Saturday, December 15, 2018
But now let us turn to the main point, ex virgine (of the virgin).
What is meant by that?
Certainly the general and formal fact that the becoming, the actual human existence of the Revealer of God who is God Himself, is a miracle.
That is to say, it is an event in the world of ours, yet such that it is not grounded upon the continuity of events in this world nor is it to be understood in terms of it.
It is a sign set up immediately by God, and can only be understood as such.
But just because like all biblical miracles the ex virgine is essentially a sign, in our interpretation of it we ought not to be content merely to make clear its discontinuity, its “supernaturalness.”
Miraculous and marvelous as such, indispensable though that is, we still remain in the sphere in which there are marvels according to heathen religion and cosmology too, marvels with a strong resemblance to the biblical marvel, even to the natus ex virgine itself.
The way in which the natus ex virgine appears in the New Testament and the way in which it has been expounded in the Early Church give us no right to abide by that founding and to regard the marvelous as the original motive of the dogma.
With full recognition of its formal importance we can as little abide by this finding as by the ex Maria (of Mary) which has an equal claim on our notice and emphasis.
By the ex virgine the essential point is plainly expressed that by the Word being made flesh, by God’s Son assuming “human nature,” this human nature undergoes a very definite limitation.
Grace is imparted to it.
But this cannot happen without its coming under judgment as well.
from Karl Barth, “The Miracle of Christmas”, Church Dogmatics I.2, page 187
