12.19.2010 COST OF DISCIPLESHIP -DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

CHEAP GRACE
is a deadly enemy of the Church
it sells the sacraments,
the forgiveness of sin,
the consolations of religion
at cut price
grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury,
from which she showers blessings with generous hands
without asking questions or fixing limits
grace without price
grace without any price
the account has been paid in advance
everything can be had for nothing
since the cost was infinite,
the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite
what would grace be if it were not cheap?

CHEAP GRACE
a doctrine,
principle,
system
forgiveness of sin proclaimed as a general truth
the love of God taught as the christian conception of God
...AN INTELLECTUAL ASSENT to the idea
is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins..
no contrition is required
STILL LESS ANY DESIRE TO BE DELIVERED FROM SIN (note: STILL LESS ..real delivery from real sin

CHEAP GRACE therefore amounts to
a denial of the living word of God, in fact,
a denial of the incarnation of the word of God

CHEAP GRACE means
the justification of sin
without the justification of the sinner.

grace alone does everything, they say,
and so everything can remain
as it was before
the world goes on in the same old way, and
we are still sinners 'even in the best life'
as luther said.
well, then, let the christian live like the rest of the world,
let him model himself on the world's standards
in every sphere of life,
and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life
under grace
from his old life under sin....

CHEAP GRACE is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.
it is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

CHEAP GRACE is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,
baptism without church discipline,
communion without confession,
absolution without personal confession
grace without discipleship
grace without the cross
grace without Jesus Christ,
living and incarnate.

COSTLY GRACE is the treasure hidden in the field;
for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.
it is the pearl of great price
to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.
it is the kingly rule of Christ,
for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble;
it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him

COSTLY GRACE is the gospel which must be sought again and again,
the gift which must be asked for,
the door at which a man must knock.

such grace is costly because it calls us to follow,
and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
it is costly because it costs a man his life,
and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
it is costly because it condemns sin,
and grace because it justifies the sinner.
above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His son..
above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His son too dear a price to pay for our life..

...what about luther's pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in christo ('sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more boldly still')?
whether you are a monk or a man of the world,
a religious man or a bad one,
you can never escape the toils of the world or from sin.
so put a bold face on it,
and all the more because you can rely on the opus operatum of grace.

is this the proclamation of cheap grace,
naked and unashamed,
the carte blanche of sin,
the end of all discipleship?
is this a blasphemous encouragement to sin boldly and rely on grace?
is there a more diabolical abuse of grace than to sin and
rely on the grace which God has given?
is not the roman catechism quite right in denouncing this as
the sin against the holy ghost?

if we are to understand this saying of luther's,
everything depends on applying the distinction
between the data and the answer to the sun.
if we make luther's formula a premiss
(or 'premise', a proposition supporting or helping to support a conclusion)
for our doctrine of grace,
we are conjuring up the spectre of cheap grace.
but luther's formula is meant to be taken,
not as the premiss,
but as the conclusion,
the answer to the sum,
the coping-stone,
his very last word on the subject.

taken as the premiss, pecca fortiter acquires the character of an ethical principle,
a principle of grace to which the principle of pecca fortiter must correspond.
that means the justification of sin,
and it turns luther's formula into its very opposite.

for luther, 'sin boldly' could only be his very last refuge,
the consolation for one
whose attempts to follow Christ had taught him that he can never become sinless,
who in his fear of sin despairs of the grace of God.

as luther saw it, 'sin boldly'
did not happen to be a fundamental acknowledgement of his disobedient life;
IT WAS THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD
BEFORE WHICH WE ARE A-L-W-A-Y-S AND IN E-V-E-R-Y CIRCUMSTANCE SINNERS
YET THAT GRACE SEEKS US and JUSTIFIES US, SINNERS THOUGH WE A-R-E.

take courage and confess your sin, says luther,
do not try to run away from it,
but BELIEVE IT (note: THE GOSPEL A-N-D THE CONTINUOUS ONGOING NATURE OF MY SIN!!!!) more boldly still.
you are a sinner,
so be a sinner,
and don't try to become what you are not.
yes and become a sinner
again and again every day,
and be bold about it (note: may not be understanding the reason for the choice of 'bold'...would not 'acknowledge it regularly to yourself and in front of others' whenever it becomes evident...so that self may appear as wretched as it is in fact and Christ's death and God's demonstrated grace and love may shine all the more in how He is continuously administering the blood upon every confession and forsaking of sin?)

but to whom can such words be addressed,
except to those who
from the bottom of their hearts
make a daily (note: better, moment by moment?) renunciation of sin
and of every barrier
which hinders them from following Christ,
but who nevertheless A-R-E T-R-O-U-B-L-E-D by their daily faithlessness and sin?

who can hear these words without endangering his faith
but he who
hears their consolation as a renewed summons to follow Christ?
interpreted in this way,
these words of luther
become a testimony to the costliness of grace,
the only genuine kind of grace there is.

grace interpreted as a principle,
pecca fortiter as a principle,
grace at a low cost,
is in the last resort simply a new law,
which brings neither help nor freedom.

grace as a living word,
pecca fortiter as our comfort in tribulation and
as a summons to discipleship,
costly grace is the only pure grace, which really forgives sins
and gives freedom to the sinner.

we lutherans (note: read 'EVANGELICAL AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY here; their result was a hitler engineered holocaust, ours, a feminine generated genicide over 6 times greater) have gathered like eagles round the carcass of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Christ. it is true, of course, that we have paid the doctrine of pure grace divine honors unparalleled in christendom, in fact we have exalted that doctrine to the position of God himself. everywhere luther's formula has been repeated, but its truth perverted into self-deception. so long as our church holds the correct doctrine of justification, there is no doubt whatever that she is a justified Church! so they said, thinking that we must vindicate our lutheran heritage by making this grace available on the cheapest and easiest terms. to be 'lutheran' must mean that we leave the following of Christ to legalists, calvinists and enthusiasts - and all this for the sake of grace. we justified the world, and condemned as heretics those who tried to follow Christ. the result was that a nation became christian and lutheran, but at the cost of true discipleship. the price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap. cheap grace had won the day.

but do we also relize that this cheap grace has turned back upon us like a boomerang? the price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. we gave away the word and sacraments wholsale, we baptized, confirmed and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition. our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving. we poured forth unending streams of grace. but the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard. where were those truths whcih impelled the early Church to institute the catechumenate, which enabled a strict watch to be kept over the frontier between the Church and the world, and afforded adequate protection for costly grace? what had happened to all those warnings of luther's against preaching the gospel in such a manner as to make men rest secure in their ungodly living? was there ever a more terrible or disastrous christianizing of the world (note: read also, AMERICA) than this? what are those three thousands saxons put to death by charlemagne compared with the MILLIONS OF SPIRITUAL CORPSES IN OUR COUNTRY TODAY? with us it has been abundantly proved that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. cheap grace has turned out to be utterly merciless to our evangelical church.

THIS CHEAP GRACE HAS BEEN NO LESS DISASTROUS TO OUR OWN SPIRITUAL LIVES. instead of opening up the way to Christ it has close it. instead of calling us to follow Christ IT HAS HARDENED US IN OUR DISOBEDIENCE....

