Sin is an Episode

"The atonement accomplished in Jesus Christ is God’s retort to the sin of man and its consequences. And the sin of man is an episode. It is the original of all episodes, the essence of everything that is unnecessary, disorderly, contrary to plan and purpose. It has not escaped the knowledge and control of God. But it is not a work of His creation and not a disposition of His providence.

It really comes about and is only as that which God did not will and does not will and never will will. It has its being only in the fact that it is non-being, that which from the point of view of God is unintelligible and intolerable. It takes place only as the powerful—but, of course, before God absolutely powerless—irruption of that which is not into the fulfilment of His will.

It takes place, therefore, only under the original, radical, definitive and therefore finally triumphant No of God. It is not a limitation of His positive will. Rather it exists as it is completely conditioned by His non-will. It is alive and active in all its fearfulness only on the left hand of God.

But the atonement accomplished in Jesus Christ, like creation and the providential rule of God, is a work on the right hand of God, a work of His positive will. It is so in the highest possible sense, in a way which gives it priority and precedence over creation and providence. In Jesus Christ God comes to grips with that episode. Jesus Christ is in fact God’s retort to the sin of man."

Karl Barth, The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country

When I read these words for the first time, years ago in my Trinitarian meta-torrey with Dr. Sanders, a shiver ran down my spine. I thought I had never before read such a clear accounting of the origin and being of evil, and its relation to the will of God and his Providence.

I still think that.

Let's break it down a bit:

Barth calls the sin of man "an episode." There are several potential definitions for this, but I think the most likely is "an incident or period considered in isolation." That is, an event that is not continuous with the events before or after it. And indeed, Barth explains it further in his next sentence:

• Sin is "unnecessary": It is not needed or required - specifically, not needed or required by God's plan or providence. 
• Sin is "disorderly": It goes against God's order, and is indeed the essence of disorderliness. 
• Sin is "contrary to plan and purpose." This is the clearest statement so far. Barth directly states that sin goes against ANY plan or purpose of God's

Finally, he clarifies and summarizes exactly what he means:

"It has not escaped the knowledge and control of God" .Sin is NOT something that exists outside the knowledge and control of God. God is not confounded or befuddled by sin. He is not left helpless by it, and he is not powerless against it. He knows it, and he is in control over it.

HOWEVER:

"It is not a work of His creation and not a disposition of His providence." This is the point of the entire paragraph. Here, Barth seems to reject, in the strongest possible manner, the idea of felix culpa,, "Happy Fault," the idea that God uses evil to accomplish greater good than would have been possible without the evil.

Note the "greater", because it's important. God can clearly use evil for good, and in fact we see that idea throughout the entire Bible. But there is a HUGE difference between that, and the idea that there is a GREATER level of good that requires evil in order to be actualized.

This is what Barth is fighting against. And that is why he says, over and over again, that evil, in and of itself, is disorderly, contrary to plan and purpose, and unnecessary.

His language grows stronger: "It really comes about and is only as that which God did not will and does not will and never will will."

Sin is something that God did not desire or cause to exist; It is something that God does not will or desire or cause to exist: And it is something that God never will desire or cause to exist. In the strongest possible language, he lays it down that sin is something that exists entirely outside the active will of God. Instead, sin exists "as the powerful—but, of course, before God absolutely powerless—irruption of that which is not into the fulfilment of His will", and ultimately "under the original, radical, definitive and therefore finally triumphant No of God."

In other words, sin is a temporary disruption of God's plan, existing only in so far as God does not actively destroy it...which he eventually will, as he "comes to grips with that episode" in Jesus Christ.


So... why is this important?

Because it makes a huge difference whether God allows sin to happen, or causes it to happen.

Because it makes a huge difference whether the ultimate cause of sin lies in the sinner, or in God's will and providence. 

And ultimately, because it makes a huge difference in whether sin can rightly be regarded as an enemy. 

