Church Dogmatics, Vol. 4.2, Sections 67-68: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Study Edition 26 [26, 1 ed.] 0567378853 / 978-0567378859

Table of contents :
§ 67. The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding of the Christian Community / 1. The True Church / 2. The Growth of the Community / 3. The Upholding of the Community / 4. The Order of the Community / § 68. The Holy Spirit and Christian Love / 1. The Problem of Christian Love / 2. The Basis of Love / 3. The Act of Love / 4. The Manner of Love

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KARL BARTH CHURCH

DOGMATICS

VOLUME

IV

THE DOCTRINE OF RECONCILIATION

JESUS CHRIST, THE SERVANT AS LORD III

EDITED BY

G. W. BROMILEY T. F. TORRANCE

.~

t&t clark

Translate'd by G. W. Bromiley Published by T&T Clark A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE 1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright

@

T&T Clark, 2009

Authorised translation of Karl Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik IV Copyright @ Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 1953-1967 All revisions to the original English translation and all translations @ Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009

of Greek, Latin and French

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Interactive Sciences Ltd, Gloucester Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Group

ISBN 10: 0567427870 ISBN 13: 9780567427878

CONTENTS

S 67.

S 68.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE UPBUILDING OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 1. The True Church . 2. The Growth of the Community of the Community 3. The Upholding 4. The Order of the Community THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIANLOVE 1. The Problem of Christian Love 2. The Basis of Love 3. The Act of Love 4. The Manner of Love

v

30

52 67

117 141 172 212

[614J THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE UPBUILDING COMMUNITY

OF THE CHRISTIAN

The Holy Spirit is the quickening power with which Jesus the Lord builds up Christianity in the world as His body, i.e., as the earthly-historical form of His own existence, causing it to grow, sustaining and ordering it as the communion of His saints, and thus fitting it to give a provisional representation of the sanctification of all humanity and human life as it has taken place in Him.

1.

THE TRUE CHURCH

The upbuilding of the Christian community and then Christian love are the two themes which we have still to discuss at the conclusion of this second part of the doctrine of reconciliation. In these spheres, too, we have to do with the divine work of sanctification as a special form of the reconciliation of the world with God which was and is and will be an event in Jesus Christ. The difference in relation to our previous path can consist only in the fact that we are now looking especially at what is effected, and therefore actual, in this divine work. The powerful and living direction of the Resurrected, of the living Lord Jesus, and therefore the Holy Spirit, whom we have had to understand as the principle of sanctification, effects the upbuilding of the Christian community, and in and with it the eventuation of Christian love; the existence of Christendom, and in and with it the existence of individual Christians. It seems as though we might (and perhaps should) reverse the order and say that the Holy Spirit effects the eventuation of Christian love and therefore the existence of individual Christians, and in and with this the upbuilding of the Christian community and therefore the existence of Christendom. But this is only in appearance. If it is true that Christian love is that which (with Christian faith and Christian hope) makes an individual man a Christian, we have to remember that the individual man does not become a Christian, and live as such, in a vacuum, but in a definite historical context, i.e., in and with the upbuilding of the Christian community. He does so on the basis and in the meaning and purpose of the existence of the community, in his specific participation in its upbuilding, and in the exercise of its faith and love and hope. Calvin is thus right when he takes up a comparison already used by Cyprian and Augustine and calls the Church (Instit. IV, 1, 1) the "mother" of all believers: quando non alius est in vitam ingressus nisi nos ipsa concipiat in utero, nisi pariat, nisi nos alat suis uberibus, denique sub custodia et gubernatione sua nos tueaturEN1 (1,4). Did he perceive the full ENI

since there is no other entry into life unless she conceives us in the womb, unless she bears us, unless she nourishes us with her breasts, and finally protects us under her guard and government

