THE DOCTRINE OF
RECONCILIATION
CHURCH DOGMATICS
BY
KARL EARTH
VOLUME IV
THE DOCTRINE OF
RECONCILIATION
PART THREE
First Half
EDITORS
REV. PROF. G. W. BROMILEY, D.Lirr., D.D.
REV. PROF. T. F. TORRANCE, D.D., D.THEOL.
EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET
THE DOCTRINE OF
RECONCILIATION
(Church Dogmatics 9 Volume IV, 3, /)
BY
KARL EARTH, DR.THEOL., D.D., LL.D.
TRANSLATOR
REV. PROF. G. W. BROMILEY, D.Lrrr., D.D.
EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET
Original German Edition
DIE K1RCHLICHE DOGMATIK, IV.
Die Lehre von dcr Vorsohnung, 3
Erste Halite
Published by
EVANGELISCHER VERLAG A G.
ZOLLIKON ZURICH
Authonsed English Translation
1961 T. & T. CLARK
PRINTFD IN CRT AT BRITAIN DY
MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED
10NDON AND EDINBURGH
T. & T CLARK, EDINBURGH
ran PRINTED 1961
EDITORS' PREFACE
IN Church Dogmatics, IV, i Barth outlined the doctrine of reconciliation
in a threefold form corresponding to the threefold confession of Jesus
Christ as very God, very Man and the God-Man. The first form
the theme of IV, i -deals with Christ as the Lord who humbled Himself
as a servant to do the work of atonement (His priestly office). The
second the theme of IV, 2 considers Him as the Royal Man in
whom man is exalted and adopted to fellowship with God (His kingly
office). Reconciliation is thus effected in two great movements, from
above downwards and from below upwards, which together exhaust
the material content of the doctrine. Yet if the work of Christ is not
to be separated from His person, and if Christology and soteriology
are not to drift apart from their application and actualisation, there
is also need of a third form the theme of the present part-volume,
IV, 3 in which Christ is treated as the God-Man who is the Mediator
and Guarantor of reconciliation (His prophetic office).
Since this third, prophetic form demands no less serious treatment
than the first two, the atonement must now be considered in a third
dimension in which it manifests, expresses and mediates itself as the
truth of all truths, alike the truth of God and the truth of man.
Because Jesus Christ, according to Barth's title, is also " the true
Witness," the atonement is not merely true ; it is active truth shining
and revealing itself in the world's darkness and overcoming it. Recon-
ciliation is not closed in upon itself ; it moves out and communicates
itself, and is the creative source of a reconciled community and a
reconciled world. In this third form, it is in the field as the light of
life, engaged in triumphant self-demonstration in the enlightening
and quickening power of the Holy Spirit.
As in the first and second forms, there are important implications
for man. Jesus Christ, the Servant, unmasks the sin of man as
pride and achieves his justification. Jesus Christ, the Royal Man,
opposes the sin of man as sloth and fulfils his sanctification. And
now Jesus Christ, the true Witness, answers the sin of man as
falsehood and establishes his vocation. This carries with it the
sending out of the Christian community as well as its gathering
and upbuilding, and the life of the individual Christian, not only
in faith and love, but also in hope. It is in the Church's ministry
of witness that the self-revealing and self-attesting of the divine
reconciliation to the world is actualised.
An outstanding feature of this part-volume is the attention which
Barth has given to the subjective, apjjjcatioji .oj. iffiqflfijjfefiftft in the
x Editors' Preface
involvement of the Christian community in world history. In this
respect, he emphasises strongly that the Church exists for the world,
not for itself. Its existence for the world is an essential and masterful
aspect of its reconciled life in the light and truth of God. We thus
see the universal sweep of God's self-sacrificial and victorious work.
We also see the foundations of Earth's understanding of the life and
work of the Church as determined by mission, evangelism, witness
and service.
The size of the part-volume has unfortunately made necessary its
production in two halves after the pattern of the German original.
This is, however, a purely technical matter, and so far as possible,
e.g., in respect of the table of contents, pagination and indexes,
expression has been given to the essential unity of treatment. In
spite of the bulk of material, the volume has not presented so many
problems as some of its predecessors, and we are particularly happy
to have completed the proofs before the appearance of the German
IV, 4, so that the whole of the Church Dogmatics thus far completed
is now available to the English reader. We are again indebted to
the Rev. Professor J. K. S. Reid for his invaluable assistance at the
proof stage, not merely in correcting errors, but also in smoothing
some of the more complicated passages.
EDINBURGH, Trinity, 1961.
PREFACE
THIS time the readers of Church Dogmatics have had to wait longer
than expected for the continuation. The course of production has
been slowed up by the fact that my dogmatics class at Basel, with
which the growth of the book has always been connected, has now
been reduced to three hours instead of four, and had to be suspended
altogether in the busy summer of 1956.
And now there is offered only the first half of IV, 3. The second
half is almost completed and partly in print, and ought to follow in
June of this year. It is not willingly that I have assented to the
division, for I set some store by the formal unity of the individual
volumes for architectonic and other reasons. However, I can only
make an incomplete offering. The shape of what is to follow may be
seen from the complete table of contents which is already given. The
three indexes will come at the end of the second half.
The compelling reason for this procedure is that the total bulk of
the volume has exceeded that which was seriously deplored by so
many in the case of I, 2. I still cannot imagine how the men of the
iyth century even handled, as they somehow must have done, the far
more gigantic tomes sometimes produced in that period. The men of
the 20th will surely be grateful that this time they will have two halves
which are " bearable " in the literal sense.
The question of the meaning and reach of the prophetic office of
Jesus Christ has led me in this third part of the doctrine of reconcilia-
tion into a line of study which theoretically and practically, and in the
most diverse contexts and under the most diverse titles, stands very
much to the forefront in the discussions now conducted in the Church
of all confessions. So far as I can see, however, there has hitherto
been lacking in these a theological basis strictly orientated on the
evangelical centre. In the theology of the Reformation and post-
Reformation periods we find little or nothing, and in that of the igth
and 2oth centuries very little, concerning the decisive presuppositions
on the basis of which we now think that we are free and compelled to
pursue the problem of Christ (or the Church) and the world with the
zeal displayed in so many different ways on both sides of the Atlantic
and in Christianity both old and new. It cannot be my present purpose
properly to enter into these discussions, e.g., concerning missions,
evangelisation, the work of the laity, the Church and culture, Church
and state, Christianity and Socialism, etc. My task is to try to dis-
cover the by no means self-evident basic presuppositions, and I have
finally been compelled to the insight that the confession before men
xi
xii Preface
which is everywhere to be accepted and made is grounded in the work
of the living Jesus Christ Himself, and therefore does not stand on
the periphery but belongs to the centre of the life of the Christian in
the Christian community, the problem of witness deciding indeed
whether the Christian really is a Christian and the Christian com-
munity the Christian community. The development of this insight
as an essential element in the knowledge of Jesus Christ forms the
main portion of the first half here presented. In the second it will be
developed more specifically in relation to the Christian and the
Christian community. The fact that 71, on sin as falsehood, brings
the first half to an end, whereas the corresponding sections in the two
preceding volumes can only be transitional, must simply be accepted
as an unavoidably disruptive feature until the second half is available.
As regards the external history of Church Dogmatics it may be
noted that to the successively growing book of Otto Weber there has
now been added the fine and skilful selection and introduction com-
piled by Helmut Gollwitzer and published by the Fischer-Bucherei in
1957. Mention must also be made of the appearance in the Roman
Catholic world of the comprehensive and penetrating expositions and
interpretations by Emmanuele Riverso, La teologia esistenziahstica di
Karl Barth (1955), by Hans Kung, Rechtfertigung. Die Lehre Karl
Earths und eine kathohsche Besinnung (1957), and by Henri Bouillard,
Karl Barth (1957, 3 vols.). All these are characterised by profound
learning, by a serious desire to understand within their own ecclesi-
astical presuppositions, and by actual understanding, though not
without some contradictions among themselves.
Looking back more generally over the years since the appearance
of the last volume, I am struck by the fact that so many close con-
temporaries, who have followed my whole course and therefore the
Church Dogmatics with critical or at least attentive good-will, have
now passed from the present scene. First I must mention Arthur
Frey, who for many years directed the Evangehscher Verlag,
Zollikon, and who always proved a trustworthy adviser and
personal friend in critical days. Reference may perhaps be made to
what I have already said concerning him in the Preface to III, 4.
Shortly before him there died my cousin, the painter, Paul Basilius
Barth, who belonged to a very different world, but with whom I
enjoyed a late yet warm personal contact on the occasion of his
exertions on behalf of a portrait. Again, I must mention my two very
different friends Pierre Maury of Paris and Heinrich Scholz of Munster
in Westphalia. How I miss to-day the vehement loyalty of the one
and the verily humanistic but no less sure and active fidelity of the
other ! Again, I must refer to my colleague both in Bonn and Basel,
K. L. Schmidt, far superior to me in both learning and pugnacity, but
always so stimulating. Mention must also be made of the two stead-
fast Reformed scholars Hermann Hesse and Harmannus Obendiek,
Preface xiii
both associates of the time of the Church conflict in Germany, and
also of Lukas Christ of Basel, who in his own different manner proved
no less trustworthy. Again, there is Heinrich Held, President of the
Evangelical Church of the Rhineland, who as such greeted me on both
my sixtieth and seventieth birthdays in such unmerited terms of
personal address, and also the Anglican bishop George Bell, an
Ecumenicist without guile, who in the summer of 1956 welcomed me
in his residence in Chichester with a warmth which I shall never
forget. I must also mention Oskar Farner, the Zwingli scholar and
expositor, and for many years the acknowledged head of the Zurich
Church, Liberal in origin, yet with me on the most important things.
Finally, I must refer to Richard Imberg, director of the deaconess
house Siloah in Giimlingen, a man of little academic discipline, but for
that reason the more mature and forceful a theologian, whose warm
humanity opened up to me a whole new side of the community move-
ment. There now shines on them the eternal light in which we, adhuc
peregrinantes, shall some day need no more dogmatics.
In conclusion, may I express my thanks to Hinrich Stoevesandt
for his assistance in this volume too, both in revision and in the
preparation of the indexes.
BASEL, January 1959.
CONTENTS
PAGE
EDITORS' PREFACE. ....... ix
PREFACE ......... xi
CHAPTER XVI
JESUS CHRIST, THE TRUE WITNESS
FIRST HALF
69. THE GLORY OF THE MEDIATOR
1. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation . 3
2. The Light of Life ...... 38
3. Jesus is Victor ....... 165
4. The Promise of the Spirit . . . . -274
^70. THE FALSEHOOD AND CONDEMNATION OF MAN
1. The True Witness ...... 368
2. The Falsehood of Man ..... 434
3. The Condemnation of Man . . . . .461
SECOND HALF
71. THE VOCATION OF MAN
1. Man in the Light of Life . . . . .481
2. The Event of Vocation ..... 497
3. The Goal of Vocation ...... 520
4. The Christian as Witness . . . . -554
5. The Christian in Affliction . . . . .614
6. The Liberation of the Christian .... 647
72. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE SENDING OF THE CHRISTIAN
COMMUNITY
1. The People of God in World-Occurrence . . .681
2. The Community for the World .... 762
3. The Task of the Community ..... 795
4. The Ministry of the Community .... 830
73. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN HOPE
1. The Subject of Hope and Hope .... 902
2. Life in Hope ....... 928
INDEXES
I. Scripture References ...... 943
II. Names ...... . 958
III. Subjects ........ 960
xv
CHAPTER XVI
JESUS CHRIST, THE TRUE WITNESS
CHAPTER XVI
JESUS CHRIST, THE TRUE WITNESS
69
THE GLORY OF THE MEDIATOR
" Jesus Christ as attested to us in Holy Scripture is the one
Word of God whom we must hear and whom we must trust and
obey in life and in death."
i. THE THIRD PROBLEM OF THE DOCTRINE OF
RECONCILIATION
The twofold development of the material content of the doctrine
of reconciliation is now behind us. " Reconciliation " in the sense of
the Christian confession and the message of the Christian community
is God's active and superior Yes to man. It is God's active Yes to
man as it is the fulfilment of the eternal election in which God has
determined, determines and will again determine Himself for man to
be his God, and man for Himself to be His man. It is God's superior
Yes to man as it is the overcoming, in God's omnipotent mercy, of
the No, the contradiction, the opposition, the disruption in which man,
if he were left to achieve it, would necessarily destroy his relationship
to 'God and his fellows, and therefore himself. God does not permit
him to execute this No of his, this contradiction and opposition. God
does not abandon him to the mortal peril to which he thereby exposes
himself. He takes the lists against man and therefore for him, for
his salvation and for His own glory. He stands by His Yes. He
accomplishes its actualisation. This is the work of God the Reconciler.
" Reconciliation " in the Christian sense of the word the reconcilia-
tion of which we have the attestation in the Holy Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament, and in the recognition and proclamation of
which the Christian community has its existence is the history in
which God concludes and confirms His covenant with man, main-
taining and carrying it to its goal in spite of every threat. It is the
history in which God in His own person and act takes to Himself
His disobedient creature accursed in its disobedience, His unfaithful
covenant-partner lost in his unfaithfulness. He does this as He
3
4 69. The Glory of the Mediator
both abases and sets Himself at the side of man, yet also exalts man
and sets him at His own side ; as He both vindicates Himself in face
of man and man in face of Himself. " Reconciliation " thus means
and signifies Emmanuel, God with us, namely, God in the peace
which He has made between Himself and us but also between us and
Himself. And the one decisive, comprehensive and all-determinative
factor is that Jesus Christ is this peace in its twofold form. The history
of its establishment and therefore the history of reconciliation is His
history. It is the history of His sending and coming, of His life and
speech and action, of His death and passion and resurrection, of His
ministry and lordship. In Him God is the One who graciously elects
man and man is the one who is graciously elected by God. He is the
actualisation of the covenant between God and man, both on the
side of God and also on that of man.
" God our Saviour . . will have all men to be saved " (i Tim. 2 3f -). The
concrete basis of this statement is to be found in that which immediately follows
(v. 5) . " For there is one God, and one mediator (/ueaiVijs) between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all ..." In this one man
God accomplishes His will, i e , the salvation of all. Whether the statement is
Pauline or Deutero-Paulme, it is matched by 2 Cor i 19 " For the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and
Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea For all the promises of
God in him are yea. ..."
This is the material content of the doctrine of reconciliation.
Even when we state it in nuce, in a brief outline as here attempted,
we cannot contemplate it without being aware of at least the indica-
tions of its twofold development. The history of Jesus Christ with
which the history of reconciliation is identical is the parallel but
opposing fulfilment of two great movements, the one from above
downwards and the other from below upwards, but both grounded in
His person in the union of its true deity and true humanity. It is a
matter of the salvation and right of man established in the humiliation
of the Son of God to be the Brother, Representative and Head of all
men. And it is a matter of the right and glory of God asserted in the
exaltation of this Brother, Representative and Head of all men, of
the true Son of Man. As the one Jesus Christ is both true Son of
God and true Son of Man, so there take place in His one history both
the humiliation of God and the exaltation of man, the conflict and
victory of God for man, and therewith and thereby the achievement
of covenant faithfulness on both sides, the establishment of peace in
this twofold form. On the one hand it is opposed by the sin of man
in its form as pride and therefore by the fall of man ; on the other
by this sin in its form as sloth and therefore by the misery of man.
And so in the one work of the omnipotent mercy of God accomplished
in Jesus Christ, our concern is with the justification of man before Him
and his sanctification for Him, and in the grace of the Holy Spirit of
I. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 5
Jesus Christ with the gathering and upbuilding of the Christian com-
munity, with the object of humble Christian faith and the basis of
confident Christian love. In all this we are briefly sketching the two
first parts of the doctrine of reconciliation as we have presented them
in IV, i and IV, 2 under the titles " Jesus Christ, the Lord as Servant "
and " Jesus Christ, the Servant as Lord."
If we can and will use the expression, this is the inner dialectic of
the Christian doctrine of reconciliation. It is self-evident that both
as a whole and in detail very different courses might have been
adopted, many things being described and formulated and inter-
related in a very different way from that adopted. Methodus est
arbitraria. In each age and by each responsible theologian the best
definitions, combinations and conclusions must always be sought and
found afresh in dogmatics with a continually new desire for obedience.
But however things may be seen or pondered or stated as a whole or
in detail, the standpoints from which this must be done are not a
matter of arbitrary investigation, discovery and assertion. Apart
from all else, they are given in and with the name of Jesus Christ. In
God's Yes to man, in the reconciliation of the world with God, it is a
matter of this One, and therefore of His deity and humanity, of God's
humiliation and man's exaltation, of the justification and sanctification
of man, of faith and love. A doctrine of reconciliation which does not
present both these aspects with equal seriousness is incomplete, one-
sided and erroneous. Even if the two cannot be compared, the one
great Yes of God spoken in Jesus Christ includes both the turning of
God to man and that of man to God. In all ages and circumstances
this must emerge in every theology. If only the one or the other
aspect is treated, or one is not given due weight but obscured by the
other, too little is said, and therefore in the last resort there is
distortion.
'The theology of the early and mediaeval Church spoke fairly commonly of
a twofold office, a munus duplex, of Christ, and to that extent of two problems
of the doctrine of reconciliation In this connexion we are reminded of Rev
5 6f where in the same breath Jesus Christ is described as " the Lion of the tribe
of Juda which hath prevailed " yet also as " the Lamb as it had been slain "
In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs we also meet with the notion that the
Kyrios descends both from the tribe of Levi and also from that of Judah, the
one in His office and work as High-priest and the other in His office and work
as King, the one as God (for this aspect is also seen here) and the other as man
(Test. Sim 7 and passim) By Justin, Athanasms, Augustine and others, and
by Peter Lombard in the Middle Ages, He is related to the figures of Aaron on
the one side, and David, Solomon and even Joshua on the other, as the One
who fulfils their prophetic existence. The question whether this is legitimate
or illegitimate allegorising is irrelevant in face of the fact that the material
content of the Old and New Testaments is rightly perceived as such. Reforma-
tion theology followed the same tradition Calvin was the one who, imitating
the early Church, developed the doctrine of the office and work of Jesus Christ
in the way which comes closest to our own reconstruction. It may be noted
that he shows a slight tendency to give a certain preference to the kingly office
6 69. The Glory of the Mediator
of Jesus Christ as compared with the high-priestly (pecultart regni intuitu et
ratione dictum fuisse Messiam, Instit. II, 15, 2), and that this finds expression
m the order of the third book to the extent that justification is there treated
within the comprehensive doctrine of sanctification or regeneration. But it
could hardly be said that proper justice is not done by him to justification, and
therefore to its distinctive presupposition in the high-priestly office of Jesus Christ.
The situation was and is very complicated on the Lutheran side. Here, too,
the twofold structure (and from the beginning of the iyth century the threefold
as it had been discovered or rediscovered by Calvin) was adopted. Yet from the
very first an opposing if not alien concern was also appropriated. From the
days of Melanchthon's Loci of 1521, the tendency was to concentrate on the
beneficia Chnsti and therefore not to devote too much attention to the objective
presupposition of the salvation accomplished for man, i e., to Christology.
Salvation was predominantly if not exclusively envisaged as a beneficium,
namely, as the justification of sinful man by faith, and sanctification had only
as it were a subsidiary role Inevitably therefore, to the extent that there was
any concern with Christology, the decisive interest was in the high-priestly
office of Jesus Christ and His kingly office came in for little more than incidental
mention. The tendency was really to merge the latter into the former. Hence
we read in Hollaz (Ex theol acroam., 1707, III, i, 3, qu 71) that strictiori sensu
the whole work of the Mediator is identical with His officium sacerdotale, which
includes all His other offices The genuinely Lutheran reservation in respect
of a twofold or threefold view of the matter hardened in the De officio Chnsti
triphci (1773) of J A Ernesti into the formal contention that it is sufficient and
alone possible to consider and describe the work of Jesus Christ from the one
standpoint of satisfactio. Against the background of the genuinely Lutheran
preference for the doctrine of justification there could be no consistent distinction
and co-ordination of the two standpoints and points of departure Always there
was the menace of a flagrant or secret superordmation of the one and subordina-
tion of the other. Yet even in this sphere, in spite of the readoption of the
protestation of Ernesti by A. Ritschl (Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, Vol III,
p. 394 f ) and F H R Frank (System der chnsthchen Wahrheit, 2nd edit , 1894,
Vol II, p. 201 f ), there has been a continual if not very confident return to this
distinction and co-ordination, even Schleiermacher (The Christian Faith, 102)
contending for it in the light of his presuppositions and the corresponding lines
of argument. That this is the case is an indication that in the union in opposition
of the priestly and kingly offices of Jesus Christ (and therefore of justification
and sanctification, of faith and love), as this was perceived already in the theology
of the early Church, we do not have an arbitrarily invented theologoumenon,
but a necessity grounded m the thing itself.
When, therefore, the early Church spoke of this union in opposition,
and therefore of a munus duplex of Jesus Christ, of His priestly and
kingly office, it was justified to the extent that the material content
of the doctrine of reconciliation is in fact exhausted by what has to be
thought and said from these two christologico-soteriological stand-
points. Concerning that which takes place in the history which is the
theme of the doctrine of reconciliation there is to be said, with all
kinds of expansions or contractions or variations as a whole and in
detail, and with equal emphasis upon the two constituent elements,
the one fact that it is a fulfilment of the saying : "I will be your God,
and ye shall be my people." In our own development we have started
with the person and work of Jesus Christ, for to say reconciliation is
necessarily to name at once this name in which it is accomplished.
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 7
But starting from Him and His fulness, we think at once in terms of
this union in opposition, and we note at once that there can be no
question of anything different or higher or better than what is to be
thought and said in these terms. To apply an additional test, no other
result could be achieved even if we replaced this name by such material
concepts as redemption or the kingdom of God or true life. This is
not merely because, if we are not to fill out these concepts arbitrarily,
we must always return to the name from which we ourselves have
preferred to start. It is also because in their development, presup-
posing our loyalty to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
we are irresistibly compelled first to look and think from above down-
wards, from God to man, but then also and with the same seriousness
from below upwards, from man to God. And we then realise that in
the strange twofold movement which we necessarily perceive and follow
we are dealing with the whole of the history in which God gives to
man salvation but also causes man to give Him glory.
Yet the fact remains that there is a third problem of the doctrine
of reconciliation which, if it has to be posed and answered differently,
has still to be treated with the same seriousness as the first two, so that
if we disregard or fail to develop and answer it the doctrine is just as
incomplete in relation to its theme as if one of the first two were
neglected in favour of the other, as seems to be the constant threat in
Lutheran theology. For the reconciliation which is our concern
in this doctrine, i.e., the history of Jesus Christ as the great act of
God which the Christian community confesses and by which it may
live, itself takes place in a third dimension which we have not yet
explicitly considered, and it would not be this history if it did not
take place in this direction too. The witness of the Bible, to which
theology is responsible in respect of the fulness as well as the accuracy
of its discussions and formulations, is in all portions full of traces of a
further specific element of the event attested by it, if only we have
ears to hear. If this element rests on the distinctness and difference
of the two first, it is not identical with either. If it is in unity with
them, it is not merely their unity as such, but the one event in a form
which is distinct from both and must be considered separately. We
could not actually have described it in the first two forms if it did not
have this third and if we did not take preliminary account of the
fact that it does take place in this form too. But we must now speak
of it independently in this third form, in the light of which we must
also consider the first two.
What is the point at issue ? There can be no question of a further
development of our material knowledge of the event of reconciliation.
The truth remains that what God did and does and will do as the
Reconciler of the world with Himself in Jesus Christ is exhausted in
what has to be thought and said from the first two standpoints. But
this intrinsically perfect and insurpassable action has a distinct
8 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
character. For as it takes place in its perfection, and with no need
of supplement, it also expresses, discloses, mediates and reveals itself.
It is to be noted that there is not revealed anything different, higher
or deeper, any independent truth. It expresses, discloses, mediates
and reveals itself, not as a truth but as the truth, in which all truths,
the truth of God particularly and the truth of man, are enclosed,
not as truths in themselves, but as rays or facets of its truth. It
declares itself as reality. It displays itself. It proclaims itself. It
thus summons to conscious, intelligent, living, grateful, willing and
active participation in its occurrence. But already we are anticipating
what is achieved and effected in virtue of this third element in its
occurrence. The basic and all-decisive factor is that, no matter what
the result may be or what may be achieved or effected, it displays
and proclaims itself as truth, and indeed as the truth. For it is the
event we speak of Jesus Christ in which the covenant between God
and man is sealed on both sides, in which peace is established both
from above and from below, and in which the justification and sancti-
fication of man are both accomplished, whether or not there is response
in the faith and love of a single individual. Its donation sovereignly
precedes all reception on our part in the fact that in itself it is not
merely real but true, the truth, and that as such it is not dark and
dumb but perspicuous and vocal, that it may and will therefore be
received, but is independent of our actual reception, being the
sovereign basis of all reception and therefore conditioning our recep-
tion but not conditioned by it. This is the third element or dimension
of the event of reconciliation, the Christ event. And the third
problem of the doctrine of reconciliation is to see that it is an event
in this character too, and to what extent.
For all our reservations in respect of a possible misuse of the
term, this might be described as the formal problem of the doctrine
as distinct from the first two material problems. Its concern is with
the How of the event in its inalienable distinction from the What.
Its relationship to the latter is indissoluble. Revelation takes place
in and with reconciliation. Indeed, the latter is also revelation. As
God acts in it, He also speaks. Reconciliation is not a dark or dumb
event, but a perspicuous and vocal. It is not closed in upon itself, but
moves out and communicates itself. It is event only as it expresses,
discloses, and mediates itself, as it is not merely real but also true,
and as true as it is real. Yet the relationship is indissoluble from the
other side as well. Revelation takes place as the revelation of recon-
ciliation, as the How of this What, as the self-declaration of this
history, as the truth of this reality, and not otherwise. It is the
predicate, the necessary determination, of this subject. But it has no
independent being in face of it, and it certainly cannot take its place.
Reconciliation is indeed revelation. But revelation in itself and as
such, if we can conceive of such a thing, could not be reconciliation.
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 9
It takes place as reconciliation takes place ; as it has in it its origin,
content and subject ; as reconciliation is revealed and reveals itself in it.
In Jn. I 4f - we read concerning the Logos (who m the Prologue to John is
the Revealer whose history is narrated in the Gospel and who is thus concretely
the Son sent by the Father, the man Jesus) : "In him was life , and the life
was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness."
By onj R. Bultmann (Das Ev. des Joh., 1950, p 21 f.) understands " the
vitality of all creation " which according to v 3 (which tells us that " all things
were made by him ") has its origin in the Logos And in what follows it is then
said that in and with this life of creation light, i.e., the possibility of revelation,
is given from the very first and granted to what is created. By " light " and
therefore " revelation " (as the revelation of creation) there is thus understood
the enlightenment of human existence in order that man should understand
himself in his world and find his way without anxiety an opportunity which is
lost (" the light shmeth in darkness ") through the fact that he lays hold of
oKoria instead of <f>a>s as another possibility of self-understanding.
On this interpretation our first comment must be that in this passage dark-
ness and light, and therefore revelation, are not described as " possibilities,"
and certainly not as possibilities of human " self -understanding " But it is said
of light at any rate that it is a determination or character of the life which was
and is in the Logos Jesus For in the whole of John's Gospel there is no context
in which the word 017 (whether with or without cu'auao?) can be understood of
a vitality imparted to creation as such On the contrary, 0^17 is the indestructible
new life which according to Jn 5 28 the Son and He alone has in Himself when
it is given Him by the Father, m order that He, the " bread of God," should
impart it to the cosmos and humanity According to W Bauer (Ev. d Joh.,
1908, p. 35), onj is " the fulness of all the benefits of salvation promised for the
Messianic age " We may confidently add that as the essence of all these benefits
it is reconciliation In anticipation of 5 28 it is said of this even m the Prologue
that in its particularity it was m Him, the Logos Jesus, who according to v. i
was in the beginning with God and was Himself God In the further course of
the Gospel we then have the saying attributed to Jesus Himself in n 26 and 14* .
" I am the life." That it is another life which is m question is a notion which
is dismissed as soon as it is raised by the differentiating expression 1} 0077 (" this
life "). " This life was the light of men " This life was and is enclosed, or
rather breaks through and expresses itself, in its Bearer, as the life given to Him
an4 m Him to the world By its presence it speaks m and for itself As such it
is light, shining among the men to whom it is addressed, shining in their darkness.
It reveals itself For again in John's Gospel there is no passage in which </>&$
could be described as a light shining from creation. According to v 9 it lightens
all men as a light which " cometh into the world " and as the " true light," i.e ,
as the light of the new life (TO </>s rfjs Ccofjs, 8 ia ) For the enlightenment of human
existence in the form of a new self-understanding ? Why not ? Yes, indeed.
But above all for the real alteration of the world and man, for his awakening to
faith and love, in accordance with the fact that it causes him to recognise his
justification and sanctification as they have taken place m Jesus Christ, and
therefore his true life in Him, and thus to live anew in the creative power of this
recognition. Yet it is not from the fact that it does and achieves all this that
it has enlightening power and the dynamic of revelation, but from the fact that
it proceeds from the reconciling life actuahsed in Jesus, that it is the light of this
life. How could it help man even to the enlightenment of human existence in
a new self-understanding if it were not the light of this life ? What is said in
Jn. i 4f is that this life in its determination as light, reconciliation in its character
as revelation, is outgoing and self-communicative, so that, as it has taken place
in the world, it breaks out and goes into the whole world, to every man (v. 9).
io 69. The Glory of the Mediator
The third problem of the doctrine of reconciliation is thus proposed
and set by the simple fact that, as reconciliation takes place, it also
declares itself. We may take a quick glance at the whole of the new
chapter which opens up before us. The justification and sanctification
of man include his vocation, as his pride and sloth also include his
falsehood. The gathering and upbuilding of the community include
its sending. The faith and love of the Christian include Christian
hope. At the end of this third part of the doctrine of reconciliation,
when it is a matter of the Christian community and the life of the
individual Christian, we shall have to speak of the work of the Holy
Spirit in which the event of reconciliation is concretely active and
perceptible in this character of self -declaration, establishing know-
ledge and evoking confession. But, as already indicated, it does not
have this character only when it is active and perceptible in this
work and there are men whose participation is shown in the fact that
they follow the calling issued to them. In itself it is the basis of
knowledge even where there does not correspond to it the knowledge
of a single man. It speaks, it declares and glorifies itself, it is out-
going and self-communicative, even before it attains its goal in the
creaturely world in which it takes place, and to that extent without
attaining it. The power with which it does attain its goal in the work
of the Holy Spirit rests upon the fact that already in itself it is out-
going and self-communicative, announcing, displaying and glorifying
itself. It is not merely light but the source of light. As the light of
eternal life it is eternal light in the midst of the darkness of the human
world which surrounds and threatens it. It is victorious and powerful
even when it is only moving towards its victory. Its actual victory
is accomplished in the work of the Holy Spirit. But the work of the
Holy Spirit in and to the Christian community and its members, in
which it is recognisable and perceptible as self-declaration in calling
as well as justification and sanctification, in the sending of the Christian
community into the world as well as its gathering and upbuilding,
in the hope as well as the faith and love of Christians this work of
the Holy Spirit creates new facts only to the extent that the revelatory
character of reconciliation is confirmed in it, and such phenomena as
the knowing and confessing community, and individual Christians as its
members, are introduced amongst other world phenomena, having
their own basis in the revelatory character of reconciliation and to
that extent in the event of reconciliation. This objectivity of even
its revelatory character must be emphasised so expressly because
misunderstanding can so easily creep in, as if the problem of the
knowledge, understanding and explanation of reconciliation, or more
generally of the doctrine of reconciliation as such, of the question
how there can possibly be even the most rudimentary theology and
proclamation of reconciliation, were really a problem of the theory
of human knowledge and its spheres and limitations, its capacities
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation n
and competencies, its possible or impossible approximation to this
object. Only too easily the reference to the enlightening work of
the Holy Spirit can be understood as the final and then, like a Deus
ex machina, the very doubtful word of such a theory of knowledge.
But this reference is the last word of the doctrine of reconciliation
itself. It is only as such that it can be meaningful, namely, as a
reference to the fact that in the power of reconciliation itself, i.e., of
its character as revelation, in virtue of the self-attestation of Jesus
Christ, there are world phenomena which have their basis in it. If
this reference is not to be left hanging in the air, it is necessary to hold
fast not only to the objectivity of reconciliation as such and its occur-
rence in the world, but also to the objectivity of its character as
revelation, to the a priori nature of its light in face of all human
illumination and knowledge. There is human knowledge, and a
theology of reconciliation, because reconciliation in itself and as such
is not only real but true, proving itself true in the enlightening work
of the Holy Spirit, but first true as well as real in itself, as disclosure,
declaration and impartation. This is the basis of certainty and clarity
when it is a matter of the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His work
through the work of the Holy Spirit. This basis, therefore, must be our
opening theme. In this third part, too, we shall have to speak first of
Jesus Christ, and only then of the men to whom He is Brother, Re-
presentative and Head, only then of their knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We did not complete the New Testament quotations previously adduced,
i Tim 2 6 does not say of the man Jesus Christ only that as the one Mediator
between God and men He gave Himself a ransom for all. Beside this statement
there is placed another which obviously points to a different dimension, namely,
that He gave Himself TO paprvpiov Kaipols t'SiW, to be a necessary witness con-
tinually speaking to His times, i e , the times to be determined by Him. In
conjunction with the 8ovs, therefore, we have a threefold accusative and equa-
tion : eavr6v=Xvrpov=iJ.apTvpiov The one mediatorial man is or works or acts
both, as ransom and witness, both as Reconciler and Revealer, and as the latter
as and because He is the former. It is on the fact that Jesus is the latter,
TO paprvpiov , that Paul grounds the statement concerning himself in v. 7. It
is because the One who accomplishes reconciliation Himself reveals Himself as
such that he can say " I am ordained a preacher (icfjpvf), and an apostle (I
speak the truth in Christ, and lie not ,) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and
verity," and, in the light of what precedes, we must add for the sake of com-
pleteness, " in the Kaipos iSios allotted to me by Him." Thus, it is first Jesus
Christ Himself in His person and action who declares Himself to be the Reconciler
and as such also the Revealer, and then, on the basis of the latter aspect, there
is human kerygma and apostolate and SiSaoxoAi'a in the Gentile world
There is an exact parallel in 2 Cor. i 20 : " For all the promises of God in him,
i e , the Son of God Jesus Christ (v. 19), are yea," the Yes of God m Jesus Christ
being their sum and meaning and substance And to this there is added the
decisive statement : Sto /ecu Si* avrov (again through Him) TO apyv, unto the glory
of God by us (the apostle) That the Yes of God is in Him is one thing But
this Yes of God spoken in Him has it in itself to be the power by which there is
an Amen to the glory of God In the Old Testament already Amen is the recog-
nition of a word which binds and commits because it is spoken by GocJ or in HJS
12 69. The Glory of the Mediator
name. Especially it is the solemn agreement in the praise of God as proclaimed
and heard, eg., in a doxology. In the primitive Christian community it seems
to have been used sooner or later as a formula of liturgical acclamation by believers
in confessional evocation or publication of the name of God in His great acts in
Jesus Christ. We may recall the Amen and the Even so, Amen of the salutation
of Revelation (i ef> ) in response to the recollection of the love of Jesus Christ,
of the deliverance effected by Him, and of the creation of the new people of God
as His work, and to the announcement of His final and definitive revelation.
Amen confirms the certain truth and therefore the trustworthiness of the Yes
which it answers. It shows that it is revealed in its glorious majesty and authority
to the one who utters it. But according to 2 Cor. i ao this response to the Yes of
God spoken in Jesus Christ is not first pronounced by the world or the com-
munity or the apostle. First and properly and basically, as the presupposition
of all that follows, it is pronounced by the very One in whom the Yes is also
spoken. To be sure, Paul understands all his work and proclamation among
the Corinthians as an Amen spoken to the glory of God. But he does not mean
that he has taken it upon himself to pronounce this Amen. He is merely follow-
ing the One who has pronounced it first and properly and basically with His
Yes. It is from Jesus Christ Himself that it has power as pronounced by the
apostle. It is because it has power from Jesus Christ that Paul can say in v. 18 :
irtaros o 0t 6s. God Himself is the Pledge to Paul and the Corinthians that His
Word among them is not both Yes and No, but an unequivocal because intrinsic-
ally certain, reliable and valid Yes Without this presupposition neither he nor
the Corinthians could be sure of his Amen. But on this presupposition they can
and should be.
That we are to understand the passage in this way is shown by the remark-
able " Amen (repeated in John), I say unto you " with which Jesus does not
round off but precedes certain pronouncements both in the Synoptics and John.
As and because it is Jesus who makes these pronouncements, Amen may be said
to them from the very outset. He Himself makes them valid, and they can and
should, therefore, be accepted as valid, sure and trustworthy by those who hear
them. H. Schlier (in ThWNT on d/irjv) has rightly pointed out that " all
Christology is contained in nuce " in this formula The Yes of Jesus demands
recognition and consent on the part of those who hear it, but it does not need
them to be true and valid and thus to claim recognition and agreement with
absolutely compelling force. The Yes of Jesus triumphantly bears in itself
the positive acceptance proper to it. It triumphantly bears in itself its own
Amen. It is for this reason that it is a mighty promise awakening faith and a
mighty claim demanding obedience This is the cfovaia which distinguishes
His teaching from that of the scribes (Mt 7 29 ) The people are " astonished "
or " startled " because His SiSaoxciv, i e., His announcement of the kingdom of
God, His self-declaration as the direct attestation of its presence, His Yes,
includes in itself the Amen even as and before it takes place. Hence, and in this
sense, the saying : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased , hear
ye him " (Mt. ij 6 ). Hence, and in this sense, the answer of Jesus to Pilate's
question whether He is a king : " Thou sayest that I am a king " (Jn. i8 87 ).
But then He adds : "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth," and in Jn. 14* this is accentu-
ated and sharpened by the declaration : "I am (as the way and the life, so also)
the truth." And there is the same accentuation in Rev. 3 14 where Jesus Christ
is described as the One who not only speaks Himself the Amen to the Yes
actualised in Him, but is Himself, not TO but 6 apty, the Amen, and in this totality
" the faithful (i.e., trustworthy) and true witness " this is where we found the
title for the present chapter and to that extent the Apostle (Heb. 3 1 ) and
Prophet (Jn. 6 14 ).
It is against this background that we may see how even in the early Church
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 13
the classical doctrine of the munus duplex of Jesus Christ, of the twofold form of
reconciliation, came to be deepened, and there was asserted a third orientation
of the event of reconciliation in Christ and therefore in its totality. Even the
Johannine triad already mentioned (Jn i4 e ), and the declaration of i Cor. i*
that Christ is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, must
surely have caused them to consider whether Jesus Christ the High-priest and
King, the Lord who became a Servant and the Servant who became a Lord,
should not also be regarded, in a full evaluation of this being and work of His as
very God and man, as " the Amen, the faithful and true witness," the Revealer
and Guarantor of His own reality and therefore of the salvation of man and the
glory of God , whether a decisive feature in the portrayal of the event attested
in the Old and New Testament witness is not overlooked or obscured, and a
decisive question of Christian knowledge suspiciously left open, if it is not seen
and formally stated that the Lord and Servant in whom the divine act of atone-
ment takes place is not also the One who declares, makes known and reveals
this act and therefore Himself to the community and the world ; whether all
clear and certain knowledge of this event, all human perception of God grounded
upon it, is not primarily His own work and gift no less than the justification of
man before God and his sanctification for Him, namely, the work and gift of his
calling, as also based upon it We may refer to Col. 2 s "In whom are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." To the indwelling irXrfpwfjM rijs terfnjTos
of which we read in the parallel verse in Col 2", does there belong only the
material fact that He is made unto us justification and sanctification (or in
Johannine language that He is the way and the life), and not also the formal fact
that He is the truth, that He is made unto us wisdom > In the decisive context
of Jn i lf is there not said of Jesus the highly singular thing that as the One
whose history the Gospel narrates He is the Logos, the Word, the Revealer of
God, that He does not merely become this subsequently in time but is it m the
eternity of God Himself, and that as such He has come into the world and been
made flesh ?
It is surely because of the actual pressure of such questions that in the 4th
century (as first appears in Eusebius of Caesarea, Ev dem , IV, 15 etc., and then
in the 5th century in Petrus Chrysologus, Sermo 54) mention is made of a three-
fold office, Christ being not only Priest and King but also, in the express words
of Jn 6 14 , " that prophet that should come into the world " The bringing
together of these three functions and titles was not new in itself. Josephus
referred to them as the rpia KpaTiarevovra with reference to the Maccabean
hero John Hyrcanus (Bell jud , i, 2, 8), probably on the basis of an older Jewish
tradition which as tertium compavatwms could hardly have before it anything
but the fact that the dignity and authority of these three theocratic offices in
the Old Testament may be traced back to a common anointing. In introducing
the threefold scheme Christian theology seems formally to have linked it with
the title of Jesus as Christ, the Anointed of God Yet it is to be noted that in
the Cyrillme anathemas of the Council of Ephesus (431) it is obviously not in
any connexion with the name of Christ as such, but m dependence on Heb. 3 l ,
that Jesus is called the apxiepeus icai aTroaroAo? TTJS o/uoAoytay -fffjuav (can. 10).
The threefold schema did not by any means secure general adoption in the early
and mediaeval Church That it was known appears from the reference in Thomas
Aquinas (S theol , III, qu 22, art i, ad 3) * ahus est legislator et alius sacerdos
et ahus rex , sed haec omma concurrunt in Christo tanquam in fonte omnium
gr ah arum. But there is no development in Thomas or elsewhere of what is meant
by the legislatio of Christ as a form of the reconciling grace revealed in Him.
Proper weight was given to this third element in the Christ occurrence and
the occurrence of reconciliation only in the theology of the Reformation, or
more precisely in the later editions of Calvin's Institutio (n, 15) and his Catechism
(39 and 44, cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Qu. 31-32).
14 69. The Glory of the Mediator
Calvin had found it in the theological tradition from which he derived (sub
papatu), but it had been conceived and presented only frigide nee magno cum
fructu. His desire was to bring it to light in a completely different way. As he
saw it, in Jesus Christ we have to do with the lux intelligentiae expected in the
Old Testament, as in the confession of the Samaritan woman in Jn. 4" : "I
know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ : when he is come, he will tell
us all things (awovro dvayyeAet)." In distinction from all other teachers, Jesus
received and enjoyed the prophetic Spirit in fulness, and that not only for Him-
self but for His own, for the life of His whole earthly body the Church. He is
the revelation of truth in which all prophecy has reached its goal and beside
which there can be no other. En descendant au monde il a ete Messager et Ambas-
sadeur souverain de Dieu son Pere, pour exposer pleinement la volonte d'iceluy au
monde . . . pour Sire Maitre et Docteur des siens, with the object de nous introduire
a la vraie cognoissance du Pere et de sa vente tellement que nous soyons foohers
domestiques de Dieu, the Heidelberg Catechism also adding : " That I also may
confess his name."
This doctrine of the munus Chnsti propheticum, and therefore of a munus
triplex Christi, then made its way into Lutheran theology, though hesitantly
and with some degree of incompatibility, as already mentioned. It is also
found, its introduction obviously corresponding to a generally perceived necessity,
in the Cat. Romanus (1566, Qu. 194 f ), and more recently it has been adopted
by J. M. Scheeben and all subsequent dogmaticians as a well-established element
in Roman Catholic theology, Scheeben grudgingly but openly admitting (Handb.
der kath. Dogm , 1925, Vol. 3, p. 268) that Protestants had given a lead m this
respect, though clearly with the evil intention of ascribing revelation to Jesus
Christ alone.
In relation not only to Lutheran and Roman Catholic but also the older
Reformed theology (including Calvm), the question can and must be asked,
however, to what degree the meaning, importance and relevance of this newly
discovered or rediscovered third problem of the doctrine of reconciliation are
really grasped and brought out either then or more recently. For in detail there
seem to be all kinds of obscurities.
After the example of Calvin, the development of this problem usually pre-
ceded that of the other two In the sense of the a^v Xcyw vplv of the Gospels,
this could draw attention to the fact that everything subsequently said from
the other two standpoints had a priori certainty from the fact that it is attested
and guaranteed by Jesus Christ Himself But neither Calvin nor any of his
successors based the precedence given to the munus propheticum upon this.
Yet the element of uncertainty regarding the interrelating of the prophetic and
other offices could have unhappy consequences What was supposed to be
the theme and content of the prophetic or revelatory action of Jesus Christ ?
At this point Calvin spoke of the will and truth of the Father and Wolleb (Chr.
Theol. comp., 1624, i, 17, 2) referred briefly to ventas coelestis In the Heidelberg
Catechism (Qu. 31) it is explained that it is a matter of " the secret will and
counsel of God concerning our redemption," and m the Syntagma of Polanus
(1610, VI, 29) it is stated even more explicitly to be a matter of the true doctrine
of eternal salvation, the distinction of the true God from false gods, the indica-
tion of the right way to be taken by believers, supremely by the revelation of the
Gospel, but also by the true exposition of the Law and the prophesying of things
to come. In the Synopsis of F. Burmann (1678, V, 12) it is emphasised that
what are at issue are the verba Dei, quae Deum Deique F ilium solum proloqui fas
est, and materially the revelation of the whole mystery of redemption These
are the kind of formulations which are given, and they can and must be inter-
preted in meliorem and even in optimam partem. The more strongly it was
underlined, as by Polanus and many others, that the prophecy or teaching of
Jesus Christ is primarily that of the Gospel, the closer was the approximation
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 15
to the real heart of the matter. But already m the Leidener Synopsis (1624,
26, 39 f .) there is another note : that it is a matter of veritas legalts et evangehca,
and this is also found in F. Turrettini (Theol. el., 1682, XIV, 7, 5) toward the
end of the century. Did this kind of expression denote a real grasp of the subject,
or a reference to the self-revelation of Jesus Christ ? Was there not the danger
that along the lines of the doubtful expression of Thomas Aquinas Jesus Christ
would be primarily understood as legislator, i.e., as the authentic exponent of
the divine Law and perhaps of general divine law, or more radically as the
Revealer, not of Himself m His actuality, nor of the history of reconciliation
enacted in Him, but of a principle and system of divine truth with saving signific-
ance for man, in which a place could also be found for what had to be said con-
cerning the high-priestly and kingly offices ? The possibility might present itself
indeed, it had been already grasped in the i6th century in the Unitarian
theology and church founded by Faustus Socmms, and it was later seized again
by the Christian Enlightenment to gather together the one and total function
of Jesus Christ m His prophetic office of witness and teaching, to understand
the historical being and work of the Mediator as merely the manifestation,
declaration and exemplification of a timeless idea of reconciliation as the true
ventas coelestis, and thus in short to substitute a Gospel of Jesus Christ for the
Gospel concerning Him. Self-evidently this was not what Calvin and his Re-
formed and Lutheran successors had in view. But we can and must say that in
their exposition there were no adequate safeguards against this final result.
