The (Actual) Barmen Declaration

Well, the first draft at least. Nick Baines, the "restless bishop," recently made a stop in Basel and stopped by to visit Karl Barth's house and archive. He reflects on his visit here.

One of the photos he snapped while there is of the original handwritten draft of the Barmen Declaration from 1934. You can see a small version below or hyperlink to Nick's blog to the high-resolution, large photo. It's quite something!

Of the Barmen Declaration, Fred Sanders writes:

Each of the six theses of Barmen follow the format: Scripture passage, theological affirmation, theological denial. They move, therefore, toward more specific application to the charged situation of 1934. Sometimes quoting the Bible doesn’t get the point across; sometimes even saying what you take the Bible to mean by the words you are quoting doesn’t get the point across. Sometimes nobody can tell what point you’re trying to make until you follow the line of thought all the way out to being explicit about what you deny. 

So in the sixth and final article, after quoting the Biblical statements that the church is to teach the nations what Christ has commanded, and that the word of God is not bound, Barmen affirms: “The Church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament.” 

And then the declaration follows that with the necessary denial: “We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” In 1934, the Confessing Church was guarding itself against “arbitrarily chosen desires” having to do with a neo-pagan religion of German racial greatness. But what makes the statement classic is that it is so sharply phrased that it cuts to the heart of a myriad of church problems.

And here is the declaration itself (in English translation; here is included just 8.09-8.28):

In view of the errors of the "German Christians" and of the present Reich Church Administration, which are ravaging the Church and at the same time also shattering the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths:

1. "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

"Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved." John 10:1,9

Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God's revelation.

2. "Jesus Christ has been made wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption for us by God." 1 Cor. 1:30

As Jesus Christ is God's comforting pronouncement of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, with equal seriousness, he is also God's vigorous announcement of his claim upon our whole life. Through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords, areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

3. "Let us, however, speak the truth in love, and in every respect grow into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined together." Eph. 4:15-16

The Christian Church is the community of brethren in which, in Word and Sacrament, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ acts in the present as Lord. With both its faith and its obedience, with both its message and its order, it has to testify in the midst of the sinful world, as the Church of pardoned sinners, that it belongs to him alone and lives and may live by his comfort and under his direction alone, in expectation of his appearing.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day.

4. "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to have authority over you must be your servant." Matt. 20:25-26

The various offices in the Church do not provide a basis for some to exercise authority over others but for the ministry [lit., "service"] with which the whole community has been entrusted and charged to be carried out.

We reject the false doctrine that, apart from this ministry, the Church could, and could have permission to, give itself or allow itself to be given special leaders [Führer] vested with ruling authority.

5. "Fear God. Honor the Emperor." 1 Pet. 2:17

Scripture tells us that by divine appointment the State, in this still unredeemed world in which also the Church is situated, has the task of maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and human ability make this possible, by means of the threat and use of force. The Church acknowledges with gratitude and reverence toward God the benefit of this, his appointment. It draws attention to God's Dominion [Reich], God's commandment and justice, and with these the responsibility of those who rule and those who are ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word, by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfil the vocation of the Church as well.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.

6. "See, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matt. 28:20 "God's Word is not fettered." 2 Tim. 2:9

The Church's commission, which is the foundation of its freedom, consists in this: in Christ's stead, and so in the service of his own Word and work, to deliver all people, through preaching and sacrament, the message of the free grace of God.

We reject the false doctrine that with human vainglory the Church could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of self-chosen desires, purposes and plans.

The Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a confederation of Confessing Churches. It calls upon all who can stand in solidarity with its Declaration to be mindful of these theological findings in all their decisions concerning Church and State. It appeals to all concerned to return to unity in faith, hope and love.

Verbum Dei manet in aeternum.

The Word of God will last for ever.

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §19.1 "Scripture as a Witness to Divine Revelation" pp. 457-472

Check here for previous posts in the "Blogging with Barth" series or check here for a detailed reading schedule for the Church Dogmatics with links to the respective posts I've written to accompany each day's reading.

The Leitsatz (thesis statement) for §19 states: "The Word of God is God Himself in Holy Scripture. For God once spoke as Lord to Moses and the prophets, to the Evangelists and apostles. And now through their written word He speaks as the same Lord to His Church. Scripture is holy and the Word of God, because by the Holy Spirit it became and will become to the Church a witness to divine revelation."

In section §19 ("The Word of God for the Church") and in subsection §19.1 ("Scripture as a Witness to Divine Revelation"), Barth moves to the third major chapter in his Church Dogmatics - this time exploring the theme of 'Holy Scripture.' We are still in volume I/2. In this subsection, Barth begins with a discussion of the importance of scripture:

The theme of dogmatics (cf. Dogm. 1 §7, 1) is the question of the Word of God in the proclamation of the Christian Church, or, concretely, the question of the agreement of this proclamation with Holy Scripture as the Word of God. To answer this question as such we had first to investigate that form of the Word of God which precedes both proclamation and Holy Scripture, i.e., the revelation of God. It is because God has revealed Himself, and as He has done so, that there is a Word of God, and therefore Holy Scripture and proclamation as the Word of God, and therefore a relation and correspondence between the two, and therefore the possibility and necessity of this question of their agreement. We have already answered the question of the concept of revelation presupposed in both these other forms of the Word of God. We have not sought or found this answer at random. We have taken it from the Bible. For the Bible is a sign which, it cannot be contested, does at least point to a superior authority confronting the proclamation of the Church. In contrast to Roman Catholicism and Protestant modernism, we felt that we ought to take this sign seriously. For that reason, at every decisive point we took our answer to the question of revelation from the Bible. And the Bible has given us the answer. It has attested to us the lordship of the triune God in the incarnate Word by the Holy Spirit. But in so doing it has answered that question concerning itself which we have not yet asked. We now know to what extent it points to a superior authority confronting the proclamation of the Church: obviously to the extent that it is a witness of divine revelation (457).

