BWC3b: Jesus Christ, His Person; divine humanity, human divinity; "Hyperdulia"?

      This continues from Part BWC3a in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. —  From pages 19-67, our selection of

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions of quotes. Red text indicates my comments.)

[Chapter 2: Of Christ, the principle and foundation of our salvation.]

19: Quenstedt: "Christ is called the firstborn of all creation in Col. 1:15, not by reason of His humanity, but of His divinity, i.e., born of God the Father before all creation, and thus from eternity"

19: Gerhard: ""Jesus signifies a savior, for it is from the root ישע in the Hiphil ה֗וִשיַע he saved, preserved, delivered. …Christ means the Anointed, from χρίω, because our Savior was anointed with the oil of joy, with the fullness, namely of the Holy Spirit."

[Section I: Of the Person of Christ]

21: Kromayer: "this rule of great use was constructed: 'What the Son of God did not assume, He did not redeem.'"

22-23: "From the fact, however, that the same Christ is the one whom Scripture now writes of as God, now as man, it is concluded that there is one person of Christ in two natures. And this is that greatest mystery"

25: Quenstedt: "Augustine rightly says: 'The Word did not assume the person of man, but the nature of man.'"

28: "The very conception of Mary and the production of Christ's human nature in her can be described as a supernatural act, by which the Holy Spirit sanctified the bloody matter of the blessed virgin and…disposed and elevated it, so that a perfect human fetus might be formed from it."

29: Dannhauer: "Chrysostom says in Homily 6 on Matthew, He is to be seen weeping, but never laughing"

32: Gerhard: "The mode of this union is wonderfully unique and uniquely wonderful, surpassing the comprehension of all, not only of men, but also of angels, which is why it is called a great mystery by common consent."

32: Quenstedt: Christ's personal union "can be more easily determined by άρσιν [negation, or what it is not] than by θέσιν [affirmation, or what it is]"

 34: Quenstedt: "Nestorius… denied that the Son of Mary and the Son of God are one and the same, and urged that Mary should be called not Theotokos, God-bearer, but Christotokos, Christ-bearer"

36: Gerhard: "Because of the identity of the hypostasis and the interpenetration of the natures, the Logos is so present in the flesh and the flesh is so present in the Logos, that neither is the Logos outside the flesh, nor the flesh outside the Logos, but wherever the Logos is, there He also has the most immediate presence of the flesh"

37: Quenstedt: "the Calvinists, who contend that the Logos, who assumed the human nature, is no less entirely outside of the human nature than in it" [Contradicts the personal union, which then is the basis for their other errors on Christ's person.]

40: Gerhard: "we hold not a conversion of natures, not a change of essence, not the abolition of either nature, but a real communication of natures resulting from the personal union"

43: Luther: "Since no human mind can grasp or understand these things by its own ingenuity or wisdom, it must assent to them by faith"

43: J. G. Walch: "The Peripatetics…: 'Man is a doctor, two-footed, turning gray, and capable of laughter'"

45: J. A. Osiander: "For it is said a. The Lord of glory was crucified [1 Cor. 2:8]; therefore human idioms are attributed to the divine nature…"

47: Luther: "the Person (point to Christ) suffers, dies; now the Person is true God; therefore it is rightly said: The Son of God suffers; for although one part (that I speak of), the Godhead, does not suffer, yet the Person, who is God, suffers in the other part, namely, in the humanity"

50: Quenstedt: "Nestorius…strove to draw a distinction between the propositions: 'Christ suffered and died,' which he granted, and 'God suffered and died,' which he denied." [Calvinists have similar teaching.]

52: R. Teller: "for the errors of the followers of Calvin, and especially of the Crypto-Calvinists, must be met, who deny a true and real communication of the divine properties and perfections to the human nature in Christ, and…that the body and blood of Christ are not truly and really present in the most holy Supper."

54: N. Hunnius: "so that by a most powerful act and an efficaciously effective passion through death the devil might be destroyed, we might be healed by His bruises, sins might be expiated by death, and by the resurrection, righteousness restored; which all these effects, being a mixture of divine and human actions and passions, most certainly testify to the communion and mutual concurrence of divine and human properties"

56: Gerhard: "Both the Papists and the Calvinists deny the real communication of the divine idioms to the flesh of Christ, here bound together by the tails like the foxes of Samson [Judges 15:4], although in other parts of doctrine they disagree with each other."

