Although these thoughts seem written for today, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt wrote them at the turn of the 20th century.

Today we are especially concerned about the dire social conditions and needs we see around us. There is a lot of talk about this. It’s amazing to think of how many people still dream of a world in which there is nothing but peace. I think, of course, they are right. But if the One who made the world and has our life in his hand is not acknowledged, if we refuse to turn to him as the power we need, this dream is very much a fantasy. Nothing will come of it.

Our misery resists and wriggles like a snake. Set up ten states and base them on the various opinions of outstanding leaders who believe they have the answer. Let one be based a community of goods; or let one operate according to some benevolent, supreme authority, perhaps with a religious framework; or have one which only the poor, the workers, have anything to say—and nobody else. Now let us make the laws as strong as can be, we will still see the same awful mess we experience today, and have experienced for thousands of years. Only its form will have changed a little.

Apart from God we will not be able to do away with the discord in our hearts and the discord between us. Sick in mind and body, we have no hope of creating a healthy world. Inwardly and outwardly unclear and confused, torn by emotions and passions, we cannot form a society of truth and justice. Every time we honestly think about the human condition we cannot help but thirst for God, for the living God. For nothing ever gets solved without this God.

The greatest obstacle to the kingdom of God is in us and in our clever solutions. It is self-will that leads so many people, so many nations to destruction. Not even our Christian institutions are very helpful. Much too much pride has crept into them. No doctrine and none of our organizations, Christian or not or whatever else we can think up, will lift us out of our confusion. Unless we arrive at the point where we dispel the foggy atmosphere of human effort and humanly devised ideals, unless we can look clearly at the world and say, “Without Jesus, we are nothing,” we are lost (John 15:5). So we must pray, “Come, Lord Jesus. You must be victorious in us. You must be the conqueror in us as well.”

If there is no breakthrough at the root of ourselves, if we do not achieve a victory over our own ego-driven selves, if we do not take seriously what it means that God receives the honor—then, oh, what a night could come over us. I shudder to think of it. But this shall not come. For today we are all invited to enter into the battle. Everyone can join in. This is what Jesus actually demands of us: Fight against your own selves! Do not fight with your own strength and understanding. No. Believe in God. Give God the glory and go boldly ahead. Let your heart be filled with a true earnestness in the certainty that your life can still be changed.

All this should humble us, for from the very beginning God has intended, through his word and his deeds, to make us loathe our sin, to be disgusted with everything wrong, with all that is powerless and ungodly. What we need is to be freed from ourselves. Jesus needs to overcome in us the powers of sin and evil. This is what moved him when an official pled with Jesus to heal his son who was sick unto death (John 4:46-53). And that is how we are to be moved. What we desperately lack are the powers of new life. Patching up the old is no help—the old order must go! We need to devote our very lives in faith to the One who has come to lay the foundation for a new, glorious world.

Excerpts from Jesus is the Victor, available as a free ebook.

 

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Responses

I have really enjoyed reading Blumhardt father and son. They lived in a time of great turmoil and our time is not much different. His comments are as appropriate today as yhey were 100 years ago. Thanks for posting this work. I look forward to other authors.

bill tacker