Reading the Decree: Exegesis, Election and Christology in Calvin and Barth 9781472549983, 9780567468741, 9780567129178

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For Angela, Archie and Ella Sine quibus non

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foreword Francis Watson

What is a ‘doctrine of election’, and why should such a thing be necessary? Doctrines grow out of the language of scripture and tradition, and respond to a felt need to articulate as clearly as possible what is entailed in a particular strand of that language. Yet the mere presence in scripture of statements about election is not sufficient to give rise to a corresponding doctrine. While doctrinal construction does seek in a certain sense to comprehend the scriptural message in its entirety, it does so by proposing a framework within which the biblical texts are to be read, not by converting scriptural utterances into dogmatic propositions without remainder. In principle, then, there might not have been a ‘doctrine of election’ evoked by and responsive to biblical representations of divine choices of persons and communities. A doctrine of election comes into being in response not only to particular scriptural texts but also and above all to the scriptural witness as a whole. The doctrine seeks to specify the basis for the contingent divine actions on behalf of various persons and communities, of which scripture speaks. Is divine action to be understood primarily as re-action to the prior actions of human agents, for example, by rewarding the good and punishing the guilty? Such a view might seem to be rather firmly rooted in scripture. If it were to be accepted as adequate, no ‘doctrine of election’ would be needed – for the point of this doctrine is precisely to reject a construal of divine action as reaction and to insist that all our human acting and reacting is comprehended within a divine action that precedes and grounds it. Divine action is divine action because it is occasioned solely by a divine decision unqualified by anything outside God – a decision that is traced back even behind the ‘beginning’ of which Genesis speaks. Given that what begins in Genesis is an unfolding narrative of divine interaction with the world and humanity, the doctrine of election belongs within the doctrine of God insofar as God’s own being is self-determined for engagement with the world. The doctrine of election makes it impossible to suppose that we learn what is most fundamentally true about God only when God is abstracted from the world and from relatedness to humanity. Doctrines are, however, secondary constructs that originate from scripture before they propose a way of reading scripture. In consequence, they can be corrected in light of a new and different construal of the scriptural witness ix

FOREWORD

to the matter in hand. Unlike scripture, doctrines are in principle provisional; and their provisional status is especially clear where a doctrine is held by one part of the Christian community but fails to generate a consensus within the church as a whole. Such is the case with the doctrine of election – an indication, perhaps, that there is more work to be done at this point. That, at any rate, was the conclusion reached by Karl Barth in relation to the doctrine of election handed down within his own Reformed tradition, classically expressed by John Calvin in dependence on Augustine. Barth’s attempt to revise and correct Calvin marks the starting-point of David Gibson’s outstanding monograph. At the heart of this discussion stands a hermeneutical enigma. Calvin and Barth both construct their accounts of the divine election with constant recourse to the texts of scripture. Both are ‘biblical theologians’, not in the sense that they ignore whatever lies outside the sphere of the Bible but in the sense that the appropriate articulation of the scriptural witness is always at the centre of their concerns, both in principle and in practice. And yet, reading the same scriptural texts, they read them differently. Whatever the continuities, the doctrine of election as constructed by Barth diverges radically from Calvin’s. The two theologians’ engagement with scripture is too profound to be dismissed with the familiar reductionistic claim that they have both projected their prior theological views onto the scriptural texts, which are actually speaking of something else. A non-reductionistic account of their difference is the task that David Gibson sets himself, retracing its ramifications from fundamental conceptuality to the selection and exegesis of the scriptural texts that bear the main weight of the theological argument. This work was originally a Ph.D. thesis prepared under my supervision at the University of Aberdeen. In its local context, it belongs among a number of Ph.D. projects – together with Tom Holsinger-Friesen on Irenaeus, Richard Cornell on Tertullian, and Jake Andrews on Augustine – which seek to show how our understanding of the Christian theological tradition is immeasurably enriched when its hermeneutical and exegetical dimensions are systematically integrated into the discussion. David Gibson applies this methodological insight to his comparison between Calvin and Barth, and the result is illuminating. In the light of his work, it is hard to understand how so many have contrived to write so much about these figures on the assumption that their theologies are free-standing intellectual constructs – rather than the products of an ongoing dialogue with scripture. Francis Watson is Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, UK.

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acknowledgements

This book is a lightly revised version of my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Aberdeen in 2007. For that first stage of its life I owe a special debt of gratitude to my Doktorvater, Francis Watson. I will always be grateful that he directed me to Barth, allowed me to include Calvin, and supervised a thesis that developed along lines neither of us could foresee. Throughout, he was exceedingly generous with his time, unfailingly wise in his probing interaction, and gracious in his encouragement. My wrestling with Calvin and Barth as they read the doctrine of election in Scripture has been deeply enriching. I have come to understand what Barth means in saying: ‘of all words that can be said or heard election is the best’; and to agree with Calvin: ‘We shall never be clearly persuaded, as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the wellspring of God’s free mercy until we come to know his eternal election.’ In profoundly different ways, both interpreters reflect the apostolic conviction that divine election is only understood when it issues in creaturely praise. It is a great privilege to have been part of such a stimulating and learned academic community here in Aberdeen. My Cromwell Tower office colleagues Rob Price and Richard Cornell each gave of their time and different skills to help me when stuck. John Webster and Angus Paddison examined the thesis, and I am indebted to them both for their searching questions and their kind encouragement to consider publication. To be publishing on Calvin in his quincentenary year is a special joy! Tom Kraft and Anna Turton at T&T Clark patiently responded to my many questions, always with good cheer, and were excellent editors. Hans Madueme, Paul Helm, Carl Trueman, and Edwin Tay read all or parts of the manuscript and saved me from some errors. Chris Green and James Merrick provided invaluable assistance with the indices and the proofs. The church family at High Church, Hilton, is a blessing and it has been a great delight to move from academia to pastoral ministry. Thomas Carlyle is reputed to have asked ‘Who, having been called to be a preacher, would stoop to be a king?’, and I am learning why. We have the joy of working alongside Peter and Eleanor Dickson at Hilton. Their friendship and model of ministry is an example of godly, faithful and sacrificial leadership. As ever, my beloved parents inquired and watched and listened and helped in ways that only parents can. Paul and Ruth Reed, my parents-in-law, supported and encouraged us even though doctoral studies meant a move far away from them. My brothers, xi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Jonathan and Alastair, between them were a superb theological help and a source of sustaining humour. Numerous friendships enriched my life throughout: my thanks to Chris Asprey, Jonathan and Zoë Norgate, Ben and Elizabeth Reynolds, Mark and Monica McDowell, Abe Kuruvilla, Daniel Strange, and Paul Levy. The late Morton Gauld and his inimitable teaching of Latin will always be fondly remembered. His untimely death midway through my studies robbed many of us of a friend and the academic community in Aberdeen of one of its most gifted and entertaining teachers. Ubinam parem inveniemus? My postgraduate studies at King’s College London and Aberdeen were funded in full by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) which also provided for a period of research at Princeton Theological Seminary and Westminster Theological Seminary in the USA. As well as allowing me to mine two excellent libraries for hard to obtain material, this trip led to conversations with Bruce McCormack, George Hunsinger, and Richard Gaffin which were extremely formative and opened up new avenues of thought. My thanks also to Clifford Anderson, Jason and Shannon Santos, Sandy and Linda Finlayson, and Carl and Catriona Trueman for their help during that time. My deepest thanks, however, are reserved for my wife, Angela. My closest companion, my delight in ways that words cannot express, she has supported, encouraged and cheered me at every stage. This work is as much hers as it is mine, for my life bears the impress of her selfless love and care. She daily teaches me the gospel; the heart of her husband trusts in her. Our son, Archie William, arrived to upset the thesis wonderfully and our daughter, Ella Ruth, came later to delay the book. To each of them this work is most affectionately and gratefully dedicated.

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abbreviations

CD CNTC

CO

CTJ CTS EQ IJST Inst.

JETS JSNT JTS KD LQ LXX MT OS

SJT WTJ

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–1975). Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (ed. D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance; 12 vols; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959–1972). Ioannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt Omnia (ed. Wilhelm Braum, Edward Cunitz and Edward Reuss; 59 vols. Corpus Reformatorum: vols 29–87; Brunswick: C. A. Schwetchke and Son, 1863–1900). Calvin Theological Journal. Calvin’s Commentaries (45 vols; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844–1856). Evangelical Quarterly. International Journal of Systematic Theology. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. J. T. McNeill; trans. F. L. Battles; 2 vols; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960). Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Journal of Theological Studies. Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1932; Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag Zürich, 1938–1967). Lutheran Quarterly. The Septuagint. Masoretic Text. John Calvin, Ioannis Calvini Opera Selecta (ed. Peter Barth, Wilhelm Niesel and Doris Scheuner; 5 vols; Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1926–1952). Scottish Journal of Theology. Westminster Theological Journal.

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1 calvin, barth and christocentrism

Introduction This book examines the relationship between Christology and election in the Reformed theological tradition. The relationship is probed by exploring its presence and function in the work of an early modern theologian (John Calvin, 1509–64) and a late modern theologian (Karl Barth, 1886–1968). It is an exercise in historical theology with a focus on theological issues as they present themselves in the biblical interpretation of both figures. I argue that the exegetical presentations of Christology and election in Calvin and Barth expose a contrasting set of relationships between these doctrinal loci in each theologian. I also argue that this differing relationship between Christology and election in both theologians can be seen to flow from, and to inform, two contrasting approaches to the interpretation of Scripture. This first chapter proceeds along the following lines. First, I sketch the contours of the relationship between Christology and election in Calvin and Barth. This leads to an argument for conceptual distinctions in their thinking which provide an analytical tool for grasping the differences between them in this area. Second, an account is offered of why this difference should be approached by examining their exegesis, and it is suggested that these conceptual christological distinctions are reflected in similar distinctions in their hermeneutical approaches to the biblical texts. The remainder of the chapter engages with the complexities of comparing Calvin and Barth and their work, and provides an outline of the rest of the book.

1. Christ and Election In arguing for ‘the name of Jesus Christ as the basis of the doctrine of election’, Karl Barth is clear that he does not intend to make an innovative move 1

READING THE DECREE

in the history of doctrine. The biblical texts themselves are wellsprings of the tradition which has accorded Christology a crucial place in election (Eph.1.4–5, 3.10; Rom. 8.29–30).1 G. C. Berkouwer adds 2 Tim. 1.9 to such a list and suggests ‘The history of the doctrine of election may be interpreted as an effort to understand the meaning of these words.’2 For Barth, the efforts of the continental Reformed tradition to understand the witness of Scripture to divine election involved a struggle over this question: should Christ be understood in relation to the decree of election as its foundation, its origin; or merely as its executor? Barth’s exposition of the doctrine of election unfolds against the historical backdrop of a Reformed tradition he regards as having gone seriously awry – despite its best efforts and against its best intentions, it effectively reduced Christ to the role of election’s executor by emphasizing a secret electio Patris. A hidden God we can never know stands as the author of election behind a Christ appearing in time as ‘the organ which serves the electing will of God’.3 The Reformed doctrine of election leaves us with a decretum absolutum: ‘The christological reference was warmly and impressively made, but it is left standing in the air.’4 Barth’s criticism brings the function of Christology in election sharply into focus. For him the classic Reformed doctrine of election has severed the link between Christ and election, and so he seeks to recover it. Nevertheless the fact remains that the Reformed tradition – as Barth admits – did contain from its earliest days an understanding of election that was bound up with a particular understanding of Christology.5 In the thought of John Calvin, the pastor–theologian standing at the fountain-head of the Reformed tradition, the relationship between Christology and election is particularly clear. Christus et decretum The centre of Calvin’s Christology is his application of the term ‘Mediator’ to Jesus Christ. This is the titular description with which he begins his Christology proper in Institutes II.xii, and the term surfaces repeatedly in Calvin’s exegesis of the Gospels and other biblical passages. By beginning his Christology with what Richard A. Muller calls the ‘essentially Anselmic argument concerning the necessity of the mediator, the God-man’, Calvin supersedes a traditional person–work paradigm and substitutes ‘a doctrinal model in which the function of mediation becomes

1 2

3 4 5

CD II/2, p. 60; KD II/2, p. 64. G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election (trans. H. Bekker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), p. 135. CD II/2, p. 65; KD II/2, p. 70. Ibid., p. 65; pp. 69–70. Berkouwer argues that if the Reformed tradition always held Scripture as the boundary of reflection on election, then it also held Christology itself as an ‘accentuated boundary’ within that circumference (Divine Election, pp. 7–27).

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determinative and the person of Christ must be considered in and through his office’.6 For Muller, the very structure of Calvin’s exposition at this point in the Institutes reveals the causal ground of the plan of salvation. The result is that ‘Christology and predestination are bound intimately together.’7 Calvin writes: Now it was of the greatest importance for us that he who was to be our Mediator be both true God and true man. If someone asks why this was necessary, there has been no simple (to use the common expression) or absolute necessity. Rather, it has stemmed from a heavenly decree (caelesti decreto), on which men’s salvation depended. Our most merciful Father decreed what was best for us.8 This connection between Christ as Mediator and the ‘heavenly decree’ in Calvin has been helpfully articulated in a number of treatments. Paul Jacobs’ discussion remains the most powerful, influencing as it has the later works of François Wendel, Richard Muller, and Stephen Edmondson. Jacobs explains the connection between the eternal decree and its temporal realization in a way which outlines the structure of Calvin’s Institutes: Predestination is a doctrine that has two sides: on the one hand, God’s eternal will, and, on the other, the accomplished act of salvation, i.e. salvation through Christ and his activity in sustaining the Church. We can thus comprehend the Christ-centred aspect of the doctrine of election as, first, trinitarian in that it refers to God’s eternal counsel (as detailed in Book I of the Institutes); second, as soteriological in that it concerns the salvation achieved by Christ and its effect on us (detailed in Books II and III of the Institutes); third, as ecclesiological i.e. God’s work in sustaining the Church (as detailed in Book IV of the Institutes). The first aspect relates to the second and third ones under the dualist principle of Calvinist thinking.9 Almost simultaneously to Jacobs, Wilhem Niesel argued that for Calvin ‘Christ is not merely the ground of our recognition of the truth of our 6

7 8 9

R. A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008; first printed 1986), pp. 27–28. Ibid., p. 28. Inst. II.xii.1, p. 464; OS 3, p. 437. P. Jacobs, Prädestination und Verantwortlichkeit bei Calvin (Neukirchen: Buchhandlung des Erziehungsvereins Neukirchen Kr. Moers, 1937), p. 73 (my translation).

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election; he is also its objective ground.’10 Wendel’s position advances to the following conviction: ‘Christ took part in the decree of election in his capacity as second Person of the Holy Trinity, and . . . he is also the artisan of this election in his capacity as Mediator.’11 Precisely the same sentiment is evident in Muller’s description: ‘The Son as God stands behind the decree while the Son as Mediator is the executor of the decree.’12 And for Edmondson: ‘We understand Christ’s work as Mediator only when we grasp from the outset that this work is conditioned by and revelatory of God’s mercy for God’s chosen from eternity. Conversely, we must also say that we know our election only in Christ, through his work as Mediator.’13 In this book I argue that Calvin’s exegesis yields a view of Christ’s role in election which may be traced across a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, reaching back into eternity there is the pre-existent Son who is the author of election, the active subject who participates in the decree of election. However, this Christ is also the object of the decree, the Elect One, both as the pre-existent Mediator and as the Mediator in time. In his role as the pre-existent Mediator, Christ is the ‘Head’ of the elect, the locus in whom certain humans are elect. In his role as Mediator in time, Christ continues to be the executor of the decree, the one who by his life, death and resurrection brings about the temporal salvation of those eternally decreed to be saved, and who puts himself forward as the object of faith. Calvin’s Christ is clothed in a range of metaphors which describe his relationship to the doctrine of election: Christ is a book, in whom all the elect are written; Christ is a mirror, the place we look to see our own election; a guardian, protecting the election given to us by the Father; and a pledge, guaranteeing our election. The explanation of Calvin’s Christology and doctrine of election along this eternal–temporal spectrum corresponds to three contact points between Christology and predestination in Calvin: ‘the definition of election as “in Christ”, the assertion that predestination is known only in Christ, and the statement that Christ himself is the “author of election” together with God the Father’.14 For Calvin, election is by Christ, in Christ, and known in Christ.

10

11

12 13

14

W. Niesel, The Theology of Calvin (trans. H. Knight; London: Lutterworth, 1956), p. 164. B. McCormack argues that Niesel’s 1938 work was actually the most influential in spearheading a reappraisal of Calvin which argued for the christocentric nature of his doctrine of election; cf. ‘Christ and the Decree: An Unsettled Question for the Reformed Churches Today’, in L. Quigley (ed.), Reformed Theology in Contemporary Perspective (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2006), pp. 124–142. F. Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (trans. P. Mairet; New York: Harper and Row, 1950), p. 274. Muller, Christ and the Decree, pp. 37–38. S. Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 148. Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 35.

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Christus decretum est If in Calvin’s doctrine Christ stands in a certain relation to the decree, albeit a relation that cannot be described simplistically, in Barth’s doctrine Christ is the decree: ‘He is the decree of God (Gottes Beschluß) behind and above which there can be no earlier or higher decree and beside which there can be no other, since all others serve only the fulfilment of this decree.’15 Even before arriving at his positive exposition of Christ’s place in election, Barth outlines the false paths the doctrine takes if it operates with a general doctrine of God and a general anthropology. In their place he posits the central concept of Jesus Christ as both the electing God and the elected man. The concept of Christ as the electing God involves, as he sees it, a radical concentration of the Reformed christological motif in election by going significantly beyond the notion of Christ as the first of the elect according to his human nature. It is also for Barth the supreme factor in providing a foundation for an acceptable doctrine of assurance. Christ as the elect man in Barth’s thought advances beyond the Reformed position most strikingly in the weight Barth attaches to Christ being elect to suffer, with the death and resurrection of this chosen One being understood in universally actualistic and representative terms. Barth’s understanding of election strongly maintains a ‘truly electing and free will of God’. This is explained in the Reformed tradition by the decretum absolutum, but for Barth ‘It must be shown, then, that it is Jesus Christ himself who occupies this place.’16 His doctrine of election ‘is arguably the classic instance in the Church Dogmatics of Barth working out his conviction that the church’s talk of Jesus Christ is to furnish the ground and content of all theological doctrine’.17

1.1. A Theological Distinction It would be tempting to argue that, despite their differences, both Calvin and Barth have a christocentric doctrine of election. However, some conceptual precision is required at this point. Bruce McCormack has suggested that the label ‘christocentric’ as applied to Barth’s theology has ‘very little explanatory value unless one goes on to define concretely what “Christocentrism” meant in his case’.18 Richard Muller has observed that exactly the same is

15 16 17 18

CD II/2, p. 94; KD II/2, p. 101. Ibid., p. 75; p. 81. J. Webster, Barth (London/New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 88. B. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909–1936 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 453–454; cf. also J. K. Riches, ‘What is a “Christocentric” Theology?’, in S. W. Sykes and J. P. Clayton (eds), Christ, Faith and History: Cambridge Studies in Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 223–238.

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true of Calvin’s theology.19 He argues persuasively that what has been lacking in much of the extant discussion of christocentric theologies is ‘clear definition, indeed, definition and distinction of the various meanings and applications of “christocentrism” and associated terms as they have been applied to various documents and movements in the history of Christian thought.’20 It has been a burden of Muller’s recent work to point out that modern historiography of the notion of christocentricity has been repeatedly dogged by ‘the interpretive use of an exclusively twentieth-century notion of christocentrism as a means for evaluating the theology of the past’.21 This means that if ‘christocentrism’ as a descriptive term is to carry any value at all then a set of distinctions within christocentrisms is required in order to carefully distinguish various different approaches from each other. My study follows distinctions suggested by Muller: soteriological christocentrism and principial christocentrism. His explanation is as follows: In examining the historical differences between [the models for theological systems that we see in Schleiermacher, Schweizer, Thomasius, Ritschl and Barth] and the theological models of past eras, it is necessary, therefore, to distinguish between the soteriological christocentrism of traditional Christian theology, and what can be called the ‘principial’ christocentrism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The former christocentrism consistently places Christ at the historical and at the soteriological center of the work of redemption. In the theology of Calvin and of the Reformed orthodox, such soteriological christocentrism opposes all synergistic and, therefore, anthropocentric approaches to salvation. The latter, a principial christocentrism, may include the monergistic view of salvation, but it will also assume that Christ is the principium cognoscendi theologiae or, in Kickel’s phrase the Erkenntnissgrund of theology.22 Appearing as it does as part of an extensive (and convincing) critique of the predestinarian ‘central dogma’ theory in Calvin and the Reformed orthodox, 19

20 21

22

R. A. Muller, ‘A Note on “Christocentrism” and the Imprudent Use of Such Terminology’, WTJ 68.2 (2006), pp. 253–260. Ibid., p. 254. Ibid., p. 257; cf. Muller’s ‘Preface to the 2008 Printing’ of Christ and the Decree: ‘Rather than attempting to match the christocentrism of the second-generation Reformers to the christocentrism of the early orthodoxy, I would identify the issue of christocentrism for what it is – an anachronistic overlay of neo-orthodox dogmatic categories – and set it aside as useless for the discussion’ (p. x). R. A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 97–98. The reference to W. Kickel is to his Vernunft und Offenbarung bei Theodor Beza (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967); cf. also ‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’ where the distinctions are further explicated, this time with the addition of ‘prototypical’ or ‘teleological’ christocentrism (pp. 255–256).

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Muller’s basic distinction between types of christocentrism is a useful conceptual tool which requires both substantiation and careful qualification.23 My aim in this essay is to provide the kind of substantiation which will show that the term ‘christocentric’ to describe Calvin’s and Barth’s theologies does not have to be repudiated so much as significantly recalibrated. I argue that close examination of the exegesis of the doctrine of election in Calvin and Barth provides at least one way in which the soteriological–principial christocentric distinction may be further examined and nuanced. In doing so, it is important to make clear what I am not arguing. It is certainly not suggested here that Calvin’s theology has ‘soteriological christocentrism’ as its ‘central dogma’, nor even as its key or overarching motif, the neglect of which would mean misinterpreting his entire corpus. Similarly, although I find Barth’s principial christocentrism by its very nature to be significantly more pervasive, I would likewise resist simple classifications of the whole of his project along these lines. Rather, my contention is this: if we ask about the function of Christology in Calvin in relation to the function of Christology in Barth, then the soteriological– principial distinction emerges as a useful term of comparison should we wish to afford each theologian some form of christocentricity in their theology. The value of the terms lies in how they allow us to compare and contrast Calvin’s and Barth’s theology, not in claiming that these terms are the decisive factors in unlocking all the treasures of their theological storehouses. I will argue, therefore, that there is warrant for understanding both Calvin and Barth as christocentric theologians but, much more significantly, this must be supplemented by the application of the soteriological–principial distinction respectively to each theologian’s conception of christocentrism. The above outline has suggested that Calvin’s Christology is structured by the exposition of Christ as Mediator, so that Christ’s person is considered only in the context of his work of reconciliation. We will see in Chapter 4 that although Calvin is concerned to provide an orthodox discussion of Christ’s two natures, his account of Christ’s person is clearly subsumed within the driving force of his exposition of Christ’s saving work in 23

Muller’s use of E. TeSelle, Christ in Context: Divine Purpose and Human Possibility (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), is in danger of adopting TeSelle’s lack of attention to the significant differences that separate Barth’s christocentrism from that of his liberal Protestant forebears. Also, by seeking to rescue the theologies of the Reformed orthodox from the ‘central dogma’ thesis but in turn imputing this to Barth (After Calvin, p. 97), he runs the risk of collapsing his helpful ‘principial’ terminology into the misleading conception of Barth’s theology as built on a principle from which a system can be deduced. Cf. M. Cortez, ‘What Does It Mean to Call Karl Barth a “Christocentric” Theologian?’, SJT 60.2 (2007), pp. 127–143.

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space-time history. It is in his doctrine of salvation that Calvin’s Christology shines most brightly. Barth himself argued that in terms of understanding the work of God in time (creation, reconciliation, redemption), then ‘In this respect it is hard to put Jesus Christ higher or to give greater prominence to his central and teleological office than did Calvin.’24 For Barth, however, this focus on the temporality of the divine work did not contain sufficient reflection on its relationship to the ‘eternal presupposing’ of that work. The result was a consideration of the eternal and triune God’s activity in election which was cut off from the ‘distinctness and form of his temporal activity’ as revealed in Jesus Christ.25 Such language is the election parsing of deep-seated christological convictions which interpenetrate Barth’s corpus at every point. His own account of his development in the years immediately prior to the writing of his monumental doctrine of election offers explicit reflection on his deepening conviction that ‘Christian doctrine . . . has to be exclusively and conclusively the doctrine of Jesus Christ.’26 Barth said of this approach: ‘I should like to call it a Christological concentration.’27 Similar comments appear in his treatment of Christology in CD I/2: A church dogmatics must, of course, be christologically determined as a whole and in all its parts, as surely as the revealed Word of God, attested by Holy Scripture and proclaimed by the church, is its one and only criterion, and as surely as this revealed Word is identical with Jesus Christ. If dogmatics cannot regard itself and cause itself to be regarded as fundamentally Christology, it has assuredly succumbed to some alien sway and is already on the verge of losing its character as church dogmatics.28

24 25 26 27

28

CD II/2, p. 149; KD II/2, p. 161. Ibid., p. 149; p. 162. K. Barth, How I Changed My Mind (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1969), p. 43. Ibid. Cf. H. Hartwell’s comment: ‘The Church Dogmatics is wholly Christological in the sense that in it . . . every theological proposition has as its point of departure Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, in the unity of his person and work. This Christological concentration of the Church Dogmatics and indeed of Barth’s theology as a whole, is “unparalleled in the history of Christian thought.”’ (The Theology of Karl Barth: An Introduction [London: Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 1964]), pp. 15–16. CD I/2, p. 123; KD I/2, p. 135. ‘In his theology there is no Christology as such; on the other hand it is all Christology . . . Barth’s theology as a whole and in every part is determined by its relation to Jesus Christ, his being and action, so that one cannot detach any aspect of it from its christological basis.’ J. Thompson, Christ in Perspective: Christological Perspectives in the Theology of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1978), p. 1.

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It is just such a presentation of the controlling priority of Christology which contributes to Bruce McCormack’s definition of what it means to describe Barth’s theology as christocentric. He writes: ‘Christocentrism’, in Barth’s case then, refers to the attempt (which characterized his mature theology) to understand every doctrine from a centre in God’s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ; i.e. from a centre in God’s act of veiling and unveiling in Christ . . . ‘Christocentrism’, for him, was a methodological rule – not an a priori principle, but a rule which is learned through encounter with the God who reveals himself in Christ – in accordance with which one presupposes a particular understanding of God’s Self-revelation in reflecting upon each and every other doctrinal topic, and seeks to interpret those topics in the light of what is already known of Jesus Christ.29 This explanation of McCormack’s may be aligned with Muller’s term ‘principial christocentrism’, so long as ‘principial’ is understood in methodological terms and not as a reference to an abstract ‘principle’.30 Barth himself expresses the concept in methodological terms at the beginning of his exposition of Jn 1.14 in CD I/2. In following the apostolic ‘The Word became flesh’, and in therefore stating that ‘Jesus Christ is very God’, Christian proclamation and Christian dogmatics discover their raison d’être: ‘If Christology in particular insists upon this truth and its recognition, it thereby describes as it were an inner circle surrounded by a host of other concentric circles in each of which it is repeated, and in which its truth and recognition must be maintained and expounded.’31 To be sure, Barth’s principial christocentrism does also contain within it a soteriological christocentrism in the sense of a profound orientation to ‘the monergistic view of salvation’.32 But the identification of Christ with God’s Self-revelation in Barth’s theology functions in such a way as to cause Christology to operate within range of other doctrinal loci in a way that is markedly different from the function of Christology in 29

30

31 32

McCormack, Critically Realistic, p. 454. For further discussion of McCormack’s definition, see Cortez, ‘What Does It Mean to Call Karl Barth a “Christocentric” Theologian?’ Cf. the discussion in H. Kirschstein, Der Souveräne Gott und die Heilige Schrift: Einführung in die Biblische Hermeneutik Karl Barths (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 1998), pp. 20–23. My argument is in agreement with P. Lange ‘that in Barth’s Dogmatics there is no place for a conceptually formulated principle of theology’ (cited in Kirschstein, p. 23, my translation). A conceptually formulated christological principle might entail seeing other doctrinal loci as deducible from the principle; but ‘principial christocentrism’ as I am using the phrase means only that other doctrinal loci are interpreted in light of the encounter with the God revealed in Jesus; cf. also the observations in Thompson, Christ in Perspective, pp. 4–7. CD I/2, p. 133 (emphasis added); KD I/2, p. 147. Muller, After Calvin, p. 98.

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Calvin. This is in harmony with the suggestion that different conceptions of the relationship between Christ and revelation lie at the heart of their respective principial and soteriological christocentrisms. Indeed, we will see that the language of principial ‘christocentrism’ as applied to Barth’s doctrine of election may be in danger of not penetrating deeply enough to the heart of his radical conception of the nature of revelation, or even the triunity of the divine being. Douglas Sharp has argued that in Barth, The Christological determination of the doctrine of election is not an influence brought to bear upon the idea of election. Rather it is a determination which has its origin in election and which takes a peculiarly Christological form . . . it is election which precedes Christology, giving to Christology its characteristic form and content, determination and qualification.33 If such a contention is sustainable might we be better to speak of a ‘principial electionism’ in Barth than a ‘principial christocentrism’? Sharp’s argument resonates with a construal of Barth’s doctrine of election which has been most powerfully presented by Bruce McCormack.34 I shall consider these interpretations and their relevance for the argument about forms of christocentrism in Chapter 2.

2. Exegesis and Election In arguing for these overarching christological distinctions in Calvin and Barth, my study offers an in-depth examination of the exegesis of the doctrine 33

34

D. R. Sharp, The Hermeneutics of Election: The Significance of the Doctrine in Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Lanham: University Press of America, 1990), p. 2. Cf. ‘Viewed dogmatically, christology is the basis, context and hermeneutic for election. However, this is possible in dogmatic construction only because actually, originally, and ontically, the movement is from God’s being and primal act of decision (Subject) to the execution and revelation of the decision in the reality of Jesus Christ as fully God and fully human (object). Thus in reality, election is the constitutive basis, context and hermeneutic for christology’ (ibid., pp. 56–57). The most substantial expression of his argument appears in ‘Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology’, in J. Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 92–110. However, see also: ‘For Us and Our Salvation: Incarnation and Atonement in the Reformed Tradition’ (Studies in Reformed Theology and History 1.2; Princeton Theological Seminary, 1993); ‘Barths grundsätzlicher Chalkedonismus?’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 18 (2002), pp. 138–173; ‘The Ontological Presuppositions of Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement’, in C. E. Hill and F. A. James III (eds), The Glory of the Atonement (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), pp. 346–366; ‘Christ and the Decree: An Unsettled Question’; ‘Seek God Where He May be Found: A Response to Edwin Chr. van Driel’, SJT 60.1 (2007), pp. 62–79.

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of election in each theologian. This particular focus makes a contribution to a systematically underplayed issue in historical and modern theology: the role of text-reception in theological construction. In discussions of whether or how Calvin and Barth are christocentric in their doctrines of election, the role of text-reception is significantly lacking – attention is invariably directed to the shape of the dogmatic enterprise, and less (if at all) to its exegetical contours. But for both theologians this is disastrous. Their work exhibits an inseparable relationship between exegesis and theological reflection. Despite a renaissance in Calvin scholarship which has highlighted the necessity of approaching Calvin as a reader of biblical texts,35 the exegesis of election in Calvin remains seriously underdescribed (though it is not undercriticized). One result of this surprising paucity of material which examines in depth the biblical contours of election and predestination in Calvin is that many of the common criticisms of Calvin do not offer a comprehensive enough account to be convincing. Consider the following examples. First, in an influential two-part article which appeared in the first volume of Scottish Journal of Theology, J. K. S. Reid surveys Calvin’s understanding of Christ and election and argues that when we see what Calvin said on this topic ‘it is impossible to suppress surprise and even alarm’.36 This is because, in Reid’s view, Calvin’s Christ is merely the executor of the decree of election and he is not its subject – he merely carries out the Father’s bidding and has no role in the actual choosing itself. Remarkably, Reid’s work does not contain a single reference to any of Calvin’s commentaries. Reid is indebted to Barth’s expression of the theological problem in Calvin’s doctrine of election and has perpetuated this via his own incomplete presentation of Calvin’s position.37 Second, commenting on Calvin’s stated aim of deriving his doctrine of election from Holy Scripture, Cornelis van der Kooi notes that Rom. 9.18, 22

35

Cf. D. K. McKim (ed.), Calvin and the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Although sadly lacking a bibliography, the chapters in this volume provide an orientation to scholarship in this area; cf. also J. L. Thompson, ‘Calvin as a Biblical Interpreter’, in D. McKim (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 58–73. 36 J. K. S. Reid, ‘The Office of Christ in Predestination’, SJT 1.1 (1948), pp. 5–19; 1.2 (1948), pp. 166–183. A similar neglect of Calvin’s commentaries on this issue with distorting results appears in F. S. Clarke, ‘Christocentric Developments in the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination’, Churchman 98.3 (1984), pp. 229–245. 37 For further criticisms of Reid, cf. Berkouwer, Divine Election, pp. 141–145; C. Gunton, ‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’, in Theology through the Theologians: Selected Essays 1972–1995 (London/New York: T & T Clark, 1996), pp. 88–104.

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and Prov. 16.4 are ‘key texts for the concept of double predestination’ in Calvin. He proceeds to comment on Calvin’s use of them: On the basis of contemporary insights from Biblical research we can only observe that already, on exegetical grounds alone, there is no longer any support for Calvin’s purely individualistic exegesis of these texts and his undervaluing of the category of covenant. Calvin did not see that in chapters 9–11 of Romans election is a category of sacred history, and that the question of personal salvation is subordinate to the question of how God will remain true to his promises and his covenant.38 Van der Kooi may or may not be correct as regards the challenge to Calvin from contemporary biblical research, but the substance of his assertion is certainly misguided. The most serious shortcoming is the lack of any reference to Calvin’s Romans commentary. As we will see, Calvin’s exegesis of Romans 9–11 cannot at all be described as ‘purely individualistic’, and the category of covenant functions there as arguably his most important hermeneutical concept.39 When Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is criticized on the basis of what he should have said exegetically, and it turns out that this is what Calvin actually did include in his exegesis, then it can only mean that the understanding of what is being criticized is skewed. If, as I will argue, Calvin understands Romans 9–11 to describe election as ‘a category of sacred history’ and to deal with ‘the question of how God will remain true to his promises and his covenant’, then our understanding of Calvin’s theology is enhanced by wrestling with how he held covenantal convictions about the election of Israel and the church alongside convictions about personal salvation and double predestination.40 At best, van der Kooi’s comments alert us to the issue of how Calvin’s commentary exegesis should be read alongside his exegetical comments in the Institutes by asking whether Calvin’s aim in using a text in both locations is always the same. At worst, 38

39

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C. van der Kooi, As in a Mirror: John Calvin and Karl Barth on Knowing God (Leiden: Brill, 2005), p. 164. This criticism of Calvin is a particular example of the general criticism made by Barth of ‘the decisive exegetical error’ of the classical doctrine of predestination; cf. CD II/2, p. 221; KD II/2, pp. 243–244. For a similar analysis, cf. W. Kreck, Grundentscheidungen in Karl Barths Dogmatik: Zur Diskussion seines Verständnisses von Offenbarung und Erwählung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), p. 245. Calvin appeals to the covenant 39 times in his commentary on Romans 9–11; cf. P. A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), p. 210. As Lillback suggests, Calvin’s covenant-saturated interpretation of Romans 9–11 provides a serious challenge to the view, prevalent since Dorner, that covenant theology was birthed by the critical reaction to Calvin’s rigid predestinarianism (ibid., p. 211).

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they represent the redundancy of criticizing either Calvin’s theology or his work as a biblical interpreter while ignoring the primary location of his exegetical work.41 Such factors mean, however, that my aim in treating Calvin’s exegesis is less to contribute to the increasingly familiar terrain of Calvin as an exegete (sources; relation to humanism; his exegetical method compared and contrasted with the medieval context), but rather to ask: What contribution does Calvin’s exegesis make to his doctrine of election? How may one describe the relationship of Calvin’s exegesis to his theology of election and predestination? Even here my primary aim is not to map the progress of Calvin’s commentary exegesis onto the developing form of his Institutes, although, as I will outline below, there will necessarily be some engagement with these concerns.42 Rather, this book aims to show that the repeated themes of Calvin’s election exegesis across a range of biblical texts are reflected in the treatment of election in the final edition of the Institutes (1559). In this way, it aims to be a departure from those dogmatic studies of Calvin’s theology which ‘have often cited his commentaries but have seldom inquired into the impact of Calvin’s exegetical efforts on his formulation of theological topics’.43 Barth’s practice as a biblical exegete has also enjoyed considerable attention in the secondary literature, but his doctrine of election has arguably fared somewhat better in this respect than Calvin’s. As a reader of biblical texts, Barth is well served in a number of studies which range from general accounts treating the place of Scripture in his thinking;44 to biblical

41

42

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44

This view of Calvin is widespread. T. Eskola argues that there is a close dependence between exegesis and dogmatic questions on the issue of predestination and that one of the most influential dogmatic positions has been that of Calvin; cf. Theodicy and Predestination in Pauline Soteriology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998). Statements like the following, however, are problematic: ‘It is probably justified to say that Calvin, with his teaching of double predestination, drew the ultimate conclusions from the predestinarian statements of Augustine’ (p. 180). Such a construal ignores the instances where Calvin explicitly departs from Augustine (for example, on reprobation as merely foreknown). More importantly, it offers a misleading account of the way exegesis and dogmatics are related in Calvin’s own position by underplaying Calvin’s stress on deriving his doctrine from Scripture in a way which eschews determinism. For an excellent example of this kind of project, see B. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See: Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith in Its Exegetical Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). R. A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Formation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 6. Cf. C. Baxter, ‘The Nature and Place of Scripture in the Church Dogmatics’, in J. Thompson (ed.), Theology Beyond Christendom: Essays on the Centenary of the Birth of Karl Barth (Allison Park: Pickwick Publications, 1986), pp. 33–62; idem, ‘Barth – A Truly Biblical Theologian?’, Tyndale Bulletin 38 (1987), pp. 3–27.

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interpretation in his earlier theology;45 in the development of his thought;46 through to accounts which focus specifically on aspects of his exegesis in the Church Dogmatics.47 Alongside this, a number of studies (in varying degrees of depth) have highlighted the role of exegesis in his doctrine of election.48 My study has benefited from such treatments of Barth’s election exegesis but differs from them in important respects. Most of these differences will emerge as the argument unfolds, but in relation to the most important studies some main divergences can be outlined as follows. Mary Cunningham’s study aims to provide a sustained analysis of Barth’s appeal to New Testament predestinarian texts in a way which uncovers the ‘internal logic’ of his approach to these texts.49 But Cunningham’s rendering of the relationship between Eph. 1.4 and Jn 1.1-2 in Barth’s doctrine of election does not provide a sufficient account of the internal logic of his hermeneutic. Her construal of the relationship of these texts to each other and to other biblical texts treated by Barth, as well as her arguments about Barth’s attitude to ‘historical criticism’, are insufficiently nuanced. Paul McGlasson helpfully discusses Barth’s ‘tendency toward Christocentric exegesis’50 but again his focus is more narrow than the range of this study – while his approach to Barth’s exegesis is applied to the election and rejection of Judas, there is no significant discussion of the earlier exegetical material in CD II/2. Douglas Sharp’s understanding of election as the basis of Chris45

46

47

48

49 50

See especially R. E. Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical Principles of the Römerbrief Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004); cf. also J. Webster, ‘Karl Barth’, in J. P. Greenman and T. Larsen (eds), Reading Romans through the Centuries (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), pp. 205–223; idem, ‘The Resurrection of the Dead’, in Barth’s Earlier Theology (London/New York: Continuum, 2005), pp. 67–90; D. Wood, ‘“Ich sah mit Staunen”: Reflections on the Theological Substance of Barth’s Early Hermeneutics’, SJT 58.2 (2005), pp. 184–198. Kirschstein, Der Souveräne Gott und die Heilige Schrift; W. Lindemann, Karl Barth und die kritische Schriftauslegung (Hamburg-Bergstedt: Herbert Reich-Evangelischer Verlag, 1973); D. Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). B. Bourgine, L’herméneutique théologique de Karl Barth. Exégèse et dogmatique dans le quatrième volume de la Kirchliche Dogmatik (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003). J. Colwell, ‘Perspectives on Judas: Barth’s Implicit Hermeneutic’, in A. N. S. Lane (ed.), Interpreting the Bible: Historical & Theological Studies in Honour of David F. Wright (Leicester: Apollos, 1997), pp. 163–180; M. K. Cunningham, What is Theological Exegesis? Interpretation and Use of Scripture in Barth’s Doctrine of Election (Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1995); E. Buess, ‘Zur Präedestinationslehre Karl Barths’, Theologische Studien 43 (1955), pp. 5–64; G. Gloege, ‘Zur Prädestinationslehre Karl Barths’, Kerygma und Dogma 2 (July 1956), pp. 193–217; (October 1956), pp. 233–255; Kreck, Grundentscheidungen in Karl Barths Dogmatik; P. McGlasson, Jesus and Judas: Biblical Exegesis in Barth (AAR Academy Series 72; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990); Sharp, The Hermeneutics of Election. Cunningham, What is Theological Exegesis?, p. 14. McGlasson, Jesus and Judas, p. 47.

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tology in Barth needs to be tempered in two main ways. First, on Jesus’ pre-existence, Sharp mistakenly assumes that Barth’s position ‘calls for a strict understanding of the eternal pre-existence of the human Jesus’.51 Second, I will argue that the christological shape of Barth’s election exegesis of passages such as Romans 9–11 requires the language of election as ‘preceding’ Christology to be carefully nuanced. There is clearly a way in which Christology influences election for Barth, and not merely vice versa.52

2.1. A Hermeneutical Distinction To look at their exegesis as part of their doctrines of election is to respect the best intentions of both Calvin and Barth, and thus actually to provide two overlapping areas of examination: a doctrine; and the exegesis of the doctrine. The twin issues of the doctrine of election and its exegetical construction provide two overlapping areas in which to probe christocentrism. That is to say, examining election – a doctrinal locus formally separate from Christology – creates the space to consider what influence Christology exerts on that doctrine in the thinking of both theologians. And with the doctrine of election taking two different christocentric forms, we may likewise ask: does the exegesis of election also take these forms? I will argue that the soteriological– principial christological distinction in election corresponds to an extensive– intensive hermeneutical distinction in exegesis. Just as a theology may be christocentric in either a soteriological or principial way, so I suggest that a hermeneutic may be christocentric in either an extensive or intensive way. To describe a hermeneutic as christologically extensive means that Christology clearly defines the hermeneutical approach, but the centre of Christology points outwards to other doctrinal loci which have space and scope to exist in themselves at a measure of distance from Christology and from each other. Christology reaches out to and touches on other doctrines which nevertheless can be given coherent description in themselves without the language of christological description. Christology may influence and shape these loci, but it does not dictate or control them. Conversely, to describe a hermeneutic as christologically intensive means that the christological centre defines all else within its circumference. Within this circle, Christology draws everything else to itself so that all other doctrinal loci cannot be read in Scripture apart from explicit christological reference. More than merely reaching out to and touching other doctrines, here Christology permeates all other doctrines so that the terms of their definition are drawn from the domain of christological description. A christologically

51 52

Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, p. 130 n. 25. For other criticisms of Sharp, cf. S. McDonald, ‘Barth’s “Other” Doctrine of Election in the Church Dogmatics’, IJST 9.2 (2007), pp. 134–147.

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intensive hermeneutic is well expressed in Webster’s words: Barth’s mature doctrine of election has Jesus Christ as its ‘ground and content’.53 Although the extensive–intensive distinction may be a fine one, it ably explains a main difference between Calvin’s and Barth’s hermeneutical christocentrism. Calvin’s hermeneutical approach to the biblical text is christologically extensive: although he reads the whole of the Bible’s plot-line in connection with Christology and finds the gospel which the text reveals to be inseparably connected to Christology, he does not always read every aspect of election through a christological lens. Underlying this approach is Calvin’s doctrine of revelation. Calvin has a conception of revelation which never exclusively identifies the Word of God with the person of Jesus, but sees revelation more extensively as also a property of the biblical text. This is different from Barth. His hermeneutics of election may be described as christologically intensive: he both finds the text to speak about Christ at those moments where Calvin speaks more generally about God or the decree, and finds the text to speak about election where Calvin would find the text to speak only about Christology. Likewise, we will see that driving this hermeneutical approach is a doctrine of revelation which more intensively identifies revelation with Jesus the Word of God than does Calvin. This examination of the exegesis of the doctrine of election in two theologians from different eras provides a fundamental challenge to dominant paradigms in modern hermeneutics. The role that Christology plays in Calvin’s and Barth’s different approaches to reading the biblical text is at odds with those conceptions of hermeneutics which relegate doctrinal questions to the periphery. In such approaches, ‘Christian doctrine is rarely regarded as adequate to the task of describing what takes place when the church reads the Bible, and is normally believed to require either supplementing or (more frequently) grounding in general considerations of the ways in which human beings interpret written materials.’54 As a deliberate move, this book maps low-level descriptions of Calvin’s and Barth’s exegesis of election with the result that the specifically theological nature of their reading practices comes to the fore while the language of explicit hermeneutical description recedes into the background. The exegesis of election in Calvin and Barth exists within christological horizons which show how doctrine itself may be a hermeneutic. Their respective Christologies, emerging as they do from exegesis, in turn shape and direct further exegesis. Their projects are aptly described in Francis Watson’s words: ‘Christian doctrine 53 54

Webster, Barth, p. 88. J. Webster, ‘Hermeneutics in Modern Theology: Some Doctrinal Reflections’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 307–341 (p. 309). Contra such approaches, Webster suggests that ‘theological hermeneutics will be confident and well-founded if it says much of the reality which is the axiom of all Christian life and thought, the living, speaking presence of the living Jesus Christ’ (p. 317).

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initially offers an interpretation of scripture, but in a second moment constitutes a hermeneutic which will affect subsequent interpretation.’55

3. On Comparing Calvin and Barth Methodologically, a number of important factors deserve consideration. It will be obvious by now that this work adopts a comparative approach to Calvin and Barth. But the separation of each theologian by several centuries which generate massively different contexts provides a number of challenges to explicating their thought in comparative terms. For some, the contextual complexities are such that the attempt itself is misguided. Muller writes: ‘Projects that compare Calvin and Barth or Calvin and Schleiermacher will not enlighten us particularly about Calvin – nor probably about Barth or Schleiermacher, for that matter.’ His concern is to tie comparative studies strictly to ‘actual partners in the ongoing sixteenth-century theological conversation.’56 But it is not at all clear why this is the only way to proceed. One suspects that Muller’s underlying aim is to prevent any Barthian distortion of Calvin which might occur in the process of comparison,57 but to bracket both theologians off from each other completely in the interest of faithful interpretation is to exaggerate the need for methodological care. That this is an example of overstatement is confirmed when we observe that Muller’s own conception of the christological distinctions between Calvin and the Reformed orthodox on the one hand, and Barth and other nineteenth- and twentieth-century theologies on the other, is – if it retains any merit at all – irreducibly comparative.58 More temperate is Don Wood’s caution from the side of Barth studies: when the comparative move is made too quickly ‘it can serve to flatten out the theological contours of Barth’s work.’59 This much – for Calvin and Barth – must surely be granted. At the same time, a comparative study does not necessarily entail ignoring the fact that ‘much of what makes Barth’s hermeneutics so interesting can best be brought to light by attending to connections internal to his own work.’60 Indeed, this study advances the claim that it is the connections internal to the literary output of Calvin and Barth (internal connections between their respective exegesis, hermeneutics 55

56 57 58

59 60

F. B. Watson, Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 222. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 187. Cf. ibid., p. 14. Cf. esp. Muller, ‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’, pp. 257–258; cf. Edmondson’s brief criticisms of Muller’s reticence to claim the relevance of Calvin for modern theological discussion (Calvin’s Christology, p. x). Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. xiv. Ibid.

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and doctrines of election) which contribute most interestingly to the nature of the comparison and contrast between them. Examining their work in this way does not require the transposition of ideas from one into the other, or even the interpretation of one in the light of the other. It is precisely because they are distinct that a comparison which appreciates this may be fruitful. This point may be pressed further. One of the main reasons why comparisons between Calvin and Barth may prove interesting is because the examination of connections and motifs internal to Barth’s own thought is not, in the final analysis, truly penetrating apart from consideration of his debt to the Reformed tradition, and notably to Calvin himself. For all his independent and creative genius, Barth’s theology is profoundly catholic, soaked in dialogue and debate with centuries of tradition and modulated with a Reformed accent. Here the particularly Calvinian tone which registers so often is relevant to my project in at least three key ways.61 First, Barth’s work as a biblical interpreter is directly shaped by his encounter with Calvin as a biblical interpreter. John Webster argues that during the Göttingen period Barth’s engagement with Calvin in particular gave him ‘a model of theological interpretation which enabled him to focus and extend the exegetical instincts of the Römerbrief ’.62 In Barth’s lectures on Calvin in 1922, Calvin as a model exegete emerges most clearly in Barth’s treatment of Calvin’s Romans commentary.63 Here Barth finds the traditional Reformed conception of knowledge of God as essential to engagement with the text of Scripture. Alongside this, Barth discovered a commitment both to the ‘objective study’ of the Bible and the corresponding realization that ‘A purely historical understanding of the mind of scripture would be for Calvin no understanding at all. The mind of scripture cannot be merely the object of exposition but has to be its subject as well.’64 We will see in Chapter 4 that this description of the exegetical task has strong resonances with Barth’s later conception of a theology of interpretation which would 61

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I limit myself to three, but there are further grounds for exploring connections between Calvin and Barth. T. H. L. Parker comments on the significance of Barth’s Second World War context: ‘It is not irrelevant to Calvin-studies that the confessing church turned so eagerly to Luther and Calvin, men who spoke the word needed for strengthening. One can no longer write about Calvin as if he had played no part in the “German church struggle”’; cf. John Calvin: A Biography (Oxford: Lion, 2006), p. 7. J. Webster, ‘“In the Shadow of Biblical Work”: Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible’, Toronto Journal of Theology 17 (2001), pp. 75–91 (p. 78). E. Busch records how during this time Barth became so preoccupied with Calvin that he had to abandon a planned series of lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews; cf. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (trans. J. Bowden; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 138; cf. also p. 143. K. Barth, The Theology of John Calvin (trans. G. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Ibid., p. 389.

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prove so influential in his doctrine of election. Webster goes so far as to say ‘it is not too much to claim the “constitutive significance” of this section of the Calvin lectures for his later development.’65 Calvin and Barth warrant comparison precisely because Barth’s reading of Scripture is not separable from his reading of Calvin. Second, Barth’s work as a dogmatic theologian was, from the earliest days of his academic career, both moulded by Calvin’s understanding of election and worked out in disagreement with it. In the Göttingen Dogmatics, Barth comments on his ‘one incisive deviation’ from the Reformed doctrine of predestination: And I for my part am fully aware that it is no secondary matter if I deviate here but that it will have the most far-reaching consequences. This is the rent in the cloak of my orthodoxy, for which undoubtedly I would at least have been beaten with rods in old-time Geneva.66 If Barth felt like this about his doctrine of election as it stood in 1924–1925, then the personal reflection on his mature exposition of election in CD II/2 (1942) is not surprising: ‘To think of the contents of this volume gives me much pleasure, but even greater anxiety.’67 However much Barth may have felt he was departing from the Reformed tradition in the Göttingen Dogmatics, it was nothing compared to the colossal shift which appears in II/2 of the Church Dogmatics. His treatment of election in Göttingen contains notable similarities to the Calvinian tradition of Pauline exegesis (Rom. 9 ‘teaches eternal, unconditional twofold predestination’68), with the stated deviation being the account of temporality. Here Barth rejects a concept of election as a decree occurring in a pretemporal past to save a ‘fixed number’. He prefers instead an actualistic understanding of election whereby God is involved in a continual interaction with individuals in the present as part of the divine decision of electing and rejecting.69 But by 1942 everything is different. In CD II/2 Barth explicitly rejects not just his earlier moment-bymoment actualism in offering a more complex account of eternity and time, but also the classical landscape of eternal, individual, double predestination. While wishing to stand in the Reformed tradition and adopt many of its foundational premises, Barth now expounds his radical re-orientation of the

65 66

67 68 69

Webster, ‘Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible’, p. 78. K. Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion (ed. H. Reiffen; trans. G. Bromiley; vol. 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 453 (hereafter GD). CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii. GD, p. 453. S. McDonald argues that this doctrine of election remains influential for Barth in the volumes of Church Dogmatics prior to II/2; cf. ‘Barth’s “Other” Doctrine of Election’, pp. 134–147.

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doctrine to a christological centre which issues in a completely new understanding of both election and double predestination. Yet Barth never wished to rid himself entirely of Calvin’s shadow. The publication of CD II/2 gave Barth ‘much pleasure, but even greater anxiety’ for, as he comments in the Preface: I would have preferred to follow Calvin’s doctrine of predestination much more closely instead of departing from it so radically . . . But I could not and cannot do so. As I let the Bible itself speak to me on these matters, as I meditated upon what I seemed to hear, I was driven irresistibly to reconstruction.70 This study does not examine Barth’s relationship to Calvin.71 But the depth of his indebtedness to Calvin in the reading of the Bible and the doctrine of election makes comparison of their exegesis interesting and worthwhile, if for no other reason than after benefiting from Calvin so extensively Barth’s interpretation of Scripture on election was to come to differ so radically. These two points, however, combine to suggest a third decisive reason for why comparison of Calvin and Barth is valid. If Calvin influenced Barth both as biblical interpreter and as theologian, then what truly forges a connection between them is the fact that, in different centuries, their exegesis of election is a reading of the same text: Holy Scripture. That is to say, their differences in context are actually bridged by the biblical text so that one can point to this in common between them above and beyond their contextual particularities. Understood in this way, their different historical locations do not render a comparison fruitless but rather add focus to the nature of the comparison itself. Why is it that the one set of texts come to be read in such strikingly different ways? This means that the kind of comparison which Muller wishes to press (soteriological–principial) is further sharpened by attending to the fact that this theological distinction contains within it a hermeneutical distinction (extensive–intensive) which cannot be explained solely in terms of divergence and separation between Calvin and Barth. Why is Barth’s christocentrism best rendered as principial, and his hermeneutics of election best rendered as christologically intensive, when his doctrine of 70 71

CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii. Cf. S. W. Chung, Admiration and Challenge: Karl Barth’s Theological Relationship with John Calvin (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003). In comparing Calvin and Barth I have found it necessary at certain points to diverge from Barth’s own reading of Calvin. To follow his judgements in every case would not always place us on the right path. However, this book reads Barth and reads Calvin; not Barth on Calvin, or Calvin through Barth, despite partially following the outline of Barth’s topical arrangement. The extent to which Barth’s reading of Calvin is warranted is not the focus of this work as my concern is to present two different readings of Scripture on election in the Reformed tradition. Of course, the issues are not always separated so easily.

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election emerges as a reading of the same text which produced Calvin’s infamous account of predestination? Much more important at the comparative level is validating the particular kind of comparison I am conducting. This book compares Calvin’s exegesis of election in his commentaries (mostly on the Gospel of John and the epistle to the Romans) with Barth’s exegesis in CD II/2. To add to the differences in context I now appear to be adding a not insignificant difference in genre! There are, however, a number of important issues to consider. To examine Calvin’s and Barth’s exegesis in their respective doctrines of election one must do more than simply compare their commentaries, for they did not write about election in relation to the biblical text in the same way. A major contention of my study is the now commonplace assertion that, in any given area of Calvin’s thought, his commentaries must be read in conjunction with his Institutes so that these different texts combine to provide both dogmatic loci and interpretation of Scripture which Calvin intended to be taken together as the (not exclusive) guide to his teaching. Muller comments: ‘the exegetico-theological conclusions embodied in the commentaries frequently lack either systematic elaboration or illustration on the basis of other biblical texts, historical example, or dispute with variant theological views – all of which occur at the relevant point in the Institutes.’72 In this way, taking his commentaries and Institutes together, there is actually a very basic level of similarity to Barth’s text in CD II/2. Although clearly driven by doctrinal concerns, Barth’s small-print exegesis in this volume punctuates his historical and dogmatic discussion and means that he combines into one text what Calvin separates into two. If there is some form of analogous relationship between their texts then, clearly, all manner of contextual differences prevent this point being pressed too hard for any serious formal significance. But the point of drawing a parallel is simply to suggest that the comparison of different types of texts is not worthless when their overall content is held in view. Some further explanation of my approach to the relationship between exegesis and doctrine in both theologians is in order here. Following the work of Muller,73 Elsie Anne McKee,74 and now also Stephen Edmondson,75 it is accepted that there exists a ‘symbiotic’ or ‘stereoscopic’ 72 73 74

75

Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 108. Ibid., especially pp. 101–158. E. A. McKee, ‘Exegesis, Theology, and Development in Calvin’s Institutio: A Methodological Suggestion’, in McKee and B. G. Armstrong (eds), Probing the Reformation: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey, Jr. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989), pp. 154–174; idem, ‘Some Reflections on Relating Calvin’s Exegesis and Theology’, in M. S. Burrows and P. Rorem (eds), Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective: Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on His Sixtieth Birthday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 215–226. Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, especially pp. 40–48; idem, ‘The Biblical Historical Structure of Calvin’s Institutes’, SJT 59.1 (2006), pp. 1–13.

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complementary relationship between Calvin’s commentaries and his Institutes. The developing form of the Institutes can be best understood by taking seriously ‘Calvin’s advice to read this book as an introduction to the Bible and a companion to his own commentaries’.76 This argument commonly exists by extracting hermeneutical mileage from Iohannes Calvinus Lectori which appeared as the preface to the 1539 Institutes and which, significantly, remained in place through to the 1559 edition.77 There Calvin introduces his work with these words: It has been my purpose in this labour to prepare and instruct candidates in sacred theology for the reading of the divine Word (ad divini verbi lectionem), in order that they may be able both to have easy access to it and to advance in it without stumbling (ut et facilem ad eam aditum habere, et inofenso in ea gradu pergere queant). For I believe I have so embraced the sum of religion in all its parts (religionis summam omnibus partibus), and have arranged it in such an order, that if anyone rightly grasps it, it will not be difficult for him to determine what he ought especially to seek in Scripture, and to what end (scopum) he ought to relate its contents. If, after this road has, as it were, been paved, I shall publish any interpretations (enarrationes) of Scripture, I shall always condense them, because I shall have no need to undertake long doctrinal discussions (dogmatibus longas disputations instituere), and to digress into commonplaces (in locos communes evagari). In this way the godly reader will be spared great annoyance and boredom, provided he approach Scripture armed (praemunitus) with a knowledge of the present work, as a necessary tool (necessario instrumento).78 This preface announces Calvin’s important distinction between the function of his commentaries (condensed interpretation) and his Institutes (doctrinal discussions and commonplaces), and it is often read in conjunction with the similar prefatory remarks at the start of his Epistle to the Romans.79 Muller’s purpose in engaging with the 1539 preface is, rightly, to 76 77

78 79

McKee, ‘Exegesis, Theology, and Development’, p. 156. The Battles edition notes some of the changes that were made to this preface as a whole during the development of the Institutes (pp. 3–5). On the function of Calvin’s prefaces, see S. Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), pp. 46–86; cf. her discussion of the development of the 1539 preface (pp. 51–52). Inst. ‘John Calvin to the Reader’, pp. 4–5; Institutio (1539); cf. OS 3, 6. Cf. R. Gamble, ‘Brevitas et Facilitas: Toward an Understanding of John Calvin’s Hermeneutic’, WTJ 47.1 (1985), pp. 1–17; idem, ‘Exposition and Method in Calvin’, WTJ 49.1 (1987) pp. 153–165; idem, ‘Calvin as Theologian and Exegete: Is There Anything New?’, CTJ 23 (1988), pp. 178–194; cf. also F. Büsser, ‘Bullinger as Calvin’s

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challenge a trajectory of older Calvin scholarship which tended to view the Institutes as the primary source for any understanding of Calvin’s theology. Such a conception of Calvin’s project overlooked the implications of the 1539 preface appearing just as Calvin was preparing his first commentary (Romans) for publication. It thereby ignored Calvin’s intention that the two texts – and any following commentaries – should be read together.80 This argument for symbiotic complementarity is well made and sets in place vital criteria for assessing the development of Calvin’s exegetical and doctrinal work. It is the contention of this book, however, that the options of viewing the Institutes either as having priority over the commentaries, or as existing in a stereoscopic relationship to the commentaries, are not mutually exclusive. I suggest that, strictly speaking, it is the historical development of the Institutes and commentaries that should be described as unfolding in a complementary way but, in terms of the actual function of both sets of texts, Calvin always intended his Institutes to have a relative hermeneutical priority. This much emerges from a close reading of the 1539 preface. Here Calvin unambiguously frames the very purpose of the Institutes as being to guide the reading of Scripture. Originally written as a catechetical text, note that Calvin does not say that its purpose is to instruct candidates in theology, but rather to instruct theological candidates ‘for the reading of the divine Word’. The Institutes aims to facilitate easy access to Scripture, and unimpeded progress in Scripture. Further, we note the logical ordering of Calvin’s aim: if anyone rightly grasps his arrangement of Christian teaching in this text, then he will know both what to look for in the biblical text and be able to read the parts teleologically. Functionally, there is a clear sequential move from dogmatic loci to biblical text. The godly reader is not to approach Scripture without the weapon of the Institutes (praemunitus), or without it as a tool (instrumento). Muller points out that after 1539 Calvin did not ‘change the wording of this description of his project in the subsequent editions of the Institutes’,81 which means that in the final 1559 edition Calvin had in place a body of loci communes which he still intended to serve as a guide for the reader of Scripture.82 Itself the product of exegesis, the Institutes as a whole is designed to guide the reader as to what they should seek in Scripture and to what end they should relate its parts.83 Calvin’s Institutes

80 81 82

83

Model in Biblical Exposition: An Examination of Calvin’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans’, in E. J. Furcha (ed.), In Honor of John Calvin, 1509–64 (Montreal: McGill University, 1987), pp. 64–95. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 106. Ibid. Cf. R. C. Zachman, ‘“Do You Understand What You are Reading?” Calvin’s Guidance for the Reading of Scripture’, SJT 54 (2001), pp. 1–20. Muller also argues that the Institutes were intended to pave the way not just for a reading of Scripture but also for a reading of Calvin’s expositions of Scripture

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is itself a hermeneutic. This approach to the relationship between exegesis and doctrine in Calvin shapes what follows in two main ways. First, it ensures that when Chapter 4 of this book offers an account of the hermeneutics of election in Calvin, what it records is simply the circular relationship between Calvin’s biblical exegesis and his dogmatic presentation in the Institutes. The fundamental contention here is that the presentation of Christology and its relationship to election and predestination in Book III of the Institutes is a hermeneutically guiding presentation. Calvin intends the placing, structure and content of the loci – and their relationship to other closely connected loci – to teach how the doctrines should be read in Scripture. Where the Institutes has been recognized as having a hermeneutical function, then one of the main results has been the extraction from the Institutes of ‘tools’ or ‘principles’ which are held to be the tools which Calvin uses (and so advocates) in interpretation. The exercise has much to commend it.84 My study, however, aims to advance the underdeveloped contention that the Institutes is itself a tool as much as it contains a set of tools. I suggest that the search for general interpretative principles must not be carried out at the expense of grasping how Calvin intends his own reading of the Bible and his relation of its various loci to be in itself a hermeneutic. Calvin teaches how to read the Bible not merely by offering a range of presuppositions narrowly related to the art of exegesis, but by telling the Bible’s story, unpacking its plot-line and narrative in a way which shows how he understands it to hang together as a whole. In this way, Calvin teaches the relationship of Christology to the history of Israel, its place in the historia salutis, and therefore its crucial relationship to election and the attendant issues of faith, works and repentance. Second, by accepting that Calvin intended his Institutes to teach the reader of the Bible the end to which they should relate its contents, this study provides a vantage point from which to answer the following question: should the road of biblical hermeneutics which Calvin paves in his Institutes be described as extensive or intensive at the level of christological influence? In his important study, Wilhelm Niesel suggested that for Calvin the ‘aim of all our attention to the Bible should be the recognition of Jesus Christ.’85

84

85

(The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 140). This is further evidence of its hermeneutical priority over the commentaries. Cf. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, p. 21. R. W. Holder has recently provided an account of Calvin’s hermeneutical principles which he argues need to be distinguished from Calvin’s exegetical practices: John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2006). He describes the former as: hierarchical epistemology; Scripture’s authority; God’s accommodation; unity of the testaments; mind of the author; hermeneutical circles; edification (pp. 29–86). He outlines the latter as: paraphrase; contextual interpretation; Scripture interpreting Scripture; listening to tradition; humility; simplicity; fuller meaning (pp. 87–138). Niesel, The Theology of Calvin, p. 27. Niesel’s assertion has significant substance. It is drawn from Calvin’s preface to the editions of the Genevan translation of the Bible

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His position argues for a christocentric hermeneutic in Calvin which is best described as intensive. By considering Calvin’s election exegesis and then examining the way this dovetails with his hermeneutically guiding presentation of election in the Institutes, I will argue that construals such as Niesel’s are right to identify christocentricity in Calvin but also suffer from lack of attention to distinctions within christocentrism which best explain Calvin’s position.86 In Barth, there is a sense in which the relationship between exegesis and doctrine is more straightforward to navigate. The Church Dogmatics presents small-print exegesis and large-print historical–dogmatic reflection side by side, so that Barth’s hermeneutical approach is often on display either close at hand or by wider reading in the Dogmatics. Nevertheless, it is important to observe that the presence of page after page of detailed exegetical reflection has rarely served to make much impression on even Barth’s most able interpreters at the level of its substantial formative effect on his theological development.87 This is particularly true in the case of Barth’s doctrine of election. Bruce McCormack’s genetico-historical treatment of Barth’s development undoubtedly deserves its high praise and its continuing impact on current Barth studies.88 But in McCormack’s description of Barth’s move from his earlier pneumatocentrism in anhypostatic–enhypostatic Christology to his defining christocentric concentration in the Dogmatics, discussion of the nature of Barth’s attention to the biblical materials – either freshly during this period or as the continuation of a habitual engagement – is positively lacking.89 To be sure, the significance of Pierre Maury’s address ‘Election and Faith’ (June 1936), which Barth heard delivered at the Reformation celebrations in Geneva, cannot be overestimated. Barth himself was to highlight its profound effects.90 Maury’s impact was quickly registered in Barth’s lectures in Debrechen, Hungary (September 1936), on the subject of ‘God’s Gracious

86

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88 89 90

where the christological focus on the ultimate end of scriptural interpretation is clear (ibid., pp. 26–27). Cf. also Holder, John Calvin, who presents similar but more qualified arguments, and without Niesel’s Barthian presuppositions (pp. 139–180). Muller argues that the characterizations of Calvin’s thought as christocentric have tended to come from scholars intent on rescuing his thought from ‘a metaphysically controlled predestinarianism’ (‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’, p. 259). Niesel’s work falls into this category. The intention is laudable; the execution requires considerable qualification. Cf. the observations in this regard by F. B. Watson, ‘The Bible’, in Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, pp. 57–71. McCormack, Critically Realistic. Ibid., pp. 453–463. K. Barth, ‘Foreword’, in P. Maury, Predestination and Other Papers (trans. E. Hudson; London: SCM, 1960), pp. 15–16.

