The knowledge of the One True God totally

depends on God’s self revelation.

In every other field of study we depend

on our effort, exploration and education.

Our only source of correct information

about God is His Word Who became flesh

as Jesus Christ full of grace and truth, the

Unique Son of the Father, the Eternal I AM,

the way, the truth and the life.

THE LIFE

” The life was manifested and we have seen

and bear witness and declare to you that

eternal life which was with the Father and

was manifested to us.” ( I. John 1.2).

THE WAY

He is the way and the truth. There is no

other way to access the Father and He

is the truth of God’s revelation full of glory.

THE TRUTH

Here is what Karl Barth says in Church Dogmatics:

” As a man among men He is a human Thou, and as

such distinct from all mere things. Now as a Thou,

man is not merely an existential determination of

the I, but the sum of  all the objective reality of

the world”.

This is another way of saying that He is The Truth.

GOD BECAME A MAN IN JESUS CHRIST

Again continuing from where we left, Karl Barth says:

” And in Jesus Christ God becomes and is man, the

fellow- man of all men. As God He is not merely one

of many such fellow-men, nor is He merely the idea

of fellow-humanity. We are speaking of  ” the Father’s Son,

by nature God.” He became and is man, the fellow-man of

all men; and therefore Thou, not merely in a simple, but in

a supremely objective reality, the human Thou, which as

such is also directly the Thou of the one eternal God.”

SINCE GOD IS WITH US (IMMANUEL)

THE WHOLE HUMAN SITUATION CHANGES

The fact that we just saw here changes the scope,

prospect and context of what it means to be human.

Again, Karl Barth continues:

” The fact is rather that God Himself, in His deep mercy

has taken upon Himself to exist also in human being

and essence in His Son, and therefore to become and be

a man, and therefore this incomparable Thou.

God Himself is in the world, earthly, conceivable and

visible, as He is this man. We have to do with God

Himself as we have to do with this man.

God Himself speaks when this man speaks in human

speech. God Himself acts and suffers when this man

speaks and suffers as a man. God Himself triumphs

when this One triumphs as a man. The human speaking

and acting and suffering and triumphing of this one man

directly concerns us all, and His history is our history

of salvation which changes the whole human situation,

just because God Himself is its human subject in His Son,

just because God Himself has assumed and made His own

our human nature and kind in His Son, just because God

Himself came into this world in His Son, and as one of us

” a guest this world of us He trod.” ”

THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES

As Karl Barth continues:

“And as  and because the Holy Spirit is the coming of

Jesus Christ Himself, and His witness this disclosure

to men concerning themselves, He and His witness are

in fact the self revelation of Jesus Christ and as such

the basis of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We have to realize that God’s own revealedness for us

is God’s own person and God’s own work.

All the comfort, all the power, all the truth of this

revealedness depends upon the fact that it is with God

that we are dealing.

All our understanding of this revealedness depends upon

the fact that we identify it with God Himself, ruling out all

other possibilities but God’s possibility. We have therefore to

realize that as the recipient of revelation man is brought

under God’s judgement. It is only because of this that he is

brought under God’s promise. It is only because of this that

God meets him as the One who intercedes for him,  who

undertakes and directs his cause, who does not quench his

own ability and will and accomplishment but subordinates

it to His own, since man must always be subordinated to God,

if God’s glory is to triumph and man is to be helped.”

HUMAN FREEDOM VS DIVINE FREEDOM

Again continuing from above:

” We are to understand, therefore, that for God to be

revealed involves the dislodging of man from the

estimation of his own freedom, and his enrichment with

the freedom of the children of God. This negation, the

negation of man through God’s eternal grace and mercy, is

only the obverse of his position as a child of God, as a member

of the covenant between God and man. But this obviously means

that the negation of man cannot be put into effect any more than

his position as a child of God except through God’s own action.

Thus God’s possibility triumphs over the very imprisonment

in which we are involved, where we only fulfill our own

possibilities and only believe in our own possibilities.

The self-enclosed uniqueness of  man, who only has and

knows his own freedom, is overarched and enclosed and

finally relativized through the uniqueness of God and His

freedom in which He is resolved to have fellowship with this

man and once and for all to be his Lord.”

HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS!