the total blessing

RICHARD WURMBRAND

K

THE TOTAL BLESSING

Other books by Richard Wurmbrand:

The Overcomers (Monarch Publications 1993)

From the Lips of Children (Hodder & Stoughton 1986)

Where Christ Still Suffers (Marshall Pickering 1985)

Little Notes which Like Each Other (Hodder & Stoughton 1976)

Sermons in Solitary Confinement (Marshall Morgan & Scott 1969)

Reaching Towards the Heights (Marshall Morgan & Scott 1985)

Tortured for Christ (Marshall Morgan & Scott 1983)

In God's Underground (Hodder & Stoughton 1969)

My Correspondence with Jesus (Monarch Publications 1990)

Marx: Prophet of Darkness (Marshall Morgan & Scott 1986)

From Torture to Triumph (Monarch Publications 1988)

Alone with God (Hodder & Stoughton 1988)

If Prison Walls Could Speak (Hodder & Stoughton 1972)

Richard Wurmbrand

The Total

Blessing

First published in Great Britain 1995

Triangle Books

SPCK

Holy Trinity Church

Marylebone Road

London

NW14DU

Copyright © Richard Wurmbrand 1983, 1995

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The biblical quotations are based on the

Authorized Version of the Bible, the text of which

is the property of the Crown in perpetuity.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the

British Library

ISBN 0-281-04875-4

Photoset by Rowland Phototypesetting Limited,

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Printed in Great Britain by BPC Paperbacks Limited

Member of the British Printing Company Limited

CONTENTS

Introduction to the Author i

1. The Total Blessing 7

2. God Speaking in Dreams 9

3. What Is Truth? 12

4. Self-denial 14

5. The Conscious and the Unconscious 17

6. What Truth Is Jesus? 20

7. Prayers 22

8. The Simplicity of Moral Problems 24

9. The Sin of Consistency 27

10. The Commandment to Be One 29

11. About Being Narrow-minded and

Broad-minded 32

12. The Little We Know about God 35

13. We and Our Enemies 38

14. The Matter of Compromise 40

15. The Search for Truth 43

16. About Suffering 46

17. The Angels of Suffering 48

18. Sharing His Divinity 50

19. Attitude towards Law 53

20. Not Acting 56

21. Right Actions 59

22. Having Jesus at His Best 62

23. Influence God 64

24. God Who Evolves 66

25. Are You Ready to Die? 69

26. One Trinitarian God 71

27. A Few Thoughts about the Devil 74

28. Problems of Faith in God 77

29. In the Name of Jesus 80

30. Reason and Sentiment 83

31. Why Evil in the World of a Good Father? 85

1. God's Characteristics 87

10. Introduction to the Author

A book by Geoffrey Hanks appeared in 1992 in Britain with

the title, 70 Great Christians Changing the World (Christian

Focus Publications). Among others it names Peter and Paul,

Ignatius, Polycarp, martyrs of old; world-renowned teachers

such as Jerome, Augustine, Columbus; Patrick, apostle of

the Irish; Francis of Assisi; Wycliffe, Luther, Tyndale; John

Knox, Scottish reformer; Ignatius of Loyola; Carey, the

father of modern missions,- Hudson Taylor, Livingstone,

founders of missions in Asia and Africa; Barnardo, founder of

orphanages; William Booth of the Salvation Army; Spurgeon

and Moody, the great evangelistic preachers.

In this book one chapter is about Richard Wurmbrand. He

is counted among the 70 greatest. This tops good, but also

very bad reports about him in the world press. Below are a

few of these:

No contemporary person has meant so much for the opening

of the eyes of the West to what is going on in the Communist

camp — except the much decried Wurmbrand. Before

Wurmbrand came, we spoke to deaf ears.

The Revd Michael Bourdeaux, Director of the Institute for

the Study of Religion and Communism, London

Wurmbrand irritates, but opens our eyes... Wurmbrand has

got the world to hearken, even if he has sacrificed himself.

He has shouted the cry of the martyrs.

The Revd Ingemar Martinson

General Secretary of the Slavic Mission, Sweden

Wurmbrand is an Iron Curtain Paul. He is the most author-

itative voice of the Underground Church, more than a living

martyr.

Underground Evangelism

Since the Sermon on the Mount v?as delivered, no one has

preached with love like Richard Wurmbrand.

Haratta, Finland

Wurmbrand has brought to the universal Church a new

dimension, reminding it about the martyrs.

Church Times, London

Wurmbrand burst like a fireball across the cool complacency

of some.

USA Congressional Record

We were hit by a hurricane called Wurmbrand.

Tablet, New Zealand

We have checked and can say with almost certainty that

there has never been a Pastor Wurmbrand in Romania.

Finnish Communist newspaper

The manifestations of Wurmbrand are determined by high

emotions, they are without compromise and often naive . ..

His judgements about church politics prove a terrifying

narrowness . . . The danger of Wurmbrand's grotesque dis-

tortions consists in the fact that he calls Christian groups in

Eastern Europe to resistance until death ...

Gerhard Simon in The Churches in Russia

In the present Communist regimes strong powers for the

humanization of society lie hidden... Wurmbrand

becomes really dangerous.

Van de Heuwell, then Director of Public Relations, the

World Council of Churches

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand possesses a bordello and nine

night clubs in the USA.

From the Soviet film, The Emissaries, which had as its

target the smuggling of religious literature into the

USSR, organized by 'Jesus to the Communist World'

Wurmbrand is the devil's mouthpiece.

Arbeiterzeitung, Switzerland

Wurmbrand is a new St John the Baptist... a voice crying in

the wilderness.

Christianity Today, USA

Wurmbrand is a Marxist theologian. The Pilgrim, USA

Wurmbrand is a passionate anti-Communist and anti-

Soviet. His books are full of unveiled hatred.

Several Soviet newspapers

Wurmbrand completely rejects scholarly objectivity.

Reformatorisch Dagbladett, Holland

Wurmbrand is a red pastor.

Vaderland, South Africa

Wurmbrand misuses the pulpit for spreading his political

views.

The Swedish Bishop Strom in Dalademokraten

Wurmbrand is one of the most active voices of anti-

Communism.

Polititcheskoie Samoabrazovanie, Moscow

Except the Bible, nothing has shaken me like Wurmbrand's

Tortured For Christ. It is the message of the century. Even

more: since the persecution of Christians by Nero, it is the

most powerful Act of Martyrs.

Dr Kurt Koch

renowned German evangelical pastor and author

Wurmbrand is broadly charitable in his understanding of

God's love and the nature of man. Not even an ounce of

contentiousness appears in his books. Perhaps the agony of

long imprisonment purges that out of a man.

Alliance Witness, USA

Wurmbrand suffered beastly treatment by the Communists,

so he has remained with a confused mind. He is not Evangeli-

cal, so he cannot be trusted. He is rather a mystic.

A Dutch Christian magazine

Wurmbrand is intemperate.

Catholic Herald, London

3

Wurmbrand speaks softly, without flourished comparisons

and without dramatic exaggerations .. . His concepts of

Christianity come from the original sources ... Loud pro-

motion does not correspond to his character. Richard

Wurmbrand is surprisingly near to the Nazarene whom he

represents. Weak in health, he catches through unyielding

spiritual power. He descends from the podium exhausted

and has made his audience ashamed rather than inflamed.

Berner Tagblatt, Switzerland

Wurmbrand is a dirty Jew.

Christian Vanguard, USA

Wurmbrand has been pro-Nazi.

Werden Gang, Norway

Wurmbrand, a fascinating and passionate (sometimes even

excessively so) personality, appears always firm in the fight

against the scepticism of occidental Christianity, which,

with rare exceptions, cannot believe that Communism

might be a menace for her.

La Suisse, Switzerland

Wurmbrand's book // that were Christ would you give Him

your blanket} convinces one to give his blanket not only to

one's persecuted brother, but even to one's persecutor, so full

of love is it.

Nuova Republica, Italy

The denunciations of tortures and barbarisms in the Com-

munist camp made by Wurmbrand are more moving than

those of Solzhenitsyn.

II Citadino, Italy

Wurmbrand's attacks on Communism's treatment of Chris-

tian prisoners was viewed by many as sensationalist until

Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago confirmed his descrip-

tions of the atrocities.

Daily News, California

Thank God for men like Solzhenitsyn and Wurmbrand. Both

have written books on their imprisonment in Communist

countries. These books have been made available to us for a

reason - a divine warning.

Tacoma News Tribune, USA

Some church leaders in the West attack Pastor Richard

Wurmbrand, the leading fighter for the Underground

Church, accusing him of lying and exaggerating regarding

the atrocities in Communist prisons. I have personally met

Christians who sat in prison with Wurmbrand. They told

me, 'Not only is everything which Wurmbrand says true, but

much, much more. Nobody can describe the ferocious things

happening there.'

Mrs Anutza Moise

author of A ransom for Wurmbrand in Morgenbladet,

Norway

Reverend Richard Wurmbrand still bears the marks on his

body of hideous Communist tortures. He is an interna-

tionally respected author, lecturer and evangelist.

Boston Herald, USA

The publicity given Solzhenitsyn has brought to light the

truth of Wurmbrand's outspoken statements. Should we not

back up Wurmbrand and his Christ-like mission to the

Communist world?

Reformatio, Switzerland

Both Solzhenitsyn and Wurmbrand are giants in modern

church history.

Dagen, Norway

The facts about the author are much simpler: He is an

ordinary Christian who lived in very unusual circumstances.

He is a pastor of Jewish descent, who served in Romania in

Fascist and Communist times. His wife, Sabiria, and he were

imprisoned and court-martialled under Fascists. They were

also in jail under Communists, the author for fourteen years,

his wife for three. Both parents of his wife, three sisters, a

brother and six foster children (they count as foster children

only because legal adoption was not possible) were killed in

the holocaust.

During his term in jail, he never had any books or writing

materials. He could only meditate and have spiritual experi-

ences, favoured by the fact that he spent years in solitary

confinement.

After the ordeal, Wurmbrand arrived in the West where he

founded an international organization dedicated to helping

persecuted churches and families of prisoners. It was

founded to be the voice of the martyrs: making known their

suffering, but also their splendid examples of love and hero-

ism.

The organization has its offices in 40 countries and ex-

pands its work to 70.

In different countries it works under different names. In

the USA it is called 'The Voice of the Martyrs', hi the UK it

has been founded by the Revd Stuart Harris and is named

'Release International'.

Mr Harris was the first Western pastor to come to Romania

in a time of fierce persecution; he met secretly with the

author to get first-hand information about the suffering

church, and brought its message to Great Britain.

The organization provides churches oppressed by Com-

munism and Islam with God's word and literature in 63

languages, legally where possible. Where this is not possible

they introduce books by other ways. In some cases they

create, at great risk, secret printing presses within countries

with oppressive regimes.

Paster Wurmbrand wrote much about the suffering

churches and missionary problems. This time he has written

a book about God and human life. Most of the thoughts

contained in this book come from when he was alone in a

cell, 30 feet beneath the earth, never, but never, seeing sun,

moon, stars, trees, flowers, birds, butterflies. He never saw

any other colour than grey - the grey of the walls and of the

prison uniforms. He never heard a voice except the insults of

those who watched him.

So don't wonder if some of these thoughts seem strange.

They come from a man who lived a strange life.

Tom White

Director of The Voice of the Martyrs, USA

The author welcomes correspondence at: Release

International, PO Box 19, Bromley BR2 9TZ.

The Total Blessing

Joseph received a blessing far beyond what his father

Jacob imparted to him. We might call it the total

blessing: 'The Almighty shall bless thee with bless-

ings of heaven above and blessings of the deep that lie

beneath' (Genesis 49.25). This is the blessing in its

fullness reserved for the people of God. 'The Lord had

blessed Abraham in all things' (Genesis 24.1) — not

only in material or spiritual matters, but in all things.

There is a state of consciousness reserved for the

elect of God which will lead only to right actions. This

is made possible by becoming a being apart. Samuel

said to Saul, 'The spirit of the Lord will come upon

thee, and thou shalt be... turned into another man' ( 1

Samuel 10.6). This 'new man' receives a blank cheque

from God. 'Do as occasion serve thee, for God is with

thee' (v. 7). Saul could do what he liked because 'God

gave him another heart' (v. 9).

In the Hebrew Masoretic text, after the word 'man'

referring to Saul (v. 22), a large open space is left, because

an individual with such privileges from God can hardly

be considered simply a man like everyone else. Has he

not become something more than human, something

approaching a higher, angelic species, in which another

ethic and a different sort of relationship with God rule?

He is a man blessed in all he does. He has not only the

blessings of heaven, but also those of the deep.

Through their new birth, a person becomes rooted in

the highest Source, which is eternal, and thus raise

into heavenly realms everything they touch. With self

forgotten, they partake of the divine nature. Passions

and evil habits are forsaken, and the way is opened to

be blessed in everything.

The following story illustrates what is meant by this

total blessing. A man played the lottery and won a

million. The man who sold him the ticket asked him,

'How did it happen that you chose just the right

number?' He replied, 'Well, I am Jewish.''What dif-

ference did that make?' 'It was decisive,' replied the

winner. 'Being Jewish I knew that the number seven

must win, because it is the holy number in our books.

The seventh day is the Sabbath. There are seven great

religious feasts. You find seven all over the Bible.

Seven times seven makes 48. So I chose seven hundred

and forty eight and became a millionaire.

The salesman in the shop where he had bought the

ticket said, 'But Sir, seven times seven makes 49, not 48/

The winner answered, 'God knows that I am bad at

mathematics. He knows what mistakes I would make in

multiplication. He willed it that the wrong number I

calculated should be just the number I needed to become

rich/

God can give a blessing that makes not only all things

work together for good, but all things, even the things

that you consider the worst imaginable. In the Old

Testament, Joseph was sold by his brothers to be a slave.

This resulted in him becoming prime minister and the

saviour of his family in which he had been despised.

You can have this blessing, and you can give such

blessings to others.

But human beings can impart curses, too. If some-

one steals some wheat, grinds it, bakes it, and then

says a benediction over it, they blaspheme. God said to

the priests, 'If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it

to heart to give glory unto my name, I will even send a

curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings'

(Malachi 2.2). There are religious services from which

it would be wise to flee before the blessing is given.

As for yourself, be cleansed, blessed in all you do,

blessed with the blessings from above and from the

deep. Go to church at least for the blessing. Seek the

blessings of righteous people. You will thereby receive

a precious reality.

Then share your blessings with others.

8

God Speaking in Dreams

Brother Lawrence wrote, 'The barque of the Spirit goes

forward even in sleep.' We read in Job 33.15-16:'In a

dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls

upon men, in slumberings upon the bed: then (God)

opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction.'