A second uncertainty arose out of the lack of clarity concerning the inner
relationship of the revelation of Jesus Christ and His work. This emerged in
the preponderant tendency to understand the relationship of the three media-
torial functions e ratione executions, i.e., as that of different stages in the course
of the history of Jesus, and therefore in a historical framework. First, He acted
as Prophet m His proclamation of the kingdom of God in Galilee and Jerusalem,
then as High-priest m His death and passion, finally as King in His resurrection
and ascension. This is the way m which it is presented by Wendelm (Chr. Theol.,
1634, I, 17, 3). But in this construction the unity of the event of reconciliation
is obscured by the specific actual significance of the individual elements. And
if the munus propheticum is only the first stage in the history of Jesus, followed
by His action in the munus sacerdotale and regium, it is put in the shade by their
superior light as m a sense provisional, and cannot therefore receive the justice
due to it. That this problem was perceived is clear from the distinction made
by H. Heidegger (Medulla, 1696, 19, 19) that, while this sequence is true or dint
executions (historically), yet or dine intentioms the work of Christ in the munus
propheticum derives from and follows what He does m the munus regium and
sacerdotale. The reason for this distinction is clear enough, but we are not shown
in what sense there is supposed to be an ordo executions which is so very different
from the ordo intentions, or m what sense or with what justification the idea of
ordo (with its necessary ranking) is introduced at all. Is this really necessary
or possible as between the reality of Jesus Christ as Servant and Lord and its
character as truth ? But it is in the same historical abstraction that the Roman
Catholic J. Pohle (Lehrb. d. Dogm., Vol. II, 1903, p. 223 f.) understands the
teaching office of Jesus Chnst, and he does not even see the necessity to make
the reservation attempted by Heidegger.
A third question concerns the way in which Jesus Christ is said to be the
" chief Prophet and Teacher " (Heidelberg Catechism, Qu. 31, with a verbal
parallel in the Cat. Rom., I, 3, 7 : the summus propheta et magister). What is
meant by the superlatives used at this point by the Roman Catholics, e.g.,
F. Diekamp (Kath. Dogm., Vol. II, 1930, p. 333 f.) when he says that the teaching
office is supreme because grounded on the fullest knowledge and exercised most
fully and with supreme authority ? Calvin had said much more succinctly
that He is the Bearer of the only revelation, in and with which all others are
i6 69. The Glory of the Mediator
superfluous, and Polanus had said more precisely that in His Word a distinction
is made between God and idols. All the older Protestants expressed themselves
to the same effect, and in the Roman Catholic dogmatics quoted Christ is " our
only Teacher to whom the prophets point and from whom all the teachers com-
missioned by Him derive," B. Bartmann (Lehrb. d. Dogm., Vol. II, 1928, p. 377 f.)
describing Him as the " only Prophet " and " absolute Teacher." But were
the older Protestant orthodox sure of their ground in this respect ? And can we
say of the Roman Catholic theologians that their summits really means umcus ?
How did it come about that so zealous a Reformed teacher as J. Piscator, on the
very first page of his aphorisms on Calvin's Institutio (1589), could interpret the
doctrine of the Genevan master to the effect that, as proved by the fact of heathen
religions and the direct terror of man at thunder and lightning, there is a cognitio
naturahs, i e., hominum mentibus a natura insita, a direct revelation of at least
the Creator and of our obligation to honour Him ? How did it come about that
at the time of transition from the i7th to the i8th century it proved so easy,
even in Protestantism, formally to set alongside or before the theology supposedly
based upon revelation a natural theology "> And what are we to make of the loud
protestations of Roman Catholic theologians when they have always so self-
evidently reckoned with a twofold revelation and knowledge of God ? It is for
this reason that Scheeben, rightly from his own standpoint, takes such offence
that at this point Protestants seem to be trying to describe Jesus Christ if
only they had done it with more power and consistency ! as the only Revealer
of God The general question must be put whether in the determination to
bring to light the munus Chnsti propheticum the cost was really counted or the
deductions were considered which must follow if such great utterances are made
with genuine seriousness
A fourth complex of questions is opened up by the definite statement of Calvin
that Jesus Christ has received the dignity and commission of the prophetic
office not merely for His own person but for His whole body the Church. In
exposition of this statement the later Reformed dogmaticians (e g , the Leidener
Synopsis, 26, 39, 41) liked to distinguish between His direct exercise of this
office by Himself (per seipsum) and His indirect through others (per alias ad-
ministros verbi sui], i e , through the prophets and apostles How are we to
understand this ' We must first ask whether the distinction between per seipsum
and per ahos is really possible Even in the Old and New Testaments, is there
really any utterance of Christ per seipsum which is not also per altos ? Surely
He causes Himself to be heard only in the witness of Scripture and its proclama-
tion, and not otherwise Conversely, is not His whole utterance per altos true
and authoritative only in virtue of the fact that in this mediation He speaks
per seipsum ' How could or would the witness of Scripture and its proclamation
be true and powerful if He did not cause Himself to be heard in it ? Yet at a
pinch we might well have come to an understanding with the older dogmaticians
on this point. More serious is the question whether they were right, and especi-
ally the Reformed, when they tried to think of the prophecy of Jesus Christ as
limited to the Old and New Testament witnesses. The Lutherans (e.g , J.
Gerhard, Loci, 1610, IV, 322) spoke more freely of the indirect transmission of
the prophetic work of Christ in the ministry of the apostles and their successors.
Confessional polemics played an open part in the restriction characteristic of the
Reformed in the I7th century (cf Leidener Synopsis, loc. cit.). Since only the
biblical prophets and apostles can be considered as administn of the Prophet
Jesus Christ, the Ecclesia Dei rejects (repudiat) omnes traditiones quae sacro
Codice non continentur. On this point it is to be observed that the unique dignity
of the sacred book consists in the fact that in it and it alone we have the original
attestation of the being and action of Jesus Christ as the presupposition of all
further proclamation by the Church Yet there can be no question of the Church
rejecting all traditions, its task being to test them by the standard of the
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 17
prophetico-apostolic witness, to weigh their conformity to Scripture, which will
not always lead to their total repudiation. The older Dutch who spoke in this
way did not really reject all traditions themselves ; indeed, at Dort they quite
freely added to the old some new ones. And can we truly maintain that only the
biblical prophets and apostles are the body which has a part in the office of its
Head ? A formally parallel question has also to be put to Roman Catholic
dogmatics. This recognised and recognises only too well the participation of
the Church, and therefore not merely of the prophets and apostles, in the teaching
office of Christ. By this J. Pohle (loc. cit.) understands the following. At Pente-
cost Christ instituted the Church as an institution for teaching the truth and
imparted to it the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth. The infallibility of the Church
and Papacy thus rests upon the prophetic ministry of Christ as the infallible
Teacher of truth. The teaching office of the Church mediates the full and total
truth. Beyond it there can be no spiritual or future " Johannine " Church.
Exercising divine authority with the corresponding direct ability, it already
possesses all the gifts most adapted to counter its enemies. This view raises the
question whether a genuine participation of the Church in the teaching office
of Christ can or should imply that its utterances are distinguished by an authority
and infallibility similar to those of the Word of Jesus Christ Himself. How, as
His body, as His earthly form of existence, did it acquire this similarity of its
own function with His ? Even though there is this participation, why must it
be all or nothing ? Is it not enough that it should modestly and penitently and
teachably serve Him in the appropriate secondanness of its authority and the
obvious and avowed fallibility of its human word ? We have also to ask how
the assumption is reached that the body which participates in the teaching
office of Jesus Christ is limited to the bearers of the ecclesiastical teaching office
represented in the Papacy, being restricted to these particular members of the
body. Is not the ministry of proclamation, as the concrete form of this participa-
tion, the commission, the privilege and the task to be responsibly accepted and
humbly executed by the whole community ' These Reformed and Roman
Catholic constrictions are finely broken through in the statement of the Heidelberg
Catechism (Qu 32) to the effect that I and not merely the prophets and apostles
or a teaching clergy show myself to be a Christian in the fact that " by faith I
am a member of Christ, and thus a partaker of His anointing ; in order that I
also may confess His name," no one being either excluded or self-excluded. At
the end of the century of orthodoxy this statement and the insight which it
expresses do seem to have been occasionally accepted by the Reformed, as, for
example, when we read that ex participatione unctionis all Christians are prophets
in appropriation of the Word of God, in the study of Scripture, in the testing of
spirits, but also in the instruction of neighbours and courageous witness (P. van
Mastncht, Theor pract. Theol., 1698, V, 6, 26).
A fifth and final question raised but not unequivocally answered by Calvin's
restatement is to whom Jesus Christ the Reconciler is really speaking when He
is also the Revealer Calvin's unhesitating answer in Qu. 39 of his Catechism
is that as the sovereign Messenger of God He addresses Himself to the world.
Polanus also spoke of His proclamation to the world (loc. ctt.), and in the same
sense J. Wolleb spoke of totus terrarum orbis (loc. cit., 19, 6). The same teaching
is found in the Cat Romanus (loc. cit.) : emus doctrina orbis terrarum Patris
coelestts cogmtionem accepit, as also in the Theol. did. pol. (1685) of the Lutheran
Quenstedt (III, c. 3, 2, sect i, th. 10), where he says that it is addressed to omnes
et singulos homines, nemine excluso, and again in th. 13, where he tells us that
what is at issue is omnium hominum ad coelestis ventatis agnitionem perductio.
Rather strangely, in Qu. 44 of his Catechism Calvin also describes Christ as
merely the Teacher and Master of His own people. In Wolleb, too, the circle
of those instructed by Him is restricted to the electi (I, 17, 9), and the Leidener
Synopsis states emphatically that His Word is addressed only to " His people "
i8 69. The Glory of the Mediator
(26, 39). The common rule of the Reformed is to speak indefinitely of " us "
as those with whom Jesus Christ has dealings in His prophetic Word. The
question is thus posed which of the two understandings we are to follow. Now
obviously they are not mutually exclusive as such. We should be happy to
think that what is meant is that the Word of Christ applies to " us " the elect,
the people of God, as the community of witnesses summoned to proclaim it
in the world. But unfortunately this was quite definitely not the meaning of
our fathers when in respect of the relationship of the Prophet Jesus Christ to the
world they fairly quickly showed themselves to have such strange reservations.
They rightly maintained (e.g., Polanus, VI, 29) that by the prophecy of Christ
there is to be understood not merely the external promulgatio ventatis dwinae
but also the interna unctio cordium per Spintum sanctum. This being the case,
their doctrine of double predestination necessarily acted as a barrier between
the people of God, as the elect and exclusive recipients of the witness of the
Spirit, and the world. As Christ did not die for all men, in the full sense His
Word does not go out to all but only to " us " the elect. As Prophet, too, Christ
is and acts only intra muros. If this conception had to be accepted, the doctrine
of His third office could only end m a blind alley. If we take seriously the fact
that the officium mediatonum of Jesus Christ, the act of reconciliation accomplished
in Him, has this third dimension, then in this connexion, too, we must consider
that in sending Him God loved the world and that in Him He has reconciled
the world to Himself, so that the specific history of those who hear the voice of
the Good Shepherd as distinct from others cannot be the final end of His prophetic
work, but can be fulfilled only in the special existence and history of the people
of God, i.e., in what Paul calls in 2 Cor. 5 18 the StaxWa rfjs KaraAAayifc. Jesus
Christ speaks to this people with the intention and commission that it for its
part should speak to the world, that it should be His messenger within it. In
fact, Calvin and his disciples were so hampered by their fatal dogma that they
were no longer or not yet able to perceive this. But it is comforting and in-
structive to say that m impulse at least they obviously show signs of looking m
this direction.
To ask these questions is not to belittle the significance of this powerful
attempt at dogmatic reconstruction which was so influential for contemporary
theology, nor to evade the debt of gratitude which we owe to Calvin in particular.
There can be no question of trying to resurrect the older doctrine of the munus
Chnsti propheticum. Its limitations are obvious, and at all the points mentioned
we must carefully and respectfully but boldly and resolutely transcend them.
Yet the biblical and then the material considerations with which we have opened
this introductory sub-section have shown us that the doctrine of the munus
propheticum, whatever we may think of the form in which it was presented and
asserted, does at least point us to an element in the event of reconciliation which
demands individual treatment. It is thus necessary, and will be well worth
while, freely to make the same attempt.
We conclude this introduction with a historical consideration. Is it an accident
that on the threshold of the modern epoch, which is new even from the stand-
point of Christianity, the Church and theology, there should have been this
restoration of the doctrine of the munus Chnsti propheticum ? It may well be
that in taking up the third problem of the doctrine of reconciliation we are im-
pelled, not merely by reasons of timeless academic accuracy, correctness and
completeness, but by concern with a question which has been forced upon us
by the historical development of especially the last 450 years, and which a modern
theology cannot ignore because it is inescapably presented to it in the destinies,
happenings and forms of the modern Church.
From the standpoint of Christianity, the Church and theology, the centuries
since the Renaissance and the accompanying Reformation have been and are
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation ig
a penod of deep shadow. To be sure, the shadow is no greater than that of later
antiquity and the Dark and Middle Ages, but it is of a different kind. It must
certainly be seen and said that the new element in the modern period, and
therefore the distinctive characteristic of the shadow now cast over the whole
sphere of Christianity, the Church and theology, did not become visible and
effective at a single stroke at the beginning of the i6th century. Intimations of
many kinds were not lacking in the later and even the earlier Middle Ages.
But the modern epoch is distinguished from those which precede by the fact
that certain tendencies which were previously latent, isolated and in the main
suppressed have now become increasingly patent, general and dominating. To
what do we refer ? To take one example, the Church in the modern period has
slowly but relentlessly lost its position in the world in the form in which it could
previously enjoy it. Perhaps this is because, quite apart from the schism between
East and West, in the i6th century it split up even in the West into four different
groupings and later into hundreds. Perhaps it is because from the i6th century
onwards ostensibly Christian Europe has been brought into increasingly direct
contact with the far more numerous non-Christian multitudes of the far West
and East, and has found its faith set in co-existence with a plenitude of alien
religions, so that not only is the self-evident absoluteness of its Christianity
brought under suspicion, but it is subjected to the temptation of recalling pagan
possibilities not long since and not very radically discarded. Perhaps it is because
and this is usually regarded as the first impulse from the beginning of the
1 6th century, partly under the influence of the rediscovery of ancient Greece,
partly under that of the astonishing advances in natural and historical science,
and above all under that of technology, it has itself begun to fashion a human
awareness and self-understanding based on the autonomy of general reason and
even of the individual More and more the Church has come up against the self-
consciousness of modern national and regional powers with a totally new claim
to sovereignty, against a modern society recognising and proclaiming its own
laws and following its own aspirations, against a modern philosophy, science,
literature, art and economics which not only maintain their own particular
freedoms and rights against it but silently exercise them without asking any
questions. Under the influence and pressure of all these elements and factors
in the outside world it has found itself, first imperceptibly and then more and
more obviously, thrust aside and pushed into a corner or ghetto. To the more
or less educated 6hte it has become more and more of an offence, or folly, or at
any rate an object of mildly tolerant indifference. And to a large extent it has
been completely lost to sight by the masses, externally as well as internally.
If the consciousness of its irresistibly dwindling or long since forfeited position
of religious, spiritual, moral and political power still lingers on in public life, it
is either in the form of dangerous recollections of abuses of this power horrific
pictures which provide easy justification both for a pathetic hostility to the
Church and an increasing flight from it or in the clever use which remaining
reactionary movements in the state or society are still, and sometimes in quite
new ways, able to make of it, to the great hurt of its own cause. And the Church
itself seems gradually to have been narrowed down to a difficult choice. It might
try to fight for the maintenance or restoration of its vanishing respect and in-
fluence with more or less suitable weapons, often in a blind and unfortunate
alliance with those reactionary forces. Or it might take the way obviously
suggested by these developments and retreat to the reservations of a self-satisfy-
ing religiosity, whether in the form of the varied practice of individual piety,
renewed or newly discovered liturgies, or dogmatic castles in the air. Or it
might accept the increasing secularism on an optimistic interpretation, taking
it up into its own self-understanding, working away so critically at the Bible,
tradition and the creeds as to appear to be in harmony with the progressive spirit
of the age, to justify modern man and to offer to the adult world a suitably
20 69. The Glory of the Mediator
adult form of Christianity, thus exposing all the more obviously and palpably the
alienation of the life of modern man from that of the Church and vice versa.
The outbursts of lamentation or scorn which this situation has almost continu-
ously evoked from Christians and non-Christians since the zyth century are
only too familiar. Each generation has repeated them as if it were the first to
discover the great diastasis which is their theme. We shall refrain from adding
fresh strophes. But we must soberly face up to the facts. The modern period
is in fact the period of Church history upon which the shadow of this diastasis
lies.
The only thing is that we must not overlook another feature of the situation.
It is not at all the case that in these last centuries Christianity has found itself
only in the state of this constriction and the execution of these measures of
defence, or insulations, or compromises, or apparent truces. There are gloomy
and sceptical as well as naive and sanguine falsifications of history, and we should
be guilty of such if we were to overlook the fact that most paradoxically the
modern period has also seen an original and spontaneous penetration of the
world by the Christian community unparalleled in any of the vaunted or criticised
periods which precede it. Nor can this process be facilely compared to the
despairing sally or counter-attack of a hopelessly beleaguered garrison, and thus
explained as one of the phenomena of constriction. On the contrary, the very
period when Christianity has been subject to the constriction, and its situation
has often enough been very like that of a closely invested fortress, has also been
the scene of an awakening which has not been dictated by its enemies, which
has been highly original, in which it has shown a new awareness, hardly paralleled
since the first centuries, of its commission to the world and mission within it,
and in which it has stirred itself in the most different forms to do justice to it.
How curious it is that so learned and perspicacious a man as E. Hirsch, in his
depiction of recent Evangelical theology, should have succeeded in missing
altogether this aspect of the matter and representing it as the history of an
unbroken retreat into a kind of Indian reservation !
That Christianity has to say to the world around something strange, unknown
and supremely necessary ; that it has to pass on to it a message , that it is not
there for itself alone but has the responsibility towards those without of con-
fronting them with the Gospel in order that they may participate in the salvation
which it thinks or is certain that it has itself ; that it owes it to the Lord in
whom it in some sense believes, and whom it well or badly confesses, to attest
Him to the forces which rule this aeon, all this was a concept which did to some
degree move the Christian Middle Ages but was for the most part marginal.
There was little room for it in practice, for the mediaeval Church, confined to
Western and Central Europe, lived with the surrounding world in the happy
illusion that it constituted a corpus chnstianum or Christian world, and could
have very little awareness of the existence of a non-Christian world, and there-
fore of a genuine encounter of the Gospel and man. Since all those in known
proximity were supposedly within, there could not really be any who were
without. It is true that on the southern and eastern borders of this geographical,
political and spiritual kingdom, account had to be taken of Islam standing threat-
eningly ante portas, but this problem was easily settled by leaving the border
skirmishes ex officio to the mendicant orders, when they were not undertaken
with the sword. Again, if pagan elements still lived on in the ostensibly
Christian European under the cover and guarantee of the sacramental institu-
tion, e.g., in the actuality of his pnvate or public life and his conception of right
and wrong, which were hardly or not at all affected by the Gospel, or in the
practical atheism of both great and small, both rulers and the masses ruled by
them, cheap compensations could always be found in persecuting the Albigenses
and sporadically the Jews. Even in its own sphere, in its cultus and organisation,
in its financial and territorial economy, in its very teaching and preaching and
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 21
to the very core of its noblest mysticism, did not the Church itself live by in-
numerable compromises in which the laws and customs of the old aeon main-
tained an accepted balance against the new aeon of the Jesus Chnst venerated
in the sacrament of the altar ? Was not the whole idea and practice of the
corpus chnstianum that of this static counterpoise ? We cannot deny that in
its own way mediaeval Christianity did believe in the reconciliation of the world
with God and therefore in Jesus Christ as its Lord. But in what sense did it
do so when it could acquiesce in this counterpoise and accept the continuance
and existence of the sacred and secular orders and separations as then
established ?
The diastasts between the Church and the world inaugurated or revealed with
the dawn of the modern age has put an end to this state of balance. The outward
aspect of the process has been the emancipation of the world from the Church
in a whole series of gentle or more violent but ever-increasing disruptions in
which the secular world has discovered or rediscovered secularism and success-
fully attempted to use it, thus turning its back on the Church with which it had
contracted that doubtful union in the Middle Ages. It found that it could do
this ; that it was not committed to the Church in any deep sense ; that it had
not really adopted the cause which it represented or the Gospel which it preached.
What human hands had built, they could pull down again. But this is not the
only aspect of the matter. For in the developing diastasis inaugurated in the
1 6th century the Church was not merely an object which was released from that
union and forced out of the position of power previously held by it. As this
took place, it made its own counter-movement of a very different and positive
character, not repaying in kind the rejection, indifference or hostility which it
met with, but making a radically new approach to the world, not on the illusory
basis of the assumption that it formed a unity or totality with it, but on that of
the assumption that it belonged to it in its antithesis to it, and that in its very
distinction it could not meet it with indifference or hostility but only with the
deepest solidarity and commitment. It is a remarkable coincidence that at
the very time and in the very situation when the secular world began to free
itself from the Church, the Church began, not to free itself from, but to be un-
mistakeably free for the secular world, namely, free for the service to its own cause
within the secular world which for so long it had for the most part neglected in
pursuit of its own fantasies. Which came first, and which followed ? May it
be that the state, society, culture, the modern man, had first to escape that
connexion in order that the Church should finally be set at the distance from the
secular world which it needs to perform the service to its own cause within the
secular world, and which it so critically lacked in the Middle Ages ? Had the
world first to become mature in order that in its own way the Church should
become mature m a positive sense, achieving an awareness of its own mission
in the antithesis and the capacity for its responsible discharge ? For our own
purpose, however, we need not disentangle what took place, and still takes
place, hominum confusion* , and what Dei provtdentia. It is enough that in these
centuries when an unprofitable union with the world has been broken a materially
profitable encounter with the world has been achieved. In and with the con-
striction, and in spite of all the errors of which it has been guilty in what has
transpired, the Church's mainly static being and attitude to the outside world
has been changed into a dynamic. Certainly, there have been definite limitations
in its own insight, volition and achievement. But the fact and the inner necessity
of this transformation can be no more ignored than the more striking events
which have come upon it during this period m the form of painful rejections,
repulsions and humiliations.
In and with the beginning of the great renaissance of paganism, it took
place (i) that, very definitely in certain places, although not universally, the
Church again took on the form of a Church of the Word. That is, it took on the
22 69. The Glory of the Mediator
form of a Church reformed both by and for the Word of God , of a confessing
Church, i e , of a Church confessing Jesus Christ and the knowledge of Jesus
Christ, and doing this directly and indirectly before civil rulers and in face of the
great and very greatest secular authorities , of a Church fearlessly publicising
throughout Europe the name and kingdom and will of its Lord. Et loquebar de
testimonns tuis in conspectu regum et non confundebar, was quoted from Ps 119**
on the title page of the Augsburg Confession in a wholly new consciousness of
Christian duty and therefore a wholly new self-consciousness. It was the weak
voice of Melanchthon which was heard in this document. But it sounded out
loud and clear. Nor was it meant to be the mere expression of human caprice ,
it rested on the basis of the new outgoing of the Gospel itself which Luther
so often described as the meaning, justification and glory of his work. What
gave a distinctive impetus to the whole i6th century Reformation both in its
origins and development was that at least the responsible champions of that
part of Christianity associated with it believed that they could and should address
their contemporaries on the basis of a prior address to themselves by the Lord of
the Church and the world as newly recognised in His sovereignty, being free
both in face of them but also on their behalf as those who were themselves made
free, i.e., free for preaching and teaching. They had something to say to them
as the Bible almost spontaneously opened up before them and spoke to them
concerning the justification and sanctification of sinful man and the reconciliation
of the world with God as it had been accomplished in Jesus Christ, thus claiming
the ministry of their lips to challenge accepted Christianity and the supposed
Christian West with enlightening, renewing, penetrating and transforming force,
demanding and creating a new being in and with Christ This was how the
Reformation spoke to European man at the very time when he was in process
of awakening to a new awareness of his seculanty Where had it ever been seen
or said or felt or experienced or expressed to this degree, not merely in the Middle
Ages but even in the early Church, that everything depends wholly and utterly
upon the Word which goes out from the God who acts graciously towards man
in Jesus Christ and which is received, appropriated, proclaimed and heard as
such, that this Word alone is comfort, direction, help and strength and hope in
life and death, whether for individuals or their common life ? The modern
man was already born, but he was still sleeping in his cradle, when this took place
in the Reformation. And for all the confusion in the later development or failure
of the Reformation, the man who then arose was not left to his own devices
but was confronted by a witness which, whether he realised it or not, transcended
his whole movement of revolt and remained in spite of all the resentment or
accusation which led him to oppose or ignore the Church, because, far from
being affected by this, it posed and answered the question which, whether he liked
it or not, was necessarily put to him, the great hero of this emancipation and
secularisation. The remarkable penetration effected at the Reformation has
never been reversed. The existence of a community of the Word cannot be
erased even in the history of the modern world, whether by its contradiction or
silence, or by the weakness, ineptitude, disunity, corruption or baseness of its
representatives.
No less noteworthy is (2) the fact tnat, in movements which were isolated
and slow at first but have since become more rapid and general, the new age of
apparent Chnstian regression has become an age of Christian missions unparalleled
since the days of the apostles and the time of the christiamsation of Europe
(which extended well into the Middle Ages in the North and East).
The beginnings of new missionary activity are not .to be traced to the Reform-
ation itself, but to a much earlier epoch in the mediaeval Church. They coincided
with the frontier struggles against Islam to which we have already alluded, and
were conducted by the institutionally commissioned and prepared Franciscans
an4 Dominicans jn campaigns which found their literary result in works like the
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 23
Summa contra gentiles of Thomas Aquinas. In practice some of the representa-
tives of the movement carried it far beyond the immediate front of " infidels,"
for at the time of Mongol dominion in China in 1307 there had been established
in Peking under John of Monte Corvino a Catholic diocese of 30,000 souls,
although, like the flourishing Nestorian foundation of the 8th century, this
disappeared in a comparatively short space of time with the repulse of the
Mongols. The discoveries and conquests of the later I5th and early i6th centuries
summoned the mendicants to fresh endeavour They followed the Portuguese
to West Africa and the East Indies, and the Spanish to the West Indies, Mexico
and South America. Much might be said about the doubtful nature of their
spirit and methods in these enterprises. But the simple and spontaneous way
in which they engaged m them calls for notice The resumption of the Moham-
medan mission was the original intention behind the foundation of a new order
by Ignatius Loyola, though it did not find practical realisation. But Francis
Xavier (1509-1552) belonged to the original circle, and what was undoubtedly
in its way a genuine missionary impulse and enthusiasm carried him beyond
India, Ceylon and the Celebes to Japan (1549), where his followers not only
succeeded in winning 600,000 souls for the Church, but brought the Church to
political power after the western fashion, even introducing the Inquisition
and engaging in organised persecutions of Buddhists, until a radically new
chapter opened in the middle of the iyth century In the ensuing reaction, this
Japanese Church produced some staunch martyrs, and remnants lingered on
and were rediscovered around 1860. We may thus see that there was not a
complete lack of genuine Christian substance in this early effort. Mission, as
later taken up by other orders and after 1622 centralised in the special college
De propaganda fide, has been and is an integrating element in the activities and
organisation of the modern Roman Catholic Church. There are obvious objec-
tions both to its aims on the one side (its unfortunate confusion of its own cause
and honour and power with those of God) and its methods on the other (the
distinctively aggressive and superficial nature of its recruitment). But more
relevant is the fact that in the modern period, however well or badly, the Roman
Catholic Church has also and primarily been a missionary Church, and this far
more radically even to-day than the Protestant Churches This fact throws
light on the inner necessity with which modern Christianity, externally attacked
and constricted, has also engaged in an original and spontaneous outward
movement.
The tardiness of the Reformation Churches in this sphere has often been
assorted and deplored. Most surprisingly, these Churches of the Word did not
at first, or for a long time afterwards, perceive the opportunity of mission offered
by the new discoveries and conquests. Neither on Luther nor Melanchthon,
Zwmgh nor Calvin, did any deep impression seem to be made by the opening
of these doors or the immediate efforts of Rome to pass through them In
explanation, it may be pointed out that the states which accepted the Reforma-
tion had no control of the sea-power which was the indispensable technical
presupposition of the Roman missions. It may also be argued that the Reforma-
tion Churches were so preoccupied with tl|e new and original content of the Word
of God and the renewal of the Western Christianity ostensibly before them that
in the first instance they had necessarily to stay behind as the Romans con-
fidently launched out across the seas with their Paternoster and Ave Maria,
their rigid identification of the Church and the kingdom of God, and their
optimistic assurance as to the undeniable correlation of nature and grace, of the
old man and aeon and the new. The only trouble is that, even if the time for
missionary activity had not yet come for these or similar reasons, there was not
even the realisation of the duty of mission. A virtue was made of necessity, and
it was explained that the missionary command was given only to the apostles,
and had long since been fulfilled by them. Thus the heathenism of the heathen
24 69. The Glory of the Mediator
was an unalterable judgment of God suspended over them on account of their
obstinate rejection of the Gospel as previously offered to them. In any case, it
was too late to do anything for them, since the Last Day was at hand and had
already dawned. The chnstianisation of the heathen could now be no more
than a civil duty of existing Christian authorities. There could be no question
of a mission on the part of the Church. If God did wish to extend His kingdom,
this was exclusively His own business and not that of men. An isolated and
little known voice to the contrary is that of the Dutchman Adrian Suravia, who
was born in 1531 and died in 1613 as Dean of Westminster. In a work on the
spiritual office (1590), he declared that, as the promise : " Lo, I am with you
alway ..." applies not merely to the apostles but to all the disciples of Jesus,
so, too, does the command : " Go ye into all the world." The apostolic preaching
of the Gospel to the nations was only a beginning according to the possibilities
of a single generation. In fact, there had always been continuations. Hence
the task must be taken up again to-day, not arbitrarily by individuals, but with
all the authority of the Church. Suravia was at once and energetically countered
by the greatest theological authorities of his day, including Theodore Beza
among the Calvinists and J. Gerhard among the Lutherans, and in the main
the older Protestant orthodoxy accepted their express repudiation of any out-
standing missionary obligation. No impression was made on them by the
charge of the Jesuit Cardinal Bellarmme that the Protestant could not be the
true Church because it did not engage in any missionary endeavour. Indeed,
the bold answer was made that the spreading of Christianity among all peoples
is not an essential mark of the Church which in Rev. i2 6 is compared to the
woman fleeing into the wilderness. The conversion of Roman Catholics to the
Gospel is basically a conversion of heathen. In any case, the teacher must stay
by the congregation entrusted to him : " Feed the flock of Christ which is among
you " (i Pet. 5 a ). Previously the command was given to go into all the world,
but now it is to stay where God has put us. Individual voices in favour of
missions, such as those of G. Cahxt, J. Duraeus, P. Spener and C. Scnver,
were not able to break through this obduracy even by the end of the iyth century.
Even Lord Justinian von Weltz was a voice in the wilderness when in three
pamphlets (1664-1666) he called for the formation " of a separate society by
which with divine help our evangelical religion might be propagated." So, too,
was Leibniz, who discussed the Jesuit mission to China and at whose instigation
" the propagation of the true faith " was accepted as an aim, with no practical
consequences, in the statutes of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1700). By
this time, certainly, the theory of the missionary duty of Christian colonial
authorities had led to some measure of practical action. One such authority
was the Dutch East India Company, which for a time commissioned, employed
and supported some Dutch theologians (mostly trained in Leiden) in the Far
East, unfortunately with a view to mass conversions on the Roman pattern
Naturally, this was not what was needed, and it was perhaps more sincere and
objectively better that the English East India Company remained quite in-
different and did not include in its programme enterprises of this nature In
the sphere of the corresponding attempts of the Pilgrim Fathers to do missionary
work among the North American Indians, honourable mention is deserved by
the far deeper work of John Eliot, which unfortunately was almost completely
destroyed in the confusion of the Red Indian wars. It awakened interest in the
home country and at the turn of the century provided the impulse for the forma-
tion of such societies as the S.P.C.K. and the S.P.G., concerning whose success
it is difficult to say anything very significant. Royal missionaries they were
really German Pietists were also sent out by Denmark into the West Indian
colonies. And m connexion with a royal Danish chartered company Pastor
Hans Egede began work in Greenland, working patiently for 15 years with very
little result.
I. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 25
Pietism, in the shape given it by Hermann Francke in Halle rather than
Philipp Spener, constituted the stage in the progress of the Evangelical Church
in which there took place a more general awakening to missionary duty and the
acceptance of missionary action as essential to its very life and being. The
limitations of the missionary conceptions and practice of the Pietists need not
concern us What matters is the undoubted fact that the introduction and
form of Evangelical world mission as we now know it may be attributed to the
influence of Pietism. In face of every kind of opposition, Francke was the first
to see and say that Evangelical Christianity as such must be the bearer of mission,
to spread abroad knowledge and understanding by means of a periodical, and
finally in his orphanage to prepare consecrated workers for missionary service.
Yet the true genius of this Evangelical awakening was not that of Francke and
Pietism in the narrower sense, but of Count Zinzendorf and his community.
By the time of his death, their missionary achievement surpassed everything
previously done by Protestantism for the proclamation of the Gospel among the
heathen, and in proportion to its membership his community is still unrivalled
in this field This is connected with the fact that Zinzendorf 's personal Christi-
anity, for him identical with his love for Jesus Christ, coincided as such from the
very first with his irresistible urge to be the Saviour's witness to each and every
man and to the whole world. The basic thing which had been spoken by Suravia,
Lord von Weltz and Francke was lived out by Zinzendorf. In and with his one
" passion " there was directly proscribed for him his action, the way of the
Gospel to far and near. As and because he wanted to belong to the One who
died for him and for all men, he could not and would not be in debt to any as
His messenger This was not merely his central but his one and only missionary
motive And as he was able to implant it in others, his community, which he
had never envisaged or established as a private community but as an oecumene
in nuce, became in some sense radically and essentially a missionary Church
to a degree not yet reached or excelled by any other in the Evangelical sphere.
At the same time, in relation to feeling stirred up by the discovery of mis-
government and mismanagement by the East India Company, the last decade
saw the foundation in England of three missionary societies in the true modern
sense Again the first and decisive impulse came from a non-theologian, the
cobbler and later Baptist preacher, William Carey (1761-1834). When in con-
sequence of the awakening at the beginning of the igth century there followed
a kind of thaw on the Continent, in the first instance it was to these societies
that the corresponding associations (e g., the mission school founded at Basle
1^1815) attached themselves, though sooner or later they constituted them-
selves independent organs of mission. There then followed, not only within all
the great Evangelical denominations in Great Britain, North America, Holland,
Germany, France and Scandinavia, but also m the colonial Churches, a sudden
and irresistible growth of free associations whose fulness corresponds to the
number of countries and ecclesiastical groupings and whose achievements in the
noble (and sometimes not so noble) competition of the last 150 years have spread
with more or less intensity over all parts of the earth.
Our present concern is not with their methods and successes, their strength
and weakness, the price which they have had to pay for instruction or the
particularly severe problems with which they are now confronted. Nor can
we do more than lightly touch on the question whether the missionary cause
should continue to be prosecuted by freely constituted societies and associations
with the Churches or whether it should be incorporated into the regular ministry
of the organised Churches as their own affair (as, for example, in Scotland).
Good reasons have been advanced on both sides, but can this still be done in the
future or will a decision have to be reached ? What we wish to emphasise at
the moment is simply that it was not in the " good old days " of classical Protes-
tantism, but in the time of its regrettable, or not so regrettable, dissolution,
26 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
i e., m the igth century, which was also the time when modern secularism
reached its supreme and most conscious maturity, that Evangelical Christianity
of all streams could not and would not stop at the position of the Reformers,
but saw and accepted with remarkable unanimity its task as a Church of the
living and even geographically outreachmg Word, awakening and bestirring
itself, even if only in the words and actions and prayers of free associations of
innumerable individual Christians, to the serious realisation and fulfilment of
its mission to the heathen. It is a sufficiently surprising and important statement
that this is a period when in part at least the Church has won through to the
venture of challenging the might of heathenism with the preaching of the Gospel
instead of being influenced and intimidated by it. It has done this in face of
all the difficulties in which it has been entangled in the home countries It has
done it at a time when what took place in the home countries, in the so-called
Christian West, e.g , wars and world wars, could offer the heathen world no very
convincing example. It has done it even though in the attitude and conduct of
nominally Christian Europeans and Americans in Africa and Asia it has usually
had to expect and experience vexatious hindrance instead of help. It has done
it in spite of the fact that it has been severely hampered and compromised and
even tempted by the proximity and conjunction of the political and economic
colonialism in which it has had to do its work for better or for worse, not to
speak of its own confessional division and disunity. It has done it in conflict
with continual and virulent prejudices in its own ranks. It has done it, as all
keen-sighted friends of missionary work are well aware, with very little pomp
or human impressiveness It has done it in spite of all probability. But it has
actually done it This fact, and the way in which it did it, can be narrated and
described. But, so far as I can see, no adequate explanation can ever be given
in purely historical terms We can only say that any picture of modern Christi-
anity is incomplete in which it is not made evident that finally and " better
late than never " it has ventured in all its weakness to do this.
In the modern period again (3) there has been a new Christian awakening
and stirring in relation to what might be called internal paganism, namely,
theoretical and practical polytheism, pantheism, atheism or simple mdifferentism
within what is regarded as Christian society. We have noted already that within
the framework of the previous compromise in the older Christian West there
were many forms of this inner paganism, some blatant, some subtle and even
very subtle, some openly recognised and some concealed, some contested in
Church and state and some tolerated or even protected And in this respect, too,
it was the mendicant orders who in the later Middle Ages made it their business
to uncover and rebuke the sins of at least the lower strata of society, calling
them to repentance and amendment To some degree, at least, they were thus
forerunners of what was to take place in connexion with the Reformation. In
Roman Catholicism their successors were the Capuchins among the ordinary
people and among the more educated the Jesuits, who became the educators,
instructors, counsellors and spiritual advisers of the higher and highest classes.
At this point, however, we cannot say that at least the majority of Protestants
lagged behind even momentarily. The fight against paganism in the form of a
personal and practical renovation of life, now expected and demanded of high
and lowly alike in recognition of the will and Law of God as understood in con-
nexion with the Gospel, was from the very first and even in the earliest stages
the dominating motive in the preaching, instruction, discipline, pastoral work
and ecclesiastical politics of such men as Zwingli, Bucer and Calvin. And from
these first beginnings the threads lead us directly to English and American
Puritanism and indirectly to P Spener and the whole of North German Pietism,
in which there was a turn to the praxis pietatis on the part of a Lutheranism
previously more concerned with purity of doctrine than of life, and then in the
1 8th century to John Wesley, whose violent onslaught on a Christianity which
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 27
was baptised yet in no way converted, but rather in need of conversion, so deeply
influenced the moral life of his country that we may not unjustly speak of
" England before and after Wesley." Indeed, if we are to be quite fair, we must
not forget the moralism of the Enlightenment, which has often been deplored
and ridiculed and was certainly very arid, but which in its first stages was not
for nothing a child of Pietism, and in many senous representatives was sincerely
meant and effectively served the purposes of edification. With the coming of
the igth century and the European awakening which first made itself felt in the
stirring of interest in foreign missions, it was inevitable that, as the successive
decades saw also an alienation of the masses and the educated classes from the
Church, and their adoption of forms more visibly and palpably opposed to its
message and belief, the motive of practical renovation of Christian life should
again be related to its inner foundation as nourished by the Bible, prayer and
fellowship.
These together became the problem and programme of the so-called Inner
Mission which in its origins in Germany is associated with the name of J. H.
Wichern, and also of the corresponding movements, enterprises and organisations
in other lands and even outside the great Churches, together with all their various
offshoots for the purposes of practical service, education and evangelism. Among
these we may mention the Deaconess Training Schools for Nurses, the interna-
tional Y M C A , the S C M. and also the Blue Cross, in whose slogan we can see
very clearly the unity of motives which characterises the more recent form of the
whole movement, deliverance from the misery of slavery to drink being also the
saving of drunkards by the grace of God and for His service. And if the organ
of the Salvation Army is called The Warcry, this denotes the militant character
of the whole development from Zwmgli by way of John Wesley to John Mott.
Mention of the latter is also a reminder that there are many material and personal
relationships between these home and foreign missions It is true that, apart
from the early days in the Reformed sphere, the organised Churches have been
for the most part the sphere of action rather than the subject in relation to this
whole outburst, the initiative being taken in the main by voluntary individuals
and groups Here again the question may be raised whether it is healthy that
this should continue to be the case. But again the important thing is the fact
that this offensive was mounted at the very beginning of the modern period,
and that in a plenitude of different forms it has continued nght into our own
time
A definite limitation is characteristic of all the movements to which we have
alluded The inner paganism envisaged by them is always the more or less
sharply defined alienation from God in the personal life of individuals living in a
Christian environment. Their consistent aim has thus been the inward and out-
ward conversion of these individuals, their awakening to faith and the life of
faith, their invitation and introduction into a new and active participation in
the fellowship of the Church or this or that Christian organisation, in its confes-
sion, service and activity But in all these centuries, apart from a few modest
beginnings at the end of the igth and then in our own century, the awakening
and upsurgence have never reached the point where Evangelical Christianity
has found itself summoned to wrestle with the paganism of the old and new
institutions in the sphere and under the pressure and compulsion of which the
life of converted or unconverted Christians or of men generally has had to be
lived in every age. What are the forces and powers to whose dominion this
sphere owes its existence, essence and form ? By what spirit are the existing
relationships really determined in which individuals live in such godlessness
and within which they are to be called to faith in God and obedience towards
Him ? What can and must the existence of these relationships signify for them ?
Whether or not they try to be serious Christians, are they perhaps sinful and
guilty in adapting themselves to these relationships, and even maintaining
28 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
them, as if they were rigidly ordained ? These are the questions which were
not asked in these movements, or which began to be asked only when matters
had been brought to a head from a very different side. The rule was and very
largely is even to-day that the institutions and relationships, the orders and
disorders, within which individuals have to exist, are presupposed as given, and
we have simply to attempt and achieve the best possible in these given circum-
stances. Indeed, all the movements mentioned could give incidental, and
sometimes far more than incidental, recognition and approval to the existing
or emerging orders and disorders of the period, even lending them their direct
or indirect support. Thus the Reformers and their successors did not lay a finger
on the traditional patriarchalism of family life, but tacitly and even vocally
accepted it with all its curiosities and severities. Again, the Reformed as well
as the Lutheran churchmen of the i6th and iyth centuries accepted and supported
the older form of authoritarian state, which even when it was republican was not
in any sense a democracy, regarding it as not merely given but divinely given,
with all its strange privileges and subjections, until at last it met its well-merited
end under the pressure of very different forces. And then, of course, their sons
quite self-evidently adapted themselves to the newer political Liberalism. Again,
Calvimsts were not only able to contemplate, without batting an eyelash, the
rise of capitalism and the modern industrialism directed and characterised by
it, but they proved to be its most determined and audacious and, as it then
seemed, progressive promoters, either not considering the question of theocracy
in this field or finding to it an answer favourable to these new possibilities. Again,
witchhunts and the slave trade and slavery could become established as institu-
tions, and the whole penal code could become notoriously more barbaric in the
1 7th century than it had been in the Middle Ages, and it was a long, long time
before Christianity found any objection in its own sphere to these forms of pagan-
ism, or considered renovation of life in connexion with these general relationships,
and then for the most part only when others had already taken the lead, as
later in the emancipation of women with its supposed encroachment on Christian
conviction. And certainly little attention has been paid in our own day to the
meaning or madness of the modern national and omnicompetent state, or the
right or wrong of war, or the basic condemnation of colonialism (in spite of
Christian experience on the mission fields). It is true enough that in connexion
with the whole movement to which we refer there has been a remarkable develop-
ment of Christian philanthropy on a wide front, so that in individual cases, and
even assuming the continuance of general political, social and economic relation-
ships, countless tears have been dned and wounds healed, and much necessary
help has been offered and given, during these centuries. But when it has been
a matter of challenging the dominant orders and disorders, apart from a few
eccentrics Pietism and Methodism, the Moravians, the Inner Mission and the
Enlightenment, have all acted as if they could no longer have any force as light
or salt in this respect, calling a halt and usually leaving it to the children of the
world to take up the question of renewal on this level, and only plucking up
courage to follow them to some extent at a later date, instead of stimulating
and preceding them as they could and should, and as a man like Heinrich Pesta-
lozzi actually did. In the early days of the modern era it looked for a moment
as though things might be different. We cannot but admit that in this respect,
for all the shortwmdedness, over-haste and general weakness of their teaching
and practical efforts, the Anabaptists and Spirituals and so-called Enthusiasts
of the Reformation period saw much more clearly than the Reformers them-
selves, being unwilling merely to accept the validity of existing relationships
but trying to test them in the light of the Gospel. Were they altogether wrong
when they thought that Luther had been moving in the same direction in his
1520 writings ? But in the years which followed, and definitively in 1525,
Luther was moved by his powerful concern lest Evangelical preaching should
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 29
be corrupted by the admixture of secular hopes and aspirations, by his deep
aversion to anything even remotely suggesting revolution, and by his conviction
as to the imminence of the Last Day, to call a halt to this aspect and move off in
a very different direction. And when Anabaptism itself was segregated and
suppressed in other reforming territories, both externally by the political author-
ities and internally by the Evangelical congregations, the die was cast, and for
generations Evangelical Christianity was condemned to lag behind the wiser
and more flexible of the children of the world in this field, as behind the Roman
Catholics in that of foreign missions. Is there any comfort in the fact that in
the last resort it was unrealised Christian impulses and indirect outworkings of
the Gospel which came to active expression in all these various spheres, even in
reforms inspired and informed by purely secular and humanistic influences ?
This may well be so. But if it is, surely it is all the more puzzling that it should
be blatant non-Christians, men who were not interested in Christian faith and
its confession, or who misunderstood or were even inimical to it, who provided
the soil in which these impulses fell and flourished, whereas Christians them-
selves for a long time did not seem to receive them, and even when they did find
a place for them, did so only tardily and with great hesitation. We are not for
a moment questioning the genuineness and power of the upsurgence effected
within this limitation But we must certainly recognise that it took place only
within this limitation.
And even in relation to events in the latter part of the igth and the first
part of our own century, to which we must now turn, it is only with great qualific-
ations that we can say that this limitation has been transcended, i.e., that in
addition to the first attempts at the inner and outer chnstiamsation of individual
Christian pagans there has been any primarily and spontaneously Christian altera-
tion of general relationships achieved in the light of the Gospel. Certainly, we
must not overlook or minimise the various forms of Christian Social work
attempted by such men as Adolf Stoecker and Fnednch Naumann under the
original inspiration of Wichern and the Inner Mission. Above all, we must
recognise the continuing impact of the Religious Social movement which was
stimulated by the preaching of the younger C Blumhardt concerning the kingdom
of God, which found in Hermann Kutter and Leonhard Ragaz its most important
leaders and teachers, and which unfortunately reflects m its name the terminology
of the theology of the day. Nor can we ignore the different Christian peace
movements of our age, nor the resistance in the German Churches to the National
Socialist paganism widely proclaimed and disseminated among them in the
thirties. In connexion with all these movements and trends there has been
much new reflection on the relevance of Old and New Testament prophecy,
much sharp and even bitter and perhaps exaggerated and therefore unjust
criticism of a complacent Church and all previous Christian thinking and conduct,
much forceful preaching of political and social repentance, and in detail much
bold striving for practical action From all kinds of new angles there has been
revealed, not merely the godlessness and evil of general orders and disorders,
but the existence of a public and institutional as well as a private and individual
paganism in all kinds of previous Christian activities such as had never before
been suspected, let alone made the subject of serious concern or attack. The
problem of Christian renovation, and therefore of wrestling with the social
principles and powers and forces which rule the life of Christian and non-Christian
alike, was now posed in all its rigour. The tasks set for Christianity in this
direction were first indicated in powerful sermons and then studied and form-
ulated with greater precision. Nor can we say that all this new work has been
futile. It has shocked and stimulated the Christian world in many different
ways. The shattering events of the two world wars have caused slogans which
it then sought and found, and which were formerly heard and accepted by
comparatively few, to become part of the common substance of Christian thought
30 69. The Glory of the Mediator
and utterance. The Ecumenical Conferences from Stockholm to Evanston have
appropriated them. Where to-day do we not read of the sovereignty of God
and His command over all the departments of human life, of the social message
of the Gospel, of the responsibility of Christians and the duty of the Church to
keep watch in state and society, of the fulfilment of the Church's confession in
confessional political action etc. ? What fifty years ago was spoken or more
often shouted in the ear, is now proclaimed from the house-tops, and rightly so.