Now that the content of the biblical witness is before us, we see better than we did that the actual recognition of this witness and the willingness to follow it will always be something which takes place miraculously and very simply, without any special claim. If the biblical witness is obeyed in the Church, it happens quite unassumingly, without the adornment of special grounds and reasons, or any appeal to a prophetic mission or experience or illumination. Looking back on the content of this witness, we can now say that the lordship of the triune God has shown itself to be a fact. If this is so, if therefore obedience to this witness is also a fact, if therefore the proclamation of the Church is actually subjected to and measured by and executed according to this witness, then we will not ask: why the Bible? and look for external or internal grounds and reasons. We will leave it to the Bible itself, if we are to be obedient to it, to vindicate itself by what takes place, i.e., to vindicate the witness to divine revelation which we have heard in it, to repeat itself in such a way that it can again be apprehended by the obedient man and everyone else (458). 

Barth notes the importance of scripture in Protestantism in general in a small print section beginning on 459:

We have now reached the point which, confessionally and doctrinally, the Reformation Churches of the 16th century found it so important according to their own conscience and experience expressly to fix and emphasise, as against the Roman Church on the one hand, and fanatics on the other, that it soon became the rule, and an increasingly strict rule, to introduce the official explanations of the Confession, and then theological expositions of Evangelical teaching, with an exposition of this very perception: the perception with regard to the character and significance of Holy Scripture (459).

Barth's most basic statement upon the doctrine of scripture (in harmony with Church tradition) is that it stands as a witness to divine revelation:

The basic statement of this doctrine, the statement that the Bible is the witness of divine revelation, is itself based simply on the fact that the Bible has in fact answered our question about the revelation of God, bringing before us the lordship of the triune God. Of course, we could not have received this answer, if as members of the Church we had not listened continually to the voice of the Church, i.e., if we had not respected, and as far as possible applied the exposition of the Bible by those who before and with us were and are members of the Church (462).

 In concert with the definition of the doctrine, Barth now turns his analysis to the term "witness." This term denotes a limitation of scripture which we must account for in our doctrine:

When we examine this statement more closely, we shall do well to pay attention to the particular determination in the fact that we have to call the Bible a witness of divine revelation. We have here an undoubted limitation: we distinguish the Bible as such from revelation. A witness is not absolutely identical with that to which it witnesses. This corresponds with the facts upon which the truth of the whole proposition is based. In the Bible we meet with human words written in human speech, and in these words, and therefore by means of them, we hear of the lordship of the triune God. Therefore when we have to do with the Bible, we have to do primarily with this means, with these words, with the witness which as such is not itself revelation, but only—and this is the limitation—the witness to it (463).

Having accounted for the limitation, he says that the doctrine positively affirms that scripture is in unity with revelation as it comes to us in human words from the apostles and prophets:

But the concept of witness, especially when we bear clearly in mind its limiting sense, has still something very positive to say. In this limitation the Bible is not distinguished from revelation. It is simply revelation as it comes to us, mediating and therefore accommodating itself to us—to us who are not ourselves prophets and apostles, and therefore not the immediate and direct recipients of the one revelation, witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet it is for us revelation by means of the words of the prophets and apostles written in the Bible, in which they are still alive for us as the immediate and direct recipients of revelation, and by which they speak to us. A real witness is not identical with that to which it witnesses, but it sets it before us. Again this corresponds with the facts on which the truth of the whole proposition is founded. If we have really listened to the biblical words in all their humanity, if we have accepted them as witness, we have obviously not only heard of the lordship of the triune God, but by this means it has become for us an actual presence and event. If we want to think of the Bible as a real witness of divine revelation, then clearly we have to keep two things constantly before us and give them their due weight: the limitation and the positive element, its distinctiveness from revelation, in so far as it is only a human word about it, and its unity with it, in so far as revelation is the basis, object and content of this word (463).

Because scripture is a witness to divine revelation in its human form...its human words...it must be read and understood and expounded historically (464).

We must not ignore it any more than we do the humanity of Jesus Christ Himself. We must study it, for it is here or nowhere that we shall find its divinity. The Bible is a witness of revelation which is really given and really applies and is really received by us just because it is a written word, and in fact a word written by men like ourselves,   p 464  which we can read and hear and understand as such. And it is as such that we must read and hear and understand it if this is to happen at all and there is to be any apprehension of revelation. The demand that the Bible should be read and understood and expounded historically is, therefore, obviously justified and can never be taken too seriously (463-464).

Understanding then the bible as a "human word" Barth moves to explain what he means when he says the word must be studied historically.

The fact that we have to understand and expound the Bible as a human word can now be explained rather more exactly in this way: that we have to listen to what it says to us as a human word. We have to understand it as a human word in the light of what it says. Under the caption of a truly “historical” understanding of the Bible we cannot allow ourselves to commend an understanding which does not correspond to the rule suggested: a hearing in which attention is paid to the biblical expressions but not to what the words signify, in which what is said is not heard or overheard; an understanding of the biblical words from their immanent linguistic and factual context, instead of from what they say and what we hear them say in this context; an exposition of the biblical words which in the last resort consists only in an exposition of the biblical men in their historical reality. To this we must say that it is not an honest and unreserved understanding of the biblical word as a human word, and it is not therefore an historical understanding of the Bible. In an understanding of this kind the Bible cannot be witness. In this type of understanding, in which it is taken so little seriously, indeed not at all, as a human word, the possibility of its being witness is taken away from the very outset. The philosophy which lies behind this kind of understanding and would force us to accept it as the only true historical understanding is not of course a very profound or respectable one. But even if we value it more highly, or highest of all, and are therefore disposed to place great confidence in its dictates, knowing what is involved in the understanding of the Bible, we can only describe this kind of understanding of the reality of a human word as one which cannot possibly do justice to its object. Necessarily, therefore, we have to reject most decisively the intention of even the most profound and respectable philosophy to subject any human word and especially the biblical word to this understanding. The Bible cannot be read unbiblically (466).

Studying historically and hearing the bible rightly means hearing what the bible has to say about itself. And he cites Calvin on this point approvingly, who says while expounding 2 Tim. 3:16ff...

