Jesus Christ

Abstract

Around 1915 Barth saw in the name of Jesus Christ the unity of a God we do not have, with a human being that we are not. In both editions of his Epistle to the Romans, this intuition was expressed, but not yet thought through. When Barth became acquainted with post-Reformation orthodoxy in Göttingen, however, he discovered a way to understand his intuitions in light of the doctrinal decisions of the early church. From Christological debates between the Lutherans and the Reformed, he learned in the 1930s that there cannot be just one representation of the overwhelming reality of the Lord, and that a theologian needs to argue along several different lines. In his doctrine of reconciliation, Barth sketched these different lines in discrete part-volumes. The more formal category of the Word gave way to the all-embracing presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.