Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §14.3 "The Time of Recollection" pp. 101-121

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 §14 states: "God’s revelation in the event of the presence of Jesus Christ is God’s time for us. It is fulfilled time in this event itself. But as the Old Testament time of expectation and as the New Testament time of recollection it is also the time of witness to this event."

In subsection §14.3 ("The Time of Recollection"), Barth wants to talk about the second aspect of "fulfilled time" which is "post-time" (he talked about "pre-time" in the previous section). Barth calls "post-time" the "time of recollection." The record of the "time of recollection" is the New Testament.

Fulfilled time is followed by a very definite time that is bound up with it. This definite subsequent time as little coincides with the time post Christum datum [after the birth of Christ] as preceding time does with the time ante Christum datum [before the birth of Christ]. We are concerned here with the time of a definite history taking place in this new era of time. This is history which is derived from the revelation that has happened in the same individual and unique way as the pre-history we spoke of runs to meet it. Like that pre-history, it is quite different from fulfilled time, but like it, too, it is wholly related to fulfilled time and bound up with it. This subsequent time is the time of the New Testament, or the time of the witness to recollection of revelation. It belongs to the time of fulfilment. It is bound up with it. We cannot speak of the time of revelation without also speaking of it. That there is this subsequent time and a witness to the recollection of revelation, that Christ as the recollected One was also manifest in the time of the New Testament and is recognisable in the witness of the New Testament, seems more illuminating and comprehensible than the corresponding statements which we had earlier to draw up and ponder regarding the preceding time of the Old Testament (101-102).

The New Testament is a witness - documents which testify to a recollection of One in particular, Jesus Christ:

The New Testament makes no claim at all in favour of the religion documented in it, but it does claim to be heard as witness, as witness to the recollection of a revelation which is just as much beyond the factual condition and content of the New Testament as it was beyond the condition and content of the Old Testament, but with this difference that the completed event of revelation does not lie before but behind the witness to it. In the New Testament, too, revelation breaks in from above, from an altitude which is not that of a so-called historical peak. Moreover, the condition and content of the New Testament are to be understood in terms of their own peculiar alignment, their formation on the basis of revelation, and only in view of this formation or alignment, not in view of itself can we speak sensibly of revelation in the New Testament. Along with the New Testament itself we must stand within the perspective of revelation in order to achieve the act of recollecting the revelation that happened, which its witness demands of us. And this understanding from the perspective of revelation, which constitutes the genuine act of recollection, and which is the prerequisite for anyone reading the New Testament in the right way, i.e., participating in this genuine act of recollection, lies in no one’s power, but only in the power of revelation itself. It must not only speak itself, it must also fashion our hearing, the obedience of faith. In other words, even in relation to the New Testament’s claim to revelation, we are pointed to Jesus Christ Himself, to the act of lordship in which He gives the Holy Spirit of hearing and obedience to whom He will. The Evangelists and apostles are only servants of His Word; they cannot substitute their word for it. The truth of His revelation is grounded and proved solely by Himself. Here, too, theological explanation cannot take the place of this basis. Here, too, it can only think of offering a subsequent description (102-103).

Barth then states that "this theological explanation we shall also have to show to what extent the recollection attested in the New Testament really corresponds with the expectation attested in the Old Testament" (103). There are then three things to consider:

1) First, that the New Testament points to the revelation in the incarnation, in this name Jesus Christ, born in space and time, who is more than just a sign or symbol:

"The New Testament, like the Old Testament, is the witness to a togetherness of God and man, based on and consisting in a free self-relating of God to man. What in the Old Testament, in the expectation, was God’s covenant with man, is here, in the fulfilment, God’s becoming man. 

[...]

This is shown chiefly in the fact that recollection as compared with expectation points back, not only implicitly and not merely with the ambiguous explicitness of the Messianic hope in the Old Testament, but with such explicitness that now everything can be expressed by a particular name, the name Jesus Christ, circumscribed by particular space and particular time. Thus recollection points back to one centre at which God’s free, utterly unique, concrete action has taken place. In the Old Testament God’s action is history, in the New Testament it is just one history (103-104).

We will, therefore, if we sink to the level of the Jewish attitude to the Old Testament, again regard Christ as a mere sign or symbol, a mere witness to the real togetherness of God and man. There are signs and witnesses, because there is a thing signified. If there is no thing signified, the signs and witnesses do not exist as such. If we reject the thing signified, we certainly reject, too, the signs and witnesses, just as Israel confirmed by anticipation its rejection of Christ by rejecting more or less clearly all its men of God. Just because the signs and witnesses of the Old Testament point to the real togetherness of God and men, unlike the symbols and symbol-bearers of heathendom, they do not point to the empty space of metaphysical ideal truth, but to coming history. And it is to this history as history achieved that the signs and witnesses of the New Testament point back. But the common object of the two testimonies does not point anywhere but says: I am the way, the truth and the life. In a way different from Israel’s kings He exercises with His right the right of God, with His power the power of God. In a way different from Israel’s priests He forgives sins and creates reconciliation between God and men. In a way different from Israel’s prophets He is not there to receive and transmit the Word of the Lord, but He speaks Himself, in fact He is this Word. He accomplishes a plenipotentiary representation of God in which God Himself is the witness for man before Himself and the witness in man for Himself. He is not an   p 106  instrument of divine action. He acts Himself divinely and therefore as a true Mediator. This is the tenor of the witness of recollection in the New Testament, the sole intention of which is exclusively to confirm the Old Testament witness of expectation (105-106).

2) Second, the New Testament is a witness to the revelation of the hidden God. The story it tells is a witness to One who suffers, the man Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world:

The New Testament, like the Old Testament, is the witness to the revelation of the hidden God. The conclusive proof of this is the circumstance just touched upon, that it sees revelation, the revelation expected by the whole of the Old Testament, at the very point at which one might well have seen the contradiction and annihilation of it, in the rejection and crucifixion of the Son of God by His chosen people. Here, too, essentially, the New Testament asserts nothing that differs from the Old Testament. On the contrary, we shall have to show that it is in the New Testament that the hiddenness of God in the Old Testament is first disclosed in all its completeness (106)

The New Testament answer to the problem of suffering—and it alone is the answer to the sharply put query of the Old Testament—is to the effect that One has died for all (109). 

As regards the great centre of New Testament witness we must now emphasise the moment, without the consideration of which it cannot be regarded either as the centre or as anything else. This centre is the passion, the suffering, the crucifixion and death of Christ (110). 

The resurrection is the event of the revelation of the Incarnate, the Humiliated, the Crucified. Wherever He gives Himself to be known as the person He is, He speaks as the risen Christ. The resurrection can give nothing new to Him who is the eternal Word of the Father; but it makes visible what is proper to Him, His glory. It is in the limitation, illumination and verification of this event and not otherwise that the New Testament views the passion of Christ. That is why in the passion it sees so powerfully the hiddenness of God. That is why it speaks so inexorably of the passing of this æon. That is why it is so naturally aware of the necessity of the sufferings of this time. That is why above all it binds man so strictly and universally under the divine accusation and the divine threat. The power of revelation is the power of God’s hiddenness attested by Him in this way. Therefore it is not just the passion and energy of a protesting, critical, resigned human No to man and his world that is operative here. It is really the passion of Christ. And it is the passion of Christ lit up and made articulate, made a real “word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18) by the supremely wonderful story in the background, which passes all comprehension and imagination, that “Christ is from His agony arisen, whereof we must all be glad; Christ will be our comfort.” (111). 

