time it is a symbol for a spiritual quality.Most of our religious symbols have this character, reminding us of our finitude and our bondage to thingsthat are visible. We are and we remain sensuous beings

52




we are disappointed by his actual behavior. We piercea deeper level of his character, and for some time experi

ence less disappointment. But soon he may do something which is contrary to all our expectations; and werealize that what we know about him is still superficial.Again we dig more deeply into his true being.

Science has been carried on in this way. Science questions the common assumptions which seem to be trueto everyone, to the layman as well as to the averagescholar. Then the genius comes and asks for the basisof these accepted assumptions; when they are provednot to be true, an earthquake in science occurs out ofthe depth. Such earthquakes occurred when Copernicus asked if our sense-impressions could be the groundof astronomy, and when Einstein questioned whetherthere is an absolute point from which the observercould look at the motions of things. An earthquake oc

curred when Marx questioned the existence of an intellectual and moral history independent of its economicand social basis. It occurred in the most eruptive waywhen the first philosophers questioned what everybodyhad taken for granted from times immemorial—beingitself. When they became conscious of the astonishingfact, underlying all facts, that there is something andnot nothing, an unsurpassable depth of thought was

reached.In the light of these great and daring steps toward

the deep things of our world, we should look at ourselves and at the opinions we take for granted. And weshould see what there is in these things of prejudice,derived from our individual preferences and social surroundings. We should be shocked to notice how little

of our spiritual world is deeper than the surface, howlittle would be able to withstand a serious blow. Some-



The Depth of Existence 55

thing terribly tragic happens in all periods of man's spiritual l i te: truth s, once deep an d powerful, discovered by

the greatest geniuses through profound suffering andincredible labor, become shallow and superficial whenused in daily discussion. How can and how does thistragedy occur? I t can and does unavoidably occur, because there can be no depth without the way to thedepth. Truth without the way to truth is dead; if i t sti l lbe used, it contributes only to the surface of things.Look at the student who knows the content of the hun

dred most important books of world history, and yetwhose spiritual life remains as shallow as it ever was, orperhaps becomes even more superficial. And then lookat an uneducated worker who performs a mechanicaltask day by day, but who suddenly asks himself: " W h a tdoes it mean, that I do this work? What does it meanfor my life? W h at is the meaning of my life?" Because heasks these questions, that man is on the way into depth,whereas the other man, the student of history, dwellson the surface among petrified bodies, brought out ofthe depth by some spiritual earthquake of the past. Thesimple worker may grasp truth, even though he cannotanswer his questions; the learned scholar may possessno truth, even thou gh he knows all the truth s of the past.

The depth of thought is a part of the depth of life.Most of our life continues on the surface. We are enslaved by the routine of our daily lives, in work andpleasure, in business and recreation. We are conqueredby innumerable hazards, both good and evil . We aremore driven than driving. We do not stop to look at thehe igh t above us, or to the dep th below u s. W e are alwaysmoving forward, although usually in a circle, whichfinally brings us back to the place from which we firstmoved. We are in constant motion and never stop to




plun ge into the d epth . W e talk and talk and ne ver l istento the voices speaking to our depth and from our depth.

We accept ourselves as we appear to ourselves, and donot care what we really are. Like hit-and-run drivers,we injure our souls by the speed with which we moveon the surface; and then we rush away, leaving ourbleeding souls alone. We miss, therefore, our depth andour true life. And it is only when the picture that wehave of ourselves breaks down completely, only whenwe find ourselves acting against all the expectations

we had derived from that picture, and only when anearthquake shakes and disrupts the surface of our self-

knowledge, that we are willing to look into a deeperlevel of our being.

The wisdom of all ages and of all continents speaksabout the road to our depth. It has been described in innumerably different ways. But all those who have been

concerned—mystics and priests, poets and philosophers,simple people and educated people—with that roadthrough confession, lonely self-scrutiny, internal or external catastrophes, prayer, contemplation, have witnessed to the same experience. They have found thatthey were not what they believed themselves to be, evenafter a deeper level had appeared to them below thevanishing surface. That deeper level itself became sur

face, when a still deeper level was discovered, this happening again and again, as long as their very lives, aslong as they kept on the road to their depth.

Today a new form of this method has become famous,the so-called "psychology of depth". It leads us fromthe surface of our self-knowledge into levels wherethings are recorded which we knew nothing about onthe surface of our consciousness. It shows us traits ofcharacter which contradict everything that we believed




we knew about ourselves. It can help us to find the way

into our depth, a l though it cannot help us in an ult imateway, because it cannot guide us to the deepest groundof our being and of all being, the dep th of life itself.

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and

ground of all be ing is God. Tha t dep th is w h a t the wordGod means . And if tha t word has not much meaning for

you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life,of the source of your being, of your ult imate concern, of

w h a t you take seriously without any reservation. Per

haps , in order to do so, you must forget everything tradit ional that you have learned about God, perhaps eventhat word itself. For if you know tha t God means depth ,you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever . For you cannot think or

say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Beingitself is surface only. If you could say this in completeseriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you

are not. He who knows about depth knows about God.We have considered the d e p t h of the world and the

d e p t h of our souls. But we are only in a world througha community of men. And we can discover our soulsonly through the mirror of those who look at us. Thereis no dep th of life without the dep th of the commonlife. We usually live in history as much on the surfaceas we live our individual lives. We unders tand our historical existence as it appears to us, and not as it reallyis . The stream of daily news, the waves of daily propaganda , and the tides of conventions and sensationalismkeep our minds occupied. The noise of these shallowwaters prevents us from listening to the sounds out of

the depth, to the sounds of what rea l ly happens in the

ground of our social structure, in the longing hearts of

the masses, and in the struggling minds of those who




are sensitive to historical changes. Our ears are as deafto the cries out of the social depth as they are to the

cries out of the depth of our souls. We leave the bleeding victims of our social system as alone, after we havehurt them without hearing their cries in the noise of ourdaily lives, as we d o our ow n b leed ing souls. W e believedonce that we were living in a period of unavoidableprogress to a better humanity. But in the depth of oursocial structure the forces of destruction had alreadygathered strength. It once seemed as if human reason

had conquered nature and history. But this was surfaceonly; and in the depth of our community the rebellionagainst the surface had already begun. We producedever better and ever more perfect tools and means forthe life of mankind. But in the depth they had alreadyturned into means and tools for man's self-destruction.Decades ago prophetic minds looked into the depth.

Painters expressed their feeling of the coming catastrophe by disrupting the surface of man and of naturein their pictures. Poets used strange, offensive words andrhythms in order to throw light upon the contrast between what seemed to be and what really was. Besidethe psychology of depth, a sociology of depth arose.But it is only now, in the decade in which the most horrible social ear thq ua ke of all times has grasp ed t he w ho le

of mankind, that the eyes of the nations have beenopened to the depth below them and to the truth abouttheir historical existence. Yet still there are people, evenin high places, who turn their eyes from this depth, andwho wish to return to the disrupted surface as thoughnothing had happened. But we who know the depth ofwhat has happened should not be content to rest upon

the level that we have reached. We might become despairing and self-despising. Let us rather plunge more




deeply into the ground of our historical life, into theultimate depth of history. The name of this infinite andinexhaustible ground of history is God. That is what

the word means, and it is that to which the wordsKingdom of God and Divine Providence point. And ifthese words do not have much meaning for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of history, of theground and aim of our social life, and of what you takeseriously without reservation in your moral and politicalactivities. Perhaps you should call this depth hope, simply hope. For if you find hope in the ground of history,you are united with the great prophets who were ableto look into the depth of their times, who tried to escapeit, because they could not stand the horror of their visions, and who yet had the strength to look to an evendeeper level and there to discover hope. Their hope didnot make them feel ashamed. And no hope shall makeus ashamed, if we do not find it on the surface where

fools cultivate vain expectations, but rather if we findit in the depth where those with trembling and contritehearts receive the strength of a hope which is truth.

These last words shall lead us to the other meaningthat the words "deep" and "depth" have in both secularand religious language: the depth of suffering which isthe door, the only door, to the depth of truth. That factis obvious. It is com fortable to live on th e surface so long

as it remains unshaken. It is painful to break away fromit and to descend into an unknown ground. The tremendous amount of resistance against that act in everyhuman being and the many pretexts invented to avoidthe road into the depth are natural. The pain oflooking into one's own depth is too intense for mostpeople. They would rather return to the shaken anddevastated surface of their former lives and thoughts.




The same is true of social groups who create allkinds of ideologies and rationalizations in order to

resist those who would lead them to the road to thedepth of their social existence. They would rather coverthe breaches in their surface with small remedies thanto dig into the ground. The prophets of all time cantell us of the hating resistance which they provoke bytheir daring to uncover the depths of social judgmentand social hope. And who can really bear the ult imatedepth, the burning fire in the ground of all being, with

out saying with the prophet, "Woe unto me! For I amundone. For mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts!"

Our attempt to avoid the road which leads to such adepth of suffering and our use of pretexts to avoid it arenatural. One of the methods, and a very superficial one,is the assertion that deep things are sophisticated things,unintell igible to an uneducated mind. But the mark of

real depth is its simplicity. If you should say, "This istoo profound for me; I cannot grasp it", you are self-

deceptive. For you ought to know that nothing of realimportance is too profound for anyone. It is not becauseit is too profound, but rather because it is too uncomfortable, that you shy away from the truth. Let us notconfuse the sophisticated things with the deep thingsof life. The sophisticated things do not concern us ulti

mately and i t does not matter whether we understandthem or not. But the dee p things mu st concern us alway s,because i t matters infinitely whether we are grasped bythem or not.

There is a more serious fact about the road to thedepth which can be used as an excuse by those whow ish to avoid it . T he d ep th in religious langu age is often

used to express the dwelling place of the evil forces,of the daemonic powers, of death and hell. Is not the



The Depth of Existence 6 1

road into the depth a road into the realm which is controlled by these forces? Are there not the elements ofdestructiveness and morbidity in the longing for depth?

When an American friend of mine expressed to a groupof German refugees his admiration of the Germandepth, we asked ourselves whether we could acceptthat praise. Was not that depth the soil out of whichthe most daemonic forces of modern history sprang?Was not that depth a morbid and destructive depth?Let me answer these questions by telling you and oldand beautiful myth: when the soul leaves the body, i tmust pass over many spheres where daemonic forcesrule; and only the soul that knows the right and powerful word can continue its way to the ultimate depth ofthe Divine Ground. No soul can avoid these tests. If weconsider the battles of the saints of all times, of theprophets and the reformers, and of the great creatorsin all realms, we can recognize the truth of that myth.

Everyone has to face the deep things of life. That thereis danger is no excuse. The danger must be conqueredby knowledge of the l iberat ing word. The German people and many people in all nations did not know theword, and therefore, missing the ultimate and savingdepth, were caught by the evil forces of the depth.

Th ere is no excuse w hich perm its us to avoid the de pt hof truth, the only way to which lies through the depth

of suffering. Whether the suffering comes from outsideand we take it upon ourselves as the road to the depth,or whether it be chosen voluntarily as the only way todeep things; whether it be the way of humility, or theway of revolution; whether the Cross be internal, orwhether it be external, the road runs contrary to theway we formerly lived and thought. That is why Isaiahpraises Israel, the Servant of God, in the depths of its



8ON THE TRANSITORINESS OF LIFE

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling placeAge after age.

Before the mountains were bornAnd earth and land labored in pains of birth.From eternity to eternity thou art God,For a thousand years in thy sightAre but as yesterday when it is passed.

Thou turnest man back to dust

And sayest: Return, ye children of man.They are as a watch in the night;Thou earnest them away;They are as a sleep,Like grass which grows up,That in the dawn is fresh and flourishing,Then by twilight fades and withers.

Our life is seventy yearsOr eighty at the most.Yet is their prideBut toil and disappointment—For it is soon gone and we fly away.For we are consumed in thy anger

And in thy wrath we are frightened away.Thou hast set our iniquities before thee

64



On the Transitoriness of Life 65

And our most secret deeds in the light of thy countenance.

For all our days are passed away in thy wrath,W e bring our years to an end as a sigh.Yet who knoweth the power of thine angerAnd who of us dreads thy wrath?So teach us to count our daysThat we may get a heart of wisdom!

Relent, O thou Eternal, and delay not;Be sorry for thy servants.Satisfy us in the morning with thy loving-kindnessThat we may rejoice and be glad all our days.Grant joy as long as thou hast been afflicting us,For all the years we have had suffering.Let thy work appear unto thy servantsAnd thy glory upon thy children!

And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon usAnd prosper the work of our hands!

PSALM 90.

THERE IS SOMETHING UNIQUE IN THISpsalm, a rise and fall of praise and lament, of consideration and prayer, of melancholy and hope. If we want tograsp its m ean ing , w e m ust follow it, w ord b y w ord , feeling w ha t the po et has felt , trying to see w ha t he has seen,looking at our own life through his vision, as it is interpreted through his mighty words. These words come :ous from the furthest past, yet they speak to our presentan d to every future. L ater generations in Israel expressed




their feeling for the incomparable power of this psalmby attributing it—and it alone—to Moses, whom they

called the man of God. Let us approach it with the sameawe. This psalm, like many other passages of the Bible,speaks of man's life and death in profoundly pessimisticwords. It echoes what God said to Adam in the thirdchapter of Genesis: "Cursed is the land for thy sake. Intoil shalt tho u eat of it all the da ys of thy life. . . . Inthe sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou re

turn unto the ground; for out it wast thou taken: fordust thou art , and u nto du st shalt thou re turn." I t w ouldbe hard to intensify the melancholy of these words. Andit w ould be h ar d for a m od ern pessimist to intensify th ebitterness with which Job challenges his moralisticfriends, saying that "man born of woman lives but a fewdays", that there is hope for a tree which is cut off, thatit m ay flourish again, b u t "man lies dow n nev er to a ris e/ '

And he says to God: "Thou destroyest all the hopes ofm an . Th ou a rt too strong for him, he has to go." A nd th emodern naturalist would need to change nothing in theword:, of Ecclesiastes, the "Preacher", when he deniesthat there is any difference between man and beast: "Asone dies the other dies. Both sprang from the dust andto the dust they both return." He doubts the idealist ic

doctrine that "the spirit of man goes upward while thespirit of a be ast goes dow n into the ea rth." M an ou gh t tobe happy in his work, for "that is what he gets out oflife—for who can show him what is to happen afterw ard ?"

That is the mood of ancient mankind. Many of us areafraid of it. A shallow Christian idealism cannot stand

the darkness of such a vision. Not so the Bible. The mostuniversal of all books, it reveals the age-old wisdomabout man's transitoriness and misery. The Bible does




not try to hide the truth about man's l ife under facilestatements about the immortali ty of the soul. Neitherthe Old nor the N ew Testam ent does so. They know thehuman situation and they take it seriously. They do notgive us any easy comfort about ourselves.

This is the l ight in which we must read the 90thPsalm. But the psalm goes further. It starts with a songof praise: "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place ageafter age." In order to describe human transitoriness,the poet glorifies the Divine Eternity. Before looking

downward he looks upward. Before considering man'smisery he points to God's majesty. Only because welook at something infinite can we realize that we arefinite. Only because we are able to see the eternal canwe see the l imited time that is given us. Only becausewe can elevate ourselves above the animals can we seethat we are l ike animals. Our melancholy about ourtransitoriness is rooted in our power to look beyond it.

M ode rn pessimists do not start their writings by p raisingthe Eternal God. They think that they can approachman directly and speak about his finiteness, misery andtragedy. But they do not succeed. Hidden—often tothemselves—is a criterion by which they measure andcondem n h um an exis tence. I t is something beyon d m an.When the Greek poets called men the "mortals", theyha d in mind the imm ortal gods by which they m easured

human mortali ty. The measure of man's transitorinessis God's eternity; the measure of man's misery andtrage dy is the D ivine Perfection. T ha t is w ha t the p salmist means when he calls God our dwelling place, theonly permanence in the change of all the ages and generations. That is why he starts his song of profoundestmelancholy with the praise of the Lord.

God's eternity is described in a powerful vision: "Be-




fore the mountains were born and earth and land labored in pains of birth, from eternity to eternity thou

art God." Even the mountains, most immovable of allthings on earth, are born and shall die. But God, Whowas before their birth, shall be after their death. Frometernity to eternity, that is, from form to form and worldto world, He is . His measure of time is not our measure."For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterdayw hen it is passed." He has H is m easure, which is bey on dhuman understanding. Eternity is not the extinction oftime; it is the creative unity of all times and cycles oftime, of all past and future. Eternity is eternal life andnot eternal death. I t is the living God at Whom thepsalmist looks.

And then the psalmist looks down to man and writes:"Thou turnest man back to dust and sayest : Return, yechildren of man." The fate of death is the fate God has

decreed for man. God delivers us to the law of nature,that dust must return to dust. No being can escape thisdecree . No being can acquire Divine e terni ty. Whenman tried to become like God—so the Paradise storytells us—by trying to grasp for himself knowledge of allgood and evil powers, he achieved that knowledge. But,at the same time, his eyes were opened and he saw his

real s ituation, which had been hidden from him in thedreaming innocence of Paradise. He saw that he is notlike God. The gift of knowledge he received includesthe destiny of sex and the fate of laboring and dying.He was awakened and he saw the infinite gap betweenhimself and God.

Short is the time between birth and death. The poet 'stremendous vision is expressed only fragmentarily, in

similes: "They are as a watch in the night", that is, likeone of the three night watches into which the nights




were divided. "Thou carriest them away, they are asa sleep"—from an infinite sleep we are awakened; onethird of a night we are awake, this is our turn, this longand no longer; soon those who replace us arrive, andw e are draw n into infinite sleep again. Turn ing from thenight to the course of a day, and the life of the grassin it , the poet continues: "Like grass which grows up,that in the dawn is fresh and flourishing, then by twilight fades and withers." The sun, whose first rays bringlife to the grass, burns it to death at noon and withers

it utterly away before evening. So short is our life—an d it seems so long. "O ur life is seventy yea rs, or e igh tyat the most, yet is their pride—but toil and disappointm en t . . . for it is soon gone an d w e fly aw ay." Not m anyreach this age, which seems unimaginable to the adolescent, far rem oved from the m atu re ma n, and—as noth ingto those who have reached it , a moment only, f lyingaway like a bird that we can neither capture nor follow.

Why is the poet so tremendously impressed by theshortness of our life? Obviously, he feels that it makesa real fulfillment impossible. Although very few wantto repeat their lives, we often hear people say: "If onlyI could start my life again, with all its experiences, Icould live it in the right wa y. I t would b e mo re tha n thisbroken piece, this fragment, this frustrated attemptwhich I call my life." But life does not allow us to begin

again. And even if we could begin again, or even if ourlife were among the most perfect and happy and successful ones, would we not, looking back at it, feel asthe psalmist felt? Would we not feel that the most valuable things in it, the good, the creative, and the joyfulhours, were based on endless toil and followed by disappointment? Would we not feel that what we hadthought to be important was not? And, in the face of




death, would not all our valuations become doubtful?This , certainly, was the mood of the ancient poet who

wrote the psalm.There is a danger in considerations such as these.

They can produce a sentimental, superficial enjoymentof our own melancholy, a lustful abiding with our sadness, a perverted longing for the tragic. There is not ahint of such a feeling in the 90th Psalm. The poet knewsomething which most of our modern pessimists do notknow, and he expresses it in grave words: "For we arecon dem ned in thy anger, an d in thy w ra th we are frightened away. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee andour most secret deeds in the light of thy countenance."These words point to something we do not find in natu re : man's guilt and God's wrath. Another order ofthings becomes visible. The natural law "from dust todust" alone does not explain the human si tuation. That

man is bound to this law is the Divine reaction againstthe at tempt of man to become l ike God. We have todie, because we are dust. That is the law of nature towhich we are subject with all beings—mountains, flowers,and beasts. But, at the same time, we have to die because we are guilty. That is the moral law to which we,unlike all othe r beings, ar e subject. Bo th laws ar e equ ally

t rue; both are stated in all sections of the Bible. If wecould ask the psalmist or the other Biblical writers howthey thought these laws are united, they would find ithard to answer. They felt , as we do, that death is notonly natural, but also unnatural. Something in us rebelsagainst death w herever i t appe ars. W e rebel at the sightof a corpse, we rebel against the death of children, ofyoung people, of men and women in their strength. We

even feel a tragic element in the passing of old people,with their experience, wisdom, and irreplaceable indi-



On the Trcmsitoriness of Life 7 1

viduality. We rebel against our own end, against i tsdefinitive, inescapable character. We would not rebelif death were simply natural, as we do not rebel againstthe falling of the leaves. We accept their falling, althou gh w e do so with melancholy. But we do not acceptman's death in the same way. We rebel; and since ourrebellion is useless, we be com e resigned. B etween rebe llion against death and resignation to death we oscillate,demonstrating by both att i tudes that i t is not natural forus to die.

