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Chapter 8
Granting, then, that the doctrine of Christ gives bliss to the world; granting that it
is rational; and that man, as a rational being, has no right to renounce it; what can one
man do alone, amidst a world of men who do not fulfill the law of Christ? If all would
agree to practice the doctrine of Christ, its fulfillment would be possible; but what
can the efforts of one man avail, if the whole world is against him? How often do we hear
it said, ‘If, amidst a whole world of men who do not fulfill the doctrine of Christ,
I alone begin to follow it, by giving up what I love, by letting my cheek be struck, or
even by refusing to take an oath, or to have any part in war, I shall be robbed, and, if
I do not starve, I shall be either beaten to death, or imprisoned, or shot; and I shall
have destroyed the happiness of my whole life, and even my life itself, in vain.’
We often hear men argue thus, and I said the same myself, until I had entirely set aside
the influence of Church teaching, which had prevented my taking in the full meaning of
Christ’s doctrine about life. Christ gives His doctrine as the means of
salvation from the corrupt life that those who do not follow His teaching lead, and yet
I say that I should like to follow it, but cannot make up my mind to ruin my life! It
would seem, then, that I do not consider my life as corrupt, but as something real and
good, and something that is my own. It is just in the conviction that this earthly,
individual life is something real, and something that actually belongs to us, that the misunderstanding
lies, which prevents our comprehending the doctrine of Christ. Christ knows the delusion
by which men consider their own individual lives as something real, and something to
which they have a personal right; and He shows them, in a series of sermons and parables,
that they have no claims on life, that they have, indeed, no life at all, until they attain
true life by renouncing the shadow of which they call their life.
In order to understand Christ’s doctrine of salvation, we must, first of all, comprehend
what the prophets Solomon, Buddha, and all the sages of the world have said concerning
the individual life of man. We may, as Pascal says, live on without thinking of all this,
holding a screen before our eyes, which hides from us the abyss of death, toward which we
are all hastening; but we need only reflect upon what the individual life of man is to
be convinced that his entire life, if it is only the individual life, is of no importance
for each separate man. In order to understand the doctrine of Christ,
we must first of all consider ourselves and repent, so that in us may be fulfilled the
μετανοια, which the precursor of Christ, John the Baptist, speaks of when preaching
to men who, like ourselves, had gone astray. He says first of all, ‘Repent,’ i.e.,
consider yourselves, ‘otherwise you shall all perish.’ He says, ‘The axe is already
laid to the root of the tree to hew it down. Death and destruction are close at hand. Remember
this, and alter your lives.’ Christ begins His preaching with the same words, ‘Repent,
or you shall all perish.’ Luke 13:1-5: Christ hears of the destruction
of the Galileans, killed by Pilate, and He says, ‘Do you suppose that these Galileans
were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, no, but unless
you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Or do you think that those eighteen men, upon
whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, were sinners above all men who lived in Jerusalem?
I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.’
If Christ lived in our days in Russia, He would have said, ‘Do you suppose that those
who were burnt in the circus at Berditche, or who perished on the embankment near Koukouevo[13],
were sinners above all others? You shall likewise perish if you do not repent, if you do not
find that which is imperishable. The death of those who were crushed by the tower, who
were burnt in the circus, fills you with awe, but death, awful and inevitable, awaits you
too. And you endeavor in vain to forget it. If it comes upon you unawares, it will be
more awful still.’ He says (Luke 12:54-57), ‘When you see a
cloud rise out of the west, you immediately say there is a shower coming, and so it is.
And when the south wind blows, you say there will be heat, and so it is. Hypocrites, you
can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it that you do not discern
this time? Why you yourselves not judge what must be?’
‘You can judge, according to various signs, what the weather will be like. How is it then,
that you cannot see what awaits you yourselves? You may try to escape peril; you may take
the greatest care of your life, and still, if Pilate does not kill you, the tower will
crush you, and if neither Pilate nor the tower destroys you, you will die in your bed in
worse tortures.’ Make a simple calculation, as worldly men
do when they begin any business, as, for instance, erecting a tower, going to war, or building
a factory. They work with some rational end in view. Luke 14:28-31: ‘For which of you,
intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, to see whether he
has sufficient resources to finish it? Lest by chance after he has laid the foundation,
and is not able to finish it, all that behold begin to mock him, saying, “This man began
to build and was not able to finish.” Or, what king going to make war against another
king does not sit down first and consult whether he is able, with ten thousand, to meet him
who comes against him with twenty thousand?’ ‘Isn’t it senseless to work at what will
never be finished, however hard you may try! Death will always come before you have built
up the tower of your earthly happiness. And if you know beforehand that however you may
struggle against death, it will conquer you, would it not be better, instead of struggling
against it, not to put your whole soul into what shall surely perish, but to seek some
work that cannot be destroyed by inevitable death?’
Luke 12:22-27: And He said to His disciples, ‘Therefore I say to you, take no thought
for your life, what you shall eat; neither for the body, what you shall put on. Your
life is more than meat, and your body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens; for they
neither sow nor reap; they neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them; how much more
are you better than they? And which of you by thinking about it can add to his stature
even one cubit? If you are not able to do the very thing that is least, why do you take
thought for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow; they do not toil, they do not
spin; and yet I say to you that Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of
these.’ However much a man may care about body and
food, he cannot add one hour to his life.[14] Then isn’t it foolish to trouble oneself
about things that cannot be done? While knowing that the end is death, you care
only to assure your lives by gaining wealth. Life cannot be assured by wealth. Why will
you not comprehend that you but delude yourselves with a ridiculous deception?
The purpose of life, Christ says, does not lie in what we possess, and in what we gain,
what is not ourselves; it must lie in something else than that. He says (Luke 12:16-21) that
the life of man, in spite of all his riches, does not depend upon his property. ‘The
ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought within himself,
“What shall I do? I have no room to store my fruits.” And he said, “I will do this:
I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my corn and
all my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul! You have much goods laid up for many years;
take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool, this night your
soul shall be required of you; then whose shall those things be, which you have provided?”
So it is with him who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’
Death stands every moment over you. (Luke 12:35-40) ‘Therefore, stay dressed and keep
your lights shining; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their lord, when he
will return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately.
