Church Dogmatics IV/1

Summary: As true God, Jesus Christ is the reconciliation between God and humanity: he is the humble Lord who became a servant and brother to us, the Judge who was judged in our place, taking our sin and destroying it, so that we are now justified and reconciled to God.

Quote: “The subject-matter, origin and content of the message received and proclaimed by the Christian community is at its heart the free act of the faithfulness of God in which He takes the lost cause of man, who has denied Him as Creator and in so doing ruined himself as creature, and makes it His own in Jesus Christ, carrying it through to its goal and in that way maintaining and manifesting His own glory in the world” (p. 3).

Notable section: §58—Barth’s survey of the whole doctrine of reconciliation (i.e. the whole of volume IV) brings to light the exquisite architectonic beauty of this doctrine; on account of its intricate structure and design, Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation is one of the most aesthetically beautiful works of theology ever written.