12.19.2011 WHOEVER WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.

to the question,
what must i do to be saved?
the gospel replies,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. (acts 16.31)

to the further question,
how can i believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
you must,
1. know yourself to be a sinner
2. know Jesus Christ as God who became a man and
came to earth to die for sinners
3. abandon all self-righteousness
and self-confidence and
cast yourself wholly upon Him
for pardon and peace
4. exchange your natural enmity toward
and rebellion against God
for a spirit of grateful submission
to the will of Jesus Christ
through the renewing of your heart by the Holy Ghost

and to the further question,
how am i to go about believing on Christ and repenting?
for i have no natural ability to do these things

the gospel replies,
1. look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ JUST AS YOU ARE.
2. confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief
and cast yourself on His mercy (His ability to withhold the judgment and punishment you justly deserve)
3. ask Him to give you a new heart,
working in you true repentance (seen in a deep sorrow for and a forsaking of all known sin) and firm faith.
4. ask Him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and
to write His laws within you,
that you may never henceforth stray from Him.
5. turn to Him and trust Him as best you can and
continue to pray for grace (spiritual ability from God)
to continually turn from sin and trust Him more fully
6. use the MEANS OF GRACE expectantly
looking to Christ to draw near to you
as you seek to draw near to Him....
WATCH (be in an alert state of prayer based on what is currently happening within and around)
WAIT (in times of deep struggle KEEP LOOKING TO HIM for the help you desperately need)
PRAY (turn every incoming thought into a prayer, telling Him, petitioning Him about everything)
READ AND MEDITATE ON GOD'S WORD, the bible
WORSHIP (acknowledge with praise who He is, as He reveals Himself in the bible)
COMMUNE deeply, regularly with those who are truly saved (as they evidence this in their lives)
OBEY THE WORD OF GOD (deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Jesus Christ to the death)

....AND SO CONTINUE
UNTIL YOU KNOW in yourself
BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT-
that you are a changed being,
a practicing 'grieving over and turning from your sin' believer and
that the new heart you desired has been put within you.
-THAT YOU ARE A FOLLOWER OF CHRIST

remember the start. the need to call upon Christ directly is the very first step.

let not conscience make you linger
nor of fitness fondly dream
all the fitness He requireth
is to feel your need of Him

so do not postpone action till you are better, but
honestly confess your badness and
give yourself up
here and now
to Christ
who alone can make you better
and wait on Him
til His light rises in your soul,
as the scripture promises it shall do
anything less than this direct dealing with Christ
is disobedience to the gospel.

such is the exercise of spirit to which the gospel summons it's hearers:
'i believe (Lord), help Thou my unbelief'...this must become your cry.

ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. for everyone how asks, receives and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it shall be opened. matthew 7.7-8

Jesus' answer to the question, 'Lord are there just a few who are being saved?
STRIVE to enter by the narrow door;
for many, I tell you,
will seek to enter
and will not be able. luke 13.24

most of the above taken from the forward to 'the death of death in the death of Christ' by john owens

12.17.2011 IS AMERICA BEING DESTROYED BY GOD?

for many years i thought the judgment of God came swiftly, unexpectedly, in a moment of time with no advanced warning. that was before i opened my eyes and began to consider God's long-suffering dealing with His chosen people.

near the end of the historical books in II chronicles 36.15-16 it says,

and the Lord, the God of their fathers,
SENT WORD TO THEM AGAIN AND AGAIN
by His messengers,
BECAUSE HE HAD COMPASSION
on His people
and on His dwelling place;
BUT THEY CONTINUALLY MOCKED
the messengers of God,
DESPISED HIS WORDS
AND SCOFFED at His prophets,
until the wrath of the Lord
arose against His people,
UNTIL THERE WAS NO REMEDY.

the formula is very simple.
if a nation obeys God
it will prosper.
if a nation disobeys God
it will suffer...
and if keeps this up
at a certain point
it will be destroyed/destroy itself.

the only hope for a nation is
that the church
obeys God and thus
is the salt and light it needs to be.
to the degree it is...the nation can prosper..
to the degree it fail...the nation comes to a bitter end.

consider deuteronomy 28...
though spoken to the nation of israel,
is true for every group of people
large or small
throughout time.

now it shall be
if you DILIGENTLY OBEY the Lord your God,
being

12.16.2011 'ORPHAN' IN THE BIBLE

..exodus 22.2-YOU SHALL NOT AFFLICT ANY widow or ORPHAN

deuteronomy 10.18- (GOD) EXECUTES JUSTICE FOR THE ORPHAN and the widow and SHOWS HIS LOVE FOR the alien by giving him food and clothing.

deut. 14.28f- AT THE END OF EVERY THIRD YEAR YOU SHALL BRING OUT ALL THE TITHE of your produce in that year, AND shall DEPOSIT IT IN YOUR TOWN and the levite because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, THE ORPHAN and the widow who are in your town, shall COME AND EAT AND BE SATISFIED, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do. cf deut. 26.12-3

deut. 16.10-1- then YOU SHALL CELEBRATE THE FEAST OF WEEKS to the Lord your God WITH A TRIBUTE OF A FREEWILL OFFERING OF YOUR HAND, WHICH YOU SHALL GIVE JUST AS THE LORD YOUR GOD BLESSES YOU; AND YOU SHALL REJOICE BEFORE THE LORD YOUR GOD, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the levite who is in your town, and the stranger AND THE ORPHAN and the widow who are in your midst...

deut. 24.17 - YOU SHALL NOT PERVERT THE JUSTICE DUE AN alien or an orphan, nor take a widow's garment in pledge.

deut. 27.19 - CURSED IS HE WHO DISTORTS THE JUSTICE DUE an alien, ORPHAN and widow. and all the people shall say, amen.

job 24.1f- why are times not stored up by the Almighty, and why do those who know Him not see His days?
..some remove the landmarks;
they seize and devour flocks.
they drive away the donkeys of the ORPHANS;
they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
they push the needy aside from the road;
the poor of the land are made to hide themselves altogether
v9...others snatch the ORPHAN from the breast,
v19..drought and heat consume the snow waters,
so does sheol those who have sinned
a mother will forget him;
the worm feeds sweetly till he is remembered no more.
and wickedness will be broken like a tree.

job29.11f- for when the ear heard, it called me blessed
and when the eye saw, it gave witness of me,
because I DELIVERED the poor who cried for help,
and THE ORPHAN WHO HAD NO HELPER.

job 31.16f- IF I have kept the poor from their desire,
or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
or HAVE EATEN my morsel alone,
AND THE ORPHAN NOT SHARED IT
v21f..IF I HAVE LIFTED UP MY HAND AGAINST THE ORPHAN
because i saw i had support in the gate,
LET MY SHOULDER FALL FROM THE SOCKET,
AND MY ARM BE BROKEN OFF AT THE ELBOW.
for calamity from God is a terror to me,
and because of His majesty i can do nothing.

psalm 10.14- Thou hast seen it, for Thou hast beheld mischief and vexation to take it into Thy hand. the unfortunate commits himself to Thee; and THOU HAST BEEN THE HELPER OF THE ORPHAN...V17...o Lord,
THOU HAST HEARD THE DESIRE OF THE HUMBLE;
THOU WILT STRENGTHEN THEIR HEART,
THOU WILT INCLINE THINE EAR
TO VINDICATE THE ORPHAN and the oppressed,
that man who is of the earth may cause terror no more.

psalm 94

oh God of vengeance; God of vengeance, shine forth!
rise up, o Judge of the earth;
RENDER RECOMPENSE TO THE PROUD.

how long shall the wicked, o Lord,
how long shall the wicked exult?

they pour forth words, they speak arrogantly;
all who do wickedness vaunt themselves.
they crush Thy people, o Lord and afflict Thy heritage.
THEY slay the widow and the stranger,
and MURDER THE ORPHANS.
and they have said,
the Lord does not see,
nor does the God of jacob pay heed.

pay heed, you senseless among the people;
and when will you understand, stupid ones?
He who planted the ear, does He not hear?
He who formed the eye, does He not see?
He who chastens the nations, will He not rebuke,
even He who teaches man knowledge?
the Lord know the thoughts of man,
that they are mere breath.

blessed is the man whom Thou dost chasten, o Lord,
and dost teach out of Thy law;
that Thou mayest grant him relief from the days of adversity,
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
for the Lord will not abandon His people,
nor will He forsake His inheritance.
for judgment will again be righteous;
and all the upright in heart will follow it.
WHO WILL STAND UP FOR ME AGAINST EVILDOERS?
WHO WILL STAND UP FOR ME AGAINST THOSE WHO DO WICKEDNESS?

if the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.
if i should say, "my foot has slipped",
Thy lovingkindness, o Lord hold me up.
when my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Thy consolations delight my soul.


