Through the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is God himself in his freedom exercised in revelation to be present to his creature, even to dwell in him personally, and thereby to achieve his meeting with himself in his Word and by this achievement to make it possible. Through the Holy Spirit and only through the Holy Spirit can man be there for God, be free for God’s work on him, believe, be a recipient of his revelation, the object of the divine reconciliation.
In the Holy Spirit and only in the Holy Spirit has man the evidence and guarantee that he really participates in God’s revealing and reconciling action. Through the Holy Spirit and only through the Holy Spirit does God make his claim on us effective, to be our one Lord, our one Teacher, our one Leader. In virtue of the Holy Spirit and only in virtue of the Holy Spirit is there a Church in which God’s Word can be ministered, because it has the language for it, because what it says of revelation is testimony to it and to that extent the renewal of revelation.
The freedom which the Holy Spirit gives us in this understanding and in this sphere—gives, so far as it is his own freedom and so far as he gives us nothing else and no less than himself—is the freedom of the Church, of the children of God. It is this freedom of the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Spirit that is already involved in the incarnation of the Word of God, in the assumption of human nature by the Son of God, in which we have to recognize the real ground of the freedom of the children of God, the real ground of all conception of revelation, all lordship of grace over man, the real ground of the Church. The very possibility of human nature’s being adopted into unity with the Son of God is the Holy Ghost.
Here, then, at this fontal point in revelation, the Word of God is not without the Spirit of God. And here already there is the togetherness of Spirit and Word. Through the Spirit it becomes really possible for the creature, for man, to be there and to be free for God. Through the Spirit flesh, human nature, is assumed into unity with the Son of God. Through the Spirit this Man can be God’s Son and at the same time the Second Adam and as such “the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29), the prototype of all who are set free for his sake and through faith in him. As in him human nature is made the bearer of revelation, so in us it is made the recipient of it, not by its own power, but by the power conferred on it by the Spirit who according to 2 Corinthians 3:17 is himself the Lord.
Karl Barth from Church Dogmatics
Karl Barth (1886-1968) was one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. Some have even described him as a modern-day “church father.” From his home in Switzerland, he was a leading theological mind during the difficult years of World War II. Along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was a principal voice in the German Confessing Church as they stood against the German Christians’ allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party. His 14-volume Church Dogmatics is considered one of the greatest theological works of the Protestant church.