Blogging with Barth: CD 2.2 §35.4 "The Determination of the Rejected" pp. 450-506

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 §35 states: "The man who is isolated over against God is as such rejected by God. But to be this man can only be by the godless man’s own choice. The witness of the community of God to every individual man consists in this: that this choice of the godless man is void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected, but elected by God in Jesus Christ; that the rejection which he deserves on account of his perverse choice is borne and cancelled by Jesus Christ; and that he is appointed to eternal life with God on the basis of the righteous, divine decision. The promise of his election determines that as a member of the community he himself shall be a bearer of its witness to the whole world. And the revelation of his rejection can only determine him to believe in Jesus Christ as the One by whom it has been borne and cancelled."

In paragraph §35 ("The Election of the Individual") and subsection §35.4 ("The Determination of the Rejected"), Barth now turns to the question of the determination of the rejected. Who is the rejected?

A “rejected” man is one who isolates himself from God by resisting his election as it has taken place in Jesus Christ. God is for him; but he is against God. God is gracious to him; but he is ungrateful to God. God receives him; but he withdraws himself from God. God forgives him his sins; but he repeats them as though they were not forgiven. God releases him from the guilt and punishment of his defection; but he goes on living as Satan’s prisoner. God determines him for blessedness, and His service; but he chooses the joylessness of an existence that accords with his own pride and aims at his own honour. The rejected man does exist in his own way alongside the elect (449-450).

Barth begins his consideration of the determination of the rejected with the assertion that God possesses one will, not two; meaning, the determination of the rejected is made by the same will as the elect.

The proposition from which we must start is that in the determination of the rejected we have to do with the will of God in what is by definition a wholly different sense than in the determination of the elect. The one will of God which determines both is here the almighty, holy and compassionate non-willing of God. No eternal covenant of wrath corresponds on the one side to the eternal covenant of grace on the other. Nor does an established or tolerated kingdom of Satan correspond in scope or duration, in dignity or authority, to the kingdom of Jesus Christ. On the contrary, just because God does not will always to chide with man, He has initiated the covenant of grace as the beginning of all His works and ways and to destroy the rule of Satan over mankind, thus opposing the kingdom of Jesus Christ to Satan in triumphant superiority. The rejection of mankind is the rejection borne eternally and therefore for all time by Jesus Christ in the power of divine self-giving. It is, therefore, the rejection which is “rejected.” Because this is so, the rejected man is from the very outset and in all circumstances quite other than the elect. He is the man who is not willed by the almighty, holy and compassionate God. Because God is wise and patient in His non-willing also, he still exists and is not simply annihilated. But although—as the object of the divine non-willing—he exists with the elect, he has no autonomous existence alongside or apart from him (450).

Only the elected knows the rejected because the elect are the only ones who can perceive the rejected supremely in Jesus Christ (451). Also, the rejected have no existence apart from the elect. The rejected as been displaced by Jesus Christ in his rejection.

With Jesus Christ the rejected can only have been rejected. He cannot be rejected any more. Between him and an independent existence of his own as rejected, there stands the death which Jesus Christ has suffered in his place, and the resurrection by which Jesus Christ has opened up for him His own place as elect. It is only as one who has been, but is no longer, that he may again proclaim or assert himself. It is bad enough that even this is not yet taken from him. But in any case, it takes place only within the divinely appointed limit and not with the absolute force of that which is properly and autonomously present (453).

This power is taken from it by what took place in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as willed and decided from all eternity in the resolve and decree of God. Therefore even in the past, present and future godlessness of the elect the rejected himself exists only as the object of that evil, dangerous, but powerless representation—in such a way that he is denied from the very outset by his election (the election of Jesus Christ), and is now denied in practice too by his faith in Jesus Christ, being exposed and discredited as a liar. He is permitted neither respite, peace nor consolidation. He may be able to query the election of the elect, to obscure or jeopardise it, but he cannot reverse it. He can lie, but he can lie only against the Gospel. He has no truth of his own to assert against it. He can do nothing against the one truth. Even although it is no greater than a grain of mustard-seed, faith refutes and overcomes him. He can reproduce, but he cannot again perpetrate, the sins for which Jesus Christ died. He can endure a likeness of the punishment of death that Jesus Christ has suffered in his place, but he cannot—even remotely—endure death itself (453-454).

His distinctive determination is rooted in his distinctive nature. He does not have it apart from or alongside, but with that of the elect. It indicates the meaning and purpose of the determination of the elect. It is the necessary reverse side of this determination, which must not be overlooked or forgotten. And in its ultimate range it points to the very spot at which the proper and positive determination of the elect begins (454-455).

Barth suggests that the rejected has three specific functions. First, the task of representing humanity in need of the gospel.

In the reality of the existence peculiar to him, it is the determination of the rejected to manifest the recipients of the Gospel whose proclamation is the determination of the elect. The rejected has not simply vanished or been destroyed. Thanks to the divine wisdom and patience, he can take different forms within the appointed limit. And in this capacity he represents the world and the individual in so far as they are in need of the divine election. As a sinner against God, he is the lost man who in spite of his election, and the salvation and preservation which it includes, necessarily confirms this fact by his godlessness. He is the man whose salvation and preservation made necessary the self-giving of God in His own Son, and for whose salvation and preservation only this divine self-giving could avail (455).

Second, the rejected has the function of showing what is denied and overcome by the gospel.