If it is true that this did happen and was consummated through Him who could actually do it, if it is true that as true God and true man He intercedes for God with us and for us with God, then we are in fact no longer the object of the divine accusation and threat. It is then the burden which is taken from us by God Himself and is laid entirely upon Christ. But for us remains life in a freedom for which we have to thank the compassion that became event in Christ. This whole alteration in the witness to God’s hiddenness takes place in so far as it is the witness of recollection to revelation which has happened, and is therefore New Testament witness. But, of course, the hearer of this witness will have to say at once that in this alteration there is disclosed only what, rightly understood, had already been said by the Old Testament witness (113).

3) Third, the New Testament is a witness to the revelation in which God is present to humanity as the coming God. To the recollection of Christ's birth and the Passion event we add the Resurrection event, which is a recollection of the pure presence of God.

The New Testament, like the Old Testament, is the witness to the revelation in which God is present to man as the coming God. In this statement, in the real agreement which it expresses in spite of every difference, the full circle of our deliberations is closed in a most extraordinary way. We had no right to expect it, yet the fact remains that the New Testament, the explicit witness of recollection, is also itself witness to the coming God. And that is really much too jejune a statement of the reality. We speak of an expectation explicitly unfolding itself in the Old Testament, of a specific eschatological line in the Old Testament. As regards the New Testament that would be much too mild a statement. Where in the New Testament is the eschatological line simply one line parallel to others? Which of the New Testament pronouncements, because they are the pronouncements of a definite recollection, are not implicitly or explicitly eschatological? (113).

A big exception must, of course, be made here, an exception which  proves the rule. I mean the Easter narratives of the four Gospels, together with that of Paul in 1 Cor. 15. In the slender series of New Testament accounts of the disciples’ meetings with the risen Lord we are dealing with the attestation of the pure presence of God. Obviously, the previous narrative of the life of Jesus is still pure expectation, even according to Jesus’ own words. Even the miracles of this life purport only to be signs of the presence of God. Only the transfiguration on the mount, in face of which Peter immediately wants to build tabernacles, seems formally to prepare for the great exception. And the sequel to Easter, the birth of the Church of Christ, is again the clearest and most consistent possible expectation—again perhaps with the exception of Christ’s appearance at the conversion of Saul. But the Easter story (with, if you like, the story of the transfiguration and the story of the conversion of Saul as prologue and epilogue respectively) actually speaks of a present without any future, of an eternal presence of God in time. So it does not speak eschatologically. The Easter story, Christ truly, corporeally risen, and as such appearing to His disciples, talking with them, acting in their midst—this is, of course, the recollection upon which all New Testament recollections hang, to which they are all related, for the sake of which there is a New Testament recollection at all. This very exception, then, deals with something of the utmost importance (113-114).

Why does this particular story receive this central place? We recall its direct relation to the passion, how it is the resurrection of Jesus that makes His passion manifest as the saving happening from God’s side, how in virtue of the resurrection the glory of the incarnate Word was seen by His followers. But how far does this resurrection possess this power to reveal? Because in the recollection of these witnesses the fact that Christ had risen actually points to a time, a real part of human time amid so many other portions of time, which, as it cannot become past, neither needs any future, a time purely present because of the pure presence of God among men. In this way the Easter story—which is quite indispensable to the whole, impossible to think away, the subject whose predicate is all the other narratives—signifies the event which is the proper object of all other narratives and teachings in the New Testament. The whole historical difficulty occasioned by the Easter story itself has its foundation in the fact that in it the New Testament witness touches the point at which as witness, i.e., as human language about and concerning Christ, it comes up against its true object, against the point where everything else depends upon this object, which in itself contains the Word of revelation. Little wonder human language begins to stammer at this point even in the New Testament (114-115).

How could it be otherwise? Recollection of the pure presence of God, recollection of a time which cannot be the past and has no future before it, recollection of eternal time, as this recollection obviously purports it to be—what sort of recollection is this? This fact, that the New Testament witnesses have this very recollection, and not just incidentally, but as the recollection which underlies and holds together all others—this fact is the amazing circumstance which can never be overlooked or denied in these texts, nor directly or indirectly overlooked anywhere else in the New Testament. The difficulty of grasping how this recollection of theirs was created, a difficulty which manifestly goes back to the fact that the New Testament witnesses themselves scarcely found language (and did not find it at all at the critical point) to transmit this recollection—this difficulty reflects the uniqueness of that to which their recollection is related, that which they manifestly had to say, and which manifestly had to be heard (115).  

But the Easter story, though it is a happening that once became an event in datable time, does not merely belong to the past (116).

With regard to expectation in the New Testament the change that has taken place as compared with the Old Testament consists in the fact, and only in the fact, that the coming Christ of whom New Testament witness speaks is now the object of recollection as He that has come. This cannot be said of the Messiah expected in the Old Testament, although Old Testament expectation refers only to Him that came according to the New Testament witness. As distinguished from Old Testament expectation, New Testament expectation knows concretely and explicitly who it is that is expected. It is simply recollection turned at an angle of 180 degrees, the recollection of the Word come in the flesh, whose glory the New Testament witnesses have seen. Similarly, the Christ it expects is none other than He whom it already knows as very God and very man, from whom also it is already derived. His coming is in fact only His second coming. Of course, this means a change. But the change is not a weakening of the alignment of this witness. What it means, rather, is that because of the concreteness and explicitness proper to the latter the Old Testament hope is also related to that of the New Testament as the question correctly put is to the answer correctly given. He who makes both question and answer correct by the fact that He comes, as the prophets hoped with the apostles and the apostles with the prophets, is the Lord to whom both testify as His servants (119-120).

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §14.2 "The Time of Expectation" pp. 70-101

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 §14 states: "God’s revelation in the event of the presence of Jesus Christ is God’s time for us. It is fulfilled time in this event itself. But as the Old Testament time of expectation and as the New Testament time of recollection it is also the time of witness to this event."

In subsection §14.2 ("The Time of Expectation"), Barth wants to talk about one aspect of "fulfilled time" which is "pre-time" (He'll talk about "post-time" in the next section). Barth calls "pre-time" the "time of expectation." The record of the "time of expectation" is the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the time of expectation because it is the time when a genuine expectation of revelation in the expected One, Jesus Christ, is manifested:

