Translator Note: This is the first of a two-part sermon series by Pastor Tscharntke of the Evangelischen Freikirche Riedlingen church in Riedlingen that unleashed a backlash by the leftist press and liberal government officials as well. He is now being investigated for what he said in these two sermons. Read for yourselves and ask yourselves why he should be subjected to these bully tactics. Note the Bible references link to verses from the King James Bible, which was translated about 100 years after Luther translated the Bible into German.
Text: Isaiah 1:2-7
Subject: “The Christian and the Foreigner”
Reading: Romans 13:1-4 (Proverbs 5:7-14)
Dear Brothers and Sisters, dear Guests,
Today we turn ourselves to the current and most highly emotionally charged subject of “immigration.”
Is there even anything to discuss about this from the side of the Christian? Isn’t it completely natural that Christians love all people and therefore help all people and welcome immigrants to Germany in unlimited numbers regardless of where they’re from or what faith they are of?
Somehow or another, this is how the argument is made these days by great numbers from the state church or the independent churches: The Bible preaches the message of love. Anyone that raises an argument against immigration shows doesn’t have love, at least not for the immigrant, and according to this he cannot be a true Christian. A Roman Catholic priest in northern Germany, therefore, has demanded that critics of immigration resign from the church.
Of course, there is no lack of “Biblical evidence” for this view. The command to love and that of neighborly love are pointed out in general, and love of enemy in particular. This said, I ask myself: Have those that do this considered that by doing this they are calling the immigrants our enemies – or at the least potential enemies?
The reference to the Good Samaritan can’t be avoided, and all the more the Old Testament provisions for dealing with the “foreigner.” “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 20:21). Or the Lord “… loves the sojourner …”! (Deuteronomy 10:18). How then can anyone, with such a wealth of “Biblical evidence,” do anything but open wide all our hearts and doors in Germany and welcome all immigrants, whether they be true seekers of asylum, prosperity tourists or also Muslim terrorists – because after all, we are even supposed to love our enemies, too!
Did God’s Word actually say that?
First, we make the following assertion:
Yes, Christians do love all people! Because all people are created by God in His image. Every single person, totally independent of his sex, skin color or race, has a unique honor that is given him above all other creatures in this universe.
Every person is loved by God. Jesus died on the cross for every person. Every person has been bought with great price, not with gold or silver, but with the holy, costly blood of Jesus. Christ perfected salvation for each one of us. We must invite each one to accept this salvation and live with Jesus, on this earth now and then all the more in heavenly glory, everyone – whether German, French, Russian, Syrian, Nigerian or whatever else there might be in races and nations on this earth.
Does that also mean that we must accept all of them among us?
Let me use a practical example to examine the sensibility or lack thereof in this question:
Let’s suppose I have a nice, beautiful single family home with 1,000 square feet of living space along with a garden, 1 bath, 1 toilet, 1 television and 2 lounge chairs. Now, in the area around me there are 10,000 destitute individuals whom I love with all my heart. I therefore invite them to come live with me and to share in the things God has given me, and in fact 200 of them come. I’m excited. I love these people. I want to help them. Now they’re here. Great!!!
I’ve managed to get them all under my little roof, very tightly placed next to each other or piled 3 high on top of each other. After all, there’s space in the smallest hut! “We’ll manage this!”
But soon it gets loud in the living room: 50 of them are quarreling in front of the TV about what show should be watched. The first ones begin to get violent. Also, in front of the bathroom there’s wrangling because 15 urgently “have to go” at the same time. While in the kitchen, 25 of my guests are trying to cook 15 different national meals with 5 pots and 3 pans on the 4-burner stove. With the help of my pans, the first parts now begin to appear in the hair. Screaming takes over in the bedrooms and guest rooms, foot-stomping and the first knives are getting sharpened because the battle over the share for my bed, guest couch and two air mattresses has now begun. After all, nighttime is near!
I need fresh air. Nothing like getting out into the still tranquility of my garden. But there, fists are already flying, my fence posts and garden posts are being wielded as weapons; in the corner I watch as one of them pulls the cock on his revolver: because the 75 that aren’t directly in front of the TV, in the kitchen, in front of the bathroom or in the bedroom or guest room making their needs clear are right now “making it clear” who of them is allowed to make themselves comfortable on the two lounge chairs in the garden.
We could intellectually carry on this scenario for another two weeks or even another 4 months. Put yourselves as compassionately as possible in the shoes of the loving and hospitable man of the home! And just imagine: in the coming weeks yet another 500 of the 10,000 invited destitute people accept the invitation ….!
