Читать книгу Christian Life and Witness - Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf - Страница 8

Jesus!

And there is no other name given to human beings, by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12). It is our fortress and our free city to which we must flee for deliverance (Proverbs 18:10; Numbers 35:15, 28). Very few people understand this. The angel of God told Mary what it meant: “You shall call his name Jesus; because he will save (deliver) his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

The explanation and exposition of this name was necessary for two reasons, first because the Jews hoped out of their particular feelings for the Messiah as king, and saw [the matter] only from [the perspective of] their external affliction, burden, and trouble, as people are generally so created by nature that they know of no other torment than bodily burdens and public nuisances, and are difficult to convince that sin is the greatest affliction, so that the prophet marvels: “What do the people complain about? Each one grumbles against his sins” (Lamentations 3:39). Secondly, [the explanation] was necessary because otherwise they could have made the deduction from old examples of divine rescue, [that] their Shiloh was even one of the ancient helpers, whom God so often sent to them when they were in trouble and whom they asked him to send: those [helpers] were the Judges, who delivered the people from their enemies, and renewed the lost rule of God time and again among the people; therefore they were also called the saviors of the people.

The Jews might easily have thought of the name in terms of the yoke of the Romans. Therefore, the old prophets said, “Your king comes to you meekly” (Zechariah 9:9). With that the idea of Gideon and Samson and Jephthah and Barak is cancelled. Consequently, John was sent to make clear to the people that the promised salvation consisted in something different, namely in the forgiveness of sins (Luke 1:77). And on the basis of this first principle the angel, too, testified that the Savior will deliver his people from the misery, rule and power of sin. “He appeared that he might take away our sins” (l John 3:5).

But who are the people he will deliver? Here the Jews will be properly understood, to whom he chiefly professed his loyalty. “I am not sent, except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). “He came to his own, to his own people” (John 1:11). But his office nowhere carried less weight than in his fatherland and among his own people, and the Jews did not accept him as their Messiah; because they wanted to have a physical king of Israel, who would be no lackey of the Roman Overseers, like the four princes1 who had to carry on with cunning and politics, but rather [a king] who would make the people prosperous through a declared earthly kingdom; thus the Gentiles were chosen for the spiritual kingdom, yes the whole world, and now the word “his people” has a great and wide extent. “I have still other sheep,” says our Savior, “Who are not of this fold, who I must bring here” (John 10:16).

We are not of the Jewish line and fold, but rather by grace came to it, and shall in a certain degree fill that position. Therefore, Matthew 28:19 says, “Go out into all the world, and preach the Gospel to all creatures, beginning in Jerusalem”; and Acts 1:8 says, “You shall preach in Jerusalem, and in the whole of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That was the Savior’s wish and desire, because he had come to cast a fire upon the earth that it might soon be kindled. He is a Savior for all people (1 Timothy 4:10). But his believers experience, enjoy, and make use of it. The apostles extol salvation in all their speeches and writings, so that everyone who wants to have it might possess an interest in it and hope for it. Since Jesus is the universal Restorer of the whole human community, and a propitiation not only for our sins, but rather for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). The old fence and dividing wall is struck down, the gulf is filled in, in order that even those who are far away might become nearer through the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:14, 17).

This is not opposed to the sayings of John 17:2 and Hebrews 7:25, that he does not intercede for the whole world, but rather for his faithful ones. Because that was a Will and Testament, in which he appoints heirs and makes a bequest to be carried out. But soon after on the cross he thought not only of his own who were in the world, whom he loved to the end, but rather he also thought of the crucifiers, of his enemies, of the greatest sinners, of evildoers, and prayed for them all (Isaiah 53:12). The first demonstration of the answer [to his prayer] appeared in his nearest neighbor, who converted on account of Jesus’ intercession and became his friend.