Let us note well that in the passage, St Paul does not say, in order to demonstrate that we must hold Holy Scripture to be indubitable, that Moses was an excellent man. He does not say that Isaiah had admirable eloquence. He claims nothing about men in order to legitimate them in their persons. Rather, he says that they have been instruments of the Spirit of God, that their tongues have been conducted in such a way that they have done nothing on their own. In fact, it is God who has spoken through their mouths; he says that we must not reckon them as mortal creatures, but that we should know that the living God is using them, and that finally we should conclude that they have been faithful stewards of the treasure which has been committed to them. And if that had been well noted, one would not have fallen into such a terrible confusion as those poor papists are still in. For what is their faith founded upon, if not upon men? … Granted, they certainly claim the name of God. And yet they give priority to their dreams and fantasies, and then that is all. Against them, St Paul tells us that it is necessary to hold to Holy Scripture. So much for that. On what grounds? Because it is there that God speaks, and not men. We see then as he excludes all human authority, that it is necessary that God have His pre-eminence above all His creatures, and that large and small alike must subject themselves to Him, and that no-one should presume to interfere by saying, ‘I will declare that…’ (Calvin, Serm. on 2 Tim. 3:16f., C.R. 54, 286).

Thus, a faithful hermeneutic, according to Barth, will take into account that scripture seeks to be heard as the word of God:

It is not only not an abuse or violation either of the human word of the Bible in particular or of human words in general, but it has importance as an example when the Christian Church bases its understanding of this word, or of the two humanly composed and selected collections which we call the Bible, not only in relation to the hearing but also in relation to the exposition of it, upon what is said in this word. That it derives this hermeneutic principle from the Bible itself, i.e., that the Bible itself, because of the unusual preponderance of what is said in it over the word as such, enforces this principle upon it, does not alter the fact that this principle is necessarily the principle of all hermeneutics, and that therefore the principle of the Church’s doctrine of Holy Scripture, that the Bible is the witness of divine revelation, is simply the special form of that universally valid hermeneutic principle (468).

In the next section, Barth will have much more to say about scripture as the word of God. Stay tuned. 

Library Additions, Books in the Mail

C. Baxter Kruger, The Great Dance [Kindle]
Donald Bloesch, The Christian Foundation Series (seven books) [Logos]
Allen and Hughes, Discovering Our Roots: The Ancestry of Churches of Christ [paperback]

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §18.3 "The Praise of God" pp. 401-454

Check here for previous posts in the "Blogging with Barth" series or check here for a detailed reading schedule for the Church Dogmatics with links to the respective posts I've written to accompany each day's reading.

The Leitsatz (thesis statement) for §18 states: "Where it is believed and acknowledged in the Holy Spirit, the revelation of God creates men who do not exist without seeking God in Jesus Christ, and who cannot cease to testify that He has found them."

In subsection §18.3 ("The Praise of God"), Barth begins his exposition on the "doing" side of the greatest commands. First there is the love of God (the 'being') then there is the praise of the God (the 'doing'). Working from Mark 12 again, Barth is look at the greatest commandment, the second one this time, the love of the neighbor. He writes:

Rather strangely, the emphasis in Mk. 12 falls on the last part, the “second commandment,” “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” From what we said at the outset, and fundamentally, about the relationship between the love and the praise of God, and from what we have just said in our exposition of the commandment to love, this really comes under our new heading. As anticipated, the whole meaning and content of the commandment to love our neighbour is that as God’s children, and therefore as those who love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we are summoned and claimed for the praise of God as the activity and work of thankfulness which, by reason of our being as those who love, we cannot avoid. The “second” commandment has no other meaning and content apart from and in addition to: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his Holy name.” And vice versa, it is by the “second” commandment that we experience point by point and exhaustively what is the praise of God, what is the meaning and content of the revealing, manifesting, attesting, confessing, living out and showing forth of the lordship and redemption which has come to the children of God. Therefore we have to say just as strictly that no praise of God is serious, or can be taken seriously, if it is apart from or in addition to the commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as  thyself.” Whatever else we may understand by the praise of God, we shall always have to understand it as obedience to this commandment (401-402).

Barth begins by asking how the first command (the love of God) in the Greatest Commands relates to the second command (the love of neighbor). He rejects several things. First, the second command does not stand absolutely separate from the first command (402). There are not two absolute commandments side by side. But neither is the second commandment identical to the first (402-406). God is the one Lord and God and people are not God and we wouldn't want to confound this distinction by insisting that both commands are identical and equal. God is not the neighbor, the neighbor is not God. Also, Barth rejects a third possibility, that the second commandment is derived or relative to the first command (406-409).  He concludes:

The connexion and the difference between the two commandments are plain when we remember that the children of God, the Church, now live, as it were, in the space between the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and in the time of the forbearance of God and their own watching and waiting. In effect they live in two times and worlds (408). 

[...] 

They have to wait and watch for their Lord as iusti peccatores*. They have to serve Him in the relationships, connexions and orderings of a reality which has, of course, been overthrown and superseded by His resurrection, but not yet visibly abolished and replaced by His second coming, in the space between the times, where it doth not yet appear what they shall be. They “walk” in the light in face of darkness, and in this visible pilgrimage in all its hope and peril, which is simply the totality of their actual human and creaturely activity here and now, God has placed them under the commandment to love their neighbor (409). 

So, regarding the relation between the two commandments, Barth suggests three features demand emphases (he calls these a "purifying of the presuppositions" on p. 411):

1) First, the two commands should be genuinely distinguished (409).

2) Second, both commandments "have to do with the one claim of the one God on the whole man" (409).

3) Third, the two commandments are not symmetrical and there is a reason that the two commands are not symmetrical: "To the extent...that the commandment to love God refers us to our existence in the time and world which comes and remains, the commandment to love the neighbour in the time and world which now is and passes, we are in fact dealing with a first and a second commandment, a primary and a secondary, a superior and a subordinate, an eternal and a temporary. The two times and worlds are not symmetrical. They do not balance each other. The one prevails over the other. That which comes and remains has the priority and superiority over that which now is and passes" (410).

Barth now turns, once again, to an exposition of the text in Mark 12....

1) First, the "thou shalt" means that we are witnesses and need to act in obedience as witnesses, not hiding our "lights under a bushel" in relation to the present world. No, we let them shine in love for the neighbor as we love God now because he first love us.

