Quotes from The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz
Just finished reading Bo Giertz's The Hammer of God this afternoon on my way back home. This is probably the seventh book I finished on my Iphone Kindle.
It was a bit hard to read in the beginning because this book is about three pastors' serves in a historical sequence in the same parsonage called Odesjo in Sweden. And this is a country I hardly know anything about. At first I felt as well the harshness of Christian theology with a Lutheran background which focus mainly on the depravity of human nature and the terrible phase of sin in human nature. Compared to what I have been taught about the love of Christ and the inadequacy on the Holiness of God, the theological tradition to which this book followed is a bit too hard for me to appreciate wholeheartedly.
But this is exactly what this book is about. The translator presented this book's main idea in the introduction part by interpreting the meaning of the title, "The stone foundation of the heart and the Rock of Atonement of Golgatha are the two mountains on which a man's destiny is determined."
* Heaven must be like that. It must come down to earth, into creation, shine in a broad stream on the kitchen table, through the doors of the cattle shed and the windows of the mill house. It mush come thus to bring life into being, that must struggle and be saved. It must not just be above the soil and the dirt, it must be in the midst of it. It must not be far removed from the gray and smelly crowd below the pulpit, but enter deep into its members. It must not have its place within the parsonage fence or the manor house gates; it must be just here where the farm buildings lean their sagging roofs against one another and noisome rills flow from the dunghills in the farmyards. (p33)
* "How great shall our sorrow over sin be, if it is to be sincere?"
"So great that one is willing to give up the sin, " answered Linder promptly. "Crocodile tears mean nothing in heaven. But he who wants to be freed from the sin has the true sorrow, even though the heart feels as hard as a stick." (p66)
* Jesus only as the ground of our justification--- that was the next hammer blow. Just as a man, when faith awakens, ceases to look at himself and sees nothing but Jesus only, so God also looks not upon the man who believes nor does he see his indwelling corruption and his sins, for they are atoned for by Jesus.
Neither does God in his grace reckons with the good deeds of men, for God looks only upon the dear Son and will not look upon man and his good deeds, and this in order that he may not have to look upon man's sins and count against him the very sins with which all human good deeds are tainted, and so be forced to punish them in his righteousness. (p174)
* It struck him that, up to this day, everything had been just the opposite. It was he himself who had the power, also the power to choose a suitable life philosophy for himself. His problem had been whether or not Christianity really sufficed. He had tried to be modern in his thinking about God. He had defended Jesus and declared that he must be considered as the unequaled example also for our day, even though one must of course pass by that in his teaching, which was determined by the historical situation and had significance only for his own era. He had championed Christian morals and tried to show their superiority to both affirmation of life, psychoanalysis, and the modern nationalism. But all the while it was he that passed judgment and assumed the right to accept or reject. His standard of measurement was that of science and modern man. The validity of the Christian faith depended entirely on whether he found it worthy of acceptance.
But now it had become perfectly clear to him that the real problem was not whether Christianity was sufficient, but rather whether his own Christianity measured up. His right to judge was shattered altogether. It was no longer he who passed judgement on the religions; it was God who was passing judgement upon him. He was a sinner who must start again from the beginning.
The last passage is also a clear depiction of my personal spiritual misconception. I myself can not put it in any better and clearer form of expression. For years of being a so-called Christian, I have never stopped wondering why God is the God in the Bible? How can I ever make sense of the punishment that was exercised by a God in the Old Testament with the loving sacrifice of his own self in the New Testament? I wanted to appease the repelling feeling which comes from my sinful and unconverted nature and at the same time want to please men instead of God. Whenever there is something I find to be hard to accept, I just passed it off all together. Yet I was so wrong. God can not be fooled.
* "What, then, is sin?"
" It is everything that separates us from God and from other people."
But this is exactly what this book is about. The translator presented this book's main idea in the introduction part by interpreting the meaning of the title, "The stone foundation of the heart and the Rock of Atonement of Golgatha are the two mountains on which a man's destiny is determined."
* Heaven must be like that. It must come down to earth, into creation, shine in a broad stream on the kitchen table, through the doors of the cattle shed and the windows of the mill house. It mush come thus to bring life into being, that must struggle and be saved. It must not just be above the soil and the dirt, it must be in the midst of it. It must not be far removed from the gray and smelly crowd below the pulpit, but enter deep into its members. It must not have its place within the parsonage fence or the manor house gates; it must be just here where the farm buildings lean their sagging roofs against one another and noisome rills flow from the dunghills in the farmyards. (p33)
* "How great shall our sorrow over sin be, if it is to be sincere?"
"So great that one is willing to give up the sin, " answered Linder promptly. "Crocodile tears mean nothing in heaven. But he who wants to be freed from the sin has the true sorrow, even though the heart feels as hard as a stick." (p66)
* Jesus only as the ground of our justification--- that was the next hammer blow. Just as a man, when faith awakens, ceases to look at himself and sees nothing but Jesus only, so God also looks not upon the man who believes nor does he see his indwelling corruption and his sins, for they are atoned for by Jesus.
Neither does God in his grace reckons with the good deeds of men, for God looks only upon the dear Son and will not look upon man and his good deeds, and this in order that he may not have to look upon man's sins and count against him the very sins with which all human good deeds are tainted, and so be forced to punish them in his righteousness. (p174)
* It struck him that, up to this day, everything had been just the opposite. It was he himself who had the power, also the power to choose a suitable life philosophy for himself. His problem had been whether or not Christianity really sufficed. He had tried to be modern in his thinking about God. He had defended Jesus and declared that he must be considered as the unequaled example also for our day, even though one must of course pass by that in his teaching, which was determined by the historical situation and had significance only for his own era. He had championed Christian morals and tried to show their superiority to both affirmation of life, psychoanalysis, and the modern nationalism. But all the while it was he that passed judgment and assumed the right to accept or reject. His standard of measurement was that of science and modern man. The validity of the Christian faith depended entirely on whether he found it worthy of acceptance.
But now it had become perfectly clear to him that the real problem was not whether Christianity was sufficient, but rather whether his own Christianity measured up. His right to judge was shattered altogether. It was no longer he who passed judgement on the religions; it was God who was passing judgement upon him. He was a sinner who must start again from the beginning.
The last passage is also a clear depiction of my personal spiritual misconception. I myself can not put it in any better and clearer form of expression. For years of being a so-called Christian, I have never stopped wondering why God is the God in the Bible? How can I ever make sense of the punishment that was exercised by a God in the Old Testament with the loving sacrifice of his own self in the New Testament? I wanted to appease the repelling feeling which comes from my sinful and unconverted nature and at the same time want to please men instead of God. Whenever there is something I find to be hard to accept, I just passed it off all together. Yet I was so wrong. God can not be fooled.
* "What, then, is sin?"
" It is everything that separates us from God and from other people."
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