THE EPISTLE: I PETER 4:7-12124
Just as apostolic speech is essentially different in content from all human speech, so it is also in many ways different in form. For example, in order to draw an individual forward, it does not halt the listener and invite him to rest; it does not halt the speaker and allow that he himself forgets to work.125 Apostolic speech is concerned, ardent, burning, inflamed, everywhere and always stirred by the forces of the new life, calling, shouting, beckoning, explosive in its outbursts, brief, disjointed, harrowing, itself violently shaken as much by fear and trembling as by longing and blessed expectancy, everywhere witnessing to the powerful unrest of the spirit and the profound impatience of the heart. How could anyone have time for a long speech when he himself is running;126 then he himself would have to stand still! How could anyone have time for prolix pondering when he is trying to be all things to all people;127 then he would be unable to change the weapons of the spirit fast enough! How could anyone have much time for human minutiae when he is heading, under the full sail of hope, toward the perfect? But if apostolic speech is always as impatient as that of a woman in labor, then two considerations in particular are likely to stir it up even more—on the one hand, the idea that the night is over and day has broken,128 that the night has lasted long enough and the point is to use the day; [III 288] on the other hand, the idea that the time is coming when one can no longer work,129 that the days are numbered, the end is near,130 that the end of all things is approaching.
The text just read also witnesses to this apostolic ardor and begins with a “therefore,” to which the immediately preceding words in the apostle’s letter correspond: “but the end of all things is at hand,” words that explain not only this “therefore” but also something in the text that perhaps, humanly speaking, could require an explanation, which also demonstrates how very different apostolic impatience is from the rashness of an excited person. Does it not seem odd that right after the beautiful admonition: “Above all, have a heartfelt love for one another,”131 right after the significant words of comfort joined to that: “Love will hide a multitude of sins,” comes such a seemingly casual admonition as this: “Gladly lend your house to one another without grumbling!” And yet this admonition illustrates precisely apostolic authority and wisdom. Indeed, what excited person, after having said, “The end of all things is at hand,” would have added an admonition like that? Does it not go without saying that it would be superfluous? Would he not, if possible, by his speech bring about the evacuation of the houses, so that there would be scarcely anyone who would want to borrow a house, and if there was such a one, he would not need to be in a predicament? But an apostle is not impatient in this way, and his restlessness is superior to any human levelheadedness. The apostle loves his congregation too much to suppress spinelessly the shocking news that the end of all things is near, but on the other hand he knows how to call the congregation promptly to order again, as if the shock were forgotten, as if there were peace and security, a desirable opportunity to demonstrate its love to the neighbor even in life’s unimportant circumstances. Therefore, the words “the end of all things is near” are not an arid storm cloud that passes over and throws everything into disorder but an anxiety that clears the air and makes everyone gentler and more deeply inward, more loving and swifter to buy the opportune time, but also strong enough not to be exhausted by the thought that the hour of opportunity is past. The apostle who is speaking is not drunk on dreams but sober in his thinking and in his speech.
“But the end of all things is near.” These are shocking words even in the mouth of a rash and reckless person, to say nothing [III 289] of an apostle’s. For this very reason, Peter adds words of comfort strong enough to overcome anxiety: “Love will hide a multitude of sins.” Or are they perhaps not needed? Is everything past with the end of all things? Is any other cover needed than the one granted to everyone, the righteous and the unrighteous? Is not the person lying in the bosom of the earth covered and well put away? Would there be someone who did not understand the apostle because he did not expressly state the day when there will be a question about such a love? Or have the words of terror and also the words of comfort lost their meaning, inasmuch as the end of all things did not come as had been predicted? Is an apostle an ineffectual man to whom it is important only to predict the end of all things in general, but without any bearing on himself and others except insofar as it could satisfy their curiosity? Or was it not his primary concern that with the end of all things his days and the days of the congregation were numbered? But this did actually pertain to the apostle and the congregation; this continually repeats itself in each generation; and the next thing repeats itself also, because every person must die132 and thereupon come to judgment.
But armor is also needed for the day of judgment. It is this and its perfection that the apostle describes.133 This armor is love; it is the only thing that will not be abolished, the only thing that remains with a person in life and remains with him in death and that will be victorious in the judgment.134 Love is not like a deceitful friend who first inveigles a person and then remains with him in order to mock. No, love remains with a person, and when everything becomes confused for him, when his thoughts rise up accusingly, when anxieties condemningly rear their heads, then love intimidates them and says to him: Just have patience; I will remain with you and witness with you, and my witness will overcome the confusion. Indeed, even if love has led a person astray, even if it cannot acquit him later, it will nevertheless say: Would I abandon you in the hour of need? Even if you were abandoned by everything, even if you were abandoned by yourself, I am still with you, I who led you astray but who also have this comfort for you, that it was I who did it. What if this were not so! What power is able to bring a person to risk the terror in this way as love does! How horrible, then, if it did not also know [III 290] how to interpret itself to itself, make itself understandable to the single individual even if not another soul understood it.
