Christian Life and Witness. Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

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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.

      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.

      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


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