It is actually the case that in the midst of the world which now is and passes, they cannot cease to attest that God has found them. For they cannot exist without seeking Him as members of the eternal time and world, for which He has made them. The twofold determination of their existence, that they are members of both the coming and the passing world, cannot involve any limitation of the commandment and of obedience to it. On the contrary, it is because they are found, and therefore members of the coming world, that they are also members of the passing world. The second commandment, that they should love their neighbour, reminds them of the unity and therefore of the totality of their existence as the children of God. But if we think of love to the neighbour as in this sense based on love to God and therefore enclosed by it, here, too, we cannot understand the “thou shalt” apart from the promise: “thou wilt.” When it is a matter of the neighbour, it is a question of our walk and activity as those who love God, of the inevitable outward side of that which inwardly is love to God. If love to God is its content, the “thou shalt” simply shows to the children of God the future which is definitely before them: thou wilt be what thou must be as one who is loved by God; thou wilt seek the One who hath found thee. But this being the case, obviously the second commandment, if love to the neighbour is its content, can only show them the future which is before the one who hears the first command and is therefore to be addressed as one who loves God. The one who loves God, the second commandment tells us, will love his neighbour as himself (411-412).

2) Second, the "neighbor" is...an event, an opportunity to offer our praise to God, our brother, often times a needy one who is suffering, our benefactor, a hidden representative of Christ (420-430):

In the biblical sense of the concept my neighbour is not this or that man as such. Nor is he the member of this or that larger or smaller group, or of the group which comprises the whole of humanity. It is not therefore the case that the question: Who is my neighbour? really means: Is this or that individual one of my neighbours? On the contrary, my neighbour is an event which takes place in the existence of a definite man definitely marked off from all other men. My neighbour is my fellow-man acting towards me as a benefactor. Every fellow-man can act towards me in this way, not, of course, in virtue of the fact that he is a man or that he is this particular man, but in virtue of the fact that he can have the commission and authority to do so. But not every fellow-man does in fact act towards me in this way. Therefore not every man is my neighbour. My neighbour is the man who emerges from amongst all my fellow-men as this one thing in particular, my benefactor. I myself, of course, must be summoned by Jesus Christ, and I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise, that is, to be myself a benefactor, if I am to experience as such the emergence of a fellow-man as my benefactor, and therefore to see and have him as my neighbour. Therefore I myself have a decisive part in the event by which a fellow-man is my neighbour. But when we say this, do we not simply say that the whole matter is that of an event? What is the meaning and content of this event, and therefore of the benefit which comes to me through my neighbour? To begin with, we can only reply that it consists in this: that through my neighbour I am referred to the order in which I can and should offer to God, whom I love because He first loved me, the absolutely necessary praise which is meet and acceptable to Him (420).

[...] 

The afflicted fellow-man offers himself to us as such. And as such he is actually the representative of Jesus Christ. As such he is actually the bearer and representative of the divine compassion. As such he actually directs us to the right praise of God. For him to be and do this, we do not need to know anything about his mission, about the sacramental character of his existence. At first we will not be able to know anything about it. We need to take him simply as what he actually is: as the neighbour who is near us propinquissimus [most nearly] in his misery. That is how the purpose is fulfilled which God has with him and for us. That is how we have to do with Jesus Christ Himself in this world, in the time of waiting and watching. For that reason we need to have to do only with our fellow-man. In a purely secular, profane and human way, this fellow-man confirms to the children of God the Word of God, by which they are begotten: the Word of their reconciliation by Him who although He knew no sin, was made to be sin. How can it be confirmed to them more powerfully and clearly than by their recognising in their fellow-man the afflicted one, the sinner, the one who is punished for his sin? (429-430).

3) Third, to "love" the neighbor means...my readiness to live in co-existence with the neighbor, to see in the neighbor my own state and need, and in that way, be served, even as we serve. I witness to him and serve him though I have no knowledge of what work is taking place in this neighbor's life. "I simply live the life of my faith in the concrete encounter with the neighbor ..."

We go on to ask what is meant by “Thou shalt love thy neighbour.” In view of all that we have said about “shalt” and “neighbour” we can only reply that in the sense of the second commandment to love means to enter into the future which God has posited for us in and with the existence of our neighbour. Therefore to love means to subject ourselves to the order instituted in the form of our neighbour. To love means to accept the benefit which God has shown by not leaving us alone but having given us the neighbour. To love means, therefore, to reconcile ourselves to the existence of the neighbour, to find ourselves in the fact that God wills us to exist as His children in this way and this alone: in co-existence with this neighbour, under the direction which we have to receive from him, in the limitation and determination which his existence actually means for ours, in the respecting and acceptance of the mission which he actually has in relation to us (430). 

[...]

But that they accept the existence of the neighbour, and willingly so, can never be the last word on the subject. To accept my neighbour necessarily means to accept his service. As we have seen, if I  really recognise him as my neighbour, he serves me by showing me in his own person my sin and misery, and in that way the condescension of God and the humanity of Jesus Christ the Crucified. We had to lay all the emphasis upon the fact that this is the actual content of my meeting with the neighbour as such. Of course, Jesus Christ is always concealed in the neighbour. The neighbour is not a second revelation of Jesus Christ side by side with the first. When he meets me, the neighbour is not in any sense a second Christ. He is only my neighbour. And it is only as such and in his difference from Christ, only as a sign instituted by Christ, that we can speak of his solidarity and identity with Christ. Therefore once again to love the neighbour necessarily means that we actually allow him, just as he is, and as we see him, to do the service which he has to do us. But again that means that we allow him to call us to order, to remind us of our place. Our place is not that of those who boast of a possession and have therefore to substantiate a claim. It is only by forgiveness that the children are saved from the judgment of God. That they have received forgiveness is their new birth, the work of the divine Word and Spirit within them. That they ought to live by forgiveness is the new life which is given them with all the gifts of faith, knowledge, holiness, joy, humility and also love, which are included in this life (434-435).

[...]

