It is Better to Risk Preaching Too Much Gospel

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Every week there are illustrations, quotes, and exegesis that fail to find a home in the finished sermon. In preparing to preach on Romans 7, I ruminated on this bit from a conversation between Karl Barth and a group of pietists.

In October 1959, Karl Barth met for conversation at a Basel restaurant with twenty-five representatives of the Evangelical Community Movement. During the Q/A time, members of the group pressed the theologian for not taking sin sufficiently seriously in his teaching and for the absence in his preaching of any exhortation to repentance. “You never make it plain that if they do not accept the message, then they risk being lost eternally,” they objected to Barth.

In typical fashion, Barth neither accepted the premise of their questions nor capitulated to their presentation of normative Christianity.

Barth:

“In Christ” all are what believers may already believe they are. This is what we are told in the New Testament. In Christ all are justified, sanctified, and born again— in other words, that in which believers already believe. Of course not everyone believes. Indeed we can also respond with unbelief. Faith is an event between me and the Word…Even the community must still let itself be reconciled with God. It too should take to heart that which is told to the world.

Miller:

“Is sin really the “impossible possibility?” At some point it could be too late for repentance. The final emphasis on this point is missing in the Church Dogmatics.

Fischer:

“Human beings can in fact reject grace. What are the consequences for our proclamation? Proclamation confronts the person with the decision and transmits the gift of salvation. Our preaching is given its weight with the possibility of rejecting this gift— “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

Barth:

“I must admit that I am not very comfortable when you say that the possibility of being lost must be mentioned, for instance, at the conclusion of an evangelical address. What then is proclamation all about? It is about tirelessly calling sinners to repentance, and to do so in the same manner that Jesus did it. He made himself common with sinners. Certainly the danger of being lost lurks behind sin, behind unbelief. Indeed, that is how it is presented in the Bible— more strongly in the New Testament than in the Old! But does it appear there as an independent theme. Not even in Romans 2! What is important is the call to human beings to take the step toward the place where they already belong. Is it not the case in scripture that evil is indeed sighted, but that the proclamation nonetheless always continues onward? That in paraclesis and paraenesis human beings are always only called back to where they belong?

All of this has its significance especially within the the Christian community. The task of the believer is to call the nonbeliever to repentance. But where actually is the unbeliever? In me, of course! I myself am first and foremost the one who does not believe. In Romans 7 Paul finds the sin in himself. Then, however, Romans 8.1 continues with the victory of Christ. That the possibility of unbelief exists is something we know, we Christians above all others, and above all about ourselves! But we also know what is stronger and greater than all sin. If we console ourselves for the “sin that dwells within us” with the einai en Christo, must we then not also grant it to poor rogues, to “those standing outside?” The first word of the sermon, the gospel of the Yes of God, must also always be its last word.

In light of the danger of sin, unbelief, and lostness— I do not wish to flee to the law. The real danger is always falling back into the law. My concern about Pietism is that in it the law is always reignited from the embers.

[To Schindelin]

It did not please me to hear that, at the end of the sermon, people are dismissed with a threat. We know about the possibility of being lost. Indeed, we state it, as does the Bible. But there is something more important! Indeed we also know what is still better. After the word about being lost in John 3.16, there immediately follows in verse 17: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” The negative is expressed— but only in the context of the gospel. In Revelation 14.6, it is precisely the angel of judgment that appears with the eternal gospel. Indeed, even the judgment of God is in reality salvation. God is, first of all, creating order. Sin is neither the first nor the last. Let us speak earnestly about sin, but within this context of the gospel of the one who in truth is “the first and the last.”It is better to risk the danger of proclaiming too much gospel than risking the other danger of speaking too little about sin.”

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