HOLINESS VICTORIOUS (Part 1) - Bach: Cantata 67 at Easter I

Commentary No. 36 of The Bach Cantatas

The epistle is 1 John 5:4-10. If you’re a rationalist, this epistle is impossible. It asserts that being born again in God, through belief in the Christ regeneratively baptized and fulfillingly crucified, even though He is witnessed metaphorically, vanquishes and prevails over one’s struggles in the world. It is a victory, moved through the holiness of the Spirit that sprang from the Word, over mortality. It is a cleansing victory over the innate impurity, the formerly ineradicable sin and guilt, of oneself. I suppose that if one accepts that one is replete with primal sin, then its washing away is undoubtedly attractive and plausible.

Caravaggio: Supper at Emmaus (1602-03, National Gallery, London)

On the other hand, if one does not believe in the testament, the new covenant, that God has created through the passion of His Son, then one must be lying. This presents an either/or fallacy. But that’s logic. Faith argues and affirms differently. I refer my reader back to the second chapter of the second book in this series, and this quote from Marcel Proust’s Albertine disparue:

« Les liens entre un être et nous n’existent que dans notre pensée. La mémoire en s’affaiblissant les relâche, et malgré l’illusion dont nous voudrions être dupes, et dont par amour, par amitié, par politesse, par respect humain, par devoir, nous dupons les autres, nous existons seuls. L’homme est l’être qui ne peut sortir de soi, qui ne connaît les autres qu’en soi, et, en disant le contraire, ment. »

The epistle:

⁴ For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

⁵ Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

⁶ This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

⁷ For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

⁸ And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

⁹ If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.

¹⁰ He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

The gospel is John 20:19-31, which is John’s version (with a continuation about the doubting Thomas) of what Luke relates in 24:36-47, which is the gospel for Easter Tuesday, discussed in Book Six of this series. Bear in mind that the disciples at the first manifestation of Jesus among them also were doubtful, so the point of their afterwards certainty is simply reinforced by a retelling of doubt vanquished by ‘fact.’ The critical verse is 29: even if one never ‘sees’ Christ, blessed still are they who nonetheless believe. No fact required.