Yet we should be wise not to maintain too rashly that to-day Christianity is
actually transcending that limitation, or has already done so. Rather we do
well modestly to admit that on the Christian side it is a matter of subsequently
discovering, making known, bringing to the awareness of Christianity and holding
out to it as an example, the Christian significance or impulse of certain more or
less purely humanistic, a-Christian or even anti-Christian uprisings such as
Socialism. Awakened, unsettled and instructed by these alien uprisings,
Christians have maintained that from the standpoint of the active revelation
of God attested in the Bible there are far more comprehensive things to be said
concerning the peace on earth promised in the Christmas message, or the external
as well as internal peace, freedom and righteousness here and now held out to
man, than was realised along those older lines or even m the Inner Mission and
related movements ; and far better and more radical things than those repre-
sented and practised by the non-Christian bearers of this Christian impulse
The point is that the new turning was not primarily and spontaneously Christian
in its origins, but has only become such. Furthermore, it is still an open question
how far even in its more modern developments it has really made its way in
Christianity. In spite of Amsterdam and Evanston, and the loud shouting of
slogans and catch-words, is there not even yet a great and compact Christianity
or Christendom which is still asleep in this respect, or at very best awake and
stirred only on the older individualistic lines ? Again, even to the extent that
we see the necessity of the new turning, are we really clear that in making it
there can be no question of dropping the concern of the older movement and the
Inner Mission, i e , the problem and problems of the individual, but rather of
really taking them up in the greater context, doing the one but not leaving the
other undone ? It can lead only to fresh disillusionment if in face of secular
unbelief and evil the Christian task is not seen and tackled in its unity and
totality, i e , not merely in respect of the relationships but also of the individual
and his personal conduct as it creates and confirms the relationships. Again,
we are only at the very beginning in respect of the delimitation of what has
to be represented in state and society from the standpoint of the Gospel and
command of God as distinct from the originally quite different tendencies to
which we have alluded, i.e., in respect of the genuine theological establishment
of the relevant Christian word for relationships and events In this field strong
notes will not suffice for long if they are not also pure notes sounded with some
degree of obvious if free unanimity Again, it must be clearly seen that in this
whole movement there can be no question of a reconstitution of the mediaeval
domination of the Church or its clergy over state and society, but that in the
strictest sense the community must stand by its witness and deliver its message
both to individuals and also to state and society. The Evangelical Church must
avoid clericalist hankerings and aspirations with particular stringency at those
points where in the whole process it finds itself in a certain proximity and com-
munity of interest with the Church of Rome. Finally, we must not fail to see
that the upsurgence in this direction is primarily a movement within the Church
and Chnstian circles and that it has hardly yet gone beyond the stage of serious
reflection and lively debate. What those who are trying to be serious Christians
think and say in this respect has certainly led on occasion to positive and fruitful
contacts between within and without. But so far it cannot be maintained in
any general sense that the many true and important things said and thought
I. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 31
along these lines have produced real Christian actions transcending the limita-
tions, as the older Reformed, Pietism, Methodism and the Inner Mission certainly
produced them within the limitation. For all these reasons, it is right that we
should speak with emphasis but also with reserve concerning this final historical
phase.
The fact to be pondered is quite simply that with increasing clarity during
the last hundred years Christianity has heard, and obviously could not fail to
hear, a summons inviting and requiring it to advance further along that older
line and therefore to transcend the limitation. Within the limits which cannot
be overlooked, this is a fact and must be registered as such.
A new page (4) has also been turned in the last centuries and this aspect
is worth noting in the present context in the sense that it has seen the rise, un-
paralleled in the early and mediaeval Church, of a far greater candour of qualified
observation, research and thinking in relation to the basis and theme of Christian
faith and proclamation, and of a far more serious wrestling with the question of
the knowledge of God and therefore that of the right word of human speech
concerning Him.
The authority with which God Himself m His revelation has made Himself
the presupposition of the life of the Church and its message was known quite
well in earlier periods It was powerfully presented to them in the word of
Scripture, m the dogmas which expounded it, and in other traditions of the
Church as authentically interpreted by the authentic teaching office of the
Church Century by century they respected, expounded, interpreted (and
sometimes misinterpreted) the decisions made and still being made with divine
authority, zealously and loyally asserting them in accordance with the needs
and language of the different ages Nor was there any lack of analytical or
synthetic acuteness in their attempts to expound the decisions of this authority
in terms of the concrete form m which they held them to be prescribed. On
the other hand, they made no attempt to investigate how far these prescribed
forms the Bible, dogma, tradition and the teaching office were really the
form of the decisions of God Himself, given to Christianity with His authority.
They could not and would not undertake an enquiry and understanding of these
decisions which would exercise a critical control in relation to their form and
determine their exposition and application. This was the limitation of all earlier
wrestling with the question of the knowledge and therefore the true Christian
mediation of the divine revelation. It was thought that this could and should
be dealt with as with the given features in any other sphere of human knowledge
, and speech.
But at the very period when new questions of sources were being raised in
other spheres, a definite advance was necessarily made m this respect with the
Reformation Now there was to be introduced a Church of the living Word, of
the living God Himself proclaiming Himself in His great acts What was this
living Word ? There was agreement with the early and mediaeval Church in
finding it first and finally attested m the word of Scripture. But how far was it
truly expounded and applied in dogma and tradition, or by the existing Church
and its teachers and those who were charged to guard its doctrine ? Indeed,
how far was the word of Scripture itself its attestation ? How far was it not
merely to be quoted and asserted as a form of the authority of God, but to be
understood as the divine address in human speech and therefore as the norm of
all Christian utterance concerning God ? This new question, and the attempt
to answer it, belong to the modern movement of the Church to the world. They
demand of the Church an assurance that the theme and content of its witness
is really the Word of God and therefore that its witness conforms to that of the
word of Scripture. But for the sake of this assurance the Church's exposition
of the word of Scripture, while it had not to be abandoned as such, had to be
radically relativised and called in question. The question of the Word of God
32 69. The Glory of the Mediator
in the witness of that of Scripture had to be continually answered afresh in in-
dependence of tradition and in the light of ongoing investigation. And in the
same connexion the testing of the objectivity of the witness of the Church had
to become the content of a continual problem. From these standpoints theology
as a science acquired a new meaning and purpose. This goal could be under-
stood, as it has often been in various forms, to consist in an answering of the
question of the Word of God in that of Scripture and the proclaiming Church
according to the measure of the rational, moral, or religious self-understanding
of man. In other words, the Word of God in Scripture and Church proclamation
is that which is adapted to, or at any rate does not conflict with, the needs and
possibilities and limitations of this understanding. It is a fitting and therefore
illuminating and acceptable answer at the point where man is forced to see himself
as a problem, to project himself. For those who regarded and posed the question
in this way, exegetical and dogmatic theology necessarily became an application
of the contemporary spirit of the age and therefore a distinctive historical,
psychological and practical form of the regnant philosophy. But the question
could be understood quite differently. Exegetically it could be understood as
the question of what the word of Scripture itself understands by the Word of
God attested in it, and how it explains itself in this regard. Dogmatically it
could then be understood as the question of the Christian word which proves
itself right in the fact that it, too, keeps itself open and fluid in its relation to the
Word of God which is to be received where the sovereignty of the word of Scripture
over all man's self-understanding is accepted instead of being curtailed and
finally suppressed On this understanding theology achieves its true theme and
method as obedience to the living Word of God preceding it in Scripture. Through-
out the whole of the modern period there has been theology of both kinds For
our present purposes we need not take up any attitude in their disturbing but
salutary inner conflict. Our concern is simply with the fact that these centuries
have been centuries of strenuous theological work both exegetical and dogmatic ,
and that work of this kind was never previously undertaken m the Church for
the obvious reason that it was not affected by the question of the right knowledge
of the Word of God and its correct reproduction in human thoughts and words,
that it did not think it needed that critical assurance of and by the sources, that
it did not feel so acutely in its own day the need not merely to organise and practise
a cultus but to speak loudly and clearly, and when it did so, not merely to recite
and protest, but to explain and apply in the freedom of direct responsibility
The work of Evangelical theology may have been done in wrong ways as well as
right. Its exposition and doctrine may have been dictated by a presupposed
hermeneutics or its hermeneutics by its exposition, as also its doctrine But
either way it characterises the modern age as a period when the question of the
responsible explication and application of the Word of God attested in Scripture
could allow the Church no rest, as the period of a new seeking of the true objec-
tivity of Christian thought and speech to which even great and in their way
audacious thinkers like Augustine, Anselm and Thomas Aquinas did not see
themselves compelled in times past.
I know of no other explanation of this phenomenon than that suggested in
relation to the other phenomena of the age, namely, that as it was the time when
the Church was betrayed into great isolation and constriction, so it was also
the time of its new outreach, of its new turning to the world between which and
itself there now arose and continually increased the diastasis. Engaged in this
address, it had to speak, and to be able to speak it had to know. And to carry
any weight, its knowledge had to be certain. The work of Evangelical (and in
isolated instances even Roman) theology in these centuries reflects the struggle
of the Church for certainty in its outgoing to men. For this reason the newer
theological work, in this case even in its weaker as well as its stronger elements,
belongs to the credit side of the total picture.
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 33
We may also refer (5) to the phenomenon of a turning of the Church to the
world which has revealed itself with increasing clarity since the i6th century
within the different Christian bodies, namely, the questioning of the classical
distinction, taken for granted in the Middle Ages, between a religious and a
secular status, between clergy and laity, between theologians and non-theologians.
Significant indication of this development may be found in the existence of
the Franciscan tertianes and later the Brethren of the Common Life, as also in
a particular attention to Christ as the Teacher. In the relationship of the
Reformation with a popular Humanism it was obvious that in certain strata at
least even the so-called secular class, hitherto merely instructed and led, had
attained an awareness of its common responsibility for the doctrine and life of
the Church, and was prepared on the basis of its own judgment actively to
participate in fashioning and practising it either in co-operation with the bearers
of spiritual office or in certain cases in opposition to them. When for the first
time in 1520 Luther unequivocally stated his doctrine of the priesthood of all
believers, this was not a speculative discovery, nor was it merely taken from
Holy Scripture, but it also envisaged the actual rise of an educated and semi-
educated middle class and nobility and even in some cases peasantry, with whose
almost violent interest in the new theological answers the printing presses of
the day could hardly keep pace. The political and ecclesiastico-pohtical con-
solidation of Evangelical Christianity in consequence of the Counter- Reformation
did, of course, lead in the first instance to a new over-emphasis even in this sphere
on the clergy and theologians Calvin's doctrine of the Church at the beginning
of Book IV of the Institutio is in fact a very aristocratic doctrine of ecclesiastical
office, or the ministry, or the administration of the word and sacrament, which
was to be exercised by an exclusive and special class, and in which the com-
munity, represented by the elders and deacons ordained alongside the presbyters
and deacons, could only incidentally play any active part These and similar
divisions have officially persisted until well into the igth century, and even to
our own day, in Lutheran and Anglican as well as Reformed circles. But even
in the 1 7th century there were active subterranean movements among the
Christian laity which quickly came out into the open in separatist bodies like
the Baptists and Congregationahsts Before the theologians Spener and Francke,
the conventicles which met independently for Bible-study and devotion in the
houses of townspeople, peasants and the nobility were representatives of the
variegated movement known to Church history as Pietism In the age of the
Enlightenment a new impulse was given to the emancipation of the laity by the
gradual but inexorable development of a general freedom of faith and conscience.
In the awakening which inaugurated the igth century they then played a decisive
role, as in the case of the oculist H Jung-Stilling and the lady of society Juliane
von Krudener Nor when we think of the contemporaneous revival of Roman
Catholicism can we forget the incursion of writers like F. R. Chateaubriand and
J de Malstre, from whom a direct line may be traced to the Catholic Action of
modern France and poets like Bernanos, Pguy, Claudel and their disciples. To
the association on the Evangelical side of theological untrained and non-ordained
elements in the various evangelistic and social movements already mentioned,
there corresponds on the Roman Catholic the large number of congregations of
Mary, whose membership can now run into millions as in the case of the American
Knights of Columbus. On what side to-day do not the Churches have alongside
their specially called representatives, and often competing with them, more or
less spontaneously committed and well-informed fellow-workers from among
what were previously the purely receptive congregations ? Where do they not
live a most important part of their life in freely formed groups of men, women
or young people usually or always coming together ad hoc ? Working associations
like the Evangelical Academies in Germany (which in their good and less good
elements are an unmistakeable fruit of the D.C.S.V. of preceding decades), or
C.D. IV.-III.-I. 2
34 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the movement of Church and World which has spread from Holland, have come
to the fore during the last years. And individual ecclesiastically minded and
theologically instructed doctors, lawyers, teachers, writers and politicians, some-
times much superior to trained theologians in their own field, are no longer a
rarity in the main confessions Yet to see the whole picture we must not overlook
the fact that occasionally at least, as theologically represented by such men as
R. Rothe and L. Ragaz, there has been the reverse movement from a narrower
to a wider form of secular Christian service, whether in the case of the man who
at the turn of the century caused a sensation by becoming a factory worker for
three months, or the essentially far more resolute action of the French worker-
priests who have been temporarily suppressed but will surely come back in some
form, or of Albert Schweitzer and the path which he has so impressively taken.
The wall which once separated the chancel of the church from the nave has never
rested on very solid foundations. And if in the modern period it has not yet
wholly disappeared, it has obviously been pierced in places and begun to crumble
Critical caution is needed in face of this phenomenon too. For one thing,
the relativisation of the division is only partial even to-day We cannot say
that a majority, let alone the totality, of Christians has taken part in this advance
Even where it has taken place, it might so easily result, as once in the official
Protestantism of the i6th century, in the formation of a new and enlarged
clergy with no great significance for the existence of the rest of the community
And even to-day there are ecclesiastical circles where this penetration has either
not been attempted at all or only with great timidity, and the old wall of partition
has been made the more blatant and effective by the addition of new paint.
More noteworthy still is the fact that, while in all ages there has been a more or
less culpable and serious resistance on the part of the trained and commissioned
members of the Church, which has given good cause and reason for the emancipa-
tion of the laity, the laity as such were never the better Christians, so that their
emergence cannot be a pure awakening to their joint responsibility and obligation
to the cause of the Gospel, nor can it take place and form in this spirit, represent-
ing and expressing itself as a necessary reaction and salutary corrective On
the contrary, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, their emergence
has always been, or has always quickly become, a powerful element in the secular-
isation of preaching, teaching, order and mission which threatens the Church
as Church in correspondence with the achievement of autonomy by the secular
sphere. The criticism and resistance brought against the movement on the
part of the specially trained and commissioned, their reservations even as for
good reasons they have desired and stimulated and fostered it, are not then wholly
and utterly groundless for all the objections which might be made to them. It
might well be that as the awakening " people/' appealing to the unquestionable
promise of Jer. 3i 88f -, has risen against an unprofitable and static distinction
between ecclesia docens and ecclesia audiens, it has also challenged the profit-
able and dynamic significance of this distinction, attacking and to some extent
successfully overthrowing not only the priority of a word of man but also the
sacred priority of the Word of God. Speaking of universal priesthood, it might
well envisage the sovereignty of man both individually and in the mass. It might
rank itself ostensibly with the priest or theologian or preacher, but in reality
with the Lord of the whole Church who is perhaps impotently and distortedly pro-
claimed and represented by it, taking His government into its own hands.
In its participation in the exposition and application and perhaps the criticism
of the Bible and dogma, and its appeal to the Holy Spirit who blows where He
lists, and the conscience to which each is directly responsible, it might theoretic-
ally assert the brotherhood of all believers in Christ but practically the associa-
tion of the homunculi who long for life and thought and speech which are not
concretely bound, trying to secure for them the leadership of the Church itself.
And if the ministers and theologians have often enough failed the people by
i. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 35
reason of their arrogant exclusiveness, they have just as often shown themselves
too weak and yielding, and capitulated too easily to its interests, when for the
sake of the whole what was required was vigilance, steadfastness and leadership.
When the laity has come to have a part in Church government, with its stronger
contact with the spirit and practice and tendencies of the surrounding world, with
its more limited knowledge and understanding of Church history, with its form-
ally smaller obligations, with its greater freedom of judgment and imagination
in face of tradition, with its cheerfully over-simplified desire for action, it has
often proved to be a most important point of entry for the most diverse errors
and confusions, which do not threaten only some orthodoxy old or new but the
very understanding and progress of the Gospel itself, and in the development of
which theology and the official ministry, as shown in Roman Catholicism quite
openly by the riotous growth of Manology and in Protestantism no less openly
by certain Liberal outrages culminating in the events of 1933, have often proved
to be only the mouth-piece of what is merely presumed to be a pious vox popuh.
Recognition of these unmistakeably questionable features must not cause us
to lose sight of the basic range and positive significance of the whole phenomenon
in its historical context. The relativisation, acute since the i6th century, of
the distinction which had been so characteristic of the life of Christendom from
post-apostolic times until well on in the Middle Ages, is an indication, together
with the other phenomena mentioned, of the spontaneous reonentation of the
Church outwards instead of inwards, to the world instead of to itself. This
reonentation is here fulfilled in the life of the Church itself. For, whatever we
might think and say concerning their good or bad points, what -w ere and are the
non-clerics and non-theologians who now come to the forefront in their thousands
but the representatives within the Church of the world outside it, in relation to
which the Church as a whole has now found itself caught up in a newly appre-
hended responsibility * What was and is their gradual or more rapid rise and
activity but an anticipation of the step beyond itself to which the Church as a
whole has now found itself called at the very time when it has come under the
great process of constriction within its own frontiers ? And what else but the
recognition of a new call, obviously forcing itself even upon the official representa-
tives, leaders and teachers of Christianity, was the reason why, for all the necessary
and often neglected reservations which they might have, they could not basically
resist the upsurgence of the Christian laity, but had rather to approve and even
stimulate and foster it ? The fact cannot be ignored that, in mcontestably
effective individual forms and more general movements if not in its totality,
tjie Christian people living by the very nature of the case on the frontier between
the Church and the world, between the sacred and the secular, has now introduced,
as it were, the sacred into the secular, or the secular into the sacred, in the
various activities more or less happily conceived and initiated by it In many
cases it has been quite unconscious of its actual aims and achievements. But
those who, in either of the two classes which were formerly so sharply dis-
tinguished, have now heard and hear the call to move out as a call to obedience
to the Church's mission to the world, should certainly realise that in the removal
of the inner frontier we have an intimation and preparation for the crossing of
the outer, and therefore an indication to the Church to take up its prophetic
office.
A final point to be noted (6) is that the ecumenical conception, namely, the
conception of the unity of the Churches in the one Church of Jesus Christ, and
the desire and striving for this unity, have not merely been latently present in
the modern period from the very outset, but have visibly and palpably increased
in strength.
Here, again, we must not exaggerate. The beginning of the period saw the
great and unavoidable but genuinely regrettable disruption of the Western
Church, and this was followed at once by an appalling number of lesser divisions.
36 69. The Glory of the Mediator
For all the promising understandings in detailed points, the gulf between the
Roman and all other Churches is still of frightful depth. Nor are there lacking
even to-day all kinds of old and even new emphases and over-emphases on the
differences and divisions between the other denominations.
Yet from the outset and continuously this centrifugal tendency has been
opposed by hopes and efforts of a very different character. In the i6th century
we may think primarily of Martin Bucer and more generally of the Church of
Strassburg and its theology. In the next centuries we remember men like Georg
Calixt, J. Duraeus, Jean Fre'de'ric Osterwald and Leibniz, the many conversations
undertaken between the Lutherans and the Reformed with a view to union,
the strenuous efforts of the Lutherans particularly to fix on certain basic articles
as the epitome of what is essential, indispensable and therefore unificatory, and
finally the actual unions achieved in Germany in the igth century, of which the
Prussian is necessarily the most significant. It is not a good sign, perhaps, that
the first name which ought to have been mentioned in this list is that of Erasmus
of Rotterdam. The weakness in all these attempts, revealed in the fact that
they either broke down or led, as in the German unions, to inwardly unclear
and therefore unsatisfactory and not very stable results, is to be found in the
fact that the ut omnes unum sint of Jn. 17" was always understood much too
formally and the unity of the Church was in large measure conceived as an end
in itself This meant that there could be no escaping the dilemma either of in-
sisting on loyalty to what for good reasons had been previously accepted and
confessed as true Christian faith and order and practice, even at the price of
confirming and maintaining existing divisions, or of allowing love and friendliness
and tolerance to triumph, but at the price of an unprincipled and featureless
relativisation or even the surrender of insights and convictions previously felt
and declared to be necessary This older ecumenicism suffered from the fact that
it could not detach itself with sufficient clarity from the levelling mdifferentism
of the developing and then triumphant Enlightenment and later of Romanticism
Even Zinzendorf and his community could be misunderstood in this neutralists
sense. Only in the igth century and our own, tentatively at first but always in
a very definite direction, has it been possible to move away from this deadening
conception This has happened particularly where the union of the Churches
has begun to be conceived in teleological and dynamic terms as a union which
derives from Jesus Christ and is thus union for Him, namely, for the attestation
of His work in the world and for the world A good individual instance is to
be found in the Theological Declaration of the Synod of Barmen (1934), which
was made in concert by the Lutherans, Reformed and United in their struggle
against the German Christians, and the genuinely ecumenical character of which
could be questioned only arbitrarily by an over-anxious confessionahsm
It is in relation to this new form that we have to think of ecumenicism in the
present context. In our century the various denominations in different countries
have everywhere begun to associate for common tasks without affecting their
theological and organisational peculiarities The denominations, too, have
begun to transcend national distinctions and unite in great alliances, e g , of
Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists, on the simple
understanding that this is demanded not merely in virtue of their common basis
but with a view to their common action Even earlier, as in the Evangelical
Alliance (1846), there had been interdenominational and international unions
for concerted activity in the form of evangelical confession. This was followed
by the interdenominational work among young people and students to which
we have referred already in an earlier connexion, and in 1910 there then took
place the most important Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, this being followed
in 1914, at the very time of the political disjunction of Christendom in the First
World War, by the formation of the World Alliance for International Friendship
through the Churches. Under the inspiration and directior of Archbishop
I. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation 37
Nathan Soderblom the so-called Conference of Life and Work was then held in
Stockholm in 1925, and here for the first time (1600 years after Nicaea) there
assembled an explicitly " ecumenical " gathering officially organised by the
different Churches and for the first time including representatives of the Eastern
Church, though not of Rome. It was now expressly stated that unity is not an
end in itself. What was desired was that " in penitence, and with a keen sense
of the mischief of socio-ethical confusion and division, the duties of Christians
and the Church should be seen in the needs of the age, and a serious attempt
made at the following and discipleship of the Saviour " (S&derblom, RGG*, II,
85). For the time being there was conscious hesitation to attempt an organisa-
tional union of Churches. This could not even be envisaged, let alone undertaken,
except on a solid theological basis. In relation to this distant goal to be achieved,
if at all, only in this way, the first movement and conference for Life and Work
was accompanied by a second, the Lausanne Conference for Faith and Order
(1927), which was closely related by personal links to the former, and in which
the question of Church unity, now understood as an inner matter of faith and
order, was directly related to that of the Christian message to the world. The
Oxford Conference (1937) carried the discussion of this aspect deeper, and later
Amsterdam (1948), in which both movements combined, resulted not merely
in the formation of the World Council, not as a universal Church but as a covering
organisation and alliance of about two hundred and fifty national and con-
fessional Churches, but also and note the interrelationship of the two motives
in a comprehensive pronouncement concerning " Man's Disorder and God's
Design," together with a first message not merely to the Christian public (as at
Stockholm, 1925) but to the whole world. The latter example was again followed
at Evanston (1954) m respect of its specific theme, " Christ the Hope of the
World "
It may well be asked whether the time, or rather the inner situation and
spiritual constitution of the Christian societies, is really ripe for such direct
apostrophising of the non-Christian or an indifferent Christian world. It can
hardly be maintained that what was said at Amsterdam or Evanston has made
any great impact Nor is the reason for this to be found merely in the necessary
element of compromise in such common statements (hence the fog of indecision
and sterility which envelops from the very first all the ecumenical papers so
industriously prepared at Bossey and elsewhere) It is to be found also in the
difficulty that as yet there has been no clear apprehension of the concrete things,
so earnestly sought in innumerable ecumenical conferences of students, which
'the Church has to proclaim to the disorder of secular politics and economics as
the message of salvation.
Yet in this respect, too, our insistence is simply upon the fact that to-day,
if not earlier, the meaning of the Church's strivings for unity has clearly come
to be found in this turning of the Church to the world which has so remarkably
accompanied the turning of the world from the Church, and which we have had
occasion to notice from all the various aspects previously considered. In them-
selves and as such the Church's attempts at unity would not be a particularly
interesting or relevant phenomenon. The practical or m the more general sense
missionary teleology and dynamic with which they have been pressed forward
so energetically during the last hundred years, and particularly in the last
decades, force themselves upon our attention. It is no accident that what is
denoted by the peculiar English word " evangelism " seems latterly to have
become the focal point of ecumenical interest. Here, too, there is no cause for
unrealistic optimism. We are only at the very beginnings, laboriously made and
quickly passing. On the other hand, there is no cause for a scepticism which
will not recognise these beginnings as such. Certainly, m relation to speech and
action undertaken in common with a respect for that which is distinctive yet
an avoidance of that which separates, we have no grounds whatever to say that
38 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
the Church lags far behind advances long since made by the world In this
field it is obvious that it has seized the initiative, that it is quite a few steps ahead
of the world and can be an example to it. The outlook to-day would be quite
different if in some negotiations and conferences there were at least as honest
and open and practical a concern for the union of the nations as there has been
for the union of the Churches at Edinburgh, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Evanston
etc., and as there is continually in Geneva, not in the Palace of Nations, but in
Route de Malagnou, 17
We have briefly recalled all these various trends in order to show that dog-
matics is challenged, not merely by the underlying reality and Scripture, but by
the progress of Church history, to pay particular attention to the character of
reconciliation as revelation If this was once neglected, it cannot be so to-day.
The aspect which we have considered may not be the only one, but it cannot
be overlooked. Questions naturally arise concerning the astonishing outreach of
the community to the world in the different forms mentioned, but it is a fact.
And its only final explanation is the fact that the reconciliation of the world
accomplished in Jesus Christ does actually have the character of revelation, of
the Word of God demanding expression. The occurrence itself is also speech.
It is a pure and definite summons to men. Christianity seems to have noted
this in quite a new way in the modern epoch Why only now, and in a period
which is so troubled in other respects * This cannot be explained We are
simply confronted by the fact that it does seem to have noted it to-day, that it
must obviously be orientated by it, and that however well or badly, and perhaps
more badly than well, it has begun to orientate itself by it.
This being the case, it is surely no accident that on the very threshold of this
new period of Christianity Calvm should rediscover the doctrine of the munus
Chnsti propheticum.
2. THE LIGHT OF LIFE
We begin with Jesus Christ. " The Glory of the Mediator " is the
title which we have selected for this first section. And it is by means
of the older doctrine of the munus propheticum Jesu Christi that we
have come to see what is the third problem of the doctrine of recon-
ciliation. In this third part then, in which it is a matter of reconcilia-
tion as revelation, we must begin with Jesus Christ. To be sure, we
must also continue with Him. But continuation with Him can proceed
only from a specific beginning with Him, i.e., from a christological
foundation in the narrower sense. This has been our procedure in the
two first parts of the doctrine, and it must be so now, not for the sake
of systematic consistency, but because there is no alternative. That
reconciliation is also revelation is first and decisively event and reality
in Him who is its Mediator and Accomplisher in His own person. We
cannot first speak generally and abstractly of the fact that revelation,
as the revelation of the reconciliation of the world to God, takes place
(as it did and will take place), and then come back to Him as the One
who is perhaps no more than the prominent Revealer. As the recon-
ciliation is His work, so is its revelation, in its past and present and
future occurrence. As the reconciliation takes place in Him, its
2. The Light of Life 39
revelation takes place through Him. It does not take place, and
therefore cannot be seen or understood, apart from Him or in any
way in itself. For this reason we have to begin with Him.
And we begin with the statement that He, Jesus Christ, lives.
This is at once the simplest and the most difficult christological state-
ment. Any child can make it, but the profoundest meditation cannot
master it. It says something quite formal and yet it also says the
most material thing that is to be said of Him. It says something
supremely particular, and yet it also says the most embracing thing ;
something unique, indeed the one unique thing, and yet also the
universally real and valid.
We speak of the Jesus Christ attested in Scripture ; of the One
to whom the history of Israel attested in the Old Testament moves
until it attains its goal and end in the history attested in the New
Testament, which is still the history of Israel but also the origin and
beginning of that of His community. We speak of the Subject of the
history which comes between the one history and the other, the
one preceding and the other following, so that, as it is wholly His
history, the history of this one Subject, it cannot be separated from
the two histories which it integrates, just as conversely these two
histories can only precede and follow His, and cannot be separated
from it as that which integrates them. The Subject of this central
history which controls and determines the whole is Jesus Christ.
And He lives. This is where we must begin.
That Jesus Christ lives means quite simply that He exists in the
manner of God, and therefore prior to all else that exists, not grounded
upon any other, referred to no other existence or support, in uncon-
ditional freedom and power. But it also means quite simply that He
exists in the manner of a man, and therefore like all other created
beings, in the freedom and power of such a being as divinely deter-
mined and limited, in the relative dependence of a single member in
the natural and historical nexus of the created world. Hence the
fact that Jesus lives means concretely that He exists in the manner
of the God whose divine transcendence does not find it incongruous
but supremely congruous to exist also in the limited manner of the
human creature , and conversely that He exists in the manner of the
man to whom there is given by God that which He cannot take to
Himself, namely, to exist also in the sovereign manner of God. It is
thus that Jesus Christ lives. It is thus that He exists. It is thus that
He is the Subject of His history as attested in Scripture. This witness
implies, however, that who or whatever else exists does so together
with Him. The Creator, God Himself, exists only as He does so
together with this One who also exists as man, and each and every-
thing in the created world exists only together with this One who
also exists as man. As God exists only together with this One, and
so too the world, His existence as such is the fact in which God and
4O 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the world, however they may oppose or contradict one another, are
not of course one and the same, but do exist together in an inviolable
and indissoluble co-existence and conjunction.
That Jesus Christ lives also tell us, however, that His existence
is act ; that it is being in spontaneous actualisation. Primarily and
supremely we have again to say actus purus, the actualisation of
being in absolutely sovereign spontaneity, after the manner in which
the Creator, God, actualises Himself, so that His life-action is identical
with that of God Himself, His history with the divine history. Again,
however, we must add that the actualisation is also after the manner
in which it is given to the creature to actualise itself, to exist histori-
cally in its conditioned and limited spontaneity. This is its existence
as life in particular ; actual existence ; existence in fulfilment. On
the one side, then, we have the living God in the fulfilment which has
its source in Himself and is freely executed by Himself, in the
absolutely sovereign actualisation of His being. On the other we
have the living creature in the use of the capacity lent it by God in
connexion with all other creaturely life, in the fulfilment of its particular
being. As Jesus Christ lives, there takes place in Him both creative
actualisation of being, yet also in and with it creaturely actualisation ;
creative and creaturely life together, without the transformation of
the one into the other, the admixture of the one with the other, or
separation or division between them. This is how Jesus Christ is
seen and attested in Scripture. And again this implies that God does
not live except with this One, nor does any living creature. It is as
He lives that the living God lives and all that is by Him and outside
Him, so that, in spite of all possible and actual problems in their
relationship, they live together (though not in identity) in the inde-
structible conjunction of the differentiated act in which both Creator
and creature exist.
But the fact that Jesus Christ lives, and thus exists in the act of
His self-actualisation, is the act of a person. It is not something
but Someone who lives. His self-actualisation is not an anonymous
process. It takes place as the work of a specfic Subject which is a
Subject only as the Bearer of a definite name and is distinct from all
other subjects as this Subject. It takes place as the decision, resolve
and action of this Subject. " I live." His life is lived in the freedom
of this I. It is a matter of the person, or I, of God. God Himself is
the One who lives here, who is engaged in the actualisation of His
being, who is the free Subject of this occurrence. But it is God
Himself as this one man, as the Bearer of His definite human name,
as the free Subject of His human decisions, resolves and actions. It
is God Himself in the limits to which they are subject in their humanity.
It is God Himself in lowliness, temptation, suffering, rejection and
death. It is God Himself as the Lord become Servant. But it is also
God Himself in the exaltation and majesty of this one man. It is
2. The Light of Life 41
God Himself as this Servant become Lord. God does what this man
does. Or rather, this man does what God does. But either way this
life is fulfilled in a personal act. We have to think of the unity of
this personal act when the New Testament calls this living One alone
among all others the Lord, but also the Servant. He is the Lord as
the One who lives His life in the sovereign power proper to Him as
the free Subject of this occurrence. And He is the Servant as the
One who wholly and utterly subjects Himself to, and serves, this divine
power of life even to the point of obedience unto death. This is how
Jesus Christ lives. But we must add at once that with His own life-
act, which is directly that of God Himself fulfilled as man, there take
place all the life-acts of those who as free subjects (within their deter-
mined limits) are the creatures of God. In other words, there takes
place all human life. To live as man is to live in the proximity and
sphere of this One and therefore of this Lord and Servant. When
any of us says I, and in his attempt at life uses the freedom given by
the fact that he is I and not It, he declares that in some sense he
belongs to the territory in which Another, this One, is Lord and
Servant, to the sphere in which God Himself says I in this Other,
and as man makes effective and not merely tentative use of His
divine freedom. To live as man is to belong to this sphere, to the
sphere of the life and activity of this Other, so that, whether we
realise it or not, the decision is made that God will accomplish His
personal life-act only together with us, and we can accomplish ours
only together with God. This co-existence may take different forms.
But the fact that Jesus lives as attested in the biblical testimony to
this history means that there is this union between God and each of
us men, and that it is indestructible.
But the fact that Jesus Christ lives as Lord and Servant implies
more than the absolutely solid co-existence between the Creator and
His creature, between God and man, to which we have so far confined
our reference. Jesus Christ does not live for Himself. His divine-
human existence as divine-human act, i.e., His life as we have so far
described it, is not an end in itself. What kind of a Lord would He
be, and what kind of Servant, if as such, for all that He had His life
in common with others, He finally lived it in isolation in their midst,
His lordship and servanthood in the creaturely world and humanity
meaning only that He was unmistakeably present in their midst, and
that by His life the co-existence of the Creator with His creature, of
God with man, was inviolably secured ? In the New Testament the
life of Jesus Christ is naturally not seen in this abstraction. If it were,
its witness could not be called good news. It might perhaps be
described as the interesting disclosure of an ontological reality. But
it could not be called news, and it certainly would not be good news
in face of the bitter reality of the disruption and even destruction and
corruption of this co-existence by the pride and sloth of man, and
42 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the whole ensuing disorganisation and misery of the human situation.
The truth is, however, that He is the Lord and Servant who lives,
not for Himself, but for the sake of the creaturely world and humanity,
for their deliverance. Hence He does not merely confirm the co-
existence of God and man, but He creates order in place of the dis-
order which obtains within it. This Lord and Servant, humiliated
and exalted, is the One attested by Scripture. And it is, therefore,
as Gospel, i.e., good news, that its witness comes into the bitter reality
of the alienation between God and man brought about by the sin of
man, into the disorganisation of the human situation. The news is
good because it attests the reconciliation of the world with God which
has taken place in the person of this humiliated and exalted One, the
creation of a new human existence and situation which has taken
place in His person. That Jesus Christ lives, as very God and very
man, as Lord and Servant in all the singularity of the act of His
existence, is only the formal aspect of what has to be seen and said
in this connexion. The material question is as follows : What does
He live ? The answer to this question is given in and with the former.
But we must take particular note of it. He does not merely live a
general life which is perhaps supremely wonderful but has no particular
relevance to the state of things between God and man. The history
as whose Subject He lives does not take place merely in a particularity,
however distinguished, apart from the rest of world-occurrence or in
isolation from even one of the countless life-stories of men. It takes
place rather as the history of salvation ; as the occurrence of the
coming and eventuation of the salvation of the whole world and all
men ; as the happening which determines all history and embraces
all other histories. His life is the life of the grace in which God con-
firms, restores and fulfils, not merely His co-existence with man as
such, but the covenant with Him which man has broken ; in which
He moves towards man in spite of his No, cancelling this No and
pronouncing His own Yes ; in which He justifies and sanctifies sinful
man ; in which He addresses him as His own child and claims him for
His service. As the life of grace it is the life both of the Lord and
the Servant, both of the Good who condescends to man and the man
exalted to God. As the life of grace it is His own life distinct from
all others and in this way lived for God and man, given up wholly to
the cause of God and man. As the life of grace it is His life, and as
such the life of God and that of the world and all men, i.e., our life,
the life of fellowship with God and peace with one another and our-
selves which is created for us and given us by Him. As the life of
grace, reconciling life, it is the life of the One who within the creaturely
and human world is really Lord and Servant, and both as its Deliverer.
It is this reconciling life of grace which is lived by Jesus Christ. This
as such is the act of His existence. Concretely and in its specific
content the witness of Scripture to the history of this Subject is the
2. The Light of Life 43
witness to this life of His which reconciles the world, and in the world
each individual, with God. And as His life has this meaning, direction
and power, the witness to it is good news.
We can now return to our original statement. Even the formal
and general truth must be considered that God and man are in any
case bound and live together. As Jesus Christ lives, God and man
live in this conjunction. We do not have God here and man there ;
God is the God of man and man the man of God. This is the epitome
of the whole order of creation. This order, too, has its dignity,
validity, power and persistence in the fact that Jesus Christ lives.
But it has its content and fulness in the fact that the life lived by
Jesus Christ is the life of grace, that it is the life of the Saviour. From
the standpoint of this content and fulness, the one order of God is the
order of reconciliation. As such it is more than the order of creation,
since it is the order of the free mercy in which God is not content
merely to be with man as in some sense his great Neighbour, but in
which, even though man is a poor and bad neighbour who has forfeited
rather than deserved it, He goes and comes to him, to take him to
Himself in His own person, not merely as one who is conjoined with
Him, but as one who is His faithful covenant-partner. Yet as the
order of reconciliation it is also the confirmation and restoration of
the order of creation The eternal meaning and content of the order
of creation are worked out in the one order of God in the fact that this
order is also that of reconciliation. The unity of the two, the tran-
scending and restoring of creation in reconciliation, or, as we might
say, the unity of the form and content of the one order of God, is
event and reality in the fact that Jesus lives. Our present interest
is in the life of Jesus Christ as the establishment of the new order of
reconciliation, as the act of the God who binds Himself in free mercy
with man, as the life of grace, the life of the Saviour, But in the
light of the special purpose which leads us to start with it, we do well
not to lose sight of our first statement concerning its general and
formal significance. In the life of Jesus Christ there takes place, with
the establishment of the new order, the reconstitution of the old.
As a work of the merciful God, it is also the triumph of His righteous-
ness. As the life of grace, it is also that of nature. As the life of the
Saviour, it is also that of the faithful Creator of heaven and earth
(Acts i7 27f -) who is " not far from every one of us/ 1 but in whom as
His creatures " we live, and move, and have our being." This general
aspect is grounded firmly grounded, so that no other ground need
be sought in the particular, this formal aspect in the material,
namely, that the life of Jesus Christ is the life of grace, the life of the
Saviour. The fact that He lives thus includes in itself the unity and
totality of the order, will and act of God.
Before we proceed, three explanatory additions are necessary to
this preliminary development of our theme.
44 69. The Glory of the Mediator
i. First, we must refer back emphatically to the starting-point of
our previous discussion, namely, that we are speaking of the Jesus
Christ attested in Scripture. The One of whom we have said that
He lives in the sense described, is not then the creation of free specula-
tion based on direct experience. He is the One to whom the history
of Israel moves from the very first as to its goal, and from whom the
history of His community springs. He is the One whose own history
is the end of the one and beginning of the other. He is the One who is
visible, who makes Himself visible, in the documents of this whole
historical nexus. He, this One, lives in the figure and role, in the
being, speech, action, passion and death, in the work, which are all
ascribed to Him in these documents, in the features which constitute
the picture of His existence as delineated and represented in these
documents. The fact that this One lives, and what it means that He
lives, are not things invented or maintained of ourselves. If we say
them responsibly, our own responsibility is only secondary. We
really draw on the biblical attestation of His existence. For in this
attestation He Himself lives, certainly as its origin and theme, but
even as such only in the mirror of the picture which is offered. It is
He who lives, not the picture. But He Himself lives only in the
form which He has in the picture. For it is not a picture arbitrarily
invented and constructed by others. It is the picture which He
Himself has created and impressed upon His witnesses. When we
say that Jesus Christ lives, we repeat the basic, decisive, controlling
and determinative statement of the biblical witness, namely, that He,
very Son of God and Son of Man, the Mediator between God and
man, the One who lives the life of grace, the Lord and Servant, the
Fulfiller of the divine act of reconciliation, that He, this One, has risen
from the dead, and in so doing shown Himself to be who He is. He
lives as and because He is risen, having thus shown that He lives this
life. If there is any Christian and theological axiom, it is that Jesus
Christ is risen, that He is truly risen. But this is an axiom which no
one can invent. It can only be repeated on the basis of the fact that
in the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit it has been previously
declared to us as the central statement of the biblical witness.
2. " He lives " is very different from an abstract " He has lived "
or an equally abstract " He will live." It is not merely that He did
live, but now does so no more, being dead and living on only in the
recollection of something past and gone. Nor is it that He will live,
but does not yet do so, waiting to be born in some mystical fashion
or living only with a view to His future and still awaited life. To be
sure, He has lived. But the life which He has lived according to this
witness, He still lives and will live according to the same witness.
To be sure, He will live. But He will live the life which according to
this witness He has lived, and still lives as then lived. His life is
bordered neither by a No more nor a Not yet. His history did not
2. The Light of Life 45
take place to take place no more. It has not to take place as though
it had not yet taken place. It takes place, yet not as one which is
merely present at a single point, but in the power of a history which
has already taken place and will do so again. This means, however,
that the life of Jesus Christ is eternal life, which does not extinguish
but integrates and to that extent overcomes the differences between
what we call past, present and future. For even as human life, it
shares the sovereignty of the life of the divine Subject over these
distinctions. And the upshot is the same if we say also that it is the
life of the grace which was and will be addressed to man as such, and
which is addressed to him precisely as that which was and will be.
3. That Jesus Christ lives is the confession of the faith which
knows Him. If we do not know and therefore do not believe in Him,
we either cannot repeat this confession or we can do so only without
realising its meaning. This does not mean that this confession is an
utterance or expression and to that extent a product or work of faith,
its favourite child, so that what is confessed is true and real only on
the presupposition of faith. It is faith which confesses. But it does
not do so on its own initiative or in its own power. It makes the
confession, but it does not produce either the confession itself or the
reality and truth of what is confessed. He lives, and the believer
lives by the fact that Jesus Christ lives, and not vice versa. The
believer knows that He lives, and in this knowledge he confesses the
fact. But it is only in this knowledge that faith in the fact is born,
and man is able to confess that Jesus lives. Even the knowledge in
which faith is born, so that there can and must be confession, cannot
produce what is believed and confessed, namely, that Jesus lives.
This knowledge does not add anything at all to the fact that He
really and truly lives. On the contrary, in the fact that He lives it
has not merely its object and content, but its origin. If we thought
- that knowledge could even strengthen, let alone condition or produce,
the reality and truth of what is known, it would not be the knowledge
which is the basis of faith. In this knowledge we for our part are
absolutely conditioned and produced. We are first known by the
One whom we may know, and it is only then that we may know and
believe and confess. The fact that Jesus lives is true and real in
itself. It precedes with sovereign majesty all knowledge and therefore
all faith and confession that it is so. In face of the fact that Jesus
lives there can be no question on man's part of anything but hear-
ing, obedience and discipleship. He can only participate in a repeti-
tion in which he has nothing of his own to utter or express or produce,
but can only discharge the debt of response to what comes upon
him in this encounter. It is in this response that there is achieved
the knowledge in which faith and confession occur. In achieving
it, man can only confirm that the life of Jesus Christ speaks for
itself.
46 69. The Glory of the Mediator
With this third note, and particularly its final development, we
have clearly reached the sphere of our particular theme. Everything
that has to be said about the glory of the Mediator, and first about the
light of life, might well be summed up in the statement that, as He
lives, Jesus Christ speaks for Himself, that He is His own authentic
Witness, that of Himself He grounds and summons and creates know-
ledge of Himself and His life, making it actual and therefore possible.
We shall now attempt various descriptions of what is involved.
The first is suggested by the title of this second sub-section. We
have now to speak of the light of life, of the light which life itself
radiates because it is itself light. As Jesus Christ lives, He also
shines out, not with an alien light which falls upon Him from without
and illuminates Him, but with His own light proceeding from Himself.
He lives as the source of light whose shining gives light without. He
does not need to receive light from without, from men, the world, or
the faith of His community. On the contrary, as He lives He is
Himself the light which shines on men, in His community and over
the world, revealing Him to men, and men to themselves and also
the world to men. As He lives, He is the light which comes and gives
sight to all the eyes which as such are created and destined to see
Him and everything which He discloses.
We understand His life as His existence, and this leads us to our
second description. It is a matter of His existence under a specific
name which characterises Him, which marks Him off from all others,
and by which He is to be called and addressed. This name is not
accidental or capricious. It has not merely been conferred or
appended. He Himself pronounces it. In so doing He declares and
expresses His inward self. By it He makes known no more and no
less than His very being. He gives us to understand who and what
He is, His person, will and work. All real acquaintance with Him
rests on the fact that He makes Himself known. All adequate con-
ception rests on the fact that He introduces Himself. No other can
do this for Him. He does not need the help ol any other. He is
present Himself, and being present He himself breaks through the
impenetrability of His existence to declare both it and Himself.
We understand His life as His history, and this gives us our third
description. This history itself, which, as we recall, is His history as
attested in Scripture, the history of salvation, is also as such the
history of revelation. In other words, as it takes place it makes it
clear and certain that it does take place, yet also reveals the meaning,
manifests the purpose, and demonstrates the authority and power
with which it takes place, indicating the goal to which it moves, the
source from which it comes and the ripe fruit which it bears, and all
of itself and in its own power, so that all verification of its occurrence
can only follow its self-verification, all interpretation of its form and
content its self-interpretation. His history is a question which gives
2. The Light of Life 47
its own answer, a puzzle which contains its own solution, a secret
which is in process of its own disclosure. And always it is He Himself
who acts in it, and who in so doing reveals Himself, and the fact that
He acts, and the source and purpose of His action.
We understand His life as the work of His self-actualisation as
Reconciler, Saviour and Mediator, and we thus come to our fourth
description. In its high union of action and passion, of lordship and
servanthood (in the biblical sense), His work, the will, achievement,
commencement and fulfilment, which constitutes His life, takes place
in truth and therefore firmly, certainly, authentically, reliably and
validly ; nor is it hidden or veiled in mystery in this respect, but
at once discloses itself with victorious power. It is a work in face of
which there can be no solid contradiction, and which has nothing to
fear from a host of flimsy contradictions, because it is the truth, and
declares the truth. It does not merely bear the necessity of its recog-
nition and acknowledgment within itself, but, as these radiate from
it, it carries them in some sense before itself to the men to whom it
comes and for whom it occurs, so that they can ignore or deny it
only in the form of falsehood, their only normal possibility being to
recognise and acknowledge it in its truth and significance.
We understand His life as act, and this gives us our last description.
The divine and human act in which He lives is also as such His Word.
