Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §15.3 "The Miracle of Christmas" pp. 172-202

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 §15 states: "The mystery of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ consists in the fact that the eternal Word of God chose, sanctified and assumed human nature and existence into oneness with Himself, in order thus, as very God and very man, to become the Word of reconciliation spoken by God to man. The sign of this mystery revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the miracle of His birth, that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."

In subsection §15.3 ("The Miracle of Christmas"), Barth begins by affirming the mystery of the incarnation once more, which is God's revelation to us and our reconciliation with Him:

“Incarnation of the Word” asserts the presence of God in our World and as a member of this world, as a Man among men. It is thus God’s revelation to us, and our reconciliation with Him. That this revelation and reconciliation have already taken place is the content of the Christmas message. But even in the very act of knowing this reality and of listening to the Christmas message, we have to describe the meeting of God and world, of God and man in the person of Jesus Christ—and not only their meeting but their becoming one—as inconceivable. This reality is not given nor is it accessible elsewhere. It does not allow us to acknowledge that it is true on the ground of general considerations. Our experience no less than our thought will rather make constant reference to the remoteness of the world from God and of God from the world, to God’s majesty and to man’s misery. If in knowledge of the incarnation of the Word, in knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ we are speaking of something really other, if the object of Christology, “very God and very Man,” is objectively real for us, then all that we can arrive at by our experience and our thought is the realisation that they are delimited, determined and dominated here by something wholly outside or above us. Knowledge in this case means acknowledgment. And the utterance or expression of this knowledge is termed confession. Only in acknowledgment or confession can we say that Jesus Christ is very God and very Man. In acknowledgment and confession of the inconceivableness of this reality we describe it as the act of God Himself, of God completely and solely. If we speak of it in any other way, if we deny its inconceivability, if we think that by our statements we are speaking of something within the competence of our experience and thought which we can encounter and master, we are speaking of something different from the dogma and from the Scripture expounded in the dogma. We are not understanding or describing revelation as God’s act in the strict and exclusive sense. We are speaking of something other than God’s revelation. In the very act of acknowledgment and confession we must always acknowledge and confess together both the distance of the world from God and the distance of God from the world, both the majesty of God and the misery of man. It is the antithesis between these that turns their unity in Christ into a mystery. Thus we must ever acknowledge and confess the inconceivability of this unity. 

It is this mystery of Christmas which is indicated in Scripture and in church dogma by reference to the miracle of Christmas. This miracle is the conception of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost or His birth of the Virgin Mary (172-173).

Barth begins by acknowledging both the dogma and the paucity of scriptural evidence for the virgin birth - and we should accept it not accept it just because it is dogma:

The passages with which the Church dogma is directly connected and with which we, too, must start are Mt. 1:18–25, with its reference back to the sign of Emmanuel in Is. 7:14, and Lk. 1:26–38 (esp. 34–35). The formulation of the dogma is as follows: 

In the Roman baptismal symbol of the 4th century according to Rufinus: qui natus est de Spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine [who is born by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary]. 

Acc. to the Psalt. Aethelstani: τὸν γενηθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου [who is born by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary]. 

In what has become the official form of the so-called Apostolicum: qui conceplus est de Spiritu sancto, natus ex Maria virgine [Apostles’ Creed, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary]. 

In the Eastern form of the so-called Apostolicum* (and in the Nic. Constant.): σαρκωθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου [was made flesh by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary]. 

In the Latin version of the Nic. Constant.: et incarnatus est de Spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine [and was made flesh by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary]. 

By taking up this reference and so making confession of this dogma as a statement grounded in Holy Scripture, we do not by any means show disinterested respect for the fact that it is a dogma after all, and that up to the present day it has been a dogma which Catholics and Protestants have on the whole believed and taught unanimously and as a matter of course. The respect paid in the Church to this dogma cannot be sufficient reason in itself for us to adopt it as our own. In dogma as such we hear merely the voice of the Church and not revelation itself. If we make it our own and affirm it as the correct Church interpretation of revelation, this can be done only because we realise its necessity, and this realisation will have to be substantiated in an attempt to understand it.

In terms of accepting the virgin birth as dogma, Barth states:

Decision as to the necessity of the dogma cannot ultimately be made on the ground where such questions are to be raised and answered. No one can dispute the existence of a biblical testimony to the Virgin birth. The questions to be raised and answered are literary questions; they are concerned with the tradition, the age and the source-value of this testimony. The final and proper decision is whether in accordance with the demands of Church dogma this testimony is to be heard, and heard as the emphatic statement of the New Testament message, or whether in defiance of Church dogma it is not to be heard, i.e., only to be heard as a sub-statement of the New Testament message which is not binding. This decision can be supported by answering the literary questions in one sense or the other. But it does not stand or fall with the answer to these questions. It certainly was not their age and source-value that brought the narratives of the Virgin birth into the text of the Gospels and out of this text into the creed. But a certain inward, essential rightness and importance in their connexion with the person of Jesus Christ first admitted them to a share in the Gospel witness (176).

Barth reminds us that the virgin birth is a sign, one which marks the coming of God's revelation and the effecting of our own reconciliation:

In order to reach the dogmatic a posteriori [revealed] understanding we have in view, it is, above all, necessary to realise that the dogma of the Virgin birth, in fact the New Testament basis of the dogma, is of a different kind, and lies, as it were, on a different level of testimony from the dogma or New Testament knowledge of the true divinity and true humanity of Jesus Christ. It denotes not so much the christological reality of revelation as the mystery of that reality, the inconceivability of it, its character as a fact in which God has acted solely through God and in which God can likewise be known solely through God. The dogma of the Virgin birth is not, then, a repetition or description of the vere Deus veer homo [very God very man], although in its own way it also expresses, explains and throws light upon it. As a formal dogma, as it were, which is required to explain the material, it states that when the event indicated by the name Emmanuel takes place, when God comes to us as one of ourselves to be our own, to be ourselves in our place, as very God and very Man, this is a real event accomplished in space and time as history within history. In it God’s revelation comes to us, in it our reconciliation takes place; yet it is such an event that to every Why? and Whence? and How? we can only answer that here God does it all Himself (177). 

In an expansive and thoughtful paragraph, Barth articulates why the virgin birth is distinguishable yet not separable from the thing it denotes, and how this bears on our acceptance of the virgin birth:

Is acknowledgment and confession of this mystery of the divine origin of the person of Jesus Christ completely tied up with acknowledgment and confession of the Virgin birth in particular? Is the form in which we speak here of this mystery as if it were the content of it inseparable from this content, or this content from this form? Must it not be left to Christian liberty or even to the historical judgment of the individual whether he can and will acknowledge and confess this content in precisely this form? To this the answer is that the doctrine of the Virgin birth is merely the description and therefore the form by and in which the mystery is spoken of in the New Testament and in the creeds. Similarly we might say that so far as the New Testament witness to Easter is the account of the empty grave, it merely describes the mystery, or the revelation of the mystery, “Christ is risen.” It describes it by pointing to this external fact. No one will dream of claiming that this external fact in itself and as such had the power to unveil for the disciples the veiled fact that “God was in Christ.” But was it revealed to them otherwise than by the sign of this external fact? Will there be real faith in the resurrection of the Lord as revealing His mystery, as unveiling His divine glory, where the account of the empty grave is thought to be excisable as the mere form of the content in question, or where it can be left to Christian liberty to confess seriously and decisively the content alone? With this form are we not also bound in fact to lose the specific content of the Easter message for some other truth about the resurrection? Sign and thing signified, the outward and the inward, are, as a rule, strictly distinguished in the Bible, and certainly in other connexions we cannot lay sufficient stress upon the distinction. But they are never separated in such a (“liberal”) way that according to preference the one may be easily retained without the other. Are the signs of which the biblical witness to revelation speaks arbitrarily selected and given? Is the outward part, in which according to this witness the inward part of revelation is brought to ear and eye, merely an accidental expression of the inward? From what standpoint will we really want to establish this point, if we are clear that revelation is something else than the manifestation of an idea? But if we cannot establish it, how can we really want to achieve this abstraction, holding to the thing signified but not to the sign unless we freely choose to do so? When we do this, is it not the case that openly or tacitly we have in mind something quite different? This is the question we have to put to ourselves even in regard to the Virgin birth. Ultimately, the only question that we can ask here, but we very definitely have to ask it, is this: When two theologians with apparently the same conviction confess the mystery of Christmas, do they mean the same thing by that mystery, if one acknowledges and confesses the Virgin birth to be the sign of the mystery while the other denies it as a mere externality or is ready to leave it an open question? Does the second man really acknowledge and confess that in His revelation to us and in our reconciliation to Him, to our measureless astonishment and in measureless hiddenness the initiative is wholly with God? Or does he not by his denial or declared indifference towards the sign of the Virgin birth at the same time betray the fact that with regard to the thing signified by this sign he means something quite different? May it not be the case that the only one who hears the witness of the thing is the one who keeps to the sign by which the witness has actually signified it? (178-180).

Barth rejects (not surprisingly) the rooting of our understanding of the virgin birth in natural theology (180f.). In the end, the virgin birth cannot be proved:

We have made the point that, however scattered and problematic the relevant statements may be, the content of the dogma answers to biblical attestation. In particular, it is related to the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ. It is connected with it as sign with thing signified. It describes this mystery by a miraculous event in analogy with the mystery. In this way, and by incidentally disputing the various denials of the Virgin birth, we have merely hinted at its necessity. We have called attention to the points of view from which this necessity can be made clear. It becomes clear only as we hear the biblical witness, in spite of and amid its reserve. If we hear it as it was obviously heard in the Early Church, we will discern the uniqueness of its content as a sign and the relation between this sign and the mystery of revelation, and so come to understand the miracle constituting this content in its essential appropriateness. Everything in the end depends on the one thing, on the mystery of revelation speaking and being apprehended through this sign. Theological explanation at this point can as little anticipate this or compel it to happen as in the case of revelation generally. To this extent the necessity for this very dogma cannot be proved. It can only be shown what the elements are which lead us to acknowledge its necessity. If we affirm this necessity, we must regard the acknowledgment involved as a decision, which in the last resort can only authenticate itself by virtue of its conformity to the object which is demanded of it. It can and will receive further confirmation, however, in the detailed exposition of the dogma, to which we have now to turn (184-185). 