Let us, then, consider the apostolic words more closely. The apostle speaks to imperfect beings; how could one who is perfect have a multitude of sins that would need to be hidden! But the imperfect, the brokenhearted—them he also comforts with the thought that love will hide a multitude of sins. We shall not light-mindedly tamper with the apostolic words; we shall not sagaciously deceive ourselves and cheat the words by thinking that the person who has love is perfect. These words do not apply to the person who does not find within himself a multitude of sins that need to be hidden; but they are of no use to the person who refuses their comfort, because the comfort is precisely this—that love is able to live in the same heart in which there is a multitude of sins and that this love has the power to hide the multitude.
Therefore, we shall now look for the comfort offered in the apostle’s words by considering: how love will hide a multitude of sins.
But how is this possible; love does indeed discover precisely in a person himself a multitude of sins. Has not many a person in this world gone on living lightly and carefreely in the happy mentality of youth, without being arrogant about his own perfection but also without feeling humbled or halted by an oppressive conscience—until love gripped him and the past no longer pleased him, because love in so many ways had discovered imperfection and weakness? Did things go better for the sensible person? He frowned on the light-mindedness of youth, he kept watch on himself, he strove to rid himself of his faults, but in this striving he also gained a self-satisfaction that did not fear the test of the understanding, that accepted honor from people,135 that challenged the world to a struggle—then love took aim at him, and see—he who had carried his head high, he who had dominated people by his glance, he now dropped his eyes, because he had discovered a multitude of sins. And he who could stand before the rigorous judgment of the understanding could not endure the mild judgment of love! But such things did not happen to the righteous person. He was rigorous with himself and did not wish to be like others; he knew that anyone who wanted to preserve himself had to work and to renounce much, but he also knew what he gained in this battle, knew that he gained an understanding of the wisdom that there is justice in heaven, because he considered himself just and righteous.136 Then heaven’s love looked [III 291] down at him, and see—he who had been confident of being able to give everyone his due, to man what belongs to man, to God what belongs to God,137 he who already in his lifetime had looked forward to undergoing an accounting on judgment day, he had now discovered the multitude of sins to the point where he could not repay one in a thousand.138 Indeed, it was not only that love instantly discovered what was hidden—no, it was as if love increased the multitude of sins in the future. What he in his proud self-confidence had easily overcome now seemed difficult to him because in love his soul was concerned. Where previously he had suspected no temptation, he now saw it luring him, and he sensed a fear and trembling he had never known. And it was really true; he easily convinced himself of that, for if he would surrender himself into the hands of his own righteousness, the temptation vanished.
But then is it possible that the same power that discovers a multitude of sins, the same power that almost multiplies the multitude as it infuses the human heart with love’s concern, is it possible that the same power can hide it in the same person? And yet would it be good if this were not so? What, then, is love? Is it a dream in the night that one has merely by sleeping? Is it a stupor in which everything is forgotten? Shall we hold love in such disdain that it is in this sense that it covers a multitude of sins? Then it would be better to retain the light mentality of youth, or the adult’s self-examination, or the individual’s own self-righteousness. Must wisdom be bought, understanding be bought, peace of mind be bought, the blessedness of heaven be bought, must life be bought in the pain of birth, but love is not supposed to know any birth pains? Love is no dream. If we were to call it that, then it would be best to say: This, its first pang, is a troubled and anxious dream that ends with a blessed awakening in the love that covers a multitude of sins. Love takes everything. It takes a person’s perfection, and if he wants to clutch it, then love is severe with him; but it also takes his imperfection, his sin, his distress. It takes away his strength, but also his suffering—or what terrible sufferings would love not hide as if they did not exist, but only love’s joy over rescuing another? But when love takes it from him, then love indeed hides it; when it takes everything, it hides everything; when, in proportion to what it takes from him, it gives him something else instead, then it hides beyond all understanding.
People have often thought that there were other means that could take away and thereby hide what they might wish [III 292] hidden. But an ancient pagan has already said: It does not help a person to ride away from care; it is sitting behind him on the horse.139 These words of his have often been repeated as words that manifest a profound insight into the human heart. And yet—if that old pagan who rode through life on his horse with care behind him, if he did not have to look back—but love does not do that. How would the eye [Øie] that loves find time for a backward look, since the moment [Øieblik, glance of the eye] it did so it would have to let its object go! How would the ear that loves find time to listen to the accusation, since the moment it did so it would have to stop listening to the voice of love! And if the eye strays after it, if the ear eavesdrops, then the heart is petty, and this is not the fault of love—indeed, this angers love. The person who thinks of his own perfection does not love, and he who takes his own imperfections into account does not love. Indeed, if he thought himself so imperfect that he was disqualified from love because of this, he would show that he did not love, since he would take his imperfection into account and include it in his accounting as if this were a perfection. But love takes everything. And the person who excludes himself either wants to be happy about himself and not to be happy about love or wants to be sad about himself and not to be happy about love.
