[AI translation] I read an interesting article in a foreign newspaper the other day. The author discusses the terrible prospects of the atomic bomb, the planned construction of a three-hundred-metre-long moon rocket and the prospect of future occupation of the moon. He concludes his article thus. Wake up from your utopian dreams and think that you could live in peace, prosperity and happiness on this earth! But this can only be achieved if we no longer allow ourselves to be led by hate, but by the highest cosmic law, love. Such wise advice has been given many times before, and from all sides of the warring continents! There is no doubt that if the law of love were to prevail in the world instead of hatred, humanity could indeed live in peace, prosperity and abundance here on earth. But to say to a hateful man that you should not be angry, but forgive and love, would be about the same as saying to a terminally ill man: Get up and be well! But that patient would be forced to admit that: I can't, I don't have the strength! In the same way, the natural man could only say the same thing: I know well that with love all disputes could be settled and the face of the whole world changed, but I am incapable of such love! I can only hate! Anyone who still deludes himself into the false illusion that man can be improved either by education, or by police force, or by strict laws, or by punishment, or even by raising the standard of living, or by changing the social order, is very much out of touch with the world! It is also a very old and outdated scientific position.A Swiss newspaper publishes a very interesting psychological study of man. It is worth noting that this study was not written by a theologian, not by a churchman. His terrible experiences have taught him that the image of man must be revised. Among other things, he strongly doubts that man is a moral being. What is man?" he asks. 'What we call man is all plaster, which, if we scratch it a little, will come off and reveal what lies beneath: the beast. And," he continues, "even worse than the animal. The animal has no thought, no morals. But it has a certain scale and a certain law, from which it cannot escape, it is incapable of leaving. Man, on the other hand, can think and has moral knowledge. But he can also shake off all morality and become completely immoral. Those human monsters who, even in the public mind, deserve only the gallows, are different from other human beings - from us, from you and from me - only in quantity, not in quality. They are human like us, and we are human like them. There is, for example, a father who strikes his child in anger, or a man with a wounded sense of self who tortures an animal. The symptoms are the same in small ways as in the unscrupulous outbursts of the great evildoers. One can be polite, one can be cultured, one can be compassionate and helpful, one can be loving. But all this is only a plaster, which will come off as soon as the social conditions on which it was built cease to exist. In harmonious living conditions, it is not difficult to show one's good side. But as soon as something disturbs this harmony, everything falls away. That certain cultural blindness is thicker in some than in others. It may cling more firmly to one than the other. But it's only plaster! And what's underneath is the most horrible thing. Schiller concludes his dismal study with a quote, "It is a dangerous thing to wake the lion, the tiger's teeth tear at you, but the horror of horrors is a man who has lost his mind."
It is very instructive to observe that this journalist has arrived at almost exactly the same conclusion, on the basis of experience and scientific and psychological investigation, as Paul arrived at on the basis of divine revelation. Paul writes of the works of the flesh, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, contention, hatred, wrath, seditions, revocations, partisanships, envies, murders, drunkenness, carousing, and the like." (Galatians 5:19-21) The works of the flesh in New Testament parlance mean this: the works of man, what man is able to do. So man himself, in his innermost essence. That which is under the plaster. Here the apostle is not speaking of a particular man, not of a villain, not of a gallows flower, but of man, of the human race, of the human sex, of which you and I are a part. And with you, with me, the cultural blindness of varying thicknesses masks such things. These are the actions of us, of our self, and we are already a big step closer to healing if we even acknowledge that we cannot do anything of ourselves but these terrible actions of the body. It is in vain that we know that to love is more beautiful than to hate and to be angry, and it is in vain that some moral preacher exhorts us with good will that we should not hate but love one another, but at most we admit that he may be right. But we must admit that we are incapable of it.
Our Word, when it lists the works of the flesh, goes on to say, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, temperance." (Gal 5:22) This "but" expresses a great contrast. And indeed there is a huge difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit is something different from action: fruit is not the result of human effort. If the branch remains on the tree, it voluntarily produces fruit. In the same way, if the believer abides in Christ, he irresistibly produces the fruit of the Spirit. This is what Jesus said, "He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit." (Jn 15,6) Love is the fruit of the Spirit, not of my doing. I do not produce it, Christ produces it in me by the Holy Spirit. Love is a natural, spontaneous consequence of my spiritual communion with Christ. So I could say that it is not I who love, because I am incapable of it, but Christ loves in me and through me. Only by finding the only source of love in the Bible, Christ who died for me and rose again, and by revealing myself to him, have I allowed this source of love to fill my heart.