Death is the work of the Divine wrath: "For all ourdays are passed away in thy wrath, we bring our yearsto an end as a sigh"—as short as a sigh, and as full ofsorrow as a sigh. The idea of the Divine wrath has become strange to our t ime. We have rejected a religionwhich seemed to make God a furious tyrant, an individual with passions and desires who committed arbitrary acts. This is not what the wrath of God means. It

m eans the inescapable and unav oidable react ion againstevery distortion of the law of life, and above all againsthuman pride and arrogance. That react ion, throughwhich man is thrown back into his l imits, is not a passionate act of punishment or vengeance on the part ofGod. It is the reestablishment of the balance betweenGod and man, which is disturbed by man's elevationagainst God.

The poet expresses his profound understanding of therelat ion between God and man in the s tatement thatGod sets our innermost secrets in the light of His face.God's anger is not directed against our moral shortcomings, against special acts of disobedience to theDivine order. It is directed against the secret of ourpersonality, against what happens in us and to us, unseen by me n, unseen even by o urselves. This, our secret,




determines our fate, more than anything visible. In therealm of our visible deeds we may not feel that we de

serve the wrath of God—misery and tragedy. But Godlooks through the veils which hide our secrets. Theyare manifest to Him. Therefore, we feel every day theburden of being under a power which negates us, whichdisintegrates us and makes us unhappy. This is thewrath under which we pass all our days, not only thosein which we endure special failures and special sufferings.

This is the situation of all men. But not all men knowit. "Yet who knoweth the power of thine anger, and whoof us dreads thy wrath? So teach us to count our days,that we may get a heart of wisdom!" The 90th Psalmtries to teach us the truth about our human si tuation,our transitoriness and our guilt . It does what the greatancient tragedies did. They revealed to all the people of

the ci ty, gathered in the theatre, what man is; theyshowed the people that the greatest , the best , the mostbeautiful, the most powerful—all—stand under the tragiclaw and the curse of the immortals. They wanted to reveal the tragic situation of man, that is, his situation before the Divine. He becomes great and proud and triesto touch the Divine sphere, and he is cast into destruction and despair. This is what the psalmist wanted toreveal to the righteous and unrighteous people of hisnation—what they were; what man is.

But the psalmist knew that men, even if shaken fora moment, forgot their fate. He knew that men live as ifthey are to live forever, and as if the wrath of God didnot exist. Therefore, he asks us to count our days, toconsider how soon they shall come to an end. He prays

God that He Himself may teach us that we must die.The psalmist does not think that realization of the



On the Transitoriness of Life 7 3

truth of what he has been saying will cast man intodespair. On the contrary, he believes that just this insight can give us a heart of wisdom—a heart which ac

cepts the infinite distance between God and man, anddoes not claim a greatness and beati tude which belongsto God alone.

The wise heart is the heart which does not try to hidethis from itself, which does not try to escape into a falsesecurity or a false cynicism. The wise heart is the heartwhich can stand this knowledge courageously, with dig

nity, humility, and fortitude. This wisdom is implicitin every word of the psalm. It is the gre atest wisdom th atman, having felt the tragedy of life, achieved in theancient world.

After the prayer for the wise heart (and not for intellectual wisdom!) a new section of the psalm begins,perhaps added in a later period of the Jewish religion.This new section is concerned with the nation and its

historical situation. "Relent, O Thou Eternal, and delaynot, be sorry for thy servants. Satisfy us in the morning with thy loving kindness, that we may rejoice and beglad all our days. Grant joy as long as thou hast beenafflicting us, for all the years we have had suffering. Letthy work appear unto thy servants and thy glory uponthy children! And let the favor of the Lord our God beupon us and prosper the work of our hands!" Something

new appears in these words: the significance of past andfuture, the prayer for a better future, for a future ofhappiness and joy, of the presence of God and the success of our work. God is no t only the Go d of eternity . H eis also the God of the future. The cycle from dust todust, from sin to wrath, is broken. There appears thevision of an age of fulfillment, after the ages of misery.But this vision is only for His servants—for the selected




nation, and within her, only for those who are reallyHis servants. The individual no longer stands alone be

fore God. He is included among the other servants ofGod, in the midst of the people of God who look nottoward their return to dust, but toward a life in a newage in which God is present . Hope supersedes tragedy.This is the highest point that religion reaches in theOld Testament .

But the spirit of religion drives beyond even this. Itis not the end. What does the historical hope mean forthe individual? Does it free us from the law of transi-toriness and guil t? History, runn ing tow ard the unk now nfuture, throws every man back into the past , and wedo not reach the age of fulfillment for which the poetlongs. The cruel step of history goes over our graves,and history itself does not seem to approach its fulfillment. Whenever history seems to come near to its ful

fillment, it is thrown back and is farther away from itsfulfillment than ever before. That is what we experienceso inescapably in our time. And so we ask, as all generations of men have asked: is tragedy stronger than hope?Does the past conquer the future? Is wrath more powerful than mercy? We are driven to and fro between melancholy and expectation—from tragedy to hope, from

hope to tragedy. In this si tuation we may be ready toreceive the message of a new being, a new kind of existence w hich is no t only ho pe , bu t also reality, in w hichDivine wrath and human guil t ul t imately are conquered. Christ ianity is based on this message: God subjecting Himself to transitoriness and wrath, in order tobe with us. And thus is fulfilled the hope of which thepsalmist sings: "Let thy work appear unto thy servants

and thy glory upon thy children."Whether or not we accept that message, i t is the




answ er to the questions the psalmist leaves unan sw ered.We may prefer to cling to the mere hope in spite of alldisillusionments. We may prefer to return to the pious

resignation of the older part of the psalm. We may evenprefer to go back to the melancholic identification ofman's life with that of the grass of the field. We maychoose any of these ways of interpreting our life. But ifwe do choose any of them, we must realize that we cannot find in them the answer to the question of our life.And we must be resigned. But if we accept the message

of the new reali ty in the Christ , we must understandthat this message does not contain an easy answer, andth at it does no t gu ara nte e any spiritual security. W emust know that it is a real answer only if we understandit permanently in the light of our human situation, inwhich tragedy and hope f ight each other without victory. The victory is above them. The victory came whenthe prayer of the psalmist was answered. "Relent, O thou

Eternal!"—this prayer is the prayer of mankind throughall eons, and the hidden prayer in the depth of everyh u m a n souL



9NATURE, ALSO, MOURNS FOR A LOST GOOD"

Day unto day uttereth speech,

And night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language,Where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth,And their words to the end of the world.

In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

PSALM 19:2-5.

For the earnest expectation of the creature wait-eth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For thecreature was made subject to vanity, not willingly,but by reason of him who hath subjected the samein hope, because the creature itself also shall bedelivered from the bondage of corruption into theglorious liberty of the children of God. For we knowthat the whole creation groaneth and travaileth inpain together until now. ROMANS 8:19-22.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the

first heaven and the first earth were passed away; andthere was no more sea. . . . And he shewed me a

76



Nature Mourns for a Lost Good 77

pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding

out of the throne of God and of the Lam b. In the

midst of the street of it, and on either side of theriver, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve

manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month:

and the leaves o f the tree were for the healing of the

nations. R E V E L A T I O N 2 1 : 1 ; 2 2 : 1 - 2 .

E A C H Y E A R W H E N G O O D F R I D A Y A N DEaster Sunday approach us our thoughts turn towardthe great drama of redemption, culminating in thepictures of the Cross and Resurrection. Who is redeemed? Some men alone; or mankind, including allnations; or the world, everything that is created, including nature, the stars and the clouds, the winds and theoceans, the stones and the plants, the animals and our

own bodies? The Bible speaks again and again of thesalvation of the world, as it speaks of the creation of theworld and the subjection of the world to anti-Divineforces. And world means na ture as well as man .

So let us ask today: what does nature mean to us?What does it mean to itself? What does it mean in thegreat drama of creation and salvation? A threefoldanswer is contained in the words of the psalmist, theapostle and the prophet: the psalmist sings of the gloryof nature; the apostle shows the tragedy of nature; andthe prophet pronounces the salvation of nature. Thehymn of the psalmist praises the glory of God in theglory of nature; the letter of the apostle links the tragedy of nature to the tragedy of man; and the vision ofthe prophet sees the salvation of nature in the salvation

of the world.




So let us listen once more to the words of the psalmist, about the glory of nature, in their precise meaning.

The heavens are telling the glory of God,And the firmament showeth the work of his hands.Day unto day poureth forth the story,Night unto night announces the knowledge.Th ere is no speech, no langu age!Their voice cannot be heard!But their music goes out through all the earth,

And their words to the end of the world.The 19th Psalm points to an old belief held by the

ancient world and expressed by poets and philosophers:that the heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon andthe stars, produce by their movement a harmony oftones, sounding day and night from one end of theworld to the other. These voices of the universe are not

heard by human ears; they do not speak in human languag e. Bu t they exist, and w e can perce ive them thro ug hthe organs of our spirit. Shakespeare says:

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st ,But in his m otion like an angel sings. . . .Such harmony is in immortal souls;But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. . . .*The psalmist has heard it; he knows what the stars aresounding: the glory of creation and its Divine Ground.

A re we able to perceive the hidden voice of nature?Does nature speak to us? Does it speak to you? Or hasnature become silent to us, silent to the men of ourperiod? Some of you may say, "Never before in anyperiod has nature been so open to man as it is today.The mysteries of the past have become the knowledge of

" The Merchant of Venice, V, sc. 1.




children. Through every scientific book, through everylaboratory, through every machine, nature speaks to

us. The technical use of nature is the revelation of itsmystery." The voice of nature has been heard by thescientific mind, and its answer is the conquest of nature.But is this all that nature says to us?

I was sitting under a tree with a great biologist. Suddenly he exclaimed, "I would like to know somethingabout this tree!" He, of course, knew everything thatscience had to say about i t . I asked him what he meant.

And he answ ered, "I w ant to know w ha t this t ree m eansfo r itself. I want to understand the l ife of this tree. Itis so strange, so unapproachable." He longed for a sympathet ic understanding of the life of nature. But suchan understanding is possible only by communion between man and nature. Is such communion possible inour period of history? Is nature not completely subjected to the will and wilfulness of man? This technical

civilization, the pride of mankind, has brought about atremendous devastation of original nature, of the land,of animals, of plants. It has kep t gen uine n atu re in sm allreservations and has occupied everything for domination and ruthless exploitation. And worse: many of ushave lost the ability to live with nature. We fill it withthe noise of empty talk, instead of listening to its manyvoices, and, through them, to the voiceless music of the

universe. Separa ted from th e soil by a mac hine , w e sp eedthrough nature, catching glimpses of i t , but never comprehending its greatness or feeling its power. Who iss t i l l able to penetrate , meditat ing and contemplat ing,the creative ground of nature? A Chinese emperor askeda famous painter to paint a picture of a rooster for him.The painter assented, but said that i t would take a longtime. After a year the emperor reminded him of his

promise. The painter replied that after a year of study-




ing the rooster he had just beg un to perceive th e surfaceof its nature. After another year the artist asserted that

he had just begun to penetrate the essence of this kindof life. And so on, year after year. Finally, after tenyears of concentration on the nature of the rooster, hepainted the picture—a work described as an inexhaustible revelation of the divine ground of the universe inone small part of it , a rooster. Compare the emperor'swise patience and the painter 's saintly contemplation ofan infinitely small expression of the divine life, with theexuberances of our contemporaries, who rush in theircars to some famous view and exclaim, "How lovely!"—referring, no doubt, not to the view, but to their ownappreciation of beauty. What blasphemy of the gloryof nature! and consequently of the divine ground, theglory of which sounds through the glory of nature.

Praising the glory of nature does not mean speaking

of the beauty of nature alone and forgetting its overwhelming greatness and terr ible power. Nature nevermanifests shallow beauty or merely obvious harmony."The voice of the Lord is powerful", sings the poet ofthe 29th Psalm. "The voice of the Lord breaketh thecedars . . . the voice of the Lord cleaveth with flamesof fire, the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. . . and strippeth the forests bare." In the book of Job,we find a description of the terrible power of naturein the mythological symbols of Behemoth and Leviathan. And a great recent poet, Rilke, says:

. . . For Beauty's nothingbut beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear,and why we adore it so is because it serenelydisdains to destroy us. Each single angel is terrible.

The glory of nature is not shallow beauty.



Nature Mourns for a Lost Good 8 1

And now let us listen once more to the words of theapostle about the tragedy of nature in their precisemeaning.

Even the creation waits with eager longing forthe sons of G od to be revealed . For creation w as no trendered futile by its own choice, but by the willof Him Who thus made it subject, the hope beingthat creation as well as man would one day befreed from its thraldom to decay and gain the glori

ous freedom of God's children. To this day, weknow, the entire creation sighs and throbs withpain.*

Nature is not only glorious; it is also tragic. It is subjected to the laws of finitude and destruction. It is suf

fering a nd sighing with us. No one who ha s ever listenedto the sounds of nature with sympathy can forget their

tragic melodies. The Greek word in Paul 's letter whichwe have translated as "creation" is especially used forthe non-animated section of nature as Paul is alludingto the words of God to Adam after the Fall: "Cursed isthe land for thy sake." The sighing sounds of the windand the ever-restless, futile breaking of the waves mayhave inspired the poetic, melancholic verse about nature's subjection to vanity. But the words of Paul refer

also, and in a more direct way, to the sphere of livingthings. The melancholy of the leaves falling in autumn,the end of the jubilant life of spring and summer, thequiet death of innumerable beings in the cold air of theapp roac hing winter— all this has graspe d a nd always w illgrasp the hearts, not only of poets, but of every feelingman and woman. The song of transitoriness sounds

* Romans 8:19-22.




through all the nations. Isaiah's words, "The grass with-ereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of the Lord

bloweth upon it", describe the shortness of the lives ofindividuals and nations. But they could not have beenwritten without a profound sympathy with the life ofnature. And then Jesus speaks, praising the lilies of thefield: "Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayedlike one of these." In these two sayings about the flowersof the field we perceive both the glory and the tragedyof nature.

Sympathy with nature in i ts tragedy is not a sentimental emotion; it is a true feeling of the reality ofnature. Schelling justly says: "A veil of sadness is spreadover all nature, a deep, unappeasable melancholy overall life." According to him this is "manifest through thetraces of suffering in the face of all nature, especiallyin the faces of the animals." The doctrine of suffering as

the character of all life, taught by the Buddha, has conquered large sections of mankind. But only he who isconnected in the ground of his own being with theground of nature is able to see into its tragedy; asSchelling says, "The darkest and deepest ground in human n a ture is 'L o n g in g ' . . . is melancholy . This , mainly ,creates the sympathy of man with nature. For in naturetoo the deepest ground is melancholy. Nature, also,

mourns for a lost good." Can we still understand themeaning of such half-poetic, half-philosophic words? Orhave we too m uch secluded ourselves in hu m an superiority, in intellectual arrogance, in a domineering attitudetow ard nat ure ? W e hav e becom e incapab le of perceivingthe harmonious sounds of nature. Have we also becomeinsensitive to the tragic sounds?

Why is nature tragic? Who is responsible for the suffering of animals, for the ugliness of death and decay,



Nature Mourns for a Lost G ood 83

for the universal dread of death? Many years ago I stoodon a jetty with a well-known psychologist looking at theocean. We saw innumerable small f ish hurrying toward

the beach. They were pursued by bigger ones, who, inturn, were chased by still bigger ones. Aggression, flight,and anxiety—a perfect illustration of the old, often usedstory of the big fish devouring the small ones, in natureas in history. The scholar, who, in many discussions,had defended the harmonious structure of reality, burstinto tears, saying, "Why are these beings created if they

exist only to be swallowed by others?" In this momentthe tragedy of nature forced itself upon his optimisticmind, and he asked, "Why?"

Paul tries to penetrate the mystery of this question.And his surprising answer is: nature is subjected tovanity by the curse that God uttered because of thefall of Adam. The tragedy of nature is bound to thetragedy of man, as the salvation of nature is dependent

on the salvation of man. What does this mean? Alwaysmankind has dreamed of a t ime when harmony and joyfil led all nature, and peace reigned between nature andman—Paradise, the Golden Age. But man, by violatingthe divine law, destroyed the harmony, and now thereis enmity between man and nature , between nature andna ture . In Paul 's melancholic words this dream resounds.I t is a dream, but i t contains a profound truth: man

and nature belong together in their created glory, intheir tragedy, and in their salvation. As nature, represented by the "Serpent" , leads man into temptation, soman, by his trespassing of the divine law, leads natureinto tragedy. This did not happen once upon a t ime, asthe story says; it happens within every time and space,as long as there is time and space. So long as there are

the old heaven and the old earth, man and nature will




be subjected together to the law of vanity. Many profound thinkers within and without Christ ianity agree

that man is determined to fulfill the longing of nature. Inso far as he has failed and still fails to come to his ownfulfillment, he is unable to fulfill nature—his own bodilybeing and nature around him. Therefore, Jesus is calledthe Son of Man, the man from above, the true man, inwhom the forces of separation and tragedy are overcome,no t only in m ank ind b u t also in the universe. Fo r the re isno salvation of man if there is no salvation of nature,for man is in nature and nature is in man-

Let us listen once more to the words of the prophetabout the salvation of nature.

Then I saw the new heaven and the new earth .For the first heaven and the first earth had passedaway; and the sea was no m o r e . . . . Then he showed

me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal. . . on bo th sides of th e river grew th e tree of life,bearing twelve kinds of fruit , each month havingits own fruit; and the leaves of the tree were forthe healing of the nations.*

In powerful images the last book of the Bible describesthe salvation of man and nature from the bondage ofcorruption: the city of God is built with the most precious materials of non-animated nature. The ocean, thesymbol of formless chaos, is excluded. The river is notpolluted by any rot. The trees bear fruit without changeand decay; the animals, together with the saints, adorethe throne of glory. The daemonic forces are throwninto nothingness. There is no suffering nor death.

Needless to say, this is not the description of a future•R ev . 2 1 :1 , 22 :2.




state of our world. Like the Golden Age of the past, theGolden Age of the future is a symbol, pointing to something mysterious within our present world—namely, the

forces of salvation. And one thing is made very clearin the visions of the prophet, that salvation means salvation of the world, and not of human beings alone.Lions and sheep, little children and snakes, will lie together in peace, says Isaiah. Angels and stars, men andanimals, adore the Child of the Christmas legend. Theearth shakes when the Christ dies, and it shakes againwhen He is resurrected. The sun loses i ts l ight whenHe closes His eyes, and it rises when He rises from thetomb. The resurrection of the body—not an immortalsoul—is the symbol of the victory over death. The bodiless spirit (and this is the meaning of all these images)is not the aim of creation; the purpose of salvation isnot the abstract intellect or a natureless moral personali ty. Do we not see everywhere the estrangement of people from nature, from their own natural forces and fromnature around them? And do they not become dry andun creative in their m ental l ife, hard an d arro gant in the irm oral at t i tu de , suppressed and poisoned in their vital ity?They certainly are not the images of salvation. As onetheologian has justly said, "Corporal being is the endof the ways of God."

This has always been known to creative painters and

sculptors. A great picture or statue is an anticipation ofthe new earth, a revelation of the mystery of nature. Apicture or a statue is a plant or a stone transformed intoa bearer of spiri tual m eanin g. It is na tur e elevated abov eitself, revealing i ts tragedy and, at the same t ime, i tsvictory over its tragedy. The picture of Jesus and theapostles and saints throughout the centuries of Christianart, in color and stone—portraits of the men in whom




humanity discovered i ts power and dignity—the incomparable expression of personality in the face of even the

simplest individual, show that spiri t becomes body, andthat nature is not s trange to personality. The system ofcells and functions, which we call "body," is able to express the finest cha ng e of our spiritual bein g. Artists ha veoften understood the eternal significance of nature, evenwhen theologians have emphasized a bodiless spiri tuality, forgetting th at the first thing b y w hich Jesus re vea ledHis Messianic vocation w as His po w er to hea l bodily an dmental sickness.

Let me ask you a question: are we still able tounders tand what a sacrament means? The more we areestranged from nature, the less we can answeraffirmatively. That is why, in our time, the sacramentshave lost so much of their significance for individualsand Churches. For in the sacraments nature participates

in the process of salvation. Bread and wine, water andlight, and all the great elements of nature become thebearers of spiri tual meaning and saving power. Naturaland spiritual powers are united—reunited—in the sacrament. The word appeals to our intellect and may moveour will. The sacrament, if its meaning is alive, graspsour unconscious as we ll as our conscious be ing. I t grasps

the creative ground of our being. It is the symbol ofnature and spirit , united in salvation.

Therefore, commune with nature! Become reconci ledwith nature after your estrangement from it. Listen tonature in quietness, and you will find its heart. It willsound forth the glory of its divine ground. It will sighwith us in the bondage of tragedy. It will speak of the

indestructible hope of salvation!