...I praise God, i.e., bear witness to my neighbour of the love with which God in Jesus Christ has loved me and him. To love the neighbour, therefore, is plainly and simply to be to him a witness of Jesus Christ. That the duty of love is the duty of witness results from the fact that I am summoned by my encounter with the neighbour to expect to find in him a brother of Jesus Christ and therefore my own brother. I do not know this. I cannot perceive it in my neighbour. All the more reason, therefore, why I should definitely believe it of him when he actually proclaims to me the grace of God, when he acts towards me as a servant of God, when he has acquired for me this sacramental significance. If he has reminded me that I live by forgiveness, how can I not be summoned to assume the same of him? How can I believe that he will have a different future from myself? How can I not think of him that as one who is loved by God he will love God in return? It is this faith in respect of him that I now have to live out. And the living out of this faith is the witness to which he has a claim and which I owe him. It will be as well—just because it is a question of helping the neighbour—not to connect the concept of witness with the idea of an end or purpose. Witness in the Christian sense of the concept is the greeting with which, if and when I believe, I have to greet my neighbour, the declaration of my fellowship with one in whom I expect to find a brother of Jesus Christ and therefore my own brother. I do not will anything and I may not will anything in rendering this witness. I simply live the life of my faith in the concrete encounter with the neighbor (440-441).

[...]

A witness is neither a guardian nor a teacher. A witness will not intrude on his neighbour. He will not “handle” him. He will not make him the object of his activity, even with the best intention. Witness can be given only when there is respect for the freedom of the grace of God, and therefore respect for the other man who can expect nothing from me but everything from God. It is in serious acknowledgment of his claim and our responsibility that we do not infringe this twofold respect. I only declare to the other that in relation to him I believe in Jesus Christ, that I do not therefore meet him as a stranger but as my brother, even though I do not know that he is. I do not withhold from him the praise which I owe to God. In that way I fulfil my responsibility to my neighbor (441).

Barth now proceeds to articulate three decisive forms of this witness (and this love):

1) First, I witness to Jesus Christ: "When it is a matter of bearing testimony, there can be only one theme and centre of what I say. And that is the indication of the name of Jesus Christ as the essence and existence of the loving kindness in which God has taken to Himself sinful man, in order that he should not be lost but saved by Him. This name, and in the strict sense only this name, the name of the Helper, is what we know about help in need, and therefore can and must speak. This name is the word which we do not grudge our neighbour, but with which we have to greet him as a future brother" (443).

2) Second, we give help as a sign of God's promised help: "The second form of the witness consists in the fact that I give assistance to my neighbour as a sign of the promised help of God. At this point we touch the sphere in which love to the neighbour or the active expression of that love is particularly or even exclusively to be sought, according to a widespread view. But there is no place here for an emphasising or exclusive emphasising of this sphere" (444).

3) Third, I show by my attitude the things I am witnessing to in word and deed: "The third form of witness consists in this: that I substantiate to my neighbour by my attitude what I have to say to him by word and deed. Here again it is not a question of a third thing, which has to be added to a first and second. If it had still to be added, then the first two, even my word and deed, would not be the witness which I owe to my neighbour. Again there can be no witness by an attitude apart from the word and deed. The witness in question is that of an attitude in the word and deed, of the word and deed as they become event in a definite attitude. By attitude as opposed to word and deed we have to understand the disposition and mood in which I meet my neighbour, the impression of myself which I make on him in speaking to him and acting on his behalf. The only attitude which we can regard as consistent with witness is the evangelical attitude. If my words and acts are real witness to Jesus Christ, then in, with and under them there is an additional and decisive something of my own subjection to the lordship of Jesus Christ, of the comfort of forgiveness, by which I myself live, of the liberty of the children of God in which I myself move" (447).

Finally, Barth turns to the last part of the second commandment, "as thyself":

We will do this in our survey of the final part of the text of Mk. 12, which so far we have not discussed. What does it mean when it says: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (450). 

This is not self-love! To love the neighbor as myself limits self-love.

The only positive meaning of “as thyself” is, then, that we are commanded to love our neighbour as those who love themselves, i.e., as those who in reality do not love, as the sinners that we are. It is as those who in fact and absolutely and constantly seek themselves and serve themselves and think of themselves, in this reality that we are addressed and claimed by the revelation and commandment of God and therefore concretely by the commandment to love our neighbour. This reality of self-love and therefore of sin is the reality of the life of the children of God in this present, passing world and therefore in relation to this activity. We have already asked who are we who are summoned to love our neighbour? and what have we to stake and offer who have not only to bear witness but to be witnesses in word and deed and attitude? We are now given the answer—by the commandment itself—that we can stake and offer ourselves only as sinners. Even as we love our neighbour, it will always be true that we love ourselves, that there is, therefore, no love in us. Our existence is that of those who absolutely and constantly withdraw from love. That, and the fact that we stand under the judgment of the commandment, is the answer which we must give to the question which is made particularly urgent by the problem of our attitude (450-451).

[...] 

We cannot meet him in a self-invented mask of love. We can only venture, as the men we are, to do what we are commanded in word and deed and attitude, relying entirely on the fact that the one who commands that we—who are without love—should love, will see to it that what we do will be real loving. There can be no question about it—this fidelity to the Gospel in the commandment belongs to our obedience to the commandment as such—we have to rely on the miracle, the free grace of God, to make good what we with our own foresight can only bungle. We have to trust in the fact that Jesus Christ will be present in this meeting with my neighbour. It will be His business, not mine, and however badly I play my part, He will conduct His business successfully and well. We have to rely on the fact that it is Jesus Christ who has given me a part in His business; that He has not done so in vain; that He will make use of my service, and in that way make it real service, even though I do not see how my service can be real service. We have to rely on the fact that Jesus Christ is the Lord, in whose hand the other is the neighbour; that He became man and died for him; that my lack of love cannot and will not prevent Him calling the other to Him by me. These are not guarantees. They can only be an assurance. But this assurance is required of us when we are commanded: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. It is only in this assurance that obedience is possible (453).

