Wanneer Christus mense met Hom verenig (4).

Hoe lyk die gemeenskap wat die mens met God het? Dit is 'n boeiende vraag. Dit gaan oor die mistiek, want die mistiek handel oor die eenwording met God. Ek het in die vorige drie blogs so bietjie hieroor nagedink. In hierdie blog wil ek kyk na hoe Barth, die groot vyand van die mistiek, skryf oor die manier waarop Christus gelowiges met Hom verenig. 

Barth maak, soos ‘n mens van hom kan verwag, veel daarvan dat Christus mense roep en hulle daardeur met homself verenig. Hy wil daardeur beklemtoon dat die eenheid met Christus nie ‘n menslike oorsprong het nie. Die inisiatief daarvoor kom van buite die mens.

Ek hou van wat Barth hieroor skryf. Soos ek die mistici lees, is dit vir hulle ook belangrik dat ‘n mens in die ervaring van die dieper dinge nie put uit die dor put van jou eie innerlike nie. Wat ryk is, wat goed is en wat transformerend is, kom juis tot ‘n mens van buite jouself. Die rykdom is te vind in ‘n mens se verhouding met wat buite jouself te vind is.

Wat my wel baie interesseer is hoe spesiaal die opmerkings is wat Barth maak oor die manier waarop Christus homself aan gelowiges gee. Dit is merkwaardige leesstof waarin die absolute toevertrou van die goddelike aan die mens besonder intens geskilder word. Dit is die moeite werd om dit in besonderhede te lees en ek haal dit graag uitvoerig aan. Die dele wat my opval, vanuit ‘n spiritualiteitshoek, het ek onderstreep.

Barth skryf hieroor in sy Kerklike Dogmatiek 4.3.2:

If we are to understand the nature of this union, then, in relation to the emphasised independence, uniqueness and activity of Jesus Christ on the one side and the Christian on the other, we do well to begin, not below with the Christian, but above with Jesus Christ as the Subject who initiates and acts decisively in this union. We do well to begin with the union of Christ with the Christian and His self-giving to the Christian, and not vice versa. It is here that the union and self-giving of the Christian have their roots.

That Jesus Christ in calling man to be a Christian unites Himself with him means first from His own standpoint that He is unique as the One who in His life and death was humiliated and exalted in the place and for the sake of all, as the One in whom the reconciliation of the world to God and the justification and sanctification of all were accomplished. In all this He has no assistant nor fellow-worker to accompany Him, let alone any corredemptor or corredemptrix. He is absolutely isolated from all others. Without them, He intervenes for them. But as this One, when it is a matter of the revelation of this work as inaugurated in His resurrection from the dead and continued in the work of His Holy Spirit, when it is a matter of His work in its prophetic dimension, He cannot and will not remain alone, nor can He be solitary in the reconciled world on His way to His future, conclusive and universal revelation. He cannot and will not be the Master without disciples, the Leader without followers, the Head without members, the King without fellows in His people, Himself without His own, Christ without Christians. The fact that the One who is disclosed in His resurrection from the dead and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is really the omnipotent God who stooped down in unmerited love to man, the Lord who became a servant, has in the time which moves to its end in His final revelation a counterpart in the fact that as the Proclaimer of the act of God accomplished in Him, in His prophetic office and work, He does not go alone but wills to be what He is and do what He does in company with others whom He calls for the purpose, namely, with the despicable folk called Christians. He attests to the world the reconciliation to God effected in Him, the covenant of God with man fulfilled in Him, as He associates with Christians, making common cause and conjoining Himself with them. He does not merely do this ideally or partially, but really and totally. He does not merely comfort, encourage, admonish or protect them remotely or from afar. But as He calls them to Himself in the divine power of His Spirit, He refreshes them by offering and giving Himself to them and making them His own. That He wills and does this is ­ in analogy to the mystery and miracle of Christmas ­ the true ratio of Christian existence as this is celebrated, adored and proclaimed within the community of Christians in the common administration of the Lord's Supper, instituted to represent the perfect fellowship between Him and them which He has established ­ an implication which we cannot do more than indicate in the present context.