I think I can stop here: Whoever would take this kind of action is not loving, neither is he helping! More the rather, he will increase chaos and discontent to almost no limit!
Such a thing cannot be desired by God. Because God wants peace, and not chaos and civil war! Because of this alone alone, it should be clear to any thinking Christian that such a thing comes only from the Devil. Because the Devil is the Diabolos, the great producer of chaos and causer of unrest. When he sees such chaos, he rubs his hands together with glee. And in Germany these days, is he ever rubbing his hands together!
And with this, back to what God’s Word really says.
Where does the fundamental error lie for those who come up with such arguments as neighborly love or the Good Samaritan in the present invasion of Germany?
These people are making what is called a “categorical error”. Please keep this term solidly in mind. Such categorical errors are spread broadly around and as a rule cause a great amount of confusion. Often they are employed with full conscience so that they might appear to prove claims and purposefully to sell other ones as stupid.
One such “categorical error” shows up when I try to carry over a statement that applies in a certain context to a totally different context (e.g. micro-evolution/Darwin’s finches over to macro-evolution; or Jesus’s instruction to women on Easter morning over to ordination of women).
I like using the following example to look at this:
Let’s suppose that 20 years ago, I sent away our children while they were still small and sweet – they are just still sweet now – to buy 5 pretzels and 10 rolls. They leave and come back – after 20 years. They drive up in a chic red Ferrari. I ask them: “Where in Heaven’s name have you been so long? What in the world have you done?” They answer quite cooly: “We built a worldwide trade empire in baked goods. That’s why you sent us away.”
I’m surprised and I think: I did actually talk about baked goods. Because pretzels and rolls no doubt are a part of baked goods.
I also gave them money. The local government definitely doesn’t pay us.
Thus, as far as the money and the baked goods were concerned, they were right. But did I in fact send them out to build up a worldwide trade empire? Definitely not. They were supposed to buy 5 pretzels and 10 rolls. They took my completely precise, limited instructions and used them on a completely different level.
Be sure to understand, dear brothers and sisters, the Biblical command for love, brotherly love, neighborly love and love of enemies, including the example of the Good Samaritan, is related to the level of a personal encounter. It says absolutely nothing about whether and to what extent a people should accept foreigners into their land. Because the latter is not a decision on the personal level at all, but on the political level.
And Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, spoke of one who had fallen among the robbers. He surely did not speak of the fact that we should let our country be ransacked by incoming predatory hordes.
We see this clearly right within the commandment for love of enemies. It in no way implies that we ought to give evil a free hand. We see this as a primary part of God Himself. God also loves the enemies – he certainly loves all people. However, he not only gave Israel the right to defend herself, but commanded that they wage wars. He punishes and judges the sinner, sometimes with death. Love of enemy stays completely unaffected by this because these are two totally different categories.
This applies also in the New Testament! We heard this in our reading of Romans 13:1-4. God’s Word states here: “The authorities have the sword because they are God’s servant, an avenger to punish the one who does evil.” Martin Luther compiled many writings on this subject, among others with respect to the question of “Whether warriors could be in a state of salvation.” In these writings, Luther explained that the authorities of course have not only the right but the God-given duty to protect their people. And certainly not just with kind words, but with the sword – thus, with armed violence. Anyone who makes the argument in this context with love of enemies shows that he is unable to think very deeply, neither in or much less in a Biblical fashion as well.
A Christian pacifism cannot be definitively based on the Word of God. Otherwise, Paul would have had to write: “The authorities carry kid gloves in order to coddle and pat evil.” That, however is not in there! If a Christian thinks he must let himself, his wife and his children be abused and slain without putting up a fight, then that most definitely and expressly does not apply to the State. The State has the duty before God to protect its people from evil, and if necessary, with violence as well.
I will sum up this first part with the following: neither the command for love in general, nor particularly the love of neighbor, nor even the love of enemies obliges us to bid welcome to masses flooding into our country. And certainly not if they do this with violence and in contempt of our laws and ordinances. These are more to be perceived as enemies then than as destitute refugees.
With this, we come to the next key word that is being used to smack us in the face by Christendom all over – the “foreigner.” What does the Bible say about “foreigner“?
To my puzzled surprise, there are actually Christians that quote the New Testament on this. They point to the fact that we Christians are also “guests and foreigners” on this earth. And by this they deduce that we ought also to bid welcome to the foreigner in our own land.
Why am I just puzzled about this position?
