Jürgen Moltmann's Blessed and Dangerous Hope
8 April 1926 - 3 June 2024
A quick word noting the passing of one who helped deepen my understanding and kindle my affections for the cross of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and hope.
From Jesus Christ For Today’s World (Fortress) 1994.
“Who is Jesus? The Kingdom of God in person.” 7
“God does not suffer out of deficiency of being…he does suffer from his love, which is the overflowing superabundance of his being.” 45
“We have to understand [Christ’s resurrection] as the first act in the new creation of the world.” 83
From The Spirit of Life (Fortress) 1992.
Such a rich resource for Pneumatology, including wonderful interaction with the Blumhardt’s and even Larry Christenson (185). Helpful teaching on tongues, healing, prophecy, and experiential worship.
My favorite book from Moltmann includes my favorite quote from anyone, from Theology of Hope (Harper and Row) 1965. It is not exaggeration to say that this quote sustained me through the last 10 years. I intend to let it continue to sustain me through the dark ages we are living in, and I pray, through.
“If Paul calls death the ‘last enemy’ (1 For. 15.26), then the opposite is also true: that the risen Christ, and with him the resurrection hope, must be declared to be the enemy of death and of a world that puts up with death. Faith takes up this contradiction and thus becomes itself a contradiction to the world of death. That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorable into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.” 21.
Blessed Dangerous Hope indeed! And may beloved Jürgen’s memory be blessed among us.