Christian Life and Witness. Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
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Son, in order that all who believe in him should not be lost but rather have eternal life” (John 3:19). And the Gospel exists for this purpose, “that you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that you might have life through faith in his name” (John 20:31).1
Our faith is distinguished from that of the devils in this way. We believe in the name of the One called “Jesus” because he will save his people, he will deliver his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). One must come to know the name properly.
The Lord foresaw that people would think belief in God to be sufficient for salvation, therefore he countered: “Believe in me” (John 14:1). Whether we suppose there is a God or not is not up to us. We believe by nature. Certainly there are many who wish deep in their hearts that there were no God (Psalm 14:1), so that they could sin more freely. But deep down they cannot believe there is none. The highest peaks of reason can neither remove the idea from the depths of the self, nor hinder and dampen the recognition of the great Supreme Being. The foundation is laid too deeply in nature and in the heart. That people know there is a God is manifest in them, since God revealed it to them.2 Since the Enemy of souls cannot now prevent people from taking notice of God (he must even do it himself), he gladly persuades them that he has saving faith. One might admit as valid that there is one God and feel fear at his name because he can punish, chastise, afflict, and damn. As a result one does not sin with such abandon anymore, and this produces worldly people who are honorable and upright. But few people know and believe anything substantial about Christ. One need not reach beyond the bounds of Christendom to see this. Many so-called Christians believe the same thing that the nations who follow Muhammad’s teaching believe, the same thing that the Jews believe: in only one God. (Jews exclude Jesus. Muslims omit his true nature although they think of him with deep reverence.) These so-called Christians name the glorious name of Jesus in all manner of circumstances, and allow themselves to be named after him, only somewhat more superficially. Jesus, the great Jesus, whom all the angels of God shall worship, before whom every knee on earth shall bow and all authorities lay their crowns in the dust. To be sure the name appears on people’s lips when it is the custom in a country or city, since this, too, has its fashion. But it is always rare when a person whose reason, reputation, property, or talent sets them only a little above the vulgar mob mentions the Savior often. Most hold that nothing more is necessary to being an honest and upright person than to be respectful before God. But when things have sunk so low in a country or city that key people, the very people upon whom others depend, are ashamed of the Savior and of his teaching, then one can reckon that it will soon come out according to the expression of the prophet Daniel, that Christ is no more (cf. Daniel 9:26).
For a misfortune has already gained ground in Christendom: one has dealings only with God and has very little to do with Christ, as if he had never been upon the earth and did not stand on almost every page of the Bible, or as if he really had little significance and one could believe, live, and be saved without him. That is why people regard the sayings of the Savior as trivial, that is, as fitting for the inferior schools but too coarse and improper for the wise and great people. Many who concern themselves with the Savior think and speak of him in a completely cold-minded way. Others who are considered the best and most pious among Christians believe one must require more seriousness about the knowledge of God than is customary. Since he can drag one to judgment one must honor God, fear God, and stop offending him with sin, and instead love and serve him because of his countless blessings. If others freely sin during the day, these people keep away from evil out of fear and respect. But Christ with his name and merit is unknown, and I believe if people were not sometimes terrified or did not sometimes feel pain, it would be a long time before the name “Jesus” passed their lips. It is necessary for us to take this matter rightly to heart and grasp it in our deepest selves and rightly concern ourselves with Christ: who he is according to his Person, Offices, and Status, and not only experience the power of it for ourselves but confess him before everyone and neglect no opportunity to make his name known to others. And this is the chief task of all the witnesses of Jesus, who have perceived and known him, that they always paint the Savior—who is so unknown—before the eyes of the whole world, and especially before so-called Christendom. Because even if they say: “One must know him, one must have him in one’s heart, one must not let him be taken from one,” you can rest assured, the so-called Christian world does not know him (John 16:3).
One does not begin by first worrying about how one can leave sin behind and become pious, but rather how one can get to know Jesus as one’s own Savior, since the former will follow all by itself, after the Son has once made one free; since he alone can free from sin, he alone can help and counsel in matters for which no human counsel is adequate. We cannot deny that we have sin in us (I John 1:8), and that we carry it upon ourselves until we go to our graves. For this reason the body is dead because of sin (Romans 8:10), and decomposition befalls it. The reality of sin’s malignant poison is so firmly fixed in nature and in the whole mass of humanity that the healthiest thing for them is to go into their graves and be reduced to absolute worthlessness, then the Savior can make something better out of them.*
But even though we carry this body of death, among children of God sin is a banished, crucified, and condemned thing, viewed as a malefactor and prisoner, which does not have to re-appear automatically and inevitably, if only the soul is no longer treacherous, nor friendly with sin. The old self has received its judgment: it is bound to be killed and negated on the cross of Christ (Romans 6:6). “For this purpose the Son of God appeared, to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8), to dissolve the structure and principle of sin and tear it asunder in order that it might not come to desire, deed, and death among believers, and instead the sinful corruption remain underfoot, its power, might, and dominion lost, [that] it might be subject, no longer allowed to be active, nor always to have to await a new execution.**
* [Count Zinzendorf wrote this note himself. He thought this point needed clarification.] At least human souls can already be cleansed here in time, but the remaining elements of human persons are not cleansed prior to the grave. Then, when souls that were in the body with sin leave their tents, a pure soul without sin journeys to the Savior, and when the body which sent forth the sinless soul lies there in the grave, then it is still a sinful little body and will not be designated “totally clean” until its concentrated little kernel is transfigured.
** [Zinzendorf again added this note himself to the published edition of the speeches.] In The Smalcald Articles it says, “The Savior does not allow sin to hold sway and win the upper hand, so that sin is committed, but rather wards it off and restrains it, so that it [sin] is not able to do whatever it will; but if [sin] does do what it wants, then the Holy Spirit and faith are not present. For as St. John says: ‘Whoever is born of God does not sin and cannot sin.’ And yet it is also surely the truth (as the same St. John writes) ‘Therefore if we say we have no sin, we lie, and God’s truth is not in us.’” Vid. Libr. Conc. Edit. Reinecc. p. 511. [[Translator’s note: The Smalcald Articles were penned by Martin Luther as a theological testament; cf. William Russell, Luther’s Theological Testament. Zinzendorf may be quoting from memory here because he actually misquotes Luther.
It is not even necessary for a believer to listen to sin, much less get mixed up in a fight with it, rather since the solemn divorce of the absolved and purified soul from its old husband has taken place through the corpse of Christ, [the believer] must renounce [sin]; therefore now one can serve the true Husband in peace and fruit can be brought to him unto eternal life; one is neither willing, nor inclined, nor compelled to sin anymore.3
This freedom is given to us as a blessedness and a privilege. But no one is to seek it prior to grace, much less is it to be placed above grace, but rather grace must be there first, and in the quality of a godless person one must have obtained the forgiveness of sins, after that follows the privilege that one is no longer compelled to sin and may be godly. One acquires forgiveness through faith in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Without this there is no life, no grace, no forgiveness. Our faith must stand fast on the merit of the Savior, who died for us that he might deliver us from all unrighteousness