Many Christians believes that there will be a future general resurrection of all people at the end of time, and this event will be initiated by the "Second Coming" of Jesus Christ. Karl Barth argues that the future resurrection is not a second coming of Jesus, because there is only one coming of Jesus in threefold form. In the Church Dogmatics IV/3 §69.4, Barth argues the resurrection of Jesus at Easter, the impartation of the Holy Spirit to the church, and the general resurrection at the end of time are three forms of the same event, and are not three separate events. Barth prefers the threefold form of the one resurrection, because it is inherently trinitarian in accordance with Barth's doctrine of the threefold form of the Word of God (CD I/2), and likewise his doctrine of the trinity is described as one god in three modes of being (CD I/1), and his doctrine of threefold time (CD III/2 §47.1).  (Barth mentions the three-dimensional links in his letter to Moltmann too). 

The Threefold Coming of Jesus

Karl Barth summarizes the one coming of Jesus Christ in threefold form in this excellent quote from the Church Dogmatics IV/3.1:

the New Testament knows of only one coming again of Jesus Christ, of only one new coming of the One who came before, of only one manifestation of His effective presence in the world corresponding to His own unity as the One who came before. . . . But in the time of the community and its mission after the Easter revelation it also takes place in the form of the impartation of the Holy Spirit, and it . . . will also take place in a different and definitive form (of which we shall have to speak in eschatology), as the return of Jesus Christ as the goal of the history of the Church, the world and each individual, as His coming as the Author of the general resurrection of the dead and the Fulfiller of universal judgment.

In all these forms it is one event. Nothing different takes place in any of them. It is not more in one case or less in another. It is the one thing taking place in different ways, in a difference of form corresponding to the willing and fulfillment of the action of its one Subject, the living Jesus Christ. Always and in all three forms it is a matter of the fresh coming of the One who came before. Always and in different ways it is a matter of the coming again of Jesus Christ. [1]

Karl Barth explains that this doctrine of the threefold coming of Jesus is "summed up under the New Testament concept of the parousia of Jesus Christ." [2] The New Testament word parousia means coming or arrival, and Barth argues that the primary coming of Jesus "has already taken place" [3] in the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. The resurrection of Jesus was also the coming of the Kingdom of God, and with it the Holy Spirit was imparted to the Church by Jesus Christ until the last day at the end of time at the general resurrection of all.  Barth says "In all these we have to do with the one new coming of Him who came before. But if we are to be true to the New Testament, none of these three forms of His new coming, including the Easter event, may be regarded as its only form." [4] Although there are three forms of the coming of Jesus, a special place and priority belongs to the first form because "the Easter event being the primal and basic form in which it comes to be seen and grasped in its totality." [5]

The three-dimensional coming of Jesus also means that the three forms are interconnected in a non-serial manner, such that in the past resurrection of Jesus at Easter, the future resurrection has already taken place in atemporal way. Karl Barth's threefold doctrine of time, demonstrates that each moment of time is perpendicular to the eternity of God, and the resurrection is a gathering up of all the moments of time, not something that happens only at the last moment of time. Likewise, the resurrection of Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (c.f. Heb 13:8) and "who is and who was and who is to come" (c.f. Rev 1:8). Barth explains, "It is not merely that these three forms are interconnected in the totality of the action presented in them all, or in each of them in its unity and totality, but that they are mutually related as the forms of this one action by the fact that each of them also contains the other two by way of anticipation or recapitulation, so that, without losing their individuality or destroying that of the others, they participate and are active and revealed in them." [6]

Was Jesus deluded about a future resurrection?

Karl Barth provides a very helpful criticism of Christians who do not expect a future resurrection, especially those theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann who argues that the resurrection has happened in the past and has only existential value to the church. Barth provides two responses, first, the coming of Jesus loses its threefold form in the absence of future resurrection, and second, Jesus and the New Testament witness speaks of a future resurrection that liberal theologians conclude is a mistaken belief. Barth argues that a threefold understanding of the coming of Jesus makes the most sense of the contradictions in the bible that anticipate a bodily resurrection of Jesus, an immediate return of Jesus during the lifetime of the apostles, and a future return of Jesus at the end of the age. Barth says "Are there not many passages in the New Testament which with their apparent contradictions cannot be satisfactorily explained except on the assumption of such a view? This is not a key to open every lock. But it is one which we do well not to despise." [7] Therefore interpreting the New Testament's teaching as a threefold coming of Jesus has the most explaining power of the entire scriptural witness and the events of history past, present and future. 

Karl Barth argument against the denial of a future resurrection by liberal theologians is exemplified well by this quotation:

"If we may eliminate in advance what is in its way the greatest triviality of any age, what are we to make of the assumption which underlay a particular school of Neo-Liberal theology, and which is unfortunately encountered only too often outside the narrow circle of this school, namely, that Jesus was deluded? If we find in the coming of the Resurrected, His coming in the Holy Spirit and His coming at the end of the age three forms of His one new coming for all their significant differences, there need be no artificiality in explaining that these passages refer to the first and immediate form in which His coming did really begin in that generation as the Easter event and in which the two remaining forms are plainly delineated and intimated." [8]

Sources:

1. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Vol IV/3.1. Trans. G. W. Bromiley. Vol. 27. London: T & T Clark, 2010. 281. Print. Study Edition. [Original pagination for reference p. 293]

2. Barth, p. 280. [292]

3. Barth, p. 284. [295]

4. Barth, p. 283. [294]

5. Barth, p. 283. [294].

6. Barth, p. 284. [296]

7. Barth, p. 285. [296]

8. Barth, p. 284. [295]