Object and theatre of the acts of God

That the Word was made "flesh" means first and generally that He became man, true and real man, participating in the same human essence and existence, the same human nature and form, the same historicity that we have. God's revelation to us takes place in such a way that everything ascribable to man, his creaturely existence as an individually unique unity of body and soul in the time between birth and death, can now be predicated of God's eternal Son as well. According to the witness of the Evangelists and the apostles everything miraculous aout His being as a man derives its meaning and force from the fact that it concerns the true man Jesus Christ as a man like ourselves. This is true especially of the Easter story, the evangelium quadraginta dierum, as the supreme event of revelation. It is true of the sign of His birth of the Virgin at the beginning, and the sign of the empty tomb at the end of His historical existence. It is true of the signs and wonders already manifested between this beginning and end, which proclaim the Kingdom of God in its relation to the event of Easter. What in fact makes revelation revelation and miracle miracle is that the Word of God did actually become a real man and that therefore the life of this real man was the object and theatre of the acts of God, the light of revelation entering the world. CD vol I.2, p.147

Interpretation or illustration?

The finders of the vestigia trinitatis had no wish to postulate a second and different root of the doctrine of the Trinity side by side with revelation. Far less did they wish to represent this second root as the only true one or to deny the revelation of the trinitarian God. But their action is deeply overshadowed by the question whether this is not precisely what they did. We are plainly dealing with that non-obligatory, uncommissioned and dangerous possibility whenever theological language, as here, thinks it must not just be the interpretation of revelation but also its illustration. Interpretation means saying the same thing in other words. Illustration means saying the same thing in other words. Where the line is to be drawn between the two cannot be stated generally. But there is a line, for revelation will submit only to interpretation and not to illustration. If we illustrate it we set a second thing alongside it and focus our attention on this. We no longer trust revelation in respect of its self-evidential force. CD I.1, p344,345

God conceals Himself in revealing Himself

And, according to Barth, God does this concealing in revealing as he assumes the form of the humanitas Christi.

Some of the most thrilling passages in Church Dogmatics are found in the small print sections. Barth produced these to allow for more technical discussions, allowing the dogmatic presentation itself to stand apart so that non-theologians could read it in a connected way.

On pages 322,323 of the old T&T Clark edition that I am reading, Barth writes about how the humanity of Christ contains one of the hardest problems of Christology. Is the humanity of Christ as such revelation? Barth hints that God's reconciling action is the being of God in Christ. So, for example, His resurrection is not an operation proper to Christ's humanity.

Revealing was not ascribed to Christ's existence in the form of a man as such: "...Jesus did not become revelation to all who met Him but only to a few." This has to be understood as part of Barth's overall understanding of revelation. Any doubts about Barth's view on the humanity of Christ can probably be connected to doubts about his view of revelation.

Revelation

"Revelation in the Bible means the self-unveiling, imparted to men, of the God who by nature cannot be unveiled to men. ...inscrutability, hiddenness, is of the very essence of Him who is called God in the Bible. ...this God by his grace, i.e., by His self-unveiling, says to everyone to whom it is imparted that of himself he could not do what is there done to him and for him. It is thus of the very nature of this God to be inscrutable to man. In saying this we naturally mean that in His revealed nature He is thus inscrutable. It is the Deus revelatus who is the Deus absconditus, the God to whom there is no path nor bridge, concerning whom we could not say nor have to say a single word if He did not of His own initiative meet us as the Deus revelatus." CD I.1,p320,321

Christ as the primary theme

I sense that paragraph 8 is where things start to heat up. Volume 1 is all about revelation. Barth makes this comment: "God reveals Himself as the Lord; in this statement we have summed up our understanding of the form and content of the biblical revelation." CD I.1,p314

And, further on the same page:

"Historically considered and stated the three questions answered in the Bible, that of revealer, revelation, and being revealed, do not have the same importance. The true theme of the biblical witness is the second of the concepts, God's action in His revelation, revelation in answer to the question what God does, and therefore the predicate in our statement. Within this theme the two other questions, materially no less important, are answered. Similarly the doctrine of the Trinity, when considered historically in its origin and development, is not equally interested in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Here too the theme is primarily the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, the deity of Christ."