CAN A THRONE OF DESTRUCTION BE ALLIED WITH THEE,
one which devises mischief by decree/
THEY BAND THEMSELVES TOGETHER AGAINST THE LIFE OF THE RIGHTEOUS,
AND CONDEMN THE INNOCENT TO DEATH.
but the Lord has been my stronghold,
and my God the rock of my refuge.
and He has brought back their wickedness upon them,
and will destroy them in their evil; the Lord our God will destroy them.




isaiah 1.16f -
wash yourselves,
make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
SEEK JUSTICE,
reprove the ruthless;
DEFEND THE ORPHAN,
plead for the widow.
come now and let us reason together, says the Lord,
though your sins are as scarlet,
they will be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they will be like wool.
if you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.
truly , the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
how the faithful city has become a harlot,
she who was full of justice!
righteousness once lodged in her,
but now murderers.
your silver has become dross,
your drink diluted with water.
YOUR RULERS are rebels and companions of thieves;
everyone loves a bribe and chases after rewards.
they DO NOT DEFEND THE ORPHAN,
nor does the widow's plea come before them.

isaiah 9.8f
the Lord sends a message against jacob
and it falls on israel.
and all the people know it,
that is, ephraim and the inhabitants of samaria,
asserting in pride and in arrogance of heart:
"the bricks have fallen down,
but we will rebuild with smooth stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
but we will replace them with cedars".
therefore the Lord raises against them adversaries from rezin,
and spurs their enemies on,
the arameans on the east
and the philistines on the west;
and they devour israel with gaping jaws.

in spite of all this His anger does not turn away, and His hand is still stretched out.

yet the people do not turn back to Him who struck them,
nor do they seek the Lord of hosts.
so the Lord cuts off head and tail from israel,
both palm branch and bulrush in a single day.
the head is the elder and honorable man,
and the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail.
for those who guide this people are leading them astray;
and those who are guided by them are brought to confusion.
THEREFORE THE LORD does not take pleasure in their young men,
nor does He HAVE PITY ON THEIR ORPHANS or their widows;
for every one of them is godless and an evildoer,
and ever mouth is speaking foolishness.

in spite of all this His anger does not turn away, and His hand is still stretched out.

isaiah 10.1f

WOE TO THOSE WHO ENACT EVIL STATUTES AND
TO THOSE WHO CONSTANTLY RECORD UNJUST DECISIONS,
SO AS TO DEPRIVE THE NEEDY OF JUSTICE,
and rob the poor of My people of their rights,
in order that widows may be their spoil,
AND THAT THEY MAY PLUNDER THE ORPHANS.

now what will you do in the day of punishment,
and in the devastation which will come from afar?
to whom will you flee for help?
and where will you leave your wealth?

nothing remains but to crouch among the captives
or fall among the slain.

in spite of all this His anger does not turn away, and His hand is still stretched out.

jeremiah 5.26f-
for WICKED MEN are found AMONG MY PEOPLE,
they watch like fowlers lying in wait;
they set a trap, they catch men. like a cage full of birds,
so their houses are full of deceit;
therefore they have become great and rich.
they are fat,
they are sleek,
they also excel in deeds of wickedness;
they DO NOT PLEAD the cause,
THE CAUSE OF THE ORPHAN THAT THEY MAY PROSPER;
and they do not defend the rights of the poor.
shall I not punish these people? declares the Lord,
ON A NATION SUCH AS THIS SHALL I NOT AVENGE MYSELF?
an appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land:
THE PROPHETS PROPHESY FALSELY,
AND THE PRIESTS RULE ON THEIR OWN AUTHORITY;
AND MY PEOPLE LOVE IT SO!
BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO AT THE END OF IT?

jeremiah 7.1f- the word that came to jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
stand in the gate of the Lord's house and
proclaim there this word, and
say, hear the word of the Lord, all you of judah, who enter by these gates to worship the Lord! thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of israel,
AMEND YOUR WAYS AND YOUR DEEDS,
and I will let you dwell in this place.
DO NOT TRUST IN DECEPTIVE WORDS, SAYING
THIS IS THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD,
THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD,
THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD.
forIF YOU TRULY AMEND YOUR WAYS AND YOUR DEEDS,
IF YOU PRACTICE JUSTICE between a man and his neighbor
IF YOU DO NOT OPPRESS
the alien,
THE ORPHAN,
or the widow,
AND DO NOT SHED INNOCENT BLOOD in this place,
nor walk after other gods to your own ruin,
then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave your fathers forever and ever.
behold you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail.
will you..murder..then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name,
and say, 'we are delivered' - that you may do all these abominations?
has this house, which is called by My name,
become a den of robbers in your sight?
behold, I, even I, have seen it, declares the Lord.

jeremiah 22.3 - thus says the Lord,
DO JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS,
and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor.
also DO NOT MISTREAT OR DO VIOLENCE TO the stranger, THE ORPHAN, or the widow;
and DO NOT SHED INNOCENT BLOOD in this place.

jeremiah 49.10-11

but I HAVE STRIPPED ESAU BARE,
I have uncovered his hiding places
so that he will not be able to conceal himself;
HIS OFFSPRING HAS BEEN DESTROYED
along with his relatives and his neighbors,
and he is no more

LEAVE YOUR ORPHANS BEHIND,
I WILL KEEP THEM ALIVE;
and let your widows trust in Me.

lamentations 5.1-5,7,21-2

REMEMBER, O LORD, WHAT HAS BEFALLEN US;
look and see our reproach!

our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our houses to aliens.
WE HAVE BECOME ORPHANS WITHOUT A FATHER,
OUR MOTHERS ARE LIKE WIDOWS.
we have to pay for our drinking water,
our wood comes to us at a price.
our pursuers are at our necks;
we are worn out,
there is no rest for us...

our fathers sinned, and are no more;
it is we who have borne their iniquities...

RESTORE US T-O T-H-E-E, oh Lord that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old.,
UNLESS THOU HAST UTTERLY REJECTED US,
AND ART EXCEEDINGLY ANGRY WITH US.


hosea 14.1 -
return, o israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
take words with you and
return to the Lord.
say to Him,
'take away all iniquity and receive us graciously,
that we may present the fruit of our lips.
assyria will not save us,
we will not ride on horses;
nor will we say again, 'our god', to the work of our hands;
for IN THEE THE ORPHAN FINDS MERCY.

zechariah 7.9-10 thus has the Lord of hosts said,
DISPENSE TRUE JUSTICE, and
PRACTICE KINDNESS AND COMPASSION each to his brother; and
DO NOT OPPRESS the widow or THE ORPHAN, the stranger or the poor; and
DO NOT DEVISE EVIL IN YOUR HEARTS AGAINST ONE ANOTHER.

malachi 3. 2,5- ..who can endure the day of His coming? and who can stand when He appears? for He is like a refiner's fire..then
I will draw near to you for judgment; and
I WILL BE A SWIFT WITNESS AGAINST
those who swear falsely, and against
THOSE WHO OPPRESS
the wage earner in his wages,
the widow and
THE ORPHAN, and
those who turn aside the alien AND DO NOT FEAR ME,
says the Lord of hosts.

john 14.18f

I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU AS ORPHANS; I WILL COME TO YOU.
after a little while the world will behold Me no more;
but you will behold Me;
because I live, you shall live also.
in that day you shall know that I am in my Father,
and you in Me,
and I in you.

james 1.27

this is PURE AND UNDEFILED RELIGION
in the sight of our God and Father,
to VISIT ORPHANS
and widows
IN THEIR DISTRESS,
and to KEEP ONESELF UNSTAINED BY THE WORLD.