10THE EXPERIENCE OF THE HOLY

In the year that King Uzziah died,

I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne,High and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings;

With twain he covered his face,And with twain he covered his feet,

And with twain he did fly.And one cried unto another, and said,

Holy, holy holy, is the Lord of hosts:

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of himthat cried,

And the house was filled with smoke.Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone;Because I am a man of unclean lips,And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having alive coal in his hand,

Which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:And he laid it upon my mouth, and said,

Lo, this hath touched thy lips;And thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying,

87




Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Then said I, Here am I; send me.

And he said, Go, and tell this people,Hear ye indeed, hut understand not;And see ye indeed, hut perceive not.

Make the heart of this people fat,And make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their

ears,And understand with their heart, and convert, and

he healed.

Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered,Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,And the houses without man,And the land be utterly desolate.And the Lord have removed men far away,And there be a great forsaking in the midst of the

land.

But yet in it shall be a tenth,And it shall return, and shall be eaten:As a teil tree, and as an oak,

Whose substance is in them, when they cast theirleaves:

So the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

ISAIAH 6 .

T H I S C H A P T E R I S O N E O F T H Egreatest in the Old Testament. It clearly reveals the

essence of Biblical religion. The prophet describes thevision of his vocation in words and pictures which ex-



The Experience of the Holy 89

press at the same time his fundamental experience ofGod, his interpretation of human existence, and his conception of the prophet 's task. His experience of God isan exp erience of the holiness of God. H e interp rets m an'scondition as one of uncleanness and inability to faceGod. The prophet 's task is paradoxically set against thenatural meaning of prophecy. These three ideas belongtogether and comprise perhaps the highest expressionever given to the prophetic spirit .

The prophet does not describe God Himself in any

w ay. H e speaks only of the train w hich filled the tem ple,of the angels surrounding the Lord's throne, of theshaking of the foundation, and of the smoke filling thehouse. In this manner he indicates that the revelat ionof God is at the same time the veiling of God. God canreveal Himself only by remaining veiled. But even theveiled revelation makes Isaiah feel that he is perishing.The facing of God, even if i t be a mere approaching to

His sphere, even if God Himself remain hidden, meansthe annihilation of man.

The same feeling is expressed in the cry of the seraph im "H oly" has a dou ble m ean ing, as the context clearlyshows. It means the majesty of which the world is full;and it means purity as against human impurity. Glorywithout purity is the character of all pagan gods. Andpurity without glory is the character of all the humanistic ideas of God. Humanism has transformed the inaccessibility of God into the sublimity of His moral commands. Humanism has forgotten that God's majesty, asexperienced by the prophet, implies the shaking of thefoundation wherever He appears, and the veil of smokewhenever He shows Himself. When God is identifiedwith an element in human nature, as in humanism, the

terrifying and annihilating encounter with majesty be-




comes an impossibility. But "holy" means also moralperfection, purity, goodness, truth, and justice. God's

glory can fulfill all the world, only because He is holyin this double sense. The glory of the gods who are notholy in this double sense can fulfill only one country,one family or tribe, one nation or state, or one sphereof human life. Consequently, they do not possess thetruth and justice and purity of the God Who is reallyGo d. Th ey are dem ons aspiring to holiness, b ut excluded

from it, because their glory is majesty without purity.Therefore, let us say, during this time particularly,"Thou only art holy!"

The prophet confesses that he is a man of uncleanlips, and that he lives in the midst of a people with unclean lips. He emphasizes his lips, because his work ispreaching; but the impurity of his lips symbolizes theimpurity of his entire existence, and of the existence ofindividuals and society as a whole. Isaiah exhibits profound insight, when he identifies himself with his unclean people in the very m om ent th at he is m ad e w orthyof his exceptional vision. The difference between mystical and prophetic religion lies in that insight. For evenin the greatest ecstasy, a prophet does not forget thesocial grou p to w hich h e belongs, an d its un clean ch arac

ter which he cannot lose. Consequently, the propheticecstasy, as opposed to the mystical ecstasy, is never anend in itself, but rather the means of receiving the divinecommands which are to be preached to the people.Isaiah's vision reveals the two conditions for propheticexistence. The lips of the prophet must first be purifiedby fire. He can then hear the Voice of God, the condi

tion for his being sent by God. Nobody can be theprophet of God through his own strength; and nobodycan absolve himself. Only the power of Divine Holiness,



The Experience of the Holy 91

having touched our existence, can bring us near to God.Something of our existence, sin, iniquity, or uncleannessmust be burned away, must be annihilated. Only throughsuch annihilation can God speak to us and through us.But whether or when He speaks to us at all does notdepend upon us in any way. Isaiah did not produceeither the vision or the purification. He was overcomewith terror and awe. And he had to act. For God asks,"Who will go for us?" God waits for the answer. Hedoes not compel. Isaiah's decision to go must be free.Freedom of decision is the second condition for prophetic existence. A prophet must decide whether ornot he will dedicate himself to the task. With respectto our fate and vocation we are free; with respect to ourrelation to God we are powerless. The majesty of Godis evident in either case.

The prophet then describes the content of the divinecommand. "Make the heart of this people fat , and make

their ears heavy , and shut their eyes." O ur na tura l m oralfeelings refuse to accept such a paradox. For if wespeak, we wish to make ourselves heard; and when wepreach, we wish to convert and to heal. But the prophetaccepts the divine command. And when his natural feeling impels him to ask, "How long?" he receives theanswer, "Until the cit ies be wasted without inhabitant,and the houses without man, and the land be utterly

desolate!" No hope or promise is expressed. What is themeaning of that paradox? It means that true prophetsare the instruments of God in the actualization of Hisjudgment against mankind. They are instruments inso far as the prophetic word always excites the opposition of man with respect to both his vital existence andhis moral and religious existence—indeed, particularlywith respect to his religious existence. All people desire




false prophets, who, through the glorification of theirgods, glorify their followers and themselves. People

long to be flattered in regard to their desires and virtues,their religious feeling and social activity, their will topower and Utopian hopes, their knowledge and love,their family and race, their class and nation. And a falseprophet can always be found to glorify the demon theyworship. But when the voice of the true prophet israised, they shut their ears, they contradict his statements, and they ultimately persecute and kill him, be

cause they a re not ab le to receive his message. T he orderendures until the prophet's words are fulfilled, and thecities are destroyed, and the land is made desolate.

We are all eager for the prophetic spirit . We areanxious to lead th e peop le to a ne w justice and to a b ett ersocial order. We long to save the nations from a threatening doom. But does our word, if it be God's word,

have a better effect than that which Isaiah saw in hisvision and experienced in his life? Are we more thanhe was? Are our people today less devoted to demonsthan his people were? If not, can we expect anythingother th an w ha t he was told to expect throu gh his vision?We must pray for the prophetic spir i t which has beendead for so long in the Churches. And he who feels thathe has been given the prophetic task must fulfill it as

Isaiah did. He must preach the message of a new justice and of a new social order in the name of God andHis honour. But he must expect to be opposed andpersecuted not only by his enemies, but also by hisfriends, party, class, and nation. He must expect to bepersecuted to the degree to which his word is the wordof that God Who alone is holy, that God Who alone is

able to create a holy people out of the remnant of everynation.



11THE YOKE OF RELIGION

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank

Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because

thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,

and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so , Father:

for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are

delivered unto me of my Father: and no man know-

eth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any

man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom so

ever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye

that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you

rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; forI am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest

unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden

is light. M A T T H E W 11 :25 - 30 .

W H E N I W A S O F T H E A G E T O R E C E I V E

confirmation and full membership in the Church, I wastold to choose a passage from the Bible as the expression of m y personal app roac h to the Biblical me ssage an dto the Christian Church. Every confirmee was obligedto do so, and to recite the passage before the congregation. When I chose the words, "Come unto me all yethat labor and are heavy laden", I was asked with akind of astonishment and even irony why I had chosen

93




that particular passage. For I was living under happyconditions, and, being only fifteen years old, was without any apparent labor and burden. I could not answer

at that time; I felt a little embarrassed, but basicallyright. And I was right, indeed; every child is right inresponding immediately to those words; every adult isright in responding to them in all periods of his life, andunder all the conditions of his internal and external history. These words of Jesus are universal, and fit everyhuman being and every human situation. They are simple; tEey~grasp"tKe heart of the primitive as well as that

of the profound, disturbing the mind of the wise. Practically every word of Jesus had this character, sharingthe difference between Him as the originator and thedependent interpreters, disciples and theologians, saintsand preachers. Returning for the first time in my Hfe tothe passage of my early choice, I feel just as grasped byit as at that time, but infinitely more embarrassed byits majesty, profundity and inexhaustible meaning. Ourtask in the face of words like these is obvious: we mustpoint to the ground of their power over our souls; wemust explain why, in their emotional force, the forceof an ultimate truth is involved; and we must attemptto view our hu m an situation in their light.

Three questions, aroused by the words of Jesus, shallbe asked, and the answers implied in His words shall be

interpreted. What is the labor and burden from whichwe can find rest through Him? What is the easy yokeand the l ight burden which He will put upon us? Whyis He and He alone able to give such rest to our souls?

"All ye that labor and are heavy laden. . . .": this isaddressed to all men, although not all men feel it in thesame way. It is the general human situation to be heavyladen and to labor restlessly under a yoke too hard to be



The Yoke of Religion 95

endured. What kind of burden is this? We may think \< Tfirst of the burdens" an d labo rs th a t da ily life im poses / jhtnJUp*upon us. But that is not indicated in our text. Jesus ^ £*does no t tell us tha t H e will ease the labors an d bu rde ns 'of life and work. How could He, even if He wantedto? Whether or not we come to Him, the threats of illness or unemployment are not lessened, the weight ofour work does not become easier, the fate of being refugee, driven from one country to another, is not changed;the horror of ruins, wounds, and death falling

from

heaven is not stopped; and the sorrow over the passingof friends or parents or children is not overcome. Jesuscann ot an d does not promise more p le a su re an d lesspain to those whom He asks to^come to Him. On thecontrary, sometimes He promises them more pain, morepe rsec utio n, m ore th re at J2i_^eath.— the_"crpss", as H ecalls it . All this is not the burden to which He points. J^f

Nor is it the burden of sin and guilt, as_ somebody £,„ /*^£ veducated in the tradit ional Christian interpretation of o J3/t^ .r

th e _work of C hris t might; £ssum e. N othing like th a t is 'A j^f,indicated in the words of Jesus. Taking upon oneself ^His easy yoke does not mean taking sin more easily artaking guilt less seriously. He does not tell those whocome to Him that their sins are not so important as theyseeme d to be . H e does no t give them an easier co nscienceabout their failures and trespasses. On the contrary, Hesharpens their conscience to the highest possible degreein practically every one of His words. He condemnssins which the traditional theology of His time did noteven consider as sins. This is not the burden to whichH e points . ^ >

Th e bu rde n He w ants to take from us is the bu rd en 3 -f




and understanding, as He calls them in our words, theScribes and Pharisees, as they are called usually. Those

who labor and are heavy laden are those who are sighing under the yoke of the religious law. And He willgive them the power to overcome religion and law; theyoke H e gives the m is a "new b ein g" above religion. T hething they will learn from him is the victory over thelaw of the wise and the understanding, and the law ofthe Scribes and Pharisees.

How does this concern us? Why does this concern allmen, in all situations? It concerns us because, with allhuman beings, we are sighing under the law, under alaw which is religion and a religion which is law. Thisis the depth of the word of Jesus; this is the truth, implied in the emotional power of His words. Man laborsand toils, because he is that being which knows abouthis finitude, about his transitoririess,~about the danger

of living, and about the tragic character of existence.Fear and anxiety are the heritage of all people, as Paulknew when he looked at the Jews and the Pagans. Restlessness drives man during his whole life, as Augustinekne w A hid de n elem ent of despair is in every m an'ssoul, as the great Danish Protestant, Kierkegaard, discovered. There is no religious genius, no keen observerof the abyss of the human soul, nobody capable of listening to the sounds of his heart, who would not witnessto this insight into human nature and human existence.Splits and gaps are in every soul: for instance, we knowthat we are more than dust; and yet we know also thatwe are going to be dust . We know that we belong to ahigher order than that of our animal needs and desires;and yet we know that we shall abuse the higher order

in the service of our lower nature. We know that we areonlv small members of the spiritual world; and yet we




know that we shall aspire to the whole, making ourselves the center of the world.

This is man; and because this is man, there is rehgionand law. The law of rehgion is the great attempt of manto overcome his anxiety and restlessness and despair,to close th e g ap w ithin himself, and to reach imm ortali ty,spirituality and perfection. So he labors and toils underthe religious law in thought and in act.

The religious law demands that he accept ideas anddogmas, that he believe in doctrines and traditions, the

ac ce pta nc e of whic h is th e cond ition of his salvation fromanxiety, despair and de ath. So he tries to accept them ,al though they may have become strange or doubtfulto him. He labors and toils under the religious demandto believe things he cannot believe. Finally he tries toescape the law of religion. He tries to cast away theheavy yoke of the doctrinal law imposed on him byChurch authori t ies , orthodox teachers , pious parents ,

and fixed traditions. He becomes critical and sceptical.He casts away the yoke; but none can live in the emptiness of mere scepticism, and so he returns to the oldyoke in a kind of self-torturing fanaticism and tries toimp ose it on othe r peo ple , on his children, or pupils. H eis driven by an unconscious desire for revenge, becauseof the burden he has taken upon himself. Many familiesare disrupted by painful tragedies and many minds are

broken by this att i tude of parents, teachers and priests.O thers un ab le to stan d the em ptiness of scepticism , findnew vokes outs ide the C hurch , new doctrinal laws u nd erwhich they begin to labor: polit ical ideologies whichthey propagate with religious fanaticism; scientific theories which they defend with religious dogmatism; andUtopian expectations they pronounce as the condition ofsalvation for the world, forcing whole nations under the




yoke of their creeds which are religions, even whilethey pretend to destroy religion. We are all laboring

under the yoke of religion; we all, sometimes, try tothrow away old or new doctrines or dogmas, but aftera little while we return, again enslaving ourselves andothers in their servitude.

The same is true of the practical laws of religion.They demand ri tual activit ies, the participation in religious enterprises^ A nd .th e stu dy of religious trad ition s,

prayer , sacram ents and m editations . The y dem and moralobedience, inhuman self-control and asceticism, devotion to man and things beyond our possibilities, surrender to ideas and duties beyond our power, unlimitedself-negation, and unlimited self-perfection: the religious

f l a w dem ands the perfect in all respects . And our con-/ science agrees with this de m an d. Bu t, the split in our) being is der iv ecH rom just this : t h a t t h e ^perfect, al-I thou gh it is the truth ^is beyo nd us, against us, judging^ and condeirming us. So we try to throw aw ay the ri tual

and moral demands. We neglect them, we hate them,we criticize them; some of us display a cynical indif

ference toward the religious and moral law. But sincemere cynicism is as impossible as mere scepticism, wereturn to old or new laws, becoming more fanatic than

ever before, and take a yoke of the law upon us, whichis more self-defying, more cruel against ourselves, andmore will ing to coerce other people under the sameyoke in the name of the perfect. Jesus Himself^becomes

r for these perfectionists^, pu ritans an d mora lists a teac he r] of the religious law putting upon us the heaviest of allI bu rde ns, the bu rde n of H is law. Bu t that is the greatest

possible distortion of the mind of Jesus. This distortionc a n j b e ^ o u n j i i n t h e m i n ^bjecause_He brokeiij^ religious law, not by fleeing from




it like the cynical Sadducees, bjit by overcoming it. Weare all permanently in danger of abusing Jesus by stat

ing that He is the founder of a new religion, and thebringer of another, more refined, and more enslavinglaw. And so we see in all Christian Churches the toilingand laboring of people who are called Christians, seriousChris t ians , under innumerable laws which they cannotfulfill, from which they flee, to which they return, orwh ich they rep lace by oth er laws. Th is is the yoke from -which Jesus wants to l iberate us. He is more than a

priest or a prophet or a religious genius. These all subject us to religion. He frees us from religion. They allmake new rel igious laws; He overcomes therel igious jlaw. J-T-

"Tak e m y yoke up on you and learn of m e . . . for m y —-'yoke is easy and my burden is light." This does not indicate a quantitative_difference—a little easier^a.littlelighter.. It indicates a contradiction! The yoke of Jesus

is easy in Jtself, because it is above law, and replacesthe toiling and laboring^with rest in our ^buTsT'lhe yokeof religion and law presupposes all those splits and gapsin our souls which drive us to the attempt to overcomethe m . T he yok e of Jesus is abo ve tho se splits an d gaps. /"*It has overcome them wh enever i t ap p ea rs an d is received. It is not a new_demand, a new doctrine, oxjiewmorals, butjrathei_a jnew reality, a new being and a new

power of transforming life. Hecalls i t a yoke, He meansthat it comes from above and grasps us with savingforcesiJLHe_calls it easy, Helh^arTsThaTItlsliotamajtterof our acting and striving, bujbjrather that it is ^ iven be- J ^rfo re jm y th in g we _can do. It is bein g, powe r, reality,conquering the anxiety and despair, the fear and therestlessness of our existence. It is here, amongst us, inthe midst of our personal tragedy, and the tragedy of




history. Suddenly, within the hardest struggle, i t appears as a victory, not attained by ourselves, but present

beyond expectation and struggle. Suddenly we aregrasped by a pea ce w hich is above reason, tha t is, aboveour theoretical seeking for the true, and above our practical striving for the good. Th e true— namely, the tr ut h ofour life and of our existence—has grasped us. We knowtha t now, in this moment, we are in the truth, in spiteof all our ignorance about ourselves and our world. We

have not become wiser and more understanding in anyordinary sense; we are still children in knowledge. Butthe truth of life is in us, with an illuminating certainty,uniting us with ourselves, giving us great and restfulhappiness. And the good, the ult imate good, which isnot good for something else, but good in itself, hasgrasped us. We know that now, in this moment, we are

in the good, in spite of all our weakness and evil, inspite of the fragmentary and distorted character of ourSelf and the world. We have not become more moralor m ore saintly; we still belo ng to a wo rld w hich is sub ject to evil and self-destruction. But the good of lifeis in us, uniting us with the good of everything, givingus the blessed experience of universal love. If this shouldhappen, and in such a measure, we should reach our

eternity, the higher order and spiri tual world to whichwe belong, and from which we are separated in ournormal existence. We should be beyond ourselves. Thenew being would conquer us, al though the old beingwould not disappear.

Where can we feel this new reality? We cannot findit; but it can find us. It tries to find us during our whole

life. It is in the world; it carries the world; and it is thecause of the fact that our Self and our world are notyet thrown into utter self-destruction. Although it is hid-




den under anxiety and despair , under f initude and tragedy, it is in everything, in souls and bodies, becauseeve ryth ing derives life from it. T he n ew bein g m eans —that the old being has not yet destroyed itself comple tely ; th at life is still poss ible; that ou r souls still gath erforce to go forward; and that the good and the true arenot extinguished. It is present, and it will find us. Let usbe found by it . I t is stronger than the world, althoughit is quiet and meek and humble.

That is the meaning of the call of Jesus, "Come untoMe." For in Him this new b eing is prese nt in such a wa ythat it determines His life. That which is hidden in allthings, that which appears to us sometimes in ihe greatelevation s of our soul, is th e forming po w er of this life. I tis the u niqu ene ss an d th e mys tery of His Being, the (em bod ime nt, the full a pp earan ce of the N ew Being. 1Th at is the reason tha t H e can say words wh ich no *prophet or saint has ever said: that nobody knows Godsave Him and those who receive their knowledgethrough Him. These words cer tainly do not mean thatHe imposes a new theology or a new religious law uponus The y m ean rather th at He is the New Being in w hich ieverybody can participate, because it is universal and 4omnipresent. Why can He call Himself meek and lowlyin heart after he has said words about His uniqueness,words that, in anyone else 's mouth, would be blasphemous arrogance? It is beca use th e New Being that formsHim is not created by Him. He is created by it . I t hasfound Him, as it must find us. And since His Being isnot the result of His striving and laboring, and since itis not servitude to the religious law but rather victoryover religion and law that makes His uniqueness, Hedoes not impose religion and law, burdens and yokes,upon men. We would turn down His cal l with hatred

>H*|




if He called us to the Christian religion or to the Christian doctrines or to the Christian morals. We would not

accept His claim to be meek and humble and to giverest to our souls, if He gave us new commands forthinking and acting. Jesus is not the creator of anotherreligion, but the victor over religion; He is not the makerof anoth er Taw, b u t j h e conq ueror of law. W e, th e ministers and teachers of Christianity, do not call you toChrist ianity b ut rather to the Ne w Being to w hich C hris

tianity should be a witness and nothing else, not confusing itself with that New Being. Forget all Christiandoctrines; forget your own certainties and your owndo ubts , w hen you hea r the call of Jesus. Fo rge t all Christian morals, your achievements and your failures, whenyou come to Him. Nothing is demanded of you—no ideaof God, and no goodness in yourselves, not your beingreligious, not your being Christian, not your being wise,

and not your being moral. But what is demanded isonly your being open and willing to accept what is givento you, the N ew B eing, the be ing of love and justice andtruth, as it is manifest in Him Whose yoke is easy andW hose burden i s j igh t .

