McIntosh quotes this passage from Barth, saying that this reflects “the very heart of Barth’s understanding of the Gospel”:

“In the beginning, before time and space as we know them, before creation, before there was any reality distinct from God which could be the object of the love of God or the setting for His acts of freedom, God anticipated and determined within Himself . . . that that the goal and meaning of all His dealings with the as yet non-existent universe should be the the fact that in His Son He would be gracious towards man, uniting Himself with him.  In the beginning it was the choice of the Father Himself to establish this covenant with man by giving up His Son for him, that He Himself might become man in fulfillment of His grace.  In the beginning it was the choice of the Son to be obedient to grace, and therefore to offer up Himself and to become man in order that this covenant might become a reality.  In the beginning it was the resolve of the Holy Spirit that the unity of God, of Father and Son should not be disturbed or rent by this covenant with man, but that it should be made the more glorious, the deity of God, the divinity of His love and freedom, being conformed and demonstrated in this offering of the Father and this self-offering of the Son.  This choice was in the beginning.  As the subject and object of this choice, Jesus Christ was at the beginning.”

One would like to make some moves to head off the universalist import of this statement.  Otherwise, this would be hard to surpass, and equally hard to imagine this coming from anyone but Barth.