Thursday, December 13, 2018
But we must at once make it clear that the negative in the first clause also includes a positive, a very important, positive assertion.
It does not speak only of something utterly enigmatic that becomes an event within human reality, and therefore of the sovereignty of God which has to be borne in mind in view of this event.
It also speaks of the human reality of Jesus Christ, although it speaks of it with unheard-of limitation, and by the proclamation of pure enigma.
Otherwise it would not describe this mystery, the mystery of Christmas, the sovereignty of God manifested in the fact that here God’s reality becomes one with human reality.
By is natus ex Maria it states that the person Jesus Christ is the real son of a real mother, the son born of the body, flesh and blood of his mother, both of them as real as all the other sons of other mothers.
It is thus that Jesus Christ is born and not otherwise.
In this complete sense, He, too, is a man.
In this complete sense, then, He is man in a different way from the others sons of other mothers.
But the difference under consideration here is so great, so fundamental and comprehensive, that it does not impair the completeness and genuineness of His humanity.
Thus in the words natus ex Maria the second clause also defines the positive fact that the birth of Jesus Christ was the genuine birth of a genuine man.
And in this way the sign signifies the thing signified, the inexpressible mystery that the Word was made flesh.
That and nothing else is the act of the divine sovereignty which we call the mystery of Christmas.
Only because that really happened is it the mystery of God’s revelation to us and of our reconciliation to God.
It is important for the whole concept of revelation, grace, faith, and in the last analysis for all departments of theological investigation and teaching, to be quite clear that this natus ex Maria is included in the dogma, that the miracle of Christmas has as one of its elements the not at all miraculous reality of man.
If Emmanuel is true the miracle is done upon him.
It is man who is the object of sovereign divine action in this event.
God Himself and God alone is Master and Lord.
from Karl Barth, “The Miracle of Christmas”, Church Dogmatics I.2, page 185-186
