1127.On "the Jesus Business" (die Sache Jesu)

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On "the Jesus-Business" (die Sache Jesu)

God now wills, in this moment, to realize God's rule as salvation among human beings. This is "the Jesus-business."

But this business is rightly understood only where one understands that God's way to human beings goes through human beings – human beings who themselves live the Jesus-business. One may argue about whether God has other ways, and one can perhaps say a good deal about this. For the witnesses themselves, however, it was clear that the rule of God comes to us through the man Jesus; and it comes only through him. Therefore, it is only from him that one is to learn how the rule of God comes: it comes because he gives himself to its coming.

Jesus gives himself completely to the rule of God by asking how God wills to encounter others. Since he gives himself to God as the Father who loves him as son (for which reason, he will later be called the Son), he reckons that God loves the others, also, as God's children. Therefore, to understand and do God's fatherly will as salvation means to bring God's salvation to the neighbor (and that is whoever one has to do with in the concrete moment of encounter). So God's salvation comes to the neighbor through a man; but it remains God's salvation only when the one who brings it completely disregards her- or himself.