As He performs it, He constitutes Himself a sign in which He faith-
fully repeats it in exact correspondence with its reality, meaning and
purpose, correctly representing it, authentically sharing it, declaring
it in such a way that it demands obedience, making it public and
obligatory, calling all those around Him (the whole world and therefore
humanity) to the response, not of decision, which might also be
decision against Him, but of a right decision for Him, summoning
them to correspond with their own Yes to the Yes which He has
, spoken in His act. In His life, then, there is no place for the well-
known dualism of word and act, for the nervous tension between
theory and practice. There is no such thing as pure, undynamic or
non-actual reason, logic or speech. Nor is there any such thing as
irrational, a-logical, mute or mumbling dynamism or actuality.
Wholly and utterly in the fulfilment of His life-act, this One is Logos.
He is the "Word of hie " (i Jn i 1 ), and therefore the " light of life."
But in the fulfilment of His life-act He is wholly and utterly Logos, or,
as we have said already, light, name, revelation and truth.
In the Bible glory (kabod, S6ga, gloria) is a characteristic, indeed, it is the
supreme chractenstic, of the divine being and action, and it finds its reflection
and response in the creaturely sphere in the glorifying (8oav, or SofoAoycfr
glonficare) of God which is proper to man.
The glory of God (cf. C.D., II, i, p. 640 ff.), however, is the power of
God Himself, grounded in His being as free love, to characterise,
48 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
proclaim and demonstrate Himself as the One He is in all His com-
petence and might, to create for Himself recognition, splendour,
honour and worth, to be in and under His name not merely a genuine
reality but one which expresses, manifests and reveals itself. And the
human action of praising, magnifying, extolling, honouring and
glorifying God is merely a confirmation of the divine self-declaration
which takes place in and with the divine life-act ; the corresponding
and appropriate Amen which makes impossible and unnecessary any
doubts or questionings. The glory of Jesus Christ embraces both the
gloria of God and the human glonficatio which it deserves and exacts.
As the true Son of God, Himself God from eternity with the Father,
He is the original and authentic image of the glory of God to the
extent that in His life-act there takes place no more and no less than
the divine self-demonstration in the time and space of the created
world ; to the extent that as the love of God seeking and finding
man this act is human history ; to the extent that His doxa, His
power of revelation, is concrete event. But as true Son of Man He is
also the normative original of the praise to be ascribed to God by man,
the prototype of all doxology as the self-evident response to, and
acknowledgment of, the self-demonstration which has come to man
from God. His glory is indeed that of the Mediator between God
and man. It is the glory of the God who humbles Himself to man,
and also of the man exalted to God. It is the glory of the Lord
who is a Servant and the Servant who is the Lord. It is thus the
glory of the fulfilled covenant faithfully kept by both God and man.
In this unity and totality it is the light, the name and revelation,
the truth, the Word of life. In this unity and totality it is seen
by those of whom it is written in John I 14 : " We beheld his
glory."
And now we can gather together all that we have said from another
angle and with reference back to our first and introductory sub-section.
To the extent that the life of Jesus Christ as such is also light, name,
revelation, truth, Logos ; to the extent that glory belongs to it as
such, to this extent it is His life, existence, act, work and deed in
His third and prophetic office.
In the language of the Old Testament prophets are men in whose
spirit, mouth and conduct, and by whose ministry, the will and work
of God are declared and proclaimed and disclosed and brought to light
in and among His people to instruct and encourage them. Prophets
in the Old Testament are specially selected, equipped and called
witnesses to Yahweh's acts of grace, judgment and deliverance as
they have taken place, are taking place or are to be expected, and as
they constitute the secret of the history of Israel. The life of Jesus
Christ is a similar expression and attestation of the dealings of God
with men. It, too, in the Old Testament sense of the term, but also
transcending it, is prophecy.
2. The Light of Life 49
To the picture of Jesus Christ presented in the New Testament tradition
there belong various accounts which show that He was regarded by those around
as a Prophet after the manner of the Old Testament. " And there came a great
fear on all : and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up
among us ; and, That God hath visited his people " (Lk. y 16 ), is said on the
occasion of the raising of the young man at Nam ; and at the entry into Jerusalem
" the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee " (Mt. 2i 11 ).
For " they took him for a prophet " (Mt. 2i 46 ). Again, the disciples on the way
to Emmaus called Him a Prophet (Lk. 24"), as did also the Samaritan woman
(Jn. 4 19 ) and the man born blind who was healed on the Sabbath (Jn. 9 17 ). The
belief of many is that " one of the old prophets is risen again " (Lk. g 19 ), or that as
such He is identical with the last prophet, His own predecessor John, or Ekas,
or Jeremias (Mt. i6 14 ). Yet the contrary opinion is also met that " this man, if
he were a prophet," would have known that this woman " is a sinner " (Lk.
7"), or more basically that " out of Galilee ariseth no prophet " (Jn. 7"). No-
where do the Evangelists reject the possibility of numbering Jesus Christ with
the prophets, nor the right to do so. But we detect a certain reserve in their
accounts of these opinions and statements. For is He really just one prophet
after and alongside so many others ? He is a Prophet indeed, but in the Messianic
confession of Peter in face of these opinions concerning Him (Mt. i6 16 ) it is mam-
tamed that as such He is more than all those who bear this title, and therefore
that in relation to them He is a Prophet in a qualified sense. Certain phrases in
John's Gospel plainly transcend or correct the ordinary picture, as when it is
said that dAt/flcDs He is not a prophet but the Prophet, not one of those who has
come, or one like them, but the One who is about to come afresh into the world
(o f cpxopcvos cis rov Ktapov, Jn. 6 14 ), or even more categorically that He is "that
prophet " whom many thought that they should recognise in John the Baptist
(Jn. !" ") The use of the aXrjO&s and the puzzling definite article in these
passages seem to point to the fact that He is indeed a prophet like others, but
that as such He is also the One who first discharges their office in its full and
proper sense.
There are four points at which the prophecy of the life of Jesus
Christ clearly breaks through and transcends the Old Testament
concept of a prophet, and is thus characterised as prophecy sui generis.
1. It is not subsequently even if prior to His birth and con-
ception like Jeremiah (i 5 ) that He is elected and called to the exercise
of prophecy, i.e., on the presupposition of His wider human existence.
He does not acquire the prophetic commission to preach the Word of
God as something additional to His existence and action. For its
discharge, therefore, He does not need any ecstasies or inspirations.
But even as He discharges it, in His own person as such, He is the
One who is commissioned and empowered to do so. In Johannine
terms, He is the Son who is " sent " by the Father. He speaks the
divine Logos as He is Himself this Logos, the truth, revelation, name
and light of God. His exercise of the apostolate is identical with His
calling to it, and both may be equated with His life as such as the
life of the Revealer.
2. While He is Prophet of Israel speaking to Israel, as Israelite
He addresses man generally and as such, i.e., all men. According to
the Johannine statement, He arises in the suspect territory of Galilee
from which no prophet is to be expected. And finally, rejected by
5O 69. The Glory of the Mediator
His own people like all His predecessors, He is the Prophet and this is
the new element who is delivered up by His own people to the nations
and the world, and who speaks to the nations and the world as such.
His life is " the light of men " (Jn. i 4 ) come into the world (Jn. 3"). It is
the light of the world, shining in it and illuminating it as such (Jn 8", 9 B ,
i2 46 ). It is like the light of the sun shining by day, so that there can be no
stumbling (Jn. n 9 '-). For all its peculiarity to Israel (Mt. io 5 ; Mk. 7*'), His
prophecy is universal prophecy. This could not be said of any of the older
prophets. We might think of the exceptional figure of Jonah, who against his
own judgment was sent to preach repentance to the Ninevites, but in Jesus
Christ " a greater than Jonas is here " (Mt. I2* 1 ). Again, we must not overlook
the many prophetic utterances which from the gth century to the period of the
Exile were delivered concerning or against the nations implicated in the history
of Israel. Yet these were not meant as utterances to these peoples, nor are they
to be understood as such. Certainly, there is food for thought in the call of
Jeremiah (i 6 . 10 ) : "I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations," and : "I
have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms." Is this an
exception to the rule ? But when and where did Jeremiah really speak to the
nations outside the sphere of the people of Yahweh ? We do not really find any
true fulfilment of the idea of universal prophecy in any of the Old Testament
prophets. Their mission and message are to Israel, not to the world.
3. This is connected with the fact that none of the Old Testament
prophets can speak in the light of the enacted reconciliation, of the
present reality of the kingdom of God. They have it in common
with Jesus Christ that they speak on the basis of the covenant. But
the covenant seen and attested by them is the unfulfilled covenant,
established and maintained by God, but always denied and broken
by Israel, and therefore dangerous, since Yahweh, the Lord of the
covenant, will not be mocked. They speak as witnesses of the co-
existence, but also of the constant and gaping contradiction within
the co-existence, of Yahweh with Israel. They speak as witnesses,
officers and partisans of Yahweh in His conflict with Israel. To be
sure, they speak for His people too. Even in this conflict God is
always Yahweh, and He shows Himself God in the fact that He does
not weary of recalling through their lips His own will in its sovereign
opposition to the opposition of man. But it is only as they are for
Yahweh that they are for His people too. They speak as witnesses
of the judgments by which the people is threatened, and will be
afflicted, and is already afflicted, as the covenant-partner of Yahweh.
They do not do this without also being witnesses of the promises
which will not fail to be fulfilled on the part of God. But the men of
Israel mistake the promises of God and are in serious danger of missing
their fulfilment. That is why they must be addressed by the prophets.
Hence their word can be only an indication of the glory of God and
the salvation of men as the meaning and goal of the covenant. How
could they be seers and witnesses if they did not point to this twofold
goal in words of judgment no less than those of promise ? Yet their
indication is made on this side of the abyss of the great contradiction
2. The Light of Life 51
by which both the glory of God and the salvation of men are seriously
challenged. This abyss is the presupposition of their task and its
execution. And in no case can their prophecy be more than an
indication of this twofold goal. At no stage in the history of God
with Israel was it more than this. Now Jesus Christ, too, is a Witness
of the covenant. He has this in common with the Old Testament
prophets. But what distinguishes Him from them is that He stands
on the basis of the fulfilment of the covenant. The abyss of the
contradiction is no longer before but behind Him. The " sun of
righteousness " (Mai. 3 20 ), the light of the glory of God and salvation
of men, has risen and is shining. The kingdom of God on earth,
which is the goal of the covenant, is no longer an indicated future.
It is the present in and from which He speaks. What He attests is
the peace made in the co-existence of God with His people. The
prophecy of His life is also a word of judgment and promise, but it
rests on the fact that the judgment has been executed and the promise
realised in the condescension of God to man and His exaltation of
man to Himself. The prophecy of Jesus Christ is no mere indication.
It is direct declaration.
4. This leads us to the last and decisive point. None of the Old
Testament prophets is a mediator between God and men. They are
all men who are called to the side of God from among others, who
are charged to be His messengers and champions to others, and who
are sanctified and equipped for this task. But they are all men like
others. Their prophecy, which is an alien " burden " laid upon them,
can consist only in opposing to the contradiction of Israel the superior
contradiction of its God, and therefore in revealing unmistakeably
the opposition as such, no less in the word of promise than that of
judgment. None of them can remove the opposition. None of them
has bridged, let alone filled up that abyss. The contradiction is in
themselves too. They can only suffer it ; not one of them can heal
it, not even Jeremiah, nor Deutero-Isaiah, let alone Elijah or Amos.
To point from afar to the glory of God and the salvation of men,
they must all point beyond themselves. But the prophecy of Jesus
Christ is that of the Mediator. It is not, then, the prophecy of a
partisan. Nor is it that of a negotiator running to and fro between
two parties and now speaking for the one, now for the other. It is
that of the One who is both Yahweh and the Israelite, both the Lord
and His Servant and the Servant and His Lord, in one and the same
person. He does not need to look or point beyond Himself to attest
the fulfilment of the covenant, the executed judgment, the realised
promise, the present glory of God and salvation of men, the kingdom
of God come on earth. In relation to all these things, He cannot
abstract from Himself. The actualisation of His own life is coincident
with them. In form and content His witness can only be self-witness :
" Come unto me " ; " I am " the way, the truth, the life, the door,
53 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the shepherd, the bread, the light which needs no other light or
kindling or feeding, but gives light of itself. His prophecy is the
direct self-declaration of His life of grace and salvation, of the life of
the God who has condescended to man and of the man exalted to God.
It is the revelation of His life in the fulfilment of the act of reconcilia-
tion. This is what distinguishes Him from all His predecessors. This
is why He is (i) the Revealer by His very existence and not on the
basis of special election and calling ; (2) the universal Prophet who
does not speak merely to Israel ; and (3) the Proclaimer of the present
kingdom of God and not merely that which is to come.
In sum, we do not have in the life of any of the Old Testament
prophets a true type or adequate prefiguration of the prophecy of
Jesus Christ. The only thing which any of them has in common with
Him is to have been also a witness of the true and real covenant of
God with man, a proclaimer of this presupposition and contour of the
divine act of reconciliation. In their own times and manners, they
were all this. Nor is it a little thing that they were. This is what
distinguishes them from all the prophets, heralds, teachers, preachers
and instructors which have never been lacking outside Israel both
before and after them and right on into our own age. Because they
were this, even to-day they are to be heard by us as the heralds of
the divine act of reconciliation as the fulfilment of the covenant, just
as the apostles are to be heard as its later witnesses. For all of them
in different ways proclaim the covenant as the presupposition and
contour of the divine act of reconciliation. But they do so within
their limits. They are witnesses who are only incidentally summoned
and appointed in the sphere of the one special people of the covenant.
Their witness is borne in face of the breach of the covenant and the
rift between its partners. They are witness who cannot speak in
their own cause. Their prophecy attains its goal and therefore its
end in that of Jesus Christ. It could have no continuation post
Christum. There can be no more legitimate prophets like them.
According to Ro. 12* the Christian prophets mentioned in the New Testament
are bound to the dvoAoyta T-fjg marcus. This means that they are secondary
witnesses of the first and one true Witness. In other words, they are witnesses
of Christ. To try to speak in abstraction from His coming and work in the style
of Elijah, Amos, Isaiah or Jeremiah, is to be a false prophet post Christum. We
cannot fail to insist that much preaching which is well meant, and perhaps deeply
sincere and moving, even having a touch of inspiration or ecstasy, but prophetic
only in the Old Testament sense, is false prophecy. Nor can even the most power-
ful preaching of the Law in abstraction, whether directed to individual, social
or political concerns, escape the same verdict.
Yet this delimitation, cannot be our final word concerning the
relationship of Old Testament prophecy to that of Jesus Christ. To
be sure, in the life and message of no single prophet do we have a
true type or adequate prefiguration and therefore a real anticipation
2. The Light of Life 53
of the prophecy of Jesus Christ. We must accept this. But we are
mistaken, missing the wood for the trees, if we try to deny that
according to the witness of the Old Testament we do have to reckon
seriously with such a type and prefiguration and therefore with such
an anticipation. Jesus Christ cannot be compared with Moses, or
Elijah, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah. Or He can be compared with them
only with the four qualifications mentioned. Yet the fact remains
that Jesus Christ, the truth of His history, the light of His life, the
Logos of His act, can be unconditionally compared and not merely
compared, as we shall see with the glory of the history of Israel in
its totality and interconnexion as planned, initiated, controlled and
determined by Yahweh according to the witness of the prophets : in
its totality, i.e., in its character both as divine act and as the experience
and action of the men of Israel ; and in its interconnexion, i.e., in its
character as an unbroken sequence of new events of divine faithfulness
in their height and depth as contrasted with the great unfaithfulness
of man. Of the history of Israel understood in this way, there must
be said positively at all four points that which cannot be said of the
prophecy of any one of the Old Testament prophets. We shall
reconsider the series from this angle.
i. The history of Israel takes place, and as it does so it also speaks,
not additionally and subsequently, but in and with the fact that in
its totality and interconnexion it takes place, and does so in the way
that it does. For according to the picture given in the Old Testament,
the fact that it takes place, and does so in the way that it does, has
from the very outset and continually its basis in an address, promise,
command, order and summons of Yahweh. " For he spake, and it
was done ; he commanded, and it stood fast " (Ps. 33'). This basis
necessarily attests itself in the fact that the history for its part, even
as it takes place, is a speaking, summoning, prophetic history, a
, history of the Word of God in the flesh. To be sure, there also takes
place in it the fact that it is authentically interpreted, explained and
expounded by the specially chosen and called human witnesses who
are the prophets of Israel in the narrower and wider sense. But it is
not their existence and activity which brings to expression the history
of Israel. They merely confirm and record that this is what happens.
It is really on the basis of the fact that the history of Israel as grounded
in the Word of God is itself speech and declaration, out of its abundance
as the history of the Word of God in the flesh, that there arises the
existence and activity of the prophets. They merely follow the
movement in which the history of Israel does not merely occur, but
as it does so makes itself perceptible, audible and understandable.
The first point, then, which the prophecy of the history of Israel
in its totality and interconnexion has in common with the prophecy,
the light of life, the history of Jesus Christ, is that it takes place together
with the history.
54 69. The Glory of the Mediator
This is why the Old Testament is everywhere, and not merely in explicit
narration, a book of history. In other words, it is the book of witness to what
has taken place, is still taking place and will take place, between Yahweh and
Israel. It is not a history book of the earlier and later piety and religion of this
people. Nor is it a history book of the truths earlier or later perceived by this
people, of its earlier and later teachers and cultus forms. We can find these
things in the Old Testament only against its own intention and with great un-
certainty and very little profit. What interests the Old Testament witnesses,
and what they desire should claim the interest of their hearers and readers, are
the facts in which the whole, the nexus of common life in the covenant of
Yahweh with Israel and Israel with Yahweh, has its structure and contours.
They hear, perceive and understand, as these facts speak for themselves. And
the purpose of their confirmation and recording of these facts, of their more or
less direct reporting, is simply to cause them to speak for themselves to their
hearers and readers.
It is in the light of this intention that we are to understand certain features
of the explicitly narrative sections To mention some points to which G. von
Rad has recently drawn attention in a most impressive way, there is, for example,
the fact that there are so very many accounts which are not interpreted in the
texts themselves, and do not impose any interpretation on their readers or
hearers. There are accounts of facts, as in the stories of the patriarchs, which
are simply allowed to speak for themselves and to be received as such, which
do not need any interpretation, and indeed seem to resist any such attempt.
Hence we understand and explain them best if we see them as the mute but
not really mute facts as which they are presented, and we can then incorporate
them best, i e., in closest approximation to the simplicity of the texts them-
selves, into the totality and interconnexion of what takes place between Yahweh
and Israel Yet because each of these facts is concerned explicitly or implicitly
with the totality of the history, we ought not to expect to be able to indicate
what might be called a true historical pragmatism in the relationship between
the texts. In these accounts that which stands at the beginning takes place
with the character of that which comes at the end, and vice versa. Promise
becomes fulfilment, and fulfilment new promise. Neither an ascending nor a
descending line is to be discerned in the accounts of these facts The only con-
sistent line consists in the fact that under the same presuppositions the same
God is at work in and to the same people Israel in facts which are constantly
new. Hence we need not be surprised if the differences between past and present
events, or past and present on the one side and future on the other, are often
blurred or expunged, for this is very much in the spirit and according to the
intention of the authors, even though it does not assist a " historicist " under-
standing. What has spoken for itself to them, and what is meant to speak for
itself in their witness we cannot insist upon this too strongly is the totality
and interconnexion of this history, its unity of before and after, of then and now
and one day. The individual accounts of the facts are meant to bring out the
structure and contours.
But in this respect we are not to think only of the narrative sections of the
Old Testament in the narrower sense The prophetic writings and those of the
third part of the Canon are also books of history. What is the source of the
whole series of works from Isaiah to Malachi ? It is exactly the same as that
of the preceding history books which tell of the so-called nebum or former
prophets. What is meant by the specifically prophetic : " Thus saith the Lord,"
Yahweh, the God of Israel ? Not the powerful or intimate or ecstatic influence
of a numen present under the name of Yahweh, but the declaration of the past,
present and future history of Yahweh with Israel and Israel with Yahweh.
What makes the prophets prophets, each in his own time and situation, is the
fact that they perceive these declarations and to the best of their ability must
2. The Light of Life 55
hear and proclaim them. But primarily, and quite independently of their par-
ticular commission and its execution, of their existence and activity as prophets,
it is the fact that this history makes such declarations. It is by the fact that it
does so that both the former and the latter prophets live.
And the same fact is the source of the Psalter. Where did its authors really
derive all that they have given us in these poems by way of confession of their
praise, their gratitude, their comfort, their confidence, yet also their penitence,
their distress in deepest need, their hope and defiance ? How do they know what
they obviously think they know concerning God and themselves, God and the
created heaven and earth, God's relationship to them and theirs to Him ? There
are Psalms in which the source of this knowledge is specifically treated, as, for
example, Psalms 68, 77, 78, 105, 106, 107 and 136, which all consist entirely,
or almost entirely, in more or less extended recapitulations of the earlier history
of Israel, to which there is attached a longer or shorter or very short considera-
tion of the writer's present and the future to which he moves. There are other
Psalms in which the relationship to the history is disclosed only incidentally,
and a few others in which it does not explicitly appear at all. If we are to under-
stand the Psalms in the sense in which they were composed, read and sung in
Israel before, during and after the Exile, we must remember that, whether
they are Psalms of the individual or the whole congregation, they all stand in
this relationship. Is this not indicated, incidentally but most impressively, by
the fact that the whole Psalter, and some Psalms directly, are brought into con-
nexion with the name whose bearer is the central figure first as the terminus
ad quern and then as the terminus a quo of the history of Israel, viz., the name
of king David ? What we have here is not just wise or pious poetry, but this
one in whom so much promise is fulfilled and so much fulfilment becomes new
promise, this one whose history is as it were the history of Israel in nuce. His
knowledge is the basis of the knowledge extended throughout the Psalter. The
echo of his voice is heard in it. And as the Psalms live by his voice, or more
generally by the voice of the history which moves to him and proceeds from
him, even when they have the character of what are called nature-psalms they
are not timeless lyrics, but epics which follow and reflect the acts of Yahweh
and the experiences of Israel in their totality. Mutatis mutandis the same is true
of the Book of Job, of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and finally even the Song of Songs.
The question arises whether the relationship of the New Testament tradition
to the history of Jesus Christ is any different from that of the Old Testament
literature to the history of Israel. Does not its witness relate to the self-attesting
reality, not of a national history, but of the event of the existence of Jesus Christ
in the form of a specific life-history, to the facts in which this reality discloses
its structure and contours, and speaks for itself ? Do we not understand the
New Testament best and most authentically, in closest accordance with its own
intentions, if we see and interpret it as the attempt to repeat in human words
what this reality has to say for itself, what it has said first and directly to the
New Testament witnesses ? In correspondence with what the prophecy of the
history of Israel has in common with that of the life of Jesus Christ, is not the
distinctively responsive and repetitive character of the Old and New Testament
writings the formally common feature which unites the two parts of the Canon ?
2. We have maintained that none of the Old Testament prophets
is as such a universal prophet. But the history of Israel in its totality
and interconnexion is universal prophecy. Time and again the Old
Testament makes it unmistakeably clear that the covenant of Yahweh
with the one Israel and Israel with the one Yahweh, that all that
takes place in the covenant, including its self-revelation, and therefore
its attestation by the prophets, is not at all an end in itself and does
56 69. The Glory of the Mediator
not exhaust itself in this particular relationship, but has significance,
relevance and true and dynamic meaning for the relationship between
God and all nations, and the men of all nations. If the one God lives
in covenant with the one people, and the one people, on the same
earth and among all others, in covenant with this one God, then
with this event there is created among all nations an example or
living model which cannot fail to have a message for these nations,
but actively and effectively speaks as such. To be sure, it speaks
first to the one people itself, telling it of the unmerited grace of its
God addressed to it, of the incomprehensible dignity and distinction
accorded to it, of the gratitude and obligation thus incurred by it,
and of the glorious future assured by it. But what is the will of the
one God when He claims the gratitude and obedience of this one
people ? To what does He bind it when He binds it to Himself ?
Does He not bind it to be visible in its being in covenant with Him,
and therefore to be active among other nations, to be a real sign to
them in its existence as this particular people ? What is meant by
the glorious future specifically ordained and allotted to it if not a
radiant future beaming and shining in the world and therefore en-
lightening the world ? Can this relationship between God and man
in all its particularity be a closed relationship, its revelation a secret
revelation, the particular history and word merely a particular history
and word ? According to the recurrent declaration of the Old Testa-
ment, the history of Israel as that of the covenant really has the
character of an exemplary occurrence which has as such a universal
function. And in the exercise of this universal function it speaks to
the whole world and to all men concerning that which is for them,
too, the plan and purpose and intention of God, concerning the covenant
in which they, too, are enclosed, even though they do not realise it,
concerning the glory which God will create among them, concerning
the salvation which will come to them, concerning the grateful obedience
for whose offering they will be claimed. In this universal function the
history of Israel is a summons to all peoples. It is an invitation and
demand to know and accept and allow to be worked out that which
in the decree concerning Israel is decided and already being effected
for them, and therefore, as partners in the covenant made with Israel,
taken up into fellowship with this one people of the one God, to confess
this membership and therefore themselves and their own destiny.
The second point, then, which the prophecy of the history of
Israel has in common with that of Jesus Christ, with the light of His
life, is that it too, or already, is the city on the hill which cannot be
hid. It, too, takes place in order that the blindness of all eyes should
be forcefully ended and all eyes should be made to see.
We must now try to review the very extensive passages in the Old Testament
which point in this direction. In the Old Testament there is no general doctrine
whose content is the truth that one God, the God of Israel, is the Lord of the
2. The Light of Life 57
whole world. But there is a witness to the decision taken in and with the special
history between Yahweh and Israel, and revealed in it, to the following effect :
" The kingdom is the Lord's . and he is the governor among the nations "
(Ps. 22") , " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof " (Ps. 24 1 ) ; " God
is the King of all the earth . . God reigneth over the heaven : God sitteth upon
the throne of his holiness. The princes of the people are gathered together
even the people of the God of Abraham : for the shields of the earth belong unto
God : he is greatly exalted " (Ps. 47 7fl< ) ; or in the same sense again : " The
Lord reigneth " (Ps. 93 1 , 97*, 99*) ; " His kingdom ruleth over all " (Ps. 103") ;
" From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name
shall be great among the Gentiles " (Mai. i 11 ) ; or again : " According to thy
name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth " (Ps. 48) , " Thou
shalt inherit all nations " (Ps 82 B ) ; " And of Zion it shall be said, This and that
man was born in her. . . The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people,
that this man was born there. As well the singers as the players on instruments
shall be there all my springs are in thee " (Ps. 87 Bfl ). For " all the people shall
see his glory " (Ps. 97 fl ), and " one shall say, I am the Lord's ; and another
shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his
hand unto the Lord, and shall surname himself by the name of Israel " (Is. 44 6 ).
What is it that tells us all this with such distinctness ? It is the history of Israel
by its very occurrence.
Again, the history of Israel has in its occurrence the ministerial function of
attesting this decision within the world history affected by it. Is not Abraham
himself, the father of the race, who lived alone in tents, described as a prophet,
the first of all the prophets (Gen. 2o 7 ) ? There is no word of any prophetic
activity fulfilled by him as such. All that we are told is that he built altars and
called upon but did not preach, as Luther has it the name of the Lord (i2 8 ,
13*) He is a prophet, and as such a public person, by his very being among the
Canaamtes in his special, or, as we might almost say, private relationship to
Yahweh He is not among them for nothing. His name is to be a blessing for
all the nations of the earth (i2 2f -). Similarly, Jerusalem is promised that it
shall be " a praise and honour to all the nations of the earth, which shall hear
all the good that I do unto thee : and they shall fear and tremble for all the
goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it " (Jer. 33'). The same
is true of the spring from under the threshold of the temple, which deepens to
cover the ankles, the knees and the loins of a man until he can only swim in it,
flowing eastward by the plain to the salt sea, healing the waters of the salt sea,
and producing on its two banks the most wonderful trees (Ez. 47 afl -)- We may
also consider in this connexion the great ordination charge in Is. 42 1 ' 9 : " Behold
my servant, whom I uphold , mine elect, in whom my soul dehghteth , I have
put my spirit upon him : he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles He
shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised
reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench : he shall
bring forth judgment unto truth He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he
have set judgment in the earth : and the isles shall wait for his law. Thus
saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out ; he
that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it ; he that giveth
bread unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. I the
Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep
thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles ; to
open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord : that is my name : and my
glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold,
the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare : before they
spring forth I tell you of them." Relevant also is the judgment scene in Is.
43 8fl - : " Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have
58 69. The Glory of the Mediator
ears. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled :
who among them can declare this, and shew us former things ? let them bring
forth their witnesses, that they may be justified : or let them hear, and say, It
is truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have
chosen : that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he : before
me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the
Lord , and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared, and have saved,
and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you : therefore ye
are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God " We may recall the mission
and promise of Israel : " Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest
not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord
thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel , for he hath glorified thee " (Is. 55*)
For : " It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the
tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for
a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the
earth " (Is. 49). Note should also be taken of the great passage in Is. 53* "
concerning the suffering Servant of the Lord, concerning rejected, humiliated,
defeated and unattractive Israel. For it is he that " shall be exalted and ex-
tolled, and be very high . he shall sprinkle many nations ; the kings shall
shut their mouths at him for that which had not been told them shall they
see ; and that which they had not heard shall they consider " (Is. 52 18fl ) The
history of Israel as such is at work in this prophetic office. " Their sound is
gone out into all lands , and their words into the ends of the world " (Ps. 19*
P.BV).
Again, in its occurrence as such it is one long address and summons to the
world " I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing
praises unto thy name " (Ps i8 49 , cf 57, io8 8 ) which carries with it the call :
" Magnify, O ye nations, his people " (Deut 32"), i e , this people as the people
of Yahweh. But strictly this means " O bless our God, ye people, and make
the voice of his praise to be heard " (Ps 66 8 ) , " O praise the Lord, all ye nations :
praise him, all ye people " (Ps ny 1 ) ; " Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all
ye lands Serve the Lord with gladness : come before his presence with singing
Know ye that the Lord he is God it is he that hath made us, and not we our-
selves , we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture " (Ps ioo lf -) Similarly
" Let all the earth fear the Lord : let all the inhabitants of the world stand in
awe of him " (Ps 33 8 ) , " Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth , O sing
praises unto the Lord " (Ps 68 32 ) And finally " Let every thing that hath
breath praise the Lord " (Ps. 150*)
But is this decision in force ? Does the ministry accomplish what is intended ?
Is the call followed ? Does the dynamic of the history of Israel consist only in
the fact that it is in some way significant, but not powerful and effective ? The
answer is that, as it is this word addressed to the world, it undoubtedly fulfils a
real movement into world history as a whole " And all people of the earth
shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord ; and they shall be afraid
of thee " (Deut. 28 10 ) When they hear of the ordinances given to Israel they
shall say : " Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people "
(Deut. 4 e ). Corresponding to the outflow of the stream from the temple there
shall be a great inflow of nations into it. " And many people shall go and say,
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God
of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for
out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall direct many people" (Is. 2 8fl -
cf Mic. 4 lff ) "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord,
and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem :
neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart "
(Jer. 3 17 ). "In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold
2. The Light of Life 59
out of all the languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him
that is a Jew, saying, we will go with you : for we have heard that God is with
you " (Zech. 8 M ). Even more strongly : " The Sabeans, men of stature, shall
come over unto thee, and they shall be thine : they shall come after thee ; in
chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, saying, Surely
God is in thee ; and there is none else, there is no God " (Is. 45 14 ). The same
movement is more magnanimously described in Is. 6o 2fl - : " For, behold, the
darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people : but the Lord
shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles
shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine
eyes round about, and see : all they gather themselves together, they come unto
thee," the following verses describing how they fly like a cloud or like doves
to their windows, carrying their particular treasures into Jerusalem through
gates which are open both day and night. The isolated and striking passage
Is IQ M -" points in the same direction. It speaks of five cities in Egypt " which
speak the language of Canaan and swear to the Lord of hosts," and of an altar
built to Yahweh in the midst of Egypt as a sign and witness. " And the Lord
shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day,
and shall do sacrifice and oblation ; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord,
and perform it " And finally, and even more radically : "In that day there
shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into
Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the
Assyrians In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria,
even a blessing in the midst of the land : whom the Lord of hosts shall bless,
saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of mine hands, and
Israel mine inheritance " In short, " I will turn to the people a pure language "
(Zeph 3 9 ) " And the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea " (Hab 2 14 ) " The kingdom shall be the Lord's "
(Ob 21) In face of these and other passages there can be no doubt that according
to the witness of the Old Testament the kerygma which goes out in the history
of Israel is powerful and effective
Certain comments are demanded It is obvious that this whole witness to
the universal significance, scope and meaning of the history of Israel has an
eschatological character It was its future or final course which was presented
to the Old Testament witnesses in this universal prophetic character. But
we should not lose sight of the fact that it was still the familiar past and present
history which was presented to them in this final course and therefore in this
character It was thus, in this teleology, that it spoke to certain men at certain
times, as the coming and being together, not only of Yahweh with Israel, but
of Yahweh and Israel with the nations, with those near and far, with the whole
world. It was as the history which even now hurries relentlessly to this future,
bearing it within itself, that there presented itself to them the whole sequence
of the facts created by God and experienced by Israel, from the calling of
Abraham by way of the sojourn in Egypt, the deliverance at the Red Sea, the
conquest of Canaan, the glory and fall of the kingdom of David, the catastrophe
of Samaria and Jerusalem, to the new exile and return. This is what disclosed
itself to them as its meaning and purpose. This was its apocalypse or revelation.
Is it not, then, rather difficult to criticise or bewail the supposed nationalistic
tones which may occasionally be found (even in the passages adduced) in the
Old Testament witness to this revelation ? And is it not even more difficult
to refuse to take this other side seriously because it has here " only " an eschato-
logical character ? What do we mean by this " only " ? Is it not its true im-
portance that it has this side, that it is also witness of the future, of this future
of the history of Israel and its prophecy ? To be sure, it is for the most part
in the later parts of the Old Testament Canon that this aspect obviously finds
expression. It is for the most part the voice of prophecy before, during and after
60 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the Exile which is heard in this respect. But the point is that it is the history
which leads from the election of the fathers by so many climaxes and crises to this
catastrophe, and then to the disillusionments, misery and great bewilderment of
this period, which before the eyes and ears of these later prophets discarded
the appearance of particularism in which it was previously enveloped, and repre-
sented itself as the history in which the one Yahweh of the one Israel was and
is and will be on the way and at work not only with Israel but with all men
everywhere. It did this at this stage of its development : not at the time of
David and Solomon ; but at the time when Israel-Judah could recognise itself
in the figure of the chastised, stricken and afflicted Servant of the Lord. Could
it more clearly demonstrate its prophetic power than by representing itself at
this period, and in face of the apparently opposing adversities of this period, in
this final character as universal prophecy ?
We can see plainly how the Old Testament witness to the prophecy of the
history of Israel coincides with the New Testament witness to Jesus Christ as the
" light of the world " " which lighteth every man." We naturally accept the
fact that it is historically distinct and limited as compared with the latter. It
attests " only " the prophecy, revelation and self- witness of the history of Israel.
But again we must ask what is meant by " only." If we let it say what it does
say in its historical distinctness and limitation, not suppressing or depreciating
what in its final phase it has to say concerning the teleology of this history, we
shall be astonished at the agreement of these later prophets, not with Jesus
Christ, but certainly with His apostles and the New Testament community
generally.
For the rest, in comparing the Old and New Testament witness, can we
really avoid the impression that the former is richer, more explicit, more patent
and more emphatic than the latter in relation to the problem of the universalism
of the covenant, the glory of God and the salvation of man as this is envisaged
from the very first, and therefore also in respect of the implied missionary task ?
Indeed, the New Testament passage in which the universalism of the Christian
kerygma is most plainly and expressly declared, namely, Rom. 9-11, has as its
main theme, not an indication that it also applies to the Gentiles, but a recollection
that the perverse Israel of the Synagogue must always be numbered among its
recipients. The relationship is paradoxical It can be explained only by the
fact that the universalism of the prophecy of Jesus Christ was so plain and self-
evident to the New Testament community that there was no need to emphasise
it more strongly than is clearly enough done in the missionary command, in
Paul, in the Gospel of John, and particularly in the Lucan writings The Old
Testament says what is not self-evident in relation to the prophecy of the par-
ticular history of Israel, and for this reason, in order that it should not be over-
looked, it says it so much the more forcefully and colourfully. In this respect
we cannot be over-attentive to it if we are truly to understand the far less vivid
universalism of the New Testament. If there had been this proper attention,
there could not have been that fatal stagnation of missionary thinking in older
Protestantism.
3. We have described it as a further limitation of the word of all
the individual prophets of the Old Testament, as a further mark of
their dissimilarity to the prophecy of Jesus Christ, that none of them
can speak on the basis of the accomplished reconciliation and the
present kingdom of God. But the prophecy of the history of Israel
in its totality and interconnexion does not suffer from this restriction.
It certainly speaks of the conflict and contradiction between Yahweh
and His people. But it does not speak on the basis of this, nor is it
2. The Light of Life 61
the origin, content and theme of its witness as we have to say of the
utterances of all the individual prophets as the great representatives
and champions of Yahweh against His people. It speaks synthetically,
not analytically, and therefore unequivocally of the grace of the
covenant. For this reason it is not merely the reference to a distant
future but the declaration of the presence of the glory of God and the
salvation of men, of judgments executed and promises realised. It
attests itself as a history which even in its climaxes and crises, even
in its plumbing of the very depths in constant outbreaks of human sin
and guilt, is overarched and stabilised and ordered by the grace of
the covenant, so that, notwithstanding all the confusions and dis-
ruptions which it includes, the being of God is finally and decisively
an affirmation of the people of Israel, and the being of the people of
Israel is finally and decisively an affirmation of its divine election
and calling. It attests itself as a history in which there is a deeply
concealed but very real positive continuum, so that visible fulfilments
can never be altogether wanting, and as there is both old and past
and new and coming grace, so there is also present grace unreservedly
lavished by God and unreservedly experienced and known as such by
the people and the men of this people. The revelation which takes
place in and with the occurrence of the history of Israel is the revela-
tion of this positive continuum and these representative fulfilments.
Even including its inner vacillations and the contradiction exposed
by the prophets, in its totality and interconnexion it is Gospel, good
news. We must not miss the cantus firmus of this positive continuum
above the dialectic of the prophets. It is not entirely silenced even
in them. That the history of Israel reveals it is the miracle of its
utterance, witness and revelation. In this cantus firmus it goes out
into all lands, to the whole world and all the nations, but it is also
perceived continually in Israel itself.
, Hence the third thing which it has in common with the prophecy
of Jesus Christ is that in its own way it proclaims with the same
force and fulness and from the same proximity that God is not merely
coming to be but is, and that as the Lord on earth as well as in heaven
He is at work as such.
The notes sounded, for example, in the last seven Psalms cannot be regarded
as incidental notes which are immediately silenced again or drowned by others.
" Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord " (Ps. I44 15 ). " The Lord is
righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. The Lord is nigh unto all
them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the
desire of them that fear him : he also will hear their cry, and will save them "
(Ps. i45 17f -) " Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope
is in the Lord his God " (Ps. I46 5 ). " The Lord hfteth up the meek : he casteth
the wicked down to the ground. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving ; sing
praise upon the harp unto our God " (i47 8f -). Then in Ps. 148 there follows the
great summons, addressed to the whole creation of heaven and earth, to praise
the Lord ; in Ps. 149 a similar summons to the congregation ; and finally in
62 69. The Glory of the Mediator
Ps. 150 the call to a great orchestra of trumpets, shawms, cymbals and other
instruments to do the same. We misunderstand the Old Testament if we do
not realise that this element of praise or doxology is the basic note. But it is
first the basic note, not of the Old Testament, but of the history perceived
by the Old Testament witnesses. The sign under which, or the bracket within
which, this history takes place is the enthronement of Yahweh, which according
to a new conjecture was perhaps celebrated every year, but which took place
from all eternity, takes place continually in new demonstrations of His power
and goodness, and is the event of the ultimate future. Hence this history takes
place always under His government exercised from Sinai, from Sion and from
heaven. It always redounds to the magnifying of His glory and, however
hiddenly, to the salvation of men. This is what is revealed by this history, and
it is to this revelation that all parts of the Old Testament respond.
For this reason we must not superciliously or sceptically ignore, not merely
the promises, but the very real fulfilments which are disclosed alongside the many
acute or chronic accounts of judgment. We may refer to the wealth of Isaac ,
to the remarkable success of Jacob in the service of Laban ; to the glorious rise
of Joseph in Egypt ; to the preservation of the people in Egypt and its deliver-
ance at the Red Sea , to its protection from so many enemies ; to its feeding in
the wilderness ; to its entry into the promised land , to the victories of David ;
to the reign of the wise and powerful and gorgeous Solomon, described in almost
apocalyptic colours , to the glory of his temple and its festivals ; to the similar
glory, expressly and emphatically sung in Ps. 119, of the divine commands,
statutes, directions and ordinances given to the Israelites , to the almost in-
credible confidence with which so many Psalmists, for all then- penitence and m
every contradiction, still rejoice, and, it seems, are forced to do so, in their hidden
being at the side of God and therefore in His righteousness, which they find
confirmed in their deliverance from sickness or danger or the hands of their
enemies , to the happy restoration with which the Book of Job finally comes
to a restful conclusion after so much argument and counter-argument , to the
wonderful exaltation of Esther and the later triumph of the Jews over their
enemies , to the rejoicing on days of sheep-shearing and harvest , to the peaceful
enjoyment of a simple life allotted to every man under his vine and fig-tree ,
to the dignity of ripe old age crowning a long life All these are fulfilments!
They may be very earthly, material, corporal and sometimes uncertain, but
they are palpable fulfilments. " Know ye in all your hearts and in all your
souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which your God spake
concerning you ; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed
thereof " (Josh. 23** , cf 2i 46 ). And what other fulfilments are we to expect
in the history of a nation such as is attested m the Old Testament ? These
represent the gracious presence and gift of the covenant in which God and a
people live together. They only represent them. But in so doing they represent
the positive continuum, the final and indestructible meaning and purpose of
this history In them there is declared and revealed and attested what Calvin
according to his understanding called the substantia foedens identical in both the
Old Testament and the New ; the power, mercy and faithfulness, the infinite
generosity of God addressed to man and experienced by Him, as these are already
at work in the totality and interconnexion of the history of Israel, not sparsely
or partially, but in all their fulness.
The New Testament witnesses could hardly praise God more highly than is
already done in the Old. On the contrary, it is no accident, nor does it rest on
an error or confusion of categories, that m its extolling of the grace of Jesus
Christ it so often uses the notes and language of the Old Testament praise of God.
4. On this basis we can hardly contest the fact that the history of
Israel and its prophecy have a mediatorial character. One aspect in
2. The Light of Life 63
which it bears this character in the Old Testament is that it is a
sequence of events in which God and man are together and work
together, though naturally it is God who absolutely precedes and
man can only follow. Even as sovereign acts and words of God, as
His free acts of rule, judgment, salvation and revelation, these events
are also human actions and passions, works and experiences, and vice
versa. If in their Old Testament presentation and attestation now
the one side and now the other is given prominence, there is a general
acceptance of their co-existence and co-inherence, of their basic unity,
though without any confusion or mixture of the two elements, or
transformation of the one into the other. And if this history in its
totality and interconnexion speaks as prophetic history, it does so in
attestation of this living divine-human unity. Its word is prophecy
which combines rather than divides, which unites rather than
separates, because it comes from the centre and proclaims the centre
where what is above and what is below, transcendent God and lowly
man, are together. Hence the Old Testament writings respond to
the voice of the history of Israel as it derives from this centre and
reveals it.
We may take as an example the account of the battle against the Amalekites
in Ex. ly 8 '- It closes (v. 15) with the report that Moses built an altar and gave
it the name Jehovah-mssi, in play upon which there is introduced what sounds
like the verse of a very old hymn . "By the banner of Yahweh, Yahweh will
have war with Amalek from generation to generation " This obviously means
that God Himself is the One who fights and conquers Amalek , that He is the
Hero of this battle This emerges in the very description. The decisive thing
is not what happens on the field, but the fact that Moses on the hill above the
tumult, with the rod of God in his hand and supported by Aaron and Hur,
holds up his arms and does not let them fall, since when he does so Amalek
prevails. The presence and act of Yahweh, with which these uplifted arms of
Moses link what happens below, alone achieve the victory, and to them alone
must be ascribed the honour of the day. Hence Jehovah-mssi Yahweh my
,banner Hence, too, the slogan . By the banner of Yahweh, or, The hand on
the banner of Yahweh. There is required what is done by Moses with the help
of Aaron and Hur : on the one side the omnipotent arm of Yahweh ; yet also
the impotent but steadfastly uplifted arm of man , the strained linking of
what is above and what is below, of Yahweh and Israel. Nor can we omit what
is done by Joshua and those below : " Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and
fought with Amalek " (v. 10). Can we not say, then, that what we have here is
simply a victory of Israel like so many others ? The intention of the story is
not to let this element be lost, but to show how Yahweh alone is Israel's banner,
and how Israel can and should lay its hand on this banner. In this unity, more
or less clearly disclosed in many other stories of the Old Testament, the history
of Israel is an eloquent, prophetic and even mediatorial history, deriving from
and witnessing to this centre
The other aspect which displays it in this character is a kind of
reflection of the first. As in its particularity it takes place in the
unity of Yahweh's action with that of His people, it also takes place
in the centre between the will and plan of Yahweh and the rest of
64 69. The Glory of the Mediator
human history. What we have to say on this point is connected
with what we have already called its functional significance. It is
the indispensable link between God and earthly history in general.
In its particularity it has a microcosmic character. What the one
God wills and plans and has done and does and will do with the human
world as a whole, He causes to take place on a small scale, but in a
way which recapitulates or prefigures the whole, in His history with
this one people Israel. The election and rejection of this people, the
disclosure of its transgressions and forgiveness of its sins, the fulness
of the benefits with which He provides for it and the severity of the
judgments in which it is overtaken by His chastisement, the incom-
parable distinction yet also the contemptible littleness with which He
causes it to exist among other nations, the whole doxa of the covenant
with which He invests it these are in nuce t in compendious form,
His action with all humanity. In all these things the history of
Israel is a paradigm or model for the history of all nations, and to the
extent that it is prophecy, and is known as such, it is the key to the
understanding of world history. Hence it is mediatorial history in
the sense of exemplary and therefore representative history. It takes
place among all other histories, but in such a way that it implies,
comprehends, repeats and anticipates their origin, content and goal.
It is the history of the son (Hos. n 1 ), indeed, the firstborn son of God (Ex.
4 22 ), who as such is the head of all others, and of whom it is said in Ps 8g 27
(with special reference to David as the central figure in all that happens) " I
will make him . . . higher than the kings of the earth " On the one side, then,
it is inevitable that general history should bring out the contours of this particular
history. This is especially plain in the opening chapters of Genesis In the
account of the great universal Sabbath, of the rest on the seventh day with
which God completed and crowned the work of creation (Gen 2 1 ' 3 ), there is
reflected the Sabbath celebration, freedom and joy of the service of God in which
the history of Israel has its meaning and goal In the account of the appoint-
ment of the first man to inhabit, cultivate and keep the Garden of Eden (Gen
2 8 ' 16 ) there is reflected the induction of Israel to possession of the good land of
promise, and in that of his expulsion from the Garden (Gen. 3 23f ) the bitter
experience of the Exile. The story of the establishment of the relationship of
man and woman (Gen. 2 18 ' 25 ) reflects the partnership, often alluded to by the
prophets, between Yahweh the Husband and Israel His affianced bride , that
of the Flood (Gen. 6-7) the apparently definitive judgment which came on
Israel and Judah with the destruction of Samaria and Jerusalem , that of
Noah's deliverance and the covenant made with him (Gen. 7-8) the preservation
of a holy remnant in witness to the mercy of the divine Covenant-partner out-
lasting all the unfaithfulness of the people and its consequences The particular
history is thus reflected in the general. But on the other hand it is equally in-
evitable that the particular should bring out the contours of the general. What
it means that Israel's history is really a concentration of all history, and to that
extent takes place in its stead, for it, as its recapitulation and prefiguration,
and the way in which it does this, are brought out with startling clarity in Is.
