Abstract
Whether understood as an expression of the inner attitude or disposition of the Christian, as a description of the kingdomâs 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 Barthâs Church Dogmatics IV/2. Read as a âword of grace,â the beatitudes are understood by Barth to be a deepening of the revelation that God is for us, and ultimately so, as the âtotal savior.â More specifically, this essay argues that Barth offers a christological-cosmological reading of the beatitudes orientated to the saving advent of Godâs eschatological kingdom in a âwoundedâ cosmos subjected to foreign lords, and that he thereby taps into the âapocalypticâ character of these sayings.
Introduction
The beatitudes are one of the best-known and most cherished portions of the New Testament. They are also a source of no little theological contestation and consternation. The Protestant tradition, in particular, has from its very inception been forced to grapple with the doctrinal implications of the beatitudes. After all, their prima facie formâthose who do X will receive Yâseems to suggest the works-righteousness scheme that the Reformers sought to overturn with their uncompromising attachment to the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith apart from the works of the law.1 Faced with this potential threat to the doctrine of justification, the Reformers felt compelled to deflate the status of the beatitudes in order to demonstrate the harmony between these sayings and the apostle Paulâs soteriology.
Martin Luther dealt with this potential threat by insisting that the beatitudes are not concerned with the being of a Christianâwith what makes a Christian a Christianâbut with the outward activity of those who are already Christians by grace.2 In John Calvinâs Institutes, the relationship between the beatitudes and the doctrine of justification is briefly addressed and similarly resolved. Calvin notes that in certain biblical passages there appears to be a view that blessedness is attributed to works, and some of the beatitudes seem to countenance this view. Calvin is adamant, however, that these makarisms âdo not gainsay the truth of what Paul says.â3 They do not do so, he argues, because the blessedness promised in the beatitudes is, essentially, penultimate, or non-salvific. The only blessedness that ultimately matters is the blessedness of forgiveness. Within the sphere of that ultimate blessedness there is nevertheless a place for penultimate blessedness. But outside of that sphere of ultimate blessedness, the penultimate blessedness is of no avail.
Acquitted of contradicting the doctrine of justification, the beatitudes could be freely interpreted by Luther and Calvin in a decidedly ethical fashion. According to Luther, the beatitudes âare nothing but instruction about the fruits and good works of a Christian.â4 Though Luther states that Christ is not a new Moses, that is, that Christ is not a teacher of the law, since he comes not with demands but with promises,5 he can nevertheless read the first beatitude as a âcommand ⦠to be âspiritually poor.ââ¯â6 Calvin takes a similar approach. He understands the beatitudes to be, in essence, words of exhortation to the faithful. By commending certain qualities, the intention of the beatitudes is to acclimatize disciples of Christ to his rule from the cross, in the hope of future reward. These disciples must learn to âset their happiness beyond the world, and above the desire of the flesh.â7 It is this âphilosophyâ that the beatitudes teach. Far from eliminating the âethicizingâ of the beatitudes, then, the early Reformers can be seen to incorporate an ethical interpretation of the beatitudes into a predominantly Pauline soteriology, though the meaning of âethicalâ is undoubtedly transfigured in the process.8
The subsequent Protestant tradition has largely followed the Reformersâ approach to the beatitudes. Whether they are understood as an expression of the inner attitude or disposition of the individual Christian,9 as a description of the kingdomâs inhabitants,10 or as a Christianizing of virtue theory,11 these gospel sayings have been read within the framework of Christian ethics. Expressed in terms of Ulrich Luzâs typology, it can be said that Protestant theologians have tended as a rule to fall into one of two closely related schools of interpretation: they read the beatitudes either as ethical exhortation or as regulations for community life.12
One notable exception to this rule is Karl Barth. Indeed, according to Luzâs typology, there is a third school of interpretation, one that is more sparsely populated than the other two, yet that at face value appears particularly and differently hospitable to Protestant theological sensibilities. This third type consists of those who read the beatitudes as a âword of grace.â13 Luz himself numbers Barth among this third group of interpreters.14 This article takes Luzâs observation as an invitation to examine what it looks like, on Barthâs terms, to understand the beatitudes as a word of grace. Barth, I will demonstrate, interprets the beatitudes as a deepening of the revelation that God is for us, and ultimately so, as the âtotal savior.â15 This reference to Jesus as the âtotal saviorâ appears in the doctrine of nothingness in CD III/3, in the context of Barthâs apocalyptic description of Christ as âthe Conqueror not only of sin but also of evil and death.â16 What I show in the present article is that this broadly âapocalypticâ sensibility on Barthâs part bears upon his reading of the beatitudes and distinguishes it from the âethicalâ readings that otherwise predominate in the Protestant tradition.
In part 1, I will unpack Barthâs description of the beatitudes as the âfundamental Word in Christâs proclamation of the kingdomâ within the context of âThe Royal Manâ as a whole and in connection with his later (and related) treatment of the theme of the kingdom of God in The Christian Life. In doing so, I will demonstrate in particular the âcosmological-apocalypticâ significance Barth gives to the concepts of proclamation, kingdom, and Christ, and will trace the impact of this cosmological-apocalyptic significance for Barthâs approach to the beatitudes as a whole. In part 2, I will go on to explore how this cosmological-apocalyptic framing of the beatitudes informs Barthâs distinctive reading of the first four Matthean beatitudes before turning, in part 3, to Barthâs understanding of the remaining beatitudes, which are all marked by their explicit reference to human activity.
1 Apocalypticizing the Beatitudes
The most notable âformalâ feature of the gospel beatitude, according to Barth, is the âprivilegedâ place given to the collection of beatitudes at the head (Spitze) of Jesusâs two key sermons in Matthew and Luke.17 By Barthâs reckoning, the privileged place accorded these sayings signifies that the beatitudes spoken by Jesus âimpressed themselves on the tradition as the fundamental Word of [Christâs] proclamation of the kingdom of God.â18
This is a striking description of the beatitudes and one that requires careful unpacking. Three elements from it are worth expanding upon. The first is Barthâs description of the beatitudes as proclamation. The second is his understanding of the content of this proclamation as proclamation of the kingdom of God. The third is his concentration on the fact that the beatitudes are Christâs own proclamation of the kingdom of God. Each of these elements, we will see, are freighted with unmistakable âcosmological-apocalypticâ significance. The act of preaching, the content of what is preached, and the identity of the preacher are understood against the backdrop of the sovereign, eschatological act of God whose purpose is a âseizure of powerâ (Machtergreifung) within a cosmos under foreign lordship.
1.1 Proclamation
Barthâs description of the beatitudes as the fundamental Word in Christâs proclamation of the kingdom encourages us to consider further the understanding of âproclamationâ that emerges in âThe Royal Man.â The third section of âThe Royal Manââthe section on the âlife-actâ of Jesusâis particularly helpful for elucidating what, precisely, Barth means when he describes the beatitudes as the Word of proclamation.
A treatment of this life-act, Barth insists, must begin with the fact that this life-act was Jesusâs Word. Barth uses the term âWordâ in a comprehensive sense. He refuses the distinction between the speaking of Jesus and the act of Jesus, for such a distinction overlooks the reality that in all of the acts of Jesus there was also a speaking, as well as the reality that the speaking of Jesus was itself a âdecisive and effective act.â19
The âprimary and controlling aspectâ of Jesusâs life-act, in Barthâs view, is the âcommunication,â the âself-communicationâ (Selbstmitteilung)20 of Jesus by his âspoken Word.â21 This will be the major theme in the third part-volume of the doctrine of reconciliation, where the doctrine takes a âJohannineâ turn. In the âSynopticâ inflection of the doctrine of reconciliation in CD IV/2, Barthâs discussion of the spoken Word of Jesus is organized around the three most important âactive wordsâ used by the gospel writers to denote the speech of Jesus: euangelizesthai (to preach the gospel), didaskein (to teach), and kÄrussein (to proclaim).