And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them
so, blessed are those servants. And know this: if the owner of the house had known what hour
the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have allowed his house to be broken
into. Therefore, be ready also; for the Son of Man comes at an hour when you do not think.’
The parables of the virgins awaiting the bridegroom, of the end of the age, and of the last judgment
all refer, according to the opinion of interpreters, not merely to the end of the world, but also
to the peril in which every man hourly stands. Death, death, death attends us every second.
Our lives are passed in the presence of death. While working individually for your future,
you well know that the future will give you nothing but death. And death will destroy
all you worked for. Thus, it is clear that life for oneself can never have any meaning.
If there is a rational life, it must be some other kind of life; it must be one, the purpose
of which does not consist in securing one’s own future. To live rationally, we must live
so that death cannot destroy our life. Luke 10:41: ‘Martha, Martha, you are careful
and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary.’
All the innumerable affairs that we transact for ourselves will be of no use to us in the
future; all such things are but the illusion with which we deceive ourselves. ‘But one
thing is necessary.’ The state of man from the day of his birth
is such that inevitable destruction awaits him, that is, a senseless life and a senseless
death, if he does not find what alone is necessary for the true life. Christ reveals to men that
which alone gives them the true life. He does not invent it, He does not promise to give
it by His divine power; He only shows mankind that, besides the individual life, there must
be another life, which is truth, and not deception. Christ, in his parable of the vine-dresser
(Matt. 21:33-42), explains the source of human error, which hides the truth from men, and
which makes them consider the shadow of life, their own individual life, as the true one.
Certain men, living in their master’s cultivated garden, fancied themselves the owners of that
garden; and that error leads to a series of irrational and cruel actions on the part of
those men, ending in their banishment, their exclusion from that life in the garden. So
likewise do we fancy that the life of each of us is his own, that we have a right to
it, and that we can do as we like with it, without being responsible to any one. We cannot,
therefore, avoid the same series of senseless and cruel actions and misfortunes, or escape
the same exclusion from the life we misuse. As the vine-dressers fancied that the more
cruel they were the better they would assure their own prosperity, by killing the servants
and the master’s son, so do we fancy that the more cruel we are the more independent
we shall become. As it was with the vine-dressers, who, after
refusing others the fruits of the garden, were driven out themselves by their master,
so is it with men, who fancy that life for self is the true life. Death expels them and
others take their place, not as a punishment, but merely because those men did not understand
life. As the men in the garden either forgot, or would not admit, that the garden had only
been entrusted to their care, that it was already cultivated and fenced around, and
somebody had previously been working in it for them, and therefore expected them to work
too, for the sake of others; so do men, while living for themselves, forget, or fail to
recognize, all that had been done by others before their birth, and all that is done during
their lifetime; and that, therefore, something is expected of them too; they choose to forget
that all the blessings of life, which they enjoy, were entrusted and are entrusted to
them, and must, therefore, either be transferred or given up.
This improved view of life, this μετανοια, is the cornerstone of the doctrine of Christ,
as He says at the end of the parable. According to Christ’s doctrine, the vine-dressers,
who lived in the vineyard that they had not cultivated themselves, should have known and
felt that they were deeply indebted to the master; and so should men likewise understand
and feel that, from the day of their birth to the day of their death, they owe a heavy
debt to those who lived before them, to those who still live, and to those who are to live
after them. They should understand that every hour of the life they continue to live that
debt grows heavier; and that, therefore, the man who lives for himself, and does not acknowledge
the obligation that binds him to life and to the principle of life, deprives himself
of life. He should understand that by living thus he destroys his life, while desiring
to save it. The true life is but a continuation of past
life, and works for the good of the present life, as well as for that of the future. To
be a sharer of that life, man must renounce his own will and fulfill the will of the Father
of life, who gave it to the son of man. John 8:35: ‘The servant who does his own
will, and not that of his master, does not abide for ever in the house of his master;
only the son, who fulfills the will of the father, abides forever,’ Christ says, expressing
the same idea in another sense. The will of the Father of life is not the
life of the individual man, but of the ‘son of man,’ that lives in men; and therefore
a man keeps his life only when he considers it as a trust given to him by the Father,
in order to serve the good of all; and he really lives when he lives not for himself,
but for the ‘son of man.’ Matt. 25:14-46: A householder gave each of
his servants a share of his property and left them, without any instructions. Some of the
servants, though they had not received any orders from their master concerning the way
in which they were to use their share of the master’s property, understood that it was
not theirs, but his, and that the property was to grow; they, therefore, worked for the
master. And the servants who had worked for the master became shareholders of the master’s
business, while those who had not worked were deprived of what had been given to them.
The life of the son of man is given to all men, and they are not told why it is given
to them. Some understand that life is not their own, but is a trust, and that it must
serve the life of the ‘son of man.’ Others, under the pretext that they do not understand
the purpose of life, do not live up to that high aim. Those who do are united to the source
of life; and those who do not, are deprived of life. And, from the verses 31 to 46, Christ
tells us what is meant by serving the ‘son of man,’ and in what the reward of that
service consists. The son of man, according to the words of
Christ, will say (v. 34) as the king did, ‘Come, you blessed of the Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you, for I was hungry, and you gave me meat; I was thirsty, and you
gave me drink; you clothed, visited, and comforted me; for I am the same in you, and in the least
of those whom you took pity on, and to whom you have done good. You lived, not for yourselves,
but for the ‘son of man,’ and therefore shall you have eternal life.’
