Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/319

56* allowed upon them; through brotherly love alone can they be brought to repentance and redeemed. This is the plain good news which proclaims that a sinner can again obtain divine grace after he had lost it through his sinning; yea, he can even be saved while, on the contrary, civil administration everywhere administers death to men for such offences, without giving them (a chance) to reform.

The confused people of this world act so badly that, while they bemoan iniquities and material damages, they are ready to murder human beings on their account. This killing of humans is the way of the people of the world, who love the world, who pity the world for all the wrongs that befall it. Yet they can have no communion with Christ. In the first Christian community, however, if brotherly love mended not the way of the guilty, the people did not associate with him, eschewing him. If they were unable to help him and to move him to repentance, still they caused him no evil by adding murder to his sins. They separated themselves from him, remaining without guilt. But the heathenish civil administration does just the opposite: it does nothing good for evil, all it cares about is to murder the evil one, and to throw the burden of his sins on those who render evil for evil.

Matthew 18: 15–17,.

I-Corinthians 5: 9–11.

2-Thessalonians 3:11–12.