Always Grace

"It was always grace for sinners‐grace shown to His enemies‐grace in the light of which man can only stand and acknowledge himself a transgressor, and therefore unworthy of it. The Son of Man from heaven had to be the friend of publicans and sinners, and die between two thieves. He had to, because God was already the God who loved His enemies, who “endured such contradiction of sinners against himself” ( Heb. 12:3)"
-Karl Barth

So, I was just rereading the relatively short portion of Karl Barth's works that I have on hand (I'm thinking about buying the full 800+ page portion that my small piece is taken from) when I stumbled upon this quote. I've read it before, and I have no doubt that I'll read it again, because I just love it. It points out some things that we, living after Christ has come, tend to forget. We know that we live in an age of Grace. We know (hopefully) that, when Christ came, certain fundamental aspects of Creation were changed. Paul himself talks about this change, demonstrating the difference between Grace and Law. We know all of this.

However, in comparing our current age of Grace to the previous age of Law, I think we sometimes go too far. We forget something that Karl Barth here points out. We forget that the fundamental, unchanging policy of God, even during the age of Law, beginning with the very first sin of Adam and Eve and continuing now and forever, is this--Grace towards sinners. We get so excited about the Grace that we now live under that, when we look at the Old Testament, we see only the Law and not the Grace that is the very foundation of everything God has done for us. We see only the Law of the 10 commandments, and we forget the grace with which God heard his children crying out and rescued them. Yet even as I think about that example, I think that even that obviously gracious action is a secondary effect of Grace. Grace is indeed the foundation and bedrock from which everything, even the Law, comes from. Barth points out that "The God of the Old Testament rules amongst his enemies... it is an unfaithful people to whom he gives and maintains his faithfulness." Yes, God does give harsh penalties for breaking the Laws he has given. But we forget that, in giving Laws which he knows will be broken, and giving penalties which he knows will be enacted, he is demonstrating his undying Grace and faithfulness to an ungrateful and unfaithful people. With each Law, each penalty, each period of punishment, God reminds the Children of Israel that he hasn't given up on them yet. And that... that is more Grace than the most righteous person on earth can hope for.

In short, what I am trying to say is that Grace is nothing new. The coming of the Word in the flesh does not demonstrate some sort of "policy change" God has implemented concerning us sinners. It is a continuation and, in a way, amplification of what has always been true: Grace for sinners. Yes, we operate under different rules than the Old Testament Jews. But there was Grace before and under even the harshest Law.

The Far Country

So, I've been kicking this thought around in my head for a long time now, ever since I read part of Karl Barth's "Way of the Son of God into the Far Country." In that work, Barth mainly focuses, as the title implies, on the Son of God and his incarnation, where he left heaven and came into the Far Country of our sinful, rebellious world. However, he also addresses the Old Testament extensively and says this--
"We are unequivocally and indispensably told by the Old Testament [that] the man elected by God, the object of divine grace, is not in any way worthy of it. From what we hear of the people of Israel and its kings, he shows by his action that he is a transgressor of the commandment imposed on him with his election, an enemy of the will of God directed and revealed to him. The God of the Old Testament rules amongst His enemies. He is already on the way into the far country to the extent that it is an unfaithful people to whom He gives and maintains His faithfulness." (emphasis mine).

Now, I read that last year, but then kind of forgot about it until this last spring when my Torrey group read Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Hosea. If you've read parts of any of those books lately, you'll know what I'm talking about. Those books are built upon the assumption that God is higher than the people of Israel, that God is a holy God and Israel is an unholy people, that God is a loving God and Israel is a rebellious people. I was particularly struck by Hosea (and I encourage you guys to read it, if you've never done so. It's a short book). Throughout the book, God stresses his love and faithfulness and contrasts it with the faithlessness and literal whoredom of Israel. God says that he will punish Israel for this, and says at one point, "I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face." (Hosea 5:15).

