My last post made reference to Karl Barth and his monumental work Church Dogmatics. The article by Michael Lindvall that was the focus of that last post also reminded me that it has been a good long while since I have done any writing about Karl Barth. So this post begins a new series dedicated to Karl Barth. In the next post I will provide some biographical information about this giant among theologians, but in this post I want to offer and comment on a single paragraph that Barth wrote as the concluding paragraph in Volume IV.2 of the Church Dogmatics which carries the title “The Doctrine of Reconciliation.”
On page 837 Barth offers these words: Love is the indestructible element in the life-act of the Christian. It is, as we are forced to say, the promise fulfilled already in the present. Love alone abides. Everything else which may and must be done, even by Christians and on the basis of a supreme spiritual endowment, abides only to the extent that it is done in love and is thus itself the act of love.*
It seems to me that it really is all about love. We are told in the Scriptures that the great commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all you mind, with all your strength, and to love you neighbor as yourself. If everything that we do is done in love – genuine love – then we certainly should be taking the right path in our journey of living.
I also find it interesting that Barth writes multiple volumes with many many pages, yet on the last page of this volume toward the end of his work he offers this brief summary comment that “love alone abides.”
So love one another as we have been loved.
Grace and peace
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