Matthewâs use of the word âteachâ in the short preface to the Sermon on the Mount suggests that the beatitudes are best located within the dimension of the spoken Word of Jesus denoted by the term didaskein. For Barth, however, it is under the term euangelizesthai that the beatitudes most naturally belong. The preaching of the gospel is summarized by Barth as an eschatological âsummons to joyâ (Aufruf zur Freude).22 The beatitudes, as âthe climax [Spitze] of this summons,â are for this reason to be understood as gospel proclamation.23
Barth, it should be noted, refuses any hard and fast distinction between âto preach the gospelâ and âto teach.â24 Yet, even if the beatitudes were to be read by Barth as teaching, such a reading would be guided by the insistence that the teaching of Jesus âis not a pedagogic action.â25 This negative reference to pedagogic action signifies the contrast between the Word of Jesus and the word of both stoic moralists and gnostic mystagogues. The guiding principle of moralists and mystagogues is âa program for the education of the human race, a plan for its moral or sacramental elevation, for the development of its deepest (and hitherto unsuspected or neglected) potentialities, for their actualization even to the point of what was conceived to be an attainable deification.â26 Numerous interpretations of the beatitudes rhyme with this guiding principle.27 Yet where others see significant overlap between Jesus and the Stoics, Barth sees stark opposition.28
The preaching of Jesus is for Barth an irreducibly apocalyptic activity, in a way that the words of the Stoics, and even the words of the Old Testament prophets, could not be. It is an apocalyptic activity because the event proclaimed is, as he writes,
the coming of the kingdom, the fulfillment of the lordship of God on earth, its concrete institution in direct contrast to all human lordships and kingdoms, the striking of the last hour for these dominions however long they may still persist, the once for all, complete and irrevocable seizure of power by God as a historical reality among men.29
Furthermore, as indicated above, the very distinction between âeventâ and âproclamationâ is called into distinction in the life-act of Jesus. The preaching of Christ is itself a decisive and efficacious act. âWhat He proclaims becomes actuality the moment He does so.â30 Because Jesus is âthe One who comes,â he does not speak of âan assumption of power [Machtergreifung] which has still to take place, or does so in some other way.â31 Rather, Godâs eschatological seizure of power in the cosmos is accomplished âas [Jesus] speaks.â32
Seen in the light of this subsequent discussion of Christâs proclamation in âThe Royal Man,â Barthâs description of the beatitudes as the fundamental Word in Christâs proclamation of the kingdom is shown to be nothing less than a description of their apocalyptic significance and character. Taken together, the beatitudes are the fundamental Word spoken at âthe striking at the last hourâ and spoken against the âdominionsâ that are being brought to nothing precisely by this decisive and effective speech. If the beatitudes tell of what Margaret Davies has termed an âeschatological reversal,â as Barth surely thinks they do, they do so within the context of a cosmic battle, where the reversal means not simply a change of fortune but a change of lordships.33 Barthâs description in CD II/2 of what the Sermon on the Mount actually proclaims captures this well: it proclaims that âGod has irrevocably and indissolubly set up the kingdom of His graceâ in the âimmediate neighborhoodâ of âthe sphere of power of Satan.â34 The beatitudes, it follows, are the head of just that proclamation.
1.2 The Kingdom of God
The decisive, material originality of the beatitudes is that the truth of these pronouncements is wholly dependent on the immanence of the kingdom of God. In foregrounding the reality of the kingdom, Barth is continuing the hermeneutical strategy adopted in his exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole in CD II/2, which reads it in the light of its connection âwith the theme of Godâs kingdom as it has come in the person of Jesus.â35 Given the prominence of the kingdom of God both in the beatitudes themselves and in Barthâs interpretation of them, it will be helpful to sketch briefly this concept as we find it developed in Barthâs fragmentary ethics of reconciliation, posthumously published as The Christian Life.
Barth discusses the kingdom of God amid his elucidation of another portion of the Sermon on the Mount, namely, the petition âThy kingdom comeâ within the Lordâs prayer.36 âKingdom,â Barth here insists, names not so much a location as an act and event. The prayer for the coming of the kingdom looks âto an act of God which, although it embraces all times and places in its compass, is a once-for-all act that had not taken place before and neither needs to be nor can be repeated.â37 The distinctiveness of this act is that it is a new act. The petition is uttered in âthe sphere of human unrighteousness and disorder,â a sphere dominated by âlordless powers.â38 Characteristic of this sphere, according to Barth, is monotony and repetition. He writes:
the sphere is finally a boring one to the extent that events in it, as Qoheleth knew and said [Eccl. 1:2â11, etc.], do not constitute any new history but are a cyclic history with constant repetition of the same things, like the famous snake which bites its tail and waits to see what will finally happen when it continues its meal.39
By contrast, the kingdom of God, as Godâs act, âdoes not take place in the continuation of a dubious cycle, nor as a repetition or variation of the same thing.â40 It is, for this reason, unlike âany other event.â41 Redeploying language made famous in his commentary on Romans some forty years prior, Barth asserts that the kingdom âbreaks through the plane of all previous things vertically from above [senkrecht von oben her].â42 The possibility of its occurrence is not immanent to the world; from the worldâs standpoint, its occurrence is âabsolutely unexpected and inconceivable.â43 The kingdom is that âone thing that is wholly new.â44
As Godâs new, unprecedented act, the kingdom of God is nothing less than God himself in his coming: âGodâs kingdom is God himself andâwonder of wonders, Marcion was right hereâit is God himself as he not merely is somewhere and somehow (not even in the highest height or as the God beyond God of Paul Tillich) but as he comes.â45 Barthâs description of what is involved in the coming of God is worth quoting at length:
He does not come as a self-disclosing numen to give them material for religious ideologies and the corresponding cults. He does not come to reveal and impart to them this or that morality. He does not come with a purpose whose execution depends, if not totally, then at least partially on the action, or at any rate the cooperation of Christians. He comes in the deed in which he acts and deals on and for and with them as their Lord and King, in which he acts directly as such and proves himself to be such. In coming he illumines, establishes, asserts, and protects his questioned, obscured, and threatened right to man and therefore manâs own right, his right to life, which is negated apart from Godâs own right as Lord and King.46
The stress here is on the fact that the kingdom of God is âGodâs own independent action.â47 This claim has a critical force, since it indicates that the human âcannot bring in the kingdom of God.â48 Instead, the kingdom is âGodâs own action, which does not merge into the best of human action, for example, that of Christian faith or the Christian church, which does not mingle with it, let alone identify itself with it, which remains free and independent over against it, and which in its purity and freedom is Godâs gracious, reconciling, and finally redeeming action.â49
What is especially noteworthy about this understanding of the kingdom as Godâs independent action is that Barth explicitly contrasts it with what he takes to be the âReformation understandingâ of the kingdom initiated by Luther and Calvin, an understanding that relates the coming of the kingdom âto what is done, or should be done, in Christian faith and the Christian church in service to the world.â50 This is an understanding, moreover, which he claims âremained normative in modern theologyâ51 and which stands in basic continuity to the ancient tradition.