'FATHERLESS' in the bible...

psalm 68.5f

A FATHER OF THE FATHERLESS and
a judge for the widows
IS GOD IN HIS HOLY HABITATION.
God makes a home for the lonely;
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

psalm 82

GOD takes His stand in His own congregation;
He JUDGES IN THE MIDST OF RULERS.

how long will you judge unjustly,
and show partiality to the wicked? selah

VINDICATE THE WEAK AND FATHERLESS;
DO JUSTICE TO THE AFFLICTED AND DESTITUTE.
RESCUE THE WEAK AND NEEDY;
DELIVER THEM OUT OF THE HAND OF THE WICKED.

they do not know nor do they understand;
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I said, "you are gods (note: highly exalted human beings; rulers),
and all of you are sons of the Most High.
nevertheless you will die like men,
and fall like any one of the princes".

arise, o God,
judge the earth!
for it is Thou who dost possess all the nations.

psalm 146.6f

THE LORD..
made the heaven and earth
keeps truth forever..
EXECUTES JUSTICE FOR THE OPPRESSED..
gives food to the hungry..
sets the prisoners free..
opens the eyes of the blind..
raises up those who are bowed down..
loves the righteous..
protects the strangers..
HE SUPPORTS THE FATHERLESS
and the widow..
BUT HE THWARTS THE WAY OR THE WICKED.
THE LORD WILL REIGN FOREVER...
PRAISE THE LORD!

proverbs 23.10-11

DO NOT move the ancient boundary.
or GO INTO THE FIELDS OF THE FATHERLESS;
for their redeemer is strong;
He will plead their case against you.

ezekiel 22.6-7

behold, THE RULERS OF ISRAEL,
each according to his power,
HAVE BEEN IN YOU
FOR THE PURPOSE OF SHEDDING BLOOD.

they have treated father and mother lightly within youl
the alien they have oppressed in your midst;
THE FATHERLESS and the widows THEY HAVE WRONGED in you.

proverbs 24.10-12

IF YOU ARE SLACK IN THE DAY OF DISTRESS,
YOUR STRENGTH IS LIMITED.

DELIVER
THOSE WHO ARE BEING TAKEN AWAY TO DEATH,
AND THOSE WHO ARE STAGGERING TO SLAUGHTER,
OH HOLD THEM BACK.

IF YOU SAY, "SEE, WE DID NOT KNOW THIS",
does He not consider it who weighs the hearts?
and does He not know it who keeps your soul?
and WILL HE NOT RENDER TO MAN ACCORDING TO HIS WORK?

12.13.2011 BONHOEFFER THOTS II

dietrich bonhoeffer (db) had seen that the barman declaration would be the means to a world wide recognition of the confessing church as the only church in germany (excluding, of course, the german christians of the reich church. this hope was not to be realized.

unless otherwise noted quotes are from db...'do not try to make the bible relevant. its relevance is axiomatic...do not defend God's word but testify to it..trust the word. it is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity...

the proclamation of grace has its limits. grace may not be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it...the world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it and it will not only trample upon the holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them...the preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance..

the nuremberg laws which forbid marriage between jew and gentile db thought should be challenged by the church (do not limit outspoken concerns to those between state and church proper)..which should speak into the world..be a voice in the world..also it is important to speak for those who could not speak... God is not interested in the worship of one who should not speak out'..

nazis deal with confessing church in 1937 onward cannily ..not banning directly but gradually liquidating it through intimidation and suppression...for db prayer was the display of the strongest possible activity...was it ok to assassinate hitler? db gives the example of a drunken driver killing pedestrians on a main street..it would be the responsibility of everyone to do all they could to stop the driver from killing more people...

von moltke, of the prussian house of lords, was a part of the kreisau circle, another group involved in conspiracy. in 1942 he said, concerning the nazi abuse of human rights, 'certainly more than 1000 people are murdered in this way every day and another 1000 german men are habituated to murder...what shall i say when i am asked, "AND WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THAT TIME?...since saturday the berlin jews are being rounded up. then they are sent off with what they can carry...how can anyone know KNOW these things and walk around free'. in writing to his sons before his execution in 1945 he said he had tried to help the victims of the nazis and prepare the way for a change to new leadership...'in that my conscience drove me...and in the end that is a man's duty'. he believed that only by believing in God could one be a total opponent of the nazis.

...from anthony eden, a top british official, a response to george bell, a church of england contact with db, concerning his plea for british support for german conspirators against hitler, '...THE LONGER THE GERMAN PEOPLE TOLERATE THE NAZI REGIME THE GRATER BECOMES THEIR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CRIMES WHICH THE REGIME IS COMMITTING IN THEIR NAME...'

'if we inquire the will of God.... freedom from all doubt and all mistrust, we will discover it'... about his involvement to end hitler's life db says in his book, ethics, '..the structure of responsible action includes both readiness to accept guilt and freedom..if any man tries to escape guilt in responsibility he detaches himself from the ultimate reality of human existence, and what is more he cuts himself off from the redeeming mystery of Christ's bearing guilt without sin and he has no share in the divine justification which lies upon this event' db knew that to live in fear of incurring 'guilt' was itself sinful. God wanted His beloved children to operate out of freedom and joy to do what was right and good, not out of fear of making a mistake. to live in fear and guilt was to be 'religious' in the pejorative sense that db so often talked and preached about. he knew that to act freely could mean inadvertently doing wrong and incurring guilt. in fact, he felt that living this way meant that it was impossible to avoid incurring guilt, but if one wished to live responsibly and fully, one would be willing to do so...the great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. for evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the christian who bases his life on the bible it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil...who stands fast? only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God - the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God'.

this was how db saw what he was doing. he had theologically redefined the christian life as something active, not reactive. it had nothing to do with avoiding sin or with merely talking or teaching or believing theological notions or principles or rules or tenets. it had everything to do with living one's whole life in obedience to God's call through action. it did not merely require a mind, but a body too. it was God's call to be fully human, to live as human beings obedient to the one who had made us, which

was the fulfillment of our destiny. it was not a cramped, compromised, circumspect life, but a life lived in a kind of wild, joyful, full-throated freedom - that was what it was to obey God...'..i must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin..

37 year old db sought to do everything, including his relationship and engagement to 18 year old maria von wedemeyer, 'unto God' as an act of faith..he wrote, 'when jeremiah said, in his people's hour of direst need just before they were to be sent into exile from a totally ruined and subjugated county that, "the houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land" it was (via God) a token of his confidence in the future' in his wedding sermon to his best friend eberhard bethge who was marrying his 16 year old niece, renate he said, 'we ought not to be in too much of a hurry here to speak piously of God's will and guidance. it is obvious, and should not be ignored, that it is your own very human wills that are at work here, celebrating their triumph; the course that you are taking at the outset is one that you have chosen for yoursels; what you have done and are doing is not in the first place, something religious, but something quite secular...unless you can boldly say today: 'this is our resolve, our love, our way', you are taking refuge in a false piety. 'iron and steel may pass away, but our love whall abide for ever'. that desire for earthly bliss which you want to find in one another, and in which, to quote the medieval song, one is the comfort of the other both in today and in soul - that desire is justified before God and man.'

..from db's poem 'who am i'...'or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in dis- order from victory already achieved'. flesh and spirit, with faith and doubt, a good work in the process of being completed.

db found the daily watchwords (losungen) from the moravian church very helpful spiritually.

