And it is in the midst of this doctrine of grace that Dr. Pieper's Dogmatics takes its firm, all-encompassing, [page 469] all-dominating position.
All-encompassing? Yes. All-dominating position? Check. How my copy of this volume 2 is marked up in so many places! How many noon-hour breaks I spent quietly reading, and praising God for, this volume.
It is therefore entirely fitting and in keeping with the logic of the matter that the second volume of this Dogmatics, in which the Christian doctrine of grace is the real issue, was published first. In the doctrines dealt with in this volume, all the threads of theology come together and tie themselves into a knot in the doctrine of justification and conversion.
Pieper polished the diamond that Walther uncovered again, and likewise … he could see that the “luminous rays” of the Gospel had not been so well gathered “into one beam of brilliant light” since the Reformation century than by ... C.F.W. Walther. Walther gathered the "luminous rays", Pieper brought all "threads of theology" and tied them "into a knot in…justification and conversion".
Here a theologian reveals at every turn whether he
has really mastered the whole situation, whether he
has really grasped not just all sorts of Christian doctrines and truths, but
[has grasped] the Christian doctrine, the truth of the Gospel, to which everything else relates as antecedens [preceding] and consequens [consequent], and
is able to present and defend it correctly from all sides.
.jpg "Bente, Fuerbringer, Mueller, Albrecht")
Bente’s summary of the benefits of Pieper’s theology is the best… better than Ludwig Fuerbriner’s, better than the Foreword written by Missouri’s Synodical Centennial Committee, even better than J.T. Mueller’s and Walter Albrecht’s Forewords to Volumes II and III, although Albrecht includes some high praise. Bente elevates all their praise to the highest level and announces to the whole Twentieth Century: “Here is your Christian textbook for the century!”
In this second volume, which deals with the doctrine of grace, everyone can convince himself that he has before him a Dogmatics which really stands at the center of Scripture. Scripture, the doctrine of Scripture from its own innermost center — that is precisely what Pieper's Dogmatics offers. —
.jpg "Drs. Jeffrey Kloha, Joel Biermann")
By contrast, today’s LC-MS calls the Scriptures a “plastic text”. How Dr. Jeffrey Kloha hates Pieper because Pieper places the Christian on a Solid Rock (1 Cor. 10:4), not a “plastic text”. He has now resurfaced, after previously leaving Concordia Seminary, as the Dean of the "Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership", an organization at the center of much controversy in the LC–MS. [See also Prof. Joel Biermann] There is a seething hatred of Pieper by modern theologians because he sharply defends against their anti-Scripture teaching.
Another peculiarity of the [old German] Missouri Synod is that it has remained faithful to the theological position it adopted from the beginning. Walther's position is still the position of the [old German] Missouri Synod today. What Walther, and Dr. Pieper himself, taught consistently for almost forty years as a professor at the seminary in St. Louis, is adequately expressed in this Dogmatics.
Bente is speaking for the year 1917 when he says his Missouri Synod “has remained faithful”. And now it most certainly has not been true for many years Ah, but surprisingly, by God’s grace, Pieper’s Dogmatics remains in print and readily available so that the true Missouri Synod can still be seen… no, not today’s LC–MS, rather the Missouri Synod from above. — And Bente specifically states that what Dr. Pieper taught was the same as C. F. W. Walther. Indeed we may say that Pieper’s Dogmatics is the one that Walther would have written – we may even call it “Walther’s Dogmatics”!
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