It is at this point that Barth explicitly sides with modern critical exegesis over against the theological tradition.52 In stating that modern New Testament scholars have ârendered a not yet fully appreciated service to theological knowledge with its discovery of the eschatological character of the New Testament in general and the message of the kingdom of God in particular,â Barth is keenly aware that he is âparting company with an imposing ecclesiastical consensus.â53 Indeed, the disagreement over how the beatitudes are to be understood, I submit, concerns not so much the beatitudes themselves but the larger theme of the kingdom of God. Given the account of the kingdom later presented in The Christian Life yet undoubtedly already operative in CD IV/2âthe kingdom as a new, sovereign, independent, eschatological action of Godâit becomes clear why Barth would avoid a predominantly âethicalâ reading of the beatitudes. For if the beatitudes are the fundamental Word in Christâs proclamation of the kingdom of God, they are primarily, if not exclusively, the Word of Godâs sovereign, salvific power; they declare what Eugene Boring calls an âobjective realityâ that results from âa divine actâ and not from âsubjective feelings.â54
Barthâs understanding of the beatitudes as words bound up with the eschatological reality of the kingdom creates space for what might be called a cosmological reading of these statements. As will be explored below, they are permitted to be heard as good news for humans living in particular âsituationsâ in the cosmosânot because of any inherent or secret goodness in these situations, but because they herald the presence of the kingdom of God that invades the monotony of the world. Who are the blessed, and why are they blessed? For Barth, the answer to both of these questions centers on the reality of Godâs dawning kingdom: âboth the situation of those who are pronounced blessed and also that on account of which the beatitude is proclaimed, are in some way created and conditioned by the imminent kingdom of God.â55 There is for Barth a âdescriptiveâ power to the beatitudes. They âdenote and describeâ both the situation of a particular group of people and the âsignificance and promiseâ of this situation. But this situation, as well as its significance and promise, are âgrounded in the presence of Jesus.â56
1.3 Christ the Novum
With this identification of the kingdom of God with the presence of Jesus we arrive at the nail on which Barthâs understanding of the beatitudes hangs.57 It is no accident when at, the beginning of his treatment of the beatitudes, Barth immediately emphasizes that, with only one exception, the beatitudes included in the gospel narratives âare always pronounced ⦠by Jesus Himself.â58 Above all else, it is the identity of the speaker of the gospel beatitudes that makes them a distinctive phenomenon.59 Barthâs âchristologicalâ reading of the beatitudes is, for this reason, not fully captured by understandings that take them as descriptions of ChristâChrist as the poor one, Christ as the one who mourns, Christ as the meek, and so onâeven though such a reading of the beatitudes is evident in some of Barthâs sermons on this portion of scripture.60 But in the analysis of the beatitudes in âThe Royal Man,â the âchristologicalâ reading of the beatitudes has primarily to do with the fact that Jesus is the one who pronounces the blessing.
Barthâs account of the beatitudes is fundamentally disciplined by the eschatological identity of the speaker, who is the new human, the second Adam, the kingdom in person. As Barth declares at the climax of his treatment of the kingdom in The Christian Life, Jesus Christ is âthe new thingâ (das Neue),61 and precisely as das Neue his proclamation of the kingdom of God âis not the proclamation of a reality and truth differing from himself as its Proclaimer, from his being and life.â62 The theme of ânewness,â in fact, is a dominant theme in Barthâs treatment of Jesus as the royal manâindeed, it is a dominant theme in the second part-volume of the doctrine of reconciliation as a whole.63 §â¯64 begins with the thesis statement that âJesus Christ, the Son of God and Lord who humbled Himself to be a servant, is also the Son of Man exalted as this servant to be the Lord, the new and true and royal man.â64 In the first section of âThe Royal Man,â in which Barth delineates the character of Christâs presence as attested in the gospels, he begins with the claim that Jesus was seen by his community as âan absolutely alien and exciting novum.â65 In the second section, Barth uses the description of the ânew manâ in Ephesians 4:24 as the point of departure for his depiction of Christâs correspondence to the existence of God. In his discussion of Jesusâs ârevolutionaryâ relationship to worldly orders and powers, Barth declares that âthe new thing of Jesus [das Neue Jesu] is the invading kingdom of God revealed in its liberating antithesis to the whole world and therefore to all its orders.â66 Proclaimed in this revolutionary relationship to the orders is the âendâ of the âoldâ and a ânew beginning beyond this end.â67
The theme of newness comes to a climax in Barthâs treatment of the beatitudes. What they say to those to whom they are addressed is âentirely newâ (ganz Neues).68 It is entirely new because the one who speaks here is entirely new. The beatitudes âcan be said only by the royal man who Himself brings and is this new thing.â69 And as this royal man comes on the scene, the being of those addressed in the beatitudes is âlit up in a new wayâ; it is a being that is ânewly orderedâ by the coming of the kingdom in the person of Christ.70
Alongside the eschatological newness of Jesus, and filling out its particular content, stands Jesusâs correspondence to God. The beatitudes are treated at the conclusion of Barthâs exploration of the âcorrespondenceâ between the man Jesus and God. The four points of correspondence between God and Jesus that Barth picks are instructive, both in relation to the kind of christology developed in his doctrine of reconciliation and in relation to his understanding of the beatitudes. He does not select âattributesâ of God in any classical sense, attributes that are then embodied by the man Jesus. Rather, he selects what one might think of as contingent aspects of the divine existence vis-Ã -vis the cosmos: Godâs being ignored and despised by the world, Godâs selection of the poor, Godâs freedom in relation to worldly powers and laws, and ultimately Godâs being for the world. In selecting these points of correspondence, Barth implicitly steers clear of presenting Jesus as the ideal human or as the earthly model of virtue and pietyâa presentation that flourished in the rationalistic âlives of Jesusâ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and that would undoubtedly fund a very different interpretation of the beatitudes from that which Barth advances.71 With a virtue-driven Christology in the background, the beatitudes might have been taken to extol the person of Jesus and the religion inaugurated by him as the human expression of the glorious divine character. Indeed, the popularity of the Sermon on the Mount among theologians ancient and modern has depended in part on its apologetic expediency.72 The moral beauty of Christianity, or its status as the highest of the world religions, could be defended by pointing to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5â7. The Christology developed by Barth in CD IV/2 in general and âThe Royal Manâ in particular blocks any such understanding and use of the beatitudes at the source.
It is of particular significance that the examination of the beatitude as a âdistinctive phenomenonâ in the gospels concludes Barthâs treatment of the fourth âcorrespondenceâ between the man Jesus and the divine life: the correspondence between Jesusâs being for the world and Godâs being for the world.73 The exegesis of the beatitudes is grouped together with Barthâs exegesis of Maryâs Magnificat and Zechariahâs Benedictus, as well as his comments on the âcompassionâ of Jesus attested in the gospels.74 As Barth reads them, each of these texts bears witness to âthe incursion of the Yesâ spoken by Jesus to a world gripped by fear, and by fear of Jesus no less.75 This âYesâ is the Yes of the savior. It is a saving Yes. Jesus is the One who saves, and precisely this is his decisive correspondence to God. âJesus came and spoke and acted as the Deliverer, and therefore as the bringer of great joy, for He was the direct and omnicompetent witness of the redeeming grace of God Himself.â76 If Jesus is âthe new thing,â if he is the kingdom in person, he is this as the Savior. The New Testament beatitude is a message of âsalvation and life and joyâ because it is a beatitude âwhich is spoken by Jesus the savior.â77 The beatitudes are in this way set up to be read not as law either in the sense of an impossible demand that drives us to Christ or in the sense of an exhortation to practice Christian virtue with the aid of the Spirit, but as gospel, as the proclamation that God is for us, and savingly so.