..'not the shallow, banal this-worldliness, or the enlightened, the busy, the comforable or the lascivious or the profound this-worldliness but the profound this-worldliness characterized by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection. db became a bit concerned about 'the dangers in his book 'discipleship' (the christian life advocated in this book has a temptation to become religious in the pejorative, barthian sense..TO USE THE CHRISTIAN FAITH AS A MEANS TO ESCAPE LIFE RATHER THAN AS A MEANS TO LIVE LIFE MORE FULLY)'...completely abandon every attempt to make something of oneself (rather)..by this worldliness...living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. in so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God in the world...watch with Christ in gethsemane. that, i think is faith; that is metanoia (english - repentance, a change of mind) and that is how one becomes a man and a christian (jeremiah 45). how can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray when we share God's sufferings through a life of this kind?..the essence of chastity is not supression of lust but total orientation of one's life toward a goal..'

july 1944..db sent this poem 'stations on the road to freedom

discipline
if you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things
to govern your sould and your senses, for fear that your passions
and longing may lead you away from the path you should follow.
chaste be your mind and your body, and both in subjection,
obediently steadfastly seeking the aim set before them;
only through discipline may a man learn to be free.

action
daring to do what is right, not what fancy may tell you,
valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting -
freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking wing.
faint not nor fear, but go out to the storm and the action,
trusting in God whose commandment you faithfully follow;
freedom, exultant, will welcome your spirit with joy

suffering
a change has come indeed. your hands, so strong and active,
are bound; in helplessness now you see your action
is ended; you sigh in relief, your cause committing
to stronger hands; so now you may rest contented.
only for one blissful moment could you draw near to touch freedom;
then, that it might be perfected in glory, you gave it to God.

death
come now, thou greatest of feasts on the journey to freedom eternal;
death, cast aside all the burdensome chains, and demolish
the walls of our temporal body, the walls of our souls that are blinded,
so that at last we may see that which here remains hidden.
freedom, how long we have sought thee in discipline, action and suffering;
dying, we now may behold thee revealed in the Lord

one of hitler's would be assasins..'a human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions..'

db...'stifter once said, "pain is a holy angel, which shows treasures to man which otherwise remain forever hidden; through him men have become greater than through all joys in the world"...there is an even holier angel than the one of pain, that is the one of joy in God'...

db would not let go of maria even when she expressed the possibility that she did not love him (note: she was young, their love had not been proved; he, most likely, knew that she would wound herself grievously for the future when she saw the meaning of her fickleness in his extremity...besides! odds were she probably would never see him...or see him free) his response as her response lessened never flagged. he so gently and beautifully held out to her the picture of love that never faileth and yet, more than once, ended his letters 'tell me what you think and act as you must' (a double edged irony..offering her freedom and, at the same time, gently hinting toward duty?)

db..'the only fight which is lost is that which we give up..'

12.10.2011 BONHOEFFER THOTS I

after completing metaxas' 'bonhoeffer' am again in yet another 'birthpang' over abortion. it reminds me of goliath's brash and affronting attitude toward the God of israel...and i a little david without having killed either a bear or a lion and sensing none of his keening faith. they usually don't come so close (second in less than a month) but maybe the more i spout off about it the sooner the acute pain will dissolve and leave me numb once again. following are notes from the book. his name will be denoted by db.

p136 'first of all i will confess quite simply - i believe that the bible alone is the answer to all our questions and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. one cannot simply read the bible, like other books. one must be prepared really to enquire of it. only thus will it reveal itself. only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, (note: personally, 'Lord, what am i to DO in response to the genecide of abortion?') , shall we receive it. that is because in the bible God speaks to us. and one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of Him. only if we seek Him, will He answer us.' db

p140 to understand what went so wrong in germany and to understand the genius o fdb's speech, one must understand the history of the FUHRER PRINCIPLE. its profoundly misguided concept of leadership is dramatically different from more modern concepts of leadership. it enabled hitler's rise to power and led to the horrors of the death camps. this..principle was at the heart of db's objection to hitler. in his speech that day, db laid out his thots on the subject.

he began by explaining why germany was looking for a fuhrer. the first war and the subsequent depression and turmoil had brought about a crisis in which the younger generation, especially, had lost all confidence in the traditional authority of the kaiser and the church. the german notion of the fuhrer arose out of this generation and its search for meaning and guidance out of its troubles. the difference between real leadership and the false leadership of the Leader was this: real leadership derived its authority from God, the source of all goodness. thus parents have legitimate authority because they are submitted to the legitimate authority of a good God. but the authority of the fuhrer was submitted to nothing. (note: most of history's 'mistakes' seem to come from the ongoing belief that man is good.) it was self-derived and autocratic and therefore had a messianic aspect.

db stated, 'whereas earlier leadership was expressed in the form of the teacher, the statesman, the father...now the Leader has become an independent figure. the Leader is completely divorced from any office; he is essentially and only 'the Leader'. a true leader must know the limitations of his authority...if he understands his function in any other way than as it is rooted in fact, if he does not continually tell his followers quite clearly of the limited nature of his task and of their own responsibility, if he allows himself to surrender to the wishes of his followers, who would always make him their idol - then the image of the Leader will pass over into the image of the mis-leader and he will be acting in a criminal way not only towards those he leads, but also towards himself. the true Leader must always be able to disillusion. it is just this that is his responsibility and his real object. he must lead his following away from the authority of his person to the recognition of the real authority of orders and offices...he must radically refuse to become the appeal, the idol, ie. the ultimate authority of those whom he leads... he serves the order of the state, of the community and his service can be of incomparable value. but only so long as he keeps strictly in his place...he has to lead the individual into his own maturity...now a feature of man's maturity is responsibility towards other people, towards existing orders. (note: he must act in such a way that others are reminded of and helped toward their duty to obey God in their calling in life. at the same time) he must let himself be controlled, ordered, restricted'.

the good leader serves others and leads others to maturity. he puts them above himself, as a good parent does a child, wishing to lead that child to someday be a good parent. another word for this is discipleship.

he continued, 'only when a man sees that office is a penultimate authority in the face of an ultimate, indescribable authority, in the face of the authority of God, has the real situation been reached. and before this Authority the individual knows himself to be completely alone. the individual is responsible before God. and this solitude of man's position before God, this subjection to an ultimate authority, is destroyed when the authority of the Leader or of the office is seen as ultimate authority...alone before God, man becomes what he is , free and committed in responsibility at the same time.

the fearful danger of the present time is that above the cry for authority, be it of a Leader or of an office, we forget that man stands alone before the ultimate authority and that ANYONE WHO LAYS VIOLENT HANDS ON MAN HERE IS INFRINGING ETERNAL LAWS AND TAKING UPON HIMSELF SUPERHUMAN AUTHORITY WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY CRUSH HIM.
(note: and allow those who he is and has crushed to be destroyed with his brand of destruction and all the byproducts which come to the society in general.) the eternal law that the individual stands alone before God takes fearful vengeance where it is attacked and distorted. thus the Leader points to the office, but Leader and office together point to the final authority itself, before which reich or state are penultimate authorities. leaders or offices which set themselves up as gods mock God and the individual who stands alone before Him and must perish.

forty eight hours had passed since hitler's election, (jan. 30, 1933) but with db's speech the battle lines were drawn. according to db, the God of the bible stood behind true authority and benevolent leadership, but opposed the fuhrer principle and its advocate adolf hitler. of course hitler never publicly denounced God. he knew well that there were many churchgoers in germany who had some vague idea that real authority should come from their God, but unlike db, they had no idea what this actually meant. to embody the kind of leadership that rejected this idea of submission to God's authority, one must at least give lip service to that God, else one would not last very long. hitler was ultimately a practical man and as all truly practical men, he was a cynical (cynic is a man who believes only selfishness motivates human behavior) man.

in the first months of nazi rule, the speed and scope of what they intended and had begun executing throughout german society were staggering. under what was called the gleischaltung (synchronization), the country would be thoroughly reordered along national socialist lines..the ARYAN PARAGRAPH would take effect april 7.

this would result in a series of ..laws that were called the restoration of the civil service. government officials must be of aryan stock; anyone of jewish descent would lose his job.. ie. german church was a state church so this would move non-aryans out of church positions.

the church was in turmoil. some church leaders felt the church should make peace with the nazis, who were strongly opposed to communism and 'godlessness'...and believed the church should conform to the..racial laws and the fuhrer principle. they thot that by wedding the church to the state, they would restore the church and germany to her former glory, before the humilliating treaty of versailles after world war I. the moral degeneration of weimar germany was self-evident. hadn't hitler spoken of restoring moral order to the nation?

a certain group within the church wanted a strong, unified reich church and a 'christianity' that was strong and masculine, that would stand up to and defeat the godless and degenerate forces of bolshevism. they boldly called themselves deutsche christen (german christians) and referred to their brand..as 'positive christianity'. they were very aggressive in attacking those who didn't agree with them and generally caused much confusion and division in the church...they reasoned that jews who were baptized christians could form their own church and had no particular business expecting to be part of a distinctly german church...the races should be separate but equal as in jim crow south.

db's response was that the church plays a vital role for the state. ..