Therefore a Christian never sleeps fully. Solomon's

bride said, 'I sleep, but my heart wakes.' It is while she

sleeps that she hears the voice of her beloved saying,

'Open to me, my sister' (Song of Solomon 5.2}. I person-

ally never go to bed without paper and pen near me,

which I use to note all my dreams. Occasionally I have

dreamt whole sermons and articles, which have often

been judged my best. The same was said about

Spurgeon.

Why don't more Christians pay attention to then-

dreams? The practice is very useful, but I must say that

in most instances it is not a very pleasant experience.

In Scripture, the second recorded appearance of God

in a dream was to Abimelech, king of Gerar (Genesis

20.2). God said to him, 'Behold, thou art but a dead

man' - not a message many would be eager to hear. At

the same time God informed Abimelech that

Abraham, the man who lied to him and endangered his

life, was 'a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou

shalt live' (v. 7). In his dream-speaking to us, God

sometimes contravenes our moral and religious

standards.

The first recorded appearance of God in a dream was

to Abraham: 'A deep sleep fell upon Abraham; and, lo,

an horror of darkness fell upon him' (Genesis 15.12).

How many of us would be ready to hear God speaking in

dreams if the experience were accompanied by feelings

of horror? Furthermore, God gave Abraham unpleasant

news: 'Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger

9

in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them: and

they shall afflict them four hundred years^7 ( v. 13 ).

Would you be willing to accept revelations from

God about prolonged suffering for your descendants

lasting centuries? Yet such nightmares can be revela-

tions from God.

An angel of the Lord appeared to New Testament

Joseph in a dream and told him, 'Arise, and take the

young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be

thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek

the young child to destroy him' (Matthew 2.13). If

Joseph had not acted on God's revelations in a dream,

the infant Jesus would not have survived. The condi-

tion for hearing God's voice in dreams is to be open not

only to good news, but to all of God's plans, though

some might seem strange and terrible to our human

understanding.

We have become accustomed to the notion of having

God as a personal Saviour. The expression is not bibli-

cal. As a matter of fact, very few people are capable of

receiving personal revelations from God. History and

biography indicate that God has led his people to

victory through dramatic upheavals. And sometimes

God's revelations anticipate these dramas. The walk

with God involves more than caresses and expressions

of love. Anyone who cannot bear the foreknowledge of

such dramas should content themselves with the corp-

orate knowledge of the Church.

It is not necessary for everyone to have personal

communications. In fact, few can bear them. If we do

not have an openness to revelations that may involve

great suffering, what we call the guidance of a personal

Saviour or of the Holy Spirit may be simple illusion.

Dreams from God can be nightmares, as in the

book of Daniel. They can also take the form of erotic

imaginings, as in Solomon's Song. Such imagery can

be the symbol for capturing something of the in-

expressible love relationship existing between the

faithful soul and our God.

10

If the authors of the Bible had not used such thought-

forms, the Song of Solomon would never have become

part of the canon of Scripture. Today, those same theo-

logians and scholars who consider the Bible infallibly

inspired would doubtless reject any prompting to

prepare a sermon clothed in erotic language or under-

girded with dire predictions for the families of the

faithful. Yet drama and nightmares and eroticism can

all be the means by which God communicates with us.

Through the prophet Joel God promised that in the

last days 'Your old men shall dream dreams, and your

young men shall see visions' (Joel 2.28).

11

What is Truth}

The biblical assertion that Jesus is the truth makes the

reason rebel. The classical definition of truth is 'con-

formity between judgements and reality'. Now, Jesus

might be a man or the Son of God or both, but he is in

no case an abstraction like 'truth' used in this sense.

He is more than the conformity between things and

assertions.

To have truth we must go beyond the strict bound-

aries of reason. As soon as we leave the sphere of the

material objects with which we interact daily, we

realize how difficult it is to apprehend truth, firstly

because the objects of our inquiry do not show them-

selves to us as they are. It took us thousands of years of

intellectual development to discover that both the

universe and our bodies are made up of atoms. The

atom still hides its mystery from us. So does every

person we encounter, not because of any bad intention

on their part, but simply because we are all enigmas to

ourselves.

Things and persons are 'ex-sistent'. In Latin this

word means 'to be outside themselves'. The prodigal

son of Jesus' parable who deserted his father, used up

his inheritance and ended up herding swine, 'came to

himself (Luke 15.17). Up to this point, he was outside

his real self, a toy used and discarded by the world he

sought to conquer. Whoever had known him up to that

point would not have known the real person, because

it was not within himself. It was an object in the hands

of others who led him into evil. His real being was

divorced from his self. To know him, one would have

had to meet him outside of what he appeared to be for a

time.

Original sin practically assures that one's first en-

counter with reality is in the area of 'non-truth'. It is

12

only by virtue of the divine, embodied in Jesus, that we

find our rightful place within the sphere of his

marvellous creation, rather than as observers of a

mirage that presents itself as reality. Jesus enables us

to love and appreciate the world as God loved it when

he gave his Son for it. This love causes us to apprehend

it in truth.

Because individuals can hide their real nature, we

may fail to understand them. But like everything in

creation, including even hidden objects, they have one

common attribute: the very fact of being. They are.

There are not only good and bad times, there are

simply times. And there exists the simple 'there are^7.

We usually pay attention to accidents and neglect this

essential.

Jesus comes from God, whose name is 'I am what I

am' (Exodus 3.14). He is the essential Being who exists

above transitory accidents. Jesus, his message to man-

kind, is the truth, above the great non-truth and the

small bits of truth on which we live.

When you have Jesus, the truth, you have everything

- the whole truth.

Francis of Assisi was once asked, while hoeing his

garden, 'What would you do if you knew you would die

today?'

He replied, 'I would hoe my garden.'

He had the truth. He was above the world of change

and decay; he was within the sphere of reality, where

Jesus reigns.

========== 4-

Self-denial

Jesus said, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny

himself, and take up his cross' (Luke 9.23). The first

thing a Christian has to do is to deny himself. Every-

thing else follows afterwards. If you take up your cross

— even if you suffer prison and torture for his name —

and have not denied yourself, the sacrifice you bring

will only tend to magnify you, make you proud, and

destroy your soul.

There is a legend about a dove that, pursued by an

eagle, took refuge in Moses' bosom. The eagle de-

manded the surrender of its prey, arguing that God

himself ordained that one creature should live by the

sacrifice of another. Moved by its argument but con-

cerned for the dove, Moses gave an equivalent amount

of flesh from his own bosom, then freed the dove.

Now, Moses did not tell the story; it is not found in

Scripture. Neither are many of his own acts of kind-

ness found in the Pentateuch, which he authored. The

self had been denied.

What we perceive as the self is the sum of our

performances in life. Some individuals are elated by all

the good things they feel they have done; others are

depressed by the many sins they have committed;

most perceive a mixture of both in their lives.

We have to abolish this image of the self. I am not

simply what I perform.

David took Uriah's wife and had Uriah murdered.

But he was not what he did. He was 'a man after God's

own heart' (Acts 13.22).

Saul of Tarsus persecuted Christians viciously. But

he was not what he did. He was one of God's elect,

chosen to be an apostle. This election had taken place

before the foundation of the world. His life-

experiences before his conversion were the

14

developmental steps of an embryonic apostle.

Judas Iscariot went about preaching and healing,

after having forsaken all his possessions, as did the

other eleven disciples, for Christ's sake. But he too was

not what he did. He was the betrayer whose name

stands even today for infamy.

A butterfly while in the cocoon looks like a worm. It

is not a worm, but a butterfly in process.

The self which has to be denied is the false image we

have about our person. There was a Pharisee who

really fasted twice a week, gave tithe of all he pos-

sessed, and did many other good things. But he was

something other than his actions. He was a hypocrite.

A publican who extorted from people felt he had good

cause not to lift up so much as his eyes to heaven. But

God knew him better. He was not what he had done.

He was a man justified before God (Luke 18.10-14).

When Jacob and Esau, the children of Rebecca, were

not yet born, 'neither having done any good or evil'

(Romans 9.11), Jacob was loved and Esau hated by God.

They were regarded for what they were, not what they

had done.

Do not let your mind be elated by good deeds or

driven to despair by irreparable sins. It is wrong to

consider the self a résumé of the deeds one has done

while playing in the game of life. We become outstand-

ing only when we deny these self-portraits and allow

ourselves to be designed and shaped by God.

God does not call himself 'I am what I do'. He does

different things, some of which might not be consid-

ered lovable. He sends plagues over a country and

destroys whole cities. Rather, he says, 'I am what I am'

(Exodus 3.14), independently of the outer play of

events. Scripture says simply, 'God is love'. Therefore

we love him.

Paul, too, says of himself, 'I am what I am' (1 Cor-

inthians 15.10). I am what I am, even if sometimes,

driven by forces over which I have no control, I do

things contrary to what you might expect.

IS

Once you adopt this attitude, no self remains. Paul

could say about himself that it was not he who lived,

but Christ lived in him (Galatians 2.20). The Father

will reveal the Son of God in you, too, if you grant him

access (Galatians 1.16). You will live having him as

your self. Then your cross will not crush you, nor will

your bearing it make you proud. You will be his

disciple indeed.

16

The Conscious and the

Unconscious

Groping for answers, modern psychology has suddenly

discovered what Jesus taught two thousand years ago:

the necessity of self-denial. The self is our conscious, a

small island in the ocean of our unconscious. This

little self is not satisfied to be king but acts as if the

great unconscious did not even exist. The latter

avenges itself for this indignity by emerging in

neuroses. Jung formulates Jesus' teaching in other

words: ^e must re-centre our personality at a point

midway between the conscious and the unconscious'

[Two Essays in Analytic Psychology).

The conscious self has a dilemma which is at the

root of our perplexities, strains, and stresses. It knows

it appeared at a certain point in time and will have to

disappear sooner or later. Every birth and death is a

reminder of this fact.

The unconscious is simply undisturbed by such

matters, because it reflects on nothing. It manifests

itself in the involuntary fantasy, which contains

elements whose existence one had never before sus-

pected. The unconscious is, according to Jung, the

invisible player that pushes the conscious personality

about like a figure on a chessboard. The unconscious

plays, and the conscious worries about things over

which it has no control.

A sane self allows the whole entity to speak out as

the Bible teaches: 'Love God with all your heart, with

all your soul, with all your mind/ not only with the

rational, conscious part.

The self is not a unity but a contradictory multi-

plicity of complexes. A good analogy is the Bible itself,

in which are found cold historical facts, genealogies,

statistics, geographical data, fiction, poetry, puns,

myths, fables, parables, visions, dreams, doubts, utter

17

love and confidence in God, questioning of God's

ways, and even blasphemous words written by devout

believers. Every part of the soul, even the most hidden,

the physically erotic, and the most sublimated love, is

manifest in the Bible. God revealed himself to all parts

of our psyche, in which there is no distaste for saying

unseemly things or reserve for the most holy secrets.

Man does not live on bread alone, nor do we live on the

rational, the decent, and the moral alone.

Consonant with the very varied needs of the com-

plex self, the Bible offers us all kinds of notions of God:

from the God of revenge to the God of love,- from the

God of the Jews to the Lord of the whole universe; a

God who fills meadows with fragrant flowers and who

sends plagues, fire, and sulphur from heaven; a God

who pities all and who will send the majority of

mankind into the bottomless pit. Behind all the im-

ages is the God who forbids us to make to ourselves

any images of him. He says, 'I am what I am', not what

you fancy me to be.

When you have thus forsaken the narrow self,

when the whole of you participates in your religion,

when you have brought all your sins and vices to be

cleansed and all your righteousness and virtues to be

attributed to the Creator, then you can die in peace.

You die to your opinions, the right ones and the

wrong ones, to your preferences, including the prefer-

ence for religion, to your tastes and will. You die to

the world, to its censure or applause. You die also to

the judgement of the Church about you. The Church

has not only condemned sins but has also burned

saints at the stake. You die to the censure and

approval of your friends and brethren. Watchman

Nee, China's renowned evangelist who died a mar-

tyr's death in a Communist prison, was a man ex-

communicated by the Church.

You desire to be approved only by God. The self has

been denied. You have the freedom and joy to be able to

bear a cross.

18

Peter, though taught by Jesus to deny himself, had

not done so. Thus, he came to the point where, instead,

he denied the Lord he loved.

Everyone has only this choice: to deny yourself or to

deny your Master. Be sure you make the right choice!

What Truth is Jesus}

Aristotle in his Metaphysics put forth different con-

cepts of truth: aletheuein, which means 'nothing for-

gotten' or 'nothing veiled', and homoiosin, which

means 'concordance'.

St John's Gospel uses the first person for Jesus'

assertion, 'I am the truth'. Our thoughts and words

will never be more than thoughts and words. These

can only conform to a reality that consists of other

elements. Jesus is the representation of this reality in

human life, in all its fullness, without forgetting or

veiling any part of it. A person who lives in darkness

cannot see this reality. But Jesus places us in the light,

and at once reality becomes open to our awareness and

discernment and available to us for exploration. Grad-

ually we can know it more and more.

Baron Münchausen in the children's story told a lie

when he said that he pulled himself out of the mire by

his own hair. Likewise, we who are caught in darkness

cannot save ourselves from it. Jesus saves us by bring-

ing light, which is the realm of truth.

John lay on the breast of Jesus. Mary Magdalene

abandoned herself in expressions of love when she

kissed his feet and on at least one occasion sat quietly

to listen to him. For the Christian, then, truth is not an

intellectual construction, but the abandonment in

love to a Person who withholds nothing good from us.

Lie quietly in the sun and it will tan you. Lie quietly on

Jesus' bosom and truth will envelop and warm you.

All our partial perceptions and fragmented know-

ledge are non-truth because they do not apprehend the

essence of things. With our senses we perceive only

the surface of objects. Telescopes and microscopes put

us in touch with the surface of normally invisible

things, but again only superficially. Partial truth

20

shows us a thing that is. Jesus, the essence of truth,

shows us the 'is' of a thing.

The word 'is', one of the most common and un-

remarkable words of our language, comes from the

Sanskrit asm - 'to breathe'. Through it the world

becomes animated. The word is so sacred that the

Hebrews did not use it, as they did not use the name of

God. Jesus says, 'I am' (John 19.5,6), and all the soldiers

fall to the ground before him. Jesus is the 'is' which is.

Therefore he is the truth.

Without Jesus, error is not mere accident, an occa-

sional falling into the mire, but a permanent state.

With Jesus you live in the essence of things. Without

him you live perforce in the counter-essence. You

don't have to tell lies. 'All men are liars' (Psalm

116.11 ). Without Jesus, you seek to discover true poli-

tics, or true science, or true philosophy, without

knowing what truth is. How would you recognize it if

you met it? It's like seeking a treasure without a map,

compass, tools, instructions, or even a description.

When you have Jesus, the Son of the omnipotent

God, you do not have to adjust your mind to reality.

