becoming

Remembering Barth on the 37th anniversary of his passing, I wrote a little précis and reflection on §59.2 of CD IV/1.

The Exegesis of Karl Barth In §59.2 of Church Dogmatics IV/1

The Theology of Karl Barth is essentially a retelling of the Gospel Story. Theology in itself is not the revelation; it is not even the extension of such revelation. It is at most the ordered human reflection on the revelation that happened in space and time. As a result, Barth follows neither the route of the metaphysical nor the existential approach, but rather focuses his theology on the Word of God. And he does not simply focus on any word of any god, but the One Word of God who takes the form of a human flesh (or more particularly a Jewish human flesh) in Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago. As the messenger to whom this message is committed is the Church, the basic and normative form of witness on which the Church is charged is the Bible. Hence exegesis becomes the foundation of his theology. And if one wishes to understand the thoughts of this great theologian, he or she must first examine the method behind his exegesis.

The following is a description and an evaluation of his exegesis found in an excursus (p. 259 – 73*) in §59.2 of Church Dogmatics IV/1.

The context of the exegesis in discussion

Section 59 is entitled “The Obedience of the Son of God”. It is posited as the first major discussion on the doctrine of reconciliation after the mentioning of the subject matter and the general survey found in §57 and §58. It also begins the chapter on “Jesus Christ, the Lord as Servant” (chapter 14) which deals with the five aspects that He, as the Son of God, has accomplished in regard to the relationship between God and humankind. In the discussion on obedience, Barth introduces in the first subsection (§59.1) that the eternal Word is willing to go into the far country like the prodigal son. But unlike the son, he went not because of selfishness and pride. Rather, he went for saving humankind out of such vice. His self-humiliation and submission to the Father revealed His deity and mode among the Trinity.

Not only does the Son of God came, but He also came “for us” (pro nobis). He shared the place and status of human, and made the situation His own. He has taken up the role as the one to be judged as well as the one to judge. And as the “Judge judged in our place” (§59.2), Barth reveals 4 aspects which Christ has done “for us”: (1) He took our place as the only true judge of our lives, (2) He took our place as the one being judged, (3) In judgement, He acted out the will of God and has brought us back to Him, and (4) He has disclosed the righteousness of God in the judgement. It is in this last section that the exegesis in discussion is found.

The description of the exegesis

The righteousness of God disclosed by the Son of God is also the righteousness of Jesus of Nazareth. Human unwillingness to repent is the constant renewal of his sin. The sinlessness or the righteousness of Jesus Christ consisted in the fact that He did not take part in this game. He defeated temptation and the desire to rebel against God through His submission and obedience to the Father. But when one says that Christ has defeated such sins, one must first affirm that He can sin. Thus, Barth begins his excursus on peccability and the possibility of being tempted with the book of Hebrews. Jesus was like one of us. The condition was similar but the decision He made was radically different. He did not yield to temptation (p.260). This is Barth’s introduction, which leads to the two main exegeses that followed. From Heb. 5:7, he speculates that the text points to the conflict of Jesus in Gethsemane, near the end of His mission, which in turn finds its “mirrored” message in the temptation of Jesus, posited at the beginning of His ministry.

By studying the Synoptic Gospels, Barth first compares the text and its parallels and notices the similarity among the three in suggesting that it was the Spirit that led and drove Jesus to the wilderness. The fasting, he suggests without further explanation, “expresses [hu]man’s knowledge of his unworthiness to live, his readiness to suffer the death which he has merited for his sins, and therefore the radical nature of his repentance.” (p.260). Hence, the story is intended, according to Barth, to point out the same idea as revealed in His baptism, which is the baptism of repentance administered by John. Moreover, Jesus was brought to the situation in order to be tempted. In here, Barth compares the incident to the passion narrative, and suggests that both should be considered as the offensive act initiated by God.

The discussion on the three temptations are then framed according to the description given by Luke, instead of Matthew, which the author explains as being “more instructive” upon closer inspection (p.261).

In the first temptation regarding the turning of stone into bread, Barth focuses on the negative effect of the incident. What would the consequence be if Jesus actually yielded? Following his suggestion earlier that the temptation was in line with the Baptism, Barth says that the failure would prevent Jesus for repenting and fasting for all sinners. He would have rebelled directly against the will of God and He would have done the same as all people have helplessly done. Barth goes on to quote two references from Jn. 4:34 and Deut. 8:3 (the quote that Jesus used) as responses to the Luke’s narrative: Jesus only focuses in fulfilling the will of God and in His trust that God will provide if it is His will for Him to starve.

The Second temptation once again invited Jesus to depart from His obedience to the will of God. To declare the overlordship of evil in the world is the same as refusing to confess that sin is sin. There is simply no need for reconciliation, there is simply no need for the Cross. Barth goes on to describe a world ruled publicly by Christ and secretly by Satan, a world where everyone will enjoy the glory and frame. But he concludes with the troubling fact that the covenant relationship would still be left unresolved if such a case really happens. He asks, “For of what advantage is even the greatest glory to a world which is still definitively unreconciled with God? Of what gain to man are all the conceivable advantages and advances of such a kingdom?” (p. 262)

Barth furthers his discussion by suggesting the third temptation is essentially different from the preceding two. If Jesus has previously suggested the importance of trust in the Father, the temptation in front of Him was actually a direct challenge to His own saying. To throw Himself from the temple require a complete and absolute trust in God. Barth observes the text closely and concludes that the tempting could not be a matter of displaying His Messianic Sonship since no spectators were mentioned. It was a private confrontation for Jesus as to whether He should use His divine right and make use of God in His favor. Jesus’ refusal to comply departs the supreme sin of human self-glorification. Jesus remained in penitence for humankind set out from the baptism of John. He remained sinless and righteous. To echo the theme of this subsection which the righteousness of God is revealed, Barth concludes, “In our place He achieved the righteousness which had to be achieved in His person for the justification of us all and for the reconciliation of the world with God, the only righteousness that was necessary” (p. 264).

With the concluding statement of Lk. 4:13, Barth ties the temptation to the conflict in Gethsemane. He suggests that the “time” (kairos) mentioned points directly to the passion narrative, which found its compressed form in the story of Gethsemane. The incident established Christ own willingness to take up the real passion. In other words, it was the passion or the death of His own will before the whole happening of Good Friday. But such willingness did not come easy. The conflict of Gethsemane described a genuine moment of hesitation — a pause that questioned the necessity of the action that was about to happen. But notice such hesitation does not display selfishness. In fact, it reveals Christ’s refusal to associate the work of God with the work of Satan (see discussion below). And once again, Barth employs the text from other passages (Heb 5:7; Jn. 12:27; Mt 16:22) to describe the mental state of Jesus at that time. He was confronting a frightful experience – one that brought Him to a terrified and shaken halt.

Barth categorizes three areas of interest in his exegesis of the Gethsemane story: (1) the content of Jesus’ saying, (2) the lack of support in His saying, and (3) the answer of God in the facts of what followed.

The text and its parallels among the Synoptics are cross-referenced extensively by Barth in his discussion. He treats the parallels as a single, coherent unit, referring to one another in order to provide a fuller detail as to what had happened. In the discussion on the lack of support in Jesus’ saying, Barth notices the isolation that Jesus was facing in His prayer. No one was able to bear the burden with Him — not even His own disciples. He carried out the prayer completely by Himself. Moreover, He prayed for them. Once again, Barth uses another passage to support his conclusion. He freely inserts the high-priestly prayer of Jesus from Jn. 17 into the Gethsemane event. One can draw the similarity between the isolation of Christ in the temptation and in Gethsemane. If Barth is correct, then the isolation is necessary so that the actions (fasting / praying) can be done “for us”. Jesus has done it in the human’s place (p.268).

Where and what was the reply of God in this prayer? Barth continues to explore the passage with the observation that it was answered not in words, but in action. The answer was no answer, while the action was inaction. Barth argues if the strengthening by the angels was by all means helpful (Lk. 22:43). The desperateness and continued anguish seemed to suggest otherwise. In here, Barth starts to rebuild the possible content of Jesus prayer. He suggests that the frightful thing that Jesus was facing is the coincidence of the divine and the satanic will and work. Hence he moves on to discuss to content and meaning of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane.

Barth makes use of the silence among the Synoptic Gospels to hypothesize his idea. Jesus prayed, suggests by Barth, “that the good will and the sacred work and the true word of God should not coincide with the evil will and the corrupt work and the deceitful word of the tempter and of the world controlled by him, the ἁμαρτωλοὶ.” He prayed that the triumph of evil would be prevented. To Barth, the prayer of Jesus was a request to verify the will of God, not a demand for any particular way that He would have favored. And not only did He not demand, he was in fact more than ready to act out in obedience of the Father. By saying “your will be done”, Jesus left His place of judging willingly and placed Himself in the hands of the unrighteous. Barth concludes that Satan succeeded in this final act, but his power “loses its subjects, for the world and men escape him once and for all, and it ceases to be power over them…” (p.272). As a result, the act of righteousness and obedience of one man has vindicated all humankind with the promise of eternal life. (Rom. 5:18f)

The evaluation of the exegesis

Barth shows his familiarity with the New Testament by his extensive references in the exegesis. He is fond of treating the canonical texts as a single unit, each supplementing one another. This is reflected in various places with his response to a specific passage of a book with the text of another. In the discussion of the first temptation, Barth uses the saying of Jn. 4:34 (p.262) as the thought of Jesus in the Synoptics. In a different place he uses the account which can only be found in Mark and Matthew (the mentioning of the angels) to support his concluding remarks which he has developed with the account in Luke (p.264). The issue intensifies when Barth freely asserts the high-priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 as part of the content of his prayer in Gethsemane. While its location in John seems to suggest the same setting as in the Synoptics, it has never directly identified itself as the same incident as such. What is at stake here is the integrity of each book as a unit in itself. No doubt that there was only one Jesus Christ, one life, one story; but to simply assimilate everything into the story as the true and honest account remains doubtful nonetheless. Moreover, the intention or message of each text might be lost when it is taken out of its own context. Why is the order of the three temptations different between Matthew and Luke? Why is it not mentioned in such detail in Mark and not at all in John? What purpose does it serve in each Gospel? These are legitimate questions which must be answered with careful study rather than arbitrarily saying that “it is more instructive of one than the other” according to the theological standpoint of the expositor.

Not only does Barth treats the whole canonical texts as a single unit, he is also skillful in suggesting relationship between one text with another. Other than the passages mentioned in the preceding discussion, he also skillfully ties Heb.5, the baptism, the temptation, the passion and resurrection with the Gethsemane incident. To Barth, the story of Gethsemane is “the turning point between the two-parts of the whole Gospel record” (p.264). While the present writer has no intention to criticize the skills and insights Barth employs, it is nonetheless interesting to observe how he links one passage to another.

Barth observes the phrase ἄχρι καιροῦ at the end of the temptation story (Lk.4:13). He translates the text as “until the decisive moment” and comments that such a moment seems not to have explicitly mentioned again in a similar form of temptation or as a direct encounter with the Satan. He moves on to suggest that if this reference is not an empty one, it must have pointed to the passion narrative. And as the story of Gethsemane a compressed form of the passion itself, such “decisive moment” should be reflected in the event as well. Thus, he is able to link the temptation with the Gethsemane event.

While this linkage is plausible, it is not without problems. The translation of ἄχρι καιροῦ can simply be “until a season” or “until an opportune time” (as in NRSV). It does not have to have the sense of definiteness and ultimateness as suggested by Barth. Furthermore, even if it is linked with the story of Gethsemane or the passion narrative it still does not answer the same question which Barth has set out himself. Both events can not be categorized as “a special encounter of the Devil nor a renewal of the temptation experience”. If so, how legitimate is the linkage itself?

Finally, there seems to be a strong urge to move beyond what the text can say under the light of the historical-criticism. In his discussion on the meaning and content of Jesus’ prayer, Barth moves quickly into the realm of theological discourses. Apparently, he is trying to speak through the gaps in the text. Notice the general lack of Biblical quotations in this section (p.269-272). This might be explained by his view in historical criticism. Barth can accept historical-critical scholarship as only preparatory because it deals with Time without reference to Eternity. It lacks the ability to integrate the text into the revelation as a whole. It is often reduced into a piece of fragmented wisdom in the past without the urgency and significance rooted in eternity. Barth have made such claim from the beginning of his career. In the preface of the 2^nd edition of his commentary on the Espistle to the Romans, he wrote:   

I have nothing whatever to say against historical criticism. I recognize it, and once more state quite definitely that it is both necessary and justified. My complaint is that recent commentators confine themselves to an interpretation of the text which seems to me to be no commentary at all, but merely a first step towards a commentary. Recent commentaries contain no more than a reconstruction of the text, a rendering of the Greek words and phrases by their precise equivalents, a number of additional notes in which archaeological and philological material is gathered together, and a more of less plausible arrangement of the subject-matter in such a manner that it may be made historically and psychologically intelligible from the standpoint of pure pragmatism.

Conclusion

Exegesis remains pivotal in understanding Barth’s theology. The description and evaluation of his exegesis found in the excursus (p. 259 – 73) in §59.2 of Church Dogmatics IV/1 were discussed. His view on the canonical texts as a single unit enables him to explore the inner-workings and relationship of different books in the Scripture. His urge for theological integration leads him to move beyond a fragmented wisdom which historical-criticism seems to be providing in a specific text. For Barth, what God has spoken to humankind is of utmost importance.

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* All page references refer to the English edition of the Church Dogmatics IV/1