But what is the sin from which he will deliver us? Everyone knows and feels that sin is something neither good nor happy for humanity. Thus, one does not first need its description in terms of the Law; but on the authority of the Gospel one can show it in summary, from John 16. Sin is not to trust in Jesus, when one either directly hates the Savior (John 15:18, 19), or on account of one’s fleshly mind has neither heart nor desire for him and his community (Romans 8:7). This enmity of unbelief goes so far that children and servants of God in whom one notices nothing otherwise offensive, indeed [in whom] great kindness is noticed, are hated only because they stand surely with him: “We cannot tolerate him before our eyes, he prides himself on being God’s child” (Wisdom of Solomon 2:12–16).2 “You must be hated by everyone on account of my name” (Matthew 10:22). Autos ephra.3

Not only in the time of the pagans was it said, “A good man; but bad because a Christian.”4 That is to say, he would be an upright man, if only he weren’t a so-called Christian. But this sentiment is held in the very midst of Christendom. As is generally known , it is no particular merit or quality for a follower of Jesus to stick to the book. How little honor is gotten with the message of Jesus? How much insult and pressure on the other hand are bound up with it?

To be sure, not many people pay attention to the witnesses of Jesus, because to these witnesses love for Christ’s cross and bliss with their Lord is more dear to them than anything; they know that he himself was treated no better, that he was persecuted first and most of all (John 15:18), and that their humiliation is nothing compared to the contempt which he had to experience in his life (“We took no notice of him,” says Isaiah in the name of the Jews, “He was the most despised and least esteemed”; see 53:3), compared to the affront which he still daily has to suffer from the world. And if Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:15, “I love much, and am loved little”; it is multiplied in the case of our Lord, who in suffering as in all things has pre-eminence.

Just consider the wretched idea, attention and opinion which we ourselves had of him and in relation to him from childhood on; what a poor submission of the heart, what thanklessness in relation to his merit, what estrangement from following him, what a secret fear in the presence of his people because we were all called Christians and were baptized in his name. Thus sin lies in unbelief and expresses itself in an indifference, alienation, deviation, and cold-mindedness toward the Lord, or in open enmity with and rebellion against him. The outbreak of the deed (for which conscience and law punishes) is only the fruit and testimony of the inner corruption and wicked motives of the heart, in which sin is actually to be sought, and according to which people are of two sorts: first, completely dead; second, awakened to life.

Those who with their corruption are completely dead and insensible, that is, cool-headed and composed, come to be thought of in part as fine, honorable, quiet, yes, even pious and God-fearing people, as if they still had a feeling of God and conscience, a sense of the numinous.5 But they are without feeling for the Savior and are indifferent and cold-minded toward the true good; with respect to the Savior they are without him, that is to say, without God. Moreover, they can often to be sure intend good, they can look closely at much good in the understanding and in the depths of the self through presentations of the divine Word and the power of prevenient grace, or they can also be excited at times by solid inferences and thoughts, but it goes no further than fantasy, or reason, then vanishes again and cannot be from God because it does not remain. (If its source were God the person would abide in him. 1 John 3:6, 9). It surely happens that those people are not hostile and obstructive to the rule of Christ, yes they are even useful to and promotive of it, and they love the good; but their hearts remain stone.

They can also grasp that they are good for nothing and are in poverty, but it is only a fleeting thought; at the same time they remain lazy, negligent, and carefree and cannot get a handle on their very selves. They have no power to help themselves, but rather remain lying in death. Still, they remain well-disposed toward the good, and their hearts are a tender object of the Savior, so that when he sees his time and they are brought to the sign of grace, they soon can be helped; it might be that they are too well pleased in their present circumstances and through them perish wretchedly.

Such dead people are either virtuous, finally able to go so far in the false piety and improvement allowed by Satan that they progress in spirituality to the angels; or they are corrupt. Even though they live in all sins just the same, these people do not blaspheme, but rather allow the good to stand, like Felix: because they are dead to spiritual things; and there is with those same people, if they are not met at a sensitive corner, almost the same circumstance [as Felix], (and then it amounts to a manner of life).

