Karl Barth the Preacher (5): The Preacher’s Message
As we turn our attention to the preacher’s message, we should note both the content of the preaching and the context in which the message is preached. We look first at the content of the preaching. Early in his sermon, entitled ‘Saved by Grace’, Barth refers to a conversation with someone who neither went to church nor read the Bible: ‘Someone once said to me: “I need not go to church. I need not read the Bible. I know already what the Church teaches and what the Bible says: ‘Do what is right and fear no one!” ’. Barth dissociates himself from the suggestion that the church’s teaching may be summed up in an idea for which ‘neither prophets nor apostles, neither Bible, Jesus Christ nor God are needed’. Barth says, ‘If this were the message at stake, I would most certainly not have come here’. What, then, is this message? It is a message which is found in the Bible: ‘Let us hear… what the Bible says’. It is a message which ‘can only be said by God to each one of us’. Concerning this message, “By grace you have been saved!”, Barth insists that it ‘takes Jesus Christ to make this saying true’. Barth stresses that to be ‘saved by grace’ is to be saved by no other than Jesus Christ’.