This is how we understand this call of our foundational hymn, which reads, "As he who called you is holy, so be holy in all your life". "Be holy!" - This does not mean that you should try to summon all your strength, exert yourself, and smile kindly, respond gently, speak loving words even when the instincts within you protest! If you yourself want to become a saint, then your most honourable intention to achieve this goal will be only to plaster, to thicken the plaster, to repair the cracking plaster. But "Be ye holy!" means to stop all well-meaning efforts, all self-torture, and look instead to Christ, the only Holy One! Let Him pour out in you through His Holy Spirit! Understand that it is not by what you do that you become holy, holy living, but by what Christ does in you and through you. Do not try to sanctify yourself! It will never be done, but let Christ sanctify you! Don't try to become holy without Christ!
It is Christ Himself, not His example, but His person, that is the practical life of holiness for you! The Holy Spirit can pour out Christ on you if you truly will and allow Christ's attributes and character to be manifested in your daily life. It's not about imitating Christ, it's about letting Him live in you! The Holy Spirit actualizes Christ, puts Christ into our daily lives. So we must be filled with the Holy Spirit because only in this way can we become saints!
When our Word speaks of practical holiness, it contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. Note: it does not say the fruits of the Spirit, but singular: the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the very first thing he mentions, love, because the whole law is fulfilled in one thing: love. All that the apostle mentions after love - joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, temperance - are but the manifestations of love in various occasions and circumstances. Joy is also, in fact, exultant love, peace is, after all, nothing other than love, forbearance is the same as the Apostle Paul expresses on another occasion: 'bearing with one another in love' (Eph 4,2), kindness is love which bends down to the lowly, faithfulness is also love which bears witness to its own firmness, and temperance is love which gives reason to the deeds of the flesh.
"Be ye holy, for I am holy". In everyday life, it is the same as this admonition of Jesus, "As I have loved you, so love one another." (Jn 13,34) To love as He loved is truly only through the Holy Spirit. How different this love, the love produced by the Spirit, is from human love! Observe for yourself human love! Who do you love and why do you love them? Do you love those who are in some beneficial relationship with you, who have treated you well, who love you back, or do you love someone just because you find them worthy of love for whatever reason? So you set a standard, and those who meet it, you can love. But those who are outside the limit you have thus set, you are at best indifferent to them, and you may even have feelings for them that are the opposite of love. Do you not feel how un-Christian this love is, how it is only an emotionalism, and therefore the most untrustworthy thing in the world?
That love which is the fruit of the Spirit - that is, true, Christlike love - flows to all alike, free from all influences. It can love even those who are not worthy of love. He can love even those who hate him. And he loves not because it pleases him to love, but because he knows that his love is needed by the other. There is only one reason for this love to love the more despicable other: that Christ also loved, and gave Himself for him, that He might sanctify the other soul with His holy blood. Do you feel how such love is not a human act, but a divine gift, the work of Christ, the blessed fruit of the Holy Spirit?! It is never a problem if there are people who do not love you, the problem always begins when you cannot love them with the love of Christ! This exhortation, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" is not for those who cannot stand you, but for you. And if you will honestly confess to the Lord that you are unable to do this, He is willing to move into your unloving heart right now! He is willing to love you with your heart, and so beautify this ugly earthly world around you!
This world can only be made more beautiful, more bearable, by the Holy Spirit dwelling in you who believe in Christ. This exhortation to holy living is for you! Take it seriously in your hearts: "Therefore, having girded up your minds as sober men, have perfect hope in the grace which Jesus Christ will bring you when he appears. As obedient children, do not be subject to your former lusts, which were in you in ignorance; but, having girded up the loins of your minds as sober men, have perfect hope in the grace which Jesus Christ will bring you when he appears. As obedient children, do not be subject to your former lusts, which were in you in ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, so be ye holy in all your life: for it is written: Be ye holy, for I am holy."
Amen.
Date: 15 June 1947.
Lesson
Gal 5,19-26