[ 615 J

~ 67. The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding o/the Christian Community reach of the assertion expressed in this image? If so, why is it that it is only in the Fourth Book that he comes to speak of the Church, and that he thinks of it as one (if the chief) of the externa media vel adminiculaEN2 by which God invites us to fellowship with Christ and maintains us in that fellowship? E. Brunner (Das Missverstandnis der Kirche, 1951, E. T., 9 f.) is surely right in his conjecture that no apostle would ever have thought of the community merely as an external means to serve a quite different end-the sanctification of individual Christians. To be sure, we have not to speak too exclusively in terms of ends and means. The existence of that mother, and therefore of the community, is also a means, as is that of its children, individual Christians. Another point not brought out by this comparison is that the community exists only in the common being and life and action, in the faith and love and hope, of its members, and therefore of individual Christians. Again, the existence of individual Christians is also an end, as is that of the community. For individual Christians exist in the community, living by the special grace addressed and for the special service allotted to it. Both are ends and both are means. And if it is not merely externally that the sanctification of individual Christians belongs to the fulfilment of reconciliation, the same is true of the upbuilding of the community. By an inward necessity the one takes place in and with the other. But because we cannot see and understand the individual Christian except at the place where he is the one he is, and because this place is the community, we have first to consider the community, although remembering at every point that in it we have to do with the ~any individual Christians assembled in it.

At the beginning of the previous section we stated that in the work of sanctification God has to do with a people of men (consisting, of course, of individuals); and that this corresponds to the fact that in this work, as in that of reconciliation generally, His purpose is originally and ultimately for the whole world of men as such. AsJesus Christ is the Reconciler of all men, and in this way (in His fellowship with all) the Reconciler of each individual man, so as the Head of His community He is the Lord of its many members, and in this way (in His special fellowship with these many, with this particular people) the Head of each of its constituents. At a later stage we shall have to raise the question what makes a man a Christian, and speak of Christian love. But we have first to see and understand the context to which this question and the answer to it belong, and thus to consider that what takes place in the work of the Holy Spirit is the upbuilding of the community. The fact that we are now considering what is effected in the work of sanctification cannot mean-either when we speak of the Christian community or of Christian love-that we have to turn our back on the action of God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit and to occupy ourselves in abstractoEN3 with a being and work of men as its result. We are, of course, dealing with a work done in common by a group of men within the race and its history when we speak first of the upbuilding of the community. Sanctification generally is concerned with the being and work of men; with the wholly divine stimulation and characterisation of the existence EN2 EN3

external means and administrations in the abstract

2

1.

The True Church

of those upon whom it comes as something distinctive. So, too, the form of sanctification which we have now to discuss is concerned with the work of the quickening power of His spirit with which Jesus Christ builds up Christianity within the world; with the divine inauguration, control and support of the human action which takes place among Christians. For this reason I find it hard to see what Brunner means when (op. cit., p. 106 f.) he saysof the New Testament community that it was not "made" as the Churches of the Reformation were constituted by the acts of men, but that it "became" by a direct action of the Holy Spirit; and when he argues that it is one of the advantages of the Orthodox and Roman Churches that the same can be said of them to the extent that they have become what they are to-day by a long and continuous and uninterrupted process of development (involving, of course, the fatal transformation of the original nature of the ecclesiaEN4). This is a curious alternative. The men responsible for the Reformation of the 16th cen tury would hardly have recognised themselves in the statement that their Churches were "fabricated by a human act." Did not these Churches expressly see and understand and say of themselves that they were reformed by the Word of God and that they therefore stood in continuity with the one Church of the first and every age as formed by God's Word? Naturally there had to be all kinds of human decisions and acts, and therefore fabrication, corresponding to and serving this divine reformation. But these are also to be found-although of a very different kind-in the process by which the Orthodox and Roman Churches have evolved. They are also to be found even in the primitive community of the New Testament. It would be a strange historical development (even that of the Christian community as "the great miracle of history," op. cit., p. 116), and a strange divine work of sanctification, which did not involve a human being and work, and therefore fabrication, inaugurated and controlled and supported by God.