1.the church must continually ask the state whether its action can be justified as legitimate action of the state ie. action such as leads to a balance somewhere between excessive law and order and lawlessness and disorder....to help the state to work 'for your good' as 'servants of God'. (romans 13.4,6)
2.the church must' aid the victims of state action', actually state mis-action, 'even if they do not belong to the christian community' (galatians 6.10)
3.the church must 'not just ..bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself'. the translation is awkward, but he meant that a stick must be jammed into the spokes of the wheel to stop the vehicle.
the church would be 'in status confessionis and here the state would be in the act of negating itself'. this latin phrase, which means 'in a state of confession', was originally used in the 16th century lutheran context. in the current context it had come to mean a state of crisis in which the 'confession' (ie. simply to speak forth the good news of Jesus Christ) of the gospel was at stake. 'a state which includes within itself a terrorized church has lost its most faithful servant'.

the ARYAN PARAGRAPH was the nose of the proverbial camel in the tent (ie. the church) which is the first prelude to the tent's destruction. db went on to assert that confession of the good news needs to be made to all, jews included. therefore the church should not only do this but the logical conclusion is that the church includes jews as well as gentiles. (galatians 3.28)

db concluded with the words of luther's commentary on psalm 110.3: 'there is no other rule or test for who is a member of the people of God or the church of Christ than this: where there is a little band of those who accept this word of the Lord, teach it purely and confess against those who persecute it and for that reason suffers what is their due'.

..nazis spoke of the disabled as 'useless eaters' and life unworthy of life'..

to those who encouraged db to work within the german church (as opposed to the confessing church) he said..'if you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction'..

while barth was counseling patience and 'unity' until the confessing church would be thrown out.
db was thinking about the deep call of Christ, which was not about winning, but about submission to God wherever that might lead...'simply suffering -that is what will be needed then - not parries, blows or thrusts such as may still be possible or admissible in the preliminary fight; the real struggle that perhaps lies ahead must simply be to suffer faithfully..if you do not believe, you will not be established..the believer however means to decide'...

birth of the confessing church- the barman confession may, 1934

I. an appeal to the evangelical congregations and christians in germany

8.01 the confessional synod of the german evangelical church met in barmen, may 29-31, 1934. here representatives from all the german confessional churches met with one accord in a confession of the one Lord of the one, holy, apostolic church. in fidelity to their confession of faith, members of lutheran, reformed and united churches sought a common message for the need and temptation of the church in our day...it was not their intention to found a new church or to form a union...their intention was, rather, to withstand in faith and unanimity the destruction of the confession of faith and thus of the evangelical church in germany. in oppositin to attempts to establish the unity of the german evangelical church by means of false doctrine, by the use of force and insincere practices, the confessional synod insists that the unity of the evangelical churches in germany can come only from the word of God in faith through the Holy Sprit. thus alone is the church renewed.

8.03 be not deceived by loose talk, as if we meant to oppose the unity of the german nation! do not listen to the seducers who pervert our intentions, as if we wanted to break up the unity of the german evangelical church or to forsake the confessions of the fathers!

8.04 try the spirits whether they are of God! prove also the words of the confessional synod of the german evangelical church to see whether they agree with holy scripture and with the confessions of the fathers. if you find that we are speaking contrary to scripture, then do not listen to us! but if you find that we are taking our stand upon scripture, then let no fear or temptation keep you from treading with us the path of faith and obedience to the word of God, in order that God's people be of one mind upon earth and that we in faith experience what he himself has said: 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'.

II theological declaration concerning the present situation of the german evangelical church

8.05 according to the opening words of its constitution of july 11, 1933, the german evangelical church is a federation of confessional churches that grew out of the reformation and that enjoy equal rights. the theological basis for the unification of these churches is laid down in article 1 and article 2 of the constitution of the german evangelical church (that was recognized by the reich government on july 14, 1933) (note: the church does not need governmental recognition, does it?): article 1. the inviolable foundation of the german evangelical church is the gospel of Jesus Christ as it is attested for us in holy scripture and brought to light again in the confessions of the reformation. the full powers that the church needs for its mission are hereby determined and limited.

8.07 we publicly declare before all evangelical churches in germany that what they hold in common in this confession is grievously imperiled and with it the unity of the german evangelical church. it is threatened by the teaching methods and actions of the ruling church party of the 'german christians' and of the church administration carried on by them. these have become more and more apparent during the first year of the existence of the german evangelical church. this threat consists in the fact that the theological basis, in which the gec is united, has been continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles, on the part of the leaders and spolesmen of the 'german christians' as well as on the part of the church administration. when these principles are held to be valid, then, according to all the confessions in force among us, the church ceases to be the church and the gec, as a federation of confessional churches. becomes intrinsically impossible.

8.09 in view of the errors of the 'german christians' of the present reich church government which are devastating the church and also therefore breaking up the unity of the gec, we confess the following evangelical truths:

8.10 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (john 14.6) 'truly, truly, i say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber...I am the door; if anyone enters by Me, he will be saved'. (john 10,1,9)

8.11 Jesus Christ, as He is attested for us in holy scripture, is the one word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

8.12 we reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and becides this one word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation.

8.15 we reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords - areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through Him.

8.17 the christian church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in word and sacrament thru the Holy spirit. as the church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely His property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from His comfort and from His direction in the expectation of His appearance.

8.18 we refect the false doctrine, as though the church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.

8.19 'you know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them and their great men exercise authority over them. it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant'. matt. 20.25-6

8.20 the various offices in the church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation.

8.21 we reject the false doctrine, as though the church, apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.

8.122-5 'fear God. honor the emporer'. (I peter 2.17) scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the church also exists, the state has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. (it fulfills this task) by means of the treat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. the church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before Him. it calls to mind the kingdom of God, God's commandment and righteousness and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. it trusts and obeys the power of the word by which God upholds all things.

8.23 we reject the false doctrine, as though the state, over and beyond its special commission, shold and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the church's vocation as well.

8.24 we reject the false doctrine, as though the church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks and the dignity of the state, thus itslf becoming an organ of the state.

8.26 the church's commission, upon which its freedom is founded consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ's stead and therefore in the ministry of his own word and work through sermon and sacrament.

8.27 we reject the false doctrine, as though the church in human arrogance could place the word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes and plans.

12.7.2011 DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906-1945) HIS UNFOLDING CALL

just finished the biography of dietrich bonhoeffer by eric metaxas

1.21.1934 dietrich bonhoeffer's (db) sermon on jeremiah.

the sermon opened with, 'jeremiah was not eager to become a prophet of God. when the call came to him all of a sudden, he shrank back, he resisted, he tried to get away.' this reflected db's own situation, the path he saw lay ahead. he was beginning to understand that he was God's prisoner, that like the prophets of old, he was called to suffer and to be oppressed - and in that defeat and the acceptance of that defeat, there was victory.

the picture that db painted of jeremiah was one of unrelieved gloom and drama. God was after him and he could not escape. db referred to the 'arrow of the Almighty' striking down its 'hunted game'. but who was the 'hunted game'? it was jeremiah! but why was God shooting at the hero of the story? before they found out, db swittched from arrow..to noose imagery. 'the noose is drawn tighter and more painfully reminding jeremiah that he is a prisoner...and he has to follow. his path is prescribed. it is the path of the man whom God will not let go, who will never be rid of God..this path will lead right down into the deepest situation of human powerlessness. the follower becomes a laughingstock, scorned and taken for a fool, but a fool who is extremely dangerous to people's peace and comfort, so that he or she must be beaten, locked up, tortured, if not put to death right away. that is exactly what became of this man jeremiah, because he could not get away from God. he goes on to speak of God driving jeremiah from agony to agony.