The Old Testament is the witness to the genuine expectation of revelation. This raises its time (from the standpoint of revelation or in view of revelation) high above the other times in the time area ante Christum datum [before the birth of Christ]. What is in question here is not the independent significance belonging to the history as such which is attested in the Old Testament. The historical uniqueness of Israel, particularly the originality of its religious history, is another matter. On that ground we could speak only improperly and with reservation of a revelation of God in the Old Testament. For that involves making an historical value-judgment, whether it is in place to recognise revelation of God in the Old Testament, and not in the Babylonian or the Persian or even the early German tradition. But what we purport to recognise as revelation in such circumstances is not revelation at all. Revelation is not a predicate which may be attributed or not attributed to this or that historical reality. If we are speaking of revelation in the Old Testament, by that cannot be meant this or that attribute supposed to belong as such and in itself to the Old Testament or to the stories attested in the Old Testament. The history of Israel has such attributes, as the history of any nation has. But it is not because of such attributes that we see in the time of the Old Testament a time which has prominence in relation to the other times in the time area ante Christum datum [before the birth o Christ]. Revelation in the Old Testament is really the expectation of revelation or expected revelation. Revelation itself takes place from beyond the peculiar context and content of the Old Testament. It breaks into the peculiar context and content of the Old Testament, from an exalted height which has not the slightest connexion with a peak point in the history of early oriental religion or the like. Even in the most significant context and content of the Old Testament as measured by general historical standards we shall only recognise revelation, in so far as the significance of the Old Testament is actually aligned to this revelation. Apart from this revelation breaking in from without or from above, or apart from this alignment to revelation, we cannot speak of revelation in the Old Testament. In that case it is much better not to ascribe singularity to the Old Testament in the strict sense, not to use theological emphasis, but to content ourselves with regarding it as one remarkable phenomenon among others within the world of piety in the ancient East. Exactly the same will also have to be said later about the time of the New Testament and about the New Testament itself. The real singularity of the Old Testament consists sufficiently in the sole fact that in it expectation of revelation takes place and is attested. It can thus be seen and asserted only from the side of revelation or in view of revelation. 

But what is meant by “from the side of revelation” or “in view of revelation”? We must recall all that was said about the hiddenness of historical revelation itself, and about the miracle which we indicate, when we dare to employ this concept at all or to take it upon our lips. Revelation is not a standpoint from which, or an end towards which, all we need to do is to draw a circle with a pair of compasses, in order to make it plain that at such and such points there is genuine expectation of revelation. Like revelation itself, genuine expectation of it is also surrounded by hiddenness. And here also revelation itself alone can and will break through this hiddenness. As it makes the decision about itself, so it does also about the witness to itself. It makes it its witness and it attests it as such. So in confirmation of the statement that revelation, i.e., genuine expectation of revelation, is to be found in the Old Testament, we cannot ultimately and in principle point to any other authority than to revelation itself, i.e., to Jesus Christ Himself. His death on the cross proves the truth of the statement, and it proves it by the power of His resurrection. If the statement is true, it is so because Jesus Christ is manifest in the Old Testament as the expected One. All attempts to show how far He is can claim only to be explanations of this fact, which is confirmed in itself because it confirms itself. But if they are really theological explanations, they will not claim to be proved or independently demonstrated (70-72).

In an extended small print discussion on pp. 72-78, Barth reviews the scriptural (and the Tradition's) witness to the unity of the Old Testament as it is centered on Christ.

This fact, which is confirmed in itself because it confirms itself, the fact that Jesus Christ is also manifest in the Old Testament as the expected One, we cannot bring forward as being ourselves witnesses; but, with reference to this ultimately sole witness and so the axiomatic character of the statement, we can bring up the counterproof, by addressing the question about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament to the New Testament, in which we have before us the witness to recollection of Christ. But in this respect we are, above all, brought up against the fact that the unity of the revelation of Christ with the history of the expectation of it in the Old Testament is not an item that occurs in His proclamation, doctrine and narrative with a certain frequency alongside other items; it is taken for granted as their universal and uniform presupposition. Remember what that means in view of the fact that historically speaking the New Testament as we have it before us is altogether a collection of documents about a Hellenistic spiritual movement, for which Judaism and its antecedents might just as well have been one connecting point among others, and a connecting point validated by its various representatives only more or less or even not at all. But the New Testament writers are utterly unanimous in seeing, not in Judaism—not one of them was concerned with that—but in the history of Israel attested in the Old Testament Canon the connecting point for their proclamation, doctrine and narrative of Christ; and vice versa, in seeing in their proclamation, doctrine and narrative of Christ the truth of the history of Israel, the fulfilment of the Holy Scripture read in the synagogue (72) 

[...] 

To indicate the axiomatic character of the statement that Christ was manifested as the Expected One even in the time of the Old Testament, we may make the further point that this statement was one which was taken for granted by the whole of the early Church from the 2nd century up to and including the Reformation and the orthodoxy of the 17th century determined by the Reformation, in spite of all the changes in the interpretation and evaluation of the Old Testament (74).

Barth then articulates three ways that the the unity between Old Testament and New Testament as it is centered on Christ - namely, expectation to fulfillment - is recognizable:

1) The Old Testament, like the New, is a witness to revelation, seen in Israel's being a congregation (and then nation) and in the covenant which points to Jesus Christ: "The Old Testament like the New Testament is the witness to revelation, which is decidedly to be regarded as a free, utterly once-for-all, concrete action of God. All along the line it has to fight against deviations from this attitude. But in itself the line is clear: when it speaks of the togetherness of God and man, the Old Testament is thinking neither of an objectively nor of an ideally grounded manifest state of God. It is thinking of revelation. It is therefore neither thinking of a givenness of God in and with the present of the spationatural cosmos, nor of a knownness of God in the form of a doctrine of transcendental truth known once for all or to be co-opted into knowledge. It holds that God’s presence is not bound up with the national existence, unity and peculiarity of the people Israel, nor yet with the individuality of this or that religious personality. But God’s revelation in the Old Testament is throughout a self-relation of God which posits itself from time to time in the sovereign freedom of divine action: a self-relation to a nation, but to a nation which from time to time concretely confronts Him in certain individual men and on which from time to time He acts through these individual men; a self-relation to definite individual men, who can concretely confront and serve Him only as examples, only as representatives of this nation; a self-relation which relativises and leaves behind it the contrast between nature and history as supremely as it does that of individual and community; a self-relation of the one, only God out of His own untrammelled initiative in the sheer Now of His decision. This Now of the divine decision and hence the revelation of God is the berith, the covenant, carried out in the flight from Egypt, introduced, made possible and led by God, proclaimed in the once-for-all lawgiving, sealed in the equally once-for-all covenant sacrifice at Sinai. This does not discover Israel already existing as such. It creates Israel as a national unit. And only in view of this covenant does the Old Testament witness have an interest in this nation, and this nation in particular [...] This covenant attested in the Old Testament is God’s revelation, because it is expectation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is expectation of the revelation of Jesus Christ once for all in its strict genuine historicity. As freely, as concretely, as uniquely as in the Old Testament berith, God in Jesus Christ becomes history, and with the same mercy and strictness man in Christ is adopted by God. To that extent, therefore, Jesus Christ is already the content and theme of this prehistory, of the Old Testament covenant (80-82).