58: Quenstedt: Calvinists "deny that omniscience of the Logos has been communicated to the human nature of Christ, and that it is truly omniscient…assert that Christ, by the reason of His human nature, even in the state of exaltation, is ignorant of certain things"

59: Ae. Hunnius: "To this, that axiom which these men treat as a Gordian knot, the Apostle long ago cut away from this mystery, when he writes that in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily"

63: Hutter quoting Chemnitz: "we generally maintain the principle that no creature, place, position, or time separates the two natures in the person of Christ from one another or leaves them behind, but rather that wherever He is, He has them personally or in the manner of the personal union in and with Himself.'"

63: Brenz: "They have fabricated a new and prodigious term, ubiquity, … that the body of Christ, like a leaven, geometrically extends and diffuses itself into all places."

65: Quenstedt: "Calvinists, who not only detract from the majesty of the omnipresence in the flesh of Christ, but also assail this dogma with various horrible accusations.…the Papists, who blow the same trumpets as the Calvinists."

65: "all should honor the Son, just as (καθὼς) they honor the Father; that is, with the same honor that is shown to God the Father, on account of the supreme excellence of His divine nature and perfections, and not with a different or inferior kind of worship" 

67: Quenstedt: "The Papists, who, distinguishing between λατρείαν [latreian] and ὑπερδουλείαν [hyperdouleian], attribute λατρείαν to God alone, δονλείαν [douleian, veneration] to angels and men, but the worship of νπερδονλείας [hyperdouleias] to the humanity of Christ and the Blessed Virgin."

In the next Part BWC3c…

BWC3a: Vol. III(A): Grace; "God did not owe it, man could not do it"

      This continues from Part BWC2h in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — This begins the largest volume, by far, of the 3 volumes, exceeding the total of the 2 previous volumes. Because it is so large, I am splitting it up into 2 parts, approximately 400 pages each: IIIA and IIIB. 

      This volume contains the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. The first half IIIA contains the 34-page section on "The Office of Christ" that Synoptic Text Information Services published in 2023 (Amazon). This is in a series of books addressing their overall focus on Atonement in Lutheran Orthodoxy. This excerpt was well chosen for not only its intended purpose of focusing on "Atonement" but also on Christ's "vicarious satisfaction" for the sins of the world. This was a particular focus of Prof. Franz Pieper in his Christian Dogmatics. — However, this excerpt is just that — it truly points to the need for the full volume that includes also the section on the Lutheran doctrine of "Justification". 

The following Table of Contents provides the overview of Part IIIA:

PART THREE. (A)

Chapter I. Of the Grace of God toward fallen men, the first principle of our salvation 3

Chapter II. Of Christ, the principle and foundation of our salvation 18

Section I. Of the Person of Christ 20

Section II. Of the states of humiliation and exaltation 75

Section III. Of the Office of Christ     100

Chapter III. Of Faith in Christ  134

Chapter IV. Of Regeneration and Conversion 177

Chapter V. Of Justification 240

Chapter VI. Of Renewal and Good Works   299

Chapter VII. Of the Word of the Law and the Gospel 337

 We begin now, from pages 3-18, our selection of

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions of quotes. Red text indicates my comments.)

[Chapter 1: Of the Grace of God toward fallen men]

3-4: Luther: "a lawyer speaks of man as the possessor and lord of his own things; a physician speaks of man as healthy and sick; but the theologian, however, discusses man as a sinner"

5: Huelselmann: "it pleased Philip Melanchthon…to leave the word ‘grace’ in its ambiguity.…Our symbolic book freed the word 'grace' and 'freely' from the equivocation regarding an infused habit [by the Papists]

5: Luther to Melanchthon: "You write that Eck was forced by you to confess that we are justified by faith: I wish you had forced him not to lie."

6: "Hence it is commonly called universal grace, a designation taken from its object, which is the entire human race"

8: Luther: The Son of God "takes my sin upon His back; yes, not only my sin, but also the sin of the whole world".

8: Quenstedt: "On 1 Tim. 2:4: 'God wills all men to be saved,' etc. the Calvinists except, that by all men the apostle does not mean every single man, but any men, i.e. men of every kind"

9: Quenstedt: "hypothetical Calvinists, who indeed admit a certain universal benevolence of God toward all men, but only on the condition of faith, if they believe"

11: Gerhard: An example of God's efficacious universal grace: "of a father, who is equally favorable to all his children and wants all to become heirs of his goods, but excludes from the inheritance those who are stubbornly disobedient and depraved."