Barth now turns to an exposition of the clause "Born of the virgin Mary." Of this statement, Barth says and handful of things.

First, this clause means that Jesus was born as no other man: "It is unambiguous because it describes the sovereignty of the divine act, and therefore the mystery of Christmas, by an express and extremely concrete negative. “Born of the Virgin Mary” means born as no one else was born, in a way which can as little be made clear biologically as the resurrection of a dead man, i.e., born not because of male generation but solely because of female conception. The first and in substance more important clause, conceptus de Spiritu sancto*, which is interpreted by the second, describes in positive terms the same sovereignty of God in the coming of His Word into human existence. It states that the free will of God is the meaning and solution of the enigma." (185).

Second, it means that he was born like every other man: "Thus in the words nates ex Maria* the second clause also defines the positive fact that the birth of Jesus Christ was the genuine birth of a genuine man. And in this way the sign signifies the thing signified, the inexpressible mystery that the Word was made flesh" (186).

Third, it means that the birth of Jesus was a miracle: "But now let us turn to the main point, ex virgine [of the virgin]. What is meant by that? Certainly the general and formal fact that the becoming, the actual human existence of the Revealer of God who is God Himself, (the γένεσις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [beginning of Jesus Christ], Mt. 1:1. 18), is a miracle. That is to say, it is an event in this world of ours, yet such that it is not grounded upon the continuity of events in this world nor is it to be understood in terms of it" (187).

Fourth, it means that there is a judgment and limitation on human nature: "With full recognition of its formal importance we can as little abide by this finding as by the ex Maria [of Mary] which has an equal claim on our notice and emphasis. By the ex virgine [of Mary] the essential point is plainly expressed that by the Word being made flesh, by God’s Son assuming “human nature,” this human nature undergoes a very definite limitation. Grace is imparted to it. But this cannot happen without its coming under judgment as well" (187). [...] "In the ex virgine [of Mary] there is contained a judgment upon man. When Mary as a virgin becomes the mother of the Lord and so, as it were, the entrance gate of divine revelation into the world of man, it is declared that in any other way, i.e., by the natural way in which a human wife becomes a mother, there can be no motherhood of the Lord and so no such entrance gate of revelation into our world. In other words, human nature possesses no capacity for becoming the human nature of Jesus Christ, the place of divine revelation. It cannot be the work-mate of God. If it actually becomes so, it is not because of any attributes which it possessed already and in itself, but because of what is done to it by the divine Word, and so not because of what it has to do or give, but because of what it has to suffer and receive—and at the hand of God. The virginity of Mary in the birth of the Lord is the denial, not of man in the presence of God, but of any power, attribute or capacity in him for God (188).

Fifth, this statement tells us that God has effected a new beginning: "If it is God Himself who here steps forth as man, then it is unthinkable that there steps forth here a sinner like us. But then His existence in our old human nature posits and signifies a penetration and a new beginning. Standing in the continuity of historical humanity He breaks through it and opens up a new humanity (189).

In an extended section (190-196), Barth reflects on original sin, the sexual union, and virginity in general. He establishes that in the virgin birth there is no condemnation of the sexual union or an elevation of virginity in general. Human virginity too lies under judgment, so it is not a point of contact for divine grace: "it is only on the ground of an act of divine justification and sanctification that human nature (at this very point, too) becomes a partaker of the divine nature" (196).

To close this section, Barth does one final exposition, this time on the clause "conceived by the Holy Spirit." "Conceived by the Holy Spirit" means that the birth is the work of God: " In itself the mystery of the incarnation of the Word might also be expressed by saying of Jesus Christ that in the freedom and majesty appropriate to the merciful act of revelation and reconciliation His human existence is peculiarly the work of God the Holy Spirit" (196). Of course, one must be careful here: "It does not state that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Holy Spirit according to His human existence. On the contrary, it states as emphatically as possible—and this is the miracle it asserts—that Jesus Christ had no father according to His human existence. Because in this miracle the Holy Spirit takes the place of the male, this by no means implies that He does what the male does. Because Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, it does not, therefore, mean—or can mean only in an improper sense—that He is begotten by the Holy Spirit. The idea is completely excluded that anything like a marriage took place between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary" (200).

He was not conceived from the substance of the Holy Spirit, but by His power, not by generation, but by command and blessing - Augustine 

...not through His nature, but by His power … not physically, but creatively - Polanus
For it is false to say that God showed Himself in that which a man usually shows in reproduction. For the work of God was not sexual, but merely creative, not internal but external, not formal but efficient… - Quenstedt 

And in the same sense it is essentially right when John of Damascus (Ekd. 4, 14) describes Mary’s ear as the bodily organ of the miraculous conception of Christ. “The operation of the Holy Spirit at the conception of Jesus is one mediated through Mary’s faith. Mary believes … and by believing in the Word of God spoken by the angel she is thereby enabled to take the eternal Word into herself and independently to bring about the beginning of the Redeemer’s life” (Ed. Böhl, Dogmatik, 1887, p. 311). - Barth quoting Böhl

Barth concludes his reflection on the miracle of Christmas, with the reminder that in it God is assuming the creature and imparting His own nature to it:

The positive fact which fills the space marked off by the natus ex virgine [born of the virgin] is God Himself, i.e., in the inconceivable act of creative omnipotence in which He imparts to human nature a capacity, a power for Himself, which it does not possess of itself and which it could not devise for itself; in the inconceivable act of reconciling love by which He justifies and sanctifies human nature in spite of its unrighteousness and unholiness to be a temple for His Word and so for His glory; in the inconceivable act of redeeming wisdom in which He completely assumes His creature in such a way that He imparts and bestows on it no less than His own existence (201).