In the distinctive character of his existence, the rejected has the determination constantly to manifest that which is denied and overcome by the Gospel. In word and voice he has to raise a Gloria Deo ex profundis in face of, and yet also in concert with, the Gloria Deo in excelsis. The rejected is the man whose only witness—and most powerfully in his false picture of God—is to himself and his false choice as the man isolated over against God, the man who at the deepest level and in the deepest sense has nothing at all to say. He is the man who lives in a false service as well as in a false liberty. He is the man who is deceived because he deceives himself (456).

Third, the rejected is the man whose function is to show (indirectly) the purpose of the gospel, that is, that a person without a future does indeed have a future.

The rejected has the determination, in the distinctive limitation of his existence, to manifest the purpose of the Gospel. We have now reached the point at which the determination of the rejected indicates the beginning of the determination of the elect. The form of the rejected is in every respect one which yields and dissolves and dissipates. He is condemned to impotence and insubstantiality by the way in which disposition is made concerning him in the election of Jesus Christ, being only an object of the victory of actuality and truth as it was decreed concerning him from all eternity, and as it has been achieved for him in the midst of time. The rejected has no future. As the man who wills to be his own master, he can only achieve his own destruction. But the purpose of the divine election of grace is to grant to this man who in and of himself has no future, a future in covenant with God (457).

It is in this way, in these functions, that we can note the determination of the rejected - that the rejected would come to hear and believe and be witness to the election of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is with this in view that the Gospel speaks. It is with this purpose that God turns to man, and that His Word is addressed to man. It is addressed to the man who in and of himself is rejected, who has fallen a prey and is delivered up to absolute destruction. But the concrete form of the purpose of the Gospel is its proclamation and faith in it, the work of the Holy Spirit in the summoning of the elect man, in which his whole determination to blessedness, thanksgiving and witness has its basis and origin (457).

To pull the discussion of the determination of the elect out of an abstract realm into the realm of specific example, Barth uses Judas Iscariot as an example.

The character in which the problem of the rejected is concentrated and developed in the New Testament is that of Judas Iscariot, the disciple and apostle who “betrayed” Jesus. We observe at once that—like the Old Testament, but much more unequivocally—the New Testament does not seek or find the rejected at a distance, but in the closest conceivable proximity to Jesus Christ Himself, and so not in the alien, hostile world to which Jesus Christ came and to which the witness of His apostles, the Church and the elect is to be addressed. The counterpart of the elect is not really an opponent who confronts and opposes the kingdom of God from outside. Certainly, the existence of this counterpart stands in the closest relationship to the power and effectiveness of what St. John’s Gospel calls “the prince of this world.” But, according to his manifestation in Judas Iscariot, “the prince of this world” obviously cannot be so easily and simply recognised and engaged as would be the case if he were to oppose Jesus Christ and His Church at a distance as one who is wholly foreign to the kingdom of God, if he were to oppose Jesus Christ and the testimony to Him from outside, representing, as it were, the “malice of the object.” Again, however, he obviously does not possess the authority, value and the power of this kind of objective opponent. But just as the existence of the rejected of God, the “son of perdition” (Jn. 17:12), betrays by its sinister proximity to Jesus Christ and His apostles all the intimacy of the dangerous power and effectiveness of the devil, it also reveals its relativity, and the fact that it can express itself only under the direct supervision and control, as it were, of the overruling power and effectiveness of the Lord Himself, only in the work of a disciple and apostle (458-459).

In an intricate small print excursus Barth notes that though Judas is against Jesus, Jesus is for Judas. And even though Judas hands Jesus over to the authorities and betrays Him, this action is carried out in service and fulfillment of the purpose of the gracious election of God. It is in this way that Judas, representative of the rejected, show how the rejected too serve election. As Bromiley notes, "his divine determination, as may be seen in the elect, is to come to election on the basis of the election of Jesus Christ and the handing over of Jesus to rejection on his behalf." As Barth concludes...

But to say this is to say all that we need to say about the general question of the divine will and intention for the rejected, the non-elect. The answer can only be as follows. He wills that he too should hear the Gospel, and with it the promise of his election. He wills, then, that this Gospel should be proclaimed to him. He wills that he should appropriate and live by the hope which is given him in the Gospel. He wills that the rejected should believe, and that as a believer he should become a rejected man elected. The rejected as such has no independent existence in the presence of God. He is not determined by God merely to be rejected. He is determined to hear and say that he is a rejected man elected. This is what the elect of the New Testament are—rejected men elected in and from their rejection, men in whom Judas lived, but was also slain, as in the case of Paul. They are rejected who as such are summoned to faith. They are rejected who on the basis of the election of Jesus Christ, and looking to the fact that He delivered Himself up for them, believe in their election (506).

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.2 §35.3 "The Determination of the Elect" pp. 410-450

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 §35 states: "The man who is isolated over against God is as such rejected by God. But to be this man can only be by the godless man’s own choice. The witness of the community of God to every individual man consists in this: that this choice of the godless man is void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected, but elected by God in Jesus Christ; that the rejection which he deserves on account of his perverse choice is borne and cancelled by Jesus Christ; and that he is appointed to eternal life with God on the basis of the righteous, divine decision. The promise of his election determines that as a member of the community he himself shall be a bearer of its witness to the whole world. And the revelation of his rejection can only determine him to believe in Jesus Christ as the One by whom it has been borne and cancelled."

In paragraph §35 ("The Election of the Individual") and subsection §35.3 ("The Determination of the Elect"), Barth tackles the question, "for what purpose was man elected?" 