The Old Testament covenant is the revelation of God as thus specially defined, in so far as, being so defined, it is expectation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Humanly God will be made manifest, when He is made manifest in Jesus Christ. Man will have to do with one Man as God’s representative, as the upholder and proclaimer of the covenant; he will have to do with a prophet, priest and king. An office of revelation will be set up and exercised. Of this the Old Testament is aware, and so it must also be said in this respect that  Jesus Christ is its content and theme. That its revelation is only the expectation of revelation is shown from this aspect, not only in the confusing number and variety of its mediating forms, which already in their parallelism and succession (like the various forms of the covenant itself) point beyond themselves, but still more in the limitation under which they are all manifestly what they are, in the thoroughgoing portent-bearing nature of their functions, in the impropriety of their office as God’s representatives. The kings of Israel did not indeed (as the usual idea of “theocracy” leads us to believe) carry out the law of Yahweh in their law, or exercise the might of Yahweh in their might, but Yahweh reserved His law and His power for Himself, and did so precisely in face of them. The priests did not forgive sins or create reconciliation between God and the nation, when they offered the sacrifices for the nation. With their human actions as priests they could only hint at this divine action. The prophets, too, did in all actuality receive and transmit the Word of the Lord. But they only received and transmitted it. They did not utter it of themselves, or as their own word. That the Word of God became this man himself and therefore flesh, the Old Testament does not venture to assert even of its greatest prophets. The almighty representation of God among men—the representation in which as a man God Himself is His own representative among men—is only announced in Abraham, Moses and David and the kings, priests and prophets of the Old Testament. They are all of them only instruments of divine action, not themselves or of themselves divinely active. Obviously they all signify the divine Agent, i.e., God Himself humanly present, God’s own Son. They do really signify Him. To that extent He is also manifest in them, and to that extent men may already be called in the Old Testament “sons of God,” even incidentally “gods.” But they signify Him in terms of the infinite distance that lies between the one who signifies and the One who is signified. They all have to point beyond themselves, and with them we have to look beyond themselves, in order to see the One who is signified. Or rather we must regard them from the standpoint of the One who is signified in order to realise that they do really signify Him. The covenant of God with His people through the incarnation is in truth the mysterium, the true mysterium, the mystery of the Old Testament (83–84). 

2) Second, the Old Testament is witness to revelation as God's veiling and unveiling, and we see that Jesus who was crucified for us is typified in the suffering servant: "The Old Testament like the New Testament is the witness to the revelation in which God remains a hidden God, indeed declares Himself to be the hidden God by revealing Himself. In and with this attested revelation a judgment is pronounced upon the whole world surrounding it, since God—here and now actually present—declares the whole world surrounding His revelation to be godless, irrespective of what it apparently believed itself to possess in the way of divine presence. And by this judgment this entire surrounding world is as such destined to die off, to pass away. If it has a hope, it is not to be found in itself, but only in connexion with the divine presence which breaks out fresh in revelation, and is the only real presence (84–85).

[...] 

"...the decisive thing that is to be said in connexion with this Old Testament necessity, namely, that on the basis of the covenant Jesus Christ had to be crucified. If, when the Word was made flesh, anything else could have happened upon the ancient critical stage of Galilee and Jerusalem than actually did happen, then a different God and a different man would at once have had to confront each other upon that stage. If God did not become another, if, therefore, man did not become another in the event when God asserted His real lordship, if, on the contrary, this event was the fulfilment of time, the fulfilment of the covenant, how could its content be other than the real hiddenness of God and so the suffering and dying servant of God? And likewise on the side of man, how could it be other than rebellion and desertion really and finally consummated? Jesus had to go up to Jerusalem. But the high priests, too, and the scribes and the people, had to do as they did in the only too genuine succession of tradition. The disciples had to leave Him, Peter had to deny Him, Judas had to betray Him. Not even here does this necessity imply the slightest excuse. Man unveils himself here as really and finally guilty. But that this did happen, that man really and finally revealed himself as guilty before God by killing God, had to happen thus and not otherwise in the event in which God asserted His real lordship. Of course this necessity can be expressed only in retrospect of this event, i.e., in retrospect of Easter to Good Friday; we might also say, in prospect of Christmas to Good Friday. “Our chastisement was upon him, that we might have peace.” If that is true, if the encounter of God and man here is really reconciliation, then it may be said that Christ had to be crucified, that God had to meet man here as the Hidden, and that man had to meet God here as a rebel. And if reconciliation is the truth about God’s action on Good Friday, and is recognised as the truth, in virtue of the revelation at Easter or Christmas, then this “had to” must also hold for the Old Testament, and the events in the Old Testament are to be regarded as expectation, as prophecy of the revelation in Jesus Christ. Then the truth of God’s hiddenness in the Old Testament and the truth of Israel’s sin is seen to be the forgiveness of sins. So, in view of the terrible encounter of God and man in the Old Testament, we shall have to say that here, too, we already have the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh and the life everlasting. To expect Christ in this full and complete way, as was the case here, means to have Christ and to have Him fully. The fathers had Christ, the complete Christ. Here, too, naturally, not an idea of Christ, but the incarnate Word, the Christ of history (92-93).

3) Third, the Old Testament is the witness of revelation in which God is present to man as the coming God (particularly as typified in the people, the land, the temple, the divine lordship, and the monarchy, pp. 94-98): "The Old Testament like the New Testament is the witness of the revelation in which God is present to man as the coming God. Present and coming are both to be stressed. In this way we describe the side of the Old Testament witness, according to which it is now explicitly witness to expectation; from the New Testament standpoint we say, expectation of Jesus Christ, according to which it is prophecy. It is this implicitly, as we have seen, even as a witness of God’s covenant and God’s hiddenness (94). All of these things are God's but they await their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Thus the Old Testament is a "pre-time" - it was a time of expectation of revelation:

This, then, is the explicit expectation of the Old Testament. It must be held together with what is said about the covenant concluded but not fulfilled and about the revealed but not realised hiddenness of God in the Old Testament. And what was said about the covenant and about the hiddenness of God receives confirmation from the presence of this explicit expectation. It is only ex event [after the fact], however, from the recollection of fulfilled time, from the New Testament point of view, that we can say that in respect of this expectation the Old Testament is the witness to divine revelation, so that its expectation is no illusion, but the kind of expectation when the expected One has already knocked at the door and is already there, though still outside. Mere expectation, therefore, or abstract expectation, an autonomous time of preparation, is excluded. Is there fulfilled time and expectation? Has the Messiah appeared? Later Judaism, the documents of which were not adopted into the Old Testament Canon, more than once thought so, and every time the end was a bitter disillusionment. And when Jesus Christ arose in Galilee and Jerusalem, the same later Judaism, represented by the authorised experts in the canonical Old Testament and the official bearers of the sacred tradition, looked right past Him, in fact rejected Him outright and smote Him on the cross. If He was the Messiah to come, if He was the revelation attested by the Old Testament in expectation, as the Christian Church confesses it, then we can only say that it had to be so, that rejection was possible in spite of the fact that Holy Scripture of the Old Testament lay open straight in front of these men’s eyes and was read by them with genuine industry and attention. Revelation does not speak directly even in its most definite testimonies—i.e., not by way of a demonstration that can be carried out by experiment and logic. The expectation of revelation in the Old Testament is prophecy, not prediction to be controlled experimentally by logic. That is why it was and is possible to look past it. That is why it could and can be rejected. How could it be otherwise? It is self-attested by the fact that this expected revelation is really revelation, that the Old Testament present participates in a future which is really God’s future. That is, one may be offended by it; it can only be believed in; it speaks only in the way revelation speaks. To this day the Synagogue waits for the fulfilment of prophecy. Is it really waiting? Is it waiting as the fathers waited? The fathers’ waiting was no mere abstract, infinite waiting, but a waiting which already participated in fulfilled time. Ought it not to have been in this knowledge that the Synagogue closed the Canon as the document of this waiting? Did it not thereby confess that there is a time for waiting but that waiting has only its own time? Could the Canon be closed and Christ yet be rejected? Can the closed Canon of witness to expected revelation be read with meaning apart from the counter-canon of revelation that happened? Is an infinite waiting, such as is the result of an abstracted Old Testament faith, a real waiting and not rather an eternal unrest? Is revelation that is only awaited real revelation? We have already denied this and can only repeat the denial. The Synagogue of the time after Christ is the more than tragic, uncannily pitiful figure with bandaged eyes and broken lance, as depicted on the Minster at Strasbourg. We must remember, however, that revelation, especially in the Church which believes in it as revelation that happens, which believes in Jesus Christ, only speaks as revelation speaks. Knowledge of it in either case, whether related to witness to it in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, is decision. The Church may also be a figure with bandaged eyes and a broken lance, even though the New Testament is in her hands, the Canon of the witness to the revelation that happened. And if the Church is not this, if it recognises revelation and lives by revelation, that is unmerited grace, as Paul says in Rom. 11:20f. The mystery of revelation, which is the mystery of free, unmerited grace, includes the Church of the New Testament inseparably with the people whose blessing is attested for us in the Old Testament as expectation of Jesus Christ. And this very mystery acts not only as a barrier but as a bond between Church and Synagogue which, like the impenitent sister with seeing eyes, refuses to see that the people of the Old Testament really expected Jesus Christ and in this expectation was graciously blessed (100-101).