'and jeremiah was just as much flesh and blood as we are, a human being like ourselves. he felt the pain of being continually humiliated and mocked, of the violence and brutality others used against him. after one episode of agonizing torture that had lasted a whole night, he burst out in prayer: "o Lord, You have enticed me and i was enticed; You have overpowered me and You have prevailed"'.

jeremiah was upbraided as a disturber of the peace, an enemy of the people, just like all those, throughout the ages until the present day, who have been possessed and seized by God, for whom God had become too strong..how gladly would he have shouted peace and heil (hitler) with the rest...

the triumphal procession of truth and justice, the triumphal procession of God and His scriptures through the world, drags in the wake of the chariot of victory a train of prisoners in chains. may He at the last bind us to His triumphal carriage so that , although in bonds oppressed, we may participate in His victory!

on march 15, 1940 the last group of ordinands finished their term and 2 days later the gestapo closed sigurdshof (where db had guided small groups of men of the confessing church in germany who were to become pastors) . they had discovered it at last and the golden era that began at zingst in early 1935 had ended. db could no longer teach ordinands. he would have to think about what was next and his options were being winnowed down. he was moving ineluctably toward deeper involvement in the conspiracy (to murder hitler), but exactly what this would mean was still unclear.

no one has better attempted to explain the seeming paradox of a christian involved in a plot to assassinate a head of state than eberhard behtge. he helps show that db's steps toward political resistance were not some unwarranted detour from his previous thinking, but were a natural and inevitable outworking of that thinking. db always sought to be brave and to speak the truth to 'confess' -come what may; but at some point merely speaking the truth smacked of cheap grace. he explained, 'db introduced us in 1935 to the problem of what we today call political resistance. the levels of confession and of resistance could no longer be kept neatly apart. the escalating persecution of the jews generated an increasingly intolerable situation, especially for db himself. we now realized that mere confession, no matter how courageous, inescapably meant complicity with the murderers, even though there would always be new acts of refusing to be co-opted and even though we would preach 'christ alone' sunday after sunday. during the whole time the nazi state never considered it necessary to prohibit such preaching. why should it?

thus we were approaching the borderline between confession and resistance and if we did not cross this border, our confession was going to be no better than cooperation with the criminals. and so it became clear where the problem lay for the confessing church; we were resisting by way of confession, but we were not confessing by way of resistance.

after hitler's success in france, a new day had dawned. db and so many in the resistance had been convinced that hitler would ruin germany by dragging it into a miserable military defeat. but who could have dreamed he would destroy germany through success, through an ever- escalating orgy of self-love and self-worship? actually db considered it in the truncated speech given 2 days after hitler came to power. he knew that if germany worshipped any idol, it would incinerate its own future, as those who worshipped moloch did by burning their children.

after the fall of france, many understood that hitler was destroying germany thru success. that july, db was thinking about the implications of this when he spoke at a potsdam meeting of the old prussian council of brethren. but what he said was widely misinterpreted and added to his growing sense of alienation from the confessing church.

db said that germany had given its full assent to national socialism and hitler. he called it a 'historic yes'. before the french victory, there had been great possibilities for hitler's quick defeat and the end of national socialism , but these had vanished. they who stood against hitler must get used to it, must try to understand the new situation and act accordingly. it would be a long haul, not a short one, and different tactics were in order. db often spoke hyperbolically, for effect, and sometimes it backfired, as it did now.

he had once told a student that every sermon must contain 'a shot of heresy', meaning that to express the truth, we must sometimes overstate something or say something in a way that will sound heretical - though it must certainly not be heretical. but even in using this phrase, 'a shot of heresy', db betrayed his habit of saying things for effect that could easily be misinterpreted. many seized on that phrase to claim that db was unconcerned with orthodox theology. db often fell into such traps and for this reason he might be the most misunderstood theologian who ever lived

that day in potsdam he was trying to shake the cobwebs from everyone's understanding and it happened again. by saying that hitler had won, he was trying hard - in retrospect, too hard - to get his listeners to wake up and change course. so now, when he spoke of how national socialism had won, some in his audience thot he was giving his assent to this victory. they seriously thot he had said, in effect. 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. in the next few years, after he began work for the abwehr (an intelligence group like the gestapo) - ostensibly as an agent of the german government, but of course as a member of the resistance - many remembered what he said that day and thot he actually had gone over to the 'other' side and was working for hitler and the nazis.

db obviously meant that those opposed to hitler must rethink their approach to the new situation in germany. db was quite willing to do this, to forgo his previous position of outward opposition to the regime and suddenly pretend to be in step with it. but of course it was only so that he could be in opposition to it on another, more fundamental level.

this involved deception. many of the serious christians of db's day were theologically unable to follow him to this point, nor did he ask them to. for many of them, such deception as db would soon be involved in was no different from lying. (note: it is interesting that that the prohibition is not to bare false witness against another person and we may have translated that into 'never tell someone something that is not true', 'you must tell everything you know', 'you must never knowingly deceive another person' or ideas like this) db's willingness to engage in deception stemmed not from a cavalier attitude toward the truth, but from a respect for the truth (note: or better yet 'the Truth' as seen in God's word?) that was so deep, it forced him beyond the easy legalism of truth telling.

in tegel prison several years later, db wrote the essay 'what does it mean to tell the truth'?' in which he explored the subject. 'from the moment of our lives in which we become capable of speech we are taught that our words must be true. what does that mean? what does 'telling the truth' mean? who requires this of us?

God's standard of truth entailed more than merely 'not lying'. in the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, 'you have heard it said...but i say unto you'. Jesus took the old testament laws to a deeper level of meaning and obedience, from the 'letter of the law' to the ' spirit of the law'. following the letter of the law was the dead 'religion' of which barth, among others had written. it was man's attempt to deceive God into thinking one was being obedient, which was a far greater deception. God always required something deeper than religious legalism.

in the essay db gave the example of a girl whose teacher asks in front of the class whether her father is a drunkard. she says no. 'of course one could call the child's answer a lie; all the same, this lie contains more truth - ie. it corresponds more to the truth - than if the child had revealed the father's weakness before the class'. one cannot demand 'the truth' at any cost (note: this may be part of the reasoning behind the practice of non self-incrimination or pleading the fifth) and for the girl to admit in front of the class that her father is a drunkard is to dishonor him (note: keeping the commandment 'honor your father and mother') . how one tells the truth depends on circumstances. db was aware that what he called the 'living truth' was dangerous and 'arouses the suspicion that the truth can and may be adapted to the given situation, so that the concept of truth utterly dissolves, and falsehood and truth draw indistinguishably close to each other.

db knew that the flip side of the easy religious legalism of 'never telling a lie' was the cynical notion that there is no such thing as truth (note: God's word?), only 'facts'. this led to the cynical ideal that one must say everything with no sense of propriety or discernment, that decorum or reserve was 'hypocrisy' and a kind of lie. he wrote of that in his ethics too:

it is only the cynic who claims 'to speak the truth' at all times and in all places to all men in the same way, but who, in fact, displays nothing but a lifeless image of the truth...he kons the halo of the fanatical devotee of truth who can make no allowance for human weaknesses; but, in fact, he is destroying the living truth between men. he wounds shame, desecrates mystery, breaks confidence, betrays the community in which he live and laughs arrogantly at the devastation he has wrought and at the human weakness which 'cannot bear the truth.

for db, the relationship with God ordered everything else around it. a number of times he referred to the relationship with Jesus Christ as being like the cantus firmus (a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition) of a piece of music. all the other parts of the music referred to it, and it held them together. to be true to God in the deepest way meant having such a relationship with Him that one did not live legalistically by 'rules' and 'principles'. one could never separate one's actions from one's relationship to God. it was a more demanding and more mature level of obedience and db had come to see that the evil of hitler was forcing christians to go deeper in their obedience, to think harder about what God was asking. legalistic religion was being shown to be utterly inadequate.

dohnanyi's (db's brother in law) boss, general oster, had said that national socialism was 'an ideology of such sinister immorality that traditional values and loyalties no longer applied'. db knew that God had the answer to every difficulty and he was trying to understand what God was saying to him about his situation. he had moved past mere 'confession' and into conspiracy, which involved a measure of deception that many of his colleagues in the confessing church would not have understood. soon, when he became a double agent for military intelligence under the command of admiral canaris, he had moved into a very lonely place indeed.

