Law, Religion and Grace
WHAT SHALL WE SAY THEN? THAT THE LAW ITSELF IS SIN?
GOD FORBID.
(Romans 7.7 a).
Barth discusses the MEANING OF RELIGION as it relates
to this verse in his extensive commentary
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS:
“We have now reached the point where we are bound to
discuss the effective meaning and significance of
that last and noblest human possibility which encounters
us at the threshold and meeting-place of two worlds,
but which, nevertheless, remains itself on this
side of the abyss dividing sinners from those who are
under grace.
Here at this turning-point grace and law-religion-the f
irst invisibility and the last visible thing, confront
each other.
Grace is the freedom of God by which men are seized.
Within the sphere of psycho-physical experience this
seizure is, however, nothing but vacuum
and void and blankness. This seizure , therefore,
lies on the other side of the abyss.
Though religion and law appear to concern that
relationship between men and God with which
grace is also concerned, yet in fact they do not do so.
Law and religion embrace a definite and observable
disposition of men in this world.
They hold a concrete position in this world, and are
consequently, things among other things.
They stand , therefore, on this side of the abyss,
for they are not the pre-supposition of
all things. There is no stepping across the frontier
by gradual advance or by laborious ascent,
or by any human development whatsoever.
The step forward involves on this side collapse
and the beginning from the far side of that
which is wholly Other.
If, therefore, the experience of grace be thought of
as the prolongation of already existing
religious experience, grace ceases to be grace,
and becomes a thing on this side.
But grace is that which lies on the other side, and
no bridge leads to it. Grace confronts law
with a sharp, clearly defined ‘No! Anything
rather than such confusion!’
The first divine possibility is contrasted with
the last human possibility along the whole
frontier of religion.
There is no bridge between service IN THE
NEWNESS OF SPIRIT and SERVICE IN THE
OLDNESS OF THE LETTER (Romans 7.6).
What then, we ask, is the meaning of the paradox
of this close proximity and this vast
separation, this near parallelism and this
unbridgeable gulf, this interlocking relationship
and this harsh opposition? What attitude are we
to adopt to that relationship to God from
which no man can escape AS LONG AS HE LIVETH
(Romans 7.1)?
How are we to think of religion, if it be also the most
radical dividing of men from God?
IS THE LAW-SIN? It seems obvious that we are
almost compelled to the judgement that
the law is sin. Whenever we have been brought
to understand the double position which
the law occupies as the loftiest peak of human
possibility, we have been on the brink of
subscribing to this judgement.(
Romans 4. 15; 5. 20; 6. 14 and 15; also 7.5).
And why should we not surrender to the
pressure and say roundly that religion is the supremacy
of human arrogance stretching itself even to God?
Why should we not say that rebellion
against God, robbery of what is His, forms the
mysterious background of our whole existence?
Would not this bold statement represent the truth?
And why, then, should we not embark on a war against
religion?
Would not such an engagement constitute a human
possibility far outstripping the possibility of religion?
Why should we not enroll ourselves as disciples of
Marcion, and proclaim a new God,
quite distinct from the old God of the Law?
Why should we not follow Lhotzky, and play off
the ‘Kingdom of God’ against “Religion’?
or Johannes Muller, and transporting men from the
country of direct observation,
deposit them in the lost, but nevertheless still
discoverable, land of direct apprehension? or
Ragaz, and, waving the flag of revolution against
Theology and the Church, advance from their barrenness
into the new world of complete laicism in religion?
Why should we not return to the main theme of the first
edition of this commentary,
and joining hands with Beck and with the naturalism of the
leaders of the old school of Wurttemberg, set over against
an empty idealism the picture of humanity
as a growing organism?
Or finally, why not proclaim ourselves one with the
company of ‘healthy’ mystics of all ages, and set
forth the secret of a true supernatural religion
running at all points parallel to natural religion?
Why not? The answer is simply-GOD FORBID!
The apparent radicalism of all these simplifications
is pseudoradicalism:
Nondum considerasti, quanti ponderis sit
peccatum (Anselm).
The corrupt tree of sin must not be identified with the
possibility of religion,
for sin is not one possibility in the midst of others.
WE DO NOT ESCAPE FROM SIN BY REMOVING
OURSELVES FROM RELIGION AND TAKING UP WITH
SOME OTHER AND SUPERIOR THING-
IF INDEED THAT WERE POSSIBLE (emphasis mine).
RELIGION IS THE SUPREME POSSIBILITY OF ALL
HUMAN POSSIBILITIES;
and consequently, grace the good tree, can never be a
possibility above, or within,
or by the side of, the possibility of religion.
Grace is man’s divine possibility, and as such,
lies beyond all human possibility.
When, therefore, on the basis of a true perception
that law is the supreme
dominion of sin over men, men first deduce that sin
and law are identical, and
then proceed in crude or delicate fashion to demand
the abrogation of law,
in order that they may live in this world without law-
that is presumably, without sin!