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Election’,91 and McCormack is certainly right to say that ‘These lectures set forth the basic viewpoints which would govern the massive treatment of the theme of election in Church Dogmatics II/2.’92 It can be argued, however, that such an account with its compelling presentation of how the actualism of Barth’s doctrine of revelation became married in the closest possible way to a christological account of election, tends to contain within it ‘the marginalization of the scriptural impulse in Barth’.93 The result is that the development in Barth’s thinking is invariably presented as the discovery of a christological method, over and above an exegetical development and discovery of a confluence of Christology, revelation and election which would bring significant changes to bear on the presentation of the doctrine of election. A similar approach is present in Matthias Gockel’s account of Barth’s development.94 His study offers no discussion of the possible effects of Barth’s biblical exegesis during this period. Gockel does argue that Barth’s radical interpretation of Jn 1.1–2 in CD II/2 (1942) ‘is not simply the result of the retrospective attempt to find exegetical backing for the christological revision’, precisely because this view can be found in Barth as early as 1925.95 But the significance of this observation is underplayed. As we will see, in 1942 Barth would argue for an understanding of Jn 1.1–2 which would draw the Jesus of history into the triune identity in a way which would have significant effects on his revised doctrine of election. But might the fact that in 1925 Barth was able to say that ‘the only possibility’ for the interpretation of ou-toj in Jn 1.2 is that ‘he, Jesus . . . was in the beginning’ mean that there are clear biblical precedents in his thought for the line of development he would come to pursue after 1936?96 This is not to deny the radical new insights Barth was to achieve. But it does indicate more than merely background significance to his constant engagement with the biblical materials. This much resonates with Barth’s later explicit claim in the Preface to his mature doctrine of election: ‘As I let the Bible itself speak to me on these matters, as I meditated upon what I seemed to hear, I was driven irresistibly to reconstruction.’97 91 92 93

94

95 96

97

K. Barth, Gottes Gnadenwahl (Theologische Existenz heute, 47; Zurich: EVZ, 1936). McCormack, Critically Realistic, p. 458. Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. 2; cf. his discussion of McCormack’s work, pp. 2–4. M. Gockel, Barth & Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A SystematicTheological Comparison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 158–197. Gockel’s account has contributed to McCormack’s recent modification of his developmental paradigm; cf. ‘Seek God Where He May be Found’, p. 64. Gockel, Barth & Schleiermacher, p. 170. K. Barth, Witness to the Word: A Commentary on John 1 (trans. G. W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 29. CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii.

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My intention in this book is not to provide an evaluation of Barth’s exegesis or his doctrine of election but rather to lay bare his approach as the necessary foundation for such evaluations. Specifically, I aim to do this by examining Barth’s exegesis in relation to his own theology of interpretation, and so to consider how exegesis and hermeneutics inform each other in his account.98

4. Mapping the Argument I argue that Calvin’s exegesis of election reveals a doctrine of election which may be described as christocentric (if by this we understand Christ to be central to salvation-history and the effecting of redemption within the economy). Allied to this, I suggest that Calvin’s exegesis of election is explained by a hermeneutical approach to Scripture which is extensively christocentric – his reading of the whole of the biblical narrative is shaped by his understanding of how Christology functions within that narrative. Conversely, it is suggested that Barth’s exegesis of election reveals a doctrine of election which, when carefully nuanced, may be described as christocentric in a methodologically principial way. This exegesis is best understood in tandem with Barth’s theology of interpretation which is intensively christological – his reading of the Bible privileges the name of Jesus Christ in ways which go significantly beyond Calvin’s understanding of how Christology functions in exegesis. To show these points, the book unfolds in the following manner. Chapter 2 expands in much greater detail on the sketch provided in this chapter on the relationship of Christ himself to election in Calvin’s and Barth’s exegesis. While it is argued that Barth’s position is not as radical as some recent interpreters have claimed, his concept of the pre-existent Jesus as the subject of election (not merely God the Son) is different enough from the corresponding concept in Calvin to issue in two different understandings of election’s trinitarian basis. In this chapter we see Calvin and Barth use different texts to construct different conceptions of the relationship between Christology and election, with the result that Calvin’s christocentrism emerges as distinctively soteriological and Barth’s as radically principial. In Chapter 3, ‘Community and Election’, the focus is on Calvin’s and Barth’s use of the same text: Romans 9–11. I show that in their readings of this material they have strikingly different understandings of the relationship 98

In this study, Barth’s theology of interpretation is restricted to its expression in the Church Dogmatics, as this provides the material most closely to hand for examining his exegesis of election. Undoubtedly there are precedents for this even as far back as Barth’s ‘Die neue Welt’ lecture in 1917, but it is left to others to explore the connections. See especially Kirschstein, Der Souveräne Gott; Lindemann, Karl Barth und die kritische Schriftauslegung; Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation.

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between covenant and election. For Barth, because Jesus Christ himself is the subject of election, then the heart of the covenant is that God wills fellowship with himself for man and wills the place of sinful man for himself. It is this determination at the heart of the divine life which necessitates a two-fold form to the community and which thus creates a principial christological framework for Barth’s interpretation of Romans 9–11. The election of Israel occurs for the sake of the Son of God; this is an explicitly theological basis to Barth’s strong exegetical typology. Calvin’s understanding of the covenant history likewise reflects his understanding of Christology. For him, Christ is the head of his people, but this union between Christ and the elect does not mean that the flow of redemptive history is a mirror image of the humiliated and exalted Christ. Rather, for Calvin, union with Christ is effective only for the salvifically elect, and this points to his distinction between a general and a special election. Christology is notably absent from large sections of Calvin’s treatment of Romans 9–11. Given that Calvin understands the logic of Paul’s argument to be the exposition of the eternal decree, Christology’s recession into the background strengthens my argument that Calvin’s form of christocentrism is one which is focused above all on the economy of salvation rather than the eternal grounds of that salvation. Chapters 2 and 3 hint at the way in which exegesis and theology are related for Calvin and Barth. Chapter 4 turns from the theological distinction to the hermeneutical distinction. Here I offer an account of both theologians’ theology of interpretation as it sheds light on their exegesis of election. I do this for Calvin by showing how the Institutes works as itself a reading of Scripture which emphasizes Christology in the exposition of salvation-history and so impacts directly on the way in which election should be read in Scripture. Calvin’s hermeneutics here are christocentric in a way which may be described as extensive – no aspect of redemptive history is left outside Christology’s reach. For Barth, I examine in detail his own observations on his hermeneutical approach in CD II/2 and explore the significant connections between this material and his earlier reflections on biblical interpretation. Such a study reveals that Barth’s aim is to make the reading of Scripture as intensively christological as possible. In this way, Chapter 4 is an attempt to stand back and consider the relationship between Calvin’s and Barth’s contrasting exegetical constructions and their wider theological projects. Construing the hermeneutics of election in this way is a deliberate move. The argument is that Calvin and Barth read election in Scripture in a way which is best understood within a matrix of theological doctrines (revelation, Scripture, Christology), rather than within a range of more typical hermeneutical descriptions that are often closer to hand, but which can submerge their exegesis under a weight of conceptual abstractions and remove it from the stated aims both theologians intended it to fulfil. The differing functions of Christology in their election exegesis is reflected in the way that both Christology and election 28

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function in their respective systems of thought. Superficially, this is seen in Calvin placing election within the economy of salvation, and Barth placing it within his doctrine of God. More pointedly, we will also see here that differing doctrines of revelation and thus differing doctrines of Scripture inform the way that election is read.99

99

Throughout, I have gratefully made use of and cited standard English translations of Calvin and Barth. The translations quoted here, however, are my own responsibility and are based on my own reading of the original texts. Accordingly, the translations have been modified in some places without comment, while in other instances notable problems in the standard translations have been recorded. Full citation details or standard abbreviations of every text in both translation and original are provided at each point in the appropriate place.

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2 christology and election

Introduction The previous chapter sketched an outline of the different understandings of the relationship between Christology and election in Calvin and Barth. Calvin’s theology allows us to speak of Christ and the decree, but Barth’s theology to say that Christ is the decree. This chapter focuses on the exact nature of the contrast between these phrases, and explores how this contrast is evidenced in Calvin’s and Barth’s biblical exegesis of election. Examining the explicit connections between Christology and election in both interpreters yields three main results. First, the patient work of a thick description will reveal why both of their respective doctrines of election may be described as christocentric. This establishes a similarity between both theologians. But secondly, precisely in this description of their christocentric doctrines of election, we will see a conceptual distinction emerging. Calvin’s doctrine of election is best described as christocentric in the soteriological sense: although in his theology election is connected to Christology in the realm of the inscrutable divine decree, the weight of his treatment falls on the nexus of ideas associated with the preaching of the gospel, the Spirit’s call and the response of faith in the Mediator. By having more to say about election’s connection to Christ in this temporal realm of faith and obedience, Calvin’s doctrine of election is an example of his soteriological christocentrism. By contrast, we will see that the opposite is true of Barth. The connection of election to Christology is not primarily to be found in something that God does (issue a decree) but rather, in the person of Jesus Christ, election describes who God is (turned toward us in his selfdetermination). Barth’s understanding of Christology and election locates his christocentrism principially: it is the ‘ground and content’1 of the doctrine of election, with this particular understanding itself having a determining influence on the divine being and intra-trinitarian life. Here Christology operates 1

Webster, Barth, p. 88.

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as a methodological rule which is more pervasive and radical than in the thinking of Calvin. Thirdly, the contrasts which emerge between a soteriological–principial christocentrism help to show that the difference between Calvin and Barth in the area of Christology and election is fundamentally explained by their contrasting understandings of how election is related to the doctrine of the Trinity. The respective treatments of Christology and election in Calvin and Barth permit examination of their exegesis under two main headings: Christ as the subject of election; and Christ as the object of election. Calvin does not use these words. For him the analogous terms are Christ as ‘author’ (author) and ‘Mediator’ (mediator); and where Barth uses the terms they are clearly interpretative of his main theological constructs: Jesus Christ is electing God (erwählende Gott) and elected man (erwählte Mensch).2 But the use of these terms to describe the thought of both theologians is significant. Contrary to what Barth seems to suggest, the subject–object conceptuality applies as much to Calvin in this area as it does to Barth himself. Rather than being an imposition of Barthian categories onto the interpretation of Calvin, these terms help to highlight some of the distinctives of Calvin’s approach over against the Barthian critique precisely because their understanding of these categories is so different.

1. Jesus Christ as the Subject of Election 1.1. Christ as Author In three separate passages in John’s Gospel, Calvin discusses Christ’s choosing of the twelve disciples. At the heart of Calvin’s treatment of these passages is his contention that although the same word for choosing is used in all three passages (evkle,gomai) it is not used in exactly the same way. The difference in contexts prevents both a contradiction between the passages and makes clear that there is more than one way in which Calvin’s Christ plays a part in choosing. The first passage is Jn 6.70–71. Here Calvin explains that Christ is preparing his disciples against future discouragement. Reduced already to a small number, their faith might be utterly shaken with the defection of Judas on the horizon. To counter this, Jesus admonishes his disciples in v. 70: ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil. He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him’. Calvin comments: When Christ says that he has chosen twelve, he is not referring to the eternal counsel of God. For it is impossible that any of those who have 2

Cf. CD II/2, p. 145; KD II/2, p. 157.

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been predestined (praeordinati) to life will fall away. But they, who had been chosen (delecti) to the apostolic office, ought to have surpassed all others in godliness and holiness. Therefore, he used the word chosen (electos) for those who were selected and separated from the common rank.3 This choosing is a choosing purely to the office of apostle. Calvin’s reason for this is interesting – he says that this text must be limited to this temporal form of choosing because ‘it is impossible that any of those who have been predestined to life will fall away.’ So although Calvin is saying this text is not about eternal election, it appears that Calvin still uses what he perceives the features of eternal election to be to interpret the text. Here Calvin is wrestling seriously with the reality of Judas. If Judas is described as a devil, and in Calvin’s eyes predestined to destruction, then he has to make sense of how Judas can nevertheless be chosen by Jesus to be part of the twelve. Judas does eventually fall away, and so this choosing in 6.70–71 cannot be a salvific choosing. The issue of Judas in relation to Jesus’ choosing becomes even clearer in the next passage, Jn 13.18: ‘I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is to fulfil the scripture, “The one eating my bread has lifted his heel against me.”’ What emerges here for Calvin is the fact that Jesus again speaks of choosing the disciples but now excludes Judas from this choosing. In 6.70 Judas is one of the chosen; in 13.18 he is not. For Calvin this sense in which Judas is both chosen and not chosen means that two very different kinds of choosing are in view. He explains: When elsewhere [Christ] includes Judas in the number of the elect (inter electos numerat), the expression is different, not contradictory. For there a temporal election is meant (notatur temporalis electio), by which God appoints us to any particular work – just like Saul who was elected king, but yet was reprobate. But here Christ is speaking of the eternal election (de aeterna electione) by which we are made God’s children, and by which God predestined us to life (pradestinavit ad vitam) before the creation of the world.4 Calvin goes on to explain how the eternally reprobate can actually be adorned with God’s gifts which enable them to carry out their office (like Saul or Judas) but this is entirely different from the sanctification of the Spirit, something which God only grants to the eternally elect. After making this distinction, however, between a temporal and an eternal election, Calvin explores what he thinks the further implications of this verse are. He argues 3 4

Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 179); CO 47, p. 163. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 62); CO 47, p. 311.

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that in two different ways in v. 18 Jesus gives a clear witness to his divinity. First, this judgement by Jesus that he knows those whom he has chosen, and that he is not speaking of all his disciples, is a clear example that Jesus does not judge in a human way. For Calvin, when Christ says ‘I know’ in 13.18, this kind of knowledge is peculiar to God.5 But, Calvin argues, there is a second proof of Christ’s divinity in v. 18 which is more powerful than the first: here Christ makes ‘himself the author of election’ (se electionis facit autorem).6 When Jesus says ‘I know whom I have chosen’ this is Christ testifying ‘that those who were chosen before the creation of the world were chosen by himself (quum a se testator fuisse electos, qui ante mundi creationem electi sunt). Such a remarkable demonstration of his divine power should affect us more deeply than if Scripture had called him God a hundred times.’7 So Calvin is explicit that Christ plays an active role not just in the temporal choosing of the twelve to the apostolic office, but also according to his divine nature in the eternal choosing of individuals in a salvific sense.8 In Institutes III.xxii.7 Calvin comments on this verse that ‘although Christ interposes himself as Mediator, he claims for himself, in common with the Father, the right to choose’ (sibi tamen ius elegendi communiter vendicat cum Patre).9 And also, referring to this election as a heavenly decree (caelesti decreto), ‘we may infer that none excel by their own effort or diligence, seeing that Christ makes himself the Author of election’ (se Christus electionis facit authorem).10 In the context where Calvin most clearly asserts Christ playing an active role in election in an eternal sense, and even where Calvin draws inferences from this about the deity of Christ, his emphasis is soteriological. The Christ who chooses eternally is the Christ whose choosing brings some into the family of God and leaves others (like Judas) outside. In the final passage where the choosing language surfaces again, Jn 15.16, 19, Calvin equivocates between assigning a temporal or an eternal referent to it. He uses the kai. e;qhka u`ma/j of v. 16 to interpret the immediately pre5 6 7 8

9 10

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. This exegesis of Jn 13.18 is overlooked entirely by Berkouwer in his discussion of Christ as the subject of election in Calvin (Divine Election, pp. 157–159). Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387. Ibid., p. 941; ibid. In Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, when addressing the issue of how those who are eternally elect are nevertheless strangers to God until they become sons through faith, Calvin comments on Jn 10.16: ‘Meantime, though they did not know it, the shepherd knew them, according to that eternal predestination by which he chose his own before the foundation of the world (qua suos elegit ante consitutionem mundi), as Augustine rightly declares’ (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 1961), p. 150; De Aeterna Dei Praedestinatione (ed. W. H. Neuser; Genève: Librairie Droz, 1998), p. 200; cf. also Inst. IV.i.10, p. 1024; OS 5, p. 15.

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ceding clause ouvc u`mei/j me evxele,xasqe( avllV evgw. evxelexa,mhn u`ma/j, but is reluctant to drive too sharp a wedge between them. He first admits that this passage does not ‘treat of the common election of believers (de communi piorum electione), by which they are adopted to be God’s children, but of that special election (de particulari) by which he appointed his disciples to the office of preaching the gospel’.11 Nevertheless, he also wants to suggest that there is a very clear parallel between this temporal election and eternal election; what unites them is that both are entirely free, taking no account whatsoever of human merit. Calvin takes this to be Jesus’ main point in Jn 15.16 – the disciples have done nothing to gain the honour being bestowed on them. Yet he adds: ‘But all the same, if they were elected to the apostolic office freely and by no merit of their own, much more is it certain that the election is free by which, from being the children of wrath and accursed seed, we are made his eternal heirs.’12 The election to office sheds light on the election to salvation, and both are of a kind because both stem from Christ’s grace. Calvin argues here that Christ is aiming to stir up the disciples to do their duty actively and that nothing is more effective in doing this than the believer acknowledging that they owe everything to God and possess nothing of their own. For Calvin, both the beginning of salvation (eternal election) and all the parts which flow from it (in this case appointment to the office of preaching), flow from Christ’s free mercy. Having forged a relationship between the ouvc u`mei/j me evxele,xasqe( avllV evgw. evxelexa,mhn u`ma/j and the kai. e;qhka u`ma/j of v. 16, Calvin then comments specifically on the latter by using the apostle Paul and the prophet Jeremiah as examples of how the salvific election may be hidden until election to office becomes visible in time. His final comment mirrors what he has earlier said on Jn 13.18: ‘That Christ says he is the author of both [forms of election] (Christus se utriusque facit autorem) is not surprising, since it is only by him that God acts and he acts with the Father. So then, election and ordination belong equally to both.’13 It is clear, then, that for Calvin Christ stands in such a relation to election that it may truly be said to be a se – and this carries both temporal and eternal reference, with a bearing on soteriology. This exegetical understanding of Christ’s authorial role reveals a trinitarian conception of election that reflects at least two wider theological constructs.

1.2. The Trinitarian Basis of Election in Calvin First, on the basis of Christ’s divinity attested in Jn 13.18, and the election in 15.16 which belongs to both Christ and the Father, Calvin clearly expresses 11 12 13

Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 102); CO 47, p. 346. Ibid. Ibid., p. 103; p. 347.

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some of the concepts of what would come to be known as the opus Dei essentiale ad intra – the eternal decree or plan of God as willed by the entire Godhead.14 Although for Calvin, as we will see, the weight of scriptural testimony falls on emphasizing the electio Patris, such that the corresponding weight in his exegesis of election will reflect this conception of the order and distinction of the persons, he is nevertheless clear that the Father does not choose alone: ‘although Christ interposes himself as Mediator, he claims for himself, in common with the Father, the right to choose’ (quanvis se medium Christus inserat, sibi tamen ius eligendi communiter vendicat cum Patre).15 This commonality between the works of the persons, specifically here the Father and the Son, extends to the enactment of the divine decree. It is sometimes described by Calvin in terms of a unity of substance, and sometimes as a unity of concord. Commenting on Jn 6.11, Calvin first of all calls Christ a ‘channel’ (canalis) that conveys to us the blessing of the Father, then corrects himself: ‘he is rather the living fountain flowing from the eternal Father.’ For this reason blessings come from the Father and the Son in common (communiter), and ‘not only is this an office proper to [Christ’s] eternal divinity, but even in the flesh the Father has appointed him the steward, to feed us by his hand.’16 However, when Calvin comes to discuss ‘I and the Father are one’ in Jn 10.30 he comments: ‘Christ is not discussing the unity of substance but the concord (consensus) he has with the Father; so that whatever Christ does will be confirmed by his Father’s power.’17 The point here is that in Calvin’s description the works of the Father and Son express a mutuality, either on the basis of shared essence or on the basis of shared purpose, so that the actions of one are seen in the actions of the other.18 This overall theological position means that election – decreed ad intra and executed ad extra – is for Calvin always the work of the triune God.19 Following Paul Jacobs,20 Richard Muller has argued cogently that a ‘trinitarian ground of doctrine’ unites predestination and Christology in Calvin such that their systematic inter-relationship occurs on two levels: ‘the level of the eternal intra-trinitarian relationships of Father, Son and Spirit, and the level of the temporal effecting of God’s will’.21 The two poles are 14

15 16 17

18 19

20 21

R. A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), pp. 211–212. Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 147); CO 47, p. 133. Ibid., p. 273; p. 250. Cf. also Jn 10.38 ‘This saying does not refer to the unity of essence, but to the manifestation of divine power in the person of Christ, which showed that he was sent from God’ (ibid., p. 277; p. 254). Cf. Inst. I.xiii, pp. 120–159; OS 3, pp. 108–151. Cf. F. H. Klooster, Calvin’s Doctrine of Predestination (Calvin Theological Seminary Monograph Series III; Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1961), pp. 19–20. Jacobs, Prädestination und Verantwortlichkeit bei Calvin, pp. 74–78. Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 10, p. 18.

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related in this way: ‘As mediator Christ is subordinate to the decree while as Son of God he is one with the Father and in no way subordinate. The Son as God stands behind the decree while the Son as mediator is the executor of the decree.’22 Commenting on Calvin’s use of Jn 13.18, Muller also observes that ‘The certainty of Christ’s mediation and the certainty of his promise are grounded in his divinity, since the promise he conveys in his incarnation sub forma servi is the same promise which he decreed in his eternal divinity.’23 This focus on the relationship between Christ’s incarnation and his eternal divinity in connection with election highlights the other theological construct at work in the trinitarian super-structure of Calvin’s doctrine; namely, the so-called extra Calvinisticum. I refer to this doctrine as the ‘so-called’ extra Calvinisticum because, as E. David Willis has shown, ‘A distinction must be made between “extra Calvinisticum” as a term and the so-called extra Calvinisticum as a doctrine.’24 The latter did not originate with Calvin and indeed, according to Willis, might properly be called the extra Patristicum or extra Catholicum. This existing catholic doctrine came to play a critical role in Eucharistic debates between the Lutheran and Reformed churches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so that the ‘Calvinistic extra’ became a Lutheran term of derision. The extra taught the Son’s existence ‘beyond’ (extra) the flesh of Jesus Christ. Whereas in Lutheran Christology Christ’s flesh receives ubiquity by virtue of the hypostatic union, the Reformed argued that this conception threatened the integrity of the human nature. It was better, they held, to regard the human nature as limited spatially and the divine nature as retaining its essential properties, such as omnipresence, impassibility and immensity. Calvin expressed it in this way: For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvellous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continually filled the world even as he had done from the beginning.25 22 23 24

25

Ibid., pp. 37–38. Ibid., p. 25. E. D. Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1996), p. 8. Willis provides a comprehensive overview of the patristic and medieval sources of Calvin’s doctrine, pp. 26–60. Inst. II.xiii.4, p. 481; OS 3, p. 458. Calvin refers to the extra again in his discussion of the Supper (Inst. IV.xvii.30, pp. 1401–3; OS 4, pp. 387–389), and it is actually this Eucharistic reference to the extra, in shortened form, that is original to the 1536 Inst. Willis also outlines Calvin’s use of the extra as it appears outside of the Institutes (pp. 31–34).

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Misunderstandings of Calvin’s position are not uncommon. Bruce McCormack says of the Calvinistic extra that: ‘the second person of the Trinity was, at one and the same time, completely within the flesh of Jesus (spatially circumscribed) and completely without the flesh of Jesus (not limited by space).’26 But this is not Calvin’s view. With Paul Helm, it is better to understand the extra as expressing the truth that in the one person of Jesus Christ the divine nature of the eternal Word is wholly united to the human nature without being entirely united to it.27 Even where the concept is clearly articulated, however, the significance of Calvin’s exegesis of election for the actual function of the extra in Calvin’s theology has not been widely perceived. Richard Muller points us in the right direction. He argues that Calvin’s interpretation of Jn 13.18 reflects the structure of the extra Calvinisticum.28 Calvin can understand this act of election to be one which took place before the world began because of the way in which he conceives of the Son’s existence beyond the flesh, and here the person of Jesus witnesses to his eternal divinity in this reference to election. This means that for Muller there is in Calvin a parallel distinction between the decree and its execution in time, and between the eternal Word of God and the Word incarnate in Jesus Christ: ‘In the execution of the decree or work of salvation, the Son of God is wholly given, in subordination to the eternal plan, as mediator. But the Son of God a se ipso cannot be wholly contained in the flesh or in any way subsumed under the execution of the decree.’29 If it is correct to see Calvin’s comments on Jn 13.18 as reflecting the influence of the extra in his thought then I suggest that this adds a significant dimension to its actual function in Calvin’s doctrine of election that is overlooked in Willis’ study. When discussing Calvin’s understanding of Deus manifestatus in carne, Willis argues that Calvin operates with a double sense to the designation of Christ as ‘Mediator’. Christ is both head of the angels and expiator of sin: ‘Christ as Eternal Son mediated the divine ordering of the universe from its beginning; Christ as Eternal Son manifested in the flesh performed the reconciling work without the cessation or diminution of his mediation of the divine ordering of the universe.’30 On this basis, Willis provides a colourful description of the incarnation as operating primarily in political terms in Calvin – it is ‘a reassertion of Christ’s empire over that part of creation that had rebelled’, and ‘the Son of God left heaven only in such a way that he 26 27 28

29 30

McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 95. P. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 60. Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 190 n. 65. He suggests that the same is true of Calvin’s use of Jn 17.6–8 (p. 196 n. 158). Ibid., p. 38. Willis, Catholic Christology, p. 71.

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continued to exercise his dominion over it; the Incarnation was the extension of his empire, not the momentary abdication of it.’31 In this way, creation and redemption are inseparably connected in the work of Christ: ‘Redemption is the restoration and reformation of man and the world into a proper order.’32 The significance of this connection, and the impact of the extra Calvinisticum at this point in Calvin’s thought, is expressed by Willis like this: ‘The continuity of gracious order over creaturely attempts at discontinuity depends on the identity of the Redeeming Mediator in the flesh with the Mediator who is the Eternal Son of God by whom, and with whose Spirit, all things were created according to the Father’s will.’33 Thus far the significance of the extra for Calvin. When Willis touches on Calvin’s doctrine of election, however, he overlooks Calvin’s comments on Jn 13.18, and so misses a significant application of his insights about the extra to Calvin’s doctrine of election. For Willis, Calvin is in danger of jeopardizing the revelation of God in Christ by prioritizing in election ‘a will of God to which Christ’s revelation is subject, and a will which is discoverable by us outside the Deus manifestatus in carne’.34 In this scheme, the revelation of Christ is subject to a two-fold eternal decision of either salvation or damnation and Willis highlights that the incarnate Christ does not make known why this decision is two-fold. Calvin would doubtless have agreed that Christ does not reveal the reason for the double decree, but given his exegesis of Jn 13.18 and 15.16 it is hard to see how he would concur with a conception of God’s electing will to which Christ’s revelation is merely subject. On the contrary, by omitting the fact that for Calvin election is by Christ and in common with the Father ante mundi creationem, Willis does not see how election displays continuity between the Son’s eternal, universal headship and his extension of that headship into space-time history. Consider Willis’ argument. The extra in Calvin provides continuity between the two aspects of the eternal Son’s ordering of the universe: beyond the flesh, as from the beginning; in time, manifested in the flesh to redeem. The redemption Christ brings is the extension of his empire over the rebellious creature. Thus the extra reveals continuity between the two spheres of Christ’s headship – just as he always was and remained head of the angels even in his incarnation, so now in his incarnation that headship is extended to creatures who had spurned it. However, if in the incarnation the eternal Son continued to exercise his dominion over creation by the work of redemption, then the striking feature of Calvin’s exegesis here is that it attributes to Christ, according to his divine nature, an active role in the eternal basis of 31 32 33 34

Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 78. Ibid., pp. 99–100. Ibid., p. 117.

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the temporal redemption. Or, approached from a different angle, we may ask: what is the causal ground of the extension of Christ’s headship to rebellious creatures in redemption? The answer is the free and gracious decree of election, and Jn 13.18 for Calvin shows Christ himself active in that decree. So at the point where Willis suggests Christ’s revelation is subordinate to the will of God, Calvin shows the revelation of the eternal Son manifest in the flesh to be a revelation of the electing will of the eternal Son. The Son is wholly given as he redeems his people in the execution of the decree, even as the Son is not wholly subsumed under the decree because it is an extension of his own divine headship. Christ as the author of election shows that the extension of his headship in time is continuous with the divine will – his own divine will – which orders the universe in creation and redemption. Perhaps we may say that it is in the revelation of election (via the extra conceptuality) that Calvin shows Christ exercising a dominion par excellence that he had never ceased to exercise.35 At the same time, we note again that in Jn 13.18 the function of the extra conceptuality in Calvin’s hands supports his soteriological focus. In his eternal mediation Christ chooses some to be saved. It is one thing to recognize that with the extra Calvin extends Christ’s electing headship into precincts beyond his flesh; but another thing to recognize that for Calvin his intention in doing so is to describe Christ’s role in redemption. We may say that the concept of Christ as the author of election is present in Calvin, and it is significantly present by virtue of its connection to Calvin’s understanding of Christ’s divine nature; but it is framed by Calvin’s soteriological concerns. On the basis of this argument about Christ’s authorial role in election, it is important to ask why it is that Barth is so critical of Calvin for not assigning a role to Christ as the active subject in election. [Calvin’s] reference to Christ as the one who executed the beneplacitum is only an answer to the beneplacitum if the beneplacitum as such is understood to be Christ’s, if Christ is already thought of not merely as the executive instrument (das ausführende Organ) of the divine dealings with man ordained in the election but as the Subject of the election itself (das Subjekt der Erwählung selbst). But Calvin was not prepared to think of him in this way.36 As Barth sees it, Calvin’s Christ has merely an instrumental connection to election. This particular criticism appears as part of Barth’s argument against 35

36

Edmondson locates his discussion of election in Calvin under the rubric of Christ’s royal office, and specifically under ‘The eternity of Christ’s kingdom’ (Calvin’s Christology, pp. 143–151). In this way it could be argued that it is actually election itself, and not just the incarnation, that deserves to be understood in political terms. CD II/2, pp. 66–67; KD II/2, p. 71.

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a doctrine of election which consists of ‘a general view of man and general concept of God’.37 Against the former (which might discuss election in relation to ‘the being and destiny of individual man as such’) and against the latter (which might discuss election in relation to ‘the concept of God as omnipotent Will’), Barth insists that in both anthropology and theology ‘the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ’.38 The criticism of the Reformed tradition is intensely christological. Barth will later say that Calvin’s failure to perceive that we can have no assurance of our own election if Jesus Christ is merely an elected means whereby the electing God chooses is ‘the decisive objection which we have to bring against his whole doctrine of predestination’.39 But given what we have seen in Calvin’s comments on Jn 13.18, what are we to make of Barth’s analysis of his Reformed forebear at this point? The first thing to say is that a serious question mark ought to be placed against Barth’s claim that the Reformed tradition has ignored his insight. There are strong grounds for thinking that Barth has missed in Calvin’s John commentary a significant piece of evidence that Calvin did indeed hold a position like the one Barth is expounding as so essential to the doctrine of election. Barth asserts that, although falling short, Calvin did come ‘appreciably near’ to an understanding of Christ as the subject of election, and he refers to Calvin’s exposition of John 13 and 15. However, the words Barth says we read in that exposition come from the Institutes, not the commentary: sibi ius elegendi communiter vindicat cum Patre . . . Se Christus electionis facit autorem.40 In Inst. III.xxii.7, straight after Barth’s Latin quotation, the references to Jn 13.18 and 15.19 are given and these are the two references Barth himself cites in parentheses. So it seems likely that at this point Barth’s references to John simply follow the citations given in the Institutes and therefore that Barth was basing his view of Christ as subject in Calvin on this section of the Institutes, not the commentary. Although Inst. III.xxii.7 does provide warrant for a view of Christ as the subject of eternal election, this pretemporal sense could also be missed; as I will argue in Chapter 4, it is certainly not the main point of Calvin’s argument in this section. But the concept of Christ choosing a se in the clear sense of ante mundi creationem is crystal clear in Calvin’s commentary and might be deemed sufficient to cast Calvin’s position in a different light than that suggested by Barth. Further uncertainty over Barth’s argument arises here from a mistake in Barth’s citation of Jn 13.8 instead of 13.18 – this citation is present in both the original German and the English translation41 – so that 37 38 39 40 41

Ibid., p. 52; pp. 55–56. Ibid., p. 53; p. 56. Ibid., p. 111; p. 119. OS 4, p. 387. KD II/2, p. 71; CD II/2, p. 67.

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again it seems Barth is copying these biblical references from Calvin with a slip of the pen, rather than studying them in Calvin.42 The second thing to say, however, is that regardless of the weaknesses in Barth’s historical material at this point, a case can be made that his conception of Christ as the subject of election is different enough from Calvin’s authorial Christ that even had he been aware of Calvin’s comments on Jn 13.18 or 15.16 they would not have caused him to think much differently about the problems in Calvin’s account. To consider this possibility I now turn to examine Barth’s exegesis of Jesus Christ as the electing God. This will allow us both to assess his position more fully in relation to Calvin and also to see his different conception of the trinitarian basis of election.

1.3. Christ as Electing God Barth’s exegetical treatment of the election of Jesus Christ appears nearly one hundred pages into CD II/2. In this way his exegesis rests on quite considerable conceptual foundations and it is easy to go astray in examining his exegesis by not grasping exactly what he intends the exegesis to prove. This is not to make a prior judgement about the merits or otherwise of Barth’s actual exegesis. Rather it is a simple function of the structural features of this section of the Church Dogmatics – small-print exegetical excurses fill in the scriptural details of the unfolding thesis which has been explained both dogmatically and historically. The direction of Barth’s election Christology is apparent right from the very beginning. His argument is an arrangement of connected extrapolations which flow from the one central reality that ‘Jesus Christ is indeed God in his movement towards man’. This, Barth argues, is because: In a Christian doctrine of God, if God is to be exhaustively described and represented as the Subject who governs and determines everything else, there must be an advance beyond the immediate logical sense of the concept to the actual relationship in which God has placed himself; a relationship outside of which God no longer wills to be and no longer is God, and within which alone he can be truly honoured and worshipped as God.43

42

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Cf. Muller who suggests that ‘Barth has not fully discerned the relation of Christ to the decrees in Calvin’s theology’ (Christ and the Decree, p. 190 n. 62). Also, on the Reformed tradition more widely: ‘the concept of “Jesus Christ electing and elected” which overcomes the threat of a “predestinarian metaphysic” and of a Deus nudus absconditus appears not as a theme barely hinted at but as a fundamental interest, indeed, as a norm for early orthodoxy’ (ibid., p. 173). CD II/2, p. 7; KD II/2, p. 5.

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Jesus Christ is precisely this tatsächliche Beziehung. By being in himself the relationship of God to humanity, Jesus Christ is the decision of God (die Entscheidung Gottes) and God’s relation to humanity in Jesus ‘is a relation in which God is self-determined (in welchem er sich selber bestimmt hat), so that the determination belongs no less to him than all that he is in and for himself’.44 And it is this, even at this very early stage in Barth’s argument, which provides the framework within which he will use the word ‘election’ in counter-intuitive ways: election will describe who God is, not merely what God does. As his argument unfolds, this connection between God-towards-us in Christ and election becomes explicit: As we have to do with Jesus Christ, we have to do with the electing God. For election is obviously the first and basic and decisive thing which we have always to say concerning this revelation, this activity, this presence of God in the world, and therefore concerning the eternal decree and the eternal self-determination of God which bursts through and is manifested at this point. Already this self-determination, as a confirmation of the free love of God, is itself the election or choice of God (Schon diese Selbstbestimmung als solche, als Bestätigung der freien Liebe, die Gott selber ist, ist Gottes Wahl). It is God’s choice that he wills to be God in this determination and not otherwise.45 The significance of this conceptual move cannot be underestimated for how Barth will constructively describe Christ’s role in election. There are at least two key points to note. First, by describing this self-determination of God as itself the election of God, Barth has automatically broadened the semantic range of the word to include the category of revelation. This much is clear from the above quotation, and Barth says as much himself: ‘Election is that which takes place at the very centre (gerade im Zentrum) of the divine self-revelation.’46 Significantly, this means that when Barth comes to elucidate his understanding of Christ’s role in election by examining Jn 1.1–2, this treatment is as much an articulation of his doctrine of revelation as it is of his doctrine of election. As Douglas Sharp argues, ‘In Barth’s construction, election is identical with the revelation of God in its concrete form, and revelation is identical with election in its concrete content.’47 Second, the outlines of Barth’s radically redefined concept of double predestination are taking shape here. Webster describes Barth’s conception in this way: ‘In Barth’s hands, the term comes to refer, not to a decision of God 44 45 46 47

Ibid., p. 7; p. 6. Ibid., p. 54; p. 57. Ibid., p. 59; p. 63. Cf. Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, pp. 1–2.

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in which the human race is divided into the elect and the reprobate, but to God’s self-election and the election of humanity, both actual in Jesus Christ.’48 Jesus Christ is the election of God before, without, and beside whom God does not elect or will anything; and he is the election of the free grace of God: ‘He, Jesus Christ, is the free grace of God as not content simply to remain identical with the inward and eternal being of God, but operating ad extra in the ways and works of God.’49 Apart from Jesus Christ ‘there is no election, no beginning, no decree, no Word of God.’50 It is precisely this argument that Barth now defends with a short exegesis of Jn 1.1–2:

VEn avrch/| h=n o` lo,goj( kai. o` lo,goj h=n pro.j to.n qeo,n( kai. qeo.j h=n o` lo,gojÅ ou-toj h=n evn avrch/| pro.j to.n qeo,nÅ The analysis proceeds by a series of questions which Barth asks of the text; each time he finds the answer to the question in the following clause. Although the overall treatment is relatively brief, Barth manages to interrogate the text in such a way that tight logical connections between the clauses are exposed. He begins by respecting the emphasis of the text – evn avrch is not simply to be passed over en route to discovering who or what was in the beginning, but rather tells us something significant about the Word: ‘It did not enter in as one moment with others in the totality of the world created by God and differentiated from him.’51 In fact it is precisely this evn avrch that makes Barth ask ‘where, except in or with God, can there be any being which is “in the beginning” in this sense?’ To answer this Barth again argues that the emphasis in the next clause falls on pro.j to.n qeo,n. He rejects the possible senses of the preposition as ‘for’ or ‘in communication with God’, because both are inadequate descriptions of a being who was with God evn avrch. For Barth the meaning must be that, to be with God in the beginning, ‘his being is as the being of God himself’.52 What could this mean? The answer is in the final clause: kai. qeo.j h=n o` lo,goj. ‘The mode of being, and being, of a second “he”, the Logos, is identified with the mode of being and being of the first “he”, God. Thus the deity of o` qeo.j is also ascribed to o` lo,goj.’53 In this way, Barth takes the final clause in the sentence as the rationale and ground for the first two clauses. Barth has a final question of v. 1: ‘But who or what is the Word whose predicates are declared in John 1:1?’ Both here and in Rev. 19.13, Barth argues that the term o` lo,goj functions as a ‘stop-gap’ (Platzhalter), a preliminary marker of a place that will come to be occupied with the name Jesus: ‘His is the place where the predicates attributed to the Logos are meant at once to mark off, to clear and to reserve. It is he, Jesus, who is in 48 49 50 51 52 53

Webster, Barth, p. 91. CD II/2, p. 95; KD II/2, p. 102. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 96; p. 103. Ibid.

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the beginning with God. It is he who by nature is God. This is what is guaranteed in John 1:1.’54 At this point Barth then raises the question of why the Evangelist should want to argue this by using o` lo,goj; here he shows himself extremely reticent to engage in historical genetics for two reasons. First, Barth argues that by locating the term in this particular context, the Evangelist cannot be interested in connecting Jesus to epistemological, metaphysical or cosmogenic concepts, or even of trying to enhance his presentation of Jesus by using this term: ‘What is certain is that he had no intention of honouring Jesus by investing him with the title of Logos, but rather that he honoured the title itself by applying it a few lines later as a predicate of Jesus.’55 Barth’s point here is a simple one: the text itself does not tell us that these terms are what o` lo,goj conveys and so we should not attempt to guess. Rather the text itself goes on to fill in the term with ethical and moral connotations – life, light – and also in relation to both God and man – monogenh.j qeo.j and sa.rx: ‘Such is the Johannine Logos so far as we can define it at all apart from the recognition that the Logos is Jesus.’56 Given that this recognition does not emerge explicitly until at least v. 17, this is essentially an argument for hermeneutical restraint and exegetical patience. Second, Barth suggests that we would be misreading Jn 1.1 if we were in some way to overexamine the term lo,goj while failing to see that grammatically the emphasis lies elsewhere. He explains: ‘The force of the threefold h=n in Jn. 1:1 is more than axiomatic. It points to an eternal happening and to a temporal: to an eternal in the form of time, and to a temporal with the content of eternity. For this reason no stress is laid upon the threefold o` lo,goj.’57 This combination of eternality and temporality in the same verse is, by itself, not easily explicable and Barth describes it as an equation whose solution does not begin to appear until 1.19. Barth follows this with his most striking exegetical move in the treatment of Jn 1.1–2. He proceeds now to examine v. 2: ou-toj h=n evn avrch/| pro.j to.n 54 55 56 57

Ibid. Ibid., p. 97; p. 104. Ibid. Ibid., p. 97 (emphasis added); pp. 104–105. The significance of this exegetical detail is overlooked by Cunningham, What is Theological Exegesis?, pp. 24–26. I agree with Cunningham that in examining the Logos concept Barth pays scant attention to historical–critical concerns. However, her overall analysis is unsatisfactory in driving a wedge between historical criticism and theological exegesis in Barth: ‘Historical critics have historicist assumptions; Barth reveals certain theological concerns. Professional historical critics are functioning in an academic setting; Barth produces exegesis designed to serve the preaching of the church’ (p. 68). It is doubtful Barth would have accepted such a distinction, not least in this exegetical example, where his view of the Logos concept is not based on the rejection of ‘historicist assumptions’ so much as on what he thinks the text itself says. Barth says what he says here simply because he thinks it is what exegesis demands.

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qeo,n. Barth rejects what might seem the most natural reading of ou-toj to be a reference backwards to o` lo,goj in the previous verse; for Barth this kind of elucidation is unnecessary, given (as he feels he has shown), that the third clause in v. 1 already elucidates the previous two so that no more is needed. Instead, following Adolf Schlatter, Barth proposes that the ou-toj must be read forwards and not backwards.58 The reason for this is that the expression ou-toj h=n occurs again in the Prologue in v. 15: VIwa,nnhj marturei/ peri. auvtou/ kai. ke,kragen le,gwn\ ou-toj h=n o]n ei=pon\ o` ovpi,sw mou evrco,menoj e;mprosqe,n mou ge,gonen( o[ti prw/to,j mou h=n. At the heart of Barth’s exegesis here is the contention that because of the repeated ou-toj h=n it is clear that the Prologue appropriates the attestation of John the Baptist and that v. 2 is simply a first but ‘significant anticipation’ (andeutende Vorwegnahme) of his testimony.59 It is this which shows o` lo,goj in v. 1 to be a Platzhalter, pointing us forward to the subject who will soon fill the marked out space: ‘The statement tells us then that “the same”, the One who no more needs to be made known as a person than the one described as o` qeo,j, the One whom we all know because he has come forth to all of us, “the same” was in the beginning with God, and “the same” was Jesus.’60 This simple identification between Jesus and the Word, then, is for Barth a highly important move. Exegetically, it makes v. 2 a part of the third clause in v. 1 ‘but it is not a repetition of it’; theologically, it shows the choice of God in binding himself to humanity in the person of Jesus: ‘the eternal name has become a temporal name, and the divine name a human.’ This means that it is correct to say that Jesus was in the beginning with God, side by side with God, a distinct person but nevertheless sharing his divine nature and essence.61 Although John 1 does not feature explicitly in Calvin’s understanding of the extra Calvinisticum, it is clear that the implicit distinction in the extra between the Logos ensarkos and the Logos asarkos moves Christology in a very different direction from that encouraged here by Barth. The conceptual space created by the ensarkos/asarkos distinction appears to be filled by a straightforward identification of the eternal Word with the name ‘Jesus Christ’. With ou-toj functioning in this forward-looking way, Barth then reads auvtou/ in vv. 3 and 10 as likewise referring to Jesus so that the meaning is very clearly that ta. pa,nta, and o` ko,smoj were made by him. At this point Barth seeks to align his exegesis of Jn 1.1–2 with a range of other New Testament texts which witness to the same cosmic role for Christ. It is vital to grasp the connection Barth sees between the passages.

58 59 60 61

CD II/2, p. 98; KD II/2, p. 105. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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Starting with Col. 1.17, Barth says that we must understand the reference there to the Son of God being pro. pa,ntwn and ta. pa,nta evn auvtw/| sune,sthken as a reference to ‘the Son in concreto and not in abstracto, Jesus Christ, who is the Head of his body, the Church’.62 Although he does not say so, at this point it is perhaps the Son conceived in the terms of the extra Calvinisticum that Barth might characterize as a Son in abstracto. Quite simply, the difference between the Son in concreto and in abstracto is the difference between an exegesis which understands the election of God to be at stake and an exegesis which misses this altogether. This is evident when Barth refers to evn auvtw/| euvdo,khsen pa/n to. plh,rwma katoikh/sai (Col. 1.19) and states that here ‘the concept of election is quite clear’.63 There then follows a catena of other passages (2 Cor. 4.4; Col. 1.15–16, 18, 2.10; Heb. 1.2–3; Eph. 1.10, 23, 3.9; 1 Cor. 15.20; Gal. 4.4) in which, Barth holds, the common theme in each case is the recurrent explanation of ‘[Jesus Christ’s] being as the God who is conceived of in this primal, original and basic movement towards man’.64 The tight exegesis of Jn 1.1–2 coupled with the simple references to these other texts which make the same point has all been carried out with the express purpose of showing that in Jesus Christ it is God himself who has chosen to bear this name and to be God for us in this way. Barth says: We are not thinking or speaking rightly of God himself if we do not take as our starting-point the fact which should be both ‘first and last’: that from all eternity God elected to bear this name (er erwählte es von Ewigkeit her, diesen Namen zu tragen). Over against all that is really outside God, Jesus Christ is the eternal will of God, the eternal decree of God (Gottes ewiger Beschluß) and the eternal beginning of God.65 By linking his treatment of Jn 1.1–2 with these other New Testament texts, Barth has made an immensely significant exegetical move that is often overlooked when this section of his exegesis is discussed; his distinctive treatment of ou-toj usually gains more attention. This is singularly unfortunate because it is actually here that the precise connection to the matter of election is clearest. Sharp suggests that Barth’s contentions ‘can be recognized in John 1 only when the passage is interpreted in the light of such passages as Romans 8:29, 9:6–18, Ephesians 1:4–13, 3:3–5 and other New Testament passages which deal explicitly with Jesus Christ and election’.66 Similarly, Cunningham has argued that Barth’s aim throughout his exegesis of the 62 63 64 65 66

Ibid., p. 98; p. 106. Ibid., p. 99; p. 106. Ibid. Ibid. Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, p. 131.

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opening verses of the Prologue is always to provide a more adequate basis for the evn auvtw/| of Eph. 1.4 than has thus far been provided in traditional interpretations. This means that when Barth treats Eph. 1.4 he reads it in the light of Jn 1.1–2. She states: This juxtaposition of texts is essential for Barth’s argument, for it is at the very least not apparent either that John 1:1f. deals with election or that Eph. 1:4f. refers to Jesus Christ as electing God and elected human. By assuming that these texts offer a unified witness to election and hence reading them in tandem, Barth advances an interpretation that would not emerge if the passages were simply examined in isolation from one another.67 It is undoubtedly true that Barth is reading Jn 1.1–2 with election conceptualities in the foreground, and both Sharp and Cunningham rightly point implicitly to the question of whether such exegesis is actually warranted by the text. However, it does not seem correct to say that Barth needs texts outside Jn 1.1–2 which explicitly mention ‘election’ in order for him to connect John 1 to election. Regardless of what we ourselves actually make of his exegesis, it is extremely unlikely that Barth saw himself as importing ideas from Eph. 1.4 into Jn 1.1–2 in order to describe Jesus Christ as the electing God and elected human. On the contrary, when Barth does refer to other New Testament texts in this section of his exegesis it is clear that he is neither attempting to import Jn 1.1–2 into the semantic range of ‘election’ in those other texts, nor to broaden its semantic range by transporting ‘election’ from those texts back into Jn 1.1–2. The fact is that neither the word itself nor its cognates appear at all in any of the other texts Barth cites at this point. Rather, the texts Barth connects to Jn 1.1–2 are ones which describe the movement of God towards humanity in Jesus Christ.68 As we saw above, by referring to Col. 1.17–19 (evn auvtw/| euvdo,khsen pa/n to. plh,rwma katoikh/sai) and stating that ‘here the concept of election is quite clear’, it is obvious that Barth does not feel he needs to bring these texts into line with other explicit ‘election’ texts for their real meaning to emerge. Texts which speak of God in the person of Jesus Christ, in themselves, necessarily, already describe the election of God without requiring further exegetical supplements. Precisely because he is already using ‘election’ in untraditional ways to refer to divine self-determination, for Barth this inter67 68

Cunningham, What is Theological Exegesis?, p. 21. Sharp’s references here to Rom. 8.29, 9.16–18 do not seem relevant; the reference to Eph. 1.4–13 is too general to explain the particular point Barth makes from Eph. 1.10; and Eph. 3.3–5 is actually not cited at all by Barth at this point. Rather, he cites Eph. 1.23 and 3.9, and again we note the significance of the fact that these verses contain no reference to ‘election’.

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pretation of Jn 1.1–2 emerges from the exegesis of Jn 1.1–2 itself. ‘The choice or election of God is basically and properly God’s decision that as described in Jn. 1:1–2 the Word which is “the same”, and is called Jesus, should really be in the beginning, with himself, like himself, one with himself in his deity.’69 This, Barth holds, is simply what the text says. At this point we may observe just how fitting the language of ‘principial christocentrism’ is to describe Barth’s doctrine of election. In a way that is totally absent in Calvin, Barth understands the very word ‘election’ to be a description of who God is in his turning towards us in Jesus Christ. This gives a definition to what election actually is which is shaped through and through by Christology. It is a crystal clear example of other doctrines receiving their ground and content from Christology, and being interpreted in the light of Christology. Barth has one final and very brief exegetical section with the express aim of showing that ‘the divine predestination is the election of Jesus Christ’; this follows on very soon after his treatment of the Johannine Prologue and here Barth aims to comment on the biblical concept of covenant or testament (Bund oder Testament).70 Jn 1.1–2 teaches us, he argues, that in an act of free, gracious self-determination, God has determined his own very being by being the God we know in Jesus Christ. As the Father gives his Son for man, so a covenant is established in which God binds himself to man. Jn 1.1–2 has shown us that Jesus Christ was with God at the beginning; therefore Jesus Christ is the covenantal decision of God at the very beginning. Nevertheless, Barth is careful to explain this Anfang as occurring ad extra: ‘He was not at the beginning of God, for God has indeed no beginning. But he was at the beginning of all things, at the beginning of God’s dealings with the reality which is distinct from himself. Jesus Christ . . . was the election of God’s covenant with man.’71 With the brief exegetical excursus that follows, it appears that Barth’s main aim is to link this election of Christ with the eternal will of God, so that the former is always necessarily the content of the latter. Barth’s argument is that God’s will and purpose in all of the texts listed here (Eph. 1.3–5, 9–11, 3.4, 10; 2 Tim. 1.9; 1 Pet. 1.20; Rev. 13.8; Heb. 9.23; Acts 2.33, 4.27; Jn 17.5) always refers to the beginning of all God’s ways and works ad extra and thus to Jesus Christ.72 Barth is ‘interpreting the biblical idea of covenant in terms of an eternal decision manifest in the incarnation and revelation executed in Jesus Christ’.73 Barth now considers all of this exegetical data to have shown that when we use the word ‘predestination’ or ‘election’ the referent must in the first instance be to the God who is self-determined in the person of Jesus Christ. 69 70 71 72 73

CD II/2, p. 101; KD II/2, p. 108. Ibid., p. 102; p. 109. Ibid. Ibid., p. 103; p. 110. Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, p. 132.

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With this explained, Barth’s argument is able to advance in a significant new direction. On the basis of Jesus Christ having both divine and human natures, very God and very man, Barth now proceeds to argue that ‘the concept of election has a double reference – to the elector and to the elected . . . Thus the simplest form of the dogma may be divided at once into two assertions that Jesus Christ is the electing God, and that he is also elected man.’74 At several points throughout his argument Barth has paused to show why his thesis is superior to the classic doctrine of predestination with its decretum absolutum,75 and he does the same again at this point. His aim here is to show that if Jesus Christ himself was in the beginning with God then the decretum absolutum is necessarily crowded out because Jesus Christ is the visible manifestation of God’s election: ‘When we ask concerning the reality of the divine election, what can we do but look at the one who performs this act of obedience, who is himself this act of obedience, who is himself in the first instance the Subject of this election.’76 Barth then points to the same texts we have seen Calvin use – Jn 13.18 and 15.16, 19 – as evidence that Christ himself is the one who elects the disciples. These passages, he says, ‘are not to be understood loosely but in their strictest and most proper sense’. We must not see Jesus here as merely some kind of executive instrument standing behind a choosing that is actually carried out by the Father. Christ himself chooses. It is interesting that at this point, rather than a detailed study of Jn 13.18, 15.16, 19, Barth instead gathers a catena of texts to show that Jesus’ subordination to his Father must not be allowed to obscure the agency of his own person. His point is very simple: In the light of these passages the electing of the disciples ascribed to Jesus must be understood not merely as a function undertaken by him in an instrumental and representative capacity, but rather as an act of divine sovereignty, in which there is also seen in a particular way the primal and basic decision of God which is also that of Jesus Christ.77 After only a few more references to texts which ascribe a decision-making role to the Son in matters of revelation and election (Mt. 11.27, 16.17), and to texts which reflect the divine spontaneity and activity of Christ in salvation (Gal. 1.4, 2.20; 1 Tim. 2.6; Eph. 5.2; Phil. 2.7–8; Heb. 5.8, 7.27, 9.14), Barth’s exegetical discussion of Christ as the subject of election is finished. As with Calvin, I will now examine what this exegetical approach to election reveals about the trinitarian basis of the doctrine in Barth’s system. 74 75 76 77

CD II/2, p. 103; KD II/2, p. 110. Cf. for instance CD II/2, p. 100; KD II/2, p. 107. Ibid., p. 106; p. 113. Ibid., p. 106; p. 114.

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1.4. The Trinitarian Basis of Election in Barth I have already suggested that it may be best to understand Christ as the subject of election as carrying a different sense in Barth than in Calvin. This would seem to be supported by the fact that, although important, the exegesis of John 13 and 15 plays an ancillary and not foundational role in Barth’s exposition of Jesus Christ as the electing God. Barth first aims to prove that predestination is the election of Jesus Christ (Jn 1.1–2), and on this foundation he then works outwards to Jesus Christ as both electing God (John 13, 15) and elected man.78 Underlying Christ as the electing God there is the prior conceptual move which views election as ‘that which takes place at the very centre of the divine self-revelation’, with Jesus Christ himself as the decision and self-determination of God’s own eternal being.79 The question facing us, then, is this: what is the theological significance of this prior move for Barth, supported as it is with his exegesis of Jn 1.1–2? What does Barth mean by positing the eternal being of Jesus Christ in this way? Although we have suggested that it is a crystal clear example of Barth’s principial christocentrism at work in his doctrine of election, should this be better described as ‘principial electionism’? Is election more fundamental for the divine being than the terminology of principial christocentrism would allow?80 Barth’s talk of the eternal being of Jesus Christ has proved notoriously puzzling for Barth scholars. One influential explanation (one which sees Barth’s position in stark contrast to Calvin’s) is that advanced by Bruce McCormack. His reading of Barth makes a fundamental distinction between understanding the trinitarian basis of election in Barth in self-constituting terms or in self-determining terms, and it is necessary to explore the nuances of this distinction. McCormack argues that for Barth ‘election is the event in God’s life in which he assigns to himself the being he will have for all eternity’, and therefore the difference between Calvin and Barth is fundamentally one of divine ontology.81 Calvin operates with an ‘essentialist’ ontology: the essence of the Logos ‘is understood to be complete in itself apart from and prior to all actions and relations of that Subject’, whereas Barth operates with an ‘actualistic’ or ‘covenant ontology’: here essence ‘is given in the act of electing, and is in fact, constituted by that eternal act’.82 Since the act of electing which McCormack refers to here is God’s turning toward the human race in 78

79 80 81 82

Cf. CD II/2, p. 103; KD II/2, p. 110. Berkouwer misconstrues Barth’s position when he remarks that ‘Barth’s appeal to Scripture for his doctrine of Christ as the subject of election is limited almost wholly to a few passages in the Gospel of John which speak of Christ’s calling and election to the apostolate’ (Divine Election, p. 157). CD II/2, p. 59; KD II/2, p. 63. Cf. Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, p. 2. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 98. Ibid., pp. 98–99.