It is clear, however, that to see and understand that which is effected by God, the Church, in its true reality, we have not to lose sight even momentarily or incidentally of the occurrence of the divine operation, and therefore concretely of the divine work of upbuilding the community by Jesus Christ. The Church is, of course, a human, earthly-historical construct, whose history involves from the very first, and alwayswill involve, human action. But it is this human construct, the Christian Church, because and as God is at work in it by His Holy Spirit. In virtue of this happening, which is of divine origin and takes place for men 'and to them as the determination of their human action, the true Church truly is and arises and continues and lives in the twofold sense that God is at work and that there is a human work which He occasions and fashions. Except in this history whose subject is God-but the God who acts for and to and with specific men-it is not the true Church. Nor is it visible as such except in relation to this history. Thus, to see the true Church, we cannot look abstractly at what a human work seems to be in itself. This would not be a genuine phenomenon but a false. The real result of the divine operation, the human action which takes place in the true Church as occasioned and fashioned by God, will never try to EN4

church

3

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S 67. [617]

The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding of the Christian Community

be anything in itself, but only the divine operation, the divine work of sanctification, the upbuilding of Christianity by the Holy Spirit of jesus the Lord, by which it is inaugurated and controlled and supported. To the extent that it is anything in itself, it is the phenomenon of the mere semblance of a Church, and it is only this semblance, and not the true Church, that we shall see when we consider this phenomenon. The abstraction which this entails and of which we become guilty on this view is betrayed at once by the fact that all the biblical statements in praise of the EKKAYJata EN5 can be applied only poetically or mythologically and not literally to what is here seen, or thought to be seen. How can that which tries to be something in itself be the people of God, or the city or house or planting of God, or the flock of Jesus Christ, or His bride, or even His body, or the communion of saints, or (according to 1 Tim. 315) the pillar and ground of truth? The Church which is a Church only in appearance may try to deck itself out with these predicates, but by its very nature (as a mere semblance) will it not make it quite impossible for these predicates to be taken seriously? The same is true of the classical description of the Church (in the Nic.-Const. creed) as una, sancta, catholica et apostolicaEN6 (on this point, cf. C.D. IV, 1,668-725). None of these terms can be applied to anything but the divine operation which takes place in the Church. None of them can be sustained in respect of a phenomenon which is only the sum of what seems to be something in itself, pretending to be the Church, as a human work ostensibly occasioned and fashioned by God. When they are conducted with reference to this phenomenon, all discussions about the order and task of the Church, about its inner life and its commission in the world, are pointless and obscure. All kinds of theoretical and practical, enthusiastic and restrained, optimistic and pessimistic considerations and statements may, of course, be advanced, but they are none of them necessary. Where this is the case with thinking and speech about the Church, it is always an alarming sign that we are looking at a human work pretending to be something in itself, and thinking that we can formulate statements about this work as such. But the work of man which takes place in the true Church as occasioned and fashioned by God is revealed as such only as it points beyond itself and witnesses to the fact that it is occasioned and fashioned in this way,attesting the divine work of sanctification, the upbuilding of the community by the Holy Spirit, by which it is inaugurated and determined and characterised.

The Christian community, the true Church, arises and is only as the Holy Spirit works-the quickening power of the living Lord jesus Christ. And it continues and is only as He sanctifies men and their human work, building up them and their work into the true Church. He does this, however, in the time between the resurrection and the return of jesus Christ and therefore in the time of the community (cf. on this point C.D. IV, 1, ~ 62, 3) in the world, i.e., in this context the human world which participates only in the particular and provisional revelation ofJesus Christ and to that exten t is still a prisoner to the flesh and sin and death. Christianity, too, belongs to this world, and works and thinks and speaks and acts in it-even though its action is occasioned and fashioned by that of the Holy Spirit. Even at best, then, its action is an equivocal witness to the fact that it is occasioned and fashioned in this way.And there EN5 EN6

church one, holy, catholic and apostolic

4

1.