Let me close, as I began, with a personal word. Believe me, you who are religious and Christian. It would

not be worthwhile to teach Christianity, if it were^forthe sake of Christianity. And believejxLe^ymL who areestranged from religion and far away from Christianity,it is not our purpose to make you religious and Christian wh en w e interpre t th e call of Jesus for our tim e. W ecall Jesus the Christ not because He brought a new religion, but because He is the end of religion, above religion and irreligion^above Christianity and non-Christianity. W e spre ad His ca ll beca use it is the call to ev eryman in every period to receive the New Being, that hid-




den saving power in our existence, which takes from uslabor and burden, and gives rest to our souls.

Do not ask in this moment what we shall do or howaction shall follow from the New Being, from the restin our souls. Do not ask; for you do not ask how thegood fruits follow from the goodness of a tree. They follow; action follows being, and new action, better action,stronger action, foHdwsnew being , be tter being , strongerbeing. We and our world would be better, t ruer, andmore just, if there were more rest for souls in our world.

Our actions would be more creative, more conquering,conquering the tragedy of our time, if they grew out ofa more profou nd level of our life. For our creative de pthis the depth in which we are quiet .



12THE MEANING O F PROVIDENCE

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things

present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,

nor any other crea ture, shall be able to separate us

from the love of God, wh ich is in Christ Jesus our

Lord. R O M A N S 8 :38-39 .

T H E S E W E L L - K N O W N W O R D S O F P A U Lexpress the Christian faith in divine Providence. Theyare the first and fundamental interpretation of the disturbing words in the gospel of Matthew, where Jesuscom m ands us not to take any thou gh t abou t our life a ndfood and clothing, and to seek first the Kingdom ofGod, for all of our daily life and n eeds a re already kn ow nby God. We need such an interpretation. For there arefew articles of the Christian faith which are more important for the daily life of every man and woman, andthere are few more open to misunderstanding and distortion. And such misunderstanding necessarily leadsto a disillusionment which not only turns the hearts ofmen away from God, but also creates a revolt againstHim, against Christianity, and against religion. When

I spoke to the soldiers between the battles of the lastw ar, the y expressed their denial of the Christian m essagein terms of an attack upon the belief in Providence—an

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The Meaning of Providence 105

attack wh ich obviously drew its bitternes s from fundamental disappointments. After reading a paper wri t tenby the great Einstein, in which he challenges the faithin a personal God, I concluded that there was no difference between his feeling and that of the unsophisticatedsoldiers. The idea of God seemed to be impossible, because the reality of our world seems to be in oppositionto the all-mighty power of a wise and righteous God.

Once, when I tried to interpret to a group of Christian and Jewish refugees the paradoxical character ofthe divine world-government in terms of Second Isaiah,

a formerly eminent Jew from Western Germany told methat he had received many cablegrams from SouthernFrance informing him of the horrible story of the sudden evacuation, from Germany, of nearly ten thousandJews, of the age of ninety or more, and of their transportat ion to the concentrat ion camps. He said that thethought of this unimaginable misery prevented him frombeing able to find meaning in even the most powerful

message concerning the divine Providenc e. W ha t answershall we give, what answer can we give to such a crucialproblem—a problem in which Christianity as a wholeis at stake, a problem which has nothing to do with atheoretical criticism of the idea of Go d, b u t rathe r w hichrepresents the anguish of the human heart which canno longer stand the power borne by the daemonicforces on earth?

Paul speaks of these forces. He knows them all: thehorror of death and the anxiety of life; the irresistiblestrength of natural and historic powers; the ambiguityof the present and the inscrutable darkness of the future;the incalculable turns of fate from height to depth, andfrom depth to height; and the natural destruction ofcreature by creature. He knows them all as well as we




do, who have, in our period, rediscovered them, aftera short time in which Providence and reality seemed to

be a matter of fact. But it never was, and never will be,a matter of fact. It is rather a matter of the most powerful, the most paradoxical, and the most venturing faith.Only as such has i t meaning and truth.

What is its content? It is certainly not a vague promise that, with the help of God, everything will come toa good end; there are many things that come to a bad

end. And it is not the maintenance of hope in everysituation; there are situations in which there can be nohope. Nor is it the anticipation of a period of history,in which divine Providence will be proved by humanhappiness and goodness; there is no generation in whichdivine Providence will be less paradoxical than it is inours. But the content of the faith in Providence is this:when death rains from heaven as i t does now, when

cruelty wields power over nations and individuals as itdoes now, when hunger and persecution drive mill ionsfrom place to place as they do now, and when prisonsand slums all over the world distort the humanity of thebodies and souls of men as they do now—we can boastin that time, and just in that time, that even all of thiscannot separate us from the love of God. In this sense,

and in this sense alone, all things work together forgood, for the ultimate good, the eternal love, and theKingdom of God. Faith in divine Providence is the faiththat nothing can prevent us from fulfilling the ultimatemeaning of our existence. Providence does not mean adivine planning by which everything is predetermined,as is an efficient machine. Rather, Providence means

that there is a creative and saving possibility impliedin every situation, which cannot be destroyed by anyevent. Providence means that the daemonic and destruc-



The Meaning of Providence 107

tive forces within ourselves and our world can neverhave an unbreakable grasp upon us, and that the bondwhich connects us with the fulfilling love can never be

disrupted.This love appears to us and is embodied in "Christ

Jesus our Lord". By adding this, Paul does not use amereiy solemn phrase, as we often do when we use thewords. He uses them, rather, after he has pointed tothe only thing that can destroy our faith in Providence,which is our disbelief in the love of God, our distrustof God, our fear of His wrath, our hatred of his Pres

ence, our conception of Him as a tyrant who condemnsus, and our feeling of sin and guilt. It is not the depth ofour suffering, but the depth of our separation from God,which destroys our faith in Providence. Providence andthe forgiveness of sins are not two separate aspects ofthe Christian faith; they are one and the same—the certainty that we can reach eternal life in spite of sufferingand sin. Paul unites both words by saying, "Who is he

that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus . . . who makethintercession for us", and therefore, he continues, "Whoshall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword . . . ? In all these things we aremore than conquerors through him who loved us. . • ."This is the faith in Providence, and this alone.



13KNOWLEDGE THROUGH LOVE

Love never faileth; hut whether there he prophe

cies, they shall fail; whether there he tongues, they

shall cease; whether there he know ledge, it shallvanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy

in part. But when that which is perfect is com e, then

that which is in part shall he done away. When I was

a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,

I thought as a child: hut when I became a man, I put

away childish things. For now we see through a

glass, darkly; hut then face to face: now I know in

part; but then shall 1 know even as also I am know n.

I CORINTHIANS 13:8-12.

PAUL SPEAKS, IN TH E FAM OUS W OR DS

of our text, of things which are in part—or, as we shouldsay today, fragmentary things—and of the things whichare perfect, or complete. The fragmentary things shallvanish away; the complete things shall abide. The former are temporal; the latter are eternal. The fragmentary, temporal things are not merely material; they aresome of the highest gifts of the Divine Spirit: prophecy,which is the interpretation of our time and history;tong ues, w hich are our ecstatic feeling an d spe aking; an dknowledge, which is the understanding of our existence.

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Knowledge Through Love 109

Even those spiritual goods shall disappear with all thematerial and intellectual goods. They are all fragmentary, temporal, transitory. Love alone does not disap

pear; it endures forever. For God Himself is love, according to John who carries through the thought ofPaul .

But there is another consideration in our text whichseems to contradict the words about love. Paul singlesout kno w ledge, and points to the difference be tw een ourfragmentary, indirect and darkened knowledge, and thefull , direct and total knowledge to come. He compares

the childish imaginations with the mature insights of theadult. He speaks of something which, besides love, isperfect and eternal—namely, the seeing of the truth,face to face; the knowledge which is as full as God'sknowledge of us.

How are these two considerations united? Did Paulforget that he had just predicted the perfection andeternity of love alone? No, he did not forget; for he

closes this part of his letter by re-emphasizing the abiding character of love as the greatest thing of all. Or arethe words about knowledge inserted without thought ofa definite connection with the rest of the passage? Theyare not merely inserted; for there is a link, one of themost profound phrases in this great chapter: ". . . evenas also I am fully known"— fully known, that is, by God.But there is only one way to know a personality—to be

come united with that personality through love. Fullknowledge presupposes full love. God knows me, because He loves me; and I shall know Him face to facethrough a similar uniting, which is love and knowledgeat the same time. Love lasts; love alone endures, andnothing else besides love, nothing independent of love.Yet, in love, the seeing face to face and the knowledge




of the centre of the other I are implied. It is not blindlove th at is the e nd urin g love, th e love th at G od Himself

is . It is a seeing love, a knowing love, a love that looksthrough into the depth of the Heart of God, and intothe depth of our hearts. There is no strangeness to love;love knows; it is the only power of complete and lastingknowledge. There is a Greek word which can designateboth knowledge and sensual love. It can designate both,because both meanings express an act of union, an over

coming of the cleavage between beings. Knowledgeshall b e do ne a w ay w ith in so far as it is different fromlove; knowledge shall become eternal in so far as it isone with love. Therefore, the standard of knowledge isthe standard of love. For Paul, the difference betweenknowledge and love, between seeing and acting, between theory and practice, exists only when fragmentaryknowledge is our concern. Full knowledge does not admit a difference between itself and love, or betweentheorv and practice. Love overcomes the seeming opposition between theory and practice; i t is knowing anddoing at the same time. Therefore, it is the greatestthing of all; therefore, God Himself is love; therefore,the Christ, as the manifestation of the Divine Love, isfull of grace and of truth. That is what Paul means; and

that is the standard of knowledge he gives.And now let us consider our existence, and the knowl

edge that we possess. Paul says that all our presentknowledge is like the preception of things in a mirror,that it therefore concerns enigmas and riddles. This isonly another way of expressing the fragmentary character of our knowledge. For fragments out of the context

of the whole are only riddles to us. We may surmise thenature of the whole; we may approach the whole indirectly; but we do not see the whole itself; we do nof




grasp it directly face to face. A little light and muchdarkness; a few fragments and never the whole; manyproblems and never a solution; only reflections in themirrors of our souls, without the source of truth itself:

that is the situation of our knowledge. And it is the situation of our love. Because the love which is perfect andlasting lies not within us, perfect knowledge is deniedus. Since, as beings, we are separated from each other,and therefore from this ultimate unity, the communityof knowledge among single beings is made impossible,as it is also, then, between beings and the Ground ofBeing Itself. A great philosophe r has said tha t our knowledge reaches as far as our creative will reaches. That istrue for a certain realm of life. But it is not true for thewhole of our life. The fact that our knowledge reachesas far as our uniting love reaches is valid for the wholeof human existence.

Mankind has always tried to decipher the puzzlingfragments of life. That attempt is not just a matter forthe philosophers or priests or prophets or wise men inall periods of history. It is a matter for everyone. Forevery man is a fragment himself. He is a riddle to himself; and the individual life of everyone else is an enigmato him, dark, puzzling, embarrassing, exciting, and torturing. Our very being is a continuous asking for themeaning of our being, a continuous attempt to decipherthe enigma of our world and our heart. Before children

are adjusted to the conventional reactions of adults andhav e grown out of their creative individuality, the y sho wthe continuous asking, the urgent desire to decipher theriddles they see in the primitive mirror of their experience. The creative man, in all realms of life, is like achild, who dares to inquire beyond the limits of conventional answers. He discovers the fragmentary charac-




ter of all these answers, a character darkly and subconsciously felt by all men. He may destroy, by means of

one fundamental question, a whole, well-organizedsystem of life and society, of ethics and religion. Hemay show that what people believed to be a whole isnothing but a fragment of a fragment. He may shakethe certainty on which centuries l ived, by unearthinga riddle or an enigma in its very foundation. The miseryof man lies in the fragmentary character of his life and

knowledge; the greatness of man lies in his ability toknow that his being is fragmentary and enigmatic. Forman is able to be puzzled and to ask, to go beyond thefragments, seeking the perfect. Yet, in being able todo so, he feels at the same time the tragedy implicit inhis being, the tragedy of the riddle and the fragment.Man is subject, with all beings, to the law of vanity.

But man alone is conscious of that law. He is thereforeinfinitely more miserable than all other beings in theservitude to that law; on the other hand, he is infinitelysuperior, because he alone knows that there is somethingbeyond vanity and decay, beyond riddles and enigmas.This is felt by Paul, when he says that the creation itselfshall be delivered from the bondage of decay into thelibertv of the glory of the children of God.

Man is a fragment and a riddle to himself. The morehe experiences and knows that fact, the more he isreally man. Paul experienced the breakdown of a system of life and thought which he believed to be a whole,a perfect truth without riddle or gaps. He then foundhimself buried under the pieces of his knowledge andhis morals. But Paul never tried again to build up a new,comfortable house out of the pieces. He dwelt with thepieces. He realized always that fragments remain fragments, even if one attempts to reorganize them. The




unity to which they belong l ies beyond them; i t isgrasped through hope, but not face to face.

How could Paul endure life, as it lay in fragments?

He endured i t because the fragments bore a new meaning to him. The pictures in the mirror pointed to something new for him: they anticipated the perfect , thereality of love. Through the pieces of his knowledge andmorali ty, love appeared to him. And the power of lovetransformed the tormenting riddles into symbols oftruth, the tragic fragments into symbols of the whole.



14D O I N G T H E T R U T H

For God sent not his Son into the world to con

demn the world; hut that the world through him

might he saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned al

ready, because he hath not believed in the name of

the only begotten Son of God. And this is the con

demnation, that light is come into the world, and

men loved darkness rather than light, because their

deeds w ere evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateththe light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds

should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh

to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,

that they are wrought in God. J O H N 3 : 1 7 - 2 1 .

HE THAT DOES THE TRUTH! THIS IS A VERYsurprising combination of words. We may recognize andknow the truth, and we may act sometimes accordingto our knowledge, but how can we do the t ruth? Thetruth is given to us in a true theory. We may or we maynot follow that theory in our practice. Theory and practice seem to be two different things, and it is difficult

to think of them united. Similarly, it is difficult to understand the phrase "doeth the truth". Perhaps this phraseshould not be taken too seriously. Perhaps it should

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Doing the Truth 115

simply be interpreted as "acting according to the truth".But if such an interpretation were correct, what aboutthe statements, also to be found in the Fourth Gospel,

"I am the truth", "the truth has become", and thatwhich speaks of people "who are of the truth"? Noneof these statements would have meaning if truth werea matter of theory alone.

People sometimes say, "This is right in theory but itdoesn't work in practice." They ought to say, "This iswrong in theory and consequently i t is wrong in practice." There is no true theory which could be wrong in

practice. This contrast between theory and practice iscontrived by people who want to escape hard and thorough thinking. They like to abide in the shallownessof accustomed practices, on the surface of a so-called"experience". They will accept nothing but a repeatedconfirmation of something they already know or believe.Only those questions for truth which have challengedand disturbed centuries of practice have brought about

a fundamental transformation of practice. This is trueof the history of science, morals and religion. When theprophet Amos questioned the theory of all pagan religions, that the being and power of God is in some wayidentified with the being and power of a special country, the pagan practice all over the world was undermined. When the prophet of the exile questioned thetheory that the suffering of a nation is the punishment

for its own sins, and explored the theory that the suffering of the servant of God serves all nations, the history of mankind received a new character. When theApostles questioned the theory that the Messiah is anearthy ruler, and explained the Cross of Christ in termsof salvation, the whole system of ancient values wasshaken. When August ine chal lenged the theory that




God and man work together for salvation; when Lutherattacked the theory that there is no salvation withoutthe sacramental mediat ion of the Church; and whenmodern historical science destroyed the mechanist icand superstitious doctrines of inspiration, the practice oflarge sections of mankind was changed. The emphasislaid on truth in the Fourth Gospel should prevent usfrom being taken in by the misleading contrast betweentheory and practice. And i t should give an urgent impetus toward more thorough thinking to those who are

especially concerned with the truth of Christ ianity.The Greek word for t ruth means: making manifest

the hidden. Truth is hidden and must be discovered.No one possesses it naturally. It dwells in the depth,beneath the surface. The surface of our existencechan ges, m oving continually like the w aves in the ocean,and it is therefore delusive. The depth is eternal and

therefore certain. In using the Greek word, the FourthGospel accepts the Greek concept, but at the same t imeit transforms it . "Doing the truth", "being of the truth","the truth has become", "I am the truth"—all these combinations of words indicate that truth in Christianityis something which happens, something which is boundto a special pla ce, to a special tim e, to a special p erson al

i ty. Truth is something new, something which is doneby God in history, and, because of this, something whichis done in the individual life. Truth is hidden, truth ismystery—in Christianity as well as in Greek thought.But the mystery of truth in Christianity is an eventwhich has taken place and which takes place again andaga in It is life, pe rso na l life, revelation an d decision.Truth is a stream of life, centered in Christ, actualizedin everybody who is connected with Him, organizedin the assembly of God, the Church. In Greek thought



Doing the Truth 117

truth only can be found. In Christianity truth is foundif it is done, and done if it is found. In Greek thoughttruth is the manifestation of the eternal, immovable es

sence of things. In Christianity truth is the new creation,realizing itself in history. Therefore, in Christianity theopposite of truth is lie, and not—as it was in Greece-opinion. The decision for or against truth is the life-and-death decision, and this decision is identical withthe decision in which Christ is accepted or rejected.You cannot have opinion about the Christ after youhave faced Him. You can only do the truth by following

Him, or do the lie by denying Him. Therefore, it is impossible to make Him a teacher of truth among—or evenabove—other teachers of truth. This would separatethe truth from Him, and the decision for truth fromthe decision for Him (just as the decision for Plato'steach m g is no t the same thing as the decision for P la to ).But just this separation is denied by the Fourth Gospel,when it calls Christ the truth "which has become", and

when it calls his followers those who are of the truth,and who, therefore, are able to do the truth.

Christian theology is rooted in the concept of truthin which no cleavage between theory and practice isadmitted, because this truth is saving truth. Theologyshould be like a circle in which the most peripheral elements of the historical, educational, and philosophicaltheories are directed toward the center, the truth, whichis the Christ . No statement is theological which doesnot contain, directly or indirectly, saving truth. And"saving truth" means that truth which is done; savingtruth is in "him that does the truth."



15THE THEOLOGIAN* (Part I)

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I wouldnot have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as yewere led. Wherefore 1 give you to understand, thatno man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesusaccursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is theLord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there arediversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And thereare differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

And there are diversities of operations, but it isthe same God which worketh all in all. But themanifestation of the Spirit is given to every manto profit withal. For to one is given by the Spiritthe word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by thesame Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by thesame Spirit; to another the working of miracles;to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits;to another divers kinds of tongues; to another theinterpretation of tongues: but all these w orketh thatone and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every manseverally as he will. i CORINTHIANS 12:1-11.

* This sermon, and the tw o succeeding sermons were given withstudents of theology especially in mind.

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The Theologian 119

MOST OF US AR E ST UDE NT S O F T HE OL OGY ,whether we teach or learn, whether we be missionariesor educators, ministers or social workers, administratorsor political leaders. But in this particular community,we are theologians, persons who ask the question ofour ultimate concern, the question of God and His manifestation. Whatever else we may be, we are first of alltheologians. Therefore, it is most natural—although notmost usual—for us to consider our existence as theologians. On what is this existence based? What makes aman a theologian? What is his relation to other formsof existence? What is the significance of our existenceas a whole? Paul makes very clear what he thinks is thefoundation of all theology: the Divine Spirit . And theword of wisdom and knowledge, theology, according tothe witness of the whole Christian Church, is basicallya gift of the Spirit. It is one of the gifts, besides others.It is a special gift, besides other special gifts. But it isa gift of the Spirit , and not a natural capacity. The wordof knowledge—theology—is spoken to us before we cansay it to others, or even to ourselves. To be a theologianmeans first of all to be able to receive spiritual knowledge. But on the basis of this criterion, can we call ourselves theologians? Can we say that our theologicalthought is a gift of the Spirit? Are we certain that ourtheological existence transcends our human capacities,or that we have the word of knowledge, the word ofspiritual wisdom?

Paul gives a very concrete criterion for theologicalexistence, which is also the criterion for all spiritualexistence. He says: He who cries "Cursed be Jesus"does not speak in the Spirit of God; and no one can say"Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit . He who accepts Jesus as the Christ proves by that very acceptance




that he has received the Spirit of God. For the spirit ofman alone is not capable of making the statement: "I

acce pt Jesus as th e Christ". T ha t statem en t is the m ysteryand the foundation of the Christian Church, the paradox and the stumbling-block, w hich prod uce cursesagainst Christianity. I t is the de pth and th e power w hichcreate a new Being in the world, in history, and inman. Therefore, he who joins in the Church's confession that Jesus is the Christ participates in the DivineSpirit. It is he who can receive the Spirit of wisdom andknowledge; i t is he who can become a theologian.