2 Passion
In the second part of this article, I will examine three features of Barthâs approach to the first four beatitudes in Matthewâs Gospel: his identification of those addressed as sufferers, his cosmological-apocalyptic grasp of their situation, and his christological-eschatological concentration. Barthâs understanding of these beatitudes is of interest for two reasons. First, he claims that it is these beatitudes that most clearly exhibit the true meaning of the New Testament makarisms as a whole. Much is at stake, then, in his treatment of the first four Matthean beatitudes. Second, and somewhat paradoxically, it is Barthâs approach to these beatitudes that is most at odds with dominant interpretive strategies.78 What is clear to Barth, it is fair to say, has not been clear to the tradition.
2.1 Sufferers
The first distinctive featureâone that is in fact determinative for the other features of Barthâs approach to be examined belowâis the identification of those addressed in these beatitudes as sufferers. It is clearly the case, Barth observes, that the people addressed in these four beatitudes have not put themselves in their present situation (Dransein). This situation, rather, has âbefallen themâ (widerfährt ihnen). They are what they are not by their own willing and choosing and acting, but by circumstances andâas we will see presentlyâpowers beyond their control.
Barthâs identification of these people as sufferers rules out two approaches. First, it rules out an ethical approach. For by identifying the addressees of the beatitudes as human beings in their suffering, Barth removes these beatitudes entirely from the realm of human action and willing and achievement. This, as noted above, marks a radical departure from most readings of these first four beatitudes. For Barth, the first four beatitudes do not call for what Georg Strecker identifies as âsomething that those addressed do not yet have, but that should be realized through their actions.â79 They are not âethical demands.â80 Rather, they address people who have already fallen into particular situations. They address the world as it is. They do not ask people to realize poverty of spirit. For such poverty is already a reality, and a miserable reality at that. Instead, they promise the divine creation of a new reality, a salutary confrontation with the kingdom of God.
Second, Barthâs identification of these people as sufferers, coupled with his understanding of the nature of their suffering, rules out certain notions of the beatitudes as the revelation of a secret wisdom or as a transvaluation of values. In Barthâs view, the situation of these people as it is described in the beatitudes is not one of âhidden, immanent value.â81 As he writes, âThe New Testament, like the Old, does not regard or magnify the happy and positive and vital as a secret quality of that which is unhappy and negative and dead.â82 We are not confronted here with the kingdom values of the happy poor, but with people who are âgenuinely wretched.â83 Barth even goes so far as to reckon their situation, in itself, to be âevilâ (übel), since it is a situation ruled by death.84 What the beatitudes offer, then, is not an interpretation or disclosure of the concealed meaning of poverty or hunger or mourning. Their utterance, in other words, is not primarily a hermeneutical event in which Jesus would disclose the hidden meaning of certain forms of human existence. If these words of grace can be said to implement a transvaluation of values, it is not the case, according to Barth, that where the world thinks of poverty as a bad thing, Jesus reveals it to be a good thing as such. In short, the beatitudes do not call evil good.
2.2 The Cosmic Wound
Barthâs description of the situation of these people as an âevilâ situation invites further scrutiny and clarification, since it is a description that challenges readings that take these first four beatitudes to be commendations of strange virtues. This brings us to the second feature of Barthâs approach to these beatitudes, which I will call his âcosmologicalâ grasp of the situation into which they speak. Reading Barthâs account of the beatitudes in isolation, one might miss this cosmological aspect. But when it is read in conjunction with the surrounding material in âThe Royal Man,â it is seen to be an aspect that underpins many of Barthâs exegetical moves.
Barthâs cosmological grasp of the situation of those addressed in these four beatitudes is indicated when he describes the situation of the poor and hungry and meek as one that is âredolent of death,â and as one that manifests the worldâs âmortal woundâ (Todeswunde).85 To appreciate the cosmological element of this association of the poor, the meek, and so on with death, it is helpful to connect what Barth says about the beatitudes with what he says about the miracles. This connection, it should be noted, is not arbitrary; it is the connection between the word of the kingdom and the deeds of the kingdom. Indeed, according to the logic of Barthâs account of Christ the Royal Man, the miracles of Jesus are, in essence, the fulfillment of the promises spoken in the beatitudes; they are âthe kindling light of His speechâthe light of the truth of His speech kindling into actualityâ; they are the demonstration that Christâs Word âmakes cosmic history,â or âsigns of a new thing that He proclaimed in His Word.â86
Of particular relevance to Barthâs understanding of the beatitudes is his description of the âconditionâ (Sosein) of the human who is object of Christâs miraculous deeds.87 In the light of the kingdom of God, the human is revealed to be âunfortunateâ (unglücklich), to exist in a situation of âsuffering.â88 Barth, using the same language found in his interpretation of the first four beatitudes, call this an âevil existenceâ (übles Dransein).89 It is an evil existence not in any moral sense, but because it is existence âin the shadow of deathâ or under the âpowers of death.â90 And precisely because it is an evil situation, it is a situation âabove all painful and alien and antitheticalâ to God, one that God âdoes not will.â91
But, as indicated by his reference to the âpowers of death,â Barth goes even further: not only is this situation antithetical to the will of God; it is a situation created by the will of another, of a third agent. Behind this situation Barth detects the work of an âenemy,â which he characteristically identifies as ânothingnessââwith death being one of its forms. This nothingness âaims to destroyâ the human being.92 And God, in turn, âopposes and contradicts [nothingnessâs] onslaught on His creation and triumph over His creature.â93
This notion of a conflict between God and nothingness runs right through âThe Royal Man,â with its repeated references to a âseizure of powerâ (Machtergreifung).94 Such a notion is, of course, hardly original to Barth. Johannes Weiss, at the end of the nineteenth century, confronted modern theology with the uncomfortable truth that, in the mind of Jesus at least, the work he was to accomplish consisted in nothing more nor less than âa struggle against Satan.â95 Distinctive in Barth, however, is that this notion of cosmological conflict informs his exegesis at every turn. This is certainly the case with regard to the first four beatitudes. The makarisms addressed to sufferers, to those âredolent of death,â as Barth has them, have Godâs conflict with nothingness firmly in view. Seen in this light, Godâs promised acts of salvationâthe possession of the kingdom, gift of comfort, inheritance of the earth, satisfaction for the hungry and thirstyâcan be understood as militant acts, acts that constitute the âseizure of powerâ occurring in the words and deeds of Christ.
This cosmological aspect also underwrites a quite novel view of what the beatitudes actually are. Following the logic of âThe Royal Manâ as a whole, Barth invites us to understand the beatitudes as the formal declaration of the divine opposition and contradiction to nothingnessâs onslaught on Godâs creation. They are âwords of graceâ indirectly addressed against âthe rule of death in the cosmos.â96 The notion of a cosmological conflict gives specificity to Barthâs concluding claim that â[t]he beatitude pronounced by Jesus tells us that He is the Lord of all these men.â97 Barth does not use the word âLordâ in this context to indicate a fundamentally ethical or legal relationship between Christ and those he pronounced blessed.98 Rather, âLordâ has the meaning ascribed to it by Martin Luther in his comments on the Apostlesâ Creed: it is synonymous with liberator, deliverer, redeemer. Christâs declaration that he is the Lord of the poor and the hungry is at one and the same time a declaration that the oppressive lordship of Satan is at an end.