Sermon: "The Root of Jesse and the Peaceable Kingdom" Isaiah 11:1-10 [Second Sunday of Advent 2013]

“The Root of Jesse and the Peaceable Kingdom”

Isaiah 11:1-10

[cf. Psalm 72:1-7,18-19; Roman 15:4-13]

One of the things that I so appreciate about the season of Advent - this waiting period in the Christian calendar which encompasses the four weeks leading up to the season of Christmas - is that it teaches us to be a waiting people — an “already but not yet” people — it teaches us in our waiting to be a people of hope. It teaches us to be patient as we wait to celebrate the second coming of Jesus Christ and the coming of true peace.

Waiting.

Hope.

The Second Coming of Christ.

Peace.

It’s interesting that the Christian year begins with Advent. This is the season that teaches us to wait for what is beyond the obvious. Advent trains us to see what is beyond the apparent. Advent makes us look for God in all the places we have until now ignored.” [1]

Advent (in many ways) is the seasonal and ecclesial equivalent of that familiar phrase….”wait for it”….”wait for it”…”wait for it”…

And in today’s text in Isaiah, we are reminded that we can wait, just like those people in Isaiah’s day who were so desperately waiting for a King and a kingdom that would be committed to righteousness, justice, and peace. We can wait - even though it is often quite difficult to live in the time of waiting - especially if we’re experiencing suffering or pain or grief. We’re just not used to having to wait for those things we desire the most. We’re not used to having to wait for relief.

But Advent reminds us that…if we will just wait…and if we will just trust…and in the trusting and the waiting be faithful to God and be prepared for his return - then our hope will be rewarded. God will not let us down. He will come and fulfill all the promises He has made.

So our story today (our text in Isaiah) begins with waiting…and with a seemingly dead stump. What’s that all about? Well, it might be hard to appreciate in light of Isaiah’s (glorious dual) prophecies here, but to live within the Kingdom of Judah at the time when this text was written, was to live under just about the worst political rule possible — there was a Davidic king on the throne, that’s true, but unfortunately he was nothing like the better parts of King David.

It was a time…(to put it in a Tolkien-esque way)…it was a time when the line of kings had been broken. It was a time of dead, lifeless politics. It was a time of war and economic despair (so bad that even the northern Kingdom of Israel was attacking Judah). It was a time when the land you loved and lived upon was ravaged because of war. It was a time when your children had been carried off into slavery by the wars. It was a time when there seemed to be no end of suffering in sight and no hope on the horizon. It was a time when the religious life of Judah was at an all time low. It was a time when the king did not place his trust fully in God — YHWH who should have been the surest source of Judah’s salvation.

And so the text begins with a stump - a dead and seemingly lifeless thing - because the one hope which had buoyed Judah’s heart had been the line of kings from the throne of David. Isaiah’s text begins with a vision of a dead stump of Jesse (which was David’s father by the way)…because it reflected the deep failure of the leadership and kings in the lineage of King David’s dynasty — failure to bring justice, and peace, and righteousness to the kingdom of Judah. 

Much of the source for the dark times that lay on the land fall squarely on the shoulders of the king at the time — King Ahaz. Listen to the record of King Ahaz from 2 Chronicles 28:

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign; he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestor David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals; and he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. He sacrificed and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. 

Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with great slaughter. Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand in Judah in one day, all of them valiant warriors, because they had abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors. And Zichri, a mighty warrior of Ephraim, killed the king’s son Maaseiah, Azrikam the commander of the palace, and Elkanah the next in authority to the king. 

The people of Israel took captive two hundred thousand of their kin, women, sons, and daughters; they also took much booty from them and brought the booty to Samaria. But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded; he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, “Because the Lord, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand, but you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven. Now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. But what have you except sins against the Lord your God? Now hear me, and send back the captives whom you have taken from your kindred, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.” Moreover, certain chiefs of the Ephraimites, Azariah son of Johanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai, stood up against those who were coming from the war, and said to them, “You shall not bring the captives in here, for you propose to bring on us guilt against the Lord in addition to our present sins and guilt. For our guilt is already great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.” So the warriors left the captives and the booty before the officials and all the assembly. Then those who were mentioned by name got up and took the captives, and with the booty they clothed all that were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kindred at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria. 

At that time King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help. For the Edomites had again invaded and defeated Judah, and carried away captives. And the Philistines had made raids on the cities in the Shephelah and the Negeb of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages; and they settled there. For the Lord brought Judah low because of King Ahaz of Israel, for he had behaved without restraint in Judah and had been faithless to the Lord. So King Tilgath-pilneser of Assyria came against him, and oppressed him instead of strengthening him. For Ahaz plundered the house of the Lord and the houses of the king and of the officials, and gave tribute to the king of Assyria; but it did not help him. 

In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord—this same King Ahaz. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him, and said, “Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel. Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, and cut in pieces the utensils of the house of God. He shut up the doors of the house of the Lord and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the Lord, the God of his ancestors. Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. Ahaz slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city, in Jerusalem; but they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel. His son Hezekiah succeeded him.

There is a record in the very next chapter of 2 Chronicles that it took King Hezekiah’s workers sixteen days to clean out and repair the damage done to the temple by Ahaz, so fully had it been defiled.

It was a time of darkness. 

It was a time of deadness. 

It was a time of very difficult waiting if you still were even capable of holding out hope.

Do have a picture in your mind now of the time in which our text today is being delivered?

If so, imagine then the reception of these words:

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

This text is a wonderful prophecy that reminds us that in the war between dead stumpy things and the Spirit of God — the Spirit of God always wins. Some of us need to hear that this morning because we have our own dead, stumpy things to face in this season of Advent, don’t we? 

The renewal of the people (and a time of hope, peace, and justice) will not be merely a human possibility — as if humans could create such a thing — but a divine gift, because this will be effected by the spirit of YHWH. 

Isaiah tells us that one who is greater than the world is coming to reign. The one who is coming is a Spirit-filled leader the likes of which the world has never seen. A king will emerge (we know now from Bethlehem) who will lead his people with “wisdom and understanding,” “counsel and might,” “knowledge and the fear of the LORD” (v. 2). His gifts are endowed by YHWH. The coming one, the promised prince of peace, will be the bearer of the spirit of YHWH. 