Reality will conform itself to your mind. Truth for you

will become aletheia - unveiled.

You are Jesus' beloved. He will lift the veil from your

eyes so that you will see truth in all its fullness in his

loving eyes and will know it intimately in his tender

embrace.

21

Prayers

When we invoke the sacred name of Jesus, there

should be neither the self alone nor Jesus alone, but

their union through invocation. All limitations of

thought should be transcended.

A person who prays so that prayer becomes the only

reality, and the worshipper and the worshipped are no

more separate entities, becomes a being who tran-

scends life and death. Every prayer should unite the

one who prays and the One to whom he or she prays, so

that prayer alone remains. Prayer without this aim is a

weak substitute.

Cultures are different. An Oriental Chinese mind is

not like a European mind, nor a Gentile like a Jewish

mind. For some people, emotions and sentiments

make logical reasoning almost impossible, whereas

others stoically repudiate emotionalism. But the sum-

mit towards which all believers strive is this union in

prayer.

Don't allow your sins to be a handicap in your

prayers. Jesus did all the good deeds you were intended

to do. God sees them as if they were yours. Don't let

yourself be troubled if biblical verses seem to indicate,

or even an angel of God were to assure you, that you are

not among those to whom divine favour is given. Even

if you were the most wicked person in the world, call

upon the holy name of Jesus and you will be saved. If

you call upon him only once after a lifetime full of sin,

heaven will be yours.

I know that there are many teachings in the Bible

and in the dogmas of the Church that do not make

things so easy, but remember that sick people in the

early stages can eat almost everything, whereas when

they are dying they can hardly sip a few drops of water.

The virtues of the first Christians, in the flush of their

22

first love, are no longer the norm for the whole

Church. We live in the time of the end when the love of

many has waxed cold. God knows the difference and

asks only the invocation of the holy name: 'Whoever

calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved' (Acts

2.21).

In the hundreds of denominations that exist today,

dogmas are many and varied. There is scarcely a

layperson who can distinguish the right ones. No one

today knows all the commandments and injunctions,

nor do we have the power to fulfil them. Call upon the

name of the One who said, 'Father, I will that they also,

whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am'

(John 17.24). Invoke the holy name of Jesus, relying on

the fact that the Father will fulfil his wish.

The Christ who vowed never to cast out a sinner

who comes to him, however bad they might be, has

guaranteed eternal life to all who call upon him. But do

so with the earnestness of one crying, 'SOS! Lord, save

me!' Yet don't despair if your prayer has not been so

earnest. You have called upon his name. The Bible

puts no condition that this call must be wholehearted.

While doing your best to ensure that the worshipper,

the prayer, and the worshipped become one, believe

nevertheless that the simple calling on his name has

saving power.

= 8 —

The Simplicity of Moral

Problems

Moral problems are really not complicated. The first

Christians knew the answers. Pliny, a Roman gover-

nor in the second century, reported their standards to

the emperor: 'They bind themselves by an oath . . .

that they should never commit theft, robbery, or adul-

tery, that they would never break their word, and that

they would never deny a trust when called to give it

up.'

But it is not enough to do good. The good must also

be well done. Thérèse of Lisieux is beloved among

Christians not for any great deed but for the fact that

she did ordinary things in a grand manner.

To do a good thing well, imitate the sun, that simply

shines without waiting to be asked to impart light and

warmth. You too should do good as opportunity pres-

ents itself, without depending on another to challenge

or command you. The good that confronts you is God's

thought. It is the reason for your existence. Why do

you delay?

What is the good you should do? Whatever flows

naturally from the new heart you received at conver-

sion. You cannot find the rule for your attitudes in

generalities. It is not located in anything that can be

set next to the self and viewed objectively.

Jesus said, 'I am the truth.' The truth, while ulti-

mate, is not a generality. It cannot be anything but an

T. It is your T if you are Christlike.

It is well to have confidence in the new creature

within, for then your life will consist in doing in the

best manner the good works for which you have been

predestined by the Father. Therefore, without any

delay, be yourself.

A burglar was caught rifling a safe while the alarm

was clanging. His captors asked him why he had not

24

fled. He replied that he was hard of hearing.

Life is short. Don't allow yourself to become deaf or

blind to the needs around you. While you must be

moral, general rules of morality are not always helpful

because you are a unique creation intended to fulfil

unique purposes. There is a specific role just for you

even at this very moment. Listen to the inner voice

and follow its leading.

Jeremiah predicted that God would make a new

covenant with his people. It specified that his law

would be written in their minds and hearts (Jeremiah

31.33).

Tamerlane, savage fourteenth-century conqueror,

said, 'Do you think I am only a man? I am the wrath of

God. ' This is frqw he viewed himself and this is how he

acted. We know we are children of God, whose name is

Love. Therefore, act accordingly.

There are ultrasonic generators that are supposed to

chase rats from a house through their unpleasant

'sounds'. Likewise the conscience of a child of God rids

us of the evil that presses around us.

A problem recognized and defined is a problem half

solved. Learn from your mistakes by analysing where

you go wrong. Stop for just a few seconds before you

act. The pause is part of the music of life, which is a

constant flow of good deeds. Six seconds can make an

incredible difference. Remember that you are called to

be like Christ, who could say, 'I am the truth/

Be the truth, since you have been created for truth. Lie

detectors and truth serum can detect the deep-seated

indicators which reveal the fact that one is lying. Such

apparatus reveals that adherence to truth and revulsion

at lying are deeply rooted in human nature. In modern

times we have proved with our technology that truth is

part of our creation by God and lying is from the devil,

'the father of lies' (John 8.44).

To be truly moral, withdraw yourself from evil

influences. Herod was a king in Christ's day whom

God had entrusted with a kingdom. Yet he was ready

to give away half of it for a dancer. Instead, he killed a

prophet because he allowed his wife to influence the

dancer, her daughter, who thus became an accomplice

in the murder of John the Baptist. How right was Jesus

when he said, 'He who loves father or mother. . . son

or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me' (Mat-

thew 10.37).

To be a hero for Christ, you need not go to a mission

field. Your family, factory, school, or office can be your

mission field. You can be grand in small things.

We know there exist sins of excess. Therefore the

Bible says, 'Be not righteous overmuch' (Ecclesiastes

7.14). There are also sins of omission. Many will go to

perdition for neglecting to help the poor and visit

prisoners.

The musical sign for atonement, for forgiveness, is

the 'natural' sign. A note that has been raised with a

'sharp' sign or lowered with a 'flat' returns to this

original pitch by virtue of the natural, which cancels

everything else. Likewise, when atonement inter-

venes, your sins of excess or default are cancelled, as if

they had never been committed.

To obtain atonement for your sins from an infinite

God and thus receive the promise of eternal lif e is the

supreme sign of morality.

26

The Sin of Consistency

An individual need not be consistent with what he or

she has said, written or done in times past, otherwise

no growth would be possible, nor could a person adjust

to the demands of changing circumstances. The only

consistency required is the proper attitude towards

what one considers true, righteous and loving today.

The apostle Paul gives us examples of holy inconsis-

tency. One is the circumcision of his disciple Timo-

thy. Travelling around with an uncircumcised Gentile

convert would have hampered the work of evangeliza-

tion. The Jews who opposed him would have had one

more reason to denounce him as a traitor to the reli-

gion of his fathers. So foresight and caution were

necessary. Paul was dealing with people ready to

murder him, as he learned when they wrongly sug-

gested he had taken a Greek into the temple (Acts

21.29; 22.22).

But the same apostle adamantly refused to circum-

cise Titus (Galatians 2.3) when the danger of theologi-

cal confusion existed. He was concerned lest others

conclude that man is justified before God by rituals of

the Jewish law and not by faith alone.

Even the Jewish Christians considered Peter's eating

with an uncircumcised man (Acts 11.3) as a serious

violation of religious duty. Jesus himself said that he

had come only 'to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'

(Matthew 15.24), and yet all at once the door was

opened wide to the uncircumcised, without asking of

them even this token of holy alliance.

The Jewish Christians had become Christians be-

lieving that faith in Jesus was the holiest form of

Judaism and nothing more. They realized that if

circumcision were abolished, the Christian religion

would become universal and in time its Jewishness

would be absorbed.

Paul was given by God the task to make the Church

universal and therefore would not yield to pressure to

have Titus circumcised.

In the case of Timothy, Paul accommodated himself

prudently to circumstances without endangering the

establishment of a universal Church in which Jews

and Gentiles were alike. In the case of Titus, a princi-

ple was at stake. To concede that Titus must be

circumcised would have been an acknowledgement

that the sacrifice of Christ alone profits nothing unless

the Gentiles fulfilled Jewish ceremonies.

Paul had to assert the principle that in the Christian

Church 'there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision

nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor

free, but that Christ is all in all' (Colossians 3.11).

If Paul had not been stubborn in certain circum-

stances, neither slavery nor the caste system would

ever have been abolished.

The same desire that made Paul stiff-necked in the

case of Titus made him pliable in the case of Timothy.

The apostle who wrote: 1 testify to every man that is

circumcised . .. Christ is become of no effect to you'

(Galatians 5.3,4) nevertheless circumcised a disciple.

Paul was not guilty of the grave sin of consistency

with his own beliefs at all times and in all circum-

stances.

Therefore, be careful of consistency at the expense

of adaptability, stubbornness at the expense of flexibil-

ity. Be consistent only in your desire for truth at all

times, but practising it with the least possible harm to

others.

28

10

The Commandment to Be

One

The structure of the English language makes an exact

translation of Genesis 1.9 impossible. A verbatim ap-

proximation would be as follows: 'Let gather together

[these three English words are one word in Hebrew] the

waters under the heaven.' Even before saying what is

involved, the commandment is, 'Let them be gathered

together'.

Our twentieth-century thinking is quite different.

We begin first by listing the things to be united. But the

simple act of naming them discourages us from gather-

ing them, and so we abandon our intention altogether.

God's command is, 'Let gather together'. Once all

the diverse elements are gathered, it is much simpler

to deal with them.

The waters under the heavens were gathered with a

certain purpose: to form one sea. (Incidentally, how did

Moses, who recorded this information, know that all

the waters formed one single sea? We learned this only

when Magellan made his discoveries.) Everything was

gathered to serve this purpose.

Today there are many stratagems and endeavours to

unify Christendom. We fail to succeed because it has

not yet been established for what purpose we want to

be one.

Jesus long ago designated the overriding reason for

unity: 'May they be one that the world may believe'

(John 17.21). Too many of us live very comfortably

even though the world is made up of unbelievers.

Their salvation is not our passion. Therefore our plans

for unity fail.

Once a little girl got lost in a huge wheat field, where

the wheat was taller than her. Her parents called all

the neighbours to help in the search, but in vain,

though they shouted and used torches. For two days

29

and nights they hunted. Finally, on the third day the

father said to the townspeople, 'Let's all join hands and

go through the field in a line.' In no time the child was

found. Behind the operation was an anxious father and

a common purpose: the child had to be found.

Do we love the world with all our heart? Would we

be very unhappy if all but a few were lost? Of what

denomination were the people this father gathered to

seek his child? It would be foolish even to ask the

question. He gathered all who shared his burden and

were willing to help. This is what Jesus meant by being

one.

An Israeli army unit risked its life to save the Jews

hijacked in a plane that was forced down in Entebbe

(Uganda). When the rescue plane was on its way home,

soldiers and passengers alike sang together in Hebrew

Psalm 133: 'Behold, how good and pleasant it is for

brethren to dwell together in unity/ What were the

religious convictions of the rescuers? Who knows?

They belonged to a nation that had experienced the

loss of very many innocent victims and were united in

their determination to prevent the killing of more

Jews. They had a single purpose. Therefore unity was

established.

Untold millions - billions - have gone to the grave

without salvation because of our divisiveness. This

should no longer happen. Think in these terms and

your unity with all those who desire to see souls saved

will be established.

Several men sitting in a boat observed one of their

number boring a hole beneath his seat. 'Why are you

doing that?' one of his companions inquired. 'It's none

of your business, ' he replied. 'I'm boring the hole under

my seat.'

He was wrong, of course. The water entering

through 'his' hole would swamp the whole boat with

all its passengers.

Unity would be greatly served if Christians realized

what obsolete and often petty questions divided them.

30

In 1845, 293 Baptists from the Southern states of the

USA severed ties with the Northern Baptists in protest

over the Yankees' refusal to allow a slaveholder to

become a missionary. Slavery has long since been

abolished. But today there are 13 million Southern

Baptists who continue to be divided from their

brethren. As a result of migration, there are now

Southern Baptist churches in Alaska near the North

Pole, but they are separated from their Northern

brethren. Does this make sense?

There is no place for freelancers and 'my-taste'

churches in Christendom. Those who love God and

mankind need to become one in heart today. The only

condition is that unity must be according to God's

holy Word, or there can be no peace. God's Word

should never be abandoned for unity's sake. But if we

are one in Christ, this unity will be revealed in our

relationship with others.

= 11

About Being Narrow-minded

and Broad-minded

Narrow-mindedness is the object of much scorn.

When this takes the form of a joke, it may be accept-

able. It is said there was a sign in front of a motel in one

of the southern states of America that read, 'Rooms

cost $50 a day. For Baptists there is a reduction: they

pay only $25/ A traveller, indignant, protested: 'In

times past there was racial discrimination; now there

is denominational discrimination. Why should

Baptists pay only half?' The manager of the motel

answered, 'You know, in the South the Baptists are so

narrow, they sleep two in one bed.'

When we pass from jokes to reality, narrow-

mindedness becomes a virtue. In fact, the Bible en-

dorses it. Paul was so convinced that the gospel he

preached was sacrosanct that he wrote: 'Though we, or

an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel to you

than that which we have preached unto you, let him be

accursed' (Galatians 1.8). He would not have joined

ecumenical councils with those who thought dif-

ferently in theological matters. He would consider

them 'accursed'. Today, believers are far removed

from this narrow thinking. Most consider broad-

mindedness a virtue to be praised.

John the Evangelist knew he had the doctrine, be-

sides which there was no other. Therefore he wrote, 'If

there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine [of

Christ], receive him not into your house, neither bid

him God speed' (2 John 10). He even adds (v.n), 'He

that bids him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.'

He left little room for an ecumenical council. It is told

that Cerinthus, a heretic, once entered the house

where John was bathing, and the latter left his bath

naked and fled, not wishing to be under one roof with a

man of another doctrine.

32

Luther warned, 'The peacock has the garb of an angel

and the song of a devil. He is the true picture of a

heretic. All heretics can look pious, even angelic/ He

was so narrow-minded that he refused to shake hands

with Zwingli. with whom he differed about the real

presence of Qirist in holy communion.