53*'-, where the Servant of the Lord is also Israel as such, if not only Israel.
It is the nations and kings who say : " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and
carried our sorrows , yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities :
2. The Light of Life 65
the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray , we have turned every one to his own way ;
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." And then finally in v. 12 :
" Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong , because he hath poured out his soul unto death : and he
was numbered with the transgressors ; and he bare the sin of man, and made
intercession for the transgressors "
This, then, is the centre this time between God and the world
in which the divine-human history of Israel takes place, itself the
copy yet also the original of world history. And taking place in this
centre, as history at this point, it is revelation, i.e., eloquent, prophetic
history.
But this gives us the fourth point which its prophecy has in common
with that of Jesus Christ, namely, that it attests itself to be divine-
human history which thus takes place between God and the world.
And this last and final point is the basis of all the features which,
as we have already claimed, it has in common with the prophecy of
Jesus Christ : (i) that it, too, is the history of the Word of God in
the flesh, an occurrence which declares His will and action in and
with men, the history of revelation ; (2) that it, too, is the light of
the world lighting every man ; and (3) that it, too, speaks on the
basis of the present reality of the lordship of God.
This fourfold statement, however, leads us to very remarkable
and far-reaching insight. The prophecy of the history of Israel in its
unity is comparable to that of Jesus Christ in an unqualified sense
which is not true of the testimonies of any individual prophets, even
the greatest of them. We do not say that it is identical ; that would
be impossible. But we do say that in and with the prophecy of the
history of Israel there takes place in all its historical autonomy and
singularity the prophecy of Jesus Christ Himself in the form of an
exact prefiguration. In all its autonomy and singularity, and therefore
in all its distinction, it is a true type and adequate pattern. To use
a much abused but in its true sense valuable expression, it is Messianic
prophecy, and indeed complete Messianic prophecy. And when we
say this, we mean that as a declaration of the divine wisdom con-
trolling it, it is fore-telling.
We must insist that the reference is to the prophecy of the history of Israel
in its unity. It is not a matter of a minute fore- telling in the Old Testament
of details of the prophecy of J esus Christ as attested in the New, nor of ascribing
to the Old Testament a mantic capacity for such fore-telling and to the New
Testament witnesses a corresponding skill in discovering and expounding it.
The Old Testament witnesses do not fore- tell except in so far as they attest the
fore-telling prophecy ol the history of Israel And if in their records of the
history of Jesus Christ the New Testament texts obviously refer on several
occasions to specific details in the Old Testament documents and see a fulfilment
of them, these are illustrations of the unity of the history of Jesus Christ with
the history of Israel attested in these documents. In the ancient prophetic
word of this history the men of the New Testament constantly perceive the new
C.D. IV.-III.-I. 3
66 69. The Glory of the Mediator
declaration of Jesus Christ, as they also find the latter constantly confirmed by
the former. In all probability passages like those in Matthew and Hebrews
give us little more than a glimpse of the full and natural way in which they did
this.
The truth of the matter is that the history of Israel says earlier
what that of Jesus Christ says later. It is Messianic history, its
prophetic word being the word spoken by the Messiah concerning
Himself, His self-witness. The Messiah is the One who is not anointed
by men, but anointed to serve and rule among men. And this means
that He is the God-man who is instituted by God Himself, and who
in the midst of world history exists in His name, with His authority
and in fulfilment of His will, suffering as High-priest, ruling as King
and revealing Himself as Prophet. The history of Israel has reference
to Him. Its revelation is His, its word and light are His, its glory is
His. No other and no less than He exists and acts and speaks later
for He has now become a person in the history of Jesus whom the
New Testament for this reason calls Jesus the Christ, the Anointed,
the Messiah. But no other and no less than He exists and acts and
speaks earlier in the national history of Israel. He is the mystery
which announces itself in it. In all history there is some mystery.
But it is only in the history of Israel that this mystery announces
itself. And it is because this is the case, because the mystery which
announces itself in it is that of the Messiah, the God-man, that its
prophecy is true and genuine prophecy as distinct from that of all
other history. It can be this, however, only because it is not merely
impelled by an idea or conception of the Messiah, but the Messiah
Himself exists and takes form in it, so that its witness is His self-
witness, and the announcement of its mystery His self -announcement,
the announcement of His coming, His appearing. It is as this fore-
telling, and therefore realiter and not merely figuratively as His
advent, that the history of Israel is a type ; that it is indeed the true
type as we have everywhere seen ; that it is an exact representation
and adequate prefiguration of the prophecy of His history.
If we may give to two words which ordinarily bear a weaker sense
a rather stronger signification, we can say that the history of Israel is
the " pre-history " of Jesus Christ and its word His " fore-word/'
That is to say, it is the pre-history in which He Himself acts and the
fore-word in which He Himself speaks. It was as such a fore-word
spoken by Jesus Christ Himself that the apostles and the New Testa-
ment community generally listened to the prophecy of the history of
Israel. And it was as an attestation of this fore-word of His that
they understood and took seriously the Old Testament. In what was
said to them by the ancient events concerning Abraham, Moses,
David and Jeremiah, or the life and suffering and prayers and hopes
of the Psalmists, as they found these attested in the Old Testament,
they did not hear the voice of a stranger, but in direct proximity the
2. The Light of Life 67
voice of the Good Shepherd, of the One who, as the humiliated Son
of God and exalted Son of Man crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead
and risen again, had spoken and still spoke to them in their own
life-time. As the hearers of His Word in this earlier form they thus
became followers and fellows of all those who had heard it in times
past. Even in those times was not ancient, distant Israel, no less than
they themselves as the community of the Messiah who had appeared
and come, and together with them, His body, the earthly-historical
form of His existence, the only difference being that Israel had
taken one form before His appearance, whereas they themselves
had necessarily assumed their own form after this appearing ? Did
not the men of Israel and they themselves belong together as both
belonged, the former in the time of His expectation and the latter of
His recollection, to Himself as the one Lord and Head, receiving His
one Word and having to attest this one Word of His with their own
words ? For all the difference of time, place and history, could there
be any material contradiction between the words of the Old Testament
witnesses and those of the New ? Deriving from their common source
and subject, were not both the earlier and the later witness necessarily
given with such agreement that there could be mutual confirmation
and explanation, as in the New Testament exegesis of passages from
the Old Testament ?
Now what came before was not yet what came after. All that we
can meaningfully say is that it lived in and by it, that it was perfectly
commensurate with it, and that as such it had a part in its light of
revelation or prophecy. Thus, the history of Israel was not yet as
such that of Jesus Christ. All that can be meaningfully said is that
its mystery was already the history of Jesus Christ concealed in it,
and that the disclosure of this history in the future event of the birth
and historical existence of the Son of God and Son of David was
already the goal which cast a retrospective light upon it. Again, even
this light, even the prophecy of the history of Israel, was not as such
that of the history of Jesus Christ. What is true is simply that it
faithfully proclaimed the prophecy of Jesus Christ, saying already
everything that He would say and thus preparing the way for Him
His way into world history as the one coming Prophet. Hence the
characteristic feature of what came before, of the history of Israel
and its prophecy and the corresponding witness of the Old Testament,
is always this " not yet " but also this " already " in the qualified
sense in which we have used it.
To what extent is it " not yet " ? What is it that qualifies the
" already " ? What is lacking in this prior sphere and its fore-telling,
including its earlier attestation in the Old Testament (Rom. i 2 ;
i Pet. i 11 ) ? What is the limit which is never transcended in the Old
Testament ? It is certainly not the reality of the covenant in all its
fulness, least of all its substance in the presence and action of the
68 69. The Glory of the Mediator
Messiah, and therefore not the self-attestation of His by which the
prophecy of the history of Israel is made true and genuine prophecy.
The only feature lacking is that the reality of the covenant, the
presence and action of the Messiah and therefore His self-declaration,
is as yet wholly and utterly concealed and hidden. It is concealed
and hidden because and to the extent that what came before consists
as such only in the history of Israel and what this has to say and
says as such. The Messiah was in this. He worked and spoke in it.
But He did so mediately and indirectly, not immediately and directly
in His own person. Through Him it took place in this national history.
But none of its events was the event of His existence, of His coming,
of His personal action and speech. He was its origin and goal, but
He did not appear in any of its developments. It is palpable that
there is fully found within it the gracious presence and gift of God to
His own glory and man's salvation, but the Messiah as the Mediator
and therefore the Subject of this happening was not one of the many
great and small among whom and to whom all this was done and who
were the historical bearers of the covenant and witnesses to its reality.
The history spoke indeed or rather, He, the One, who was already
Lord, spoke in its occurrence but it does not tell us with whom we
have to do when we hear it. To do this it would have had to be His
history immediately and directly. But it was so only mediately and
indirectly. It was a national history in which new figures were con-
stantly appearing, some basic like Moses or central like David, but
none being more than representative in relation to the whole or to
those around, and none obviously constituting its history the history
of a single individual. Only as a national history, then, did it speak
its word, so that this word is not that of the history, action and ex-
perience of a single life, and eloquent as such, but, if we may put it
this way, the word of a dumb man which is correctly shaped and
spoken by the lips and tongue, but is spoken without any sound and
is not therefore uttered. Or, we might say, it is sounded out, but in
a language which the hearer does not understand. The One who
could not only articulate but pronounce it in understandable form
was not yet present. Or He was present only in the form of the
national history which included Him as the One promised and ex-
pected, or even as its secret Lord and Governor, but concealed Him
until His coming and appearance, thus moving around Him only as
it were eccentrically, as around a centre transcending itself as this
national history. The fathers occasionally ventured the comparison
that His body was born, i.e., His people or community in this first
form which is unquestionably His body, but not yet He Himself as
the Head of this body. His history was announced but had not yet
taken place in that of Israel. His word was articulated but had not
yet been uttered in understandable form. In the words of Rom. io 4 ,
He was the end of the Law, but the Law as such was still without this
2. The Light of Life 69
end. The prophecy of the history of Israel was true and genuine
because it was His, i.e., because His was announced in it. But its
glory the glory which according to 2 Cor. 3 12f - shone from the face
of Moses and therefore the glory of the Old Testament witness, was
still covered by this veil. The veil was that He Himself, who made
it for glory, had not yet come and appeared ; that there was still lacking
the Son who had been promised to Abraham and David and on whose
account all Israel could be called the firstborn son of God. The veil
was that the authenticity and truth of the prophecy of the history of
Israel were not yet confirmed and demonstrated by the One who
was coming in it and in whom it had from the very first its basis,
content and goal. This is what was missing in all that came before,
in that pre-history or fore-word. He Himself was missing. And
the fact that He was missing is the great qualification which the
" not yet " impresses on everything which is to be seen and under-
stood without reservation as the great distinction of what came
before, namely, as its substantial likeness with what comes after.
This is what limits any " already " that we may concede it. It was
fulfilled and luminous because what comes after is the great event of
the incarnation of the Word of God, because it had a part in this and
was hastening towards it in its form as national history. But it was
unfulfilled and obscure because, while it came before this great event,
and therefore intimated it and to that extent had a part in it, it could
only intimate it, participating only in the form of the history of the
people of the incarnate Word, in the form of the history of Adam,
Abraham and David, as the fore-word to the Word of Jesus Christ.
The history of Jesus Christ as such, which follows what came before
as its goal and end, had not yet begun in it.
But these negative, or critical, or qualifying statements cannot be
our final word concerning what came before. It is not a new or
' different covenant which is established and proclaimed in the history
of Jesus Christ. It is the one covenant in a new reality which is only
now fulfilled in this form (or, as Calvin would say, in this oeconomia
or administratio) because it is only now immediately and directly
conformable to its basis, content and goal as the reality of the Messiah
Jesus latent in what came before, in the history of Israel and its
prophecy. It is He who, as the electing God and elected man in one
person, is the basis, content and goal of the covenant of God with
man. It is He who is the one Prophet of this covenant. His coming,
appearance, birth and historical existence as this One are what follows
that which came before, so that it is broken off and no longer continues
as such.
When that which follows comes, the history of Israel and its prophecy find
in it their fulfilment and cannot therefore have any continuations. What might
seem to be such are only recollections of their former occurrence which is now
broken off and concluded. As such they may be very impressive. They may
70 69. The Glory of the Mediator
even be a kind of proof of God, as the history of what is called Judaism has been
called. That is to say, they may be a confirmation in world history of the origin
and theme of the Old Testament witness. But as abstract recollections they
have always a notably unsubstantial and unprofitable character, with no true
or genuine prophecy, because even at best their prophecy is only the old without
the new, without the fulfilment at which it always aimed even as the old, and
which it has long since found in the new.
Yet the fact that the history of Israel can have no more continua-
tions does not mean that it is outmoded, replaced or dissolved. It
cannot be outmoded, because already the one covenant between God
and man, instituted in the eternal election of Jesus Christ, was its
basis, content and goal ; because it was already actualised in it in
this first form as national history ; and because Jesus Christ already
spoke and acted in it as His type, His pre-history and fore-word.
The new thing His coming, appearance, birth and existence does
not merely follow upon the old as something new and different ; it
proceeds out of it as its fulfilment and completion, and therefore in
unity with it. If what came before was merely with a view to what
comes after, the converse is also true that what comes after follows
what came before, so that it could not be what it is, nor be seen and
understood as such, without it. The New Testament with its almost
innumerable direct and indirect references to the Old makes it un-
ambiguously clear that the apostles and the New Testament com-
munity as a whole, in their dealings with the new Word of Jesus as
the one Christ and God-man in His coming, appearance, birth and
historical existence, could hear and understand it as the Word of His
life and action and experience only in harmony with His Word as it
had been spoken and received already in the national history of Israel,
as the confirmation and fulfilment of this Word. For them as the
witnesses of what comes after there was nothing abstract about what
came before. The history of Israel was not merely distant, alien,
past, mute or foreign. On the contrary, they saw it in its attainment
of its goal, in its fulfilment, in its increased rather than diminished
presence and reality in the history of Jesus Christ. But conversely,
there was for them nothing abstract about what comes after. The
history of Jesus Christ was not something in which the history of
Israel, its present and living word, did not encounter them with the
same immediacy and directness as it had once encountered the Old
Testament witnesses. Far from there being any question of the
coming and work and Word of Jesus Christ, of His death and resur-
rection, either commanding or even permitting them to close and file
away the book of the Old Testament, leaving behind them its witness
and the history attested as though past and done with, the very
opposite is true, that the Old Testament is opened up to them by the
revelation and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and the witnesses
of the covenant in its first form speak specifically to them as the
2. The Light of Life 71
witnesses of the history of Jesus Christ as such. For it is now for
the first time, and to them specifically, that these witnesses really do
speak. They do not speak to those who would like to hear them
apart from the revelation and knowledge of Jesus Christ, as though
what came before, as attested by them, had nothing following after,
as though what comes after had not already arrived, and the promised
and expected Messiah had not already come and appeared. For those,
but only for those, who have come to participate in the revelation and
knowledge of Jesus Christ, it has meant that the veil has been removed
from the face of Moses, and they have come to see the life and light
of the Messiah in what came before, finding the old in the light of the
new because the old was really the same and bore the same witness
as the new, in terms of which it has disclosed itself as the old yet also
as the same, and with the same fulness, as the new. For the covenant
between God and men is one covenant, and its Mediator is the same
" yesterday and to-day." In Him the history of what came before
and what comes after is one history ; the word spoken before and that
spoken after is one word ; its attestation in the Old Testament and
the New is one witness. To be sure, there is no equation of the one
with the other. Each has and maintains its temporal and historical
singularity and particularity. Above all, each has its teleology, there
being an irreversible way or sequence from the pre-history to the
history, from the fore-word to the Word, from the first form of the
covenant expected in the history of Israel as a goal to its second form
in the manifested person of Jesus Christ, from the Old Testament to
the New. Yet there is also no separation of the one from the other,
as though the temporal and historical particularities either had or
came to have the character of individual hypostases. There is no
hardening of the difference between the two forms. There is no
intensifying of it into the contradiction of two distinct religions.
There is no competition between what is called an Old Testament
theology on the one side and a New Testament theology on the other.
As there is only one Prophet with whom both the Old and the New
Testament witnesses are concerned in their different ways, so there is
only one prophecy and revelation, one light and word, and therefore
one biblical and Christian theology which has to search and present
both with equal seriousness, since the New Testament is latent in the
Old (Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet), and the Old is patent in the
New (Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet). Such a theology would
become irrelevant if it were to try to do the one and leave the other.
In such a case, it would fail to do either, and thus destroy itself.
For we have in view the one Prophet of the one covenant in its
twofold form, first concealed and then revealed, when we say " Jesus
Christ/' And we have in view the light of His one life, the name of
His one being, the revelation of His one history, the Word or Logos
of His one act, the glory of His one and only mediatorship, His one
72 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
prophecy in its twofold form, when we consider Him more specifically
in His prophetic office in life and being and word and act.
But it is high time we posed and answered a basic question which
we have so far ignored. Hitherto we have presupposed and maintained
that the life of Jesus Christ as such is light, that His being is also
name, His reality truth, His history revelation, His act Word or
Logos. We have simply ascribed to Him what the Bible calls glory
and therefore His prophetic office. On what ground and with what
right may we do this ?
Have we merely " ascribed " these things to Him, as many historians think
that other functions and titles were later ascribed ? Is what we have called the
light of His life perhaps no more than the light of a " value-judgment " which
we ourselves bring as we illuminate Him by giving Him a particular significance,
so that the true source of light is to be sought and found in ourselves, namely,
in the standard by which we think we can establish what is significant for us,
and in this way arrive at His only real and objective " significance " ' Is His
truth perhaps no more than that of a category under which we try to grasp
the importance of His work ? Is His revelation perhaps only another word for
the creative insight in which, with reference to and therefore with the help of
His figure, we achieve awareness of the problem of our own existence, and the
solution of this problem ? Is His Logos no more than what we regard as the
ratio of our own life-action ? And therefore at bottom is His prophecy no more
than the power and authority of our own self-declaration for which we find an
evident confirmation and to which we lend dignity and weight by understanding
and describing it as the declaration of this person documented in the Bible,
investing His declaration with the glory which we really desire for our own ">
Is this supposed Prophet, who supposedly speaks to us and to whom we supposedly
listen, any more than a speaker fashioned and instituted by ourselves in order
that by His imaginary existence we may affirm and strengthen ourselves, yet
without His really saying or our hearing anything but what we put on His lips
and thus say to ourselves ? Before we go any further, it is as well that we should
face this question, which is, of course, only a modification of the old question of
Ludwig Feuerbach.
But we must be very careful how we state and try to answer it.
For in so doing we might easily involve ourselves, or be seduced into,
an attempted demonstration in the course of which we should deny
the very thing which we are seeking to prove, falling victim to
Feuerbach in our very attempt to resist him.
For who is it who really asks concerning the right and basis of
our presupposition and assertion that the life of Jesus Christ as such
has and is this light in which we for our part may and should live,
that His work is truth which comes to us as such, His history revela-
tion by which there is made luminous in and to us and our lives that
which cannot be made luminous of ourselves, that His act is the
Word of God which is spoken to us from above, which we cannot then
say to ourselves, but which we can only receive and repeat ? Who
is it who asks whether Jesus Christ is really the Prophet whom we
have not produced as such but who summons us, calling us out of
our pride and sloth and falsehood to fellowship with Himself ? Who
2. The Light of Life 73
is it who asks whether it is really the case that in the witness of the
Old and New Testament we have, not merely an example and analogy
of the witness which we can give ourselves, but the reproduction
and propagation of a self-witness which precedes and transcends
all our self-witness and by which all our self-witness must be orient-
ated ? Who is it who puts these questions ? If it is ourselves,
then it is more than likely indeed, it is certain that, whether
or not we accept these things, our answer will follow the lines laid
down by that of Feuerbach when he put these questions. For we
shall obviously be merely " ascribing " to Jesus Christ, in accordance
with the light given to us or generated by us, the fact that He has
and is light. But the question which we really ought to put first is
whether we should decide, whether we are in any way competent,
whether we can imagine that we have some light of our own which
constrains and qualifies us, ever to put such questions. Is there any
place from which we are really able to ask whether Jesus Christ is
the light, the revelation, the Word, the Prophet ? Is there any place
where we are really forced to ask this for the sake of the honesty and
sincerity which we owe ourselves ? To ascribe to ourselves a com-
petence to put such questions is ipso facto to deny that His life is
light, His work truth, His history revelation, His act the Word of
God. The most that we can do in such a case is to " ascribe " these
things to Him, i.e., to agree that it is so. But this is useless. We may
do it with great seriousness and zeal. But this does not alter the
fact that we can ascribe to Him only the majesty which we have
first ascribed to ourselves by thinking we can and should assign
ourselves the competence to put such questions. If we really knew
that we were asking concerning His prophecy, the light of His life,
the truth of His work, the revelation of His history, the divine Word
of His act, our questions would be silenced before we ever came to
'the point of giving them even inward utterance. We should realise
that we cannot ascribe to ourselves any competence to raise such
questions. Immunity against the type of answer given by Feuerbach
to his own questions begins with the recognition that these are
not our questions and we are quite unfitted to play the role of
questioners.
Again, what is it for which we are really asking ? Is it for some
right and basis of our own on which to presuppose and maintain that
the life of Jesus Christ is the light in which we can and should live ?
Is it for an argument to justify our enterprise in our own eyes and
the eyes of others like us ? Is it for the demonstration that we can
and should engage in it ? Is it for the kind of demonstration which
rests on the results of a hazarded comparison of the influences stream-
ing from the life of Jesus with those shed by the lives of other
important figures ? Is it for the demonstration of a lack in our
picture of the world and history which can be filled only by His
74 69. The Glor y f the
existence and significance ? Is it for the demonstration of an anthro-
pological problem to which we can find the answer in Him alone ? Or
more personally, is it for the confessional demonstration of the direct
experience which compels us to recognise and proclaim His Word
as the Word of God ? This kind of demonstration may be sincerely
meant, and attempted and executed with great skill. But it means
that we are again hastening towards an answer in the spirit of
Feuerbach, and on the point of denying the very thing which we are
trying to demonstrate. Let us suppose that someone does really
presuppose and maintain that the existence of Jesus Christ is light,
truth, revelation, Word and glory, and thinks that it is obviously
reasonable and incumbent to confess this. Can it ever enter his head
to think that he should justify himself in this matter, adducing proofs
to convince himself and others, or to assure himself that he is really
right, that what he does is necessary or at least possible ? Can he
ever forget that what he does, he does in a freedom which neither
belongs to him nor is to be won by him, but is given him, so that in
the use he makes or fails to make of it he is responsible to no other
court than that to which he owes it, and certainly not to himself ?
Does he not betray the freedom which he obviously has if he tries
to demonstrate its validity and basis in any other way than by
making use of it, i.e., by venturing this assertion and presupposition
in such sort that he has no other option in the freedom given him ?
In all the arguments he might bring in favour of his enterprise, does he
not renounce this very freedom ? Does he not act as though he did
not have it ? And does he not make incredible and even deny the
assertion and presupposition from the very outset if in his argumenta-
tion for its reality or necessity he regards it as an undertaking which
he must guarantee as though he could have any power to do this !
and has thus to produce various reasons in favour of its theme and
content ? Even more seriously, if he asks concerning such reasons, does
he not deny and betray the very thing at issue in this presupposition and
assertion, namely, its theme and content as such ? Let us assume
that Jesus Christ is the light which lightens every man, the truth
which affects and convinces every man, the revelation which comes to
every man, the Word which is spoken to every man. Let us assume
that He encounters every man in this glory of His and that this is
the theme and content of the presuppostion and assertion. What
does it mean, then, if we try to proceed to a historical, philosophical,
anthropological or psychological investigation and exposition with a
view to presenting to ourselves or others the fact that the content
of the presupposition and assertion is right, that Jesus Christ is thus
a Prophet or the Prophet of God to and for all men, that for such
and such reasons He must or at least might well be so ? As if perhaps
He were not, or not at least self-evidently and with axiomatic
certainty ! What an " as if " ! On this procedure, and the more
2. The Light of Life 75
basically the more skilfully we pursue it, do we not declare the very
opposite of what we intend, namely, that we do not really regard as a
Prophet the One whom we think we must help in this way, and least
of all do we regard Him as the Prophet of God ? If we regard Him as
such, we shall remember that He Himself has shown and proved
Himself to us as such, that He Himself has spoken to us for Himself,
so that He does not wait for us to authorise and validate Him as a
Revealer and Prophet, nor does He need our reasons to bring true
conviction as to His status. What gives us the freedom to venture
the presupposition and assertion is simply the sovereignty of the
Revealer and Prophet, the free shining of His light, the free clarity of
His truth, this free power of revelation. How, then can we suddenly
go back on this content, on the event of prophecy ? How can we call it
in question again in the name of a supposed sincerity and truth ?
How can we, for our own peace of mind and supposedly to help others,
support its reality as this event with various arguments ? How can
we try to prove its certainty or probability by the different con-
siderations which we adduce ? In so doing, do we not notice that
we are still speaking, or have begun to speak again, of a very different
matter, moving right away from the thema probandum by speaking
of the light of the life of Jesus Christ as though it had never really
happened ? Do we not notice that we can experience, demonstrate
and prove the truth of this matter only if we treat it in accordance
with itself ? It signifies dreadful forgetfulness or confusion in regard
to the content of the presupposition and assertion if we imagine, or if it
appears possible or necessary to us, that we can treat the majestic
declaration of God, of which we appear to speak in what we assume
and assert, as though it were a little dogma which we had to defend
against the doubts, suspicions and objections of ourselves and others,
as is necessary in the case of even the very best and the most pro-
found and self-evident of our human propositions. Can we ignore the
fact that this includes a surrender, blaspheming and even negation of
the divine declaration which, once we are guilty of it, can only make us
ridiculous, however seriously we ask concerning the basis and validity
of the declaration ? For what is meant by sincerity or truth in this
connexion ? Surely not a procedure which means that, to prove the
truth to be such, we must first treat it as though it were not, and then
try to recognise it as such when we have found motives for doing so
other than the fact that it really is the truth ! This is nonsensical.
It cannot be excused or justified by any psychological, apologetic,
pedagogic or pastoral intentions, nor by any obligation of scientific
accuracy. If we think that we are summoned or obliged or even
compelled to adopt such a procedure, we do better to admit that we
have not yet heard the voice of truth, or that we hear it no longer,
so that we are better advised for the moment to occupy ourselves
with other matters.
76 69. The Glory of the Mediator
Now there is no doubt that a question is put to us in this respect.
Nor is it put incidentally, but urgently and centrally. Nor is it put
in such a way that we can evade responsibility for it, but inescapably,
so that we cannot proceed with a good conscience without first giving
our answer.
But the point is that the question is put to us. It is not that we
ourselves have the competence, or find ourselves in such a position
in relation to Christ that we can and even must ask concerning the
light of His life and the Word of His act. But as His life is light and
His act Word, as He is the truth, we are asked by Him whether we
are aware of the fact, whether we realise what we are doing when we
presuppose and assert that it is so, whether we know the basis and
authority necessary to legitimate our action if it is not to be futile.
We may well be ready to take it far too easily and lightly because
without the necessary legitimation. Perhaps through the influence of
someone who has made the same assumption and assertion before us,
and under the impression of the assurance with which he has done
so, we are surprised into doing it, and then confuse ourselves into
thinking that we are doing the same as he. This may well happen.
But this kind of surprise or confusion has nothing whatever to do
with the light, the revelation of the truth, the Word and prophecy of
Jesus Christ. On the contrary, it has very much to do with the dark-
ness of the heart and conscience in which a man can persuade himself,
even in ultimate opposition to Jesus Christ, that he is really confessing
Him even though he does not have or know the basis or authority
for so doing, and therefore does not know what he is venturing and
doing with this assumption. It may well be granted that the one
who precedes us with his confession, and so impresses us that we
feel invited and challenged to follow him, has genuine grounds for
making it. But this does not mean that we have. If we think that he
can accept responsibility for answering the question of our basis and
authority, we have understood him very badly and made poor use of
his precedent and example. On the other hand, it may be that he
himself is a poor predecessor, with no legitimation, walking in darkness
and not in the light of Jesus Christ in spite of his confession. As such
he can only surprise and confuse us, leading us behind the light instead
of into it. If he has led us into the light, then necessarily we ourselves
are asked by the light on what basis and with what authority we
boast that we may live in it. This does not mean, of course, that
we are asked whether and to what extent we can justify our under-
taking to confess Him, or how far we have any aptitude to do this.
What we are asked is whether and to what extent His life, not in
others but in ourselves, justifies, confirms and demonstrates itself as
light, revelation, truth, Word and prophecy. What we are asked is
whether and to what extent His presence and action give substance
to our presupposition and assertion that this is so. And who but the
2. The Light of Life 77
living Jesus Christ Himself can give them this substance which they
need as our undertaking and action and without which they can only
be vain and empty ? But to ask whether He Himself is the motive
and therefore the legitimation for our confession, presupposition and
assertion as our own undertaking and action, is something which we
ourselves certainly cannot do because we have neither the com-
petence to put this question nor any point from which to judge
concerning it. On the contrary, when we confess Him, He Himself
is the One who asks. Hence we do not have to answer ourselves or
other men ; we have to answer Him. We do not have to give an
account to ourselves or other men ; we have to give an account to
Him. And as, reached by His light, participant in His revelation,
conscious of His truth and encircled by the glory of His prophecy,
we give an account to Him, not as those who ask but as those who
are asked, we know what we are doing in confessing Him, and our
confession achieves the substance, the solidity, the specific weight of
knowledge, which it must have if it is not to be a futile beating of
the air.
Now we have already stated what we are asked. We are certainly
not asked whence Jesus Christ has that with which to prove that His
life is light. Nor are we asked how it comes about and is self-evident
and perspicuous that He can be and is the Revealer of God, the
Prophet sent by God to us and speaking to us, and therefore in this
respect, too, the Mediator between God and man. If He were subject
to this type of question, and an answer could and should first be
found to it, He would not be the Revealer, Prophet and Mediator.
If there were any need or ability to prove Him to be such, what is
to be proved would slip through our fingers. What we are really
asked by Him is whether we are men in whose lives He has expressed
and shown Himself as Revealer, Prophet and Mediator. And this
'means concretely whether we act accordingly ; whether our being,
thinking, willing and speaking derive their bias and orientation from
the fact that He has done and still does this, that He is for us light,
rule, canon and standard, not just theoretically by way of presupposi-
tion or assertion, but m practice ; whether we do not merely make
ourselves out to be those who know, or more or less seriously believe
that we are such, but really exist as such. It is when we do this,
and in order to do so, that we can and should presuppose and maintain
that His life is light, and He Himself is the Revealer, Prophet and
Mediator. If we exist as those who know, we can and should be also
those who confess. And in this case our confession will not lack
substance, solidity and weight. Nor will it lack veracity. There will
then be the desired demonstration of the content of our presupposition
and assertion, and therefore its establishment and vindication. But
we really are asked by Him whether we act as those who are " of the
truth, 11 to use the saying to Pilate in John i8 37 : " Every one that is
78 69. The Glory of the Mediator
of the truth heareth my voice." He must not, may not and will not,
then, put any more the question of Pilate : " What is truth ? " He
no longer has the false freedom to ask for special confirmations of the
truth from without. Nor does he stand under the false compulsion
of having to ask for such confirmations. It has of itself confirmed
itself to him. How, then, can he behave as though this had not
happened, seeking and enquiring whether the light of the life of Jesus
Christ which has shone upon him can really be light, and he himself a
child of light ? He hears His voice, and his only possible question,
put to him by this voice, is not whether and how this voice will show
itself to be the voice of truth, but whether and how he himself will
show himself to be its hearer. It is not self-evident that he will do
this. For even the man to whom the truth has shown itself to be
truth, who is thus " of the truth/' and therefore hears the voice of
Jesus Christ, might very easily deny this in practice by raising again
the question of Pilate (" What is truth ? ") which he must not and
may not raise, demanding and seeking other confirmations and thus
being disobedient to the voice which he hears. But is this necessary ?
Does he have to deny in practice that he is " of the truth " ? Has this
impossible thing really to take place ? Surely he might also show
himself to be a hearer of the voice of Jesus Christ. And what he is
asked is whether he will do this, whether he will be obedient. Again,
however, it is not self-evident that he will do this properly. There
might be a full or only a partial obedience, and therefore a better or
worse demonstration. The man freed by the truth for the truth
might make only a partial or halting use of his freedom. His use of
it might leave much to be desired in the way of clarity and consistency.
Hence he is not merely asked whether, but also how, he will prove
himself. Yet however that may be, the question which is put to us
in respect of our presupposition and assertion that the life of Jesus
Christ is as such light, truth, revelation, Word and glory, is the
question of our authentication in face of the fact that He is this, of
our right conduct in face of the content of this presupposition and
assertion, of our obedience to the voice of Jesus Christ. To this
question there can be no possible answer in the spirit and along the
lines of Feuerbach.
But supposing we set aside once and for all the threatened tempta-
tion, what will be the tenor of a sound answer to this question ? What
is meant by authentication, right conduct and obedience in this
connexion ? It is obvious that it must be in the whole life of a man
that the correctness of our presupposition and assertion must be
seen. We show it as we really allow the life of Jesus Christ to be the
light of our whole life, and are really prepared to lead our whole
life in the light of that of Jesus Christ. In the present context, how-
ever, we can only take into account a comparatively narrow but in
its way truly significant and decisive sector, namely, how there is to
2. The Light of Life 79
be achieved an authenticating, true and obedient thinking and
speaking in which the content of the presupposition and assertion,
i.e., that the life of Jesus Christ is as such light, is wholly and evidently
and consistently honoured, and we show ourselves to be those who
hear His voice and act in correspondence and not in contradiction
with this fact. We shall attempt to answer the question in the modest
field of dogmatic and to that extent theoretical deliberation. But is
there a Christian practice which does not necessarily have also the
form of a Christian theory ? Again, is there a Christian theory which
is not necessarily in itself and as such an element of Christian practice ?
At any rate, in the deliberations upon which we now enter we have
to do with a theory which is to be understood only with reference to
its origin and goal in practice.
We take as our starting-point the fact that in the life of Jesus
Christ we deal, not with an indeterminate happening, but with that of
the presence and action of God. It is for this reason that we say that
His life is light, truth, revelation, Word, glory ; that it not merely
might be, but is ; that we not merely suppose that it is, but it is
indisputably ; that it is so primarily and intrinsically and not just
secondarily and derivatively. We say this in view of the fact that
in this life God Himself is present as acting Subject. Our presupposi-
tion and assertion in respect of this life includes within itself, and has
as its basis and authority, the statement concerning God that He is
in Jesus Christ. He was this, and will be. This is why it involves
such danger and such a betrayal to think that we have to ask some-
thing, and particularly that we have to ask how we can prove the
content or occurrence of the prophecy of Jesus Christ to ourselves
and others. This is why we can see ourselves only as those who are
asked. If it were not a matter of God, everything would be different.
But it is a matter of God. Hence we can only see ourselves as those
,who are asked concerning our acknowledgment and respect, con-
cerning our praise of God. And there is no place for the false freedom
or necessity in which we might feel compelled, in face of the life of
Jesus Christ, and in defiance of its prophecy, to ask concerning its
authority, putting Pilate's question as to the truth in defiance of the
truth itself. Where God is present as active Subject ; where He
lives, as is the case in the life of Jesus Christ, life is not just possibly
or secondarily but definitely and primarily declaration, and therefore
light, truth, Word and glory. A mute and obscure God would be an
idol. The true and living God is eloquent and radiant. If He is in
large measure mute and obscure to us, this is another matter. In
Himself, whether we perceive and accept it or not, He is eloquent
and radiant. He does not merely become this when we perceive and
accept Him as such. He does not merely become it in His work in
creation, time and history. If He is eloquent and radiant in creation
and history, this is on the basis of, and in correspondence with, the
8o 69. The Glory of the Mediator
fact that from all eternity He is not merely the Father, but also the
eternal Word as the Son of the Father, and that in the Son He has
the reflection of His own glory. Hence it is not accidental or external
to Him, but essential and proper, to declare Himself. He does this
as He is God, and lives as such. It is in this glory of God that Jesus
Christ lives. Now there is no beginning before God, no height above
Him, no depth beneath Him, no ground outside Him. But as His
life has no whence or wherefore, so His light and speech have no
basis or authority, apart from the fact that the life is His life, that
as such it cannot be concealed but impels and summons to revelation,
that it wills to be recognised and known as such, that it can be recog-
nised and known only through itself, and that it is therefore self-
disclosing life. How could it be deduced from any principle that it is
self-disclosing and therefore eloquent and radiant ? Even the
reference which we have ventured to the trimtarian being of God
cannot be deduced from any principle, but can only describe and explain
the fact that God Himself and He alone is the principle and source from
which all that He is, and therefore the fact that He is self-disclosing
life, does not " derive " as in the case of a logical deduction, but is
eternally repeated and confirmed in the act of His existence as the
living God. But it is this life which discloses itself in the act of His
existence that is lived by Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This is what
is meant when we call His life light. This is the content of our assump-
tion and assertion. This is why it is inviolate against every con-
ceivable doubt or denial. This is why it is equally inviolate against
all the related demonstrations and confirmations which might try to
buttress it from without. And if the question is put whether and
how we can confirm ourselves in this connexion, the first and simple
answer is that, in full realisation of what we are doing, we are invited
and summoned by what we assume and assert to consider and take
seriously the fact that in the life of Jesus Christ we do not have an
indeterminate happening, but that of the presence and action of God
Himself ; that we do not have an incidental Word which might be
spoken or not, but the eternal Word ; that we do not have any light
which might or might not shine, but the eternal light. If we consider
this and take it seriously, our conduct will be right, for it will be
required by the matter itself. We will thus show ourselves to be
those to whom the truth has confirmed itself as truth, who are " of
the truth " and children of light. And we may confidently venture
our presupposition and assertion. We shall do so in legitimate fashion
Our thema probandum will be directly before our eyes and crystal clear.
Questions like that of Feuerbach will not be even remotely possible.
Considering and taking seriously the fact that God is present and
active, we have renounced all such questioning from the very outset.
We have not merely ascribed to the life of Jesus Christ, or appended
to it as a title of dignity on the basis of its value, but really accepted
2. The Light of Life 81
as its given reality, the fact that in itself and as such it is prophecy.
In saying this, we are not advancing a thesis of our own which we
then have to defend. We are saying it in response to the thesis which
is unmistakeably and incontrovertibly set before us in the life of
Jesus Christ as that of God Himself: "I am the light of the
world/'
To choose another aspect, we now take as our starting-point the
fact that the life of Jesus Christ is that of the covenant grace willed
and determined by God and addressed and given by Him to the man
for whom and to whom it is active. It is for this reason that we call
this life light, revelation, Word and glory, with no questions as to
whether it might be, with no qualms or hesitation, with no sense of
ascribing attributes, but in the sense of a simple statement concerning
its essence as this life. Grace, willed and practised by God as His
action to man, is as such God's self-disclosure and self-impartation as
it takes place towards man but is grounded in His own divine being.
It is the choice and act of His own incomprehensible freedom to be
the Almighty and the Holy One, not only in and for Himself, not
only in His own transcendence and self-originating life, but also
beyond this in the depths. In this freedom He is God. He is not
untrue to Himself but supremely true, the living, almighty and holy
God, in the fact that He is gracious. He is this to man, in His eternal
choice to disclose and impart Himself to him, and in the historical
event in which He does this, on the basis of the fact that to be gracious,
to disclose and impart Himself, is already His own freedom, the
freedom of the Father to be in and for Himself, yet not to be only in
and for Himself, but eternally to disclose and impart Himself in the
Son, and with the Son in the Holy Ghost. No idea of God, no god
invented and made by man and exalted to divinity, is gracious in
himself or to man. The true and living God is gracious. He tran-
cends Himself. He discloses and imparts Himself. He does this
first in Himself, and then and on this basis to man in His eternal election
and its temporal and historical fulfilment. And in the life of Jesus
Christ we are not dealing with God and His presence and action in
the abstract, but specifically and concretely with His election and
act of grace, with the election and act of His characteristically and
exclusively divine freedom to disclose and impart Himself. Because
it is the life of grace, it is this eloquent and radiant life. Grace would
not be grace if it were to remain mute and obscure, or could try to
be in and for itself alone. It would be a contradiction in terms if it
did not mean self-disclosure and self-impartation, or were not eloquent
and radiant. As such, it is indeed eloquent and radiant. As such,
it is prophecy. This is what is meant when we speak of the prophecy
of the life of Jesus Christ. Grace is the election and act of God which
is not to be expected or demanded by man, which cannot be provoked,
let alone projected or produced by him, but which simply conies to
82 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
him, which affects and determines him, which is quite undeserved but
addressed to him without and in spite of his deserving. It is the
inaccessible thing which " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man," but which nevertheless displays
itself before his eyes, and makes itself heard, and sinks into his heart,
in virtue of the free work of God Himself. Grace means that God
expresses Himself before man, declaring Himself as the truth in his
existence. It means that He causes Himself to be perceived by this one
who is not His equal, who is merely His creature, and who has wilfully
closed his eyes and ears and heart to Him. It means the free revela-
tion of God. This takes place in the life of Jesus Christ. In this life
it is a matter of God's unmerited good-pleasure, of His free grace,
and therefore of His free Word to man. What Jesus Christ lives is
God's self-disclosure and self-impartation as inscrutably grounded
in His divine sovereignty. It is both the event and the message at
one and the same time : God among us ; God with us ; and God for
us. This act and declaration is the content of our assumption and
assertion that the life of Jesus Christ is light and prophecy. We do
not venture it arbitrarily or at random, but on the basis of the fact
that this life is grace, and grace is radiant as such. Hence there is no
need to establish or justify its radiance from some other point. Indeed,
all attempts to do this are forbidden. Grace itself, and the light of
grace, are the election and work of the divine freedom whose action
is established and justified in itself alone, but in itself unshakeably.
When grace and its light are present and active, as is the case in the life
of Jesus Christ, all suspicions and objections against our presupposition
and assertion are answered before they are even raised or uttered.
They can arise and have force only when the grace of God and its
light are not present and active. And if there is one serious question
in this whole matter, namely, that which its content addresses to us,
the question of our demonstration in obedience to it, the answer to
this question, and therefore our demonstration, can consist only in
the kind of attitude and conduct to the gracious Word spoken in the
life of Jesus Christ which alone are possible in face of it as the gracious
Word of God's gracious work. But this means that we can answer it
only in gratitude and with thought and utterance which express this.
Our freedom to give thanks, and our freedom in thanksgiving, are the
consequence corresponding to the divine work and light and Word
of grace addressed to us in the life of Jesus Christ. But how can we
give thanks except with the freedom, confidence and joy of confession
that this light is light, this Word Word, the glory of this life glory ?
This does not mean any discovery or disclosure on our part. It
means that we ourselves are discovered and disclosed as those who
are freed for the gratitude of this confession, who may make use of
this freedom, and who can make use of it willingly for otherwise it
would not be freedom. How sad it is that the worthy Feuerbach,
2. The Light of Life 83
like so many other unbelievers and believers, seems not to have had
any knowledge of this freeing and freedom, and thus seems to have
interpreted the glory of God merely as the self-glorification of man,
and the light of the life of Jesus Christ merely as the shining of a
light supposedly immanent in man himself, and finally, therefore, to
have evaded rather than accepted encounter with it 1 We must be
careful that we venture our assumption and assertion only in this
freedom and therefore in grateful thought and utterance. In this
freedom it not only can and may but will be ventured. And ventured
in this freedom, it cannot be called in question from any quarter.
To select a third starting-point, the life of Jesus Christ, even as
the life of God and the life of His grace, is the life of a man who as
such, as one of us, as our Fellow, Associate and Neighbour, among the
countless numbers of men who have lived, live and will live, is this
particular man, the man who even in our human situation and within
our human history, has lived and lives and will live this eternal life,
this Stranger whom we cannot overlook or remove as such because
as such He is at home among us and like us and with us, belonging as
we do to our human situation and history. It is because it is the life
of this Alien who is so utterly at home among us and so fully belongs
to us, of this near Neighbour even in all His otherness, that this life
is called light, revelation and Word. As the life of God and His
grace, it is not lived in a distant height and therefore in mute obscurity ;
it is concrete event in the sphere in which this is true of our own lives.
It is placed in this sphere, opposed to us in all its singularity and
strangeness, yet also set alongside. To be sure, it is new as compared
with the accustomed realities of this sphere. It stands in marked
contrast with our own life, or what we regard as such. It radically
questions all our positions. Yet it is unmistakeably real because, for
all its difference from ours, it is the life of a man like us : the name
which is hallowed in our situation, time and history ; the kingdom
which has drawn near and impinged as it were upon us ; the will of
God which is done not merely in heaven but on earth. This happening
has as such a voice. It is a declaration. And as it comes to us, it is
an address, promise and demand, a question and answer. This is
what is meant by our presupposition and assertion that in the life of
Jesus Christ we have to do with a Word and prophecy. As the life
of God and His grace, it may be perceived and understood by us as it
has come and comes and will come to us, bearing quite unmistakeably
our human form. It shines in these specific contours. It is near us
in these contours. It cannot, then, be confused with any other life.
It encounters us, speaks with us, addresses us in terms of I and Thou,
and all in such a way that there can be no doubt concerning either
the fact that it speaks or the content of what it says, nor any suspicion
that we might be merely speaking to ourselves. For as the Bearer,
Bringer and Herald of the life of God and His grace, of eternal life,
84 69. The Glor y f ihe
there comes to us Another to speak to us spontaneously and unex-
pectedly, without any request or requirement on our part. There
comes to us this other man whose reality is removed, by the fact that
He speaks, from the sphere in which its possibility might be contested
or attempts might be made to establish and justify it ; whose reality
is truth as such. But there is more to it than this. For when this man
encounters us as the Bearer, Bringer and Herald of this life, something
happens to us. How do we stand in relation to Him ? We are
men like Him, and therefore He can encounter us in His reality as
truth, speaking with us. But we are not like Him in so far as the
life which He lives is not ours nor that of any other man. For who
of us lives an eternal life, the life of God, the life of grace ? Con-
fronted and compared with His life, the life which we live or describe
as such is only a vacuum and darkness. Is this the case ? It certainly
needs the confrontation and comparison of our life with His ; it needs
His encounter with us, to make it clear to us that our life is a vacuum
and darkness. There is no human understanding in which we are
finally capable even of the perception, and can be clear and certain,
that this is so. How can there be ? To achieve even this limiting
knowledge, we should have to know the very thing which we lack,
namely, this other eternal life, the life of God and His grace. But
how can we know this when none of us can live it of himself nor display
it to others ? How can we even ask concerning it, or miss it ? The
human situation is doubly critical in the sense that we live in a vacuum
and darkness but are not even aware that this is so. Our life is not
in fact that other life. In no single case is this true. Hence we cannot
know that other life. We cannot ask concerning it nor even miss it.
