"God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him." - Martin Luther
I am not sure what you make of this quote, but the first scripture that came to my mind, when I read these words, was this one:
John 12:24 - "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."
What's on your mind?
Living in Grace,
D3LM3
3 comments:
I think that Christianity often expresses its message negatively.
In its use of language it tells us that we are nothing, sinners, fallen and so on. It wants to posit us as sick people for which it is the only medicine.
Perhaps this approach was effective in the past, when possibly people needed fear, a language of sickness or a message that beat out morality, in order to be able to accept the message. In this expression it was certainly a means of social control.
What Luther wanted to express has perhaps been more positively expressed within Buddhism. That one has to strip away desire, craving, ego etc as a way to experience something more profound.
I believe the Christian message that gets lost, is that we are an evolving people. We are a people with great things ahead of us. That Jesus, like Nietzsche’s Übermensch, is something that is just out of reach but is close enough in our grasp to inspire us to strive towards it. We are striving to become more fully human.
I think in the light of modern psychology, we know that making people feel bad about themselves is not the best way to affect change. I think Luther's quote is profound but we now need a message put in positive terms.
graham ghana - luther's quote is profound, not because he said it, but because it expresses God's truth found in the Bible. you see, because of the effects of the fall, we are all born into sin, and are dead spiritually until God can make us alive in Christ, through belief and through baptism. God washes our sins away, and He gives us forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life as clear and free gifts. Because Jesus sacrificed Himself for us on the cross in our place, God now sees His perfect righteousness instead of our filthy rags, and He now treats us as His adopted children, and heirs of His eternal kingdom. Luther called this the "blessed exchange", and I for one can't think of a more postive message than that!
Hey Graham and Pete, thanks for your awesome thoughts and contributions. There is a sense in which we can understand the frustrations of pastors down the years, who have preached the Good News (which is clearly positive), but have had to watch as this message seemingly gets no response from some quarters. In an effort to try a different route, a negative slant crept into our communications and was justified as trying to 'wake the dead!'
Clearly, no human effort (alone) can change the hearts of people, but this is the work of the spirit of God.
Let's keep wrestling with these things,
Living in Grace,
Delme
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