I väntan på Jesus

Just as God in the beginning through his omnipotent "let there be" created worlds without numbers, so he too would, in a similar way, have been able to call forth a praise-singing choir, as numerous as the sand on the sea shore. But his love and wisdom have in the council of eternity been pleased to proceed with this in another way. His heart wanted to feel the joy of a father, and his eye wanted to see a child's joy of the purest kind. He will also see this once and be satiated by that view. To win this goal he has made the greatest sacrifices and has taken extraordinary measures and appointed times which are sufficient for this purpose. He has chosen his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to be the prince of salvation and sent him into the world to destroy the works of the devil and to reconcile all things to himself. The salvation of the world was and is without the work of Christ unthinkable, but through him it has become possible and shall, when his work is finished, become a blissful reality. The firm foundation for this he himself has laid through his teaching, his atoning death and his victorious resurrection. This all was and must be exclusively his own work. Therefore he also has performed the same without regard to the resistance and the reluctance he had to experience from their side, which this work most closely concerned, namely the fallen men, and for the same reason he could likewise complete it in a comparatively short time. When, on the other hand, it comes to the implementation of the work of salvation to the full victory in the sinner, which only can come about on the way of fully voluntary submission on the part of man, inasmuch as this, if ever, concerns a free and unforced choice, the battle will in most cases be both long and of the most serious kind. However, God disposes both of time and means for achieving this goal. And indeed, blessed is he who early listens to the searching love knocking on the heart's door, and bows in childlike obedience to God's will instead of, through disobedience and defiance, bringing himself there, where he is forced to feel the whole weight of sin's abomination and curse.

We have said that the battle between God's savior will and sinful man's will, which after the fall is not nor can rightly be called free, inasmuch as it is bound in and by sin and thus needs to be liberated, can be long and difficult. Many circumstances contribute to this. By and large man's life on earth from the cradle to the grave is peripheral, i.e. superficial and more or less selfish. She is charmed and her attention is captured by the outside of things, of the appearance, of the pleasures of the moment, of the moving diversity of earthly life. Her eye is dazzled by life's adorable mirages, her ear is filled with a thousand misleading voices. She is generally almost unconscious of the seriousness of the present and future life. She is a child of the moment, who loves to get drunk of the cup of sinful pleasures, and, so long as the intoxication can be maintained, she wants to have it that way. But as surely as a man so for a longer or shorter time may get and may have to flutter about in the peripheral sphere of life, just as certain it is that she will and must once come to a limit that he cannot cross, to the center of life, from the surface to the depth, from the shell to the core, for everything that is subject to development must reach a certain perfection and maturity. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Gal. 6: 7)." "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor. 5: 10)."