God is all-embracing, but his messengers have

always been one-sided. Rarely have they been cap-

able of teamwork. It could scarcely be otherwise,

because they have stood alone. Steel columns need no

wooden props. God's messengers are pillars in his

Church, supporting but unsupported. They can afford

to be narrow-minded because they need no one's

approval.

Narrow-mindedness does have its negative side,

however. Christians are taught to be hospitable. We

should be hospitable toward ideas, too, not only to-

ward people, because truth can never be the possession

of a single individual. The Church embraces all kinds

of individuals, with all sorts of experiences, in many

diverse cultures, throughout the centuries. It is ob-

vious they cannot all think alike in every detail.

But we proceed at our peril if we avoid narrow-

mindedness when we seek to pass through a strait gate

and walk on a narrow way. On the other hand, narrow-

mindedness can also hurt the truth.

It is wrong to be narrow-minded and also wrong to be

broad-minded. The T that asserts itself should not be. I

have to deny myself, denying also the T that denies.

As a person embraced by their beloved is no longer

conscious of an 'I' and a 'you', so the being embraced by

God is neither narrow- nor broad-minded. We lose our

'mindedness' in the holy embrace in which the Eternal

and the believer have become one. Here all distinc-

tions between broad-and narrow-mindedness lose

their significance, along with the distinction between

selfishness and unselfishness.

Why should we not be selfish when our self is God?

Why should we not be unselfish when nothing re-

33

mains of our former self, so that we have nothing to

lose?

The one true doctrine, the one true gospel on which

Paul and John insisted was this doctrine of oneness

with God. Away with the speculations of righteous

men about a God outside themselves! T*hese specula-

tions, of narrow-minded bigot or broad-minded liberal,

will be false if there is no union with God, in whom

problems and divergences disappear.

Therefore don't be narrow-minded, and don't be

broad-minded either. Don't be! Blessed is the person

whose epitaph is like that of a saint of old: 'Hie jacet

nemo^1. (Here lies no one.) Christ is all.

34

= 12

The Little We Know

about God

The French say, 'Un dieu défini est un dieu fini.' (A

God whom you have defined is a God with whom you

have finished.) God cannot be defined or reduced to

finite descriptions. To say he is creator is to ignore the

fact that he is also sustainer and destroyer. He gives

life, but he also kills (i Samuel 2.6). God is love, but he

is also a righteous judge and the God who avenges

himself (Revelation 19.2).

It is impossible to describe the fullness of God,

because human beings have no frame of reference

within which to compare God as he really is with the

God we encompass in words. We need to be aware of

this difference, even when we say something as simple

as 'God is love'. Love is a sentiment common to

humans and even some animals. Does any believer

consider God a sentiment? To rely on mere words for

an understanding of God is like clutching a piece of

carbon and calling it a diamond, or scratching a shoe

when the foot itches.

Speculations about God can be very hazardous. He is

called the Father. His Hebrew name El is masculine.

But the feminine form Elah also occurs in Scripture ( 1

Samuel 17.9). God compares himself with a woman in

Isaiah 49.15: 'Can a woman forget her sucking child,

that she should have no compassion on the son of her

womb? Yea, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee.'

Jesus said, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father'

(John 14.9). Was the Father seen in all the circum-

stances of Jesus' life? How about his unprovoked out-

bursts of anger? On one occasion, a Pharisee who had

invited Jesus to dinner wondered why he was not

washing his hands before eating. But he marvelled

without saying anything critical. Jesus, knowing his

thoughts, used the occasion to condemn all Pharisees,

35

calling them 'hypocrites'. A lawyer tried to appease

him, and he turned on lawyers, accusing them, with

the Pharisees, of 'the blood of all the prophets. . . from

the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah' (Luke

11.37-52). Surely they were innocent; in fact, there

were no lawyers and Pharisees when Abel was killed.

Now, such behaviour on the part of Jesus is ques-

tionable at best. But a little thought will indicate that

it makes sense. He came to this earth to die for human-

kind. He wanted to be crucified, because the cross was

the only way to achieve their salvation from sin. In

order to be crucified, he had to be hated. He apparently

worked consciously at this. Otherwise why did he heal

chronic diseases on the Sabbath when any day of the

week would have sufficed? Why cure a man paralysed

for thirty-eight years on the one day that would incur

the wrath of the priests and Pharisees?

Why were his rebukes so unsparing, so harsh, even if

justified? Would not mild rebukes have been more

effective? Or did he constantly have in mind a cruel

death that presupposed bitter hatred among those who

killed him?

To return to the original question, did Jesus repres-

ent the Father by hardening the hearts of men against

himself? Scripture often records that God hardened

the hearts of sinners. Does he actually want to be hated

by some? Was his being despised and rejected a con-

tinual sacrifice, ultimately beneficial to mankind?

Does God want us to emulate Jesus' attitudes on all

occasions? Meister Eckhart wrote, 'God can no more

do without us than we can do without him.' Would

God's children be more useful to him if they were

despised and abhorred rather than successful and

admired? There are many questions to ponder.

We have to confess we know little about God, but

knowing he exists frees us. We can resign as general

managers of the universe.

He has created us and our universe, and even if we

don't always feel his presence, we can enjoy what he

36

has given us: air, earth, sky, his creatures. Every ray of

sunshine, every wind, every drop of dew, every leaf and

flower all speak of him. And so also do love and sorrow,

discoveries and failures, agonies and ecstasies, know-

ledge and the hope to understand later what is obscure

for us today.

37

= 13

We and Our Enemies

It is almost impossible for consistent Christians not to

have enemies. Because they love the sheep, they shout

against the wolves that would destroy them. Some-

times in their zeal to protect the sheep they prefer

shooting to shouting, destroying to denouncing. This

is how they gain enemies.

We should not avoid having enemies at any cost, but

we should not make them unnecessarily. It is foolish

to make adversaries of those who could be friends.

Some unwisely enter into controversy even with their

partners in faith. Even saints know only in part (i

Corinthians 13.12), which means that each might see a

different part. Therefore divergences arise. It is import-

ant not to cultivate a talent for controversy in matters

in which both parties might be right. At such times it

is more useful to mend than to meddle.

There are a few psychological observations that

need to be considered. First, that creative artists do not

readily accept one another. They are lonely peaks. The

same is true of great religious personalities. Luther

would not shake hands with Zwingli, and he despised

Erasmus of Rotterdam. Wesley could not go along with

Whitefield. But not to go along with someone else does

not oblige one to be at loggerheads with them.

Second, that every evidence of superiority engenders

jealousy and often hate. Among those who cannot

understand a work of art, a certain number become

critics for hire. To condemn is much easier than to

comprehend.

The impressionist painters Monet, Renoir, and

Cézanne were called mad, loathsome. The public spat

at their pictures. They did not appreciate the fact that

these new artists painted washerwomen instead of

royalty, haystacks instead of palaces. The artists rarely

sold a painting. Today their canvases fetch millions.

38

What a catastrophe it would have been if they had spent

their time answering their critics! Instead, they

painted. There was no weather rough enough to keep

Monet from painting outside. He painted on the ice of

the Seine, warming his fingers with water from a bottle.

Last century's greatest preacher, Charles Spurgeon,

was criticized by the leaders of the Baptist Union of

Britain because he was big and they were dwarfs. But

he quietly gathered scores of thousands for Christ. We

are makers of saints, not wrestlers. A worker for Christ

should accept such conflicts without elaborating on

them or entering into useless disputes.

On the other hand, if you have to contend with

wolves that seek to ravage the flock, then do battle

confidently. If you are on God's side, your triumph is

sure. You can be wounded by the foe, you cannot be

destroyed. Your triumph is sure if you counter the

depths of weakness with the wings of faith.

Your triumph is sure if you value the slander against

you that resembles truth as your shadow resembles

you. At least the contours are real. Slander can serve a

good purpose by warning you against the real sins to

which you may be exposed.

Your triumph is sure if you don't stoop to using the

strategies of your adversaries. Never be hateful like

them. Find excuses for them in an attempt to under-

stand the 'why' of their positions. Never exploit their

personal sins in order to demean their stand on matters

of principle. Remember that you have your own fail-

ings before God. If salvation depended on merit, who

would escape the pit?

It is said that Conan Doyle sent the following cable

to twenty people in public life: 'Everything known;

disappear/ All disappeared. Would you have escaped?

Then don't uphold sins against others; uphold others,

even your adversaries, against their sins.

Armed with such thoughts, you are free to fight for

the word of God and for the sheep of his pasture. You

will conquer.

39

= 14

The Matter of Compromise

Shall we compromise? This is an everyday problem for

individual Christians and churches.

Matteo Ricci went to China, mastered classical

Chinese, dressed in the garb of a mandarin, and pre-

sented Christianity as the fulfilment of Confucianism,

whose traditions he allowed to continue. The Jesuits

went so far as to use the character tsi, the Chinese

description of the ceremonies of ancestor-worship, to

translate the word 'mass' in their catechism. The

formidable power of the non-Christian religions ren-

ders any other approach difficult and almost imposs-

ible.

William Lucas, Anglican bishop of Masasi

(Tanzania) from 1926 to 1944, rejected the old view

that the religious systems of 'savages' were the work of

the devil and regarded them rather as a preparation for

their eventual fulfilment in Christ. The majority of

evangelical missionaries, however, have been at the

opposite pole. They proclaimed essentially that 'to

walk with Christ means to behave like a white man'.

There is something to be said for compromise.

Galileo declared on his knees before his inquisitors

that he was wrong in claiming the earth moved around

the sun. The sun continued to do so in spite of his

recantation, and he was able to continue his scientific

work for years. Giodanbo Bruno, on the other hand,

remained firm and died for his scientific convictions,

which he had no time to work out. Who was right?

If you can conquer through compromise, by all

means do so. Don't allow the enemy to turn you easily

into a martyr.

Joseph could not have been prime minister of Egypt

or Daniel of Babylon without some sort of compro-

mise. Both accepted rule of a country in which there

existed idolatry and injustice under absolute

40

monarchs. The lions' den into which Daniel was

thrown was surely used for others, who may have been

innocent victims like himself. He must have had to

acquiesce to, or at least overlook, many practices

abhorrent to his belief in God and his knowledge of

God's requirements for his earthly kingdom.

Much good can get lost in search of unrealizable,

ideal solutions. Daniel could not bring about God's

kingdom on earth, whereas by standing in high places

near the ruling tyrant he could save from death at least

a few innocents. More than that, he was able to speak

about God to the mighty Nebuchadnezzar, architect of

the famous hanging gardens of Babylon (Daniel 4).

Jesus was told about a cruel act of the Roman gover-

nor Pontius Pilate, who had killed innocent Galileans

who had come to worship in the Temple. To condemn

Pilate's crime publicly would not have restored the

victims to life and would have put a premature end to

the Saviour's ministry. So he chose to respond with a

general teaching that all men are sinners and will

perish if they don't repent.

No human being or institution can escape the need

for occasional compromise, but let us also be aware of

its dangers. In 1933, German Christians had a national

convention in the presence of Goehring, Hitler's aide.

The purpose of the gathering was to purify the Church

of Jewish elements and the Old Testament of 'immoral

Jewish stories'.

To its shame, the Church compromised with

Nazism. In every such situation there arises in the

minds of believers the question whether such devia-

tions from the truth have not happened in past cen-

turies as well. A Church that takes a firm, clear-cut

stand is surely more reliable.

As individuals and as churches we are faced with

having to choose, at turning-points in our lives, the

right course to follow. Abraham, while blessed of God,

was not always obliged to make the heroic choice, nor

on the other hand the devious way of accommodation.

41

He was free to choose as occasion demanded. Occa-

sionally his choices were wrong, as when he compro-

mised Sarah in Egypt. But his underlying choice was

always for God.

'Once to every man and nation comes the moment

to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the

good or evil side/ wrote the poet James Russell Lowell.

When the alternatives present themselves, the choice

has to be made. Let us make it under the guidance of

the Holy Spirit and choose the side of good, of God.

42

= 15 =

The Search for Truth

We begin the search for truth without the slightest

proof that such an entity has ever existed or still exists.

We might imagine that if there was a truth it must

have been killed long ago. Jesus asserted, 'I am the

truth', and he was crucified.

I once dreamt that some men were quarrelling for a

white horse that represented the truth. One man cut it

in pieces, which meant it ceased to exist. Then they

quarrelled for the pieces of the dead horse. I received

the head and was proud until I realized it was the head

of a corpse. At that point I awoke.

Nothing is easier than to deceive searchers for truth.

At the University of California, an actor was once

engaged to deliver a lecture on medicine, a subject

about which he knew nothing. The bogus professor was

highly appreciated when he spoke eloquently about

'zen-sum' areas and the usefulness of the opera .Tosca

for the study of medicine. Even after the audience was

told about the hoax people continued to believe they

had learned a lot. We can be seduced by the music of

what we hear even if the content is sheer nonsense.

The best and most scholarly sermon may fail to

convict if the preacher has an unpleasant voice, is

unkempt, or has a stain on his cassock, all of which can

distract his hearers' attention.

Who can tell the whole truth? One can never expect

exactness from lovers describing the beloved nor an

accurate description of truth from one whom it crit-

icizes. You cannot objectively describe someone who

hit you in the face when you're seeing stars before your

eyes and your ears tingle. The great events of life,

whether pleasant or unpleasant, cannot be the object

of protocol. The differences in the Gospels simply

show how overwhelmed the Evangelists were by their

encounter with Jesus.

43

Often, individuals err because they are not attentive

to the difference between truth and fact.

The title of Psalm 52 says it was written by David

when a certain Doeg told Saul that David, a fugitive

from the king, had been received by the hig^1^ priest

Abimelech, who provided him with food. Doeg had

denounced a man who was unrighteously persecuted,

and his denunciation led to the killing of many inno-

cents by an enraged Saul. In verse 3, the psalmist says

to Doeg, 'Thou lovest lying rather than to speak right-

eousness/ We would have said that Doeg had told King

Saul 'the truth', since he recounted what had actually

taken place, but a truth that is harmful to God's elect is

a lie, according to the Bible.

The wise man compares truth with 'apples of gold'

(Proverb 25.11). Better than seeking the truth is seek-

ing reality about which the truth speaks. A golden

apple can be only an ornament. If you are hungry you

must sell it in order to have something to eat. We must

sell words, even truthful words, in order to have the

reality they express.

If we do so, we will recognize that we cannot depend

on our good pleasure to know truth. Truth is not the

object that we as subject must seek. There exists an

eternal truth whose object we ourselves are. We were

created by Christ, who is the truth. Before the founda-

tion of the world he chose who would be possessors of

truth. He, the truth, has come to seek those lost to the

truth. We should not be subjects of the searching, but

objects, awaiting the divine seeking.

In the beginning was the Word, not any word, but

the one true, reliable Word, and this Word was with

God, and this Word was God. This Word became flesh

in the person of Jesus Christ, who communicates with

us of his own free will. He is love, and love infuses

truth in us. It becomes ours by faith and not by intel-

lectual search and investigation.

