BWC3l: L & G III: Luther & Walther: Proper Distinction; download, another BTL book

      This continues from Part BWC3k in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — This segment concludes the section on Law & Gospel, and finishes my first part of Volume 3. — From pages 381-399: 

Notable Quotes: (Italics and bolding follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions of quotes from third parties. Authors are indicated in bold text. Red text indicates my comments.)

382: The Gospel "was revealed not only in the New Testament, but also in the Old Testament…For to this belong the promises of the seed of the woman…the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed…of the Messiah, Shiloh, to be born of the tribe of Judah…concerning a prophet like Moses"

383: Quenstedt: "Jer. 31:31-32: ‘Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, not like the covenant that I made with your fathers'"

384: Quenstedt: "Of the Arminians, who…say: 'It is certain that the precept of faith in Christ is nowhere found clearly set forth in the Old Testament, nor in express terms the promise of eternal life'"

385: Luther: "Here I ask and urge all lovers of godliness…to learn with all diligence this article, which teaches what the proper and true work of the Law is, and how one should rightly use it,…which, I greatly fear, will after our time be again obscured and completely suppressed. For even now, while we are still alive and most diligently show what both the Law and the Gospel, each in particular, are for, there are very, very few, even among those who profess the Gospel and know how to boast of it splendidly, who rightly and properly understand and know this office of the Law."

 

 386: Luther on The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel: 

"When we distinguish the Law and the Gospel in this way, we give to each its proper and due work and office to which it is entitled. But of such a distinction of the Law and the Gospel, you will not find a single letter in all the books of all the monks, canonists, and sophists, nor even of the old Fathers. St. Augustine understood and indicated this distinction in part, but Jerome and many others knew little of it. In short,

for several hundred years in all schools and churches, nothing sound has been taught or preached about this distinction between the Law and the Gospel, whereby poor, miserable consciences have come into great danger and harm." 

[Then came Martin Luther, and…C.F.W. Walther!]

387: Chemnitz: "What other light has dispelled the densest darkness of the papal kingdom, if not this above all, that the true distinction between the Law and the Gospel has been demonstrated?"

387: Gerhard: Our works "are not to be brought into the theater of our justification before God; for there is a perpetual opposition between working and believing, between grace and works, between the Law and the Gospel."

389: Luther: "the Law is easier in this respect than the Gospel, because it forbids not the heart but the hand…; whereas the Gospel is easier than the Law in that it has abolished circumcision and the ceremonies"

390: Quenstedt: "The Papists contend that the evangelical promises require a condition of inherent righteousness…Thus the Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 20"

392: Quenstedt: "Of Philip Melanchthon, who after the death of blessed Luther not obscurely made this error of the Antinomians his own in the last edition of the Loci"

393: Luther: Christians "should learn to forget the law…but live before God as if, in fact, there were no law at all. For unless you …think, in short, that there is no law at all, but pure grace, you cannot be saved."

394: Quenstedt: "Of the Anabaptists and Socinians, as well as the Remonstrants or Arminians, who, together with the Dominicans and Jesuits, pervert the true distinction of the law and the gospel with this hypothesis, that the gospel is a new law from the new lawgiver Christ, which has succeeded the old law of Moses"

398: Luther: "the Law (as well as the Gospel) must be preached without distinction, to both the righteous or believers and the ungodly." [Walther was criticized for doing just this!]

The following is my translated version utilizing DeepL, and Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok to aid in polishing the text. Highlighting and red text are mine. Italics follow the original. Hyperlinks added to each page which follow the original publication:

Download the full text here; print version, no highlighting here, PDF here, original text here.

In the next Part BWC3m, we begin the second half of Volume 3.