The True Church

may be the less good cases, the bad and even the worst, when the witness that it ought to give is either omitted or obscured and falsified; when the pride or sloth of man, or both together, is what is expressed and revealed as the work of the divine sanctifying and upbuilding. In short, it is to be feared-for this is where its determination by human pride and sloth ultimately leads-that it will express and reveal very little but itself; itself as occasioned and fashioned by God, but with this high consciousness and pretentious claim; itself and not the divine occasioning and fashioning which are its true meaning and power; the semblance of a Church, therefore, and not the true Church. This is the particular sin which to some extent is always committed where the community arises and continues here and now. Nor is it something self-evident, but always the omnipotent act of a special divine mercy, if the Church is not merely the semblance of a Church, but in spite of the sinfulness of the human action of Christians a true Church, and expressed and revealed as such. In its own strength this is quite impossible. Its institutions and traditions and even its reformations are no guarantee as such that it is the true Church, for in all these things we have to do with human and therefore sinful action, and therefore in some sense with a self-expression in which it can be only the semblance of a Church. If the divine occasioning and fashioning of this human action take place in spite of it, i.e., of its sinful tendency, this is not a quality of the Church in which it actualises its reality but the triumph of the power of jesus Christ upbuilding it; an omnipotent act of the special divine mercy addressed to it, which makes use of the human and sinful action of the community but does not proceed from it and cannot be understood in terms of it. Let us accept for once the well-known definition of the una san eta eeclesia perpetuo mansura EN7 in the Confession of A ugsburg, VII. It is the eongregatio sanetorum, in qua evangelium pure doeetur et reete administrantur saeramentaEN8• Why is it then that in Art. VIII we read that "in this life there are many false Christians and hypocrites and even notorious sinners" amongst the pious, and that scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat? Obviously this does not indicate donatistic lack of faith in the superiority of the Holy Spirit to all Christian corruption. What it signifies is that the pure doeereEN9 and reete administrareENIO of VII are a matter of the human action of those gathered in the Church, and cannot therefore be presupposed as a self-evident quantity. They are a divine gift which is certainly promised to the Church, yet is not inherent to it as the content of the promise but has to be continually prayed for and received by it. With reference to the faith mediated and to be attained through preaching and the sacraments, it is said expressly in Art. V that it is the gift of the Holy Spirit awakening faith by preaching and the sacraments tamquam perinstrumenta-ubi et quando visum est DeoENll• This is not meant by Melanchthon in any predestinarian sense, but

one holy church, which will remain in perpetuity congregation of the saints, in which the Gospel is purely taught, and the sacraments administered EN 9 pure teaching ENIO right administration ENll as through instruments - where and when God wills EN

7

EN 8

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rightly

[618J

~ 67. The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding of the Christian Community with the pure and recteEN12 of Art. VII it is certainly meant to restrict the idea which is to be found in some forms and circles of a Church which is true and effective ex opere operatoEN13, having no need of the free grace of God and living by a very differen t grace.

[619]

We have also to consider the relevance of the matter to the question of the visibility of the Church. Are we not forced to put it as follows, namely, that the true Church (its upbuilding by God as the basis and determination of what men want and do and achieve) becomes visible as in the power of the Holy Spirit (the same Holy Spirit by whose victorious operation it is the true Church) it emerges and shines out from its concealment both in that which is established and traditional and customary and also in innovation and change? This emergence and shining illustrate the freedom of grace; the mighty act of the particular divine mercy which takes place when in spite of its sinful tendency the human action of Christians does not attest itself but its basis and meaning, depicting and expressing the divine sanctifying and upbuilding. This takes place only as we can see and read the dark letters of an electric sign when the current is passed through it. We can never see the true Church as we can see a state in its citizens and officials and organs and laws and institutions. We can, of course, see the members of the Church, and its officials and constitutions and orders, its dogmatics and cultus, its organisations and societies, its leaders with their politics, and its laity, its art and press-and all these in the context of its history. Where else is the Church visible if not in these? If it is not visible in these, it is obviously not visible at all. But is it really visible in these? Not immediately and directly. This something which claims to be the Church, and is before us all in these manifestations, may well be only the semblance of a Church, in which the will and work of man, although they allege that they are occasioned and fashioned by God, are striving to express only themselves. What is visible in all this may be only a religious society. And if we assume, not only that this is not the case, but that what we have here is really the true Church, it is not self-evident that this will be visible as such in all these things; that its actuality will be eloquent truth. As it cannot create or confer its reality, the same is true of its visibility. It can only be endowed with it. If it is also visible as a true Church, this means that the victory of the divine operation, the mighty act of the Holy Spirit in face of the sinfulness of human action, finds further expression in a free emergence and outshining of the true Church from the concealment in which it is enveloped by the sinfulness of all human volition (and therefore of ecclesiastical), and in which it must continue to be enveloped apart from this continuation of the operation of the Holy Spirit. It will be alwaysin the revelation of God that the true Church is visible. And it will be always in faith awakened by this revelation that it is actually seen by men-at the place where without revelation and faith there is to be seen (perhaps in a EN12 ENl3