This obedience will necessitate two things from us: the courage of humility and the assurance of prayer. Here I will let Barth's final two paragraphs in the REMARKABLE subsection close us out (pp. 453-454):

(a) The courage with which in obedience to the commandment, without foresight, indeed against all foresight, a man turns to his neighbour to fulfil the commandment by what he does, to be to him a witness in word and deed and attitude—this courage can only be the courage of humility, in which he puts himself at the disposal of the ministry and mission and commission of the Church. The commission to testify is in fact the commission of the Church. And the promise of this commission—the presence of Jesus Christ, His control in the midst of man’s perversity, the power of the forgiveness of sin which He pronounces, the power of an action in His name—this promise is the promise which is given to the Church. In holy baptism I am placed by the Church under the promise of the Holy Ghost. I am instructed and comforted and led by the Church. In the Lord’s Supper I am nourished by the Church on the true body and blood of Christ to eternal life. And it is in this sacramental positing and ordering of my existence that I lay hold of that assurance and put it into action. It is as I accept this sacramental determination of my existence in all its concreteness that I have the concrete courage for that assurance, and therefore for the obedience whose result I cannot foresee, and therefore for the love of my neighbour. We know, in fact, that the life of the children of God is simply the life of the Church of God. 

(b) To lay hold of that assurance and to put it into action means calling upon God in prayer. The promise given to the Church has still to be received again and again by each of its members. The Church with its commission and promise lives in its sinful members. And as the Church for its own sake cannot wish to crowd out and replace the Lord and the free grace in which He speaks individually to each individual, again for its own sake it cannot take away from the individual the calling on this Lord, the direct appeal to His free grace. Prayer is the subjective determination of the assurance in which we can love our neighbour, just as the Church and baptism and the Supper are its objective determination. Praying is the decisive thing, which makes this assurance possible for us: the casting of our care upon God: our care about ourselves—how it is with our loving; and our care about the other—whether our love will reach him. In the last resort we can only love the neighbour by praying for ourselves and for him: for ourselves, that we may love him rightly, and for him, that he may let himself be loved; which means that either way prayer can have only one content and purpose: that according to His promise Jesus Christ may let His work be done for and to ourselves and to our neighbour. Praying, asking of God, can consist only in receiving what God has already prepared for us, before and apart from our stretching out our hands for it. It is in this praise of God that the children of God live, who love God, because He first loved them.

I will return to this subsection many times in my life, Lord willing. 

Conference Program: 2014 Karl Barth Conference, "Karl Barth, the Jews, & Judaism"

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §18.2 "The Love of God" pp. 371-401

Check here for previous posts in the "Blogging with Barth" series or check here for a detailed reading schedule for the Church Dogmatics with links to the respective posts I've written to accompany each day's reading.

The Leitsatz (thesis statement) for §18 states: "Where it is believed and acknowledged in the Holy Spirit, the revelation of God creates men who do not exist without seeking God in Jesus Christ, and who cannot cease to testify that He has found them."

In subsection §18.2 ("The Love of God"), Barth begins by declaring that we love because God has loved us - and love is the totality of the Christian life:

The Christian life begins with love. It also ends with love, so far as it has an end as human life in time. There is nothing that we can or must be or do as a Christian, or to become a Christian, prior to love. Even faith does not anticipate love. As we come to faith we begin to love. If we did not begin to love, we would not have come to faith. Faith is faith in Jesus Christ. If we believe, the fact that we do so means that every ground which is not that of our being in love to God in Christ is cut away from under us: we cannot exist without seeking God. If this were not the case, we should have failed to come to faith. And the fact that it is so is a confirmation that our faith is not an illusion, but that we ourselves as men do really believe (371). 

Love is the essence of Christian living. It is also its conditio sine qua non [necessary condition], in every conceivable connexion. Wherever the Christian life in commission or omission is good before God, the good thing about it is love (372).

But from this we may gather that as the living expression of the human children of God, as the self-determination of human existence, neither in essence nor in actuality can love be understood in itself, but only in that sphere or light of the divine predestination, in which we stand when we hear and believe in the Word of God and are born again as the children of God. If love is the essence and totality of the good demanded of us, how can it be known that we love? Obviously it can be said that we do so only because something else can first be said of us, that we are loved, that we are men beloved. If there is nothing in the Christian life which can precede love, the love of God for man must first precede the Christian life as such, if it is to begin with love (372).

This love is a creation of God in us through the work of faith empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is not something that becomes in us due to a natural capacity that we possess:

We must not do violence to the miracle of the Holy Spirit, the founding of the love of the children of God, even in its more precise form, by letting God be God and man man, but trying to explain the origin of love in man as a supernatural extension of natural human capacity. If we ask how it is possible for man to love, according to Holy Scripture, we have first to go back to faith, and then from faith to its object, Jesus Christ. It is in spite of and within the limitation of his natural capacities that man is met by Jesus Christ in faith in the promise. He is still a creature, afterwards as well as before. He is still a sinful creature. But he is met by Jesus Christ and sees and knows Him as very God and very Man, and therefore as the Reconciler. And that is the miracle of the Holy Spirit and therefore the founding of love in man (374-375).

Our knowledge of love comes to us because of the love of God for us - not because there is some "master concept" of God's love which is knowable apart from the love of God:

But it cannot be otherwise than that the love of God for us is the basis not only of the reality but also of the knowledge of Christian love. This means that we must not deduce the real meaning of love in this context from some arbitrarily if profoundly chosen masterconcept of love in general, comprising the love of God for us on the one hand and our love for God on the other. Even in love there is only an indirect identification of the believer with God in Christ. How then can we ever set up or apply a master-concept of this kind? To know what love is, we have first to ask concerning the unique love of God for us. What our love is will necessarily appear when we ask about our response to this love of God for us and the confirmation and acknowledgment which we owe it. Only then, and by means of the standard which is given us in that way, can we assess the rightness or wrongness of a concept of love which is otherwise completely arbitrary (375–376).

Barth now turns his attention to defining what the love of God is; not surprisingly, it is not sentiment or feeling, but it is an intrinsic love which is a part of the Trinitarian God:

We will now try to give the briefest possible outline of what the love of God is which is the real basis of our love to God, determining its character. One thing is certain, that according to Holy Scripture it has nothing to do with mere sentiment, opinion or feeling. On the contrary, it consists in a definite being, relationship and action. God is love in Himself. Being loved by Him we can, as it were, look into His “heart.” The fact that He loves us means that we can know Him as He is. This is all true. But if this picture-language of “the heart of God” is to have any validity, it can refer only to the being of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It reminds us that God’s love for us is an overwhelming, overflowing, free love. It speaks to us of the miracle of this love. We cannot say anything higher or better of the “inwardness of God” than that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and therefore that He is love in Himself without and before loving us, and without being forced to love us. And we can say this only in the light of the “outwardness” of God to us, the occurrence of His revelation. It is from this that we have to learn what is the real nature of the love of God for us (377).