This really interested me, especially God saying he will return to his place. It reminded me that God's place is not naturally here, among the sinful, rebellious people that dwell on this fallen earth. God is the Most High God, and his place is the most high place. And yet he shows again and again that he is willing to make this far journey from his high, glorious place to this low, dark, fallen place to be among low, dark, fallen people. Hosea and the other two books I mentioned especially stress this in the Old Testament. In Hosea 11, God remembers the origins of Israel and how he "bent down to them and fed them." When God chooses to interact with us. he really is bending down to us, stooping to our level. In being faithful to a sinful, rebellious, faithless people, God demonstrates the great lengths to which he will go to show love to the world. And they are great lengths. It is no small thing when the infinite Creator of the Universe condescends to not only make himself known to us, but to help us, to reason with us, to remain faithful to us even when we are faithless to him. Praise be to God that he makes this far journey for us, that he is "God and not a man, the Holy One in [our] midst."

The Jewish Christ

So, summer! Hopefully I can blog more often now. Anyway, this next topic is actually related to my last post. I was typing up my last blog, and I realized that what had started as a blog about the solidity of Christ had turned into a post about the Jewishness of Christ. I knew that both needed their own post, so I decided to put this one off until... now. Here it is.

I have sometimes referred to the Jewishness of Christ as the best-kept secret of Christianity. If you are at all familiar with the history of Jewish-Christian relations, you know why I call it that. Throughout history, dating back even to the writing of the New Testament, non-Jewish Christians have been hostile to the Jews. Paul addresses this hostility and arrogance in Romans, pointing out to the Gentiles that the Jews are the original Chosen People of God-we, as Gentiles, are wild branches grafted into the cultivated tree, while the Jews are the original branches. This is important.

The Jews are the original Chosen People of God. The Old Testament is built on this assumption that Israel is God's Chosen People, and God is Israel's God, in a way not true of any other people. One of my favorite titles for God is "The Holy One of Israel." I'm not going to completely unpack this title, but I am going to bring out one thing that's relevant. He is not just "The Holy One." He is the Holy One of Israel. How incredible is this? The omnipotent Creator of the Universe, infinite in his power and majesty, gloriously holy, condescends to be the God of one small, insignificant group of people-not only that, but he personally brings them into being, sets them apart, nurtures them and protects them. There are many passages which suggest a marriage between God and Israel-indeed, it is this marriage on which all marriages are based. There is this unbreakable bond between God and his people, the people of Israel. This bond has remained constant since Israel was only one person, one family. It remained when Israel rejected God in favor of earthly kings; it remained when Israel frequently slipped back into idol worship; it remained when Israel was taken into captivity, and it remained when Israel returned once again to their Promised Land. And, according to Paul , it remains constant still. And it is in relation to this bond and not apart from it that God became man.

I should say that a lot of what I'm thinking about has been greatly influenced by Karl Barth's "The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country." He wrote quite a bit on Christ and the Incarnation: specifically, concerning this topic of Israel and the Jews, he wrote:

"The Word did not simply become any "flesh," any man humbled and suffering. It became Jewish flesh. The Church's whole doctrine of the incarnation and the atonement becomes abstract and valueless and meaningless to the extent that this comes to be regarded as something accidental and incidental. The New Testament witness to Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, stands on the soil of the Old Testament and cannot be separated from it. The pronouncements of New Testament Christology... relate always to a man who is seen to be not a man in general, a neutral man, but the conclusion and sum of the history of God with the people of Israel, the One who fulfills the covenant made by God with this people."

The Jews are the Chosen People of God. Not a chosen people. The Chosen People. It is important to keep this in mind when thinking about the Incarnation. The Word became a Jewish man, became Jewish flesh, for a particular reason-it was in no way accidental. If you take away the Jewishness of Christ, make him an Everyman, a "neutral man," Israel is left drifting, as if God had forgotten about her, as if God had forsaken his Chosen People. Our own faith is left disconnected from the Jewish faith of the Old Testament, and even from the God of the Old Testament. Paul tells us that God will complete the work he has begun in us-Christ is the everlasting, eternally ongoing completion of the good work he began in Israel. This is God coming down and taking the place not of any group of people, but of his people. He remains the Holy One of Israel, but now he is also the holy Israelite, the first truly holy Jewish person to ever live. In him God fulfills his promises to punish the unrighteous and reward the righteous, for Christ fulfills both roles. In him God fulfills his promise to use Israel to save the world. And in him God will save Israel.