purely and rightly by the fact of the action being performed

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The True Church

very confusing and deceptive way) only this many-sided ecclesiastical quantity in all its am bigui ty. It is in this sense that we count on the fact that the Church is a true Church, and visible as such, and in this confidence thus turn our attention to the history in which its being and visibility as the true Church have their living basis. We have called this the divine inauguration and control and support of the human action which takes place in the community and in which Christianity exists in the world. And we will gather up this whole happening under the concept of the upbuilding of the Christian community. In this first sub-section we shall take a comprehensive glance at the whole in explanation of this title. This history has a direction and a goal. This is the first point to be noticed if we are to see and understand it. What is at issue has been stated in the concluding part of our introductory thesis. The Holy Spirit is the power bywhichjesus Christ fits His community "to give a provisional representation of the sanctification of all humanity and human life as it has taken place in Him." The existence of the true Church is not an end in itself. The divine operation by which it is vivified and constituted makes it quite impossible that its existence as the true Church should be understood as the goal of God's will for it. The divine operation in virtue of which it becomes and is a true Church makes it a movement in the direction of an end which is not reached with the fact that it exists as a true Church, but merely indicated and attested by this fact. On the way, moving in the direction of this goal, it can and should serve its Lord. For this reason it will not be the true Church at all to the extent that it tries to express itself rather than the divine operation by which it is constituted. As such it will reveal itself, or be revealed, in glory at this goal; yet only as the Church which does not try to seek and express and glorify itself, but absolutely to subordinate itself and its witness, placing itself unreservedly in the service and under the control of that which God wills for it and works within it. The goal in the direction of which the true Church proceeds and moves is the revelation of the sanctification of all humanity and human life as it has already taken place de iureEN14 in jesus Christ. In the exaltation of the one jesus, who as the Son of God became a servant in order as such to become the Lord of all men, there has been accomplished already in powerful archetype, not only the cancellation of the sins and therefore the justification, but also the elevation and establishment of all humanity and human life and therefore its sanctification. That this is the case is the theme and content of the witness with which His community is charged. It comes from the first revelation (in the resurrection of jesus Christ) of the reconciliation of the world with God as it has taken place in this sense too. And it moves towards its final manifestation in the coming again of jesus Christ. Christianity, or Christendom, is the holy ENl4

as a matter of right

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community of the intervening period; the congregation or people which knows this elevation and establishment, this sanctification, not merely de iureEN15 but already dejactoEN16, and which is therefore a witness to all others, representing the sanctification which has already come upon them too injesus Christ. This representation is provisional. It is provisional because it has not yet achieved it, nor will it do so. It can only attest it "in the puzzling form of a reflection" (1 Cor. 1312). And it is provisional because, although it comes from the resurrection of jesus Christ, it is only on the way with others to His return, and therefore to the direct and universal and definitive revelation of His work as it has been accomplished for them and for all men. The fact that it is provisional means that it is fragmentary and incomplete and insecure and questionable; for even the community still participates in the darkness which cannot apprehend, if it also cannot overcome, the light (In. 15). But the fact that it is provisional means also-for in this provisional way it represents the sanctification of humanity as it has taken place injesus Christ-that divine work is done within it truly and effectively, genuinely and invincibly, and in all its totality, so that even though it is concealed in many different ways it continually emerges and shines out from this concealment in the form of God's people. It is with this provisional representation that we have to do on the way and in the movement of the true Church. It is to accomplish it that it is on its way and in this movement. It is in order that it may accomplish it that its time is given; the time between the times, between the first and the final revelation of the work of God accomplished injesus Christ. The meaning and content of our time-the last time-is the fulfilment of this provisional representation as the task of the community of jesus Christ. We must assert already-and it is something that has significance for the whole of this section-that it is necessary that this provisional representation should take place. It is not merely possible. Nor is the necessity only external or technical or incidental. It is internal and material and decisive. It is a saving necessity. The true Church is no mere form of grace, of the salvation directed to men by God, of the reconciliation of the world with Him. It is not something which has a mere form we can take into account merely accidentally or relatively or perhaps even optionally. It is not just the means to an end which can be dispensed with, or treated with a certain aloofness, when other and perhaps better means are perceived. We may and can and should hold aloof from the semblance of a Church whose only aim is to seek and express and glorify itself. But the true Church-and where is the semblance which does not conceal the true Church, from which it may not emerge and shine out?-is savingly necessary. We see and understand this when we understand this provisional representation as the meaning of the way on which-and the movement in whichit finds itself. The salvation addressed to man by God, and therefore in particuENl5 ENl6

