The Only Sacrament Left to Us

The Threefold Word of God in the Theology and Ecclesiology of Karl Barth

Currie

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781630878894
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Questions of ecclesiology abound, and Karl Barth has been regarded as an unhelpful conversation partner and guide for those who care about ecclesiology and the place of the church in the academic pursuit of theology. The Only Sacrament Left to Us recovers Barth's doctrine of the threefold Word of God and shows that it is at the heart of Barth's ecclesiological commitments, and that Barth offers a distinct and robust doctrine of the church worthy to be carried forward into the twenty-first-century debates about the church's place in God's economy. The book explores the central role of the threefold Word of God in Barth's theology of the church, explains its place in Barth's later doctrine of reconciliation, and seeks to engage the field of Barth studies with contemporary ecclesiological questions.

1

The Threefold Word of God and Proclamation

The whole situation in the church suddenly becomes intelligible if it is seen to be the framework of this event; the existence of the minister is justified if he makes himself the servant of this event; and the very act which in Protestantism should form the crux of the service, the sermon as the exposition of Scripture, becomes fraught with meaning when it is a preaching of the Word of God.

—Karl Barth in 19221

The Word of God in all its three forms is God’s speech to man. For this reason it occurs, applies and works in God’s act on man. But as such it occurs in God’s way which differs from all other occurrence, i.e., in the mystery of God.

—Karl Barth, CD I/1:125

This chapter explores the concept of the threefold Word of God and its origins in Karl Barth’s early work, beginning with Barth’s dogmatic work in Göttingen (1924), continuing with later revisions and presentations in Münster (1927), and culminating with the form published in the Church Dogmatics I/1 (1932) and I/2 (1938). This chapter explores the unity of the three forms of the one Word of God, particularly the divine word and the word of humanity located in the proclamation event. How does proclamation become the Word of God, and what happens in the event of proclamation? This chapter answers such questions and offers illustrations from Barth about the way the proclamation event shapes the identity of the Christian community, the relationship of Christ to the Christian community, and the divine and human relationships in their differentiated unity.

Beginnings: Origins of the Threefold Word of God

Karl Barth’s conception of the threefold Word of God was not his own theological creation. It had its basis and origin in the theology of the Reformation, both in Martin Luther and also in the Swiss Reformers. Indeed, with specific reference to proclamation, Barth’s presentation of the threefold Word of God was rooted in Heinrich Bullinger’s formulation in the Second Helvetic Confession that, in addition to Jesus Christ and Scripture, preaching is the Word of God.2 One can survey Barth’s early classroom lectures and get a sense of his deep knowledge of and engagement with the earlier theology of the Reformation, particularly in his early lectures on “The Theology of the Reformed Confessions.” Barth’s own formulation of the threefold Word of God would appear later in the Göttingen Dogmatics but Barth’s early lectures on the Reformed Confessions indicate that he was not settled as to how to interpret Bullinger’s claim. In his classroom reflections on “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God,” Barth remarks: “it is obvious that this ‘is’ [‘est’] must be understood as ‘signifies’ [‘significat’] . . . Bullinger knows, as the paragraph itself shows, that in the sermon we are dealing only with the ‘announcement’ [‘annunciatio’] of the Word of God.”3

Just a year or so later, however, Barth offered a different interpretation of Bullinger’s claim. In these classroom lectures Barth proposed that the proclaimed word is God’s word, that “the belief that the word proclaimed even by preachers alive today is not just their own word (their own talk about God, though it is this too) but that it is the Word of God that is inseparably bound up with their own word, the same Word of God that speaks in Scripture, the same Word of God that the prophets and apostles heard.”4 In comparing Barth’s two classroom reflections both uttered in Göttingen, one gets a sense of the early development of his theology and his attempt to articulate constructively the dynamic life and activity of God in Scripture and in church proclamation. “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.”5 Barth did not qualify this statement as he did earlier in his lectures on the Reformed Confessions. Instead, he provocatively argued, that “either this is an arrogant exaggeration, one of the piously shameless acts that religion is always perpetuating, one of the ecclesiastical formulas that we repeat because they are first told to us, or else it is reality, the wholly new reality of the Spirit of God, which we can only await afresh, understand afresh, and need to seek and find and thankfully receive afresh.”6 Barth’s doctrine of the threefold Word of God sought to articulate this dynamic, living, and ever fresh reality, this God who speaks and becomes present in the here and now of the church’s proclamation and life.7

One of the important elements of Barth’s conception of the threefold Word of God, particularly for this study, is his willingness to unite proclamation with Scripture and Jesus Christ as the one Word of God, stressing the unity of the three forms, giving each form a certain continuity of substance, even in their differentiation. While Barth studied and deeply respected Protestant scholasticism (perhaps more than any theologian of his time)8, he saw in the scholastic theory of Scripture’s inspiration, a “freezing of the relation between Scripture and revelation,” that equated Scripture directly with divine revelation, fusing them together into one entity.9 As a result, the Holy Spirit was believed to be contained directly in the written words of Scripture, making God a static possession or prisoner of the written text. In addition, the act of preaching, especially in the here and now of the ecclesial community, was largely overshadowed by the divinization of Scripture.10 Barth’s concept of the threefold Word of God addressed this Protestant “heresy” in two ways: first, by elevating the third form of God’s Word, the act of church proclamation, as the central form of revelation in the present,11 and second, by stressing the dynamic nature of God’s life and activity in God’s self-revelation. While proclamation remained subordinate to Scripture and to the living Word Jesus Christ, th...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: The Threefold Word of God and Proclamation
• Chapter 2: The Threefold Word of God and the Holy Spirit
• Chapter 3: The Threefold Word of God as Ecclesiology
• Chapter 4: What Happens to the threefold Word of God: Revision or Rejection?
• Chapter 5: The Threefold Word of God Today: Why It Matters
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Bibliography