Theology does not exist outside the community ofthose who affirm that Jesus is the Christ, outside theChurch, the assembly of God. Theology is a work ofthe Church, precisely because it is a gift of the DivineSpirit Th eolog ical existence is an elem en t of th e existence of the Church. It is not simply a matter of "free"

thinking, of scientific research, or of general philosophical analysis. Theology expresses the faith of the Church.It restates th e paradoxical statem ent, Jesus is the Christ,and considers all its presuppositions and implications.Theological existence indicates the existence of one whois grasped, within the Church, by the Divine Spirit, andwho has received the word of wisdom and knowledge.

But we must ask another question. If that be theological existence, which one of us can call himself atheologian? Who can decide to become a theologian?And who can dare to remain a theologian? Do we reallybelong to the assembly of God? Can we seriously acceptthe paradox upon which the Church is built , the paradox that Jesus is the Christ? Are we grasped by theDivine Spirit, and have we received the word of knowledge as a gift? If somebody were to come and tell ustha t he certainly belongs to the Church, that he does



The Theologian 121

not doubt that Jesus is the Christ any longer, that hecontinuously experiences the grip of the Divine Spiritand the gift of spiritual knowledge, what should be our

answer to him ? W e certainly should tell him tha t he doesnot fulfill even the first condition of theological existence, which is the realization that one does not knowwhether he has experienced the Divine Spirit , or spiritswhich are not divine. We would not accept him as atheologian. On the other hand, if someone were to comeand tell us that he is estranged from the ChristianChurch and i ts foundations, that he does not feel thepresence of the power of the Spirit , that he is empty ofspiri tual knowledge, but that he asks again and againthe theological question, the question of an ultimateconcern and its manifestations in Jesus as the Christ,we would accept him as a theologian. Perhaps we wouldtest the seriousness of his doubt, in order to see whetherhis emptiness and despair expressed a new and morerefined vanity. But if we were convinced of his seriousness, we would consider him a theologian.

There are many amongst us who believe within themselves that they can never become good theologians, thatthey could do better in almost any other realm. Yet theycannot imagine that their existence could be anythingother than theological existence. Even if they had togive up theology as their vocational work, they would

never cease to ask the theological question. It wouldpursue them into every realm. They would be bound toit, actually, if not vocationally. They could not be surethat they could fulfill its demands, but they would besure that they were in i ts bondage. They who believethose things in their hearts belong to the assembly ofGod. They are grasped by the Divine Spiri t . They havereceived the gift of knowledge. They are theologians.



The Theologian 123

theologian; and a minister exercises more functions thana theological scholar. But an apostle is also a theologian; and a minister cannot work without theology.

Therefore, the words that Paul says about his ministryas a whole are also true of the theological part of hisministry: "To all men I have become all things." Theological existence dem and s the same atti tud e. The theologian, in his theology, must become all things to all men.We must consider the meaning of those words.

"To those under the Law I have become as one ofthemselves, to win those under the Law, although I amnot under the Law myself." Let us replace the word"Law" by "idealism", not only because idealists are usually legalistic, but also because idealism is a noble attit ude , which elevates us above the lower strata of ourexistence, and produces faith and devotion, just as theLaw does. "To the idealists I have become as one ofthemselves, to win those who are idealists, although Iam not an idealist myself." How is such an act possible?How can the theologian, not being an idealist , becomean idealist to the idealists? He can become an idealistin exactly the same way as the apostle of Christ canbecome a Jew to the Jews. Paul says that the Law isgood , an d th at it is no t abolished, bu t rath er fulfilled,in Christ. Likewise, the theologian who is not an idealist(and who could never be an idealist) does not destroy

idealism. He utilizes it and states that it contains sometruth which creates a continuous temptation for thetheologian to become an idealist himself, and to denythe Cross which is the judgment over idealism. Thetheologian uses idealism, i ts concepts and methods. Hebecomes a Platonist to the Platonists, a Stoic to theStoics, an Hegelian to the Hegelians, a progressivist tothe progressivists. But he cannot confuse any of these




forms of idealism with the Christian message. He adheres more to some than to others. But he never imposes

his preferred form upon others in the name of Christianity. He is aware of the despair that idealism, as wellas the Law, can bring upon us. And he knows that inChrist there is a new Being in which all ideals are embodied and have become visible, no longer as ideals, butas realities.

"To those outside the Law I have become as one ofthem (although I am under Christ 's law, and not out

side God's Law), in order to triumph over those outsidethe Law." Let us replace the phrase "outside the Law"by "realism", no t bec ause th e realists hav e no L aw (fornei ther they nor the pagans are without some Law),but because they have no abstract principles to imposeupon reality. Their greatness lies in their humble acceptance of things as they are. "The piety of realism is

humility." "To the realists I have become as one ofthemselves, in order to win them, al though I am not arealist myself." T he theolog ian wh o is no t a realist (a n dwho could never become a realist) does not destroyrealism. He recognizes the truth of realism, and is cont inually tempted to become a realist himself, and thusto deny the eternal life which is the judgment over realism. The theologian uses realism and becomes a posi-tivist to the positivists, a pragmatist to the pragmatists,and a tragic interpreter of life to the tragic interpretersof life. But he does not say that realism is the Christianmessage. He does not fight for it in the name of Chris-tianitv H e know s the despair of m ere realism , an d h eknows that there is a new Being which overcomes theself-destruction of reality.

"To the weak I have become weak myself in order togain the weak." This is the most profound of the three



The Theologian 125

statements that Paul makes about himself, and the mostimportant one for our existence as theologians. We mustbecome as though weak, al though, grasped by the D ivineSpirit , the basis of all theology, we are not weak. Howcan we become weak without being already weak? Wecan become weak by having the strength to acknowledgeour weakness, by restraining ourselves from all fanaticism and theological self-certainty, and by participating—not from the outside, but from the inside—in theweakness of al l those to whom we speak as theologians.

Our strength is our weakness; our strength is not ourstrength. We are strong, therefore, only in so far as wepoint, for our own sake and for the sake of others, tothe truth which possesses us, but which we do notpossess.

Nothing is more disastrous for the theologian himselfand more despicable to those whom he wants to convince than a theology of self-certainty. The real theolo

gian is he who has the strength to perceive and to confess his weakness, and who, therefore, has the strengthto becom e as w eak to th e weak , so that his is the victory.

T H E T H E O L O G I A N ( P a rt I I I )

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, andsaid, He men of Athens, I perceive that in all things

ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and be

held your devotions, I found an altar with this in

scription, TO THE UN KNO WN GO D. Whom

therefore ye ignorantly worsh ip, h im declare I un to

you. God that made the world and all things therein,




seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwellethnot in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped w ith mens hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and allthings; and hath made of one blood all nations ofmen for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hathdetermined the times before appointed, and thebounds of their habitation; that they should seek the

Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and findhim, though he be not far from every one of us: forin him we live, and move, and have our being; ascertain also of your own poets have said, For we arealso his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the off

spring of God, we ought not to think that the God

head is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven byart and mans device. And the times of this ignoranceGod winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day,in the which he will judge the world in righteousnessby that man whom he hath ordained; whereof hehath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath

raised him from the dead. And when they heard ofthe resurrection of the dead, some mocked; andothers said, We will hear thee again of this matter.

ACTS 17:22-32.

TH E FIRST TIM E I SPOKE OF OUR EXISTENCEas theologians, I indicated that the foundation of thisexistence lay in the power of the Divine Spirit and inthe reality of the Church. It was the believing theolo-




cow ardice ever to think tha t there may b e a place w he iewe could look at God, as though He were something

outside of us to be argued for or against. Genuine atheism is not humanly possible, for God is nearer to a manthan that man is to himself. A God can only be deniedin the name of another God; and God appearing in oneform can be denied only by God appearing in anotherform. That is the first answer that we must give to ourselves and to those who question us, not as an abstractstatement, but rather as a continuous interpretation ofour human existence, in all its hidden motions andabysses and certainties.

Go d is neare r to us tha n w e ourselves. W e cannot finda place outside of Him; but we can try to find such aplace. The second part of Paul's answer is that we canbe in the condition of continuous flight from God. Wecan imagine one way of escape after another; we can

replace God by the products of our imagination; and wedo. Although mankind is not strange to God, it is estranged from Him. Although mankind is never withoutGod, it perverts the picture of God. Although mankindis never without the knowledge of God, it is ignorantof God. Mankind is separated from its origin; it livesunder a law of wrath and frustration, of tragedy and

self-destruction, because it prod uces one distorted imag eof God after another, and adores those images. Theanswering theologian must discover the false gods inthe individual soul and in society. He must probe intotheir most secret hiding-places. He must challenge themthrough the power of the Divine Logos, which makeshim a theologian. Theological polemic is not merely atheoretical discussion, but rather a spiritual judgement

against the gods which are not God, against those structures of evil, those distortions of God in thought and



The Theologian 129

action. No compromise or adaptat ion or theological self-

surrender is permi t ted on this level. For the first Comm a n d m e n t is the rock upon which theology stands.There is no synthesis possible between God and the

idols. In spite of the dangers inherent in so judging, the

theologian must become an inst rument of the DivineJudgement against a distorted world.

So far as they can grasp it in the light of their own

questions, Paul's listeners are willing to accept thistwo-fold answer. But Paul then speaks of a third thingwhich they are not able to bear. They either reject it

immediately, or they postpone the decision to reject or

accept it. He speaks of a Man Whom God has destinedto be the Judgement and the Life of the world. That is

the third and final part of the theological answer. For

w e are real theologians when we state that Jesus is the

Christ , and that it is in Him that the Logos of theologyis manifest.

Butwe are

only theologians whenwe

interpret thisparadox, this stumbling-block for idealism and realism,for the weak and the strong, for both pagans and Jews.As theologians, we must interpret that paradox, and not

throw paradoxical phrases at the minds of the people .We mus t not preserve or produce artificial stumbling-blocks, miracle-stories, legen ds, m yths , and other sophisticated paradoxical talk. We must not distort, by eccle

siastical and theological arrogance, that great cosmicparadox that there is victory over death within the worldof death itself. We must not impose the heavy burdenof wrong stumbling-blocks upon those who ask us questions. But neither must we empty the true paradox of

its power. For true theological existence is the witnessing to Him Whose yoke is easy and Whose burden is

light, to Him Who is the true paradox.



16THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT TO THE SPIRIT

There is therefore now no condem nation to themwhich are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after theflesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit

of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from thelaw of sin and death. For what the law could not do,in that it was weak through the flesh, God sendinghis own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and forsin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might he fulfilled in us, who walk not

after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that areafter the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but theythat are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Forto be carnally minded is death; but to be spirituallyminded is life and peace. Because the carnal mindis enmity against God: for it is not subject to the lawof God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are

in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in theflesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of Goddwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit ofChrist, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, thebody is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that

raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he thatraised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken

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Witness of the Spirit 131

your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.Therefore, brethren, w e are debtors, not to the flesh,

to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, yeshall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify thedeeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as areled by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.For ye have not received the spirit of bondage againto fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption,whereby we say, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself

beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. . . . Likewise the Spirit also helpethour infirmities: for we know not what we shouldpray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makethintercession for us with groanings which cannot beuttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knowethwhat is in the mind of the spirit, because he maketh

intercession for the saints according to the will ofGod. ROMANS 8:1-16, 26-27.

THIS SOUNDS DIFFICULT TO OUR MODERNears, strange and almost unintelligible. Words like"spirit' and "flesh," "sin" and "law," "life" and "death ," in

their various combinations, appear to us as philosophicalabstractions, rather than as concrete descriptions ofChristian experience. For Paul, however, they express themost real and the most concrete experience of his life.This eighth chapter of his letter to the Christians inRome is like a hymn praising, in ecstatic words, thenew reality which has appeared to him, which was revealed in history and had transformed his whole exist-




ence. Paul calls this new being "Christ", in so far asit has first become visible in Jesus the Christ. And he

calls it "Spirit", in so far as it is a reality in the spirit ofevery Christian, and in the spirit which constitutes theassembly of Christians in every place and time. Bothnames designate the same reality. Christ is the Spirit ,and the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. A Christian is onewho participates in this new reality, that is, one who hasthe Spirit, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, heis none of his." To be a Christian means to have theSpirit , and any description of Christianity must be adescription of the manifestations of the Spirit. Let usfollow the description that Paul gives us of the Spirit;and let us compare our own experience with it . In sodoing we may discover both how far away we are fromthe experience of Paul, and, at the same time, how similar our experience is to his. These strange words of his

m ay reveal m ore to us ab ou t our l ives than any thing ourcontemporaries may think and write about the nature ofman, his life and his destiny.

"The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spiritthat we are the children of God." These words implythat our spirit is unable to give us such assurance. Ourspirit , that is, our natural mind, our thought, our will ,our emotions, the whole of our interior life, cannot giveus the certainty that we are the children of God. Thisdoes not mean that Paul deprecia tes human nature andspirit. On the contrary, in speaking of our spirit, heacknowledges the creativity of man, his similarity toGod Who is Spirit, his ability to be free himself, andto liberate all nature, from vanity and the bondage ofcorruption by his own liberation. "For we are also his

offspring," he told the Athenians in his famous speechon the Areopagus, thus confirming their own philos-




child's unconscious hate, which may become consciousand may appear with tremendous force. This would not

be so if the law against its unordered and unrestricteddesire were felt by the child to be arbitrary and unjustified. But it is felt to be justified. It has become a part ofthe child's "super-ego," as recent psychology would say;or, in the language of traditional ethics, it has becomea demand of his conscience. Because the law given bythe father is good, and the child cannot help recognizing this, and therefore because the law is inescapable,

the child must hate the father; for he seems to be thecause of the torturing split in the child's soul. That is thesituation of man before God. The natural man hates Godand regards Him as the enemy, because He representsfor man the law which he cannot reach, against whichhe struggles, and which, at the same time, he mustacknowledge as good and true. There is no difference, atthis point, between the theist and the atheist. Atheismis only a form of enmity against God, namely, that GodW ho represents th e law, and, w ith the law, the split a ndthe despair and the meaninglessness of our existence.The atheist as well as the theist hates to be confrontedwith what he ought to be, with the ult imate meaningand good which he cannot deny and yet which he cannot reach. The atheist gives other names to God, Whom

he hates, but he cannot escape Him, any more than hecan escape his hatred of Him. This is the reason Pauldoes no t say: "O ur own spirit witnesses to us tha t w e areth e children of God ." Ou r own spirit only witnesses th atwe are his enemies!

Always when Christianity speaks of God and of ourloving God in our daily life, it should remember that.The majesty of God is challenged, when we make Him

the loving Father before we have recognized Him as




the condemning law, Whom we hate in the depths ofour hearts .

"The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we arethe children of God." Something new has come, a newreality, a new being, a Spirit distinguished from ourspirit, yet able to make itself understood to our spirit,beyond us and yet in us. The whole message of Christianity is contained in this statement. Christianity overcomes law and despair by the certainty that we are thechildren of God. There is nothing higher than this . For

although we are in the flesh and under the law and inthe cleavage of our existence, we are, at the same time,in the Spirit and in the fulfillment and unity with theultimate meaning of our life. This paradox, for Paul, isthe astonishing and, humanly speaking, the incrediblecontent of Christianity. This certainty gave him the impulse to preach his message to the whole world, and toconq uer i t . I t gave him the pow er to break w ith his caste

and his nat ion, and to take upon himself an abundantamount of suffering and struggle, and finally, martyrdom. Christ has overcome the law, the system of commands which makes us slaves because we cannot escapeit , and which throws us into despair because i t makesus enemies of our own destiny and our own ultimategood. Having this certainty that we are the children ofGod means, for Paul, "having the Spirit ." Out of this

certainty follows everything that makes Christian existence what it is. First of all, it gives us the power to cry,"Abba, Father!" that is , the power to pray the Lord'sprayer. Only he who has the Spiri t has the power to say"Father" to God.

Everybody can say the Lord's prayer, and it is recitedmillions and millions of t imes every day. But how manyof those who say it have received the power to pray it?




The fatherhood of God, which is the greatest and mostincredible concept of Christianity, has become one of

the most usual and insignificant phrases of daily life.Christianity has forgotten that in every invocation ofGod as Father the enmity against God must be overcome, the ecstatic certainty of our childhood must begiven by the Spirit. Many of those outside Christianityknow more about i t than those within i t . They knowhow paradoxical and impossible it is to call God"Father ." But where i t happens that man has gainedfreedom, "the spirit of bondage" to fear is overcome by"the spirit of adoption." W he n a child has a m om ent th atwe could call a moment of grace, he suddenly does thegood freely, without command, and more than had beencom m and ed; happ iness glows in his face. H e is balan cedwithin himself, without enmity, and is full of love.Bondage and fear have disappeared; obedience has

ceased to b e obedience and ha s beco m e free inclination;ego and super-ego are united. This is the liberty of thechildren of God, liberty from the law, and because fromthe law, also from the condemnation to despair.

Those who have the Spirit walk not after the flesh butafter the Spirit. The power of infinite desire and unlimited will to power is broken. It is not extinguished; the

hunger and thirst for life remain. But when, for us, theSpirit is pre sen t, desire is transforme d into love an d willto power into justice. In the great chapter on love inFirst Corinthians, Paul makes it clear that love is thefruit of the Spirit, and that there is no love without theSpirit. Love is not a matter of law. As long as it is commanded, it does not exist. Neither is it a matter of sentim en tal emo tion. It is impossible for the natu ral ma n; an d

it is ecstatic in its appearance, like every gift of theSpirit.




And finally, Spirit is life. "To be carnally minded is

death ." There is a man of our t ime who discovered the

t ru th of this profound statement. Sigmund Freud recognized that at the root of our infinite desire lies the willto death . The individual, feeling the impossibility of fulfilling his de sire, wa nts to rid himself of it by losing himself as an individual . Death is inevitable, but it is alsochosen. Not only must we die, we also want to die, "for

to be carnally minded is death .""But," continues Paul, "to be spiritually minded is

life." Spirit is life, creative life, as the ancient hymn,Veni Creator Spiritus, declares. The word "spirit" has

largely disappeared from our daily language and en

tirely from our scientific terminology. It is replaced by

"reason." But reason argues about what it has received;it analyzes life and often kills life. It is not life itself; it

is w ithou t creative pow er. But the Spirit is power as wellas reason, uniting and t ranscending them. It is creative

life. Neither power alone, nor reason alone, createsthe works of art and poetry, of philosophy and politics;the Spirit creates them individually and universally,powerful and full of reason at the same t ime. In everygreat human work we admire the inexhaustible depthof its individual and incomparable character , the powerof something which happens but once and cannot be

repea ted and that, nevertheless, is visible to century

after century, universal and accessible in every period.No argument of reason can give certainty. The finite

cannot argue for the infinite; it cannot reach God and

it can never reach its own eternity. But there are two

certainties. One dwells in every soul which knows aboutitself. It is the certainty which the law imposes that no

life and no death , no courage and no flight, can l iberateus from the command to be w h a t we ought to be and




the impossibility to be so, the condemnation of whichis despair. The eternity of despair encompasses us in

the moment that we are conscious of our witness to thelaw. The other certainty dwells in those who have theSpirit; they are beyond their own finiteness and theycannot use arguments, for their eternity is present tothem. It is not a matter of a future life after death; it isthe convincing presence of the Spirit Who is Life, beyond life and death.

In the story of Pentecost, the Spirit of Christ showsits creativity in both directions, the individual and universal. Each disciple receives the fiery tongue that isthe new creative Spirit . Members of all nations, separated by their different tongues, understand each otherin this New Spiri t , which creates a new peace, beyondthe cleavages of Babel—the peace of the Church. Furthermore, for Paul, the Spirit is eternal life. It is obvious

that the certainty that we are children of God, that weare united with the eternal meaning of our life, is eitheritself etern al or is no thin g. The re is no rationa l arg um en tfor the immortality of our souls. Here and now we areencompassed in the never-ending despair brought onus by the law. Here and now we are encompassed inthe eternal and inexhaustible life created by the Spirit ,which witnesses to the fact that we are the children of

God.But someone may say: "I have not received this wit

ness. I have not experienced the Spirit of which Paulspeaks. I am not C hristian in this sense." Listen to P aul'sreply. Perhaps it is the most puzzling and mysterious ofall his sayings. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as

we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession forus with groanings which cannot be uttered; and he that




searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of theSpirit, because he maketh intercession for the saintsaccording to the will of God." Paul recognizes the fact

that usually we are possessed by weakness which makesthe experience of the Spirit and the right prayer impossible. But he tells us that in these periods we must notbelieve that the Spirit is far from us. It is within us, although not experienced by us. Our sighing in the depthof our souls, which we are not able to articulate, is takenby God to be the work of the Spirit within us. To theman who longs for God and cannot f ind Him; to theman who wants to be acknowledged by God and cannot even believe that He is; to the man who is str ivingfor a new and imperishable meaning of his life and cannot discover it—to this man Paul speaks. We are eachsuch a man. Just in this situation, where the Spirit is farfrom our consciousness, where we are unable to prayor to experience any meaning in life, the Spirit is work

ing quietly in the depth of our souls. In the momentwhen we feel separated from God, meaningless in ourlives, and condemned to despair, we are not left alone.The Spirit , sighing and longing in us and with us, represents us. It manifests what we really are. In feeling thisagainst feeling, in believing this against belief, in knowing this against knowledge, we, like Paul, possess all.Those outside that experience possess nothing. Paul, in

spite of the boldness of his faith and the depth of hism ysticism, is m ost hu m an , most realistic— nearer to th osewho are weak than to those who are strong. He knowsthat we, with all other creatures, are in the stage ofexpectation, longing and suffering with all animals andflowers, with the oceans and winds. The soundlessmourning of these other creatures echoes the soundlesslonging of the human soul. Paul knows that what we



17HE W HO IS THE CHRIST

And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into thetowns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he askedhis disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say

that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist: butsome say, Elias; and o thers, One of the prophets.And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that Iam? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thouart the Christ. And he charged them that they shouldtell no man of him. And he began to teach them, thatthe Son of man must suffer many things, and be

rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, andscribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.And he spake that saying openly. And Peter tookhim, and began to rebuke him. But when he hadturned about and looked on his disciples, he rebukedPeter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thousavourest not the things that be of God, but the

things that be of men. MARK 8:27-33.