The election of a man, the distinction of his relationship to God, operative and visible in his differentiation from other men, takes place with a very definite purpose. It means that his life is given a definite goal and content. As his election is fulfilled in his calling, it is seen that in and with his election itself and as such a determinate expression and fulfilment of his being are planned and executed; that its determinate meaning and order are not due to chance or to his own caprice, but tliat all these things are the concern of the divine good-pleasure which elects him. What is this determination of the elect? To what is he elected? We must now consider this question further (410).

In this consideration by Barth, he announces (not surprisingly) that the election of man means that  elect man is elect in and with and for Jesus Christ (410) and individual election takes place in the community of Jesus Christ (410). Not only that, but humanity is loved by God in Jesus Christ in this election (411).

This is indeed the determination of Jesus Christ Himself—in our flesh to be the One loved of God from and to all eternity. This is the determination of Israel and of the Church: they are the people and congregation of those who are loved by God in Jesus Christ. Obviously no man can be anything other or better than this—one who is loved by God. This is what God wills with him—to love him. And this is what He wills from him—to allow himself to be loved by Him. It is for this purpose that He elects him. He may and shall live as a partner in the covenant which God of Himself willed and established, of which God Himself is the Lord and Guarantor, the continuance of which is ensured by the omnipotent faithfulness of God. Whatever else this may signify, it signifies love. Severe, wrathful, burning love—but love; and love that is eternal, not bounded by the limitations of creatureliness, forgiving his sin, giving the creature a share in the glory of the Creator. This participation, provided and executed in free grace, as present promise and hoped for fulfilment, is the goal and content, the expression and fulness, the meaning and order of the existence of the elect (411).

The determination of the elect to be the object of the love of God is undoubtedly his determination to blessedness, which results in a congregation of the elect of Jesus Christ who live in gratitude (412). This congregation of the elect is drawn into the will of God and is beckoned to serve God. Gratitude is the response to God's kindness. The vocation of the elect is to serve God and to witness to His graciousness.

And what else can His community be but the people and assembly which, as they are created by the grace of God, declare this their creation, exhibiting and glorifying their Creator, not according to their own imagination or invention, but as He is and as He wills, as the One He has shown Himself to be in relation to them? So, too, it is with the elect individual. He is what he is by the divine election of grace. The election of Jesus Christ is his own election through the mediacy of His community. His determination is to be its witness, and this is the purpose which God has for him, and in the execution of which the meaning and order of his being consist. The gracious good-pleasure of God is not merely achieved in him but through him, and it is in this way that it is effectively achieved in him. He is its real object as he is its witness, and therefore its subject. The elect is, therefore, one who stands in the service and commission of the gracious God. As a result of his election, he is summoned by the operation of the Holy Spirit. His election as it has taken place in Jesus Christ can be declared to him. By faith he can appropriate the promise given. But if this is the case, it is not merely his private calling but also and as such his official calling. Not only are his salvation and blessedness disclosed and promised to him, but at the same time he is introduced to his service and commission as a witness (414).

'Witness' is such an important word in the theology of Karl Barth. The church, the elect, is to be/are to be witness(-es).

Each elect individual is as such a messenger of God. This is his service and commission. It is for this purpose that he may represent and portray the glory of the grace of God. It is in this that he may be grateful and blessed. He is sent. He is an apostle. The reason for this is the election of Jesus Christ to be an apostle of grace. Its context is the apostolate of grace which is the meaning and order of the life of His whole community. The determination of the elect is to allow the light which has kindled within himself to shine; to pass on the good news of God’s love for man which he himself has received; and to make the calling, in which he has been given a share, his own concern in respect of all others (415).

As they do this, "the ongoing of the reconciling work of the living God in the world...takes place" (417).

And now, if we may venture a final word, the determination of the elect consists in the fact that in and with his election and calling, in and with the service for which he is intended and which he has to perform, the ongoing of the reconciling work of the living God in the world is included and takes place. The election of each individual involves, and his calling completes an opening up and enlargement of the (in itself) closed circle of the election of Jesus Christ and His community in relation to the world—or (from the standpoint of the world) an invasion of the dark kingdom of the lies which rule in the world, a retreat and shrinkage of its godless self-glorification. The existence of each elect means a hidden but real crossing of frontiers, to the gain of the kingdom of God as the kingdom of grace. It is the concern of God that there should be these frontier-crossings (417).

Pulling all this together, Barth makes a determinative statement about the election of man ... he is fundamentally a witness to the Yes of God.

The elect man is chosen in order that the circle of election—that is, the circle of those who recognise and confess Jesus Christ in the world—should not remain stationary or fixed, but open up and enlarge itself, and therefore grow and expand and extend. What is given him in his election and calling is undoubtedly the task not to shut but to open, not to exclude but to include, not to say No but Yes to the surrounding world; just as he himself is undoubtedly one to whom it was opened, who was included, to whom Yes was said—the Yes of the unmerited, free and eternal grace and love of God. It is by and in this Yes that he must live with others. He represents and reflects the gracious God, and Jesus Christ and His people, as he causes them to hear this Yes. If he says No he also says Yes; even when he closes he opens; even when he excludes he includes. He will face others wrathfully but never contemptuously, with indignation but never with malice, angered but never embittered, a guest and a stranger but never an enemy. He will never renounce the recognition of their (and his own) lost condition. But he will also never renounce the obligation by which he is bound to them, as a lost soul to whom the grace of God has been revealed and come. Nor will he renounce the confidence that the same grace is addressed to them too. He will not weary in his service towards them, nor will he ever be disloyal to it, because of any self-made judgments of his own concerning them. It belongs to God Himself to determine and to know what it means that God was reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). The concern of the elect is always the “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18), and no other. This is the determination under which he has to live (419).

