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.
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