Christ speaks only of that eternal life throughout the gospel. And strange as it may seem to
say so of Christ, who Himself rose from the dead, and who promised to raise all men, He
never, by a single word, confirmed the belief in individual resurrection or in individual
immortality beyond the grave, but He even attached to the raising up of the dead in
the kingdom of the Messiah, as taught by the Pharisees, a meaning that excluded the idea
of individual resurrection. The Sadducees disputed the raising up of the
dead. The Pharisees acknowledged it, as all true believers among the Jews still do. The
raising up of the dead (not the resurrection, as the word has been erroneously translated)
will, according to the Jewish belief, be accomplished at the coming of the Messiah, and the establishing
of the kingdom of God on earth. And Christ, on meeting with this belief in a temporary,
local, and carnal resurrection, rejects it, and sets in its place His doctrine of the
restoration to eternal life in God. When the Sadducees, who said there was no
resurrection, and supposed that Christ agreed in opinion with the Pharisees, asked Him,
‘Whose wife shall she be, of the seven?’ He gives a clear and definite answer to both
questions. He says (Matt. 22:29-32, Mark 12:24-27, Luke
20:34-38), ‘You err, not knowing the scripture or the power of God.’ And in refutation
of the belief of the Pharisees, He says, ‘The raising up of the dead is neither carnal nor
individual. Those who are raised from the dead become the sons of God and live like
angels (the powers of God) in heaven (with God), and there can be no question for them
whose wife she will be, because, being one with God, they lose all individuality.’
Concerning the raising up of the dead, He continues, in reply to the Sadducees, who
acknowledged only an earthly life, and nothing but an earthly carnal life, ‘Have you not
read what God said to you? The Scripture says that God said to Moses, from the bush, “I
am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” If God said to Moses
that He was the God of Jacob, then Jacob is not dead; for God is not the God of the dead,
but of the living. With God all are living. And therefore, if there is a living God, the
man who is one with God lives too.’ In reply to the Pharisees, Christ says that
the raising from the dead cannot be carnal and individual. In reply to the Sadducees,
He says that, besides an individual and temporary life, there is another life in communion with
God. Denying individual and carnal resurrection,
Christ asserts that the raising from the dead lies in the transfusion of man’s life into
God. Christ preaches salvation from individual life, and sets that salvation in the exaltation
of the son of man and a life in God. Connecting His doctrine with that of the Hebrews, as
far as concerns the coming of the Messiah, He speaks to them of the raising up of the
son of man from the dead, thereby meaning, not a personal carnal rising from the dead,
but an awakening to life in God. Of individual carnal resurrection He never speaks. The best
proof that Christ never preached the resurrection of men from the dead is found in the very
two texts quoted by theologians in confirmation of His doctrine of resurrection. These two
texts are Matthew 25:31-46 and John 5:28-29. In the first He speaks of the coming, that
is, the raising up, the exaltation, of the son of man (we find the same in Matt. 10:23),
and the greatness and power of the son of man are likened to those of a king. In the
second text, Christ speaks of the raising up of true life here on earth, as expressed
in the 24th verse. It only needs a closer consideration of the
meaning of Christ’s doctrine of eternal life in God; it only needs to re-establish
in our minds the teaching of the Hebrew prophets to enable us to comprehend that if Christ
had wished to preach the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which, at that time was being
embodied in the Talmud, and was a subject of dispute, He would have done so, clearly
and definitely; yet, on the contrary, He not only avoided preaching that doctrine, but
even refuted it; nor do we find a single passage in the gospel to confirm it. The two above-mentioned
texts have a very different meaning. Strange as the assertion may seem to those
who have not studied the gospel, never in a single passage does Christ speak of His
own personal resurrection. If, as theologians maintain, the basis of the Christian faith
is the resurrection of Christ, the least we could expect would be that Christ, knowing
He would rise from the dead, and that upon His rising the chief dogma of the faith would
be founded, should at least once have said so, clearly and definitely. Yet He never does;
nor do we find any mention made of His resurrection throughout the whole canonical gospel. The
doctrine taught is the exaltation of the ‘son of man,’ or, in other words, of the substance
of life in man; and this is to acknowledge one’s self to be the son of God. In Himself,
Christ personifies man, who acknowledges Himself to be the Son of God. Matt. 16:13-20: He asks
the disciples what men say of Him, the son of man. The disciples answer that some think
Him to be John, miraculously raised from the dead; some think Him a prophet; some Elijah,
come down from heaven. ‘And what do you think of me?’ He asks. And Peter, thinking
of Christ as he himself did, answers, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.’
And Christ says, ‘Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but our Father who is
in heaven,’ or, ‘You have understood, not because you have believed the words of
men, but because, knowing yourself to be the son of God, you have understood me.’ And
having explained to Peter that true faith lies in our knowing ourselves to be the sons
of God, Christ says to the other disciples (v. 20) that they should, in future, tell
no man that He, Jesus, is the Messiah. And then Christ says that, though He will be put
to torture and death, the son of man, knowing Himself to be the son of God, will be raised
up and will triumph over all. And yet these words are interpreted as foretelling His resurrection.
John 2:19-22, Matt. 12:40, Luke 11:20, Matt. 16:21, Matt. 16:4, Mark 8:31, Luke 9:22, Matt.
17:23, Mark 9:31, Matt. 20:19, Mark 10:34, Luke 18:33, Matt. 26:32, Mark 14:48. These
fourteen texts are all supposed to prove that Christ foretold His resurrection. In three
of these texts He speaks of Jonah in the belly of the whale; and in one, of the raising of
the temple. In the other ten texts, Christ says that the son of man cannot be destroyed
forever; but nowhere do we find one word concerning His resurrection.
Indeed, in the original, the word ‘resurrection’ does not occur in any one of these texts.
Give a man, unacquainted with theological interpretation, but with some knowledge of
Greek, these texts to translate, and he will never render their meaning in the way our
translators of the gospel have done. There are, in the original, two different words
in these texts: the one is ανιςτημι, the other is εγειρω. One of these words
signifies ‘to raise.’ The other signifies ‘to rouse or waken,’ or it might be to
awaken, to rise. But neither of them can possibly mean ‘rise from the dead.’ In order to
be quite sure that these Greek words, and the Hebrew equivalent ‘coum,’ cannot signify
‘to rise from the dead,’ it will suffice to compare the texts in which these words
are used. They occur very often, but never in the sense of ‘rise from the dead.’
The word ‘resuscitate,’ ‘auferstehen,’ ‘réssusciter,’ does not exist either
in the Greek or in the Hebrew languages, any more than did the idea itself, which the word
implies. In order to express the idea of resurrection in Greek or in Hebrew, a periphrasis must
be made use of – either ‘he rose from the dead,’ or ‘he awoke from the dead.’