Barthâs description in The Christian Life of what does and does not occur when Godâs kingdom comes brings this cosmological aspect into sharp relief. There he writes:
He does not come to reveal and impart to them this or that morality. He does not come with a purpose whose execution depends, if not totally, then at least partially on the action, or at any rate the cooperation of Christians. He comes in the deed in which he acts and deals on and for and with them as their Lord and King, and directly actuates and identifies himself to be such. In coming he illumines, establishes, asserts, and protects his questioned, obscured, and threatened right to man and therefore manâs own right, his right to life, which is negated apart from Godâs own right as Lord and King.99
Here, as in Barthâs treatment of the beatitudes in CD IV/2, the âethicalâ framework is supplanted by the âcosmological.â The kingdom concerns Godâs destruction of the works of the devil. The fact that there are the poor, the meek, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst calls into question, obscures, and even threatens Godâs ârightâ vis-Ã -vis Godâs creatures. The beatitudes are thus a reassertion, perhaps even a âreactivation,â of Godâs lordship in the face of all competing and ultimately destructive lordships.100
2.3 Witnesses
The third feature of Barthâs approach to the beatitudes is its christological-eschatological concentration. This feature emerges as Barth develops an answer to the question of why these particular people, whose situation is so miserable in itself, are pronounced blessed. If it is not the hidden meaning of their situation as such, what is it, then, that makes the wretched of the earth blessed? Barthâs answer, once again, centers on the impinging reality of the kingdom. The poor, the meek, and so on, are pronounced blessed because â[i]n their wretchedness they find themselves on the outermost frontier of the cosmos as it is confronted with the kingdom of God and to be renewed by the man Jesus.â101 Barth, at the conclusion of his treatment of the beatitudes, applies a theologically dense term to all those addressed in the beatitudes: he calls them âwitnesses.â102
The suffering are witnesses in a triple sense. First, they are witnesses to the true state of the world as a âa world given up to death.â103 The wretched do not conceal a hidden value. Just the opposite: they reveal the âmortal woundâ of the cosmos. In this way they assume a representative function. Put otherwise, they bear witness to the truth about the worldâthe truth of its âvulnerabilityâ or âfragilityâ (Brüchigkeit). The moral wound from which the world suffers is not âconcealedâ by them, as it is by the wealthy and the righteous, but laid bare.104 Second, they are witnesses to the God who comes among them as one of them, to the God who is in solidarity with the poor.105 As Barth writes, âIt is not for nothing that the man Jesus comes and acts and is revealed as Himself a sufferer, the supreme sufferer and the partisan of all others.â106 This leads to the third and decisive sense in which the sufferers are witnesses: they are witnesses to the saving activity of God, and to the God who remembers the poor, to the God who has chosen that it is âprecisely in the existence, the situation, of the poor and sad and meek that the new thing of God shines in all the different spheres of the life of the old man.â107 The evil existence of humanity thus becomes an occasion for the workings of grace. The poor are blessed not because of the hidden value of poverty as such, but because the works of God are displayed toward and in them.108
The beatitudes addressed to the wretched remain âjudgments,â to use Barthâs term. These judgments, however, remain inseparable from the presence of the Judge, from the fact that âJesus is near to them,â for it is this very presence and nearness that renders the judgment a true judgment.109 The poor are not blessed on account of their poverty. The cause of their blessing lies entirely outside of themselves. The declaration of blessing is, as Barth reiterates, a synthetic and not an analytic statement. The decisive factor is not something immanent to their existence but rather âthe objective thing that characterizes their existence from above.â110
Yet, we might finally ask, just how synthetic is this statement? Is Christâs nearness to the poor not a given? And is God not always already the God of the poor, the God who is poor in the eyes of the world? If this is so, it would seem that the beatitudes are in fact analytic statements, provided one does not exclude the given reality of God from the analysis. A prior use of the synthetic/analytic dichotomy in Church Dogmatics is helpful at this point. In a discussion of the notion of vestigia trinitatis, Barth warns of the ever-present possibility that the light that revelation shines in the world would be seized by the world and made its own, or at least understood to be in original harmony with the world and the world with it. In this case, Barth argues, the synthetic statement âGod into the worldâ (Gott in die Welt) is transformed into the analytic statement âGod in the worldâ (Gott in der Welt).111 The difference between these two statements is subtle but profound. The analytic statement ontologizes the presence of God in the world; it turns it into a brute fact, a given. The synthetic statement, by contrast, places the emphasis on the dynamic activity of God as the one whose presence in the world is a matter of his own choosing, a matter of grace and not of nature.
Barthâs discussion of the kingdom of God in The Christian Life also serves to prevent the beatitudes from being âontologized,â from becoming truths or principles that can be abstracted from the actual presence of Christ. For the kingdom, Barth insists, is not so much about God as he is but God âas he comes.â112 The presence of the kingdom, which is identical with the presence of Jesus, is not a given or state of being. It is an event; or, perhaps better, an advent, a coming. It is a âspecial dynamic reality,â a âbreaking forthâ and âbreaking throughâ and âbreaking into.â113 The beatitudes, when understood in this light, are not about the kingdom in the world but about the kingdom into the world, and its salutary confrontation with those who exist at the divinely chosen site of this confrontation.
3 Action
Once those addressed by the first four beatitudes are identified as sufferers, Barthâs understanding of the beatitudes as the proclamation of the gospel is somewhat intuitive. But what about those beatitudes addressed not to sufferers but to humans engaged in particular activities? These latter beatitudes, as the early Protestants were well aware, seem at first glance to resist being classified as words of grace. Such a classification, some modern exegetes argue, risks reading Matthew through the lens of (Lutherâs) Paul and thus distorting the meaning of the text.114
Barth is insistent, however, that the logic at work in the first four Matthean beatitudes is also at work in the next three (Matt. 5:7â9). According to Barth, the merciful, the peacemakers, and the pure of heart are no less the recipients of Godâs gracious Word than the poor and hungry. As we will explore below, they are recipients of grace in a twofold sense: first, insofar as they have been graciously liberated to act in this or that way; and second, insofar as they are promised that their activity is graciously permitted to be a parable of the kingdom of God.
3.1 Graciously Liberated
The key emphasis in Barthâs approach to the beatitudes addressed to humans in their activity is similar to what we have discussed above: it is the invading kingdom of God in the person of Jesus that makes a person blessed and that is decisive for the truth of these âsyntheticâ statements. There is, however, a fundamental difference between how Barth reads the beatitudes addressed to human passion and how he reads the beatitudes addressed to human action. With respect to the former, the saving presence of Jesus is a response to a dire situation. With respect to the latter, the human action is understood by Barth to be a response instigated by the presence of Jesus. The actions on account of which particular humans are pronounced blessed âare stimulated and moved and determined and ordered by the kingdom of God.â115 Directly or indirectly, Barth insists, the merciful, the peacemakers, and the pure of heart are âcalled and empowered and ordered and directedâ by Jesus.116 Their activity has this call and empowerment at its source, and it is on account of this sourceâand not on account of the activity as suchâthat a human being is pronounced blessed. As Barth writes, âit is primarily a question of the impress made on a manâs action, its determination [Bestimmung] or characterization.â117
At the conclusion of his discussion of the beatitudes that address human actions, Barth discloses the gospel text that has âcompelledâ him to read these particular beatitudes in the way outlined above and that he views as ânormativeâ for an understanding of all the beatitudes in which human action is declared to be blessed, namely, Matthew 16:17. Peter has just confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, a confession that Barth describes as âthe sum of human action in the sense of the Gospel tradition.â118 Jesus responds to Peter with the following makarism: âBlessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.â Peter is declared blessed, Barth explains, not because of his confession as such, but because of the âsourceâ of his confession: a divine revelation. And the same is surely true, Barth argues, of the blessedness of the merciful, of the pure in heart, and of the peacemakers: all these human agents are blessed because of the particular âsituationâ in which they find themselves, a situation determined by the powerful and creative revelation of Godâs kingdom.
