The Great Promise: Luke 1
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
The Great Promise gives a powerful exegesis of the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke which tells the story of the Advent—focusing on the birth of John the Baptist in preparation for the birth of Christ. It consists of four stenographically recorded biblical lectures which Karl Barth gave to his theology students during Advent in 1934, after his lectures at the University of Bonn had been suspended by the Nazi regime.
Uncovering what he calls “the spiritual birth story of John the Baptist,” Barth proclaims it to be the spiritual birth story of anyone who knows himself to be standing under God. His biblical account is thus interwoven with a continuous reference to the way in which God acts upon the world today no less than in the past and how humans may or may not submit to such acting.
Get Barth's Church Dogmatics, this title, and more with the Karl Barth Collection (49 vols.).
Key Features
- Featues a key title from Karl Barth
- Examines an important topic from a Reformed twentieth-century perspective
- Provides biblical exegesis combined with deep concern for theological orthodoxy'
Top Highlights
“Everything else one can possibly become. A man of God one cannot become. Either one is or one is not. To be a man of God is not the result of human energy or skill or profundity, but to be a man of God happens through grace imparted to a particular man. The Bible by relating childhood stories tells us this: the men of whom we hear are what they are totally through the grace of God.” (Page 2)
“More than Abraham, more than Moses, more than David and more than John the Baptist, more than Paul and more than the whole Christian Church; here is the story of the mother of the Lord, the mother of God herself. Here is an event, unique and beyond repetition, an event which is totally without analogies, which stands out of the series of other events at the Advent as much as Mary is a figure absolutely raised above all the other figures of the Advent: the extreme end of those who have received the promise and now wait for the Lord.” (Pages 18–19)
“Perhaps we are the mutest when we are the most eloquent” (Page 16)
“You who are blessed through God’s favor! Blessed, distinguished by the fact that God has inclined toward you! With this nothing has yet been said about the maiden herself. Not because of her virtue, not for her special piety is she called blessed. But only because the angel imparts this to her, because God through the angel speaks to her, because the light of God falls upon her, illumines and supports her. It is grace which marks her out. Not a possession, but a gift which the angel presents to her while addressing her. ‘The Lord is with you!’” (Page 22)
About Karl Barth
Karl Barth (1886–1968), a Swiss Protestant theologian and pastor, was one of the leading thinkers of twentieth-century theology, described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas. He helped to found the Confessing Church and his thinking formed the theological framework for the Barmen Declaration. He taught in Germany, where he opposed the Nazi regime. In 1935, when he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, he was retired from his position at the University of Bonn and deported to Switzerland. There he continued to write and develop his theology.
Barth’s work and influence resulted in the formation of what came to be known as neo-orthodoxy. For Barth, modern theology, with its assent to science, immanent philosophy, and general culture and with its stress on feeling, was marked by indifference to the word of God and to the revelation of God in Jesus, which he thought should be the central concern of theology.
