To you a Savior

"To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."—Luke 2:11

For those of you who know me, this shouldn’t surprise you:  I’ve always liked Karl Barth’s writing on the incarnation.  To me Barth grasps the saving significance of the incarnate life of Jesus Christ.  Salvation was wrought in the incarnate life of the mediator—the Word made flesh who dwelt among us.

Of Jesus this must be said.  For the work of Jesus is the work of the Savior.  And the saving work which brings deliverance and life consists materially in the fact that He gives Himself.  We may not and must not understand by the title Savior only the death in which he consummates the self-devotion of His life, but His whole existence.  He is the Savior, and is born as such, in the fact that He is for the many, for the World. (Church Dogmatics III/2, 61)

Karl Barth - The Word of God & the Word of Man

There are many varied reasons why someone might wish to read Karl Barth’s The Word of God & the Word of Man. For some it might be that because Barth is such a towering figure not just in 20th century theology but in the history of Christian theology as well, it is probably worth taking the time to read at least something he wrote. Or, those who have moved beyond curiosity and actually have a great affinity (or hatred!) to Barth’s work and might be interested in reading this collection of some of his early lectures to better understand Barth’s beginnings. Reading the opening essay “The Righteousness of God” helps the Barth scholar better understand what was happening in say, “The Humanity of God”. As such, The Word of God & the Word of Man serves as a useful Polaroid of the early Barth. Or perhaps the would-be reader was left puzzled by the veritable hand grenade that was Romans. Despite its stature, Romans is by no means an easy read and this collection might serve as a helpful supplement to such a task.

As a pseudo-/wanna-be Barth scholar I must admit that part of my motivation for reading this collection falls in the later variety: where did Barth come from? How did he get from point A to point B? What is it that distinguishes the nebulous “early Barth” from “later Barth”? Ironically, my hunch is that the man himself would laugh at questions such as these. While it is certainly a worthwhile endeavor to understand the work of another person, this should never be the end of the matter. This is even more so considering the subject matter of theology. In theology we use the words of men, to reflect critically upon the Word of God. Yet, in the haste to do so we forget that it is the Word of God that has its proper place as the beginning and end of all theological speak – something that Barth argues in this volume is really an impossibility anyway. Yet, speak we must. So moving forward, might there be another, better reason for reading a collection as this? Something that moves beyond the realm of theological gymnastics and cuts to the center of why we even think theologically?

It is often forgotten that Barth wrote and thought with the Church in mind. Barth began his career as a parish minister. Even his magnum opus Church Dogmatics was written for the Church and specifically with the minister in mind. Yet due to the sheer volume and breadth of Dogmatics, it is easier to push aside that reality and think of Barth as a scholar’s scholar with little mind for what actually happens in the world whether it be in the parish or in the streets. However, with The Word of God & the Word of Man, the reader is forcefully reminded that Barth wrote and thought as a minister of the Word of God with great and terrible call to preach the Word of God whether it is in the pulpit on a Sunday morning or in the great halls of the academy. And as such Barth confronts us here with the Godness of God, the one that is wholly other and yet confronts us in our sinfulness and justifies us freely and thereby heightening the level of confrontation.

Opening essay “The Righteousness of God” makes this very clear. Any attempt to construct our own image of God is a foolish tower of Babel and denies the overwhelming reality of the otherness of God. As Barth writes with such lucidity one cannot help but be lead to a deeper place of, gasp, worship of the true God who confronts us as we are. In the exceptional “The Strange New World of the Bible” the reader is reminded of the nature of the Bible. The Bible is not a history as such. It is not the story of humanity. It is not the history of religion. The Bible is the history of God and must be read as such. It is not concerned with our history but the history of God. The Bible is the bony finger of John – “behold the lamb of God!” Essays “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching” and “the Word of God and the Task of the Ministry” are just as they sound: a resounding call to the vocation of the Church and a reminder of the impossibility of the task, specifically for the minister. As ministers called to speak truthfully and bear witness to God we stand under the judgment of God. Yet as ministers we bear witness to the mercy of the God who justifies us and frees us for such an impossible task: “As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give God the glory” (186).

My hope is that I am suggesting that Barth in general and this work in particular are for more than the academic seeking to tag and classify God. Barth’s program is for the glory of God and the benefit of the Church. What minister, what Christian need to be less confronted with righteousness of God? What minister, what Christian does not need to be reminded of the strange new world of the Bible? What minister has not felt the crushing terror that comes with awesome task of the proclamation of the Word of God? And if one has not felt that terror, they should. And that is precisely what Barth is doing here. When one reads Barth one is confronted and reminded of the true starting point of all Christian thinking: God is God and I am not.

Karl Barth on the 40th Anniversary of his Death

40 years ago today, sometime during the night Karl Barth passed away peacefully in the downstairs of his home. Barth's life and work is monumental and people the world over devote literally their whole life studying it. As such, I would be ill-advised summarizing it in any curt fashion. However, I believe Eberhard Busch's re-telling of Barth's final night serve as a good introduction to the man and his work. From Karl Barth - His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts:

On Monday 9 December he spent the day working on his lecture again (for a forum
of Catholic and Reformed Christians on the theme of 'Setting Out - Being
Converted - Confessing.' ed.) He was still at work in the evening when he
was interrupted by two telephone calls, about nine o'clock. One was from
his godson Ulrich Barth, to whom he quoted a verse from a hymn which spoke
comfortingly about the Christian hope. The other person who wanted to
speak to him so late at night was his friend Eduard Thurneysen, who had remained
faithful to him over sixty years. They talked about the gloomy world
situation. Then Barth said, 'But keep your chin up! Never mind! "He
will reign!"' When the telephone rang he had been writing a few sentences
of the draft for his lecture in which he was saying that in the church it is
always important to listen to the Fathers who have gone before in the
faith. For '"God is not a God of the dead but of the living." In him
they all live' - from the Apostles down to the Fathers of the day before
yesterday and of yesterday. Barth did not go back to the draft which he
had left in the middle of a sentence, but put it aside until the next day.
However, he did not live that long. He died peacefully some time in the
middle of the night. He lay there as though asleep, with his hands gently
folded from his evening prayers. So his wife found him the next morning,
while in the background a record was playing the Mozart with which she had
wanted to waken him.

Above all Barth was a person of prayer. This was a matter of personal piety but more so it is demonstrated in his own theological work, which as we see never ended. Theology is a matter of worship, reflection, and witness. He liberally borrowed from Anselm's famous dictum: fides intelectum - faith seeks to understand. Theology starts with God and how God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. The theologian responds in faith by testifying to how God who this God is in being, action, and being in action.