Others in the category of unbelief are not dead, but rather living and active enough, enlivened and invigorated by the spirit of the world and stirred up by hell (James 3:6). They bear the image of the devil and are declared, public, trained, yes truly purchased enemies of the rule of Christ. They diligently seek to hinder by all sorts of ways and methods, and make it a special merit and religious duty to let themselves be instruments against the work and the servants of God; they often have no glory and benefit, but rather detriment and shame because of it and they do it anyway. Such people are truly dangerous sinners and tools of Satan and indeed they even become his martyrs: they are almost unconquerable; and because they are hard, yes almost impossible, to persuade on account of the deeply established foundation of their sin, the Lord must employ highly unusual means for their salvation if it is ever to come about at all.

They are, to repeat, either virtuous like Saul, who even greatly raged and believed that he had to do many terrible things against the name of Jesus, while at the same time he was blameless and pious according to the Law; or they are corrupt and vicious, who in their crude wrongdoing have occasionally become mockers and enemies of the truth. Those women and men who serve Christ are intolerable to look upon because they rebuke and censure such evil-doing, as the matter finds expression in the Book of Wisdom,6 and Herod is a biblical example of it (Mark 6: 18–19). All these sorts are wretched and lost and need a Savior who could help them out of this predicament, if they are willing and obliged to be saved.

But what does salvation mean? It means one is torn from the ruling authority of darkness and one is placed within the ruling authority of Jesus. He will help the dead out of their death, bring the slaves of Satan to freedom, take away enmity and unbelief, and give faith and love in their place.

The Lord himself must make a beginning for such a salvation: since no saying of Jesus about people demands that they should begin and help themselves, rather the Savior said, “I will draw them all to me. They only have to let themselves be saved and reconciled.” He will do it all through his Spirit. Cast fire upon the earth and pour out his love upon all hearts, yes even breathe the breath of life into the dead. One must only be still and wait and be attentive to the voice of the Lord when he comes to the heart with his power, his fire, his promptings, and his Spirit, and thereafter not talk things over with flesh and blood but be obedient to the heavenly visitation.

God sees according to his wisdom, so he can make an impression on each soul in the best, that is, most effective, way. The methods, occasions, and hours are different for all so that one cannot determine it. The Lord takes hold of one in preaching, another in his house, overcomes a third in the street, another again out in the field, and seizes a fifth in the very act of sinning. Therefore, it is not in accordance with the Gospel to lay down fixed rules, or to set forth methods7 and forms in which souls must first be situated, or to expect a coincident method in the seeking and gathering of souls. One must entrust to the Savior’s free grace and judgment how he can and will reach souls.

But in the meantime he is indeed willing and ready to receive all souls with prevenient grace.8 Therefore it is inexcusable, an atrocious sin, if one seeks to elude and avoid the Holy Spirit when he9 comes to the soul with divine power, or is frivolous, light-minded and neglectful of the Spirit’s drawing near. Then one can often miss a moment upon which great grace and salvation depended, a moment which one cannot bring back again for days or years, and which one seeks fruitlessly for a long time, until the Holy Spirit, who in the meantime returned to his place again (Hosea 5:15), returns in grace.10 Therefore, one must leave everything lie just as it is when such times and promptings of grace come, because all things (including the most important commercial dealings in the world) can be retrieved except this visitation itself. Indeed, if someone were in church and felt the Holy Spirit begin to preach in his heart, he should follow Dr. Luther’s counsel; let the preacher one can see preach on, and attend instead to the gracious movement, in the heart, of the preacher one cannot see.

It is good to notice this, in order that one not make a mess of, hinder, and stop the work of God, but rather make it firm and durable with prayer and supplication. It can even happen in a person’s heart this briefly, when one has no other opportunity, “Lord! Have mercy! Lord, be gracious to me, a sinner!” This carries just as much weight with God, as if one had spoken many words; since Moses himself spoke no words at all (Exodus 14:15), that is to say, he just cried out. But at the same time it must be nothing compulsory and feigned, but rather free and brought about by the grace of God, because otherwise one impedes both self and others. One must simply allow grace to have a free run in all its work, until faith has been joined with the Word (see Hebrews 4:2 as a foundation text). This does not come about because of deep understanding, great aptitude, courage and worthiness, or even from a journey of soaring genius beyond the divine boundary, but rather from the free mercy of God in the order of grace.