For support of this calling and witness, Barth turns to the evidence of witness to Christ in the New Testament. This begins with a small print section which reviews the scope of Jesus Christ's work (421-423) and an examination of the evidence by which Barth can suggest we are called to witness and service (423ff.). He concludes the section with a significant small print review of the apostalate in the New Testament (431-449). He concludes in this way:

To what does God elect a man? The New Testament answers this question with its portrayal of the existence of the apostles; their calling, appointment and mission. It is in them, in their being and their deeds, that the Church can and should recognise itself as the assembly of the elect for all time. It is in them that each individual member of the Church can and should recognise the meaning and purpose of his own election. He who is elect of God is elect in Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ is the original object of divine election. He is the one Elect, apart from whom there can be no others. He who is elect of God is elect through Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ is also the original instrument of divine election. It is through Him, as the object of His election, and through Him alone, that others are also elected. It is in this way, in and through Him, that the apostles and those gathered into the apostolic Church are elect. But what is their determination? According to the New Testament it is simply the transmission of the assurance and promise which have come upon themselves. It is therefore the attestation, the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the sphere of the world and among the men who have not yet heard His name, who have not yet come to believe in Him, who have not yet been benefited by the work which as God’s Prophet, Priest and King He performed for them too, who certainly stand under His lordship, but have not yet recognised and confessed Him as Lord, or given thanks to Him as Lord. The determination of the apostles is to go into this world with the task of baptising it. Through the apostles this is the determination of the Church, and in the Church it is the determination of all its members, of the elect. If God elects a man, it is that he may be a witness to Jesus Christ, and therefore a proclaimer of His own glory (449).

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.2 §35.2 "The Elect and the Rejected" pp. 340-409

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 §35 states: "The man who is isolated over against God is as such rejected by God. But to be this man can only be by the godless man’s own choice. The witness of the community of God to every individual man consists in this: that this choice of the godless man is void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected, but elected by God in Jesus Christ; that the rejection which he deserves on account of his perverse choice is borne and cancelled by Jesus Christ; and that he is appointed to eternal life with God on the basis of the righteous, divine decision. The promise of his election determines that as a member of the community he himself shall be a bearer of its witness to the whole world. And the revelation of his rejection can only determine him to believe in Jesus Christ as the One by whom it has been borne and cancelled."

In paragraph §35 ("The Election of the Individual") and subsection §35.2 ("The Elect and the Rejected"), Barth works on distinguishing the elect and the rejected. He begins with this question: "What is it that make individuals elect men (in Jesus Christ, and by means of His community?" He answers:

We begin with a general answer. They are made this by a distinction of God’s relationship to them and their relationship to God which is in fact peculiar to themselves (though independent of their personal peculiarities and independent of their conduct and actions). It is on the basis and assumption of this distinction that the guidance granted them, and their own conduct and actions and ultimately their role and task in the world about them, find their appointed, decisive character in relation to those of others. The elect, then, do not first become this either with reference to their person or in recognition of any attributes or achievements, or even through their divine calling. Their special calling simply discloses and confirms the fact that they already are the elect (340-341).

God Himself is the mystery of the elect. It is a peculiar determination for the service of God, for the work of divine reconciliation and revelation, with which we are concerned in the special course which they have to complete as elect persons, in the historical period or sphere where their specific appearance and being have been determined. This is something which is determined by God, and its peculiarity is therefore His good will and pleasure (343).

Another distinction for the elect is their calling by the Holy Spirit.

To the distinction, peculiar to the elect, of God’s relationship to them and their relationship to God, there corresponds objectively their difference from other men. This difference is their calling. But their calling—the work of the Holy Spirit—is that by means of the community the election of Jesus Christ may be proclaimed to them as their own election, and that they may be assured of their election by faith in Jesus Christ, in whom it was brought about. This twofold possibility is the objective difference between the elect and other men. By the free event of proclamation and of faith they are placed in a special situation in relation to others, and in a ministry in which the latter do not stand. This is revealed by the fact that they are silent when others speak; they confess when others deny; they stand when others falter; they adore when others blaspheme; they are joyful when others are sad, and sad when others are joyful; at peace when others are restless, and restless when others are at peace. They are different because of their calling (345).

This calling distinguished the elect from others: the elect witness in their lives to the truth and the other lie against the same truth (346). Both are found within the sphere of God's grace, the elect in obedience and the other in disobedience (347).

It is from this solidarity of the elect and the rejected in the One Jesus Christ that there arises a very definite recollection for the elect and an equally definite expectation for others (347).

The recollection for the elect is this. The distinction of God’s relationship to them, and of their relationship to God, is originally and properly the distinction of Jesus Christ. It is He who is the Son and Friend of God. It is with Him that God is well pleased because He recognises His own countenance in Him. It is He who is the secret of God, which is the basis of the fact that there is such a distinction for others also (347).

The expectation for others is this. The original and proper distinction of Jesus Christ, which alone makes possible and actual the distinction of the elect, is the truth which also transcends, comprehends and illumines their existence, but which does not appear to be theirs because their life gives this false witness, because they are obviously involved in the evil, perilous and futile manifestation, repetition and reproduction of the life of men rejected by God. In this respect we must not forget that the distinction of the elect, which originally and properly is that of Jesus Christ alone, is also valid for these others; that they do not possess it only in so far as they do not recognise and accept it as their own distinction (349).

On this ground, Barth insists on seeing the elected and the rejected together. But of course, they are two different types of people, too. It is only in Christ that we can see both clearly (truly). And what is revealed is that we must not see either the elect or the other as apart from Jesus Christ (351-354).

