yours, and you gave them to me.’^45 Thus he creates the perspective
of dialogical personal appropriation between God and humans.
Zinzendorf’s overarching theological approach concerns the three
terms‘redeem’(Speech Seven),‘acquire’, and‘liberate’as follows:
‘These are three different titles or rights (Rechte). Redemption occurs
through paying a price. Something is acquired through effort and
labour (mühe und arbeit). Liberation or conquest occurs through
struggle (streit).’^46
The language of rights is significant, since people receive new rights
or privileges as a result of the work of Christ. Zinzendorf describes the
middle part of this work in very concrete terms:
...finally, Christ had to perform such labour of soul and feeling
(seelen- und gemuthsarbeit) as made him sweat blood. We can surely
believe that he did acquire something through that. Why? Because his
soul worked. For this reason, he is also called‘servant’, that is, worker, a
person who labours hard. Surely, when we look at this labour of our
Saviour, and see how easily we come through the world, we ought to be
ashamed.^47Through his speeches, Zinzendorf employs the image of lord and
servant, saying for instance that all creatures are the Lord’s servants.^48
Remarkably, he reverses their roles, the lord becoming the servant
who labours for the sake of those who are normally called servants.
This labour leads to the appropriation of people as the property of
Christ. At the same time, this event of‘acquiring’resembles a per-
formative recognition of humanity:
Through this labour we are acquired in a special manner as his wages
and, as the prophets tend to say, his delight (lust), Isa. 53:11....Thus
the Saviour has his delight and joy with us, and the wages of his
immense effort are that he can enjoy us (an uns satt haben kan).^49Zinzendorf then asks rhetorically whether people want to respond to
this labour, or whether they would rather run away from the bride-
groom Christ like sinful brides.^50 Zinzendorf refers to Christians as
brides also elsewhere in hisSpeeches.^51
In Speech Six, the theme of Christian servants is elaborated. Some
oppose this idea, saying:‘I would like to become Christ’s property, but
(^45) Reden, 100, similarly p. 121. (^46) Reden, 102.
(^47) Reden, 107–8. (^48) Reden, 86, cf. 129–30. (^49) Reden, 108.
(^50) Reden, 108–9. (^51) Reden, 121.
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