In conclusion, let us remember that it is particularly this positive factor in the miracle, expressed in the conceptus de Spiritu sancta [conceived by the Holy Spirit], that belongs to the sign of the miracle of Christmas which the dogma aims at stressing. Noetically, i.e., for us to whom this sign is given, who have to recognise it in and by this sign, the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God come in the flesh stands or falls with the truth of the conceptio de Spiritu sancto. But it could not be said that ontically, in itself, the mystery of Christmas stands or falls with this dogma. The man Jesus of Nazareth is not the true Son of God because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. On the contrary, because He is the true Son of God and because this is an inconceivable mystery intended to be acknowledged as such, therefore He is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. And because He is thus conceived and born, He has to be recognised and acknowledged as the One He is and in the mystery in which He is the One He is.

The mystery does not rest upon the miracle. The miracle rests upon the mystery. The miracle bears witness to the mystery, and the mystery is attested by the miracle (202).

The 2014 Annual Karl Barth Conference, June 15-18, Princeton Theological Seminary

The 2014 Annual Karl Barth Conference meets this year on June 15-18 in Princeton. The theme this year is "Karl Barth, the Jews, and Judaism." The plenary speakers include Victoria Barnett (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), Eberhard Busch (Georg-August-Universitἅt-Gὂttingen), Ellen Charry  (Princeton Theological Seminary), George Hunsinger (Princeton Theological Seminary), Mark Lindsay (MCD University of Divinity), David Novak (University of Toronto), and Peter Ochs (University of Virginia). Registration and more detailed information is available here.

Those currently enrolled in a doctoral program or with completed doctorates are invited to submit paper proposals on this year’s theme. The focus of this year’s conference is the relationship between Judaism and Karl Barth’s theology both historically and constructively.

Abstracts not exceeding 250 words should be sent to barth.center@ptsem.edu no later than March 1, 2014. Papers should be no more than 3,500 words in order to be delivered in 30 minutes and allow 15-20 minutes for Q&A. Please include your current academic standing with submissions.

I attended this conference for this first time last year. It was wonderful. The accommodations were excellent and the conference was intimate and mind-expanding. I hope you can make. 

Registration is open now and there's still a chance to take advantage of early bird rates. Here is the information:

Resident: (Staying at the Erdman Center) - Registration rate includes *both* conference rate and a meal plan of Monday breakfast through Wednesday lunch.

Super early bird individual rate (through January 1st): $155

Early bird individual Rate (through March 1st): $190

Regular individual Rate (through June 1st): $210

Regular individual Rate (after June 1st and on-site registration): $230

Students: $120

Commuter: (Staying at a nearby location) - Registration includes *both* conference rate and a meal plan of Monday through Wednesday lunches only.

Super early bird individual rate (through January 1st): $115

Early bird individual Rate (through March 1st): $150

Regular individual Rate (through June 1st): $170

Regular individual Rate (after June 1st and on-site registration): $190

Students: $50

No charge for all Princeton Seminary students

Students (Non-PTS Students):

Resident (Staying at the Erdman Center) - $120

Commuter (Staying at a nearby location) - $80

Princeton Seminary Students:

No charge for the program

Lodging Rates:

Limited lodging is available at the Erdman's Center at Princeton Seminary.

Single room with shared bathroom: $55

Single room with private bathroom: $65

Double room: $80

Suite (double bed + pull-out couch): $85

Family Suite (double bed + single bed in separate co-joined rooms): $90

Meals:

All registration rates include a specific meal plan. These meal plans are not optional.

Banquet:

The conference banquet takes place on Sunday evening and marks the opening of the annual Karl Barth conference. All registrants are welcome to attend for a cost of $25 (optional). Business-causal dress.

Here's a look at the proposed schedule:

Day One-Sunday, June 15

2:00pm-6:00pm Registration and check-in at the Erdman Center

6:00pm-7:20pm Opening Dinner

7:30pm-8:50pm David Novak

Day Two-Monday, June 16

10am-11:20am  Eberhard Busch

Noon-12:30pm Worship

12:30pm-1:20pm Lunch

2:00pm-2:50pm Ellen Charry

3:00-3:00pm Break

3:30pm-4:20pm Concurrent Session 1

5:00pm-5:50pm Discussion Groups

6:00pm-7:20pm  Dinner

7:30pm-9:00pm After Dinner Dialogue Event

Day Three-Tuesday, June 17

9:00am-10:20am Peter Ochs

10:30am-11:50am  Victoria Barnett

Noon-12:30pm Worship

12:30pm-1:20pm Lunch

1:30pm-3:00pm Mark Lindsay

3:30pm-4:50pm Concurrent Session 2

5:00pm-5:50pm Discussion Groups

6:00pm-7:20pm Dinner

7:30pm-8:50pm Film

Day Four-June 18

9:00am-10:20am  George Hunsinger

10:30am-11:50am Concluding Panel

12:30pm-1:20pm Lunch

Book Giveaway: Kenneth Oakes - "Reading Karl Barth: A Companion to Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans"

It's time for a book giveaway on Desposyni.

