Duke’s Notes from Life Together
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1938
Written while teaching in the underground seminary in Pomerania, Germany
(1954) Harper & Row; John W. Doberstein, translator
Chapter 1 – Community
- Ps 133.1 - How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity
- “It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. . . . So the Christian, too, belong not in the seclusion of cloistered life but in the thick of foes.” 17
- According to God’s will, Christendom is a scattered people, scattered like seed ‘into the kingdoms of the earth” (Deut 28.25). … God’s people must dwell in far countries among the unbelievers, but it will be the see of the Kingdom of God in all the world. 18
- Until God gathers, God’s people remain scattered, held together solely in Jesus Christ, having become one in the fact that, dispersed among unbelievers, they remember Him in the far countries. 18
- Between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in a visible fellowship with other Christians. 18
- The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer. - see 2 Tim 1.4; 1 These 3.10 – 19
- The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God. Visitor and visited in loneliness recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body; they receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord, in reverence, humility, and joy. 20
- Communal life is again being recognized by Christians today as the grace it is, as the extraordinary, the ‘roses and lilies’ of the Christian life.
1) Through and in Jesus Christ
- Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. 21
1) A Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ
o The Christian is dependent upon on the Word of God spoken to him. Righteousness comes from outside of us (extra nos) 22
o God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. 22
o Therefore, a Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth . . . The Christ in his own heart is weaker that the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure. 23
o The goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. 23
2) A Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ
o He is our peace - Eph 2.14
o Without Christ we could not know our brother, the way is blocked by our own ego. Christ opened up the way to God and to our brother. 23
3) in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity
o When God’s son took on flesh, he truly and bodily took on, out of pure grace, our being, our nature, ourselves . . . we belong to Him because we are in Him. 24
o When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with our brothers. When we received forgiveness, instead of judgment, we, too, were made ready to forgive our brethren. . . God taught us how to meet one another as God has met us in Christ (Rom 15.7). 25
- There is a danger of confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship, of confounding the natural desire of the devout heart for community with the spiritual reality of Christian brotherhood. 26
1) Christian Brotherhood is Not An Ideal but a Divine reality
o very human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to the genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. 27
o God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly…. When his idea picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself. 27
o We enter into common life to as demanders bust as thankful recipients. 28
o A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. 30
o Christian Brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate… our fellowship in in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it. 30
2) A Spiritual not a Human Reality
o Christian community is spiritual, and not a psychic (human) reality
o In the community of the Spirit there burns the bright love of brotherly service, agape; in human community the spirit there glows the dark love of good and evil desire, eros
o In the spiritual realm the Spirit governs; in human community, psychological techniques and methods – 32
o Human love has little regard for truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth must come between it and the beloved person. Human love desires the other person, his company, his answering love, but it does not serve him… 34
o Human love cannot tolerate the dissolution of a fellowship that has become false for the sake of genuine fellowship, and human love cannot love an enemy, that is, one who seriously and stubbornly resists it… human love is by its very nature desire - desire for human community. 34
o Human love makes an end in itself… Spiritual love, however comes from Jesus Christ, it severs him alone; it knows that it has no immediate access to other persons. Jesus Christ stands between the lover and the others he loves. . . Jesus Christ will tell me what love toward the brethren really is. 35
o Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men. 36
o The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door. 33
o Christ alone is our unity, He is our peace. 39
Chapter 2 - The Day With Others
- Col 3.16 - Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly
- The Early morning belongs to the church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind. 41
- God the Holy Spirit, who pours the bright gleam of God’s word into our hearts at the dawn of day, driving away all darkness and sin and teaching us to pray aright . . . 41
- Morning does not belong to the individual, it belongs to the Church of the triune God, to the Christian family, to the brotherhood. Innumerable are the ancient hymns that call the congregation to common praise of god in the early morning. 41-2
- Common life under the Word begins with common worship at the beginning of the day . . . The deep stillness of morning is broken first by the prayer and song of the fellowship. . . The scriptures, moreover, tell us that the first thought and the first word of the day belong to God: “my voice shalt thou hear, in the morning O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee. (Ps 5.3) 42
- Awake thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light – (Eph 5.14) 43
- Common devotions in the morning should include Scripture Reading, song, and prayer . . . Every common devotion should include the Word of Scripture, the hymns of the Church, and the prayer of the fellowship.