It is thus in Matt. 14:2, where we read that Herod supposed that John the Baptist had risen
from the dead; the expression is, ‘woke up from the dead.’ We find the same in the
gospel according to St. Luke 16:31, in the parable of Lazarus. Christ says that even
if a man rose from the dead they would not believe him. We again find, in this text,
the words ‘risen from the dead.’ In the texts where the words ‘to rise’ or ‘to
wake up,’ are used without the addition of the words ‘from the dead,’ they never
did signify, and never can be supposed to signify, ‘resurrection.’ When Christ speaks
of Himself in the above-mentioned passages, which are considered as proofs that He foretold
His resurrection, He never once appends the words, ‘from the dead’.
Our idea of resurrection is so far from the Hebrews’ ideas of life that we cannot even
imagine Christ could have spoken to them of resurrection and of an eternal, individual
life common to all men. The idea of a future individual life has not been transmitted to
us, either through the teaching of the Hebrews or through the doctrine of Christ. It made
its way into the teaching of the Church from a very different source. Strange as it may
sound, it must be confessed that a belief in a future individual life is the lowest
and grossest conception, based only on a confusion of sleep with death, which is common to all
barbarous nations. The teaching of the Hebrews, however, stood immeasurably higher than that
conception. We feel so convinced that this superstition
is a very exalted one that we very seriously allege, as a proof of the superiority of our
doctrine over all others, the fact that we uphold that superstition, while others, as
for instance, the Chinese and the Hindus, do not. This is maintained, not only by theologians,
but also by free-thinking learned historians of religion such as Tille, Max Müller, and
others. Classifying the various religions, they assert that the religions that keep to
that superstition are superior to those that do not. The free-thinker, Schoppenhauer, calls
the Hebrew religion the most contemptible (niederträchstigste) of all, because it contains
no idea (keine idee) of the immortality of the soul. And, indeed, in the Hebrew religion,
neither the meaning nor the word expressive of it exists. Eternal life in the Hebrew language
is ‘haieoïlom.’ The word ‘oïlom’ signifies, ‘endless, immutable.’ ‘Oïlom’
likewise signifies ‘world’ – cosmos. Life in general, and especially eternal life,
haieoïlom is, according to the Hebrews, proper to God alone. God is the God of life – the
living God. Man, according to the Hebrew belief, is always mortal. God alone lives forever.
In the five books of Moses we find the words ‘eternal life’ used twice. Once in Deuteronomy
32:39-40, God says, ‘See now that I am I, and there is no other God but Me. I kill and
I make alive, I wound and I heal, neither is there any who can be delivered from Me.
I lift up my hand to heaven and say, I live for ever.’ In the book of Genesis 3:22,
God says, ‘Behold, the man has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, and has become like one of us; and now, he might put forth his hand and take
also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.’ These are the only two cases
in which the words ‘eternal life’ are used in the Old Testament – excepting one
chapter of the apocryphal book of Daniel – and they clearly define the idea the Hebrews had
both of life in general and of eternal life. Life itself, according to Jewish belief, is
eternal, and it is such in God; man is always mortal – such is his nature.
The Old Testament does not tell us, as our Bible histories do, that God breathed an immortal
soul into man, nor that the first man was immortal until he sinned. According to the
Book of Genesis (1:26), God created man, as He did all other living creatures, male and
female, and commanded them to increase and multiply. God spoke of man just as he spoke
of beast. In the second chapter it is said that man learned to ‘know good and evil.’
But we are told too, that God ‘drove man out of Eden, and barred his way to the tree
of life.’ Thus man did not eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and thus he did not attain
the haieoïlom, i.e., eternal life, but remained mortal.
According to Jewish doctrine, man is mortal. Life for him is but a life that continues
in the people, from generation to generation. Only the people, according to Jewish doctrine,
can live. When God says you shall live and not die, he speaks to the people. The life
breathed by God into man is but a mortal life for each individually, but it continues from
generation to generation if men fulfill their covenant with God, if they keep the conditions
laid down by God. After expounding the laws, and declaring that
these laws were not in heaven, but in their own hearts, Moses says (Deut. 30:15), ‘See,
I now set before you life and good, death and evil, exhorting you to love God and walk
in His ways, and to keep His commandments, that you may live.’ And verse 19: ‘I call
heaven and earth to record against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing
and cursing; choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving God, obeying
Him and cleaving to Him; for He is your life and the length of your days.’
The principal difference between our idea of human life and that of the Hebrews is that,
according to us, our mortal life – which passes on from generation to generation – is
not the true life, but a fallen one, a temporary corrupt life; while, according to the Hebrews
this life is the true one, it is the highest blessing given to man, and given to him on
the condition that he fulfills the will of God. From our point of view, the transition
of that fallen life from generation to generation is the continuation of the curse. From the
Hebrew point of view it is the highest blessing man can attain, and he attains it by fulfilling
the will of God. It is on this idea of life that Christ bases
his doctrine concerning the true or eternal life, which He opposes to mortal, individual
life. ‘Search the Scriptures,’ Christ says to the Hebrews (John 5:39), ‘for in
them you think you have eternal life.’ A young man asks Christ (Matt. 19) what he
should do to have eternal life. In answer to his question Christ says, ‘If you will
enter into life’ (He does not say life eternal, but ‘life’), ‘keep the commandments.’
He says the same to the lawyers, ‘Do this, and you shall live’ (Luke 10:28); and again
He says ‘live’ without adding ‘eternally.’ In both these cases Christ defines what each
man should understand by the words ‘eternal life.’ In using these words He says to the
Hebrews what is more than once said in their law, that fulfilling the will of God is eternal
life. Christ contrasts a temporary, personal, individual
life with the eternal life, which, according to Deuteronomy, God promised to Israel, with
the only difference that, according to the Hebrews, eternal life was to continue only
among the chosen people of Israel, and that it was necessary, in order to attain that
life, to keep the laws given by God exclusively to Israel; but, according to the doctrine
of Christ, eternal life continues in the son of man, and, in order to keep it, it is necessary
to fulfill the laws of Christ, which teach what the will of God is for all mankind.