I have an extra copy of Kenneth Oakes' Reading Karl Barth: A Companion to Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans from Cascade books (a division of Wipf and Stock) and I'd like to give it to you.  

It's a brand new copy and it can be yours. All you need to do is drop me a comment on this post. Comment simply 'book' - or if you're willing, let me know what you appreciate about Barth's theology.

Please comment by January 31st. On February 1st, I'll announce the winner of the book here on the blog after I randomly choose one name from among the commenters. You can then send me your contact info and I'll mail the book to you. Easy as pie.

Here's a little more information about the book from the publisher's website:

Karl Barth's 1922 The Epistle to the Romans is one of the most famous, notorious, and influential works in twentieth-century theology and biblical studies. It is also a famously and notoriously difficult and enigmatic work, especially as its historical context becomes more and more foreign. In this book, Kenneth Oakes provides historical background to the writing of The Epistle to the Romans, an introduction and analysis of its main themes and terms, a running commentary on the text itself, and suggestions for further readings from Barth on some of the issues it raises. The volume not only offers orientation and assistance for those reading The Epistle to the Romans for the first time, it also deals with contemporary problems in current Barth scholarship regarding liberalism, dialectics, and analogy.

Here are some blurb reviews from the back cover:

"Barth's Epistle to the Romans is notoriously opaque and challenging; Oakes' guide is lively, perceptive, and nimble, and will enable readers to approach Barth with confidence and discover for themselves the riches of this classic of twentieth-century theology."
-John Webster
University of Aberdeen 

"Cleary written and accessible, Reading Karl Barth offers a fascinating and much-needed commentary on Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans. Oakes' book is a helpful companion for those reading Barth for the first time, and there is also much here for those who have been thinking about Barth's revolutionary commentary for some time."
-Tom Greggs
University of Aberdeen 

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §15.2.3 "Very God and Very Man (Part 3)" pp. 159-171

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 §15 states: "The mystery of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ consists in the fact that the eternal Word of God chose, sanctified and assumed human nature and existence into oneness with Himself, in order thus, as very God and very man, to become the Word of reconciliation spoken by God to man. The sign of this mystery revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the miracle of His birth, that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."

In subsection §15.2 ("Very God and Very Man"), Barth says of the title to this section, "Very God and Very Man"...

We understand this statement as the answer to the question: Who is Jesus Christ? and we understand it as a description of the central New Testament statement, Jn. 1:14: “The Word was made flesh.” Therefore this New Testament verse must guide us in our discussion of the dogmatic statement that Jesus Christ is very God and very man (132).

In subsection §15.2, Barth undertakes a three-part exegesis of John 1.14 - "The Word was made flesh" - and today's summary looks at part three. In part three Barth focuses on the "became" part and the fact that the Word became flesh. For Barth, the fact that the Word became flesh by no means insists that there was a surrender of the divinity of the Word. In other words, there is no surrender of being as the Word:

“The Word became flesh,” ἐγένετο, we read in Jn. 1:14. To this decisive factor in the whole christological question we must now turn. “The Word became”—that points to the centre, to the mystery of revelation, the happening of the inconceivable fact that God is among us and with us. If there is any synthetic judgment at all it is this one, that “the Word became.” But can or will the Word of God become? Does He not surrender thereby His divinity? Or, if He does not surrender it, what does becoming mean? By what figures of speech or concepts is this becoming of the Word of God to be properly described? “The Word became”—if that is true, and true in such a way that a real becoming is thereby expressed without the slightest surrender of the divinity of the Word, its truth is that of a miraculous act, an act of mercy on the part of God (159).

His becoming flesh is not an act that befalls him, therefore Barth advocates for the somewhat less problematic term "assuming" - as in the Word assumed flesh. He also counters the idea that in becoming, the Word becomes a type of 'third' thing:

If we paraphrase the statement “the Word became flesh” by “the Word assumed flesh,” we guard against the misinterpretation already mentioned, that in the incarnation the Word ceases to be entirely Himself and equal to Himself, i.e., in the full sense of Word of God. God cannot cease to be God. The incarnation is inconceivable, but it is not absurd, and it must not be explained as an absurdity. The inconceivable fact in it is that without ceasing to be God the Word of God is among us in such a way that He takes over human being, which is His creature, into His own being and to that extent makes it His own being. As His own predicate along with His original predicate of divinity, He takes over human being into unity with Himself. And it is by the paraphrase “the Word assumed flesh” that the second misunderstanding is also guarded against, that in the incarnation, by means of a union of divine and human being and nature, a third is supposed to arise. Jesus Christ as the Mediator between God and man is not a third, midway between the two. In that case God has at once ceased to be God and likewise He is not a man like us. But Jesus is the Mediator, the God-Man, in such a way that He is God and Man. This “and” is the inconceivable act of the “becoming” in the incarnation. It is not the act of the human being and nature. How can it be capable of such an act? Nor is it the act either of the divine being and nature as such. It is not the divine nature that acts where God acts. But it is the triune God in His divine nature, One in the three modes of existence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, too, in this assumption of human being by the eternal Word. He, the eternal Word, in virtue of His own will and power as well as in virtue of the will and power of Father and Holy Spirit, becomes flesh. The unity into which the human nature is assumed is thus unity with the Word, and only to that extent—because this Word is the eternal Word—the union of the human with the divine nature. But the eternal Word is with the Father and the Holy Spirit the unchangeable God Himself and so incapable of any change or admixture. Unity with Him, the “becoming” of the Word, cannot therefore mean the origination of a third between Word and flesh, but only the assumption of the flesh by the Word (160-161).