Barthâs approach to this second group of beatitudes once again represents a challenge to the idea that we have in this gospel text an invitation to practice Christian virtues. âUnlike the makarisms of the Greek world,â Barth explicitly contends, the beatitudes âdo not refer to the possession and enjoyment of external or internal worldly goods, nor to human abilities, nor to the practice of human virtues.â119 An invitation to the practice of virtue, of course, can be construed as a word of grace itself.120 For Barth, however, this reading of the beatitudes mistakenly treats these actions as if they occur âin a vacuum,â as if they spring from something these humans âhave in themselves,â and as if these human are practicing âsomething which is excellent in itself.â121
At stake in this critique of reading these beatitudes as a summons to virtue is what Paul Lehmann has called âthe Christian significance of behavior.â122 Indeed, Lehmann helps bring into focus the distinctive logic that undergirds Barthâs theological ethics, a logic that can be espied in the exegesis of the beatitudes in CD IV/2. For Lehmann, as for Barth, âit is not man but Christ who makes ethical thinking and acting âChristian.ââ¯â123 This is the reason why the kind of discourse typically associated with virtue theory is redundant here. For Christian thinking about ethics is no longer consumed with questions concerning âthe nature of an actâ and âthe relation between the nature of an act and the nature of the good.â124 It is too late in the economy of salvation for such deliberations. Action is no longer to be defined by its qualitative âperfectionsâ but by its âparabolic power.â125 Or, to use Barthâs phrase from his treatment of the Sermon in the Mount in CD II/2, good actions are now those actions that are âreflections of the Messianic event.â126
The activity of those pronounced blessed does not happen âunconnectedlyâ (beziehungslos) but in a âvery determinate context.â127 This context is the direct or indirect call and direction of Jesus, about which Barth will have more to say in his doctrine of sanctification.128 The decisive thing about the action, then, is not its âvirtuous and meritorious characterâ but its âroot,â that is, the summoning and enabling word of Jesus.
3.2 Parable of the Kingdom
The key word that Barth applies to sufferers is also applied to actors: they are witnesses. They are blessed not because they have done something praiseworthy in and of itself, but because they are chosen witnesses to the activity of Christ, because their actions reflect the messianic event. These actions show them to be children of the kingdom of God, to be creatures of the Word and therefore doers of the Word. It is the messianic event, ultimately, that is the âcauseâ of the blessing. The coming of Jesus means not only that the sick are healed and sinners forgiven; it also means that mercy and peace-making and purity of heart abound as what Barth will later call âsigns of the kingdom in the world which is ruled by the gods and subject to their legalism.â129
And the fact that they are witnesses is also grace. The merciful are not as such and inevitably witnesses to Jesus. It is not the inherent quality of their action that qualifies them for the kingdom. The comment of John Chrysostom, which Barth uses in a sermon on the beatitudes, applies here: âThere is so great a difference between divine and human mercy as between heaven and earth, even as between good and evil.â The logic of the doctrine of justification is thus at work here. As Barth writes earlier in Church Dogmatics, the fact that a human being is a witness âis imputed, reckoned, or ascribed to him.â130
If the beatitudes are not commendations of virtues or a description of kingdom praxis but a âword of grace,â do they then have no bearing on human behavior? Barth, we have seen, describes the beatitudes as sitting at the âheadâ of the Sermon on the Mount as the fundamental Word of the proclamation of the kingdom. But they should always be seen together with what Barth elsewhere calls the âheart and centerâ of the sermon: the Lordâs prayer.131 The beatitudes, as the head of the sermon, and the Lordâs prayer, as its center, are intrinsically connected by the theme of the kingdom of God. It is the presently invading reality of the kingdom of God that makes the beatitudes good news. And it is for the coming of the kingdom of God, a coming which will fulfill the joyous promises of the beatitudes, that Christians are taught to pray. Indeed, it is not for nothing that those who hear the beatitudes are urged to pray âdeliver us from the evil one,â since they have heard in this Word of grace the promise, and indeed the actuality, of this deliverance, of Godâs Machtergreifung in the words and deeds of Jesus.132 The life to which the hearers of Christâs word of grace in the beatitudes are exhorted, then, is not fundamentally a life of mercy or peace-making or purity as such, but a life of calling upon God, a life of âpraying with Jesus.â133
4 Conclusion
According to a characteristically sweeping judgment found in CD III/3, Barth contends that Protestant theologians have tended to be âfar too moralistic and spiritualistic,â and therefore âblindâ to the apocalyptic aspect of the gospel; that is to say, blind to the gospelâs message of liberation from the powers of death and destruction.134 These accusations directed toward Protestant theology are repeated in âThe Royal Manâ in CD IV/2, where Barthâs most extensive treatment of the beatitudes is located. Addressing what he perceives to be the Protestant neglect of Christâs miracles, Barth argues that it should have been Protestant theologians above all who perceived in Christâs miracles what he calls âthe omnipotence of mercy.â135 Instead, he finds Protestantism to be âone-sidedly anthropological,â mistakenly oriented toward the âproblem of repentanceâ but not the âpresuppositionâ of repentance: the in-breaking kingdom of God.136
Though Barth does not explicitly take Protestant exegetes of Matthew 5 or Luke 6 to task by name in âThe Royal Man,â this article has suggested that his approach to the beatitudes in this text is informed by this repeated critique of Protestant anthropocentrism and moralism. A moralistic-anthropological reading oriented to the question of inner dispositions or cultivated character traits, it has been argued, is replaced by Barth with a christological-cosmological reading oriented to the saving advent of Godâs eschatological kingdom in a âwoundedâ cosmos subjected to foreign lords. Barthâs interpretation of the beatitudes can thus be seen to work against the idea, articulated in an exemplary manner by Günther Bornkamm, that â[t]he inner relationship between Jesusâ requirement and his message of the coming of the kingdom of God are not brought out clearly in the apocalyptic interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount,â and against the claim that the words in Jesusâs Sermon do not contain âthe burning odor of the cosmic catastrophe.â137
Of course, Barthâs understanding of the beatitudes in CD IV/2 is painted with broad brush strokes. He confesses in CD IV/2 that he is unable to expound these sayings âin any detail in the present context,â which suggests that a more extensive treatment of the beatitudes may have followed at some point in Church Dogmaticsâperhaps in the unwritten volume V treating the doctrine and ethics of redemption. Whatever the case, Barthâs account of the beatitudes is certainly not exhaustive. What it does offer, however, is a fresh approach to exegetical questions, an approach that is not imposed upon the text by theological convictions quite foreign to it, as some may fear, but one that is rooted in a reading of the Synoptic Gospels oriented to the fact that what is found there is an account of Christâs âstruggle against Satan.â138 The beatitudes, as Barth reads them, are a decisive event in that apocalyptic struggle. Matthew 5:1, it bears noting, is not the first time Jesus has climbed up a mountain in the Gospel of Matthew.139 In the previous chapter, he is taken by Satan to the top of a mountain and offered all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship. Jesusâs ascent to a mountain in Matthew 5, by contrast, is not for the purposes of a quid pro quo. He does not offer the kingdom of heaven in exchange for worship. He proclaims that the kingdom of heaven already belongs to those to whom God is gracious, and in so doing he opposes the ungraciousness that characterizes the kingdom of Satan.