as his role in the conspiracy developed, db continued his pastoral work and his writings. he would write until the last months of his life, but the last book he published in his lifetime was the prayerbook on the bible which appeared in 1940. that a book on the old testament psalms was published then is a testimony to db's devotion to scholarly truth and to his willingness to deceive the leaders of the third reich.

db scholar geffrey kelly wrote, 'one should make no mistake about it; in the context of nazi germany's bitter opposition to any manner of honoring of the old testament, this book, at the time of its publication, constituted an explosive declaration both politically and theologically'. the book was a passionate declaration of the importance of the old testament to christianity and to the church and it was a bold and scholarly rebuke to nazi efforts to undermine anything of jewish origin.

because of this, db got into a battle with the reich board for the regulation of literature. as he would do in many interrogations in prison later on, he played dumb, claiming the book was merely scholarly literary exegesis. he well knew that all true exegeses and scholarship pointed to the truth, which, for the nazis, was far worse than a hail of bullets. db also said that the board's prohibitions against his 'religious writings' were unclear and he hadn't understood that he ought to have submitted this manuscript to them.

the incident illustrates db's sense of what it meant to 'tell the truth'. obeying God by publishing this pro-jewish book - and cannily pretending that he had no inkling the national socialists would object to it's contents - was being true. he knew that if he had sent the manuscript to them beforehand, it would never have seen the light of day. db had little doubt that God wished him to publish the truth in the book. he did not owe the nazis the truth about the manuscript any more than the hypothetical little girl in his essay owed her class the truth about her father's vices.

in the book, db linked the idea of barthian grace with prayer by saying that we cannot reach God with our own prayers, but by praying 'His" prayers - the psalms of the old testament, which Jesus prayed - we effectively piggyback on them all the way to heaven. we must not confuse what we do naturally, such as 'wishing, hoping, sighing, lamenting, rejoicing', with prayer, which is unnatural to us and which must be initiated from outside us, by God. if we confuse these 2 things, 'we confuse earth and heaven, human beings and God'.

(note: although i have increasingly found praying not only the psalms but other parts of scripture, at a slightly less than verbatim rate, ( ie. the sermon on the mount and parts of nearly every book that contain valuable directives, wisdom, comfort, worship etc.) helpful i'm not sure i can come up with a scripture that limits prayer to such. on the other side of it, Jesus' intro to what we call the Lord's prayer seems to be more toward 'this is only a pattern' to be filled in with all the details from your own life than 'pray these exact words and them only'.)

to continue.. prayer cannot come from us. ' for that one needs Jesus Christ!' by praying the psalms, we 'pray along with Christ's prayer and therefore may be certain and glad that God hears us. when our will, our whole heart, enters into the prayer of Christ, then we are truly praying (note: ephesians 5, 'praying in the Spirit'?) we can pray only in Jesus Christ, with whom we shall also be heard'.

the idea would have seemed impossibly 'jewish' for the nazis, and it was too 'catholic' for many protestants, who saw in recited prayers the 'vain repetition' of the heathen. but db only wanted to be biblical. the ordinands at finkenwalde and afterward prayed the psalms every day. db was firm: 'the psalter filled the life of early christianity. but more important than all of this is that Jesus died on the cross with words from the psalms on his lips. whenever the psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure is lost to the christian church. with its recovery will come unexpected power'.

in one slim book, db was claiming that Jesus had given his imprimatur to the psalms and to the old testament; that christianity was unavoidably jewish; that the old testament is not superseded by the new testament, but is inextricably linked with it; and that Jesus was unavoidably jewish. db also made clear that the psalms spoke of Jesus and prophesied His coming. the following march he would find that publishing this small exegetical tract resulted in his being forbidden to publish anything again.

on july 14, 1940, db was preaching at a church conference in konigsburg when the gestapo arrived and broke up the meeting. they cited a new order forbidding such meetings and the conference ended. no one was arrested, but db saw that his ability to continue such pastoral work was coming to an end. he and bethge (one of the former ordinands with who db became mutual confessors..bethge became a real strength to db and his closest friend) forged ahead, visiting parishes in east prussia...stalin's troops were very near and the general mood was anxious. so after his tour of these villages, db returned to berlin and spoke with dohnanyi about his plans going forward.

there was great rivalry between the abwher and the gestapo, since they occupied separate spheres, just as the CIA and the FBI do in the states. doh reasoned that if the abwehr officially employed db, gestapo would be forced to leave him alone. it made sense for many reasons. db would have great freedom of movement to continue his work as a pastor and he would have the cover needed to expand his activities for the conspiracy. another benefit was that as an invaluable member of germany's military intelligence, db was unlikely to be called into military service. he would ostensibly be performing an important duty for the fatherland. that was a huge boon since he had never resolved what he would do if he was drafted. doh, bethge, db, gisevius and oster discussed this arrangement in a meeting at the bonhoeffer home that august. they decided to move for ward. for starters they would send db on assignment to east prussia, specially since war with russia seemed imminent and it would be a natural place for him to go since he had plenty of pastoral business there. if the gestapo thought it odd that a confessing church pastor should be used on abwehr business, they could say that the abwehr used communists and jews , too, which they did. the 'front' of a pastorate in the confessing church was ideal camouflage for the abwehr's activities. besides, they were military intelligence, engaged in complex and mysterious missions. who was the gestapo to question them?

so the day had come. db had officiallly joined the conspiracy. he would be enfolded into the abwehr's protection and, in the guise of a member of military intelligence, would be protected by oster and canaris. the levels of deception were several. on the one hand, db would be actually performing pastoral work and continuing his theological writing, as he wished to do. officially this work was a front for his work as a nazi agent in military intelligence. but unofficially his work in military intelligence was a front for his real work as a conspirator against the nazi regime.

db was pretending to be a pastor - but was only pretending to be pretending, since he really was being a pastor. and he was pretending to be a member of military intelligence working for hitler, but - like doh, oster, canaris and gisevius - he was in reality working against hitler. db was not telling little white lies. in luther's famous phrase, he was 'sinning boldly'. he was involved in a high-stakes game of deception upon deception and yet db himself knew that in all of it, he was being utterly obedient to God. for him, that was the cantus firmus that made the dizzying complexities of it all perfectly coherent.

on february 24, 1941 the abwehr sent db to geneva. his main purpose was to make contact with protestant leaders outside germany, let them know about the conspiracy and put out feelers about peace terms with the government that would take over...but at first, db couldn't even get into switzerland. the swiss border police insisted that someone inside switzerland vouch for him as his guarantor. db named karl barth, who was called and assented, but not without some misgivings.

like others at the time, barth was perplexed about db's mission. how could a confessing church pastor come to switzerland in the midst of war? it seemed to him that db must have somehow made peace with the nazis. this was one of the casualties of was, that trust itself seemed to die a thousand deaths.

such doubts and questions from others would plague db, but he certainly wasn't free to explain what he was doing to those outside his inner circle. this represented another 'death' to self for him because he had to surrender his reputation in the church. people wondered how he escaped the fate of the rest of his generation. he was writing and traveling, meeting with this one and that one, going to movies and restaurants and living a life of relative privilege and freedom while others were suffering and dying and being put in excruciating positions of moral compromise.

for those who knew that db was working for the abwehr, it was all the worse. had he finally capitulated, this high-minded patrician moralist, who always was so unyielding and who demanded that others must be similarly unyielding? was he the one who had said that 'only those who cry out for the jews may sing gregorian chants' and who had put himsef in the place of God by outrageously declaring that there was no salvation outside the confessing church?

even if db could have explained that he was in fact working against hitler, many in the confessing church would still have been confused and others would have been outraged. for a pastor to be involved in a plot whose linchpin was the assassination of the head of state during a time of war, when brothers and sons and fathers were giving their lives for their country, was unthinkable. db had come to the place where he was in many ways very much alone. God had driven him to this place, though, and he was not about to look for a way out any more than jeremiah had done. it was the fate he had embraced, and it was obedience to God, and he could rejoice in it, and did.