Historically, there have been theological struggles (even heresies) in the attempt to describe the union between Man and God. How is it that there are two natures in One Person? This confusion has given rise to the doctrine of the anhypostasis and the enhypostasis. Technically, hypostasis refers to each of the three concrete and distinct trinitarian persons who share a single divine nature or essence. The hypostatic union, in contrast, is an important christological designation. At the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 the church declared the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The doctrine is an attempt to describe the miraculous bringing together of humanity and divinity in the same person, Jesus Christ, such that he is both fully divine and fully human.

Bruce McCormack tells us, in his Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectically Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936, that...

In May 1924, Barth made a momentous discovery. During the course of his first lectures in dogmatics, he came upon the anhypostatic-enhypostatic Christological dogma of the ancient Church in a textbook of post-Reformation theology. He saw in it an understanding of the incarnate being of the Mediator which preserved that infinite qualitative distinction between God and humankind which had been at the forefront of his concerns throughout the previous phase [of his theological development - MD]. The central thrust of the ancient dogma was that the Logos (the second Person of the Holy Trinity) took to Himself human flesh (i.e. a human "nature", complete, whole, and entire) and lived a human life in and through it. The proximity to Barth's dialectic of veiling and unveiling was obvious. In that God takes to God's Self a human nature, God veils God's Self in a creaturely medium. He enters 'the divine incognito' - a situation of unrecognizability. Outwardly (and inwardly!), He is a human being like any other. But the Subject of this human life - we may liken this to Kant's conception of an unintuitable, noumenal self - was at every point the Second Person of the Trinity; a Subject who, because of the veil of human flesh, remains unintuitable. Because of His unituitability, God can only be known in Jesus where He condescends to grant faith to the would-be human knower; where He unveils Himself in and through the veil of human flesh.

For Barth, he sees the unity of God and man in Jesus as being presupposed in the "becoming" - and this finds expression in the doctrine of anhypostasis-enhypostasis. He writes:

...from the utter uniqueness of this unity follows the statement, that God and Man are so related in Jesus Christ, that He exists as Man so far and only so far as He exists as God, i.e. in the mode of existence of the eternal Word of God. What we thereby express is a doctrine unanimously sponsored by early theology in its entirety, that of the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of the human nature of Christ. Anhypostasis asserts the negative. Since in virtue of the ἐγένετο ['became'], i.e., in virtue of the assumptio [assumption], Christ’s human nature has its existence—the ancients said, its subsistence—in the existence of God, meaning in the mode of being (hypostasis, “person”) of the Word, it does not possess it in and for itself, in abstract [in the abstract]. Apart from the divine mode of being whose existence it acquires it has none of its own; i.e., apart from its concrete existence in God in the event of the unio [union], it has no existence of its own, it is ἀνυπόστατος [anhypostatic]. Enhypostasis asserts the positive. In virtue of the ἐγένετο ['became'], i.e., in virtue of the assumptio [assumption], the human nature acquires existence (subsistence) in the existence of God, meaning in the mode of being (hypostasis, “person”) of the Word. This divine mode of being gives it existence in the event of the unio [union], and in this way it has a concrete existence of its own, it is ἐνυμόστατος [enhypostatic] (163).

Understood in this its original sense, this particular doctrine, abstruse in appearance only, is particularly well adapted to make it clear that the reality attested by Holy Scripture, Jesus Christ, is the reality of a divine act of Lordship which is unique and singular as compared with all other events, and in this way to characterise it as a reality held up to faith by revelation. It is in virtue of the eternal Word that Jesus Christ exists as a man of flesh and blood in our sphere, as a man like us, as an historical phenomenon. But it is only in virtue of the divine Word that He exists as such. If He existed in a different way, how would He be revelation in the real sense in which revelation is intended in Holy Scripture? Because of this positive aspect, it was well worth making the negation a dogma and giving it the very careful consideration which it received in early Christology (165).

Barth further states that the incarnation - the 'becoming'- is a completed event. One should not look for the Word anywhere other than in Jesus.

Ἐγένετο ['became'], the event of the incarnation of the Word, of the union hypostatic a [hypostatic union], has to be understood as a completed event, but also as a completed event.

What the New Testament tells us of the reality of Jesus Christ is undoubtedly meant to be heard as the news of an accomplished fact, namely, that in the fulness of time it became true—and it was this that made this time fulfilled time—that once and for all God became Man and so His Word reached the ears of us men, and so we men were reconciled to God. The reality of Jesus Christ is an objective fact. It is this that gives Christology, so to speak, its ontological reference. And we undoubtedly have to do justice to this reference (165). 