After that, other advances await us. At primary

school children are taught to print letters. But if they

44

continue to write like that as teenagers, they would be

considered backward.

In the beginning, you have to establish who is the

subject and who the object in the search for truth. You

will come to know what an enemy the intellect is, that

discriminates subject from object. It is a distinction

that the conscious mind makes, but the conscious is

only a part of our spiritual being. We have to explore

the unconscious as well to achieve completeness. In

the unconscious, subject and object are one, and only

this oneness can possess the truth.

45

= 16-

About Suffering

Don't despair when the stars set. It is a sign that the

sun will soon rise. Don't despair when devastating

winds blow. Storms pass over the garden of Christ only

to spread its perfume. Dante wrote about 'the good

suffering that remarries us to God'. When Shakespeare

lost love, friendship and health, he wrote The Tem-

pest. Humankind would have been poorer without it.

In times of suffering, it is best just to keep quiet.

When Jephthah told his daughter that he had promised

to sacrifice her to God, her answer was, 'If thou hast

opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to

that which has proceeded out of thy mouth' (Judges

11.36). When your heavenly Father decides to sacrifice

you, your joy, your health, your liberty, your position,

for some mysterious purpose of his, be like Jephthah's

daughter even if you do not understand his purposes.

Remember that from the burning ovens of Auschwitz,

where Jews suffered, and from Communist and Mus-

lim jails, in which Christians still suffer for their faith,

beacons of warning and hope shine.

Remain quiet during the time of deepest suffering,

when a loved one dies. Jesus said to his disciples on the

occasion of the Last Supper, 'It is expedient for you

that I go away' (John 16.7). These words might be said

about everyone who dies.

God loves you. Why would he allow you to lose

someone precious if it were not for your good and

theirs? Those who live in the invisible world of the

spirit view the death of a friend as a release, not as a

separation. Those who die pass from shadows and

images to truth. Even those in hell finally know the

truth.

When John Chrysostom arrived after a three-month

journey at Comana, the place to which he had been

deported, Basilicus, who had been martyred there,

46

appeared to him in vision saying, 'Courage, brother,

tomorrow we will be together/ He died the next day

saying as his last words, 'Glory to God, Amen.' In

psychological depths inaccessible to our conscious-

ness, the dead whom we mourn might have had a

similar vision.

Face everything quietly. When the stars set, the sun

rises.

47

= 17

The Angels of Suffeiing

'The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people'

(Numbers 21.6). What does this Bible verse mean?

Fiery serpents as such do not exist. In fact, the Hebrew

original has no such expression. Instead, we read,

'Nahashim seraphim'. Nahashim means 'serpents',

and seraphim is the word for a special class of angels.

So the serpents that bit the Jews were in reality embod-

iments of angels of God. John in Revelation describes

four beasts, one like a lion, the second like a calf, the

third like an eagle, and the fourth like a man (Revela-

tion 4.6-8). So angels can have the forms of animals.

Why not the shape of a serpent? The psalmist says,

'The angel of the Lord encamps round about them that

fear him' (Psalm 34.7). Only if he has the shape of a

serpent can he do this.

The serpents that hurt the Jews were either angels of

God or beings directed by them. From this we learn to

see our friends the angels behind even serious troubles.

God writes straight on crooked lines. The most

adverse happenings in the lives of his children work

together for good. Not every Christian is ready to break

his bottle of perfume to anoint Jesus, as did Mary

Magdalene. If angels did not break our bottles by giving

us suffering, the fragrance would not be released.

Therefore, don't murmur and complain when a

cross is given to you. Atrocious suffering defies explan-

ation. Rather, ask what is the purpose of the cross. Is it

not to make us angel-like? A cross can be a splendid

opportunity. When Jesus was crucified, he hung

between two thieves. One asked to be taken down

from the cross, the other to be taken up. Suffering

provides us with the same choice.

Those who wish to be taken up do not denounce

those who have done mischief to them; they don't

even wonder about the hardships of life. They know

48

we are a sentenced race. God said to Adam, 'In sorrow

you shall eat of the ground all the days of your life'

(Genesis 3.17). We should be thankful for the few days

without hardship.

The person who 'goes up' when suffering asks, 'Do I

deserve better? Have I fulfilled the commandments

that are connected to blessings?' They say what the

repentant thief said to the unrepentant who cursed:

'Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same

condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive

the due reward of our deeds, but this man [Jesus] has

done nothing amiss' (Luke 23.41).

The Christian is free from the curse of sin through

the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The evils we encounter

are unfinished good. Whenever we weep a tear, a gem

is added to our crown.

The suffering saints are the jewels of the Church. In

a dream I once saw myself in a chapel. All those at the

altar and in the front rows wore plain clothes. Only the

sick and the poor in the rear wore priestly ornaments.

The suffering saints are the teachers, those at ease the

learners.

Don't be afraid to suffer.

49

= 18

Shaiing His Divinity

Jesus should not be an unknown person remote from

us. To bring him nearer, we should love everyone,

whatever their defects, as if they were Jesus; listen to

every word, even if it is sinful and blasphemous, as if it

were a prayer, in consideration of the suffering and

ignorance from which it springs; and behave in every

place as if it were heaven.

Remember first of all that Jesus lived the life of a

man from an oppressed class in an oppressed nation,

that he therefore has close ties with all the oppressed

and sees in those who hunger, thirst, are naked, im-

prisoned, and injured his little brothers and sisters.

This will familiarize you with Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is compared in Scripture to rivers of

living water. We can swim in them as in the ocean,

because these rivers are accessible to everyone. But if

we have the wrong attitude, we can swim through

them like submarines in the sea, sealed off from their

healing influence and encased in our own atmosphere.

The Roman philosopher of antiquity Cato said long

ago, The soul of a lover lives in another's body.' Jesus

is the supreme lover. You don't have to seek him far.

He lives within you, as you live in him, if you are his.

This oneness with him gives a person the sense of

utter freedom from another's judgements. What do the

opinions of others count if Jesus^7 contemporaries

called him a devil, a madman, a being with an unclean

spirit?

Belief in him also unites you in fellowship with

other believers throughout the whole world, even if

they differ from you. They might not witness openly

for the faith as you do, but this does not make them

inferior. Jesus had his hidden disciples who, while

hiding their faith, were still considered his.

Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were among

them. The apostle John could not have trumpeted his

faith in Jerusalem or he would never have been in such

good standing with the high priest Caiaphas that he

was allowed to enter the heavily guarded temple with

his friend Peter during Jesus' trial. Such a privilege was

granted only to those considered reliable by the high

priest. Under the circumstances, a known disciple of

Jesus would not have been admitted.

You will have the friendship not only of those who

say they are Christians, but also of those who do not

make this public confession. You will have the fellow-

ship of people of other persuasions who also love Jesus.

A blind man healed by the Saviour was asked, 'What do

you say of him that has opened your eyes?' His only

answer was, 'He is a prophet' (John 9.17). Reformed

Jews, Unitarians, and Muslims could subscribe to this

statement. The healed blind man did not believe in

Jesus according to the Athanasian creed, but neither

did anyone else in the first centuries of the Christian

Church. Yet they were disciples and were received by

God as such. Those who may not understand the

development of Christology in the Church will be

your friends, too.

The blind man's intuition about who Jesus was

might have been deficient, but he had the right spirit.

He expressed only thankfulness to God for having

been healed, without reproaching his Creator for his

previous blindness.

What reproaches can a lover bring against the be-

loved? Desdemona did not rebuke Othello even for

killing her, but continued to love him. This is the logic

of romance, and no romance could ever equal that

between the believing soul and the Man of Calvary.

All are called to become his brides. He excludes no

one but those who exclude themselves. Our sinfulness

is no hindrance, since our guilt has been transferred to

the Son of God. To make us clean, He declared himself

guilty for what we have done. There is no barrier

between us.

51

An identification between Christ and the individual

takes place. God said to Abraham, 'In thee shall all

families of the earth be blessed' (Genesis 12.3). The

Messiah, Abraham's descendant, is here intended, but

the Bible makes no distinction between him and his

ancestor. When you are blessed in Jesus, you are

blessed in Abraham and vice versa. The first Chris-

tians had a proverb: 'Whoever sees a brother sees God.'

Jesus is ever willing to share his divinity with

humanity. In fact, he often speaks about himself in the

third person. When we do so, we are using his own

language, though it is best to think about him as our 'I'.

In loving him, we love the best that is in us. Incred-

ibly, the weaker our love and the greater the danger

that we might lose it altogether, the more saving grace

is granted, until we become one with him, as he and

the Father are one.

= 19

Attitude towards Law

There are two kinds of law: those made by people, and

those for which people are made. The latter come from

God and must take precedence.

Such commandments are, however, individualized.

The Lord said to John, 'Write the things which thou

hast seen' (Revelation 1.19J. Paul, on the other hand,

heard in heaven 'unspeakable words, which it is not

lawful for a man to utter' (2 Corinthians 12.4). We can

only hint at the main characteristics of such forbidden

words: they always have a dual character.

One and the same biblical word expressed the plus

and the minus, the positive and the negative. For

instance, the Greek word afes, used in the Lord's

Prayer for 'forgive us our trespasses', means also 'to

leave'. Thus we have two sides within us: one desires

to keep sins because they are sweet; another wants to

get rid of them. When you recite the 'Our Father' in the

original Greek, both sides of your personality have had

their say: 'Leave us our trespasses' and 'Forgive us. . . '

Such words are difficult for the nonspiritual to com-

prehend.

God's laws have a dual character. On one side is the

law of love. Since we live in a doomed world, mutual

understanding is in the supreme interest of the whole

of mankind. We must unite and love each other even

where union seems illogical. Two enemies on a sink-

ing ship should at least unite their efforts so that they

can survive to continue their quarrel.

Whoever stands for love between races, nations,

religions, parties, classes, generations or individuals,

and suffers for this cause resembles Christ, regardless

of their convictions in matters of faith.

Love is in our best interest even if it brings suffering,

first of all because love is more beautiful than hatred. It

is good to give to the poor, not only for the sake of the

53

poor but because wealth destroys character and often

denies one entrance into heaven.

If several individuals plot to slander you, go along

with them. No one believes the self-accusations of a

person who claims to be evil. Jesus said, 'Agree with

your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with

him^7 (Matthew 5.25).

Love your enemies too. If you cannot forgive them

for Christ's sake, then do so for the sake of your

gallbladder and stomach. Kindness is never wasted. At

the very least it profits the giver. Anyone who does not

forgive burns the bridge over which they will have to

pass. None of us can enter heaven except as forgiven

sinners.

Know yourself and acknowledge that if it is difficult

for you to forgive an enemy's mistake, the reason

could be that your enemy has witnessed your own.

Love is the law for which we were made.

This is one aspect of what you hear in heaven. There

exists another side to the matter.

Only fools are honest with the dishonest. A

policeman who made it a principle to deal honestly

with terrorists, spies, and drug-smugglers would never

catch a criminal. There cannot exist one general rule of

behaviour towards all men. With some we have to use

cunning.

The Lord teaches us to be as wise as serpents (Mat-

thew 10.16). The New Testament employs here the

same word used in the Septuagint for the devil in

Genesis 3.1. He meant that we should at least equal

the devils in wisdom, though of another quality.

Wisdom will sometimes make us add to the com-

mon law. God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2.17). Apparently

Adam then instructed weaker Eve, Tou shall not eat

of it, neither shall you touch it' (Genesis 3.1). This is

how we have to instruct those who are young in the

faith. We raise a fence around the commandments and

add other restrictions.

54

Wisdom occasionally obliges us to enlarge the pos-

sibilities of action. One need not feel guilty for telling

an untruth in favour of the persecuted. Undue sym-

pathy for criminals can become a crime in itself by

encouraging their behaviour. There can be no peace in

a state without putting down rebellion.

'The Lord raised unto the children of Israel a deliv-

erer, Ehud' (Judges 3.15). This man, a left-handed

Benjaminite, used deceit to kill their oppressor. To

judge his deed, we have to remember that he was raised

up as a deliverer by God. Origen says the very name of

Ehud means 'glory', and Ehud is the male form of

Jehudah, the name of God's land.

Ehud killed the tyrant Eglon with his left hand. He

had hidden his dagger upon his right thigh, where it

would have passed unobserved. In the biblical Greek

the word for 'left' is aristeros, which means 'the

noblest' side. The infirmity of Ehud became an instru-

ment of God. To obtain a private audience with the

king, he said, 'I have a message from God unto thee'

(Judges 33.20). Eglon arose from his seat to show re-

spect when he heard the name 'God', and in that

moment he was killed.

Origen, one of the famous teachers of the Church,

praises the prevarications of Ehud. St Basil the Great

also considers Ehud's lie justified. The law of God has a

dual character. A state of war frees one from the

obligation of truthfulness. This rule stands as well for

the war in which the Church is engaged in countries

with religious persecution.

Mahatma Gandhi said he would not tell a lie even if

by so doing they could save the souls of the whole

world. This is wrong. Love is better than truth. The

law of love is two-sided.

55

20 =

Not Acting

The predominant question in the minds of many be-

lievers is simply: What is the right course of action to

follow? The right course may very well be not to act.

Jesus might have asked the Father this question

when he received the reply, 'Sit thou at my right hand,

until I make thine enemies thy footstool' (Psalm

iio.i). This did not mean sitting quietly for a short

period but for thousands of years while the enemies

continued to poison humankind with lying doctrines,

destroy millions of believers, and bring unspeakable

suffering upon the whole creation.

What should one do when confronted with a drama

of such proportions? Before expecting an answer to

such a question, ask yourself if it is legitimate, if it is

proper, to do anything. God is not always impressed

with our doings. His advice is 'Sit'.

This is a teaching, not a law. The Hebrew word

Torah, the name for the five books of Moses, means

'teaching'. It has been falsely translated as 'law' in the

Greek version of the Old Testament known as the

Septuagint. Generally, the Bible does not impose com-

mandments; rather, it gives counsel about the best

way to follow God's desires. It even provides several

options.

Patience must not mean passiveness. If the psalmist

says 'Sit', it does not mean you should do nothing.

Many good works can be done with a relaxed spirit and

relaxed muscles, just as one sits.

Do what you need to do, but do so remaining com-

fortable, at ease, not worrying if others will approve

your actions. To reach an objective you might have to

apply methods some people will not appreciate. The

main test is whether you bring home your trophy.

Before asking yourself what you should do, decide

whether you can do it with peace of mind. God kept

56

the Sabbath. A person who believes that he can do

anything useful without keeping the Sabbath fools

himself. When God created the world and organized it,

he knew that Adam and Eve were in great danger,

because the serpent was in Eden. Notwithstanding, he

rested. You can do the same.

