The necessity of the life of Jesus in us. The abominableness of the life of selfhood.
The Twenty-Sixth Letter.
The necessity of the life of Jesus in us. The abominableness of the life of selfhood.
Jesus live!
Beloved brother!
Since this occasion just now presents itself, I would also, in hearty love, greet you and the rest of the friends there, wishing you out of the ground of my soul that you may ever more fully and more purely experience all the good that is given us in Jesus, to the sole glorifying of His free mercy.
We know, beloved brother, that Jesus alone is wanting to us, and that we must possess Him alone in our very being, unto our thorough sanctification and blessedness. So let us then make room for Him, and yield Him our all ever more actively. He Himself is gladly willing to help thereunto; He is more inwardly present to us than we are to our own selves, and only to this end, that He may pour Himself and His divine life into us — as He sufficiently testifies through so many precious invitations of His grace. Ah, that we might never make ourselves unworthy of them through distraction or unfaithfulness! However feeble the hidden stirrings of the pure life of Jesus in us may be, yet one perceives how a little movement of it, when room is left to it, can mightily weaken the life of the senses, of the reason, and of selfhood. What would not come to pass, if through the exercise of believing recollection and the utmost stillness of soul we sought to experience these workings of the life of Jesus ever more purely and powerfully in us, and made it our work to give ourselves over to Him every moment! Should our unbelief dare to think that the Lord would not gladly let us too experience what Paul there testifies of himself, to the praise of the grace of God: I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me?
O how abominable is the life of selfhood! And O how fair and lovable is the life of Jesus, which everywhere pursues that other unto its complete and blessed death! Yea, Jesus! He can say "I live," in whom alone Thou livest, because Thou art the true God and the eternal life — to whom I desire to offer up your heart also, beloved brother, together with the rest of the friends, though I name them not. Remember me, I pray, before the Lord. Jesus live!
German
Der sechsundzwanzigste Brief.
Nothwendigkeit des Lebens JEsus in uns. Abscheulichkeit des Lebens der Eigenheit.
JEsus lebe!
Geliebter Bruder! Weil diese Gelegenheit eben vorkommt, habe dann auch in herzlicher Liebe grüßen wollen dich und die übrigen Bekannten daselbst, euch aus Grund meiner Seele zuwünschend, alle das Gute, so uns in JEsu geschenket ist, immer völliger und lauterer zu erfahren zur alleinigen Verherrlichung Seiner freien Erbarmung.
— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.
German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).
Translator’s notes
What this letter is. A short, fervent letter that opens and closes on the same cry — "Jesus live!" Its one theme is that Christ's life must become our own. "Jesus alone is wanting to us," Tersteegen writes; "we must possess him alone in our very being." So "let us make room for him, and yield him our all," for "he is more inwardly present to us than we are to our own selves," longing "to pour himself and his divine life into us." However "feeble the hidden stirrings of the pure life of Jesus in us may be," a "little movement of it," given room, "can mightily weaken the life of the senses, of the reason, and of selfhood." What might not happen, he asks, if we made it "our work to give ourselves over to him every moment"? Would our "unbelief" dare think God unwilling to let us know, too, what Paul knew — "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me"? Over against that stands the thing to be put to death: "O how abominable is the life of selfhood! And O how fair and lovable is the life of Jesus, which everywhere pursues that other unto its complete and blessed death." He offers up his friend's heart to Christ, "the true God and the eternal life," and signs off as he began: "Jesus live!"
A few words and echoes.
- Jesus live! The cry that frames the letter — its opening and closing words — turning doctrine into acclamation: not merely that we should live for Jesus, but that Jesus should live in us.
- Not I, but Christ. Its centre is Paul's confession in Galatians, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" — offered not as a rare saint's privilege but as what God "would gladly let us too experience."
- More inwardly present than we are to ourselves. His striking word for God's nearness: closer to us than we are to our own selves, waiting only for room "to pour himself… into us."
- The life of selfhood. His name for the rival life that must die — Eigenheit, the state of belonging to oneself rather than to God — which "the life of Jesus… everywhere pursues" to its "blessed death."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-026 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.