When men revolt, as Marcion did, and with equally
good cause, against the Old Testament; when they forget,
however, that a like resentment must be
applied to the totality of that new thing which they erect
upon the ruins of the old-
this whole procedure makes it plain that
THEY HAVE NOT YET UNDERSTOOD the criticism
under which the law veritably stands.
The veritable KRISIS under which religion stands
consists first in the IMPOSSIBILITY OF
ESCAPE from it AS LONG AS A MAN LIVETH;
and then in the stupidity of any attempt to be rid of it,
since it is precisely in religion
that men perceive themselves to be bounded as men
of the world by that which is divine.
Religion COMPELS US TO THE PERCEPTION THAT GOD IS NOT TO BE
FOUND IN RELIGION.
Religion makes us to know that we are competent to advance
no single step.
Religion, as the final human possibility, commands us to halt.
Religion brings us to the place where we must wait, in order
that God may confront us- on the
other side of the frontier of religion.
The transformation of the ‘No’ of religion into the divine ‘Yes’
occurs in the dissolution of this last observable human
thing.
It follows, therefore, that there can be no question of our
escaping from this final thing, ridding ourselves of it,
or putting something else in its place.
It follows also that we can not just identify law and sin, or
suppose that we can advance out of the realm
of sin into the realm of grace simply by some
complete or partial abrogation of law.
NEVERTHELESS, IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THE LAW,
I WOULD NOT HAVE RECOGNIZED SIN OR KNOWN ITS
MEANING -
I WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT COVETOUSNESS IF
THE LAW HAD NOT SAID, YOU SHALL NOT COVET.
( Romans 7. 7b) ( Referring to Exodus 20 .17
and Deutoronomy 5.21).
I had not known sin, except through the Law.
What then is religion, if it not be the loftiest summit
in the land of sin, if it be not identical with sin?
The Law is quite obviously the point at which sin
becomes an observable fact of experience.
Law brings all human possibility into the clear light of an
all-embracing KRISIS.
Men are sinners, only because of their election and vocation,
only because of the act of remembering
their lost direct dependence upon God,
only because of the contrast between their pristine
and their present relation to Him.
Otherwise they are not sinners.
Apart from the possibility of religion, men, as creatures
in the midst of other creatures,
are sinners only in the secret of God; that is, t
hey sin unobservably and non-historically.
God knows good and evil.
But not so can men be convinced of sin.
Sin does not yet weigh them down as guilt and
as destiny.
They are incompetent to perceive the sword of
judgement hanging above their heads;
nor can any man persuade or compel them to
this fatal perception.
Nor is it otherwise with regard to the new creation,
which is the obverse side of the condition of men.
Men are righteous, only in the secret of God:
that is they are righteous unobservably
and non-historically.
They can not convince themselves of righteousness.
Between these two unobservable realities are set
observable law and observable religion.
In the midst of other things, whether we recognize i
t or not, is placed the impress of revelation,
the knowledge of good and evil,
the perception-more or less clear- that we belong to God,
the reminiscence of our Primal Origin,by which we are
elected either to blessedness or to damnation.
Reference is made, it is true, in (Romans 5. 13,14),
to an exception to this general knowledge;
but it is, presumably, only a theoretical exception.
We are now concerned only with the meaning of this
peculiar and final apprehension; and the question
as to whether there are exceptions is hardly relevant.
We are able to see, that, compared with other
things of which we are aware, religion is a distinct
and quite peculiar thing.
A numinous perception of any kind has an alarming
and disturbing effect upon all other
perceptions; a divinity of any kind tends to
bring men into a condition which is more or
less ambiguous; a cleavage of some form or other is
made between their existence and a contrasted
and threatening non-existence; a gulf appears between
the concrete world and the real world;
there emerges a scepticism as to whether we are competent
to elongate possibility into impossibility or to stretch
our actual existence into non-existence.
Something of this KRISIS underlies all religion;
and the more insistent the tension becomes,
the more clearly we are in the presence of
the phenomenon of religion, whether or not we
ourselves are conscious of it.
From the point of view of comparative religion,
the evolution of religion reaches its highest and
purest peak in the Law of Israel, that is, in the assault
made upon men by the Prophets.
But what is the real significance of this prophetic KRISIS?
It is unintelligible unless we first recognize that precisely
in the phenomena of religion there occurs
visibly a rising of slaves against the authority of God.
MEN HOLD THE TRUTH IMPRISONED IN
UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.
They have lost themselves.
Giving pleasurable attention to the words-
YE SHALL BE AS GOD- they become
to themselves what God ought to be to them.
Transforming time into eternity, and therefore
eternity into time, they stretch themselves beyond
the boundary of death, rob the Unknown God of what is His,
push themselves into His domain and depress Him to their
own own level.
Forgetting the awful gulf by which they are separated
from Him, they enter
upon a relation with Him which would be possible
only if He were not God.
They make Him a thing in this world, and set
Him in the midst of other things.
All this occurs quite manifestly and observably
within the possibility of religion.