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the person of Jesus Christ, it is clear that he is claiming for Barth an extremely radical position: the incarnation of the Logos constitutes the being of God in eternity. Over against a Hegelian conception of the ‘constitution’ of the divine being, McCormack argues his sense of the term: ‘as a consequence of the primal decision in which God assigned to himself the being he would have throughout eternity (a being-for the human race), God is already in pre-temporal eternity – by way of anticipation – that which he would become in time.’83 When we say, therefore, that Jesus Christ is the subject of election we are asserting that: there is no Logos asarkos in the absolute sense of a mode of existence in the second ‘person’ of the Trinity which is independent of the determination for incarnation; no ‘eternal Son’ if that Son is seen in abstraction from the gracious election in which God determined and determines never to be God apart from the human race. The second ‘person’ of the Trinity has a name and His name is Jesus Christ.84 This position leads McCormack to suggest that in terms of the logical relation between God’s triunity and his election, the latter must actually precede the former: The decision for the covenant of grace is the ground of God’s triunity and, therefore, of the eternal generation of the Son and of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. In other words, the works of God ad intra (the trinitarian processions) find their ground in the first of the works of God ad extra (viz. election).85 McCormack concedes, however, that the logical relation of election and triunity appears to be the other way round in Barth: both before and after his exposition of election in II/2 Barth made statements ‘which created the space for an independent doctrine of the Trinity; a triune being of God which was seen as independent of the covenant of grace’.86 In other words, McCormack accepts that the understanding of the Trinity which he claims is 83 84

85 86

Ibid., p. 100. Ibid. McCormack uses precisely this argument against Richard Muller’s assertion that Barth has overlooked the fact that in Calvin Christ is the subject of election according to his divine nature: ‘But such a solution does not make Jesus Christ the Subject of election at all. Rather, it makes the eternal Son – a Person of the Trinity whose identity is not determined by the decision for the covenant of grace – to be the Subject of election; a Person whose identity is either undetermined or determined in ways beyond our knowing’ (‘Christ and the Decree: An Unsettled Question’, p. 134). McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 103. Ibid., p. 102. For examples of such statements McCormack points to CD I/1, p. 312, and IV/1, p. 52.

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demanded by Barth’s doctrine of election is at odds with the understanding of the Trinity that actually emerges elsewhere in the Church Dogmatics.87 This admission by McCormack reveals a weakness in his thesis. It is not convincing to suggest that ‘Barth either did not fully realize the profound implications of his doctrine of election for the doctrine of the Trinity, or he shied away from drawing them for reasons known only to himself.’88 In terms of the latter, timidity is not easily attributed to a theologian who had so decisively parted company with the Reformed doctrine of election, a tradition he deeply cherished. If Barth did not shy away from making such hard decisions that caused him ‘great anxiety’,89 it is hard to see how we may attribute this attitude to him in his doctrine of the Trinity. Further, a lack of comprehension on Barth’s part about the implications of his doctrine of election does not seem tenable given just how explicit Barth is about election as being that which happens at the very centre of divine selfrevelation. We should not adopt this position without attempting to discern if the relationship between triunity and election in Barth is patient of a more sympathetic reading.90 This, however, is not the only route that should be explored. An area which is consistently overlooked here, and which is actually of vital importance, is Barth’s exegesis. Apart from a single reference by McCormack,91 the exegesis of Jn 1.1–2 which appears in II/2 §33 is summarily ignored in the literature on this debate. The general absence of exegetical discussion is a telling indicator of how Barth is being read here:

87

88 89 90

91

For the significance of such passages in the development of the Church Dogmatics, cf. R. B. Price, ‘“Letters of the Divine Word”: The Perfections of God in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation; University of Aberdeen, 2007), p. 196. For examples of statements within CD II/2 itself which are at odds with McCormack’s position, cf. Gockel, Barth and Schleiermacher, pp. 178–179. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 102. CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii. A number of recent responses to McCormack provide just such a reading, although not all along the same lines: P. D. Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002), pp. 61–64; K. Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar’, IJST 7.3 (July 2005), pp. 246–261; P. D. Molnar, ‘The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector’, IJST 8.3 (July 2006), pp. 294–306; E. Chr. van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, SJT 60.1 (2007), pp. 45–61. McCormack responded to van Driel in ‘Seek God Where He May be Found’. Further articles include: P. D. Molnar, ‘Can the Electing God be God without Us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack’s Understanding of Barth’s Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 49 (2007), pp. 199–222; G. Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth’, Modern Theology 24.2 (2008), pp. 179–198. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 94.

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the exegetical material is treated as ancillary to the argument (contrary to what Barth himself says in his Preface).92 McCormack’s solitary reference is also telling. He asserts that Barth defends his conception of Jesus Christ as the subject of election with his exegesis of Jn 1.1–2. But this proceeds too quickly through Barth’s argument. It is certainly true that Barth’s conception of Christ as subject is drawn from this exegesis, but it is vital to see that the Prologue exegesis is not there in the first instance to make the immediate point that Christ is the subject of election. Nowhere immediately preceding the exegesis in §33 does Barth refer to Christ as the subject of election, and nowhere in the exegesis does Barth make this exact point; rather, his precise aim here is to prove that ‘the divine predestination is the election of Jesus Christ.’ Once Barth has done this, only then does he elaborate a double reference in this concept, so that Christ is both the electing God (subject) and the elected man (object).93 In this way, in the Johannine exegesis itself, the relationship between triunity and election is parsed with self-determining conceptualities. Barth intends to show that God’s self-determination is to be a God who is turned towards the human race, so that the primary referent of ‘election’ must be Jesus Christ as the personal expression of this ‘turning towards’ humanity. I have suggested above that this much becomes clear when Barth links his treatment of Jn 1.1–2 with a range of NT texts which all describe God’s giving of himself to humanity in the person of Christ. For example, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Christ as seen in Col. 1.19, 2.9 is an instance where ‘the concept of election is quite clear’.94 It is this movement, in Christo, towards humanity that for Barth counts as the election, the decree, the decision of God. But it is a movement of God outside himself, a description of who God is when he turns towards that which is not God. It is not a movement which is ontologically constitutive of the divine being. This is further supported by how Barth both introduces and follows his exegesis. Immediately before the exegesis begins, he states that Jesus Christ ‘is the free grace of God as not content simply to remain identical with the inward and eternal being of God, but operating ad extra in the ways and works of God’.95 The ad extra should not be ignored when, in the exegesis, on the basis of ou-toj h=n, Barth wants to locate Jesus Christ as ‘in the beginning with God’. After the exegesis, Barth comments on this Anfang that Jesus Christ ‘was not at the beginning of God, for God has indeed no beginning. But he was at the beginning of all things, at the beginning of God’s 92

93 94 95

‘I have grounds for thinking that to some my meaning will be clearer in these [long exegetical excurses] than in the main body of the text’ (CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii). CD II/2, p. 103; KD II/2, p. 110. Ibid., p. 99; p. 106. Ibid., p. 95; p. 102.

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dealings with the reality which is distinct from himself.’96 In other words, when the eternally self-sufficient God turns towards humanity, the way this turning is described is by the name of Jesus Christ. The turning itself does not constitute the divine being or the triune nature, but is a determination of how the divine being is going to be ad extra, towards the creation. This turning is the election of Jesus Christ. (Of course, this does not imply that God is not like this ad intra; merely that for Barth it does not constitute God ad intra). It is precisely because Barth’s talk of ‘the beginning’ is a ‘temporal’ referent that we must be cautious about understanding the ‘eternal being of Jesus Christ’ in an ontologically constitutive way in Barth. Indeed, when he comes to engage with the tradition on the issue of Christ as subject of election, Barth asserts: Between the eternal Godhead of Christ which needs no election and his elected humanity, there is a third possibility which was overlooked by Thomas. And that is the being of Christ in the beginning with God, the act of the good pleasure of God by which the fullness of the Godhead is allowed to dwell in him.97 In this way my argument supports that made by Edwin Chr. van Driel. He suggests that in interpreting Barth’s doctrine of election we ought not to start with the statement ‘Jesus Christ is the subject of election’, but rather give ‘interpretative priority’ to a range of other statements which first clarify exactly the kind of election of which Christ is the subject.98 For van Driel, the problem of interpretation here is due to an ambiguity on Barth’s part. His use of the word ‘election’ may encompass a number of divine acts: ‘first, the divine self-determination in which God determines Godself for community with humanity. Second, the election of Jesus Christ; and finally, the election of all other human beings.’99 As part of a critique of McCormack, van Driel shows why it is best to understand the claim ‘Jesus Christ is the subject of election’ in the third sense above. The sense is thus something like: ‘Jesus Christ is the subject of the election of all humanity.’ On this basis, van Driel argues: [Barth’s] point is that when God elects, when God decides about eternal bliss and eternal woe [of human beings], the act of election is not a decretum absolutum, an absolute decree of a God who can still decide either way; but that the act of election is logically preceded by God’s self-determination, God in the mode of self-giving, God who 96 97 98 99

Ibid., p. 102; p. 109. Ibid., p. 107; p. 114. Van Driel, ‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, p. 58. Ibid., pp. 56–57.

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reached out to that what is not God – but also, that in this reaching out, in this self-giving to that what is not God, the act and object of election is established. God in God’s movement towards humanity performs the act of election. And this ‘God in God’s movement towards humanity’ we can pick out with the name Jesus Christ.100 We should note the two steps in van Driel’s argument. First, election is logically preceded by God’s self-determination and, second, in this selfdetermination, the act and object of election is established so that it is the God who is self-determined as Jesus Christ who chooses humanity. This accords with my understanding of what Barth is aiming to show with the Johannine exegesis: the election of humanity is what happens when God operates ad extra. The election is Jesus Christ. Jn 1.1–2 defends the claim that the act of election of human beings is logically preceded by God’s selfdetermination. Once he has shown that this self-determination is named by the name ‘Jesus Christ’, then what follows immediately and logically is that Jesus Christ is the subject of the election of human beings. Underlying these aspects of van Driel’s argument is the claim that, on McCormack’s terms, Barth is committed to a contingent (although essential) triunity in God, and that this therefore commits him to holding the created order as essential to the divine triunity. In his response to van Driel, McCormack answers this charge in the following way: ‘Only that is “essential” to God, and therefore “constitutive” of the divine being, which God has determined himself to be, not what he has determined the world to be.’101 He further explains that because ‘what is “essential” to God is only what takes place in Jesus himself and not what takes place in us’, then creation generally cannot be viewed as essential to God. McCormack asserts that he makes ‘God’s relation to human beings a function of his relation to Jesus, a relation in which the ontological distinction between God and the human is never set aside’. That is to say, for McCormack, ‘God is perfectly capable of essentially determining himself towards a created order without drawing that order into his essence or compromising his freedom in relation to it or his ontological distinction from it.’102 Confusion persists, however, over McCormack’s understanding of ‘essential determination’ for, even in this retention of ontological distinction, without the royal human of the created order there would be no triune determination for McCormack. It may be granted that it is what takes place in Jesus and not us that is ‘essential’ to God, but on McCormack’s terms even though the humanity of Jesus offers us a participation in a humanity that is different from our own, it is still humanity which has become essential to the triune God. We may con100 101 102

Ibid., p. 58 (emphasis added). McCormack, ‘Seek God’, p. 69. Price, ‘“Letters of the Divine Word”’, p. 195.

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cede that ‘creation generally’ is not essential to God, while still maintaining that McCormack makes an aspect of creation essential. If my argument has merit, then I suggest that we should prefer to use the language of ‘principial christocentrism’ more than ‘principial electionism’ to get at the heart of what Barth is doing here. Although there is certainly a sense in which election is properly basic for Barth, and properly a description of what takes place at the heart of divine revelation, to describe his theology of election as ‘principial’ arguably opens it to what I have suggested is the mistaken option of seeing election as somehow constitutive of the Trinity. Instead of this, and retaining a stronger sense of the divine aseity in Barth, it is better to see election as being interpreted in the light of Barth’s principial christocentrism rather than vice versa. If election does not constitute the divine being, but rather describes the turning of the eternally triune and utterly self-sufficient God towards humanity, then there is clearly a sense in which election is derived from Christology, with the latter principial of the former. The question remains, however: how should we understand this conception of Jesus Christ as the subject of election in relation to Calvin’s conception? The first point to make here is that if my argument is correct, then McCormack is right to suggest that Calvin’s and Barth’s conceptions are different, but he is wrong to describe the difference in such starkly ontological terms. McCormack explains that in the Reformed tradition ‘the Logos is determined to be incarnandus in the eternal plan of God as a consequence of a prior decision made by the triune God.’103 Although there is a sense in which the Logos is the subject of this incarnandus decision, nevertheless in the tradition ‘the Logos appears in this prior decision as One whose identity is not yet determined by the decision for incarnation.’104 Here there is a distinction (logical, not temporal) between the Logos asarkos and the Logos incarnandus. We will see later that Calvin perceives the relation between Logos asarkos and both Logos incarnandus and incarnatus to be one that can be described as the latter being the perfect expression(s) of the former – there is, so to speak, a perfect harmony between the divine essence and the divine act. On this view the Logos incarnandus may be described as eternal, but as an act of the divine will and not as a necessary expression (in the modal sense) of the divine being. Over against this position, McCormack states what he believes Barth’s position to be: If now Barth wishes to speak of Jesus Christ (and not an abstractly conceived Logos asarkos) as the Subject of election, he must deny to the Logos a mode or state of being above and prior to the decision to be incarnate in time. He must, to employ the traditional terminology, 103 104

McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 94. Ibid.

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say there is no Logos in and for himself in distinction from God’s act of turning toward the world and humanity in predestination; the Logos is incarnandus in and for himself, in eternity.105 But McCormack errs here in denying in Barth’s doctrine of election ‘a Logos in and for himself in distinction from God’s act of turning toward the world’. This much has been suggested by my argument above, where God’s selfdetermination in Christ is understood as a determination ad extra. This self-determination may reflect God’s being ad intra but it is not constitutive of it.106 I suggested earlier that although Barth may have misread Calvin on Christ’s role in election, it is possibly more fruitful to see a serious difference between them on this issue. For Calvin, Christ is certainly the author of election but the implications of this fact for his doctrine of the Trinity are traditional. The eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity participates actively in the decree of election, but Calvin is most interested in what this means for soteriology. The Son who chooses his own before the creation of the world also redeems his own in time, as Deus manifestatus in carne. For Barth, however, the decree of election is primarily self-referential. It is a form of self-determination for the triune God, and so is circumscribed by his principial christocentrism. I will return at the end of the chapter to comment further on the exegesis of Christ and election in relation to the doctrine of the Trinity. But now I turn to the concept of Christ as the object of election in Calvin and Barth. Here we will discover more contrasts between them and further nuances to the trinitarian basis of election.

2. Jesus Christ as the Object of Election 2.1. Christ as the Mediator of Election Itself Having considered Calvin’s account of Christ as author, I now examine how Calvin understands Christ to work out salvation in his mediatorial office. If Christ is the author of election, he is also its artisan. We will see that Calvin’s exegetical writings reveal a complex and multi-faceted account of what it means to name Christ as the Mediator in relation to election. 105 106

Ibid., pp. 94–95. It is also suggested by Barth’s later comment on the Logos asarkos: ‘The second “person” of the Godhead in Himself and as such [understood as the Logos asarkos] is not God the Reconciler. In himself and as such he is not revealed to us. In himself and as such he is not Deus pro nobis, either ontologically or epistemologically. He is the content of a necessary and important concept in trinitarian doctrine when we have to understand the revelation and dealings of God in the light of their free basis in the inner being and essence of God’(CD IV/1, p. 52; KD IV/1, p. 54).

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The complexity arises from a particular conception of the relation between time and eternity, or better, between the decree of election and its execution both before time and in time. The one person of the Mediator mediates in both spheres of execution. The multi-faceted nature of Calvin’s position is seen in the range of metaphors he uses to describe Christ in relation to election: Christ is a book, a guardian, a mirror, a seal and a pledge. While these images often overlap in meaning, they surface in different contexts depending on Calvin’s particular exegetical focus. What does it mean to say that Christ mediates the decree both before time and in time? Edmondson expresses Calvin’s position here like this: ‘[Christ] not only mediates the salvation that flows from our election; he mediates this election in the first place.’107 If the first half of the statement refers to Christ’s temporal mediation, then the second half refers to Christ’s pretemporal mediation. This is an extremely useful way of understanding how Calvin portrays Christ’s role in election. I will now examine how Calvin’s exegesis of Christ as o` avgaphto,j (‘the beloved’), most clearly seen in Ephesians 1 and also John 17, reveals a conception of Christ the Mediator as ‘head’ of the elect, even the first of the elect, so that there is a particular pretemporal sense in which Christ mediates election itself. It is in this sense that Christ is the ‘object’ of election, and here he mediates an election that is prior to faith. From the same texts, however, and also in John 6 and 10 (with greater prolixity), we will see how Calvin describes Christ’s mediation of salvation in the temporal sphere to those chosen before the creation of the world. As Mediator in this sense, Christ is not so much the object of election as he is the object of faith. Here he mediates an election that is learnt by faith. In his discussion of Barth’s doctrine of election, Bruce McCormack reflects on the differences between Barth’s view of the Logos incarnandus and the Reformed tradition: ‘For seventeenth-century theologians, the Logos appeared in the eternal plan of God as incarnandus only in so far as he was the object of election.’108 Although some of the ramifications of McCormack’s thesis are open to dispute, I suggest that in various examples of Calvin’s exegesis something akin to the Logos incarnandus as the object of election begins to emerge. We must exercise caution here, however. This is not the term that Calvin uses and it seems beneficial only in the light of our previous discussion. I will attempt to explain the terminology which he himself employs, and in so doing we will observe just how much Calvin weights immanent conceptualities towards soteriological ends. On four occasions in the New Testament, ‘elect’ or ‘chosen one’ is used as a description of Jesus Christ: Lk. 9.35 (evklelegme,noj); 23.35 (evklekto,j); Jn 1.34 (evklekto,j); 1 Pet. 2.4; cf. 2.6 (evklekto.n). On each occasion, Calvin makes no reference to the term whatsoever in his commentaries on the 107 108

Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, p. 150. McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 94.

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respective text. Jesus as the ‘chosen’ or ‘elect one’ appears to be subservient in Calvin’s thought to another description of Jesus: the ‘beloved Son’. In his Commentary on the Harmony of the Three Evangelists, Calvin translates Lk. 9.35 as: Et vox facta est de nube dicens: Hic est filius meus dilectus, ipsum audite.109 It is probably best to understand dilectus as ‘beloved’ rather than ‘chosen’, but, regardless of the decision taken here,110 Calvin’s method of harmonization means that the repeated use of avgaphto,j in the parallel Synoptic accounts (cf. Mk 9.7; Mt. 17.5) receives interpretative priority. Importantly, what he says here about Jesus as God’s beloved Son ties it to the concept of mediation: ‘When the Father calls him the Beloved, in whom he is well-pleased, he declares that he is the Mediator in whom he reconciles the world to himself.’111 In Calvin’s earlier exegesis of the baptism of Jesus, the connection between o` avgaphto,j and Christ as Mediator is again present, but this time so is a striking connection to Ephesians 1. Commenting on the voice from heaven in the parallel passages (Mt. 3.17; Mk 1.11; Lk. 3.22), he says: Christ was presented to us by the Father with this proclamation, in his coming forth to fulfil his task of mediation, that we might rely on this pledge of our adoption and without fear call God himself our Father . . . So God, in introducing our Mediator with words that praise him as the Son, declares himself to be a Father to us all. That is exactly the aim of the word beloved, for as in ourselves we are hateful to God, his fatherly love (paternum eius amorem) must flow to us in Christ. The best interpreter of this passage is Paul (Eph. 1:6), where he says that we have obtained grace in the beloved Son, that we may be loved by God.112 With o` avgaphto,j describing less a strictly immanent trinitarian relation than a relation between Father and Son that is turned towards the elect, it is clear that Calvin has a particular idea of what it means to be chosen and loved ‘in Christ’. The influence of his earlier exegesis of Ephesians 1 is obvious here,113 so that the understanding of the Pauline usage is decisive for 109 110

111 112 113

CO 45, p. 484. Calvin’s use of dilectus creates a problem which is reflected in both a textual variant and in T. H. L. Parker’s English translation. The translation dilemma concerns whether dilectus should be read as a nominative adjective with the meaning ‘beloved’, or a perfect passive participle with the meaning ‘chosen’. Parker appears to reflect the ambiguity in his translation – ‘This is my beloved Son, my chosen’ (Comm. Harmonia, CNTC, vol. 2, p. 197) – but it is doubtful Calvin meant both. One indication that he aligned dilectus with o` avgaphto,j is Calvin’s use of electus, not dilectus, to translate evklekto,j (‘chosen’) in Lk. 23.35 (CO 45, p. 769). Comm. Harmonia (CNTC, vol. 2, p. 201); CO 45, p. 488. Comm. Harmonia (CNTC, vol. 1, p. 132; CO 45, p. 127. Calvin’s commentary on Ephesians was published in 1548. As we will see, this connection between o` avgaphto,j and Eph. 1.6 is also similar to Calvin’s interpretation of Jn 17.24.

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Calvin’s interpretation.114 In at least two other places in his commentaries, Calvin refers to his treatment of Ephesians 1 as his ‘more extensive’ treatment of various matters related to election,115 and in his exegesis of this text Calvin comments further on election ‘in Christ’. Here the pretemporal and temporal forms of election’s mediation are explicit.116 In coming to Calvin’s Ephesians exegesis to discover his comments on this doctrinal topic, the first thing we notice is the thin treatment it actually receives. His comments on the precise meaning of election evn auvtw/| are very sparse. The aim of Calvin’s exegesis of Paul is not exactly the same as the aim of my exegesis of Calvin – he is not here directly concerned with expounding a detailed account of the trinitarian execution of the decree. Rather, what sits on the surface of Calvin’s exposition is a recurring emphasis on the freedom and gratuity of salvation so that the main motifs are the polemical ones of predestination’s cause, God’s foreknowledge, and human merit. In his Argumentum Calvin argues that ‘The first three chapters are chiefly occupied in commending the grace of God (gratiae Dei) . . . God’s wonderful mercy (admirabilis Dei misericordia) shines forth in the fact that the salvation of men flows from his free adoption (gratuita adoptione) as its true and native source.’117 This understanding of the theme leads him to stress that Paul’s aim in Ephesians 1 is to ‘stir us up to give thanks’. Calvin revels in setting this doxological treatment against those who view the doctrine of predestination as ‘useless’, ‘poisonous’, and an ‘inextricable labyrinth’.118 When Calvin comes to comment on the evn auvtw/| of Eph. 1.4, he describes it as ‘the second confirmation of the freedom of election’. The first confirmation is found in the time of election. He comments on evxele,xato h`ma/j by saying that ‘God’s eternal election is the foundation and first cause both of our calling and of all the benefits we receive from God’, and then draws in the significance of pro. katabolh/j ko,smou: ‘The very time of the election shows it to be free; for what could we have deserved, or in what did our

114

115

116

117 118

B. Pitkin argues that Calvin’s exegesis of faith in his Pauline commentaries fundamentally shapes the way he understands faith in his Gospel commentaries (What Pure Eyes Could See, p. 70); cf. idem, ‘Calvin as Commentator on the Gospel of John’, in D. McKim (ed.), Calvin and the Bible, p. 181. If Pitkin is correct, then Calvin’s comment above is another example of an interpretative ‘Pauline priority’ at work; cf. also Holder, John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation, p. 79. Commentary on 1 Pet. 1.2 (CNTC, vol. 12, p. 230); Commentary on 2 Tim. 1.9 (CNTC, vol. 10, p. 296). Cf. Muller: ‘This passage and its exegesis . . . are crucial to Calvin’s doctrine in so far as they stress the relationship of Christ as mediator to the decree’ (Christ and the Decree, p. 24). Comm. Ephesians (CNTC, vol. 11, p. 121); CO 51, p. 141. Ibid., p. 126; p. 148; cf. his similar comments on the ‘very sweet fruit’ of the doctrine in Inst. III.xxi.1, p. 920; OS 4, p. 369.

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merit consist, before the world was made?’119 Thus for Calvin a locative and then a temporal prepositional clause function together to ground election utterly in the free will of God. The ‘sophistry’ of an appeal to foreknowledge of merit as the basis of election is thereby destroyed. He explains: For if we are chosen in Christ, it is outside ourselves. It is not from the sight of our deserving, but because our heavenly Father has engrafted us, through the blessing of adoption, into the body of Christ. In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of themselves; for when he says that we are chosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy.120 This is all Calvin says on evn auvtw in v. 4. But what follows in vv. 5–6, he suggests, ‘heightens still further the commendation of divine grace’, so much so that ‘the mercy of God is nowhere declared more sublimely.’121 At this point Calvin introduces an Aristotelian causal structure to describe election and its benefits.122 He says: ‘Three causes of our salvation are mentioned in this clause, and a fourth is shortly afterwards added. The efficient cause is the good pleasure of the will of God; the material cause is Christ; and the final cause is the praise of his grace.’123 What does Calvin mean by causa materialis est Christus? It is in his explanation of this term that the two spheres of Christ’s mediation become explicit. Here Calvin says nothing about the ui`oqesi,an dia. VIhsou/ Cristou/ (v. 5) and rather proceeds to the final clause of v. 6: evn tw/| hvgaphme,nw|. Here he comments: ‘The material cause, both of eternal election, and of the love which is now revealed, is Christ, whom he names the Beloved, to tell us that by him the love of God is poured out to us. Thus he is the well-beloved to reconcile us.’124 There are two things to note here. First, we observe Calvin’s explicit distinction between the two ways in which Christ is the material cause: eternally and temporally. The former may be described as election itself; the latter as the salvation that flows from election. The Christ who mediates God’s love in eternal election and who now reveals that love to us in time, this Christ is the Beloved Son. Second, we see the same view of o` avgaphto,j as in Calvin’s exegesis of the Synoptics. 119 120 121 122

123

124

Comm. Ephesians (CNTC, vol. 11, pp. 124–125); CO 51, p. 147. Ibid., p. 125; p. 147. Ibid., p. 127; p. 148. Cf. Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 24. Helm points out that Calvin seems ready to use this ‘Aristotelian causal scheme in a variety of contexts’ ( John Calvin’s Ideas, p. 400); cf. Inst. II.xvii.2; III.xi.7; III.xiv.21. Cf. also Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, pp. 156–157. Comm. Ephesians (CNTC, vol. 11, p. 126); CO 51, p. 148. The ‘fourth’ cause, the preaching of the gospel, appears in Calvin’s exposition of v. 8. Ibid., p. 127; p. 149 (emphasis added).

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It appears that as a description of Christ as the cause of eternal election

tw/| hvgaphme,nw is a term which is not meant to carry the weight of immanent description. Strictly speaking, it does not seem to describe the Logos asarkos in Calvin’s hands, but rather the Logos incarnandus. It is a term which specifies God’s love to Christ whereby, and on the grounds of which, he is loving towards his elect. However, on Christ as the material cause of eternal election, this is as much as Calvin says in his Ephesians commentary. For further reflection on this we turn to two examples of Calvin’s exegesis in John’s Gospel (15.9, 17.23–24); this section will then conclude by returning to Ephesians, this time to Calvin’s sermons, where he provides further amplification. The common feature in Jn 15.9 and 17.23–24 is Jesus’ own description of the love the Father has for him. On 15.9, in his discussion of Kaqw.j hvga,phse,n me o` path,r( kavgw. u`ma/j hvga,phsa, Calvin is adamant that ‘subtlety as to how the Father always loved himself in the Son has nothing to do with this passage’. Rather, ‘The love mentioned here must be referred to us, because Christ declares that the Father loves him as the Head of the church – a thing extremely necessary for us.’125 Calvin here uses two images to describe what this love of the Father means: Christ is ‘the pledge ( pignus) of the divine love’,126 and ‘in him, as in a mirror (speculo), we may behold God’s fatherly love towards us all, since he is not loved separately, or for his own private advantage, but that he may unite us along with himself to the Father.’127 Calvin’s description of this love is sharply focused on the economy – it is a love of the Son, but it is a love with benefits for us. In Jn 17.23, Jesus prays i[na ginw,skh| o` ko,smoj o[ti su, me avpe,steilaj kai. hvga,phsaj auvtouj kaqw.j evme. hvga,phsaj. In v. 24 he prays about the glory which the Father gave to him o[ti hvga,phsa,j me pro. katabolh/j ko,smou. These descriptions of the Father’s love for the Son elicit from Calvin comments that are similar to those we have already seen him make. He understands hvga,phsaj auvtouj kaqw.j evme. hvga,phsaj to be describing the ‘cause and origin’ of God’s love, so that here the comparative particle (kaqw.j) ‘should be taken as causal, as if [Christ] were saying, “Because you loved me”.’128 It is this loving of the Son by the Father that makes him the object of election. Calvin comments further: ‘For the title of beloved belongs to Christ alone. But following on this, the heavenly Father has the same love for all the members as for the Head, so that he loves none but in Christ.’129 125 126

127 128 129

Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 97); CO 47, p. 342. Cf. on Jn 10.17: ‘there was no need for Christ to put on our flesh, in which he was beloved, except that it might be the pledge (pignus) of his fatherly mercy in redeeming us’ (Comm. John, CNTC, vol. 4, p. 268; CO 47, p. 245). Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 97); CO 47, p. 342. Ibid., p. 149; p. 388. Ibid.

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This, however, leads Calvin to discuss a possible contradiction at this point; his resolving of this contradiction reveals how he conceives of the relation between Christ’s two forms of mediation. He asks: if Christ is the cause of God’s love for us, what sense then are we to make of the biblical description of God’s love for the world as the cause of his giving his Son? This latter description of God’s love infers a love of the Father for humanity outside of Christ; ‘that is, before he was appointed as Redeemer’.130 This is Calvin’s resolution: In that and similar passages [which describe God’s love for the world as the cause of sending Christ] love means the mercy with which God was moved towards the unworthy, and even towards his enemies, before he reconciled them to himself. It is a wonderful goodness of God and incomprehensible to the human mind, that he was benevolent towards men whom he could not but hate and removed the cause of the hatred that there might be no obstruction to his love. And Paul tells us that we are loved in a double sense in Christ. First, because the Father chose us in him before the creation of the world (Eph. 1.4). Secondly, because in him also God has reconciled us to himself and shown that he is gracious to us (Rom. 5.10). See how we are both enemies and friends until atonement has been made for our sins and we are restored to favour with God.131 What is Calvin saying here? From his explanatory use of Ephesians 1 and Romans 5, he appears to be suggesting that the answer to the question ‘what is the cause of God’s love for us?’ depends on the perspective from which we ask the question. In one sense, God loves us in Christ from eternity. And yet in another sense, while nevertheless we are loved by God like this, we remain his enemies until we see that God has been merciful to us by sending his Son to make atonement. While an enemy and a friend of God, the elect person is only aware of the former state until temporal faith in Christ brings realization of the reconciliation effected for them. Calvin comments further: The love by which Christ was appointed as the one in whom we should be freely chosen before we were born and while we were still ruined in Adam, is hidden in the bosom of God and far exceeds the grasp of the human mind. None will ever feel that God is favourable to him unless he understands that God is appeased in Christ.132 130 131

132

Ibid. Ibid., pp. 149–150; pp. 388–389. This ‘contradiction’ occurs in other places in Calvin’s thought. Cf. Inst. II.xvi.2, and his comments on Jn 10.8; Rom. 5.10; 2 Cor. 5.19 in the respective commentaries. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 150); CO 47, p. 389.

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The first sentence describes how the elect person is eternally the friend of God; the second how they are nevertheless God’s enemy in time until they come to Christ. Calvin’s entire doctrine of election reflects this understanding of the relationship between eternity and time, and the immutability of God and mutability of humanity. Paul Helm argues that Calvin’s principle of accommodation is at work here, ensuring that the resolution of the contradiction is bound up with Calvin’s understanding of God’s immutability. Helm says: So the truth about atonement, about reconciliation to God, has to be represented to us as if it implied a change in God, and so an inconsistency, an apparent contradiction, in his actions towards us. But in fact there is no change in God; he loves us from eternity. There is, however, a change in us, a change that occurs as by faith Christ’s work is appropriated.133 So Christ as the material cause of God’s eternal love for the elect functions in Calvin’s thought as the first of two seemingly contradictory truths. The heart of their resolution rests in grasping how God’s love for the elect in time is always predicated on this prior, eternal love of God for his elect in his Son. Thus, for Calvin o` avgaphto,j is a title for Christ which reflects his mediating role as the object of election. There is further evidence for this in Calvin’s discussion of o[ti hvga,phsa,j me pro. katabolh/j ko,smou in 17.24. As in 15.9, so this verse too, Calvin argues, does not refer to ‘Christ’s naked divinity’ but rather it ‘agrees far better with the person of the Mediator’.134 He holds that here Christ is speaking as the head of his church. In this capacity, the Father’s love was the cause of the Son’s glory, and therefore it follows that he was beloved (fuisse dilectum) inasmuch as he was appointed as the Redeemer of the world. With such a love did the Father embrace him before the creation of the world, that he might be the one in whom the Father would love his elect.135 This eternal election in Christ appears to be what we may describe as a ‘representative’ election. Christ is appointed as the head of his people, and as such he is the representative of their election. In places, the sense even borders on a ‘substitutionary’ election – God chooses Christ instead of humanity. In the Institutes, in a comment on Eph. 1.4 (and which mirrors his commentary’s emphasis on destroying human merit), Calvin says that 133

134 135

Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, p. 395. Helm’s chapter on this ‘contradiction’ in Calvin is an excellent discussion of the issues: ‘Faith, Atonement, and Time’, pp. 389–416. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 151); CO 47, pp. 389–390. Ibid., p. 151; p. 390.

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here ‘it is just as if [Paul] had said: since among all the offspring of Adam, the heavenly Father found nothing worthy of his election, he turned his eyes upon his Anointed, to choose from that body as members those whom he was to take into the fellowship of life.’136 Instead of electing fallen humans, God turns his eyes on Christ and elects him instead. However, to refer to this as ‘substitutionary’ would doubtless obscure the fact that others are nevertheless truly elected. As Edmondson explains: For Calvin, it is not that we are chosen by God and, on the basis of that choice, engrafted into Christ’s body; we are too lowly, even in an unfallen state, to merit God’s favour. Rather, God looked upon our head, and predestined the chosen to life only as they were members of Christ. Christ is election itself, then, insofar as he is the head of the body.137 This conception of a ‘representative’ eternal election in Christ is given even clearer expression in Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians 1.138 As we might expect in this context, when Calvin begins to deal explicitly with election in his second sermon there are clear applications of the doctrine to his listeners.139 The doctrine of election is bound up with two main things which Scripture regards as the mark of true religion: magnifying God as he deserves and assurance of salvation ‘so that we may call on him as our Father with full liberty’.140 For Calvin, nothing magnifies God more than realizing that his election is uncaused by anything outside himself; nothing gives such profound assurance of salvation as realizing that it is grounded in eternal election. Alongside this applicatory expansiveness, themes from the commentary 136

137 138

139

140

Inst. III.xxii.1, p. 933; OS 4, p. 381. Cf. ‘Nevertheless, because many of [Abraham’s] descendants were cut off as rotten members, we must, in order that election may be effectual and truly enduring, ascend to the Head, in whom the heavenly Father has gathered the elect together, and has joined them to himself by an indissoluble bond’ (Inst. III.xxi.7, p. 930; OS 4, p. 377). Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, p. 150. This is not surprising. S. Schreiner argues that ‘In [Calvin’s] sermons the exegetical ideal of brevitas yielded to more polemic and expansiveness. In his preaching Calvin used the rhetorical technique of amplificatio or copia’: ‘Calvin as an Interpreter of Job’, in D. McKim (ed.), Calvin and the Bible, p. 56. Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians were preached from 1 May 1558–March 1559. T. H. L. Parker observes: ‘. . . above all, the question he has asked himself in preparation is “How is this profitable to the congregation?” And therefore every part of every passage is addressed directly to that congregation’: Calvin’s Preaching (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), p. 88. See also R. C. Zachman, ‘Expounding the Scripture and Applying It to Our Use: Calvin’s Sermons on Ephesians’, SJT 56.4 (2003), pp. 481–507. Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973), p. 26; CO 51, p. 262.

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resurface here: salvation is described again in terms of ‘causes’ (la cause principale),141 and on God’s choosing ‘before the creation of the world’ Calvin’s aim here is to rebuff the ‘ridiculous folly’ that God chooses according to foreseen merit.142 The fact that this choosing before the creation of the world was ‘in Christ’, Calvin says is confirmation ‘in better fashion’ of election’s complete gratuity.143 Here the repeated themes of God’s freedom in election and absence of foreseen merit due to inherent corruption receive their sharpest expression: Did God, then, have an eye to us when he vouchsafed to love us? No! No! For then he would have utterly abhorred us. It is true that in regarding our miseries he had pity and compassion on us to relieve us, but that was because he had already loved us in our Lord Jesus Christ. God, then, must have had before him his pattern and mirror (patron et miroir) in which to see us, that is to say, he must have first looked on our Lord Jesus Christ before he could choose and call us.144 We have already seen Calvin refer to Christ as a speculum for us to look in to know God’s love for us. What is striking here, however, is that Christ is a mirror in which God looks to see us. Calvin will say that when we want to know God’s election, we must look at Christ; here he says that when God wanted to choose us, he looked at Christ.145 Although, interestingly, Calvin does not refer to Christ here as Mediator in any sense, this is a crystal clear description of Christ’s mediatorial role in election. It is followed by another graphic metaphor. Election is in Christ who is ‘the true register (le vray registre). For God’s vouchsafing to elect us . . . from all eternity, was, as it were, a registering of us in writing. And the holy Scripture calls God’s election the book of life . . . It is in him that we are written down and acknowledged by God as his children.’146 This, then, is how Calvin describes Christ as the object of election. As head of the elect, Christ is the representative of their election, the one whom God first chooses as the locus for the election of others. Christ mediates election 141 142 143 144 145

146

Ibid., p. 22; p. 259. Ibid., p. 31; p. 267. Ibid., p. 32; p. 268. Ibid., p. 33; pp. 268–269. In his third sermon Calvin explains that it is where God chooses to look, so to speak, which distinguishes between the elect and reprobate: ‘Now some are accounted reprobates: and why is that but because God looking upon them in themselves passes them by. But he chooses us in our Lord Jesus Christ and looks upon us there, as in a mirror that is pleasing to him’ (Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 41; CO 51, pp. 275–276). Ibid., p. 33; p. 269.

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itself and it is an election that is prior to faith. In this mediation the biblical designation for Christ is the ‘beloved Son’; the metaphorical descriptions which Calvin employs are Christ as a ‘pledge’, a ‘mirror’ and as a ‘register’. Mediating this election is Christ’s ‘primal mediatory work’, the foundation of the covenant history in which Christ mediates as prophet, priest and king.147 This is the eternal aspect of Christ’s two spheres of mediation. It is vital to note that its purpose for Calvin is not an end in itself but is merely the structural ground of the temporal work of salvation; everything Calvin says here is inexplicable without his understanding of the salvation that Christ offers.

2.2. Christ as the Mediator of Salvation Flowing from Election In coming to consider Calvin’s exegesis of this temporal mediation, we can observe immediately an instance of Calvin’s economic focus. His discussions of the Father’s ‘giving’ of the elect to his Son are an example of his thought which we might perhaps expect to be located in the sphere of eternal mediation. But, if it is valid to consider this in terms of the eternal–temporal distinction, then what we actually find is a treatment which clearly links both realms, with the emphasis arguably falling on the latter. Calvin’s comments here bridge the two spheres of Christ’s mediatory work and in so doing open up the way he understands Christ to mediate in the temporal sphere. In Jn 6.37 the ‘giving’ of the elect to Christ is in the present tense – di,dwsi,n, and Calvin’s Latin rendering is dat – so it is not surprising to see Calvin here understand this giving to occur within the temporal sphere: ‘For the word give is equivalent to Christ’s saying, ‘Those whom the Father has elected, he regenerates and makes over to me, to obey the gospel.’148 In Inst. III.xxii.7 it is clear that Calvin understands this giving in a temporal sense. He recognizes that some will say that if temporal faith in Christ is the way to experience salvation and Christ’s protection then it is this faith which makes a person elect or ‘the Father’s own’. However, Calvin argues here that believing in Christ is the result of the Father’s gift: ‘The elect are said to have been the Father’s before he gave them to his only-begotten Son.’149 If we may understand this ‘giving’ of the elect to the Son to be a way of describing the elect person’s coming to faith, then Calvin says we must not ignore the fact that the believing is the result of prior belonging to the Father. 147 148 149

Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology, p. 151. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 161); CO 47, p. 146. Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387. F. L. Battles’ translation reads ‘before he gave them his only-begotten Son’, but the Latin is ‘quam eos donaret unigenito Filio’ (‘before he gave them to his only-begotten Son’).

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When we come to John 17, however, where in Jesus’ prayer he refers to a ‘giving’ of individuals in aorist and perfect tenses, we observe Calvin handle this ‘giving’ with an ambiguity which seems to reflect both eternal and temporal senses. Although Calvin does not comment on this explicitly, the eternal sense may be implied from aspects of his exegesis of v. 2 and v. 6. On v. 2, Calvin says that ‘Authority over all flesh means the authority given to Christ when the Father appointed him King and Head. But we must note the end, which is to bestow eternal life on all his own. Christ therefore receives authority, not so much for himself as for our salvation.’150 This is followed immediately by Calvin’s assertion that our submitting to Christ ‘is the cause of our eternal life’.151 So here Calvin holds that salvation is caused by Christ bestowing it on those who belong to him while also stating that this salvation is caused by submitting to Christ. The submitting of the elect to Christ in time seems to be because they already belong to him. That we may say this prior belonging has its origin in eternity appears to be warranted by its close connection to the grant of authority to the Son: for Calvin this is undoubtedly a very similar conception to what we have already seen in his view of Christ as the beloved Son. This is the Father and the Son in their relation turned towards the world, not strictly as it is in itself. The sense of ‘eternal belonging’ before ‘temporal believing’ appears also in the comments on v. 6. Stating that here Christ is pleading for the salvation of his disciples, Calvin comments on what he takes to be the peculiar description of Christ manifesting the Father’s name to only a few, when clearly in his ministry Christ called all mankind to God.152 This is how Calvin resolves the tension he feels exists: Christ ascribes the cause to the election of God; for he assigns no other difference as to why he manifested the name of the Father to some, passing over others, than because they were given to him. From this it follows that faith flows from the eternal predestination of God, and that therefore it is not given indiscriminately to all, since not all belong to Christ.153 Here Calvin appears to locate the origin of temporal faith in Christ in a prior belonging to Christ. However, in his following comments Calvin shows that his conception of the elect being ‘given’ to the Son is perhaps not as clear cut as I have so far suggested. In an intriguing comment he says that when in v. 6 Jesus adds soi. h=san kavmoi. auvtou.j e;dwkaj ‘he first indicates 150 151 152 153

Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 135); CO 47, p. 376. Ibid., pp. 135–136; p. 376. Ibid., p. 139; p. 379. Ibid.

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the eternity of election, and then how we should think of it.’154 The distinction, as we will see, is vitally important for Calvin. The first refers to that which is fundamentally unknowable to us; the second to that form of election knowledge which is accessible to us. However, it is simply not clear from this statement whether Calvin means that we should understand the elect’s being given to Christ as the way in which they were eternally elected, or that the elect’s believing (and so temporal) response to Christ is the only kind of access they have to their eternal election. He appears to be saying the latter. The distinction means that ‘the elect always belong to God’ and they do so purely on the basis of his free choice. But then the basis for the elect’s certainty of their election consists in [the Father’s] committing to the guardianship of his Son all whom he has elected, that they may not perish; and it is here that we must turn our eyes if we are to be certain that we are of the number of God’s children. For in itself the predestination of God is hidden; and it is manifested to us in Christ alone.155 The only route open to the elect person to know if they have in fact been given to Christ is not to enquire into the Father’s eternal choosing of them but rather to focus on their looking to Christ. Calvin appears to be suggesting that the elect’s looking to Christ is the way the elect should understand their being given to Christ, regardless of whether, in another sense, they were actually given to the Son in eternity. His aim here is to provide a way for the elect person to orient themselves to God’s eternal decree. The way to do this is not to look at the decree itself but to look at Christ. This is, perhaps, another example of Calvin’s principle of accommodation at work – how we think of election in time is an accommodated understanding of how election functions in eternity. That this giving here seems to be a temporal giving for Calvin emerges again in his comment on the next clause: to.n lo,gon sou teth,rhkan. He says: ‘This is the third step. The first is free election, and the second the gift by which we enter under Christ’s care. Received by Christ, we are gathered into the fold by faith. God’s Word slips away from the reprobate, but strikes root in the elect, and so they are said to keep it.’156 Is Calvin saying here that faith is the gift by which we enter under Christ’s care? If so, by referring to it here as the ‘second step’, it appears to be a parallel description of the giving of the elect to Christ. Perhaps Calvin would regard this explicit focus on either the eternal or temporal nature of this ‘giving’ as somewhat beside the point. For him the issue is less the ‘when’ of the giving, than the ‘to whom’ of the giving. The 154 155 156

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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ambiguity about this ‘giving’ arises because Calvin wants to hold both that its ground is entirely free and outside ourselves, but also only accessible to us in the Christ we know in space and time. What Calvin wants the Christian believer to do is to orient themselves to the Christ they know as manifest in time, precisely because this is the same Christ to whom God has given the elect. This temporal orientation for the believer is because there are two kinds of knowledge of election – God’s and humanity’s – and Calvin’s goal is to ensure the believer does not try to seek God’s knowledge of election instead of the knowledge of election which is truly available to them. Therefore the way to think of this ‘giving’ is not to ask when it was done but to realize how we come to know that it has been done – belief in Christ through the gospel. As Calvin comments on Jn 17.6: We see here that God begins with himself (a se ipso incipiat Deus) when he sees fit to elect us; but he will have us begin with Christ (sed nos a Christo incipere velit) so that we may know that we are reckoned among his peculiar people. For God is said to give us to the Son so that each may know himself an heir of the heavenly kingdom so long as he abides in Christ.157 We may build on this to see even more explicitly the weight Calvin attaches to belief in Christ as the only means of appropriate knowledge of election. Temporal salvation, not eternal and hidden election, should be our prime focus. It is not putting it too strongly to say that in many ways Calvin is less concerned with describing Christ as the object of election than he is with describing him as the object of faith. It is not often that Calvin describes election in Christ without the issue of faith intruding on the discussion; election and faith stand in the closest possible connection to each other in his exegetical work. In his Ephesians sermons, Calvin says that in John 6 and 10 Christ ‘intends to magnify the gift of faith’ by showing how it is underpinned by eternal election,158 and so Calvin’s exegesis of those texts should be considered here. Calvin’s exegesis of John 6 places Christ in relation to election in two key ways. The first is the portrayal of Christ in relation to the Father and the outworking of the decree. Throughout the chapter, Calvin variously describes Christ as ‘the living fountain flowing from the eternal Father’ (v. 11), and as ‘author of this great blessing’ (v. 27), or as ‘author of life’ (v. 33). As we noted earlier, such depictions are less claims about Christ’s divine essence than they are claims about his office of Mediator in time. The effect is to so position Christ in relation to the Father in a way which guarantees the authority and efficacy of his mediation. So on 6.27 and the Father’s ‘sealing’ 157 158

Eternal Predestination, p. 127; De Aeterna, p. 156. Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 25; CO 51, p. 262.

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of the Son, Calvin’s understanding is that Christ is not discussing here his ‘eternal essence’ but rather ‘declares that these duties had been placed on him by the Father, and that this decree of the Father was manifested by an engraven seal’.159 In this context, where Jesus is describing himself as the source of food which gives eternal life, the meaning is this: ‘Christ comes forward, and pledging himself as the author of this great blessing (se autorem tanti boni promittens), adds that he is approved by God and has been sent to men with this mark of sealing.’160 The sense is similar in v. 33 where Calvin says: ‘We have divine life in Christ, because he has come from God to be the author of life to us (ut nobis sit autor vitae).’161 However, this depiction of Christ as author follows v. 32 ‘it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven’. There, Calvin argues, Jesus says that ‘his Father, rather than he himself, is the author of this gift (Christus autem patrem potius quam se huius doni autorem facit) to gain more reverence – as if he were saying, “Acknowledge me as God’s minister by whose hand he wishes to feed your souls for eternal life.”’162 It is interesting to see Calvin use the word ‘author’ as a description of Christ in a way that is markedly different from his use of the word in Jn 13.18. There the use was an argument for Christ’s divinity, but here it is used to express a functional subordination of Christ to his Father which places him in a direct line of mediated authority.163 If the Father is the ultimate author of life, then Christ is the means the Father has given us of accessing this life and so is called the author as well. This is Calvin’s conception of Christ as the executor of the decree. It is given explicit expression as the Johannine narrative progresses towards the issue of those whom the Father has given to the Son. In Jn 6.37– 40 the actions of the Father and the Son are paramount in relation to election and Calvin has a clear conception of how we should understand the workings of both: ‘faith is God’s work, by which he shows that we are his and appoints his Son to be the overseer of our salvation’ (v. 38).164 Here Jesus says that he has come from heaven to do his Father’s will, and on this Calvin states: The distinction that Christ makes between his own and his Father’s will is an accommodation to his hearers because, since man’s mind is prone to distrust, we are wont to invent something contrary that makes us doubtful. To take away all excuse for such wicked imaginings,

159 160 161 162 163

164

Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 154); CO 47, p. 140. Ibid. Ibid., p. 158; p. 143. Ibid., p. 157; p. 143. Cf. on 6.57: ‘Therefore [Christ] claims to be the author of life (se facit vitae autorem) in such a way as to acknowledge that what he administers to others was also given to him by another’ (ibid., p. 171; p. 156). Ibid., p. 161; p. 146.

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Christ declares that he has been manifested to the world to confirm what the Father has decreed on our salvation by actually effecting it (se mundo exhibitum fuisse asserit, ut ratum faciat ipso effectu quod de salute nostra decrevit pater).165 The fact that Jesus has come from heaven to do the Father’s will means that a wedge may not be driven between their actions – although there is a distinction, there is nevertheless the closest possible correlation between the work of the Father and the work of the Son. The Father wills salvation in the Son, and this is what the Son has come to achieve. This brings us to the second way in which Calvin here describes Christ in relation to election. By entering the world to do the Father’s will, Christ stands as faith’s object in salvation. Calvin introduces this with his comment on v. 39: ‘He now declares that the Father’s purpose is that believers may find salvation secured in Christ.’166 Salvation in Christ is described here by Calvin depicting Christ as the ‘guardian of our salvation (salutis nostrae custodem)’.167 This is his understanding of Christ’s role in the repeated ‘giving’ language of 6.35–39. The salvation of the elect is secure because Christ protects it and will bring them ‘from the starting point to the finishing post’. However, in discussing v. 40 (tou/to ga,r evstin to. qe,lhma tou/ patro,j mou( i[na pa/j o` qewrw/n to.n

ui`on. kai. pisteu,wn eivj auvto.n e;ch| zwh.n aivwn, ion( kai. avnasth,sw auvto.n evgw. evn th/| evsca,th| h`me,ra|), Calvin moves from salvation’s protector to salvation’s mode: obeying the gospel of Christ.168 The spotlight now falls very explicitly on the issue of faith and response to Christ; although the matter has been touched on already in the chapter, Calvin says that it is only now given its clearest expression. The verse proves to be immensely important for Calvin’s doctrine of election, bringing together as it does the Son’s obedience to the Father’s will while also locating the focus of the Father’s will on the Son himself. Two issues in particular stand out in Calvin’s treatment. First, he is adamant at this point that faith is the basis for a sufficient knowledge of election: If God’s will is that those whom he has elected shall be saved by faith, and he confirms and executes his eternal decree in this way, whoever is not satisfied with Christ but inquires curiously about eternal predestination desires, as far as lies in him, to be saved contrary to God’s purpose. The election of God in itself is hidden and secret. The Lord manifests it by the calling with which he honours us.169 165 166 167 168 169

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 162; p. 147. Ibid.

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The specific reason that is given here for not inquiring into the hidden, eternal decree is the connection in the divine will between election and faith. The latter is the means God has willed for noetic access to the former. This means that, secondly, Calvin is here introducing a significant nuance into his view of God’s election of individuals. The nuance is that their election is not the only thing that God has decreed for them; he has also decreed their faith. In a remarkable passage, he asserts: Therefore they are mad who seek their own or others’ salvation in the labyrinth of predestination, not keeping to the way of faith displayed to them. Indeed, by this wrong-headed speculation they attempt to overthrow the power and effect of predestination; for if God has elected us to the end that we may believe, take away faith and election will be imperfect. But it is wrong to break the unbroken and ordained order of beginning and end in God’s counsel.170 What is striking about this is the supreme importance it attaches to faith in Christ as the mediator of salvation. Election is not alone. The decree is never merely a decree of certain ends but rather carries within it a sequence of means whereby the end of election is achieved. Christ mediates the salvation that flows from eternal election by being the object of the elect person’s faith. Calvin continues: Moreover, since the election of God carries his calling with it by an inseparable bond, so when God has effectually called us to faith in Christ it should have as much force with us as if he confirmed his decree concerning our salvation with an engraven seal. For the testimony of the Spirit is nothing but the sealing of our adoption. Therefore every man’s faith is an abundant witness to the eternal predestination of God.171 For Calvin, then, both election and the faith which come from God’s calling the elect to Christ stand together as one inseparable reality. They are executed separately – one in eternity, one in time – but we may not consider one without the other. Precisely because election comes with faith annexed to it, faith in Christ is a valid basis for assurance of election. It is clear that the issue of assurance of election is lying not far beneath the surface of Calvin’s exegesis here, and the matter raises its head repeatedly in Calvin’s treatments

170

171

Ibid (emphasis added). Parker’s translation omits two clauses of Calvin’s Latin which I have translated above: propositam sibi fidei viam non tenentes. Imo praepostera hac speculatione vim praedestinationis et effectum evertere conantur (CO 47, p. 147). Ibid.

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of Christ and election.172 In his third sermon on Ephesians, in answer to the question of how a person may know their election, Calvin provides a graphic illustration to say that the answer to this question is simply: By believing in Jesus Christ. I said before that faith proceeds from election and is the fruit of it, which shows that the root is hidden within. Whosever then believes is thereby assured that God has worked in him, and faith is, as it were, the duplicate copy (la foy est comme le double) that God gives us of the original of our adoption (l’original de nostre adoption). God has his eternal counsel, and he always reserves to himself the chief and original record (l’original, et comme le principal registre) of which he gives us a copy by faith.173 Similarly, in Calvin’s treatment of Jn 10.28, (kavgw. di,dwmi auvtoi/j zwh.n aivw,nion kai. ouv mh. avpo,lwntai eivj to.n aivw/na kai. ouvc a`rpa,sei tij auvta. evk th/j ceiro,j mou), we can see clearly the nexus of election, faith and assurance all functioning together as a unified whole. Calvin comments: It is the incomparable fruit of faith that Christ bids us be sure and untroubled when we are brought by faith into his fold. But we must also see what basis this assurance rests on. It is that he will be the faithful guardian of our salvation, for he says that it is in his hand. And as if this were not enough, he says that they will be safely protected by his Father’s power. This is a remarkable passage, teaching us that the salvation of all the elect is as certain as God’s power is invincible.174 This explicit connection between election and assurance is perhaps one of the clearest indicators of how Christ functions as the temporal mediator of salvation for Calvin. If we imagine his doctrine of election traced across a ‘time-line’, we begin in eternity with election in Christ. While properly described as an election done by the Father, Calvin is clear that Christ nevertheless participates in the choosing. This is a choosing of people to belong to him. As we move along the time-line and enter the world of created reality, we encounter a universal calling of the gospel which is made effective in the hearts of the elect. Here they come to faith in Christ, and experience regeneration and adoption into God’s family. Further along the line – logically, but not necessarily temporally – this faith in Christ carries with it the testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of the elect so that as they look to Christ, the mirror of their own election, the Spirit seals their salvation to them. In this way 172

173 174

Cf. R. C. Zachman, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 217–219. Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 47; CO 51, p. 281. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 4, p. 273); CO 47, pp. 249–250.

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the elect person is assured of her salvation. The work of Christ which begins in eternity with eternal election, reaches its temporal culmination in his mediation of assurance of this election by means of faith in him. ‘With Calvin, election has to do with the surprise that one is safe with God, is ultimately secure. That is the heart of the doctrine.’175 Christ stands as Mediator over both election and assurance – election is in him and known in him. As he puts it: ‘Christ therefore is for us the bright mirror (luculentum speculum) of the eternal and hidden election of God, and also the earnest and pledge (arra et pignus). But we contemplate by faith the life which God represents to us in this mirror; and by faith we lay hold of the pledge and earnest.’176 I can now draw together the strands of my argument concerning Christ as Mediator in Calvin. Richard Muller suggests that Calvin’s concept of Christ predestined as head of the elect provides a significant development within the Augustinian and medieval tradition. Whereas in that tradition it is not so much ‘the person of the mediator that is predestined but only the abstraction of the human nature . . . Calvin attempts to move beyond this doctrine to a conception involving the whole person of Christ, the concrete, historical mediatoris persona.’177 This predestination does represent the eternal pole of Calvin’s Christology – it happens before time and is focused on the divine Son. Nevertheless, ‘Calvin speaks of the person of Christ as Deus manifestatus in carne. There is no speculative consideration of the natures apart from their union in the person. Calvin must depart from a doctrine which examines the predestination of an abstract humanity which does not exist apart from their union in the person.’178 It is to the person, accessible to us in time by virtue of the union of natures, that we must direct our attention. When Calvin does follow Augustine in commenting on the predestination of Christ, it is clear that his intention is not to comment on the ontological specifics of the eternal determination of the Son as Redeemer. Rather, the predestination of the person of Christ according to his human nature is an ‘example’ (exemplum) to us that election is free and gracious – there was no merit inherent in the human nature which the divine Word assumed. Calvin notes Augustine’s words: we have in the very Head of the church the clearest mirror of free election that we who are among the members may not be troubled about it; and that he was not made Son of God by righteous living but was freely given such honour so that he might afterward share his gifts with others.179 175 176 177 178 179

Van der Kooi, As in a Mirror, p. 165. Eternal Predestination, p. 127; De Aeterna, p. 154. Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 37. Ibid. Inst. III.xxii.1, p. 933; OS 4, p. 380. Cf. Inst. II.xvii.1.

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The predestination of the person, in carne, roots Calvin’s emphasis firmly in the temporal sphere. This means that in Calvin’s treatment of the eternal sphere he is extremely reticent to discuss Christ as the object of election in ways which offer specific comment on issues like the immanent trinitarian relations. In his sermon on Eph. 1.4–6 he says: ‘I told you that Jesus Christ is the mirror in which God beholds us when he wishes to find us acceptable to himself. Likewise, on our side, he is the mirror on which we must cast our eyes and look, when we desire to come to the knowledge of our election.’180 We may say that for Calvin the fundamental tenor of Christ’s role in election concerns this matter of where we must look and what we must know in order to understand election. Christ’s eternal mediation is vitally important, to be sure, but it is so less because of the knowledge it gives about the trinitarian ground of election, and more because of the knowledge it gives of free and certain salvation. That is to say, even where Calvin is describing God looking on Christ instead of on humanity, he is less concerned to comment on what this means for Christ in relation to the decree as he is to stress what it means for us that God has acted in this way. The constant refrain in his Ephesians commentary and sermons is that election in Christ proves beyond all doubt that election is free, given humankind’s inherent corruption. Calvin’s concern is not to make Christ as object the content of the decree, but rather to make Christ as object the ground of the decree’s gratuity. This means that it is the realm of Christ’s temporal mediation and the issues which surface in temporal salvation – faith, merit, cause – which are Calvin’s real focus in his doctrine of election. Simply put, Calvin has a lot more to say about how Christ mediates an election that is learnt by faith in temporal salvation than he does about how Christ mediates this election in the first place. The doctrine of election that emerges from a close reading of Calvin’s exegesis is soteriologically christocentric.

2.3. Christ as Elected Man We now come to consider Jesus Christ as the object of election in Barth. His way of describing this is Christ as ‘elected man’ (erwählte Mensch). As with Christ as the electing God, so here the first movements of Barth’s argument appear in §32.2 in his treatment of the foundation of election; his concern is to remove any notion of a general anthropology in the doctrine. Having already argued that Holy Scripture concentrates our attention and thoughts on the name of Jesus Christ as the God we must reckon with in election, so too Barth argues that Jesus Christ is how Scripture speaks of man in connection with election. At this early point in his argument Barth provides a bird’s-eye view of the biblical narrative. He notes that although Scripture begins with Adam, the 180

Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 47; CO 51, pp. 281–282.

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focus of the narrative is precisely not on humanity per se, but rather on a specific lineage: We are led most firmly and definitely from the general to the particular (aus der Weite in die Enge). Here and always it is in the sphere of the particular (Besonderheit) that the events are played out which it is the purpose of the Bible to record concerning man. It is for the sake of the particular that the Bible is interested and seeks to interest its readers in man.181 From here Barth summarizes the entire sweep of the Old Testament as unfolding in four distinct epochs which each in their own way reveal the narrowing down of humanity from the general to the particular: from Adam to Jacob–Israel; from the beginnings of the nation to the Davidic kingship; from David to the exile; and from the exile to the return. Within each of these four epochs, Barth traces a narrowing down which centres on the kingly line. This reaches both high points in David himself, and low points in sons who are the exact opposite of David. Barth understands Jeconiah, a ‘pitiful ex-king and shadow-ruler’, to be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 49–53 but who nevertheless ‘belonged no less to the Davidic monarchy than his forefather David himself’.182 This Davidic line continues in the fourth Old Testament period when the grandson of Jehoiachin, Zerubbabel, is raised up as a ‘deputy-ruler’. Barth’s argument here is that the life of the nation of Israel was directed towards one individual figure – the king – and that therefore this narrowing down to the king provides a Scriptural nexus of promissory categories which are fulfilled in the incarnation of the Word: In the person of this King there enters the man as whose type Adam had already been the man. In Adam’s case it was man the creature of God, and forthwith the sinful creature. In this case it was man the Son of God, more powerful and righteous than David, more wise and glorious than Solomon . . . the man who has to suffer shame and insult, although quite differently from Jeconiah. It is also the man who rebuilds the temple, although quite differently from Zerubbabel . . . This is the man who is the fulfilment of the promise and hope of his people, and the meaning and purpose of its existence and history. As such he is very man . . . This man, who as God’s son is the King of his people, is elected man.183

181 182 183

CD II/2, p. 55; KD II/2, p. 58. Ibid., p. 56; p. 60. Ibid., p. 58; pp. 61–62.

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Barth’s concern here is to criticize a tendency in the tradition to discuss election by focusing on elect individuals, or even on an elect people, before discussing the election of Jesus. To treat election in this way is to ignore the movement from the general to the particular in Scripture which is concentrated on Jesus Christ. When Barth turns to expound Christ as the elected man in more detail in §33, he is again explicit in his criticism of the traditional concept and two main remarks in this regard preface his exegetical comments. First, while the tradition held the view that in his humanity Jesus Christ was one of the elect, Barth judges that this position cannot be maintained without the prior belief in Jesus Christ as electing God. The argument is essentially an argument to safeguard Christ’s divinity: If the testimony of Holy Scripture concerning the man Jesus Christ is true, that this man does stand before God above and on behalf of others, then this man is no mere creature but he is also the Creator, and his own electing as Creator must have preceded his election as creature. In one and the same person he must be both elected man and electing God.184 Second, this tight connection means that it is therefore essential to maximize the sense in which Christ is the elect man, and not merely one of the elect, standing alongside them. Precisely because Christ is the electing God, then ‘the eternal divine decision as such has as its object and content the existence of this one created being, the man Jesus of Nazareth.’185 By making this man the content of the divine decree, God executes his covenant with man, securing the salvation of all men. This is given clearest expression by Barth here in his brief comment on Eph. 1.4: ‘In him’ does not simply mean with him, together with him, in his company. Nor does it mean only through him, by means of that which he as elected man can be and do for them. ‘In him’ means in his person, in his will, in his own divine choice, in the basic decision of God which he fulfils over against every man. What singles him out from the rest of the elect, and yet also, and for the first time, unites him with them, is the fact that as elected man he is also the electing God, electing them in his own humanity.186 Whereas Calvin reads Eph. 1.4 very definitely in the category of Christ as the object of election, the example and type of the election of others, Barth 184 185 186

Ibid., p. 116; pp. 124–125. Ibid., p. 116; p. 125. Ibid., pp. 116–117; p. 125.

