Tomat0One of the things I love about Barth's approach in the Romans commentary is that he genuinely treats Paul as an equal to engage in dialogue with. He's not burdened by needing to strictly hew to the well-trodden interpretations, but neither is he condescending towards Paul as some "relic of the past". He simply reads the book, takes it in, and wrestles with it on its own terms.
And out of that comes an engagement with history that's more honest than either the liberals or the traditionalists (who make history their preoccupation).
Organically the book becomes applied and translated into the intellectual terms of its context (the early 20th century), but in doing so it still only seeks to restate and recover the essence of what Paul already said.