It is just here that the Object of the Creed enters into inevitable judgment against all human knowing and confessing, yes, against all the attitudes and responsibilities that man assumes towards Him, no matter how well they may be meant, how earnestly and piously carried out. Yet it is just here tha men should practise committing confidently to the compassion of God their whole knowing and confessing, their whole human relationship with the Object of the Creed, i.e. with God, in other words, should practise really holding on to the righteousness of faith and not at all to the righteousness of their theological, ecclesiastical, pious or moral works. ...
But what ought we and what are we to say if in Jesus Christ it is as these apparent paradoxes assert, and that, in actual fact, for this very reason, that the unity of God and man in Him cannot be judgment more profoundly and strongly than it is now really grace, in and with and in spite of judgment, grace, that is, reconciliation of man to God?
If God Himself in Jesus Christ bears the curse that must fall upon the transgressors of His law, then it really is borne; then there can be no thought of our bearing it again and further. Then we are acquitted according to the law, yes, declared righteous. For if God's curse no longer falls on us, what can we be--there is no third possibility--what can we be in His sight, and that means in reality, but righteous?
If God Himself in Jesus Christ suffers the punishment that our existence would have us incur, then that means that He, this Other, has sacrificed His existence for us. It follows that we can only recognize ourselves as those whom He has thereby won for Himself, who have therefore become His property. If God will not punish us because punishment is over and done with, then that means that we may now live as those who have been released by Him and who are therefore His own.
-Barth, Credo, "Crucifixus, Mortuus et Sepultus, Descendit ad Inferos"
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