Posting From Another Corner

I read this over at Pastor Miller's blog, Relocating to Elfland, and thought, "wow! that's a great quote. I should post that, too." Glad he plucked it off of pg. 2,378, so I don't have to!

“[The] self-sacrifice of God in His Son is in fact the love of God to us. ‘He gave Him,’ which means that He gave Him into our existence. Having been given into our existence He is present with us. Present with us, He falls heir to the shame and the curse which lie upon us. As the bearer of our shame and curse, He bears them away from us. Taking them away, He presents us as pure and spotless children in the presence of His Father. That is how God reconciles the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). We can, indeed, speak of the love of God to us only by pointing to this fact. It is the work and gift of the Holy Spirit that the fact itself speaks to us, that in the language of this fact God says: ‘I have loved thee . . . fear not, then; for I am with thee’ (Is. 43:4ff). No other saying is needed, for this one says all there is to say.” (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, p. 2,378)