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reads the text in a way which straddles both subject and object conceptualities. It refers to the choice of Jesus Christ to choose others: ‘In that he (as God) wills himself (as man), he also wills them.’187 At this point Barth now provides a small-print excursus to show his exegetical understanding of Christ as elected man. It is strikingly brief. Arguably, the reason for this brevity is found in his opening sentence. Barth begins by referring to Jn 1.1–2 and its reference to the man Jesus; this, he says, ‘contains self-evidently this second assertion, that Jesus Christ is elected man’.188 In many ways, it seems that for Barth Jn 1.1–2 almost says all that it is necessary to say exegetically about Jesus Christ as the subject and the object of election. On his reading, the text shows both that Jesus Christ is to be identified with the true God, and that the Jesus Christ who is true God is also true man. This act of self-determination within the divine life is understood again by Barth as an act of election, so that the fact that it was the human Jesus who was in the beginning with God necessarily points to the election of humanity. Here Barth argues that all the Johannine passages which speak of the Son’s submission to the Father and of him doing the Father’s will point to Christ as elected man. These passages stand alongside ‘all the other New Testament passages so far quoted’ to show that we find in Jesus Christ ‘and therefore in a creature distinct from God the divine decree in the very beginning’.189 For Barth their combined effect is testimony ‘to a second and passive meaning of the election of Jesus Christ’.190 Having laid this foundation, Barth does now proceed to include a number of other biblical passages and the effect is to introduce a highly significant feature of his view of Christ as object. He cites Jn 17.24, and the use of evklelegme,noj in Lk. 9.35 and evklekto,j in Lk. 23.35, to argue that (especially in the Lukan quotations) Jesus’ identification as the Christ is one which is tied to suffering. Here, quoting G. Schrenk, Barth says: ‘He is elected man not only in his passion and in spite of his passion, but for his passion.’191 Barth sees a reference to the passion in Jn 17.24 and also in a range of other New Testament texts: Acts 2.23, 4.27–28; 1 Pet. 1.20; Heb. 9.14 and Rev. 13.8. These are parallel to the Isaianic portrayal of the suffering servant. The final passage referred to is Heb. 2.11–18 which is a very clear example for Barth of election for suffering – in this text, the goal of Jesus’ incarnation is to destroy death by dying. It is a classic instance of how Barth understands the incarnation to be election itself, but the reason for the incarnation given here is an immensely important indicator of the kind of election that is in view. Only a few pages further, Barth will refer to this 187 188 189 190 191

Ibid., p. 117; p. 125. Ibid., p. 117; p. 126. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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election to suffering as one of the important things that is needed to supplement properly the traditional doctrine of election; the significance of this feature in his thought, given his distinctive conception of election and rejection as realized in Christ, should not be underestimated. In §33.2, Barth will go on to develop significantly this idea by explaining his unique conception of double predestination: because Jesus Christ is elected man as well as electing God, this means that God elects himself to fellowship with man (and so chooses rejection) and elects man to fellowship with himself (and so bestows gift and inestimable blessing).192 However, these brief references to biblical texts – citing of verses and some quotations – are all Barth has to say on this topic exegetically. It is clear that Barth here feels that his case is selfevident and that the passages he refers to make his point for him, virtually without any additional comment. This is the exegesis of Christ as the object of election in Barth. It shows Barth’s principial christocentrism in at least three ways. First, his assertion that the traditional Reformed concept of Christ as the elect man is unsustainable without the prior belief that Jesus Christ is the electing God shows just how far his Christology defines his understanding of election. Second, his concern to overcome a commitment to a general concept of ‘mankind’ in the doctrine of election again leads to a christological concentration of the topic so that Jesus Christ is himself the elect man. Third, the concept of election having been redefined christologically, Barth also redefines the concept of rejection christologically so that again we see the wide ranging nature of his principial christocentrism. His understanding of rejection is absorbed by the christological categories of Christ’s suffering so that double predestination itself comes to have christological ground and content. The different versions of christocentrism that emerge from Calvin’s and Barth’s exegesis means that at the heart of the contrast between them in this area lie two different understandings of the doctrine of the Trinity and its relationship to election.

Conclusion: Trinity and Election Barth’s treatment of Christ’s role in election diverges radically from the same nexus of ideas in Calvin. Barth’s exegesis of Jn 1.1–2 lies at the heart of the difference between them. This passage functions in his argument to provide a two-tiered approach to the topic of Christ and election: he first seeks to prove that predestination is the election of Jesus Christ, and then works outwards from this to Jesus Christ as electing God and elected man. In each case, Jn 1.1–2 is held to be a self-evident example of these statements. This text contains the concepts which all of Barth’s following exegesis further amplifies and means that even Barth’s references to the same Johannine 192

Ibid., pp. 161–175; pp. 175–191.

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passages as used by Calvin are based on an entirely different conceptual foundation. His understanding of election is principially christocentric. In contrast to this, we may say that Calvin’s approach is one-tiered – the election of Christ is only treated in Calvin’s comments on Jn 6.70, 13.18, 15.16, 19 and he does not define predestination as the election of Christ. There is a similarity between both interpreters in aiming to show that Christ himself, by virtue of his deity, truly does participate in the divine election as an active subject, but the basis on which this demonstration rests is radically different. For Barth, Jesus Christ is the subject precisely because he is himself the election of God. He chooses because there is no other behind or above him who may do the choosing. He is the self-determined God, representing in himself the choice of God. This means that the emphasis for Barth does not fall on who it is that Christ actually chooses in the Johannine passages, whereas this is a matter of greatly nuanced discussion in Calvin. ‘Election’ is not used by Calvin as a category for describing God-self, and Jesus Christ is never identified with election itself in the way that Barth suggests. Election plays a self-determining role within the triune identity for Barth in a way in which it does not for Calvin. Calvin’s exegesis rests on and reveals traditional conceptions of the shared work of the persons of the Trinity and the extra Calvinisticum; Barth’s exegesis rests on and reveals his radical understanding of the eternal being of Jesus Christ. This means that the difference between Calvin and Barth in terms of Christology and election can be expressed like this: Calvin’s Christ chooses a portion of humanity and, according to his divine nature, this choosing may be said to be eternal; but the choosing itself is not one that is conditioned by God’s election of the whole of humanity. Barth’s Christ, however, is himself the concrete expression of the fact that God wills a universal election, a being-towards-us in grace so that it is this Christ who chooses humanity. On this view, there is no way the Logos could will an election which divides humanity into two camps because the Logos himself, choosing as Logos incarnandus, is already a Logos turned towards the world in grace. A particularly clear example of this difference is seen in the issue of a possible distinction that Jesus makes between the disciples in Jn 13.18. Calvin wrestles with this distinction and Barth does not mention it. This impinges directly on the difference between them over the asarkos/incarnandus question for, if Calvin’s exegesis is defensible, then it poses the question whether Barth has reckoned fully with the particularistic Christ of the New Testament. If the economic Trinity is a faithful reflection of the immanent Trinity, then the most unproven aspect of Barth’s position is why a particularistic economic Christ is not seen as didactic of the immanent being of Christ. In other words, on what grounds is Barth right to hold that the election carried out by God in God’s movement towards humanity is universal if Christ himself excludes some from his choosing? The exegetical issues 81

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to be faced here turn on the kind of ‘choosing’ that Christ is the subject of in John’s Gospel: is it a salvific choosing or a choosing for vocation? This kind of argument is essentially concerned with the ontological differences between Calvin and Barth in their doctrines of election. In both cases, however, their respective exegesis is tied to explicitly pastoral concerns – most notably the problem of assurance – and for both exegetes their understanding of the trinitarian basis of election impinges directly on how they understand election to offer assurance to the believer. It is not too much of an overstatement to say that for Barth the Achilles heel of Calvin’s doctrine of election is located precisely in its destruction of any meaningful assurance. Calvin’s failure to recognize that his view of Christ’s place in election cannot give assurance is ‘the decisive objection which we have to bring against his whole doctrine of predestination’.193 In large measure, Barth’s own proposal is an attempt to save the Reformed doctrine of election from itself by so construing it as to provide genuine assurance of salvation. Precisely by arguing against a general doctrine of God and a general anthropology, Barth attempts to eliminate a concept of mystery in election which ends up viewing both the electing God and elected man as unknown quantities: For as long as we are left in obscurity on the one side or the other, and in practice both, as long as we cannot ultimately know, and ought not to know, and ought not even to ask, who is the electing God and the elected man, it does not avail us in the least to be assured and reassured that in face of this mystery we ought to be silent and to humble ourselves and to adore. For truly to be silent and to humble ourselves and to adore we must know with whom and with what we have to do.194 By constructing his doctrine of election to give the kind of assurance which he feels Calvin’s lacks, Barth therefore seeks to fill the content of the subject and object conceptualities wholly with the name of Jesus Christ. The Logos incarnandus as both subject and object tells us that we can know who is the God who chooses (Jesus Christ) and who is the man who is elected ( Jesus Christ). Berkouwer states the fundamental pastoral position which this argument creates: ‘with Barth Christ is not so much the mirror of election as

193 194

CD II/2, p. 111; KD II/2, p. 119. Ibid., p. 147; p. 159; cf. Berkouwer’s observation: ‘It is perfectly clear what motivates Barth to this line of thinking. He wants to solve the problem connected with preaching Christ – the speculum electionis – in a manner that will banish all uncertainty. He wants to anchor our election in the factuality of Christ, whom he presents as the electing God, who is gracious to man and wants to live in communion with him’ (Divine Election, p. 161).

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the manifestation of the election of God, a universal manifestation which may be regarded in unbelief, but which cannot be undone.’195 However, if for Barth a properly christological foundation to both the subject and object of election is essential for assurance, for Calvin we may say that it is Christ’s role as object which has the greater part to play in providing assurance (and, strictly speaking, Christ as the object of faith). We have observed how he regards Christ, sent from the Father the ultimate author of life, to be the author of life to us in his capacity as Mediator. When God elects he starts from himself, but would have us begin with Christ. In his comments on Jn 17.8–10, Calvin discusses the words which the Father gave to Jesus and which he has given to his disciples. After explaining that Christ is speaking here in his person as the Mediator, Calvin states: Yet we must keep to John’s testimony at the beginning that, inasmuch as Christ was the eternal Word of God, he was always one God with the Father. Therefore, the meaning is that Christ was a faithful witness of God to the disciples, so that their faith was grounded on nothing but the truth of God, inasmuch as the Father himself spoke in the Son . . . The sum of it is that faith should look directly at Christ, yet so as to know nothing earthly or contemptible about him, but to be carried up to his divine power, so as to be firmly persuaded that in himself he has perfectly God and all that is of God.196 Similarly on 17.10, arguing that we must not seek salvation outside of Christ, Calvin continues: ‘But we shall not be satisfied with Christ, unless we know that in him we possess God. We must therefore believe that there is a unity between the Father and the Son, so that they have nothing separate from each other.’197 It is expressions like this which serve to focus Calvin’s christocentrism in election firmly in the temporal sphere of Christ’s call to believe in him: faith should look directly at Christ. Expressions like this, in Calvin’s mind at least, would also serve to ward off the claims by Barth that a Deus nudus absconditus lurks at the heart of his doctrine of election. How so? We recall 195 196

197

Berkouwer, Divine Election, p. 161. Comm. John (CNTC, vol. 5, p. 140); CO 47, p. 380; cf. Commentary on Jn 6.32, 45, 57, 15.15. Ibid., p. 141; p. 381; cf. ‘But if we have been chosen in him, we shall not find assurance of our election in ourselves; and not even in God the Father if we conceive of him as severed from his Son. Christ, then, is the mirror wherein we must, and without selfdeception may, contemplate our own election . . . Moreover, since he is the eternal wisdom of the Father, his unchangeable truth, his firm counsel, we ought not to be afraid of what he tells us in his word varying in the slightest from that will of the Father which we seek. Rather, he faithfully reveals to us that will as it was from the beginning and ever shall be’ (Inst. III.xxiv.5, pp. 970–971; OS 4, pp. 415–416).

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here the question that Bruce McCormack puts to Barth in examining his view of the Logos asarkos: ‘Does he merely wish to say that the activity of God the Reconciler is the perfect expression of the divine essence (so that essence precedes act as the ground of the latter)?’198 While McCormack’s aim is clearly to challenge the suitability of this view as a description of Barth’s position, it is a helpful description of how Calvin understands the relation between the Logos asarkos and the Logos incarnatus which underlies his exegesis. As Paul Helm suggests, for Calvin ‘becoming incarnate as the Christ is an apt and consistent expression of the character of the Word’, and ‘the Incarnation expresses the divine essence without exhaustively revealing it.’199 This makes the revelation of God in Christ a faithful and true revelation without being an exhaustive revelation – for Calvin the tenability of holding that there are some aspects of the divine life that are not revealed is exegetically warranted by the fact that Christ himself states that the Father chooses to give certain individuals to him. Calvin understands this giving to be a distinguishing giving, one that divides among humanity, and the answer to the question why one is chosen and not another is located in the depths of the divine wisdom which we should not try to penetrate. In this way, while Barth’s understanding of Christology and election is a way of describing the being of the triune God, Calvin’s conception of Christology and election comes to rest most firmly in the soteriological realm with the spotlight falling on the need for obedient faith in Christ. Here the foundational differences between a principial christocentrism and a soteriological christocentrism are on clear display.

198 199

McCormack, ‘Grace and Being’, p. 96. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, p. 63, p. 64. Helm’s discussion of this issue follows his treatment of ‘God in Se and Quoad Nos’ in Calvin’s thought (pp. 11–34). T. H. L. Parker argues that in his sermons, when referring to God, Calvin dwells on explaining quel est nostre Dieu – ‘what is our God [like]’ – a phrase which mirrors his insistence on learning about God’s ‘inward and outward attitude towards us’ in Inst. I.ii.2. Calvin eschews discussing quid sit Deus and instead concentrates on qualis sit Deus (Calvin’s Preaching, p. 97).

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Introduction The different conceptions of the relationship between Christology and election in Calvin and Barth are drawn largely from their exegesis of different biblical texts. In many ways this is not surprising. Distinct forms of christocentrism and divergent hermeneutical approaches would lead us to expect the use of different passages to co-ordinate an understanding of Christology’s connection with election. But what happens when Calvin and Barth read the same text in detail? In this chapter we will see that these contrasting positions also exist when Calvin and Barth examine a locus classicus for the doctrine of election: Romans 9–11. Their radically different interpretations of this passage allow us to observe in detail how their respective soteriological–principial forms of christocentrism exhibit themselves even when treating aspects of election which the biblical text does not explicitly connect to Christology. These conceptual distinctions are required to make sense of such radically different interpretations of the one text. For instance, without the set of distinctions adopted here, a way of explaining the difference between Calvin and Barth on Romans 9–11 might be to say that one interpreter simply has a better sense of Romans 9–11 as a whole than the other. This position is initially attractive. Barth suggests that predestination is often considered without a ‘coherent (zusammenhängend) consideration’ of this text.1 Earlier in his argument Barth had hinted at what such a coherent treatment involves: ‘we cannot overlook the fact that in [Romans 9–11] their final word is one of testimony to the divine Yes to Israel (to the Israel which had crucified Christ). Only when they are understood in the light of this final word can they be understood aright.’2 This is highly significant for Barth’s exegesis. The divine hardening of chapter 9 is drastically relativized when seen in the 1 2

CD II/2, p. 202; KD II/2, p. 222. Ibid., p. 15; p. 15.

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light of chapter 11, where hardening is both temporary and subordinate to the greater goal of God’s mercy. Calvin, however, nowhere in his commentary provides an explicit statement of the significance of Rom. 9–11 as a textual unit, and his treatment of hardening and mercy in chapter 9 is not interpreted in the light of chapter 11. But this difference should not be overstated. A far more intriguing contrast between Calvin and Barth emerges when we realize that whatever the differences in their exegesis it is not because Calvin failed to see that Rom. 9–11 exists as an argument. His conception of the argument is certainly at odds with Barth’s, but this is not the same as claiming he has no conception of it at all. In his Argumentum, Calvin here asserts that the whole of the epistle is ‘methodical’ (methodica) and that ‘The writer’s art is evident in many points which we shall note as we proceed, but it is particularly displayed in the way in which the main argument is deduced.’3 His understanding of why chapter 9 appears in the flow of the letter is certainly not the same as modern understandings, but he wrestles seriously with the abrupt change of subject matter. Indeed, Calvin’s struggle at this point is explained in terms of wondering why Paul ‘commences his new exposition as if he had already touched on it previously’. The reason for Paul’s dramatic change here is precisely because the natural question to ask after the preceding chapters of Romans is: ‘If this is the doctrine of the law and the prophets, how does it happen that the Jews so obstinately reject it?’4 Calvin approaches chapter 9 with the express realization that Paul’s concern is primarily to provide an explanation for Jewish unbelief. When he comes to discuss the privileges of the Jewish people in 9.1–4, Calvin observes that although the text is describing the Jews, Paul’s purpose is actually directed towards the Gentiles: there is a danger that Gentiles would ‘depreciate the majesty of the gospel’ and so Paul’s aim is to leave the Gentiles ‘fully persuaded that the gospel had flowed to them from a heavenly fountain, from the sanctuary of God, and from a chosen nation’.5 So it seems clear to Calvin that Paul’s argument in chapter 9 about the Jews has as its goal specific admonitions to Gentile Christians in chapter 11. There are other similar statements in his exegesis.6 3

4 5 6

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 5); Ad Rom., p. 5. The English translation of Romans in CNTC vol. 8 is based on the Corpus Reformatorum edition of the commentary which has now been surpassed by T. H. L. Parker’s critical edition Iohannis Calvini Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos (Leiden: Brill, 1981). The translations provided above are checked against this edition (referred to here as Ad Rom.). Parker outlines the problems with the CR edition, and provides a superior notation of variants in the 1556 edition from the previous editions of 1551 and 1540 (XIII–XVII). For the context of Calvin’s Romans commentary, see T. H. L. Parker, Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans 1532–1542 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986). Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 190); Ad Rom., p. 192. Ibid., p. 194; p. 196. Cf. further examples in the Argumentum. Calvin explains that chapter 9 is concerned with answering the charge that the Jews’ rejection of Christ means ‘either that the

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The point here is to establish that simply because Calvin does not adopt the modern terminology of referring to ‘Romans 9–11’ this does not mean he is not operating exegetically with some conception of coherence. The most intriguing issue, then, in comparison between Calvin and Barth is not that one operated with a sense of the whole while the other did not, but rather that a broadly shared conception of the whole text is nevertheless still capable of yielding such different exegetical constructions. If Calvin did not simply fail to read chapter 9 in the light of 11, nor overlooked the fact that what is really at stake here is God’s faithfulness to his covenant, what is there that allows him to give an exegetical account of the whole that is fundamentally at odds with Barth’s construal? I suggest that we will not get far in answering these questions without attending to the differences between Calvin’s and Barth’s soteriological and principial christocentrisms. This chapter provides a close reading of Calvin’s and Barth’s interpretation of Romans 9–11 in a way which brings these distinctions to the fore. In Barth’s exegesis of this passage his principial christocentrism comes into its own. His conception of Israel and the church as two forms of the one elect community is structured explicitly by the language of christological description: both forms of the community bear witness to God’s judgement and mercy in Jesus Christ. In numerous instances where the text itself does not appear to be discussing Christology we will see Barth place Christology centre-stage – not just in terms of the text’s connection to wider christological motifs, but in terms of the text actually having an explicit christological meaning. These christological meanings are often not self-evident, but are explained by Barth’s principial christocentrism. In Calvin’s reading of Romans 9–11, however, the very sparsity of his christological comments stands out strongly in contrast to Barth’s reading. Given that a major aspect of Calvin’s exegesis here is a strong emphasis on the issue of Israel’s salvation, does his lack of christological comment challenge a conception of this theology as christocentric in a soteriological sense? These facts should not mislead us. Calvin’s soteriological christocentrism stands out in his contention that Romans 9–11 operates with a distinguishing covenant was removed from the seed of Abraham’ or Jesus ‘was not the promised Redeemer’. In chapter 10, Calvin feels that in the flow of the argument ‘The question, however, remained whether the covenant of God had made some difference between the seed of Abraham and other nations.’ In chapter 11, the conclusion is that ‘the covenant remains even in the physical descendants of Abraham, but only in those whom the Lord has predestined by his free election’ (Comm. Rom., CNTC, vol. 8, pp. 9–10; Ad Rom., pp. 8–9). So it is clear that for Calvin the bearing of Jewish rejection of the gospel on the covenant with the Jews is the theme which unites Romans 9–11. Note too Calvin’s comment in his dogmatic excursus on election in his lectures on Malachi: ‘With regard to election, the ninth chapter to the Romans ought to be sufficient, or rather the three chapters, for Paul pursues the same argument to the end of the eleventh chapter.’ Comm. on the Twelve Minor Prophets (CTS, vol. v; Edinburgh: 1846–1849), p. 480; CO 44, p. 407.

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principle between a general, temporal election of the nation of Israel, and a particular, eternal election of individuals from within that nation. It is precisely in his relating this eternal election to the secret and impenetrable divine decree that we see Calvin’s reticence to introduce christological terminology – the reason is his preference for placing Christ’s redeeming work at the historical centre of the biblical narrative, and not in the realm of the eternal choosing between individuals. To be sure, as we have seen in Chapter 2, Calvin holds that Christ chooses in this eternal sense. We have also seen how minimal he is in these comments. This emphasis is again reflected in his reading of Romans 9–11. Calvin understands the passage to work on the basis of a Pauline argument about the ultimate ground of eternal election (God’s good pleasure alone), and because this ground exists within the sacred precincts of the eternal divine will there is little to connect it explicitly to Christology. Before coming to look at the details of their exegesis it will be helpful to provide some context to Calvin’s and Barth’s understandings of the election of Israel and the church. In both cases, I will touch briefly on the question of anti-Semitism in their respective interpretations.

1. Calvin on Israel and the Church Benjamin Milner locates Calvin’s doctrine of the church under the overarching concept of the order of God achieved by the work of the Spirit.7 In Calvin’s theology there exist three main levels of order – creation, man, political – and all are perverted by the fall so that in each one the ordo instigated by the ordinatio Dei and the work of the Spirit is ‘now marked by confusion and ataxia’.8 For Calvin, the restoration of order takes the form of ecclesiology. Milner’s work is instructive in showing precisely how Calvin conceives of this ecclesiological order: the church is repeatedly described in metaphorical terms as an organism, ‘a created, living and historically evolving reality’.9 Calvin’s metaphors, taken together, suggest that the church is conceived with Adam and Eve, foetally develops under the patriarchs, is born at the Exodus, and – together with these – has Abraham for its father! From infancy on – adolescence, maturity – it presses toward a definite goal, although not without reversals and upheavals, and, decisively, not without being ‘born again’.10

7 8 9 10

B. C. Milner Jr, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church (Leiden: Brill, 1970), pp. 7–45. Ibid., p. 44. Ibid., p. 7 (emphasis added). Ibid., p. 9.

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This leads Milner to a crucial insight: ‘The church is not so much an institution in history in which the restoration of order has been accomplished, as it is itself the history of that restoration.’11 If this is correct, then it construes an underlying theological unity to the relationship of Israel and the church. The latter is not a new entity appearing in time after the Christ event and in the ministry of the apostles, but is rather a consistent description of the people of God throughout both testaments precisely because the concept ‘church’ is serving a larger theological purpose of the restoration of order. Milner’s work pieces together the history of this restoration from the full range of Calvin’s work. In Romans 9–11, however, as interpreted by Calvin in his Romans commentary, we find in one location a summary of the restoration of order. Here, in narrative form, as a condensed history of restoration placed in an eschatological context, all the salient features of Milner’s analysis can be found under one exegetical roof: the ordinationes Dei in the treatment of the covenant (both its inviolable and mutual, as well as hereditary character) and the degrees or kinds of election (general and particular), and the corresponding issue of the work of the Spirit in the creation of the church (effectual calling, faith and perseverance). Calvin’s exegesis here affords the opportunity to reflect in detail on how he understands the restoration to unfold coherently in the election of Israel and the church, as well as allowing us to observe his exegetical procedure more closely than is possible in scattered citations. This thick description of the theology of election and exegesis of election, from one particular text, challenges some prevailing attitudes to Calvin. Most pointedly, attention to Calvin on Romans 9–11 can suffer from the temptation to press his treatment of Israel and the church too quickly into answering important questions about anti-Semitism. Certainly, this cannot be dismissed as a ‘modern’ problem with no relevance whatsoever to Calvin studies.12 But while the election of Israel and the church in Calvin is closely related to the issue of his attitude to ‘the Jews’, it is not exactly the same issue. We must eschew reading Calvin here to discern his stance towards the Jews while either submerging or sidelining his explicit theology of Israel and the church. Just such a reading occurs in I. John Hesselink’s treatment.13 Hesselink distinguishes the issue of Calvin’s attitude to the Jews from Calvin’s understanding

11 12

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Ibid., p. 47. Cf. H. A. Oberman, The Roots of Anti-Semitism: In the Age of Renaissance and Reformation (trans. J. I. Porter; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Oberman distinguishes ‘anti-Semitism’ as a term (born in the race theory of the nineteenth century) from the roots of anti-Semitism (hatred of the Jews stretching back as far as Seneca), p. xi. He suggests that a more positive assessment of the Jews by Calvin and the early Reformed may be connected to a shared experience of diaspora and persecution (p. 141). I. J. Hesselink, ‘Calvin’s Understanding of the Relation of the Church and Israel Based Largely on His Interpretation of Romans 9–11’, Ex Auditu IV (1988), pp. 59–69.

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of the relation of the church to Israel, but then uses his analysis largely to comment on whether Calvin’s attitude to the Jews is negative or positive. The end result is that we learn very little about how Israel and the church are actually related. This underlying drive to explain Calvin in terms of positive or negative statements – and arguably the need to find a ‘positive’ Calvin – obscures what Calvin himself is actually doing in his commentary; explicitly theological concepts like the covenant are given scant attention and the argument of Romans 9–11 in Calvin’s hands is underplayed. The result is a more acceptable Calvin purchased at the cost of a less than satisfactory grasp of his theology of Israel and church. Calvin’s exegesis of Romans 9–11 presents a complex and multi-faceted understanding of the doctrine of election. His clear commitment to the unconditional predestination of individuals emerges as part of an exegesis which sees Paul wrestling in these chapters with the question of God’s faithfulness to his covenant. Much like Paul’s argument itself, Calvin’s position on the issue of Israel’s election resists simple classification and misleads some into overstatements about his hopes for the future salvation of Israel.14 Nevertheless, Calvin discerns in these chapters a coherent theology of the covenant which allows him to explain the origin of the covenant in the general election of the entire nation, but the ground of God’s faithfulness to the covenant in the particular election of individuals from within the nation. His description of the ‘election of Israel’ moves between both these forms of election. This also means that Calvin’s understanding of the church in these chapters is broader than merely being connected to the calling of the Gentiles or the admonitions to Gentile Christians in chapter 11. Indeed, although such language is scarce here, ‘church’ also seems capable of being applied to 14

The desire to accentuate the positive in Calvin’s attitude to the Jews leads Hesselink to claim something for Calvin’s exegesis which I will argue has very little support indeed: ‘Calvin does leave room for the possibility of the eventual salvation of Israel as a whole’ (ibid., p. 68). There are a range of positions on this question. D. Holwerda suggests that ‘based on Israel’s election, Calvin continued to hold to a future conversion of Jewish Israel’, but almost every part of this quotation suffers from ambiguity. If Holwerda means a future conversion in the same sense as Hesselink, it is hard to see how his references (Inst. III.xxi.5; IV.xvi.15) provide support for this assertion; cf. Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 3. A different position is outlined by D. Shute who castigates Calvin for doing his best to avoid Paul’s prediction of a future conversion of the Jews; cf. ‘And All Israel Shall be Saved: Peter Martyr and John Calvin on the Jews According to Romans, Chapters 9, 10 and 11’, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 115 (2004), pp. 159–176. While Shute rightly picks up on the strong critique of Israel in Calvin’s treatment of Romans 9–11, to say Calvin is against any concept of future conversion rides roughshod over his argument. Shute judges that Calvin’s language is ‘by no means unambiguous’ and that ‘he so hedges his argument that he seems unsure whether he might be “twisting” this Scripture a bit’ (p. 165). On the contrary, read in the context of his treatment of Rom. 9–11 as a whole, I will argue that Calvin’s interpretation of 11.25–26 is perfectly clear.

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Israel in both its forms of election. To describe the church as either ‘replacing’ or ‘abrogating’ Israel in Calvin’s theology is to use language far too ambiguous to be really useful – Israel can be both described as the church, or it may contain the church within it, depending on how Calvin is employing the terms in a given setting.15 We must follow his argument with care to understand how Calvin himself feels he is tracing out Paul’s intricate argument.16

2. Barth on the Community Significantly, in CD II/2 Karl Barth treats Romans 9–11 in §34 ‘The Election of the Community’. Here Barth argues that he is keeping to Holy Scripture which, unlike the classical doctrine of predestination, ‘is in no hurry to busy itself with the “many” men elected in Jesus Christ, either in the singular or plural’.17 Rather than the focus on individual destinies which so dogged the classical view, Barth works instead with the concept of a ‘mediate and mediating election’: the community (die Gemeinde). Barth chooses this concept because it unites as one the realities of Israel and the church and, as one community, this fellowship of men is ‘determined from all eternity for a peculiar service (Dienst)’.18 This language of vocation will be vital for Barth’s exegesis of Romans 9–11. He argues that the community is marked by both particularity (Besonderheit) and provisionality (Vorläufigkeit). Its particular character consists in the fact that it has to witness to Jesus Christ; its provisional character consists in the fact that it ‘points beyond itself to the fellowship of all men in face of which it is a witness and herald’.19 Thus the community is mediate (Mittler), in that it is the middle point between the election of Jesus and all of humanity and it is mediating (vermittelnd) in respect of its mission and function. The importance of these introductory comments are often missed in many contemporary treatments of Barth’s exposition of the election of the community. More often than not the emphasis falls on the relevance or otherwise 15

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17 18 19

Thus P. K. Jewett’s outline of Calvin’s view of the election of Israel goes astray with assertions such as: ‘The election of the church . . . supersedes rather than supplements the election of Israel’; cf. Election and Predestination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), pp. 36–37. The intricacies have generated descriptions of the arguments of both Paul and Calvin that are inadequate. For M. P. Engel, Paul’s text is full of contradictions and Calvin’s text simply mirrors it; cf. ‘Calvin and the Jews: A Textual Puzzle’, Princeton Seminary Bulletin ns.11 (1990), pp. 106–123 (p. 106). Conversely, Shute holds that Paul’s text is full of contradictions but Calvin ‘gets rid’ of them by presenting a consistent argument (‘And All Israel Shall be Saved’, pp. 173–174). CD II/2, p. 195; KD II/2, p. 215. Ibid., p. 196; p. 216. Ibid.

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of Barth’s position for ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue. It is impossible to ignore the implications of Barth’s work for this task, but his exegesis of Romans 9–11 is not in the first instance meant to serve this end.20 Rather, Barth’s exegesis is the bedrock of a far-reaching and extremely radical christological challenge to what he perceived to be the tradition’s misplaced emphasis on the problem of individual election. This attempt to make individual election wait its proper place is shaped by two key moves in Barth’s argument. First, this understanding of the election of the community is incomprehensible without Barth’s prior argument for Jesus Christ as electing God and elected man. Here the effects of his ‘purified’ supralapsarianism are strongly to the fore. The self-determination that takes place within the divine being to elect humanity is the determination from which the entire covenant of grace flows, so that creation itself is predicated on the divine decision to be God for us in this particular way: for Christ to be the electing God and the elected man, there must be a humanity.21 This means, however, that although divine election is worked out in history, the ground and origin of election’s inner life is immanent and not economic – it is the pre-existent Christ who shapes and forms the dynamic of election in the economy of grace. Barth’s supralapsarianism is expressed when he argues that God ‘elects the people of Israel for the purpose of assuming its flesh and blood’ and that ‘the election of Israel occurred for the sake of the Son of God and Man.’22 Furthermore, this immanent christological ground for election provides a theological and ontological basis for a crucial hermeneutical move in Barth’s exegesis of Romans 9–11. He states: ‘Now just as the electing God is one and elected man is one, i.e., Jesus, so also the community as the primary object of the one election which has taken place and takes place in Jesus Christ is one.’23 Notice what Barth has done here. The one covenant of grace has been moved from an economic foundation to a more determinative foundation within the divine life, and more precisely within the divine 20

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A. Paddison concedes this point: ‘It needs to be said that Barth himself never intended his exegesis to be a contribution to Jewish-Christian understanding. Barth was writing for no other audience but the church’; cf. ‘Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish-Christian Understanding’, JSNT 28.4 (2006), pp. 469–488 (p. 480). In arguing for the Church Dogmatics as intrinsically an ethical dogmatics, Webster suggests that it is best read, first, as one lengthy exposition of the statement that ‘God is’; and second, precisely because of this first point, ‘the Church Dogmatics is also all along the line an anthropology. For the form of God’s aseity, the chosen path of the divine being, is specified in the history of Jesus Christ; God’s freedom is freedom for fellowship.’ Cf. Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 3; see also pp. 47–51. CD II/2, p. 207, p. 296 (emphases added); KD II/2, p. 228, p. 326; cf. Paddison, ‘Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis’, p. 484. CD II/2, p. 197; KD II/2, p. 217.

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determination of the Word as Jesus Christ. By being the elected man as well as the electing God, the object of Christ’s election must necessarily be one – that is to say, Christ cannot elect ‘two humanities’ but only one, and therefore, despite variations in form or appearance, the election of humanity cannot be other than the election of one united community. Mark R. Lindsay asserts that Barth’s entire doctrine of reconciliation is predicated upon the indissolubility of the covenant between God and humankind which, on the basis of the christological core of election and rejection, remains as true of the covenant with Israel as it is of the covenant with the Church.24 The second move in Barth’s argument is an extension of this first one, and it develops the hermeneutical basis for his exegesis by applying the two-fold determination of Jesus Christ to the one community of God. What God chooses for himself in Christ – rejection and judgement – he determines for one form of the community (Israel); what God determines for mankind in Christ – fellowship and mercy – he determines for another form of the community (the church). Barth writes: What is elected in Jesus Christ (his ‘body’) is the community which has the twofold form of Israel and the Church. The glory of the election, the love of God to man as the basis of the election, the bow of the covenant (der Bogen des Bundes) that God in his love to man has from eternity purposed and established – all these are the same in the one case as in the other, for in both cases it is Jesus Christ who originally and properly is both Elector and Elected, and in both cases we find ourselves in his environment. Admittedly everything has a different form in the two cases. This difference is in the relation of election to the rejection which inevitably accompanies it. And it is in the twofold determination of Christ himself that this difference has its basis.25 For Barth the election of the community of God is the witness of history to the election of Jesus Christ. Israel in its historical existence must bear witness to what God has determined for himself in Christ (judgement); the church in its historical existence must bear witness to what God has determined for humanity in Christ (mercy).26 Radical new directions abound 24

25 26

M. R. Lindsay, Barth, Israel, and Jesus: Karl Barth’s Theology of Israel (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 90. CD II/2, p. 199 (emphasis added); KD II/2, p. 220. Cf. J. W. Simpson Jr, ‘The Jews of Today According to Twentieth-Century German Protestant Dogmatics’, Studia Biblica et Theologica 13 (1983), pp. 195–224 (pp. 203–205).

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here in the light of this formulation. Katherine Sonderegger is surely right to say that part of what is most innovative here is that Barth has placed his Israellehre within his doctrine of God.27 For our purposes, we note that it is this radical redefinition of the classical view of double predestination which shapes the precise structure of Barth’s argument and his approach to exegesis. In concert with a redefined double predestination, reflected in the double determination of the community, Barth accompanies his four sections in §34 with a running exegesis of Romans 9–11, each given titles which reflect his two-fold understanding of the community: (1) Israel and the Church (Rom. 9.1–5); (2) The Judgement and the Mercy of God (Rom. 9.6–29); (3) The Promise of God Heard and Believed (Rom. 9.30–10.21); (4) The Passing and the Coming Man (Romans 11). In each case Barth is describing the one elect community, Israel and the church, irreversibly joined together on the basis of their witness in two different forms to Jesus Christ. The grandeur of this conception of election is well stated by Sonderegger: The Christological center of Barth’s doctrine brings election into the living relationship of the Trinity, where the community, its history, and finally its individual flesh, rejected and assumed, find their meaning and source. No longer a doctrine of individual salvation, election now unfolds the eternal giving and receiving of the Son, through whom the covenant with creation is realized. The decision about the individual, and indeed, of the community and all creation, cannot stand alone. These decisions are secondary to the decision made in Christ, and are made real only in this primary, divine drama of self-giving and self-revelation.28 As with Calvin, however, we are again faced with the question of antiSemitism in Barth’s exegesis of Romans 9–11; the issue is even more sensitive given the context in which KD II/2 was written.29 There is little likelihood of theologians and biblical scholars reaching agreement about whether Barth’s rhetoric and theological position on Israel are acceptable within constructive theological discourse today. For one writer, Barth’s doctrine is capable of providing ‘a tremendous setback to anti-Semitism at its very roots’;30 for

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K. Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s ‘Doctrine of Israel’ (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), p. 45. Ibid., p. 51. Following his refusal to declare allegiance to Hitler in 1935, Barth was dismissed from his University post in Bonn and took up residence in Basel. Here, first delivered as lectures between 1939–1942, and to the sight and sounds of war, Barth was writing his KD II/2 doctrine of election. M. F. Sulzbach, ‘Karl Barth and the Jews’, Religion in Life 21.4 (1952), pp. 585–593 (p. 586).

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another, Barth’s exposition of Romans 9–11 must be recast because ‘for contemporary Christians to speak of Jews as paradigmatically disobedient is prima facie to speak disparagingly’, and the Holocaust witnesses to the results of such disparagement.31 It is not within my scope here to provide a detailed account of this question,32 but a couple of remarks are necessary. First, on the historical level, despite his clear clash with Nazism, some have seen in Barth’s practical actions either self-interest or ambiguity at best. However, the responses of Eberhard Busch to these detractors are cogent and deserve a hearing.33 He maintains that Barth’s practical conduct showed that he viewed National Socialism’s attitude to the ‘Jewish question’ as a betrayal of the gospel. Following protests about his sermon on 10 December 1933 which stressed that ‘Jesus Christ was a Jew’, Barth wrote to one woman from the congregation: ‘anyone who believes in Christ, who was himself a Jew, and died for Gentiles and Jews, simply cannot be involved in the contempt for Jews and ill-treatment of them which is now the order of the day.’34 Such instances abound, leading Busch to ask Barth’s critics: ‘what kind of church history scholarship is this in which Germans, in dealing with someone who was a victim of the Nazi regime, now claim in retrospect that he was in truth a child of that same evil spirit!’35 Busch recognizes that it may well have been possible for Barth to fight against political anti-Semitism but to have done so as a theological anti-Semite; he suggests that on the contrary we should read KD II/2 as ‘the theological basis for his practical position’.36 Second, in dealing with Barth’s negative comments about Judaism in his Romans exposition, I agree with Angus Paddison when he states: ‘It may be . . . that Barth’s reticence in dealing with Judaism as a living and vibrant faith is faithful to Rom. 9–11 itself, a text clearly predicated on the grounds

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D. E. Demson, ‘Israel as the Paradigm of Divine Judgment: An Examination of a Theme in the Theology of Karl Barth’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26 (1989), pp. 611–627 (p. 612); cf. also E. W. Stegemann, ‘Israel in Barths Erwählungslehre. Zur Auslegung von Römer 9–11 in KD II/2, §34’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 20 (2004), pp. 162–184. The literature is simply vast. For comprehensive bibliographies which deal with different aspects of the topic, cf. Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew; Lindsay, Barth, Israel, and Jesus. E. Busch, Unter dem Bogen des einen Bundes: Karl Barth und die Juden, 1933–1945 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996); idem, ‘The Covenant of Grace fulfilled in Christ as the Foundation of the Indissoluble Solidarity of the Church with Israel: Barth’s Position on the Jews in the Hitler Era’, trans. J. Seyler and A. NeufeldFast, SJT 52.4 (1999), pp. 476–503. To E. Steffens, 10 January 1934. Cited in E. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters, p. 235 (emphasis in translation); cf. also pp. 313–314. Busch, ‘The Covenant of Grace’, p. 479. Ibid., p. 482.

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of Israel’s unbelief.’37 Arguably the same is true for Calvin, and here the comparison of both interpreters at least gives us pause. Their expositions of Romans 9–11 differ enormously at virtually every turn. Yet if two very different treatments of Romans 9–11 both contain comments about ‘the Jews’ which may be construed as ‘negative’ and in various ways ‘disparaging’, then at least two points deserve consideration. First, a careful articulation of exactly what is meant by ‘negative’ language in each case is required.38 Second, the similarities between Calvin and Barth here beg the question whether the text on which both are commenting contains any sort of material which might generate such descriptions. This is not to suggest that Calvin and Barth are beyond reproach for their rhetoric. Interpreters will continue to differ as to how faithful to Paul their expositions of Romans 9–11 actually are, but the fact remains that their comments about the Jews and Israel, in this instance at least, arise out of an attempt to listen attentively to what the biblical text is saying. To charge both interpreters with forms of anti-Semitism here would be both a damning and an ironic verdict, given that both see clearly (in different ways) that the point of Paul’s argument is actually to circumvent a form of Christian anti-Semitism in his strong warnings against the boasting of Gentile Christians.39 With this background in place, it is time to turn to their interpretations of the text. The distinctive approaches taken by Calvin and Barth emerge best by laying out the key contrasts between their exegeses at each point of these chapters. These contrasts are explained by and result in a soteriological christocentrism and a principial christocentrism. Just as these contrasts led me in Chapter 2 to argue for a fundamental contrast between how Calvin and Barth conceive of the Trinity and election, so here these contrasts will make clear that Calvin and Barth have two different understandings of covenant and election.

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He argues that the merit of Barth’s interpretation lies in its unashamedly Christian character, with Jesus Christ as the centre of Scripture (cf. ‘Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis’, p. 485). For instance, it may well be that Calvin’s and Barth’s language should be analysed with the helpful set of distinctions suggested by P. Fredriksen: ‘Is anti-Judaism, then, the same as anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? I do not think so. The first is a theological position; the second, a racist one; the third, a political one’; cf. ‘The Birth of Christianity and the Origins of Christian Anti-Judaism’, in P. Fredriksen and A. Reinhartz (eds), Jesus, Judaism & Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), pp. 8–31 (p. 28). For a discussion of Barth which does perceive there to be ‘extremely unfortunate features’ in his stance towards the Jews, cf. F. B. Watson, ‘Barth’s Philippians as Theological Exegesis’, in Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Philippians (trans. J. W. Leitch; repr.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), pp. xxvi–li. Cf. N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), p. 253.

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3. Romans 9.1–23 3.1. Paul’s Sorrow: In Tension with Election or Sign of Solidarity? (vv. 1–4a) The treatments of the opening verses of Romans 9 provided by Calvin and Barth hint at the different directions their expositions will take. Calvin is explicit that Paul’s agony is on account of the ‘destruction (interitum) of the Jewish nation’ even though Paul does not mention that openly here. Calvin draws a pastoral lesson from Paul’s sorrowing stance: we should not think it improper to grieve ‘at the fall of profligate men’ even though in looking to God we should ‘willingly bear the ruin of those whom he has determined to destroy’.40 One mind is capable of holding two things in emotional tension – trust in God’s decree and grief at men’s fall. By implication, Calvin’s view here of the condition of Israel at the beginning of Romans 9 is extremely negative. This becomes even clearer in v. 3 with his treatment of Optarim enim ego ipse anathema esse a Christo pro fratribus meis: cognates inquam meis secundum carnem and especially the word anathema (avna,qema). This phrase shows both Paul’s love for the Jews, a love ‘which does not refuse even death for the salvation of a friend’, and this word (taken by Calvin to mean not only temporal but eternal death) shows precisely the terrible situation which Paul believes the people of Israel are in. The logic of Paul’s argument is that he ‘did not hesitate to call on himself the condemnation (damnationem) which he saw hanging over the Jews, in order that he might deliver them’.41 Here Calvin holds that as Paul looks at Israel, and while he both trusts in God’s decree and grieves at Israel’s fall, his emotions are engaged more with the latter of these two things – Paul ‘put [election] out of mind, and gave all his attention on the salvation of the Jews’.42 He feels so strongly about Israel and its gifts that he offers a real prayer wishing to trade places with Israel. Thus, although Paul ‘knew that his salvation was founded on the election of God which cannot by any means fail’,43 Calvin’s point is that this did not stop Paul loving Israel enough to wish he could trade his election for their condemnation. The intensity of Paul’s emotion is precisely because the Jews – and God’s gifts – are perishing. Indeed, here we should note how it is the gifts of God and the fate befalling them which arguably seem to operate as the dominating factors in determining how Paul feels about Israel: ‘Such was Paul’s love, for while he saw his own race endowed with so many of God’s benefits, he embraced the gifts of God in them, and

40 41 42 43

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 191); Ad Rom., p. 193. Ibid., p. 192; p. 193. Ibid., p. 192; p. 194. Ibid., p. 192; pp. 193–194.

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them for the sake of God’s gifts.’44 This will be significant in Calvin’s exegesis of vv. 4–5. Nevertheless, at the same time, a crucial feature of this verse for Calvin is that it is not ‘a bare and simple comparison between men’, a kind of contextless desire for substitution (albeit noble), but rather an incredible drama precisely because Paul sees the chosen nation of Israel as being cut off from hope of salvation. The force of Paul’s wish lies in who exactly it is he wishes he could trade places with. Calvin states that Paul’s ‘principal point’ here, which will soon ‘appear more evident from the context’ is that: God by his covenant had so highly exalted [the Jews] that if they fell, the faithfulness and truth of God Himself would also fail in the world. The covenant would have been made void (irritum foedus), which would, it is said, stand firm forever, as long as the sun and moon shall shine in the heaven (Ps. 72.5). Thus the abolition of the covenant would be more strange than the upheaval of the whole world in a dire and distressing upheaval.45 At this point then, for Calvin, Paul is beginning to juxtapose the incredible paradox that while the covenant cannot fail, this is precisely what seems to have happened with the terrible condemnation that is now hanging over the Jews. His personal agony is located within this paradox, and the use of anathema shows Paul is wrestling with the fact that the unthinkable seems to have happened: the Jews have fallen short of salvation because they are now anathema . . . a Christo. Calvin introduces these concepts here in v. 2 where they are not stated explicitly because he regards them as essential for explaining ‘what Paul’s principal point was’. Paul’s agony in v. 3 is only comprehensible when we understand that God had given the Jews ‘distinguishing characteristics which marked them off from the rest of the human race’.46 By contrast, in Barth’s treatment of these opening verses Paul’s suffering is an expression of his unity with Israel. For Barth, Israel’s unbelief seeks to separate Paul from them: ‘But this cannot succeed. Even in their unbelief they are and remain his “brethren”. His faith, the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ, unites him with them.’47 Whereas for Calvin, the apostle’s sorrow is generated by the gulf that exists between him and his fellow Israelites on account of God’s decree, for Barth the sorrow is acute precisely because Paul is not separate from them but bound to them as ‘brethren’ and by his apostolic office which places on him a Moses-like mediatorial role. Paul is in a position to exercise a two-fold yet united ministry of apostle and prophet. 44 45 46 47

Ibid., p. 192; p. 194. Ibid. Ibid. CD II/2, p. 202; KD II/2, p. 223.

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His ministry has always been to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles, and this means that he sees his task as being to show the Gentiles they are sharers in Israel’s election and to show Israel that it needs to be obedient ‘to the election that is in the deepest sense their own’.48 Thus because his apostolic office is inextricably bound to Israel, so his apostolic call to the church is inextricably bound to Israel. Election here is twice described in relation to Israel as ‘their own’, so that the election of the church is simply something that it shares, as a latecomer, with Israel. Paul is bound to both church and Israel, and for Barth the fact that Paul is willing ‘even to renounce his own portion in Christ’ shows the extent of his unity with unbelieving Israel.49 Paul’s sorrow expresses solidarity with Israel in that Paul has simply arrived at a point that the rest of Israel may yet and indeed must still aspire to – belief in the Messiah. This creates a different reading of the avna,qema phrase in Barth. Whereas for Calvin the phrase highlights the terrible (actual) plight of the Jews, for Barth it represents the (hypothetical) lengths that Paul would be willing to go to ‘for the sake of the conversion of Israel, for the sake of the completion of the unity between the Church and Israel’. Calvin’s reading suggests a terrible salvific gulf between Paul and Israel and such is his agony at this gulf that he is even willing to trade places. Barth’s reading suggests an apostolic bond between Paul and Israel so that his agony is that of an Israelite who has recognized what all Israelites should have recognized and he is even willing to trade places that they might see this. This is already an important indicator that not far beneath the surface in their treatments of Romans 9, Calvin and Barth are operating with different conceptions of what is really at stake here – for Calvin it is eternal destiny, for Barth it is temporal unwillingness to embrace the reality of election. The focus on eternal destiny for Calvin, and the basis of the bond between Paul and Israel in Barth, point separately to different underlying presuppositions which we will see to be connected to their respective forms of christocentrism. This is sharpened further by the different sense both exegetes ascribe to the phrase tw/n suggenw/n mou kata. sa,rka, oi[tine,j eivsin VIsrahli/tai (vv. 3b–4a). Barth states that these ‘kinsmen according to the flesh’ have not ceased to be Israelites by their unbelief any more than Paul has with his belief in Christ. This may make him a ‘true Israelite’ but ‘he is still united and bound to them, so they for their part, in spite of their unbelief, continue to be for him the elected community of God.’50 Crucially, this now forms the basis for the way Barth reads the rest of vv. 4–5. Israel has in its possession everything on which the faith of the church is based and from which ‘it draws sustenance’. The church as the consummation of Israel’s election does 48 49 50

Ibid., p. 202; pp. 222–223. Ibid., p. 202; p. 223. Ibid., p. 203; p. 223.

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not lessen Israel’s election and what was always given to them in God’s choosing is what now gives life to the church. Calvin reads the phrase differently. For him it shows why Paul’s agony is so acute and it does not point to an overall positive assessment of Israel’s election. Calvin locates the point of v. 3b in Paul needing to create some measure of confidence in himself in the face of the Jewish rejection he had experienced and he explains: ‘[Paul] does not conceal the fact that his origin is from that nation, whose election continued vigorous in the root, even though the branches had withered.’51 Thus Paul’s distress is precisely because the Israelites were the ones whom God had chosen from the common order of mankind yet they are now facing a bewildering catastrophe – he is ‘affected by this horrifying destruction of his own flesh’. Here Calvin draws a parallel to Moses in Exod. 32.32: ‘This anxiety likewise distressed Moses when he desired to be blotted out of the book of life, lest the holy and elect race of Abraham be reduced to nothing (Exod. 32.32).’52 If Calvin is suggesting that Paul’s motivation is the same as Moses’, then the meaning is this: in v. 3a Paul wishes to substitute himself for Israel because he sees that if the nation experiences the condemnation it is threatened with, the covenant will fail in a way in which it will not if only a single Israelite perishes. Barth too draws the same parallel between Paul and Moses but what drives it for Barth is the fervency of Paul’s apostolic calling, not distress over Israel’s salvation. Commenting on v. 3a he says: ‘So dear to him – the parallel with Exod. 32.32 inevitably suggests itself – is his apostolic office, dearer than his personal election, salvation and hope! So utterly is his apostolic office a ministry in the name and on behalf of Israel!’53

3.2. Israel’s Privileges: Gifts Which Now Condemn or Signs of Ongoing Election? (vv. 4b–5) The different emphases developed in vv. 3b–4a by Barth and Calvin now lead to two different treatments of all the Israelite ‘blessings’ listed in vv. 4b–5. For Barth the fact of God’s choosing the nation of Israel still holds good and simply becomes the fount of all the blessings which the church now enjoys. The church form of the elect community is, ‘after all, only Israel as it has reached its determined goal. It lives then, wholly and completely on what Israel has received in and with its determination as a wrestler with God.’54 This means that in Barth’s exposition each of Israel’s privileges are explained with the following repeated refrain: ‘[The Church] lives by Israel’s “sonship” . . . The Church lives by the glory of God . . . The Church lives by 51 52 53 54

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 193); Ad Rom., p. 195. Ibid. CD II/2, p. 202; KD II/2, p. 223. Ibid., p. 203; p. 224.

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the covenants . . .’55 Barth’s reading stresses continuity and fulfilment between Israel and the church, and the basis for this is the unalterable eternal election of Israel: Confessing Jesus Christ, [the Church] confesses the fulfilment of everything that is pledged to Israel as promise, the substance of all the hope of the fathers, of all the exhortations and threats of Moses and the prophets, of all the sacrifice in the tabernacle and the temple, of every letter in the sacred books of Israel. When it summons Israel to faith in Jesus Christ it can and will desire of it only that it should be obedient to its own election and repent.56 For Calvin, the privileges of Israel do not function in this way. For him ‘The Jews had now stripped themselves of all these privileges, so that it was of no advantage to them to be called the children of Abraham.’57 Here we see Calvin’s earlier emphasis on the gifts of God in v. 3 come into its own. The gifts themselves remain worthy of being praised but they do not bestow an unalterable status on those who possess them: ‘the ungodly cannot spoil the good gifts of God in such a way as to prevent them from being always deservedly worthy of being praised and held in high esteem, even though those who abuse them derive nothing from them but greater disrepute.’58 Calvin draws a general application about what we should learn from those who show ingratitude to God for his good gifts: ‘Let us imitate Paul, who granted the Jews their privileges in such a way that afterwards he declares that without Christ nothing is of any worth.’59 We might state the contrast between Calvin and Barth at this point in this way: for Barth the stress fall on the gifts being given to Israel, for Calvin on the fact that these things were gifts given to Israel. What Israel has actually done with the gifts is all important for Calvin in a way which affects his understanding of their ongoing validity. In his treatment of these privileges here too we find the first clues of how Calvin works towards a resolution of the paradox that he sees in Paul (the Jews face condemnation yet they are God’s chosen people in possession of a covenant that cannot fail). Commenting on quorum adoptio (w-n h` ui`oqesi,a) in v. 4 (and shedding light on how he understands these verses in their wider context), he says: The intention of the whole of Paul’s discourse is that, although the Jews had blasphemously separated themselves from God by their 55 56 57 58 59

Ibid., pp. 203–204; pp. 224–225. Ibid., p. 204; p. 225. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 194); Ad Rom., p. 196. Ibid., p. 193; p. 195. Ibid., pp. 193–194; p. 195.

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defection, yet the light of the grace of God had not been wholly extinguished among them . . . Although they were unbelievers and had broken his covenant, yet their perfidy had not rendered the faithfulness of God void, not only because He preserved for Himself some seed as a remnant from the whole multitude, but also because the name of a church still continued among them by right of inheritance (sed quia haereditario iure Ecclesiae adhuc penes ipsos manebat).60 As we will see, Calvin’s discussion of later verses in the chapter is anticipated here. This ‘defection’ does not mean that God’s word has failed because there is both a remnant, an Israel within Israel, and ‘the name of a church’ continues among them. However, it is not entirely clear here exactly what Calvin means by making a distinction between the ‘seed as a remnant’ and the continuing ‘name of a church’, especially when we will see that it is precisely the remnant which for Calvin constitutes the church in Israel.61 Regardless of how he is to be understood here, this reference to the church is a feature of Calvin’s exegesis that does create a parallel with Barth – both see a connection between Israel and the church on the basis of Israel’s privileges. For Barth the church now shares in what Israel still possesses and it lives by each of these privileges. Calvin here holds that the point of Paul’s argument is actually to warn Gentile Christians of pride and to remind them ‘that the gospel had flowed to them from a heavenly fountain, from the sanctuary of God, and from a chosen nation’.62 This creates an apparent similarity as both interpreters are aiming to see a relationship between the life of the church and what it has inherited from Israel. But the differences between Calvin and Barth at this point are profound. It is interesting that here Calvin’s use of ecclesia is not directed towards the Gentiles, but rather he appears to be using ecclesia simply to refer to the whole nation of Israel as a parallel way of describing its general election. Crucially, although the name of ‘a church’ continues among the Jews, Calvin’s very next sentence is: ‘The Jews had now stripped themselves of all 60 61

62

Ibid., p. 194; pp. 195–196. The issue is important but not easily solved. It seems that here Calvin is using the word ‘church’ to refer to the entire nation and the seed/remnant motif to refer to the ‘true’ or ‘spiritual’ Israel. Calvin’s normal use of the word ‘church’ when describing the election of Israel is different; cf. Inst. III.xxi.6: ‘We must now add a second, more limited degree of election, or one in which God’s more special grace was evident, that is, when from the same race of Abraham God rejected some but showed that he kept others among his sons by cherishing them in the church’ (p. 931). Nevertheless, for evidence that ‘church’ in Calvin can also refer to the general election of Israel, cf. Milner, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church, pp. 46–58; Engel, ‘Calvin and the Jews’, pp. 112–114. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 194); Ad Rom., p. 196.

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these privileges.’63 So whereas Barth sees these privileges as vital signs of ongoing election, Calvin reads them as privileges which have been abused and rejected with a devastating result. Although Calvin thinks that Paul’s aim here is to stop Gentile believers denigrating the Jews, nevertheless the privileges function here merely as evidence of a form of election that is now of ‘no advantage’. His interpretation of the privileges is of real blessings given to Israel but which now function to heighten their condemnation because they have not used these blessings to come to Christ. His comment on Ex quibus est Christus (kai. evx w-n o` Cristo.j) in v. 5 is typical: It is no empty honour to be united by a natural kinship with the Redeemer of the world . . . We must, however, always hold that if this relationship established by grace is separated from godliness, it is so far from being advantageous that it leads rather to greater condemnation.64 This quotation points us towards noting the particular way in which Calvin conceives of Israel’s separation from its privileges. Although he has stated that the Jews have stripped themselves of their privileges, we should observe that in his broader scheme what Calvin seems to mean by this is that Israel still possesses the outward privileges in themselves but is now without their spiritual advantages. In other words, Calvin does not ignore the present tense in v. 4 which is carried over into the subordinate clauses of vv. 4–5 but rather is here already, beneath the surface of his exposition, beginning to distinguish between a ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’ Israel. The entire nation possesses the outward gifts (and even in this way may be referred to as a ‘church’), but they do not all possess their spiritual merits. This reading ensures that for Calvin the issue of Israel’s salvation is centre-stage in Paul’s argument, and what we must notice here as this argument unfolds is the positive lack of christological reflection which Calvin affords this salvific material. The reasons for this will become clear as we proceed. Barth’s principial christocentrism, however, is transparent. He introduces the next section of his argument – Das Gericht und das Erbarmen Gottes – by further developing his discussion of the community’s service: ‘It is elected to serve the presentation (the self-presentation) of Jesus Christ and the act of God which took place in Him.’65 Here, again, Barth operates with a typological understanding of the community as it relates to the elected man, Jesus. The community, in its form as Israel, is the ‘reflection’ (Spiegel) of the 63

64 65

Ibid. The adversative sense of the Latin is not fully captured in the CNTC translation: Quanquam autem istis omnibus ornamentis iam se exuberant. Ibid., pp. 195–196; p. 197. CD II/2, p. 205; KD II/2, p. 226.

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judgement which God bears in Jesus; the church form of the community is the ‘reflection’ of the mercy which God shows to man in Jesus. Bearing these two reflections are the two forms of service the community performs. Further, Barth sharpens the christological focus at the heart of this typology and the way it is reflected in the community: ‘The Church form of the community stands in the same relation to its Israelite form as the resurrection of Jesus to His crucifixion, as God’s mercy to God’s judgment.’66 Jesus Christ, defined by his cross and resurrection, defines the community of God in its two-fold form. Importantly, we should also note that Barth does not here see Israel and the church, judgement and mercy, as forms and services which only appear chronologically, one after the other, as it were. Rather, the church is present in Israel having lived a ‘hidden life’ there in the midst of Israel’s obduracy. While God elects Israel as a nation, in order to reveal continually and attest this ‘God proceeds to elect men in and from its midst for special appointment, mission and representative function, as exponents and instruments of the mercy in which he has made this people his own.’67 Under this introduction Barth now treats all of Rom. 9.6–29; for convenience I will work with smaller units to draw out more clearly the contrast with Calvin at key points.