as a matter of right as a matter of fact

8

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The True Church

lar the elevation and establishment of man, of all men, as it has taken place in Jesus Christ, is not a self-enclosed saving fact either far behind us or high above us. It is a living redemptive happening which takes place. Or, more concretely, it is the saving operation of the living Lord Jesus which did not conclude but began in His revelation on Easter Day. In its totality, in its movement to His final manifestation, it has the power of that which was once for all accomplished by Him at Calvary. It is essential, and therefore necessary, to Him (Heb. 138), to be not merely yesterday and for ever, but to-day-in the intervening time which is our time. And it is to-day in this provisional representation, in the form of the true Church. It would not be God's and therefore it would not be our salvation if it did not create and maintain and continually renew the provisional representation in which it is to-day. If we do not take it seriously in this, we do not take it seriously at all. If we hold ourselves aloof from this, we hold ourselves aloof from salvation and the Saviour. For the Jesus Christ who rules the world ad dexteram Patris omnipotentisEN17 is identical with the King of this people of His which on earth finds itself on this way and in this movement. He is revealed only and can be claimed only in the history ruled by Him. The Christian love and life of even the greatest saint cannot be more than a provisional representation, limited both in time and person, of the sanctification of all me~ as it has taken place inJesus Christ. In its limitation it is referred to the fact that it must be surrounded and supported and nourished and critically limited by this representation in its totality, i.e., by the life and love of the community, if it is to make its own contribution to this representation in its totality. Even the greatest saint is only this one man-a saint with others in the communion of saints. And he is not perpetuo mansurusEN18• He is a saint only in the ecclesiaperpetuo mansuraEN19• He would not be a saint if he tried to be so in and for himself-apart from this provisional representation of the sanctification which has taken place in Jesus Christ. Extra ecclesiam nulla salusEN20• We shall have good reason to remember this assertion. The question arises, however, whether the Church is fitted to make this provisional representation. We have to remind ourselves that we are speaking of the representation which, although it is provisional, is a true and effective, genuine and invincible representation of the elevation and establishment of all men as it has been fulfilled in the exaltation of the manJesus, and therefore of the divine work of sanctification in its totality. Is the people assembled in the community-a race of men and not of angels-fitted for this necessary (this savingly necessary) event? Can it fit itself for it? We recall that it is a worldly people. Ifwe can speakjustly of its awakening and gathering to be the people of God, we can speak also of the sloth and pride which it is quick to perceive in other peoples but which are revealed all the more starkly in itself because it is EN17 EN18 EN19 EN20

at the right hand of the Father Almighty to remain in perpetuity church to remain in perpetuity Outside the church, there is no salvation