It is strictly and narrowly only in the humanity of the one Jesus Christ that we can see who and what an elect person is. It is He who is the man distinguished by this special relationship to God. It is His life which is the genuine fulfilment of genuine election. It is to Him that it is truly and essentially said: “I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” It is He who, in the midst of many others and in the same depths with them, is placed in a special situation and upon a special road (351).

But, again, it is strictly and narrowly only in the portrait of the one Jesus Christ that we may perceive who and what a rejected man is. It is He who—just because of His election—is cast out from the presence of God by His righteous law and judgment, and delivered to eternal death. In the genuine fulfilment of genuine election it is His life which is truly the life of the man who must suffer the destructive hostility of God. The peculiarity of the position which He occupies among all others is that He took it upon Himself to be this man. God has made Him who is uniquely His Son and Friend “to be sin.” It is He who is the rejected individual. If there are others who are also rejected, then it is only in the evil, perilous and futile misunderstanding and disregard of the fact that He alone is truly this; only in the godlessness which will not accept as a right the right which He has secured for them all. And if there are others who must also suffer in their own fashion—namely, the suffering which the wrath of God, wantonly and deceitfully conjured up, betokens for such as will not have it otherwise—the curse lying upon them can only be the echo of the curse which has fallen, not upon them, but upon Him in their place. Rejected individuals as such (those who live the life of the rejected) are the evidence of the sin for which He has made Himself responsible, of the punishment which He has borne. In the last resort, in so far as it seems to indicate their own perdition and abandonment by God, their witness can only be false. For to be genuinely and actually abandoned by God, to be genuinely and actually lost, cannot be their concern, since it is the concern of Jesus Christ. Therefore even this false witness cannot help pointing to Jesus Christ as the One who properly and actually was the lost and abandoned sinner, whose shadow lies upon them. Thus, for all their godlessness, they are unable to restore the perversity for whose removal He surrendered Himself, and so to rekindle the fire of divine wrath which He has borne in this self-sacrifice. In their sinning, and in their suffering as sinners, they can only be arrogant and yet reluctant participants in the rejection which He has averted from them by taking it upon Himself in the  consummation of His election. They cannot help the fact that objectively and actually they are themselves witnesses to His election. It is not without Him that they, too, are what they are. It is only figuratively and secondarily that they can be what He alone is primarily and properly. He is the Rejected, as and because He is the Elect. In view of His election, there is no other rejected but Himself. It is just for the sake of the election of all the rejected that He stands in solitude over against them all. It is just for them that He is the rejected One (in His rejection making room for them as the elect of God), and therefore the one and only object of the divine election of grace. Thus Jesus Christ is the Lord and Head and Subject of the witness both of “the elect” and also of “the rejected.” For all the great difference between them, both have their true existence solely in Him. It is in Him, who originally is both the Elect and the Rejected, that their mutual opposition finds its necessity. But it is not simply the relativity of their opposition which is established in Him, but also the fact that in all their opposition they are brothers, mutually related in their being and function, forming an inalienable and indissoluble unity. As the election of Jesus Christ finds its scope and completion in His representative rejection, and as conversely this very representative rejection confirms His election, so the elect and the rejected do not stand only against one another, but also alongside and for one another. Because they are not themselves Jesus Christ, but can only testify to Him, they stand both alongside and for one another without prejudice to their opposing character. They are mutually attached to one another. We can no more consider and understand the elect apart from the rejected than we can consider and understand the rejected apart from the elect. Neither on the one side nor the other can we overlook or ignore the hand of the One who is Lord and Head of both. And in spite of every difference, on both sides it is manifest who and what this One is. The elect are always those whose task it is to attest the positive decree, the telos of the divine will, the lovingkindness of God. And the rejected must always accompany them to attest the negative decree, that which God in His omnipotence and holiness and love does not will, and therefore His judgment. But it is always the one will of the one God which both attest. Both attest always the covenant which comprehends both, whose power is neither based upon the faithfulness of the elect nor to be destroyed by the faithlessness of the rejected, whose fulfilment is indeed proclaimed by the blessing heaped upon the elect but also announced, and therefore not denied but made the subject of a new promise, by the curse heaped upon the rejected. It is for this reason that the relationship between faithfulness and faithlessness, blessing and curse, life and death, cannot be measured as if some were simply bearers of the first and others simply bearers of the second. It is for this reason that the functions and directions and ways of the complementary figures   p 354  intersect, as do also the figures themselves. It is for this reason that in their own way the elect are to be censured, while in their own way the rejected are to be commended; that the former are not free from the judgments of God, and the latter do not lack signs of His goodness and patience. It is for this reason that the elect and the rejected, in spite of the greatest dissimilarities, can see that in many respects they are only too similar. It is not merely that in spite of the variety of their functions they operate together. On the contrary, they can exchange their functions. They are so closely attached to one another, and condition one another so intimately, that in the opposition of the two figures of the elect and the rejected the one figure of Jesus Christ is often more clearly discernible than the opposition itself. As it is the electing and calling God who distinguishes between them, the only possible distinction is that in which He alone is always the One who maintains His faithfulness towards both and for the benefit of both. It is quite impossible that anyone should escape either his responsibility to Him or God’s responsibility for him and therefore in some sense be excluded from His election and His grace. Assuredly God is no respecter of persons. If He is present to His elect, this means that they must wrestle with Him as an enemy to be partakers of His blessing. It does not in any sense mean that He is not, in another way, with the rejected also. And if God hides His face from the rejected, He does not on that account cease to be their last and true refuge. If He is their enemy, that is only His characteristic form of presence among them. Where He exalts, there is also humiliation. And where He still strikes, He has not yet cast aside. Even where He is inscrutable in His severity and rigour, the divinely drawn difference between the elect and the rejected is the confirmation of the covenant which is the divine beginning of all things, the instrument of the work in which He embodies this covenant, the prophecy and the announcement of the difference between Himself and all men which He both set up and overcame in His Word made flesh, the grace in which He both vindicates Himself against every sinner and at the same time vindicates every sinner before Himself. God loves as He makes this distinction. This is how He loves His only Son. This is how He loves us in Him. If the proper object of His love is no other “individual” than this One, then apart from this One there is none who can be consumed by the fire of His love which is the wrath of God. It is the function of the many elect and the many rejected to indicate this love of God in its twofold nature. And the authorisation under which the latter stand as well as the former is to live—in their differing functions—by the fact that God has loved and loves and will love this One, and them also in Him (352-354).