It is not a life beyond the grave that Christ contrasts with individual life, but a life
bound up with the present, past, and future of all mankind – the life of the ‘son
of man.’ Individual life was redeemed from perdition,
according to the Hebrews, only by fulfilling the will of God, expressed in the commandments
given by God to Moses. It was only thus that life was not destroyed, but was to pass from
generation to generation, among the chosen people of God. Individual life is saved from
perdition, according to the doctrine of Christ, likewise by fulfilling the will of God, expressed
in the commandments of Christ. It is only thus that individual life does not perish,
but becomes eternal in the son of man. The only difference between the two doctrines
is that, according to Moses, serving God meant the serving Him of but one people, whereas,
according to Christ, the serving of God the Father means the serving of God by all mankind.
Life could hardly continue through long generations among one people; for the nation itself might
disappear off the face of the earth, and its continuation would depend upon the increase
or diminution of posterity. But endless life, according to the doctrine of Christ, is sure,
for it is transferred into the son of man living up to the will of the Father.
Let us suppose that Christ’s words concerning the day of judgment and the end of the world,
as well as the words we read in the gospel of St. John, do promise a life beyond the
grave for the souls of the dead, yet there can be no doubt that His doctrine of the light
of life, of the kingdom of God, has a meaning as intelligible to us as it was to his hearers;
i.e., that true life is but the life of the son of man, according to the will of the Father.
This can be more easily admitted, as the doctrine concerning true life, according to the will
of the Father of Life, includes the idea of immortality and life beyond the grave. It
would perhaps be more just to infer that man, after a life passed in following his own will
in this world, will not enjoy an eternal individual life of bliss in paradise. That would perhaps
be more just, but to think thus, to believe in eternal bliss awaiting me as a reward for
the good I have done, and eternal torment as the punishment of my evil deeds, does not
lead to a clear comprehension of Christ’s doctrine. To think thus is, on the contrary,
to do away with the groundwork of Christ’s doctrine.
The whole purpose of Christ’s doctrine is to teach His disciples that, individual life
being but a delusion, they should renounce it and transfer their individual lives into
the life of all humanity, into the life of the son of man. The doctrine of the immortality
of each soul does not require of us to renounce our lives, but, on the contrary, confirms
their individuality forever. According to the ideas of the Hebrews, the
Chinese, and the Hindus, and of all those who do not believe in the dogmas of the fall
of man and the redemption, the life we have is life. Man lives, has children, educates
them, grows old, and dies. His children grow up and continue his life, which goes on without
intermission from generation to generation, existing just as all else in the world exists
– stones, metals, plants, beasts, and all else. Life is life, and we must make the most
of it. To live for self alone is irrational. And, therefore, since man has first existed
on the earth, each one seeks some aim in life beyond his own individual life. He lives for
his children, his family, his nation, for humanity, for all that does not die with his
individual life. Now, according to the teaching of our Church,
life, the greatest blessing known to us, is only a part of life, the rest of which is
kept from us for a time. According to the Church, our life is not the life God wished
to give us, not the life God ought to have given to us; but a corrupt, bad, fallen life,
only an imperfect specimen of what life should be.
The chief problem of life, according to this thesis, does not consist in leading the mortal
life that is given to us as the giver of it wishes us to do; not in our considering it
eternal from generation to generation, as the Hebrews do; nor in uniting it to the will
of the Father, as Christ taught us to do, but in persuading ourselves that after this
life the true life will begin. Christ says nothing of that imaginary life.
The theories of the fall of Adam, of eternal life in paradise, and of the immortal soul
breathed by God into Adam, were unknown to Christ, and therefore He does not mention
them, nor even allude to them. Christ speaks of the life that is, and that
always will be. We speak of an imaginary life, which never did exist. Then how are we to
understand the doctrine of Christ? Christ could never have supposed so strange
an idea among His followers. He supposes all men to understand that individual life must
inevitably perish; and He reveals a life that cannot perish. Christ comforts those who are
in trouble; but His doctrine can give nothing to those who are convinced that they have
more than Christ can give. Suppose I were to exhort a man to work, assuring
him that he would thereby earn food and clothing, and that man were suddenly to discover he
was already a millionaire, isn’t it obvious that he would not heed my words?
It is thus with the doctrine of Christ. Why should I work, when I can be rich without
doing so? What profit shall I have of living up to the commandments of God, when I am convinced
that, whether I do or not, I shall live forever, individually?
We are taught that Christ-God, the second person of the Trinity, saved mankind by being
incarnate and by taking upon Himself the sin of Adam and of all mankind; that He redeemed
man from sin and the wrath of the first person of the Trinity, and that He instituted the
Church and the sacraments for our salvation; that we have but to believe this to be saved,
and to attain an eternal, individual life beyond the grave. But we cannot deny that
Christ likewise saved men by warning them of their inevitable destruction, and still
saves them by the same; and that His words – ‘I am the way, the life, and the truth’
– point out to us the true path of life, instead of the wrong path of individual life
that we trod before. There may be men who doubt the existence of
life beyond the grave, and of salvation being based on redemption, but no one can doubt
the salvation of all men in general, and of each individually, through their being warned
of the inevitable destruction brought on by individual life, and through being shown that
the true way to salvation lies in the fusion of their will with the will of the Father.
Let any rational being ask himself what are life and death as applied to himself personally.
Let him try to attach any other meaning to life and death than that which Christ pointed
out. Every idea of individual life, if it is not
based on the renouncing of self for the service of man, of mankind, of the son of man, is
an illusion that vanishes at the first touch of reason. I cannot doubt that, though my
individual life is perishable, the life of the world according to the will of the Father
can never be destroyed; and that a fusion with it alone makes salvation possible for
me. But that is so little, compared to the elevated religious faith in a future life!
Little, I grant, but it is sure. I lose my way in a snowdrift. A man assures me that
he sees lights in the distance; that there is a village nearby. He thinks he sees the
lights, and so do I; but it only seems to us that we see them because we desire to see
them, for we tried to reach these same lights before, and could not find them. One of us
walks on through the snow, and in a short time comes out onto the road and cries, ‘Do
not go on, the lights you see are only in your imagination; you will lose your way and
perish! I stand on firm ground, follow me, this road will lead us out!’
That is but little. While believing in the lights, which glimmered before our dazzled
eyes, we saw ourselves in our imaginations already in the village, in a warm hut, in
safety and at rest, while here there was only firm ground. Yes; but if we follow the man
who spoke first we shall inevitably freeze to death; if we mind the second, we shall
reach the good road. And what shall I do, if I alone have understood
the doctrine of Christ and believe in it, among all those who do not understand and
will not fulfill it? What shall I do? Shall I live as all do, or
live according to Christ’s doctrine? I understand His commandments, and I see that the fulfilling
of them will lead me, and all men, to perfect happiness. I understand that it is the will
of the Author of all things, the will of Him from whom I have life, that these commandments
should be fulfilled. I understand that, whatever I may do, I shall
inevitably perish, as will all those around me, after a senseless life and death, if I
do not fulfill the will of the Father; and that the only possibility of salvation lies
in fulfilling it. By acting as others do, I act against the
good of all men, I act contrary to the will of the Father of life, and I deprive myself
of the only possibility of bettering my hopeless state. By doing what Christ teaches me I shall
ensure the good of all men – of those who live at present, and of those who are to live
after me. I do what He who gave me life desires me to do. I do what can alone save me.
The circus in Berditche is on fire. All crowd toward the door, crushing each other in their
efforts to open the door, which opens inward. A savior comes and says to them, ‘Move further
from the door, turn back; the closer you all stand to the door, the less hope of safety
there is for you. If you turn back you will find an exit, and you will be saved!’
Whether I alone hear the words and believe matters but little; but having heard and believed,
can I do otherwise than turn back and call upon the others to follow the voice of him
who comes to save them? I shall, perhaps, be smothered, crushed, or killed; but the
sole hope of safety is in my going toward the only exit. A savior must be a savior indeed,
i.e., he must save. And the salvation of Christ is salvation indeed. He appeared, He spoke,
and mankind is now saved. The circus burned for a whole hour; and it
was necessary to make haste, or else all could not have been saved. But the world has been
burning for eighteen hundred years; burning from the time Christ said, ‘I come to send
fire on the earth; and how I languish until it is kindled.’ And it will burn until men
are saved. Wasn’t man created, and doesn’t the fire burn, only that the happiness of
man might be saved from it? I know there is no other door, either for
myself or for those who suffer with me in this life. I know that neither those around
me nor I can be saved, except by fulfilling the commandments of Christ, which give the
highest bliss to all mankind. I may have more to suffer. I may die earlier,
through fulfilling Christ’s doctrine. I fear neither suffering nor death. He who does
not see how senseless and perishable his individual life is, he who thinks that he will not die,
may fear. But, knowing that life for individual happiness alone is foolish to the highest
degree, and that the end of that foolish life will be but a foolish death, I cannot fear
it. I shall die, as all do, as those who do not fulfill Christ’s doctrine do – yet
my life and death will have some meaning for myself and for all. My life and death will
minister to the salvation and lives of all men; and that is what Christ taught us.
End of Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Were all to fulfill Christ’s doctrine, the kingdom of God would be on earth. If I fulfill
it, I do what is best for all mankind and myself. I should be helping that kingdom to
come. But where shall I find the faith that will
enable me to obey Christ’s teaching, to practice it, and never to swerve from it?
‘I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.’ The apostles begged Christ to confirm their
faith. ‘I desire to do good, yet I do evil,’ says Paul the apostle.
‘It is hard to be saved.’ This is what each says and thinks.
A drowning man calls for help. A rope is thrown him. It could save him; but the drowning man
cries, ‘Confirm my belief that this rope can save me.’ ‘I believe,’ says the
man, ‘that it can save me; but help my unbelief.’ What does that mean? If a man does not take
hold of what alone can save him, doesn’t it prove that he is unaware of the danger
he is in? How can a Christian who professes to believe
in the divinity of Christ and of His doctrine say that he would believe if he could? God
Himself, when on earth, said, ‘You are on the eve of eternal torment and fire, of complete,
eternal darkness. I bring you salvation; do as I tell you, and you shall be saved.’
Can a Christian reject the salvation offered him – remain unmindful of his Savior’s
words, and say, ‘Help my unbelief?’ If a man spoke thus, would it not seem as
if he not only refused to believe that destruction awaited him, but was convinced he should not
perish? Some children have leaped overboard into the
water. The current, for a time, upholds them before their clothes are entirely soaked through.
They swim about, unconscious of danger. A rope is thrown to them from the ship. They
are entreated by those on board to take hold of the rope. (We find the same meaning in
the parables of the woman who had found a farthing, of the shepherd who found the sheep
that was lost, and in the parables of the supper and of the prodigal son.) But the children
will not believe; not because they think the rope is an unsafe one, but because they do
not believe that they are about to perish. Thoughtless children, like themselves, have
told them that they will go on bathing merrily, even when the ship sails away. The children
do not believe that the time is near when their clothes will be wet through, their little
arms tired out; when they will begin to lose breath, and that then they will choke and
drown. They do not believe that, and therefore they do not believe in the rope of salvation.
Men are like the children who have jumped overboard, and are sure they will not perish.
Therefore they do not take hold of the rope. They believe in the immortality of the soul
and are convinced that they will not perish, and therefore they do not fulfill the doctrine
of Christ-God. They do not believe in what is indubitable, only because they believe
in what is beyond all possibility of belief. And they cry, “confirm our belief that we
are not perishing.’ But that is impossible. For them to believe
they will be saved they must cease to do what brings destruction, and begin to do what will
save them; they must take hold of the rope of salvation. But they do not choose to do
this; they wish to be assured that they are not perishing, though their companions perish,
one after another, before their eyes. And that desire to grow sure of what is not, they
call ‘faith.’ No wonder, then, that they have little faith and that they long for more.
It was only when I understood Christ’s doctrine that I saw that what such men call ‘faith’
is not faith. It is only the false faith that the apostle James opposes in his epistle.
The Church did not accept that epistle for a long time; and when it was accepted it underwent
several changes. Some words were removed, and others transposed or incorrectly translated.