You may say you are in great shape and need no rest.

But what if the Sabbath needs you? The Talmud says

that the days of the week once put their case to God.

Sunday had Monday as a friend, Tuesday had Wednes-

day, Thursday was on good terms with Friday. Only

Saturday was alone. So God gave his holy people to be

the Sabbath's friend. You might not need rest, but rest

needs you. Rest not for your own sake, but in order that

rest, repose, and quietness might not feel rejected and

abandoned. The Sabbath will reward your love and

will make the smallest deeds fruitful.

Because we do not rest properly, we improvise.

Abraham was in a hurry to fulfil God's promise and so

procreated a son by Hagar instead of waiting for God's

timing - and the world even today is paying the price.

But God keeps his promises and can provide an heir in

old age. Right actions can wait. We can take our time.

It is better not to attempt too many different enter-

prises, but rather to do one good thing over and over

until we can do it really well. John Wesley as a boy was

not good at mathematics. Once he asked his mother

the same question twenty times. His father got angry

at her: 'Stop repeating the same thing. You have

already given him the answer nineteen times.' His

mother replied, 'Isn't it better to say it twenty times,

instead of allowing the nineteen efforts to be lost?'

Don't look into any textbook or code to inspire you

to right actions. Saul was the king, so Doeg was loyal

to him. He told the king the truth about David and his

companions and added that they had been fed at the

house of Abimelech, the high priest. But the inspired

writer calls him a liar and a lover of evil. In God's eyes

it is a lie to make a truthful denunciation to the

57

legitimate king if he is a tyrant rejected by God.

God promises you a new heart. If you don't feel

entitled to one, then take it from him by force. The

Lord says, The kingdom of heaven suffers violence,

and the violent take it by force' (Matthew 11.12). Once

the kingdom of heaven is within, you will need no

textbooks to guide you. Know that even in the Bible

some commandments are given in irony, such as 'Fill

up the measure of your fathers' (Matthew 23.32). Go

after your new character, not after verses.

A word of caution is in order. Be aware of the fact

that as often as you do something amiss, Jesus is asked,

'Why do thy disciples transgress?' (Matthew 15.2).

This question is posed even now in heaven. Don't put

him in an embarrassing situation.

Don't spend a lot of time trying to decide what to do.

Jesus says, 'Take the fish that first comes up' (Matthew

17.27). You might find it difficult just to sit still. But if

you can, it will be your first opportunity to do quietly

something that is the right action for you.

21

Right Actions

If you have good intentions, it is advisable not to try

and implement them immediately with good deeds.

These may be premature.

A tin soldier once wanted to change the world so

that everyone would be happy, but he forgot he was

made of cheap metal. As soon as he entered the fire of

battle, he melted. Changing yourself is more difficult

than changing the world. To do so you must be made of

very resistant material.

First, you must be a new person who has repented of

your sins. The author of the rabbinical book Levitic

Rabba writes,

Whence is it derived that if one repents it is imputed

to him as if he had gone up to Jerusalem, built the

Temple, erected an altar, and offered upon it all the

sacrifices enumerated in the Law? From the text,

'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit^7 (Psalm

51.17).

Then, begin by offering to God the sacrifice of a broken

spirit.

The German philosopher Karl Jaspers said, 'Crucial

for man is his attitude toward failure, because the way

in which man approaches his failure determines what

he will become.'

Before starting to perform any good deed, acknow-

ledge that past actions have been wrong. Repent of

them and believe that Jesus' sacrifice has erased them

and all their evil consequences. Then you are ready to

proceed. But always remember that even the new

creature is only human, limited not only by the flow of

external circumstances, but also by an inner stream

with a predetermined bed, the only channel in which it

can flow.

The French have an expression 'violon d'Ingres'.

59

Ingres was a gifted painter, whose few creations are in

the Louvre. They are few because he believed himself

to be a violinist. The tragedy is that when he played the

instrument, all the neighbours had to plug their ears,

so unbearable was his musicianship. Ingres was a man

who did not know his talent.

It is important that you know what is possible for

you and what is not.

Eisenhower told Khrushchev, 'In our country we are

all equal. Anyone can become president.' The dictator

pointed to a man who was just sweeping the garden in

front of the White House and asked, 'Can you really

assert that such a person can become president?'

Eisenhower replied, 'Not this man; he sweeps against

the wind.'

Every human being has certain possibilities, certain

doors to which he has the key. Other doors are com-

pletely closed to him. Jesus says again and again, 'Go

your way!' Your way is the only one in which you can

be successful.

Don't try to change your behaviour. Actions are the

shadow cast by a personality. Spend all such endeav-

ours in changing your personality.

Work at this quietly. There is no hurry. There is no

great distance to traverse. Even if you have committed

atrocious crimes you are not far from God. Jesus tells

us about a son who forsook his father 'and took his

journey into a far country' (Luke 15.13). Such a journey

is possible on earth, but which country or state of soul

is far from the heavenly Father?

We are called to enter a place we never left. The

return is easy. When the prodigal son 'came to himself'

(v. 17), very soon he also found himself in his father's

arms. What you really need to know is that 'the king-

dom of heaven is at hand' (Matthew 3.2).

Once this realization is clear, you don't have to

worry yourself interminably about which actions are

right. Whether working in a factory or in a kitchen,

you can do the will of Christ by giving a cup of water to

60

a thirsty soul. No exceptional deeds are required.

To offer some cool water to a child is a very good

Christian action. Why do we ask ourselves compli-

cated questions about what deeds are acceptable?

You cannot keep life alive without letting it live. Let

things happen. Don't try to control the universe. Serve

the little world around you. A child happens to enter

your home. Caress the little one before discussing your

business with his parents. You might be a waitress in a

restaurant. Serve the customers well. Smile at them.

No more right actions are needed.

In whatever you do, keep the great hope. We are not

what we are but what we are becoming. We are prepar-

ing in menial tasks for a greater calling, to 'serve him

day and night in his temple' (Revelation 7.15).

Prepare yourself decidedly for this. In Christ there

exists only an 'either/or', never an 'as well as'.

We live in a doomed world. We travel in a sinking

ship. Don't analyse the chemical constituents of the

water pouring in. Remain quietly on board, fulfilling

faithfully your sailor's duty, and prepare for the last

swim to the other shore.

Love all those around you, who are so terribly endan-

gered. No one is accepted unless the worst in them is

accepted. Love all people just as they are and don't

worry about what good deeds to perform. St Augustine

wrote, 'Love and do what you like.'

It requires great discipline to be simple. The

simplest action is the right one.

61

= 22

Having Jesus at His Best

The Evangelists record that Jesus healed a man

possessed by demons. They say not one word about how

he had come to be possessed by unclean spirits. For

them, only his encounter with Jesus is important. He is

presented as a man without biography. We know

nothing about his past or his family, nor are we informed

about what he did after his brief hour with Jesus.

Perhaps in heaven only the minutes we have spent

in intimate contact with Jesus will count.

Come to Jesus, and you will discover that you have

fulfilled the aim of your life. Come, accepting all he did

and does, all he said and says, all he promised, threat-

ened, commanded, and attested by his life.

The manner in which you come will show your

intent. Men came to the Garden of Gethsemane with

lanterns and torches (John 18.3), which were needed to

prevent a false arrest. Today, some approach him with

the lights of reason and science, which are indispens-

able in preventing errors in judgement. But lovers

prefer darkness. They come to him without torches,

which reveal only the outer man. A lover seeks the real

person. Only lovers can know him as he really is.

And what if in the darkness of night they embrace

another by mistake? It matters not, because they were

destined from the beginning to love not only him but

all beings.

The Lord forbade people on several occasions to

spread the news that he was the Messiah, because he

knew his time had not come. But at a deeper level, he

wanted to teach his disciples that men and women can

be with him not only when they know they have Jesus

with them. They could be with him when in the

company of any poor, oppressed, or holy being.

Angelus Silesius wrote, 'Man, if you love some-

thing, you love nothing. God is not this and that;

62

therefore, leave the "something"/ St John of the Cross

also worried: 'If you stop at something, you are no

more committed to the whole.'

Only lovers can explain the enigma: Is Jesus in truth

the same yesterday, today, and forever? La the past, he

could not bear to see men who might faint because

they had nothing to eat, and so he fed them mirac-

ulously. Today millions starve. It is not that they faint;

they die. Why does he not come to their aid?

Jesus always has the same answer to social prob-

lems. The disciples asked him, 'Where can we find

bread here in the wilderness for thousands of people?'

His reply was, 'How many loaves do you have?' (Mark

8.4,5 ). If the disciples had had more than the minimum

required for life, the hunger of others would have been

their fault. They had less than the minimum: seven

loaves and a few small fish for thirteen men, including

Jesus. But they practised self-renunciation, asceti-

cism. Satisfied with their poverty, Jesus performed the

miracle of multiplying the food, with much to spare.

Let today's Christians deny themselves and become

poor. Then they will see that Jesus has remained the

same.

During Jesus' earthly life, there were places where

he could not perform mighty works (Mark 6.37). Can it

be that through our greed we have created such places

in our day?

Come to Jesus, forsaking all. Then you can have him

at his best.

= 23

Influence God

Like every well-organized brain, that of God also has a

mechanism for forgetting and remembering. He says,

'Behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you' (Jeremiah

23.39).'I will also forget thy children'(Hosea 4.6).'I. • •

will not remember thy sins' (Isaiah 43.25).

On the other hand, the groaning of the children of

Israel caused him to remember his covenant (Exodus

6.5). The sense of prayer is to bring to God's re-

membrance things he has known from time

immemorial.

Like every unselfish being, the one he forgets most is

himself. Therefore our prayers should begin with the

words 'Hallowed be thy name'. Usually they start with

the request 'Do something for me', which is not right.

He needs most to be reminded of himself and of his

Kingdom.

There are privileged people who obtain from God

everything they desire. It is written, 'The Lord did

according to the word of Moses' (Exodus 8.13). More

than others, such individuals should say to God, 'Not

my will, but Thy will be done.' In the embrace of love

we should forget ourselves, as he forgets himself. We

need not worry; there will be others to remind him of

our existence.

Luther prayed,

O Lord and good Father, I don't wish to be or not to

be, to live or to die, to know or not to know, to have

or to lack. Your will be done; I don't wish what is

Yours. I wish Yourself. You are not more beloved by

me when I have it well, and not less when I have it

evil.

God's glory should be our supreme desire in prayer.

The Jews had fled from Egypt in a hurry. They must

have left behind many possessions, but not their

64

timbrels. With these they were able to praise God

(Exodus 15.20). We may be assured that we can also

bring before him our diverse petitions. We can even be

very insistent in them. When the children of Israel

were in great danger, Moses said soothing words to

them, while to God he cried (Exodus 14.13-15). Jesus,

too, 'offered up prayers and supplications with strong

crying and tears' (Hebrews 5.7).

We are all what we are as a result of influences that

impinge upon us. When God requires us to pray, he is

essentially asking us to influence him. In this respect

he is like us. Let us with determination influence him

in favour of the cause to which he calls us.

If prayer moves him, it also influences those for

whom we pray. When we kneel in prayer for someone

else, we kneel not only before God but also before

those for whom we are praying, entreating them thus

to follow the right way.

Our prayers influence both God and others.

65

= 24=

God Who Evolves

Pascal wrote, 'Nature has some perfections to show

that she is the image of God and some defects to show

she is only an image.'

Mona Lisa could not exist without a model, about

whom we know nothing. Leonardo da Vinci's painting

proves that real women who sometimes smile won-

derfully must exist. Without them we would never

have had this admirable image.

Nature is only an image. Therefore an original must

exist.

I believe that the ontological argument for the exis-

tence of God brought by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-

1109) still stands: We have an idea of a perfect being.

Existence is an attribute of perfection; therefore a

perfect being must exist. This is God.

If everyone's T is incommunicable, how much more

is his! Jesus said, 'No one knows the Father except the

Son' (Matthew 11.27). When we write about God,

therefore, we write about an unknown Being. 'If any

man thinks that he knows anything, he knows

nothing yet as he ought to know' (1 Corinthians 8.2).

We know only a few, a very few, words of God. He is

brief, and our knowledge is scanty. Our sermons and

books about him must be brief too.

God is known from the Bible under different names.

Thomas Aquinas raised the question whether the

names predicated about God are synonymous. In his

book Sentences, he uses for the first time in church

history the expression 'attributes of God'. He teaches

that the names attributed to God all signify one and

the same thing but under many distinctions of reason.

We call him by different names only because we

apprehend him in manifold ways, but he is one.

This one God has revealed about himself in Scrip-

ture not only his almightiness, but also some of his

66

limitations; he is love and cannot love less than to

the uttermost. He is immortal. He is invisible. He

cannot lie. He cannot get wrathful except with our

consent. He said to Moses/ 'Let me alone that my

wrath may wax hot against the Jewish people'

(Exodus 22.24). Because Moses did not let him alone,

he did not exterminate the people as he might have

otherwise.

There is one attribute of God that makes every

quarrel with him appear as senseless as the quarrels

with men. God is what he is (Exodus 3.14}. He is not

what we or he himself would like him to be. He

decides all things. He never decided to be the only one

to decide all things. He is God. He did not choose to be

God, as you did not choose to be a human being, of a

certain sex and race, with a certain heredity, born in

certain circumstances that will shape your destiny for

life. He simply exists.

To him the same words apply that Paul used for

himself, 'I am what I am' (1 Corinthians 15.10). God is

what he is by nature. Paul was what he was by God's

grace. God is the perfect example of a being self-

existent, without inner conflict, accepting all his

characteristic features, not quarrelling with himself,

not desiring the impossible for himself.

For him, too, being means evolving, becoming. The

literal translation of the words spoken to Moses 'Ani

ehyeh ashei ehyeh' is 'I become what I become', not

'what I am'. He knows what he will become. With the

qualities he possesses, he could not become less than

all in all.

He is basically the same always, but he evolves. A

Jewish child of five passing near a church with his

father once said, 'Papa, let us enter to see what is new

with God.' This is why we should go to church - to

receive good news. A pastor who tells only what God

was two thousand years ago is not very helpful, since

God 'becomes what he becomes'. There is no abso-

lutely changeless object of knowledge and no

67

unchangeable knower, and there is therefore no un-

changeable knowledge.

An unknown, an invisible God, a God who evolves -

I cannot comprehend this. When you cannot catch a

butterfly with empty hands, you have understood its

nature. Knowledge is always only partial and therefore

hinders intimacy. The Lord said that he would dwell

in the thick darkness' (i Kings 8.12). It is only in

darkness that he can be embraced.

If you do not wish a God like this, it would be better

to avoid him. Be happy he does not walk with you,

because he consumes stiff-necked people in the way

(Exodus 33.3).