Barth closes this section with a small print exposition of Old Testament texts which explore and pre-figure the ways in which the two peoples cannot be seen apart from Jesus Christ. He notes the constant distinction of people in Genesis (355ff.). Barth then consider Christological unity and distinction through the rituals of Leviticus chapter 14 and 16 (357-366). In great detail, Barth then consider the relationship between Saul and David and its Christological significance (366-393). Finally, he masterfully exposits the story of the two prophets in 1 Kings 13 (393-409).

It may well be said that this is in fact the beginning and end, the sum and substance of 1 K. 13—that the Word of God endures through every human standing and falling, falling and standing on the left hand and on the right. But the story itself cannot tell what happens beyond this to the men who have to hear and proclaim this Word, to receive its grace and endure its judgment, on the right hand and on the left. Nor can it tell whether or how far they share in this permanence of the Word of God. The story as such, as an account of Old Testament prophets, cannot tell this within its own Old Testament sphere. Or it can do so only by speaking of the preservation of that grave and therefore of the enduring remains of the two prophets. The eternal duration of the Word of God, and the lengthened but still temporal duration of these remains, are obviously two very different things, just as the remains themselves lie side by side, but are two different things; the remains of these two so utterly different prophets, and of the two so utterly different Israelite kingdoms they represented. But since they do not continue for ever, it is clear that the question of the eternal duration of the Word of God is raised and—left open. In the same way, the problem of the reality and unity of what is attested by the story is also raised and unresolved. But this story, too, does point to one real subject if Jesus Christ is also seen in it, if at the exact point where this story of the prophets breaks off a continuation is found in the Easter story. The Word of God, which abides for ever, in our flesh; the man from Bethlehem in Judah who was also the prophet of Nazareth; the Son of David who was also the king of the lost and lawless people of the north; the Elect of God who is also the bearer of the divine rejection; the One who was slain for the sins of others, which He took upon Himself, yet to whom there arose a witness, many witnesses, from the midst of sinners; the One lifted up in whose death all was lost, but who in His death was the consolation and refuge of all the lost—this One truly died and was buried, yet He was not forgotten and finished on the third day, but was raised from the dead by the power of God. In this one prophet the two prophets obviously live. And so, too, do the two Israels—the Israels which in our story can finally only die, only be buried, only persist for a time in their bones. They live in the reality and unity in which they never lived in the Old Testament, but could only be attested. They remain in Him, and in Him the Word of God proclaimed by them remains to all eternity.

Where else do they remain? What else is chapter 1 K. 13 if it is not prophecy? Where else is its fulfilment to be found if not in Jesus Christ? These are the questions which must be answered by those for whom the suggested result of our investigation may for any reason be unacceptable (409).

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.2 §35.1 "Jesus Christ, the Promise and Its Recipient" pp. 306-340

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 §35 states: "The man who is isolated over against God is as such rejected by God. But to be this man can only be by the godless man’s own choice. The witness of the community of God to every individual man consists in this: that this choice of the godless man is void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected, but elected by God in Jesus Christ; that the rejection which he deserves on account of his perverse choice is borne and cancelled by Jesus Christ; and that he is appointed to eternal life with God on the basis of the righteous, divine decision. The promise of his election determines that as a member of the community he himself shall be a bearer of its witness to the whole world. And the revelation of his rejection can only determine him to believe in Jesus Christ as the One by whom it has been borne and cancelled."

In paragraph §35 ("The Election of the Individual") and subsection §35.1 ("Jesus Christ, the Promise and the Recipient"), Barth turns his attention to the election of the individual. He begins by noting that the doctrine of election has a valid place in theology; in fact, he even notes that, in terms of method, it might have been given the first place, but concludes that it is best discussed in the context of the election of Jesus Christ, for reasons that should already be clear and will become more clear.

The question of the order of treatment of the individual areas of the problem is not of fundamental importance. The selection of this particular order assists the clarification of the antithesis. It would also have been much more difficult to execute and bring out the correction which is necessary in this respect if in agreement with tradition we had begun at the point where we now end. But it cannot be denied that a reversal of the order is intrinsically possible. Indeed, once the correction has been made, it might even be advisable. Following tradition, we could then begin with the election of the individual, proceed in continually ascending circles to the election of Israel and the Church, and conclude with the election of Jesus Christ. The only correction which is basically important is the recognition that the election of the individual must be discussed in the closest possible relation to the election of Jesus Christ and the election of the community of God (309).