Because more than anything it is a gross categorical error. Such an blatant one that it shouldn’t be expected of any Christian individual. Because in what sense does the New Testament speak of the fact that we are “guests and foreigners”?
It is in a purely spiritual sense. Paul, for example, had actual Roman citizenship. He was looked upon politically as anything but a “foreigner” in the Roman Empire. But even here this is not the issue. Here, it is a matter of spiritual citizenship. And this we have in Heaven. Spiritually speaking, we are simply non-residents and passing through here. By the way, the Greek words in the New Testament here would be translated better in this fashion.
The term “foreigner” in the New Testament definitely cannot have a political meaning in a sense relevant to us today because the Christian church in the New Testament was a persecuted minority. It did not possess the least right to equal political say and had just as little opportunity in societo-political formation. They could only be happy with being halfway tolerated. The question of dealings with political foreigners for them was no question at all. The focus of the New Testament is essentially turned away, in “looking toward Jesus,” away from the political and societal events of this earth and in the direction of the returning Lord and our future in heavenly glory.
In the Old Testament, this appears to be quite different. It tells us something about the political interaction with the foreigner. It is very differentiated and very clear. Only this differentiation doesn’t come to our quick attention in the German translations. The Old Testament speaks in particular of two types of “foreigners.” Luther, as far as I can see, tries to render this with differing words “alien” and “stranger.” Elberfelder in the differentiation between “stranger” and “foreigner.” Fur us, neither linguistic differentiation enlightens us a whole lot. Because all three terms, “alien, stranger and foreigner” are almost the same in meaning. In the Bible, however, they present a truly gargantuan difference.
First there is the alien, which is called “ger” in Hebrew. For those of us not having a good knowledge of Hebrew, this tells us absolutely nothing. However, when we look at the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), it becomes something totally different. The Hebrew word “ger” is translated almost totally throughout the LXX with the word “proselyte.” And now, among some of us, this should be starting to “click.”
Because who in Judaism is a proselyte?
This individual is a non-Jew, thus a foreigner from a different people, but one who has converted to Judaism. And in truth, fully and totally.
We would render the word “ger” today as “Jew with migrant background.” That, in reality, has nothing to do with what we would understand as an “alien.”
Of this “ger,” which equals “alien,” God demands total integration. Including total religious integration. We see this when we look at the Feast of the Passover in Exodus 12:43-49. First off, verse 43 states: “No stranger (LXX ἀλλογενὴς “allogenēs” = namely: foreign born) shall eat from it.” Now, first off, a foreigner is spoken of here in the neutral sense. Then God’s Word continues on “If, however, an alien (LXX προσήλυτος “prosēlutos” – Hebrew: again “ger“) sojourns with you and wants to celebrate the Passover, then all that are males with him are to be circumcised, and then he can come by to celebrate it, and he shall be considered as a native of the land.” There is, therefore, no individual decision. The head of the family must – with man and mouse, children and belongings – submit to the ordinances of God. Then he is seen “as a native.” Then applies: “One law shall apply for the native and for the alien (Hebrew: ‘ger‘; LXX: προσηλύτῳ prosēlutō) that sojourns among you.” Spoken here is not that of the alien who is passing through, also not that of a refugee who takes up residence for a limited time in the land. The person spoken of here is one who has totally and bindingly attached himself to God’s people and is living permanently in Israel.
With respect to this “Jew with migrant background,” God’s word gives many more admonitions: “One and the same ordinance shall be for you, for the stranger as well as for the native of the land” (thus, for example, in Leviticus 19:33&34; Leviticus 24:22; Numbers 9:14; Numbers 15:15,16,26,29 & 30 and Ezekiel 47:22).
Also, the other individual ordinances demonstrate this in a totally unambiguous way, for example regarding the Sabbath commandment in Exodus 20:10: “You shall do no work (on the Sabbath), you and your son and your daughter, your servant and your maid and your cattle and the stranger (Hebrew: ‘ger‘; LXX: προσήλυτος proselutos) among you that is living within your gates” (parallel Deuteronomy 5:14).
The Bible speaks favorably of this fully integrated, moreover religiously fully integrated alien and admonishes us to love him. Thus also the much often used word these days in Exodus 22:20: “The alien (Hebrew: ‘ger‘; LXX προσήλυτος prosēlutos) you shall not oppress.” Likewise the second one so often quoted these days from Deuteronomy 10:18,19: “Because the Lord, … who gives justice to the orphan and the widow and loves the stranger … Also you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
The one who has completely and absolutely integrated with the people of Israel, religiously too, shall be treated as the native. But also for sure just that one!