I here give the accepted translation, only correcting what is inexact, according to Tischendorf’s
text. James 2:14-26: ‘What does it profit, my
brethren, if a man supposes that he has faith, and does not have works? Faith cannot save
him. If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them,
“Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them those things that
they need; what good is that? Even so faith, if it does not have works, is dead, being
alone. Yes, a man may say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without
your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God;
you do well. The devils also believe, and tremble. But will you know, O vain man, that
faith without works is dead? Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works when he had
offered Isaac his son upon the altar? See how faith worked with his deeds, and by his
deeds his faith was made perfect? … You see then how that by works a man is justified,
and not by faith alone. … For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without
works is dead also.’ The apostle says that the only proof of faith
is in the works that proceed from it; and that faith from which no works proceed is
but a word, with which we can neither feed any, nor justify ourselves and be saved. And
therefore the faith that is not accompanied by works is not faith. It is only a wish to
believe; it is only a mistaken assertion that I believe when I do not really believe.
According to this definition, faith must be allied to works, and works make faith perfect,
i.e., true. The Jews said to Christ (Mark 15:32. Matt.
27:42, John 6:30), ‘What sign will you give us, that we may see and believe you? What
will you do?’ The same men said to Him when He was on the cross, ‘Let Him descend now
from the cross, that we may see and believe.’ (Mark 15:32)
Matt. 27:42: ‘He saved others, but Himself He cannot save! If He is the King of Israel,
let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.’
In answer to their prayer that He may ‘increase their faith,’ Christ says that the wish
is vain; that they cannot be forced to believe (Luke 22:67). He says, ‘If I tell you, you
will not believe’ (John 10:25-26). ‘I told you, and you have not believed. You do
not believe because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.’
The Jews required some outward token to enforce their belief in the doctrine of Christ, just
as the Christian followers of the Church do now. And He answers that it cannot be given
to them, and explains why it is impossible to do so. He says that they cannot believe
because they are not of His sheep, or, they do not follow the path of life that He points
out to His flock. He explains (John 5:44) wherein lies the difference between His sheep
and those who are not of His flock. He explains the reason why some believe and others do
not, and tells them what the basis of faith is. ‘How can you believe,’ He says, ‘when
you accept each other’s δοξα,[15] teaching, and do not seek the teaching that comes from
God alone?’ In order to believe, Christ says we must seek
the doctrine that comes from God. ‘He who speaks from himself, seeks his own doctrine
(δοξαν την ιδιαν); but he who seeks the doctrine of Him who sent Him, the
same is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him’ (John 7:18).
The doctrine of life, δοξα, is the basis of faith.
All our actions proceed from faith. Faith proceeds from the δοξα of the light in
which we consider life. There may be innumerable deeds and numerous beliefs, but there are
only two doctrines of life (δοξα). Christ rejects one of them, and acknowledges the
other. The one that Christ rejects is that of the existence of individual life, as belonging
to man. It is the doctrine that was then, and is still, maintained by the majority of
men, and from which proceeds all the various beliefs of men, and all their deeds.
The other doctrine is the one taught by Christ and the prophets: that our individual life
has a purpose only when we fulfill the will of God.
If a man has the δοξα that his individuality is of more importance than all else, he will
consider his individual happiness as the chief and most desirable object in life; and according
as he finds that happiness in the purchase of landed property, in fame, in glory, or
in the satisfaction of his lusts, his faith will coincide with his views of life, and
all his actions will be guided by it. If the δοξα of a man is not such, if he
understands the true purpose of life to lie in fulfilling the will of God, as Abraham
understood it, and as Christ taught it, his actions will coincide with his faith in what
he knows to be the will of God. This is the reason why those who believe in
the happiness of an individual life cannot believe in the doctrine of Christ. All their
endeavors to do so will be in vain. In order to believe, they must change their views of
life. Until they have done so, their actions will coincide with their creed, and not with
their desires or their words. The desire to believe in the doctrine of Christ,
both of those who asked Him for some token, and of the believers of the present time,
does not coincide with their lives, nor can it ever do so, however hard they may try to
fit them together. They may pray to Christ-God, attend the Holy Communion, do good to mankind,
build churches, convert others, and yet, with all this, they cannot really work for Christ;
because that can proceed only from faith, which is based on a very different doctrine
(δοξα) to the one that they profess. They cannot sacrifice the life of their only son,
as Abraham did, who did not doubt for a moment that it was his duty to offer up his son as
a sacrifice to God, to the God who alone gave importance to his life. And in the same way,
Christ and His disciples could not help giving up their lives to others, because in that
alone lay the object and blessing of their lives.
It is from men’s thus misunderstanding the substance of faith that their strange longing
arises. They make themselves believe that it would be better to live up to the doctrine
of Christ; and all the while they firmly believe in the individual life, and therefore choose
to live contrary to Christ’s doctrine. The foundation of faith is a true comprehension
of life, which enables man to distinguish what is important and good in life from what
is unimportant and bad. Faith is a correct appreciation of all the manifestations of
life. At the present time men, whose faith is grounded on a doctrine of their own, cannot
make it agree with the faith that flows out of the doctrine of Christ any more than the
disciples could. And we find this misunderstanding more than once clearly and definitely spoken
of in the gospel. In the gospel according to St. Matthew 20:20-28, and in that according
to Mark 10:35-45, after saying, that the ‘rich man cannot enter the kingdom of God,’ and
after the still more awful saying that ‘he who does not leave all, who does not give
up his life for Christ’s sake, shall not be saved,’ Peter asks, ‘What, then, shall
we have, who have left all and followed You?’ In the gospel according to Mark we read that
James and John (or, according to Matthew, their mother) ask that ‘they should sit,
one on His right hand, the other on His left, in His glory.’ They beg Him to confirm their
faith by the promise of a reward. Christ answers Peter’s question by a parable (Matt. 20:1-16);
and in answer to James He says, ‘You do not know what you ask,’ i.e., ‘you ask
for what cannot be. You do not understand my doctrine. My doctrine is the renunciation
of individual life, and you ask for individual honor, and individual reward. You may ‘drink
of my cup’ or live; but to sit on my right hand, or my left, or to be equal to me, cannot
be given to you.’ And then Christ says that it is only in this world that the powerful
of the world think much of the glory and power of individual life, and rejoice in it; but
you, who are my disciples, ought to know that the true life does not lie in individual happiness,
but in ministering to all, in humbling ourselves before all. Man does not live to be ministered
to, but to minister to all, and to give up his individual life as a ransom for all. In
answer to His disciples’ request, which showed Him how little they understood His
doctrine, Christ does not command them to believe, i.e., to change their appreciation
of good and evil, which arose from the teaching they had imbibed before Him (He knows that
it is impossible); but He explains what the true life is, on which faith is based, and
shows that it is a true estimation of good and bad, important and unimportant.
