BWC3c: "A divine humanity, a human divinity"

      This continues from Part BWC3b in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — This segment finishes Section I on the Person of Christ, then proceeds to Christ's States of Humiliation and Exaltation. — From pages 68-99: 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.)

70: Kromayer: "Because of the office, a composite person was also required, since a mere God could neither suffer nor die, and a mere man could not sufficiently suffer and die. Therefore, a divine humanity and a human divinity were required.

71: N. Hunnius: "it was a human voice: 'Young man, I say to you, rise,' Luke 7:14, but it was also a divine voice, because it was an omnipotent voice calling the dead back to life; who, then, would not here recognize the human voice as the vehicle of divine action"

72: Luther: "Beware, beware, I say, of this Alloeosis [of Zwingli]; it is the devil's mask; for in the end it presents such a Christ that I would not gladly be a Christian…For God by His nature cannot die, but now that God and man are united in one person, it is rightly called the Death of God when the man dies, who is one thing or one person with God"

75: Gerhard: "The Calvinists resolve that proposition, 'God suffered,' so that the final analysis comes down to this: Only the human nature suffered"

[Section II. Of the States of Humiliation and Exaltation]

76: Formula of Concord: "We reject and condemn…while He was in the state of humiliation, He had also laid down and put off that power according to His divinity."

76: Luther: "Although the two natures are distinguished, it is nevertheless one person"

81: "He did not count it robbery [Phil. 2:6], that is, He was firmly convinced that this was in no way alien to Him, nor a seizure, but rightly His due, to be equal with God" [This explains the difficult word "robbery", that to be equal with God was His due.]

83: Gerhard: "The state of self-emptying begins at the first moment of the Incarnation and lasts until the time of the burial, inclusive, which the apostle calls the whole course of Christ's life on this earth"

84: "the emptying, or, as to the extent that the flesh of Christ, though not from a human seed, was nevertheless formed in the womb of a woman and from her blood; by which means it is certain that certain infirmities concurred,…in order that the Son of God might nevertheless become a true man."

86: Quenstedt: "Antithesis: 1. Of very many ancient doctors of the church, such as Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Bernard, and others, who seek extraordinary miracles in the nativity of Christ. . . 2. Of the Papists, who decree the same."

88: Quenstedt: "Thomas Aquinas denies that Christ was a man during the three days of death, . . . ‘to assert that He was a man during the three days of death, is heretical'"

90: "Christ did not indeed undergo some difficult or bloody struggle with Satan, but …appeared to him as a victor and triumphant"

91: Hollaz: "Christ preached to the devils and the condemned souls [in His descent to hell]…not for their liberation and salvation (as some Papists would have it; for from hell there is no redemption; all consolation to the condemned is denied by Scripture, Luke 16:25 ff.), but for their confusion and refutation."

93: Hollaz: "Specifically, the resurrection of Christ is attributed to God the Father…for the consolation of consciences, so that we may know that the Father has been abundantly satisfied and that the same has been reconciled to us"

94-95: Calov: "As to the respects in which the resurrection of Christ was required for our justification, Gerhard explains: … by raising Him from the dead, He [the Father] in fact absolved Him from our sins imputed to Him, and consequently also absolved us in Him"

97: Hollaz: "it pleased the Savior to be carried up gradually [in His ascension], so that the disciples might testify of the true ascension more clearly and confidently"

99: Gerhard: "Visibly, therefore, Christ appears standing at the right hand of God in one place, while invisibly He sits everywhere at the right hand of God."

In the next Part BWC3d…, we begin Section III. Of the Office of Christ.