33.
In the whole psychology of the “Gospels” the concepts of
guilt and punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. “Sin.”
which means anything that puts a distance between God and man, is
abolished—this is precisely the “glad tidings.” Eternal
bliss is not merely promised, nor is it bound up with conditions: it is
conceived as the only reality—what remains consists merely of
signs useful in speaking of it.
The results of such a point of view project themselves into
a new way of life, the special evangelical way of life. It is not
a “belief” that marks off the Christian; he is distinguished by
a different mode of action; he acts differently. He offers no
resistance, either by word or in his heart, to those who stand against
him. He draws no distinction between strangers and countrymen, Jews and
Gentiles (”neighbour,” of course, means fellow-believer, Jew).
He is angry with no one, and he despises no one. He neither appeals to the
courts of justice nor heeds their mandates (”Swear not at
all”).[1] He never under any circumstances
divorces his wife, even when he has proofs of her infidelity.—And under
all of this is one principle; all of it arises from one instinct.—
The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of
life—and so was his death. . . He no longer needed any formula or
ritual in his relations with God—not even prayer. He had rejected
the whole of the Jewish doctrine of repentance and atonement; he knew
that it was only by a way of life that one could feel one's self
“divine.” “blessed,” “evangelical,” a
“child of God.” Not by “repentance,”
not by “prayer and forgiveness” is the way to God:
only the Gospel way leads to God—it is itself
”God!”—What the Gospels abolished was the Judaism
in the concepts of “sin,” “forgiveness of sin.”
“faith,” “salvation through faith”—the whole
ecclesiastical dogma of the Jews was denied by the “glad
tidings.”
The deep instinct which prompts the Christian how to live so that
he will feel that he is “in heaven” and is “immortal,”
despite many reasons for feeling that he isnot ”in heaven”:
this is the only psychological reality in “salvation.”—A new
way of life, not a new faith.
Footnotes