Christ answers Peter’s question, ‘What reward shall we have for having left all,
and following You?’ with the parable of the laborers who were hired at different times,
and who received the same pay (Matt. 20:1-16). He explains to Peter the error he is in with
respect to His doctrine, and that his lack of faith proceeds from his error. Christ says
it is only in individual life that reward is important in proportion to the work done.
A belief in the necessity of reward being proportionate to the work itself proceeds
from the doctrine of individual life. This belief is based on a hypothesis and on rights,
which we imagine that we have; but man has no rights and can never have any rights; he
is only a debtor for the happiness given to him, and therefore he has no right to expect
anything. Even if he gives up his whole life, he cannot give back what he has received,
and therefore the master cannot be unjust. If a man declares that he has a right to his
own life, and requires compensation from the Author of all – from Him who entrusted him
with life – he only shows that he does not understand the true purpose for which life
was given to him. Men, having obtained happiness, require more.
These men stood unoccupied and miserable in the market place, and did not live. The master
hired them and gave them the greatest good in life: labor. They accepted the master’s
gracious gift, and then grew dissatisfied. They were dissatisfied because they had no
clear consciousness of their state. They came to their work with the false idea that they
had a right to their own lives and to their own work, and that, therefore, their work
was to be rewarded. They did not understand that work itself was the greatest good given
to them, in return for which they were to do good to others, but that they could claim
no reward. And men cannot have a just and true faith as long as they possess the same
erroneous idea of life as these laborers had. Christ answers the direct demand of His disciples
to confirm, to increase, their faith by the parable of the master and the laborers, and
explains still more clearly the groundwork of the faith he taught them.
Luke 17:3-10: The precept given by Christ to forgive our brother not only once, but
seventy times seven, fills the disciples with awe at the difficulty that they would experience
in putting such a precept into practice, and they say, ‘Yes but… to fulfill it we must
believe. Increase, and confirm our faith.’ As they had asked before, ‘What shall we
have for it?’ so do they again say, just as all who call themselves Christians say,
‘I would believe, but I cannot. Strengthen my faith.’ They say, ‘Make us believe,’
just as the disciples did when they asked for a miracle. ‘Make us believe in our salvation
by miracles and promises of reward.’ The disciples spoke just as we do. It would
be well if, while continuing to lead our individual, willful lives, we could be made to believe
that by fulfilling God’s commandments we should be all the happier. We all ask for
what is contrary to the whole spirit of Christ’s doctrine, and we are surprised that we can
by no means believe. And Christ answers the misunderstanding, which existed then, and
still exists, by a parable in which He shows what true faith is. Faith cannot proceed from
trust in what He says[16]; faith comes only from a consciousness of our state. Faith is
based only on the rational consciousness of what is best for us. He shows that it is impossible
to rouse faith in men by promises of rewards and by threats of punishments; that it will
be but a very weak trust that will be destroyed at the first temptation; that the faith that
moves mountains, the faith that nothing can shake, is based on the consciousness of our
inevitable peril, and of the sole salvation possible for us.
Faith needs no promises of reward. It is only necessary to understand that salvation from
inevitable destruction lies in a general life for all humanity according to the will of
the Master. He who has once understood this will seek no confirmation of his faith, but
will be saved without his requiring any exhortation. When the disciples beg Him to confirm their
faith, Christ says, ‘When the master comes home with his laborer from the field, he does
not tell him to sit down and eat immediately, but first orders him to pen the cattle and
to serve him; and, this done, the laborer sits down to his food and eats. The laborer
obeys, and does not think himself ill used, neither does he pride himself on his work,
nor require thanks or a reward for it. He knows that it must be so, and that he has
only done his duty; that is all that is required of him by his service, but just this is, at
the same time, for his own good. In like manner, when you have done all you are bound to do,
think that you have only done what was given to you to do.’ He who understands his duty
toward his Master will see that it is only by submitting to his Master’s will that
he can have life, and can know wherein lies the blessing of his life. And he will have
faith – the faith that Christ teaches us. Faith, according to the doctrine of Christ,
is based on a rational consciousness of the purpose of life.
The foundation of faith, according to the doctrine of Christ, is light.
John 1:9-12: ‘That was the true light, which lights every man who comes into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world did not know Him. He
came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. And as many as received Him and believed
in His name, to them He gave power to become the sons of God.’ John 3:19-21: ‘And this
is the judgment[17], that light has come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than
light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, neither
does he come to the light, lest his deeds should be seen and disapproved, because they
are evil. But he who does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
because they are done through God.’ He who has understood the doctrine of Christ
can require no strengthening of his faith. Faith, according to Christ, is based on the
light, on the truth. Not once does Christ call upon men to have faith in Him; He calls
upon them to have faith in the truth. John 8:40,46: He says to the Jews, ‘You
seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth, which I have heard from God. Which
of you convicts Me of untruth? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?’ John
18:37: Christ says, ‘To this end I was born, and for this cause I came into the world,
that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.’
John 14:6: He says, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’
Further on, in the same chapter, Christ says to His disciples, ‘The Father shall give
you another Comforter, and He may abide with you forever. He is the spirit of truth, who
the world does not see and does not know; but you know him, for he dwells in you and
shall be in you.’ He says that His whole doctrine is truth,
that He Himself is truth. The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of
truth, and, therefore, faith in Christ is not a trust in anything that refers to Jesus,
but a knowledge of the truth. It is impossible to persuade or bribe a man to fulfill it.
He who understands the doctrine of Christ will have faith in Him, because His doctrine
is truth. He who knows the truth cannot refuse to believe in it. Therefore, if a man feels
himself to be sinking, he cannot refuse to take hold of the rope of salvation, and the
question, ‘What shall we do to believe?’ is one that shows a total misunderstanding
of Christ’s doctrine.
End of Chapter 9 