The power of one awakened life

A new creation in Christ is greater than any empire

It is so obvious in human history: there comes a time when something is born; and then things stand still and nobody follows up. There have been developments, and beginnings have been made, which we have failed to recognize. No one can comprehend the mere three years of Jesus’ ministry as being the occasion of the greatest revolution ever to occur in human society. The rise of empires and nations’ wars, battles, and victories—these are no “events,” no “creations.”

In comparison to the high calling that is mankind’s, all the empires of earth fade to nothing—as do all differences of race and language, all enmity, all hostility and arrogance between man and man. In the light of the creation that has come to us in Jesus Christ, all these things dissolve; nothing of them remains to be found. But that which does remain, which truly is of value for us—that has the permanence of eternity.

It must yet come to pass that we will not simply hold fast to an ancient confession of faith but out of a new experience be able to call to one another: “He is risen indeed! He lives among us! He takes the reins in hand and leads his people, leads them all the way to his death, that, in the death of the flesh, his resurrection and his life might be exalted in mankind to the eternal praise and glory of God.”

For this cause is Jesus Christ risen from the dead: so that in him it can be seen that God will bring forth even our lives out of death and will take everything into his own hands once more. Therefore, we should die with Christ so that we also can be awakened and so that whatever should live will then be able to live fully and beautifully and gloriously.

Selah.

Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader, edited by Vernard Eller.