The Secret of the Psalter
- The Psalter occupies a unique place in the Holy Scriptures. It is God’s Word and, with a few exceptions, the prayer of men as well. 44
- The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time. 46
- In the Psalter we learn to pray on the basis of Christ’s prayer. The Psalter is the great school of prayer. 47
1) It means praying according to the Word of God. . . . We pray on the basis of the prayer of the true Man Jesus Christ. 47
2) We learn from the prayer of the psalms what we should pray. We pray along with Christ. 48
3) The Psalms teach us to pray as a fellowship. … Prayer is not a matter of pouring out the human heart once and for all in need or joy, but of an unbroken, constant learning, accepting, and impressing upon the mind of God’s will in Jesus Christ. 49
o Oetinger … arranged the whole Psalter according to the seven petitions of the Lord’s prayer
o The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become. 50
Reading the Scriptures
- Give Attendance to reading - 1 Tim 4.13
- There can be equally little doubt that brief verses cannot and should not take the place of reading the Scripture as a whole… Holy Scripture is more than a watchword. It is more than “light for today.” Is it God’s revealed Word for all men, for all times. 50
- A Christian family fellowship should surely be able to read and listen to a chapter of the Old Testament and at least half of a chapter of the New Testament ever morning and evening. 51
- But of course, we must admit that the Scripture are still largely unknown to us… And should not the minister be the very first to get to work on this point? 52
- How Shall we read the Scriptures?
o The reader should never identify himself with the person who is speaking in the Bible…. I read to others a letter from a friend 56
o Proper reading of Scripture is not a technical exercise that can be learned; it is something that grows or diminishes according to one’s own spiritual frame of mind - 57
Singing the New Song
- Psalms and Scripture should be followed by singing together of a hymn, this being the voice of the Church, praising, thanking, and praying . 57
- Sing unto the Lord a new song - the Psalter enjoins again and again 57
- Sing and make melody in your hearts - Eph 5.19 . . . The new song is sung first in the heart. Otherwise it cannot be sung at all. The heart sings it because it is overflowing with Christ. That is why all singing in the church is a spiritual performance. 58
- Why do Christians sing when they are together? The reason is quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word. 59
- Destroyers of unison singing in the fellowship that must be rigorously eliminated…
1) The improvised second part
2) The Solo voice that goes swaggering, swelling, blaring, …
3) There are the less dangerous foes of congregational singing, the “unmusical” who cannot sing 61
- The more we sing, the more joy we will derive from it, but, above all, the more devotion and discipline and joy we put into our singing, the richer will be the blessing that will come to the whole life of the fellowship from singing together. 61
Saying Our Prayers Together
- Common prayer . . . this prayer must really be our word, our prayer for this day, for our work, for our fellowship, for the particular needs and sins that oppress us in common, for the person who are committed to our care. 62
The Fellowship of the Table
- Ever since Jesus sat at table with his disciples, the table fellowship of his community has been blessed by his presence (Lk 24.30-31). 66
- The Scriptures speak of three kinds of table fellowship that Jesus keeps with his own: daily fellowship at table, the table fellowship of the Lord’s Supper, and the final table fellowship in the Kingdom of God. But in all three the one thing that counts is that “their eyes were opened, and they knew him.”
1) They knew him as the giver of all good gifts. 66
2) the earthly gifts are given to it only for Christ’s sake, as this whole world is sustained only for the sake of Jesus Christ. 67
3) the congregation believes it is the Lord’s will to be present when it prays for his presence 67
- Our life is not only trivial and labor, it is also refreshment and joy in the goodness of God. We labor, but God nourishes and sustains us. . . Through our daily meals he is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day. 68
The Day’s Work
- After the first morning hour the Christian’s day until evening belongs to work. “Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening. (Ps 104.23).