But if you accept him as he is, then love him with all

your heart and with all your soul. This is the first

commandment. Everything else comes afterwards.

68

= 25

Are You Ready to Diel

Jesus said, 'Whosoever shall confess me before men,

him will I confess also before my Father who is in

heaven' (Matthew 10.32).

When the Communists took over Cambodia, they

entered a church during the Sunday service. Taking

the Bible from the pulpit, an officer put it on the

threshold. As his men stood by with rifles ready, he

ordered the people to leave the building one by one and

spit on the Bible. 'Whoever does so will be free to go

home,' he said. 'Whoever does not will be shot on the

spot.'

Imagine for a moment that you were a member of

the congregation. What would you have done under

the circumstances?

As one who has passed through similar situations, I

know the thoughts that flash through the mind when

put to such a test: 'I have a bride. Her heart would break

if I were to die. My time has not yet come... I have old

parents who are invalids. They depend on me for

support. They are doomed if I die. Love obliges me to

spit... So what if I spit ? Jesus knows that I have done so

under duress. He forgave Peter, who denied him with-

out being in such danger as this. He understands human

weakness. In any case, I will spit only a little bit.'

These were people who had come to church to

worship God and study his word, but they had never

decided to die for Christ. One by one, Christians, who

ten minutes before had praised Christ in song, left the

church and spat on the Bible. Then came a girl of

sixteen. When challenged at gunpoint to spit, she

began to weep and said, 'I cannot do it. I love God. The

Bible is his letter to us. No child spits on his father's

letter.' She knelt down and wiped away the spittle

from the cover of the Bible - and fell dead over the holy

book, shot in the head.

69

What would you have done? Many of us have an-

swered a call to come forward to the altar. The altar in

Jerusalem was a place where creatures died. Lambs,

rams, doves, whatever came upon the altar died. Did

you understand your response to the altar call in these

terms?

We are not all put in the same situation. Not every-

one is forced to lay their life on the line. However,

every Christian chose death at his conversion, if it was

genuine.

Rabbinical commentaries have said that the key to

the Bible lies in the words, 'This is the law, when a

man dies. . .'(Numbers 19.14). If a person does not die

for the law, they have never really considered it to be

the law of God. This is how Christians think, too. A

Christian is someone, 'dead to sin' and 'dead with

Christ' (Romans 6.2,8). To respond to an altar call

means to die to the world. If you have understood this

rightly and lived in this spirit, you will make the right

choice in times of crisis.

Few of us may be asked to spit on the Bible literally;

but to spit or not to spit is a choice we make daily when

we are tempted. It means spitting on the Bible, indeed,

on Christ, if we wilfully and consciously prefer a sin to

his commandments.

Let us choose rather to wipe away the spittle with

which others have soiled his holy word and to be

faithful at all times.

= 26 —

One Trinitarian God

To Jews and Muslims, the greatest stone of offence in

the Christian religion is the belief that the one God is a

trinity. Jesus is the first to give a Trinitarian formula to

the Godhead. He says, 'Baptize in the name of the

Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'

(Matthew 28.19).

The Church teaches us to worship the unity in the

Trinity and the Trinity in the unity. We are not com-

manded to understand it. In fact, we do many things

without understanding them. How many of us com-

prehend the technicalities of electricity, of cars, of jets,

of our household gadgets, of the medicines we use?

Curiously, the early church never said there were

three persons in the Godhead. 'Person' is a word used

for a whole being. The church fathers who fixed the

dogma spoke about three hypostases in the Godhead.

Etymologically, hypostasis means 'inferior' [hypo) and

'stand' [stasis). Only the three together, Father, Son

and Holy Ghost constitute a whole being. There exists

no wholeness outside the totality of the Godhead.

Two main accusations are brought against the

Trinitarian teaching of the Bible.

1. It contradicts mathematics, which is a discipline

that never permits two different series of computa-

tion. One plus one plus one can yield only three.

Another solution, that one plus one plus one should

equal one, is out of the question.

Three persons can surely not be one person, but it

does not contradict mathematics to say that three

hypostases, whatever this word means, or that a divine

Father, a divine Son, and a divine Spirit should be one

Godhead. Three different entities like body, soul and

spirit form one person. Many trees form one forest.

2. It contradicts the biblical teaching that God is

one.

71

Deep biblical truth demands vigorous mental effort

and much knowledge. Those who cannot discipline

themselves to attain such knowledge are like the fox

in Aesop's fable. Unable to breach die fence guarding

the vineyard, he said, 'I would never eat such grapes

anyway. They are sour/

Those who have studied know that the Old Testa-

ment never speaks about God being absolutely one.

The Hebrews have two expressions for the notion 'one'

- echad and yachid. Yachid stands for perfect unity. 'I

have one only son' would be in Hebrew yesh li ben

yachid. Echad stands for composed unity, as in the

expression, 'Vaihi eiev vaihi bokeryom echad' (It was

evening and it was morning, one day). (Genesis 1.5).

God says that man and wife 'shall be one [echad)

flesh' (Genesis 2.24). This shows that the word 'one' is

not taken in the Bible in the absolute sense.

Elohim, one of the most frequent appellations for

God in the Old Testament, is a plural. It could be

translated 'Gods', but in Genesis 35.7 and other places,

the verb after the subject Elohim is in the singular.

After hearing the two distinct dreams of Pharaoh,

Joseph says, 'The dream of Pharaoh is one [echad)'

(Genesis 41.25). He does not even say, 'The two

dreams are one/ The two dreams are simply one

dream. Many twos can be one. May God grant that we

may understand it.

Many Jewish theologians have seen they cannot

defend the absolute unity of the Godhead.

The renowned eleventh-century rabbi Gabriol dis-

tinguishes between God, his will and his activity in

the world, which is something other than his real

being, about which we can know nothing. He makes

the same distinction that Christian theology makes

between Deus absconditus (the hidden God) and Deus

levelatus (God revealed), the same distinction which

Hindus made thousands of years before Christ be-

tween Brahman Nirguna (God without attributes, that

is, without qualities attributed to him by men, which

72

therefore cannot express ultimate reality) and Brah-

man Saguna (God with attributes).

God can be philosophized about as 'one' in the

precise sense of the word only so long as he remains an

object of speculation. Those who have a personal expe-

rience with God conceive of him as Creator, as Saviour

from their sins, and as one who sanctifies them and

makes them God-like. The Trinity was experienced in

the spiritual life before being fixed as dogma.

Let us adore the whole God, not only one aspect of

him. In Hebrew the word for 'face' [panim] does not

exist in the singular. The Hebrew Bible speaks about

the 'faces' of God. We adore not only the majestic face

of the serene Father Almighty, but also the face marred

by sorrow of the God who suffered for us on Golgotha.

We also adore what the Kabbalah calls 'the little face' -

the dovelike face that awakens our desire for inno-

cence and goodness.

If we do not understand much, it does not matter. St

Augustine, walking along the seashore, reflected on a

book about the Trinity that he wanted to write. Hear-

ing a child's cry and fearing something may have

happened, he investigated, only to be told, 'I weep

because I want to put the ocean in my bucket and can't

succeed.' Augustine learned not to expect too much

from the reflections of his little mind about the great

God.

Through deep thought we can know something of

the fringes of the problem. May this suffice and may

we be his adorers both in spirit and in truth.

73

= 27

A Few Thoughts about

the Devil

The Bible calls the devil 'the king of terrors' (Job 18.14)

and 'the firstborn of death' (v.i3); among many other

names. The demons who serve him are usually not

given individual names. When asked, one of them said

to the Lord, 'My name is Legion' (Mark 5.9).

We know only two possible exceptions. One devil is

called Apollyon, the angel of the bottomless pit (Rev-

elation 9.11 ). The apocryphal book Tobit speaks about

a demon whose name was Asmodee. It seems probable

that one result of serving the devil is an obliteration of

personality.

Demons perform many works on earth. The most

insidious is probably that of sowing doubt. It was the

devil's first ploy with Eve. Not content with deceiving

the race, the devil dared to approach Jesus himself. The

Father had said at his baptism, 'This is my beloved Son'

(Matthew 3.17). Every believer receives just such an

assurance. After a few weeks, Satan tempted Jesus

with the words, 'If thou be the Son of God' (Matthew

4.3). He uses the same tactic with us.

But he uses even more insidious methods. The Spirit

of the Father speaks in a believer (Matthew 10.20), but

not always. Satan can also influence a believer to such

an extent that he is even able to speak through him.

The Lord responded to certain of Peter's words by

saying, 'Get thee behind me, Satan' (Matthew 16.23).

Jesus discerned that the false thoughts expressed by

Peter did not come from his own heart.

Knowing the devil's power, many believers seek

some accommodation with him. Montaigne wrote, 'I

would burn one candle for God and one for the devil.'

This attitude is wrong. My prayer is, 'God, help me

every day to be an annoyance to the devil.' We don't

have to fear him, in spite of his seeming might. The

74

Empire State Building is gigantic only when viewed

from street level. Christians are seated in, heavenly

places (Ephesians 2.6). Seen from above, the devils are

little creatures.

In Matthew 12.25 and 26 Jesus suggests the best

tactic to use in dealing with demons: try to turn one

against the other. Split them. The devil of self-

satisfaction over one's religiosity can be turned against

the devil of whoredom; the devil of thrift against that

of gambling; the devil of fear (of being discovered and

apprehended) against that of lying and theft.

In times of great demonic oppression and tempta-

tion, a simple change of your place of habitation is also

effective. Devils are patriots (as were, to an unhealthy

extreme, great Satanic personalities like Hitler and

Stalin). If you move to another location, they do not

always move together with you. A devil besought

Jesus not to be sent out of the country (Mark 5.10).

On some occasions, the devil might give you a hard

time if you fight him. When forced to leave an individ-

ual, he might throw him or her to the ground (Mark

9.20). But devils can be chased away. Subtlety can also

be used successfully to outwit them.

Just be aware that the devil (collectively) will plague

you until the end of your earthly life. He attacked the

innocent couple, the crown of creation, in paradise. He

promised them a religious boon: to be like God. He

also knew how to keep silent when the threat was too

great. He did not contradict God when he was cursed

but simply continued his work. He incited Cain and

Abel to quarrel about religious matters to make a

mockery of religion. He induces men to run after

women only because they are beautiful, causing them

to forget decency and virtue.

He often uses renowned personalities as tools. Lenin

and Hitler both wrote books that shaped the political

destinies of the twentieth century. Christianity has

not produced many books with such an impact. While

Hitler built gas chambers and ovens to kill millions of

75

Jews, the Church failed to organize a missionary work

to bring millions of Jews to conversion.

Hosea well said, 'The revolters are profound to make

slaughter' (Hosea 5.2). We are not profound. Therefore

many Christians have been led astray, even to the

point of helping Hitler and Lenin. Christians some-

times sacrifice to devils while believing they sacrifice

to God.

When Jesus said, 'Beware of men' (Matthew 10.17),

he meant to be taken seriously. He warns us that there

are some people sown in this world by the devil

(Matthew 13.24, 25, 37, 38). These are not simply

notorious figures like Hitler or Stalin, but ordinary

people you might encounter in everyday life.

But don't panic. Remember, the devil will try hard-

est to make you disbelieve that you are a child of God.

My answer to him is, 'Then if I am a child of the devil, I

will be an Absalom, a treacherous son to him. I will

love God even if I am not his.'

He will also try to make you believe that right is

wrong and wrong is right. He will appear as an angel of

light to deceive (2 Corinthians 11.14). Again, my reply

is, 'Though now I see through a glass darkly, I know

whom I have believed and trust him to keep me from

falling and to keep all I have committed to him even

though my senses deceive me. I will love him even if I

cannot see him' (2 Corinthians 13.12; 2 Timothy 1.12).

Scorn the devil. He is a defeated foe, as he knows full

well. Jesus conquered him and all his minions on

Calvary, for all of us sinners. From the light of

Golgotha you can look down on him. I repeat, he is a

little creature.

= 28

Problems of Faith

in God

Darwin's most radical claim was that evolution is

aimless and without inherent direction. His theory

was a biological counterfeit of Adam Smith's laissez-

faire economics. Smith had argued that a well-

regulated, stable and harmonious economy would be

the natural result of untrammelled interest actively

pursued by all.

We live some two hundred years after the death of

Adam Smith. There is no harmonious economic life.

Nor could the order in nature result from uncontrolled

struggle of all against all.

Why should and how could random evolution pro-

duce unselfishness and self-sacrifice - even in the

animal world? In many flocks of birds, for example, the

first bird that spots a predator utters a warning cry. The

flock scatters. The bird has saved its mates by calling

attention to itself, sacrificing its life for the good of the

flock.

Nature cannot be explained without a Creator. To

acknowledge him does not solve all the intellectual

problems. There remains the great question mark: If

the world was created by a rational Being, why the

terrible suffering?

The question 'Why?' addressed to God is as false as

the question 'What two even numbers added together

yield seventeen? ' The book of Lamentations ends with

a question: 'Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and

forsake us so long time?' (5.20). We do not know the

reasons for God's doings. We know that he does things

that seem strange to us. But he is a God in whom we

can trust without understanding him. If we can trust

completely in surgeons without understanding what

they do, should we not trust in God, the Creator of the

surgeon?

77

I don't claim to understand God, but I know he can

do wonders. He made it possible for Jesus to be born

miraculously to a virgin. Yet every day he still per-

forms the miracle of making a sperm recognize the

ovum. What mechanism prevents the sperm from

fusing with any other kind of cell it may encounter?

Only the miracle of human conception as orchestrated

by God. May this God of miracles do what seems good

to him, not what seems efficient or right to me.

While I say this, I also know I have the liberty to pray

to God to change his decree. He allows me to pray in

the Spirit. The Son prayed in Gethsemane that a decree

of the Father be altered. We can do so too.

In either case, we can trust God.

I trust God because he does not boast. He says that

he created a heaven and an earth. Now, all earthly

rulers praise themselves for the good things they do.

But our God tells us about hell too. He could have kept

it from us in order that we might love and trust him

more. Instead, he tells the truth as it is. We can trust

him.

He freed the Jews from the Egyptian bondage, prov-

ing he could deliver his people. He did not free the Jews

from the Nazi holocaust. It was not that he lacked the

power. He must have good reasons to proceed dif-

ferently in each circumstance. In any case, he takes

full responsibility for everything that happens.

All kinds of theological arguments can be given to

explain the existence of so much evil in the world of a

good God. These valuable explanations are like a

finger pointing to the moon. But to see the moon you

have to look beyond the finger. Then you become

silent. Questions are no longer relevant. You realize

that there are answers that only time will reveal and

that the purposes of God will one day become obvious.

