NOTE – This post includes a quote from Karl Barth. Here’s the necessary statement about my views on Barth so I can keep my “conservative evangelical Southern Baptist card”: I do not agree with Barth’s views on Scripture’s inerrancy and infallibility, nor do I adopt any form of what some would call his implied universalism.
That being said, this quote is theology at its best. Barth in this chapter of the Dogmatics in Outline is exegeting Jesus’ relation to Israel, and particularly how God’s covenant to redeem the world is promised to Abraham and then realized in Christ. Jesus is Israel’s restoration because he is Israel.
Revelation culminates in the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. He comes out of Israel, born of Mary the Virgin, and yet from above, and so in His glory the Revealer and Consummator of the covenant. Israel is not a sick man who was allowed to recover, but One risen from the dead (80, emphasis mine).
Yes and amen.