3.3. ‘Not all Israel are Israel’: Two Different Conceptions of General and Special Election (vv. 6–14) At this point in their respective exegetical treatments, the differences between Calvin and Barth begin to take even sharper expression. Under their different conceptions of distinctions within election terminology, a number of contrasts emerge. Both take the ‘not all Israel are Israel’ phrase in v. 6 to refer to a real distinction within the sphere of election but they construe this differently. On the basis of vv. 4–5, Calvin works with the concept of the covenant being made with the whole nation of Israel and therefore the whole nation, both elect and reprobate, benefit in some way from this covenant. The rejected individuals, Ishmael and Esau, were circumcised just like the elect individuals Isaac and Jacob. Thus for Calvin there is a sense in which all Abraham’s children are children of the promise.68 However, Calvin’s crucial exegetical move here is to argue that while the whole nation may be sons of the covenant, and thus children of the promise, there is another and far more important sense in which the title ‘children of promise’ only properly applies to those in whom its ‘power and efficacy (virtus et efficacia) is found.’69 66

Ibid., p. 211; p. 233. Ibid., p. 212; p. 234. 68 Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 197); Ad Rom., p. 199. 69 Ibid. 67

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This is Calvin’s key hermeneutic – the covenant exists for all but it is not efficacious for all. In his own words: When, in short, the whole people are called the inheritance and the peculiar people of God what is meant is that they have been chosen by the Lord when the promise of salvation has been offered to them and confirmed by the symbol of circumcision. Since, however, many of them reject this adoption by their ingratitude, and thus in no degree enjoy its benefits, another difference arises among them with regard to the fulfilment of the promise. To prevent anyone from thinking it strange that this fulfilment of the promise was evident in very many of the Jews, Paul therefore denies that they were included in the true election of God (vera Dei electione) . . . We may, if it is preferred, put it in a different way: ‘The general election of the people (communis populi Israelitici electio) of Israel does not prevent God from choosing for himself by his secret counsel (deligat arcano suo consilio Deus) those whom he pleases.’70 We see here Calvin’s two-fold conception of election: a general election seen in the making of a covenant with the whole nation; and also a second election, a secret election, which confirms and completes this general covenantal election.71 This is interesting for two reasons. First, we note that it is via this conceptuality that Calvin links vv. 6–9 to what precedes it in vv. 1–5. His reading of the first five verses is that an ‘absurd position’ seems to exist – Paul laments the destruction of his own people which would seem to suggest that God’s covenant with Israel had failed.72 How is this paradox to be resolved? For Calvin the answer is a distinction within the covenant concept itself of a general and special election: ‘God’s condescension in making a covenant of life with a single nation is indeed a remarkable illustration of undeserved mercy, but his hidden grace is more evident in the second election (secunda electione), which is restricted to a part of the nation only.’73 Where Israelites are cut off from Christ and condemned they partake only in the outward covenant, the general election. But this is not Israel’s total fate – some are included in a second election and in this way the covenant does not fail but stands firm. In his discussion of vv. 7–8, Calvin understands the Abraham–Ishmael–Isaac dynamic to be an ‘apt illustration’ of Paul’s key assumption at this point in his argument: ‘the election of God is not confined to the natural descendants of Abraham,

70 71 72 73

Ibid. Cf. Lillback, The Binding of God, pp. 214–217. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 196); Ad Rom., p. 198. Ibid., pp. 197–198; p. 199.

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nor included in the conditions of the covenant.’74 There is a common adoption in the covenant, made efficacious and valid only for some by the promise.75 In this way, ‘the secret election of God overrules the outward calling (electionem arcanam Dei supra externam vocationem dominari).’76 This is Calvin’s understanding of Paul’s reasoning that the word of God has not failed (v. 6a): given that Scripture itself shows us that actual descendants of Abraham fell away from the covenant, why then should the falling away of contemporaneous Israel necessarily mean the failure of the covenant?77 Calvin is arguing, implicitly, that Paul is simply being faithful to the Old Testament record of a distinction within Israel and arguing, explicitly, that this distinction is due to God’s secret election. Second, it is important to note again Calvin’s lack of explicit christological description as he introduces what will be a key hermeneutical concept in his exegesis of these chapters: namely, the covenant. If it is a distinction within the covenant concept which lies at the heart of Calvin’s soteriological understanding of Israel, can his doctrine of election be described at this point as soteriologically christocentric? We will see that Calvin does indeed understand the covenantal distinction to be in essence a christological one. However, it is important to see that at this stage Calvin understands Paul’s argument to relate to the eternal ground of the distinction, God’s ‘secret counsel’. This means that what we are witnessing here is the emergence in Calvin’s treatment of a reticence to describe christologically those aspects of election which refer to the pretemporal, inscrutable decree. This procedure is not absolute, but it does reflect what we have already seen so far in Calvin’s exegesis of election: Christ’s place and role is best explained within the historical, temporal sphere of his work. In this way, the absence of christological discussion where Calvin is discussing the eternal grounds of salvation points in the direction of my argument rather than away from it. Precisely because his christocentrism takes a soteriological form (with Calvin’s main interest being Christ’s saving work in history), his language is christologically sparse when talking about aspects of salvation outside this sphere. Barth’s treatment of vv. 6–9 also draws a distinction in election but it operates in a very different way. Whereas for Calvin not all of Israel are Israel, for Barth not all of Israel are the church – and this is not an insignificant difference.78 In Calvin those of Israel who are not really Israel are severed

74 75

76 77 78

Ibid., p. 198; p. 200. Ibid. Milner argues that although Calvin seems to use electio and adoptio interchangeably, the former ‘seems to connote more the eternal decree whereby God separates Israel from other nations, while the other more readily suggests the historical act by which God unites the people to himself’ (Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church, pp. 47–48). Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 198); Ad Rom., p. 200. Ibid. CD II/2, p. 214; KD II/2, p. 236.

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salvifically from what the covenant offered them; for Barth those of Israel who are not the church are simply those who have not accepted their proper place in the church and this does not actually bear on salvation issues. Barth holds that the first general election of the nation is still efficacious and valid: being members of the one elected community of God ‘is something that none of this race can be deprived of; this is something that none of this race can decline, not even if his name is Caiaphas or indeed Judas Iscariot’.79 The ‘special election’ (besondere Erwählung) of the church that happens within Israel is for Barth a repetition and establishing of Israel’s election. This is similar to Calvin’s language of the special, second election completing and confirming the first general election.80 But the function of these terms is very different. In Barth these terms are explicitly related to vocation, to service, whereas for Calvin they capture salvific realities. In other words, to not have the first election completed and confirmed is, in Calvin, to be cut off from Christ in condemnation; to not have the first election repeated or established is, in Barth, to be determined for a different form of service, that of mirroring the divine judgement in Christ. To have the election of Israel specially repeated in the church is to be determined for a different vocation: the church is ‘appointed to announce in advance the one true Israelite coming by God’s choice “out of Israel” and thus to show forth the praise of the divine mercy itself.’81 This is Barth’s principial christocentrism being expounded in his exegesis of Romans 9–11. This overarching conceptuality of two different vocations in Barth, as opposed to two different salvific realities in Calvin, is vital for understanding another feature of Barth’s exegesis. Although he stresses that there is a genuine distinction here between ‘children of the flesh’ and ‘children of the promise’, Barth refuses to push the distinction to the same conclusions as Calvin. For Calvin, to be counted as ‘children of the flesh’ is salvifically worthless and qualifies one only for membership in the Israel that is accursed: ‘God’s blessing, therefore, had no reference to Ishmael.’82 For Barth, there is a unity between these terms so that the appellations ‘children of flesh’ and ‘children of promise’ both apply to Isaac and to Ishmael.83 The difference between them is the fulfilment of the divine word of promise: ‘Since [Isaac], too, is a “child of the flesh” his existence is purely and simply the fulfilment of the divine word of promise.’84 The language of fulfilment for Barth expresses his view of the unity between the church and Israel and the purely vocational differences between them. It prevents there being an absolute 79 80 81 82 83 84

Ibid. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 198); Ad Rom., p. 200. CD II/2, p. 214; KD II/2, p. 236. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 198); Ad Rom., p. 200. CD II/2, pp. 214–215; KD II/2, p. 236. Ibid., p. 215; p. 237.

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disjunction between the rejected and the elected and underlies a comment such as ‘[Isaac] is also, although indirectly, a witness to the election of all Israel’. He later states that in separating the church and Israel, God has actually ‘confirmed the election of Israel’.85 Whereas Calvin moves forward into vv. 10–13 with a special divine election unalterably dividing between an Israel which is condemned and an Israel which is saved, Barth moves forward with a real distinction within Israel but which is nevertheless not a salvifically absolute distinction. This becomes clearer in Barth’s view of vv. 10–13 and his very brief treatment of Jacob and Esau. Barth is clear that there is a distinction between Jacob and Esau and there is a very real sense in which Esau is rejected. In similar terms to Calvin, Barth notes how Paul’s argument takes a sharper focus in its move from Isaac/Ishmael to Jacob/Esau – whereas in the former pairing it could be argued that some merit might have been attached to Isaac over Ishmael to explain the ground of his election, this cannot be maintained in relation to Jacob and Esau. Paul is not now dealing with two sons of one father but twins born of one mother.86 Calvin and Barth are agreed that the divine decision at this point is in no way a contingent decision. After this, however, their treatments of vv. 10–13 diverge in a number of ways. Barth is explicit that a real separation takes place between Jacob and Esau, but this is radically relativized by two inter-related factors: their mutual relationship to God and their mutual standing in the community of God. With regard to the first, Barth states: ‘The connection between the determination of both is not to be mistaken in the formulation in v. 12, neither is it to be overlooked in the more trenchant saying of v. 13. The God of Jacob is also the God of Esau.’87 With regard to the second, Barth stresses that this separation happens within the one elected race: We must not lose sight of the fact that it is in this race that by God’s free disposing the Church is founded and built up by the operation of this separation which repeatedly means exclusion. The very fact that the katV evklogh.n pro,qesij tou/ qeou/ is continued in this race means that its honour and hope continuingly benefit all its members. Even its rejected members (just because of the separation which excludes them) are not forsaken, but after, as before, share in the special care and guidance of the electing God.88 Barth then provides evidence from Genesis 21, Genesis 36 and 1 Chronicles 1 to show that the rejection of Ishmael and Esau must be very carefully 85 86 87 88

Ibid., p. 216; p. 238. Ibid.; cf. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 199); Ad Rom., p. 201. CD II/2, p. 217; KD II/2, p. 239. Ibid.

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qualified – God still cared for them such that we must see any rejection within the wider scope of an ongoing election of God. Thus a critical difference between Calvin and Barth emerges out of a similarity. They both hold that God has a means of inclusion for the rejected – for Calvin it is the covenant conceptuality, for Barth it is a range of Old Testament references to God’s sustaining care. But here the similarity ends. For Barth, God’s ongoing care for the rejected unites them to the elected. The God of Jacob is also the God of Esau and the exclusion is never absolute – in short, the special election of Jacob does not invalidate the general election of Esau. For Calvin the covenant appears to function typologically in relation to election and it is the latter that safeguards salvation: ‘As the covenant separates the people of Israel from all other nations, so also the election of God makes a distinction between men in the nation, while he predestinates some to salvation and others to eternal condemnation.’89 Thus even the covenant cannot relativize the separation that occurs here in the divine decision. For Ishmael and Esau any connection with the covenant people becomes useless to them unless the covenantal benefits are salvifically applied to them by their being included in the true election of God. Two further features of Calvin’s exegesis of these verses deepen his different understanding of general and special election. First, the terminology Calvin uses to explain his understanding of Paul’s method of arguing reveals a contrast with Barth’s understanding of what is really at stake in the chapter thus far. Calvin holds that up to v. 9 (perhaps especially between vv. 6–9), Paul has simply been stating ‘the facts’ about God’s discriminating choice while at the same time he ‘conceals the reason’ for this choice. In Calvin’s mind this is something Paul’s argument is building towards in v. 11. Here he comments: ‘[Paul] now begins to rise higher, in order to show the reason for this difference which he informs us is to be found in the election of God alone.’90 It is explicitly the cause of the separating choice which Paul now has in view: But now he plainly refers the whole cause to the unmerited election of God, which in no way depends on men. In the salvation of the godly we are to look for no higher cause than the goodness of God, and no higher cause in the destruction of the reprobate than His just severity.91 Here we note, then, that Calvin sees Paul first laying out the fact of a separation within Israel and only then explaining the reason: the election of God which shows mercy to some and severity to others. By contrast, however, what for Calvin is reason, for Barth is mere fact. God’s special election 89 90 91

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, pp. 199–200); Ad Rom., p. 202. Ibid., p. 199; p. 201. Ibid., p. 199; pp. 201–202.

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is not the reason for the separation but simply the mode of it, and for Barth while the divine dividing between the church and Israel certainly finds its cause in the divine purpose this still requires a further reason: the vocation of both forms of the community. Barth sees vv. 14–29 as answering what God’s purpose is with the remainder of Israel which is not appointed to build up the church.92 His understanding of Paul’s argument seems to run along these lines: within the one elected community, God chooses two forms of the community to serve two different witnessing purposes. The reason for the general election of Israel is to witness to God’s judgement (as will become clear in vv. 14–29); the reason for the special election of the church is to witness to God’s mercy. Calvin, however, construes the argument in this way: a distinction has always existed within God’s covenant people, with some predestined for salvation and some for destruction. The reason for this distinction is God’s inscrutable election of some. Calvin understands election as terminus ad quem in Paul’s argument, Barth as modus procendi. The second feature of Calvin’s exegesis which merits attention here is found in his interpretation of the genitive absolute clauses in v. 11ab: mh,pw ga.r gennhqe,ntwn mhde. praxa,ntwn ti avgaqo.n h" fau/lon.93 Where Barth is happy to comment on these clauses simply that they locate the ground of God’s decision in him alone, Calvin feels it is necessary to explain their relation to the doctrine of original sin: ‘When, therefore, Paul says that neither of them had at the time done any good or evil, we must add at the same time his assumption that they were both the children of Adam, sinners by nature, and not possessed of a single particle of righteousness.’94 For Calvin this move is theologically necessary to counter the claims of those who argue that God’s disregarding of works which did not yet exist (in the case of Jacob and Esau) nevertheless does not prove a conclusive case against God’s disregarding of some works as meritorious. And it is precisely because Calvin views the subject matter here to be salvation and condemnation that it is particularly important for him to show that the rejection of Esau was not a reprehensible act: ‘it follows from this that Esau deserved to be rejected, for he was by nature a child of wrath.’95 The doctrine of original sin, however, in itself, does not completely strengthen Calvin’s argument here, as he himself realizes. The doctrine would not necessarily place Jacob and Esau on a completely equal footing as Esau’s condition might have ‘been worse because of some vice or fault’ and so ‘it was expedient for Paul to exclude sins no less than virtues’.96

92 93 94 95 96

CD II/2, p. 217; KD II/2, p. 240. Quum enim nondum nati essent pueri, nec quidpiam boni aut mali egissent. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 200); Ad Rom., p. 202. Ibid. Ibid.

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The result is a distinction in Calvin between the immediate and the ultimate cause of reprobation: It is true that the immediate cause of reprobation is the curse which we all inherit from Adam. Nevertheless, Paul withdraws us from this view, so that we may learn to rest in the bare and simple good pleasure of God, until he has established the doctrine that God has a sufficiently just cause for election and reprobation in his own will.97 Thus Calvin’s argument here is that just as God could not accept any merit in Jacob which might have led to his election, because of his shared corruption with Esau, so conversely Esau’s deserved rejection was not because he was any more sinful than Jacob. His reprobation was due to both his fallenness (immediate cause) and the ‘bare and simple good pleasure of God’ (ultimate cause). We note again how sharply this understanding of salvation and damnation in relation to election contrasts with Barth’s understanding of the vocational tasks performed by Israel and the church in salvation-history. We should note too that Calvin’s treatment of vv. 10–13 is significantly more detailed than Barth’s and his focus on the details highlights yet another contrast. Whereas Barth stresses that God’s rejection of Esau must not be seen in absolute terms given what follows in the Genesis narrative, Calvin actually argues that God’s election of Jacob does not have a self-evident meaning given what follows in the Genesis narrative. He points out how despite the divine reversal of the line of privilege ‘what little advantage with regard to the flesh Jacob derived from his birthright’.98 Calvin draws attention to instances in Jacob’s life where on the contrary he actually seemed to serve Esau and so argues that we must see the promise given to Jacob ‘as the type (typo) of something greater’.99 This emerges in v. 13: ‘The spiritual condition of Jacob was witnessed to by his dominion, and that of Esau by his bondage.’100 Calvin and Barth therefore work with two different typologies underlying the details of the text here. In Barth’s scheme, vv. 12 and 13 say basically the same thing: the election and rejection of Jacob and Esau are types of the service which the church and Israel perform in witnessing to the coming of Christ. In Calvin’s scheme, v. 13 actually sheds light on v. 12 by showing that its earthly birthright imagery is a type of eternal spiritual realities and, significantly, shows why the Lord conferred the birthright on Jacob. Calvin considers the original context of the quote in Mal. 1.2–3 to argue that it grounds the source of God’s choice within his mercy and love alone. 97 98 99 100

Ibid., pp. 200–201; pp. 202–203. Ibid., p. 201; p. 203. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 201–202; pp. 203–204.

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This means that for Calvin, on the one hand, vv. 6–13 operate with a gradual narrowing of focus: the nation is divided, with the bare distinction between Israelites gradually being revealed to have the special divine election as its only cause, and this special election itself is further analysed to reveal God’s mercy and love as its only motivation. On the other hand, however, this narrowing of focus does not allow us to assert that Calvin’s concept of election here is straightforwardly individualistic (despite what is often alleged). Calvin does hold that even in Mal. 1.2–3 ‘Jacob’ and ‘Esau’ refer to individuals, not nations, but it is important to see that he reads Malachi’s reference to the individuals as having application to national, not primarily, individual election.101 In Malachi, ‘the Lord declares his kindness to the Jews’ (that is, the nation), and he does so by referring back to the foundational act of their national election: the individual election of Jacob. That foundational election was entirely free and unmerited, as is seen in the immediate context in v. 2: ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ Although Esau might seemingly have ‘deserved’ to be chosen, God chose Jacob instead. In this way, Calvin understands the prophet to be arguing from the individual to the national: ‘And now I adopted you to be my people, so that I might show the same kindness towards the seed of Jacob.’ We should not downplay the importance of this context for Calvin, seen in the question ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ These words show that God is stripping from his people any way of claiming that there was something in them deserving of God’s love; if anyone had any such a claim it would surely have been Esau. Thus the context of the Malachi quotation which asserts that the older might more naturally expect to be chosen above the younger is precisely what Calvin sees as underlying the rationale of Paul’s quotation. For Calvin, the quotation is not primarily about double predestination, but rather the ground of any predestination and election: God’s free kindness and undeserved favour. We may go so far as to say that Calvin sees that Paul’s quotation of Malachi can only function as it was intended to when it is read in the light of the divine question put to the people in Mal. 1.2: ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ It is that precise context which shows the relevance of the quotation to Paul’s argument. Calvin’s excursus on election in his lectures on Malachi illuminates the relationship between individual and national election, and how he sees their inter-relationship in Romans 9. He outlines four steps in election: (1) creation, which distinguishes men from animals; (2) the election of the race of 101

Cf. Inst. III.xxi.7, p. 930; OS 4, pp. 377–378, where Calvin likewise holds that Mal. 1.2 has both individual and national significance but here chooses to emphasize the individual: ‘The statement “I have loved Jacob” applies to the whole offspring of the patriarch, whom the prophet there contrasts to the posterity of Esau. Still this does not gainsay the fact that there was set before us in the person of one man an example of election that cannot fail to accomplish its purpose.’

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Abraham which distinguishes it from other races; (3) the making of a distinction between the sons of Abraham, as seen in the election of Jacob and not Esau; (4) a further election from within Jacob’s line – ‘if then the free mercy of God availed so much in the election of Jacob, it follows that the same still prevails with regard to his posterity.’102 Within this overview of election, Calvin sees Romans 9 as being concerned primarily with (3) and (4), so that the focus is on distinguishing between a spiritual Israel and a fleshly Israel in the election of individuals. Given what we have seen of Calvin’s salvific focus so far in his Romans commentary, it is clear that Calvin feels only a move from national election to individual election makes sense of Paul’s argument in Romans 9: it is grasping that it was never God’s intention to save every single ethnic Jew which makes sense of the Jewish rejection of the gospel and the consequent fall of the nation. In light of Romans 9 and Mal. 1.2–3, we may say that for Calvin election (at least as visible to us in time) proceeds from the national (Abraham’s seed) to the individual (Isaac– Jacob) but, and this point is often overlooked, Calvin still holds that a nation proceeds from Jacob so that there remains an ongoing national election which is not identical to ongoing individual election from within that nation. It is in this way that Calvin sees Malachi drawing ethical lessons from individual election which can be applied to the whole nation. By reminding them that God chose Jacob over Esau, Malachi magnifies the nation’s ingratitude because such election shows the true depths of God’s favour towards them. We have noted in passing how when Barth turns to v. 14 he sees the issue now being addressed as God’s purpose with the remainder of Israel which is not included in the church. This means that in v. 14 Paul is first of all asserting that whatever God’s purpose is with Israel, it is not unrighteous. Barth works with a careful understanding of the context – Paul is not addressing the issue of an ‘abstract’ righteousness (abstrakte Gerechtigkeit) but the ‘concrete’ righteousness (konkrete Gerechtigkeit) of a God who excludes many of Abraham’s race from his special election.103 Indeed, for Barth, it is precisely because Paul is arguing that the present distinction between believing and unbelieving Israel has always operated in Scripture, that Paul’s rhetorical question in v. 14 is generated: ‘In v. 6f. Scripture was consulted to try to make this consideration of the present easier, but it only seems to have made it harder.’104 Barth operates with an implicit sympathy for the question, an awareness that the divine modus procendi outlined so far does seem unrighteous. Specifically, the issue of God’s unrighteousness seems tied to the fact that he excludes some ‘without regard to the natural and moral presuppositions that they have to commend them’.105 By contrast, Calvin’s 102 103 104 105

Comm. Twelve Minor Prophets, p. 474; CO 44, p. 403. CD II/2, p. 218; KD II/2, p. 240. Ibid. Ibid.

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underlying negative anthropology means that his introduction to the next pericope reveals a lack of sympathy with the question. He views the question as one which comes naturally to humanity but uses the following terms in framing a general comment on the nature of the question: ‘absurdities’, ‘trifling difficulties’, ‘impetuosity’, ‘foolish questions’, ‘irreverent doubt’.106 Arguably, here Calvin’s earlier references to original sin still carry weight in his interpretation of the nature of the question in v. 14: ‘The madness of the human mind is certainly immense, in that it is more disposed to accuse God of unrighteousness than to blame itself for its blindness.’107 Calvin’s overriding concern is to show that because predestination ‘is truly a labyrinth from which the mind of man is wholly incapable of extricating itself’ then there are both godly and ungodly approaches to the problem.108 The ungodly boldly rush in and desire to know more than Scripture teaches; the godly adopt the ‘sacred rule’ of not desiring to know more than Scripture teaches.109 Nevertheless, what follows is Paul’s dealing with the foolish questions which come naturally to us. How, then, do Calvin and Barth understand the defence of God’s righteousness? We have observed that for Calvin at least, Paul’s argument in Romans 9 is building towards a fuller revelation of its underlying presuppositions. For both Calvin and Barth, the next four verses of the chapter contain assertions by Paul in defence of the divine righteousness that will function differently for each interpreter as the heart of their understandings of election in Romans 9–11. By adopting two different verses as the key verses in the section (Barth, 9.15; Calvin, 9.18), their two different forms of christocentrism exercise tremendous influence. I will allow their readings of these four verses to speak for themselves before coming to tease out some of the implications.

3.4. God and Moses: The Free Future of Mercy or the Freedom of Discriminate Mercy? (vv. 15–16) For Barth, Paul’s mh. ge,noito in v. 14 means that what he has outlined in vv. 6–13 is not God acting arbitrarily, but rather ‘in profoundest harmony with himself and in a manner supremely worthy of himself and therefore in the most objective sense righteously’.110 In v. 15 we meet the proof of this. It is not an exaggeration to say that in his interpretation of v. 15 Barth offers one of his most strikingly unique approaches to the biblical text in his radical redefinition of double predestination. Barth understands v. 15, in its quoting of Exod. 33.19, to be a paraphrased rendering of the divine name 106 107 108 109 110

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, pp. 202–203); Ad Rom., pp. 204–205. Ibid., p. 203; p. 205. Ibid., p. 202; p. 204. Ibid., p. 203; p. 205. CD II/2, p. 218; KD II/2, p. 240.

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revealed to Moses in Exod. 3.14. He then comments on the ‘simpler formula’ in 3.14: God’s nature consists in the fact that he renews, establishes and glorifies himself by his own future; or materially that he renews, establishes and glorifies his being by his future being, or even more materially, his mercy by his future mercy, his compassion by his future compassion . . . It is this nature of God which is his righteousness and therefore the measure and sum of all righteousness. God’s nature is that the One he now is in freedom he will be again in the same unconditioned, unassailable freedom to posit and affirm himself by himself. In that God will be he who he is, he is in no way unrighteous, arbitrary or wayward.111 Here Barth weights the future tense in the revelation of the divine name with a theological significance that cannot be overestimated in his exegesis. His interpretation contains both formal propositions about God generally and material propositions about God’s actions in the context of Exod. 33.19 and Romans 9. Formally, Barth is asserting that this is how God relates to his creation in time: it is a striking claim about God’s freedom in that who he is in the present is not contingent but established by himself, by who he will be in his future. Materially, from the actual detail of v. 15 itself, Barth is asserting that God’s present showing of mercy and compassion is established by his future mercy. This is Barth’s understanding of the meaning of the divine name and its revelation of God’s being. However, the material aspect has further implications in its Exod. 33.19 paraphrase: ‘What Ex. 33.19 says here has a still richer content. God’s nature consists in the fact that as He freely shows mercy so he will again show mercy.’112 Again, the significance of this material understanding of the divine name cannot be overestimated for Barth. His understanding of Paul’s defence of God’s righteousness is that man has no right to object because there is a continuity between God’s present and God’s future – it is the mercy which God will show in the future which establishes that God has been utterly righteous in his dispensing of mercy in the present. God’s righteousness is vindicated because who he is and what he has done is predicated on who he will be and what he will do. Barth sees this principle as operative in vv. 6–13. Just as God bestows mercy on Abraham, so he again bestows mercy on his son Isaac, then Jacob, then Moses.113 Crucially, this points in a christological direction: All renewal, establishment and glorification of his present (his mercy already shown) by his own future (his mercy yet to be shown), and 111 112 113

Ibid. Ibid., p. 219; p. 241. Ibid.

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therefore the life corresponding to his nature in the realm of his creation and in covenant with man, are finally effective and visible in their perfect and at the same time original form, and the day of his future dawns, in the fact that he has mercy on the man Jesus and in him on all men by becoming man himself, by taking up and taking away man’s burden in order to clothe man with his own glory.114 Here Barth is using his distinctive typological understanding of the vocational witness of both Israel and the church to explain his understanding of Paul’s defence of God’s righteousness. What happened in the past to Israel, the showing of mercy to Abraham and the repeated showing of mercy which separated within Israel, took place in view of what God would do in the future through Jesus. It was the future event of mercy in Christ and what God would achieve there which actually established the past event of mercy to Israel. Thus God’s righteousness is established by the fact that God simply continues to dispense mercy – this is what the divine name proves and the fact that he continues to be merciful renews and glorifies the original giving of mercy. This is also why the showing of mercy cannot be with regard to anyone’s ‘willing or running’: if it were, God would be unrighteous by letting something other than his own free future define his actions in the present.115 On this understanding, the disregard shown to Esau functions as an object lesson in how God allows nothing other than his own future to warrant his merciful actions. This understanding of the divine name, and its relationship to the defence of God’s righteousness and their combined role in explaining the divine modus procendi, issues immediately in a stark contrast with Calvin’s approach. For him, Paul’s argument has now narrowed from the election of the Israelite nation to the election of Israelite individuals, as seen in the case of Jacob and Esau; they function in the argument as an illustration of election being entirely based on God’s ‘good pleasure’ with the result that some Israelites are rejected and others are saved. Having established this, Paul’s argument now takes the form of answering the objections which this unconditional election of individuals seems to provoke. Calvin sees this as the development of Paul’s argument. The move from the national to the individual to the theological problems which this individual election poses means that Calvin has not lost sight of the fact that these chapters are concerned first and foremost with the covenant and the election of Israel. Rather, as he will say later, Calvin understands Paul in 9.1–23 to be discussing the freedom of election, so that even if the treatment begins with the relation of divine freedom to the election of the nation, for the argument to make sense it must necessarily turn to treat the relation of divine freedom to individual 114 115

Ibid. Ibid.

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election. We read Calvin insensitively here if we fail to perceive that, rightly or wrongly, the focus on individual election which emerges so strongly in his commentary at this point is one which he feels emerges from following the logic of Paul’s argument. Calvin’s understanding of the structure of these verses is similar to Barth, but he interprets the details differently because of a different understanding of v. 15. He sees Paul as treating the elect in vv. 15–16 and the reprobate in v. 17. Verse 18 is the consequence of vv. 15–17. But before he comes to look in detail at v. 15, Calvin advances an understanding of Paul’s argument that will hint at a fundamentally different construal of the defence of God’s righteousness. For Barth, if God deals with individuals on the basis of their merit he would be unrighteous, he would be allowing something other than his free future to drive his present actions. But Calvin states precisely the opposite in his understanding of the argument. The objection in v. 14 clearly proves that the reason why God elects some and rejects others is to be found in His purpose alone. If the difference between the two had been based on a regard for their works, Paul would have discussed this question of the unrighteousness of God to no purpose, for no suspicion of unrighteousness can arise when God deals with everyone according to his merit.116 For both interpreters the presenting issue is this: how can God remain righteous when in his discriminating choice he excludes natural discriminating factors? Barth answers by turning the question on its head. Were God to include natural discriminating factors (a person’s willing and running), then he would be unrighteous as he would not be consistent with his own being, defined by his own free future. The divine ontology defends the divine righteousness. Calvin, however, does not interpret v. 15 in the same way and this means that a fundamental divergence appears here. Barth sees God’s being as the defence of God’s righteousness, but Calvin locates the defence in God’s purpose. How does Calvin do this? His first sentence of explanation summarizes his understanding of v. 15: ‘As far as the elect are concerned, God cannot be charged with any unrighteousness, for he favours them with his mercy, according to his good pleasure (eos enim pro suo beneplacito misericorida dignatur).’117 It is precisely this sense of God’s ‘good pleasure’ which Calvin perceives to be at the heart of God’s vindication: humanity complains at God’s ways because it wants their cause to be made evident – where man’s merit is ignored, then the quest to know the cause of the choice is intensified. Paul’s defence that God is not unjust is simply to say that God is merciful to whom he pleases. Calvin 116 117

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 203); Ad Rom., p. 205. Ibid., p. 204; p. 206.

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recognizes that this answer ‘might appear to be lacking in warmth’!118 Nevertheless, ‘because God regards his own authority alone as sufficient, so that he needs the defence of no other, Paul was content that God should be the vindicator of his own right.’119 Calvin understands God to be declaring three things in the Exodus quotation. First, God owes nothing to anyone, so that whatever is given comes from his goodness. Second, this kindness is free. Third, there is therefore ‘no reason higher than his own will’ which should cause God to show favour to some and not to all. ‘God thus assigns the highest cause for bestowing grace to his own voluntary purpose, and at the same time intimates that he has appointed his mercy peculiarly for some.’120 A major contrast with Barth is Calvin’s reference to the relative pronouns in the verse which expressly denote that ‘mercy will not be extended indiscriminately to all’. We should also note that this statement forms part of Calvin’s understanding of God’s freedom. By not showing mercy to all and yet locating the mercy that is shown in God’s will alone, Calvin holds that Paul is using precise language to ‘exclude all outward causes’ in God’s election. Interestingly, in a way not dissimilar to Barth, Calvin paraphrases the Exodus quotation to emphasize the permanence of God’s mercy – ‘The words really mean “I will never take my mercy away from the man to whom I have once purposed to show it, and I will bestow continual kindness on the man to whom I have determined to be kind”’ – but the relative pronoun serves to retain the difference between them.121 For Calvin the words used by Moses refer to ‘the only true cause of salvation’,122 so that again the underlying issue is constantly the rightness of God’s choice of some for eternal glory and others for destruction. The next verse simply functions for Calvin as the ‘incontrovertible conclusion’ that election springs entirely from ‘the counsel of God’.123 Thus, at the heart of the contrast between Calvin and Barth on vv. 15–16, is the fact that they both stress God’s freedom as a key feature of the verses, but they develop its significance in relation to Paul’s argument in different ways. For Barth, God’s freedom is a defence of God’s righteousness in that it allows him to be defined by his future being, not man’s present striving; if God’s future being is a commitment to show mercy then that is its ground in the present. For Calvin, however, God’s freedom means that he is simply not

118 119 120 121 122 123

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 204; pp. 206–207. Ibid., p. 204; p. 206. Ibid., p. 205; p. 207. Ibid. Most of his comments on v. 16 are devoted to the Pelagian-Augustinian debate over synergistic salvation. Calvin sides strongly with the Augustinian insistence that mankind contributes nothing: ‘where there is mutual co-operation there will also be reciprocal praise’, and this is an ‘absurdity’ for Calvin (p. 206).

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bound to bestow it on all. For him it is God’s good pleasure, God’s unseen purpose which defends God; for Barth it is the divine nature itself which counts as God’s defence.

3.5. God and Pharaoh: Typological Service or Divine Reprobation? (v. 17) Barth sees vv. 14–16 as preliminary to addressing the still unanswered question of God’s purpose with those he does not include in his special election. It is v. 17 which finally begins to answer this. In turning to consider it, Barth offers an explanation of the pericope’s structure and the relationship between its constituent parts. He suggests that while vv. 15–16 describe the righteousness of the divine mercy in relation to Moses and retrospectively Isaac and Jacob, they also ‘form at the same time the major premise for what is to be said in v. 17f. in relation to Ishmael, Esau and all others rejected within elected Israel.’124 In his application of the divine name’s implications to the rejected, he appears to suggest that mercy applies to them too just as much as to those who are not rejected. The claim is that God’s purpose towards those not included in the special election is also merciful. This is confirmed by what Barth says about Pharaoh in v. 17. He points to the linking ga,r which confirms the insight of vv. 15–16 and which is in place of the de. we might have expected to read there. In this way, Paul’s use of Pharaoh cannot be to oppose the point made in relation to Moses but to confirm it.125 Barth here retains a strong sense that Paul’s argument is fundamentally related to Israel, even at this point, so that for him the pertinent question is: why introduce Pharaoh here? He answers by understanding Pharaoh to be ‘a representative (Repräsentant) of reprobate and rebellious Israel’ and ‘a proper prefiguration’ (ein rechtes Vorbild) of both Saul the persecutor of Christians and the Synagogue in its relation to the apostolic community.126 Pharaoh thus functions in a typological sense and the thrust of Barth’s argument is that God’s purpose with the Israel not included in the church can be discerned from his purpose with Pharaoh. How does Barth understand this purpose here? At this point we again meet some of Barth’s most innovative exegesis. He first lays the foundation for his exegetical comment by arguing that the truth discerned so far in v. 15 also has a negative side to it: ‘Not every act of God’s mercy is necessarily followed by a further one – for in that case how would it be mercy, how would it be the mercy of God?’127 Barth’s point here is that because God is free in his mercy he is also free not to renew it, and 124 125 126 127

CD II/2, p. 219; KD II/2, p. 242. Ibid., p. 220; p. 242. Ibid. Ibid.

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this is precisely the truth that affects Ishmael, Esau and Pharaoh. Exegetically, Barth’s key move here is to ground this negative truth about Pharaoh in what he takes to be a positive significance assigned to Pharaoh from the wider context of the Exodus quote which Paul supplies. In v. 17 Paul quotes Exod. 9.16 and Barth provides a translation of Exod. 9.15–16: The context of the words quoted in v. 17 is indeed: ‘I could by now have stretched forth my hand and smitten you and your people with pestilence; and you would have been cut off from the earth; but in very deed for this cause have I upheld you (Paul read in his Greek text – I have ‘raised you up’) that you might know my power (lxx and Paul: ‘that I might show my power in you’) and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth’.128 Here the critical point is Barth’s rendering of ‘for this cause have I upheld thee’ as the original Hebrew meaning of Paul’s ‘I have raised thee up’ because it is this which counts towards Barth’s argument of God originally showing mercy to Pharaoh. Barth goes on to list further examples of God being merciful to Pharaoh in different forms and then ties this to the significance of Pharaoh’s typological role in Paul’s argument: ‘In the last resort all this is hardly less than what appears in Israel’s own history in the shape of manifest traces of the original divine mercy.’129 Barth is clear that what distinguishes Pharaoh from Isaac, Jacob and Moses is that, unlike them, Pharaoh is refused the ‘renewal, establishment and glorification of this original act of mercy by the event of a further one. God makes use of His freedom to refuse him this future.’130 Vitally for Barth, however, this refusal of God to show more mercy is still nevertheless the refusal of his mercy so that ‘Pharaoh is still in the same sphere as Moses. The original mercy of God is not turned in vain even towards him, but with a very definite and positive purpose. He, too, has a function in the service of the God who bears this name, and he, too, participates in the honour and hope associated with it.’131 Here Barth is reading the use God makes of Pharaoh to proclaim his name and power in all the earth as a merciful act precisely because God uses Pharaoh in his service. He uses 128

129 130 131

Ibid. There are problems here with Barth’s construal of the Hebrew and his presentation of Paul’s use of the lxx. While he is correct that Paul’s phrase ‘that I might show my power in you’ corresponds more to the lxx than the mt, it does not appear to be the case that Paul derived ‘I have raised you up’ from the lxx. Instead of evxh,geira, the lxx reads diethrh,qhj, with Paul’s change of word arguably more closely reflecting the perfect hiphil ^yTiêd>m;[/h,.. At the very least, it means that Barth’s argument here turns on a contested translation issue and the relevance of this point will emerge even more clearly in comparison with Calvin’s exegesis of v. 17. Ibid., p. 220; pp. 242–243. Ibid., p. 220; p. 243. Ibid., p. 221; p. 243.

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Pharaoh as both a ‘dark prototype of all the rejected in Israel’ and as a pointer to ‘the day of His future, to the day of Jesus Christ’.132 Barth’s final comments on Pharaoh are somewhat enigmatic. He locates Pharaoh as standing alongside Moses, just as Ishmael must stand alongside Isaac, and Esau beside Jacob, and he holds here that each of these ‘rejected’ figures simply serve the presentation of God’s righteousness and the righteousness of God’s mercy in different ways from the ‘elect’ figures. Barth is not clear here on the exact way in which he sees these rejected individuals serving God’s mercy in a manner that is different from the elect individuals; his answer appears to be that they serve God’s mercy by illustrating that God’s election is not dependent on the willing and running of any man. Calvin treats Pharaoh as the second part of Paul’s argument in defending God’s righteousness and views him as an example of ‘the rejection of the ungodly’. He acknowledges that it is in this aspect of the divine decree that the charge of unrighteousness in God seems to apply the most, and so Calvin here sees Paul endeavouring ‘all the more to make it plain how God, in rejecting whom He wills, is not only without blame, but is wonderful in his wisdom and fairness.’133 This wisdom and fairness for Calvin consists in God using Pharaoh to show how invincible God’s power is and the futility of man’s striving against it. Calvin outlines two key points made by Paul in referring to Pharaoh at this point: We are accordingly to take two points into consideration here, first, Pharaoh’s predestination to destruction, which refers to the just but secret counsel of God, and second, the purpose of this predestination, which is to proclaim the name of God. It is on this that Paul particularly dwells. If the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is such as to be the cause of God’s name being made known, it is blasphemous to accuse him of any unrighteousness.134 We observe again that whereas Barth locates God’s being as the ground of his righteousness, for Calvin it is God’s purpose which vindicates God of any wrongdoing. Further, this revealed purpose for Pharaoh – making known God’s name – exists alongside a hidden and ‘secret counsel of God’ (arcanum Dei consilium), so that the purpose of the predestination nevertheless still does not completely reveal the full nature of predestination. Here Calvin appears to operate with a general category of the divine decree of rejection, the rationale for which remains entirely inscrutable and known to the divine mind alone. It seems that what remains inscrutable is why certain individuals are chosen rather than others but then, having made this choice, 132 133 134

Ibid., pp. 220–221; p. 243. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 206); Ad Rom., p. 208. Ibid.

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God does reveal (at least in some cases) for what ends he chooses to use the reprobate. Interestingly, Calvin here engages with an alternative understanding of the meaning of this verse that appears to resemble Barth’s interpretation extremely closely. He suggests that the Hebrew for the Pauline ‘I did raise’ is ‘I have appointed you’, so that Paul is actually aiming to show that God had not just foreseen Pharaoh’s actions but ‘He had so ordained it on purpose, with the express design of providing a more notable demonstration of his power.’135 This means that for Calvin it is ‘a misinterpretation’ to construe the Hebrew as God preserving Pharaoh for a period of time, because the perfect hiphil of Exod. 9.16 refers to God’s intention right from the beginning with Pharaoh, not his sustaining response to Pharaoh’s obstinacy.136 To see any concept of God’s mercy towards Pharaoh in either Exod. 9.16 or Rom. 9.17 in the way Barth intends would be regarded as exegetically mistaken in Calvin’s interpretation. The contrast, then, between Calvin and Barth on v. 17 may be summarized in this way. For Barth, understanding the purpose of Pharaoh’s rejection is sufficient to explain it and so vindicate God – Pharaoh is actually a recipient of mercy and his purpose is to serve the presentation of God’s mercy. For Calvin, the purpose Pharaoh serves must be held alongside God’s free and secret choice in raising Pharaoh up, so that together these points constitute the defence of God’s righteousness; if God chooses to harden in order to reveal his name then God’s (inscrutable) choice of particular individuals for this purpose must be a righteous choice. God’s anticipation of mankind’s objection to his ways is to declare that ‘the reprobate, in whom he desires his name to be made known, proceed from the secret fountain of his providence (ex arcano providentiae suae fonte manare).’137

3.6. Mercy and Hardening: Double Predestination or Differentiated Mercy? (v. 18) These contrasting treatments of vv. 14–16 lead to a further sharply contrasting exegesis of v. 18, arguably one of the key verses in Romans 9–11 and certainly in the Reformed doctrine of double predestination. This is the position which Calvin adopts here, viewing the verse as the consequence of what has been said in vv. 15–17 about the elect and reprobate. His words are worth quoting in full: God favours with his mercy those whom he pleases according to his own will, and unsheathes the severity of his judgment against any person whom he pleases. Paul’s purpose is to make us accept the fact 135 136 137

Ibid., pp. 206–207; p. 208. Ibid., p. 207; p. 209. Ibid.

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that it has seemed good to God to enlighten some in order that they may be saved, and blind others in order that they might be destroyed (quod ita visum fuerit Deo, alios illuminare in salutem, alios in mortem excaecare), so that we may be satisfied in our minds with the difference which is evident between the elect and the reprobate, and not inquire for any cause higher than his will. We ought to notice these words, on whom he will, and whom he will, in particular. Paul does not allow us to go beyond this.138 It is clear that for Calvin, ultimately, any defence of God’s righteousness must simply acquiesce in the face of his will – we note the explicit references above to the divine will, as well as the two separate references to what ‘pleases’ God and to what ‘has seemed good’ to him. Immense theological weight is placed on the relative pronouns. His position appears to be that where God shows mercy it is free and undeserved, but where he dispenses judgement there is a tension between God’s causal role in the reprobates’ destruction and the fact that as fallen children of Adam this judgement is righteous and just. This tension does not emerge in the quotation above or in Calvin’s treatment of v. 18 per se but we are justified in suggesting it exists because of what Calvin has already stated about the ‘immediate cause’ of reprobation being the curse inherited from Adam.139 The word harden is taken by Calvin in an exclusively salvific sense. It refers to ‘the action of the divine wrath’ so that here ‘Paul does not inform us that the ruin of the ungodly is foreseen by the Lord, but that it is ordained by his counsel and will.’140 Barth’s interpretation of v. 18 is in explicit dialogue with ‘the classical doctrine of predestination’. He locates the heart of the problem in the classical view in its conception of God’s ‘indeterminately free willing which now takes the one direction and now the other’.141 While accepting the freedom of God’s willing, Barth radically rejects its indeterminacy by asserting: ‘It is determined in the sense given by God’s name (v. 15). And it is determined in this sense that it has this twofold direction. On both sides, although in different forms, God wills one and the same thing.’142 Barth argues that both the evleei/ and the sklhru,nei are to be understood as bracketed by the qe,lei so that God does not have two purposes in the election of his community but one: As will be stated in Romans 11:32 with complete unambiguity, this purpose is the purpose of his mercy (der Vorsatz seines Erbarmens). It is just this purpose which, according to vv. 15–17, both Pharaoh and 138 139 140 141 142

Ibid. Cf. p. 200; p. 202. Ibid., p. 207; p. 209. CD II/2, p. 221; KD II/2, p. 243. Ibid.

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also Moses must carry out. They do so in different ways and to this extent the single will of God has a differentiated form (eine unterscheidene Gestalt).143 Thus for Barth, Moses and Pharaoh function typologically as two representatives of the type of service which the community of God performs in its two-fold form. Moses voluntarily serves God’s name and power and God’s mercy is renewed to him; Pharaoh involuntarily serves the same ends and is refused the renewal of mercy. Barth here accepts that in terms of their status as individuals these different forms of service would indeed have meant something radically different to both Moses and Pharaoh but, contra the classical tradition, their personal destinies are not the issue in Romans 9.144 He argues: But the point at issue here is precisely how the diversity of the personal situation and destiny of Israelite man which, conditioned by the divine predetermination, is so characteristic of the history and life of the chosen people of Israel, does not contradict but corresponds to the election of Israel and the righteousness of the mercy of its God. We are told that there must repeatedly be this division in the sphere of Israel’s history and life because its history is in fact the history of the expectation of its crucified Messiah and at the same time the pre-history of the Church of the risen Lord, because it is in this sphere that God intends to justify both himself and man, and will, in fact, do so.145 This quotation takes us to the heart of Barth’s understanding of both v. 18 and indeed the argument of Romans 9. Moses and Pharaoh together explain why God is not unrighteous in allowing some of his elected community to remain outside the church because both individuals, and therefore both forms of the community, prefigure different forms of God’s mercy as they come to be revealed in Jesus Christ. Up to this point it has not been entirely clear in Barth exactly how the rejected figures serve God’s mercy, but it emerges here that they serve to prefigure typologically the judgement that will befall the man Jesus. The community of God must always conform to the shape of the Christ event – crucifixion and resurrection – so that the

143 144

145

Ibid. Ibid., p. 221; p. 244. Barth’s references to the tradition at this point contain no specific citations so it is not clear exactly which exponents he has in mind. This is worth observing because Calvin himself does not read Romans 9 as dealing with Moses’ personal destiny and although he does use this conceptuality with regard to Pharaoh, even here, as with Moses, it can be argued that Calvin sees him as an individual whom Paul refers to in the service of a wider theological claim. Ibid.

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renewal of God’s mercy to Moses prefigures the resurrection of Christ and the non-renewal of God’s mercy to Pharaoh prefigures his crucifixion. This is exactly what Barth states in commenting on both evleei/ and sklhru,nei: the former is the ‘prefiguration of the mercy in which God will take man’s part on the day of his future, in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead’; the latter is ‘the prefiguration of the judgment which God, on the same day of his future – in the course of showing mercy – will send forth upon man, to which he will on this day submit himself on man’s behalf.’146 This is the heart of Barth’s principial christocentrism worked out in the details of the exegesis of Romans 9. Worthy of special notice here is the fact that Calvin and Barth have construed the meaning of vv. 14–18 very differently because of radically divergent interpretations of v. 15 which then affect the rest of their interpretations. We have seen how for Barth what is revealed in v. 15 determines the meaning of v. 18, so that in some sense v. 15 functions as an interpretative key in his exegesis. With v. 15 having a radically christocentric meaning for Barth, it is clear just how principial his Christology is for his exegesis of election at this point. By understanding 9.15 to be a declaration of the divine name which is fundamentally tied to the revelation of universal mercy in Christ, Barth’s understanding of Christology shapes the content of his exegesis. These exegetical distinctives mean that while Barth sees all of Israel and all of the church as both included within the scope of God’s mercy, Calvin sees in these verses the reason why some within Israel (and the world) are rejected and not salvifically included within God’s people. Calvin understands Paul’s argument to have narrowed down to the individual (or perhaps better, to the particular attributes of election and rejection on a universal scale) precisely to give a defence of God’s agency in allowing some of Israel to be rejected. Barth understands Paul to have grounded divine agency in the divine being as a christological way of ensuring that, although serving the presentation of God’s judgement, Israel nevertheless remains within the grasp of God’s mercy. Calvin understands Paul to have grounded divine agency in the free divine willing in a way which is not christological. It is the realm of the inscrutable divine will which falls outside historical contingencies and the temporal unfolding of salvation-history. And this, quite simply, is not the realm in which Calvin prefers to discuss Christology. It is not that it is unconnected to Christology, as we shall see, but it is not, for him, where Christology is best described. On the basis of his exegesis of Romans 9 so far, we can see that descriptions of Calvin’s doctrine of election which describe it as straightforwardly christocentric are conceptually imprecise; but this is not the same thing as describing it as exhibiting a form of soteriological christocentrism.

146

Ibid., pp. 221–222; p. 244.

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3.7. God and His Power: The Decretum Absolutum or Christological Determination? (vv. 19–20a) These christocentric distinctions continue clearly in the treatment of the remainder of Romans 9. Calvin’s and Barth’s divergent understandings of v. 18 and what is really at stake in vv. 14–18 lead, not surprisingly, to two different understandings of the nature of the next rhetorical question in v. 19, and also the answer which Paul provides. Both commentators understand the logical flow from v. 18 into v. 19 to mean that we are now presented with the question of God’s justice in his dealings with rejected man. Calvin understands the question to reveal how ‘the flesh rages when it hears that the predestination to death of those who perish is referred to the will of God (ad Dei arbitrium referri quod ad mortem destinati sint qui pereunt).’147 Barth understands the question as the self-defence of a man who ‘sees himself put by God himself among his enemies, without regard to what he can advance in favour of the right, the worth and the usefulness of his efforts’.148 Both understand the issue to be the justice of man remaining culpable in the face of God’s will. However, whereas Calvin reads the question as an indignant response to God’s predestination because it shows the mind of someone who has not accepted Paul’s argument so far, Barth reads it as an irrelevant response because it reveals a questioner who has not understood Paul’s argument. Both commentators see the underlying issue at this point to be God’s power but they now adopt fundamentally different ways of construing this: Calvin adopts the view which Barth rejects, the decretum absolutum (although we will see that he does not adopt it in quite the unqualified way Barth attributes to the Reformed tradition). Further, we note here that Calvin adopts an understanding of v. 18, the ensuing question in v. 19 and the answer in v. 20 which Barth regards as a non-answer (although he does not refer directly to Calvin here). The sharpness of the contrast between Calvin and Barth at this point emerges when we ask precisely why Calvin’s interpretation of Paul’s answer would be illegitimate for Barth. Calvin understands Paul to put forward two answers to the question in v. 19. The first answer comes in v. 20a where ‘Paul simply restrains the irreverence of the blasphemy by arguing from the condition of man’, and Calvin includes under this answer the first part of the pot–potter illustration. The second answer will follow in vv. 22–23, the second part of the potter imagery, where Paul ‘will vindicate the righteousness of God from every accusation (qua Dei iustitiam ab omni criminatione vindicabit)’.149 What is essential to note for our purposes is how Calvin understands this first answer: ‘It is clear 147 148 149

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 208); Ad Rom., p. 210. CD II/2, p. 222; KD II/2, p. 244. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 208); Ad Rom., p. 210.

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that Paul advances no higher cause than the will of God.’150 This is clear, says Calvin, because of the way in which Paul actually argues. He suggests that to refute the objection presented to him, Paul could have clarified what he meant in v. 18 by stating that there are ‘just grounds’ for the difference between the elect and the reprobate, but instead his response in v. 20a assigns ‘the highest place to the will of God, so that it alone should be sufficient for us, rather than any other cause’.151 This means that by responding the way he does, Paul is again implicitly endorsing the teaching that God simply elects and reprobates according to his will. By not denying that God does have the first place in humanity’s salvation and destruction and yet still holds them accountable for their guilt, Paul ‘confirms that God determines to deal with men as he pleases’. Though men rail against this it is pointless ‘because he assigns whatever fate he pleases to his creatures by his own right’.152 Again we note the references to God doing what ‘pleases’ him, so that Calvin understands Paul to be arguing that God has a way of working which seems unfair to us but which is actually not unfair simply because God is God and is free to do whatever he wants. This is his pleasure. The first part of the potter illustration confirms this reading for Calvin and it is clear here that Calvin does accept there must be some reason why this is not unjust for God to act in this way – it is simply that ‘the reason for this may be concealed from us.’153 Paul is showing in v. 20b that ‘God is robbed of his right, if he is not free to deal with his creatures as he sees fit.’ Whereas some see this as harsh, Calvin sees it as ‘the rule of humility’ to accept God’s sovereignty rather than pass judgement on it. As Paul’s interlocutor rails against the terrible notion of God’s will being decisive over the fate of the non-elect, Calvin sees Paul as answering that God is free to do what he wants and that he does not need to reveal the reason that guides his will. Barth, however, accepts that there would have been a point to the question in v. 19 if Paul had been talking about the decretum absolutum in v. 18, but he rejects this possibility: ‘If it is the decretum absolutum that Paul proclaims in v. 18, even his own answer to this question in v. 20 is no real answer.’154 This takes us to the heart of the difference between Calvin and Barth on Romans 9. At almost every point in the mystery of predestination, Calvin is happy to acquiesce in the face of God’s secret counsel and his good pleasure which cannot be known by humanity. He is satisfied that there must be a reason why God’s justice is not impugned by acting in this way but we cannot know it. Barth regards this kind of response to be, in the first place, simply an ignoring of the question, as it does not explain how God 150 151 152 153 154

Ibid., p. 208; pp. 210–211. Ibid., p. 209; p. 211. Ibid. Ibid. CD II/2, p. 222; KD II/2, p. 245.

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can attribute guilt to man in the face of his absolute power. More fundamentally, Barth views the classical interpretation of these verses as an expression of an indeterminacy in God’s actions which is not tenable following the revelation of the divine nature in 9.15. Again, what Calvin refers to God’s will, Barth refers primarily to God’s being. This means that v. 19 is not the question of a man wondering why he is numbered among the reprobate yet still culpable in the face of the divine decree. Rather, it is the question of someone who has fundamentally misunderstood the vocation assigned to them, a vocation shaped by the very nature of God. As Barth states, v. 18 is not about the decretum absolutum but rather ‘the merciful will of the free God’ so that the question of v. 19 is completely irrelevant: ‘if the God who is free in the exercise of his mercy determines man to be the witness of his judgment no man can be in a position to oppose him with the question why he finds fault, or why he has made him thus.’155 Barth explicitly opposes the understanding of v. 20a which sees it as a defence of God as Creator having power to do what seems good to him – this is exactly the kind of indeterminacy he views as contradicted by the flow of the argument so far. Rather, for Barth, God’s power must be viewed as christologically determined. He states: The tenor of the answer hidden in the counter-question of v. 20 is: ‘In any case, whether you are a friend of God like Moses or an enemy like Pharaoh, whether your name is Isaac or Ishmael, Jacob or Esau, you are the man on account of whose sin and for whose sin Jesus Christ has died on the cross for the justification of God, and for whose salvation and bliss, and for whose justification, he has been raised from the dead’ (Rom. 4:25). This man . . . cannot possibly make the challenge of v. 19.156 Whereas the classical doctrine of predestination understood v. 19 to be a scrupulus de praedestinatione hominis irregeniti Barth radically rejects its corollary of an indeterminate God and an indeterminate man at this point, and in their place argues for Jesus Christ who both vindicates God and justifies man. This makes the question of v. 19 irrelevant because the rejected man is always simply serving the purpose of God’s mercy, even if he is called to stand in the shadow of God’s mercy rather than its light.157 Calvin and Barth operate here with fundamentally divergent understandings of God’s power.158 155 156 157 158

Ibid. Ibid., p. 223; p. 245. Ibid. In his exegesis of v. 19, Barth appears to attribute to the classical doctrine of predestination ‘an absolute power of disposal (einer absoluten Verfügungsgewalt) belonging to God’ (CD II/2, p. 222; KD II/2, p. 245). Here Barth identifies the decretum absolutum

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3.8. Potter and Vessels: Christological Climax or Vindication of God’s Righteousness? (vv. 20b–23) Calvin and Barth now adopt contrasting exegetical positions in their respective treatments of what Barth calls the ‘parable’ of the potter (Töpfergleichnis). Barth’s treatment is significantly longer and will provide the orientation to the contrast with Calvin on this issue. The parable of the potter is, for Barth, ‘the focal point of the whole exposition’. Here a number of his exegetical presuppositions, already at work en route to this point, now receive explicit attention. There are three key insights needed to show that the parable should have this hermeneutical high-ground: first, the ‘evangelical spirit’ of the rejection of v. 19’s question; second, the Old Testament background to the parable is viewed as decisive for its understanding; and third, the interpretation of the parable given in vv. 22–24 is also essential, introduced as it is by an extremely important de..159 Crucially, we note how for Barth the centrality of his understanding of v. 15 again surfaces so that just as v. 15 provides the explicit determination of the divine willing in v. 18, so now also in turn v. 18 provides the explicit determination of the potter’s actions. This means that the parable must be construed christologically and we should not minimize the way in which Barth’s understanding of the future day of God’s mercy – a christological interpretation of v. 15 – deeply informs the rest of his exposition. Rather than a God who acts indeterminately, the potter as the God of Israel and who is ‘determined’ by the content of vv. 15 and 18, instead uses ‘vessels of

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with ‘an indeterminate power of God’, and over against a God who deals with his people ‘according to the caprices of his omnipotence’ Barth posits instead a God who acts with ‘determinate purpose, corresponding to his name and nature’ as revealed in the death and resurrection of Christ (CD II/2, p. 223; KD II/2, p. 246). This discussion is the exegetical rationale for Barth’s earlier rejection of a general doctrine of God which views him as ‘omnipotent Will . . . irresistibly efficacious power in abstracto, naked freedom and sovereignty’ (CD II/2, p. 44; KD II/2, pp. 46–47). Whatever the merit of these criticisms of the tradition, they should not be seen as applicable to Calvin’s exegesis at this point. God is certainly not self-determined for Calvin in the same way that he is for Barth, but Calvin never separates God’s will from God’s character. The former is always in harmony with the latter, so that to describe God’s power here as ‘indeterminate’ or ‘naked’ would not represent Calvin’s position. Two examples help establish this. First, the concept of ‘absolute might’ is explicitly rejected by Calvin in his doctrine of election – he refers to it as a ‘fiction’; cf. Inst. III.xxiii.2. Second, in his exegesis of Rom. 9.21, Calvin says: ‘The word right does not mean that the maker has power or strength to do what he pleases, but that this power to act rightly belongs to him. Paul does not want to claim for God an inordinate power (Neque enim vult Deo asserere potestatem aliquam inordinatam), but the power which he should rightly be given’ (Comm. Rom., CNTC, vol. 8, p. 210; Ad Rom., p. 212). For a helpful discussion, cf. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, pp. 312–346. CD II/2, p. 223; KD II/2, p. 246.

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honour’ and ‘vessels of dishonour’ as witnesses to his mercy and judgement respectively, and thus both as witnesses to Jesus Christ.160 The two contrasting vessels are always ‘the revelation of the way taken by him in his advance towards the day of his future’.161 From this basis, Barth now seeks to establish a fundamental tenet of his whole exposition: the actions of the potter towards the two different types of vessels do not operate in symmetry and equilibrium. In sharp disagreement with the classical doctrine of predestination, which he describes here as ‘proceeding from a centre of indifference’, Barth argues that there is rather a logical ordering and sequential relationship between the two actions: If to the right he says Yes, he does this for his own sake, expressing his ultimate purpose, declaring what he wills to do among and to men in his mercy operative and revealed in Jesus Christ. If to the left he says No, he does this for the sake of the Yes that is to be spoken to the right, on the way to the execution of his ultimate purpose, declaring that which the operation and revelation of his mercy make necessary because they happen among and to men.162 Here it is clear that Barth’s exegesis is operating with a role for the primacy of God’s mercy over God’s judgement, and he provides a selection of Old Testament texts which appear to make exactly this point (Ps. 30.5; Isa. 54.7–17; Ps. 103.11–22). The error of the question in v. 20a lies precisely in not grasping this asymmetrical relationship between mercy and judgement.163 Two things emerge very clearly in Barth’s treatment. First, the vessels are understood as types of vocation rather than as types of individuals destined for either election or reprobation. The ‘vessels of dishonour’ are appointed to show mankind’s impotence and unworthiness, and rather than rail against God for appointing them to this task such vessels should corroborate the witness of the one who is determined as a ‘vessel of honour’.164 Second, this vocational understanding is then obviously applied to the two-fold form of the community, so that it is Israel’s special calling to corroborate this witness by being the vessel of dishonour and therefore the witness to the divine judgement. It is the special calling of the church to be the vessel of honour, the witness to the divine mercy. This means then that Israel cannot complain to God about its status as a vessel of wrath simply because ‘it has the Church within it from the very first; because it is with its 160 161 162 163 164

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 224; p. 246. Ibid. Ibid., p. 224; p. 247.

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proclamation of the divine No that it has been determined for and is called to entrance into the Church.’165 In explaining this positive significance of Israel’s vocation Barth states: ‘This calling which it has to be subordinate to the proclamation of the greater divine Yes is God’s prior justification in relation to it and its own prior justification in relation to God.’166 This vocational understanding of the matter sees all the rejected individuals in Romans 9 actually ‘called’ by the elect figures, so that Barth sees here in v. 19 the question of someone who simply does not realize that they are called to play a particular role in the proclamation of the gospel.167 For Barth this line of interpretation is confirmed by what he regards as Paul’s own interpretation of the parable in vv. 22–24. He summarizes: In vv. 22–24 it is quite unambiguous that Paul is not speaking of a content of God’s will which is to be interpreted as an abstract duality, but of God’s way on which in execution of his one purpose he wills and executes in a determined sequence and order this twofold operation.168 Crucially, Barth states that a ‘harsh appearance’ can descend on the argument up to this point ‘if vv. 22–24 are not taken into account in advance’. This means that these verses function in some sense as hermeneutical keys for Barth. They finally make plain that God’s mercy and hardening, and his use of ‘vessels of honour’ and ‘vessels of dishonour’ correspond ultimately to God’s one goal and one way with his creation.169 In terms of exegetical details, Barth argues that it is the kai. i[na of v. 23 which exposes the proper relationship between God’s two-fold action. He also explores the implications of the two principal verbs in vv. 22–23. In v. 22 the principal verb is h;negken, so that it thereby relativizes the ultimate importance of the fact of there being vessels of wrath prepared for destruction – the theological weight rather falls on God’s action in bearing patiently with these vessels. Indeed, it is this particular weighting which v. 23 is concerned with. Here, because the principal verb in v. 23 is gnwri,sh|, this likewise shows that again God’s ultimate purpose is not even with the vessels of mercy but rather with displaying his glory to them. It is precisely these details which prove the asymmetrical nature of the divine decree so that the vessels of judgement and mercy are neither equal nor even ultimate,

165 166 167 168 169

Ibid., p. 225; p. 247. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 225; p. 248. Ibid.

