Dogmatics I.2 Section 14.3

The Time of Recollection

As you might have guessed, the Time of Recollection refers to the New Testament witness - the time with a definite history and existence testifying about the begotten, crucified and resurrected Lord. Barth's introductory section here includes a great quote, but one that might not have been expected of Barth. "The New Testament makes no claim at all in favour of the religion documented in it, but it does claim to be heard as witness." (102) That's the important thing to realize right off - that it is witness. Someone did in fact see these things and experience this...and they are testifying about it. In that sense it is recollection. It is also very important (and sometimes abused by some sections of Christianity) that the NT scriptures are signs and stories pointing back to the actual person of Christ who lived on the earth - their word is only telling about the Word. If it is seen to subsist entirely upon their own words, eg. if Paul's words are his wisdom, they have no foundation in Christ and fail to be recollection.

There is a three-part (triune?) focus here in Barth's section 14.3. First is the argument that the NT (like OT) is a witness to the "togetherness of God and man, based on and consisting in a free self-relating of God to man." (103) It is once again all God's doing and man's fighting for this is futile. This togetherness with man, unlike all those times of togetherness in the OT (think David, Moses, Abraham), actually appropriates God's grace and fulfills God's law! **The New Testament only declares what the Old Testament expected. The NT does not exist if God as man did not exist in Christ, and the OT is declared useless because it does not point to anything. If we fail to center recollection upon Christ, we end up with useless signs pointing to nowhere, because "if we reject the thing signified, we certainly reject, too, the signs and witnesses" (105) Barth then ends this section with a powerful thought: the OT expectation of savior is fulfilled when Christ dies upon the cross, crucified by the very people expecting him. And it was for this treachery that Christ died. Furthermore, "the very rejection of Christ by Israel completely established the fact for them that this is He that should come; His very crucifixion is the event in which both the new time is established and the old fulfilled." (106)

The second argument here by Barth is that the NT is the witness of the revelation of the hidden God. That in the NT recollection, somehow God reveals Himself through hidden-ness. How's this for revealing the hidden-ness of God: "[the meeting of God with man acquires an ultimate seriousness] since Golgotha was a direct sin against God and since that is the very spot where God Himself bears the punishment of sin." (109) The topic here is the suffering of mankind. The New Testament witness is that one died for all - answering the question of hiddenness of God in the OT (see previous post). The thing that separates the NT from the OT revelation of the hiddenness of God is just this: that the NT has an answer to the apparent mass condemnation of humankind. The OT question lies: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Barth's point from the NT witness (embodied completely in Romans 11) "God hath concluded all under disobedience" is followed by "that he might have mercy upon all" !! The "Why" of the OT has been answered by the NT, and now the mystery lies in the "how." Thus, it is at this point, the point of "so that" that fits between these two sentences that we must look at recollection and expectation from, namely the resurrection.

The third argument is this: that the NT witness is once again an expectation to completion in Christ - where the "Thy Kingdom come" is complete. Surely the Kingdom has been ushered in by Christ, and that is what the NT witnesses to, but there is more: the fullness of God has yet to be experienced. The key lays on page 114: that, using a previous definition from his discussions of "time," the actual time of the resurrection cannot be placed within human time. Once resurrection takes place, the Word once again transcends time and space, thereby making Jesus Christ once again past, present, future - part of the "I am that I am". "New Testament faith has Christ as it hopes in him." (119) The believer is no longer alone because Christ is transcendent (which is besides the fact that the Spirit is also with us).

Barth then ends with a very interesting discussion of the place of John the Baptist. It's worth looking at and thinking about if you don't mind taking a moment to discuss the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. In short, he says that his place in ushering in the new time of Christ (a "third time" as discussed previously) is in sort of limbo between expectation (which certainly John does) and recollection as well as the time in between. It makes John sort of special.