Karl Barth and Neoorthodoxy CH512 LESSON 17 of 24 Lubbertus Oostendorp, ThD Experience: Professor of Bible and Theology, Reformed Bible College, Kuyper College We turn today to Barth s teaching of election. He asks, Has the election of God been properly understood? There have been various ways in which it was taught. Barth made a very thorough study of the history of the doctrine of election. In his historical study, he did not intend merely to be able to repeat what any one of the earlier theologians had said. His first reaction was to lean toward Calvin whom he thought he could follow most largely in the matter of the doctrine of predestination. Even before he had come to his own cheerful concept of election, he felt that the redemption of the sinner could only be by the sovereign grace of God and undeniably this appealed to him in Calvin. If we take the quotations from the index of his Church Dogmatics volume by volume, we find that he quotes about evenly from Luther and Calvin; and particularly when he is talking about election, he quotes very largely from Calvin. He took special note of the fact that Calvin did not want to introduce predestination as an abstract, philosophical doctrine about the power and ability of God. Calvin, in discussing this doctrine, ties it in with the question of man s salvation. He asked, How is man to be saved? If man is to be saved by Christ, can he be saved by himself? And then the answer is, This salvation is only by the grace of God. Thus, Calvin comes to the doctrine of predestination. This was also basically the question which faced the Synod of Dordt. Here we are dealing not with an abstract question about the power of God or whether there is any freedom in the human will, but we are dealing with a question about how a man is saved. And basically the Synod of Dordt gave the answer that man is saved only by the grace of God and that this grace is and continues to be a sovereign act of a God who chooses whom He will save. 1 of 9
Therefore, even before he was able to remove what he considered the shadows hanging over the doctrine of election, Barth felt that somehow or other all salvation had to rest in the grace of God and that this grace had to be a free grace, that is, an electing grace. The Arminians had been deeply concerned about the responsibility of man. The classic question for them was the question about the responsibility and the freedom of man. Barth shows some concern about this matter, but it is a rather secondary concern. In a sense, he says he agrees with the Arminian that man has this freedom, the freedom to accept or to reject the grace of God. However, he had already practically dismissed any contribution which man could make toward his own salvation; and Barth does not want his acceptance of any kind of freedom of the human will to interfere with the sovereignty of the grace of God. Man is utterly helpless and hopeless as a sinner who, while he remains helpless and hopeless in himself, is accepted just as he is without any change in him. God accepts the sinner just as the sinner is for the sake of Jesus Christ, and He does this exclusively and totally by grace. In this sense, Barth proceeds in the direction of an unconditional salvation and an unconditional grace. Salvation is of God alone. He saves because He wills to; and no man is so sinful to be beyond this sovereign grace of God. All we can do is joyfully and thankfully to acknowledge this pardoning grace of God as an accomplished fact. In this sense, Barth travels along the road of unconditional election. Men are not predestined to the grace of God by some foreseen condition which they are going to meet. As we know, in some sense all Christian theology teaches one kind of election or another. There is hardly any system of Christianity which does not at one point or another talk about those who are chosen or at least about the group who are the redeemed of the Lord. This group is pictured in some sense or another as that which is acceptable to God, and in this sense we may say that every kind of theology, Christianity theology, speaks of some kind of election. For example, for the Pelagians, God has determined to elect those who will meet His moral standards. This is the view of election in which God s choosing man is on a very specific condition, and God has laid down these conditions. These conditions are not the grace of God given to a man, but rather man s own ability to meet God s moral standards. Thus, all of us have, according to them, the possibility of choosing to live for God, to keep His commandments, and to work out our 2 of 9
salvation or to disobey God. And God chooses for those who do good. This was the position which the British monk Pelagius taught and which is known in the church as Pelagianism. Over against him, about the year 400, St. Augustine argued that it is only free grace that saves a man. Particularly in his view, it is really a grace that provides the very conditions which are necessary for salvation and, therefore, man is saved not by his work or not by his own will, but by the will of God according to the great St. Augustine. The history of the church subsequently is marked by a struggle between this view of Augustine and various compromises of semi- Pelagianism. The reformers, one in all Calvin as well as Luther, and Luther as well as Calvin stood on the side of Augustine. Man was not in any way to be saved because he first met certain conditions of work righteousness. If man had to be chosen because of his works, no one would be chosen. This is the doctrine of the reformers. They are uniformly committed to this. Man cannot be saved by his works; therefore, God could not choose the good ones, for there would be no good ones. Works were thus excluded as a condition on which God would choose a man. God chose the sinner, not the righteous. But this raised another question which came to the fore in the Arminian controversy and has marked some difference also between Calvinists and Lutherans and particularly between Arminians and Calvinists. Arminianists in about the year 1609 pictured an election of God also. In fact, he speaks often of the election of God, and he is talking about a God of grace who elects graciously man unto salvation. He saw a God who saved man; and he is very insistent that man does not receive this salvation because of any good works which he is able to do. God saves men graciously. God saved the sinner, but God did retain one condition. He saved only the believing sinner. Note the believing sinner. Thus, if a sinner would believe, then he would join the elect group, the chosen people, and as long as he would continue to believe, he would remain a part of that elected group. As we have pointed out, in this matter, Barth basically takes his stand on the side of unconditional election. I say basically because in talking about the possibility of the elect being lost, he seems to introduce a kind of negative condition; and man can possibly at least reject his election. 3 of 9
Although he calls this the impossible possibility, it should be noted that he wants this impossible possibility to be taken quite seriously as over against any automatic concept of the salvation of all men. In other words, Barth here is speaking about an unconditional election; and yet because of his concept of the freedom of God, he introduces, as we shall see later, the possibility of a kind of negative condition: namely, an ultimate rejection of this election of God. Although this, again, is called by him an impossible possibility. The professor tells us how he came to a new view on this whole matter of election. In fact, he is surprised that no one before him had really seriously developed the thoughts that seemed so self-evident to him. Why were men always bogging down on this doctrine of election? Why did they always have that dark picture as though there is a God who might be rejecting some people? Why couldn t they keep the picture straight? The answer should have been self-evident. The trouble was that theologians had always tried to speculate and to give a speculative answer about this doctrine. Calvin came closest to giving a scriptural answer and tried to stay close to the Scripture. Yet even in Calvin, and especially in the subsequent Calvinists, we see this gloomy speculation. If only they had followed the Scripture, for to follow the Scripture means to find all our answers in Jesus Christ. This is a great discovery. Here lies the clue. Election must always be considered as election in Jesus Christ. Therefore, election must bring the comfort that Christ brings. It must proclaim Christ s message; and since Christ s message is the good news of the gospel, we may say that the very heart of the good news of the gospel is God s election in Christ. Thus, the Bible addresses us. In fact, Calvin had hinted at this, for he also speaks about the mirror of our election being in Christ. In other words, Calvin realized that we could see and understand our election only by looking at the mirror, which is Christ. Here Calvin was already pursing a right thought. He did not want people to try to seek by some mystery, by some special revelation, by some penetrating behind the veil of God, whether they were elect or not. Always he held up before men the mirror of our election in Christ; and as Barth suggests, he thought Calvin was on the right road in speaking of this wonderful thought the mirror of our election is Christ. 4 of 9
But it remained for Barth to develop this thought of election in Christ. In fact, election in Christ is the very heart of the gospel. What does it mean that election is in Christ? Indeed, we read in the Scriptures that we were chosen in Him; and this we find, of course, in many passages, especially in Ephesians 1:4 in which Barth bases his particular meditation about this election in Christ that He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. Barth devotes some five hundred pages to this doctrine of God and His electing grace. Here he seeks to transcend any arbitrariness in God s election. While seeking to maintain the freedom of God in this matter, he looks at this freedom in a rather new and different light. If we were chosen in Christ, this means that God first chose Christ. Let us repeat that. If we were chosen in Christ, this means that God first chose Jesus Christ. Therefore, Jesus Christ is the elect man and all election is in Him. But Christ is not only the man that was chosen by God, so that God chooses this Man, Jesus Christ. Christ is also the electing God. Now this means, among other things, that the kind of electing that this God does is always the Christlike kind. There is no God way out there; no abstract, withdrawn absolute being, who willfully, arbitrarily chooses men to heaven or to hell. This is an idol. There is no such God. The only God we know is the God of Jesus Christ. The only God who does the choosing is, in fact, Jesus Christ. Thus, we read in John 15, also, that Jesus is the one who chooses. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you (John 15:16). This is the God who gave Himself for us and who became man. This is that God who is the man for us. Jesus Christ is, thus, not only the electing God, but also the elected man. He is not only that one man who was elected by God, but He is also the God who does the electing. We might say that in Him God has committed Himself. Committed Himself to what? Committed Himself to be for man without reservation. God has elected in Christ to be man because this Christ is the electing God as well as the elected man. There is here a kind of true unity in the two natures, and it is of great importance that we understand this unity of the two natures. Here Barth says some very fine things about the formulation of Chalcedon and why the fathers were so insistent upon the unity of the two natures. Because there is a unity of the two natures, there can be no duality of any kind in the election of God. There can be really no shadow side to the election of God. There is only one election. In Christ, God is for every man. Let us repeat that. In Christ, God is for every man. 5 of 9
For mankind, God has made His choice. He has elected His weak, helpless, useless, fallen creature called man. The mystery of the election of Christ is, thus, the foundation of all our hope. This is the beginning of the triumph of grace. This is Immanuel, God with us, which means God for us. But there is more to this choice than man could ever understand. For when Christ becomes elect man, He takes man s place. This means that the elected Christ is also, in a very real sense, a rejected man. He is a man who shall represent all men, and He represents sinful man. He is a man who shall have to suffer for all men and even repent for all men. The incarnation was not to tell us that man is a kind of god and that he is much better than we think he is. This is the old liberalism. If it deals with the incarnation at all, it tries to tell us that man is a very exalted being, a kind of godlike being and that God is very close to man in His nature and that man is very close to God in his nature. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is a sinful man, a fallen man, a finite man, that with whom Christ identifies. Since God is now elected to deal with all men in this man, this man comes to stand in the place of fallen humanity. This means that the wrath of God against sinful man and His judgment falls upon His elect servant. To be elected as the servant of God, already in the Old Testament, meant to bear something of the service and judgment of God. Christ is the true fulfillment of this elected servant in Israel; and Christ is the true fulfillment of an elected servant who must bear the burden and the wrath of God against man. Thus Christ is the elected, but He is also the rejected. In fact, He becomes the truly rejected one, the reprobate. Because He stands in man s place, God has elected Him as a true representative of man who must bear man s judgment. It is for this reason that it must be said of Him, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He bears all the wrath of God and all the judgments of God, and they come to rest upon this one man. The judgment of God rests upon Him for all mankind in general, but also for every man. Thus, we may say of Christ that He is the one rejected, the only reprobate, in the deepest and most profound sense. If God has a no, and God does have a no to the sin of man and to man s departure from him, that no falls upon Jesus Christ. Since all of God s wrath and here we must be very insistent all and every part of God s wrath has come to rest upon this one, the matter of judgment has been taken care of. 6 of 9
He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, and taketh away means not to potentially take away, but taketh away means taking away in very deed. It is easy to see that this is a new concept of the doctrine of election, that is, it is a new thing to call this the doctrine of election. This doctrine, of course, is not new. This picture of the gospel is not new. This picture of the gospel in various forms has been proclaimed before and is true to everyone who speaks of the gospel, the gospel of some kind of vicarious representation in Jesus Christ; but to call this the doctrine of election, to stress in this the commitment and choice of God, is new. Both liberal and conservative critics of Barth have even gone so far as to question whether this is a legitimate use of language. Historically, however conditional or unconditional the choice of God was pictured to be, election was always a selection. Always a selection of one group in contradistinction from another. This held whether election was looked upon as a fixed and eternal determination by God (that is, Calvinistically), or a variable and temporal matter in the Arminian sense. Both of these groups stressed that election was of a group. One might say that, basically, in all its forms the history of this doctrine has taught the choice of some and the rejection of others. When Barth makes this doctrine the choice of Jesus Christ and in Him the choice for humanity, is he not resorting to a completely different use of terms? And I am convinced that in large measure he is. He would reply, however, that when he places the one Man, Jesus Christ, over against all other possibilities of individuals or groups, God is making a very real selection. This is a very real election according to Him. Here are all the rest of mankind. God could choose for one or another of them; but God chooses only one, one individual, one single person out of the whole human race. If we look at the matter historically as the total history of mankind and ask of all mankind who have appeared on the face of the earth and who are yet to appear on the face of the earth, Who is the chosen one? Who is the chosen man among all of them? Who is my chosen servant? Then the answer is God has chosen Jesus Christ. Of course, this has not always been the view of the matter. In fact, historically there was, in a sense, no question amongst Christians as to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. This question seems to have become urgent really only in the postliberal world. It is a world that questions the very centrality of Christ and the possibility of Christianity that gives rise to certain aspects of Barth s thinking 7 of 9
here. In fact, we are back again in the early church, in the early days when Christianity stands over against the whole world; and in the light of this, we can see Christ the chosen one over against all other mankind. Now Barth again asks of all mankind, Who is the chosen one amongst all mankind? This is Barth s answer to all the doubts that have been cast upon Christianity by centuries of criticism and liberalism. This man, Jesus Christ, is God s man. He is the chosen man. Historically, the theologians and all Christians were concerned with the question as to who were the ones that were saved by this Christ. They were not concerned whether this Christ was chosen. This is more or less universally assumed by Christians. They were asking a question, What group is chosen by Christ? By this they meant a group conditionally or unconditionally predestined to eternal life. When Barth makes this all men in Jesus Christ, he certainly is shifting the whole picture. He s changed the question, and thereby he s altered the answer. Let us try to understand what he is saying. He is answering the question, What is the attitude of God toward any and every man? Has He chosen some and rejected others? Does He choose the good and reject the less good? Does He choose the believer and reject the unbeliever? Or does He give Himself to all men, to every man in the great act of Jesus Christ in His incarnation, death, and resurrection? Does He do this potentially and provisionally as though He should offer Himself to all men? Does He offer to all men certain kinds of possibilities, or does He elect men effectively and in the fullness of the sovereign grace and in the fullness of the word election? Does He do this freely or does He do this by some kind of necessity? Must God accept man? Must He accept all men? To all these questions, Barth gives but one answer. He points to Jesus Christ. There he says is the elect man, and if you would know the electing God, it is this one. In Him we see the freedom of God. This grace was certainly free, but it is also boundless in scope and intent. As Christ is the elect Christ for every man, so all men are elected. And this is that cheerful message of the gospel, because God is effectually and completely for every man in Jesus Christ, this election forms the very foundation and heart of the gospel. The gospel is not first of all a command for us to do something: whether as the Pelagians suggest to be good or as others suggest to believe. The gospel is rather a declaration; it is a proclamation. It is the declaration of this fact: God has elected Jesus Christ and in Christ 8 of 9
has elected every man. It is the good news that it is finished. We are reconciled unto God. All His wrath has been borne by the one rejected, and in Him we have our life and our election. The love of God is an electing love. It does the choosing. It has already chosen for us even in eternity. The church knows this election. Note this well, the church knows this election and the world does not yet know that it, too, is elected. This good news must be joyfully proclaimed and accepted by the church, and we should also make known to the world the election of Jesus Christ and in Him the election of humanity. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 9 of 9