The miracle of the incarnation, of the unio hypostatic a [hypostatic union], is seen from this angle when we realise that the Word of God descended from the freedom, majesty and glory of His divinity, that without becoming unlike Himself He assumed His likeness to us, and that now He is to be sought and found of us here, namely, in His human being. There is no other form or manifestation in heaven or on earth save the one child in the stable, the one Man on the cross. This is the Word to whom we must hearken, render faith and obedience, cling ever so closely. Every question concerning the Word which is directed away from Jesus of Nazareth, the human being of Christ, is necessarily and wholly directed away from Himself, the Word, and therefore from God Himself, because the Word, and therefore God Himself, does not exist for us apart from the human being of Christ (165-166).

Dividing the line between Lutherans, who have stressed the completed nature of the event, and Calvinists, who have stressed the dynamic aspect of the completed event -- Barth suggests that both emphases are needed:

To summarise: We may look at the ἐγένετο ['became'] from the standpoint of the completed event, or we may look at it from the standpoint of the completed event. Christology may have a static-ontic interest, or it may have a dynamic-noetic interest. But either way, when fully developed, it will give rise to very definite questions against it, which are very difficult to answer. The achievement of a synthesis of the two views, with a satisfactory answer to the questions on both sides, proved to be unattainable, at least in the great dispute within Evangelical theology in the 16th and 17th centuries in which it was last debated (170).

[...]

Does not the question of the completed event, the view that revelation is a divine act, merit a position of primacy and superiority, in so far as from this standpoint it is at least easier to do justice to the second view? Is not the first view more directly, more naturally tenable in the second itself than vice versa? In the second view, is it not a matter of a necessity of faith, which ought as such to take precedence of the former need for faith, however justifiable? If this is so, the practical result is that in future Reformed theology will have to express itself even more clearly than was the case at least in the i6th and I7th centuries, how far, as it maintained at the time, it does not mean to abandon one iota of what Luther rightly intended to express. But Lutheran theology will have to abandon or to modify the isolated assertion of its view, its denial, its inherited distrust of the more comprehensive way of putting the question; it will have to expound its special thesis on the basis and in the framework of the superior orderliness of a theology of the divine action. But when we recollect that in the centuries after the Reformation both sides strove genuinely and seriously, but unsuccessfully, in this direction for unification, when, above all, we recollect that there is a riddle in the fact itself, and that even in the New Testament two lines can be discerned in this matter, we will at least be on our guard against thinking of oversimple solutions. Perhaps there can be no resting from the attempt to understand this ἐγένετο ['became']. Perhaps there can be no amicable compromise in Evangelical theology as regards the order of merit between these two views. Perhaps if it is to be Evangelical theology at all—and truly so, it may be, only when this necessity is perceived—there always has to be a static and a dynamic, an ontic and a noetic principle, not in nice equilibrium, but calling to each other and questioning each other. That is, there must be Lutherans and Reformed: not in the shadow of a unitary theology, but as a twofold theological school—for the sake of the truth about the reality of Jesus Christ, which does not admit of being grasped or conceived by any unitary theology, which will always be the object of all theology, and so perhaps inevitably of a twofold theology—object in the strictest sense of the concept. It may even be that in the unity and variety of the two Evangelical theologies in the one Evangelical Church there is reflected no more and no less than the one mystery itself, with which both were once engrossed and will necessarily be engrossed always, the mystery that ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο [the Word became flesh] (170-171).

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §15.2.2 "Very God and Very Man (Part 2)" pp. 147-159

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 §15 states: "The mystery of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ consists in the fact that the eternal Word of God chose, sanctified and assumed human nature and existence into oneness with Himself, in order thus, as very God and very man, to become the Word of reconciliation spoken by God to man. The sign of this mystery revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the miracle of His birth, that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."

In subsection §15.2 ("Very God and Very Man"), Barth says of the title to this section, "Very God and Very Man"...

We understand this statement as the answer to the question: Who is Jesus Christ? and we understand it as a description of the central New Testament statement, Jn. 1:14: “The Word was made flesh.” Therefore this New Testament verse must guide us in our discussion of the dogmatic statement that Jesus Christ is very God and very man (132).

In subsection §15.2, Barth undertakes a three-part exegesis of John 1.14 - "The Word was made flesh" - and today's summary looks at part two. In part two Barth focuses on the "flesh" part and the fact that the Word became flesh. For Barth, the fact that the Word became flesh means four things:

First, that...he is true humanity:

That the Word was made “flesh” means first and generally that He became man, true and real man, participating in the same human essence and existence, the same human nature and form, the same historicity that we have. God’s revelation to us takes place in such a way that everything ascribable to man, his creaturely existence as an individually unique unity of body and soul in the time between birth and death, can now be predicated of God’s eternal Son as well. According to the witness of the Evangelists and apostles everything miraculous about His being as a man derives its meaning and force from the fact that it concerns the true man Jesus Christ as a man like ourselves. This is true especially of the Easter story, the evangelium quadraginta die rum [the Gospel of forty days], as the supreme event of revelation. It is true of the sign of His birth of the Virgin at the beginning, and the sign of the empty tomb at the end of His historical existence. It is true of the signs and wonders already manifested between this beginning and end, which proclaim the Kingdom of God in its relation to the event of Easter. What in fact makes revelation revelation and miracle miracle is that the Word of God did actually become a real man and that therefore the life of this real man was the object and theatre of the acts of God, the light of revelation entering the world (147).