- Praying and working are two different things. Prayer should not be hindered by work, but neither should work be hindered by prayer. 69
- Without the burden and labor of the day, prayer is not prayer, and without prayer, work is not work. 70
Noonday and Evening
- We cannot simply take it for granted that our work provides us with bread; this is rather God’s order of grace. 72
- The Christian family gathered together. The fellowship is united at the evening table and the last devotion. 73
- It is an ancient monastic custom that by fixed order in the evening devotions the abbot begs the forgiveness of the brothers for all faults and defaults committed against them, and after the brothers assure him of their forgiveness, and vice versa.
- It is perilous for the Christian to lie down to sleep with an unreconciled heart. 74
- The day is thine, the night is also thine - Ps 74.16
Chapter 3 - The Day Alone
- Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are driven to seek the company of other people . . . They are generally disappointed. . . (They) are not seeking community at all, but only a distraction which will allow him to forget his loneliness for a brief time, the very alienation that creates the deadly isolation of man. 76
Solitude and Silence
- Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. 77
- Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. 77
- Only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in fellowship – 77
- The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. . . right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech. 78
- Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of God. 78
- We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent at the end of the day before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God. 78
- There is such a thing as forbidden, self-indulgent silence, a proud, offensive silence. . . The silence of the Christian is listening silence, humble stillness, that may be interrupted at any time for the sake of humility. 79
- There are three purposes for which the Christian can be alone during the day: Scripture meditation, prayer, and intercession. 79
Meditation
- Meditation lets us be alone with the Word. 81
- In personal meditation we confine ourselves to a brief selected text, which possibly may not be changed for a whole week . . . we expose ourselves to the specific word until it addresses us personally. And when we do this, we are doing no more than the simplest, untutored Christian does every day; we read God’s Word as God’s Word for us. 82
- As Mary “pondered in her heart” – 83
- Seek God not happiness - this is the fundamental rule of all Meditation. 84
Prayer
- In meditation our minds may wander . . . calmly incorporate the wandering into your prayer
Intercession
- A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. 86
- Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God, to see him under the cross of Jesus as a poor human being and sinner in need of grace. . . . To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy. 86
- He who denies his neighbor the service of praying for him denies him the service of a Christian. 87
- The ministry of intercession requires time of every Christian, but most of all of the pastor who has the responsibility of the whole congregation. 87
The Test of Meditation
- The individual must realize that his hours of aloneness react upon the community. In his solitude he can sunder and besmirch the fellowship, or he can strengthen and hallow it. 89
Chapter 4 – Ministry
- ‘there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest’ LK 9.46
- ‘There was a reasoning among them’ - this was enough to destroy fellowship… it is vitally necessary that every Christian community from the very outset face this dangerous enemy squarely, and eradicate it. 90
- A Christian community should know that somewhere in it there will certainly be a ‘reasoning among them, which one of them is the greatest.’ It is the struggle of the natural man for self-justification. He finds it only in comparing himself with others, in condemning and judging others. Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together. 91
The Ministry of Holding One’s Tongue
- We combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words. 91
- In a Christian community everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain… A community that allows unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only the weak need the strong, but also the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship. 94
- Once a man has experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve. The proud throne of the judge no longer lures him; he wants to be down with the lowly and needy, because this is where God found him. 94
The Ministry of Meekness
- ‘To have no opinion of ourselves, and to think always well and highly of others is great wisdom and perfection’ (Thomas `a Kempis) 95
- Only he who lives by the forgiveness of his sins in Jesus Christ will rightly think little of himself. 95
- (The Christian) will know that it is good for his own will to be broken in the encounter with his neighbor. He will be ready to consider his neighbor’s will more important and urgent than his own. What does it matter if our own plans are frustrated? Is it not better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way? 95
- He who would serve his brother in the fellowship must sink all the way down to these depths of humility. 96
- How, then, is true brotherly service performed in the Christian Community?… 97 (below are the answers to this question)
1) The Ministry of Listening
- The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. 97
- Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. 97
o Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. 97
o He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life. 98
o Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies. 98
o Brotherly pastoral care is essentially distinguished from preaching by the fact that, added to the task of speaking the Word, there is the obligation of listening. 98
2) The Ministry of Helpfulness
- This means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters… Nobody is too good for the meanest service. 99
- We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God… It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are going God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God’s ‘crooked yet straight path’ (Gottfried Arnold). 99
3) The Ministry of Bearing
- ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ’ - Gal 6.2 – 100
- The brother is a burden to the Christian precisely because he is a Christian… the Christian must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. – 100
- God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But he bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon himself and they weighted him to the ground… 100
- It is the fellowship of the cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian. 101
- It is the freedom the other person that is a burden to the Christian. The other’s freedom collides with his own autonomy… 101
- To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it, and, in bearing with it, to break through to the point where we take joy in it. 101
- The weak must not judge the strong, the strong must not despise the weak. The weak must guard against pride, the strong against indifference. None must seek his own rights. If the strong person falls, the weak one must guard his heart against malicious joy at his downfall. If the weak one falls, the strong one must help him rise again in all kindness. 102
4) The Ministry of Proclaiming
- We are concerned here with the free communication of the Word from person to person, not by the ordained ministry… We are thinking of that unique situation where one person bears witness in human words to another person, bespeaking the whole consolation of God, the admonition, the kindness, and the severity of God. -103
o What can weak human words accomplish for others? Why add to the empty talk? Are we, like the professionally pious, to “talk away” the other person’s real need? Is there anything more perilous than speaking God’s Word to excess? But, on the the other hand, who wants to be accountable for having been silent when he should have spoken? How much easier is ordered speech in the pulpit than this entirely free speech which is uttered betwixt the responsibility to be silent and the responsibility to speak! – 104
- We speak to one another on the basis of the help we both need. We admonish one another to go the way that Christ bids us to go. We warn one another against the disobedience that is our common destruction. We are gentle and we serve with one another, for we know both God’s kindness and God’s severity. Why should we be afraid of one another, since both of use have only God to fear? … Or do we really think there is a single person in this world who does not need either encouragement or admonition?
- The practice of discipline in the congregation begins in the smallest circles. 107
- Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. 107
- Ultimately, we have no charge but to serve our brother, never to set ourselves above him, and we serve him even when we speak the judging and diving Word of God to him… 107
- Our brother’s ways are not in our hands; we cannot hold together what is breaking; we cannot keep life in what is determined to die. But God binds elements together in the breaking, creates community in the separation, grants grace through judgment. 108
5) The Ministry of Authority
- Jesus made authority in the fellowship dependent upon brotherly service (MK 10.43). 108
- Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has not place in the Christian community; indeed it poisons the Christian community. 108
- The genuine authority of service appears to be unimpressive. 108
- The bishop is the simple, faithful man, sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to the Church. His authority lies in the exercise of his ministry. In the man himself, there is nothing to admire. 109
- The hankering for false authority has at its root a desire to re-establish some sort of immediacy, a dependence upon human beings in the Church. … The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. 109
- Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his won, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word. 109
Chapter 5 - Confession and Communion
- Confess your faults to one another - James 5.16
- He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. 110
- The pious fellowship allows no one to be a sinner… Many Christians are unthinkable horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone in our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners! 110
- It is the grace of the Gospel, which is hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says; You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you… ‘My son, give me thine heart’ (Prof 23.26). 110
- You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates the sin. 111
- Christ became our Brother in the flesh in order that we might believe in him. In him the love of God came to the sinner. . . . He gave his followers authority to hear the confession of sin and to forgive sin in his name; ‘Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, there are retained’ (John 20.23). 111
- When he did that Christ made the Church, and in it our bother a blessing to us. Now our brother stands in Christ’s stead. 111
