The Fundamental Word of Christ’s Eschatological Proclamation

Whether understood as an expression of the inner attitude or disposition of the Christian, as a description of the kingdom’s inhabitants, or as a Christianizing of virtue theory, the beatitudes have generally been read within the framework of Christian ethics. This is as true of the Protestant tradition as it is of others. This essay considers a notable exception to that general approach: the account of the beatitudes as found in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics IV/2. Read as a “word of grace,” the beatitudes are understood by Barth to be a deepening of the revelation that God is for us, and ultimately so, as the “total savior.” More specifically, this essay argues that Barth offers a christological-cosmological reading of the beatitudes orientated to the saving advent of God’s eschatological kingdom in a “wounded” cosmos subjected to foreign lords, and that he thereby taps into the “apocalyptic” character of these sayings.