Second, that...the Word became a man...something that the Word wasn't before - the Word now participates in our nature:

That the Word became flesh means, indeed, that He became a man. But we have to be careful about the sense in which alone this can be said. If we ask what the Word became when in His incarnation, without ceasing to be the Word, He nevertheless ceased to be only the Word, and if we allow ourselves to say that He became flesh, we must note that primarily and of itself “flesh” does not imply a man, but human essence and existence, human kind and nature, humanity, humanities [humanity], that which makes a man man as opposed to God, angel or animal. 

The Word became flesh” means primarily and of itself, then, that the Word became participant in human nature and existence. Human essence and existence became His. Now since this cannot be real except in the concrete reality of one man, it must at once be said that He became a man. But precisely this concrete reality of a man, this man, is itself the work of the Word, not His presupposition. It is not (in the adoptianist sense) as if first of all there had been a man there, and then the Son of God had become that man. What was there over against the Son of God, and as the presupposition of His work, was simply the potentiality of being in the flesh, being as a man. This is the possibility of every man. And here—for the individuality and uniqueness of human existence belong to the concept of human essence and existence—it is the one specific possibility of the first son of Mary. The Word appropriated this possibility to Himself as His own, and He realised it as such when He became Jesus. In so doing He did not cease to be what He was before, but He became what He was not before, a man, this man (149).

Thus the reality of Jesus Christ is that God Himself in person is actively present in the flesh. God Himself in person is the Subject of a real human being and acting. And just because God is the Subject of it, this being and acting are real. They are a genuinely and truly human being and acting. Jesus Christ is not a demigod. He is not an angel. Nor is He an ideal man. He is a man as we are, equal to us as a creature, as a human individual, but also equal to us in the state and condition into which our disobedience has brought us. And in being what we are He is God’s Word. Thus as one of us, yet the one of us who is Himself God’s Word in person. He represents God to us and He represents us to God. In this way He is God’s revelation to us and our reconciliation with God (151).

Third, that...the Word became flesh, and though sinless, still inhabited that flesh which is subject to the judgment and wrath of God:

So far we have looked upon σάρξ [flesh] as a description of neutral human nature. This fact, too, that the Word became flesh, we have had to establish in its generality. But what the New Testament calls σάρξ [flesh] includes not only the concept of man in general but also, assuming and including this general concept, the narrower concept of the man who is liable to the judgment and verdict of God, who having become incapable of knowing and loving God must incur the wrath of God, whose existence has become one exposed to death because he has sinned against God. Flesh is the concrete form of human nature marked by Adam’s fall, the concrete form of that entire world which, when seen in the light of Christ’s death on the cross, must be regarded as the old world already past and gone, the form of the destroyed nature and existence of man as they have to be reconciled with God (151)

The Word is not only the eternal Word of God but “flesh” as well, i.e., all that we are and exactly like us even in our opposition to Him. It is because of this that He makes contact with us and is accessible for us. In this way, and only in this way, is He God’s  revelation to us. He would not be revelation if He were not man. And He would not be man if He were not “flesh” in this definite sense. That the Word became “flesh” in this definite sense, this consummation of God’s condescension, this inconceivability which is greater than the inconceivability of the divine majesty and the inconceivability of human darkness put together: this is the revelation of the Word of God (151-152).

Fourth, that...the Word is flesh in a way different than us...in a way that will sinlessly, and ultimately, save us:

In becoming the same as we are, the Son of God is the same in quite a different way from us; in other words, in our human being what we do is omitted, and what we omit is done. This Man would not be God’s revelation to us, God’s reconciliation with us, if He were not, as true Man, the true, unchangeable, perfect God Himself. He is the true God because and so far as it has pleased the true God to adopt the true being of man. But this is the expression of a claim upon this being, a sanctification and blessing of this being, which excludes sin. In it God Himself is the Subject. How can God sin deny Himself to Himself, be against Himself as God, want to be a god and so fall away from Himself in the way in which our sin is against Him, in which it happens from the very first and continually in the event of our existence? True, the Word assumes our human existence, assumes flesh, i.e.. He exists in the state and position, amid the conditions, under the curse and punishment of sinful man. He exists in the place where we are, in all the remoteness not merely of the creature from the Creator, but of the sinful creature from the Holy Creator. Otherwise His action would not be a revealing, a reconciling action. He would always be for us an alien word. He would not find us or touch us. For we live in that remoteness. But it is He, the Word of God, who assumes our human existence, assumes our flesh, exists in the place where we exist. Otherwise His action would again not be a revealing, a reconciling action. Otherwise He would bring us nothing new. He would not help us. He would leave us in the remoteness. Therefore in our state and condition He does not do what underlies and produces that state and condition, or what  we in that state and condition continually do. Our unholy human existence, assumed and adopted by the Word of God, is a hallowed and therefore a sinless human existence; in our unholy human existence the eternal Word draws near to us. In the hallowing of our unholy human existence He draws supremely and helpfully near to us (155-156).