Historicisation of God's being

I've just recently come across this article (and it's worth noting that this site makes a number of academic articles available in full). It is an examination of Some of Karl Barth's thought in relation to resurrection and God's eternity. I was drawn to it because the title "The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Karl Barth and the Historicization of God's Being" seemed to offer some help with my own project of interpreting the atonement as a historicising of God's being -those weren't the words I had been using to describe the insight I was trying to develop, but there was a sense of recognition when I saw it.
Here's a quote from Barth which seems to go to the heart of the matter:

in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have to do with a movement and action which took place not merely in human history but first and foremost in God Himself, a movement and action in which Jesus Christ as the Son of God . . . [is] a pure object and recipient of God [the Father's] . . . free and pure grace which as such can only be received, and the historical fulfilment of which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

and

'the resurrection . . . took place . . . not merely in human history but first and foremost in God himself'

Now that is very helpful in making a case for events in the history of the Christ being out-showings of God's 'inner' being. What I want to do, I think, is a bit harder: that the cross is an out-showing of God's forgiving. This may be harder because it is something that is more fully dependent on contingent being; fallen humanity needing forgiveness.

I think that my approach will be to start with the human experience of forgiveness, practical theology style; to analyse some of the more important aspects of forgiving and to relate those to divine forgiveness (including, wrath, love, mercy, compassion and pain-bearing). The end to which I am heading in this thinking is, in effect, to say that the cross is the space time eikon of God's forgiveness. I think I mean eikon rather than 'icon' in the sense that I'm drawing on what I understand to be the Eastern understanding of a quasi-sacramental thing: an outcrop into ordinary spacetime of divine or spiritual reality such that our interaction with is is a real spiritual interaction.

Obviously, there are a lot of gaps to be filled in on this, but I think it could be sound. And finding out Barth was saying this stuff, really helps.
Wiley InterScience :: Article :: HTML Full Text