“How does the church know the commandment of God for this hour? Neither biblical law nor any other established orders of creation are sources of such knowledge. Both would be legalism. Only from Christ, from whom the gospel comes, do we even know the commandment. From Christ we must recognize that the entire world is a fallen world, that we no longer know its original orders. The only still-existing ones are the orders of preservation directed toward Christ, and whenever we have to judged and an order is no longer open for Christ, then this order must be broken. There are no orders that are holy in and of themselves. An order is ‘good’ only when it is open to Christ and for the new creation. The decision of the church for or against such an order must be dared in faith. Nothing else protects the church.” (DBWE 11:371)
Here Bonhoeffer speaks to the “orders” by which many presuppose the world to be established by God (and he speaks as one in the tradition of Luther’s “orders of creation”: family, church, and state). Particularly, he was speaking to the “order” of “state” and the manner in which the state might be perceived to be inherently “good” simply by its existence. Bonhoeffer calls such a notion to yield to Christ and Christ’s Lordship over all orders by which they receive their call and accountability. He spoke these words in Czechoslovakia in 1932 at an ecumenical conference just months before the Nazi take-over of Germany.
But how does this speak to our situation today? While it can be heard in relation to our political situation, I would suggest it should also be heard in relation to our view the creation order of “family”. The pressing issues related to defining “family” and its concomitant benefits/responsibilities can not be simply something of the order of “universal law”…some timeless truth. It must always be an order under the obedience of Christ and God’s word today. “The church…can proclaim not principles that are always true but rather only commandments that are true today. For that which is ‘always’ true is precisely not true ‘today’: God is for us ‘always’ God precisely ‘today’.” (DBWE 11:359-60 original emphasis) It is imperative that the North American Church recover this. We can not (indeed must not) appeal simply to creation as a universal rule, but must hear the word of Christ spoken today to a sin-fallen world whose “order” of the family must be regenerated and sanctified for the glory of God. This is the practice of always “hear[ing] what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22).
Related articles
- Church-for-Others: Some Bonhoefferian Theses (iheartbarth.wordpress.com)
- Pastor to Pastor: Lessons from Bonhoeffer (bluechippastor.org)
- Beyond the Historical Grammatical Malaise (rickwadholmjr.wordpress.com)
This answers a question I’ve had for a while, about whether or not Bonhoeffer considered the Mandates to be fallen. He still doesn’t talk about them in such terms, but “broken” is probably more fitting for him, as he doesn’t seem to attribute any agency to the Mandates themselves, but rather seems to see them as something commanded by God that are or are not successfully implemented by fallen humans.
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