The question to be asked of Barth concerns the relationship of the Bible’s quasi-sacramental mediation of Jesus’ real presence to the verbal meaning of the text itself. While some of his early critics accused Barth of emphasizing the subjective event of revelation to the detriment of the objective text, it is surely significant that Barth expected the Spirit to use just these words to disclose Jesus Christ. Just as propositionalists would not want to deny the personal element in revelation, so Barth would not want to deny the role of propositions. (The Drama of Doctrine, p5)
Many acknowledge Scripture’s life-giving, sacramental power… : “[T]he church must come to understand Scripture as a sacramental, poetic-like word, not as proposition truths, an expression of human experience, or mere information for practical living.” [Burgess, John, Why Scripture Matters: Reading the Bible in a Time of Church Conflict (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), xvi.] An even happier scenario would be one in which we did not have to choose between the Bible’s truth and its affective power! (p12, 'God's Mighty Speech Acts')
Vanhoozer also notes Donald G. Bloesch’s attempt at a more dynamic spiritual evangelical view of revelation with the Bible as “the divinely prepared medium or channel of divine revelation rather than revelation itself”. [Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation (Carlisle, Paternoster, 1994), p18 – quoted p158.]
Blosech espouses a sacramental model which sees revelation as God in action and Scripture as the means for encountering God. (p159)
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