THIS STORY IS THE CENTRE OFMark's Gospel. And in this story we find the heart of theChristian message. The message is infinitely simple, yetrich and profound, and concentrated in four words:

141




"Thou art the Christ." Let us think about this messagein the light of our story, which is the real beginning of

the Passion and Death.Then Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of

Caesarea and Phil ippi , on a road between some unimportant villages, at a time which seems indefinite—"then." But on this road occurred the most importantevent of human history. It is the most important notonly from the point of view of the believer, but alsofrom tha t of the deta ch ed ob server of world history. And

this indefinite "then" pointed to the most definite anddecisive moment in the experience of mankind, themoment in which one man dared to say to another:"Thou art the Christ."

On the road, He inquired of His disciples, "Who dopeople say I am?" "John the Baptist," they told him,"although some say that you are Elijah, and others, that

you are one of the prophets." Why did they give Himtitles that elevated Him above the ordinary humanbeing? It was because they expected something extraordinary: the coming of the new world order inthe near future. All generations of mankind had waitedin vain for this new stage of the world, in which justiceand peace would reign. The people believed that theirgene ration w ould w itness its com ing. Bu t before it w ould

come, forerunners would have to appear, to announceits coming and to prepare the people. Elijah wouldcome from heaven, to which he had been elevated;perhaps Jeremiah would rise from the dead; or someother prophet would appear; even John the Baptistmight return from his grave. They felt that behind thefigure of this teaching and healing Rabbi some mysterious thing was hidden. They thought that He must bethe mask for one of the forerunners, who would come to



He Who Is the Christ 143

pre pa re th e new a nd final period of history. Th at is wh atthe disciples heard from the people.

Although there have been two thousand years ofChristianity, there are still such people. Jesus, for them,remains the forerunner. The new world and he who isto bring it in are still to come. Justice and peace havenot yet begun to rule. The new world may be near athand, or it may be still far from us. In any case, it hasnot appeared. That is the characteristic feeling of theJewish people, the feeling that prevents them from

becoming Christian. It is also the feeling of large groupswithin present-day Christendom, the feeling that drivesthem to wait and to work for the world of peace andjustice, although they are constantly disappointed, andconstantly have to start over again. If Jesus should askus today, "Who do people say that I am?" we shouldhave to answer exactly as His first disciples did: that Hewas one of the forerunners, and although perhaps the

greatest of them all, probably not the last one; a forerunner and a prophet, but not he who will fulfill allthings. The reign of justice and peace, the new world,has not yet come.

And so He inquired of them, "Whom do you say thatI am?" That is the question which is put before everyChristian at every time. I t is the question which is putbefore the Church as a whole, because the Church is

built upon the answer to this question, the reply ofPeter: "Thou art the Christ". Peter did not simply addanother, and more lofty, name to the names given bythe people. Peter said, "Thou art the Christ". In thesewords he expressed something which was entirely dif

ferent from what the people had said. He denied thatJesus was a forerunner; he denied that somebody elseshould be expected. He asserted that the decisive thing




of history had appeared, and that the Christ , the bearerof the new, had come in this man Jesus, Who was walk

ing with him along a dusty village road north of Palest ine.

Can we still feel the meaning of Peter 's statement? Itis ha rd for us, because th e wo rd "Ch rist" has becom e thesecond name for Jesus. But when Peter called Jesus theChrist, the word "Christ" was still a vocational title. Itdesignated Him, Who was to bring the l iberation ofIsrael, the victory of God over the nations, the transformation of the human heart , and the establishmentof the Messianic reign of peace and justice. Throughthe Christ history would be fulfilled. God would againbecome the Lord of mankind; and the ear th would bech an ge d in to a pla ce of blessedness. All this w as imp liedin Peter 's words, "Thou art the Christ" .

The greatness and tragedy of the moment in which

Peter uttered these words are visible in the reaction ofJesus: He forbade them to tell anyone about Him. TheMessianic character of Jesus was a mystery. It did notmean to Him what i t meant to the people. If they hadheard Him call Himself the Christ , they would haveexpected either a great political leader or a divine figurecoming from heaven. He did not believe that a poli t icalaction, the liberation of Israel and the crushing of theEmpire, could create a new reali ty on earth. And Hecou ld not call Himself t he heavenly Ch rist w ithou t seem ing blasphemous to those who, by necessity, misunderstood Him. For Christ is neither the political "king ofpeace" whom the nations of all history expected, andwhom we expect today just as ardently; nor is He theheavenly "king of glory" whom the many visionaries of

His day expected, and whom we also expect today. Hismystery is more profound; it cannot be expressed



He Who Is the Christ 145

through the traditional names. I t can only be revealedby the events which were to come after Peter 's confession: the suffering, death, and rising again. Perhaps ifHe should appear today, He would forbid the ministersof the Christian Church to speak of Him for a longtime. "He forbade them to tell anyone about Him." Ourchurches speak of Him day after day, Sunday after Sunday, some more in terms of the political king of peace,some more in terms of the heavenly king of glory. Theycall Him Jesus Christ, forgetting, and making us forget,what it means to say: Jesus is the Christ. The most incredible and humanly impossible event—a wanderingJewish Rabbi is the Christ—has become natural to us.Let us at least sometimes remind ourselves and ourpeople that Jesus Christ means Jesus Who is said to bethe Christ. Let us ask ourselves and others from time totime w he the r we can seriously agree with Peter 's ecstaticexclamation, whether we are likewise overwhelmed bythe m ystery of this M an. An d if we can no t answ er affirmatively should w e no t at least be silent, in orde r to pr eserve the mystery of the words, instead of destroyingtheir meaning by our common talk?

And He proceeded to teach them that the Son of Manmust endure much suffering, must be rejected by theelders and the chief priests and the scribes, must bekilled, and after three days rise again. He spoke of thisquite freely. The moment in which Peter called Him theChrist, Jesus prophesied His suffering and death. Hebegan to reveal the mystery of His Messianic destiny.It was contrary to everything that the people expected,that the visionaries dreamt, and that the disciples hopedfor. He was to be rejected by the political authorities of the nation, whose king the Christ was supposedto be. He was to be rejected by the religious authorities




of a selected people, whose leader the Christ was supposed to become. He was to be rejected by the cultural

authorities of that tradition which was supposed to overcome all pagan tradition through the Christ . He was tosuffer—He Who was expected to transform all sufferinginto blessedness. He was to die—He Who was supposedto appear in divine glory. Jesus did not deny His Messianic vocation. In the symbolic words concerning the"rising after three days", He indicated that His rejectionand H is dea th would not be a defeat, bu t rather th e necessary steps to His becoming the Christ. He was to bethe Christ only as a suffering and dying Christ. Only assuch is He the Christ, or, as He called Himself moremysteriously, the Son of Man.

Peter took Him and began to reprove Him for Hiswords. But Jesus turned to him, and looking at His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me, you

Satan. Your outlook is not God's, but man's." Nobodyin Jesus ' t ime would have doubted the fact that Godsent suffering and martyrdom even to the righteous.The Old Testament proved that on every page. Therefore, it was not that fact which has made the history ofthe Passion the most important part of the whole Gospel.It was not the value of suffering and the value of an

heroic death, which have given the power to the pictureof the Crucified. There have been many pictures ofcreative suffering and of heroic death in human history.But none of them can be compared with the picture ofJesus' death. Something unique happened in His suffering and death . I t w as, and is, a divine my stery, hum anlyunin telligible, divinely necessary. Th erefore, wh en Pe ter,shocked and overwhelmed by sorrow and love, tried to

prevent Him from going to Jerusalem, Jesus consideredhis pleading a satanic temptation. I t would have de-



He W ho Is the Christ 147

stroyed His Messianic character. As the Christ, Hewould have to suffer and die. The real Christ was notthe Christ in power and glory.

The Christ had to suffer and die, because wheneverthe Divine appears in all I ts depth, I t cannot be enduredby men. I t must be pushed away by the politicalpowers, the religious authorities, and the bearers of cultural tradition. In the picture of the Crucified, we lookat the rejection of the Divine by humanity. We see that,in this rejection, not the lowest, but the highest repre

sentatives of mankind are judged. Whenever the Divineappears. It is a radical attack on everything that is goodin man, and therefore man must repel I t , must push Itaway, must crucify It . Whenever the Divine manifestsItself as the new reality, It must be rejected by the representatives of the old reality. For the Divine does notcomplete the human; It revolts against the human. Because of that, the human must defend itself against It,

must reject It, and must try to destroy It.Yet when the Divine is rejected, It takes the rejection

upon Itself. It accepts our crucifixion, our pushing away,the defence of ourselves against It. It accepts our refusal to accept, and thus conquers us. That is the centreof the mystery of the Christ. Let us try to imagine aChrist Who would not die, and Who would come inglory to impose upon us His power, His wisdom, His

morality, and His piety. He would be able to break ourresistance by His strength, by His wonderful government, by His infallible wisdom, and by His irresistibleperfection. But He would not be able to win our hearts.He would bring a new law, and would impose it uponus by His all-powerful and all-perfect Personality. Hispower would break our freedom; His glory would overwhelm us like a burning, blinding sun; our very human-




ity would be swallowed in His Divinity. One of Luther'smost profound insights was that God made Himself

small for us in Christ. In so doing, He left us our freedom and our humanity. He showed us His Heart , sothat our hearts could be won.

When we look at the misery of our world, its evil andits sin, especially in these days which seem to mark theend of a world period, we long for divine interference,so that the world and its daemonic rulers might be overcome. We long for a king of peace within history, or fora king of glory above history. We long for a Christ ofpower. Yet if He w ere to come and transform us and ourworld, we should have to pay the one price which wecould not pay: we would have to lose our freedom, ourhumanity, and our spiritual dignity. Perhaps we shouldbe happier; but we should also be lower beings, ourpresent misery, s truggle, and despair notwithstanding.

We should be more like blessed animals that men madein the image of God. Those who dream of a better lifeand try to avoid the Cross as a way, and those who hopefor a Christ and attempt to exclude the Crucified, haveno knowledge of the mystery of God and of man.

They are the ones who must consider Jesus as merelya forerunner. They are the ones who must expect others

w ith a greater pow er to transform the w orld, others w itha greater wisdom to change our hearts . But even thegreatest in power and wisdom could not more fully reveal the Heart of God and the heart of man than theCrucified has done already. Those things have been revealed once for all. "It is finished." In the face of theCrucified all the "more" and all the "less", all progressand all approximation, are meaningless. Therefore, we

can say of Him alone: He is the new reality; He is theend; He is the Messiah. To the Crucified alone we cansay: "Thou art the Christ".



18W A I T I N G

I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his

word do 1 hope.

My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that

watch for the morning:I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord

There is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemp

tion, P S A L M 130 :5 -7 .

For we are saved by hope: hut hope that is seen is

not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hopefor? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we

with pa tience wait for it. R O M A N S 8:24-25 .

B O T H T H E O L D A N D T H E N E W T E S T A M E N T Sdescribe our existence in relation to God as one of wait

ing. In the psalmist there is an anxious waiting; in theapostle there is a patient waiting. Waiting means nothaving and having at the same time. For we havenot what we wait for; or, as the apostle says, if we hopefor what we do not see, we then wait for it. The condition of m an 's relation to G od is first of all one of not having, not seeing, not knowing, and not grasping. A religion in which that is forgotten, no matter how ecstatic

149




or active or reasonable, replaces God by its own creation of an image of God. Our religious life is charac

terized more by that kind of creation than anythingelse. I think of the theologian who does not wait forGod, because he possesses Him, enclosed within a doctrine. I think of the Biblical student who does not waitfor God, because he possesses Him, enclosed in a book.I think of the churchman who does not wait for God,because he possesses Him, enclosed in an institution. I

think of the believer who does not wait for God, becausehe possesses Him, enclosed within his own experience.It is not easy to endure this not having God, this waiting for God. It is not easy to preach Sunday after Sunday without convincing ourselves and others that wehave God and can dispose of Him. It is not easy to proclaim God to children and pagans, to sceptics and secularists, and at the same time to make clear to them thatwe ourselves do not possess God, that we too wait forHim. I am convinced that much of the rebellion againstChristianity is due to the overt or veiled claim of theChristians to possess God, and therefore, also, to theloss of this element of waiting, so decisive for theprophets and the apostles. Let us not be deluded intothinking that, because they speak of waiting, they waited

merely for the end, the judgment and fulfillment of allthings, and not for God Who was to bring that end.They did not possess God; they waited for Him. Forhow can God be possessed? Is God a thing that can begrasped and known among other things? Is God lessthan & human person? We always have to wait for ahuman being. Even in the most intimate communion

among human beings, there is an element of not havingand not knowing, and of waiting. Therefore, since Godis infinitely hidden, free, and incalculable, we must wait



Waiting 151

for Him in the most absolute and radical way. He isGod for us just in so far as we do not possess Him.The psalmist says that his whole being waits for the

Lord, indicating that waiting for God is not merely apart of our relation to God, but rather the condition ofthat relation as a whole. We have God through nothaving Him.

But, although waiting is not having, it is also having.The fact that we wait for something shows that in someway we already possess it . Waiting anticipates thatwhich is not yet real. If we wait in hope and patience,

the power of that for which we wait is already effectivewithin us. He who waits in an ultimate sense is not farfrom that for which he waits. He who waits in absoluteseriousness is already grasped by that for which hewaits. He who waits in patience has already receivedthe power of that for which he waits. He who waits passionately is already an active power himself, the greatest power of transformation in personal and historicallife. We are s tronger when we wait than when we possess. W he n w e possess God, we reduce H im to that smallthing we knew and grasped of Him; and we make it anidol. Only in idol worship can one believe in the possession of God. There is much of this idolatry amongChristians.

But if we know that we do not know Him, and if wewait for Him to make Himself known to us, we thenreally know something of Him, we then are graspedand known and possessed by Him. I t is then tha t weare believers in our unbelief, and that we are acceptedby Him in spite of our separation from Him.

Let us not forget, however, that waiting is a tremendous tension. I t precludes all complacency about having nothing, indifference or cynical contempt towards




those who have something, and indulgence in doubt anddespair. Let us not make our pride in possessing noth

ing a new possession. That is one of the great temptations of our time, for there are few things left which wecan claim as possessions. And we surrender to the sametemptation when we boast , in our at tempt to possessGod, that we do not possess Him. The divine answer tosuch an at tempt is ut ter emptiness. Waiting is not despair It is the acc ep tanc e of our not having, in thepower of that which we already have.

Our time is a time of waiting; waiting is its specialdestiny. And every time is a time of waiting, waiting forthe breaking in of eternity. All time runs forward. Allt ime, both in history and in personal life, is expectation.Time itself is waiting, waiting not for another time, butfor that which is eternal.



19YOU ARE ACCEPTED

Moreover the law entered, that the offence mightabound. But where sin abounded, grace did muchmore abound. ROMANS 5:20.

THESE WORDS J > O A U L SUMMARIZE HISaposto lic SXpj^ienceTjiis religious message^ as a who le,and the Christian understanding of life. To discuss thesewords, or to make them the text of even several sermons,has always seemed impossible to me. j^jiaye neverdared to use them before. But something has driven me

to consider them du ring the ..past,fe w jrion ths, a desire . ,„to give witness to the two facts which appeared to^ m e, /^i&jj:in hours of retrospection, as the all-determining facts__of '_ fafr t *our life: the abounding of sin_ancTthe greater abound- J ^ A ^ ^ n vi n g o t grace . ***. ^-jZ»-

xhere are few words more strange to most of us than -^jfe* d***"sin" and "grace." Th ey are strange, just beca use they *T tpw~a re so well-known. D u r in g J ^ j ? j e n j^ have r e

ceived j d i s jt t rt ^ ^ c p n n o ia ^ n ^ a n ^ J i a v e lo st so ISuchof the ir genu ine po w er th a t w e m us t seriously ask our- •*selves wh.e_mer we shou ld use t h e m a t all, or w he the rwe snould discard them as useless tools. But there is amysterious fact about the great words of our religioustradition: they cannot be replaced. All attempts to makesubstitutions^ including those I have tried myself, havefailed to convey the reality that was to be expressed;

153




> O^' they have led to shallow and impotent talk. There are„ ^ ^ n o substitutes for words like "sin" and "gr ac e' . But< i ~ i \

there is a way of rediscovering^ their m ean ing , th e sameir* \̂ *\ w aJ

t na t i

eads

u sdow n into . the de ^t h of our hum an

iAC**4**̂ existence. I n "that d ep th these w ords w ere conceived;

j^<*Âând there tKey gained* po w er for all ages •~ there* theygjb* *{, m ust b e foun d aga in by^ eacTi"generation7"and by eachJ.MS^ 6Fus~foT"himself. LejLus^rJbygrefOi'e trirto~"perietrate the^y

/' d e e p e T ^ I\ discover in them th e je al iti es of wh ich our text spea jcs.^

«-4 ih*> - %Have fl&e~rnen~bT bur tim e still a feeling of th e m eanin g1 * ^ ofisin? Do they, and do we, still realize that sin does not**•• r [ ^ m ean an imm oral act, th at "sin" should neve r be used in -,• t-fr*'I the plural, and that not our sins, but rather our sinîs ^\, ,, ^M*"*** th e gre at, all-perv adm ^pro rjlerrjipf our" life? "Do w e still " ^ 1 ?^ T k no w th a t it, is_arrQgantâTiH^Bmioj^l^r^vide jnen by > Y* -

galling some "sinners" and others .jjghteous"? For by j} \

wajTofsuclTa division, we can usually discover that we j * ^ ôurselves do not quite belong to the "sinners", since J^T*we have avoided heavy s ins , J t iaye made some prog-^-^ress in th e co ntro l of Jthisôr th a t sin,_and Have b een evenhumble enough not to^âll ourselves "righteous". Arewe^tflFable to realize that this kind of thinking andfeeling about sin is far removed from what the great

religious tradition, both within and outside the Bible,has meant when it speaks of sin?