Yet this does not alter in the slightest the fact that we do actually
lack it and therefore live in a vacuum and darkness. But in this
doubly critical situation we are not abandoned. There encounters us
at this very point that Fellow, Associate and Neighbour, a man like
ourselves, whose human life as distinct from ours is eternal life, the
life of God and His grace, the hallowed name, the kingdom drawn near,
the will of God done on earth. This means that in His human person
there encounters us the fulness which invades the vacuum which we
do not yet know, the light which falls upon the darkness of which we
are not yet aware. In His person which is not ours this necessarily
means that there is revealed and made known what is not accessible
to any self-understanding as such, namely, our being in a vacuum
and walking in darkness. This is inevitable, for as the life of this
Stranger the fulness of His life is set in contrast with our emptiness,
its light with our darkness. And now we cannot fail to see, experience
and know what we lack, and who and what we are as those who do
not share in this other life which encounters us. Now we become
aware of the abyss above which we unsuspectingly moved. But at
the same time, again in the human life of this human person, we now
2. The Light of Life 85
become aware of the fact that we are prevented and delivered from
plunging into this abyss. For as the Stranger who lives this other
life He is at home among us. He is not merely set in contrast with
us, but placed alongside as One of us. He reveals the life of God
which He lives to be the life of our God, the life of grace to be that
of the grace which is directed to us and all men, the eternal life that
of the real life ordained and promised to us. As a life lived for us,
and clothing and crowning our poor life with the promise of this
very different one, it is a human life like ours, lived in the midst of
all other human Life. And it is not the fact that we lack this life,
but that it is given us in Him, which is the bearing, the true and
positive meaning, of His encounter with us, the brightness of the
light which it causes to shine upon us. We cannot forget our being in
a vacuum and in darkness, for it is radically and unforgettably brought
before us for the first time in Him. This recollection is a warning
against any attempts to confirm it of ourselves. For nothing pro-
duces nothing. Even with the greatest perspicacity, we could produce
from this vacuum and darkness nothing but further vacuum and
darkness. Even less, however, can we confirm the fact which we also
cannot forget simply because it is first and decisively set before us,
namely, that the life of Jesus Christ is the filling of our vacuum and
the light of our darkness. It is the fulness of life. As such it shines
forth. And this shining of the fulness of life of Jesus Christ is the
content of our presupposition and assertion. We can and must
venture it as those who prove themselves in this shining. And from
this standpoint, too, the authentication and obedience consist in the
fact that we resolutely think and speak as those who have the vacuum
and darkness of their own lives directly and unforgettably behind
them and the fulness and light of His life directly, dominatingly and
convincingly before them. In this transition from the direct past to
the direct future, in this Now or present, or, as we might say already,
in this presence of the Spirit, we are " of the truth " and hear the
voice of the living Jesus. In no form and on no pretext, therefore,
can we return to the question of Pilate. The good confession of the
prophecy of Jesus Christ is both legitimate and obligatory for us.
We can venture it without embarrassment, and need be afraid of no
Feuerbach. The only thing is that we must not be ashamed to be
like children. We must see to it that we think and speak in this
present and not another.
So much by way of answer to the question which has detained us.
We can now resume our path and pursue it to the end.
It might help to a better understanding of our answer if we expressly recall
that methodologically our line of argument is informed by the true spirit and
import of the " ontological proof " of Anselm of Canterbury. The point of our
whole exposition is positively : Credo ut intelligam, and polemically : " The fool
hath said in his heart, There is no God." As we have put it, the declaration of
86 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
the prophecy of the life of Jesus Christ is valid as and because it is a declaration
concerning the life of Jesus Christ. But is not this begging the question ? Are
we not arguing in a circle ? Exactly ! We have learned from the content of
our presupposition and assertion, and only from its content, that because it is
true it is legitimate and obligatory, and in what sense this is the case. Honi
soit gui mal y pense. Only fools can say in their hearts that this is a circulus
vitiosus, as though there could not also be, and in this case necessarily is, a
circulus virtuosus as well.
We have now laid down our main christological thesis that the
life of Jesus Christ is as such light and His reconciling work a prophetic
Word. We have compared this prophecy of His with that of the Old
Testament prophets and related it to the prophecy of the history of
Israel as recounted in the Old Testament. We have halted for a
moment to discover what is the necessary and only possible demon-
stration of this thesis.
We must now go on to make an emphasis which is decisive for our
understanding of the whole. In other words, we must make a con-
scious because necessary application of the definite article. Jesus
Christ is the light of life. To underline the " the " is to say that He
is the one and only light of life. Positively, this means that He is the
light of life in all its fulness, in perfect adequacy ; and negatively, it
means that there is no other light of life outside or alongside His,
outside or alongside the light which He is. Everything which we
have to say concerning the prophetic office of Jesus Christ rests on
this emphasis, being distinguished by it, and by the implied delimita-
tion, from what is also to be said of other prophets, teachers and
witnesses of the truth, or of the prophecy entrusted to the Christian
community and each individual Christian. " Jesus Christ as attested
to us in Holy Scripture is the one Word of God whom we must hear."
It is for this reason that, instead of devising a new formulation, we have
chosen as our thesis at the head of this christological section the first statement
of the Theological Declaration of the Confessional Synod of Barmen in 1934.
We have already commented on the historical purpose and context of this thesis
in C.D., II, i, pp. 175 ff., and an important exposition is also to be found in a
recent book by Ernst Wolf entitled Barmen (1958). In 1934 the time was ripe
and necessary for confession not only against a very concrete and threatening
situation, but against a long period of very dubious thought and utterance in
Protestantism as a whole. There is no need at the moment to speak of the thesis
as such. It is quoted to remind us of the relevance of the problem which now
concerns us, and particularly of the emphasis and delimitation that Jesus Christ
is the one Word of God. In the Declaration it was explained and given greater
precision by the accompanying antithesis : " We reject the false doctrine that
the Church can and must, as the source of its proclamation, recognise other
events and powers, forms and truths, as the revelation of God outside and along-
side this one Word of God."
The basis, the first and final meaning, of the statement that the
life of Jesus Christ is the one and only light may be indicated at once.
2. The Light of Life 87
It is this because His life is the one and only life. Naturally, we shall
have to return to this. Our first task must be to develop, understand
and estimate the statement as such.
We may begin by saying that, not only for those who are without
but initially and constantly for those who have already come to
faith in Jesus Christ, it is a hard and offensive saying which provokes
doubt and invites contradiction. It is like a hurdle which has to be
jumped, and jumped again and again. There are horses which con-
stantly shy at this hurdle and think they should refuse it. Why should
we follow only one Prophet ? Why should we not give at least a
little honour to our own prophecy alongside and in opposition to His ?
The basis of the saying is to be found in another " hard saying " (Jn. 6 60 )
which precedes it, namely, that " except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
drink his blood, ye have no life in you " (v. 53). This was said to the " Jews."
But even many of His disciples regarded and described it as a oKXypos Aoyoy,
a difficult and even intolerable statement. It evoked muttering and grumbling
and murmuring (yoyyua/ufc) and oKavbaXov, not only among the Jews, but also
among them : " Who can hear it ? " Hence what follows cannot fail to give
fresh offence : " The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life " (v. 63). " From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no
more with him " (v. 66). Hence, too, the question which Jesus can now put :
" Will ye also go away ? " (v. 67). And the answer of Peter, which is the Johan-
nine counterpart to the Messianic confession of Mt. i6 16 , is anything but self-
evident, bearing witness to the way in which the disciples overcame an offence
which they also had experienced : " Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the
words of eternal life " (v. 68).
The whole difficulty would be removed if we could be content with
the mere assertion that Jesus Christ is one light of life, one word of
God : the clearest perhaps ; a particularly important one, and of
great urgency for us ; but only one of the many testimonies to the
truth which have been given by others and which have also to be
studied and assessed together with His. In short, it could be accepted
that He is a great prophet. This could be easily received, and perhaps
even with great willingness and readiness. It could be warmly and
enthusiastically championed. Many cogent arguments could be found
for it. It need not be disputed by the modern Synagogue. It is
actually stated in the Koran. It can be accepted by Western
Idealism. With this message we need not expose or compromise
ourselves, or provoke suspicion or unpopularity, or give offence to any-
one, least of all to ourselves. Noble rivalry or peaceful co-existence
is possible with whose who prefer other lights of life or words of God.
And, of course, we maintain our own liberty to hear other such words
as well, and perhaps even to prefer them.
But supposing that we cannot be content with this ? Supposing
that the explicit or implicit meaning of the confession of Jesus Christ
is that Thou hast the words of eternal life, Thou alone and no other
(for there are no others to whom we may go), Thou alone not merely
88 69. The Glory of the Mediator
for me but for all others and all men, yet Thou particularly for me,
so that I have no option but to hear these words from Thee ? Suppos-
ing that the confession excludes as quite illegitimate and prohibited
the free and friendly acceptance of many lights of life and words of
God among which that spoken by Thee is only one ? Supposing that
the freedom of the confession consists in thinking and speaking in
this way ? What will happen when a Christian or the community
or theology makes use of this freedom ?
The objection to it, and therefore to the statement that Jesus
Christ is the one Word of God, is quite obvious even to those who
confess it. It has maintained a kind of eternal youth throughout the
centuries. And because it does not come upon the Christian only from
without, but first and supremely from within, the same is true of the
more or less serious attempts made even by the Church and Christianity
to suppress this statement, or at least to evade it, to let it drop. Such
attempts have always been thought to be necessary and justifiable
even within Christianity, and therefore there will always be a future
for them.
In what time or place has not the world in its confrontation by the Church
finally and basically taken offence at this statement, anxiously or scornfully or
defiantly putting to the Church the question whether the confession of Jesus is
really to be understood so narrowly or His prophecy so exclusively ? In what
time or place has not the political, social, apologetic or even evangelistic and
missionary situation openly cried out for the removal of this offence and there-
fore the concealment of this statement, or its dilution by others, or even its
abandonment ? Even in Roman Catholicism the insight has never been com-
pletely lost that this must not take place, but that a genuine attestation and
proclamation of Jesus Christ in the world stands or falls with the implicit and
sometimes explicit confession of this dangerous statement. Yet the Roman
Catholic system, as developed with remarkable consistency throughout the
centuries and still maintained against all attempts at reform, is not really based
upon this insight or this confession. On the contrary, it is a system of evasion
of confession. It is the great attempt to secure the existence of the Church in
the world by a comprehensive combination of the truth of Jesus Christ with
other comparatively independent truths, such as those concerning Mary, tradition
and the teaching office in a first class, the truths of nature and reason in a second,
and various political truths in a third and fourth, the essential statement being
put under a bushel instead of on a candlestick. At this cost it is possible for the
Church and Christians partially and temporarily at least, i.e , to the extent and
so long as the revolutionary force of the statement does not reassert itself, to
avoid the offence of their existence and thus to escape the assaults which come
upon them from without, and primarily rather than finally from within. But
this reference to the Roman Catholic system has only incidental significance.
It is no more than a single example. For at all times the Church and Christians
have been tempted, and exposed to the temptation, to pay this price. How
vulnerable they are if they do not pay it but dare to stand, or if through all their
attempts at concealment there shines through in their lives the truth that the
meaning and content of their confession of Jesus Chnst is that He is not merely a
prophet, not merely a great or the greatest, but the Prophet ! When this is what
it means, and explicitly or implicitly says, the Church speaks and acts as His
community in the world. And when this is what Christians mean and say, they
2. The Light of Life 89
prove themselves to be what their name declares, confessing the shame of Christ
and undertaking the whole burden of His and their foreignness in the world and
in their own hearts Nothing is more natural than the desire to escape this. It
is another matter that it cannot be done We do well to realise that the desire
itself is always imminent, and that it cannot easily be suppressed.
The objection to this statement can take many different forms.
Basically, it will always consist in the reproach that it involves an
unjustifiable act of caprice. What inexcusable presumption it is to
say that we can and must regard and proclaim Jesus Christ not merely
as One among many witnesses for the truth (which is quite legitimate),
nor even as One who occupies a privileged or even leading place
among these witnesses (which might be allowed), nor even as One
who is normative for us personally (which is still tolerable), but as
the one and only Witness confronting all men with an absolute claim
to allegiance ! What right have we to go before our fellows with a
claim of this nature, however tacitly or indirectly ? What authority
have we to set ourselves above all others who think they know other-
wise ? From what exalted place do we think we can violate them
with this kind of demand ? We have to realise that in making this
statement we expose ourselves to this reproach. And inevitably in
so doing we feel uncomfortable, secretly making the same reproach
against ourselves, feeling its force and effects and wishing that we
could evade the necessity of making the statement. The point of the
reproach will be only too obvious. On the intellectual and aesthetic
side it will be to the effect that it is obscurantist, that it attests and
fosters a sorry restriction of the field of vision of human knowledge,
and an impoverishment of thought in relation to the plenitude of
phenomena, forms and ideas which obviously encounter man and
forcefully speak to him, by the demand that one of them should be
declared to be divinely and humanly normative, and that this norma-
tiveness should be denied to all the rest. On the moral side it will be
to the effect that in its arrogance it makes quite impossible the dis-
cussion and interchange between those who champion it and those
who cannot or will not accept it, that it leads to the breakdown of
communication and even in the last resort of fellowship between
Christians and non-Christians, and that it implies for its champions
an unfitting bondage and constriction. In other words, it is an un-
friendly and quarrelsome and evil principle from whose representatives
we can only turn away angered and sorrowed by their hardness of
heart and deeply bewailing their self -isolation. Politically, it will be
to the effect that it is the proclamation of unconcealed intolerance and
therefore an intolerable disruption of the co-existence of men of
different outlooks and confessions in state and society, signifying either
secretly or quite blatantly a radical attack on the freedom of conscience
and therefore the potential, and basically already actual, principle of
the repression and persecution of those who think or believe differently,
go 69. The Glory of the Mediator
with all the accompanying horrors of burnings, religious wars, crusades
and similar procedures. And in the background there rolls the ominous
question whether those who champion this statement are not to be
regarded as pace-makers for totalitarianism. We need hardly say
more for the moment. But if we are prepared not to suppress or
evade but to champion this statement, we do well to reckon with the
fact that all these charges will be brought against us, and that there
will be in ourselves an inner voice speaking and arguing and remon-
strating along these lines. We do well to realise how great the tempta-
tion has been, and still is, either to suppress the statement altogether or
to render it so innocuous that it no longer says what it purports to say.
But we have no option in this matter. Christian freedom is really
the freedom of the confession of Jesus Christ as the one and only
Prophet, light of life, and Word of God. It stands or falls by whether
it is freedom for this confession. In the exercise of this freedom, in
which it has its origin, the statement can and should be explained
and established, and it cannot be suppressed or rendered innocuous.
To be sure, it does not need to be expressly reproduced and
emphasised in every Christian declaration.
In the earliest of the great symbols it is explicitly made only in the form of
the Fihus Dei umcus. In the Greek version the original els icvpios is strengthened
by the description of Jesus Christ as the vlos TOV Bcov /xwoyevifc a phrase which
was taken from Jn i 18 and which passed into the creeds of 325 and 381. It is
only implied in the other articles.
Yet it is the common denominator which is accepted in every
Christian statement, which marks every such statement as binding
and urgent, and the ignoring or obscuring of which causes all such
statements to lose their specific weight. It is certainly fashioned and
proclaimed arbitrarily, and therefore exposed to reproach, if it is
related to the position or opinion or intention of the man who re-
presents it, or to the plans and enterprises and teachings and institu-
tions of the Christian Church as a fellowship of such men, being thus
used to declare the absoluteness of this or that form of what is called
Christianity or the Church. It is almost inevitable that in the first
instance the world will always hear and understand it in this sense.
What else can it gather from it but that there are strange people who
think that their opinions, convictions and beliefs, and the acceptance
of their religious society and tradition, are the only possible and
legitimate choice ? How can it help resisting this ? It would not be
the world, but already the community, if it were in a position to
receive and interpret it differently. If we are going to represent and
champion it, we must see to it that we do so with a clear conscience,
that we do not intend or proclaim it with the intention of absolutising
our own Christian subjectivity or that of the Church and its tradition,
and that we do not therefore give good cause for the reproach which it
2. The Light of Life 91
encounters. Even more, we must see to it that we quietly understand
as such the reproach which it necessarily encounters, and are not
disconcerted by this reproach. For it rests on a supreme misunder-
standing. The statement that Jesus Christ is the one Word of God
has really nothing whatever to do with the arbitrary exaltation and
self-glorification of the Christian in relation to other men, of the
Church in relation to other institutions, or of Christianity in relation
to other conceptions.
It is a christological statement. It looks away from non-Christian
and Christian alike to the One who sovereignly confronts and precedes
both as the Prophet. As Jesus Christ is its content, the one who
confesses it in no sense marks himself off from those who do not. In
face of what it says, not concerning Christians or the Church or Christ-
ianity, but concerning Christ, he is in solidarity with them. In dis-
tinction from others, he may and must know and declare that in
the matter of Jesus Christ both he and they are confronted by the
one truth superior to both him and them. Thus the criticism expressed
in the exclusiveness of the statement affects, limits and relativises the
prophecy of Christians and the Church no less than the many other
prophecies, lights and words relativised and replaced by it. It says
first and supremely that in relationship to His own community and
all its members Jesus Christ is the One to whom it must in no cir-
cumstances oppose with any degree of sovereignty its own Christian
prophecy, teaching and testimony to the truth. What it says con-
cerning the impotence of all other prophecy which attempts to rival
its own is valid only in analogy to, and in consequence of, the fact
that first and supremely it is true of the Christian sphere. It cannot,
then, be legitimately advanced and stated except as the men who
live in this sphere submit themselves first, with all their Christian
views and concepts, dogmas and institutions, customs, traditions and
.innovations, to the relativisation and criticism which come through
Jesus Christ as the one light of life. The judgment on the world
indicated in this statement begins in " the house of God " (i Pet. 4"),
and it is from there that it spreads to embrace the world around.
But as the community itself submits to it, it cannot cease attesting
it to all. For it has not found or fashioned for itself this statement
which its witness declares. It does not exalt or glorify itself in making
it. As it bows before the One who alone has authority and alone is
the light and truth and Word of God, it declares itself. As it accepts
solidarity with all others, and thus brings them into solidarity with
it, it brings to them, too, the promise and criticism of this statement.
Arbitrary though it may sound, therefore, the statement is not really
arbitrary. The consequent opposition to it is thus irrelevant. The
only necessary concern of the community and Christians is that they
do not make it in any other way but in the submission and humility
enjoined upon them, too, by what it says. If this is the case, they
92 69. The Glory of the Mediator
should not allow anyone or anything to deflect or hinder them from
making it either directly or indirectly. It would be illegitimate and
arbitrary to suppress or deny it. The thing itself, and their own
existence in its service, demand that they should not merely recognise
but confess and declare it.
That this is demanded of Christians, or better that they have the
freedom to do it, is first learned quite simply from the biblical witness.
The statement that Jesus Christ is the one Word of God is one which
we could not venture on our own authority or responsibility without
justly exposing ourselves to the reproach of arrogant prejudice. In
such a case, it could be hazarded only with a final anxiety for which
there is good cause, and it could not be pronounced with any degree
of conviction. Much Christian anxiety in face of this reproach would
disappear of itself, however, if we remembered that as Christians we
are not summoned or committed to thinking and speaking on our
own authority and responsibility, but kept modestly yet steadfastly
to the direction of Holy Scripture. It is not a matter of appropriating
isolated biblical notions or teachings. But it is a matter of following
independently yet loyally the Old and New Testament witness in an
attempt to adopt its mode of thought as that which is normative for
the Christian community, applying ourselves to learn to think in this
mode. Now by " mode of thought " we simply mean the character and
style determined by the theme of its witness, the structures underlying
its records, speeches, prayers and other utterances. One example is
the circulus virtuosus in which it always moves in the matter of
truth. Another is the self-evident way in which both the Old and New
Testament witnesses with equal distinctness count upon and take
quite seriously the uniqueness and therefore the absolute normative-
ness of the revelation imparted to and attested by them. The prophets
and apostles do not squint away from but look steadily at the one
thing which it always repays us to consider. They do not engage in
the uneasy movements of those who try to hear one thing with one
ear and another with the other, and would try to hear a thousand
things if they had a thousand ears. They listen quietly because the
one thing which they hear is enough. And as they concentrate upon
this one thing they think and speak accordingly. This prophetic and
apostolic mode of thought is the norm in the Canon of Holy Scripture.
Applied in detail, it is the school where we are taught how the state-
ment that Jesus Christ is the one Word of God is to be properly
understood and legitimately made. As we go to this school, we learn
to think and make it humbly yet boldly before God and man. We also
learn to avoid lascivious squinting and eavesdropping in other direc-
tions, and to rid ourselves of all anxiety in thinking and making it.
The fact that around Israel there were other nations with other
histories, religions, pieties, orders and divinities was just as well
known to the prophets as is to us the fact that in the world in which
2. The Light of Life 93
we live there are other conceptions than the Christian and other
explicit or implicit confessions than that of Jesus Christ. But to
the best of my knowledge there is not a single word in any of the
prophets to indicate that this fact made any impression on them, nor
any single trace of the notion of a plurality of divine revelations among
which the action and speech of Yahweh in the history of Israel is
thought to be one of many to which validity might be ascribed.
Similarly, the Evangelists and apostles of the New Testament, as we
see from their language and terminology, were very well aware of the
multiplicity of religious, cultic and doctrinal systems characteristic of
the world to which they went with their message of Jesus of Nazareth.
But to my knowledge there is not a single indication in the New
Testament that its authors understood or respected these systems
either individually or as a whole as alternatives to the Gospel pro-
claimed by them, or that they thought of themselves, as the 2nd
century Apologists were so soon to do, as engaged in rivalry and
debate with the representatives of these systems. When they speak
and write, everything of this sort is already behind them ; it is not a
problem or task confronting them. From the point where they start
there can be no thought of wrestling with strange and in some sense
perhaps impressive and normative conceptions of God and the world.
As there can be no other sons of God, so there can be no other lords
nor witnesses to the truth apart from or side by side with Jesus Christ.
If such authorities enter their field of vision, as in the form of angelic
or demonic powers, it is always in relation to the picture of the crucified
and risen Jesus Christ, who is their Lord and Victor and to whom
they are ordered and subordinated, so that even at very best they
cannot be more than naughts which are set behind Him as the digit
" one." As the history of Israel speaks in the Old Testament, and
that of Jesus Christ in the New, the decision is made that other divine
, pronouncements, no matter where they come from or however they
might be grounded or intended, are not to be heard or taken seriously
as independent utterances, and can have no claim to our trust or
obedience. And with this decision there is also taken the decision
that the men of the New Testament must accept this, or that they
must represent and attest to the men of all nations the sole authority
of the Word of God spoken in the history of Jesus Christ and con-
ducting the history of Israel to its goal.
Quite apart from the content of their witness, the mere fact that
the biblical witnesses stand under this determination is an element
in their mode of thought. In this framework the statement is so
self-evident that only with relative infrequency does it need to be
explicitly formulated and pronounced.
By way of illustration I will first choose a passage in which this is not done,
but in which the point at issue is the more plainly visible. I refer to the famous
introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews (i 1 '*)- This passage speaks expressly
94 9 6 - The Glory f ihe Mediator
of Jesus Christ, yet in such a way that for all the differences the revelation which
has taken place in Him is seen as a unity with that which has taken place in the
history of Israel. " God (o 0c6s), who at sundry times and in divers manners
(iroXvfjupws KOI TroAur/xbrcos) spake in time past (TroAcu) unto the fathers by the
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." It is on the basis
and within the framework of our presupposition that the author of Hebrews
thinks and speaks. He does not think it necessary to emphasise that this is so.
The whole Epistle which opens with these words bears ample testimony. And
is it not actually stated in these opening words ? We obviously have a closed
circle in God's speaking, and the fathers and ourselves as those to whom He
speaks. The fact that God spoke once and then again is the one centre beside
which there can be no other. The content of the subordinate or participle clause
(XaXrfaas) is that He spake in time past. The content of the mam clause (cAoAT/crev)
is that He spoke again at the end of the " time past/' on the last of the days in
which His former speaking began. He spoke in the one whole time which is
determined and filled by His speaking and therefore absolutely unique. He
first did it on many occasions and in many ways. He now did it once and in
one way alone. The fact that He did it in this irreversible sequence means that
He did it with an unmistakeable sharpening and an emerging weight and definit-
iveness, even the manifoldness of His former speaking being determined and
revealed as a unity by the singleness and simplicity of the conclusion. He first
spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but now He spoke through the Son,
through the One promised to the former and fulfilling this promise. Again, the
circle of Old Testament expectation and New Testament recollection is for the
author of the Epistle a closed one outside of which there cannot be considered,
nor is there to be expected, any other speaking on the part of God.
At the same time, there are also passages in which this biblical
mode of thought finds expression in explicit statements concerning
the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the one Word of God announced
in the Old Testament and proclaimed in the New.
In the Old Testament we think first of the remarkable passage in Deut.
xgiB-2*. its most important saying played a very important role, although in
the form of a rather over-simplified exposition, in the scriptural proof adduced
by the older dogmatics for the prophetic office of Jesus Christ. What is at
issue, as stated by Moses, is Israel's distinction from the Canaamtc peoples
which " hearken unto observers of times, and unto diviners." Because they
do this, they will be driven out by Israel. But " thou shalt be perfect with the
Lord thy God " (v. 13). He " hath not suffered thee so to do " (v. 14). And
then : " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee (that is to say, continually)
a Prophet (that is to say, one prophet after another) from the midst of thee, of
thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye shall hearken " (v. 15). The statement
is repeated as a direct saying of Yahweh Himself in v. 18 : "I will (continually)
raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will
(continually) put my words in his mouth ; and he shall (continually) speak
unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that who-
soever will not hearken unto my words which he shall (continually) speak in
my name, I will require it of him." In rather a different sense from that of the
older exegesis, the passage is truly Messianic if we refer it to the whole series
of prophets who each in his own age and situation were authorised by Yahweh
and thus fulfilled the office of Moses, and therefore if we refer it to the continually
articulated voice of the prophetic history of Israel in its totality. These true
prophets are then (i8 aw - and cf. I3 1 '*) distinguished from false prophets like the
mantles of the Canaanites. The latter can speak in the name of Yahweh but can-
not say what He has told them to say. They can thus speak in the name of other
2. The Light of Life 95
gods and demand that they should be recognised and worshipped : " Let us
go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them " (13*).
And it may even be that then* words will be accompanied by signs and wonders
(v. i). Yet they will obviously lack any true content from the standpoint of
salvation history, and will thus reveal that they are not really the Word of God
(i8" f -)- Between the true and false prophets there is undoubtedly a yawning
gulf, with no fellowship nor even the possibility of comparison. " Thou shalt
not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams " (13*).
" He hath spoken . . . presumptuously : thou shalt not be afraid of him " (18").
And even more sharply : " And that prophet, or dreamer of dreams, shall be
put to death ; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your
God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the
house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God com-
manded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee "
(13*, cf. 18").
The command of i8 15 : " Unto him ye shall hearken," is expressly taken up
in the New Testament (Mk. g 7 and par.) in the account of the voice from the
cloud at the transfiguration. The fact that Jesus is the beloved Son and there-
fore the object of the divine cuSo/a'a, as we are told already in the story of His
baptism, is here equated with the command : OLKOVCTC avrov. The formula
reminds us of the whole seriousness and weight of the distinction made in Deut.
1 8 between true prophets and false. The same thought lies behind the " to whom
shall we go ? " of Jn. 6 M . But it is also to be found in the warning addressed
to the community in Mt. 23"- : " But be not ye called Rabbi, father, master :
for one is your Master ; one is your Father, which is in heaven ; one is your
Master, even Christ." We may also think of the prophecy in Mk. 13* and par.
that many will come in the name of Jesus Christ with the message and claim :
&ya> CI/LU. He alone according to John io sf - is the Shepherd whose voice His sheep
hear, who calls and leads them out by name, and whom they follow when they
hear His voice. " And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him :
for they know not the voice of strangers." And then again in v. 16 : " Other
sheep I have, which are not of this fold (i e., which do not belong to the Israel
to whom I speak in the first instance) : them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." The offence in
this parable (napoifua), particularly in the contrasting of the one Shepherd with
strangers who are described as " thieves and robbers " or " hirelings," is not
concealed in Jn. 10 : " They understood not what things they were which he
/ spake unto them " (v. 6). Nor is it removed but aggravated by the claim in
v. ii : "I am the good shepherd." This, and everything which underlies the
eyoi, seems to raise up a axtyia among the Jews (v. 19). Can Jesus say this ?
" He hath a devil, and is mad." Or must He say it ? " These are not the words
of him which hath a devil " The healing of the man born blind had preceded.
Has this not validated the claim of Jesus to be the Shepherd whose voice must
be heard in contrast to all others ? The drift of the story is plain. Jesus has
authority to make this claim to an exclusive hearing. In and with His existence
He rightly advances and emphatically exercises and successfully presses this
claim. Hence Ac. 4" : " For there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved." Hence, too, i Cor. 2 2 : " For I deter-
mined (cKptva) not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him
crucified."
It is thus incumbent, not that we should merely repeat these or
similar biblical texts, but that we should so enter into the biblical
mode of thought which underlies and is expressed in them that the
thesis of the uniqueness of the prophecy of Jesus Christ impresses
96 69. The Glory of the Mediator
itself upon us as no less self-evident than it is presupposed and some-
times stated to be in Holy Scripture. But if we do this, this means
that we shall be guided by the direction of Holy Scripture, that we
shall not have to champion the thesis in our own strength or on our
own responsibility, and that we may thus champion it without anxiety
because it is not really exposed to the charge of arbitrariness. There
can be no question, however, of merely learning a clever trick of
thought. The distinctive thought-form of the Bible is not sometlu'ng
which is discovered in that way ; it is demanded, enforced and indeed
created by that which is attested, namely, by the lordship of Jesus
Christ Himself. Hence we have first and foremost to allow ourselves
to be confronted by Him through the biblical witnesses in order to
learn from the latter, as from older and more experienced fellow-
students, how we shall think and speak as those who are confronted
by Him. This and this alone is the way in which we can be freed
for the fruitful venture of the statement that He is the one Word
of God.
We shall now try (i) to understand its more precise meaning by
distinguishing what it actually says from what it does not say.
We maintain that it is a christological statement, i.e., a declaration
concerning Jesus Christ. It cannot be referred to any other subject.
It says of Jesus Christ, announced in the Old Testament and pro-
claimed in the New, that He is the one Word of God. But it says
this of Him alone. There is direct witness to Jesus Christ m the
words of the prophets and apostles. In the Bible Jesus Christ declares
Himself to be the one Word of God. But the Bible as such is not
the one Word of God. Indirect witness is also borne to Jesus Christ
in the message, activity and life of the Christian Church, whose whole
raison d'etre is to make Him known as the one Word of God. Again,
however, the Church and its doctrine, instruction, worship and whole
existence is not the one Word of God. Moreover, there is a history of
the gifts and operations of Jesus Christ, and many histories of groups
and individuals determined by Him. But neither the history as a
whole, nor any one history in particular, is the one Word of God.
Jesus Christ shares the uniqueness of God as the Creator of His
creatures, the Lord of all His servants, the Doer of all His works,
the Giver of all His gifts. He does this even in the luminous sphere
in which His attestation takes place and His impulses are in some
way visible. He stands alone in face of every light which shines in
this sphere. And this is even more true, of course, in the outside
sphere where this witness does not take place and these impulses are
not seen. The positive thing to be noted is that, even though it is
perhaps incontestable that there are real lights of life and words of
God in this sphere too, He alone is the Word of God even here, and
these lights shine only because of the shining of none other light
than His.
2. The Light of Life 97
We recognise that the fact that Jesus Christ is the one Word of
God does not mean that in the Bible, the Church and the world there
are not other words which are quite notable in their way, other lights
which are quite clear and other revelations which are quite real. We
may think of the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in
the New. We may think of the genuine prophecy and apostolate
of the Church. And why should not the world have its varied prophets
and apostles in different degrees ? As the Bible attests the one Word
of God, and to the extent that the Church adopts and repeats this
testimony, important human words are spoken, bright lights are set
up in the human sphere and great and little revelations occur. Nor
does it follow from our statement that every word spoken outside
the circle of the Bible and the Church is a word of false prophecy and
therefore valueless, empty and corrupt, that all the lights which rise
and shine in this outer sphere are misleading and all the revelations
arc necessarily untrue. Our statement is simply to the effect that
Jesus Christ is the one and only Word of God, that He alone is the
light of God and the revelation of God. It is in this sense that it
delimits all other words, lights, revelations, prophecies and apostolates,
whether of the Bible, the Church or the world, by what is declared
in and with the existence of Jesus Christ. The biblical prophets and
apostles are His servants, ambassadors and witnesses, so that even in
their humanity the words spoken by them cannot fail to be words
of great seriousness, profound comfort and supreme wisdom. And if
the Church follows the biblical prophets and apostles, similar words
are surely to be expected of it Nor is it impossible that words of this
kind should be uttered outside this circle if the whole world of creation
and history is the realm of the lordship of the God at whose right
hand Jesus Christ is seated, so that He exercises authority in this
outer as well as the inner sphere and is free to attest Himself or to
cause Himself to be attested in it. That there are such words in the
inner sphere could be contested only if we were prepared to question
the presence and activity of Jesus Christ in the work of His witnesses
and that of the Church which follows them. And their existence in
the outer sphere could be disputed only if we were to challenge the
preservation and overruling of the world by the God who has given
all things into the hands of the Son. In both spheres there are human
words which are good because they are spoken with the commission
and in the service of God. In both spheres there are words which are
illuminating and helpful to the degree that God Himself gives it to
them to be illuminating and helpful as such words. We live by the
fact that we may continually hear good words of this kind in the
Bible, the Church and the world.
What we have to contest, however, is that any one of such good
words in itself and as such is the Word of God, or can be set beside the
Word spoken by God Himself, i.e., Jesus Christ, either by way of
C.D. iv.-m.-i. 4
98 69. The Glory of the Mediator
supplement or even to crowd Him out and replace Him. The Word
of God is His eternal Word which is incomparably and absolutely
good and serious and comforting and wise in the fact that it is spoken
to us directly by God Himself. As such it does not merely say some-
thing valid, but that which is absolutely valid ; it does not merely say
something which is secondarily useful, but that which is primarily
good ; it does not merely say that which is provisionally correct, but
that which is definitively true. It is not merely an offer and introduc-
tion, but creates and renews even as it is pronounced and received.
It does not merely instruct a man, or entangle him in discussion, but
transforms him. It decides concerning him. It blesses him even as
it also judges. It frees him unconditionally yet also binds uncon-
ditionally. It is the Word which we must trust and obey in life and
death. It is the light of life. Where this Word is heard and received,
but there alone, the Word of God is present. No human word, even
if it is spoken with God's commission and in God's service, can as
such speak in this way or say or accomplish these things. God's
direct presence is needed for this. God Himself must come and
speak. As He does so, and utters His own Word, this cannot be co-
ordinated or compared with any human word : not even the most
lofty or profound ; not even the most illuminating and helpful ; not
even that which is spoken with His commission and in His service.
But God does speak. What takes place in the existence of Jesus
Christ as the true Son of God who is also the true Son of Man is that
God Himself is present in person and speaks this Word which cannot
be co-ordinated or compared with any human word. It is for this
reason and in this sense that Jesus is the one and only Word of God.
He is not the only word, nor even the only good word. But He is the
only Word which, because it is spoken directly by God Himself, is
good as God is, has the authority and power of God and is to be heard
as God Himself. He is the only Word which all human words, even the
best, can only directly or indirectly attest but not repeat or replace
or rival, so that their own goodness and authority are to be measured
by whether or not, and with what fidelity, they are witnesses of this
one Word.
If we regard and address Jesus as a StSaowaAos dya06s, then according to
Mk. io 17f - and par. we must ask ourselves if we really know what we are doing :
" Why callest thou me good ? there is none good but one, that is, God." In
other words, in Him we must let ourselves be confronted by the majesty and
the total claim of the one God and His command. Was the man who addressed
Him in this way prepared and equipped for the fact that in Him he had to do with
the one " good Master " ? The passage tells us that he was not. Jesus " loved "
this man (v. 21). But " he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved :
for he had great possessions." In face of what it entailed, he could not and would
not love Jesus as God, and therefore as his one and only and eternal good.
Similarly, the scribes (Mk. 2 Bf * and par.) who regarded as blasphemy the remission
pronounced to the lame man at Capernaum were materially quite right : " Who
2. The Light of Life 99
can forgive sins but God only ? " If it were not blasphemy, what Jesus said
to the lame man could really be said only by the one God. The one Jesus thus
says what only the one God can say. That He, the Son of Man, has the authority
and power to say this is demonstrated and confirmed, however, by the fact
that in an addition to the saying He commands the man to arise, take up his
bed and walk. Similarly, in i Cor. 8 6f - Paul brings together the " one God, the
Father, of whom are all things, and we in him," and the " one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and we by him." And, seeing Them together in this
way, he advances against the incontestable existence of so-called gods and lords
in heaven and earth the statement which is quite decisive for the question of
idol-meats, namely, that there is no true ei8o>Aov in the world, and that ovScts
Ocos ei HT) efc. The same conjunction is found in i Tim. 2 6 , where we read
that " there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus." This time it is set in a positive context. Because this is the case,
God " will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the
truth " (v. 4). This is the basis of the witness in the service of which Paul knows
that he is ordained " a teacher of the Gentiles " and therefore a herald and
apostle to the heathen. Again, in Rom. 3 29f - the statement els 6 Bcos is intro-
duced to prove the assertion that God is the God of the Gentiles as well
as the Jews, and the context makes it plain that here, too, the theological
els has its root and presupposition as well as its upshot and fulfilment in the
chnstological.
In sum, our statement distinguishes the Word spoken in the
existence of Jesus Christ from all others as the Word of God. When
we think of these others, we do well to include even the human words
spoken in the existence and witness of the men of the Bible and the
Church. In distinction from all these, Jesus Christ is the one Word
of God. There are other words which are good in their own way and
measure. There are other prophets in this sense. We shall return to
this point. But there is only one Prophet who speaks the Word
of God as He is Himself this Word, and this One is called and is
Jesus. This is the substance of our statement, no more but also no
less.
We shall now try (2) to fix its more precise meaning by describing
what it actually says. That Jesus is the one Word of God means
first that He is the total and complete declaration of God concerning
Himself and the men whom He addresses in His Word. God does
satisfaction both to Himself and us in what He says in and with the
existence of Jesus Christ. What He is for us and wills of us, but also
what we are for Him and are ordained to be and will and do in this
relationship, is exhaustively, unreservedly and totally revealed to us
in Jesus Christ as the one Word of God. As this one Word He does
not need to be completed by others. If we are to speak of completion,
we must say that r as and because He is the living Lord Jesus Christ,
He is engaged as the one Word of God in a continual completion of
Himself, not in the sense that the Word spoken by Him is incomplete
or inadequate, but in the sense that our hearing of it is profoundly
incomplete. For He Himself is in Himself rich and strong enough to
display and offer Himself to our poverty with perennial fulness. It
ioo 69. The Glory of the Mediator
is not His fault if we see and know so little of God and ourselves.
There is thus no need to try to catch other words of God. Indeed, we
must not do so, for any such word can only be the word of another
god which is per se false in relation to the one God, and therefore it
can only lead us astray from the truth of the one God and the con-
sequent truth of man as His elect and beloved creature. Who and
what the true God is, and through Him true man ; what the freedom of
God is, and the freedom given by Him to man, is said to us in and
with the existence of Jesus Christ as true Son of God and Son of Man
in such a way that any addition can only mean a diminution and
perversion of our knowledge of the truth.
That He is the one Word of God means further that He is not
exposed on any third side to any serious competition, any challenge
to His truth, any threat to His authority. Such a third side could
only be a word of God different from that spoken in Him and superior
or at least equivalent in value and force ; the word, perhaps, of a
Deus absconditus not identical with the Deus revelatus, or identical
only in irreconcilable contradiction. Now we have no cause to reckon
with such an alien word, such a self-contradiction, on the part of God.
But we have every cause to keep to the fact that He is faithful, and
that in Jesus Christ we have His total and unique and therefore
authentic revelation, the Word in which He does full justice both to
Himself and us. To be sure, this Word meets opposition in the world,
and also and supremely, as we must not forget, in the Church. To
be sure, its light is resisted by darkness in the many forms of many
sinister powers, all of which are connected with the sin of man, all
empowered and unleashed by his falsehood, all to be taken seriously
as opponents of the one Word of God. Jesus Christ can certainly be
unrecognised, despised and rejected in the world and among His own
people. He can be partially or even totally unheard as the one Word
of God. That did happen, and happens still. But since God does not
contradict but is always faithful to Himself, there is one thing that
can never take place, namely, that such a sinister power and its
lying words, revelations and prophecies should seriously threaten the
validity and force of the one Word of God, invading and even destroy-
ing it. The living Lord Jesus Christ, risen again from the dead, has
no serious rival as the one Prophet of God who does not merely attest
but is the Word of God. There is none whose inferiority and final
displacement is not already decided by His existence, presence and
action. Who or what can rise up against God, or against Him as the
one Word of God ? This means in practice that no risk is involved
if among the bids made by many supposed and pretended lords and
prophets we trust and obey Him as the Lord and Prophet. He and He
alone is worthy of complete trust and total obedience. None will
ever repent of responding to His self-giving, and to the Word spoken
in it, with a corresponding self-giving which is resolute and exclusive.
2. The Light of Life 101
" Whosoever belie veth on him shall not be ashamed " (Rom. lo 11 ).
For, although He has enemies, He has none who can put Him to
shame, or who will not be put to shame by Him.
That He is the one Word of God means further that His truth and
prophecy cannot be combined with any other, nor can He be enclosed
with other words in a system superior to both Him and them. As
the one Word of God, He can bring Himself into the closest conjunc-
tion with such words. He can make use of certain men, making them
His witnesses and confessing their witness in such a way that to hear
them is to hear Him (Lk. io 16 ). He has actually entered into a union
of this kind with the biblical prophets and apostles, and it is the
prayer and promise in and by which His community exists that He
will not refuse but be willing to enter into a similar union with it.
Nor can any prevent Him entering into such a union with men outside
the sphere of the Bible and the Church, and with the words of these
men. Whether in the Church or the world, however, this type of
union can be legitimate and fruitful only through His act, as His
work, as a form of His free revelation of grace. Conversely, all syn-
theses which Christians or non-Christians may arbitrarily devise and
create between Jesus Christ as the one Word of God and any other
words, however illuminating, necessary or successful they may be ;
all well-meant but capricious conjunction of Jesus Christ with some-
thing else, whether it be Mary, the Church, the fate worked out in
general and individual history, a presupposed human self-under-
standing, etc., all these imply a control over Him to which none of
us has any right, which can be only the work of religious arrogance,
in which we try to invest Him with His dignity as the Lord and
Prophet, in the exercise of which He ceases to be who He is, not
objectively, but for those who are guilty of this rash assault, and in
and with which faith in Him, love for Him and hope in Him are
abandoned, however loudly or with whatever degree of subjective
sincerity they may be professed. There is no legitimate place for
projects in the planning and devising of which Jesus Christ can be
given a particular niche in co-ordination with those of other events,
powers, forms and truths. Such projects are irrelevant and unfruitful
enterprises because as the one Word of God He wholly escapes every
conceivable synthesis envisaged in them. They are irrelevant and
unfruitful because the men who attempt them will always be content
with the revelations of the other elements.
We have here the irresistible and relentless outworking of the " Thou shalt
have none other gods but me " of Ex. 2o 8 . The sin of Israel against the God of
the covenant made and continually renewed with the patriarchs did not consist
so much in direct apostasy from Yahweh as in the combination and admixture
of His service, invocation and acknowledgment in practical obedience, with the
adoration of the numina of Canaan and other surrounding peoples It consisted
in the fact that Israel made constant experiments to do the one and not leave
102 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the other undone, not losing Yahweh yet not missing the Baalim, and therefore
halting between two opinions (i K. 18"). It consisted in the fact that in its
refusal to elect in accordance with its own election, it already elected, not electing
Yahweh but deciding against Him and for the Baalim, and thus becoming a
people alien like all others to the command of God. The remarkable but very
relevant and accurate reference to the " jealousy " of Yahweh, which according
to Ex. 20 K is directed against the attempt to worship Him in fashioned images
as well as in His invisible majesty, shows us clearly that He radically and auto-
matically refuses to allow His Godhead to be equated with other divinities, or
His Word to be heard with other words. Israel can look to Him alone, or not
at all. It can hear Him alone, or not at all. The whole prophecy of the history
of Israel as attested by the Old Testament, and therefore explicitly and implicitly
all its prophets, speak along these lines.
This combining of the Word of Jesus Christ with the authority and contents
of other supposed revelations and truths of God has been and is the weak point,
revealed already in the gnosis attacked in the New Testament, at almost every
stage in the history of the Christian Church. The prophecy of Jesus Christ has
never been flatly denied, but fresh attempts have continually been made to list
it with other principles, ideas and forces (and their prophecy) which are also
regarded and lauded as divine, restricting its authority to what it can signify
in co-ordination with them, and therefore to what remains when their authority
is also granted. Nor is this trend characteristic only of early and mediaeval
Catholicism. It is seen in Protestantism too, from the very outset in certain
circles, even in the Reformers themselves, and then with increasing vigour and
weight, until the fatal little word " and " threatened to become the predominant
word of theology even in this sphere where we might have hoped for better things
in view of what seemed to be the strong enough doctrine of justification. It
needed the rise of the strange but temporarily powerful sect of the German
Christians of 1933 to call us back to reflection, and at least the beginning of a
return, when the more zealous among them, in addition to their other abomina-
tions, awarded cultic honour to the portrait of the Fuhrer. The overthrow of
this whole attitude, and its provisional reversal, was accomplished in the first
thesis of Barmen which is the theme of the present exposition. But there are
other Christian nations in which it is customary to find a prominent place in the
church for national flags as well as the pulpit and the Lord's table, just as there
are evangelical churches which substitute for the Lord's table a meaningfully
furnished apparatus for the accomplishment of baptism by immersion. These
externals, of course, are trivial in themselves. But as such they may well be
symptoms of the attempt which is possible in so many forms to incorporate
that which is alien in other prophecies into what is proper to that of Jesus Christ.
If these prophecies are prepared for this and sooner or later they will make an
open bid for sole dominion the prophecy of Jesus Christ asks to be excused
and avoids any such incorporation. If it is subjected to such combinations, the
living Lord Jesus and His Word depart, and all that usually remains is the
suspiciously loud but empty utterance of the familiar name of this Prophet.
" No man can serve two masters " (Mt. 6 24 ). No man can serve both the one
Word of God called Jesus Christ and other divine words.
That He is the one Word of God means finally that His prophecy
cannot be transcended by any other. It cannot be transcended in the
content of its declarations, for it tells us all that it is necessary and
good for us to know concerning God, man and the world, embracing,
establishing and crowning all that is really worth knowing. It cannot
be transcended in the depth with which it speaks the truth, for it is
itself the source and norm of all truth. It cannot be transcended in
2. The Light of Life 103
the urgency with which it presents itself to man and demands to be
acknowledged, recognised and confessed by him, for everyone who
gives it a hearing sees that this is the one thing necessary compared
with which all other hearing, however important, must be given a
secondary and subordinate place. Above all, it cannot be transcended
in the goodness, seriousness, comfort and wisdom of what it imparts,
for all other things imparted to us, though these qualities may be
ascribed to them, are inferior to it, and in respect of goodness can
only be abased and exalted, disqualified and qualified, by it. In one
respect alone can there be transcendence. This is not in relation to
the content, depth, urgency or goodness of the one Word of God
spoken in Jesus Christ. It is not its transcendence by any other
word. It is the self-transcendence of Jesus Christ as the one Word of
God in respect of the universality and direct and definitive clarity
of the knowledge which Christianity and the world do not yet have in
the time between His resurrection and ascension, but to which they
look and move at His return, i.e., His total presence, action and
revelation which will conclude and fulfil time and history, all times
and all histories. In this eschaton of creation and reconciliation there
will not be another Word of God. Jesus Christ will be the one Word
and we shall then see the final and unequivocal form of His own glory
which even now shines forth from His resurrection into time and
history, all times and all histories. The theme of Christian hope, to
the extent that it is not yet fulfilled nor cannot be so long as time
endures, is the revelation of the fact that neither formally nor materi-
ally, theoretically nor practically, can the one Word of God be tran-
scended, as this is now confirmed in and through His self-transcendence,
in virtue of which all ears hear and all eyes see all the things which
already it is actually given to us to see and hear in Him. The inclusion
of the eschatological element, then, does not imply any restriction,
but the final expansion and deepening, of our statement that Jesus
Christ is the one Word of God.