- Christ became our Brother in order to help us. Through him our brother has become Christ for us in the power and authority of the commission Christ has give to him. 111
- He has been given to us to help us. He hears the confession of our sins in Christ’s stead and he forgives our sins in Christ’s name. He keeps the secret of our confession as God keeps it. When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God. 112
- In the Christian community, when the call to brotherly confession goes forth it is a call to the great grace of God in the Church. 112
Breaking through to Community
- Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. 112
- In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. 112
- Sin concealed separated him from true fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham; the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ. 113
- (This) applies solely to the confession between two Christians. A confession of sin in the presence of all the members of the congregation is not required to restore one to fellowship with the whole congregation… In the fellowship I find with this one brother I have already found fellowship with the whole congregation. In this matter no one acts in his own name nor by his own authority, but by the commission of Jesus Christ. 113
- If a Christian is in the fellowship of confession with a brother he will never be alone again, anywhere. 113
Breaking through to the Cross
- The root of all sin is pride, superbia. …The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride. 114
- Because this humiliation is so hard we continually scheme to evade confessing to a brother. 114
- It is none other that Jesus Christ, who suffered the scandalous, public death of a sinner in our stead. He was not ashamed to be crucified for us as an evildoer. It is nothing else but our fellowship with Jesus Christ that lead us to the ignominious dying that comes in confession, in order that we may in truth share in his Cross. The Cross of Jesus Christ destroys all pride. 114
- In confession we break through to the true fellowship of the Cross of Jesus Christ, in confession we affirm and accept our cross. 114
Breaking through to New Life
- Where there is a break with sin, this is conversion. Confession is conversion. ‘Behold, all things have become new’ (2 For 5.17). Christ has made a new beginning with us. 115
- What happened to us in baptism is bestowed upon us as anew in confession… Confession is the renewal of the joy of baptism. 115
Breaking through to Certainty
- Self-forgiveness can never lead to a break with sin; this can be accomplished only by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself. 116
- What can give us the certainty that, in the confession and forgiveness of sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception… he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I remain by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought into the light. 116
- Confession is not a law, it is an offer of divine help for the sinner. 117
- Those who, despite all their seeking and trying, cannot find the great joy of fellowship, the Cross, the new life, and certainty should be shown the blessing that God offers us in mutual confession. Confession is within the liberty of the Christian. 118
To whom Confess?
- According to Jesus’ promise, every Christian brother can hear the confession of another. 118
- … Only the brother under the Cross can hear a confession. It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions. 118
- The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ. It is not a lack of psychological knowledge but lack of love for the crucified Jesus Christ that makes us so poor and inefficient in brotherly confession. 119
Two Dangers
1) It is not a good thing for one person to be the confessor for all the others. All too easily this one person will be overburdened; thus confession for him will become an empty routine. 120
o Every person should refrain from listening to confession who does not himself practice it. Only the person who has so humbled himself can hear a brother’s confession without harm. 120
2) The Confessant… for the salvation of his soul let him guard against ever making a pious work of his confession… Confession as a pious work is an invention of the devil…. Confession as as routine duty is spiritual death; confession in reliance upon the promise is life. The forgiveness of sins is the sole ground and goal of confession. 120
The Joyful Sacrament
- (Confession) serves the Christian community especially as a preparation for the common reception of the holy Communion. Reconciled to God and men, Christians desire to receive the holy body and blood of Jesus Christ. 121
- Preparation for the Lord’s Supper will also awaken in the individual the desire to be completely certain that the particular sins which disturb and torment him and are known only to God are forgiven. It is this desire that the offer of brotherly confession and absolution fulfills. 121
- The day of the Lord’s Supper is an occasion of joy for the Christian community. Reconciled in their hearts with God and the brethren, the congregation receives the gift of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and receiving that, it receives forgiveness, new life, and salvation. 122
- The fellowship of the Lord’s Supper is the superlative fulfillment of Christian fellowship. 122
- As the members of the congregation are united in body and blood at the table of the Lord so will they be together in eternity. Here the community has reached its goal. Here joy in Christ and his community is complete. The life of Christians together under the Word has reached its perfection in the sacrament. 122
No comments:
Post a Comment