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but together servants of God’s glory.170 Given how this interpretation coheres with Barth’s argument so far, it is now no surprise that he therefore also wants to read the showing of wrath and mercy in a thoroughly christological way. Here, because the vessels represent the two-fold form of the community, then the vessels of wrath must refer to ‘an increasingly close succession of intimations of this judgment’ which Jesus himself will bear: ‘In them is shown the divine No, veiled in which the divine Yes to man will be spoken in the suffering and death of Israel’s Messiah.’171 Further, these successive intimations of judgement eventually focus down to one point, one ultimate vessel of wrath: ‘In delivering up its Messiah to be put to death, it must become in its totality a witness to the divine judgment.’172 It is this christological anti-type to the vessels of wrath which means they do not play an ultimate function in the vocational economy and further shows why the principal meaning of these verses must reside in God’s bearing with such vessels in long-suffering. Barth states: Because he bore in his own Son, the rejection which falls on mankind, the fact of Ishmael’s rejection, of Esau’s, or Pharaoh’s, of all Israel’s also, is in the end superseded and limited; it is characterised as a rejection borne by God. ‘To bear’ in this context means more accurately to bear forward, to bear to an expected end. It is for the sake of him who is to come, for the sake of the Lamb of God who will bear away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29), that the sustaining, long-suffering of God (cf. Rom. 3:25f.) which befalls the ‘vessels of wrath’ is possible and necessary.173 This principially christocentric understanding of these verses culminates in an explicit argument by Barth that it is v. 23 that indicates the telos of God’s election, so that his wrath and judgement are always for the sake of his mercy and indeed, here we learn that ‘God’s mercy is his glory (his self-confirming and self-demonstrating essence).’174 Critically, this line of interpretation means that Barth differs fundamentally from the classical tradition by viewing the subject matter of Romans 9 to be not the eternal destinies of individuals but the two-fold form of the community such that the hardening and judgement cannot be ultimate: ‘God’s sentence of rejection on Israel is not a final word, not the whole Word of God, but only the foreword (Vorwort) to God’s promise of his glory later to be revealed on this shadow-Israel (Schatten-Israel).’175 It is vital to see here that this understanding 170 171 172 173 174 175

Ibid. Ibid., p. 226; p. 248. Ibid., p. 226; p. 249. Ibid. Ibid., p. 227; pp. 249–250. Ibid.

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drives Barth’s exegesis of chapter 9 up to this point; we might even be justified here in saying that Barth reads the chapter backwards as well as forwards. This is clear when he states that we are not told what purpose the ‘vessels of dishonour’ serve prior to v. 22 but this purpose clearly emerges in the connection between vv. 22 and 23: ‘Indirectly the real witnesses of the wrath of God are necessarily also witnesses of his mercy.’176 Calvin’s interpretation of these verses form part of what he regards as Paul’s second answer to the question of v. 19. We remember Calvin’s promise that this second answer would ‘vindicate the righteousness of God from every accusation’.177 Here it becomes clear that at least part of Calvin’s meaning in statements such as ‘the counsel of God is incomprehensible with regard to predestination’ is that what is secret is the reason for the divine choice between men – why one is chosen, why another is rejected. Although this is not made known to us, nevertheless the fact of the differentiation as it is expressed in history reveals God’s righteousness.178 For Calvin, the vindication of God’s righteousness here appears to reside in three key factors. First, God’s patience with the vessels of wrath, shown ‘by not destroying them at the earliest opportunity, but postponing the judgment prepared for them.’179 Second, this in turn demonstrates ‘the decrees of his severity’ and makes his power known so that others are ‘stricken with terror at such fearful examples’. Third, acting in this way ensures that God ‘may make the extent of his mercy toward the elect better known and shine with greater clarity’.180 When these features of God’s action are considered there is no room for describing his will as ‘reprehensible’. Calvin understands the destruction of the reprobate to be a revelation of God’s glory in that ‘the fullness of the divine mercy towards the elect is more clearly confirmed by this.’181 Like Barth, he regards God’s glory here as his mercy. For Calvin, however, the ‘vessels of dishonour’ refer to individuals who are ‘appointed and destined for destruction’; indeed, individuals whose ‘lot is already assigned to them before their birth’.182 He is content to argue that we cannot know why God should do this: ‘the reason is hidden in the eternal inexplicable counsel of God, whose righteousness is worthy of our worship, rather than our scrutiny.’183 This contrasts sharply with Barth who is concerned 176 177 178 179 180 181

182 183

Ibid. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 208); Ad Rom., p. 210. Ibid., p. 210–211; pp. 212–213. Ibid., p. 211; p. 213. Ibid. Ibid. Calvin actually says here that this is the second reason why God’s glory is revealed in the destruction of the reprobate. It is not clear from his argument what he regards as the first reason. It is possible that his argument in vv. 20–21 that God has authority ‘to be arbiter of life and death over men’ functions as the first reason. Ibid., p. 212; p. 214. Ibid., p. 211; p. 213.

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precisely to explain why it is that God acts in this way – indeed Barth understands the grammatical construction of vv. 22–24 to be answering exactly this question. Here, at a climactic point in Calvin’s understanding of the dividing line which he sees running through the whole of Romans 9, we note that even this does not require christological comment from his pen. The reason, again, is that as Calvin sees it, Paul’s subject matter is the ‘eternal inexplicable counsel of God’. There are aspects of his doctrine of election which, it seems, are not best served by the simple ascription of christocentrism. Such language in Calvin requires the adjective ‘soteriological’ to be adequate and, even here as we have seen, requires that we understand soteriology not in its eternal ground but rather in its temporal, historical outworking. From here we turn to the remainder of Romans 9–11. I will not treat this material in the same detail or in exactly the same way as above. Rather, my aim will be to examine the rest of this biblical unit under one main heading that serves to best focus the remaining points of contrast between Calvin’s and Barth’s exegesis.

4. Romans 9.24–11.36 4.1. The Stumbling of the Jews: Qualified by Special Election or by Vocation? (9.24–11.36) In the remainder of chapters 9–11 there is one recurring motif that is handled in strikingly different ways by Calvin and Barth: the stumbling of the Jews. In the text this issue goes hand in hand with the inclusion of the Gentiles and it is with this idea that Paul’s argument now develops in a new direction in 9.24. While this issue will naturally surface in the discussion that follows, it is arguably the differing positions Calvin and Barth adopt on the question of God’s relationship to the Jews which stand out most clearly in their respective treatments. I will suggest here that Calvin now begins to qualify his language concerning God’s rejection of the Jews by arguing that this rejection is not absolute: some do have God’s special election applied to them. He again draws from his covenant conceptuality and now also the remnant motif to denote things which apply to some of the people of Israel but not all. The flow of his argument needs to be handled with care. Barth will further develop his language of vocation to argue that the stumbling of the Jews does not undermine the election of the entire nation but merely points to the fact that they serve God in a way different from the church. The difference between Calvin and Barth at this point is, in essence, a difference over the way in which they understand the reasoning which permeates Paul’s answer to his own question in 11.1: Le,gw ou=n( mh. avpw,sato o` qeo.j to.n lao.n auvtou/È mh. ge,noito. I will consider five examples of the differences between Calvin and Barth on this point. 134

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a. 9.24–29 At this point it becomes clear why for Calvin the focus on the theology of individual election is actually a vital part of Paul’s argument about Israel. Calvin understands 9.24–29 to outline two consequences which follow from the fact that the divine election is totally free. First, God’s grace is free to ‘flow to other nations, and spread over the whole world’. Second, it does not automatically come ‘to all the children of Abraham according to the flesh without exception’.184 These two consequences are based on the extended argument about the freedom of the divine will in election; for Calvin, it is the freedom of God’s choice of individuals which explains and validates why that choice both includes Gentiles and does not include every Jew. Election and rejection only makes sense for Calvin if there is no intrinsic ethnic merit which makes saving election a foregone conclusion. These two points also get to the heart of how Calvin understands the rest of Paul’s argument through to the end of chapter 11. He holds that Paul now deals with the calling of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews, beginning with the former. His understanding of the flow of the argument is: the inclusion of the Gentiles (9.24–26); the explanation that God’s saving grace does not come to every single Jew and the explanation of why some are rejected (9.27–10.10); further affirmation of the calling of the Gentiles (10.11–21);185 given the rejection of the Jews, does this mean the covenant with the fathers is abolished (chapter 11)? Calvin suggests that out of the ‘two consequences’, the latter is more offensive so Paul deals with the former first: the grace of God flowing to the nations. Here, as does Barth, Calvin notes that the two quotations from Hosea which Paul uses to establish the inclusion of the Gentiles actually refer to Israel in their original context. Their different explanation of Paul’s intent here is instructive. Calvin considers and then dismisses the prevailing best explanation of this problem as ‘a little forced’.186 He suggests instead that rather than drawing the meaning primarily from what Paul intends to argue in the context of Romans, the original context must also have had some original import towards the Gentiles. On this reading Paul is simply drawing on a wider referent for the quotation which becomes evident from its original context. Calvin aims to support his view by arguing that it was not uncommon for the prophets to denounce their own people with God’s judgement but then ‘to direct their attention to the kingdom of Christ, which

184 185

186

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 212); Ad Rom., p. 214. On 10.11, Calvin says: ‘Having stated the reasons why God had justly rejected the Jews, he returns to affirm the calling of the Gentiles. This is the other part of the question he is now discussing’ (p. 228; p. 230). Calvin’s understanding of 9.24–11.36 is that the argument alternates constantly between these two concerns. Ibid., p. 213; p. 215.

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was to be spread throughout the whole world’. The real significance of this fact, however, is that ‘when the Jews were banished from the family of God, they were thereby reduced to a common level with the Gentiles. The distinction between Jew and Gentile has been removed, and the mercy of God now extends indiscriminately to all the Gentiles.’187 Calvin’s interpretation rests on his understanding of God’s rejection of the Jews which has effectively reduced them to the same standing before God as Gentiles – it is the rejection which opens up the possible semantic (and ethnic) range of Hosea’s denunciation. Barth picks up this same point about the original context of the Hosea quotation but sees a different significance in Paul’s argument. He states that here we have to do with a conclusion a maiori ad minus: if God’s mercy is so bountiful that it can reach the Gentiles who had been completely rejected, then how much more can God’s mercy reach his ancient people who he had already promised it to! The important thing to note here is that Barth goes so far as to say that ‘we must even read and understand the Hosea quotations quite simply as a repetition of the prophecy originally – and as established by its comprehensive fulfilment, definitively – addressed to Israel, namely to that other, rejected Israel.’188 In other words, this prophecy still holds out hope to the future of rejected Israel. This is a promise God gives to the rejected among his people and because he has actually fulfilled this promise to the Gentiles – Barth calls them here ‘the ten times rejected who had never been his elected people’ – then there is absolutely no grounds whatsoever for questioning God’s righteousness.189 It is extremely interesting to see how both Calvin and Barth appeal to the original context of the Hosea quotations but construe the significance of this in very different ways. For Calvin the original context is precisely the means of showing that the Jews have been rejected from the level of a special status before God so that they are the equivalent of Gentiles – there is no difference between rejected Jews and Gentiles. For Barth the original context is precisely the means of showing that God has not and will not reject the Jews – although in Romans the text is applied to Gentiles, this original context means that we must also take the words as holding out future promise to the Jews. In Calvin the Hosea text can apply to Gentiles because the rejected Jews are the same as Gentiles; in Barth it can apply to Gentiles because if God will not reject his covenant people, how much less will he ever reject the Gentiles.190 187 188 189 190

Ibid., p. 214; p. 216. CD II/2, p. 231; KD II/2, p. 254. Ibid. At this point Calvin also engages in a discussion of what it means, temporally, to say Vocabo populum meum, eum qui non est populus in the light of eternal predestination. He seeks to show that although the objects of election are embraced by eternal mercy there is nevertheless a temporal period when they experience estrangement

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b. 11.1–6 As I suggested above, Calvin and Barth differ substantially in their treatment of Paul’s answer to his own question in 11.1. For Barth the direction of argument in chapter 11 is established by 10.21 – he takes this to be the key verse in chapter 10 because of the light it sheds on the whole chapter. He argues that it is not parallel to the quotations in vv. 19–20 but rather the focus here shifts from the Jews’ obstinacy to the constancy of God’s mercy.191 The point is not that God is addressing a people that are rejected. Rather, the verse shows clearly that they are actually elected by God – the fact that God stretches out his hand in mercy is a ‘fact which in all its dreadfulness does not speak against but for Israel’s election’.192 For Barth it is this verse that means that Paul cannot answer his own question in 11.1 by saying that God has indeed rejected his people. From this basis, Paul now embarks on an argument to show that the disobedience of Israel cannot be traced back to a change in the divine will.193 The ground for Paul’s mh. ge,noito is actually himself. The apostolate has as its bearer an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham: ‘To admit that God has rejected his people would mean the annulment not only of Paul himself, but above all . . . of his office, his commission, and its whole content.’194 However, Barth takes Paul’s line of argument here to contain within itself an unspoken question – can an individual really be cogent proof in the matter of the election of all Israel? This is why Paul turns to the Old Testament example of Elijah, finding in him a vital parallel to his own situation. There are many interesting aspects of Barth’s treatment of the Elijah parallel in 11.2–6, but one main issue stands out. He suggests that the seven thousand strong remnant does not of itself prove that God has not rejected his people – indeed it may even be evidence that the people as such are rejected. He examines the context of the quoted incident in 1 Kings 19 and discovers in 1 Kgs 20.15 (and much later in 2 Kgs 24.18) that seven thousand

191 192 193

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from God’s love – their election has yet to be proved by their being reconciled to him in time (Comm. Rom., CNTC, vol. 8, p. 214; Ad Rom., p. 216). CD II/2, p. 259; KD II/2, p. 285. Ibid. Ibid., p. 267; p. 295. Barth begins his exegesis of Romans 11 by pointing to the ‘extremely useful’ exegesis contained in E. F. Ströter’s pamphlet Die Judenfrage und ihre göttliche Lösung nach Römer Kapitel 11. For a helpful discussion of this work and the dispensationalist flavour it gives to Barth’s exegesis, cf. C. H. Cosgrove, ‘The Church with and for Israel: History of a Theological Novum before and after Barth’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 22.3 (1995), pp. 259–278. It is important not to overstate Ströter’s influence here. Barth himself regarded the exegesis as useful ‘in spite of its glaring mistakes’ and, given that he does not refer to the pamphlet again at all, it would be rather difficult to establish direct dependency at any given point in Barth’s exegesis. CD II/2, p. 268; KD II/2, p. 295.

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is here referred to as the number of all Israel. This means that in 1 Kgs 19.18 ‘It is these seven thousand men, and not the unfaithful majority, who represent Israel as such. By “leaving them” God holds fast to Israel as such, and it is decided that He has not rejected His people.’195 For Barth there are two main implications of this insight. First, Paul parallels Elijah in standing before God as an individual representative of the seven thousand – just as Elijah was invisibly surrounded by these men so too Paul himself is invisibly surrounded by the spiritual equivalent who must be present in his own day.196 But second, and more significantly, just as in Elijah’s time the seven thousand actually represented the whole nation so too in Paul’s time the remnant must here be standing in for the whole nation. Barth states that the existence of the minority ‘represents in [God’s] sight all Israel as such. It is the witness of the faithfulness of his election of all Israel. The elect in Israel witness to the election of Israel itself.’197 There are further similar statements at this stage in Barth’s exposition, where the clear idea is that God is not just faithful to Israel in that he is faithful to a remnant within Israel, but more radically that by being faithful to the remnant God expresses his faithfulness to the whole of Israel.198 It is as if Barth views the remnant here in substitutionary terms: it does not represent the line of Israel narrowed down to a smaller number with the larger number ultimately excluded, but rather the remnant stands in for the whole as a sign of God’s faithfulness to the whole. What is true now of the remnant ultimately applies to the whole. This is significantly different from Calvin. He holds that in chapter 10 Paul has proved ‘that when the people had rejected the righteousness of God through misplaced zeal, they were justly punished for their pride, deserved to be blinded, and were finally cut off from the covenant.’199 The opening verses of chapter 11 follow on from these negative judgements about Israel throughout the argument so far, and receive their immediate impetus from 10.21. As Calvin says, ‘The tenor of Paul’s remarks up to this point concerning the blindness and obstinacy of the Jews might have seemed to suggest that at his coming Christ had deprived the Jews of all hope of salvation and removed the promises to another people.’200 It is clear that Calvin is now concerned to nuance his earlier explanations of God rejecting his people; this is because at this point he sees Paul himself qualifying his own argument. Paul does not want any to suppose that ‘the covenant which had

195 196 197 198

199 200

Ibid., p. 270; p. 298. Ibid., p. 271; p. 298. Ibid., p. 271; p. 299. Cf. for instance: ‘these elect stand also for the whole of Israel, and that in and with them God adheres to Israel as such and to everything that he has at any time promised it’ (ibid., pp. 272–273; p. 300). Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 238); Ad Rom., p. 239. Ibid.

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formerly been made with Abraham was now abrogated, or that God had so forgotten it that the Jews were now completely estranged from his kingdom, as the Gentiles were before the coming of Christ.’201 We note again that here the covenant conceptuality is to the fore in Calvin’s explanation of how Paul’s answer to his own question in 11.1 is both negative and qualified: ‘Responso est negativa, et cum moderatione’.202 Paul has argued that there is indeed a sense in which God has rejected his people so that he cannot here now deny this or he would be merely contradicting himself. Hence he must provide a qualification which is as follows: God has by no means rejected the whole race of Abraham, by acting contrary to the trustworthiness of His covenant. The effect, however, of his adoption is not found in all the children of the flesh, because his secret election precedes adoption. Thus the general rejection was not able to prevent some seed from being saved, for the visible body of the people (visibile populi corpus) was rejected in such a way that no member of the spiritual body of Christ (spirituali Christi corpore) was lost.203 This is in harmony with what we have seen so far in Calvin. God’s covenant with all the Jewish people is not efficacious for all. However, Calvin holds that at this point in Paul’s argument he is concerned to show that while it is not efficacious for all, it is for some – the remnant. Here Calvin begins to refer to ‘the church’ in a way in which he has not yet done. Previously ‘church’ referred to the whole nation of Israel (9.4), but now Calvin begins to use it to refer to the remnant from within the nation who are granted God’s special election. The outlines of this position are evident in the above quotation, where Calvin makes a distinction between the visible body of the people and the (invisible) spiritual body of Christ. This spiritual body, consisting of those who have been joined to Christ, may be described as the church: We may now understand that, although universal calling may not produce fruit, yet the faithfulness of God does not fail, but always he preserves his Church as long as the elect remain. Although God invites all people to himself without distinction, he does not inwardly draw any except those whom he knows to be his own and has given to his Son, and whom he will also keep faithfully to the very end.204 This conception of the church within Israel continues in Calvin’s treatment of the remnant motif in these verses and the 1 Kings 19 quotations. 201 202 203 204

Ibid. Ibid., p. 239; p. 240. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 239–240; p. 241.

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In the circumstances of the apparent rejection of the whole nation, Elijah functions as an example because in his day ‘there had been such a desolation that there no longer remained any appearance of a Church. And yet when no trace of the grace of God was visible, the Church of God was as it were hidden in a tomb, and in this way was marvellously preserved.’205 In this way ‘the ancient condition of the Church’ functions for Calvin both to underscore that salvific election is not applied to all the nation and also to provide pastoral encouragement to believers bewildered by the church’s paltry condition: ‘let this truth remain fixed in our hearts, that the Church, which may not appear as anything in our sight, is nourished by the secret providence of God.’206 Calvin’s exegesis of these verses differs from Barth’s in two main respects. First, he comments on the significance of Elijah’s plea against Israel which Paul mentions in 11.2. He argues that by drawing attention to this fact Elijah had given the people up to destruction. Here Calvin has some criticisms here of aspects of Elijah’s behaviour, but he nevertheless also appears to locate an aspect of the parallel between the situations of Elijah and Paul in the fact that their people surrounding them were given over to destruction. This is in keeping with Calvin’s earlier treatment of 9.1–5. The difference with Barth at this point, then, is that whereas Barth sees chapter 11 beginning with a strong emphasis on God’s mercy (following 10.21), Calvin sees it as continuing a clear element of God’s forsaking his people. But the second respect in which their treatments differ is in the way Calvin outlines the qualification to the situation of rejection. His treatment of the remnant is starkly opposed to Barth’s. Although it looked as if ‘the whole race of Abraham was rejected’, both in Elijah’s day and Paul’s day, the remnant is a circumscribed number of individuals sealed with God’s secret election, the sum total of which is a number less than ‘the great number whose eyes were set on ungodliness’ and who are therefore salvifically separate from this great number.207 There is no sense in Calvin that the special election of the remnant corresponds to or signifies in any way the special election of the whole. Rather, ‘One of Paul’s propositions, therefore, is that 205 206

207

Ibid., p. 240; p. 241. Barth engages with the question of whether Calvin’s doctrine of election was based on his empirical observations of behaviour which demonstrated whether someone was ‘elect’ or ‘reprobate’. His discussion is nuanced and recognizes that any such charges need to be very carefully qualified (cf. CD II/2, pp. 39–41; KD II/2, pp. 40–43). Such caution is warranted given what Calvin says here: ‘Let us also remember that those who calculate the number of the elect by the measure of their own senses are acting in folly and arrogance, for God has a way, accessible to himself but concealed from us, by which he wonderfully preserves his elect, even when all seems lost’ (Comm. Rom., CNTC, vol. 8, p. 240; Ad Rom., pp. 241–242). Ibid., p. 241; p. 243.

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few are saved in comparison with the great number of those who assume the name of the people of God.’208 Fundamentally, this means that for Barth God’s faithfulness, under dispute throughout Romans 9–11, is vindicated here by God’s faithfulness to the remnant of the elect which shows he is faithful to the whole of the elect. For Calvin ‘Paul derives the origin of God’s steadfastness from his secret election (arcana electione).’209 It is God’s faithfulness to the (secretly) elect who exist in the midst of the rejected whole that vindicates him. It is obvious that by this point Calvin’s and Barth’s conceptions of the election of Israel and the church have diverged radically. For Calvin, the remnant motif is his crucial way of nuancing all language of the ‘rejection’ of the Jews and of making a visible–invisible, physical–spiritual distinction within the community of God. The remnant within Israel form the church: members of the invisible, spiritual and eternally elect people of God. For Barth, the remnant motif points to the ongoing election of Israel as a whole, a form of election which, while serving a different purpose, exists alongside the election of the church.

c. 11.7–10 In coming to consider 11.7–10, Barth is explicit that it is actually vv. 11–12 of the chapter which must control the interpretation of these verses. He finds in vv. 11–12 that there is a wider salvific purpose in God’s hardening of the Jews, namely the salvation of the Gentiles. In serving this role the transgression of the Jews which arises from the divine hardening simply cannot mean their fall: ‘It cannot mean that they had been forsaken by God or that they too were not elected Israel, or that they had ceased to be so.’210 Barth holds that vv. 7–10 must be interpreted both in the light of vv. 11–12 and also in connection with vv. 5–6. Seen in this light, vv. 7–10 simply ‘corroborate the statement that God’s election of grace has brought a remnant out of Israel to the Church and thus to the realisation of Israel’s election itself’.211 Barth takes the radical emphasis on the graciousness of grace in v. 6 to offer some hope for the future of the rest who are hardened. If God shows grace to the remnant then this must also in some way benefit the rest: ‘some light necessarily falls even upon the darkness of the hardened. As Israelites, are not they too at least the chosen possession of the God who elects in this way, on the ground of his grace and not of human works?’212 Barth interprets the Old Testament quotations to show that God’s care and concern still remains evident towards the people he has rejected. We must

208 209 210 211 212

Ibid., p. 242; p. 243. Ibid., p. 239; p. 241. CD II/2, p. 275; KD II/2, p. 303. Ibid., p. 276; p. 303. Ibid., p. 276; p. 304.

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note ‘that the “table” is set up and remains even amongst them as an epitome of all the divine benefits’.213 He summarizes: That God can and does actually harden is said by all these passages. But they all say it in the light of what God makes plain where he does not harden but illumines, where he does not hide himself but causes himself to be known. They all say it in such a way that the seriousness of this hardening is displayed and yet the provisional nature (Vorläufigkeit) of this divine measure is not denied. The last word has not yet been spoken even on the subject of the hardened by the fact that this prophecy characterises them as such.214 Calvin knows nothing of the ‘provisional nature’ of the hardening described in these verses. For him the terminological distinction between h` evklogh. and oi` loipoi. is highly significant. It shows that there exists a fundamental difference between Israel as a nation and the remnant – the former strove for salvation and have not obtained it, but the latter are what they are solely on the grounds of God’s special election. Again it is clear that for Calvin belonging naturally to Israel is not something which in itself is capable of carrying special salvific benefits. God has made a distinction between natural and spiritual Israel and the distinction is his election. He states: ‘As the elect alone are delivered by the grace of God, so all who are not elect must necessarily remain in blindness. Paul’s meaning in regard to the reprobate is that their ruin and condemnation stem from the fact of their having been forsaken by God.’215 He observes that if the aim of Paul’s argument here is indeed to stress the role of divine causality in the hardening of those who are rejected, then this is not self-evident from the passages Paul quotes. He accepts that in these texts the emphasis actually appears to fall on the fact God punishes the ungodly for their wicked deeds already committed. This is his understanding of why Paul is using such quotations: It is the perversity of our nature when forsaken by God that is the source of the ungodliness which thus provokes His fury. In speaking, therefore, of eternal reprobation, Paul has intentionally referred to the consequences which proceed from it as fruit from the tree or the river from its source.216 As we have already seen in Calvin, he is here concerned again to relate the temporal experiences of hardening and election to eternal realities, in this 213 214 215 216

Ibid., p. 277; p. 305. Ibid., p. 278; p. 306. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 243); Ad Rom., p. 245. Ibid., p. 244; p. 245.

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case eternal reprobation. The hardening of the rest is not provisional or temporary but is ‘freely determined before the fall of Adam’. Such metaphysical presuppositions which underlie Calvin’s exegesis are turned to the service of continuing his argument that Paul is making a distinction within national Israel and the salvifically effective election of some in order to prove that God has not rejected his people. Whereas Barth sees elements of God’s mercy in terms such as ‘table’ in 11.9, for Calvin this is a sign of God’s judgement – the Psalmist is praying that all the things in life which are desirable ‘may be turned to the ruin and destruction of the ungodly’.217 He views David here as a type of Christ so that what David prayed for his enemies is also the curse awaiting Christ’s enemies. Further, it is vital to note that David ‘is speaking of the Israelites who were descended from Abraham according to the flesh, and who at that period held the first place in the kingdom’.218 On these grounds, Paul is using David’s situation to describe his own situation – a great multitude of national Israel are blind, hardened and acting towards God in ungodliness. Their ungodliness is an ‘immediate cause’ of their being forsaken by God but we may not use this to conceal the fact that the first cause is God’s eternal reprobation.219

d. 11.11–15 In his treatment of these verses the distinction which Calvin sees within Israel comes to the fore. Whereas Barth reads 11.11 as holding out both a future hope for the Jews and a present promise of their ongoing election, Calvin simply sees it as an example of how the stumbling of the nation does not necessarily extend to every single Jew. He comments on 11.11: We shall be greatly hindered in understanding this argument unless we observe that the apostle is speaking at one time of the whole of the Jewish nation, and at another of individuals. This explains the fact that at times he says the Jews have been banished from the kingdom of God, cut off from the tree, and cast into headlong destruction by the judgment of God, while on other occasions he denies that they have fallen from grace. They remain rather in possession of the covenant and have their place in the church of God.220 This hermeneutical distinction between the nation and its individuals is vital for grasping Calvin’s understanding of Paul’s argument at this point. As a nation, the Jews may be described as banished, cut-off, destroyed; but

217 218 219 220

Ibid., p. 245; p. 246. Ibid., p. 245; p. 247. Ibid., p. 244; p. 245. Ibid., pp. 245–246; p. 247.

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within this form of elect Israel there exists another form of election – the church, in this context made up of individual Jews. The distinction functions as a control in interpreting comments by Calvin which appear to offer hope of future restoration, just as it controls our reading of those comments where Calvin describes the destruction of the nation. Calvin holds that Paul now speaks ‘with this distinction in mind’: [h]e rightly denies here that the salvation of the Jews was to be despaired of, or that they were so rejected by God that there was no restoration to come, or that the covenant of grace, which God had made with them once, was completely abolished, since there always continued to remain in the nation the seed of blessing. That we are to understand Paul’s meaning in this way is evident from the fact that whereas previously he connected certain ruin with the blindness of the Jews, he now gives them hope of rising again. These two ideas are quite contradictory. Those, therefore, who have obstinately been offended by Christ have stumbled and fallen into destruction. The nation itself, however, has not so fallen that one who is a Jew must necessarily perish, or be estranged from God.221 Calvin’s references here to the ‘restoration to come’ and to the Jews ‘rising again’ are firmly embedded in the context of what he sees as Paul’s distinction between national and individual election, so that it is a mistake to read them as offering some kind of eschatological hope to Israel based on their national election. The restoration and the rising should both be understood as referring to those within Israel who will come to belong to the church. The ‘seed of blessing’ or the remnant functions for Calvin both as the guarantee that the covenant stands firm, and as the description of those Jews not yet gathered into the church but who will come to be so in time through the process of their being made jealous. That this is how Calvin intends us to understand his comments on v. 11 is seen in his interpretation of vv. 12–15. The vital point for our purposes is that on this reading of v. 11, verses such as v. 12 (eiv de. to. para,ptwma auvtw/n

plou/toj ko,smou kai. to. h[tthma auvtw/n plou/toj evqnw/n( po,sw| ma/llon to. plh,rwma auvtw/n) and v. 15 (eiv ga.r h` avpobolh. auvtw/n katallagh. ko,smou( ti,j h` pro,slhmyij eiv mh. zwh. evk nekrw/n) do not mean that the hardening 221

Ibid., p. 246; p. 247; cf. Shute: ‘Paul maintains the continuing normative election of Jews, even though they do not now believe. This is plainly a contradiction of sorts, and Calvin’s interpretation gets rid of it’ (‘And All Israel Shall be Saved’, p. 174). Shute’s argument about Calvin and the Jews depends on the confident assertion that Paul’s argument is contradictory and inconsistent, and that Calvin goes awry by trying to make it consistent. This view of Calvin is, at the very least, not alive to the ways in which he felt his argument mirrored Paul’s.

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or rejection is temporary and will one day give way to full (numerical) inclusion. Rather, the hardening and rejection of the nation is not numerically absolute and some Jews will yet turn to Christ. Calvin holds that if the Jews’ falling away can bring the Gentiles to faith, how much more will Gentiles come to faith when they actually see Jews also coming to faith. This also holds true in v. 15b where Calvin appears to take the ‘life from the dead’ phrase to refer to both Jews and Gentiles – individual Jews coming to faith is their virtual resurrection from the dead and this will have the same effect on Gentiles.222 In operating as he does without Calvin’s form of distinction within the Jewish nation, Barth naturally handles these verses very differently. For him Paul’s mh. ge,noito in 11.11 renders something that could be a conceptual possibility as actually blasphemous. Indeed, in the structure of Paul’s argument it means ‘That God has not rejected his people is something which for Paul stands even above the statement that the rest were blinded.’223 This prioritizing of concerns within the argument means that in vv. 11–15 the Gentiles may not regard the hardened as forsaken: ‘God has so little forsaken them that it is for their sake that he has stretched out his hand to the Gentiles. The existence of Gentiles as recipients of salvation has the meaning and purpose of a summons to these hardened Jews and therefore a confirmation of their eternal election.’224 Here Barth’s exegesis aims to show that there is a constitutive unity between Israel and the church – the church only is what it is because of Israel and, even more precisely, because of Israel’s transgression. Further, Barth reads vv. 12b and 15b to refer to a future day of conversion for the Synagogue and it is only on that day that the church itself will receive all the blessings promised to it in the Messianic age. This means, crucially, that the church ‘can understand its own origin and its own goal only as it understands its unity with Israel. Precisely in its Gentile Christian members it must perceive that it would itself be forsaken by God if God had really forsaken Israel.’225 The heart of the difference, then, between Calvin and Barth at this point concerns whether Israel’s hardening is vocational or the outworking of eternal reprobation. For both interpreters, Israel’s hardening performs the task of allowing salvation to come to the Gentiles, which in turn performs the task of provoking the Jews to jealousy. But for Calvin, Israel is not merely performing this service in salvation-history. What has happened to the Jewish nation after the death and resurrection of Jesus (and indeed throughout its whole history) is that God has made evident in time the outworking of his eternal decree to save some and reject others. Some of these rejected 222 223 224 225

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 248); Ad Rom., p. 249. CD II/2, p. 278; KD II/2, p. 307. Ibid., p. 279; p. 308. Ibid., p. 284; p. 313.

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exist as part of the covenant community but they do not have the covenant effectively sealed to them; others have not stumbled so as to fall completely and they may yet come to faith and so prove that they have God’s special election sealed to them. All who have this special election applied to them are members of the church. Barth does not make this kind of distinction. He appears to operate with an overwhelmingly strong vocational understanding of Israel’s role in Paul’s argument and in salvation-history. The word ‘eternal’ does surface in his account, but it is used to ground the total certainty of the election of the whole nation and never in relation to temporal hardening or pretemporal reprobation. Calvin’s and Barth’s differing understanding of the election of the nation of Israel continues in the rest of the chapter and one final example will suffice to confirm its prevalence.

e. 11.16–26 Paul’s argument now compares Israel to an olive tree which has had some of its natural branches broken off (Jews) and wild branches grafted in (Gentiles). Barth argues that v. 19 is the main argument of Christian antiSemitism: the Jews are no longer the chosen and holy people of God because they crucified Jesus. ‘Israel as such has become a thing of the past.’226 Barth now reads the whole of this unit in Paul’s argument against a radically different backdrop from any which would allow this kind of meaning. To argue on the basis of v. 17 or vv. 19–22 that God has rejected his people is to overlook completely the resurrection of Jesus Christ: In the resurrection of Jesus Christ God himself has cancelled both the finis of the Jewish rejection of Christ and also that of the rejection of the Jews, acknowledging, against the will of Israel, his own will with Israel, the Messiah of Israel as the Saviour of the world, and therefore also and all the more fully of Israel itself.227 The majority in Israel are broken off precisely because they do not see and accept this divine cancellation of their sin. They are broken off in judgement for their unbelief. But in Barth’s account this temporal judgement cannot undo their eternal election precisely because it is the resurrection of Jesus which has dealt with their hardened state. God has given the lie to their arrogant unbelief and they exist in defiance of what he has actually achieved for them.228 This underlying christological view of the situation therefore controls Barth’s understanding of v. 23. Although the cutting off of some branches is a bitter present fact ‘it does not involve a final decision. The 226 227 228

Ibid., p. 290; pp. 319–320. Ibid., p. 291; p. 320. Ibid.

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relation between Israel and the Church has not yet been given definitive form.’229 Here again Barth uses the language of eternity to argue a very different conception of election from Calvin: No matter how final [the Synagogue’s] unbelief is intended to be, and may profess to be, and may appear to be when seen from the church, in his sight it is not an eternal fact, but one which is temporally limited. How can unbelief be or create an eternal fact?230 For Barth it is the resurrection of Jesus – not Israel’s unbelief – which expresses the final divine decision regarding Israel. Here Barth engages with the vexed question of the apokatastasis. Although he elsewhere treats this matter with some deference, and even here treats it cautiously and with clear reservation, Barth finds in v. 23 some encouragement for holding that in terms of eschatology ‘it is impossible to expect too much from God, to fail to recognise the supremacy of this God and therefore the promise resting upon this man, to despair of man and therefore to believe in a pertinacity of human unbelief.’231 Nevertheless, in v. 26a Barth does not understand the ‘all Israel’ to refer to the totality of all Jewish individuals – rather, it refers to the community of those elected by God in and with Jesus Christ both from Jews and also from Gentiles, the whole Church which together with the holy root of Israel will consist in the totality of all the branches finally united with and drawing sustenance from it, in the totality constituted by the remnant continuing in and with the original stem Jesus Christ . . .232 When this reading of these verses is compared with Calvin’s one of the most striking features is the lack of Christology in Calvin’s account. Instead of Barth’s christological interpretation, Calvin simply retains his distinction between individual Jews and the whole Jewish nation and in fact now also extends this distinction to Gentiles. The now familiar distinction between the Jewish nation and individual Jews surfaces in Calvin’s comments on v. 16 where he is happy to describe the nation as ‘sanctified by a holy covenant’ (sacro . . . foedere sanctificati).233 I. J. Hesselink is right that Calvin’s interpretation here is strongly inclusive and positive towards the whole nation.234 But his desire to evaluate Calvin in these ethical terms is misleading 229 230 231 232 233 234

Ibid., p. 294; p. 323. Ibid., p. 295; p. 324. Ibid., pp. 295–296; p. 325. Ibid., p. 300; p. 330. Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 251); Ad Rom., p. 250. Hesselink, ‘Relation of the Church and Israel’, p. 67.

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by not keeping the national-individual distinction clearly in view. Hesselink does not cite what Calvin goes on to say next: ‘There will be no difficulty here if we understand holiness to mean simply the spiritual nobility of the race, which was not peculiar to their nature, but originated from the covenant.’235 As we have seen, Calvin is tremendously positive about the benefits bestowed on the nation because of its covenantal election, but his conception of the people’s holiness here is not one that embraces their full salvation. The national-individual distinction which Paul has been applying to Israel, Calvin argues, is now applied to the Gentiles. Paul’s warnings to the Gentile believers in vv. 19–22 are made to a body of believers which, like the Jewish nation, is inherently mixed and contains within itself both the specially and the generally elect. In his comments on these verses the corporate election of Israel, with its warnings against apostasy and blessings for obedience, functions typologically of the corporate election of the church, a body of believers to whom warnings are also applied and blessings offered.236 Although Calvin does not use this passage to discuss his doctrine of the church at this point, it is clear that he is operating here with a classic distinction between the visible and the invisible church. Just as this applied to the nation of Israel, so now it applies to the body of Gentiles believers. He comments on v. 21: Paul is speaking generally to the body of the Gentiles, for the breaking off which he mentions could not apply to individuals, whose election is unchangeable, since it is based on the eternal purpose of God. Paul therefore declares to the Gentiles, that they will pay the price for their sin if they insult the Jews, because God will again reconcile to himself his former people whom he has divorced.237 When Calvin states that God has divorced his people he does not mean that God has rejected the whole people; rather we recall that such assertions are to be understand as general statements which do not apply to certain specially elect individuals. The same holds true above – Calvin’s suggestion of future reconciliation between God and his people is not something that will apply to the whole nation, but simply to certain individuals whose coming to faith will thereby show them to be among God’s specially elect. Although Calvin does not comment on v. 23a, this accords with his interpretation of v. 26 which he does not see as offering a future hope to every 235 236

237

Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 251); Ad Rom., pp. 250–251. Cf. Peter Lillback’s discussion of the parallels between the old covenant and the new covenant that are operative here for Calvin (Binding of God, pp. 218–226): ‘Calvin’s perspective on the church recognizes that there is a broader sphere of election than those who are the true recipients of the Spirit, in keeping with the mixed multitude of the Church of Israel’ (p. 222). Comm. Rom. (CNTC, vol. 8, p. 251); Ad Rom., p. 252.

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single Jew; rather, here ‘Israel’ refers to all the people of God, Jews as well as Gentiles. He argues Many understand this of the Jewish people, as if Paul were saying that religion was to be restored to them again as before. But I extend the word Israel to include all the people of God, in this sense, ‘When the Gentiles have come in, the Jews will at the same time have returned from their defection to the obedience of faith. The salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be drawn from both, will thus be completed, and yet in such a way that the Jews, as the firstborn in the family of God, may obtain the first place.’238 There is no doubt that this exegesis may be construed as offering some form of future hope for the Jews. There are hints that Calvin does think there is some kind of temporal sequence whereby the hardening of the Jews and the gathering of the Gentiles will be followed by the Jews returning ‘from their defection to the obedience of faith’.239 Again, however, I suggest that all of this language needs to be read in the context of Calvin’s capacity to use ‘the Jews’ as a designation capable of bearing both national and individual-remnant senses. As part of his argument for this understanding of ‘all Israel’ Calvin continues: ‘In the same way, in Gal. 6.16, he calls the church, which was composed equally of Jews and Gentiles, the Israel of God, setting the people, thus collected from their dispersion, in opposition to the carnal children of Abraham who had fallen away from faith.’240 At this point Calvin’s concept of the church actually plays a vital hermeneutical role in that, as earlier, the church is the spiritual body of the specially elect set against the fleshly or carnal body of the generally elect.241 Calvin’s interpretation of ‘all Israel’ being saved is thoroughly consistent with his understanding of salvific election throughout the whole of Rom. 9–11.242 238 239 240 241

242

Ibid., p. 255; p. 256. Ibid. Ibid., p. 255; pp. 256–257. H.-J. Kraus’ understanding of this familia Dei ecclesiological representation is that all the church and all the Jews form one family of God; cf. ‘Israel in the Theology of Calvin – Towards a New Approach to the Old Testament and Judaism’, Christian Jewish Relations, vol. 22 (1989), pp. 75–86. But Calvin’s understanding of the church in these verses is that it consists of some Jews and some Gentiles. The intricacies of Calvin’s thought here are overlooked, such that when Kraus says ‘Israel is and remains chosen by God’ he does not show the heavy qualifications which are applied to such a phrase in Calvin’s argument. Contra Hesselink (‘Relation of the Church and Israel’, pp. 66–68), there are a number of reasons why Calvin does not intend to broaden the concept of ‘all’ to include the eventual salvation of Israel as a whole. Commenting on the Isa. 59.20 quotation in 11.26, Calvin says ‘If we take the view that Christ had been promised and offered to

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Dan Shute argues that in his interpretation of 11.26 ‘Calvin appears to be trying to avoid any notion that Paul promises that religion will be “restored to them again as before.”’243 But it should be clear by now that although Calvin certainly does not understand Paul to be teaching any form of future mass conversion of ethnic Israel, his concept of the remnant does mean that some from ethnic Israel will continue to be saved. To say that Calvin denies ‘a future conversion of the Jews’ is imprecise language which distorts his theology of election. The fact is that Calvin’s interpretation of the election of the whole Jewish nation (and the election of the Gentiles) retains within it a distinction between a general and a special election, with only the latter salvifically effective but also applied to Jews and Gentiles throughout time until the eschaton. This is radically different from Barth. We can see, then, that in their treatments of the crucial election material in Rom. 9.24–11.36 the theological distinction which I have been pressing between Calvin and Barth continues to hold true. In this section of his commentary, Calvin continues to explain the difference between temporal and eternal election as the heart of his understanding of the Jews’ stumbling. The eternal ground of this difference again keeps his economically centred Christology on the fringes of his reading. At the same time, we have seen that Calvin also reveals his soteriological christocentrism with his explicit references to the ‘the spiritual body of Christ’ over against the merely visible body in a way which shows that it is actually a christological view of the covenant which underlies the different ways Calvin sees ‘covenant’ functioning as a hermeneutical concept in Romans 9–11. Only those who belong to Christ spiritually are saved. This is the essence of the distinction in Romans 9–11, but because Calvin thinks Paul’s argument is turned towards the eternal ground of the distinction he is sparing in his christological comment.

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them, but that they had been deprived of his grace because they had rejected him, the words of the prophet express more, viz. that there would still be a remnant, who, after having repented, will enjoy the grace of deliverance’ (Comm. Rom., CNTC, vol. 8, p. 255; Ad Rom., p. 257). This limitation in the number of those who will repent is continued as Calvin comments on the same verse: ‘By these words God explicitly claims some seed (aliquod semen) for himself, so that his redemption may be effectual in his chosen and peculiar nation’ (ibid., p. 256; p. 257). Again: ‘Paul held that, because it is the peculiar office of Christ to reconcile an apostate people who broke their covenant, it was sufficient to consider this one fact, that some conversion (aliquam conversionem) was undoubtedly to be hoped for, lest they should all perish together’ (ibid., p. 256; p. 258). Finally, on 11.28–29, Calvin understands electionem here to refer to ‘the common adoption of a whole nation’ and he adds: ‘Because the Jews had fallen from their privilege and the salvation promised to them, Paul contends, in order that some hope for the remnant may continue, that the counsel of God . . . stands firm and immutable’ (ibid., p. 257; p. 259). Shute, ‘And All Israel Shall be Saved’, pp. 165–166.

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For Barth, we have seen that the stumbling of the Jews is understood in a vocational sense with the whole of these chapters progressing towards the climax of God’s mercy. This mercy is christologically determined, and it is because of this principial christocentrism that Israel’s salvation is never in doubt throughout any portion of Romans 9–11.

Conclusion: Covenant and Election Earlier in this chapter, I drew attention to Benjamin Milner’s contention that for Calvin the church is itself the history of the restoration of the ordo Dei in the world. The ‘history of restoration’ is the history of the church, the one community of God, given different historical expression as old covenant Israel and then as the church of the new covenant. But Milner’s suggestion arguably requires an important qualification. Mary Potter Engel, arguing for the unity and continuity of the one people of God in Calvin’s thought, asserts: ‘it is clear that for Calvin the one church is founded on one covenant, which is grounded in the pre-existent Christ.’244 This is a highly suggestive sentence, but Engel provides no elaboration of the latter part – the connection between Christ, the covenant and the one community of God. If my argument in Chapter 2 is valid, however, then perhaps Engel’s point may be developed in the following way: the pre-existent Christ, as both subject and object of the decree, and in common with the Father, chooses a portion of humanity to belong to him. Chosen eternally, and united to him by faith in the economy of salvation, these individuals are chosen in Christ their covenant head. The nuance that this provides to Milner’s concept of the church as the history of restoration is that the ordo Dei is seen to have its foundation in the pre-existent Christ. The church’s restoration, although happening in time, is the outworking of the eternal decree by the head of the church to unite its members to him. Building on this, what we may now say in the light of this chapter, is that for Calvin the eternal choosing of one people to belong to Christ comes to fruition in time in the form of two different economic dispensations: in the Old Testament, those united to Christ by faith are drawn from the people of Israel; in the New Testament those united to Christ by faith are drawn from 244

Engel, ‘Calvin and the Jews’, p. 114. Her otherwise helpful article is flawed by framing her discussion in terms of contradictions in Calvin’s argument. These turn out to be Calvin’s failure to logically solve ‘the contradictions set up by the scriptures’, contradictions between divine election and human responsibility, and between unconditional grace and human response (p. 114). Engel offers no explanation why these strands of the biblical witness must be thought of in terms of ‘contradictions’, and her position thus evaluates Calvin on the dubious basis of failing to give answers to questions he did not ask.

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the body of the church. In both cases, however, there is one covenant of grace, existing in two different forms (old and new) and containing a number of vital distinctions: visible–invisible, physical–spiritual, general–particular. These distinctions do not correspond to the old–new dispensations but rather each exist within both dispensations at all times – there is a visible– invisible, physical–spiritual and corporately-individually elect Israel, just as there is a visible–invisible, physical–spiritual and corporately-individually elect church. Within this set of distinctions Calvin tends to apply the word ‘church’ to the second term. ‘Church’ can refer to the first term (as we have seen), but Calvin’s most common usage is to apply it to those members of the community that are specially elect; they are therefore part of the one true church of God. Although Calvin’s direct comments about Christ are sparse in this section of his commentary, it is clear that his understanding of the covenant which pervades his exegesis is christologically construed. Further, his focus on the question of Israel’s salvation throughout these chapters, while having little to say about Christ directly, does nothing at all to undermine his soteriological christocentrism. On the contrary, by focusing here on the eternal ground of this salvation in the inscrutable divine decree, Calvin remains true to his conviction of preferring to discuss Christology in the context of Christ’s historical work of redemption. What Engel says of Calvin we may also say of Barth – ‘the one church is founded on one covenant, which is grounded in the pre-existent Christ’ – but it is clear that virtually all the terms in this quotation now carry a different sense. The supralapsarianism of Barth’s position ensures that the two-fold determination of Jesus Christ to both bear judgement and bestow mercy shapes the covenant history in a way which is absent in Calvin’s system. Perhaps one of the clearest expressions of the difference here is the distinction we have noted in this chapter between the priority accorded to God’s being in election (Barth), and the corresponding priority accorded to God’s will (Calvin). The distinction is ultimately rooted in the radically different roles accorded to the pre-existent Christ. For Calvin, while truly an expression of God’s merciful nature, the election executed by the Son is not one which determines God’s being in the way that it does for Barth. The result is the outworking in history of the eternal decree – to choose some and to reject others, with the reason for the choice itself remaining hidden within the life of the triune God. For Barth, the decision which takes place in Jesus Christ to be the electing God and the elected Man is a principial determination of God’s being; at every step of the way in the unfolding story of history, the nature of the election of the community must be shaped by this determinative grounding. God’s decision to be God for us, in this particular way, is a determination to be merciful, to be gracious. It ensures, as God elects humanity for glory and himself for judgement, an ‘exchange graciously weighted in

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the creature’s favour’.245 Barth himself expresses it with poetic beauty: it is ‘a condescension inconceivably tender’.246 The exchange, then, is shaped by principial christocentrism. It ensures the two-fold form of the one community of God. Israel and the church together are God’s elect people and to deny the election of one is the same as denying the election of Jesus Christ himself. If Jesus Christ elects wrath and punishment for God, then it follows that Israel is elect to serve this purpose; if Jesus Christ elects mercy and glory for man, then it follows that the church too is elect to serve this purpose. The one covenant of grace unites both Israel and the church not merely in terms of the distinctions we find in Calvin – visible–invisible, physical–spiritual, for such concepts are there for Barth too in his language of the ‘secret’ or ‘hidden’ life of the church – but rather it unites both in that the covenant of grace is fundamentally God’s decision for fellowship with man. This fellowship, the keynote of Barth’s anthropology, is fellowship for vocation and service. Whether in mercy or in judgement, Israel and the church exist as God’s covenant partners, together (in different forms but with one goal) serving the presentation of the history of Jesus Christ. Eberhard Busch points out that what is new in Barth’s interpretation within Reformed theology is that ‘Israel belongs within the fulfilment of the covenant’. Whereas for Calvin, Israel is typological of the church, for Barth both Israel and the church are typological of Christ, so that both forms of the community are ‘initially the two different but then inseparably related aspects of the fulfilment of the one covenant of grace in Christ’.247 These radically different conceptions of the covenant in Calvin and Barth issue directly from different forms of christocentrism. At this point, however, we may go deeper into the foundations of the theological distinction we have been examining. It is necessary to examine the hermeneutical convictions underlying these different theological forms of christocentrism. That is to say, although Calvin’s and Barth’s exegesis reveals soteriological and principial christocentrisms in their theological projects, this exegesis itself rests on two different conceptions of how to read the Bible, and it is to this subject that we now turn.

245 246 247

Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, p. 53. CD II/2, p. 121; KD II/2, p. 130. Busch, ‘The Covenant of Grace’, p. 488.

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4 hermeneutics and election

Introduction The material considered so far has fleshed out what it might mean to describe Calvin’s doctrine of election as soteriologically christocentric and Barth’s as principially christocentric. This distinction has emerged at the exegetical level by treating how they read Christ and election in Scripture (Chapter 2), as well as the election of Israel and the church (Chapter 3). It is a theological distinction which can be made with considerable justification. Both Calvin and Barth, however, also mark out a way of reading Scripture which, itself shaped by the reading of Scripture, implicitly and explicitly shapes the way they suggest that the biblical text should be approached. In this chapter, I aim to show that these different approaches to the reading of Scripture as a whole are also shaped by an understanding of Christology which again takes the form of a distinction between both interpreters, and which this time may be described as a hermeneutical distinction. My aim here is to show that the theology of interpretation which Calvin puts forward in his Institutes (1559), and therefore which explains how he intends election to be read in Scripture, may be described as christologically extensive; but that the theology of interpretation with which Barth approaches his doctrine of election in the Church Dogmatics may be described as christologically intensive. Calvin’s interpretation of Scripture is christologically extensive because his understanding of Christology is one which extends to the whole of redemptive history. This creates a theology of biblical interpretation for Calvin which is christocentric – the Bible’s unfolding plot-line is read with a christological centre in view, and in this way it touches on the doctrine of election with significant effect. For Barth, a way in to his theology of interpretation is provided by his explicit reflections on the epistemological basis for this doctrine of election in CD II/2. Barth’s epistemological starting point explicitly guides a hermeneutical approach which is christologically intensive. These reflections are of a piece with earlier material in the Church Dogmatics where Barth constructs his theology of reading the Bible. In this 154

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chapter, I give an account of Calvin’s and Barth’s different theologies of interpretation which shows how their extensive and intensive christological hermeneutics are deeply rooted in their respective theological projects and are therefore hermeneutical guides for their biblical exegesis of election. It is possible to sharpen the precise nature of the questions I am asking of each theologian at this point. Given Calvin’s express desire that the Institutes be read as his reading of Scripture which should guide a reading of Scripture for others, it may be asked here: how does Christology function in the Institutes so that it creates a hermeneutic that may be described as christologically extensive? And how does this christological reading of Scripture as a whole impact on the reading of election in particular in the Institutes? These two questions press us to consider how this christologically extensive hermeneutic combines with what we find in Calvin’s exegesis of election in his commentaries. For Barth, given that he explicitly states that his exegesis reflects a specific hermeneutical principle which he sets up in opposition to the ‘older hermeneutic’ which he cannot follow, we may ask here: what are the specific features of the theology of interpretation which Barth does hold to? How do these theological convictions render comprehensible the intensively christological shape of Barth’s exegesis of election? My aim, for both interpreters, is to give an account of their respective readings of Scripture on election on the terms of, and from within, their respective theological projects. Just as the previous two chapters concluded by showing that on the topic in hand there was an underlying major contrast on a theological topic, so here we will see that underlying these different hermeneutical approaches are two fundamentally different conceptions of the doctrine of revelation.

1. The Hermeneutics of Election in Calvin In Iohannes Calvinus Lectori Calvin states that in his Institutes he has so arranged the ‘sum of religion in all its parts . . . that if anyone rightly grasps it, it will not be difficult for him to determine what he ought especially to seek in Scripture and to what end he ought to relate its contents.’1 What, then, should a reading of the Institutes teach us about how to read the doctrine of election in Scripture, and how should this doctrine be related to Christology? Even though the final edition of the Institutes post-dates the exegetical writings we have considered – and indeed is clearly shaped by this exegesis in its successive editions – this approach is methodologically sound because Calvin always intended his Institutes to function as a guide to Scripture, even after the commentaries had been published. That is, in 1559 as much as in 1539, Calvin intends for the reader of his commentaries to approach them – and through them, Scripture – ‘armed with 1

Inst. ‘John Calvin to the Reader’, p. 4; Institutio (1539); cf. OS 3, p. 6.

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a knowledge of the present work, as a necessary tool (quasi necessario instrumento)’.2 It is not my intention here to give an exhaustive presentation of Calvin’s hermeneutical principles. Rather, I aim to show that knowledge of the Institutes would lead a reader to expect to find in Scripture certain patterns of relationship between the doctrines of the person and work of Christ, and the doctrine of election. The interpenetrating connections between Christology and election, themselves the result of Calvin’s exegetical labours, combine to ensure that the final form of the Institutes contains a soteriologically focused Christology which has a direct bearing on Calvin’s presentation of how election should be read in the biblical materials. In his commentaries, Calvin is minimal in his exposition of Christ as the author of election, but maximal on Christ as the object of faith and his role in providing salvation; this is exactly what a reading of the Institutes would lead us to expect to find. I will argue that Christ stands in such a relation to election in the Institutes that we should in turn expect to find in Scripture the overwhelming weight of emphasis falling on Christ as the object of faith, with election understood as the entirely monergistic ground or cause of this temporal faith. The fact that Calvin reads election christologically shows his extensively christocentric hermeneutic. This argument will be sustained in four stages. I will work first from the broad structural features of Christology’s location in the Institutes; next to a narrower focus on election’s location within the Institutes; and then narrower again to examine how Christology stands in relation to election within that location. The final stage will be the recognition that, precisely because of the way Calvin conceives of Christ’s role in election in the Institutes, he is operating with doctrines of revelation and Scripture that are at odds with Barth’s formulations and which, for both interpreters, have significant bearings on their exegetical emphases. This is the hermeneutic which Calvin wants the reader of his Institutes to bring to the interpretation of election in Scripture.

1.1. The Location of Christology Calvin locates and structures his Christology in the Institutes in such a way that the reader is schooled to think about this doctrinal topic in soteriological terms first, and in ontological terms second. In Book II chapter 6 (an entirely new chapter written for the 1559 edition), Calvin introduces his Christology proper. The title – ‘Fallen Man Ought to Seek Redemption in Christ’ – is no surprise given the context of where the chapter appears, and it signals the kind of concerns Calvin sees as primary in his exposition of Christology. It is best read as an introduction in overview form to Calvin’s 2

Ibid., p. 5; p. 6.

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Christology. The work of Christ as Mediator is primary in both old and new covenants so that in each case saving faith is always faith in the Mediator. Richard Muller notes Calvin’s connection to Western Christology with its particular historical and soteriological emphases, but suggests ‘Calvin would intensify this soteriological relation by emphasizing the historical form of Christology and the place of Christology in the temporal economy of salvation.’3 Similarly, Edmondson writes: Calvin begins his discussion of Christ here, with the covenant history, and not with a discussion of the history of Christological doctrine (which begins only in chapter 12) or with the dynamics of justification by faith (saved for the third book) because he is clear that scripture’s first story . . . is the story of God’s people Israel, adopted into God’s covenant. Calvin’s intent is to begin with this story.4 For Calvin this is the story of creation, fall and redemption – and Christ stands as the redemptive focal-point within this narrative super-structure. In the context of my argument, the following are the stand-out features of Calvin’s treatment of Christology. First, there are explicit structural comments in Book I which serve to place Christology firmly in the temporal soteriological context of Book II. Here Calvin explains that Christology is best explicated in relation to redemptive concerns: First in order came that kind of knowledge by which one is permitted to grasp who that God is who founded and governs the universe. Then that other inner knowledge was added, which alone quickens dead souls, whereby God is known not only as the Founder of the universe and the sole Author and Ruler of all that is made, but also in the person of the Mediator as Redeemer (sed etiam redemptor in Mediatoris persona). But because we have not yet come to the fall of the world and the corruption of nature, I shall now forego discussion of the remedy. My readers should therefore remember that I am not yet going to discuss that covenant by which God adopted to himself the sons of Abraham, or that part of doctrine which has always separated believers from unbelieving folk, for it was founded in Christ.5 Yet I shall be content to have provided godly minds with a sort of index (indicem) to what they should particularly look for in Scripture

3 4

5

Muller, Christ and the Decree, p. 27. Edmondson, ‘The Biblical Historical Structure’, pp. 1–13 (p. 9); cf. idem, Calvin’s Christology, p. 47. Inst. I.vi.1, pp. 70–71; OS 3, p. 61.

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concerning God, and to direct their search to a sure goal. I do not yet touch upon the special covenant by which he distinguished the race of Abraham from the rest of the nations. For, even then in receiving by free adoption as sons those who were enemies, he showed himself to be their Redeemer. We, however, are still concerned with that knowledge which stops at the creation of the world, and does not mount up to Christ the Mediator (neque ascendit ad Christum Mediatorem).6 Note the hermeneutical nature of Calvin’s comments here. His famous distinction of the two-fold knowledge of God (Creator and Redeemer) is clearly intended to furnish a conceptual framework for the reading of Scripture. Although his focus at this point is the knowledge of God the creator, the clear implication is that the distinction likewise provides a covenantal and soteriological framework for discerning Scripture’s teaching about Christ. This leads us, secondly, to the specific place of Christology within Book II. We noted above that for the 1559 edition Calvin provides a newly minted chapter on how fallen humanity ought to seek redemption in Christ. When we observe that this chapter is inserted as chapter 6, its placing in relation to the preceding five chapters as well as to what follows is highly significant. The first five chapters of Book II are concerned with exploring the nature and effects of Adam’s fall into sin and its consequences for the entire human race. Edmondson’s essay argues that the division in Calvin’s anthropology between Books I and II ‘is the division between Genesis 1 and 2, the creation of humanity in the image of God, and Genesis 3, Adam’s fall.’7 This ties the structure of Calvin’s argument in the Institutes to the structure of the biblical story – Book I is an exposition of Genesis 1 and 2 and it introduces ‘the principal characters of the narrative of fall and redemption’ which Calvin will come to deal with as he takes up themes from Genesis 3 in Book II.8 So, given that Calvin introduces his Book II theme of ‘the knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ’ with a treatment of the fall into sin which runs to five chapters, it is clear that he is laying foundations which explain precisely what Christ redeems humanity from and the way in which Christ effects this 6 7 8

Inst. I.x.1, p. 97; OS 3, p. 85. Edmondson, ‘The Biblical Historical Structure’, p. 7. Edmondson points out that although the bulk of chapter 1 of Book II is present in the earlier iterations of the Institutes, in the 1559 edition a new set of references to the first three books of Genesis now appear (ibid., p. 6). This strongly supports his thesis that the final form of the 1559 Institutes is best understood in relationship to Calvin’s recently completed commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament and the Gospels (ibid., p. 1). Edmondson is here building on Richard Muller’s work in The Unaccommodated Calvin, but goes beyond it in arguing that the fundamentally Pauline ordo to the Institutes is ‘re-orientated’ in the final edition to being the ‘ordo of Christ’s gospel history as the fulfilment of God’s covenant with God’s people’ (ibid., p. 12); cf. also his Calvin’s Christology, pp. 42–48.

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salvation. In the opening words of chapter 6, Calvin connects his Christology to this preceding hamartiology in this way: The whole human race perished in the person of Adam. Consequently, that original excellence and nobility which we have recounted would be of no profit to us but would rather redound to our greater shame, until God, who does not recognize as his handiwork men defiled and corrupted by sin, appeared as Redeemer in the person of his onlybegotten Son. Therefore, since we have fallen from life into death, the whole knowledge of God the Creator that we have discussed would be useless unless faith also followed, setting forth for us God our Father in Christ.9 This opening acts as a clear bridge between Calvin’s treatment of the fall and the ensuing bondage of the will, and the Christology which Calvin will now unpack with the utmost priority given to Christ as Mediator of redemption. As suggested above, in chapter 6 Calvin provides as it were a mini-introduction to the rest of Book II – he outlines the redemptive history of old and new covenants which he is about to go on to describe in more detail. The clear effect of introducing this history of the covenant with a christological marker is ‘to forge from the diverse narrative of the OT . . . the context through which we begin to grasp the content and significance of [Christ’s] saving work.’10 This leads, thirdly, from the significance of Christology’s location to the specific features of what Calvin actually does with Christology by locating it in this place. Here I will trace Christ’s connection to the covenant history, and finally I will consider the economic context this provides for Calvin’s treatment of Christ’s person and work. Numerous features in chapter 6 show that Calvin’s chief concern in introducing his Christology is to present Christ as the object of saving faith in both testaments. In the opening section, the issue of a right knowledge of God dominates: given the fall, how is such knowledge now possible? In our ‘dullness and ingratitude’ which follows from our sin, ‘we wickedly defraud God of his glory’ (Deum maligne sua Gloria fraudamus).11 To overcome this epistemological and relational divide between humanity and God, we must turn our attention from ‘the magnificent theatre of heaven and earth’ and instead humbly embrace the preaching of the cross of Christ. The message of the cross brings saving knowledge of God, reconciliation, and issues in the worship which is alone pleasing to God. But the striking feature of Calvin’s argument at this point is that this requirement for saving knowledge is not 9 10 11

Inst. II.vi.1, pp. 340–341; OS 3, p. 320. Edmondson, ‘The Biblical Historical Structure’, p. 9. Inst. II.vi.1, p. 341; OS 3, p. 320.