But in order to love a person in this way, one must have the courage to will to love; the secret of earthly love is that it bears the mark of God’s love, without which it would become silliness or insipid philandering, as if a person in comparison with another were so perfect that he could arouse this anxiety or truly be able to take everything. To love God in this way requires a humble bold confidence; in every human heart God’s love awakens crying like a newborn baby, not smiling like the child that knows its mother. But now when God’s love wants to hold fast to the Lord, the enemy rises against one in all its terror, and the power of sin is so strong that it strikes with anxiety. But love does not shut its eyes in the hour of danger; it volunteers itself, as a venerable hymn writer says, to press
Through the arrows of sin
Into the repose of paradise.140 [III 293]
And the further away it sights the multitude of arrows, the more terrible they seem, but the closer it presses forward, the less it sees the arrows, and when it has intercepted all the arrows in its heart and is wounded by them, it no longer sees them but sees only love and the blessedness of paradise.
When Jesus sat at dinner one day in a Pharisee’s house, a woman entered. No woman had been invited as a guest, this one least of all, because the Pharisees knew that she was a sinner. 141 If nothing else had been able to terrify and stop her, the Pharisees’ proud contempt, their silent disapproval, their sanctimonious anger would probably have frightened her away; “but she stood behind Jesus at his feet, weeping, and began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and to kiss his feet and anoint them with the ointment.” There was a moment of anxiety; what she had suffered in solitude, her grief, the accusations of her own heart, became even more terrible, because her heart was well aware that its charges had endorsement in the faces of the Pharisees. But she went on, and in beating the enemy she beat herself to calmness, and when she had found rest at Jesus’ feet, she forgot herself in her work of love. As she wept, she finally forgot what she had wept over at the beginning; the tears of repentance became tears of adoration. She was forgiven her many sins, because she loved much. There were those in the world who, after wasting their lives in the service of desire, finally lost themselves and scarcely recognized themselves anymore. This is desire’s shameful and appalling fraud—that it defrauds a person out of himself and lets him keep only a superficial, passing intimation of authentic being [Tilvær], that it arrogantly wants to defraud God out of his co-knowledge in creation. This woman was granted the grace to weep herself out of herself, as it were, and to weep herself into the peacefulness of love. The person who loves much is forgiven much, and this is love’s blessed deception, “that the person who is forgiven much loves much”—so that to need much forgiveness becomes an expression of love’s perfection.
Yet even if love was capable of removing from the accused’s [III 294] sight a multitude of sins so that, lost in love, he saw them no more, because love hid them—is he thereby saved forever? Will nothing halt him on his way and suddenly make him recollect what love has hidden; is no judgment pronounced on a person from without? Does love have the same power here also, so that not even the judge discovers a multitude of sins because love hides them? Can a judge be deceived; does he not penetrate every veil and disclose everything? Can a judge be bribed; does he not uncompromisingly require what is the judgment’s requirement? Can the world’s judgment be deceived? Offer it your love, and you will continue to be a debtor; bring it your heart’s best emotion, and you will continue to be a debtor; offer it tears of repentance, and the judgment requires its own justice. Can love’s judgment, then, be bribed? Offer it gold, and it will despise you; offer it power and dominion, and it will disdain you; offer it the glories of the world, and it will condemn you for loving the glories of the world; trumpet your wonderful deeds, and it will condemn you for not being in love. The judgment requires what is the judgment’s requirement, and the world’s judgment requires what belongs to the world, and this conceals from the world whatever is lacking; but love’s judgment requires what belongs to love, because the person who judges makes requirements, but the person who makes requirements seeks, and the person “who hides a multitude of sins seeks love” (Proverbs 17:9); but the person who finds love hides a multitude of sins; the person who finds what he sought indeed conceals what he did not seek.
So, then, are not the apostolic words a comfort that gives bold confidence in the face of judgment; are they not a comfort precisely as is needed; is it not beyond all understanding! To remember everything is a great thing to the understanding; that love hides a multitude of sins is foolishness to it. Or should we deprive ourselves of this comfort by sensibly wanting to measure out love, so to speak, by wanting to portion it out as compensation for particular sins and in this way continue in the sins? Should we shut ourselves out from love; if we continue in love, who is it, then, who accuses? Or is not the love in a person that hid a multitude of sins from himself the same love that out of love hides a multitude of sins?142 Indeed, even if love had not entirely triumphed in a person, even if anxiety discovered what love did not have the strength to cover in him, yet on the day of judgment love will come to the aid of love in him, drive out fear, and hide a multitude of sins.
143When Jesus sat at dinner one day in a Pharisee’s home, a [III 295] woman entered that house; she was downhearted; she was carrying a multitude of sins. The judgment of the world was legible on the faces of the Pharisees; it could not be deceived; her sorrow and her tears concealed nothing but disclosed everything, and there was nothing to discover but a multitude of sins. She was not seeking the world’s judgment, however, “but she stood behind Jesus at his feet and wept.” Then love discovered what the world concealed—the love in her; and since it had not been victorious in her, the Savior’s love came to her assistance so that the one “who was released from a debt of five hundred pennies might love more,”144 and he made the love in her even more powerful to hide a multitude of sins, the love that was already there, because “her many sins were forgiven her, because she loved much.”145
Blessed the person whose heart witnesses with him that he loved much; blessed the person when God’s spirit, which knows all, witnesses that he loved much; for him there is comfort both here and hereafter, because love hides a multitude of sins.