Barthâs reading of the beatitudes as an apocalyptic âword of graceâ also has the capacity to broaden the scope of the doctrine of justification. Where Luther and Calvin sought to acquit the beatitudes of impinging on the seemingly separate, salvific truth of justification, Barth allows the beatitudes, as the proclamation of Godâs seizure of power, to deepen our grasp of just this truth.140 Indeed, if Ernst Käsemann is correct in his observation that the Pauline doctrine of justification is a âprecise theological variation of the primitive Christian proclamation of the kingdom of God as eschatological salvation,â and that the concern of this doctrine âis the Creatorâs right as Lord of creation as this works itself out in the creature,â then Barthâs treatment of the beatitudes can be heard as what Käsemann calls, with reference to the concern in Romans 8 for the salvation of âthe fallen and groaning world,â a âcosmological variationâ on the justification of the sinner.141
Finally, while I have claimed that Barth makes a break with Protestant readings, his interpretation of the beatitudes is yet, I suggest, unmistakably Protestant and owes much to the insights of Luther and Calvin, among others. It is unmistakably Protestant for four reasons. First, Barthâs interpretation of the beatitudes is quite in keeping with Lutherâs description of the Christian life as such as a flight from virtue to grace. Second, Barth interprets the beatitudes in the context of the divine pro meity, or, more accurately (if more awkwardly), the divine pro nobisity. Third, Barthâs exegesis concentrates on the great Protestant theme of âthe Word.â The activity of Christ as eschatological proclaimer and the character of the beatitudes as Christâs efficacious Word are, for Barth, decisive for a proper understanding of the beatitudesâboth those which refer to humans in their need and those which refer to humans in their activity. Finally, the depiction by Luther and Calvin of the Christian life as a life beset by forces inimical to Godâs saving purposes is largely shared by Barth. The beatitudes, as a word of grace, are spoken into what is essentially a war zone. If Barthâs reading of the beatitudes can be said to make a notable break with the Protestant tradition, it should nevertheless be added that it does so only for the sake of reorienting the reading of this text to the in-breaking grace of God in Christ. In this way, Barth helps us to see that in the beatitudes we are dealing not with penultimate, but with ultimate things.
The deployment of the beatitudes as descriptions of that âhigherâ monastic life that went beyond obedience to the mosaic law also fueled Protestant anxieties over this portion of the New Testament.
Martin Luther, Lutherâs Works, vol. 21: Sermon on the Mount (Sermons) and the Magnificat, ed. and trans. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007), 285â287. Henceforth LW followed by volume number and page number.
John Calvin, Institutio III.xvii.10; quoted according to the Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1960), 813.
LW 21:26.
LW 21:10.
LW 21:12.
John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 1, trans. A.W. Morrison, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, Calvinâs Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 169.
Contra Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1â7: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, ed. Helmut Koester (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 200: âThe Reformationâs interpretation has somewhat eliminated the ethicizing.â
This is a common reading among nineteenth- and twentieth-century Protestant liberal theologians. For example, though Albert Schweitzer does not read the beatitudes as a series of exhortations, he nevertheless discerns in these sayings âthe qualities which are an indication of inward membership of the Kingdom.â Albert Schweitzer, The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity, trans. A. Garrard (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968), 81.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000). Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).
Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017); Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997).
Luz, Matthew 1â7, 188â189.
Luz, Matthew 1â7, 188. Luz also includes Gerhard Barth and Karl Bernhard Bornhauser among this group of interpreters. One can also associate the following works with the âword of graceâ type: Dale C. Allison, The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1999); W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 1â7 (London: T&T Clark, 2004); W.D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964); Joachim Jeremias, The Sermon on the Mount, trans. Norman Perrin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963); Eduard Schweizer, The Good News according to Matthew, trans. David E. Green (Atlanta: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975).
On Barthâs account of the beatitudes, see Chad Quantaince, âThe Blessed Life; Theological Interpretation and Use of the Beatitudes by Augustine, Calvin, and Barthâ (PhD diss., Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, 2003). See also the various engagements with Barthâs interpretation of the beatitudes in Rebekah Eklund, The Beatitudes through the Ages (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). For explorations of Barthâs reading of the Sermon on the Mount in CD II/2, see A. Katherine Grieb, ââ¯âLiving Righteousnessâ: Karl Barth and the Sermon on the Mount,â in Thy Word Is Truth: Barth on Scripture, ed. George Hunsinger (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 86â111; Paul T. Nimmo, âExegesis, Ontology, and Ethics: Karl Barth on the Sermon on the Mount,â in Christology and Scripture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Andrew T. Lincoln and Angus Paddison (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 171â187.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (hereafter CD), trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance, 4 vols. in 13 part-vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956â1975) III/3, 311.
CD III/3, 311.
CD IV/2, 188.
CD IV/2, 188, revised translation (hereafter ârev.â).
CD IV/2, 194.
The ET renders this as âimpartationâ and âself-impartation.â Given Barthâs emphasis on the spoken Word in this context, âcommunicationâ seems a more appropriate translation. Katherine Sonderegger highlights the decisive role of the concept of Mitteilung in Barthâs doctrine of sanctification in CD IV/2 in âSanctification as Impartation in the Doctrine of Karl Barth,â Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 18, no. 3 (2002): 308â315.
CD IV/2, 194.
CD IV/2, 198, rev.
CD IV/2, 198.
CD IV/2, 198.
CD IV/2, 203.
CD IV/2, 203.
Jonathan Pennington, for example, develops an âaretegenicâ reading strategy for the Sermon on the Mount, that is, a reading whose purpose is the formation of virtue. See Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 15. Such a reading strategy presupposes a Christology wherein Christ is simultaneously âthe complete and virtuous human and the true kingâ (15). Jesus is certainly more than a âsage or philosopher,â Pennington states, âbut he is not lessâ (29).
For Pennington, this overlap is evident in what he considers to be the chief concern of both the Sermon and the Greco-Roman virtue tradition (and the Jewish wisdom tradition), namely, âthe great theological and existential question of human flourishing.â Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 1. The Sermon on the Mount, according to this framing, is âChristianityâs answerâ to this âmetaphysical questionâ (14).
CD IV/2, 204.
CD IV/2, 205.
CD IV/2, 205.
CD IV/2, 205.
See Margaret Davies, Matthew, 2nd ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 51. An apocalyptic background for the beatitudes has been noted by several commentators. Luz (Matthew 1â7, 189), for example, states that â[t]he background of [the first] three beatitudes is ⦠the apocalyptic hope for a total reversal of conditions.â See also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1â7, 432.
CD II/2, 688, rev.
CD II/2, 687. See also W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, âReflections on the Sermon on the Mount,â Scottish Journal of Theology 44, no. 3 (1991): 283: âInterpreters have again and again failed to take seriously the broader, literary context of Mt. 5â7 and have instead interpreted the chapters as though they were complete unto themselves, as though they constituted a book instead of a portion of a book.â
On Barthâs understanding of this petition, see Philip G. Ziegler, Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 89â96.
Karl Barth, The Christian Life (hereafter TCL): Church Dogmatics IV/4. Lecture Fragments, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (London: T&T Clark, 1981), 235.
TCL, 235.
TCL, 235.
TCL, 235.
TCL, 235.
TCL, 235.
TCL, 235.
TCL, 239.
TCL, 237.
TCL, 236â237.
TCL, 240.
TCL, 240.
TCL, 240.
TCL, 243.
TCL, 242.
TCL, 243.
TCL, 244. The modern exegetes to whom he explicitly refers are Albert Schweitzer, Johannes WeiÃ, and Franz Overbeck.