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new in the gospel era. He states a key premise for what will follow: ‘Surely, after the fall of the first man no knowledge of God apart from the Mediator has had power unto salvation.’12 Similarly, commenting on Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in Jn 4.22, Calvin says that by these words Jesus ‘both condemns all pagan religions as false and gives the reason that under the law the Redeemer was promised to the chosen people alone. From this it follows that no worship has ever pleased God except that which looked to Christ.’13 In the next two sections of chapter 6, Calvin proceeds to outline in three stages precisely how faith in the Mediator is the common hope of the Old Testament people: ‘apart from the Mediator, God never showed favour toward the ancient people, nor ever gave hope of grace to them.’14 Calvin’s three stages here trace a clear biblical theology of the church which runs from (1) its infancy in the Genesis narratives; (2) its maturity, blessing and preservation under David its King; and (3) to the promises of its restoration after exile in the prophets. In each case saving faith is directed towards Christ alone as head. First, the covenant with Abraham gives expression to the fact that ‘the church always had its foundation in the person of Christ (in Christi persona fuisse fundatum). For even if God included all of Abraham’s offspring in his covenant, Paul nevertheless wisely reasons that Christ was properly the seed in whom all the nations were blessed since we know that not all who sprang from Abraham according to the flesh were reckoned among his offspring.’15 This leads Calvin to discuss the principle of election as seen in Jacob and Esau with the key point being that the distinction between brothers proves that the focus of the covenant promises had to be Christ, rather than every single Israelite. ‘It is therefore clear that Abraham’s seed is to be accounted chiefly in one Head, and that the promised salvation was not realised until Christ appeared . . . So, then, the original adoption of the chosen people depended upon the Mediator’s grace.’16 Secondly, for Calvin the Davidic kingship is not merely a type of Christ – ‘we perceive in David and his descendants the living image of Christ’17 – but specifically provides a model for how the locus of salvation for the people always resides in its head. Speaking of David, Calvin says ‘God thus willed to preserve his church that its soundness and safety might depend upon that Head (a capite illo pendereti).’18 Again, when Scripture summons the faithful to trust in the King, it teaches ‘that believers have sought refuge in God’s help with no other assurance than that they were sheltered under the King’s 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Inst. II.vi.1, p. 341; OS 3, pp. 320–321. Inst. II.vi.1, p. 342; OS 3, p. 321. Ibid. Inst. II.vi.2, p. 343; OS 3, pp. 321–322. Inst. II.vi.2, p. 343; OS 3, p. 322. Ibid. Inst. II.vi.2, p. 344; OS 3, p. 323.

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protection . . . it is sufficiently clear, believers are being called back to Christ, that they may hope to be saved by God’s hand.’19 The conclusion Calvin draws from this stage of redemptive history is that ‘since God cannot without the Mediator be propitious to the human race (non potest Deus propitious humano generi esse absque Mediatore), under the law Christ was always set before the holy fathers as the end to which they should direct their faith.’20 And, thirdly, as the church experiences the affliction of the exile and the curse of God’s judgement, the message of the prophets is simply to proclaim the ‘kingdom of David upon which both redemption and eternal salvation depended.’ In offering this solace, ‘the banner of trust and hope in Christ himself is prefigured’.21 As well as adding chapter 6 to his final edition of Book II of the Institutes, Calvin also added chapter 9. According to Edmondson, this chapter ‘lifts out more fully the importance of Christ’s work as mediator as the substance of the similarity of the two testaments.’22 This lays the foundations for Calvin’s argument in chapters 10 and 11 of Book II: ‘The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are actually one and the same (Patrum omnium foedus adeo substantia et re ipsa nihil a nostro differt, ut unum prorsus atque idem sit). Yet they differ in the mode of dispensation.’23 For Calvin the unity of substance of both testaments consists in three things: (1) an eternal not earthly hope in both; (2) the mercy of God and not human merit as the sustaining life of both and (3) ‘[The Jews] had and knew Christ as Mediator, through whom they were joined to God and were to share in his promises.’24 With this third point, Calvin expresses his concern that we should understand faith in the Mediator as the only way of salvation and which is common to both testaments: the patriarchs ‘participated in the same inheritance and hoped for a common salvation with us by the grace of the same Mediator (eiusdem Mediatoris gratia)’.25 The christological foundation to the one covenant of grace is its most important feature.26 The significance of Calvin’s Christology in the redemptive economy is beyond doubt. One final feature, however, of Calvin’s

19 20 21 22

23 24 25

26

Ibid. Inst. II.vi.2, pp. 344–345; OS 3, p. 323. Inst. II.vi.3, p. 345; OS 3, p. 323. Edmondson, ‘The Biblical Historical Structure’, p. 10. He suggests that what Calvin had only previously hinted at in II.x.2 in earlier editions is now given an entire chapter. Inst. II.x.2, p. 429; OS 3, p. 404. Inst. II.x.2, p. 430; OS 3, p. 404. Inst. II.x.1, p. 429; OS 3, p. 403; cf. ‘Surely after the fall of the first man no knowledge of God apart from the Mediator has had power unto salvation’ (Inst. II.vi.1, p. 341; OS 3, pp. 320–321). Cf. S. Edmondson, ‘Christ and History: Hermeneutical Convergence in Calvin and Its Challenge to Biblical Theology’, Modern Theology 21.1 (2005), pp. 3–35 (esp. pp. 5–7).

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treatment deserves attention: the structuring of Christ’s work as Mediator under the rubric of the three-fold office of prophet, priest and king. After discussing the unity of the covenant of grace in II.ix–xi, Calvin turns to treat further crucial aspects of his Christology in II.xii–xvii. Chapter 12 treats the necessity of the Mediator possessing both divine and human natures. Calvin’s rationale for the incarnation is inescapably soteriological: ‘since neither as God alone could he feel death, nor as a man alone could he overcome it, he coupled human nature with divine that to atone for sin he might submit the weakness of the one to death; and that wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, he might win victory for us.’27 In Chapter 1, I drew attention to Richard Muller’s claim that in Calvin’s Christology ‘the function of mediation becomes determinative and the person of Christ must be considered in and through his office.’28 Muller further points out that even when Calvin gets to II.xii and II.xiii, he treats the ‘historical and economic context for the divine work of incarnation’ before turning to ‘the traditional problem of the two natures in the person of Christ’.29 This can be clearly seen not just in Calvin’s assertion that the necessity of the Mediator being true God and true man ‘has stemmed from a heavenly decree (caelesti decreto), on which man’s salvation depended’,30 but also because of the specific purpose Calvin attaches to the incarnation: ‘the only reason given in Scripture that the Son of God willed to take our flesh, and accepted this commandment from the Father, is that he would be a sacrifice to appease the Father on our behalf.’31 It is precisely this emphasis which predominates in Calvin’s treatment of Christ’s three-fold office. This material follows his metaphysical discussion of the incarnation,32 and it is not surprising to see Calvin explicitly tie each of the three offices to aspects of soteriology as the specific reason why Christ was sent by the Father. As a prophet, Christ stands as the climactic head of an ‘unbroken line of prophets’ who each ensured that God had never left his people ‘without useful doctrine sufficient for salvation’.33 Christ not only heralds ‘perfect doctrine’ which makes an end to all other prophecies; ‘he was anointed by the Spirit to be herald and witness of the Father’s grace.’34 As King, Calvin’s over-riding stress falls on the spiritual – and thereby salvific 27

Inst. II.xii.3, p. 466; OS 3, pp. 439–440. Muller, Christ and the Decree, pp. 27–28. 29 Ibid., p. 29. 30 Inst. II.xii.1, p. 464; OS 3, p. 437. 31 Inst. II.xii.4, p. 468; OS 3, p. 442. 32 Edmondson argues that although the majority of the material in II.xii–xvii existed prior to 1559, these chapters ‘also serve as a sort of prelude to the climax of the second book (II.xvi), where we discover how Christ “fulfilled the function of Redeemer to acquire salvation for us”’ (‘The Biblical Historical Structure’, p. 11). 33 Inst. II.xv.1, p. 495; OS 3, p. 472. 34 Inst. II.xv.2, p. 496; OS 3, p. 473. 28

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– nature of Christ’s rule. ‘Christ enriches his people with all things necessary for the eternal salvation of souls and fortifies them with courage to stand unconquerable against all the assaults of spiritual enemies. From this we infer that he rules – inwardly and outwardly – more for our own sake than his.’35 As Priest, Christ the pure and spotless Mediator both offers himself to God as a sacrifice for sin and stands as an ‘everlasting intercessor’ through whom we obtain the divine favour.36 In Chapter 2, I argued that in Calvin’s exegesis of Christ’s role in election salvific concerns dominate the landscape: Christ as the object of the decree in his mediatorial role. We can understand why Calvin treats Christ’s relation to election in this way. The Christ who comes to us in Scripture, clothed in the language and effects of the decree, is the Christ given to us for our salvation. This portrait of Christology in the Institutes reveals the conceptual hermeneutical tools for Calvin’s treatment of election, and itself schools the reader of Scripture to approach Christology through the lens of the covenant history and its story of the fall, sin and the promised redemption. This focus on Christology in the economy of salvation shows that Calvin’s hermeneutic is christologically extensive precisely because he understands there to be a form of unity to the testaments which is grounded in faith in Christ. The Old Testament as much as the New is read in connection to Christ. By locating his Christology here, within the unfolding of covenant-structured redemptive history, Calvin’s hermeneutic is one which urges caution in enquiring into the metaphysical and immanent grounds of the saving decree and instead urges that the reader of Scripture direct their attention to the Christ encountered in history as the object of saving faith. This can be substantiated by closely examining where election appears in the Institutes, and how Calvin intends it to function by locating it where he does. Here my assertion is that Calvin’s locating of election within soteriology is, in itself, a move which ties election to Christology, precisely because the understanding of soteriology is christologically oriented. 35 36

Inst. II.xv.4, p. 498; OS 3, p. 476. Inst. II.xv.6, pp. 501–502; OS 3, p. 480. Edmondson overstates his case when he argues that Christ’s work as priest is foundational for his other two offices (Calvin’s Christology, p. 89). The importance of the priestly office for Calvin certainly should not be downplayed. In appointing Christ to an eternal priesthood ‘God undoubtedly willed in these words to ordain the principal point on which, he knew, our whole salvation turns’ (Inst. II.xv.6, p. 502; OS 3, p. 480). Nevertheless, the eternal nature of Christ’s kingship grounds salvation in the eternal royal decree and is arguably a more comprehensive description of Christ’s person and work for Calvin – especially so when we observe that Christ as ‘head’, an extremely pervasive term, ‘is of a piece with [Calvin’s] discussion of Christ’s royal office’ (Calvin’s Christology, p. 117). The office of king receives more attention in II.xv than either of the other two offices. More important, however, than deciding between orders of priority is grasping the combined effect of the three offices in Calvin’s presentation of Christ’s saving work.

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1.2. The Location of Election It is a well-known fact that for the 1559 edition of his Institutes Calvin separated his treatment of providence from his treatment of predestination. The issue of precisely why Calvin did this continues to generate debate. Two of the most interesting proposals are those by Paul Helm and Barbara Pitkin. Helm argues that Calvin’s polemical context helps us. The separation of providence and predestination was the result of Calvin’s growing clarity about the ‘two issues’: a distinction between human choice as such (providence), and human choice as bound in sin and freed by grace (soteriology and predestination). Helm suggests that this distinction became clear to Calvin in his controversial writings against Pighius (who in Calvin’s mind was particularly guilty of confusing the two) and Castellio, and so by 1559 he had come to see the benefit of treating the topics separately.37 In contrast to this, Pitkin argues in an earlier monograph that Calvin’s exegetical context helps us. By 1539 Calvin’s understanding of faith contained a distinction between faith in God’s providential activity and faith in God’s redemptive work: knowledge of God is knowledge of both types of his activity. The 1539 Institutes gave a controlling priority to faith viewed primarily as saving faith and the substance of Pitkin’s argument is that at least one reason for the separation of providence and predestination was Calvin’s exegesis of the Psalms throughout the 1550s which led him to a more elevated conception of providence than he had previously held to, and hence to their separate locations in 1559.38 We probably do not have to choose between hypotheses like these, and indeed both can be strengthened by what we have seen of Calvin’s Johannine exegesis.39 It is important to note that in this re-arrangement it was providence that was moved into the 37

38 39

Helm, ‘Calvin, the “Two Issues”, and the Structure of the Institutes’, CTJ 42.4 (2007), pp. 341–348. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See. Despite his uncertainty about the usefulness of Calvin’s polemical context (cf. The Unaccommodated Calvin, pp. 150–151), Muller hints in the direction of both theses when he says that ‘Under the impact of his reassessment of the problem of saving knowledge’ Calvin altered the structure of the Institutes in this area (Christ and the Decree, p. 19). I suggest that Calvin’s exegesis of election and predestination in his 1553 John commentary cannot have been an insignificant factor in this soteriological reassessment. Alongside Calvin’s exegesis of the Psalter which raised the profile of providence, it could well be the case that the John commentary in the 1550s (building on the foundation of the Johannine material treated in Strasbourg in the late 1530s), led to a strengthening of Calvin’s conception of election as something which deserved to be considered in the soteriological realm and thus required to be treated separately from providence. In other words, if there were factors at work throughout the mid-1540s and 1550s which were helping Calvin to distinguish providence and predestination, then his exegesis of John – with Calvin’s prominent attention to saving faith

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doctrine of God, and not predestination that was moved into soteriology. ‘Calvin did not move the doctrine of predestination at all in 1559: he left it in approximately the same place that he had located it in 1539.’40 This means that, from its early iterations, predestination in the Institutes was hedged around with specifically soteriological concerns. Tremendous care must be taken with this observation. Older scholarship often wrongly argued that Calvin moved predestination out of his doctrine of God to make a specific theological point about the meaning of the doctrine, and we must eschew attributing to its location any significance which is simply not there.41 The distinction to make here is between the placement of the doctrine as important for the contextual argument and didactic purpose of the overall work, and the placement of the doctrine as important for the actual content and definition of the doctrine itself. Where Calvin actually locates election in the 1559 Institutes cannot be used to derive the content of the doctrine, even as its location is not insignificant and ties the doctrine in a particular way to the recurring argument of Book III. The significance lies in Calvin’s attempt to establish ‘a suitable methodus or path through the topics for the sake of teaching the whole in a suitable manner’.42 The unfolding argument of the Institutes further contributes to Calvin’s hermeneutics of election, but it is not this argument which determines what election means. Rather, election being what election is, Calvin is able to expound it as the climax of a carefully structured argument about the nature of faith. In Book III, famously titled ‘The Way in Which We Receive the Grace of Christ’, Calvin argues for union with Christ by the Spirit as the heartbeat of his soteriology. ‘First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us (quandiu extra nos est Christus), and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us (nobis esse inutile nullisque momenti).’43 The driving force of this presentation is faith alone in Christ alone as the way we experience Christ’s benefits. At the same time, given that ‘not all indiscriminately embrace that communion with Christ which is offered through the gospel’, Calvin’s doctrine of faith is annexed to ‘the secret energy of the Spirit’.44 This means that Calvin’s introduction of his main subject matter

40 41

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in Christ through the preaching of the gospel as the outworking of eternal election – could have been a significant influence. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 183. Cf. Muller, ‘The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology: Issue or NonIssue?’, CTJ 40.2 (2005), pp. 184–210; cf. also Muller, ‘The Myth of Decretal Theology’, CTJ 30.1 (1995), pp. 159–167; idem, ‘Found (No Thanks to Theodore Beza): One “Decretal” Theology’, CTJ 32 (1997), pp. 145–153. Muller, ‘The Placement of Predestination’, p. 207. Inst. III.i.1, p. 537; OS 4, p. 1. Ibid.

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here contains hints about the question of the origin of faith – a question Calvin will deal with explicitly in his doctrine of election. However, before he comes to treat election in chapter 21, Calvin first of all expounds faith (setting his definition over against the Roman conception); then sanctification; then justification; then Christian freedom and prayer; before finally turning to election. What does this tell us? One of the most insightful treatments of Calvin’s ordo here has been provided by Richard B. Gaffin. Rightly noting the significance of the polemical material in Book III, Gaffin points out that ‘The constantly echoing charge from Rome at that time . . . is that the Protestant doctrine of justification, of a graciously imputed righteousness received by faith alone, ministers spiritual slothfulness and indifference to holy living.’45 Calvin’s response to these charges is not in the first instance to insist on the Protestant definition of justification in greater detail – we note that, significantly, he treats sanctification before justification – but rather to proceed on the basis of a definition of faith which, he feels, addresses the heart of the contention with Rome. In Gaffin’s words: ‘Calvin destroys Rome’s charge by showing that faith, in its Protestant understanding, entails a disposition to holiness without particular reference to justification, a concern for godliness that is not to be understood only as a consequence of justification.’46 This approach to Calvin’s thought puts his doctrine of faith at the heart of Book III – with significant effects.47 His treatment of faith which runs for four chapters (III.ii–v), after setting forward Christ as the object of faith and explaining faith’s dependence on the Word, attaches faith to God’s benevolence as Calvin moves towards a definition of faith itself. He holds that the nature of faith is inseparably bound up with an awareness of our plight and our need for a merciful God: ‘knowledge of God’s goodness will not be held very important unless it makes us rely on that goodness.’ In this context, Calvin offers his definition of faith: ‘Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.’48 Couched in a trinitarian framework, observe how Calvin offers an entirely monergistic account of faith’s operations – faith is a knowledge of God’s mercy and favour, it is founded on a promise freely given, and it is revealed and sealed solely by the Spirit’s working. The combined effect, as

45

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R. B. Gaffin Jr, ‘Biblical Theology and the Westminster Standards’, WTJ 65 (2003), pp. 165–179 (p. 176). Ibid., pp. 176–177. Cf. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, pp. 133–142. Inst. III.ii.7, p. 551; OS 4, p. 16.

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outlined above, is a laying of the axe to the root of any conception of faith which includes a human contribution in its constitution.49 As his exposition unfolds, it becomes clear that Calvin’s aim is to flesh out this definition of faith by expanding on its role in uniting us to Christ in salvation and so to assure us of God’s fatherly kindness towards us. ‘But since Christ has been so imparted to you with all his benefits that all his things are made yours, that you are made a member of him, indeed one with him, his righteousness overwhelms your sins.’50 The corollary of this exclusive focus on Christ and his benefits is that, step by step, Calvin is destroying all anthropological grounds for confidence and boasting in relation to salvation. ‘Therefore, when we say that faith must rest upon a freely given purpose . . . we point out the promise of mercy as the proper goal of faith.’51 Again: ‘It is our intention to make only these two points: first, that faith does not stand firm until a man attains to the freely given promise; second, that it does not reconcile us to God at all unless it joins us to Christ.’52 These concerns continue to structure Calvin’s discussion of the topics in Book III and there is no need to keep re-iterating them here. Note, however, the unity of Calvin’s argument when he does finally reach his exposition of justification. Calvin explains that he has so far only touched upon justification because it was more to the point to understand first how little devoid of good works is the faith, through which alone we obtain free righteousness by the mercy of God; and what is the nature of the good works of the saints, with which part of this question is concerned. Therefore we must now discuss these matters thoroughly. And we must so discuss them as to bear in mind that this is the main hinge on which religion turns, so that we devote the greater attention and care to it. For unless you first of all grasp what your relationship to God is, and the nature of his judgment concerning you, you have neither a foundation on which to establish your salvation nor one on which to build piety toward God.53 Although this sheds light on how Calvin conceives of the relationship between justification and sanctification,54 for our purposes it is vital to see 49

50 51 52 53 54

Muller points out that although various synergistic theologies may also be categorized as in one sense forms of soteriological christocentrism, the clearest form is ‘the Augustinian exclusion of the human will from the primary work of grace’ (‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’, p. 255). Calvin’s soteriological christocentrism is robustly Augustinian. Inst. III.ii.24, p. 570; OS 4, p. 34. Inst. III.ii.29, p. 575; OS 4, p. 39. Inst. III.ii.30, p. 576; OS 4, p. 40. Inst., III.xi.1, pp. 725–726 (emphasis added); OS 3, p. 182. It is comments like this by Calvin and other similar material (cf. Inst. III.xvi.1; III. xvii.8–10) which mean that Gaffin is insufficiently precise in his claim that ‘Calvin

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that the simple conception of Calvin’s doctrine of election as located in soteriology can be significantly enhanced by a more detailed grasp of his argument in Book III and precisely what Calvin is intending to achieve here. His focus is certainly soteriological; but, more precisely, election is explicitly tied to a very specific argument about the nature of saving faith. Where Calvin’s four chapters on eternal election (III.xxi–xxiv) are read without an eye to their place in this unfolding argument, then undoubtedly one of the first things to strike the reader is Calvin’s unashamed boldness in the face of a seemingly stark thesis: ‘We shall never be clearly persuaded, as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the wellspring of God’s free mercy (ex fonte gratuitae misericordiae Dei fluere) until we come to know his eternal election, which illumines God’s grace by this contrast: that he does not indiscriminately adopt all into the hope of salvation but gives to some what he denies to others.’55 He soon adds his definition of God’s eternal decree in predestination: ‘For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others (sed aliis vita aeterna, aliis damnation aeterna praeordinatur). Therefore, as any man has been created to one or other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death (vel ad vitam vel ad morten praedestinatum dicimus).’56 However, when read as part of his argument, it becomes clear that Calvin’s infamous doctrine of election is intended to be yet one more part of his case for a soteriology utterly impatient with all forms of synergism precisely because it contains a continuation of Calvin’s doctrine of faith as something devoid of human contribution. This can be substantiated by attention to the following points. In the very first section of his treatment, Calvin states that in his sovereign election ‘God, utterly disregarding works (omisso prorsus operum respectu), chooses those whom he has decreed within himself.’57 Far from being an incidental aside, the phrase ‘utterly disregarding works’ is in fact the driving aim of Calvin’s argument: it is only this kind of disregard in God which is able to safeguard his own glory and promote ‘true humility’ in us. To these two benefits of his monergistic account Calvin adds a third: on this basis alone can we know that God’s mercy is free.58 When his exposition of

55 56 57 58

proceeds as he does, and is free to do so, because for him the relative ‘ordo’ or priority of justification and sanctification is indifferent theologically’ (‘Biblical Theology’, p. 177). Everything depends on what is meant by ‘priority’. We may say that there is no causal or even temporal priority of justification over sanctification because Calvin conceives of them as two aspects of the one gift given in union with Christ. But at least part of the distinction between justification and sanctification in Calvin is explained by the former having logical priority. Inst. III.xxi.1, p. 921; OS 4, p. 369. Inst. III.xxi.5, p. 926; OS 4, p. 374. Inst. III.xxi.1, p. 921; OS 4, p. 369. Inst. III.xxi.1, pp. 921–922; OS 4, pp. 369–370.

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election in the biblical materials begins, Calvin again wishes to stress that in the election of Israel these aspects of the divine choice are to the fore. Those ‘who have been adorned with gifts by God credit them to his freely given love (omnes in gatuitum amorem transcribunt) because they knew that not only that they had not merited them but that even [Abraham] himself was not endowed with such virtue as to acquire such a high honour for himself and his descendants.’ Calvin challenges those who differ: ‘Let those now come forward who would bind God’s election either to the worthiness of men or to the merit of works (qui Dei electionem volunt astringere vel dignitati hominum vel operum meritis). Since they see one nation preferred above all others . . . will they quarrel with him because he chose to give such evidence of his mercy?’59 Most pointedly, perhaps, the whole of the next chapter, III.xxii, is devoted entirely to the question of whether or not election is dependent on foreseen merit in those elected. Here Calvin treats biblical passages, including the witness of Christ himself on the matter, as well as the witness of the church fathers. The sum total of the argument incessantly points in a single direction: ‘Surely the grace of God deserves alone to be proclaimed in our election only if it is freely given. Now it will not be freely given if God, in choosing his own, considers what the works of each shall be.’60 In his final chapter on election (III.xxiv), Calvin applies this conception of election to a number of different issues which have the combined effect of outlining his thinking on the connection between election and assurance. The result is a conception of assurance of salvation that goes hand in hand with his destruction of human confidence in merit. He begins by treating the universal preaching of the gospel which God offers to both the elect and the reprobate, but which constitutes an effectual call only for the elect. Here Calvin follows Augustine’s treatment of the Johannine theme that those who listen to the Father are those who come to Christ (Jn 6.44–46). God designates as his children those whom he has chosen, and appoints himself their Father. Further, by calling, he receives them into his family and unites them to him so that they may together be one. But when the call is coupled with election, in this way Scripture sufficiently suggests that in it nothing but God’s free mercy is to be sought (in ea nihil requirendum praeter gratuitam Dei misericordiam). For if we ask whom he calls, and the reason why, he answers: whom he had chosen. Moreover, when one comes to election, there mercy alone appears on every side (sola illic misericordia undecunque apparet).61

59 60 61

Inst. III.xxi.5, p. 927; OS 4, p. 375. Inst. III.xxii.3, p. 935; OS 4, p. 382. Inst. III.xxiv.1, p. 966; OS 4, p. 411.

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Yet again Calvin is here aiming to ground assurance in an explicitly monergistic account of the causal grounds of salvation. G. C. Berkouwer’s analysis is perceptive: ‘For Calvin election is indissolubly united with the rejection of all works righteousness. For this reason election is inseparably linked with the confession of the certainty of salvation.’62 Election for Calvin is irreducibly connected to soteriology and its pastoral comfort in the life of the believer precisely because it is the climactic stage of his argument for a salvation which has its grounds entirely extra nos. From the conceptual starting point of union with Christ, Calvin has moved from sanctification to justification to predestination, treating these three topics in the reverse order of what he takes to be their logical relationships. Running through each stage of Calvin’s argument, the thread linking each together, is a definition of faith which gives the human agent nothing whatsoever to do with the origin of faith itself. In this way, the doctrine of election is the climactic stage of Book III’s one recurring argument that the source of our salvation lies in God alone with a corresponding rejection of all ‘works-righteousness’.63 The effect of Calvin’s starting point here is that Christology is extended to touch on a range of doctrinal loci; the faith which unites us to Christ is a recurrent feature in his expositions of sanctification, justification and predestination. In itself this shows that Calvin’s hermeneutics of election are christologically extensive at a formal level, even at those points where he does not explicitly expound Christology as part of election’s material content.

1.3. Christology and Election When we consider Calvin’s connection between election and the assurance of salvation we come very quickly to the heart of the matter: Christology. ‘The fact that . . . the firmness of our election is joined to our calling is another means of establishing our assurance. For those whom Christ has illumined with the knowledge of his name and introduced into the bosom of his church, he is said to receive into his care and keeping.’64 I will here consider how Calvin presents Christ’s role in his treatment of election in III. xxi–xxiv. This will show a strong soteriological christocentrism dovetailing extremely closely with the above argument and, importantly, also with the way Calvin has treated election in his Johannine exegesis. Christology surfaces as a significant aspect of Calvin’s doctrine of election three times in III. xxi–xxiv, and I will consider each in turn. 62

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G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (trans. H. R. Boer; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), p. 284. Again we note that there is little point trying to derive the meaning of election in Calvin simply from its location in the Institutes. Even while it appears as the final stage of an argument, it actually functions as ‘the causal focus of book 3’ (Muller, ‘The Placement of Predestination’, p. 195). Inst. III.xxiv.6, p. 971; OS 4, pp. 416–417.

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The first reference occurs in III.xxi.7 in Calvin’s discussion of how God has elected the whole of Abraham’s race yet nevertheless remains free to reject some of them and keep ‘others among his sons by cherishing them in the church’.65 The principle here is the inequality of grace which proves that it is free – simply by electing a nation God is not bound to thereby save every single individual because the election always depended on his generosity alone. This means that where there is rebellion within the covenant, the difference between an election that takes place in Abraham and an election that takes place in Christ comes into the open: Nevertheless, because many of [Abraham’s] descendants were cut off as rotten members, we must, in order that election may be effectual and truly enduring, ascend to the Head, in whom the Heavenly Father has gathered his elect together (necesse est ascendere ad caput in quo electos suos caelestis Pater inter se colligavit), and had joined them to himself with an indissoluble bond. So, indeed, God’s generous favour, which he has denied to others, has been displayed in the adoption of the race of Abraham; yet in the members of Christ a far more excellent power of grace appears, for, engrafted to their Head, they are never cut off from salvation (quia capiti suo insiti nunquam a salute excidunt).66 This places Christology at the heart of Calvin’s distinction between a general and a special election: the difference between the individuals in each category is that only those in the latter group may be described as elect ‘in Christ’. The next treatment of Christology appears in III.xxii. It is important to recall that at this point Calvin’s energies are devoted entirely to the issue of whether divine foreknowledge of merit plays any part in election. We note that in III.xxii.1 Calvin refers to Christ as an example of God’s unmerited favour: ‘we have in the very Head of the church the clearest mirror of free election that we who are among the members may not be troubled about it; and that he was not made Son of God by righteous living but was freely given such honour.’67 This argument for lack of merit continues through Calvin’s treatment of Jacob and Esau in Romans 9, but reaches a climax in xxii.7 when Calvin returns to Christ’s teaching: ‘Now let the sovereign Judge and Master give utterance on the whole question.’68 Here it is vital to see exactly how Christology is functioning in Calvin’s argument. Taking his cues from John’s Gospel, Calvin’s whole aim is to provide a definitive

65 66 67 68

Inst. III.xxi.6, p. 929; OS 4, p. 376. Inst. III.xxi.7, p. 930; OS 4, p. 377. Inst. III.xxii.1, p. 933; OS 4, p. 380. Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387.

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position on the question of whether the elect contribute anything to their election.69 He sees there to be two parts to this argument. First, Calvin stresses that the elect are those that the Father has given to the Son. Quoting Jn 6.37 and 6.39, he observes, ‘the Father’s gift is the beginning of our reception into the surety and protection of Christ.’ Again: ‘The elect are said to have been the Father’s before he gave them to his onlybegotten Son.’70 This serves for Calvin as a clear sign that the human recipient of salvation contributes nothing to their rescue; indeed, it is something given to them in their being given to the Son. Second, Calvin adds that ‘although Christ interposes himself as Mediator, he claims for himself, in common with the Father, the right to choose.’ We have considered these words already in Chapter 2, and we have seen what they contribute to the issue of how Calvin’s understanding of Christ and election may be compared and contrasted with Barth’s understanding. But it is vital to see that in this particular location Calvin’s attribution to Christ of a choosing role is not in the first instance so that he can make specific claims about the immanent christological basis of the decree, but rather serves to make what he regards to be a clinching argument about the absence of anthropological boasting in the realm of soteriology. In other words, Calvin is here less interested in the ontology of the Christ who chooses, and far more interested in what it means that Christ chooses: ‘This we must believe: when [Christ] declares that he knows whom he has chosen, he denotes in the human genus a particular species, distinguished not by the quality of its virtues but by heavenly decree (deinde non distingui qualitate suarum virtutum, sed caelesti decreto).’71 Certainly, Calvin follows this immediately with a clear statement that ‘Christ makes himself the Author of election’, but again we see how the implication Calvin draws from this is applied more to our salvation than it is to Christ’s person: ‘we may infer that none excel by their own effort or diligence.’72 Calvin concludes with a summary that clearly expresses that his focus here is on the divine and not human causal origins of salvation: ‘To sum up: by free adoption God makes those whom he wills to be his sons; 69

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Muller points out how III.xxii.6–7 in the 1559 Institutes is a ‘lengthy addition’ to Calvin’s treatment of predestination in the 1539 edition. ‘The entire exegetical basis for III.xxii.7 . . . derives from the Gospel of John (1553) and represents a collation of thoughts on the relationship between Christ and election generated by a series of passages throughout the Gospel but not immediately available in the exposition of the passages in their immediate textual locations. Indeed, Institutes III.xxii.7, should probably be understood as a theological locus developed in the process of Calvin’s exegetical examination of the Fourth Gospel and abstracted from the commentary on the ground enunciated in Calvin’s preface to the 1539 Institutes’ (The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 151). Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387. Inst. III.xxii.7, pp. 940–941 (emphasis added); OS 4, p. 387. Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 941; OS 4, p. 387.

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the intrinsic cause of this is in himself, for he is content with his own secret good pleasure.’73 The final treatment of Christology in election occurs in III.xiv.5. In this section Calvin is continuing his argument for election solely as a work of grace and it is at this point that he introduces election in Christ as the definitive ground of certain assurance of salvation. What Calvin says here about the basis of assurance is a hermeneutical rule in itself. There is a way to pursue certainty of election which is a ‘seeking outside the way’. The ‘way’ for Calvin is to follow only what the Word teaches and his description of what happens to those who attempt to ‘break into the inner recesses of divine wisdom’ is as vivid as it is prohibitive: ‘For then he casts himself into the depths of a bottomless whirlpool to be swallowed up; then he tangles himself in innumerable and inextricable snares; then he buries himself in an abyss of sightless darkness.’74 In contrast to this, Calvin outlines the christological alternative. Christ, he says, is the ‘fountain of life, the anchor of salvation, and the heir of the Kingdom of Heaven’ and because of this in order to know ‘God’s fatherly mercy and kindly heart, we should turn our eyes to Christ’.75 These are the boundaries within which God has ordained that we should understand our election. Accordingly, those whom God has adopted as his sons are said to have been chosen not in themselves but in his Christ [Eph. 1.4] (sed in Christo suo); for unless he could love them in him, he could not honour them with the inheritance of his kingdom if they had not previously become partakers of him. But if we have been chosen in him, we shall not find assurance of our election in ourselves; and not even in God the Father, if we conceive him as severed from his Son. Christ, then, is the mirror wherein we must, and without self-deception may, contemplate our own election (Christus ergo speculum est in quo electionem nostrum contemplari convenit, et sine fraude licet). For since it is into his body the Father has destined those to be engrafted whom he has willed from eternity to be his own, that he may hold as sons all whom he acknowledges to be among his members, we have a sufficiently clear and firm testimony that we have been inscribed in the book of life if we are in communion with Christ.76 With these words we penetrate the very centre of Calvin’s conception of the relationship between Christology and election. Not only does the Christ we meet in the Gospels teach us, in line with the rest of Scripture, that our 73

Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 941; OS 4, p. 388. Inst. III.xxiv.4, p. 968; OS 4, p. 414. 75 Inst. III.xxiv.5, p. 970; OS 4, p. 415. 76 Inst. III.xxiv.5, p. 970; OS 4, pp. 415–416. 74

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salvation originates entirely outside ourselves and in the benevolence of the divine decree alone (III.xxii.7); he therefore also teaches us that the grounds of our assurance lie outside ourselves and reside rather in him and our election in him (III.xxiv.5). At this juncture it is worth reflecting on the significance of this material for my argument before proceeding to the final point. In Chapter 2 we observed that if Christ’s role in election can be traced across an eternal–temporal spectrum, then in his exegesis Calvin gives the lion’s share of the emphasis to Christ’s mediatorial role as the object of the decree: both the one in whom his people are elect and the object of faith as the executor of their salvation. What we discover in the Institutes is that Calvin’s dogmatic exposition mirrors his exegetical discussion exactly. Even when he comes to give an account of election as a doctrinal locus, it is striking to see just how sparing Calvin is in his comments about the ontological aspects of Christ’s place in election. His concerns lie elsewhere. In four chapters on election in Book III, Christ as the author of election receives only a passing mention and, even here, without his commentary exegesis of Jn 13.18, it might not be possible to claim with absolute certainty that Calvin intends this reference to Christ as author in an eternal sense. Rather, the ontological aspects are radically subordinate to Calvin’s economic focus on faith and salvation, and he instead uses Christology to seek to prove that there can be no human merit as the ground of salvation. Christology is the ultimate ground of assurance. At every turn, Calvin averts attention from attempting to penetrate into the ‘hidden recesses’ of the divine wisdom and instead calls his readers to focus their attention on the God they can know because he is revealed in the preaching of the gospel of Christ. I suggest that this approach to Christology and election in the Institutes, itself exegetically derived and developed as Calvin worked on the biblical text, is intended to function as one aspect of Calvin’s hermeneutics of election. Calvin wants his readers to attend to Scripture focused on their sin, their blindness and need, and because of this to seek a merciful God in the call of the gospel as they meet him in the Christ of the Scriptures. Only within this framework should they seek to explore the doctrine of election.

1.4. Christology and Revelation The final part of my argument is to consider what this approach to Christology and election reveals about Calvin’s conception of Christology and revelation. It is clear that for Calvin Christ is the focal point of assurance of election – but is this the same as saying that Christ is the focal point of the revelation of election? I will argue that Calvin’s presentation of Christology and election as outlined above exhibits a certain set of relationships between Christology, election and his doctrine of Scripture that are fundamentally different from Barth’s understanding. That is to say, despite 174

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strong similarities in some of their terminology, Calvin and Barth ultimately look in different places for the resources for constructing the central elements of their doctrines of election. This can be seen by attending to the following points. First, right at the start of his exposition of election – and primarily as an antidote to speculative curiosity – Calvin explains that the most godly approach to the subject is one which accepts the limits of what is ‘set forth by his Word’.77 To keep us from trying to attain a kind of knowledge about election which is ‘both foolish and dangerous’, God has given us what we need in Scripture. If this thought prevails with us, that the Word of the Lord is the sole way that can lead us in our search for all that is lawful to hold concerning him, and is the sole light to illumine our vision of all that we should see of him, it will readily keep and restrain us from all rashness . . . Let this, therefore, first of all be before our eyes: to seek any other knowledge of predestination than what the Word of God discloses is not less insane than if one should purpose to walk in a pathless waste, or to see in darkness.78 As Calvin cuts his way through the problems which attend the doctrine of election, this line of reasoning is interesting at the methodological level. He does not assert a christological ground as the basis for overcoming either curiosity or anxiousness about election;79 rather, he establishes a textual ground. The written Word provides the believer with everything she needs to proceed with wisdom and sobriety when reflecting on election. Given that, as we have seen, there is also a clear sense in which Calvin offers a christological ground for discerning assurance, it is important to note that Calvin here appears to give a form of methodological priority to the written rather than the incarnate Word. A vital example of this appears if we consider again Calvin’s treatment of Christ as the author of election in III.xxii.7. In this section, the biblical passages which explain Christ’s part in election are simply viewed, in one sense, as on a par with other passages treating election. We recall that Calvin has been examining the biblical witness on the issue of whether human merit plays any part in the divine choice, and in xxii.7 he turns to Christology, 77 78 79

Inst. III.xxi.1, p. 923; OS 4, p. 370. Inst. III.xxi.2, p. 923; OS 4, p. 371. To those anxious to avoid all talk of election at all, Calvin likewise directs them to Scripture: ‘To hold to a proper limit in this regard also, we shall also have to turn back to the Word of the Lord, in which we have a sure rule for understanding . . . Therefore we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what it is in any way profitable to suppress’ (Inst. III.xxi.3, p. 924; OS 4, pp. 371–372).

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mostly drawn from John’s Gospel, to press home his point. To be sure, at this point Christ’s witness to election is a definitive voice in Calvin’s argument – he begins: ‘Now let the Sovereign Judge and Master give utterance on the whole question’80 – but we must note how Christ’s voice is still one voice among a range of witnesses. It is Christ’s words, his teaching, about election that Calvin is interested in, and not in the first instance his being as the divine Word. This point by itself is sufficient to suggest that the hermeneutical significance of Calvin’s Christology in his doctrine of election needs to be carefully explicated. Calvin does not hold to Christ himself as the basis of the revelation of the doctrine of election, and because of that he is able to assert a looking to Scripture (the source of the doctrine’s revelation) as the place where the believer must look for knowledge of election. Christology for Calvin is not the source of the doctrine of election; rather it is brought into play as an example of how his own argument from Scripture about election accords with Christ’s teaching on the matter. Calvin’s Christology is not principial for his doctrine of election. What, then, of Calvin’s repeated insistence that we can only have certain knowledge of our election by looking to Christ? How does this square with his biblicistic emphasis above? Here it may be helpful to adopt a simple distinction between the doctrine of election, and the assurance of election. The former can be described as a specific Christian teaching apprehended cognitively, but the latter as an emotional or psychological state requiring cognitive recognition of certain facts but which is actually experienced as a spiritual grace. This much is suggested by Calvin’s treatment of assurance of election in III.xxiv.4–5 where he castigates those who ‘investigate God’s eternal plan apart from his Word’. But those who examine election in the Word ‘reap the inestimable fruit of comfort’ precisely because this Word directs them to seek God’s fatherly mercy in Christ alone.81 It is vital to see, however, that the assurance of election that comes from looking to Christ does not come from simply reading about election in Christ in Scripture but rather from being ‘in communion with Christ’ by faith.82 By describing Christ as the mirror wherein we contemplate our own election, what Calvin actually means is that ‘He, I say, was our witness that the Heavenly Father will count as his sons all those who have received him in faith.’83 Interestingly, at the heart of this account of assurance, Calvin accords significant emphasis to Christ’s teaching about election: Moreover, since [Christ] is the eternal wisdom of the Father, his unchangeable truth, his firm counsel, we ought not to be afraid of 80 81 82 83

Inst. III.xxii.7, p. 940; OS 4, p. 387. Inst. III.xxiv.4, p. 969; OS 4, p. 415. Inst. III.xxiv.5, p. 970; OS 4, p. 416. Inst. III.xxiv.5, p. 971; OS 4, p. 416.

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what he tells us in his Word varying in the slightest from that will of the Father which we seek. Rather, he faithfully reveals to us that will as it was from the beginning and ever shall be.84 On the basis of the closest possible relationship between Christ and the Father, assurance of election comes from having faith in the Christ who we know through his words in the Word. This means that even though the believer’s assurance of election is to be found in communion with Christ, the Christ the believer communes with is one who is clothed in the promises of his Word. If one hand is grasping Christ himself, the other hand grasps his words in the Word: ‘If we still doubt whether we have been received by Christ into his care and protection, he meets that doubt when he willingly offers himself as a shepherd and declares that we shall be numbered among his flock if we hear his voice. Let us therefore embrace Christ . . .’85 In this way, we can see again how Calvin’s reading of election is christologically extensive, but it would be misleading to understand it as christologically intensive. Such a construal would run the risk of denigrating the distinction with which Calvin operates between the written word and the incarnate Word, with the former truly the source of the revelation of election. This now concludes the study of the hermeneutics of election in Calvin. Throughout this book, I have argued that Christology and election are inseparably connected in Calvin’s theology. In this chapter, on the premise that Calvin intends his Institutes to function as a hermeneutical tool, I have suggested that the presentations in the Institutes of Christology, election, and Christology within election, are intended to act as guides for how the doctrine of election should be read in Scripture. Taken together, they contribute to Calvin’s election hermeneutic. Election is revealed in Scripture so must be sought there; what is revealed is that the decree is free and gratuitous so all human boasting is destroyed; the outworking of this is that we must look to Christ alone for salvation and we come to knowledge of our election in him alone. This presentation locates Christ as the object of faith right at the heart of Calvin’s reading of Scripture. For him, the Christ we meet in seeking knowledge of election is the Christ of the covenant history, and not in the first instance the Christ who is the author of election in the eternal decree. This focus on the temporal work of Christ points in the direction of a soteriological christocentrism in Calvin which operates extensively across both testaments. By covering all aspects of his soteriology with a christological starting point of union with Christ, Calvin’s biblical hermeneutics are christologically extensive. As we shall now see, this temporal-economic focus to Calvin’s reading of Scripture is in marked con-

84 85

Ibid. Inst. III.xxiv.6, pp. 971–972; OS 4, p. 417.

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trast to Barth’s hermeneutics which are dependent on a far more intensive christocentrism.

2. The Hermeneutics of Election in Barth When we turn to examine the relationship between exegesis and hermeneutics in Barth, the task is both more straightforward and more complex. It is more straightforward because in the context of arguing for his radically Christocentric doctrine of election Barth pauses to offer some reflections on his rationale for approaching the Bible as he does. This material – often overlooked in studies of his exegesis of election – comprises Barth’s explicit thinking on the hermeneutics of election and is of immense importance to formulating an account of his interpretative method. At the same time, it is more complex because of the deeply inter-connected nature of the different strata of Barth’s thought. His thinking on biblical interpretation at this point is a highly condensed and compact statement which contains important connections to a range of other theological convictions about the nature and function of Christology, the relationship between the doctrines of Scripture and revelation, as well as connections to some of his most deep-seated convictions about the need to interpret Scripture in the light of its Sache. These challenges, however, only add to the richness of what Barth is endeavouring to achieve in this part of the Church Dogmatics. In what follows, I will offer a close reading of the explicit hermeneutical reflections which run for just over ten pages in CD II/2 §33 ‘The Election of Jesus Christ’. This reading will expose three points of contact with wider issues in Barth’s theology of Scripture and his doctrine of revelation which I will then seek to explore further: his conception of Scripture as a witness to revelation (and here both ‘witness’ and ‘revelation’ and their differing relationships to the incarnate Word will be examined); the belief that Jesus Christ is always and everywhere the object and content of the biblical witness; finally, Barth’s argument for reading the parts in the light of the christological whole will be shown to be a reflex of his conception of meditatio as one of the vital stages in the act of interpretation. Sharp states the case for why these wider points of contact deserve to be treated here: the question of exegetical support for the doctrine [of election] is tied inextricably to the question of consistent application of the hermeneutic which is claimed to be the basis for dogmatic construction. One can not deal adequately with Barth’s exegesis in the doctrine of election without dealing at the same time with the hermeneutic agenda articulated by Barth at the outset of the Church Dogmatics.86 86

Sharp, Hermeneutics of Election, p. 118 n. 1.

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Each of these aspects will contribute to the argument that in his biblical exegesis Barth exhibits a christocentrism which – because it decisively affects his reading of election as much as his doctrine of election itself – is evidence that it deserves to be construed as intensive in a way which Calvin’s christocentrism is not.

2.1. Election and Epistemology In §33 ‘The Election of Jesus Christ’, after his treatment of Jn 1.1–2 and his argument for Jesus Christ, electing and elected, Barth now provides a body of text titled ‘The Eternal Will of God in the Election of Jesus Christ’. The tone is almost self-conscious. Here he pauses to look up and reflect on the distance he has travelled from the ‘traditional paths’ in his doctrine of election. This requires ‘a most careful explanation of the necessity and scope of the christological basis and starting point (des christologischen Grund- und Ausgangssatzes) for the doctrine as it is here expounded’.87 Barth’s argument for his christological foundations is structured under four points and all of his hermeneutical reflections appear under the first point: ‘We may begin with an epistemological observation (einer erkenntnistheoretischen Feststellung).’88 Barth is concerned with the epistemology of election in two senses. First, he revisits the problem of the unknown God and the unknown man which so bedevilled the traditional doctrine. In such formulations, although the electing God is ‘a supreme being who disposes freely according to his own omnipotence, righteousness and mercy’, and although elected man is man foreordained to fellowship with God, nevertheless ‘the Subject and object of predestination . . . are determined ultimately by the fact that both quantities are treated as unknown.’89 The challenge of Barth’s exposition is clear: ‘In the sharpest contrast to this view our thesis that the eternal will of God is the election of Jesus Christ means that we deny the existence of any such twofold mystery.’90 This is the first sense in which for Barth Jesus Christ resolves the epistemological problem of election: as the electing God and the elected man, Jesus Christ reveals to us both Subject and object of election and so confronts us with ‘the majesty of a God who is known to us’. He is contending for the banishment of ‘the all-prevailing obscurity’ with the simple argument that ‘in the eternal predestination of God we have to do on both sides with only one name and one person, the same name and the same person, Jesus Christ’.91 At this point, Barth clearly senses the weight of the radical intensity of his christological concentration. He calls it ‘one of the 87 88 89 90 91

CD II/2, p. 145; KD II/2, p. 157. Ibid., p. 146; p. 157. Ibid., p. 146; pp. 157–158. Ibid., p. 146; p. 158. Ibid.

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great puzzles of history’ that his identification of the electing God and elected man with Jesus Christ in the way that he suggests has not been presented before. But this fact is enough to give Barth pause. His interpretative move seems so clear to him that actually ‘we must ask whether there is not something uncanny about it, whether we are not exceeding our prerogatives.’92 It is this which brings Barth to the second and most important epistemological issue. Explicitly, he is now concerned with the question of how we know that we know election only in Christ. ‘How do we know that Jesus Christ is the electing God and elected man? How do we know that all that is to be said concerning this mystery must be grounded in his name?’93 Barth’s answer to this question is devastatingly simple: ‘The decisive point is the reading of the Bible itself (Die Entscheidung fällt vielmehr beim Lesen der Bibel selbst und als solcher).’94 This statement appears in the context of a generous stance towards the ‘older theologians’. Although they adopted a range of dangerous philosophical conceptions as their starting point, Barth nevertheless concedes that matters are not as simple as alleging that they therefore read their Bibles in the light of an alien schema (Denkschema) while he has managed to free himself from it. Rather, the decisive point is the reading of the Bible itself. ‘It is the question where and how we find in the Bible itself the electing God and elected man, and therefore the reality of the divine election as a whole which must shape our thinking about the election and form the object of all our individual reflection and speech concerning it.’95 Note what Barth is aiming to achieve here. His claim is very simply that arguing over interpretative frameworks in the doctrine of election actually achieves very little. He is confident that the Bible itself is capable of speaking clearly on the matter of who we are to name as the electing God and who we are to name as elected man. In what follows, Barth presents his reading of the Bible as different to the older theologians in two main ways. First, Barth seeks to read Scripture backwards (or outwards) from the ‘christological centre and telos of the temporal work of God’ to ‘the eternal presupposing of that work in the divine election (ewigen Voraussetzung dieses Werkes in der göttlichen Erwählung)’.96 Second, Barth argues for reading all of Scripture’s scattered predestinarian passages along a line which always looks in the direction of ‘the whole meaning and context of Scripture’.97 On the first of these points, Barth is relatively brief. He argues for two things: taking as the starting point all the passages in the Bible which expressly 92 93 94 95 96 97

Ibid., pp. 147–148; p. 160. Ibid., p. 148; p. 160. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 149; p. 162. Ibid., p. 152; p. 165.

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speak of election and predestination; and, on the basis of these, realizing that election is so pervasive in Scripture that ‘all God’s dealings in the Bible attested in the Bible can be understood only against this background, as the dealings of the electing God with elected man.’98 Although the exponents of the classical tradition had the resources to agree with this kind of approach, and although they often rightly viewed creation, reconciliation and redemption through the lens of ‘Jesus Christ as the key-point and consummation’, they failed to do this with predestination. This means that ‘where the parting of the ways comes is in the question of the relationship between predestination and Christology. Is there any continuity between the two?’99 Fatally, the older theologians answered this question in the negative when they should have answered this and the following questions positively: Is there the continuity which would mean necessarily the expounding of predestination in the light of Christology and the understanding of Jesus Christ as the substance of predestination? If the witness of divine revelation is rightly received, is it possible to understand the eternal presupposing of God’s temporal work in the light of the central point in that work? The older exponents of the doctrine did not see any such continuity and they had no desire to bring together the two doctrines in this way. The work of God which had its central point in Jesus Christ was one thing; the eternal presupposing of that work was quite another. Certainly in that eternal presupposing they did aim to acknowledge the true and triune God and none other. But they did not acknowledge him as they saw him in his work, or with the distinctness and form of his temporal activity. They separated him from that one name and that one person. They did not acknowledge him as the one who is identical with Jesus Christ.100 This does not mean that for Barth the classical view saw no continuity whatsoever between temporal Christology and eternal election but, crucially, as they approached the biblical data the exponents of the older view reversed the relationship between them. Wrongly, ‘eternal predestination was set up as a first and independent entity standing over against the centre and telos of the divine work and of time: a different encounter between God and man from that which became temporal event in Jesus Christ . . . the second decision and all that it involved followed on the first.’101

98

99 100 101

CD II/2, p. 148. The English translation is ‘as the dealings of the elected God’, but the German reads ‘als vom Handeln des erwählenden Gottes’ (KD II/2, p. 161). Ibid., p. 149; p. 161. Ibid., p. 149; p. 162. Ibid., p. 150; p. 162.

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It is precisely this wrong ordering of the reading of Christ’s temporal work in the light of the inscrutable divine decree which Barth now seeks to overcome with the development of a further hermeneutical principle: the need to read individual parts in the light of their contextual christological whole. The fundamental difference between his doctrine and that of the ‘older theologians’ is based on the fact that the latter carried out their exegesis ‘in line with a highly questionable general hermeneutical principle which we ourselves cannot follow.’102 These theologians rightly ‘taught us that in the word which calls and justifies and sanctifies us, the word which forms the content of the biblical witness, we must recognise in all seriousness the Word of God’, and also that ‘we must seek and will assuredly find (the in every respect) perfect and unsurpassable Word of God in the name and person of Jesus Christ (daß wir dieses nach allen Seiten in sich vollkommene und unüberbietbare Wort Gottes eben unter dem Namen und in der Person Jesu Christi . . . zu suchen haben und . . . finden werden).’103 However, in the matter of predestination, these interpreters ignored their own best insights: ‘in some inexplicable way there suddenly seemed to open up before them the vista of heights and depths beyond and behind the Word which calls and justifies and sanctifies us, the Word which they could never extol enough as the source of all our knowledge of God and man.’104 Their questionable hermeneutical principle was thus the implicit conviction that in fact there can be a knowledge of the predestinating God which is not in every instance the knowledge of Jesus Christ. In opposition to this hermeneutic, Barth sets up his own: Like all other passages, [the scriptural passages on predestination] must be read in the context of the whole Bible (in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der ganzen Schrift), and that means with an understanding that the Word of God is the content of the Bible (im Verständnis des Wortes Gottes als des Inhalts der Schrift). The exegesis of these passages depends on whether or not we have determined that our exposition should be true to the context in which they stand and are intended to be read . . . [I]n the exegesis of the biblical passages which treat directly of election we have to look in the same direction as we must always look in biblical exegesis. We must hold by the fact that the Word which calls us, the Word which forms the content of Scripture, is itself and as such the (in every respect) perfect and unsurpassable Word of God, the Word which exhausts and reveals our whole knowledge of God.105 102 103 104 105

Ibid., p. 150; pp. 162–163. Ibid., p. 150; p. 163. Ibid., p. 151; p. 164. Ibid., p. 152; p. 165.

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Jesus Christ is the content of the biblical witness, such that exegesis for Barth is only rightly practised when it derives from and results in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. In this light, there can be no exegesis of election that is ‘divorced from the name and person to which the whole content of the Bible relates as to the exhaustive self-revelation of God’.106 We note here how for Barth one of the most important features of this reading of Scripture is ‘context’ (Zusammenhang, also translated as ‘whole’, or ‘coherent whole’). The terminology recurs repeatedly throughout his argument, with Barth aiming to drive home the point that because the incarnate Word is everywhere the content of the Biblical witness then all the individual predestinarian texts must be read with the recognition that they cannot be divorced from the Bible’s meta-content of Jesus Christ. As presented to us in the Bible, what can the election be at all, and what can it mean, if it is divorced from the name and person to which the whole content of the Bible relates as to the exhaustive self-revelation of God, here with the forward look of expectation and there with the backward look of recollection. Only in some other context than that of Holy Scripture can the concept of election, of foreordination, of the eternal divine decree, refer elsewhere, to the twofold mystery of an unknown God and an unknown man.107 From this reading of Barth’s treatment of the epistemological basis to his doctrine of election, it is clear just how intensely christological is his conception of both the knowledge of God and the reading of Scripture. However, it is vital to note that this brief account of the hermeneutics of election is not a situation-hermeneutic, one hastily constructed by Barth for the task of validating a desired doctrinal direction in his exegesis of the biblical texts. Barth’s exegesis of election will always be open to the scrutiny which asks whether he has achieved the right kind of proportionality of relationship between dogmatic interest and exegetical even-handedness. Be that as it may, I suggest that Barth’s hermeneutical reflections at this point – the developments of the intervening years notwithstanding – are in harmony with his substantive reflections on Scripture and its interpretation earlier in the Church Dogmatics. Consideration of three leading contact points between the above material and Barth’s earlier treatments in CD I/1 and CD I/2 will show that his exegesis of election emerges out of the consistent application of his doctrine of Scripture and corresponding commitment to a coherent theology of interpretation. It will also allow us to see even more clearly that Barth’s christocentrism in election is annexed to a hermeneutical christocen106 107

Ibid., p. 153; p. 166. Ibid., p. 153; pp. 166–167.

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trism which is one more factor in ensuring that his christocentrism is rendered as pervasively principial and intensive.

2.2. Scripture as Witness to Revelation When discussing the epistemological foundation to his doctrine of election, Barth refers repeatedly to the biblical or scriptural ‘witness’. Here the term functions invariably as a way of referring to the Bible itself, a clipped form of basic description of what Scripture actually is. But the fact that Barth reaches for this term so easily is doubtless because of the extensive, more formal treatment of the concept of witness which he has earlier supplied in the Church Dogmatics. Indeed, it is undoubtedly the case that at this point in his argument, as he contends for the content of the Bible as related inexorably to the name of Jesus Christ, Barth is continuing to flesh out his concept of Scripture as a witness to revelation. That this should be so is not surprising. John Webster points out that as Barth expounds an ‘extended and architectonic version of the understanding of the Bible . . . the claim from which everything else radiates concerns the relation between Scripture and revelation. For Barth, that relation is best described by talking of “Scripture as a Witness to Divine Revelation.”’108 That Barth should be in the position at all of positing a ‘relation’ between Scripture and revelation and not an identity is, of course, the result of prior decisions in his doctrine of the Word of God (most notably his discussion of the Word in its three-fold form), and his doctrine of revelation. The distinction-in-unity of the Word of God preached, written and revealed is basic to all that Barth will go on to say about the nature and interpretation of Scripture: The Bible, then, is not in itself and as such God’s past revelation, just as Church proclamation is not in itself and as such the expected future revelation. The Bible, speaking to us and heard by us as God’s Word, bears witness (bezeugt) to past revelation. Proclamation, speaking to us and heard by us as God’s Word, promises future revelation. The Bible is God’s Word as it really bears witness to revelation, and proclamation is God’s Word as it really promises revelation . . . the decisive relation of the Church to revelation is its attestation by the Bible. Its attestation (Bezeugung)!109 It is worth probing this understanding of ‘relation’ a little more. Already in CD I/1 Barth points in the direction which his exposition of ‘Holy Scripture’ in I/2 will further explore by introducing the notion of revelation as an ‘event’, a specific ‘when and where’: 108 109

Webster, Barth, p. 65. CD I/1, p. 111; KD I/1, p. 114.

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The direct identification between revelation and the Bible which is in fact at issue is not one that we can presuppose or anticipate. It takes place as an event (Ereignis) when and where the biblical word becomes God’s Word, i.e., when and where the biblical word comes into play as a word of witness . . . Thus in the event of God’s Word revelation and the Bible are indeed one, and literally so.110 Scripture is not in and of itself revelation – it is a witness to it. But we note how in this categorization Barth is positing both a unity and a limitation to the relationship between revelation and the Bible. Later, Barth will expand like so: We have here an undoubted limitation: we distinguish the Bible as such from revelation (wir unterscheiden damit die Bibel als solche von der Offenbarung). A witness is not absolutely identical with that to which it witnesses . . . In the Bible we meet with human words written in human speech, and in these words, and therefore by means of them, we hear of the lordship of the triune God. Therefore when we have to do with the Bible, we have to do primarily with this means, with these words, with the witness which as such is not itself revelation but only – and this is the limitation – the witness to it.111 Yet Barth also wants to insist that ‘In this limitation the Bible is not distinguished from revelation’ and the explanation, again, for the dialectic of unity and limitation is the fact that revelation is always an event, an act of the free and gracious God: ‘If we have really listened to the biblical words in all their humanity, if we have accepted them as witness, we have obviously not only heard of the lordship of the triune God, but by this means it has become for us an actual presence and event.’112 Inseparably related to this designation of Scripture as witness is obviously a particular understanding of revelation. Over against a conception of revelation existing as a literary deposit in the words of Scripture, a quality that somehow inheres in the text itself – a view which Barth will come to associate with the mistaken position of Protestant orthodoxy – Barth’s theology of Scripture’s ontology is conditioned by a radically christological understanding of revelation. ‘[T]he Bible is now seen as an authoritative testimony to God’s action in Israel and in Jesus Christ, i.e., to revelation, to the Word of God.’113 It should not be ignored that in this quotation revelation is here identified with an action, a real happening in space and time and this is seen 110 111 112 113

CD I/1, p. 113; KD I/1, p. 116. CD I/2, p. 463; KD I/2, p. 512. Ibid. Thompson, Christ in Perspective, pp. 34–35.

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by revelation being identical with Jesus Christ. ‘Revelation has to do with Jesus Christ who was to come, and who finally, when the time was fulfilled, did come – and so with the actual literal word spoken now really and directly by God himself.’114 Immediately this raises the stakes for any account of incarnation in relation to the doctrine of God: ‘Incarnation here is not to be taken only as his coming into the world, but as his being and activity in the world.’115 Right at the start of CD I/2 as Barth comes to argue for Jesus Christ as the objective reality and the objective possibility of revelation – we note that the possibility follows the reality and not, as is traditionally the case, vice versa – he is explicit in his christological claim: ‘According to Holy Scripture, God’s revelation takes place in the fact that God’s Word became a man and that this man has become God’s Word. The incarnation of the eternal Word, Jesus Christ, is God’s revelation. In the reality of this event God proves that he is free to be our God.’116 Although this merely sketches in the barest of outlines the contours of one of Barth’s most essential claims in his Church Dogmatics, the identity of incarnation/revelation and the work their identity performs in relation to witness in Barth’s doctrine of Scripture is of the utmost significance for his hermeneutics of election in II/2. Arguments by Parker, Webster, and Wood concerning different facets of Barth on ‘revelation’ and ‘witness’ point in this direction. On Barth’s understanding of revelation, T. H. L. Parker suggests that there are three basic affirmations in play: (1) It is in Jesus Christ that God reveals himself; (2) God reveals his genuine Self in Jesus Christ; (3) in Jesus Christ God genuinely reveals Himself.117 These affirmations are considered by Parker in the context of exploring the implicit denials they contain of certain tenets of natural theology. In so doing, Parker’s treatment is suggestive of three correlative affirmations and denials in Barth’s doctrine of election. First, by arguing that it is in Jesus Christ that the Creator God reveals himself, Barth ensures that although he has a place for creation as God’s self-revelation, this nevertheless cannot ‘be derived in general from the biblical statements about the Creator and the creation without reference to Christ’.118 What this means, then, is a need for a christological orientation to the different theological loci because of the premise that it is in Jesus Christ that God has revealed himself – and reading election in Scripture for Barth is no exception. In his consideration of the epistemological basis of election, Barth argues for consistency in applying a christocentric hermeneutic to the divine work of election as much as it is often done in the classical doctrine 114

115 116 117 118

Ibid., p. 37. (Thompson attributes these words to Barth himself but they do not correspond to his reference to CD I/1, p. 127). T. H. L. Parker, ‘Barth on Revelation’, SJT 13 (1960), pp. 366–382 (p. 372). CD I/2, p. 1; KD I/2, p. 1. Parker, ‘Barth on Revelation’, pp. 375–378 (emphasis added). Ibid., p. 375.