We now resume (3) our discussion of the question of the basis
of this statement. What is it which compels or frees us to make
it ? In an earlier connexion we raised the same question rather
more generally. We were then asking to what extent the life of Jesus
Christ is light, revelation, Word and prophecy. We now put the
more specific question to what extent He is the one light, the one
Word of God. The more general answer is still true and compre-
hensive that He is this to the extent that, as God is one, He actually
is the one Word of the one God, and shows Himself to be this. This
answer means that Jesus Christ Himself guarantees that He is the
one Word of God by the fact that He is the only One whom we must
trust and obey in life and death, and that He shows Himself to be
this by acting towards us as such. Hence, if anyone asks concerning
the basis of our statement, we must put the counter-question whether
IO4 69. The Glory of the Mediator
he sees and realises that Jesus Christ actually shows Himself to be
the one Prophet of God. This is the question to which we must make
answer to ourselves and others. The revelation of God vouches for
its uniqueness as it does for itself as such. If Jesus Christ is the one
Word of God, He alone, standing out from the ranks of all other
supposed and pretended divine words, can make Himself known as
this one Word.
" To whom then will ye liken God ? or what likeness will ye compare unto
him ? " is the question asked in Is. 40", and then again in v. 25 : "To whom
then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One." The question
is as such an answer, i.e., to the complaint and accusation of Israel apparently
abandoned and lost in the storms of world history : " My way is hid from the
Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God " (v. 27). In the context
the drift of the complaint seems to be that Yahweh is only one of many gods,
and a small one among many greater, so that it is not surprising that His people
is in this sorry predicament among the great nations. What is the reply of the
prophet of the Exile ? Simply to put to those who sigh in this way the counter-
question whether, in the face of who and what Yahweh is and has done and
still does, in face of His self-evident majesty which reduces to the dust all the
majesties of the world in their apparent triumph, there can be even the remotest
possibility of the comparison of Yahweh with the gods of the nations a com-
parison fatal for Israel and therefore for Himself. " Have ye not known ? have
ye not heard ? " (v. 21), and then again : " Hast thou not known ? hast thou
not heard ? " (v. 28). What is it that they should have known because it speaks
so eloquently for itself ? Again, the answer is first given in the form of further
questions : " Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and
meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a
measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ? Who
hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him ?
With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the
path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of
understanding ? " (vv. 12-14). " Hath it not been told you from the beginning ?
have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth ? " (v 21). And again
" Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that
bringeth out their host by number : he calleth them all by names by the great-
ness of his might, for that he is strong in power ; not one faileth " (v. 26) Yes,
Yahweh is the Creator of all things. And with Him there are contrasted (vv
19-20) the gods of the nations as these are commissioned and executed by men,
being moulded and gilded or carved according to their means. This leads us to
the positive conclusion that Yahweh is "he that sitteth upon the circle of the
earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth out the
heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in . that bringeth
the princes to nothing ; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity Yea, they
shall not be planted : yea, they shall not be sown : yea, their stock shall not take
root in the earth : and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither,
and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble" (vv. 24-26). " Behold,
the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the
balance : behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon
is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering
All nations before him are as nothing ; and they are counted to him less than
nothing, and vanity " (w. 15-17). What does this mean for poor little Israel,
80 impotent by human reckoning ? It means that its complaint and accusation
are quite pointless. " The Lord who hath created the ends of the earth is an
2. The Light of Life 105
everlasting God. He fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his
understanding. He giveth power to the faint ; and to them that have no might
he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the
young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not
be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint " (vv. 28-31) The tram of thought
is remarkable. What is at issue the incomparable uniqueness and therefore
the absolute sovereignty of Yahweh, and with this the absolute security of
Israel is not just quietly but with supreme and joyous assurance represented as
something which is quite self-evident and speaks for itself. This is how the
biblical mode of thought puts the matter. And it is obvious that the compre-
hensive answer to the question of the uniqueness of the revelation of God in
Jesus Christ can basically be no more than that which is so forcefully anticipated
in Is. 40.
This does not mean, however, that we cannot and should not fill
out this general form of the answer which has to be given ; that we
cannot and should not consider and state what is the specific force
or point of the one decisive basis of the fact that Jesus Christ is actually
the one Prophet, the one Word of God.
We note that even in Is 40 the uniqueness of Yahweh as the absolute Sovereign
over the nations and their gods is not merely laid down but argumentatively
expounded. His sovereignty and here we have one of the most important
if not the first forms of an insight rather curiously achieved during the Exile
is that of the Creator of heaven and earth It is as such that He stands out so
unmistakeably above all His rivals and shows Himself to be the one incomparable
God. It is as such that He causes eagles' wings to grow for those who wait on
Him, for His small and defeated people in an alien land, giving them strength
for a journey on which they will never grow weary This is obviously argumenta-
tion. But equally obviously it is argumentation which does not alter the fact
that what is proclaimed by God can be proved only by reference to God Himself.
Yet the point remains that beyond the mere statement we do also have demon-
stration, i e , explanation, elucidation, illustration and comprehension in the
form of this reference to God the Creator We too, then, cannot evade the task
of showing why and to what extent Jesus Christ is the one Word of God.
To do this, we simply recall the concrete content of this Word.
The light of Jesus Christ is the light of His life. This was our first
statement. But His life is His existence as the true Son of God who
as such is also the true Son of Man. This means, however, that, as a
life lived as a particular existence and occurrence within human
history and among the many histories of all other men, it is a life in the
covenant which God has not only made but in His omnipotent grace
Himself fulfilled and completed with man. It is the life in which God
is not only enthroned above man in distant majesty in and above the
heavens, in which He is not merely the inconceivable source from
which man comes and the inconceivable goal to which he is directed,
in which He is not merely the Lawgiver by whose commands his
actions and omissions are measured, the eternal good which con-
sciously or unconsciously he misses but to which he consciously or
io6 96. The Glory of the Mediator
unconsciously aspires, the mystery by which he is encircled on every
side. No, it is the life which even in His Godhead, and without its
slightest diminution, God lives in terms of our common humanity.
Conversely, it is the life in which man, from the very depths of his
creatureliness as the grain of dust or drop of water which he is before
Him, and from the abyss of his sin and guilt and perdition in the
longing of shame and remorse of the one who knows that he is not
worthy of such longing, looks up to his Creator as his holy and righteous
Lord, consciously or unconsciously seeking to cling and hold fast to
Him, not to surrender fellowship with Him, to find and restore the
fellowship with Him which has been lost. It is also the life which in
this lowest depth, in this abyss, in this longing cry of man for the
God before whom he must regard himself as rejected and forsaken,
is yet lived in perfect peace with Him, namely, in total harmony with
His will, in unqualified surrender to His command, and therefore, as
a life which is truly lost, in the most genuine concealment with God,
indeed, as a life which is itself divine, as the divine life, as the life of
the Son beloved of the Father. This is the life of Jesus Christ. It
is the life of the God who wholly humbles Himself, and of the man who
is wholly exalted to God by this humbling. It is the life in which
God justifies man before Him and man is thus sanctified for God. It
is the life in which God, for the sake of the justification of man to be
accomplished by Himself alone, takes to Himself and thus removes
the transgression of man and his ensuing punishment and need. And
it is the life in which man, that he may become and be a saint of
God, is called and elevated to the side of God, and given his rights
there, to reign with Him over all things. It is the life in which God
gives Himself up to death and man is made the conqueror of death.
It is the life of the Lord who becomes and is a Servant, and the Servant
who becomes and is Himself the Lord. It is the life of reconciliation.
It is the life of Jesus Christ.
Now Jesus Christ Himself is also the light of this life. In itself
and as such this life is Word, revelation, kerygma. The life of this
High-priest and King is as such also His life as Prophet. This life,
and in the form of this life God Himself, speaks with the world recon-
ciled in it. It speaks within human history and all the divers histories
of individuals. It speaks with all those who like this One stand
under God and before Him, and for and with whom He has acted in
this life of His. It speaks with all men. It speaks with us too. It
was and is lived for us (pro nobis), for thee and me (pro te et me). In
this life God with us (Emmanuel, Dominus nobiscum) is with each of
us. What this Word tells us is that we are those who are justified and
sanctified in this life, that it was our place which was taken by God,
that we are set in His place, that in this life the kingdom of God has
come to us, that our old life is displaced, removed, destroyed and
radically transformed in it, that our new and eternal life has begun,
2. The Light of Life 107
that our deliverance, conversion and even glorification are accom-
plished, that we are already dead and risen again, that we are already
citizens of the future world, i.e., of the new and true world to be
revealed as the dominion of God and His Christ. We are those who
are eternally loved and elected by God in Jesus Christ, and called
tp the grateful realisation of their election in time, each in his own
time. This is what is said by the reconciliation accomplished in
Jesus Christ. This is the light of His life. It is the light of His life.
He Himself as this light and Word is thus the " everlasting gospel "
which " the angel flying in the midst of heaven " had to proclaim
" unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people " (Rev. I4 6 ). He Himself declares who and
what He is, namely, who and what He is for us, for all men, for the
world. As He declares His life, Himself, for the world, He is the
Prophet Jesus Christ.
We now presuppose that this declaration takes place, that as High-
priest and King He is also Prophet, that His life as such is light,
revelation, speech. Our present concern is with the fact that He is
the one light, the one Word of God. This is demonstrated by the
fact that He is this Word, the Word with this content. For can we
think of any word actually spoken, or any conceivable word which
might be spoken, that says what the life of Jesus Christ says ? In
religious or secular language many words might speak of the majesty,
goodness, severity and mystery of God, or the misery and greatness
of man, or his destiny and his contradiction of it, yet also of its realisa-
tion, or of the glory and terror of the universe. They might point to
all kinds of relationships between what is below and what is above,
between the things of this world and those of the world to come,
usually in the form of the schematic antithesis between reason and
nature, soul and body or spirit and matter. They might make various
individual or collective efforts to bridge the gap, whether in terms of
aesthetic illuminations, intellectual explorations, moral rearmaments
or politico-economic ameliorations or renewals. They might say
things which in their way are good and which many find illuminating
and helpful. But none of them says what the life of Jesus Christ
says. They may say certain things which remind us of what this
says. But even in so doing they say something different. And since
they say these things rigidly and abstractly, this something different
is inevitably a corruption. They may wittingly or unwittingly say
things which are borrowed from the Word spoken in Jesus Christ,
but these lose the meaning which they have in their proper context.
Being set in a different context, they cannot fail to be somewhat
distorted, or at least different from what is said to us in Jesus Christ.
What other word speaks of the covenant between God and man ?
What other of its character as the work of God, and indeed of the
effective and omnipotent grace of God on the basis of eternal love
io8 69. The Glory of the Mediator
and election ? What other of the fulfilment of this covenant in the
humiliation of God for the exaltation of man ? What other of a
comprehensive justification of man by God and sanctification for
Him ? What other of the fact that this reconciliation of God with
man and man with God is no mere idea but a once-for-all event ?
What other pronounces that unconditional Dominus pro et cum nobip,
thus indicating that a new situation has already been created for all
humanity, setting each man at this new beginning, and pushing him
on from this point ? What other knows neither optimism, pessimism
nor fatalism ? What other does not have to rest on that sorry anti-
thesis of soul and body, spirit and matter, etc., or on that of the
individual and society, or man and his fellows, or this world and the
world to come, because it embraces and refers to the whole man, and
to his whole way from the past through the present into the future
as he treads this both inwardly and outwardly, both for himself and in
company with others ? What other is so penetrating in its simplicity
yet also its universality ? What other is directed so concretely to
each and all men ? We may quietly listen to others. We may hear
what is said by the whole history of religion, poetry, mythology and
philosophy. We shall certainly meet there with many things which
might be claimed as elements of the Word spoken by Jesus Christ.
But what a mass of rudiments and fragments which in their isolation
and absoluteness say something very different from this Word !
What strife and contradiction between all these results of one-sided
analyses and over-hasty syntheses ! It is only on a very facile and
superficial view that we think we can range the Word of Jesus Christ
and its claim to validity with all other words and their claims, thus
believing that any one of them may be normative in view of their
multiplicity, or perhaps sorrowfully or cheerfully maintaining that
none is normative, but the " true ring " 1 has perhaps been lost. If it
were a matter of the word of Christianity among the world religions,
or the word of the Christian Church in one or other form, or the words
of the Bible in themselves and as such, a view of this kind might be
possible. As such, all these may be ranged with many other words.
But we are speaking of the light or Word of the life of Jesus Christ.
Is it not the case that in the light of its particular content this is
quite distinctive in relation to all other words ? Does it not say
something which we cannot catch in others however attentively we
listen ? And is this special feature only one particle among a thousand
others ? Is it not the one thing that raises the question and gives
the answer which both begin where the speakers of all other words
have not yet begun to ask and answer, and which continue and reach
their goal where other questions and answers all usually break off ?
Does it not have a particular force or point which all others obviously
1 The ring of Lessing's parable in Nathan der Weise. Trans.
2. The Light of Life 109
lack ? Is it not the case that the Word of the life of Jesus Christ is
clearly shown to be the Word of God, His one and only Word, even
by what it says ? Does not this alone authorise, empower and com-
mand us to understand and describe it as the Word which needs no
completion, which is exposed to no competition, and which cannot
be combined with or transcended by others ? To refer again to
Isaiah 40 21 : " Have ye not known ? have ye not heard ? "
This does not mean that we are engaging in apologetics. Or if so,
it is only the apologetics which is a necessary function of dogmatics
to the extent that this must prepare an exact account of the pre-
supposition, limits, meaning and basis of the statements of the
Christian confession, and thus be able to give this account to any
who may demand it. We have maintained, and do not cease to
maintain, the presupposition of the statement that Jesus Christ is the
one Prophet of God. This presupposition is that He actually is this
One and shows Himself to be such. Within the framework of this
presupposition we have (i) established what the statement says and
does not say, and (2) brought out something of its positive significance.
And within the framework of the same presupposition that He is the
one Word of God and shows Himself to be such, we have now (3) tried
to make clear what is the basis of this declaration. We have not
added another basis to that which it has (along with its limits and
meaning) in the presupposition. The only thing is that we have not
been and could not be content merely to denote it again, or to refer
again to the fact that it is its own basis. In accordance with the
necessary strictness of dogmatic enquiry, we could not stop at mere
assertion. In relation to the content of the Word spoken in Jesus
Christ, we have tried to describe and explain this basis. The fact
remains, however, that it can only speak for itself and show itself to
be the basis of our statement. Without counting on the Holy Spirit
as the only conclusive argument, even the prophet of the Exile who
advanced those arguments and proofs could not have undertaken to
proclaim the uniqueness of Yahweh among the gods of the nations.
We have already adduced under (i) some of the passages in which the authors
of the New Testament establish the uniqueness of Jesus Christ by simply bringing
together and equating the cfe 6e6s and the cfe Kvpios (the one els explaining
the other) In so doing, they maintain that the uniqueness of the Prophet Jesus
Christ has its basis in that of God, and therefore in itself.
We now recall other passages in which they declare the nature and essence
of this basis within the framework of the accepted presupposition The most
important statements which call for consideration in this connexion are from
Rom 5 12f , in which the significant word efc plays so outstanding a role. Accord-
ing to v. 15, it is the grace and the free gift (Scopea) of God which in the one man
Jesus Christ has " abounded unto many " In v. 17 those who receive abundance
of grace and righteousness in virtue of the life of Jesus Christ created in them,
shall reign through the one Jesus Christ In v. 18 again it is by the righteous
act (Suou'cupa) of this One that there is this justification for all. Similarly, the
Epistle to the Hebrews (io ls 14 ) speaks of the one exclusive Ovata or
no 69. The Glory of the Mediator
which Christ has made for sins, which is followed by His session at the right hand
of God, but by which He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified through
Him. " One died for all " is the sum of what is stated in 2 Cor. 5 14 , and it leads
to the conclusion that " they which live (through his death) should not hence-
forth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."
According to 2 Cor. n a they are engaged to this one man and are to be presented
to Him as a " chaste virgin." This corresponds to the fact that in Gal. 3" He is
the one seed of Abraham. Hence the sayings about the one Spirit in i Cor.
I2 9, 11, is and phii. !i7 f an( i a bout the community as the one body in i Cor.
I2 i, o and Col. 3", and the whole series of unities in Eph. 4*'-, acquire their
true meaning and significance. It is in the uniqueness of His works and gifts,
of His being for us and to us, that the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord, and
therefore the uniqueness of His authority and Word, is manifested. And all
this rests upon, and is guaranteed by, the fact that He is the one Lord, with
unique and exclusive authority, and that He reveals Himself as such. He alone
who is and has life, and can and does forgive, has also the " words of eternal
life" (Jn. 6 M ).
Before we conclude, we must be clear (4) what is the relationship
between the one Word of God called Jesus and all the other words which
according to our discussion under (i), while they are not identical
with it, yet even in their whole creatureliness and human frailty
either are or may be true words, and are not therefore to be over-
looked, let alone rejected. In this respect we think especially of the
words of the Bible, i.e., of the Old and New Testament witnesses to
Jesus Christ. But we have also to remember the words of the com-
munity and Christendom proclaiming Jesus Christ in the world. We
have also claimed that there are no good grounds not to accept the
fact that such good words may also be spoken extra muros ecclesiae
either through those who have not yet received any effective witness
to Jesus Christ, and cannot therefore be reckoned with the believers
who for their part attest Him, or through more or less admitted
Christians who are not, however, engaged in direct confession, or
direct activity as members of the Christian community, but in the
discharge of a function in world society and its orders and tasks. It
is obvious that a challenging problem is set, particularly by the third
and final form of these words. But before we tackle it, we do well to
raise and answer certain general questions which are relevant to all
three forms.
(a) What is meant when we say that these words distinct from that
of Jesus Christ Himself are " true " ? In other words, how is their
truth related to that of the Word of Jesus Christ as the one Word of
God ? Does it, or does it not, share the truth of this one Word, and
if so to what extent ? In what order are these words to be heard
together with the one Word of God ? And therefore, conversely, in
what order is the one Word of God to be heard together with them ?
Assuming that there are such words, in what does their general
truth consist according to our definition of truth as the faithfulness,
genuineness and reliability of what they impart ?
2. The Light of Life in
To this question our first and general answer must be that in order
to be true, and therefore to be words of genuine prophecy, such words
must be in the closest material and substantial conformity and agree-
ment with the one Word of God Himself and therefore with that of
His one Prophet Jesus Christ. The truth proper to the one Word of
God must dwell within them. Applied to such words, " true " must
imply that they say the same thing as the one Word of God, and are
true for this reason.
(b) What will be the formal character of these words, again in
relation to the one Word of God ? As human and creaturely words,
they can have the same content, but this does not necessarily concur
or agree wholly and utterly with that of the Word of God. They can
have the truth of this one Word indwelling them, but as the distinct
words of other prophets they can hardly have, or arrogantly claim,
equal truth for themselves. Even as true words of God, they must
still distinguish themselves from this one Word, keeping their distance
and conceding and accepting the fact that it alone is truth. They
can declare its content and truth, and thus share its content and
truth, only to the extent that they declare nothing of their own,
but in their utterance and emphasis are prepared to attest this one
Word exactly as it is, without subtraction, addition or alteration. It
is in this character that they may stand alongside it. Neither
objectively nor subjectively may they have any other intention than
to correspond to it and thus to confirm it. Only in this relationship
to it can they be called true words.
(c) Yet how can such words ever succeed in attesting and corres-
ponding to the one Word of God, or even try to do so ? Obviously, this
is something to which they can only attain. Those who speak them
must in some way be commissioned, moved and empowered to attest
it. And what can do this but the one Word of God, Jesus Christ
Himself ? He must have encountered in some way those who speak
these words, giving Himself to be seen and heard and perceived and
known by them. For how else could they attain to this knowledge ?
He must have ordained, awakened and called them to take His Word
on their lips in the form of witness to Him. And again, if their witness
is to be genuine, authentic, and therefore credible and serviceable, He
must have acknowledged their word. In other words, it must have
pleased the Word of God to allow itself to be in some sense reflected
and reproduced in the words of these men. This Word must have
demonstrated to these men and their words the grace of its real
presence, in the power of which they as men are empowered and
authorised, quite beyond any capacity of their own, to declare it
with their human words, and thus to show themselves to be speakers
of true words.
This is our general answer to the question of the character always
essential to such words. If our deliberations are right, we now realise
U2 69. The Glory of the Mediator
that as these different human words they cannot and will not and
must not say anything on their part but the one Word of God, and
that it must be by this one Word of God that they are impelled,
ordained and fashioned for this function of bearing testimony to it.
It will help to an appreciation of the various elements in this general answer
if we pause for a moment to discuss the problem of the parables of Jesus as
handed down in the Gospels TrapajSoAai are little stories which it seems anyone
might tell of ordinary human happenings. But they are called TrapajSoAai' of the
/faaiAeta, and it is often said expressly that the /JaaiAe/a is " likened unto "
(o/MoiaJflij) these events, or, with an obvious view to this equation, that the events
themselves, or the leading characters in them, are " like " the j3a<nA'a. It is
also said that the kingdom in its likeness to these events, or these events in their
likeness to the kingdom, can and will be heard by those who have ears to hear,
i.e., by those to whom it is given to hear (Mk 4** ) That is to say, they will
hear and receive the equations or likenesses as such, whereas those who are
" without " will not perceive and understand what is at issue, namely, the
" mystery " of the kingdom Even in these secondary forms of parables, and
in them specifically, the Word of Jesus Christ as the light of life, the revelation
of the kingdom, the Word of God establishing His lordship in the world, is to
exercise its gracious yet judicial power, deciding concerning men and between
them Our present concern, however, is with these secondary forms as such,
and therefore with the equations which they make and the resultant likenesses.
The one true Word of God makes these other words true. Jesus Christ utters,
or rather creates, these parables, speaking of the kingdom, of the life, and there-
fore of Himself, and doing so in stones which it might seem that others could
tell, yet which they are unable to do, because His Word alone can equate the
kingdom with such events, and such events with the kingdom, in a way which
makes the kingdom really like them, and makes them like the kingdom in which
He tells them, so that the narrative is no mere metaphor but a disclosing yet also
concealing revelation, self -representation and self-offering of the kingdom and
the life, and therefore His own self -revelation As regards their materials, these
are parables in the strict sense, for although they bring before us happenings
from everyday life and familiar stories of human action and inaction the
peasant on his land, the owner of the vineyard and his workers, the father and
his sons, the capitalist and his stewards, the shepherd and his sheep, the king
and his banquet, the children on the streets, the bridesmaids at the marriage
yet the circle of interest is relatively small, many things are not touched upon,
and there is obviously no intention of speaking of this kingdom as such and in
its totality. Indeed, at the decisive points the materials of the parables of Dives
and Lazarus (Lk i6 1Bf ) and the last judgment (Mt 25 31f -) are not taken from
everyday life at all, but from the imagery of late Jewish apocalyptic familiar
to their hearers. Even among the rest there are only a few, e g., the seed growing
secretly (Mk. 4 26f ), the mustard-seed and leaven (Mt. i3 3ir ) and the drag-net
(Mt. I3* 7f ), which have an unequivocally everyday character, and it is to be
noted that even here we have to do with more or less hidden processes. Real
men, whether peasants, rich and poor, fathers and sons, kings or others, do not
normally act and speak as in these stones. They are not really like this. To be
sure, there are no miracles in the stories Yet strange things happen Hardly
any would be in place in an informative newspaper account, because it is obvious
that the figures in them are very strangely shaped, and their actions no less
strangely directed, by an invisible hand which obviously estranges them from
the everyday sphere in which they are set. For this reason, the happenings
recorded can hardly lay claim to any purely human interest. It is not intended
that the hearers and readers should recognise themselves in them on this level,
2. The Light of Life 113
nor that their consideration and understanding of the human sphere should be
expanded by them. It is the kingdom of heaven which is likened unto them,
and they to it. This is what is presupposed and declared by all these stories.
As other true words they are to accompany and attest the one Word of God.
They are not to be witnesses of something old in a specific new form. They are
to be witnesses of something new to all men, and to be newly apprehended by
them all. How could they be this if on the one side their material did not consist
in stories from everyday life ? Yet on the other, how could they indicate that
which is new if they were merely photographs of everyday happenings, and we
did not see the fashioning and guiding hand which takes events in the human
sphere that might well be photographed in theory, though not here in practice,
and gives them the mark of the extraordinary, distinguishing them from other
events and characterising them as those which are like the kingdom of heaven,
and to which the kingdom of heaven is like ? Under this hand, recounted by
Jesus, these everyday happenings become what they were not before, and what
they cannot be in and of themselves. It is to be noted that even the events taken
from the symbolical world of apocalyptic in Lk. 17 and Mt. 25 are brought into
resemblance with the kingdom only because Jesus narrates, fashions and trans-
forms them (This in itself is sufficient reason not to incorporate them into a
Christian doctrine of the last things in the raw state in which they are taken up
and worked over in these passages ) As Jesus tells them, the material is every-
where transformed, and there is an equation of the kingdom with them, and of
them with the kingdom, in which the being, words and activities of labourers,
householders, kings, fathers, sons, etc , become real testimony to the real presence
of God on earth, and therefore to the events of this real presence.
In sum, the New Testament parables are as it were the prototype of the order
in which there can be other true words alongside the one Word of God, created
and determined by it, exactly corresponding to it, fully serving it and therefore
enjoying its power and authority.
The second main question which we must now answer is whether
there really are other words which in this sense are true in relation
to the one Word of God. Postponing the most difficult part of the
question, our first reply is i. that the utterance of such true words is
the event which the Christian community has always perceived in the
.proclamation of the Old and New Testaments, from which it has
always started, on which it has always built and established its message
to the world, and by which it has always to invigorate and orientate
itself and its being, life and action ; and 2. that from the very first
and right into our own time, as it has let itself be taught and guided
by the proclamation of the prophets of the Old Testament and the
apostles of the New, the Christian community has always had the
promise and commission that it, too, should come to utter such true
words. These are the two secondary forms of the Word of God which
derive from the primary and are subjected to it in this order. Both
are subjected to the first because, while they are true parables, they
are and can and should be no more than parables wholly created and
determined by it. And they are subjected in this order because the
word of the prophets and apostles has its truth from the fact that,
as they themselves participated in the history of Israel and that of
Jesus Christ, it was directly formed and guided by the one Word of
H4 69. The Glory of the Mediator
God, whereas the Church's word can be true only to the extent that
it receives its shape in the school of the prophets and apostles, allowing
itself to be continually tested, awakened, directed and corrected by
their word. By a lengthy detour we are thus brought back to the
theme of the Prolegomena to the Church Dogmatics, to the doctrine
of the threefold form of the Word of God as revealed, written and
proclaimed. In this context, we cannot establish, develop and present
it again as is done in detail in C.D., I, I and I, 2. In explication of
the present question it is enough that, recalling our earlier conclusions,
we should simply maintain that alongside the first and primary Word
of God, and in relation to it, there are at least two other true words
which are distinct yet inter-related in the above-mentioned sequence.
Their twofold truth that of the Bible and the Church stands or
falls with, and is wholly dependent on, the fact that the word of the
Bible, and taught and corrected by it the word of the community,
(a) coincides and agrees in content with the Word spoken in Jesus
Christ as (b) it is ready to be only its attestation, empowered as true
attestation by the fact that (c) the light of life shines in it as well,
Jesus Christ Himself being the Creator and Lord of Scripture, and as
such also the Creator and Lord of the community which proclaims
Him. Scripture speaks the truth as, impelled by Christ as the Prophet
of God, it also presents Him, confirming and attesting His prophecy.
And the Christian community speaks the truth to the extent that it
perceives and receives the prophecy of Christ attested by Scripture,
and thus gives itself to present Christ by its own word. If the words
of Scripture and the Christian community can be called a true word
in the strict sense, in neither case can there be any question of com-
pleting, rivalling, systematising or transcending the one Word.
These words do not stand beside it in their own right. The one Word
itself sets them there. Similarly, they are not independent, but their
relationship with it is one of service, and it is only as they are spoken
in this ministry of service that there can be any question of their
validity, dignity or truth. To the biblical witnesses, and to all the
witnesses of the Christian community, it is promised and given to be
parables of the kingdom of heaven.
Presupposing that this is accepted and confessed, we now turn to
the more complicated question of true words which are not spoken
in the Bible or the Church, but which have to be regarded as true in
relation to the one Word of God, and therefore heard like this Word,
and together with it.
Are there really true words, parables of the kingdom, of this very
different kind ? Does Jesus Christ speak through the medium of such
words ? The answer is that the community which lives by the one
Word of the one Prophet Jesus Christ, and is commissioned and
empowered to proclaim this Word of His in the world, not only may
but must accept the fact that there are such words and that it must
2. The Light of Life 115
hear them too, notwithstanding its life by this one Word and its
commission to preach it. Naturally, there can be no question of
words which say anything different from this one Word, but only
of those which do materially say what it says, although from a different
source and in another tongue. But can it ever pay sufficient attention
to this one Word ? Can it be content to hear it only from Holy
Scripture and then from its own lips and in its own tongue ? Should
it not be grateful to receive it also from without, in very different
human words, in a secular parable, even though it is grounded in and
ruled by the biblical, prophetico-apostolic witness to this one Word ?
Words of this kind cannot be such as overlook or even lead away from
the Bible. They can only be those which, in material agreement with
it, illumine, accentuate or explain the biblical witness in a particular
time and situation, thus confirming it in the deepest sense by helping
to make it sure and concretely evident and certain. They can only
be words which will lead the community more truly and profoundly
than ever before to Scripture. Has it any good reason to refuse this
kind of stimulation and direction, whatever its origin or form ? In
so doing, would it really be obedient to Scripture, which in both
Testaments often introduces witnesses to the truth from the darkness
of the nations and therefore from outside the community of the elect
and called, giving them a serious message to deliver and thus dis-
playing that which is old and familiar in a new guise ? Does it not
necessarily lead to ossification if the community rejects in advance
the existence and word of these alien witnesses to the truth ? It
must test them by the witness of Scripture. But it must really hear
them, although without prejudice to its own mission to preach the
one Word of God in its own tongue and manner as grounded in and
directed by the biblical witness. We do not refer to words which might
tempt it from this task or make it unwilling or incompetent to dis-
charge it. We simply refer to those which make it apparent that the
war in which it is engaged has already been fought to a finish by its
Lord, that the world in which it has to work has not been abandoned
by Him even apart from the action or assistance of the community,
that it is not wholly destitute of the Word which the community has
been set among it to proclaim. We refer, then, to the words in which
the community, when it hears them, can find itself lightened, gladdened
and encouraged in the execution of its own task. The community is
not Atlas bearing the burden of the whole world on its shoulders. For
all its dedication to the cause which it represents in the world, the
cause is not its own, nor does the triumph of this cause depend upon
it. But the One who has particularly entrusted His cause to it will
see to it that it is not left to its own resources in championing it.
Even within the world which opposes it, He will ensure that, as there
are always acts of His rule in general, so, too, there will be raised up
witnesses to its cause, which is really His. This is the message which
Ii6 69. The Glory of the Mediator
the community has to learn through these true words of a very
different origin and character. In this respect, too, it would be foolish
and ungrateful if it closed its ears to them.
But are there really such true words spoken in the secular world
and addressed to the community from it ? How can we count on this ?
There is only one decisive answer. We can count on it as and because
we come from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, from the revelation
of the humiliation of God's own Son to human sin and perdition as
this has been crowned by God the Father, from the revelation of
man's exaltation to living fellowship with God as this has been
achieved in the person of the Son, in short, from the revelation of the
reconciliation of the world with God effected in Jesus Christ. It was
to the One who, in virtue of His revelation in His resurrection, was
and is and will be the Reconciler, that the history of Israel moved,
and the prophets of Israel, and later the apostles, bore witness. It is
in Him as this Reconciler of the world that the community believes.
It is He as this Reconciler who is the theme of its proclamation. It
derives from His resurrection in which He was manifested as this
Reconciler of the world. It recognises and confesses Him as such.
But recognising and confessing Him as such, it does not recognise and
confess Him merely as its own, as the man of its own faith, love and
hope, as its own Head and Lifegiver and Ruler. It is for all that this
One has suffered in His abasement and acted in His exaltation. In
Him there has taken place the co-ordination of the whole world with
God in disclosure, condemnation, yet also remission of the sin of man.
He has taken over the rulership of the world. All things are put
under Him. All the powers and forces of the whole cosmos are sub-
jected to Him as He was and is and will be this One who accomplishes
reconciliation and makes peace between God and man. In the lowest
depths He has triumphed, in the supreme heights He rules at the right
hand of the Father, as the One who was crucified, dead and buried for
the salvation, justification and sanctification of all men. Neither in
the depths nor in the heights does He act in vain, but all that lives
and moves and has its being between these spheres lies in the sphere
of His dominion, and therefore of that of His Word and prophetic
work which are our present concern. Hence, according to the witness
of His prophets and apostles grounded in His resurrection, the sphere
of His dominion and Word is in any case greater than that of their
prophecy and apostolate, and greater than that of the kerygma,
dogma, cultus, mission and whole life of the community which
gathers and edifies itself and speaks and acts in their school. The
greater sphere of His dominion and therefore His Word enfolds the
lesser sphere of their word of ministry. If with the prophets and
apostles we have our starting-point at His resurrection and therefore
at His revelation as the One who was and is and will be ; if we
recognise and confess Him as the One who was and is and will be, then
2. The Light of Life 117
we recognise and confess that not we alone, nor the community which,
following the prophets and apostles, believes in Him and loves Him
and hopes in Him, but de iure all men and all creation derive from His
cross, from the reconciliation accomplished in Him, and are ordained
to be the theatre of His glory and therefore the recipients and bearers
of His Word. In the very light of this narrower and smaller sphere
of the Bible and the Church, we cannot possibly think that He cannot
speak, and His speech cannot be attested, outside this sphere. We
who in contrast to others have our place and task here, and to whom
it is given to know what others do not know, can and must expect
that His voice will also be heard without. We can and must be
prepared to encounter " parables of the kingdom " in the full biblical
sense, not merely in the witness of the Bible and the various arrange-
ments, works and words of the Christian Church, but also in the
secular sphere, i.e., in the strange interruption of the secularism of
life in the world. In the narrow corner in which we have our place
and task we cannot but eavesdrop in the world at large. We have
ears to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd even there too, dis-
tinguishing it from other clamant voices, and therefore, as we hear
it, not moving out of the circle and ministry of His Word, but placing
ourselves the more definitely and deeply within it, that we may be
the better and more attentive and more convincing servants of this
Word.
It will be seen that, in order to perceive that we really have to
reckon with such true words from without, we have no need to appeal
either for basis or content to the sorry hypothesis of a so-called
" natural theology " (i.e., a knowledge of God given in and with the
natural force of reason or to be attained in its exercise). Even if this
were theologically meaningful or practicable (which it is not), it could
not provide us with what is required. By way of natural theology,
apart from the Bible and the Church, there can be attained only
abstract impartations concerning God's existence as the Supreme
Being and Ruler of all things, and man's responsibility towards Him.
But these are not what we have in view. What we have in view are
attestations of the self-impartation of the God who acts as Father in
the Son by the Holy Ghost, which show themselves to be such by their
full agreement with the witness present in Scripture and accepted and
proclaimed by the Church, and which can be materially tested by and
compared with this witness. What we have in view are words which
like those of the Bible and the Church can be claimed as " parables
of the kingdom. 1 ' Natural theology would belie its very name if it
had any interest in words of this type, while we for our part have
no interest in what it thinks it can advance as true words concerning
God and man in general. We do not leave the sure ground of Christ-
ology, but with the prophets and apostles, and the Christian com-
munity established and living by the Gospel and making Christ the
n8 69. The Glory of the Mediator
object of its faith and love and hope, we look to the sovereignty of
Jesus Christ which is revealed in His resurrection and which we find
to be attested by the Bible and the Church, but not restricted according
to this testimony. Nothing could be further from our minds than to
attribute to the human creature as such a capacity to know God and
the one Word of God, or to produce true words corresponding to this
knowledge. Even in the sphere of the Bible and the Church there
can be no question of any such capacity. If there are true words of
God, it is all miraculous. How much more so, then, in this wider
field ! What we have in both cases is the capacity of Jesus Christ to
raise up of the stones children to Abraham, i.e., to take into His
service, to empower for this service, to cause to speak in it, men who
are quite without any capacity of their own. Our thesis is simply
that the capacity of Jesus Christ to create these human witnesses is
not restricted to His working on and in prophets and apostles and
what is thus made possible and actual in His community. His capacity
transcends the limits of this sphere. We may thus expect, and count
upon it, that even among those who are outside this sphere and its
particular orders and conditions He will use His capacity to make of
men, quite apart from and even in face of their own knowledge or
volition, something which they could never be of themselves, namely,
His witnesses, speaking words which can seriously be called true.
There is significant and pregnant mention in the Gospels of the fact
that Jesus healed the blind, the deaf and the dumb. From the
prophets and apostles to ourselves, there has never been a man even
in the sphere of the Bible and the Church who has not belonged to
the ranks of the blind, the deaf and the dumb, who has not needed,
or more strictly does not continually need, to be healed by Jesus.
Our present contention is that what was and is possible for Him in
the narrower sphere is well within His powers in the wider.
But what is this wider sphere ? To whom or what do we refer
when we speak of the secular world in contrast with that of the Bible
and the Church ? If we are to be precise, we must distinguish between
a closer and a more distant periphery of this narrow sphere, between a
secularism which approximates to a pure and absolute form and
another which is mixed and relative. From both, Jesus Christ can
raise up extraordinary witnesses to speak true words of this very
different order.
We have a secularism which approximates to a pure and absolute
form, and which therefore stands furthest from the sphere of the
Bible and the Church, when a man or several men stand unwittingly
in full isolation from the Gospel in its biblical and churchly form, in
which it has never or only very inadequately reached them, and
when they are in a frame of mind in which it is to be humanly expected
that when it does reach them their reaction to it will be hostile. There
are such men, not only in so-called heathen territories not yet opened
2. The Light of Life 119
to missions, nor onlyas we must say with qualifications in Eastern
peoples now overrun by an avowedly atheistic culture, education,
psychology and ethics, but also in the greatest proximity to the
Christian Churches a proximity which may contain within itself the
greatest inward distance. Even in the sphere of Christendom there
are many who belong sociologically, by name and baptism, but do
not belong at all in practice, being blind and deaf heathen. There is
a whole world which for various reasons is not yet or no longer attached
to any religion, and certainly not to the Word of God, but obstinately
boasts of its own sovereignty. Yet we must not conclude too hastily
that this constitutes a limit to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ and
the power of His prophecy, so that true words are not to be expected
on human lips in this sphere. We are not even to say that they are
hardly to be expected, or expected only with a lesser degree of prob-
ability. For we must not forget that, while man may deny God,
according to the Word of reconciliation God does not deny man.
Man may be hostile to the Gospel of God, but this Gospel is not hostile
to him. The fact that he is closed to it does not alter the further fact
that it is open for him. Nor does the fact that he does not recognise
the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, and if he did would perhaps rebel
against it in his autonomy, result in its losing any of its validity even
in relation to him. How can it be any less probable, or even im-
possible, that it should actually be exercised and demonstrated in
relation to him too ? No Prometheanism can be effectively main-
tained against Jesus Christ. As the One who suffered and conquered
on the cross, He has destroyed it once and for all and in all its forms.
But this means that in the world reconciled by God in Jesus Christ
there is no secular sphere abandoned by Him or withdrawn from His
control, even where from the human standpoint it seems to approxi-
mate most dangerously to the pure and absolute form of utter god-
lessness. If we say that there is, we are not thinking and speaking in
the light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But if we refrain from
this inflexible attitude, we will certainly be prepared at any time for
true words even from what seem to be the darkest places. Even from
the mouth of Balaam the well-known voice of the Good Shepherd
may sound, and it is not to be ignored in spite of its sinister origin.
But rather closer to the sphere of the Bible and the Church, there
is also secularism in its mixed and relative form. We find it especially
in what seems to be the common pattern in so many countries to-day
of men who have been reached in some way by the Gospel in its biblical
and churchly form, who have been affected by it to varying degrees,
who have been influenced and determined by it in some measure, who
have a certain deeper or more superficial acquaintance with it, and
who either sincerely or not so sincerely accept it, or at least do not
deny it, yet whose life as a whole in the earning of their livelihood,
the exercise of their calling, the enjoyment of their great and little
120 69. The Glory of the Mediator
pleasures, the thinking of their thoughts, their practice of scholarship,
art, technics or politics, the modes and habits and customs which
determine their intercourse runs along lines which, to put it mildly,
seem to have no very clear connexion with the kingdom proclaimed
by the Gospel, but rather to represent a very different world resting
upon and impelled by its own laws and tendencies. What we have
here is a world which in some way is concretely confronted by the
Gospel in its biblical and churchly form, and at many points affected,
illumined, unsettled and modified by it. It is a world which cannot
altogether escape encounter with it. In a word, it is the world of
mixed and relative secularism which is the distinctive form of the
wider sphere in which those who are seriously trying to be Christians
jostle with those who are so only in name and appearance and external
allegiance. Now on the face of it, it seems much more likely, more
easily possible and therefore more readily to be expected, that in this
sphere which is closer to that of the Bible and the Church there will
be human words which attest the one Word of God and can thus be
regarded as " parables of the kingdom/' For this sphere can always be
explained as an echo or positive answer to the speech of Jesus Christ
attested by the ministry of the Christian community. Why should
not this speech evoke a reply to the extent that it is sounded forth
in the message of the Christian community ? Why should we not
expect to hear true words from this world which only to a limited
extent rests upon and is impelled by itself ? Why should we not
more readily expect them from this world than from the sphere in
which secularism has not been visibly confronted by the Gospel and
is thus identical, or threatens to become so, with militant godlessness ?
Yet we must continually ask ourselves whether this mixed and relative
secularism might not be characterised by perhaps an even greater
resistance to the Gospel for the very reason that it is used to being
confronted by and having to come to terms with it, and is thus able
the more strongly to consolidate itself against it, making certain
concessions and accommodations no doubt, parading in large measure
as a world of Christian culture, but closing its ears the more firmly
against it, and under the sign of a horrified rejection of theoretical
atheism cherishing the more radically and shamelessly a true atheism
of practice. How can there be true words where it is sincerely or
insincerely thought that due honour and even reverence should be
paid to the Gospel but the art has been long since learned of accepting
it without allowing it to intrude upon what are still at bottom secular
thoughts and desires, as it can and should if it is really to declare
its message ? In a meaningful application of what is said about the
obduracy of Israel in Romans 9-11, do we not have to think of the
particular temptations and dangers of the situation in a " Christian "
or " Christianised " culture and society, and in view of these are we
not forced to say that, if true words are to be uttered and heard from
2. The Light of Life 121
such a world of mixed and relative secularism, no less a miracle is
needed than where we seem to have the express and unequivocal
secularism of militant godlessness ? But all this has reference only
to the one aspect of the particular situation in this second form of
secularism. And when we consider the other, we shall not allow this
concern to have the last word, however well-founded it may be. The
power and cunning of a wordliness affected, coloured and embellished
by Christianity may be as dreadful as we may fear them to be, and as
Kierkegaard and others have presupposed. The Church may very
properly be asked whether it has really done what is necessary for the
true delivery of its message in such a situation, or whether it has not
secretly or openly fallen victim to this creeping secularisation, and is
now itself howling with the wolves. Yet all these obvious fears must
not result in a basic lack of confidence in the power of the message,
however well or badly delivered. For there is also a distinctive
situation, inward and spiritual rather than external and technical, in
which the community and Christianity are found at the heart of
secularism, however poor and wretched and strange they may be, so
that the world which apes them so cunningly and successfully, pene-
trating even to the life and thought and speech of Christians them
selves, is yet concretely confronted by Jesus Christ as the one Word
of God through the instrumentality of the word and preaching, the
instruction and worship, the whole life of the community. Is the
Church His body, His own earthly-historical form of existence, or is
it not ? " Lo, I am with you alway " (Mt. 28 20 ) ; " Where two or
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them " (Mt. i8 20 ) ; " He that heareth you heareth me " (Lk. io 16 )
are these promises true or are they not ? And if they are true, are we
permitted not to believe them ? But if they are true, and we believe
them, why do we not also believe in the miracle as it will always be
that the Word of Jesus Christ as well or badly attested by Christian
proclamation, if not the proclamation itself, is stronger than the
power and hardihood of the mixed and relative secularism of a
" Christian " culture and society which confronts the community and
continually penetrates and determines even the community itself?
Why should it not be possible for God to raise up witnesses from this
world of tarnished untruth, so that true words are uttered and heard
even where it might seem that at very best no most than crude or
refined deception may be expected ? In virtue of the missionary and
evangelistic power of Christianity ? No, but in virtue of the living
and self-developing seed which it sows, namely, the seed of the Word
of its Lord who is free to acknowledge its activity, sometimes perhaps
to its own very great surprise, by causing it to bring forth fruit and
creating for it an echo and response without. For Him neither the
militant godlessness of the outer periphery of the community, nor the
intricate heathenism of the inner, is an insurmountable barrier.
122 69. The Glory of the Mediator
In neither case should we have any illusions as to the antithesis
between the kingdom of heaven and those of this earth. But in
neither case should we have too little confidence in the One who
extends His dominion also over the kingdoms of this earth, nor expect
too little in the way of signs of this lordship. How many signs He
may well have set up in both the outer and inner darkness which
Christianity has overlooked in an unjustifiable excess of scepticism, to
the detriment of itself and its cause ! We are summoned to believe
in Him, and in His victorious power, not in the invincibility of any
non-Christian, anti-Christian or pseudo-Christian worldliness which
confronts Him. The more seriously and joyfully we believe in Him,
the more we shall see such signs in the worldly sphere, and the more
we shall be able to receive true words from it.
It is evident, of course, that until His coming again, i.e., until the
direct and universal and definitive revelation of His glory, there
can be no question of anything more than signs of His lordship or
attestations of His prophecy, whether in Scripture, in the confession
and message of the community, or in such true words as pierce the
secularism of the worldly life surrounding it in closer or more distant
proximity. If we may compare the truth of the one Word of God,
which is called and is Jesus Christ, with the centre of a circle and yet
also with the whole of the periphery constituted by it, we shall have
to say that the revelation of this centre as such and therefore of this
whole periphery, now to the faith of believers and one day to the
vision of all eyes, can only be His direct Word, whereas all human
words can be true only as its genuine witnesses and attestations.