The unrighteous opium war waged by the British

against China opened up the country to the inrush of

missionaries. Access to inland China for evangeliza-

tion was the result of the Arrow War in 1856. God

78

nullified good counsel and allowed wrong decisions to

be made (2 Samuel 17.14) in order that David, his

anointed, might return to his kingdom. Thus we learn

not to accept all God's guidance. He gives the wicked

guidance that will destroy them. Rather, we should do

what the Bible teaches about how to be pleasing in his

sight.

I admit that it is not easy to walk with this God.

Sometimes he says very unpleasant things. He tells

Adam that certain things are forbidden, Abraham that

his descendants will be slaves in Egypt for four

hundred years.

You will wonder about his words. Aristotle said,

'Wonder is the starting point of philosophy/ It is the

starting point of religion too. From wonder we advance

to an acknowledgement of our utter dependence upon

God. We — humankind — cannot escape his will.

Nor should we try to escape his will. What we focus

on determines our character. The more exalted the

object about which we think, the more Godlike we

become. It is good for humankind to think primarily

about God.

Every concept is an image of an object. When the

Father forms a notion, he thinks perfectly about his

own divine nature. Thus his idea, the Word, expresses

his nature completely. We know him as the Son. The

two love each other perfectly. The Holy Spirit is this

love. St Bernard of Clairvaux called the Holy Spirit the

kiss between the Father and the Son.

Let us therefore bow before the Holy Trinity. Then

let us add to their love our own. In love we will find the

answer to our restless questionings.

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=:29==

In the Name of Jesus

Whatever is said about Jesus in the Bible concerns

every believer because Jesus identifies himself organ-

ically with believers. 'Christ is the head of the body'

(Colossians 1.18), and we are the members (i

Corinthians 12.12).

The Romans had a saying, 'Actiones et passiones

sunt suppositorum.' (Actions and passions belong to

the person.) It is not the hand that steals but the thief;

not the hand that gives alms but the philanthropist;

not the heart that loves or hates but the whole person.

Likewise, every action and passion of Jesus is also

mine, and vice versa.

Divine charity is not his alone; I possess it too,

because the spirit that animates him belongs to me.

There is no problem, no burden of mine that is not also

his. My sins do not belong only to me; they are auto-

matically his too and crucify him afresh (Hebrews 6.6).

We have everything in common. We are both twice

born, but in reverse order. He was born first as the Son

of God and then became man: I was born first as a

human being and then as a child of God. This is the

difference. Otherwise we are one body.

Human life has been given to me as a boat to cross

the sea from nonexistence to heaven. This is the

spiritual sense of the many episodes in the Gospels of

the disciples' travelling by ship across the sea of

Galilee. Jesus is the good navigator, who also stills

contrary winds. To resist being totally and consciously

a member of his body is like committing suicide.

We often begin or end personal prayers and public

services with the words 'In the name of Jesus', which

means with a readiness for sacrifice after his example,

or rather, together with him.

When we pray 'Hallowed be thy name' to God, we

are saying in effect, 'Give me the grace of self-sacrifice

80

that others, seeing its beauty and knowing that it

arises out of love for you, might be drawn to adore you.'

The sacrifice is meant to be complete. Jesus said,

'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay

down his life for his friends' (John 15.13). This is the

ultimate sacrifice for a man. Jesus went further: he

died for sinners, for his enemies. Since God's children

belong to a different order of being, their love has the

same ultimacy as that of Jesus: self-sacrifice in the

service of their foes.

Jesus would not elaborate on this teaching. He had

taught people to love their enemies. They asked him

how a man could be released from the heavy duty of

loving his own wife. How far love must go belongs to

the many things Jesus left unsaid because his disciples

were not yet able to bear them.

He is so far beyond us that it is only natural for

communication to be difficult. Doubts arise too in

many things connected with him. There is nothing

wrong in doubting. The wrong lies in sharing the

doubts with anyone other than Jesus himself. Speak

with him about them as the followers of John the

Baptist did: 'Art thou he that should come, or do we

look for another?' (Matthew 11.3).

He will teach you how to love to the uttermost and

reveal to you the mystery of his doings. If you love like

Jesus and become one with him, people will be

offended by your deeds as they were offended by his

commanding a Jew to carry a load on the Sabbath. In

the case of that man, a natural law had been broken. He

had been healed in a moment after thirty-eight years of

paralysis and was able to carry a mat on his shoulders.

The natural laws come from the same God who

ordered us to keep the Sabbath. If the first were broken,

why not the latter?

With Jesus, we are in a sphere that humans cannot

judge; the realm of the supernatural. Christ's ministry

engendered in Herod the reaction that he was John the

Baptist come back from the dead, in the Pharisees that

81

he was in a pact with the devil, in his relatives that he

was beside himself (Mark 3.21), in Peter that he was

'the Son of God'. The qualities that called forth so

many reactions must have been beyond the ordinary.

We believe the only explanation is that he was - and is

— God incarnate.

Spinoza wrote, 'That God would assume human

nature, I must confess seems to me as absurd as that a

circle assumed the shape of a square.' To which I

would respond with the words of Tertullian: 'I believe

it because it is absurd.' A child can take a piece of

string and shape it like a circle, then reshape it like a

square. We have to accept on faith the fact that God

can do things that surpass the imagination or reason of

the greatest genius.

The most intimate disciples of Christ do not under-

stand everything yet. St Ignatius, bishop of Antioch,

before his martyrdom said, 'I am burdened with

chains, but I am only a beginner in the Church of

Christ.'

Faith tells us that Jesus is God. He is love to the

uttermost, and he calls us to such love, even towards

our enemies. He is one head and we are his body. We

are one.

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= 30

Reason and Sentiment

Only one half of the human brain directs logical think-

ing. It is the left hemisphere where the treasury of

words is located. The right hemisphere is the seat of

pictures and dreams. Strangely, it is this half that more

quickly provides a solution to the serious problems of

life.

Reason is not reliable. The Romanian word for

'mind' is 'liar'. A fox that once lost its tail in a trap tried

to persuade the other animals that it was much better

not to have a tail. We also tend to propose as objective

truth ideas that would serve to justify our past biogra-

phies.

A multitude of depraved sentiments exert a detri-

mental influence on our reasoning. We all agree that

two and two are four, that it is warm when the sun

shines, and that the USA has a president - but only

because these truths don't interfere with our own

interests and passions.

Hobbes said, 'Even the axioms of geometry would be

disputed if men's passions were concerned in them.'

Lenin also wrote, 'Men would contradict that two and

two are four if it conflicted with their interests.'

Truth can be very unpleasant when memory tells

me, 'You have sinned', and pride says, 'It is not so'.

Pride almost always succeeds in convincing memory.

Reason is at hand to offer powerful alibis. Francis

Bacon said it in Novum Organum: 'The human under-

standing is no dry light, but receives an infusion from

the will and affections, where proceed sciences which

may be called "sciences as one would".'

People even become martyrs of a religion they em-

braced only because it happened to be the religion of

their sweetheart. One of the top leaders of a terrorist

gang in West Germany killed and went to prison

because the boy she loved was a revolutionist. This was

83

her only motive for embracing the most radical ideas.

Christ refuses faith in him engendered by such mo-

tives. He counsels those who plan to build a tower to

sit down first and count the cost, and advises kings

who intend to make war to consult first whether they

are able to win (Luke 14.28-31). He endorses the

wisdom of people who, in building a house, dig deep

and lay the foundation on rock (Luke 6.48}. In effect, he

is saying they must make sure they have the right

motives and serve the highest causes.

He urges us to follow him only if we have full proof

that faith in him is right. He exempts those who don't

have the evidence from the duty to hold this faith. 'If I

had not done among them the works which none other

man did, they had not had sin,' Jesus said (John 15.24).

You are without excuse only if a clear revelation has

been given you.

However, let us always remember that one part of

our mind can apprehend the truth quickly without

relying on the processes of reason. It is the same part

that induces Romeo to consider Juliet the only girl

worth living and dying for and makes Don Quixote

forsake all for Dulcinea. God must be loved with all

the heart. Therefore, this part of the mind has to

convince the other half of its validity, while admitting

the possibility of distortion due to emotional com-

plexes of sympathy and antipathy, which block truth.

Reason can adduce proof that adultery is love, that

theft is wise provision, that unbelief is intellectual

honesty. 'Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,

but God weighs the heart' (Proverbs 21.2). Because we

don't have a strong grip on truth, with hearts com-

mitted to the desire for truth alone, many churches are

able to resort to the ways of the world with considerable

success.

Before apprehending truth, your reason must be-

come truthful. Without cleansing the mind of passion,

you render the grasp of religious truth virtually impos-

sible.

84

= 31

Why Evil in the World

of a Good Father}

Anyone who reads the Bible is invariably struck by the

sheer volume of evil and suffering it recounts, in

particular the suffering of the innocent. To many

people this poses a grave problem.

The simplest answer to the question 'Why is there

so much evil in a world created by a good God? ' is, 'We

do not know.'

Hayyim ibn Mussa (1390-1460), a Spanish rabbi,

tells how he heard a renowned preacher attempting to

explain why God acted as he did and speculating about

his deeds. Thereupon', the rabbi said, 'misfortune

came upon me in a great pogrom in Seville. I was

beaten and wounded until my persecutors desisted

because they thought I was dead. And here you are

speculating about God and his decrees. I have greater

faith in the sufferings which God imposes upon us

than in your theories about them.'

Is it not enough to endure pain and persecution and

natural catastrophes? Must we endure philosophical

explanations too?

Job, upon receiving news that he had lost all his

property and that all his children had died, exclaimed,

'The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed

be the name of the Lord' (Job 1.21 ). When God gives, he

gives in mercy; when he takes, he takes in mercy.

About mercies we need to jubilate and not to specu-

late.

An evil can often be a blessing in disguise. Edison,

thought to have an addled brain, was driven out of

school. A train conductor who beat him made him

deaf. This affliction closed him to external influences.

He could draw from inner wells. As a result, we owe to

him the electric light bulb. More than that, he earned a

patent every fortnight.

85

Lincoln was grieved because of two bankruptcies.

Through these God showed him that he was made for

something better than commerce. He became one of

the great presidents of America.

There have been many artists of unsound mind.

Over seventy analytical papers have been written

about the folly of Van Gogh alone. Yet would his art

have been possible without this touch of madness?

Neither the Romanian poet Eminescu nor the Hun-

garian Ady Endre could have created their master-

pieces without the incipient folly in them.

Some artists have been aware of their weakness and

loved their perilous handicaps. Edward Munch said, 'I

want to keep my weaknesses. They are a part of

myself. I wouldn't want to miss suffering. I have to

give much thanks to this suffering in my art.'

I once saw a performance of an old classical Japanese

dance. Its subject was a young king of such beauty that

wherever he appeared all activity stopped. No one

could do anything but hold their breath while gazing at

the king's splendour. His appearance negated the pos-

sibility of a normal existence for anyone else. His

subjects could no longer love one another because they

compared their neighbours unfavourably with the

beautiful king. For the good of his citizens, then, the

young king had to wear an ugly mask.

Do you understand the significance of this story?

Could human relations and falling in love and the

world itself exist if we were able to see our God in all

his majesty? He too had to wear an ugly mask by

taking the form of sin-sick humanity. In the person of

Jesus, God appeared among us with 'no form nor

comeliness'. He had 'no beauty that we should desire

him.. . We esteemed him not' (Isaiah 53.2,3). Thus he

made it possible for us to esteem one another's beauty

and desire after the love of our fellows.

Think about this story. It might help you somewhat

to make peace with the existence of evil in a world

created by a good God.

86

32

God's Characteristics

Men dress God in the garments of their age. He was

described as a despot when the world was ruled by

despots. He has been successively portrayed as a

slaveholder and an English country-gentleman. Scien-

tists conceived of him as a great geometrist, a great

mechanic. Today some say he is a great revolutionist.

In a male-dominated society, he surely must be male.

Modern-day feminists call him 'she'.

These extrapolations are very much out of touch

with God as described in the Bible. The last impression

one retains after a lifetime of study is that God is an

unfathomable mystery.

We have the assertion 'God is love' ( i John 4.8), but it

must be a love entirely apart, because he takes the

responsibility for actions not normally performed by a

loving being. God says, 'I will corrupt your seed' -

think only of the tragedy of having bad children - 'and

spread dung upon your faces' (Malachi 2.3 ). For the sins

of certain priests, whether a few or many, he puts the

whole priesthood under a curse in the same chapter.

When village children hear the song 'There's a wide-

ness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea/ they

think only of the breadth of the millpond. But naviga-

tors accustomed to travelling the seven seas would

understand better. Astronauts would doubtless think

in terms of the limitless ocean of space. But there is

something wider than the universe, and that is the

spiritual realm, in which God is not limited to our

human concept of goodness.

We see God neither as he is nor as he would like to

be. One of our impressions is that the God who created

our universe is a sad God. Lucifer had just rebelled,

drawing with him a third part of the 'stars' of heaven

(Revelation 12.4). The fall of man followed. We deal

with a sad God who repents of having created our

87

species and is grieved (Genesis 6.6). Our God is also

wearied. 'Ye have wearied the Lord with your words'

(Malachi 2.17). Jesus, 'the express image of God'

(Hebrews 1.3), was also 'a man of sorrows, and ac-

quainted with grief (Isaiah 53.3), and knew weariness

while on earth. John's Gospel records that once he sat

on a well in Samaria, 'being wearied with his journey'

(John 4.6). He had left Jerusalem upon hearing news

about dissension over his and John's baptism and was

now among strangers. Bone-tired, hungry and thirsty,

he was indeed a man of sorrows. If we don't realize

this, his words will sometimes appear strange and

incomprehensible.

But look! A woman comes to draw water, alone, in

the heat of the day. She is despondent and weary of life.

She has had six husbands, including one stolen from

another's marriage. None of them could give her joy.

But immediately the weary Son of God forgets his own

sadness and becomes a comforter to her (John 4.4-42).

Let us not create images of God according to the

mores of our society or our own status. Meeting the

tired God, the one crucified every day afresh by his

followers (Hebrews 6.6), let us forget our own deep

sorrows and be a comfort to him.

May I add that the present meditation needs to be

taken with a grain of salt. I too am a weary man who

has known much sadness, and I show God as I see him.

I paint him with sombre hues, knowing that 'now we

see through a glass, darkly, but then' - praise God! -

'face to face' (1 Corinthians 13.12). And I know that

one day a happy God 'will wipe away all tears from

their eyes; and there shall be no more. . . sorrow, nor

crying' (Revelation 21.4).

88

the total blessing

'You are Jesus' beloved. He will

lift the veil from your eyes so chat

you will see truth in all its fullness in

his loving eyes and will know it

immediately in his tender embrace.'

A collection of mystical meditations on

the nature of God - Father, Son and

Holy Spirit. A series of thoughts on the

paradoxes and profundities of the

Christian faith. A gathering of wisdom

distilled through long years of suffering.

£4.99 net

Table of Contents

The Total Blessing