|
Karl Barth on the Name of Jesus
We are reminded of this remarkable name [i.e., Immanuel, from Isaiah 7:10-17] in Matthew 1:21ff. The reference here is to a single, final and exclusive act of the God of Israel as the goal and recapitulation of all His acts. But this act, the birth and naming of Jesus, is similar to the events in the days of King Ahaz in that once again we have come to a change in the relationship between God and His people.
As the Evangelist sees it, it is this time the great change compared with which what took place before was only from his point of view a prelude. And now it is the equally unexpected change from perdition to salvation, from an age-long judgment to a new and final blessing.
And the Emmanuel-sign has it in common with the name of Jesus that the latter, too, although this time in the reverse direction, is a sign for both: a sign "for the fall and rising again of many in Israel" (Luke 2:34), a sign both of the deepest extremity imposed by God (as in Isaiah 8:6f) and also of the uttermost preservation and salvation ordained by God (as in Isaiah 8:9f). Over and in both it is Emmanuel, "God with us," and now therefore (in order that what was said by the Lord through the prophet as he spoke) Jesus, Jehoshuah, "God helps."
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, IV/1 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956), p. 6, emphasis added.
|