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to the divine work of creation, reconciliation and redemption.119 Further, he shows that what the Bible calls ‘the salvation of man’, the ‘Church’ and ‘our hope’ are all inexplicable without ‘the knowledge of Jesus Christ’.120 So why must it be any different in election and predestination? It is in Jesus Christ that God reveals himself. And Barth reads the Bible accordingly. Second, by holding that in Christ God reveals his genuine Self it is clear that all Barth’s later strictures against the Deus nudus absconditus are being anticipated in nuce. Barth’s epistemological strictures against an unknown God and an unknown man in election are based precisely on the conviction that it is not possible to know a God who executes a divine decree that is not wholly and exhaustively identical with Jesus Christ. ‘The work of God is revealed in this Word in its totality, being there revealed in such a way that there can be no depth of the knowledge of the divine work except in God’s Word, and the knowledge of the divine work cannot lead us to any depth which is not that of God’s Word.’121 Third, Parker’s understanding that God genuinely reveals himself in Christ means that revelation is therefore not simply noetic but also redemptive; it is ‘the revelation of man’s sin and God’s pardon which at the same time effects man’s judgment and acquittal’.122 The identification of revelation and reconciliation in Barth’s thought is foundational to his doctrine of election because it is precisely this conceptuality which will come to underlie his redefinition of double predestination and hence his rereading of double predestinarian texts such as Romans 9. ‘Where man stands only to gain, God stands only to lose. And because the eternal divine predestination is identical with the election of Jesus Christ, its twofold content is that God wills to lose in order that man may gain. There is a sure and certain salvation for man, and a sure and certain risk for God.’123 This is the significance of revelation for Barth’s exegesis of election in Scripture. What about the fact that Scripture witnesses to that revelation? Don Wood has recently argued that while the designation ‘witness’ is rightly used to identify Scripture ontologically in Barth, this is not its only purpose. ‘[T]he formula also has the function, sometimes overlooked, of structuring a theological account of the church’s interpretative responsibilities and freedoms.’124 A hermeneutical account of witness will, at the very least, need to take account of the fact that as well as according to Scripture the status 119 120 121 122

123 124

CD II/2, p. 149; KD II/2, p. 162. CD II/2, p. 153; KD II/2, p. 166. Ibid., p. 150; p. 163. Parker, ‘Barth on Revelation’, p. 377; cf. J. Thompson, ‘Christology and Reconciliation in the Theology of Karl Barth’, in T. Hart and D. Thimell (eds), Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989), pp. 207–223. CD II/2, p. 162; KD II/2, p. 177. Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. 137.

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of being the bearer of revelation, ‘it does so without taking away from the fact that the Bible is a collection of human texts’.125 This means that in reading election in Scripture, Barth is aware that he is reading ‘human speech uttered by specific men at specific times in a specific situation, in a specific language and with a specific intention’.126 The effect of just such a conviction is undoubtedly what secures Barth’s conviction that his reading of the biblical texts which we have considered in Chapters 2 and 3 is one which takes responsibility to unearth the meaning of the texts as they exist in all their historical specificity. At the same time, of course, precisely because it is a human witness to divine revelation, Barth holds that ‘as a genuinely human word, Scripture “points away from itself, that as a word it points toward a fact, and object.”’127 As Wood says, to speak of Scripture as a witness ‘is simply a recognition of a reality that precedes us, and an attempt to order our response to it appropriately’.128 This captures exactly Barth’s conviction in his exegesis of election that the biblical word points always to the divine Word: ‘in the word which calls and justifies and sanctifies us, the word which forms the content of the biblical witness, we must recognise in all seriousness the Word of God.’129 This Word is identical with Jesus Christ – he is the reality which precedes us as we approach the biblical text, the fact and the object towards which all exegetical effort must be directed. It is a christocentrism which is hermeneutically intensive. I turn now to consider the next main contact point between Barth’s reflections on the epistemology of election in CD II/2 and his wider hermeneutical approach.

2.3. Jesus Christ: Scripture’s Object and Content Barth has argued that the biblical passages which speak of predestination must be read with an understanding ‘that the Word of God is the content of the Bible’.130 He is explicit that by referring to the Word of God in this context he means the incarnate Word: ‘we must seek and will assuredly find (the in every respect) perfect and unsurpassable Word of God in the name and person of Jesus Christ.’131 This conviction about Scripture’s content ensures that the exegesis of Scripture will point always to Jesus Christ as electing God and elected man; and it is a conviction which Barth had already 125

126 127 128 129 130 131

Webster, Barth, p. 65. Webster also argues that this designation of Scripture as witness is the later expression of concerns which Barth had earlier identified as a need for ‘objective’ interpretation, and which he also now comes to refer to as ‘historical’ interpretation; cf. ‘Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible’, p. 80. CD I/2, p. 464; KD I/2, p. 513. Webster, Barth, p. 66 (citing CD I/2, p. 464). Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. 137. CD II/2, p. 152; KD II/2, p. 163. Ibid., p. 152; p. 165. Ibid., p. 150; p. 163.

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nurtured in CD I/2. For our purposes, some comments from the end of his treatment in CD I/2 ‘Freedom Under the Word’ are especially pertinent. Throughout his discussion of Holy Scripture in CD I/2, Barth’s argument unfolds by attending to two main concerns: first, God’s use of Scripture in inspiration and annexing it to divine revelation; second, the church’s use of Scripture, by which Barth means ‘the attitudes and practices which ought to characterize the members of the community which is addressed by God’s Word through Scripture’.132 In the section ‘Freedom Under the Word’ Barth aims to give an account of that kind of creaturely engagement with Scripture which aligns the human interpreter’s agency with the divine freedom. This means, first of all, the common participation of believers in hearing and receiving the Word as those who are given an active and responsible part in the great event by which Holy Scripture lives and rules in the church and in the world.133 Second, it means that true freedom consists in scriptural exegesis which freely performs the act of subordinating all human concepts, ideas and convictions to the witness of revelation supplied in Scripture.134 This point introduces a rich discussion of the processes of scriptural interpretation where Barth asks why it is that we must subordinate ourselves to the scriptural witness. The answer is theological: we are sinners, utterly dependent on God’s grace to us, and it is only the content of the Bible which explains this particular relation between man and God. This is the theological principle of hermeneutics. But it is certain that biblical hermeneutics must be controlled by this special fundamental principle because the content of the Bible imperatively requires it. The content of the Bible, and the object of its witness, is Jesus Christ as the name of the God who deals graciously with man the sinner . . . The Bible says all sorts of things, certainly; but in all this multiplicity and variety, it says in truth only one thing – just this: the name of Jesus Christ, concealed under the name Israel in the Old Testament and revealed under his own name in the New Testament . . . The Bible becomes clear when it is clear that it says this one thing: that it proclaims the name Jesus Christ (Die Bibel wird da klar, wo es klar wird, daß sie dieses Eine sagt: daß sie den Namen Jesus Christus verkündigt) and therefore proclaims God in his richness and mercy, and man in his need and helplessness . . . [W]e can properly interpret the Bible only when we perceive and show that what it says is said from the point of view of the concealed and revealed name of Jesus Christ.135 132 133 134 135

Webster, Barth, p. 65. CD I/2, pp. 710–715; KD I/2, pp. 797–801. Ibid., p. 715; p. 802. Ibid., p. 720; p. 808.

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It is precisely this kind of description that leads Wood to comment: ‘[O]n Barth’s account, the primary thing to be said about the interpretation of Scripture is that it is dependent wholly upon a logically and indeed materially prior hearing that, being coincident with the forgiveness of sins, is to be explicated in soteriological rather than abstractly hermeneutical terms.’136 Given that Barth calls this focus on Scripture’s content as the ground of hermeneutical subordination a ‘basic rule’ of interpretation, its theological and specifically soteriological import should not be underplayed. Barth moves directly from the issue of subordination to his explication of ‘the individual phases of the process of scriptural interpretation’, but the soteriological grounding of these reading habits ensures that Barth’s discussion of hermeneutical mechanics – ‘I use the methods of source criticism, lexicography, grammar, syntax and appreciation of style’ – is always in the context of the fact that ‘The image which the [biblical] words conjure up reflects a certain object.’137 The object of the biblical text is ‘mirrored in the prophetic-apostolic word’ so that the aim of exegesis is ‘to form a picture of what has taken place on the spot to which the words of the author refer.’138 Barth is clear that this object is singular: ‘The object of the biblical texts is quite simply the name Jesus Christ (Daß das Gegenstandsbild der biblischen Texte nun einmal der Name Jesus Christus ist), and these texts can be understood only when understood as determined by this object.’139 At this point it may be helpful to draw out even more pointedly some of the direct implications of this coherent theology of interpretation by pausing briefly to apply it to Barth’s actual exegetical practice. There is clearly a very large measure of consistency between Barth’s explicit hermeneutical reflections in CD I/2 and his briefer hermeneutical comments in his doctrine of election. So what do these theological convictions about what Scripture is and how it should be read mean for what Barth does with the biblical text? A good example can be found in the way Barth approaches Romans 9–11. When his thesis of the biblical text as a witness to revelation is read in conjunction with his understanding of Jesus Christ as the object of that witness, and with his understanding of Jesus Christ as therefore the electing God and the elected man, then a particular set of theological lenses for reading Romans 9–11 come into view. Barth’s approach is well stated by Douglas Sharp: [Barth’s] exegesis [of Rom. 9–11] presupposes the identity of revelation/incarnation and election, and can be seen to consist in the interpretation of an objective reality (Israel and the Church) which he 136 137 138 139

Wood, Barth’s Theology of Interpretation, p. 173. CD I/2, p. 723; KD I/2, p. 811. Ibid., p. 724; p. 811. Ibid., p. 727; p. 815.

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finds imaged in the text. The truly significant element of the exegesis is the fact that it is not so much the interpretation of biblical revelation as it is an interpretation of a medium which is itself an interpretation of revelation. This is to say that the exegesis of Romans 9–11 is an interpretation of an interpretation. Jesus Christ is the revelation, and Barth views the existence of the community as an interpretation of that revelation. Thus Barth interprets the community in its two forms in terms of the primary reality of Jesus Christ’s election.140 This argument corresponds with what we discovered in reading Barth’s exegesis of Romans 9–11. The two forms of the community, Israel and the church, were read by Barth as witnesses to the two-fold determination of Jesus Christ for both judgement and mercy; here Christology intensively occupies the horizon of interpretation. We may recall how different this is to Calvin’s approach. Calvin’s covenant hermeneutic for Romans 9–11 (arguably the most salient feature of his exegesis) is influenced by Christology. But his hermeneutic is not christologically intensive, because he does not see Christology as the meaning of certain verses where Christ himself is not mentioned or as providing the typological structures for Israel and the church within the details of the text. It is now clear that Barth’s reading of the Bible displays a hermeneutical paradigm that is created not just by Barth’s doctrine of election as it has emerged out of his reading of the Johannine Prologue, but just as closely by a tightly related set of well developed and consistently applied hermeneutical convictions that have operated at least as far back as CD I/2. As Barth comes to provide extended exegesis of biblical texts as part of his doctrine of election, his understanding of interpretative freedom and responsibility ensures that his exegesis of election will be carried out in a manner that may be described as intensively christocentric. This is because his account of the required subordination of the biblical interpreter to the witness of revelation is itself intensively christocentric.

2.4. Meditatio: Scripture’s Parts and Scripture’s Whole There is one further hermeneutical conviction in the epistemological discussion in CD II/2 which can be seen to grow out of Barth’s earlier theology of interpretation. We have noted how one of Barth’s leading criticisms of the older theologians’ hermeneutical approach to election was their inattentiveness to the ‘coherent whole of scriptural witness’.141 The main form that this argument takes is Barth’s repeated insistence that the Bible’s election passages ‘must be read in the context of the whole Bible’; this charge is made 140 141

Sharp, The Hermeneutics of Election, p. 140. CD II/2, p. 152; KD II/2, p. 165.

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three times in the space of a few sentences.142 As we have seen, for Barth the context of the whole Bible simply ‘means that the Word of God is the content of the Bible’.143 When we reflect on this approach to reading election in Scripture it is clear that Barth is positing a provisionality to the meaning of the parts which needs to be carefully assessed in the light of the whole. It is a hermeneutic of patience and complexity, of interaction between the individual, multi-faceted predestinarian texts and the christological whole of which they are a part. Although this kind of hermeneutic is readily explicable in terms of the part–whole relationship it is also possible to see it as a reflex of another concern in Barth’s hermeneutics: namely, the need to ‘penetrate’ through the text to the reality which the text points to as a witness. Although the language may be slightly different, the conceptuality is the same because it is precisely by reading the parts in the light of the whole, in the light of the object that the text always witnesses to, that the real subject matter of which the parts speak is able to emerge clearly. The connections between these aspects of Barth’s hermeneutics stretch back a considerable distance in his theological development. Bruce McCormack argues that in the Foreword to the second edition of his Römerbrief (1922) Barth developed ‘a hermeneutical edifice with three stages’ which provided him with a structure which was to remain in place throughout his career.144 The three stages of interpretation in the Römerbrief preface are, according to McCormack, what Barth in his mature treatment of interpretation in CD I/2 will come to call explicatio, meditatio and applicatio.145 If the first stage, explicatio, is what Barth understood by a historical approach to the text – the act of ‘observation’ (Beobachtung)146 – with all the attendant tasks and duties of historical criticism, it was also one which went significantly beyond the dominant historical–critical paradigm. ‘The reigning biblical science saw [Paul] as an object of interest in his own right; Barth saw him as a witness . . . Therefore, the interpreter must not stop with the historical sense. Real understanding only arises where the interpreter, too, is confronted by the same object as the first witness.’147 Barth would later come to explain it like so: ‘In this phase . . . everything will depend on whether, in the literary and historical examination which underlies the presentation, we 142

143 144

145

146 147

Ibid; cf. ‘our exposition should be true to the context in which they stand and are intended to be read’; ‘a prior decision had already been made to depart from the whole meaning and context of Scripture’ (ibid). Ibid. McCormack, ‘Historical Criticism and Dogmatic Interest in Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of the New Testament’, LQ 5.2 (1991), pp. 211–225 (cf. pp. 213–214). Ibid. ‘The nomenclature is new; the content of the stages under discussion is largely the same’ (p. 224 n. 9). CD I/2, p. 722; KD I/2, p. 810. McCormack, ‘Historical Criticism’, p. 215.

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really form an accurate picture of the object mirrored in the propheticapostolic word.’148 Indeed, the absolutely essential starting point for all scriptural exegesis ‘is that of fidelity in all circumstances to the object reflected in the words of prophets and apostles’.149 These interpretative concerns are clearly evident in Barth’s exegesis and hermeneutics of election. But it is the second stage, outlined in the Römerbrief preface of 1922 and revisited as meditatio in CD I/2, that arguably has the strongest relevance to Barth’s interpretation of election. ‘The second stage consists in penetrating through the text to the mystery which lies concealed within. The exegete must think along with and after Paul, wrestling with his subject-matter until he/she too, is confronted by the same object (or Subject) which once confronted Paul.’150 When Barth comes to the theme in CD I/2, he expresses these ideas in the language of an ‘act of reflection’ which should not be understood as a moment in time independent from explicatio, but rather it is part of ‘the one act of scriptural exegesis considered now in the moment of transition of what is said into the thinking of the reader or hearer’.151 What is clearly at issue for Barth is the intense personal engagement of the reader with the text which produces genuine understanding, and his exposition unfolds with the argument that no engagement is possible without the interpreter realizing that they approach the text with ‘some sort of philosophy’. This may consist of ‘a particular epistemology, logic or ethics, of definite ideas and ideals concerning the relations of God, the world and man’.152 At no stage in his argument is it Barth’s concern to deny the fact that this is present in interpretation, nor is it his desire to overcome it. Rather, Barth’s dominant aim is to subject the innate philosophical framework of any reader of Scripture to a rigorously theological self-analysis which will allow the framework to adopt a ministerial and not an authoritarian role in the task of interpretation. The same soteriological descriptions of interpretation apply again here. In obedience and humility we must rely ‘solely on the grace of the Word’ in the recognition that our own schemes of thought for reading Scripture are invariably unfit for apprehending Scripture; any such scheme is made fit only ‘through its encounter with and pursuit of the scriptural word’.153 Barth presents a range of such reflections on the nature of our interpretative presuppositions before coming finally to the point which resonates most deeply with what

148 149 150

151 152 153

CD I/2, p. 724; KD I/2, p. 812. Ibid., p. 725; p. 813. McCormack, ‘Historical Criticism’, p. 215; cf. Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis, pp. 74–83. CD I/2, p. 727; KD I/2, p. 815. Ibid., p. 728; p. 816. Ibid., p. 734; p. 823.

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he himself will attempt in his doctrine of election. The use of a scheme of thought in the service of biblical exegesis is, he says, ‘legitimate and useful when it is controlled by the text and the object mirrored in the text’.154 He continues: At this point, therefore, we come to grips with the decisive thing which has to be said in regard to the problem of observation and representation. The truth of our reflection is determined by the object mirrored in the text as the master of our thinking; as is also on our side the measure of our fitness and adaptability in thinking of this object. The meaning of reflection on what is said to us is that we ‘go along with’ it. But since it is the Word of God that here speaks to us, what can this mean except that with our human thought we are carried along by the Word of God, and therefore that we allow ourselves to be carried along by it, not resisting or evading the movement to which it gives rise, but allowing it to be communicated to our own thinking.155 When we consider that Barth is here arguing for (in an extremely thoughtful and qualified way), and not against the use of a ‘human scheme of thought’ in biblical interpretation, it should come as no surprise when he explicitly states that the difference between his election exegesis and that of the older theologians is not that ‘they, on the one hand, were committed to a definite schema of thought which did not derive from the Bible but with the help of which they read their Bibles while we, on the other, have now freed ourselves from this schema.’156 It is not the presence and fact of any such schema that Barth is opposed to; it is the failure to subject any such schema to self-criticism in the light of the Bible’s theme, subject matter, and coherent whole of its witness. The decisive issue is not the schema; rather, ‘the thoughtscheme introduced could be dangerous only because a prior decision had already been made to depart from the whole meaning and context of Scripture.’157 So it is clear that when Barth argues that in his departure from the tradition at this point ‘The decisive point is the reading of the Bible itself’,158 what he means by ‘the reading of the Bible’ is an exegesis which is at every point striving to see the object which the text witnesses to, the text’s true subject matter which therefore forms the true content of all the individual parts of the biblical materials.

154 155 156 157 158

Ibid. Ibid. CD II/2, p. 148; KD II/2, p. 160. Ibid., p. 152; p. 165. Ibid., p. 148; p. 160.

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Conclusion: Revelation and Election I have traced Calvin’s and Barth’s different theologies of interpretation in a way which shows that different conceptions of Christology’s function in reading the Bible operate significant influence for both interpreters. Calvin reads the Bible in a way which puts Christ at the centre of the covenant history and then expounds election as part of soteriology within that covenant history. Here Calvin’s theology of reading the Bible is extensively christocentric. Barth interprets Scripture with far greater intensity to his christocentrism. For him, Jesus Christ is the object of the biblical witness so that Christology is the content of exegesis in a way which Calvin does not hold to. I suggest that it is precisely this issue of Christology’s relation to the very content of Scripture which points to the crucial hermeneutical difference between Calvin and Barth: their doctrines of revelation. In Chapter 2 we saw Barth’s rejection of Calvin’s christological ground for assurance. Here is how Barth puts his objection: How can we have assurance in respect of our own election except by the Word of God? And how can even the Word of God give us assurance on this point if this Word, if Jesus Christ, is not really the electing God, not the election itself, not our election, but only an elected means whereby the electing God – electing elsewhere and in some other way – executes that which he has decreed concerning those whom he has – elsewhere and in some other way – elected? The fact that Calvin in particular not only did not answer but did not even perceive this question is the decisive objection which we have to bring against his whole doctrine of predestination. The electing God of Calvin is a Deus nudus absconditus.159 This is a revealing statement. It expresses Barth’s fundamental identification of Jesus with the Word of God in a way that is more exclusive than Calvin’s identification of Jesus as the Word. This leads to a clear contrast which is stated by Richard Muller in these terms: . . . there is a rather heavy-handed anachronism at the heart of Barth’s analysis. The sixteenth-century writers do not mention ‘the problem of the Deus nudus absconditus.’ Indeed, given that the Reformed orthodox defined election as ordained ‘in Christ’ but never understood the doctrine to be revealed in Christ, but rather in the text of Scripture – they never exclusively identified the Word of God, namely the revelation of God, as the person of Jesus – the problem that Barth encounters in the doctrine was not encountered in the sixteenth- and 159

Ibid., p. 111; p. 119.

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seventeenth-century writers. They were not, indeed, they could not have been trying to resolve a problem that only arose in a twentiethcentury definition of divine revelation.160 This argument need not be granted in whole to accept that it contains an important insight.161 What Muller rightly elicits at this point is a fundamental contrast in the defining centre of the revelation of the doctrine of election – is it Jesus Christ, or the text of Scripture? Despite an inseparably close relationship, we saw in this chapter that there is in Calvin a form of distinction between Jesus the divine Word and Holy Scripture as divine Word that is markedly different from the way Barth construes the distinction – and this contributes to a significantly different hermeneutic. In the Barth quotation above, we note that the Word of God he refers to as giving us assurance is, in fact, Jesus Christ rather than Scripture. Although Calvin likewise grounds assurance in Christ, we have seen that Calvin also works with a specific understanding of Scripture as teaching us about this christological assurance. This suggests a certain construal of the relationship between Scripture and revelation on the one hand, and Christology and election on the other. His approach points strongly in the direction of Muller’s contention – Calvin does not understand the doctrine of election to be revealed in Christ but rather in the text of Scripture. This is another clear indicator that Calvin’s Christology functions in his doctrine of election in a soteriological sense and not a principial one. This account of the relationship between Christology and revelation challenges those understandings of Calvin’s doctrine of revelation which read it through the lens of Barth’s doctrine of revelation. Wilhelm Niesel argued that ‘Calvin does not confuse but distinguishes the one Word and the words of Scripture, Jesus Christ the soul of the Bible and the extant written message which bears witness to him . . . he shows that he takes with real seriousness the unique, perfect, and exclusive revelation of God in Jesus Christ.’162 But Calvin’s doctrine of election provides us with a particular example of the way in which his use of Scripture functions alongside a particular christological conception of the doctrine. Within this context, it is hard to sustain the position that Calvin did not actually regard the written Word to be a source of revelation. The doctrine of election is revealed in Scripture, but assurance of election comes through faith in the Christ that

160 161

162

Muller, After Calvin, p. 100. It is somewhat misleading to lay the charge of anachronism at Barth’s door here. The Reformed orthodox need not have perceived a problem in their doctrine of election for a problem to actually exist. Niesel, The Theology of Calvin, p. 35.

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the words of Scripture reveal.163 It should be clear from the above that, at least as far as Calvin is concerned, Muller’s contention seems to be supported: the sixteenth-century theologians never exclusively identified the Word or revelation of God with the person of Jesus.164 ‘It is mistaken to insist that Calvin’s thought as a whole took Christ as its central focus and utterly foreign to the mind of the Reformer to hold that “revelation in Jesus Christ” is somehow paradigmatic for the content of theology as distinct not only from the revelation found in the natural order but also from the nonincarnational teaching of the biblical Word.’165 Calvin’s and Barth’s different conceptions of revelation underlie their different conceptions of whether Christology should function extensively or intensively in the reading of the Bible.

163

164

165

This distinction between the doctrine of election and the assurance of election as a means of discerning the relationship between Christology and revelation in Calvin’s doctrine of election is similar to two principles commonly held to characterize Calvin’s doctrine of Scripture: ‘first, the presence in Scripture of the Word of God as given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the prophets and apostles and, second, the recognition of Scripture as the Word of God by reason of the testimony of the Spirit to the faithful heart’; cf. R. A. Muller, ‘The Foundation of Calvin’s Theology: Scripture as Revealing God’s Word’, Duke Divinity School Review 44.1 (1979), pp. 14–23 (p. 16). Election is revealed in Scripture because the Word of God inheres there; election is assured in Christ because the Spirit unites the believer to him in faith. Cf. R. A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725; Vol. 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (2nd edn; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), p. 155; idem, ‘Christ – the Revelation or the Revealer? Brunner and Reformed Orthodoxy on the Doctrine of the Word of God’, JETS 26.3 (1983), pp. 307–319. Muller, ‘A Note on “Christocentrism”’, pp. 258–259.

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Is there the continuity which would mean necessarily the expounding of predestination in the light of Christology and the understanding of Jesus Christ as the substance of predestination? If the witness of divine revelation is rightly received, is it possible to understand the eternal presupposing of God’s temporal work in the light of the central point in that work?1 Barth’s questions, coming as they do in outlining the explicitly hermeneutical presuppositions of his doctrine of election, pointedly encapsulate the major themes of this book. They express the heart of the difference between Barth’s understanding of the relationship between Christology and election and the corresponding understanding which is present in Calvin. I have argued that, whatever else they are, Calvin’s and Barth’s doctrines of election are first and foremost attempts to listen to the word of divine revelation and to relay in written form what they have heard. Chapter 4 has shown that Barth’s language of ‘witness’ and its relation to divine revelation ensures a conception of the source of election at odds with Calvin’s view of where and how election is revealed. But the point stands. For both interpreters, Holy Scripture is the quarry from which their dogmatic structure for election is hewn. Repeatedly, in the writings of both theologians, the emphasis on reception – it is in Scripture and not in their own theologizing that election is properly learned – is accompanied with a stress on right reception: election is a wellspring of gladness and joy, a doctrine that is sweet and comforting when it is received in humility and wonder as the best of all words and the surest sign that God’s mercy is utterly free. While the corresponding differences which I have sketched of Calvin’s and Barth’s doctrines of Scripture, revelation, and the role which Christology plays in the interpretation of the Bible should not be minimized, my argument aims to place the reception of biblical texts in both theologians at the centre of the reception of their theology as a whole. 1

CD II/2, p. 149; KD II/2, p. 162.

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It remains the case that for Calvin and Barth such an approach to their theology is sorely needed. Jaroslav Pelikan’s account of the lack of attention to the scriptural foundations of Martin Luther’s thought is just as applicable to John Calvin: ‘Historians have sought to assess the influence of everything from the theologian’s vanity to the theologian’s viscera upon the formulation of theological doctrines, meanwhile regarding as naïve and misinformed the suggestion that the Bible may be a source of these doctrines.’2 Calvin’s doctrine of election may continue to arouse theological debate, but I have tried to show that any conception of his doctrine which criticizes it for lack of exegetical foundations has first to overcome the obstacle of bald misrepresentation before it can engage in the challenging task of exegetical counter-argument. Similarly, for Barth, this book has drawn attention to the vital significance of Barth’s exegetical efforts in his reconstruction of the doctrine of election. It lends support to John Webster’s contention that ‘The CD is best read as a set of conceptual variations upon scriptural texts and themes, sometimes explicitly tied to exegesis, sometimes more loose and indirect, but always attempting to indicate what is already proclaimed in the prophetic and apostolic witness.’3 What Barth actually means at critical points in his doctrine of election is contested. The deep structures of his thought are hotly debated by Barth scholars, mainly in ontological or metaphysical categories. The danger here is that the discussion ignores the exegetical contours of his argument. But Barth was explicit about the significance of his exegesis: ‘I have grounds for thinking that to some my meaning will be clearer in these passages than in the main body of the text.’4 It is likely that where Barth’s doctrine of election is debated without attention to his practice as an exegete, and specifically to the very question which mattered most to him – ‘Does it stand in Scripture?’5 – then a debate occurs within parameters which Barth himself would not have recognized. But more can be said. For both Calvin and Barth, we have seen that ‘rightly receiving’ the witness of Scripture to election means attending to Scripture’s self-testimony about its content and object, and the way in which it is to be read. Both interpreters have explicit hermeneutical convictions which this work has attempted to trace. Although the final chapter simply sketches the 2

3

4 5

J. Pelikan, Luther the Expositor: Introduction to the Reformer’s Exegetical Writings (Luther’s Works Companion Volume; St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), p. 7. J. Webster, ‘Barth, Karl’, in K. Vanhoozer (ed.), Dictionary of Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), pp. 82–84 (p. 83). CD II/2, p. x; KD II/2, p. vii. Cf. Burnett, Theological Exegesis, p. 10, where Burnett also relays the anecdote from one of Barth’s seminars in the 1950s when Barth interrupted some of his students engaged in a protracted debate about his method: ‘If I understand what I am trying to do in the Church Dogmatics, it is to listen to what Scripture is saying and to tell you what I hear.’

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outlines of their theologies of interpretation, I have suggested that the way Calvin and Barth read election in Scripture is best understood as a reflex of two different conceptions of the way in which Christology functions in the text of Scripture and (for Barth) as the principium cognoscendi theologiae. I have argued that Calvin viewed his Institutes as a hermeneutical lens for the theological candidate so that, on grasping Calvin’s arrangement of the biblical material, the student might know ‘what he ought especially to seek in Scripture and to what end he ought to relate its contents’. Although this point is often overlooked in discussions of Calvin’s hermeneutics, it is extremely noteworthy that in his guide to reading Scripture Calvin does not comment explicitly on how to read Scripture (in the sense of providing an interpretative tool-kit); rather, he simply reads it. In so doing, he offers a dogmatic exposition of the biblical plot-line which takes in creation, fall and redemption in Christ throughout old and new covenants in a way which extensively relates the narrative to his economically focused Christology. The result is an extensive christocentrism in biblical interpretation which casts significant light on the rationale for where and how Calvin treats election in the Institutes. Conversely, we have seen that for Barth his understanding of the incarnate Word as the definitive divine revelation leads him to concentrate both his hermeneutics of election and his doctrine of election more exhaustively in the person of Jesus Christ. As the object and content of Scripture, the Word witnessed to by the word, the exegesis of election takes its bearings at every point from the biblical testimony to be God for us in Christ. The result is an intensive christocentrism in biblical interpretation which goes significantly beyond Calvin’s conception of christocentric exegesis. One area of fruitful further study, in the light of these theological and hermeneutical distinctions, would be an examination of Barth’s highly distinctive exegetical material in CD II/2 (§35 ‘The Election of the Individual’) which follows the material I have considered. If Barth’s reference to the ‘witness of divine revelation’ points to the exegetical and hermeneutical aspects of my work, then other parts of his questions highlight the theological dimension which emerges from the exegesis: ‘is it possible to understand the eternal presupposing of God’s temporal work in the light of the central point in that work?’ Perhaps Barth goes too far in suggesting that in the classical view ‘eternal predestination was set up as a first and independent entity standing over against the centre and telos of the divine work and of time.’6 As we have seen, Calvin is certainly explicit that it is Christ himself who, according to his divine nature, chooses his own ante mundi creationem. This ensures that in Calvin eternal predestination is not an ‘independent entity’, nor is it set over against the execution of the divine decree in time. Nevertheless, of course, Barth’s point 6

CD II/2, p. 150 (emphasis added); KD II/2, p. 162.

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has weight. For in Calvin we have seen a reading of election in the biblical materials which fully accords Christology the utmost priority as the centrepoint of redemptive history and in the temporal outworking of the salvation which is found in Christ alone, but which does not thereby read off the historical Christ event an understanding of the eternal decree which is radically and pervasively christological. The material we have considered in Chapters 2 and 3 shows that, in essence, this is the heart of the difference between Calvin’s soteriological christocentrism and Barth’s principial christocentrism. For Barth, the very name ‘Jesus Christ’ expresses a self-determination of God to be gracious, to be merciful to all – the history of Jesus is determinative of the divine being in a principial way which explicitly aims to understand the eternal presupposing of God’s temporal work in the light of the central point in that work. The fact that we need to distinguish in this way between the two very different senses of christocentrism in Calvin’s and Barth’s doctrines of election means that Muller is entirely right to express severe reservations about the value of the term ‘christocentric’ as a worthwhile description of Calvin’s theology. It retains value only if substantially qualified as an Augustinian kind of soteriological christocentrism, and therefore as extremely different from Barth’s principial christocentrism. At the end of a study like this, focusing as it has on description above evaluation,7 it can be argued that an emphasis on the exegetical nature of Calvin’s and Barth’s distinct forms of christocentrism presents the Reformed tradition with a number of challenges. For both theologians, the centrality of Christology to the enterprise of Christian theology is a non-negotiable presupposition. It is one which Reformed theology ignores at its peril as it faces the challenges of the new millennium, particularly the contextual complexities of remaining faithful to the biblical testimony that the God of Christian Scripture is ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’: a God who chooses. But how, exactly, should a Reformed theology of election be christocentric? Doubtless, there are choices to be made between the presentations on this topic that we find in Calvin and Barth. Such a choice may opt for one or the other, some combination of both views, or neither. But the grounds for choosing clearly intersect a wide spectrum. The issues range from considering Calvin’s and Barth’s different locations in history (with the complexities that ensue from Barth’s and our post-Kantian context);8 to the extent to

7

8

For my own attempt at an evaluation of aspects of Barth’s exegesis, cf. ‘The Day of God’s Mercy: Romans 9–11 in Barth’s Doctrine of Election’, in D. Gibson and D. Strange (eds), Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008; New York: T&T Clark, 2009), pp. 136–167. Cf. van der Kooi, As in a Mirror, who suggests the Kantian turn to the subject as a ‘hinge’ between Calvin and Barth which may be used to evaluate their theologies (pp. 225–248).

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which Barth’s critique of Calvin on election may be regarded as a compelling way of safeguarding the best impulses of the Reformed tradition. This book suggests, however, that along this spectrum one issue should be accorded greater weight than others: the interpretation of Holy Scripture. In listening to the different testimonies of Calvin and Barth on election, Reformed theology discovers that the matter of christological concentration in theology is not just a theological issue. It is also, first and foremost, an exegetical and hermeneutical one. Calvin and Barth make clear that exegesis and its accompanying hermeneutical reflection is the essential prerequisite for theological description, and that the latter cannot long hope to sustain itself as distinctively faithful and obedient in character without the patient and receptive work of the former. The implications extend even beyond these boundaries too, for here we also see that historical theology is, in essence, not the history of ideas or concepts, or even theological problems. Rather, in Barth’s own words, ‘Church history is the history of the exegesis of the Word of God.’9

9

CD I/2, p. 681; KD I/2, p. 764.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY —‘Calvin as Theologian and Exegete: Is There Anything New?’, CTJ 23 (1988), pp. 178–194. —(ed.), Calvin and Hermeneutics (Articles on Calvin and Calvinism; vol. 6; New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992). Gibson, D., ‘The Day of God’s Mercy: Romans 9–11 in Barth’s Doctrine of Election’, in D. Gibson and D. Strange (eds), Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008; New York: T&T Clark, 2009), pp. 136–167. Gloege, G., ‘Zur Prädestinationslehre Karl Barths’, Kerygma und Dogma 2 ( July 1956), pp. 193–217; (October 1956), pp. 233–255. Gockel, M., Barth & Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A SystematicTheological Comparison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Gunton, C., ‘Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election as Part of His Doctrine of God’, in Theology through the Theologians: Selected Essays 1972–1995 (London/ New York: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 88–104. Hartwell, H., The Theology of Karl Barth: An Introduction (London: Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 1964). Hector, K. W., ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determinism: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar’, IJST 3 (2005), pp. 246–261. Helm, P., John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). —‘Calvin, the “Two Issues”, and the Structure of the Institutes’, CTJ 42.4 (2007), pp. 341–348. Hesselink, I. J., ‘Calvin’s Understanding of the Relation of the Church and Israel Based Largely on His Interpretation of Romans 9–11’, Ex Auditu IV ( 1988), pp. 59–69. Holder, R. W., John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2006). Holwerda, D., Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Hunsinger, G., ‘Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth’, Modern Theology 24.2 (2008), pp. 179–198. Jacobs, P., Prädestination und Verantwortlichkeit bei Calvin (Neukirchen: Buchhandlung des Erziehungsvereins Neukirchen Kr. Moers, 1937). Jewett, P. K., Election and Predestination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985). Jones, S., Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995). Kirschstein, H., Der Souveräne Gott und die Heilige Schrift: Einführung in die Biblische Hermeneutik Karl Barths (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 1998). Klooster, F. H., Calvin’s Doctrine of Predestination (Calvin Theological Seminary Monograph Series III; Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1961). van der Kooi, C., As in a Mirror: John Calvin and Karl Barth on Knowing God (trans. D. Mader; Leiden: Brill, 2005). Kraus, H. J., ‘Calvin’s Exegetical Principles’, trans. Keith Crim, Interpretation 31 (1977), pp. 8–18. —‘Israel in the Theology of Calvin: Towards a New Approach to the Old Testament and Judaism’, Christian Jewish Relations 22 (1989), pp. 75–86.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Kreck, W., Grundentscheidungen in Karl Barths Dogmatik: Zur Diskussion seines Verständnisses von Offenbarung und Erwählung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978). Lane, A. N. S., John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (London: T&T Clark, 1999). Lillback, P. A., The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001). Lindemann, W., Karl Barth und die kritische Schriftauslegung (Hamburg-Bergstedt: Herbert Reich-EvangelischerVerlag, 1973). Lindsay, M. R., Barth, Israel, and Jesus: Karl Barth’s Theology of Israel (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). McCormack, B., ‘Historical Criticism and Dogmatic Interest in Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of the New Testament’, LQ 5.2 (1991), pp. 211–225. —‘For Us and Our Salvation: Incarnation and Atonement in the Reformed Tradition’, (Studies in Reformed Theology and History 1.2; Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1993). —Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology. Its Genesis and Development, 1909–1936 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). —‘The Sum of the Gospel: The Doctrine of Election in the Theologies of Alexander Schweizer and Karl Barth’, in D. Willis and M. Welker (eds), Toward the Future of Reformed Theology: Tasks, Topics, Traditions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 470–493. —‘Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology’, in J. Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 92–110. —‘Barths grundsätzlicher Chalkedonismus?’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 18 (2002), pp. 138–173. —‘The Significance of Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Philippians’, in Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Philippians (trans. J. W. Leitch; repr., Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pp. v–xxv. —‘The Ontological Presuppositions of Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement’, in C. E. Hill and F. A. James III (eds), The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical and Practical Perspectives (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), pp. 346–366. —‘Christ and the Decree: An Unsettled Question for the Reformed Churches Today’, in L. Quigley (ed.), Reformed Theology in Contemporary Perspective (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2006), pp. 124–142. —‘Seek God Where He May be Found: A Response to Edwin Chr. van Driel’, SJT 60.1 (2007), pp. 62–79. McDonald, S., ‘Barth’s “Other” Doctrine of Election in the Church Dogmatics’, IJST 9.2 (2007), pp. 34–47. McGlasson, P., Jesus and Judas: Biblical Exegesis in Barth (AAR Academy Series 72; Atlanta: Scholar Press, 1990). McKee, E. A., ‘Exegesis, Theology, and Development in Calvin’s Institutio: A Methodological Suggestion’, in E. A. McKee and B. G. Armstrong (eds), Probing the Reformation: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey, Jr., (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989), pp. 154–174.

207

BIBLIOGRAPHY —‘Some Reflections on Relating Calvin’s Exegesis and Theology’, in M. S. Burrows and P. Rorem (eds), Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective: Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on His Sixtieth Birthday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 215–226. McKim, D. K., (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). —Calvin and the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Maury, P., Predestination and Other Papers (trans. E. Hudson; London: SCM Press, 1960). Milner Jr, B. C., Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church (Leiden: Brill, 1970). Molnar, P. D., Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (London: T&T Clark, 2002). —‘The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector’, IJST 8.3 (July 2006), pp. 294–306. —‘Can the Electing God be God Without Us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack’s Understanding of Barth’s Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 49 (2007), pp. 199–222. Muller, R. A., ‘Duplex Cognito Dei in the Theology of Early Reformed Orthodoxy’, Sixteenth Century Journal 10.2 (1979), pp. 51–61. —‘The Foundation of Calvin’s Theology: Scripture as Revealing God’s Word’, Duke Divinity School Review 44 (1979), pp. 14–24. —‘Christ – the Revelation or the Revealer? Brunner and Reformed Orthodoxy on the Doctrine of the Word of God’, JETS 26.3 (1983), pp. 307–319. —Dictionary of Latin and Greek Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985). — Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008; first printed 1986). —‘Directions in the Study of Barth’s Christology’, WTJ 48.1 (1986), pp. 119–134. —‘Emmanuel V. Gerhart on the “Christ-Idea” as Fundamental Principle’, WTJ 48.1 (1986), pp. 97–117. —‘The Place and Importance of Karl Barth in the Twentieth Century: A Review Essay’, WTJ 50.1 (1988), pp. 127–156. —‘Karl Barth and the Path of Theology into the Twentieth Century: Historical Observations’, WTJ 51.1 (1989), pp. 25–50. —‘The Myth of Decretal Theology’, CTJ 30.1 (1995), pp. 159–167. —‘Found (No Thanks to Theodore Beza): One “Decretal” Theology’, CTJ 32 (1997), pp. 145–153. —The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Formation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). —After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). —Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (4 vols; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1987–2003). —‘The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology: Issue or Non-Issue?’, CTJ 40.2 (2005), pp. 184–210.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY —‘A Note on “Christocentrism” and the Imprudent Use of Such Terminology’, WTJ 68.2 (2006), pp. 253–260. Neuser, W. H., (ed.), Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae Professor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994). Neuser, W. H., and B. G. Armstrong (eds), Calvinus Sincerioris Religionis Vindex (Missouri: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1997). Niesel, W., The Theology of John Calvin (trans. H. Knight; London: Lutterworth, 1956). Oberman, H. A., The Roots of Anti-Semitism: In the Age of Renaissance and Reformation (trans. J. I. Porter; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Paddison, A., ‘Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish-Christian Understanding’, JSNT 28.4 (2006), pp. 469–488. Parker, T. H. L., The Oracles of God: An Introduction to the Preaching of John Calvin (London: Lutterworth Press, 1947). —‘Calvin’s Concept of Revelation’, SJT 2 (1949): Part I, ‘The Revelation of God the Creator’, pp. 29–47; Part II, ‘The Revelation of God the Redeemer’, pp. 337–351. —The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1952). —(ed.), Essays in Christology for Karl Barth (London: Lutterworth Press, 1956). —‘Barth on Revelation’, SJT 13 (1960), pp. 366–382. —‘Calvin the Biblical Expositor’, Churchman 78 (1964), pp. 23–31. —‘Calvin the Exegete: Change and Development’, in W. H. Neuser (ed.), Calvinus Ecclesiae Doctor (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1980), pp. 33–46. —Iohannis Calvini Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos (Leiden: Brill, 1981). —Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986). —Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans 1532–1542 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986). —Calvin’s Preaching (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992). —Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). —John Calvin: A Biography (Oxford: Lion, 2006). Pelikan, J., Luther The Expositor: Introduction to the Reformer’s Exegetical Writings (Luther’s Works Companion Volume; St. Louis: Concordia, 1959). Pitkin, B., What Pure Eyes Could See: Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith in Its Exegetical Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). —‘Calvin as Commentator on the Gospel of John’, in D. McKim (ed.), Calvin and the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 164–198. Price, R. B., ‘“Letters of the Divine Word”: The Perfections of God in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation; University of Aberdeen, 2007). Puckett, D. L., John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995). Reasoner, M., Romans in Full Circle: Romans and the History of Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). Reid, J. K. S., ‘The Office of Christ in Predestination’, SJT 1.1 (1948), pp. 5–19; 1.2 (1948), pp. 166–183.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Riches, J. K., ‘What is a “Christocentric” Theology?’, in S. W. Sykes and J. P. Clayton (eds), Christ, Faith and History: Cambridge Studies in Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 223–238. Robinson, J., John Calvin and the Jews (New York: Peter Lang, 1992). Schreiner, S., ‘Calvin as an Interpreter of Job’, in D. McKim (ed.), Calvin and the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 53–84. Sharp, D. R., The Hermeneutics of Election: The Significance of the Doctrine in Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Lanham: University Press of America, 1990). Shute, D., ‘And All Israel Shall be Saved: Peter Martyr and John Calvin on the Jews According to Romans, Chapters 9, 10 and 11’, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 115 (2004), pp. 159–176. Simpson Jr, J. W., ‘The Jews of Today According to Twentieth-Century German Protestant Dogmatics’, Studia Biblica et Theologica 13 (1983), pp. 195–224. Sonderegger, K., That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s ‘Doctrine of Israel’ (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). Steinmetz, D. C., ‘The Superiority of Precritical Exegesis’, Theology Today (1980), pp. 27–38. —‘Calvin and the Absolute Power of God’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988), pp. 65–79. —‘The Theology of John Calvin’, in D. Bagchi and D. Steinmetz (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 113–129. Stegemann, E. W., ‘Israel in Barths Erwählungslehre. Zur Auslegung von Römer 9–11 in KD II/2, §34’, Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 20 (2004), pp. 162–184. Sulzbach, M. F., ‘Karl Barth and the Jews’, Religion in Life 21.4 (1952), pp. 585–593. Teselle, E., Christ in Context: Divine Purpose and Human Possibility (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975). Thompson, J., ‘The Humanity of God in the Theology of Karl Barth’, SJT 29 (1976), pp. 249–269. —Christ in Perspective: Christological Perspectives in the Theology of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1978). —‘On the Trinity’, in (ed.), Theology Beyond Christendom: Essays on the Centenary of the Birth of Karl Barth (Allison Park: Pickwick Publications, 1986), pp. 13–32. —‘Christology and Reconciliation in the Theology of Karl Barth’, in T. Hart and D. Thimell (eds), Christ in Our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989), pp. 207–223. Thompson, J. L., ‘Calvin’s Exegetical Legacy: His Reception and Transmission of Text and Tradition’, in D. L. Foxgrover (ed.), The Legacy of John Calvin: Calvin Studies Society Papers 1999 (Grand Rapids: CRC, 2000), pp. 31–56. —‘Calvin as a Biblical Interpreter’, in D. McKim (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 58–73. Watson, F. B., Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994). —‘The Bible’, in J. Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 57–71.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY —‘Barth’s Philippians as Theological Exegesis’, in Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Philippians (trans. J. W. Leitch; repr.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), pp. xxvi–li. Webster, J., Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). —‘Hermeneutics in Modern Theology: Some Doctrinal Reflections’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 307–341. —Barth (London/New York: Continuum, 2000). —(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). —‘“In the Shadow of Biblical Work”: Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible’, Toronto Journal of Theology 17 (2001), pp. 75–91. —‘Barth, Karl’, in K. Vanhoozer (ed.), Dictionary of Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), pp. 82–84. —Barth’s Earlier Theology (London/New York: Continuum, 2005). —‘Karl Barth’, in J. P. Greenman and T. Larsen (eds), Reading Romans through the Centuries (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), pp. 205–223. Wendel, F., Calvin: The Origins and Development of his Religious Thought (trans. P. Mairet; New York: Harper and Row, 1950). Willis, E. D., Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1996). Wood, D., ‘The Place of Theology in Theological Hermeneutics’, IJST 4.2 (2002), pp. 156–171. —‘“Ich sah mit Staunen”: Reflections on the Theological Substance of Barth’s Early Hermeneutics’, SJT 58.2 (2005), pp. 184–198. —Barth’s Theology of Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Wright, D. F., ‘Calvin’s “Accommodation Revisited”’, in P. de Klerk (ed.), Calvin as Exegete: Papers and Responses Presented at the Ninth Colloquium on Calvin and Calvin Studies, 1993 (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1995), pp. 171–190. Wright, N. T., The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Zachman, R. C., The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). —‘“Do You Understand What You are Reading?” Calvin’s Guidance for the Reading of Scripture’, SJT 54 (2001), pp. 1–20. —‘Expounding the Scripture and Applying It to Our Use: Calvin’s Sermons on Ephesians’, SJT 56.4 (2003), pp. 481–507.

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index of biblical references

Old Testament Genesis 1 2 3 21 36

158 158 158 108 108

Exodus 3.14 9.15–16 9.16 32.32 33.19

114–15 120 120, 122 100 114, 115

1 Kings 19 19.18 20.15

137, 139 138 137

2 Kings 24.18

137

1 Chronicles 1

108

Psalms 30.5 72.5 103.11–22 Proverbs 16.4

Isaiah 49–53 54.7–17 59.20

77 130 149

Malachi 1.2 1.2–3

112 111–13

New Testament

130 98 130

12

Matthew 3.17 11.27 16.17 17.5

59 49 49 59

Mark 1.11 9.7

59 59

Luke 3.22 9.35 23.35

59 58, 59, 79 58, 79

John 1.1 1.2 1.1–2 1.14 1.15 1.17

213

43–5, 47 26, 45 14, 26, 42–8, 50, 52–3, 55, 79, 80, 179 9 45 44

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES 1.19 1.29 1.34 4.22 6 6.11 6.27 6.32 6.33 6.35–39 6.37 6.37–40 6.39 6.40 6.44–46 6.45 6.57 6.70 6.70–71 10 10.8 10.16 10.17 10.28 10.30 10.38 13.8 13.18 15.9 15.15 15.16 15.19 17 17.2 17.5 17.6 17.6–8 17.8–10 17.10 17.23 17.23–24 17.24

44 132 58 160 58, 70 35 70–1 71, 83 71 72 67, 172 71–2 72, 172 72 169 83 83 81 31–2 58, 70 63 33 62 74 35 35 40 32–3, 34, 36–9, 40, 41, 49, 71, 81, 174 62, 64 83 33–4, 38, 41, 49, 81 33, 40, 49, 81 58, 68 68 48 68–70 37 83 83 62 62 59, 64, 79

Acts 2.23 2.33

79 48

4.27 4.27–28 Romans 3.25 4.25 5 5.10 8.29 8.29–30 9

9–11

9.1–4 9.1–5 9.1–23 9.2 9.3 9.3–4 9.4 9.4–5 9.5 9.6 9.6–9 9.6–13 9.6–14 9.6–18 9.6–29 9.7–8 9.9 9.10–13 9.11 9.12 9.13 9.14 9.14–16 9.14–18 9.14–29 9.15

214

48 79

132 128 63 63 47 2 19, 85, 86, 87, 97, 99, 112, 113, 114, 115, 124–5, 126, 127, 131, 132, 133, 171, 187 ch. 3; 12, 15, 27, 28, 85–90, 91–2, 94–6, 107, 114, 134, 141, 149, 150, 151, 190, 191 86, 97–100 94, 105, 140 97–134, 116 98 97, 98, 100, 101 99 101, 103, 139 99, 100–4 103 104, 106 105, 106, 109 112, 114, 115 104–14 46 94, 104 105–6 109 108, 111 109, 110 108, 111 108, 111 113–14, 117 119, 122 125, 126 110 114, 115, 117, 119, 123, 125, 128, 129

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES 9.15–16 9.15–17 9.16–18 9.17 9.18 9.19 9.19–20 9.20 9.20–21 9.20–23 9.21 9.22 9.22–23 9.22–24 9.23 9.24 9.24–26 9.24–29 9.24–11.36 9.27–10.10 9.30–10.21 10 10.11–21 10.19–20 10.21 11 11.1 11.1–6 11.2 11.2–6 11.5–6 11.7–10 11.9 11.11 11.11–12 11.11–15 11.12 11.12–15 11.15 11.16–26 11.17 11.19 11.19–22 11.21

114–19 117, 122, 123 47 117, 119–22 11, 114, 117, 122–5, 126, 127, 128, 129 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 133 126–8 126, 127, 128, 130 133 129–34 129 11, 131, 133 126, 131 129, 131, 134 131, 132, 133 134 135 135 134–51 135 94 138 135 137 137, 138, 140 86, 87, 90, 94, 135, 137, 138, 140 134, 137, 139 137–41 140 137 141 141–3 143 143, 144, 145 141 143–6 144, 145 144 145 146–51 146 146 146, 148 148

11.23 11.26 11.28–29 11.32

146, 147, 148 147, 148, 149, 150 150 123

1 Corinthians 15.20

46

2 Corinthians 4.4 5.19

46 63

Galatians 1.4 2.20 4.4 6.16

49 49 46 149

Ephesians 1 1.3–5 1.4 1.4–5 1.4–6 1.4–13 1.5–6 1.6 1.9–11 1.10 1.23 3.4 3.9 3.3–5 3.10 5.2

58, 59, 63, 65 48 47, 60–1, 63, 64, 78–9, 173 2 76 46 61 59 48 46, 47 46, 47 48 46, 47 46, 47 2, 48 49

Philippians 2.7–8

49

Colossians 1.15-16 1.17 1.17–19 1.18 1.19

46 46 47 46 46, 53

215

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES 2.9 2.10

53 46

7.27 9.14 9.23

49 49, 79 48

1 Timothy 2.6

49

1 Peter 1.2 1.20 2.4 2.6

60 48, 79 58 58

Revelation 13.8 19.13

48, 79 43

2 Timothy 1.9

2, 48, 60

Hebrews 1.2–3 2.11–18 5.8

46 79–80 49

216

index of subjects

actualism 19, 26 anthropology 5, 40, 76, 82, 92, 114, 153, 158 anti-Semitism 88, 89, 94–6, 146 apokatastasis 147 assurance and Barth’s critique of Calvin 5, 40, 82–3, 195–6 and Calvin’s doctrine of election 65, 73–5, 82–3, 169, 170–7, 195–6, 197 atonement 63–4 Christ and covenant history 24, 28, 67, 152, 157, 159, 163, 177, 195 as elect and reprobate 5, 93 as guardian of election 4, 58, 69, 72, 74 as Mediator 3, 7, 59, 60, 75, 157, 159, 161 as mirror of election 4, 58, 62, 66–7, 74–6, 82, 83, 171, 173, 176 person and work of 7, 156 as pledge of election 4, 58, 59, 62, 67, 75 as seal of election 58, 71, 73, 74 two natures 7, 36–7, 162 christocentrism 5 principial 6–10, 31, 48, 50, 56, 57, 80, 84, 87, 96, 103, 107, 125, 151, 153, 201 soteriological 6–10, 30, 84, 87, 96, 150, 152, 170, 177, 201

Christology anhypostatic-enhypostatic 25 hypostatic union 36, 75 as principium cognoscendi theologiae 6, 200 and theological method 5–10, 15–17, 27–9 church doctrine of 88, 148 election of 91, 99, 110, 141, 148 covenant and election 28, 96, 151, of grace 51, 92, 95, 144, 152, 153, 161, 162 creation 8, 32, 37, 55–6, 88, 115, 116, 131, 181, 187 and election 33, 38–9, 54, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 92, 94, 112, 200 and redemption 38, 157, 200 decretum absolutum (see predestination) election eternal 32, 34, 40, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 69, 70, 73, 75, 88, 101, 145, 146, 150, 165, 168, 181 general/special 28, 34, 104–14, 119, 134, 139, 140, 142, 146, 150, 171 of individuals 19, 33, 68, 73, 78, 84, 88, 90, 92, 104, 112, 113, 116–17, 121, 122, 124, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 140, 143, 144, 147, 148, 151, 171

217

INDEX OF SUBJECTS hermeneutics christologically extensive 15–16, 154–5, 163, 170,177, 200 christologically intensive 15–16, 20, 154, 177, 191 Holy Spirit 35, 38, 51, 88, 89, 148, 162, 175, 197 and faith 30, 32 73, 74, 165, 166

election (Cont’d) and order of decrees (supralapsarianism) 92, 152 and rejection 13, 14, 80, 93, 111, 119, 123, 125, 130, 135, 142, 143, 145, 146, universal 81 epistemology 24, 179, 188, 193 eschatology 147 extra Calvinisticum 36–9, 45, 46, 81 God deus nudus absconditus 41, 83, 187, 195 freedom of 66, 92, 115, 118, 119, 123, 127, 135 judgement of 87, 93, 94, 104, 107, 110, 123, 124, 125, 130, 132, 135, 143, 146, 152, 153, 161, 191 justice of 126, 127 kingdom of 39, 70, 135, 139, 143, 161, 173 Lordship of 185 mercy of 4, 34, 60, 61, 62, 63, 86, 87, 93, 94, 104, 105, 107, 109–13, 114–19, 120–1, 122–5, 128–33, 136, 137, 140, 143, 151, 152, 153, 161, 166–9, 173, 176, 179, 189, 191, 198 and mystery 82, 127, 179, 180, 183, 193 righteousness of 113–18, 119, 121, 122–4, 126, 129–34, 136, 138, 167, 179 as self-constituting/selfdetermining 50–7, 81 as triune 4, 8, 26, 31, 37, 35, 50–7, 80, 81, 84 94, 96, 152, 181, 185 Word of 8, 16, 37, 43, 83, 106, 132, 175, 182, 184, 185, 188, 192, 194, 195–7 works of, ad intra/ad extra 35, 43, 48, 51–7 gospel 16, 30, 34, 40, 61, 67, 70, 72, 74, 86, 87, 95, 102, 113, 131, 158, 160, 165, 169, 174

incarnation 36–9, 48, 51, 56, 77, 79, 84, 162, 186, 190, 197 Israel election of 12, 28, 88–90, 91, 92, 101, 102, 107, 108, 110, 116, 124, 138, 141, 148, 154, 169 theology of 89–90 Logos 43–4, 50, 51, 57, 81 asarkos 45, 51, 56, 57, 62, 81, 84 ensarkos 45 incarnandus 56, 57, 58, 62, 81, 82 incarnatus 56, 84 Pelagianism 118 philosophy 193 predestination 11, 13, 57, 60, 85, 90, 112, 114, 121, 126, 127, 133, 136, 165, 168, 170, 172, 175, 195 asymmetrical 130–1 and Christology 3–4, 24, 33, 35, 40, 48, 50, 53, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75–6, 80–1, 179, 180–2, 187, 188, 198, 200 classical doctrine of 12, 91, 123, 128, 130 decretum absolutum 2, 5, 49, 54, 126–8 double 12, 13, 19, 20, 42, 80, 94, 112, 114, 122, 187 and providence 164–5 Reformed doctrine of 9 reconciliation 7, 8, 63, 64, 93, 148, 159, 181, 186, 187 Reformed orthodoxy 6, 17, 41, 185

218

INDEX OF SUBJECTS distinguished from revelation 184–8, 195–7 doctrine of 29, 178, 183, 198 and election 2, 11, 20, 28–9, 76, 78, 91, 154–6, 163, 169, 173, 174–7, 183, 188, 192, 195–7, 198–202 and freedom 187, 189, 191 interpretation of 1, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21–4, 27, 28–9, 50, 91, 154–6, 158, 163, 174–7, 178, 180, 183, 184–8, 188–91, 191–4, 195, 198–202 as revelation 174–7, 195–7 as witness 8, 178, 184–8

resurrection 4, 5, 104, 124, 125, 129, 145, 146–7 revelation doctrine of 16, 26, 28, 29, 155, 156, 178, 184, 195 as event 184–8 God as subject of 9, 38–9, 42, 48, 49, 50, 52, 56, 57, 84, 94, 115, 128, 130, 183, 186–7, 195–7, 198, 200 and reconciliation 187 and Scripture 16, 156, 174–7, 178, 181, 184–8, 189, 190, 191, 195–7 Scripture and accommodation 24, 64, 69, 71

threefold form of Word of God 184 Trinity see God

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index of names

Augustine 13, 33, 75, 169 Battles, F. L. 67 Baxter, C. 13 Berkouwer, G. C. 2, 11, 33, 50, 82–3, 170 Bourgine, B. 14 Buess, E. 14 Burnett, R. E. 14, 193, 199 Busch, E. 18, 95, 153 Büsser, F. 22 Castellio, S. 164 Chung, S. W. 20 Clarke, F. S. 11 Colwell, J. 14 Cortez, M. 7, 9 Cosgrove, C. H. 137 Cunningham, M. 14, 44, 46–7 Demson, D. E. 95 Dorner, I. A. 12 van Driel, E. Chr. 52, 54–5 Edmondson, S. 3, 4, 17, 21, 39, 58, 65, 67, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163 Engel, M. P. 91, 102, 151, 152 Eskola, T. 13 Fredriksen, P. 96 Gaffin Jr, R. B. 166, 167–8 Gamble, R. 22 Gibson, D. 201

Gloege, G. 14 Gockel, M. 26, 52 Gunton, C. 11 Hartwell, H. 8 Hector, K. 52 Helm, P. 37, 61, 64, 84, 129, 164 Hesselink, I. J. 89–90, 147, 148, 149 Holder, R. W. 24, 25, 60 Holwerda, D. 90 Hunsinger, G. 52 Jacobs, P. 3, 35 Jewett, P. K. 91 Jones, S. 22 Kirschstein, H. 9, 14, 27 Klooster, F. H. 35 van der Kooi, C. 11–12, 75, 201 Kraus, H.-J. 149 Kreck, W. 12, 14 Lange, P. 9 Lillback, P. A. 12, 105, 148 Lindemann, W. 14, 27 Lindsay, M. R. 93, 95 Luther, M. 18, 199 McCormack, B. 4, 5, 9, 10, 25–6, 37, 50–7, 58, 84, 192, 193 McDonald, S. 15, 19 McGlasson, P. 14 McKee, E. A. 21–2 McKim, D. 11, 60, 65

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INDEX OF NAMES Milner Jr, B. C. 88–9, 102, 106, 151 Molnar, P. D. 52 Muller, R. A. 2–3, 4, 5–7, 9, 13, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23–4, 35–6, 37, 41, 51, 60, 61, 75, 157, 158, 162, 164, 165, 167, 170, 172, 195–7, 201 Niesel, W. 3–4, 24–5, 196 Oberman, H. A. 89 Paddison, A. 92, 95–6 Parker, T. H. L. 18, 59, 65, 73, 84, 86, 186–7 Pelikan, J. 199 Pighius, A. 164 Pitkin, B. 13, 24, 60, 164, 166 Price, R. B. 52, 55 Reid, J. K. S. 11 Schlatter, A. 45 Schreiner, S. 65

Schrenk, G. 79 Sharp, D. 10, 14–15, 42, 46–7, 48, 50, 178, 190–1 Shute, D. 90, 91, 144, 150 Simpson Jr, J. W. 93 Sonderegger, K. 94, 95, 153 Ströter, E. F. 137 Sulzbach, M. F. 94 TeSelle, E. 7 Thompson, J. 8, 9, 185–6, 187 Thompson, J. L. 11 Watson, F. B. 16–17, 25, 96 Webster, J. 5, 14, 16, 18–19, 30, 42–3, 92, 184, 186, 188, 189, 199 Wendel, F. 3, 4 Willis, E. D. 36, 37–9 Wood, D. 14, 17, 26, 27, 186, 187–8, 190 Wright, N. T. 96 Zachman, R. 23, 65, 74

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