If the word “faith” has any meaning, it is the certainty of what God—really God, not man—is and does. Faith belongs to God. It does not originate in man. It is God who gives faith and brings it about. The oneness of man with God consists in the faith that comes from God. Where community is given through faith, this community sets to work at a living activity which is God’s doing. In faith, God’s power is revealed through human helplessness, God’s greatness through human smallness.
- Eberhard Arnold
- Eberhard Arnold, November 1918 From an EssayWhen poets describe their experience of the powers that move in their inmost hearts, then they speak about longing. If we allow only a few rays of hope from the poets to work upon us, we will be deeply moved by the indissoluble connection between mankind and longing. Even the smallest selection of the poetic outpouring of human longing will confront us with their deepest content: the longing for God and for unity with God. At the deepest level, they have recognized that the essence of all longing is the cry of the soul to God.
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The Christian was baptized into Christ, the Crucified, in such a way that the water of baptism could be compared with the blood of Christ; he had made his own the conflict and victory of the cross against all the demonic powers of the world epoch, and lived from now on in the power and future of the Risen One. He who had broken with all things as they are, had to live and die for the cause to which he had pledged himself in this dedication unto death. With a company of warriors faithful unto death the message broke in upon the old world.
- Eberhard Arnold
Jesus Christ never draws near in the course of a fleeting, passing impression. Either He brings God’s whole kingdom forever, or He gives nothing. Only those who want to receive Him completely and forever can experience Him. To Him it is given to know the secret of God’s kingdom. Wherever there is life that comes from God, life takes on that form which corresponds to the complete image of Jesus Christ, and therefore to the kingdom of God.
- Eberhard Arnold