One might conclude that because of this point - that the individual should be discussed in closest possible relation to the election of Jesus Christ and the community - that the individual would get crushed in Barth's doctrine of election. This is not the case (311). Election recognizes the individual within humanity as a whole; nonetheless the one person is elected.

Men have an “individuality” in relation to the human group: the family, the nation, the state, society, the total complex of human nature and history—in short, humanity as a whole. The event that stands under the sign of divine predestination does not take place between God and one of these groups, but between God and individual human beings. The “sign” itself—the divine election of grace—already refers to them. This election has been made in Jesus Christ. The community is its necessary medium. But its object (in Jesus Christ, and by way of the community) is individual men: certainly, these individual men in their group relationships, in the callings, obligations, duties, restrictions and potentialities which are given in such relationships; but individuals who are actively responsible in these relationships, and not the groups themselves or any single group (313).

So what does 'individuality' mean in this context? Barth develops this in the following section. Individuality, in terms of the predestined one, is to simply be "forgiven man" (315). This forgiveness in election bring a true and new individuality which comes in union with Jesus Christ (315). The gospel bears witness to this effect and this is the witness of the community, and it is the promise of grace (317ff.). The witness of the community to the elected man who persists in his rejection of God is that grace has come - the grace is for Him even though he persists in living in enmity with God. God takes hold of him, but he might choose to let go of God.

And—so runs the testimony of the community—in Jesus Christ God has known and loved and chosen and drawn eternally to Himself this very man, in his shameful and wretched isolation, implicated in the sinful fall of Adam and enslaved to Adam’s nature. We have said, this very individual. We now say, more precisely, this godless man in his isolation, wantonly rushing into the arms of divine rejection, and therefore suffering it, the very one whose rejection is borne and annulled by Jesus Christ. It is clear that the idea of the “individual,” in this decidedly negative sense of our context, involves the crisis and the limit of all “individualism.” Let the “individual” take warning! He has the power to be isolated and godless. According to the testimony of the community he is even destined to be this. He has gambled away and forfeited the dignity of his individuality, and his title to it, by staking it against God from whom he received it (317-18).

And so the message of the elect community needs to be that there is a promise in Jesus Christ - that the rejecting man is an elect man too, and in his rejection he is making a "perverted choice." The community knows that, on the basis of the decree of God's gracious election the truly rejected man is God's own Son, so no man need be truly rejected. The community knows that God has removed the merited rejection of man in Jesus Christ (319).

The community can only testify to the act and revelation of the divine election of grace. But it cannot possibly withdraw from this testimony. It cannot possibly deliver the message of Jesus Christ without delivering to every man to whom it turns the promise of his election. It must certainly recall the threat of his rejection. But it will do so only for the sake of declaring and stressing the promise. The community has no control over the outcome of this. It cannot determine what man will make of it. But it has just as little competence to distinguish between those who are worthy of this promise and those who are not worthy, loudly proclaiming it in the one case and muffling it in the other. Those who hear and believe it live as God’s elect. The community of God, however, can only proclaim it loudly so that it may be heard and believed. It must be loud indeed, and it must be brought to the ears of those who do not know it yet or any longer, or who do so only in part, in order that they may hear and believe it. To do this is the task of the community in relation to the world and its children. It must not let itself be frightened or shocked by their godlessness. It must not be restrained by any “experiences” from repeatedly bringing the promise of his election to every man, in and with the message of Jesus Christ (320).

So who finally is the 'individual'?

The hearer or reader can fully realise what we are talking about only when he observes that in this final connexion the whole definitive investigation and exposition of the object of predestination transcends all definition and is transformed into a direct summons to himself: Thou art the man! Thou art the object of predestination in this its final connexion! We are talking about thee, nay—we are actually talking to thee when we talk about the individual human person in relationship to the election of Jesus Christ and the community! (323).

And the task of the community is to declare this: thou are the man!

The community does not perform its task properly if it does not perform it in this manner—speaking implicitly or explicitly in the second person. And its task—the bringing of the promise to an individual man in and with the message of Jesus Christ—is not understood if it is not understood in this way; if thou dost not understand it as the promise which concerns thyself and in one way or another demonstrates truth to thyself. Where this is not the case, the election of the “individual” or the “ungodly,” and the election of Jesus Christ Himself, is most certainly not understood. Dogmatics as such—which of itself is neither preaching nor pastoral admonition—can only indicate this final intensification of the doctrine of God’s election of grace. But this indication is absolutely necessary. When we speak in the third person about the “elect” (or about the “rejected”), it is always the second person who is the final meaning and elucidation of what is said (324-325).

Barth closes with a small print excursus which explores the classical Reformed doctrine of individual election. Though he finds points of commonality between his formulation and his own (emphasis on faith in Jesus Christ and grace, insistence on perseverance, and grounding assurance in Jesus Christ, he sees a failure in the classical doctrine of not having developed these themes fully (325-340).

Help Wanted: Pastor-Theologians! (Apply Within)

Remember your leaders,

those who spoke to you the word of God.

Consider the outcome of their way of life,

and imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same

yesterday and today and forever.

—Hebrews 13:7-8

The great Notre Dame historian Mark Noll famously stated in his 1995 book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”

More than a quip, it was a lament, and it hit a raw nerve with many people. Allow me an observation in the spirit of Dr. Noll which will hopefully strike a similar nerve:

The scandal of the Church of Christ minister today is that he or she is rarely a theologian.

Where is the minister-theologian today, and what is this potentially extinct species all about?