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the people of God (as we see from the history of Israel). Nor have we to forget what seems to be the characteristic sin by which the Church seems always to be threatened and into which it seems always to be on the point of falling: that of trying to represent itself rather than the sanctification which has taken place in Jesus Christ; of trying to forget that its existence is provisional, and that it can exist only as it points beyond itself; of defining itself in terms of a present status before God, in which it can believe and argue and proclaim that it is well pleasing to men and therefore worthy to be represented. No, this people is never fitted of itself to make the representation which is the meaning and purpose of its existence. There can never be any question of this in the history of which we speak. It never takes place in virtue of the qualities of this people itself. Jesus the Lord, in the quickening power of His Holy Spirit, is the One who acts where this provisional representation takes place, and therefore where the true Church is an event. He does not act directly-without this people. He gives to this people the necessary qualities. He thus makes possible the impossible-that this race of men, just as it is, acquires and has the freedom to be able to serve Him. We are speaking, therefore, of the history of this race in the sequence of its human thoughts and efforts and achievements. But we are speaking of the history in which it is unfit, but continually fitted, in and with its human thought and word and will and work to make this provisional representation. More precisely, we are speaking of the history in which God continually sets this people on the way and in movement, continually indicating both the goal and the direction towards it. More precisely still, we are speaking of the history of the activity of Jesus, of the Lord who has come already, and will come again, but who is alive to-day; of the activity of this Lord to and with His people. As He acts to and with His people, this people fills with His activity the time given to itself and the world. As a witness of that which has taken place in Him for all men, it looks and moves forward to the direct and universal and definitive revelation of this event. There is a passage in Ephesians (412-15)_we shall have to come back to it again in another connexion-which speaks with singular force and beauty and yet sobriety of this fitting of the Christian community for the provisional representation of the universal scope (concealed as yet) of the person and work of Jesus Christ. In v. 12 we read of a preparation or equipment ~uTupTLafL6s) of the saints (aYLoL). The charismatics given by Christ to the community, some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers (v. 1 1), are all, within the limits and with the determination of their particular endowment ~uTd TO fLETpOV TYJS owpEiis TOV XpLaTovEN21, v. 7), the human instrumen ts of this preparation in which Jesus Christ is at work to and with them. But it takes place-and this is our present concern-with a view to the service which they are to render by their human work (Els Epyov OLUKOV{US) EN22. And what is at issue in this service or ministry is the upbuilding of the body of Christ. We shall return later to the central concept of OlK08ofJ-~ EN23 and we must postpone until the second sub-section a discussion of the EN21 EN22 EN23

according to the measure of the grace of Christ for the work of service edification

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The True Church

oWfLa TOV XPLOTOV EN24. Both together denote the material point at issue in this provisional representation. For the moment, however, we must note what is to be learned from v. 13 especially about its provisional character, about the need to strive towards it, and therefore also about the equipment of the community. "Till we all come" aAaLovv), and has actually gathered together, all things both in heaven and earth (1 10) is Himself the complete man, the totus ChristusEN40 to whom the community looks and moves as He is proclaimed to it and believed and known by it, but whom it has not yet attained because He is not yet revealed to it any more than to the world, but concealed from it. It is for this looking and moving to Him that it is already fitted. El~ fJ-ETpOV ~ALK{a~ TOV TTAYJPWfJ-aTOTO~ TOV XPLOTOV EN41. If it is again correct to assume that what is stated here is identical with what is described in the preceding phrases, so that (1) we are given fresh light on the one point not yet reached by the community and (2) there is a recognisable identity between what is denoted here and the earlier "unity" and "complete man," the result is that ~ALK{a has to be translated "stature" rather than "age." METPOV ~ALK{a~ means the fullest possible measure, the maximum extent, to which a body can grow or stretch. This might refer, of course, to the dv~p TEAELO~EN42. But in this case the third phrase would not really add anything new. And it is not Christ Himself, but the TTA~pWfJ-a EN43, to which reference is made. But according to 123 His TTA~pWfJ-a EN44 is the community, His body. It is called His TTA~pWfJ-a EN45 because, as He belongs to it and it to Him, He is the complete man, the Christ, the totus ChristusEN46, together with it. The present reference is thus to the community as this TTA~pwfJ-a TOV XPLOTOV EN47. It is of the community that it is said that it looks and moves towards the full measure of its stature, of which it still falls far short. This measure cannot be greater than that of the stature of its Head, but it cannot be smaller. For according to 123, as the community is His TTA~pWfJ-a EN48, He is the One who for His part is TO. TTaVTa EV TTUOLV TTAYJPOVfJ-EVO~ EN49 (cf. Col. 311). It is to be noted that this is a thought peculiar to Ephesians and Colossians only in its christological form. In

