Barth’s doctrine of election feels incarnational because it is the determination of the Son to be the incarnate Son.
Traditional Reformed dogmatics always insisted, as Richard Muller has shown, always election in Christ. But, again, the fact that in electing the elect in Christ God the Son determined Himself to be the elect One has been implicit rather than explicit.
Barth brings it to the forefront: God the Son elects because He is God with the Father and Spirit; but if God the Son elects in Christ, then He elects Himself, determines and commits Himself, to be that Christ in whom the elect will have life; He is thus not only the electing God but the elect man. And that means that election itself is a self-determination, a self-commitment of the Son to become flesh. Election is the Son’s self-giving, His determination to be the Crucified One.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