In the coming one resides the salvation toward which the children of Israel look. The hope of the people is expressed in Psalm 72:1–2: “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.” Like Solomon the new leader will be skilled in knowledge and the gift of discernment (1 Kgs. 3:9). 

The promise that the king of peace will embody and make possible is one in which the whole creation will participate. The sign and signal of the new day will be the appearance of this new king who will restore the Davidic line, ushering in the end time realm in which God’s knowledge will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (v. 9). In this wonderful vision of peace inaugurated by the Messiah, the entire creation participates. The place of peace will be the holy mountain of God, and the land will be filled with the knowledge of God. [2]

Listen to the second part of Isaiah’s prophecy:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

In the church during the Advent season we observe a time of waiting with great expectation before the coming of one who is greater than this world.

The promise of Advent - and the choice to believe that one is coming who is greater than this world - gives me the power to go into the corners of my heart where sin dwells - and say “I believe” the the Prince of Peace and the Spirit of God is greater than my sin

The promise of Advent helps me go into that corner of my heart where the fear of death dwells and say - “I believe” there is someone who is coming who is greater than the power of death.

To go into that corner of my heart which has lost faith in the power of prayer and say - “I believe” there is one who is coming who is greater than my doubt.

To go into that corner of my heart where there is deadness and fear that “this” is all there is in this life and say instead - “I believe” that there is something greater than this world. A Someone who will bring true meaning and satisfaction to my heart.

Isaiah’s declaration stands in direct contrast to the terror and brutality that pervades our world and informs our decisions today.

In our world today, we are acquainted with fear and violence, aren’t we? News of terrorism, war, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe instill a deep sense of anxiety within us. 

In this very room, there is grief, suffering, and fear. What lions have ravaged those in this congregation? What snakes coil hidden in your lives, threatening to strike? In what way has the security of your life already been stolen? 

According to Isaiah, the transformation from a culture of fear to a world at peace begins with a stump. Out of something that appears finished, lifeless, left behind, comes the sign of new life—a green sprig. 

This is how hope gets its start—it emerges as a tiny tendril in an unexpected place [3]. As a baby in a manger. As a helpless babe who will take away the sins of the world.

Where do you feel cut off like some dead stump this morning? 

Can you imagine or believe that in this season of Advent, even now, God might be nurturing the growth of something new and good from your old, dead dreams? 

Which areas of your life most needs the promise of new life this morning? 

Isaiah’s promise is not just a future one; even now there are tiny signs of hope and life in places that look dead and discarded. The text in Isaiah is God’s word to us as Christians that we can believe that one is coming who is the fulfillment of a great promise — who is the fulfillment of a great prophecy — who will usher in a new day when our lives will be caught up and entwined with the very presence of God — fully and without any barriers. One is coming who will bring peace.

Waiting.

Hope.

The Second Coming of Christ.

Peace.

In today’s text in Isaiah, we are reminded that we can wait, just like those people in Isaiah’s day who were so desperately waiting for a King and a kingdom that would be committed to righteousness, justice, and peace. We can wait - even though it is often quite difficult to live in the time of waiting - especially if we’re experiencing suffering or pain or grief. We’re just not used to having to wait for those things we desire the most. We’re not used to having to wait for relief.

But Advent reminds us that…if we will just wait…and if we will just trust…and in the trusting and the waiting be faithful to God and be prepared for his return - then our hope will be rewarded. God will not let us down. He will come and fulfill all the promises He has made. In fact, he already has.

Let us pray.

-----------------------

[1] Thoughts inspired by Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life, 59.

[2] These paragraphs are inspired and sometimes quoted directly from David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Kindle Locations 1077-1091). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition. 

[3] Quoted from David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Kindle Locations 1144-1145). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition. 

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §14.1 "God's Time and Our Time" pp. 45-70

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 §14 states: "God’s revelation in the event of the presence of Jesus Christ is God’s time for us. It is fulfilled time in this event itself. But as the Old Testament time of expectation and as the New Testament time of recollection it is also the time of witness to this event."

In subsection §14.2 ("God's Time and Our Time"), Barth begins by orienting us to a new topic and a area to explore in relation to revelation - time. 

If by the statement, “God reveals Himself” is meant the revelation attested in Holy Scripture, it is a statement about the occurrence of an event. That means it also includes an assertion about a time proper to revelation. If stated with reference to this, it is equivalent to the statement, “God has time for us.” The time God has for us is just this time of His revelation, the time that is real in His revelation, revelation time. Moreover in the interpretation of the concept of this time, which is now our task, we shall not have to take as a basis any time concept gained independently of revelation itself. If our consideration of the question as to the time of revelation is serious, we shall at once be aware (1) that we have no other time than the time God has for us, and (2) that God has no other time for us than the time of His revelation. Thus we must let ourselves be told what time is by revelation itself, and only then, and with that reference, form our idea of the time of revelation as such (45).

So what is this "revelation time" (which is time as may be experienced when known in God's grace as Jesus Christ)? Well, Barth rejects right off the bat that "revelation time" is the time that we are accustomed to - "our time" or what he calls "fallen time" (which is time as unredeemed humanity experiences it). Neither is "revelation time" the same thing as "created time" (which is that time as given by God in creation). "Revelation time" is a kind of third thing - which Barth also calls "real time":

But this different time is the new, the third time, which arises and has its place because God reveals Himself, because He is free for us, because He is with us and amongst us, because in short, without ceasing to be what He is, He also becomes what we are. God’s revelation is the event of Jesus Christ. We do not understand it as God’s revelation, if we do not state unreservedly that it took place in “our” time. But, conversely, if we understand it as God’s revelation, we have to say that this event had its own time; in this event it happened that whereas we had our own time for ourselves as always, God had time for us, His own time for us—time, in the most positive sense, i.e. present with past and future, fulfilled time with expectation and recollection of its fulfilment, revelation time and the time of the Old Testament and New Testament witness to revelation—but withal, His own time, God’s time; and therefore real time (49).

What Barth calls "God's time" and "revelation time" is God's time - He is Lord over it. It is his to give. It is fulfilled time also, in that, it is full of the benefits of all that God has to give. And as we are unified with Christ, so time for us is united in past, present, and future.

“God reveals Himself” means “God has time for us.” God’s revelation is God’s inconceivable freeness and so His existence for us. But this very freeness and existence consist in His having time for us. The entire fulness of the benefit of God’s revelation and of the reconciliation accomplished in it lies in the fact that God has time for us, a time which is right, genuine and real. 

In this context we might well pause to think of the fact that to have time for another, although in the abstract this says little, is in reality to manifest in essence all the benefits which one man can show to another. When I really give anyone my time, I thereby give him the last and most personal thing that I have to give at all, namely myself. If I do not give him my time, I certainly continue to be his debtor in everything, even though in other ways I give him ever so much. The difference at once to be noticed between our having time for others and God’s having time for us is twofold, that if God gives us time, He who deals with us is He who alone has genuine, real time to give, and that He gives us this time not just partially, not with all sorts of reservations and qualifications, such as are habitual with us when giving to others, but entirely. The fulfilment of time that took place in Jesus is not just an alms from the divine riches; if, according to Gal. 4:4, Jesus Christ is the “pleroma [fullness] of the time,” we have to remember that, according to Col. 2:9. “in him dwelleth all the pleroma [fullness] of the Godhead bodily.” 