The Old Testament presents a very sharp difference between this “ger,” the “Jew with migrant background,” and the real foreigner, the “Nechar.” That is the “stranger” – who has not integrated totally!
The Bible speaks about this “stranger” in a completely different way!
This “stranger” is essentially perceived as an enemy. And thus, from David in Psalm 144:7: “Stretch out your hand from the heights! Snatch me out and save me from great waters, out of the hand of the sons of the enemies (Hebrew: ‘nechar‘; LXX: υἱῶν ἀλλοτρίων uiōn allotriōn).”
It is also interesting to look at the Greek word that the LXX uses here: halladrios – we (the Germans) know about the expression “allotria treiben” (in English. ‘to fool around’ or “do monkey business’) – pranks, etc., but definitely doing that which is unacceptable. We (Germans) also know about “hallodri” (roguishness). This is that easygoing individual who causes mischief, and as such also does unacceptable things.
The “Hallodri” (or rogue), the “stranger,” is exactly like this in the Old Testament, the “non-fitting one” that won’t fit in with the people of Israel because he hasn’t integrated and thus just remains the stranger, the outsider, the one who doesn’t belong. And he is treated this way, too.
Israel maintains a clear distance from this “stranger.” For example, like in Nehemiah 9:2: “And all who were of Israelite descent separated themselves from every son of the strangers (LXX: υἱοῦ ἀλλοτρίου uiou allotriou). And they went there and confessed their sins and the transgressions of their fathers.“
The character of this word “hallodri” as foreign and hostile is also found this way again in the New Testament in Hebrews 11:34, where it says of the great deeds of the heroes of the faith that they “pushed back the armies of the aliens (ἀλλοτρίων allotriōn)” – I need not ask which Greek word is in this passage: it’s the hallodris.
And it is used in the spiritual sense in Colossians 1:21: “You who were at one time alienated (ἀπηλλοτριωμένους apēllotriōmenous) and enemies (namely, God’s) in your mind by wicked works, have now been reconciled by him“.
This alien who doesn’t completely, moreover religiously, integrate with the people of Israel becomes barred from the social affairs of the people. The hallodri does not have the same rights as the native or even as the “Jew with migrant background.”
Thus, we see as an example in Deuteronomy 15 – here it deals with the year of release. Every seven years all the debts in Israel were to be released. Every seven years each Jew got the chance to start over. Not necessarily the “stranger,” though. In Deuteronomy 15:2,3 we read: “He shall not compel his neighbor and brother because a release of debt had been call out for the Lord. You may compel the foreigner (Hebrew: ‘nechar‘, LXX: τὸν ἀλλότριον ton allotrion)” – namely that he pay back his debts to the last penny. But not the stranger, the proselyte, who has completely integrated!
Accordingly, in Deuteronomy 23:20ff – here it deals with interest: “You shall not lay interest upon your brother … upon the stranger (Hebrew: ‘nechar‘, LXX: τῷ ἀλλοτρίῳ tō allotriō) you may lay interest.”
We likewise have the exact opposite for the “Jew with migrant background” with regard to the subject of “interest” in Leviticus 25:35: “If your brother becomes poor and his hand is failing beside you, then you shall support him like an alien (!) (προσηλύτου prosēlutou) … you shall not lay interest and charges upon him.”
Therefore, we come up with a perfectly clear finding! The fully integrated Jew with migrant background is to be treated in all things the same as a complete Jew. The same law for both!
However, not so for the stranger that is not fully integrated. Also, he is absolutely not to be tormented and terrorized. He is also to be treated decently and in order. But he is to remain excluded from the social benefits of the people of Israel!
And this very thing is the salient point of comparison for our situation today! This very thing is indeed the question that is being discussed today: Are we obligated under God’s Word to accept foreigners en masse and to make the same social benefits more or less available to them as those that belong to our own people? God’s word says with absolute clarity “No”!
And where these limits were disregarded among God’s people, like for example, Solomon who built temples for his immigrant wives for their gods, which then cost him, or rather his son Rehoboam, 5/6 of the kingdom! As God’s punishment!
Of course, we can’t carry complete religious integration in a 1:1 fashion over into our situation today. Israel was a theocracy. The spiritual and secular law were one and the same. This doesn’t apply to Germany today. But just in looking at Islam, we must take seriously that Islam, as a theocratic religion, also stands definitely in diametric opposition to our liberal democratic rule of law. I don’t intend to delve further into this today, perhaps next Sunday. For today, though, simply the conclusion: the true Muslim who really takes the Koran seriously cannot and will not become integrated with our liberal democratic state of law. He must in the interest of Islam strive for the conversion of our society and our rule of law. Which in the end leads to the abolition of separation of state and religion and to the institution of the Sharia as national law. And of necessity, with this must follow the abolition of the Constitution because the Sharia in its essential parts is irreconcilable with our Constitution.
