Incarnation and Eschatology

Barth insists, rightly, that the incarnation doesn’t express any “need” or lack on God’s part, but is rather His free gracious response to the “radical neediness of the world.” Taking on that neediness also means taking up our cause. He comes to maintain and carry through humanity’s cause to victory.

This involves rescue and reorientation; He takes up the cause that sinful humans may not even recognize are our cause – the cause, for example, of destroying our efforts to set ourselves up as judges in God’s place. But it also involves taking up what we consciously aim to achieve – our struggle against death, our projects for justice and peace, our hopes for knowledge of and dominion over the earth. In taking on flesh, He takes on the human project in all its dimensions, and takes that cause to victory.

That is: Incarnation = postmillennialism.