We now turn to what must be thought and said concerning this union of His with Christians from their standpoint. There is, of course, no one, apostle, saint or the Virgin, who can contribute in the very slightest to what is accomplished for all by the one Jesus Christ in His life and death. In relation to His high-priestly and kingly work even a Paul can only know what has been done for us by God in Him (I Cor. 2:12). But those to whom He reveals and makes known this life and death of His as the act of God for their salvation and His own glory do not confront this act of revelation, this work of atonement in its prophetic dimension, as hearers and spectators who are left to themselves and ordained for pure passivity. What kind of vocation, illumination and awakening would it be, what kind of knowledge, if they were merely left gaping at the One who discloses Himself to them? No, as surely as He does not will to tread alone His way as the Proclaimer of the kingdom, so surely they for their part must be with Him, companions of the living One who are made alive by Him, witnesses in His discipleship to that which He wills to reveal to the world as having been effected in Him, namely, to the reconciliation accomplished and the covenant fulfilled in Him. This is what He makes them as He calls them to Himself, as He does this really and totally, as He does not leave them to themselves, as He does not remain outside them, as He gives Himself to them, as in the divine power of His Spirit He unites Himself with them. That they may become and be those with whom He unites Himself by His Word; that they may be those who are born again from above by His presence and action in their own lives; that they may be continually nourished by Him ­ this is, from their standpoint, the ratio of Christian existence. Here again we are naturally reminded of the mystery and miracle of Christmas, and must make provisional reference to the Lord's Supper.

"I in you" (Jn. 14:20; 15:4). "I in them" (Jn. 17:23,26). "I in him" (Jn. 6:56; 15:5). According to Jn. 15:1f. He is the vine which produces, bears and nourishes the branches, or according to the even stronger expression in Jn. 6:33 He is the "bread of God which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." He gives them His flesh and blood, imparting and communicating Himself to them, giving Himself to nourish them, in order that as He lives they also may and will live to all eternity (Jn. 6:53). The same teaching is found in Paul. "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you? " (2 Cor. 13:5; cf. Rom. 8:10; Col. 1:27). He is the One who has apprehended the apostle (Phil. 3:12), putting His power in him (2 Cor.12:9), setting His truth in him (2 Cor. 11:10), speaking in him (2 Cor. 13:3), and always magnifying and glorifying Himself in his person (Phil. 1:20). And in relation to other Christians He is the One who dwells "in your hearts by faith" (Eph. 3:17), or who seeks to be formed in them (Gal. 4:19). Whether they are Greeks, Jews, Barbarians, Scythians, slaves or freemen, Christ is in them all (Col. 3:11). "Christ in you" is the great mystery of God among the nations (Col. 1:27). In the strongest possible expression (Gal. 2:20), Christ lives in the apostle in such a way that he has to say of himself that he no longer lives, i.e., in himself and apart from the fact that Christ lives in him, but that he now lives in faith in Him who gave Himself for him, this being his own most proper life to which, as one who still lives in the flesh, he can do justice only as he believes in Him. In Col. 3:4, however, "Christ our life" is also said in relation to Christians generally, and again in relation to all those who by the Spirit have been given to know what is given them by God there is made the immeasurable claim: "We have the mind of Christ " (I Cor. 2:12,16), i.e., in virtue of His life in us we have His reason.

It has always involved an unwise and, on a proper consideration, an attenuating exposition of these verses to speak of an extension of the incarnation in relation to the Christian's unio cum Christo and then in relation to the Lord's Supper. We are concerned rather with the extended action in His prophetic work of the one Son of God who became flesh once and for all and does not therefore need any further incarnation. We are concerned with the fact that He as the one Word of God takes up His abode in the called, that His life becomes their life as He gives Himself to them. This is the mystery and miracle of His union with them. Similarly, we do well to refrain from describing the Christian in relation to his fellows (Luther, De libertate, 1520, W.A., 66, 26), or, as Roman Catholics do, the priest in the mass in relation to other believers, as an alter Christus. In his perfect fellowship the one Christ as the only original Son of God, beside whom there can be no other, is always the One who gives, commands and precedes, and the other, the homo christianus, whom He makes His brother and therefore a child of God, is always the one who receives, obeys and follows. The former is the Word of God in person; the latter, like John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel, is His witness. In this distinction, of course, neither remains alone. Both become a totality. For it is not too great or small a thing for Christ to give Himself to the Christian, to cause His own life to be that of the Christian, to make Himself his with all that this necessarily implies. This is the high reality of His vocation to the extent that this takes place and is to be understood as His union with the Christian.

Mooi. Maar daar is nog ‘n laaste gedagte oor die gemeenskap, die eenheid van die gelowige met God, wat ek wil deel.