M. Eugene Boring, âThe Gospel of Matthew,â in The New Interpreterâs Bible, vol. 8 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 177. This âobjectivityâ of what the beatitudes declare leads Boring to reject the substitution of âhappyâ for âblessed.â As he points out, the opposite of âblessedâ in the Gospel of Matthew is not âunhappyâ but âcursed.â
CD IV/2, 188. Cf. Davies and Allison, âReflections on the Sermon on the Mount,â 304: âThe SM does not speak to ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. It instead addresses itself to those in the eschatological crisis, those overtaken by an overwhelming reality. This reality, if embraced, remakes the individual, begetting a new heart, a new life, a new creation, one which, in gratitude, can lay itself open to the requirements of eschatological revelation.â
CD IV/2, 188.
Earlier in âThe Royal Man,â Barth makes use of Origenâs description of Jesus as the autobasileia, the kingdom in person. For â[t]he King and His kingdom, the Lord and His lordship, are one.â CD IV/2, 162â163. Cf. CD III/3, 156.
CD IV/2, 187â188.
On the importance of the identity of the speaker for understanding the Sermon, see Eduard Thurneysen, Die Bergpredigt (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1936); Helmut Thielicke, Life Can Begin Again: Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount, trans. John W. Doberstein (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), 8. See also Philip G. Ziegler, ââ¯âNot to Abolish, But to Fulfilâ: The Person of the Preacher and the Claim of the Sermon on the Mount,â Studies in Christian Ethics 22, no. 3 (2009): 275â289.
See, for example, a sermon on Matt. 5, preached on Good Friday in 1948. âSuch a meek person, however, has been, in the true and exact sense of the word, only a single one, He Himself, Jesus Christ alone. And so also the promise which is given to the meek is wholly determined in Him, and its fulfilment is to be found wholly within Him.â Karl Barth, Predigten 1935â1952, ed. Anton Drewes, Hartmut Spieker, and Hinrich Stoevesandt, Gesamtausgabe I.26 (Zurich: TVZ, 1996), 389.
TCL, 252.
TCL, 249.
For a theological treatment of the theme of âthe new,â see Eberhard Jüngel, âThe Emergence of the New,â in Theological Essays II, ed. John Webster, trans. Arnold Neufeldt-Fast and John Webster (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 35â58.
CD IV/2, 3.
CD IV/2, 157.
CD IV/2, 177, rev.
CD IV/2, 178.
CD IV/2, 188. See Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Including the Sermon on the Plain, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 95: âthe beatitude reveals a fact commonly unknown or unexpected. Even if such a fact was known in a general way, for the person receiving the message it constitutes a new revelation.â
CD IV/2, 188.
CD IV/2, 189, rev.
âFor Reinhard, Hess, Paulus, and the rest of the rationalistic writers He is the admirable revealer of true virtue, which is coincident with right reason.â Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery, 3rd ed. (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1954), 4. In Adolf von Harnackâs view, for example, the beatitudes were seen to contain the ethics and the religion of Jesus, which are shown to be âunited at the root.â Adolf von Harnack, What Is Christianity? Lectures Delivered in the University of Berlin during the Winter-Term 1899â1900, trans. Thomas B. Saunders (London: Williams and Norgate, 1902), 74. Barth is critical of this presentation of Jesus: âthe New Testament certainly did not present Jesus Christ as the moral ideal, and if we apply the canons usually applied to the construction of a moral ideal, we may easily fall into certain difficulties not easy of solution, whether with the Jesus of the Synoptics or with the Jesus of Johnâs Gospel.â CD I/2, 156; â[Jesusâs sinlessness] did not consist in an abstract and absolute purity, goodness and virtue.â CD IV/1, 258.
See Grieb, ââ¯âLiving Righteousness,ââ¯â 90.
CD IV/2, 187.
On Barthâs understanding of the compassion of Jesus, see Paul T. Nimmo, âThe Compassion of Jesus Christ: Barth on Matthew 9:36,â in Reading the Gospels with Karl Barth, ed. Daniel L. Migliore (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 67â79. That Barth groups the beatitude texts together with the Magnificat and Benedictus further indicates his intention to read the beatitudes as the announcement of good news.
CD IV/2, 182.
CD IV/2, 183.
CD IV/2, 192.
David L. Turner, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 152, is representative of traditional readings when he claims that the first four beatitudes teach us that âhumility is the basic trait of authentic kingdom spirituality.â
Georg Strecker, Die Bergpredigt: Ein exegetischer Kommentar, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985), 34.
Strecker, Die Bergpredigt, 34.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, 191.
CD IV/2, 209â211.
CD IV/2, 221.
CD IV/2, 221.
CD IV/2, 222.
CD IV/2, 222.
CD IV/2, 225.
CD IV/2, 225.
CD IV/2, 225.
CD IV/2, 204, 205, 208, 215, 225.
Johannes WeiÃ, Jesusâ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, trans. R.H. Hiers and D.L. Holland (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 102.
CD IV/2, 226.
CD IV/2, 192.
Contra Strecker, Die Bergpredigt, 35, who thinks of âMatthewâs Jesusâ as the eschatological Lord in the sense that he is the eschatological Lawgiver. Strecker might object that Barth is guilty of reading the Gospel of Matthew through the lens of Paulâs letters. Barthâs approach to his sketch of Jesus in âThe Royal Manâ is, at the very least, not particularly interested in any stark differences between Matthewâs Jesus and Lukeâs Jesus and so on.
TCL, 236â237, rev.
The notion of a âreactivationâ of divine omnipotence is given expression in Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
CD IV/2, 191, rev.
CD IV/2, 192.
CD IV/2, 227.
CD IV/2, 191.
CD IV/2, 168â171.
CD IV/2, 191.
CD IV/2, 191, rev.
John 9:3.
CD IV/2, 191.
CD IV/2, 191.
CD I/1, 341.
TCL, 236.
TCL, 236.
Strecker, Die Bergpredigt, 33â34.
CD IV/2, 189.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, 189.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, 188, rev.
Strecker, Bergpredigt, 34, argues that the beatitudes defy both Lutherâs law and gospel schema and Barthâs gospel and law schema by bringing law and gospel into complete unity. The law simply is the gospel. It is a gift of God.
CD IV/2, 189â190.
Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 120.
Lehmann, Ethics, 121.
Lehmann, Ethics, 122.
Lehmann, Ethics, 122.
CD II/2, 698.
CD IV/2, 190.
CD IV/2, §â¯66.
CD IV/2, 547.
CD II/1, 113.
Luz, Matthew 1â7, 391: âAn interpretation that overlooks the reality that in the Sermon on the Mount praxis is at its core prayer misunderstands the evangelist.â
For an argument that this petition refers to a personal evil, see Raymond E. Brown, âThe Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,â Theological Studies 22, no. 2 (1961): 206â208.
CD II/2, 696.
CD III/3, 311.
CD IV/2, 233. On Barthâs understanding of Jesusâs miracles, see Cambria Janae Kaltwasser, ââ¯âThe Omnipotence of Mercyâ: Jesusâs Miracles as the Light of Grace in §â¯64.3 âThe Royal Man,ââ¯â Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 33, no. 1 (2017): 113â128.
CD IV/2, 233.
Günther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, trans. James M. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 223â224.
WeiÃ, Jesusâ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, 102.
On âthe mountainâ as a (cosmic-apocalyptic) theological symbol in Matthewâs Gospel, see Terence L. Donaldson, Jesus on the Mountain: A Study in Matthean Theology (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985).
Barthâs discussion of Godâs righteousness in CD II/1 takes similar steps in this direction. He writes: âGodâs righteousness, the faithfulness in which He is true to Himself, is disclosed as help and salvation, as a saving divine intervention for man directed only to the poor, the wretched and the helpless as such, while with the rich and the full and the secure as such, according to His very nature He can have nothing to doâ (387).
Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 29, 56, 234â235.