I should like to suggest another word to you, not aszv ^* a subst i tuteTor the wol

:orû7^n5ut as a usefulclue in

/< f^ k trie in te rp retat ion of the w o^ ^m ^T ^s ep ar a t io n" . Sep-i^"" aration is an aspect of die experience of everyone. Per

haps th e w ord sin" has the~~s^lrie"roioT-M"Erie™ wordiy "asunde r". In any case, sin isjie^ration. To be in the

1 ^ A j s taJL ejaf^rr iJ iJ t^ A nd sep-

Awf aration is threefold: there is separationâmong individ-



You Are Accepted 155

ual lives, separation of a man from himself, and separa- 4 ,̂.̂ ^*^*.

tion q f j d T ^ ^ / ^ ft/rfc

separat ion c j^ t i tu te s ~ th ^ ^ tha t exis ts ; ] f J . yi t ,is ja juniYg r^JS(C iîr is_ff i^_^te oFevery l i f er A n d i t / ***j ^ îsjiur hu m an f 'ateTinj^verj;.s^<naT^ 2^rFoT Tcg^s^ men ^ ._ *fcow ntEjr~w ¥"afe sep ara te d . W e. no t only_STiffgr_wit-}t rh.•^

/rJf^

sequences of our separat ion^^bj^^bo^îoiw jwhtL .we Vy * ' v j ?sutterTW eL.kngw; t h a t j ^ j r ^ e s t r a n g e d _ ^ ^ s o m f i l i u n g w jJha%*to w ^ ^h ^w e „really ^

be^ united. W e know tha t the fate of separation is n o t ^ e ^ / ^ < ^ £ * *merejyg na tura l ; event like a f lash oFjudden, J i^hM ing, ̂ / ^ » piut^but that it is an experience in which we actively par- Z^^ &*$***

t ic ipa te , in^ îc h^ uT W ho le^ ^r so na l i ty is involved, and ^^^X^ *thatâs fate, it is also guiJI. Separation which is fate and \v&L*>fi£:guilt constituTes~tEe m ea nin g of the wo rd[^ sin". T t is ta***^ ^this w hic h lsnSe"~statF of oure rTtire existence, from its'^'*

4™^-^

ve^ry ~beginning to its ve ry en d. SucK sepa ration is p re - ^j^JJ

pared in tEemotherTwomb, and before tha t t ime, ineve^~prec^3mg"geneâHon.*^t is manifest, in the_specialactions ojôur conscious life. It reaches beyond ourgraves into alF tne suc ceeding gen erations . It is our ex- , îstence itself. Existence is separationf^Beiore j i n is a n ^^ jo & f fc ^^ .act, it is a stateT''^fCfc-^ ..^.- • ^Trr ' t r—^ L*7. if*£- * ;w j ^^ 'd^* ' <

We can say the same things about grace. For„sirL_andiifys?<ii<^7irc

gr^cje_am^ bound to-jeach-jither. W q. douoo i jxenJ ia i^L5 . ] tj/L d* yrf

knowledge of sin unlessjwg have already experienced hy^^^- **the unity of life, which is grace. And_conversely, W ^ T » C nJ*+*could not

experiencecis/just as diiticu|t Jo^„d^cribe_a^ j;in. For some people, ,J*?$gracelsHEEeT willingness of a divin e k ing an d fath er tofomve ove Fa iit l~a^^ ofhis subjects and children. We must reject such a con-




'ft QepLi^grace; forlLis_a_merely-ehildish destruction of a,v1 human...dignity. For others, grace is p, magic power in

c.^c the dark places of the soul, but ji power without anyI significance for practical life, a quickly vanishing and

useless idea. For others, .graceis the benevolence: thatwe may find beside the cruelty and destructiveness inlife. But then, it does not matter whether we say "lifegoes on", or whether we say "there is grace in life"; ifgrace means no more than this, the word should, and

will, disappear. For other people, grace indicates the\ \ •' gifts thatonehas received from nature or society, andt / J^ ^

eP ° ^

e r t 0^° g°°d things with the help of those

^ ^ .4. gifts. But^grace is moveJ^^nj^ts.^ In grace somethingp-** / / J is oyercoroe; grace occurs "in.ipite.of" something; grace/*< ^ 1 occurs in spite of separation and-esiTangement. Grace is

V,r*. / r the reunion of life with life, the,.rgconcihation_of the

"' * A \ gel! with itself. Grace is the acceptance of that which

dj' *s rejected^ Gracetamsf ornis_.iate_ into__a_ .meaningful/ / destiny; it cjiangesjguilt into confidence and courage.}\k\&\ There is. somj^ing^ ^

\ Jp s V spite of the abounding of sin 2raceaboun.dsjtriuch.more. \ Fr .J* ^ And now let us look down...into ourselves to discover! jjk\ » Jr there the struggle between separation anoT reunion, be- y$\At^\, ft, / tween sin and g r ^ e ^ n j o ^ relation to others, in our re- M

1 TVllation to ourselves, and in our relation to the Grounds%*K,,v//\ and aim .of^^diuTbeing* TFour souls respond to the descrip-M,\j$fifr tion that I intend to give, words like "sin" and "separa-r>l4r& js tion". "grace" and "reunion"^ may have a new meaning

foT us But the words themselves are not important.. ItisThe response of the deepest levels of our being thatis Important. If such a response were to occur among

\ us this moment, we could say that we have known grace.Who has not, at some time, been lonely in the midstof a social event? The feeling ofjQiilJepara^tiofilrom Bie

i

http://in.ipite.of/

http://in.ipite.of/

http://2raceaboun.dsjtriuch.more/



http://in.ipite.of/




rest of life_J.S-.most acute when we are surrounded by

it in noise and j a lk . We real ize then much more thanin moments of solitude how s trange we are to eachother, how estranged life is from life. Each one of us

drawiTback mloMmself . We cannot penet ra te the hidden centre of another individual; nor can that individual pass beyond the shroud that covers our own being.Even the greatest love cannot break through the wallsof the self. Who has not experienced that disillusionmen t ot all gr ea t ToveF If one were to hurl away his selfin complete self-surrender, he would become a nothing,w ithou t form or s trength, a self without self, merely an

object j>f contempt and abuse. Our generat ion knowsmore than the generation of our fathers;_ab.Qu±Jthe_hid-den hostility in the grounHjofour souls. Todayjvve_knowmuch about the profusive aggressiveness in every being.To day wjâji_c^nfirjn_what Im m anu el Kant^ the p ro p he tofTiuman reason and dignity, was honest enough to

| ay: there is something m TihlFTnTsfTJTtuneT"of"ourT)estfriends wTncTT"dol3s^ am on gs t us

is dishonest enou gh to deny that this is true also of him?Are we not almost always ready to abuse everybodyand everything, although often in a very refined way,

for the pleasure of self-elevation, for an occasion for

boast ing, for a moment of lust? Tq know that_we are

ready is to know the meaning of the separation of life

i r o n x i j i e ^ a n d ^ .Thejoipst irrexOisableê^3êssion.^f^the se^paratioji^ of J

life from life today is the ^titude_of social groups within !

nations towards eacEZothen and the altit^dff of n a t i o n s ) itneniselves towards other nations. Têjwalls of distance, #*£• ̂ ^^^

in tim e and__space, h a ve be en re m ov ed ^ n E e ^ m c ^ ^ y ^ y^gj&t; J m i J t h £ w a l l s ^ f l ^ ^ ^ ^ l ^ v t * .rogress^JmtJhe wal l s oFe^ t rangemenTpetween hear t a f * *

-^ ] ^

http://life_j.s-.most/






ness of the German Nazis and the cruelty of the lynching mob s in the Sou th pro vid e too easy an_ excuse for

us toi t u r n o u r tho ug hts from our own selves. Bu t let usjust consider ourselves and what we feel, when we read,this morning and tonight, that in some sections of Europe all children under the age of three are sick anddying, or that in some sections of Asia millions withouthomes are freezing and starving to death. The strangeness of life to life is evident in the strange fact that we

can know all this, and yet can live today, this morning,taQight,~as though we were completely ignorant. AndI refer to the most sensitive people amongst us. In bothm an lcrn Jan d n at u re , life is sep arate d from life. Estra ng ement prevails among all things that live. Sin abounds.

It is important to remember that we are not merely^ separated from each other. For we are also separated

\ . v from ourselves. Man Against Himself is not merely the

"'* title of a book, bu t rath er also indica tes th e rediscoveryof an age-old insight. Man is split within himself, Life VmovelTagainst itself through aggression, hate, and de- \ >y§pair. "We aire w on t to cond em n self-love; b u t w hat w e ^really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that iVta

.,r mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanent \$ )pf y^ pursu es us, tha t prev ents us from.loving others^.and tha t w -

'^tl'Aif' P ^ h lb lfs us from losing ourselves in th e love w ith whic h f L fj A y* w e are lo v ed eternally. H e w ho is able to love himself ^Ui\j»Vtis

a^

e t o^

o v e o t n e r sz l

s9 '>

n ewhojhas^^ learned to over-

Twty^ V°*m e s e

lf "Contempt has overco me his co ntem pt for^ \$/A Others. But the deptf^ of our separation lies in just the

(^\r ta ct thaL-we...are no t capable of a gre at an d mercifulf'ty divine loye towards ourselves. On the contrary, in each

y olF us there is an instinct of self-destruction, which is as' i s t r in g as .our ins tinc t of self-presexYation. In our tend-Y ency to abuse_and destroy^thers^J] ier£as_an open or



* « * * * * "


h y id en ^ te n den cy _.tQ__abuse a nd to de stroy ou rselves. ,Cru elty towa rds others is always also" cruelty to W aT d s^ u jjrf t lourselves. N oth in g liT m ore obvious Thanr T ^ ^ ^ «£• wh-

both our unconscious fife and conscious personality. £*< 6̂ f̂,WithûtTKe~heIp"oFmodern psychology,~PaTfl expressed/.? t^^the fact in his famous words, "For I do not do the good**"*'*^*'*"I desire, but rather the evil that I do not desire." Andthen he c ont inued in words tha t might wel l b e the m ottoof al l depth psychology: "Now if I should do what Ido not wish to do, it is not I that do it , but rather sin A *w hich dw ells within^ m e." Th e ap ostle sensed a split >p*û*

between his conscious will and his real will, betweenh ims e lf and ^ m ef j f f i j i t r a ng e mt hm l inaT a lien to K m .He was estranged from himself; and thaT"eslTanêinehthe called "sin". He also called it a strange "law in hislimbs", an irresistible compulsion. How often we com-m it certain acts in perfect consciousriess7~yer w i t i r t h esKockin^êjisjejliat we are being corrtroiled by an alienpower! That is the experience of the separation of our

selves from ourse lves, wh ich is to "say "sin," w he th eror not_we l ike to use that word. f

TEuSj the_state of our whole life is estrangement from jhwêâothers^ an d pûrseh/es, bec au se " w e "al:e~~estfanged from ™ * ^ ^Jtrie Gro und joj?j> ^^froriftEe -in:i£in~and aim of our life. And we do not jK***

1-

lmow jwhere„we have: com e from^ or wh er e w e a re .going. *"»**- ^ )W e a re separa ted from th e m yste ry, th e d ep th , an d th e '^-v H&**-\

greatne ss of our existenc e. W e hea r th e voice of th at ^"**depth; but our ears are closed. We feel that somethingradical , total , and uncondit ioned is demanded of us;b u t we reb el against it , try to escap e its urg enc y, an d r ^will not accept its promise. „y

We cannot escape, . iuQweêr^Jf thatôm.ethingjs the \c^^"Ground of our being, we are bound to it for allêternity, &



I

'V v3 it*/

•* 160 The Shaking of the Foundations

i/*Jt" justjis_we_ayreJbcHind toôurselves and to all other life.PÂ y ^ ® a jâ^jr je ina j i i Jn^ he power ofJba lJ femn which w e

' Mffi- arejestranged. That fact brings us to the ultimate depth

4 ^ o f sin: sep ara ted an d yet bound,..jBStraiiged an d y e t b e -... . k v 1^2giSgj_.destroyed and yet preserved,_jthe state...which

is called despair . Despair means thatthere is no escape.s "the sickness unto death." But the terrible

thing about the sickness of despair is that we cannotbe released, not even through open or hidden suicide.For w e all k now tfyaLv& e_are_JbjatinoLetern a lly. a n d ines

cap ably Jtojhe_Groundjo£o„ur be ing . T he abyss J D | separation is not always visible. But it has become morevisible to our generation th an to the pre ced ing ^ e n e ra -tions, be ca us e of our feeling of m eaninglessness, em ptiness, doubt, and cynicism—all expressions of despair, ofour separation from the roots and the meaning of ourlife. Sin in its most profoun(r~sense. sin, as despair,

ab.PJffl_dsâmongst us."WJheje-SJnâbojjnded^ra^ abound",

s.a^s_EajuLl.iiLJt]iejsama letter:.in_w|dc^^jde^cribes_ieunimaginable...power. oJLseparation ^ n ( j self-destructionviih iaiieie Jty . . .a^ H e does no t saythese words because sentimental interests demand ahappy ending for everything tragic. He_jsay^jjiem bec ause the j / j de s ^^ a n d de te r -mining experience of his life. In the picturêjoFjesus as

the32iHiS^^ bisg r e a j t e ^ t ^ p a m t i c j i j r o n i ^ t ^God, hefound himseH_j,cce^g^_irL_spite of his__being

' rejected. And w hen h e found tha t he was_ accepted, hewas able to acce^ nrlm seli: and to pejreconciled tojothers.

1 T \ | £ j n ^ m e n L ^ o v e r -I w helm ed him, hg_was reun ited wifh vh^\ to~whicFTjel r ieTon ged rSijrfrom wh ich he was es tranged in u t ter




s trangeness . D oj» eJaio w ~w ha t i t means , to be s t ruck bygrace? It does n Q tm ea n that^wejST^dejilyJbjeJieYe__thatG oS exists , or thajy^susîsjtheL^Y 12H ^

rJ

:_

n§*J^

ieBible

rorifajfrs'TTifiJz^jjP T n believe th^sojmethmgîs^ is almost contrary to the meaning of grace. Furthermore,grace does not mean s imply that we are making prog-ress T ri ^ o u T ^ in our f ight against spe

cial faults, and in our relationships to men and to society. Moral progress may be_aJEnii__pf grace; but it isnot grace itself, and it canjgyen prevent us from receiv

in g gfaêT Fo r T hjre j s to o „ p j j b e j i ^ ^ a c ^ ^ ^ c ^ p t a n c eof* C hr istian doctrines^ an d a graceless b a ttl e ag ain stthe s truHmes"oTevirin our personal i t ies . Such ^.graceless relation ^"UodTmayTeadTusloy necessity either toarrojgance or to "êjp'prTTT ^wp ulo^be better~ tcTrefuseGodand the Chris t and the Bible than to accepFThemwithout grace. For if we accept without grace, we doso in the state of separation, and can only succeed in

deepening the separat ion. We cannot t ransform ourliyes^jmless w e allow them to be transform ed_h y. tha tstrokecrf grace. It happens; or i t does not happen. Andc e ^ a j n l y i t d o e s not happen if we try to force it upon

Jr ourselves, just as it shalljoot happen so long as we think, *in our self-com placen cy, th a t w e have_iio~ need~T>F it.

.G rac e itr ik e£ us w he n w e a re in g reat ..pain ancTrest-jtP lessness. ft strikes^ us jw he n w e wa lk thro ug h th e dark

<t^valTey* of ajm ean ing less an d e m pt y life. It Strik es -P

valley_^_a_jmejimng less an d e m pt y lite, it strikes^ uswhen we feel that our separation is deeper than usual,be ca us e w e h a v e ylglaTeôTaiiotEer lire, a l i f e wEich_weloved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes usw nen our disgust foTpur13wn being , burjn differenc e,our" w eakn ess, ou r h ostility, an d our Tack of direc tionarTd com po sure have_be.com e intoIeFable taîiZIFstrikesus when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of

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life^ dpes_ngt j ip pe ar , . w he n -the sld compulsions reignwithin us as they have for decades, when despair de

stroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that molrienta wave^ofTight breaks into our darkness, and it is asthough a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You areaccepted, accepted by that which is greater than you,and the name of which you do not know. Do not askfor the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do nottry to do anything now ; perh aps later you will do m uch.

Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; donot intend anything. Simply accept the fact that youare accepted!" If that happens to us, we experiencegra ce AffeY such an expe rience we may no t be be tte rthan before, and we may not believe more than before.But everything is transformed. In that moment, graceconquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or m oral or intellectual presu ppo sition,noth ing but acceptance.

In the Jjgh Lp f this grace w e perceive the pow er ofgrace in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly intothe" eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion oflife with life. We experience the grace of understand

ing each other 's words. We understand not merely theliteral meaning of the words, but also that which liesbehind them, even when they are harsh or angry. Foreven then there is a longing to break through the wallsof separation. We experience the grace of being able toaccept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs

to the same Ground to which we belong, and by whichwehavejbeen.accepted. We experience the grace whichis able to overcome the tragic separation oi^ the sexes,




of thej^Lerations, of the nations, of the races, and eventhe ut ter s t ran^enessjbetween man and nature . Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite

us* with those to j ^ h o j n j y e belong. For life belongsto/life.

And in the light of this grace we perceive the powerof grace in our relation to ourselves. We experience moments in which we accept ourselves, because we feelthat we have been accepted by that which is greaterthan w e. If only^ m ore su ch mo m ents w ere given to us!For it is such moments diat make us love our life, that

make us accept ourselves, not in our goodness and self-complacency, out in our certainty of the eternal meaningof our life. We cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves. We cannot compel anyone to accept himself.

But sometimes i t happens that we receive the power tosay "yes" to ourselves, that peace enters into us andm akes vis w ho le, th at self-hate and self-con tem pt disap pear, ~ a ^ tha t our self is reunited..with i ts el f ,T h en we

can say that grace has come upon us."Sin"

7and "grace" are strange words; but they are

no t s t r ange . th ings . .We f ind them whenever .wa lookinto ourselves with searching eyes and longing hearts.T he y ^determ ine oujr_Jif e. Th ey ab ou nd w ithin us an din a ll of life. M a y j ^ c e m o r e _ .a ^ u n d wi th in usl



20BORN IN THE GRAVE

And when even was come, there came a rich manfrom Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself

was Jesus' disciple: This man went to Pilate, andasked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commandedit to be given up. And Joseph took the body, andwrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in hisown new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock:and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb,

and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, andthe other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.Now on the morrow, which is the day after thePreparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees weregathered together unto P ilate, saying, Sir, we remem ber that the deceiver said, while he was yet alive,After three days I rise again. Comm and therefore

that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day,lest haply his disciples com e and steal him away,and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead:

and the last error will be worse than the first. Pilatesaid unto them, Ye have a guard: go your way, makeit as sure as ye can. So they went, and m ade the

sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard beingwith them. MATTHEW 27:57-66.

164



Born in the Grave 165

I N T H E N U R E M B U R G W A R - C R I M E T R I A L Sa witness appeared who had lived for a t ime in a gravein a Jewish grave-yard, in Wilna, Poland. It was the only

place he—and many others—could live, when in hidingafter they had escaped the gas chamber. During thistime he wrote poetry, and one of the poems was a description of a birth. In a grave nearby a young womangave birth to a boy. The eighty-year-old gravedigger,wrapped in a l inen shroud, assisted. When the newborn child uttered his first cry, the old man prayed:"Great God, hast Thou finally sent the Messiah to us?For who else than the Messiah Himself can be born ina grave?" But after three days the poet saw the childsucking his mother 's tears because she had no milkfor him.

This story, which surpasses anything the human imagination could have invented, has not only incomparable emotional value, but also tremendous symbolic

power. When I first read it , i t occurred to me moreforcefully than ever before that our Christian symbols,taken from the gospel stories, have lost a great deal oftheir power because too often repeated and too super-ficiallv used. It has been forgotten that the manger ofChristmas was the expression of utter poverty and distress before i t became the place where the angels appeared and to which the star pointed. And it has been

forgotten that the tomb of Jesus was the end of Hislife and of His work before i t became the place of Hisfinal triumph. We have become insensitive to the infinite tension which is implied in the words of theApostles' Creed: "suffered . . . was crucified, dead, andbu ried . . . rose again from the dea d." W e already k now ,when we hear the first words, what the ending will be:"rose again;" and for many people i t is no more than




the inevitable "happy ending". The old Jewish grave-digger knew better. For him, the immeasurable tension

implicit in the expectation of the Messiah was a reality,appearing in the infinite contrast between the things hesaw and the hope he m ainta ined.

The depth of this tension is emphasized by the lastpart of the story. After three days the child was not elevated to glory; he drank his mother's tears, having nothing else to drink. Probably he died and the hope of theold Jew was frustrated once more, as it had been frustrated innumerable t imes before. No consolat ion can bederived from this story; there cannot be a happy ending—and precisely this is the truth about our lives. Ina remarkable passage of his book, Credo, Karl Barthwrites about the word "buried" in the Creed:* "By aman's being buried it is evidently confirmed and sealed—seemingly in his presence, actually already in his ab

sence—that he has no longer a present , any more thana future. He has become pure past. He is accessible onlyto memory, and even that only so long as those who areable and wil l ing to remember him are not themselvesburied. And the future toward which al l human presentis running is just this: to be buried." These words describe exactly the situation in which the pious old Jewprayed: "Great God, hast Thou finally sent the Messiah

to us?"

We often hide the seriousness of the "buried" in theCreed, not only for the Christ, but also for ourselves, byimagining that not we shall be buried, but only a comparatively unimportant part of us, the physical body.That is not what the Creed implies. It is the same subject, Jesus Ch rist, of W ho m it is said tha t H e suffered an d

• Pp. 84-S8, Tr. by J. Stratheara M cNab.



Born in the Grave 167

that He was buried and that He was resurrected. Hewas buried, He—His whole personality—was removed

from the earth. The same is true of us. We shall die, we—our personality, from which we cannot separate ourbody as an accidental part—shall be buried.

Only if we take the "buried" in the gospel storiesas seriously as this, can we evaluate the Easter storiesand can we evaluate the words of the grave-digger,"Who else than the Messiah can be born in a grave?"His question has two aspects. Only the Messiah can

bring birth out of death. It is not a natural event. It doesnot happen every day, but i t happens on the day of theMessiah. It is the most surprising, the most profound,and the most paradoxical mystery of existence. Arguments for the immortality of an assumedly better partof us cannot bring life out of the grave. Eternal life isbrought about only with the coming of the "new reality", the eon of the Messiah, which, according to our

faith, has already appeared in Jesus as the Christ.But there is another side to the assertion that nobodyother than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grave,a side which, perhaps, was less conscious to the piousJew. The Chris t must be buried in order to be the"Chris t" , namely, He Who has conquered death. Thegospel story we have heard assures us of the real andirrevocable death and burial of Jesus. The women, the

high priests, the soldiers, the sealed stone—they are allcalled by the gospel to witness to the reality of the end.We ought to listen more carefully to these witnesses, tothe ones who tell us with tr iumph or cynicism that Hehas been buried, that He is removed forever from theearth, that no real traces of Him are left in our world.And we ought also to listen to the others who say, indoubt and despair , "But we trusted that i t had been He




Who should have redeemed Israel ." It is not hard tohear both these voices today, in a world where there

are so many places like the Jewish cemetery in Wilna.It is even possible to hear them in ourselves, for eachof us to hear them in himself.