The cause of all grace is to be sought in the merits and sufficiency of Christ alone. He must become and remain the only source of our salvation, and must matter and have value for us; he must be effective for us, only in his bloody form on the cross. Because on the cross he himself was baptized with a baptism of blood, and consecrated as the Savior of the world, his name, “Jesus,” was sealed for us unto all eternity. Therefore, whoever understands the mystery of the cross and the wounds of Jesus can have comfort and counsel, even if he were the greatest sinner, because Jesus atoned for all sins that have taken place and all that will take place unto eternity. He confessed for the whole world when he said from the cross, “Father, forgive them’“ And when he called out, “It is accomplished”; he pronounced at the same time a general absolution over the whole world. Thus, whoever now believes in him will not be judged (John 3:18).

In addition one need not worry now that souls do not humble themselves enough and become contrite on account of their sins. All have to experience a true form of abasement by grace; it is necessary for as many as the Savior perceives [living] under other motives, with every single one, to break his mind and to transform and convert him; “Indeed, the taste of the powerful reconciliation itself must serve to [evoke] true abasement.”11 For as on the Day of the Lord those who are found still living, to whom it is not prevented, are thus raised up out of their decomposition [before they experience anything else] (what the others who were dead experienced slowly and without feeling, the living must undergo in an instant and probably more uncomfortably, as regards the transformation of their mortality into immortality and their corruption into incorruption) in the same way some are able to experience in an instant or in a few hours everything that others feel over the course of days and years; because the circumstances with such guidance of souls appear incomprehensible and the obstacles seem in some cases insurmountable. Therefore one can dictate nothing to the Savior concerning [the] mortification and pardoning of wretched sinners, but rather one must entrust it all to him and his wisdom and faithfulness alone, how many he thinks it proper to allow to experience, each one, the dread, and how soon he can with this and that be ready to persuade and save [the sinner]. To be sure, his desire is to deliver and help soon. “Your king comes to you, a Deliverer and a Helper” (Zechariah 9:9).

The Savior’s method is not to command that souls go through a long process of penitence and preparation, but rather only a true and heartfelt word is required; thus grace is present and has helped one out of all sins. And actually the greatest wretchedness is when one has not the Savior and has not love; as on the other hand that is heaven on earth to live in the grace and love of the Savior: thus it is a great benefit that no one is more eager than he to disclose himself to the soul as Savior, so that no one would rather give faith; for he surely bears salvation to us.

If we now usually gladly think about things which can contribute something to our advantage and use; so it is easy in stillness also to think about this matter by which we once can say out of our own experience: He can save forevermore; “He can deliver all who come to him.” Then, after that: I will recount all that he has done in my soul (Psalm 66:16).

1. The tetrarchs, each of whom ruled a region of the Roman Near East under close Roman watch.

2. It is quite interesting that Count Zinzendorf quotes a book of the Old Testament Apocrypha. But it is unclear what it means. Did he make this reference only to add rhetorical flair? After all, it was the age of the baroque style. Or did this text simply reinforce the point he wanted to make? Furthermore, did he have a high regard for the apocryphal books? In any case, it is clear that he was familiar enough with them to quote from memory.

3. I have transliterated the Greek phrase Zinzendorf uses here. It is not a phrase that appears in this form in the New Testament. Instead, it is a Pythagorean phrase. Its import is to emphasize a subject already known. A Koine construction with the same meaning does appear several times in the New Testament. One example is Mark 8:29: “And he [himself] said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” The opening phrase in this verse places the emphasis on the subject, Jesus. Zinzendorf likewise emphasizes the subject, Jesus again, for whose sake one must endure hatred.

4. Zinzendorf quotes this saying in Latin.

5. Zinzendorf employs the Latin phrase Sensum Numinis.

6. Zinzendorf makes another reference to the same apocryphal book quoted earlier.