In revelation God stands in for us entirely. And so also the time He creates for Himself in revelation, the genuine present, past and future of which we have been speaking, is presented to us entirely. It should, it can, it will become our time, since He directs His Word to us; we are to become contemporary with this time of His. His genuine time takes the place of the problematic, improper time we know and have. It replaces it in that, amid the years and ages of this time of ours, the time of Jesus Christ takes the place of our time, coming to us as a glad message presented to us as a promise, and to be seized and lived in by us. Just as a light in an otherwise dark space is a light for its own little area and has light for the whole space, so far, that is, as it is a bright open light and so far as there are eyes in the space, and open eyes, to behold it as a light, so is the Gospel (54-55).

Barth rehearses some problems he sees with the common discussion about "Revelation and History" - the question whether and how far humanity's time may be regarded at any definite point as the time of God's revelation (56-59). He considers this way of thinking a "portentous failure to appreciate the nature of revelation (56)." The problems with "Revelation and History" is that:

1) "There has been a failure to see that in answering this question we cannot start with the general phenomenon of time, or, as it is preferably called, history. We cannot assume that we know its normal structure on the basis of comparative observation, and then go on to ask whether and how far the phenomenon of revelation discloses itself, perhaps, to the said comparative observation at a specific point" (56). 

2) "There has been failure to see that the event of Jesus Christ as God’s revelation can be found only when sought as such, i.e., when we are seeking what we have already found" (57). 

3) "There has been a failure to see that if revelation is revelation, we cannot speak of it as though it can be discovered, dug up, worked out as the deeper ground and content of human history. If the sentence “God reveals Himself” has anything even remotely in common-with interpretation, hypothesis, assertion, with appraising and valuing, with an arbitrary fixing, extracting, or excising of a definite bit of human history out of its context, if anything like “absolutising” a reality relative to itself is even remotely the meaning of the sentence in question, then it will be better omitted altogether, especially if it is perhaps to be general, as expressing a very profound and congenial historical intuition" (58). 

Revelation as "God's time" as fulfilled time means three things:

1) Time is mastered by God: “God reveals Himself”—if this is said in the light of the revelation attested in Holy Scripture, it is said in view of a factual act of lordship which has already become an event, from which the person making the statement cannot withdraw. Time, and, with the time of revelation itself, the time also of the person making the statement, has found its Master; it has become mastered time" (59). 

2) Within our time we resist God's time: “God reveals Himself”—if this is said of the revelation attested in Holy Scripture, it is said in view of the equally factual resistance of man to the divine act of lordship, a resistance in which he who makes this statement will be aware that he participates, and shares in its guilt. Of course, the limitation and determination of our time is completed, the order of rank between God’s time and our time is instituted.  The man who does not know this does not know what he is saying when he repeats the statement in question. But again he does not know what he is saying if he does not know, too, that our time, i.e., that we ourselves are far removed from acquiescing in this limit and order of rank of our own inclination and capacity, that on the contrary we seek to defend ourselves against them in downright earnest. The old æon which passes away in revelation and yet in passing away is still present, stands to the new one that comes in revelation by no means in the neutral relation of any time to any other time following upon it. The old æon is rather God’s time confronting men who boast of their own power and in that very fact are sinful and fallen; and in these men we recognise ourselves, if we really recognise God’s revelation—ourselves as God’s enemies. In this encounter with us as His enemies God’s revelation is a reality. On its reality in this encounter is grounded its hiddenness (61). 

3) New time breaks into the old: “God reveals Himself”—if the statement is made in respect of the revelation attested in Holy Scripture, it is made in view of the actually miraculous event, the special new direct act of God in the breaking in of new time into the midst of the old" (63).

So what does it mean for us and "our time" that there is God's time, fulfilled time? It means that our time is limited and determined by fulfilled time (66). What this mean is that...

1) "Fulfilled time takes the place of our non-genuine and improper time as genuine, proper time. What we mean when we say “time” is real there. We thus have our real time not here but there. It is therefore not an edifying trick of thought, but the assimilation of nourishment absolutely indispensable to our life, when Holy Scripture and the proclamation of its message call and transpose us from our own time away into that time, namely, into the time of Jesus Christ. There and only there, in contemporaneousness with Christ mediated to the Church by the witness of the prophets and apostles, do we really possess time. That time, its presence in the coming of the Kingdom and in the passing away of this world, is in truth our time, really presented to us in God’s revelation" (66-67). 

2) "The fulfilment of time by revelation means—once more we are not in any sense speaking metaphorically but absolutely really—that our own time, the thing we suppose we know and possess as time, is taken from us" (67). 

3) "The fulfillment of time by revelation does not so far mean, of course, the completion, but it means only the announcement, the immediate imminence of the taking away of our time" (67). 

4) "If time is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we can no longer regard our time, the time we still possess because of God’s long-suffering, as endless. It is finite time, and therefore its flow from one conjectural present to another is merely a course from its end to its end; from its end—that is, so far as the end is already announced to it; to its end—so far as it belongs to the concept of God’s long-suffering that it (and with it our time) must once for all really come to an end. The myth of infinite or endless time is shattered by revelation. In revelation time has discovered its origin and its aim. Infinite time (and in this infinite time all infinite, absolute values and magnitudes) exists only for a time-consciousness which is unaware of or forgetful of revelation. A time-consciousness aware of it and mindful of it will quite certainly not be a consciousness void of time, but full of time and congruous with it. In the presence of the Word of revelation, its time is marked by the irresistible dissolution of what we call time and the equally irresistible advent of God’s time. In time thus determined and in accordance with the law corresponding to it, it will be an historical, cosmic, ethical, political consciousness. It exists in this time and in no other, because here and now it has really ceased to possess any time other than this time of God’s long-suffering in respect of fulfilled time" (68-69).

What a marvelous (if not a little difficult) reflection today!

Blogging with Barth: CD 1.2 §13.2 "Jesus Christ the Objective Possibility of Revelation" pp. 25-44

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 §13 states: "According to Holy Scripture God’s revelation takes place in the fact that God’s Word became a man and that this man has become God’s Word. The incarnation of the eternal Word, Jesus Christ, is God’s revelation. In the reality of this event God proves that He is free to be our God."

In subsection §13.2 ("Jesus Christ the Objective Possibility of Revelation"), Barth starts by re-stating the fact of revelation - in the unity of God and man in Jesus Christ we have the objective reality of divine revelation (25). 

God’s freedom for us men is a fact in Jesus Christ, according to the witness of Holy Scripture. The first and the last thing to be said about the bearer of this name is that He is very God and very Man. In this unity He is the objective reality of divine revelation. His existence is God’s freedom for man. Or vice versa God’s freedom for man is the existence of Jesus Christ. And now we continue by saying that in this objective reality of the divine revelation there is presupposed and grounded and brought within our knowledge its objective possibility (25).

So Barth begins his reflection with a question:

My name for the question aroused in us by the reality of revelation and which we now have to take up is the question as to the possibility, in our context the objective possibility, of revelation. We formulate the question in a manner parallel to the one first put, namely: How in God’s freedom is it possible for His revelation to encounter man? How far can the reality of Jesus Christ, i.e., the unity of God and man indicated by this Name, be God’s revelation to man? (27).

How can God reveal Godself? The obvious answer for Barth is the incarnation:

The reality of revelation as such answers a question. It tells us what is required in order that the work of God’s revelation may take place and in order that it may achieve this effect, namely a manifestness of God for man. How should we understand it, if we were not to regard it as the answer to this question? But if we let ourselves be told that this answer is called Jesus Christ, i.e., God’s Son who became Man, the Man who was God’s Son, and if therefore this existence of Jesus Christ is itself the objective possibility of revelation consisting in God’s freedom, then obviously we are faced with the task of understanding the existence of Jesus Christ as the objective possibility of revelation (28).

Of course, without revelation, we would not even know of our blindness and of God's inconceivability outside revelation - thus the importance of a discussion on the possibility of revelation:

Revelation itself is needed for knowing that God is hidden and man blind. Revelation and it alone really and finally separates God and man by bringing them together. For by bringing them together it informs man about God and about himself, it reveals God as the Lord of eternity, as the Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer, and characterises man as a creature, as a sinner, as one devoted to death. It does that by telling him that God is free for us, that God has created and sustains him, that He forgives his sin, that He saves him from death. But it tells him that this God (no other) is free for this man (no other). If that is heard, then and not till then the boundary between God and man becomes really visible, of which the most radical sceptic and atheist cannot even dream, for all his doubts and negations. Since the boundary is visible, revelation, which crosses this boundary, is also visible as a mystery, a miracle, an exception. The man who listens here, sees himself standing at the boundary where all is at an end. Whichever way I look, God is hidden for me and I am blind to Him. The revelation that crosses this boundary, and the togetherness of God and man which takes place in revelation in spite of this boundary, make the boundary visible to him in an unprecedented way. No longer need he yield to deceptions regarding the cosmos of realities that otherwise encounter him. This cosmos will lose the power to prepare for him either illusions or disillusionments. He knows all about it. Not because he has supplied himself with information about it by intuitive or analytico-synthetic means, but because he has been informed about it. But this information is, that among the realities of this cosmos there is not one in which God would be free for man. In this cosmos God is hidden and man blind. Once more, it is God’s revelation which gives him this information. That it does so is its critical significance. By that very fact, however, the further question is thrust at us: how far is God free for us in His revelation? No less than everything, i.e., no less than the whole of man’s cosmos, seems to speak against this possibility taking place. Even if it is ever so great and rich, as it actually is, how could one of its realities have the power to be God’s revelation to man? Once again, man would have to leave the real revelation of God out of account; he would have to forget that he is informed about God and about himself, if he is to assert boldly the presence of such a power as one of the realities of his cosmos (29-30).

So given the miraculous nature of revelation, how can it be an event? The reality of revelation made possible in Jesus Christ has five implications:

1) First, "We infer from the reality of Jesus Christ that God is free for us in the sense that revelation on His side becomes possible in such a way that He is God not only in Himself but also in and among us, in our cosmos, as one of the realities that meet us. The reality of Jesus Christ, consisting in the fact that God is this Man and this Man is God, invariably asserts that God can cross the boundary between Himself and us; or expressed in general terms, between His own existence and the existence of that which is not identical with Himself" (31). Not only that, he wills to condescend to us. Praise God!

2) Second, "We infer from the reality of Jesus Christ that God is free for us, in the sense that He reveals Himself to us in such a way that His Word or His Son becomes a man—not God the Father, and not God the Holy Spirit. If we try to understand this also, we have first of all to remember that the distinctions of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit do not signify a partition in God’s nature and activity. As Father, Son and Holy Spirit He is in His nature the one God completely and not partially. The statement that it is the Word or the Son of God who became man therefore asserts without reserve that in spite of His distinction as Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit, God in His entire divinity became man" [...] "In the work of becoming Man, common to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the order as in the Trinity is generally that the Father represents, as it were, the divine Who, the Son the divine What, and the Holy Spirit the divine How. Therefore, in spite of  and in the mutuality of this work, we must not say of the Father or of the Holy Spirit but only of the Son, that He assumed humanity" (33-34).

3) Third, "We conclude from the reality Jesus Christ that God reveals Himself, that He is free for us, in such a way that God’s Son or Word assumes a form at least known to us, such that He can become cognisable by us by analogy with other forms known to us. His humanity is the covering which He puts on, and therefore the means of His revelation. We return at once to the fact that it is humanity. But as such it is a form of being belonging to the cosmos, whose reality is also known to us in another way. God could have revealed Himself immediately, in His invisible glory. Or in order to be manifest to us, the Word might have assumed the form of a being previously and otherwise wholly foreign to us, a being belonging to some other cosmos of reality. But that is not the case. As a mystery, revelation does not anywhere infringe the nature and history of our cosmos as we know them. Although with signs and wonders, things happen as they have always and everywhere happened since this cosmos began to exist. That is to say, at a definite point in space and time there lives and dies a human being like us all. In this human being God’s Word is revealed to us" [...] "God bends down to us as it were, by assuming this form familiar to us. His love is already announced to us in the fact that even in His veiling—in which He has first to be unveiled as God, to be believed in as God—He yet does not meet us as a stranger" (35-37).

4) Fourth, "From the reality of Jesus Christ we gather that revelation is possible on God’s side, that God is free for us, in such a way that His Word by becoming Man at the same time is and remains what He is. the true and eternal God, the same as He is in Himself at the Father’s right hand for ever and ever" (37). Of course, the how of this miracle is inconceivable to us.

5) Fifth, "Finally, we conclude from the reality of Jesus Christ, that God’s revelation becomes possible in such a way that God’s Son or Word becomes Man. He does not become any kind of natural being. He becomes what we ourselves are." [...] "It is this humanity that the Son of God has assumed. The act of the triune God in the reality of Jesus Christ is that in this reality He was not only what He is in Himself in eternity. He was also with us and among us. He was also what we are. He was also flesh. Of course, as His humanity, it became a different thing from ours, for sin, man’s strife with God, could not find any place in Him. Yet apart from this single characteristic it is our own familiar humanity out and out, namely, not only with its natural problems, but with the guilt lying upon it of which it has to repent, with the judgment of God hanging over it, with the death to which it is liable. The Son of God could not sin—how could God be untrue to Himself? But all of this, the entire curse of sin, which is what Holy Scripture means when it calls men flesh, this curse the Son of God has taken upon Himself and borne by becoming a man. And to that very extent He became a real, genuine, true man, man placed before God" (39-40).

So, Barth helpfully summarizes all this for us in his closing paragraph:

Let us summarise. We set out to understand how far the reality Jesus Christ is God’s revelation. We let ourselves be summoned by the abolition, brought about by revelation itself, of any other possibility of revelation, to ask precisely how far God’s revelation is possible, as it meets us in the reality of Jesus Christ. And then we discovered this possibility of revelation (1) in the condescension whereby God in Jesus Christ becomes identical with a reality different from Himself, (2) in the fact that Jesus Christ is identical with God’s Son or Word, (3) in Jesus Christ’s belonging actually to the cosmos of reality familiar to us, (4) in Jesus Christ’s belonging without diminution to God Himself, (5) in the man-ness, i.e., the flesh-ness of Jesus Christ. We have thus spoken of the possibility of revelation, and of that only, which is to be read off from its reality (44).