The love of God is also the "fact of his election" - which finds its summary in the name of Jesus Christ and the self-sacrifice of God the Son, Jesus Christ, for us, who bears or shame and our curse:

In Holy Scripture the love of God to us speaks the language of this fact—the fact of His election, guidance, help and salvation—and it is in this language that it has to be heard and understood. But all the expressions of this factual language meet in the name of Jesus Christ. In this name the approach of God to man consists in one fact alone. This is, of course, the event of revelation and reconciliation in the one Word, which is the Son of God. It is the fact that God intercedes for man, that He takes upon Himself the sin and guilt and death of man, that laden with it all He stands surety for him (378).

This self-sacrifice of God in His Son is in fact the love of God to us. “He gave Him,” which means that He gave Him into our existence. Having been given into our existence He is present with us. Present with us, He falls heir to the shame and the curse which lie upon us. As the bearer of our shame and curse, He bears them away from us. Taking them away, He presents us as pure and spotless children in the presence of His Father. That is how God reconciles the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). We can, indeed, speak of the love of God to us only by pointing to this fact. It is the work and gift of the Holy Spirit that the fact itself speaks to us, that in the language of this fact God says: “I have loved thee…fear not, then; for I am with thee” (Is. 43:4f.). No other saying is needed, for this one says all there is to say (378).

Therefore when we try to describe to ourselves the love of God, we can only express and proclaim the name of Jesus Christ. That is what it means to speak concretely of the love of God, i.e., in face of the complementary question: What then shall we do? In this connexion it is perhaps as well to remember only one thing. We have touched upon it already: that God has no need to love us, and we have no claim upon His love. God is love, before He loves us and apart from it. Like everything else that He is, He is love as the triune God in Himself. Even without us and without the world and without the reconciliation of the world, He would not experience any lack of love in Himself. How then can we for our part declare it to be necessary that we should be loved by Him? It is, in fact, the free mercy and kindness of God which meets us in His love (379).

Barth now moves to take up another question - what is our loving all about? To answer that, Barth makes an exposition upon the Greatest Commands, particularly through the lens of Mark 12:29-31:

We now turn to the second question, that of our loving, which we can understand as an answer to the love of God for us. This must be the standard for all that we have to say. It must be set over against our presentation of the fact. It must be a description of the human self-determination which occurs in the sphere and light of the divine predestination. It must correspond on man’s side to that which is said by God on His Side. We cannot deny or hide the fact that in one way or another we all think we know already about human loving, and we continue to do so even when confronted by the fact of the love of God to us. If, then, we are asking about Christian love, let us say what we know. But only in the limits and under the discipline of this canon. If we forget it or pass it by in favour of some preconceived idea of love in general, to that extent we will derive our definition of Christian love from a false source. At this as at other points, there is no absolute guarantee against such a possibility. But at this point, too, we can find a relative guarantee. In other words, we can use the concrete method of exegesis, as we did in § 15, 2, when we took Jn. 1:14 as the locus classicus on the incarnation. The biblical witness of revelation and therefore of the love of God to us does not leave us in the lurch  even in respect of a proper human love to God, because the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is an element in this revelation. Without arbitrary selection, we can take as our locus classicus the words of the synoptic Jesus in Mt. 22:37f., Mk. 12:29f. and Lk. 10:27f. In these passages He is asked which is the “first” or “great” commandment, or (acc. to Luke): “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And He replies with a conflation of the Old Testament sayings in Dt. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18. 

We must now examine point by point its most explicit form as we find it in Mk. 12:29–31: The first (commandment) is this: Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. And the second is this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (380-381).

Barth offers six major points on this text:

1) First, the command to love is given to a people - God's people.

Only Mark records the address and presupposition of the commandment in Dt. 6:4: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. But this is most helpful in placing us in the right context. First of all, the address: Hear, O Israel. The commandment to love is not directed to humanity, or to men in general in their natural or historical groupings. Humanity or men in general are not even considered as the recipients of this commandment and as those who will fulfil it. The commandment is given to Israel. Indeed, it is given to Israel only in the sense of the synoptic Jesus. It is given to the community declared in the twelve apostles as representing the new twelve tribes. It is given to the community of believers in the Messiah, both Jews and Gentiles. It is given to the true Israel, the Church of Jesus Christ" (381).

2) Second, the command requires us to love the one true God, the Lord our God who is one Lord, though the requirement is not possible in and of ourselves, but begins as we realize He love us.

This is even more plain when we consider the presupposition of the commandment, that the Lord our God is one Lord. Even in the Old Testament passage it is remarkable enough that the emphasis on the commandment to love is linked up with a reference to the uniqueness of Yahweh. The Lord is referred to by Moses as “our God,” i.e., the God who has entered into covenant with us from the days of the Fathers. And according to the saying of the synoptic Jesus, the same Lord is “one Lord” for those who believe in Him, i.e., as their Master He does not belong to a genus, in which there are others who can also rule over them. Apart from His, there may be all sorts of other so-called, supposed and apparent spheres and therefore all sorts of other so-called, supposed and apparent lords. But no one else rules and is the Lord as He is, i.e., in deed and in truth" (382). [...] "We cannot offer a love which is the work of our own hands or heart. We have to recognise that He intercedes for us and represents us, that what is our own, even our own love for Him, can never be anything but our shame and our curse. The love with which we reply to the love of God for us can begin and grow only when we go beyond what we can claim as our own love, when we recognise that we the unloving are beloved by Him. In other words, it can begin and grow only in the recognition of Jesus Christ and therefore in Jesus Christ Himself. That is how—in all the seriousness of our reality before God and in God as the one Lord—it really becomes our own love to God (384).

3) Third, the command tells us that we shall love, which we admit contains a demand, so there is a tension between love and demand, and yet, there is no contradiction, because obedience is only possible in love.

