Georg Steinberger
Sincere, truth-seeking, and God-fearing people have always longed to follow Jesus. Neither is there any shortage of strong and clear exhortations on this subject in the Bible; both the Gospels and Paul’s letters are full of such exhortations.
Reading what such people have written is very impactful, and it often leaves a deep and lasting impression. One person who exemplified such a deep longing, and who also received special grace from God to put his thoughts and longings into writing, was the German preacher and author Georg Steinberger.
Steinberger’s Life
Steinberger was born into a lowly family in the Bavarian countryside in 1865. Even as a young man, he was deeply gripped by God. He did well in school and loved hearing stories about Christian missionaries who traveled to foreign lands to spread the gospel. He made a personal decision to become a missionary and go out to spread the gospel. For various reasons, he had to give up those plans and instead became an apprentice shoemaker.
Despite his devotion to God, he struggled for a long time to find peace. He experienced a turning point when he visited a widow who had recently lost her husband. She recounted an experience at her husband’s deathbed. When she asked him how he was doing, he sat up in bed and recited aloud a well-known German hymn:
“Soon it will be overcome,
Only through the blood of the Lamb,
Which, in the darkest times,
Works the greatest miracles.”
Shortly thereafter, the man died.
The story made an indelible impression on the young Steinberger. He realized that he had to view Jesus’ work as something that had a practical impact and significance on his life. The image of Jesus as the Lamb, and the blood of the Lamb that cleanses from sin—“which, in the darkest times, works the greatest miracles”—would become central to Steinberger’s literary work. This experience, and the opportunity to have meaningful conversations with like-minded people who wanted to follow Jesus, became the most precious thing he knew.
Mission and social work
Georg Steinberger quickly became a well-known and beloved figure in his local community. He lived a very simple life, gave away most of what he earned, visited the sick and needy, and helped, comforted, and encouraged people wherever he went. Steinberg preached the gospel and carried out various forms of social work where he lived. He never became a missionary in distant lands, but wherever God had placed him, he was faithful in his good work, which left a deep impression on the lives of many people.
Georg Steinberger died as early as 1904, at the age of just 38. By then he had been ill for quite some time. In the final years of his life, he lived in the Swiss village of Rämismühle, where he assisted at a mental hospital.
Steinberger’s writings
Steinberger left behind a rich literary legacy, despite the fact that he died at a relatively young age. He was a passionate and energetic man who accomplished a great deal during his short life.
He placed particular emphasis on the fact that a Christian must die to self and then rest in God. Only when Christians have died to self and surrendered their lives to the world can God truly work in them. He wrote several devotional books, three of which have been particularly relevant to Hidden Treasures. These are the books: Small Lights on the Way of Discipleship, In the Footprints of the Lamb, and Victory or Defeat.
In these books, Steinberger writes simple, short chapters on how a Christian should follow Jesus. Here is an excerpt from his writings, published after his death:
“Matthew 10:38: And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. The Lord knows His disciples by their cross. He who does not carry his cross cannot walk alongside the Lamb. Only in connection with the cross does one lose one’s self-life on which the curse rests and find new life, in which Jesus is the pivotal center, the alpha and the omega. Lord, lead me deep into Your ways. There is rest, because you have nothing more to fear for your own part or to seek for yourself. In these two things: seeking one’s own and fearing for one’s own is the source of much unrest and, therein, lie most of Satan’s snares.”
Following Jesus
The theme that Christians must follow Jesus runs like a common thread throughout Steinberger’s entire works. In this regard, he is particularly concerned that Christians must renounce the world if discipleship is truly to become a reality. He writes in an excerpt from the book Small Lights on the Path of Discipleship:
“To enter the land of rest, Israel had to cross the Jordan (Jordan means ‘death’); there was no other way. God said, “Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan.” They had to go in and through it—not fly over it! We must enter into the reality of the cross, and not, as many try to do, bypass it in faith. Hence the many disappointments, the search for the promised rest and the promised victory. One perishes in the desert of self-centered living.”
Here we can clearly see Steinberger’s way of thinking. The Christian who wholeheartedly rejects the world, experiences the cross as a death to everything of self. And it is precisely human selfishness that bars the way to the divine life. By considering ourselves dead to sin but alive to God, as Paul describes in Romans, we gain access to divine powers and divine life. That opens up a whole new dimension. What might initially be seen as something negative, brutal, and harsh becomes a source of joy, peace, and glory.
Dead with him
In the book Victory or Defeat, Steinberger writes:
“We could summarize the entire sanctification with Paul’s words: ‘Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.’ As far as we have fellowship with Christ’s death, we also have communion with His life.
>For a child of God, the main goal is to die, i.e. he must face all things as one who has died. This is also the main point of Romans 6: Our old man has been crucified with Christ; we died to sin, and therefore justified from sin, i.e. free from it, it has no more claim over us—and so you should also consider yourselves dead to sin.
However, this ‘being crucified and dead with Christ’ is not to be understood as if it was a death that had occurred and had removed all the temptation to sin in the world, like bodily death would. No, it is a new state of faith. Verse 11 shows this clearly enough when it says: ‘So you also must consider yourselves […]’ Here is the good fight of faith, which will not win anything by its own strength, but enters into that which Christ has won for us.
To be crucified means to be put out of business. A person who has been crucified cannot move their hands or feet. This is the way it is for those who are crucified with Christ; but as soon as they depart from this state, they are back to where they were before. If you leave the ‘old man’ where he is, he remains in death; but if you keep bringing him out, he will be revived and become alive again.”
Source: https://app.hiddentreasures.org/en/hidden-treasures/1916/12/4-victory-over-sin
Following Jesus
Since his death, Steinberger’s writings have been read by many devout Christians. His book “In the Footprints of the Lamb” in particular, has been widely read. He is part of a long tradition of Christians who have taken the call to follow Jesus seriously. He urged that our Christian life only becomes true, genuine, and fully satisfying when we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, just as Peter exhorts us to do.
As mentioned earlier, the image of the Lamb’s blood cleansing people of their sins was important to Steinberger. But from what he wrote and from the life he lived, we can see that he understood this in a way that was quite different from what unfortunately, is often the typical Christian understanding. In various contexts, people have often spoken of blood as “covering” sin. But for Steinberger, it was the cleansing power of blood that was central.
For the blood is not meant to cover sin. It should cleanse, just as it does in the body. This cleansing was precisely one of “the greatest miracles,” as mentioned in the hymn he was so often reminded of.
It may seem brutal, almost morbid, all this focus on blood, death, and crucifixion. But for Steinberger, this death of the human self-will—the will to live according to one’s selfish desires—was the only gateway to true happiness, contentment, joy, and peace.
Even today, those who wish to be true followers of Jesus will relate to this.
See the film about Steinberger here.