‘He who in revelation calls us from our enmity towards him unto himself, from death to life, by so doing, also gives himself to be known as him who previously called us out of nothing into existence – into existence as pardoned sinners, yet into existence as pardoned sinners. We cannot hear the Word of justification and sanctification, without it reminding us that it is just through this Word, in no other way and from no other cause, that we even exist, we who are justified and sanctified through this Word. This Word is the ground of our existence beyond our existence, it is just in virtue of its superlative existence, whether we hear it or not, whether we are obedient to it or disobedient, that our existence is a reality. This Word reached us, or ever we came or failed to come, by our coming or failure to come. Our coming or not coming is itself only possible, because this Word is real’. – Karl Barth, CD I/1, 508.