Love to God can be demanded and is demanded from those who already belong to God—to the God who is Lord in this unique sense. From them, as we have seen, love is indeed demanded. And it is demanded. God intercedes for them. God takes their affairs, their life’s concern in the strictest sense of the concept, out of their hand. Therefore with all their existence they are cast back upon God and directed to Him. Their choice, diligere, has already been fixed. Love to God is the only possibility which is open to them. The “Thou shalt love” summons them to this sole remaining activity, which they themselves now find to be necessary, self-evident and indispensable. For them it is a real “Thou shalt,” like an imperious physical demand. It is a genuine “Thou shalt,” beside whose obedient fulfilment disobedience is a manifest impossibility, an absurdity. 

At first sight, it might appear that there is a contradiction in the fact that love to God is demanded from the children of God and is therefore an act of obedience. But this is not the case. On the contrary, only love can make a real demand, i.e., the demand which really comes from God and really comes to man. And it is only in love that there can be real obedience. And conversely real love, which is the love of God, can only be the fulfilment of a command and therefore obedience. It would not be the commandment of God if, whatever else its content, it did not demand from us the most voluntary thing of all, love. And it would not be the love of God if it were not a voluntary decision for Him, if it had any taint of an act of human caprice (385).

4) Fourth, this command shows us that our love is to be for another - love has an object - so that there is no such thing as self-love, but only love for another.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” As the children of God are what they are and in that way fulfil the law, their love has its counterpart or object in God. That is so even though, and indeed because, He gives Himself to be theirs in faith. How else could He be objective for them, if He did not become theirs in faith? But how could He become theirs in faith, if He were not objective for them, if He did not confront them as another? God alone—because He is God and man’s Creator—can confront man as another. But His confrontation means that He gives Himself to be man’s own. And therefore in this confrontation, which is not the removing but the form of His presence in the heart, He can and will be loved by man. The decisive element which is revealed in this fact is that love is love for another. Of course, this element is real only in love to God, and in the love to the neighbour which it includes and posits. All other loving is compromised as such by the uncertainty of the objectivity or otherness of the one who is loved, by the possibility that the one who supposedly loves is perhaps really alone. Where there is no otherness of the one who is loved, where the one who loves is alone, he does not really love (386-387).

5) Fifth, the command tells us that love is moving beyond our own self-righteousness and loving God as He has forgiven us and as He gives us grace:

If love, as distinct from the illusion of self-love, is love for another, and if this other is God the Lord, then our loving must be defined as the nature and attitude of man, conscious that he is of a different kind from that object. Love to God takes place in the self-knowledge of repentance in which we learn about ourselves by the mirror of the Word of God which acquits and blesses us, which is itself the love of God to us. The man who loves God will let himself be told and will himself confess that he is not in any sense righteous as one who loves and in his loving before and over against God. On the contrary, he is a sinner who even in his love has nothing to bring and offer to God. The love of God for him is that God intercedes for him and represents him even though he is so unworthy, even though he can never be anything but unworthy and therefore undeserving of love. He is accepted and confirmed and grasped by this love of God to him. In it is both his own future and the commandment of God: how can that have any other meaning than that he is driven to repentance and held there? He can and will love only as even in respect of his loving he allows and willingly allows this to happen (390).

 ...and of course there will be much rejoicing in the midst of this love!

If we are seekers of God, and to that extent lovers of God, this can be definitely and unequivocally proved and maintained of the children of God only by the one thing: that in all circumstances and in every connexion they rejoice if their seeking is not in vain, if therefore the One whom they seek allows Himself to be found by them, if in that way He confirms the fact that He has sought and found them, before they ever sought Him. How can they not rejoice when God really confronts them, when the One whom they loved loves them again and anew, as He had already loved them before, when He is therefore present to them in His Word, in Jesus Christ, when He speaks with them, and acts on them? Is He not a faithful God, because He does so? And how can they not rejoice that He is so faithful? (392).

...and there is grace, and it keeps us oriented rightly!

When they do find God, they are met by grace, which means that they accept, that they receive the gifts proffered, that they approve what is done for them, that it may be done to them. But grace shows that in themselves they are poor and impotent and empty: indeed, that they are adversaries and rebels. Grace points them away from self, frightens them out of themselves, deprives them of any root or soil or country in themselves, summons them to hold to the promise, to trust in Him, to boast in Him, to take guidance and counsel of Him and Him alone. Grace is the discipline which does not permit them any idolatry or self-righteousness, but bids them say, even when they have done all that it is their duty to do, that they are unprofitable servants (393).

6) Sixth, the command to love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength means several things...

a) the wholeness of our being is involved: "For obviously these concepts, which we must not isolate, of course, but take as a whole and in their total effect, are an emphatic reminder that man himself, the whole man, is challenged by the commandment to love, not only that he love, but that he should be one who loves, and therefore (in the twofold sense of the word) one who is condemned, and therefore a seeker after God, as we have seen already. It is to be noted that the words “all” and “thine” are repeated four times (394).

b) our obedience which flows from our new loving being: "the addition again and especially lights up the voluntariness of the obedience given in Christian love. We shall seek after God undividedly and unreservedly, as the commandment demands, only when the commandment to do it has reached and touched not only our heart, our soul, our reason, but all these as our own capacity and all of them completely; so that all of them, in their good points and bad points, in the strength and splendour which may be proper to them as such, and in the perversity and shame which are quite certainly proper to them before God, become our own total act of love (396). 

c) our love now has no limits: "The commandment to love claims you totally and therefore undividedly and without reserve. There can be no question of any limitation of that love" (397).

d) this love is a kind of thankfulness which the believer owes to the revealing and reconciling work of God: "The fourth thing we learn from the addition “with all thy heart …” is that Christian love cannot be understood except as the thankfulness which the believer owes to God in His revealing and reconciling work. The totality in which God wills to be loved by us according to His commandment excludes all self-glorying, all claims which he who loves might make to the loved One on account of his love (400).

Thus Barth concludes:

Therefore the love of God—and it is at this point that it merges into the praise of God—means that in our own existence we become a sign of what God as the one Lord has done and is for us. How can love to God be inactive? It is all activity, but only as man’s answer to what God has said to him. As this answer it is a work, and it produces works. But it is a work, and produces works, in the fact that it is the witness of God’s work, and therefore a renunciation of all self-glorying and all claims (401).

Books in the Mail

The following titles arrived with today's post: