Karl Barth - Paul S. Chung

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href="#ulink_154e6052-b05a-53cd-a659-e46820afc833">255. Ibid., 49–50.

      two Karl Barth and the First Edition of Romans (1919)

      In a letter to Eduard Thurneysen (July 19, 1916), Karl Barth in-formed him of his preoccupation with an exegetical investigation of Romans. With great excitement he found in J. T. Beck a guide who led him in this exegetical work. In addition to Beck, Barth was influenced by Pietist writers such as Johannes Bengel, C. H. Rieger, and August Tholuck. On 9 September 1917, Barth came to the passage in Rom 5:12–21.1

      The first draft of the book Romans was completed on June 3, 1918. There immediately followed a period of intensive revision.2 This manuscript was first printed in December 1918 but only later released, in 1919, by the Bern publisher G. A. Boeschlen. During Barth’s work on Romans, the revolution in Russia (February 1917) put an end to czarist rule. Then the shock of the October Revolution in Russia swept Switzerland in November of 1917. There had been a lot of local strikes, demonstrations, and riots among the working class and socialists until they reached a climax in the general strike in Switzerland in November 1918. On 8 June 1917, Barth still served as a delegate to the SPS congress in Bern.

      Barth wrote his first edition of Romans as he became caught up in the joy of discovery. The task of his exegesis during this time was to hear anew Paul’s message in terms of seeing through the historical into the spirit of the Scriptures. As a child of his time, Paul spoke to his contemporaries. But what was more important for Barth’s exegesis was to hear from Paul as the prophet and apostle of the kingdom of God who spoke to all people in all ages.3 Barth’s hermeneutical and practical concern in Romans I was to see the eternal spirit of the Bible penetrate the historical-critical method. For Barth the historical-critical method has its place in preparation for understanding the biblical text. However, what was more important for Barth was that an understanding of history be continuous, more accurate, and a more penetrating dialogue between the wisdom of yesterday and the wisdom of tomorrow.

      Barth’s stance toward the historical-critical method was directly related to his disillusionment with the outbreak of the war and the bankruptcy of all liberal theologians in the German universities, who did not view the war critically. In the autumn of 1916, Barth was led to the discovery of the Bible, that is, “the new world within the Bible.”4 When theology and worldview, coupled with their hermeneutical filters and interpretation of the Bible, were shaken to the core, the Bible struck him in a completely new manner; for Barth, the discovery of the Bible was “completely dominated by an interest in the concrete situation in which with all of our contemporaries we found ourselves enmeshed.”5 Social issues, therefore, become indispensable for exegesis. The subject matter that concerns us is an organic connection between the Bible and the world of the newspaper. Keenly aware of the human being’s historical existence and its social and economic structure, Barth moves himself toward integrating historical problems and social criticism into his exegesis of Romans. Rather than dwelling on the difference between the times in terms of historical criticism, Barth, along with St. Paul, makes an attempt to articulate a struggle for the new world that the Bible promises.

      Exegesis moves in retrospect as well as in prospect toward the future of God, which means, for Barth, a conversation between the wisdom of yesterday and the wisdom of tomorrow. For example, one must consider Barth’s exegetical study of Rom 8:9–15 and Romans 13 from the angle of his political involvement with social questions: religious socialism in Switzerland and Leninism in Russia, for example. The creation waits in eager anticipation for the revelation of the children of God. God as the coming new reality makes us stand in solidarity with God’s fight and thus with God’s coming victory. Life in Christ and its nature lie just in the perspective of the future. This perspective of God’s future, which is realized in reborn communion with Christ, drives us to be responsible for what God creates and prepares in the world (R I:238).

      Blumhardt’s message, which articulates the suffering of the oppressed for freedom in God’s future, influenced Barth’s understanding of the relation between the faithfulness of God and eschatology. The suffering of the oppressed can be “a part of nature history of the Spirit” (R I:240). The renewal of the world begins with the new humanity of the children of God. The real content of apocalyptic eschatology can be seen in its taking sides with the oppressed in the present. In Barth’s words, “God is one-sidedly a God of the lower but not a God of the upper, indeed, without reservation, a God of the small (i.e. the totally marginal)” (R I:367). Furthermore, Barth’s social criticism can be well articulated from his concise remark in Romans II in that the “historical critics, it seems to me, must be more critical” (R I:xviii).

      Ursprung as the Eschatology of God

      Barth’s thesis that the world remains the world but that God is God tells that the world must be transformed by this “but God is God,” notwithstanding. Barth is convinced that there must be a fundamental difference between God and the world. The world is not capable of knowing naturally who God is. However, a relation of God and the world is structured in a dialectical and organic way rather than remaining dualistic. According to Barth, the power of God erupts from above, cutting through the world longitudinally or perpendicularly. Barth’s eschatology of senkrecht von Gott aus is first of all to be seen in light of God’s reconciliation with the world in Jesus Christ. In the universal/cosmic reconciliation of God with the world, a turning back of humankind to its origin (Ursprung) occurs. God proves God’s faithfulness to the world—beyond human sacrilege and injustice—and God’s loving power to the world (R I:67). The revelation of God in Christ is not emptied but is the fulfillment of history, culminating in the law and even to the present.

      Therefore history stands in the effecting domain of God in the present. The revelation of the faithfulness of God becomes visible because it is the effecting power in all (R I:69). The world of God is not a purely transcendental world without relation to this world. But in Christ the world turns to its origin and the world of God breaks through this world, achieving a provisional victory (along the lines of Blumhardt’s message of “Jesus is victor”) in historical events. Therefore the breakthrough of God in history occurs in now-time.

      Barth’s understanding of reconciliation, which is universally/cosmically set in motion in Jesus Christ, is deeply related to the redemption of the world that religious individualism and liberal theology lack the ability to understand. Although Barth turned away from J. T. Beck,6 Blumhardt’s influence remains compelling in regard to the cosmic perspective in Romans. Of Rom 8:19–22 Barth says, in a Blumhardtian fashion: “The actual sonship of God which we do not have yet, but expect is the ‘redemption of our body,’ the victory of God in

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