13: Gerhard: "Thomas [Aquinas], P. III. q. 46. art. 2 argues: 'That God can remit sins to man without satisfaction, since He has no superior.' … [But] God is so merciful that He is also at the same time just.… no other remedy remained than for the Son of God Himself to assume human nature and in it and through it to make satisfaction; God did not owe it, man could not do it."

15: "It is also of divine grace, which regards our salvation, to move God to will and confer what is His own, so that we may all enjoy the foreign satisfaction of another, the mediator." [I.e. the "vicarious satisfaction".]

16: Chemnitz: "that God is not to be regarded as the actual cause of such rejection or damnation, as the opposing doctrine does…but we wish to adhere to the saying of the prophet Hosea, chapter 13[:9], where God speaks: 'O Israel, you bring disaster upon yourself; your salvation is in me alone.'"

In the next Part BWC3b…

BWC1e: Pieper→Baier-Walther cross-reference (#1), updated

      This continues from Part BWC1d in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — The following cross-reference was presented in 2017 before all the updates became available where one could link directly to English translations of the sources. Now all links have been updated to their English sources and have been compiled in the following tables. This allows fast access for rigorous study of various topics as covered by Pieper and Walther (and Baier). — Rather than a scrollable embedded window, I am presenting the table in the blog itself so that it may be archived as a unit. What follows is the listing for Volume 1 with over 300 links (pink shaded links will be updated when the translation of Volume 3 of Baier-Walther is completed):

Christliche Dogmatik v:ppp:xxxxx	Christian Dogmatics ppp;nnnn	Baier- Walther Compendium	Notes
1:006n12	8n8	1:014	Calov’s detailed account of various derivations of the Latin religio
1:044n164	42	1:002	Baier: Theology  – Greek word composite of God and Word.
1:051n181	47	1:069	Baier: Theology is a supernatural aptitude
1:056n202	52n80	1:043, 076	Pfeiffer: no doctrine outside of those based on Scripture
1:064n225	58n87	1:005	true nature of theology, is based on Scripture
1:091n319	81	3:245 f.	Dogmaticians call doctrine of justification the fundamental article.
1:095n346	85	1:061 note e [sic?]	"fundamental doctrines" did not originate with the Church
1:099n361	88n122	1:062	not every false doctrine which by its nature is destructive of the foundation of faith … "felicitous inconsistency" (“glückliche Inkonsequenz”)
1:103n376	92	1:065	Baier: errors on non-fundamental articles  – be “on our guard lest by embracing and teaching error we rashly sin”
1:106n387	94n135	1:067 nota c	Open question: Is the soul of each individual created by God immediately (creationism) or mediately through the parents (traducianism)?
1:107n390	95n137	1:067  1767 ed.: p 52	Open questions: “... the many questions which Scripture leaves unanswered”
1:117n422	104	1:040	The subject of the operation of theology is homo peccator (the sinner) in so far as he is to be led to eternal salvation
1:158n545	138n190	1:076	Does theology constitute a system?
1:173n570	150n200	1:076	Baier prefers “analytic method” over synthetic” method of theology
1:173n572	150n201	1:029	Analytical method, however, proceeds from effect to cause or seeks to derive the whole from a particular part
1:175n583	151n204	—	Baier is infected with the synergistic bias of his father-in-law Musaeus.  The edition of Walther, St. Louis, 1879, is not a mere reprint of Baier's compend, but by the addition of quotations has been expanded to three volumes - - - - - - -  In the cited quotations, not only Luther and the old theologians, but also the modern theologians of the 19th century, are abundantly cited, so that students are offered a source material which enables them to judge both the old and modern theology.  Prof. Th. Bünger has supplied a index of subject and names on this edition of Walther’s, which has been worked with great diligence and great expertise.
1:176	152	—	Baier discusses the last things: death, resurrection, the Judgment, and the destruction of the world immediately in connection with salvation
1:176n585	152n205	1:077	The all-important point is that the theologian observe the principle of divine revelation, not the “faith” of the theologian (Objective!)

The balance for Volume 1 is available after the jump break (Volumes 2 and 3 will come later, see below):