In my opinion, the dearth begins with the common reality that many ministers in churches see themselves primarily as counselors, leaders, and motivators. This focus often comes at the expense of the theological office — the teaching and preaching roles in which our people are formed in the doctrinal and theological distinctives of the Christian faith. The lack has even led to the phenomenon of the “theologian-in-residence” in many Mainline churches. Notably this resident theologian is usually someone other than the resident minister, a point lamented by pastor and The Message translator Eugene Peterson, who says “my gut feeling is that the pastor should be the theologian in residence.”

We need ministers who are theologians. What I am advocating for is a minister who is comfortable navigating the grammar of the Christian faith from the perspectives of biblical theology, church history, historical theology, and systematic theology. To what end? To feed our people on a diet fit for a richer life of faith by uniting our pastoral ministry with theological formation. If you’re still not sure what I envision, then consider the union of theological formation and pastoral ministry as typified by Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Wesley, and Karl Barth and you will get the idea. Remember that all these folks were ministers and theologians.

[READ the rest of my article over at CHARIS]

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.2 §34.4 "The Passing and The Coming Man" pp. 259-305

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 §34 states: "The election of grace, as the election of Jesus Christ, is simultaneously the eternal election of the one community of God by the existence of which Jesus Christ is to be attested to the whole world and the whole world summoned to faith in Jesus Christ. This one community of God in its form as Israel has to serve the representation of the divine judgment, in its form as the Church the representation of the divine mercy. In its form as Israel it is determined for hearing, and in its form as the Church for believing the promise sent forth to man. To the one elected community of God is given in the one case its passing, and in the other its coming form."

In paragraph §34 ("The Election of the Community") and subsection §34.4 ("The Passing and the Coming Man"), Barth looks at Israel and the church in terms of the passing man on the one side and the coming man on the other. Barth begins with a reminder...

In the eternal election of the one man Jesus of Nazareth, God, merciful in His judgment, appoints for man a gracious end and a new gracious beginning. He makes him die in order that he may truly live. He makes him pass in order that he may acquire a real future. The purpose of the election of this One is God’s righteous and saving will to deal with man’s need at its very root and to show this man the supreme favour by taking his place in the person of this One, taking away from man and upon Himself the bitterness of man’s end, and bringing upon man the whole joy of the new beginning. Thus the election of this One is His election to death and to life, to passing and to new coming. The elected community of God as the environment of the elected man, Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore as the place where God’s honour dwells, must correspond to this twofold determination of its Head by existing itself also in a twofold form, in a passing and a coming form, in a form of death and a form of life (259-260).

Barth then turns to explain the role of the passing man, Israel, in election.

The specific service which within the whole of the elected community is Israel’s determination is the praise of the mercy of God in the passing, the death, the setting aside of the old man, of the man who resists his election and therefore God. When Israel becomes obedient to its election by being awakened to faith through the promise of God fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, its special contribution to the work of the whole community then consists in the critical reminder that the man who resists God is in process of passing, that he must pass in order to receive incorruptible life in peace with God, and that for his salvation he will not be spared this passing—in and with the passing to which God has subjected Himself in His Son. The Church needs this contribution. Its witness to Jesus Christ and to the living future promised in Him to man cannot be heard without the background and undertone of the message of Israel whose Messiah is the Crucified (260).

Not only that, but God's election of Israel means that God is electing for Himself the death of Jesus Christ with a view towards the resurrection!

As for the Church, it has a special service to render as a witness to the coming man and displaying what God has intended in his election of the church.

Independently of Israel’s choice and way, the service of the Church as the perfect form of the one community of God consists in attesting, by faith in the Word heard, by laying hold of the divine mercy, the coming kingdom of God as the end of all human need, the coming new man and his eternal life. The Church exists among Jews and Gentiles because Jesus in His resurrection does not shatter the power of death in vain but with immediate effect; because as the witness to eternal life He cannot remain alone but at once awakens, gathers and sends forth recipients, partners and co-witnesses of this life. The Church thus proclaims Jesus’ exaltation as the goal of His humiliation, His kingdom as the goal of His suffering, His coming as the goal of His passing. It proclaims what in God’s hands is to become and can become of man taken up and accepted by Him. Its message is, therefore, the final and decisive word of the charge committed to the whole community of God, in which the special word given to Israel has its appointed place, and which it has to assist as a foreword.

The Church form of the community reveals the scope of what God wills for man when in His eternal election of grace He elects him for fellowship with Himself. In electing him from all eternity He elects him for eternity. In electing him in grace He elects him for his salvation. In electing him for fellowship with Himself He makes Himself the Guarantor and Giver of the eternal salvation offered to man. Without ceasing to be God, and without man ceasing to be man, He really invests him with His own glory (265).

The Church is the perfect form of the community because the message which the community (the environment of the man Jesus) has to transmit to the world acquires its true and essential form as the message of the Church, the form of the Gospel, of glad tidings for all who are defrauded and deprived of their rights, for all captives and sick persons, for all who are astray and in distress. With such a message Jesus Himself stands in the midst of His own, and proclaimed by the service of His own wills to go out into the world (265-266).

In grateful recognition of the ties and obligations binding it to Israel, [the Church] will be glad to have in its midst Christians from the Jews also. It will itself desire to be no more than Israel fulfilling its determined purpose, to live by nothing else but the grace of God directed towards Israel. Though waiting for Israel’s conversion, it cannot and will not hesitate to precede Israel with the confession of the unity of God’s community, the unity of the man who, according to the will of the divine mercy, both passes and comes in the person of Him who has suffered death for all and brought life to light for all (276).

Barth closes with a lengthy small-print section covering Romans 11 on pp. 267-305.