And, if we hear them, what can we answer? Let us beclear about this. The answer of Easter is not a necessity.In reality, there is no inevitable happy ending as thereis in perverted and pervert ing cinemas. But the answer

of Easter has become possible precisely because theChrist has been buried. The new life would not reallybe new life if it did not come from the complete endof the old life. Otherwise, i t would have to be buriedagain. But if the new life has come out of the grave,then the Messiah Himself has appeared.



21THE DESTRUCTION OF DEATH

Forasm uch then as the children are partakers offlesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part ofthe same; that through death he might destroy him

that had the power of death, that is, the devil; anddeliver them who through fear of death were alltheir lifetime subject to bondage. For verily, he tooknot on him the nature of angels; but he took on himthe seed of Abraham . Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that hemight be a merciful and faithful high priest in things

pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sinsof the people. For in that he himself hath sufferedbeing tempted, he is able to succour them that aretempted. HEBREWS 2:14-18.

THE DARKNESS INTO WHICH THE LIGHT OF

Christmas shines is above all the darkness of death. Thethreat of death, which shadows the whole road of ourlife, is the dark background of the Advent expectationof mankind. Death is not merely the scissors which cutsthe thread of our life, as a famous ancient symbol indicates. It is rather one of those threads which are woveninto the design of our existence, from its very beginningto its end. Our having to die is a shaping force through

169




our whole being of body and soul in every moment.The face of every man shows the trace of the presence

of death in his life, of his fear of death, of his couragetoward death, and of his resignation to death. Thisfrightful presence of death subjects man to bondageand servitude all his life, according to our text. So faras I stand in fear, I stand not in freedom; and I am notfree to act as the situation demands, but am bound toact as the pictures and imaginations produced by my

fear drive me to act. For fear is, above all, fear of theunknown; and the darkness of the unknown is filledwith the images created by fear. This is true even withrespect to events on the plane of daily life: the unknownface terrifies the infant; the unknown will of the parentand the teacher creates fear in the child; and all theunknown implications of any situation or new task produce fear, which is the feeling of not being able to

handle the situation. All this is true to an absolute degree with respect to death—the absolutely unknown;the darkness in which there is no light at all, and inw hich even imagination vanishes; tha t darkness in w hichall acting and controlling cease, and in which everythingwhich we were is finished; the most necessary and impossible idea at the same time; the real and ultimate

object of fear from which all other fears derive theirpower, that fear that overwhelmed even Christ at Geth-semane.

But we must ask what is the reason for this fear. Arewe not finite, limited and unable to imagine or to wishfor an infinite continuation of our finiteness? Wouldthat not be more terrible than death? Is there not a feeling within us of fulfillment, of satisfaction, and of weariness with respect to life, as is evident in the words aboutthe Old Testament Patriarchs? Is not the law "dust to



Destruction of Death 171

dust" a natural law? But then why is it used as a cursein the Paradise story? There must be something moreprofoundly mysterious about death than the naturalmelancholy which accompanies the reahzation of ourtransitoriness. Paul points to it, when he calls death thewages of sin, and sin, the sting of death. And our text,as well, speaks of "him that had the power of death,that is, the devil"—the organized power of sin and evil.Death, although natural to every finite being, seems atthe same time to stand against nature. But it is manonly who is able to face his death consciously; that belongs to his greatness and dignity. It is that whichenables him to look at his life as a whole, from a definitebeginning to a definite end. It is that which enables himto ask for the meaning of his life—a question which elevates him above his life, and gives him the feeling of hiseternity. Man's knowledge that he has to die is alsoman's knowledge that he is above death. It is man's destiny to be mortal and immortal at the same time. Andnow we know what the sting of death is, and why thedevil has the power of death: we have lost our immortality. It is not that we are mortal which createsthe ultimate fear of death, but rather that we have lostour eternity beyond our natural and inescapable mortality; that we have lost it by sinful separation fromthe Eternal; and that we are guilty of this separation.

To be in servitude to the fear of death during our

lifetime means being in servitude to the fear of deathwhich is nature and guilt at the same time. In the fearof death, it is not merely the knowledge of our finite-ness that is preserved, but also the knowledge of ourinfinity, of our being determined for eternity, and of ourhaving lost eternity. We are slaves of fear, not becausewe have to die, but because we deserve to die!




Therefore, salvation is not a magic procedure bywhich we lose our finiteness. It is rather a judgment

which declares that we do not deserve to die, becausewe are justified—a judgment which is not based on anything that we have done, for then certainly we wouldnot have faith in it . But it is based on something thatEternity itself has done, something that we can hearand see, in the reality of a mortal man who by his owndeath has conquered him who has the power of death.

If Christmas has any meaning, it has that meaning.Ask yourself, as you listen to the p rop hec ies of A dv entand to the stories of Christmas, whether your attitudetoward death has changed; whether you are any longerin serv itude to the fear of de ath ; and w he the r you canstand the image of your own death. Do not deceiveyourself about the seriousness of death—not death ingeneral, not the death of somebody else, but your owndeath—by nice arguments for the immortality of thesoul. The Christian message is more realistic than thosearguments. It knows that we, really we, have to die;it is no t just a pa rt of us th a t has to die. And w ithinCh ristianity there is only one "a rgu m en t" against de ath :the forgiveness of sins, and the victory over Him whohas the power of death. It speaks of the coming of the

E ter na l to us, becom ing temp ora l in orde r to restoreour eternity. The whole man is mortal and immortal atthe same t ime: the whole man is temporal and eternalat the same time; the whole man is judged and savedat the same time, because the Eternal took part in fleshand blood and fear of death. That is the message ofChristmas.



22BEHOLD, I AM DOING A NEW THING

Thus says the LordWho made a way through the sea,A path through the mighty waters.

Remember not the former things,Neither consider the things of old.Behold, I am doing a new thing,Even now it is springing to light.Do you not perceive it?

A way will I make in the wildernessAnd rivers in the desert!

ISAIAH 43:16, 18-19.

Let us listen to words of the Old and New Testa

ments which speak of the new that God makes in

life and history.

Behold the days come, saith the Lord,

That I will make a new covenantWith the house of IsraelAnd with the house of Judah.Not like the covenant which I made with their

fathers

173




On the day that I took them by the hand

To bring them out of the land of Egypt;

Which my covenant they brake,So that I had to reject them.

But this shall be the covenant

That I will make with the house of Israel after thosedays, says the Lord:

I will put my law within them

And write it in their hearts;And I will be their GodAnd they shall be my people. . • .

For I will forgive their guiltAnd I will remember their sin no more.

JEREMIAH 31:31-34.

(Thus says the Lord God:) , . .

I will give them a new heart,And I will put a new spirit within them.I will remove their heart of stone

And will give them a heart of flesh.

EZEKIEL 11:19.

(Thus says the Lord God:) . . .

I ignore the troubles of the past.I shut mine eyes to them.

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.The past shall be forgotten

And never come to mind.M en shall rejoice forever in what I now create.

ISAIAH 65:16 ,17 .



I Am Doing a New Thing 175

But let us not omit the tragic words of the Preacher.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

What has been is what shall be;What has gone on is what shall go on;And there is nothing new under the sun.Is there a thing of which it is said:

ho, this is new?It was already in existence in the ages

Which were before us.

ECCLESIASTES 1:2, 9-10.

And this is the answer the apostle gives:

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, all thingshave become new.

II CORINTHIANS 5 : 1 7 .

(And Jesus said to them:) . . . No one puts a piece

of new cloth on an old garment, for the patch tearsaway from the garment, and a worse tear is made.Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is,the skins burst and the wine is spilled, and the skinsare destroyed; but new w ine is put into new wineskins, and so both are preserved.

M A TTH EW 9 :1 6 - 1 7 .




to a final perfection; that God guarantees a perpetualprogress, and that for this reason He is the God of thenew. Against such illusions the disappointed words ofthe Preacher are true for all history. And certainly suchillusions are not the content of the prophetic and apostolic preach ing con cerning the new . W ha t is the contentof their expectation? What do they mean when theywarn us not to consider the things of old? What arethose old things, and what are the new things whichthey ask us to see and to accept?

"Old" sometimes means that which lasts through allt imes, that which is today as it was in the past and asit shall be in all the future. T he re is som ething th at doesnot age, something that is always old and always newat the same time, because it is eternal. God is sometimescalled the "ancient of days" or the "Redeemer of old".The wisdom of old and the law of God, which are as oldas the foundations of the earth, are praised just because

they are old; nothing new is set against them as no newGod is set against the God of old. "Old" as it is used heremeans "everlasting", pointing to that which is not subject to the change of time.

But in the texts we have read from the words of theunknown prophet of the exile, in the 43rd chapter ofIsaiah, "old" means just the opposite. It means thatwhich passes away and shall not be remembered any

more—the destiny of everything created, of the starsas well as of the grass in the field, of men as well as ofanimals, of nations as well as of individuals, of theheavens as well as of the earth. They all become oldand pass away. W ha t does i t m ean to say that somebod yor something becomes old? All life grows; it desires andstrives to grow, and it lives as long as it grows. Men always have been fascinated by the law of growth. They




'have called that which helps growth good, and theyihave called that which hinders it evil. But let us look

I more deeply into the law of growth and into its tragicnature. Whether we observe the growth of a l iving cellor of a human soul or of a historical period, we see thatgrowth is gain and loss at the same time; it is both fulfillment and sacrifice. Whatever grows must sacrificemany possible developments for the one through whichit chooses to grow. He who wants to grow as a scientist

may have to sacrifice poetic or political possibilitieswhich he would like to develop. He has to pay a price.He cannot grow equally in all directions. The cellswhich adapt themselves to one function of the bodylose the power to adapt themselves to other functions.Periods of history which are determined by one ideasuppress the truth of other possible ideas. Every decision excludes possibilities and makes our life narrower.

Every decision makes us older and more mature. Youthis openness. But every decision closes doors. And thatcannot be avoided; it is an inescapable destiny. Lifemakes decisions in every moment; life closes doors inevery moment. We proceed from the first minute of ourlives to the last minute, because we are growing. Thelaw of growth lends us greatness, and therefore traged y.

For the excluded possibilities belong to us; they have aright of their own. Therefore, they take their vengeanceupon our l ives which have excluded them. They maydie; and with them, great powers of life and large resources of creativity. For life, as it grows, becomes arestricted power, more rigid and inflexible, less able toadapt i tself to new situations and new demands. Or, onthe other hand, the excluded possibilities may not die .

They may remain within us, repressed, hidden, and dangerous, prepared to break into the fife process, not as a



/ Am Doing a New Thing 179

creative resource, but as a destructive disease. Thoseare the two ways in which the aging life drives towardits own end: the way of self-limitation, and the way ofself-destruction. Often the two ways merge, carryingdeath into all realms of life.

Let us consider one of these realms—our historicalsituation, the life of our period. Our period has becomewhat i t is through innumerable decisions and, therefore, innumerable exclusions. Some of the excluded possibilities have died away, depriving us of their creative

power. Many of them have not died, and after havingdisappeared for a t ime, are now returning destructively.The former greatness of our period has produced i tspresent tragedy and that of all who live within it . Eventhose who are young amongst us are old, in so far asthey belong to an aged period. They are young in theirpersonal vitality; they are old because of their participation in the tragedy of our time. It is an illusion to be

l ieve that youth as youth has saving power. When theancient empires aged and died, their youth did notsave them. And our younger generation will not saveus, simply by virtue of the fact that it is young.

We have made many decisions in order to becomewhat we are. But every decision is tragic, because it isthe decision against something which cannot be suppressed with impunity.

At the beginning of our period we decided for freedom. It was a right decision; it created something newand great in history. But in that decision we excludedthe security, social and spiri tual , without which mancannot live and grow. And now, in the old age of ourperiod, the quest to sacrifice freedom for security splitsevery nation and the whole world with really daemonicpower. We have decided for means to control nature




and society. We have created them, and we havebrought about something new and great in the history

of all mankind. But we have excluded ends. We havenever been ready to answer the question, "For what?"And now, when we approach old age, the means claimto be the ends; our tools have become our masters, andthe most powerful of them have become a threat to ourvery existence. We have decided for reason against outgrown traditions and honored superstit ions. That wasa great and courageous decision, and it gave a new dignity to man. But we have, in that decision, excludedth e soul, the gro un d a nd p ow er of life. W e ha ve c ut offour mind from our soul; we have suppressed and mistreated the soul within us, in other men, and in nature.And now, when we are old, the forces of the soul breakdestructively into our minds, driving us to mental disease and insanity, and effecting the disintegration of the

souls of uncounted millions, especially in this country,but also all over the world.

From the very beginning of our period we have decided for the nation, as the expression of our specialway of life and of our unique contribution to history.The decision was great and creative, and for centuriesit was effective. But in that decision we excluded man

kind and all symbols expressing the unity of all men.The former unity was broken, and no internationalgroup has been able to re-establish it. Now, in the oldage of our period, the most powerful nations themselvesclaim to represent mankind, and try to impose theirways of life upon all men, producing, therefore, warsof destruction, which will perhaps unite all mankindin the peace of the grave.

Our period has decided for a secular world. That wasa great and much-needed decision. I t threw a church




from her throne, a church which had become a powerof suppression and superstition. It gave consecration andholiness to our daily life and work. Yet it excluded thosedeep things for which religion stands: the feeling for theinexhaustible mystery of life, the grip of an ultimatemeaning of existence, and the invincible power of anunconditional devotion. These things cannot be excluded. If we try to expel them in their divine images,they re-emerge in daemonic images. Now, in the oldage of our secular world, we have seen the most horribleman ifestation of these daem onic images; w e ha ve lookedmore deeply into the mystery of evil than most generations before us; we have seen the unconditional devotion of millions to a satanic image; we feel our period'ssickness unto death.

This is the situation of our world. Each of us shouldrealize that he participates in it, and that the forces inhis own soul which make him old, often in early years,are part of the forces which make our period old. Eachof us strengthens these forces, and each of us is a victimof them at the same time. We are in the desert of whichthe prophet speaks, and none among us knows the wayout. Certainly there is no way out in what some idealiststell us: "Make decisions, but don't exclude anything!Take the best in all possibilit ies. Combine them. Thenwill our period become young again!" No man and nonation will become young again in that way. The newdoes not appear from a collection of the elements of theold which are stil l alive. When the new comes the oldmust disappear. "Remember not the former things,neither consider the things of old", says the prophet."Behold, all things are become new", says the apostle.Out of the death of the old the new arises. The new iscreated not out of the old, not out of the best of the old,




but out of the death of the old. It is not the old whichcreates the new. That which creates the new is that

which is beyond old and beyond new, the Eternal."Behold, I am doing a new thing, even now it isspringing to light. Do you not perceive it?" If the newwere a part of the old, the prophet would not ask, "Doyou perce ive it?" for every bod y w ould see it already .But it is hard to perceive. It is hidden in the profoundmystery which veils every creation, birth as well as rebirth. It springs to light—which is to say that it comesout of the darkness of that mystery.

Nothing is more surprising than the rise of the newwithin ourselves. We do not foresee or observe itsgrowth. We do not try to produce i t by the strength ofour will, by the power of our emotion, or by the clarityof our intellect. On the contrary, we feel that by tryingto produce i t we prevent i ts coming. By trying, we

would produce the old in the power of the old, but notthe new in the pow er of the new. Th e new be ing is bornin us, just when we least believe in it. It appeal's in remote corners of our souls which we have neglected fora long time. It opens up deep levels of our personalitywhich had been shut out by old decisions and old exclusions. It shows a wa y wh ere th ere wa s no wa y before.

It liberates us from the tragedy of having to decide andhaving to exclude, because it is given before any decision. Suddenly we notice i t within us! The new whichwe sought and longed for comes to us in the moment inwhich we lose hope of ever finding it. That is the firstthing we must say about the new: i t appears when andwhere it chooses. We cannot force it , and we cannotcalculate it. Readiness is the only condition for it; and

readiness means that the former things have becomeold and that they are driving us into the destruction of



/ Am Doing a New Thing 183

our souls just when we are trying most to save what wethink can be saved of the old.

It is the same in our historical situation. The birthof the new is just as surprising in history. It may appearin some dark corner of our world. It may appear in asocial group where i t was least expected. It may appearin the pursuit of activities which seem utterly insignificant. I t may appear in the depth of a national catastrophe, if there be in such a situation people who areable to perceive the new of which the prophet speaks.

It may appear at the height of a national tr iumph, ifthere be a few people who perceive the vanity of whichthe Preacher speaks. The new in history always comeswhen people least believe in it . But, certainly, it comesonly in the moment when the old becomes visible asold and tragic and dying, and when no way out is seen.We live in such a moment; such a moment is our situation. We realize this situation in its depth only if we

do not continue to say, "We know where the new willcome from. It will come from this institution or thismovement , or this special class, or this nation, or thisphilosophy, or this church." None of these, of course,is excluded from being the place where the new willappear. But none of these can guarantee i ts appearance.All of us who have looked at one of these things as thechosen place of the new have been disappointed. The

supposedly new always proves to be the continuationof the old, deepening its destructive conflicts. And soI repeat: the first thing about the new is that we cannotforce it and cannot calculate it. All we can do is to beready for it . We must realize as profoundly as possiblethat the former things have become old, that they destroy our period just when we try most courageously topreserve the best of it . And we must attempt this reali-




zation in our social as well as in our personal life. In noway but the most passionate striving for the new shall

we become aware that the old is old and dying. Theprophets who looked for the new thing He is doingwere most passionately and most actively involved inthe historical situation of their nation. But they knewthat neither they themselves nor any of the old thingswould br ing the new.

"Remember not the former things, neither consider

the things of old", says the prophet. That is the secondthing we must say about the new: it must break thepower of the old, not only in reality, but also in ourmemory; and one is not possible without the other. Letme say a few words about this most sublime point in theprophetic text and in the experience of every religion.We cannot be born anew if the power of the old is notbroken within us; and it is not broken so long as it puts

the burden of guilt upon us. Therefore religion, prophetic as well as apostolic, pronounces, above all, forgiveness. Forgiveness means that the old is thrown intothe past because the new has come. "Remember not"in the prophetic words does not mean to forget easily.If it meant that, forgiveness would not be necessary.Forgiveness means a throwing out of the old, as remem

bered and real at the same time, by the strength of thenew which could never be the saving new if it did notcarry with it the authority of forgiveness.

I believe that the situation is the same in our socialand historical existence. A new which is not able tothrow the old into the past, in remembrance as well asin reality, is not the really new. The really new is ableto break the power of old conflicts between man and

man, between group and group, in memory and real i ty .It is able to break the old curses, the results of former




guilt , inherited by one generation from another, theguil t between nations, between races, between classes,on old and new continents, these curses by which theguil t of one group, in reali ty and memory, permanentlyproduces guil t in another group. What power of thenew will be great and saving enough to break thecurses which have laid waste half of our world? Whatnew thing will have the saving power to break thecurse brought by the German nation upon herself before our eyes? "Remember not the former things", says

the prophet . That is the second thing which must besaid about the new.

"Behold, I am d oing a new thing." "I " points to th esource of the really new, to that which is always oldand always new, the Eternal . That is the third thingwhich must be said about the new: i t bears the mark ofits eternal origin in its face, as it did when Moses camefrom the mountain with the tablets of the law, opening

a new period of history. The really new is that whichhas in itself eternal power and eternal light. New thingsarise in every moment, at every place. Nothing is todayas i t was yesterday. But this kind of new is old almostas soon as it appears. It falls under the judgment of thePreacher: "There is no new thing under the sun." Yetsometimes a new thing appears which does not age soeasily, which makes life possible again, in both our per

sonal and our historical existence, a saving new, whichhas the power to appear when we least expect i t , andwhich has the power to throw into the past what is oldand burdened with guil t and curse. I ts saving power isthe power of the Eternal within i t . I t is new, really new,in the degree to which i t is beyond old and new, in thede gree to which i t is eternal . A nd i t remains new so longas the eternal power of the Eternal is manifest within




it, so long as the light of the Eternal shines through it.

For that power may become weaker; that l ight may be

come darker; and that which was truly a new thing maybecome old itself. Tha t is the t ragedy of human great ness in which something eternal appears .

W h e n the apostles say that Jesus is the Christ, theymean that in Him the new eon which cannot become old

is pre sen t. Christianity lives thr ou gh the faith that withinit there is the new which is not just another new thingbut ra ther the principle and representat ion of all the

really new in man and history. But it can affirm thisonly because the Christ deprived Himself of everythingwhich can become old, of all individual and social stand

the shaking of the foundations - tillich

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