The foreigner not fully integrated is seen in the Bible as a serious threat. His taking of the upper hand is explicitly described as God’s punishment. We read this, for example, in Proverbs 5:7-10 in connection with the warning against adultery: “Now then, ye sons, listen to me and do not turn away from the words of my mouth! … Otherwise strangers (LXX: ἀλλότριοι allotrioi) will satisfy themselves with your fortune, with your hard-wrought gain.“
Could this subject be not be more clearly addressed at all in our present day like this Word addresses it? Because our people have fallen away from God and his Word, strangers have fallen upon our land have fed themselves from our gain, from that which we have worked hard for. We read this very thing in Isaiah 1:7. It is God’s word of judgment over his people Israel: “Your land is a desolation, your cities are burned with fire, of your fields – do strangers (LXX: ἀλλοτρίων allotrioi) consume its fruit before your eyes.” And similarly in Jeremiah 6:12 “Your houses shall be given to the strangers” (here for ‘strangers’ – ἑτέρους eterous – the meaning is the same).
When we think of the Hofgarten Hotel in Bad Buchau, where the owner and her employees were expelled so that “strangers” could live there, or of the city of Nienheim and probably other places where the German population was evicted and its own people set out on the streets so that foreigners could live in their houses, we have a totally precise correlation to that which God’s word pronounces as judgment over a godless people.
Where a people turns away from God and and His ordinances, God gives this people, its land and its possessions and goods away to the foreigner. And our own government is throwing it at them. Because a people has the government it deserves: “Children are masters of my people and women rule over them. My people, your leaders are deceiving you and destroying the way on which you must go” (Isaiah 3:12 – acc. to Luther).
It is the opposite when a people walks in the commandments of the Lord and as a result is under God’s blessing. Then the following applies: “The sons of the strangers (ἀλλογενεῖς allogeneis) will build your walls and their kings will serve you” (Isaiah 60:10), and “Then will strangers (ἀλλογενεῖς allogeneis) stand before you and shepherd your sheep, and foreigners will be your farmers and vine dressers.” (Isaiah 61:5)
The word choice is already different here. No more is there talk here of the hostile “hallodri,” but in a neutral way of the “foreign born.” If a people is under the blessing of God because it loves God and his commandments, then foreigners will serve in the welfare of the people. They will not rob and plunder them like some of our supermarkets that are currently being robbed and have to close because of the hostile hordes of foreigners, rather than the foreigners being there to increase the prosperity of the people. We can compare this somewhat with the 60s and 70s. The German economy thrived. Our own people had been weakened in workable personnel by the war. There was a great lack of men. Guest workers came to the country. They worked as foreigners for the prosperity of our people. Hopefully they were treated in an orderly fashion. That is how it’s supposed to be among a Christian people and country. And they could, fully according to the Bible, become indigenous – aliens who indeed from their ethnic origin do not belong to our people, but the kind that integrate, learn our language, observe our culture and follow our laws. They then can receive German citizenship. Here, however, dual citizenship is not acceptable. Because it conveys no real identification. That is like a person who dances at two weddings at the same time. That is not provided for in God’s word. It would therefore be Biblically in order and recommended that the possibility of dual citizenship be abolished right away except for a very few well founded reasons. Whoever then would like to be a German, regardless of migrant background, should also, without ifs and buts, take upon himself the complete set of obligations as a German and participate in our society without the need of a back door escape.
Now the question can be rightly asked: Can we simply transfer these ordinances of the Old Testament such as they are over to us? Well… Because the situation and calling of Israel was indeed in itself unique, we cannot transfer it to any other people on the earth. But at the same time, the calling of Israel contains a functional model for every people. In the example of Israel, the people are supposed to see how good things are for a people that belongs to the Lord, that observes His commandments and grows and thrives under his blessing. If Israel, though, should turn away from her Lord, then the people should also see what happens to a people that wants nothing more to do with God, that rejects His commands and stubbornly and without discernment goes its own way. The people of Israel have felt the bitter effects of this. And now, we today are feeling these bitter effects.
We now therefore urgently need to repent.
Repentance, an all encompassing and true turning to the Living God, will be the only thing that will reverse turn the plight of our people.
Let us pray for such a repentance.
Amen
Translation: Anders Denken