The Glory of the Lord, a Theological Aesthetics VII: Theology: The New Covenant
Overview
In this final volume of his great work, von Balthasar reflects on the New Testament vision of God’s revelation of his glory in Christ. This divine “appearing” is grounded in the self-emptying of the eternal logos in the incarnation, cross, and descent into hell. Christ is the man who represents God and is also God; he is a symbol of the world and is also the world. He dies, but in dying rises into the eternal life of God. It is in Christ’s incarnation and resurrection that the Christian vision is truly expressed and the joining of God and the world in the new and eternal covenant is realized.
With the Logos edition the reader has an abundance of resources that offer applicable and insightful material for their study. You can easily search the subject of theological aesthetics to access an assortment of useful resources and perspectives from a variety of pastors and theologians.
- Reflects on the New Testament vision of God’s revelation of his glory in Christ
- Examines the theology of the glory of the living God
Top Highlights
“the momentum of a divine word that demands the repentance of the heart and faith.” (Pages 274–275)
“The right approach does not consist in asking what Jesus said and did, and what he did not say and do, or which ‘titles of sovereignty’ he applied to himself and which not; it consists in asking what was the necessary presupposition of the act whereby his community formed his words, deeds and titles in the way it did.” (Page 116)
“ The God of the Bible is neither a tremendum nor a fascinosum, but first of all an adorandum.5” (Page 268)
“not disincarnated, but made spiritual in the Resurrection” (Page 403)
“In this process, the idea that the ‘image’ makes visible the invisible fundamental being is retained—‘Philip, he who sees me, sees the Son’ (Jn 14:9). But any idea of a concealment of God behind an iconostasis of hypostases is abandoned, because the Son offers no technical copy or physical emanation or static icon of the Father—it is in the boundless obedience of the Son that the boundless self-giving love of the Father ‘appears’. In this, the whole level of image is once again transcended, because from an earthly point of view the boundlessness of the imaging love in Cross and Hell is absolutely withheld from sight—and in being absolutely withheld from sight, it makes the incomprehensibility of the divine love of the Father ‘visible’.” (Page 283)
Balthasar’s most important works, at least in his own eyes, are not his writings but his foundations.
—Peter Henrici
. . . meeting Balthasar was for me the beginning of a lifelong friendship I can only be thankful for. Never again have I found anyone with such a comprehensive theological and humanistic education as Balthasar . . . and I cannot even begin to say how much I owe to my encounter with him.
—Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
- Title: The Glory of the Lord, a Theological Aesthetics VII: Theology: The New Covenant
- Author: Hans Urs von Balthasar
- Publisher: Ignatius
- Publication Date: 1989
- Pages: 571