"This unwillingness to die is the real tragedy of the Church."

Excerpt from: Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, p.343-344 (paragraph breaks mine)

'In Isaac shall thy seed be called (Gen.xxi 12).' That is, it is not the children of the flesh as such that are the children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned as the seed.

The totality of those who are the 'seed of Israel,' the type - they are not more than this - of all who lift up hands to God in prayer, stand, then, under the KRISIS of the twofold nature of the Church: or, putting it another way, they are under a 'Double Predestination'. All are confronted by the eternal two-sided possibility, which moves and rests in God alone. As 'the seed of Israel,' they are elected or rejected; as 'children of the flesh,' they inhabit the House of God or are strangers to it; with the Word of God ringing in their ears or on their lips, they belong to the Church of Jacob or the Church of Esau.

In Christ the KRISIS breaks forth. In Him is encountered that by which men are finallly established, inasmuch as the roots of their being are lit up, as by a flash of lightning, at the eternal 'Moment' of revelation; for, since men are what they are not, the roots of their existence are deeply buried in the unity of God. - But in Christ is encountered also utter desolation, inasmuch as, at that same moment, men recognize that they are and were and will be established only in God, in the One whom they are not.

Peculiar, incomprehensible, inexplicable, established neither by history nor by some inner capacity, are they who not only bear the name of 'Abraham's seed,' but also are what is designated by that name. They are not of their own establishment, for they are established by God - children of promise, as Isaac was. They are what they are, not by virtue of their excellent gifts, not on account of their achievements as 'children of the flesh,' not because of any describable thing - even the most refined and the most spiritual - which is, or shall be, in this world; but, when their whole peculiarity is dissolved and rendered questionable, they are what they are by virtue of the power of God's new reckoning with men (iii. 28, iv. 4, vi. 11, viii. 18), and in the light of the Futurum aeternum.

There is no other means by which men are what they are not. When the Church is again and again thrown back by its own theme upon what it is not; when it is repeatedly compelled to attack and to surrender, and offer up itself and all that it is; when this is its one and only task - is it not in tribulation? And yet the Church seeks to live: it struggles to preserve its life by turning its back on its veritable tribulation, by engaging in a tenacious defense of its traditions and customs, by attempting to galvanize itself into life or by setting out to erect new religious societies.

This unwillingness to die is the real tragedy of the Church.