Eberhard Jüngel: Faith as Life Lived Extra Se

Faith, the heartfelt Yes to God's judgement, is the foundational act of a life lived definitively outside itself. Faith thus follows the movement of the Word that justifies sinners. In faith we agree that God's justifying Word is calling, taking and placing us outside ourselves. In faith we go outside ourselves, that is, in conformity with the divine decision that affects us. In faith we comprehend the movement of our own justification which has already taken place in Jesus Christ, and it is in that comprehension - and not in some other way! - that we also complement that comprehension. As those who have been moved, we move; as those who have been moved by the grace and the Word of God, we move in accordance with this movement of divine grace and the divine Word. Believing, we trust God and thus entrust ourselves to the movement of grace and God's Word. That is why the external righteousness of God becomes in faith our own righteousness. For, as we believe, we allow ourselves to be transposed to the place which is our rightful place, that is where we, as human beings, are in our rightful human place: with God and his righteousness - with the God who is gracious to us and who, out of his grace, has suffered the judgement of a sinner condemned to death in order to bring new, justified life to light out of the darkness of such a death.

That is where I come to myself. That is where I am righteous. Outside myself I am in full possession of myself. If such a thing as Christian mysticism existed, it would consist of some such crossover of the inward and the outward, whereby the God who speaks to me in the act of justification calls me out to him in a fellowship of life. Of course, such fellowship can only be a fellowship along the way. The mystical union would not be the goal, but the way. Furthermore, it would be a way where the world was not shut out, but viewed from a new perspective. It follows that this would be a way where our senses might not - as is otherwise the case in mystical exercises - be excluded, but rather would be heightened, so that we would have eyes to see, ears to hear - to hear and be amazed. It would be a mysticism of opened eyes and opened ears.

[E. Jüngel, Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith, 242-43.]