God's Love Post

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 first 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,

they 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

it 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 IN YOUR TRUE ETERNAL FREEDOM

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!