Prior to the song of praise which will ring out on a new earth under
a new heaven, the centre of the circle as such and its whole periphery,
and therefore the truth of the one Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself,
cannot be articulated or expressed by any word or voice of angels,
and certainly not of men, whether it be prophets or apostles or very
profoundly instructed and instructive fathers, whether it be an en-
lightened Christian mysticism or a theologia viatorum which is ever so
notable in its simplicity or dialectic. Self-evidently, therefore, it
cannot be articulated or expressed by the words and voices which, in
virtue of the sovereignty of the one Lord, Prophet and Revealer, may
even now be uttered and heard outside the sphere of the Bible and
the Church. In them we have to do with the one truth, and therefore
with genuine witnesses and attestations. But, to take up our illus-
tration, they are only segments and not the whole of the periphery,
and they are certainly not the centre of the circle which constitutes
the periphery. They are true words, genuine witnesses and attesta-
tions of the one true Word, real parables of the kindom of heaven, if
and to the extent that, unlike segments of other circles with other
centres, as true segments of the periphery of this circle they point
to the whole of the periphery and therefore to the centre, or rather to
2. The Light of Life 123
the extent that the centre and therefore the whole of the periphery,
i.e., Jesus Christ Himself, declares Himself in them. Hence they do
not express partial truths, for the one truth of Jesus Christ is indivis-
ible. Yet they express the one and total truth from a particular
angle, and to that extent only implicitly and not explicitly in its
unity and totality. As happens even in the different elements of the
biblical witness, and as may happen in any act of Christian proclama-
tion and instruction, they manifest the one light of the one truth with
what is from one standpoint a particular refraction which as such is
still a faithful reflection of it as the one light. But if they are to do
this in their particular and individual way, they need to be enlightened
by the light of this Word itself, and to draw upon its fulness. Spoken
and received abstractly, none of them can be a true word of itself.
They are true words only as they refer back to their origin in the one
Word, i.e., as the one true Word, Jesus Christ Himself, declares
Himself in them. They are true words in their presupposed and
implied, if not always immediately apparent, connexion with the
totality of Jesus Christ and His prophecy, and therefore as they
indirectly point to this, or as this indirectly declares itself in
them.
One such true word may, e g., speak of the goodness of the original creation,
a second of its jeopardising, a third of its liberation, a fourth of the future revela-
tion of its glory. Each does this authentically if and as and to the extent that
what it says individually and specifically is only apparently and at a first hearing
an abstraction, but really declares the goodness, peril, triumph and future glory
of the divine work of creation which is enclosed in Jesus Christ, executed in Him
and directed towards Him, so that, even though it may seem to be concerned with
only individual aspects, it really declares the totality of this work and the whole
context of the particular statements. Again, such a true word may speak of the
majesty or the mercy or the all-sustaining and directing wisdom and patience
of God. In spite of its apparent abstraction, it does so authentically to the extent
that the one thing envisaged under all these aspects is the kingdom and deity
of the one living God who as the Father in the Son and by the Holy Ghost is
at work in the world and revealed in His Word, and therefore to the extent that
the life and kingdom of His Godhead are declared in all these statements with
their particular orientation. Again, such a true word may speak of the psycho-
physical or social determination of man, or of his defects, rights or dignity,
or perhaps of the forgiveness of his sins, or the marching orders which he is given,
or the shadow of death under which he lives, or the joy in which he may live
even under this shadow, and it does so authentically to the extent that the
abstraction or isolation of what it says is only apparent, since each in its own
way points beyond itself to that centre and totality, and therefore to Jesus
Christ the true Son of Man, and therefore to the true humanity of God, and
therefore, or rather, to the One whom no single human word will declare, but to
whom each may well point, so that He for His part may well declare Himself
in such words, making them the instruments, signs and attestations of His self-
revelation and therefore of His truth.
In this qualified sense there are true human words in the Bible,
and there may also be such, not only in the proclamation of the
124 6 9- The Glor y f * he Mediator
Church, but even in the words and voices of world-occurrence in its
closer or more distant proximity to the Church. The clear task of
speaking such true words, and the clear promise of the necessary
freedom and power, are given to the Church and thus to ourselves.
We have no knowledge of any similar tasks or promises given to
representatives of secular history as such. Hence we cannot see or
understand how a man may be, or come to be, in a position to speak
true words in this qualified sense from the outer or inner spheres of
secular darkness. But the circle of what we can see and understand
is not the frontier of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Even within this
circle the speaking of true words implies a miracle. We cannot think
that, on the basis of the task accepted by us and the promise given to
us, He is limited to this gift and commission of ours. We must
thus be prepared to see His sovereignty at work in these other spheres,
even though we cannot see or understand it. We must be prepared
to hear, even in secular occurrence, not as alien sounds but as
segments of that periphery concretely orientated from its centre and
towards its totality, as signs and attestations of the lordship of the
one prophecy of Jesus Christ, true words which we must receive as
such even thought they come from this source. In view of their
origin, it is obvious and understandable that we should suspect that
they do not have this orientation, that in their abstraction and refrac-
tion they have nothing whatever to do with the truth. It is obvious
and understandable that we should fear all kinds of lurking dangers
which might overwhelm us if we listen to them. These fears and
suspicions may often prove to be justified. But in no case must they
be stronger than our confidence, not in the potentialities of world
history, nor in individual men, but in the sovereignty of Jesus Christ
who also understands those who are without. In no case must it be
stronger than the readiness to hear, and to test whether what is
heard is perhaps a true word which Christianity cannot ignore as such,
as though Jesus Christ were bound to its own task and promise, or as
though this task and promise were a possession behind which it could
and should conceal itself with closely stopped ears. Has it not always
been true that the community has always had cause and opportunity
to hear in the nearer or more distant world around it words which
are at least well worth testing whether or not they are perhaps true
words, and in which it will sooner or later recognise with joy some-
thing of its own most proper message, or perhaps be forced to recognise
this with shame, because by them it is shown and made to realise
the omissions and truncations of its own message ? Has it not
frequently been set before the fact of a secularism which, even though
it may sometimes be openly pagan, has yet made just as clear and
definite as itself certain aspects of the truth which it is entrusted to
proclaim, and often indeed has attested them far better, more quickly
and more consistently than it seems to have done ?
2. The Light of Life 125
We may think of the mystery of God, which we Christians so easily talk
away in a proper concern for our own cause. We may think of the peace of
creation, or its very puzzling nature, and the consequent summons to gratitude.
We may think of the radicalness of the need of redemption or the fulness of what
is meant by redemption if it is to meet this need. We may think of the sobriety
of a scholarly or practical and everyday investigation of the true state of affairs,
or the enthusiasm with which what is found to be correct is espoused. We may
think of the unity of faith and life, of the love of God and the love of man, which
can never be taken for granted even in the Christian community at any given
time or place. We may think of the totality of human existence as this is con-
tinually disrupted by a strict Christianity through too great an emphasis on the
spirit or the individual. We may think of the disquiet, not to be stilled by any
compromise, at the various disorders both of personal life and of that of the state
and society, at those who are inevitably driven to the wall. We may think of
the resolute determination, perhaps, to attack these evils. We may think of the
lack of fear in face of death which Christians to their shame often display far
less readily than non-Christians near and far. We may think of the warm readi-
ness to understand and forgive which is not so frequently encountered even in
the Evangelical world just because it has too good a knowledge of good and evil
and in spite of its acknowledgment that justification is by faith alone. Especially
we may think of a humanity which does not ask or weigh too long with whom
we are dealing in others, but in which we find a simple solidarity with them and
unreservedly take up their case. Are not all these phenomena which with
striking frequency are found extra mutos ecclesiae, in circles where little or nothing
is obviously known of the Bible and Church proclamation except perhaps by
very devious ways and in very attenuated forms ? Is there nothing to be learned
from these phenomena ? However alien their forms, is not their language that
of true words, the language of " parables of the kingdom of heaven " ?
To be sure, what is seen and heard must be tested. This is a
duty which is not to be evaded. In this sphere, too, we have to reckon
with human pride, sloth and falsehood, with an optimism and pessi-
mism which are terribly far from the truth, with unconscious blindness
and only too conscious hypocrisy. But these are encountered intra
muros as well. In neither case should we be too summary in our
judgments. It is no fair test if we dismiss these words in advance on
the ground that we have in them only the basically and finally un-
illuminating insights and virtues of the natural man and therefore
splendida vitia, or that we see in them hasty conclusions and illusions,
or that they are not exempt from the open or secret fanaticism which
the children of the world can also display in their best achievements.
This may all be very true. But it may also be quite irrelevant if it is
nevertheless given to certain children of the world to speak true
words, i.e., words which, whatever their subjective presuppositions,
stand objectively in a supremely direct relationship with the one
true Word, which are not exhausted by what they are in themselves,
which may even speak against themselves, but which are laid upon
their lips by the one true Word, by Jesus Christ, who is their Sovereign
too. Even in Christian circles is it not grace and miracle, and the
continual transcending of a whole mass of subjective ineptitude and
distortion, if trus words are spoken and heard ? Should we not
126 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
always ask with great attention and the greatest openness whether
on the basis of the same miracle true words may not also be spoken
without, and seriously recognised as such ?
Criteria are certainly needed to distinguish them from other
words which do not derive from the light which lightens the darkness
but from the darkness itself, so that they can only be regarded as
untrue words. Criteria are needed to distinguish the truth of true
words themselves from the untruth which will also cling to them.
We have already touched on these criteria, but we must now mention
and characterise them more explicitly as such.
First, there is a formal criterion which rightly understood derives
its critical force from the fact that it also reveals the decisive material
norm which we must apply in this connexion. Wherever we seem to
have a true word in some phenomenon of nearer or more distant
occurrence, we must always ask concerning its agreement with the
witness of Scripture. Naturally, we cannot expect that in its concrete
form it will be anticipated and therefore confirmed in a biblical text
or passage. But we should expect that, if it is a true word, its message
will harmonise at some point with the whole context of the biblical
message as centrally determined and characterised by Jesus Christ,
that when it is compared with this it will not disturb or disrupt its
general line but rather illuminate it in a new way at some particular
point. No true word can replace the biblical witness in any respect.
It cannot try to suppress or to emulate it. It cannot try to say any-
thing different or new. In the measure in which it shows a tendency
in this direction, it will not be a true word. If it is a true word, it
will be a good and authentic commentary sounding out the word of
the Bible. It will not lead its hearers away from Scripture, but more
deeply into it. Whether or not the whole process is right and legitimate
may thus be tested in detail by whether or not some artificial har-
monisation is needed to bring it into line with the Bible ; by whether
or not it is in agreement with the Bible just as it stands, without any
adaptation ; and supremely by whether or not the word of the Bible
needs to be compressed, truncated or expanded to permit of genuine
concord with this word from without. To the extent that the word
of the Bible, perceived and understood in the light of its centre, is in
evident and easily displayed agreement with these words from without,
to this extent we may confidently believe that the latter are true
words, and thus be ready for obedience, in the direction indicated, not
to the words as such, but to the word of Scripture illuminated and
made more pressing by them.
With certain qualifications we must also consider the relationship
of these other words to the dogmas and confessions of the Church as
a criterion of their truth. They must certainly be tested by this
norm. Yet we should not forget that, in contrast to Holy Scripture
with its direct authority based on a direct relationship to the history
2. r The Light of Life 127
of Israel and that of Jesus Christ Himself, we are now dealing with
the secondary authority of the fathers and brethren of the Church,
with an introduction to the divine revelation attested in Scripture
which is highly venerable but still conditioned by the particular
times and circumstances in which these documents had their origin.
In due fulfilment of the Fifth Commandment, we can and should
take this introduction into account when we test the content of truth
in these other words. If they are true words, they will not lead us
away from, but more deeply into, the communio sanctorum of all ages
which is attested in these documents. If they lead to a breach with
them, they will show themselves to be false words. But it may well
be that the Christian community, assuming that it hears such true
words here and now, has still new things to hear and learn which go
beyond its dogmas and confessions and which the fathers and brethren
could not teach it in the days when these documents were formulated.
If these new things, and therefore the truth of these words, are
authentic, it may well be expected that their light will somehow be
an extension of the line visible in the dogmas and confessions, so that
they supplement even though they do not contradict what is stated
by them. Indeed, when it is a matter of true words, we can hardly
expect that the Church will be spared having to add to this line and
therefore to learn something which goes beyond its dogmas and
confessions, which is not to be learned directly from them or from
its own inner movements, but which it is given by its Lord to learn
afresh from without. It will not do to close ourselves to such words,
or to question their truth, because they seem to say what is additional
to or different from what we already think we know from the dogmas
and confessions. For we might at any time be brought to see that
these traditional norms of the Church need to be revised, and the
Church might perhaps be confronted by the task of a new formulation
,of these norms. If they are true words, they will show themselves to
be such by the fact that, as more or less powerful elements in the
progress of the Church, they will guide it, not to break continuity
with the insights of preceding fathers and brethren, but in obedience
to the one Lord of the Church and in the discipleship of the prophets
and apostles to take it up and continue it with new responsibility on
the basis of better instruction.
As a further criterion in the question of their truth we may refer
to the fruits which such true words have borne and seem to bear in
the outside world where they have their more or less strange and
puzzling origin, i.e., in the secular world surrounding the community.
It is there that they are first heard and have their first effects. And
there, in world-occurrence as such, all cats are not grey, but the Church
can distinguish, if not the good from the bad, at least the better from
the worse. Christianity cannot be blind or indifferent to the question
of the significance for world-occurrence as such of the utterance and
128 69. The Glory of the Mediator
reception of such words which give even itself cause to think. How do
they appear to work in this sphere ? What spirits do they seem to
evoke ? In what direction do they impel men ? In what sense do they
form their thoughts and aspirations and modes of conduct ? To what
enterprises and actions have they summoned them ? Have they led
to their greater freedom or their greater bondage ? Have they
uplifted them a little, or thrust them deeper into the mire ? Have
they united them or divided them ? Have they built up or thrown
down, gathered or scattered, quickened or slain ? In relation to
world-occurrence generally these are certainly no more than relative
distinctions, since they are made and obtain only within the lost
condition which marks all that man does as such. Yet in all their
relativity they acquire emphasis and significance by the fact that in
them, too, the ruling hand of God and His Christ is active and dis-
played. In the expectation that in them His grace and judgment will
at least be sketched in outline, if not revealed, we cannot as Christians
escape the task of taking them seriously for all their relativity, and
therefore of looking cautiously but resolutely for the difference in the
fruits of these words uttered in world-occurrence, and of judging their
manner and tendency accordingly. If for the most part we can see
and understand these only as less good fruits, we may readily suspect
that there is little or no truth in the words which produce them.
But if we may cautiously discern better fruits, this may well be a
sign that there is a positive relationship between the words which
have produced them and the one Word of truth, so that in them we
have to do with true words. It will be appreciated that, since we
men, even we Christians, are not instituted or endowed to be judges
of the world, there can be no question here of a criterion which even
with the greatest circumspection can be applied with convincing
power. Yet in all its relativity it certainly renders good service of
at least a supplementary and auxiliary nature in relationship to the
other criteria. In this relationship it may even be an absolute and
convincing criterion on some occasions. We have thus to keep our
eyes open in this direction.
We return to surer ground when we maintain that these other
words may be recognised as true words by what they signify for the
life of the community itself, for its activity under the special command
and promise of its Lord. If in these words, as distinct from the many
others which are uttered and heard in history, we have that which is
right, then, in correspondence with what the true word of Scripture
means for the community, they will have for it in indissoluble unity
the character of affirmation and criticism, of address and claim, of a
summons to faith and a call to repentance, and therefore of Gospel
and Law. They will show themselves to be genuine parables of the
kingdom in this unity. In it they will betray the fact that they are
human words which have their final origin and meaning in the
2. The Light of Life 129
awakening power of the universal prophecy of Jesus Christ Himself.
The community will thus find itself comforted by them as through
them it discovers that in and in spite of the strangeness of its message
it is not alone nor thrown back solely upon itself, but encounters in the
outside world voices which perhaps answer its own, or are perhaps
independent and original in their origin and nature, but which with
their own particular determination and orientation seem to take up
its own word and declare it in their own manner and speech, less
strongly and authentically perhaps, yet sometimes more forcefully
and in their own way more convincingly than in its own particular
manner it has so far been able to accomplish, and at any rate in such
sort that it is stimulated and encouraged to give the world its own
commissioned word with greater joy and emphasis. If in its weakness
and confusion it is comforted and encouraged in this way by these
other words, it may surely gather that in them it is dealing with true
words. It will be shown, however, that this is genuine comfort and
encouragement, and not false temptation and enticement, by the
fact that the community is not merely confirmed and approved by
these words, but also shamed, frightened, unsettled and corrected.
Its proclamation and activity, its whole life, stood perhaps in need of
concentration, or extension, or some consolidation or loosening of its
present form. And now it seems to have received from without a
surprising and perhaps not very welcome but salutary impulse in this
direction. Why has it lagged behind when it ought to have been in
the van ? Why has it not told itself what it must now learn from
the children of this world ? When Christianity is called to repentance,
it is a criterion that, no matter where the summons may come from
or in what language, angry and offensive perhaps, it may be couched,
it has to do with a true word addressed to it on the commission of its
Lord. But we must be cautious. For even as a call to repentance it
will be a true and genuine word only if it is also one which affirms
and strengthens and upbuilds the community. There can be a respect,
an anxious pliancy, in relation to the world's criticism of the Church,
which is quite out of place because it is not related to a true word
which the Church ought to hear. And it will be shown not to be a
true word by the fact that it has no positive content, that it merely
denies and destroys or discourages and confuses, that it merely aims
at adaptations and compromises which the world desires for the
Church. The true call to repentance, whether from within or from
without, may always be known by the fact that the law and command
critically addressed to the Church are those of the Gospel, by which
the community is always raised up as well as cast down, not being
plunged into a sterile melancholy, remorse and abasement, but
stirred with new resolution and clarity to represent its good cause.
The word which criticises the Church is true only if it is one by which
the community is comforted in the true and New Testament sense.
C.D. iv.-m.-i. 5
130 69. The Glory of the Mediator
Hence we may recognise its truth by the fact that it concerns and
activates Christians as Christians and the community as the com-
munity in this twofold sense. A word which merely pacified and
confirmed, or unsettled and shattered, would by its very nature reveal
that it had nothing whatever to do with the one truth of Jesus Christ,
that it was not then a true word, and that it should not therefore be
heard.
We now turn to the final question which must be put and answered
in this narrower context. It concerns the right procedure in relation
to such words, the right use to be made of them if they impress them-
selves upon us as true words and show themselves to be such. Our
general answer is that Christianity must avoid any pride or sloth in
face of them. It must be ready to hear them, and it must do so. It
must let them do the work laid upon them in relation to proclamation,
instruction and the whole life of the community. If and to the extent
that they are true words, they are free communications of the will
of its Lord which it must not stiffly refuse but accept. Rather more
concretely, it must receive them, as previously stated, as a commentary
on Holy Scripture which is the primary and proper source of all
knowledge of the Christian life, as a corrective of the tradition of the
Church, and as an impulse to its reformation.
But the more specific point is to be considered that the uttering
and receiving of such true words is part of the history of the Church,
or better of the history of its overruling, preservation and continual
reformation by the One to whom it belongs, whose body or earthly-
historical form of existence it is. In this history it experiences, in
what must be described as the normal and regular form of the rule
of its Head, His self-disclosure by His constant address, in the power
of the Holy Spirit, through the witness of His prophets and apostles
and therefore by means of the biblical word. But it also experiences,
in extraordinary acts of His rule, His free communications in the
parables of the kingdom which come to it through the general history
of the world around it. By the very nature of the case the correct
and prescribed procedure cannot be the same in relation to the latter
as to the Bible, i.e., to His self -attestation mediated through the
prophetic-apostolic word.
The latter has the character of a constant and universal authority
to the extent that, although the Bible is a source and norm which
specifically addresses its readers and hearers in the power of the Holy
Spirit, it is also an abiding whole which is given to the community
throughout its history and in which Jesus Christ accompanies it
through this history. Holy Scripture may be compared to the fiery
cloud and pillar which in every age precedes the community and all
its members as an invariably authentic direction to the knowledge of
its Lord, to the gift which He gives and the accompanying task which
He sets. It can and should be confessed always and everywhere and
2. The Light of Life 131
by all. It raises the claim to be heard, to be heard obediently and to
be recognised as authoritative always and everywhere and by all.
The biblical word is thus the concrete vinculum pads of the Church in
every age and place. The community is always and everywhere
summoned to regard its claim, to gather around its message, to pursue
its investigation, exposition and application. We never do injury to a
Christian or the community, nor are we in danger of leading a Christian
astray, nor is it arbitrary but always and everywhere salutary and
good, if we set ourselves and the community on the way which leads
backwards or rather forwards to Holy Scripture. For since in Holy
Scripture true words are always to be heard, this way is always the
way backwards or rather forwards to Jesus Christ, to the one Word,
to the reconciliation accomplished in Him, to the one covenant
between Him and man, to the salvation effected and to be found in
this covenant. However well or badly it may be followed, this way
is always the good way, and to tread it is always and in all places
commanded of the community and individual Christians, and is full of
promise for them. As I see it, it is the regular way to which we are
directed.
The same cannot be said of the free communications of Jesus
Christ in world events, or the true words which come to the com-
munity through them. Indeed, we must not say this concerning
them if we are to estimate them aright. Our handling of them, our
listening to them, their recognition and authorisation in the life of
the community, their significance and scope for its proclamation and
instruction, must be determined and limited by the fact that in them
we cannot have more than the voice of certain individual events and
elements in world history as it unfolds through the long and kaleido-
scopic sequence of the centuries, and in the history of the community
within it. Even though they are uttered as products of the omni-
potent prophecy of Jesus Christ, and are to be claimed and respected
as true words, they lack the unity and compactness and therefore
the constancy and universality of His self-revelation as it takes place
and is to be sought in Holy Scripture. They are uttered in individual
places and situations in which the community and its members find
themselves in world history, at individual points in their history in
this time which move to its end but still endures. Will what was said
then and there be said again here and now in the same way ? It
might be that something was said then and there to be heard and
followed then and there. It might be that it was heard then and
there and had its specific and salutary effect and rightly passed into
its experience as something learned for the future. But it might also
be that the community has still to receive very different words from
world events as directed by its Lord, that here and now it must con-
centrate its attention upon these, and that on occasion it must correct
by what is said here and now its understanding of what was perceived
132 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
then and there, and therefore the experience in possession of which it
has come out of the past into the present and is moving to the future.
Hence, in listening to what is said to it here and now, it will be attentive
and obedient in all good conscience and to the best of its ability,
allowing itself to be guided by it in that immediate future. Yet at
the same time it will realise that what Jesus Christ says here and
now is certainly not His final word of this kind, but that another
time, not in self-contradiction but in a very different situation, He
may well have another new word of this type. And in any case, it
will be conscious of the imperfection and even disloyalty which were
shown by itself and the fathers in the hearing of His true words in
the past, and which are not so absent from its hearing to-day that it can
tie itself and therefore its Lord to what it thinks it receives from Him
here and now.
It is also to be considered that, while these communications of
Jesus Christ in world events apply virtually and potentially to the
whole community and all its members, in this as in other respects
(even in their relation to Scripture) it is not at all the case that at
every time and in every situation the community is able and ready
to hear with a single ear and receive with a single heart and will and
understanding what is said to it by its Lord. On the contrary, it is
always true in practice that even at best there will only be many,
and often very few, who have the openness for such words which the
community ought really to have as a whole. There are words which
need decades and even centuries to be finally, and even then only
approximately, heard and recognised throughout Christendom. Nor is
this connected only with the natural stupidity of man generally or
the special limitation which is often notably and most unfortunately
displayed by the Christian. It is also linked with the fact that the
truth of what seems in the first instance to be said only by world-
occurrence as such, the character of its words as products of the
omnipotent prophecy of Jesus Christ, is nowhere and never self-
evident, so that, even though these words may be heard, their truth
must always be tested by the criteria to which we have referred. It
may be the very conscientiousness of this process of testing, the fear
of falling victim to a subjective intuition or audition and therefore to
an illusion, which in the first instance allows only a few and not all
members of the community to accept and thus to be guided by what
is heard. But however we explain it, the community hardly ever
presents a unitary picture in its encounter with such true words of
its Lord as He rules world history and impresses even the children of
the world into His service. As a rule there will be only a more or less
feeble vanguard of hearers which is persecuted by a large majority
of non-hearers, and an apparently not inconsiderable rearguard of
those who never seem to hear aright in this respect. Indeed, is it
not even possible that true words may sometimes be spoken and
2. The Light of Life 133
they are not received at all in the community, or by any of its
members ?
The distinctiveness of these free communications of Jesus Christ
consists (i) in the fact that they come to the Church in a specific time
and situation, and are to be heard in these circumstances, but in
other times and situations their scope and significance for the Church
are an open question to be answered only in the course of its history
and not without the utterance and reception of other words of this
kind. It consists (2) in the fact that, assuming they are received at
all, their reception is never in practice an affair of the whole com-
munity and all its members, but they are usually regarded as authori-
tative only by certain smaller or larger sections and occasionally only
by a few individuals. These two characteristics make it quite evident
that the right use of these free communications of the Lord can never
be regarded as other than extraordinary. But this means that we
cannot treat them like Holy Scripture, even though as true words
they can only confirm and illustrate Holy Scripture. Hence, even
when in a given time and place a few or many or even the majority in
the community are convinced of their truth, they cannot be fixed
and canonised as the Word of the Lord. That is, they cannot be
regarded and proclaimed as a source and norm of knowledge which is
valid at all times, in all places, and for all. And they certainly cannot
be collected, and assembled as words of universal authority, and as
such laid alongside Scripture as a kind of second Bible. They may
be issued and received here and there, yesterday, to-day and to-morrow.
But neither individually nor corporately can they be given universal
and normative authority as a source of revelation. They themselves
are opposed to such a process and avoid such a misuse. Their parti-
cularity as described above forbids us to handle them in this way.
And the consequences of such a misuse might be catastrophic. If
the modern Church were to attempt to canonise a free communication
of its Lord in this way, it would become a different Church from that
of yesterday which did not yet have it and therefore did not know this
new canon. And there might well arise a Church which recognised
this communication and another which did not, the vinculum pads
being broken between them if the former claimed universal validity
and obligatoriness for its insight and confession. And since in practice
there can seldom if ever be a free acknowledgment of such a com-
munication by all members of the community, the results could only
be disastrous if some presented it to others as a binding law, demanding
that they should hear it with them as the voice of Jesus Christ, whereas
for various reasons the latter could not regard it as anything more
than the clamour of secular history. Finally, the possibility cannot
be ruled out that we are deceived when we think we have received
such an extraordinary communication from Jesus Christ ; that we
are confusing the voice of a stranger with His voice ; that we are
134 6g The Glory of the Mediator
regarding a bit of darkness as the true light ; or that we are really
hearing His voice but either totally or partially misinterpreting it.
Supposing that in these circumstances we were permitted or even
commanded to declare that what we think we have received is a
word of revelation, and to place it as such alongside Holy Scripture ?
The supposed freedom for this encroachment was and is even to this
day the formal possibility of all heresies and schisms, of the formation
of all kinds of sects and parties, of all temptations and enticements, of
all falsifications of the Gospel and therefore of the Christian life. We
may thus conclude that no conviction, however profound or joyous,
as to the authenticity of such a free communication of Jesus Christ
can authorise either the community or any of its members to give
their discovery the exalted status of a dogma or to enforce it on
others as if it were such. This is something which the community must
not do in any circumstances.
In accordance with the extraordinary nature which always char-
acterises them, these true words can and should be made fruitful in
and for the community. If they are really true, and we have certainly
to reckon with this possibility, why should they not do this without
being given any canonical or dogmatic status ? Their work will
consist in leading the community at all times and places, and in all
its members, more deeply into the given word of the Bible as the
authentic attestation of the Word of Jesus Christ Himself. They will
make a contribution to the strengthening, extending and defining of
the Christian knowledge which draws from this source and is measured
by this norm, to the lending of new seriousness and cheerfulness to the
Christian life and new freedom and concentration to the delivery of
the Christian message. We may let them do this work without the
pretension of acquiring from them new tables or of being empowered
and obligated by them to proclaim such tables. They do not need this
to accomplish what they can and should accomplish. Why should
not those to whom it is given to receive these true words confess
them with gratitude, sincerity and resolution, yet also with the
humility which is required at this point too ? Why should they have
to claim them as revelations and make of them a law for themselves
and others ? Is it not enough if they are actually heard and followed ?
To be sure, those who receive them should stand by their insight to
the extent that they are sure of their ground. They should not keep
it to themselves. They should hold it up as an invitation and summons
to others, to the whole community, to share it with them. But they
should do this in such a way that they allow the fact of the instruction
received from them to speak for itself. They should show themselves
to be such as have heard a true word and been radically smitten by it.
They should bring forth the appropriate fruits. And then, with a
readiness to be corrected, they should leave it to the power of this
true word, by the ministry (and not the assertive claim) of its con-
2. The Light of Life 135
fession, to cause its truth to shine to others and to awaken its recogni-
tion and confession in them too. If it is a true word, the time will
inevitably come sooner or later when it can make its way and do its
work in and to the whole community. As it is really spoken in world
history, and in the measure that it is really received in the community,
it will certainly do this work in and to it. The more certain the com-
munity or individuals within it are of their knowledge of such a word,
the greater should be their confidence in its own power, and the more
boldly yet also the more modestly will they make known their know-
ledge. For in these circumstances it will definitely not have been
spoken or received in vain.
In conclusion, it is to be noted that, surprising though it may seem, in our
whole development of the problem of these other words we have not adduced
a single example, nor quoted a single name, nor mentioned an event or trend or
movement, nor referred to a new and singular or common and general phenomenon
in political, social, intellectual, academic, artistic, literary, moral or religious
life, to which there might be ascribed the character of a true word of this kind.
As distinct from Zwingli, who appealed to Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, Cicero
and others, we have deliberately refrained from doing this. This is not because
dogmatics, let alone the dogmatician, is forbidden in a particular context to
point to this or that person or event or enterprise or book which is obviously
outside the sphere of the Bible and the Church, and to draw attention to what is
genuinely true in it And self-evidently there can be no reason why the Christian
preacher, teacher or writer, or indeed the Christian generally, should not do so.
Our own concern, however, has been with the basic question whether and how
far we may reckon with true words of this kind both in theory and in practice.
But for a radical investigation of this question we have had to set aside anything
that might distract from the matter itself. None of the concrete phenomena
which arise in this connexion is as such the matter under consideration. All
such phenomena are doubtful and contestable What is not doubtful and
con testable is the prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ and its almighty power to
bring forth such true words even extra muros ecclesiae and to attest itself through
them. This and this alone is the matter to be treated. Hence it is right and
proper that we should avoid giving even the impression that dogmatics can and
should make pronouncements on matters on which He has already spoken or
will perhaps do so. It is for this reason that no examples have been given.
At the conclusion of this sub-section we must make a delimitation
which is essential to a true and keen yet also confident understanding
of everything thus far said. In everything thus far said our concern
has been with the basic christological form of the event of reconciliation
between God and man from its third standpoint, namely, the prophetic
work of Jesus Christ. This will still be so in the necessary delimitation.
Reduced to the simplest formula, what we have said is that Jesus
Christ was, is and will be the light of life, and because the light of
life, of His own reconciling life, therefore and to that extent the
one light incomparable in its majesty and authority. The implications
of this twofold statement have been developed already. Hence we
need not recapitulate them, but may take them as recognised and
136 69. The Glory of the Mediator
understood. But if this twofold statement is to express and underlie
fruitful Christian knowledge and responsible Christian confession, it
must be understood both keenly and confidently. This is necessary
for its proper distinction in relation to another statement which is
different from it, yet also related to it and both possible and necessary
alongside it. By " keenly " we mean that it must be made clear
how it does in fact differ from this other statement. By " confidently "
we mean that it must be shown to what extent it has this other state-
ment with its particular content beside it, not excluding but in the
true sense including and necessitating it.
In this second statement we are not concerned with the light of
life, with the gracious light of reconciliation, and therefore with the
one true light. As we shall see, its primary basis and ultimate meaning
are centred in Jesus Christ, and can be understood only in relation to
Him. Yet its particular content is not directly but only in this
indirect sense christological. First and last it is possible, tenable,
fruitful and helpful only in relation to Jesus Christ. It is included
in what is to be said concerning Him. Yet in its immediate and most
obvious content, in which its distinctiveness consists, it is not a state-
ment concerning Him nor a further development nor description of
the assertion that He is the one true light and Word of life. As a
specific declaration it rather accompanies and to that extent con-
fronts this statement. If it is understandable only in this confronta-
tion, and therefore in this relationship, it refers to a very different
subject. It has to do with lights, and in a qualified sense with words,
truths and even " revelations/ 1 but not with the self -revelations of
God. Thus we are not to think in the first instance of the light of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, nor of His truth as it is to be known in
the power of the Holy Spirit, nor of the light of His self-attestation
in the word of His prophets and apostles, nor of the extraordinary
self-attestations of Jesus Christ in world history a distinction which
must be underlined in relation to the preceding discussion.
It is not at all a matter of the light, truth or word of any specific
events. We can speak of the being, activity and speech of Jesus
Christ only in relation to specific events, only in the form of the narra-
tion of a history and histories. If Christology as the depiction of this
being, activity and speech is to be anything more than an obscure
metaphysics, in all its parts and aspects it can be only the unfolding
of a drama. Nor can we denote or describe in any other way that
which is found in Holy Scripture or the extraordinary self -attesta-
tions of Jesus Christ. Yet there is also a theatre and setting for His
being, activity and speech, and therefore for this history or drama.
This theatre is not itself a history. It is not immovable, rigid or
lifeless. Yet it is basically the same at all stages in the history. It
cannot, then, be described in the form of the narration of a history
and histories. If it has life, its life as such is not the reconciling life
2. The Light of Life 137
of Jesus Christ. It is the sphere in which, the object in relation to
which, and the medium by means of which, it is played out. It exists
in events. Yet in it we have a sequence and repetition of the same
events, or of events which are so similar that there can be no question
of a decisive difference between one and another, let alone of any one
being comparable or identical with the event of reconciliation, or
with any of the events in which the Church lives and there arises the
faith and obedience of the Christian. It is only in the form of the
events in which this theatre or setting also exists, in the form of
certain of these events, that against this background there take place
reconciliation, the life of the Church and the awakening to faith and
obedience. On a theological estimation the important thing in the
existence of this theatre and setting is not the fact that histories
are found in it too, but that, even when seen and understood as history,
it is a sequence and repetition of the same or very similar events.
The important thing is that in this field we have dominant lines,
continuities and constants which characterise the whole. This theatre
cannot be identified with the being, activity and speech of Jesus
Christ, nor with its regular mediation in Scripture and the existence
of the community, nor with the extraordinary forms of His presence
and action. For if there are not lacking lines and continuities and
constants in the life and work of Jesus Christ too, the theologically
significant thing in this case is that along these lines we are dealing
with history, with concrete events, not with the general features
which they share but the particularity with which they take place in
this way here and now. The problem of the setting of the reconciling
life of Jesus Christ, and therefore of His light, of His prophetic Word,
certainly cannot be stated, examined or meaningfully answered
except with reference to these particular happenings and in the light
of them. But in connexion with these it is a problem of its own
demanding independent consideration.
We speak of creation, of the creatura which is distinct from God
yet actualised by Him, of the creaturely world. This was foreseen
in the eternal election of Jesus Christ, and specifically called into being
in the beginning and as itself the beginning of all things, to be the
theatre and setting, the location and background, of the ordinary and
extraordinary mediation of His life and work. In the words of Calvin,
it is the theatrum gloriae Dei, the external basis of the covenant which
conversely is its internal basis (C.D., III, i, 41). So long as the
terms are filled out theologically in this way, it can be called the cosmos
or nature. What is meant is the unity and totality of celestial and
terrestrial creation, and within this of non-human and human, and
within this again of physical and psychical. What is meant is the
unity and totality of the reality distinct from God yet willed and
posited by Him ; creaturely esse and nosse as mutually related
and conditioned. In the setting and framework of this unity and
138 69. The Glory of the Mediator
totality there takes place the life of Jesus Christ and therefore recon-
ciliation, the event of salvation. It is the presupposition of this
event. It surrounds it on all sides. It is the ground on which and
the atmosphere in which it takes place. Indeed, it is the object to
which it relates. It is also its indispensable material and instrument.
In all these things it is distinct from it. And this persistent distinc-
tiveness of creation, the cosmos, nature, even human nature, from
reconciliation, is its constancy. The creaturely world naturally
displays many modifications and variations. It has its own dynamic
and movements. But it is dominated and characterised by the rota-
tion and return of many things which are the same or very similar.
Reconciliation does not take place in this rotation. It impinges upon
and determines it from without. It is a new thing in relation to the
moving and moved being of the cosmos. Not for nothing is it called
a new creation. In the life of the cosmos as such there does not take
place anything basically new. Its origin, purpose and goal in God are
marked by the fact that it should be steadfast. Even the sin of man
cannot shake its constancy, whether by way of diminution, addition
or alteration. But as it was and will be, it becomes a corrupted world
by reason of man's sin, falling under the divine curse and being
enveloped in darkness. Again, its constancy and essence are not
altered even by reconciliation, even by the establishment, realisation
and fulfilment of the covenant of grace between God and man, even
by the life and work of Jesus Christ. But as it was and will be, in
Jesus Christ it comes under a new determination. Creatura, the
creaturely world as such, persists both as the sphere and place of sin
and also as the sphere and place of the reconciliation accomplished
and being accomplished in Jesus Christ. Elected, willed and posited
once and for all by God, it is the one reality of heaven and earth, of
space and time, of being and cognition, in dynamic but steadfast and
indissoluble relationship. To the faithfulness of the Creator, which
is His free grace manifesting itself as faithfulness, there corresponds
the persistence and constancy of the creature. The man upon whom
and the sphere within which God acts as Reconciler are those elected,
willed and posited once and for all by God. As man's Creator, in His
faithfulness as such, and as He thus gives persistence and constancy
to man and his sphere, God is also his Reconciler. It is with man as
he remains the same in his inner and outer nature that God concludes,
maintains and fulfils the covenant of grace. If what He does as the
Founder and Lord of this covenant is not the same as what He does
as Creator, He does not do either without the other, but does both
simultaneously and in co-ordination. The work of His creative grace
has in view His reconciling grace. But the converse is also true, so
that He is always the Guarantor, Sustainer and Protector of His
creaturely world, of the cosmos or nature, thus giving it constancy in
the being with which He endowed it at creation.
2. The Light of Life 139
It is here that there is to be found the basis, possibility and
necessity of the other statement which has its own place and justifica-
tion alongside the assertion that Jesus Christ is the one light of life,
from which the latter assertion is distinct, which is not therefore
to be confused or identified with it, yet which is not expunged nor
rendered invalid nor meaningless by it, but the proper evaluation of
which in relation to it is the theological task to which we must now
briefly apply ourselves.
The simple point is that the creaturely world, the cosmos, the
nature given to man in his sphere and the nature of this sphere, has
also as such its own lights and truths and therefore its own speech
and words. That the world was and is and will be, and what and
how it was and is and will be, thanks to the faithfulness of its Creator,
is declared and attested by it and may thus be perceived and heard
and considered. Its witness and declaration may be missed or more
or less dreadfully misunderstood. But it is given with the same per-
sistence as creation itself endures thanks to the faithfulness of its
Creator. It is given, therefore, quite irrespective of whether the man
whom it addresses in its self-witness knows or does not know, con-
fesses or denies, that it owes this speech no less than its persistence
to the faithfulness of its Creator. Like its persistence, its self-witness
and lights are not extinguished by the corruption of the relationship
between God and man through the sin of man, his pride and sloth and
falsehood. However corrupt man may be, they illumine him, and
even in the depths of his corruption he does not cease to see and
understand them. It is true that by the shining of the one true light
of life, by the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ, they are exposed
and characterised as lights, words and truths of the created cosmos,
and therefore as created lights in distinction from this one light. Yet
as such they are not extinguished by this light, nor are their force
and significance destroyed. On the contrary, as the cosmos persists
in all its forms and media before, during and after the epiphany of
Jesus Christ, so it shines, speaks and attests itself before, during and
after this event. The truth given it by God in and with its actuality
endures. It does not do so independently of the epiphany of Jesus
Christ. But it does so independently of man's relationship and
attitude to the latter. As the divine work of reconciliation does not
negate the divine work of creation, nor deprive it of meaning, so it
does not take from it its lights and language, nor tear asunder the
original connexion between creaturely esse and creaturely nosse.
It might be suggested that in order to avoid confusion, to distinguish these
lights from God's own self-revelation, and to emphasise their persistence, we
should not speak of the lights but rather of the luminosity of the creaturely
world, and avoid altogether the use of the term revelation. Now we are certainly
speaking of the persistent luminosity of the world as opposed to the obscuring
by sin of human vision, yet also as distinct from man's enlightenment by the
140 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
light of God Himself. But when we remember that in the creation story the
account of the fourth day (Gen. I 14f -), m interesting contrast to that of the first
(Gen. i w -)f specifically refers to " lights," there seems to be no reason why we
should not do the same. The creaturely world, which is only the theatrum
glonae Dei, only the place where His own glory shines in the work of reconciliation
in which He Himself becomes man, has distinct glories or lights of its own which
as such are its own words and truths. And we shall see that there are many of
these. It does not have them of itself. It receives them from its Creator. But
receiving them from Him, it has them, and they are its own lights, words and
truths. Dangerous modern expressions like the " revelation of creation " or
" primal revelation " might be given a clear and unequivocal sense in this respect
which they do not usually have in common parlance. They are its own revela-
tions, i.e., those of the creatura or Kriais itself. If this expression is to be used
only very sparingly, it is not to be totally rejected in this sense and context.
There is a luminosity of the creaturely world as and because it is not without
lights which constantly shine and words and truths which are constantly per-
ceptible in it, as and because it does not merely have but also does not conceal its
persistence and distinctive being, continually disclosing it, making it visible,
audible, perceptible and recognisable, and to this extent revealing it. The implied
problem is perhaps seen and answered all the more keenly and confidently if we
do not try to introduce a new terminology at this point. We are dealing with
the light, the Word, the truth of God on the one side, and with the lights, the
words, the truths of the world created by and distinct from Him on the other.
Two verses of the morning hymn of J. Zwick may be recalled in this connexion :
" The skies above are full of lights
To light our life and its delights ;
A beauteous order is displayed
That honour to our God be paid.
So in the eyes a light is ours
To seek the good with all our powers,
To turn and look to God always
And note how gracious are His ways."
What is (a) the nature and function of these lights, and (b) their relationship
to the one light ?
On the presupposition and under the condition and limitation
that it is created and ruled by God, the world has its distinctive
being. It belongs to this distinctiveness, however, that it is not merely
in re but also in intellectu. On the same presupposition and under
the same condition, elected, willed and posited as such by God, it is
being which is known and knows, is seen and sees, is apprehended
and apprehends. The limits entailed by the presupposition and con-
dition appear at once in the fact that strictly and precisely we can
understand it only as being which is known by man and knows in
the person of man, whereas in the case of all other creatures we maj
feel and suspect but cannot know that the being of the world is know-
able to them, known by them and as this particular being able to know
in and through them. We can and must be satisfied to know of man
that the being of the world is one which is known by him and in this
way knows its own being. In relation to man as pars pro toto we may
say that the world created by God has truth in intellectu as well as in
2. The Light of Life 141
reality. We should be transgressing another of the frontiers set to
its being if we were to maintain that it existed merely in intellects,
and therefore, since we do not know of any other intellects, only in
that of man. But we are on sure ground when we say that it does
also exist in itellectu ; that it is being which is known, contemplated
and apprehended by man, and therefore knows, contemplates and
apprehends in man. The question whether the same might be true in
respect of other creatures obviously cannot be answered in the negative,
but since it cannot be answered in the affirmative either, it must be
left open.
With this limited but plain object in view, we may now make the
further point that the world created by God does not merely exist but
also speaks to one at least of its creatures, i.e., to man, giving itself
to be perceived by him. And in this creature, in man, it does not
merely exist but hears itself speak, receiving the message which it
imparts. In respect of man it can and must be said that the world
created by God is also (although not merely) a text which may be
read and understood, and at the same time its own reader and expositor.
Undeniable in the case of man, this quality of divinely created terrestrial
being as esse etiam in intellects is what is meant when we speak of
created lights which shine and may be seen, of words which are spoken
and received, in and with the being of the creaturely world, of the
truths valid in the reciprocity of converse between creature and
creature. These do not light up the world with the same brightness
as God does in His Word or as the world has in His sight and know-
ledge. But they bring illumination. They prevent the world from
being merely dark, or being plunged into absolute gloom by the sin
of man. To them we owe it that in the distinctive darkness of the
world (as compared with the light of God), and in the gloom caused
by the sin of man, there is still a measure of brightness. As words
of terrestrial being they are only terrestrial words, and as truths of
terrestrial being they are only terrestrial truths. They are not, then,
divine disclosures nor eternal truths. But since these words are
actually spoken and heard, the world neither is nor can be absolutely
dumb or deaf. The fact that they do not cease to be spoken and
heard means that it can never be altogether without voice or reason,
that even the worst communication does not completely fail to be
communication and may perhaps become better. And for all the
conceivable and actual error of man concerning God, his fellows and
himself, their terrestrial truth in all its relativity is at least an obstacle
to the onrush of chaos into the terrestrial life so severely threatened
by these errors. For this reason it would be foolish to despise them.
And we certainly cannot ignore or deny them. We actually live with
them. We cannot live without them. It is as well, therefore, to be
grateful to them.
Now the feature common to all these lights, words and truths, to
142 6g. The Glory of the Mediator
this intelligibility and intelligence of divinely created being, is formally
the fact that they point to something lasting, persistent and constant.
The very things which speak together endure through every change.
On the one side there is the created world which in all its specific
forms gives itself to be known, and is actually known, as what it
always was and is and will be. On the other side, knowing this world
and itself within it (either alone, or perhaps not alone, or it may be
representatively), there is the human creature, individually fashioned,
yet always as it was and is and will be with eyes and ears, with reason,
emotion and conscience. Again, that of which they speak is enduring.
What may be and is contemplated, conceived and known between
this object which is also subject and this subject which is also object ;
what is thus bright and audible and true, is always the one in the
many, the general in the particular, the steadfast in change, the
recurrent in alteration, the identical in the different. It is these lines,
continuities and constants, or at least some of them, which the intelli-
gible cosmos makes known to man and the intelligent cosmos actually
comes to know and knows in man as it addresses its reason to the
grasping of these lines, continuities and constants. It is a matter of
making visible and actually seeing certain patterns of creaturely being
in the sense of recurrent and ordered qualities and relationships.
Declaring these, creaturely being displays its steadfastness ; receiving
them, it strengthens itself. They cannot and do not have to be mathe-
matical or other rational patterns and therefore " laws/' Neither the
objective nor the subjective reason of the cosmos is exhausted m the
declaration and perception of these. The one order at stake is not
just uniform but multiform. It does not exclude the many, the
particular, the change, the alteration, the diversity. It includes
them, and this quite other than by the operation of a law. The only
thing excluded is chaos. What it declares and apprehends are con-
tours, models, orientations which as such have normative as well as
individual force, and to that extent a terrestrial and relative though
not a divine and absolute reliability the reliability needed if the
cosmos is to be the cosmos and not chaos. This is what is at issue in
the converse of the cosmos with itself, i.e., of the intelligible with the
intelligent cosmos. This is what is achieved by the lights which shine
in this converse, the words spoken, the truths made perceptible. As
they point to this order and thus give these orientations, they shed a
certain brightness in the darkness and resist the onslaught of gloom.
They draw attention to something which counts, and must always be
taken into account.
It will be seen at once that they have nothing directly to do with
the Word of reconciliation, with the prophecy of Jesus Christ. The
guarantee that there is in the world something which counts, and must
always be taken into account, does not end the moral strife of man
against God, or cancel his sin, or save him from death. One reason
2. The Light of Life 143
why we might perhaps refrain from speaking of these guaranteeing
lights as " revelation " is that no faith is needed to grasp them, but
only an obvious and almost inevitable perception, only the application
of the good but limited gift of common sense. In the converse which
is that of the world with itself, it is not a covenant of God with man
which is declared and perceived, but only a kind of divinely ordained
concordat between the world and itself. Its result is merely the
peace immanent to the world as such in and in spite of every con-
tradiction and conflict. This is not everything. Indeed, it is not
a great deal. It certainly cannot be regarded as identical with, or
even a parable of, the peace of the kingdom of God. The world as
such can p 