Now the prophetic KRISIS means the bringing of the
final observable human possibility
of religion within the scope of that KRISIS under
which all human endeavour is set.
The prophets see what men in fact are:
They see them confronted by the ambiguity of the
world, bringing forth the possibility
of religion; they see them arrogantly and illegitimately
daring the impossible and
raising themselves to equality with God.
But, if this last achievement of men be the action
of a criminal, what are we to say
of all their other minor achievements?
Clearly, all are under judgement. In the light of
the prophetic condemnation of this
final achievement we perceive the condemnation
also of all previous and lesser
achievements.
The whole series of human competences becomes
to us a series of impossibilities.
When the highest competence is seen to be an
illusion, the lower share inevitably
in a general illusoriness.
If God encounters and confronts men in religion,
He encounters and confronts
them everywhere.
Remembering their direct relation with Him,
its loss becomes an event, and there
breaks out a sickness unto death.
It is religion, then, which sets a question-mark
against every system of human culture;
and religion is a genuine experience.
But what do men experience in religion?
In religion men know themselves to be conditioned
invisibly by- sin.
In religion the Fall of mankind out of its primal
union with God becomes the
pre-supposition of all human vitality.
THROUGH THE LAW, the double and eternal
predestination of men to blessedness or to
damnation becomes a psycho-physical occurrence; and
SIN ABOUNDS (Romans 5.20).
I WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT COVETOUSNESS
IF THE LAW HAD NOT SAID, YOU SHALL NOT COVET.
The sinfulnes of my vitality and the necessary dissolution
of my desires are
not self-evident truths.
This qualification of my whole activity is, apart from
religion, merely an opinion.
Moreover, all my senses object to being disqualified;
they protest vigorously against a suspicion
and condemnation which is directed against
them and against the natural order as such.
Surely if we exclude from our thoughts the primal
and final significance of the possibility of religion,
this resistance and protest is wholly justified.
Why indeed should mere natural vitality be evil?
I HAD NOT KNOWN COVETING-
APART FROM THE LAW SIN IS DEAD
(Romans 7.8)- unless that is, with fatal imprudence,
I had dared as a religious man,
to leave the region of mere worldliness and press
forward into the questionable
light of my divine possibility.
Religion in some guise or other overwhelms me
like an armed man; for, though the ambiguity
of my existence in this world may perhaps be hidden
from me, yet nevertheless my desires and
my vitality press forward into the sphere
of religion, and I am defenseless against this pressure.
To put the matter another way: I am confronted, as a
man of this world, by the clear or
hidden problem of the existence of God.
It is, then, inevitable that I should do what
I ought not to do: that quite inadequately
and unworthily, I should formulate the relation
between the infinity of God and
my finite existence, between my finite existence
and the infinity of God- in terms of religion.
When I have surrendered to this seeming necessity,
law has entered into my life, and my desires
and vitality are then subjected, if not to an absolute,
at least to a quite devastating negation; if not direct,
at least to a brilliant indirect lighting;
if not to a final, at least to a penetrating and a
vigorous ambiguity.
Between the experience of religion and all human
activities there is a relatively
quite radical cleavage: in the religion of the prophets, for example, this
cleavage is peculiarly terrible.
The ‘peculiarity’ of the Jew is occasioned by his
occupation of a position so
perilously near the edge of a precipice that its
sheer drop may be taken as bearing witness
to the sharp edge of that wholly other precipice,
by which all human achievements,
all concrete occurrences are bounded;
the precipice which separates men from God
(Romans 3.1-20).
Though I may with naive creatureliness COVET,
so long as I know nothing but this coveting
creatureliness, yet even this is forbidden me
whenever, in venturing to know more
than my creatureliness, I have pressed
so hard on the frontier of divine possibilities
that even my created existence
is rendered questionable.
When this has once occurred, the desires even
of my simple createdness are broken desires.
They are no longer innocent, and I am no longer
justified in their enjoyment.
When religion, supreme among all desires,
opens its mouth, it proclaims
to all coveting- THOU SHALL NOT!
When eternity confronts human finite existence,
it renders that finite existence sinful.
When human finite existence is confronted by the eternity
of God, it becomes sin.
This applies, however, only when the action of men
who have fallen out of their relationship with God
is not the action of God Himself.
We are not concerned here with the precise form
or scope or extent of this KRISIS of human vitality,
for such matters belong properly to study
of history. We are concerned only to bring out the
peculiar significance of the phenomenon of
religion and its relation to other phenomena.
We have asked the question: What is the meaning
of religion?
We have now discovered its meaning to be that our
whole concrete and observable existence is sinful.
Through religion we perceive that men have rebelled
against God, and that their rebellion is a
rebellion of slaves.
We are now driven to the consideration of that
freedom which lies beyond the concrete visibility
of sin- the freedom of God which is our freedom.”
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOR SETTING
US FREE TO LIVE
ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN YOU!
THANK YOU FOR SETTING US FREE FROM THE
LAW OF SIN AND DEATH! THANK YOU LORD FOREVERMORE!