7 Time and narrative
7.1 The Word which became time
As is normal for stories, John‟s Gospel narrates a progression of events through time, within which people encounter each other, face challenges, make decisions and show developments in their character. However, Barth emphasises that the central figure portrayed by John, though present within time, is also greater than time. In fact, it is Barth‟s interpretation of John‟s account of the incarnation of Jesus Christ which provides the model for his view of time and its relationship to eternity. Barth does not present Jesus Christ as someone travelling through a temporal framework obtained from elsewhere, but insists that the truth about time is determined by the central character himself.
Barth distances himself from the view expressed in his commentary on Romans of revelation as „permanently transcending time‟, which he describes as a reaction against the „prevailing historicism and psychologism‟. He declares „The Word
became flesh‟ also means „the Word became time‟, and explains that his former view did not do justice to John 1.14.528 Based on the bringing together of divinity and humanity, Barth sees eternity and time joining together without either dissolving into the other. Barth‟s Christological view allows him to see God acting within history without being formed by it or dependent on it, remaining free and transcendent. He writes:
A correct understanding of the concept of eternity is reached only if we start from the other side, from the real fellowship between God and the creature, and therefore between eternity and time. This means starting from the incarnation of the divine Word in Jesus Christ. The fact that the Word became flesh undoubtedly means that, without ceasing to be eternity, in its very power as eternity, eternity became time.529
Chalcedonian Christology remains important here, as Roberts comments:
The supreme theological locus of the union of God and man in the Word become flesh subordinates all other categories. This union is propounded through the distinction of an-
528 CD I.2, p. 50
529 CD II.1, p. 16
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and enhypostasis, a Christological conception which presents is own difficulties, but which is, in this context, extremely important as an explanation of the basis upon which eternity and time are reconciled.530
In contrast with Bultmann‟s retreat from history into the present moment of decision, Barth emphasises God‟s presence within the history shown in the biblical narrative of salvation. He declares:
If the Word of God had not become temporal it would not have become flesh. Becoming flesh, it clothed itself with time, the time of a man‟s life… In this present, past and future, God creates from our lost time his time of grace – the time of his covenant with man…
The incarnate Word of God is. But this means that it was and will be.531
Barth, while not seeing God as constrained by history or the deductions of historians, affirms that God‟s identity is shown through his actions within the past, present and future. Therefore, although Barth describes Jesus as the Word and as the truth, he is not trying to present Jesus simply as an idea, or the bringer of an idea for us to learn. He describes Jesus Christ in personal, historical, dynamic terms, insisting:
In the language of the Bible knowledge (yada, γιγνωζκειν) does not mean the acquisition of neutral information, which can be expressed in statements, principles and systems…
What it really means is the process or history in which man… becomes aware of another history which in the first instance encounters him as an alien history from without, and becomes aware of it in such a compelling way that he cannot be neutral towards it, but finds himself summoned to disclose and give himself to it in return.532
Barth writes that the reconciliation of the world with God has a „historical, dramatic and warring character.‟533 He does not see the „I am‟ sayings of John‟s Gospel as declarations of a static form of being, but as „materially identical‟ with the proclamation in the Synoptic Gospel that „the kingdom of God is at hand.‟ He writes:
„History is the life of all men actualised in Jesus Christ. It is the history of the covenant fulfilled in him.‟534
530 Roberts, 1991, p. 40
531 CD III.1, p. 73
532 CD IV.3.i, p. 183-184
533 CD IV.3.i, p. 180
534 CD IV.3.i, p. 181
Reconciliation is, above all, an event, a divine action. It has also the character of revelation because this event has an impact on us and involves us. Barth comments:
„In this character it proves itself to be a history which encroaches and impinges upon us men no matter who we are or what we may think of ourselves… history in which our own history takes place.‟535
Barth‟s understanding of the Word which became time allows him to emphasise strategically the initiative and revelation of God shown in the biblical narrative. Here he opposes those who, like Bultmann, do not find God‟s action in history. His use of an- and enhypostatic Christology allows him at the same time to guard against those who, like Hegel, merge God entirely into the processes of history.
However, Barth does risk emphasising the completed action of God in a way which diminishes the significance of history. For example, he can seem to compress the whole drama of salvation into the declaration of the incarnation. Here Barth makes use of the distinctive Johannine theme that the glory of the victorious Christ is displayed powerfully from the very beginning and shown through the crucifixion, rather than being glimpsed during the story and then shown triumphantly at the resurrection. Barth refers to the „I am‟ sayings and writes that „in the story of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel we have one long story of the transfiguration.‟536 He notes that „as the Gospel of John has it, his exaltation on the cross was also his exaltation to the Father.‟537 Barth describes the crucifixion as „the fulfilment of the incarnation of the Word,‟ revealing what „was indeed virtual and potential from the very beginning his history and existence.‟538 He also ties the resurrection and ascension to the
incarnation, declaring that they are the „event of John 1.14‟, in which the glory of the Word made flesh was seen. Barth insists that Jesus „did not become different‟ in the resurrection and ascension, but that he „was actually seen as the one he was and is.‟539
Barth refers repeatedly to John when describing Jesus as Lord of time.540 He also embraces the realised eschatology shown in much of the Fourth Gospel. Quoting
535 CD IV.3.i, p. 183
536 CD IV.2, p. 139
537 CD IV.2, p. 154
538 CD IV.2, p. 140
539 CD IV.2, p. 133
540 CD III.2, p. 437-11
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John 14:18 („I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you‟), he says: „Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and parousia are here seen as a single event, with much the same foreshortening of perspective as when we view the whole range of the Alps from the Jura.‟541
As I have already noted,542 this compression of time is part of the way in which Barth avoids looking closely at the Spirit, sandwiching Pentecost tightly between the resurrection and second coming of Jesus Christ, labelling them all as three forms of the parousia. As will be seen in more detail in the following pages, this is a highly unusual approach to history and narrative. It uses themes from John‟s Gospel in a way which makes that text appear much less like a story.