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complete man whole Christ man chief man fulness whole Christ To the full measure of the fulness of Christ complete man fulness fulness fulness whole Christ fulness of Christ fulness he who fills all things in every way

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The True Church

substance, exactly the same thing is said in 1 Cor. 1528 in its description of the eschaton ((jEO~ 7TavTa EV 7TaatV EN50), and here too it is Christ who introduces this eschaton, this complete presence and lordship of God in and over all things. The totality of created essence, in all its forms (EV 7TaatV EN51), cannot be and consist without Him who according to 1 22 is its Head. And it must not be without Him. He has subjected it to God (1 Cor. 1528), and God to Him (Eph. 122). He has "ascended up far above all heavens," iva 7TA7]pwaTJ Tn 7TaVTa EN52 (Eph. 410). The dvaKE4>aAatwat~ EN53 "of all things "( 110) has already taken place in Him. The fulfilling of the KatpotEN5\ which without Him would be empty, has already been brought about in Him. If the community for its part is the 7TA~pwP-a EN55 of Him who is Himself the 7TA~pwP-a EN56 of the cosmos, this means that in the full measure of its compass it will embrace no more, but no less, than the cosmos. In other words, the totality of the heavenly and earthly world now has no existence distinct from that of the community, which is the 7TA~pwP-a TOV XptaTOV EN57. It will still be the EKKA7]ata EN58 even when everything that is will be only in it. For it will be the body of Christ-Christ in and with this 7TA~pwP-a EN59. Obviously, in this form, in this measure of its extent or compass, the community itself is absolutely future, just as Christ is absolutely future to it as the dv~p T€AEtO~EN60, the One in whom all this is comprehended, and just as that Ev6T7]~ EN61 of the knowledge of faith is also absolutely future to it. But it now looks and moves towards itself in this future form. It exists as an "heir" (1 11), being predestinated according to the decision (7Tp6(jEat~) of the One who works all things according to the counsel of His will, and therefore already in this status as an heir (112), to magnify His glory as the community of those who already (as 7Tpo7]A7TtK6TE~) hope in Christ, the totus ChristusEN62, and therefore in their own hidden but realised future in the form of this full extent of their compass. And it is for this that the community is already fitted-to look and to move forward to Him in His future form, and therefore to itself in its future form, giving a provisional representation both of Him as the 7TA~pwP-a EN63 of all things, and of itself as His 7TA~pwP-a EN64. After this comprehensive glance at the eschaton to be attained by the community, and at its own absolute future, a surprisingly sober turn is given to the continuation in v. 14, which is linked with the preceding sentence by a iva EN65, but which returns us to the Christian present. We now see ourselves again in our present form, within the present world, and therefore as a collection of men who at the very least are in great danger, who are still V~7TtOt EN66, immature, "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness which they practise in the service of the P-E(joDEta TiJ~

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that God might be all in all in all so that he might fill all things summing up times fulness fulness fulness of Christ church fulness complete man unity whole Christ fulness fulness so that infants

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The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding of the Christian Community

611)." As it is determined and directed by this variegated 7TAaV'Y]sEN67 (TOV 8ta{3oAovEN68, "method" of the world, which always claims to be solemn 8t8aGKaALa EN69, the community will obviously be incapable of that movement of thought and life towards the eschaton. The world around does not know Christ, who is really its Head. Hence it does not know this eschaton. If the community, which is itself a race of men, listens to the world around, and thinks in its categories, and seriously (and not just occasionally) speaks its language and conforms its life to its standards, it makes itself incapable of its own hope, which also has reference to and embraces the world. Its view of that EVOT'Y]SEN70, of the av~p TEAEtOSEN71, of the measure of its own stature, is then obscured, and its way to this goal blocked. With its goal, it also loses its direction, as suggested by the picture of the wind and waves. This is what need not and must not happen any more VL'Y]KETt EN72), for in respect of this danger arrangements have now been made by the Lord, through the ministry of the charismatics mentioned in v. 11 f., to fit it for this looking and moving. The preparation y