John William Baier's _Compendium of Positive Theology_ Edited by C. F. W. Walther Published by: St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1877 [Translator's Preface. These are the major loci or topics of John William Baier's _Compendium of Positive Theology_ as edited by Dr. C. F. W. Walther. These should be seen as the broad outline of Baier-Walther's dogmatics, but please don't assume that this is all. Each locus usually includes copious explanatory notes and citations from patristics and other Lutheran dogmaticians. Chapter Two On Christ, the principal and foundation of our salvation. 1. Since human sinners, being led to eternal salvation, have a need for a mediator, of which mediator they follow happiness by the favor from God, since they themselves are unworthy of themselves, this mediator ought to be completely examined, who is no other than the one whom the Scripture calls Jesus Christ. 2. However the doctrine about Christ thus is able most completely to be related, that it is discussed: I. about the person of Christ, who is the mediator; II. about the his states of humiliation and exaltation; III. about his office of mediator, and what is joined with that. There it is .... Section One On the person of Christ. 1. In the person of Christ are seen, I. that Christ is true, and consubstantial to the Father, coeternal and coequal God; II. that the same Christ is true man, consubstantial to us. 2. However, from the fact that it is the same Christ who is described by Scripture now as God, now as human, it is clear that there is one person of Christ in two natures. And this is that greatest mystery, which is especially proper to be looked at in this place. 3. However having admitted the unity of the person, it is necessary that we might further confess that the human nature of Christ does not have it's own subsistence, but it subsists in another's subsistence, namely that of the divine nature. 4. Then, because the two natures are in the one person of Christ, through which natures the same Christ is the Son of God and son of man, the double generation, eternal and temporal, is to be considered. 5. Having been placed next to the eternal generation of Christ, it is thus to be done about the temporal generation of Christ, that partly it is a production of the human nature, partly a union of the same with the divine nature explains it. 6. The efficient cause of producing the human nature of Christ is the Holy Spirit, however without excluding the other persons of the Trinity. 7. The matter is the bloody mass ["massa sanguinea"] of the virgin Mary, from which is made, or produced, the human nature of Christ. 8. Truly that same pregnancy of Mary and the production of the human nature of Christ made in her is possible to be described as a supernatural action, by which the Holy Spirit sanctified the bloody mass of the blessed virgin and being carried down to the accustomed place of generation he arranged and raised it, so that from it was made a perfect human fetus. 9. And thus it is revealed that the conception was from her, and what was made according to the course of nature was of great distinction, or miraculous, and although Christ the God-man accepted through her our consubstantial nature, yet he was not liable to the common weaknesses of nature, equally not by personal weaknesses, still less was he liable to sin, but on the contrary these things are a sign of a certain election. 10. However the union of the human nature with the divine nature in him consists in this, that those natures are thus conjoined, that they are made one person, and to such an extent that the end of the union is either Christ the God-man, or the unity itself, or the human nature which is seen, that it is personally united to the Son of God. 11. Finally that unity, resulting from the act of union, is not some kind of thing of two natures, divine and human conjoined, but of such kind, that the divine nature, as the nature of the Son of God, or as subsisting in the hypostasis of the Word, inside the same hypostasis, without commingling or confusion or conversion, has at the same time most narrowly and indissolubly joined to itself the human nature and constitutes with it one subsistence ["hyphistamenon"], which is both true God and true man. 12. And thus this is certain, that that union is not a natural union or an essential one, neither is it accidental properly speaking. 13. From the personal union flows the communication of natures, through which is happens, that the human nature of the Son of God and the divine nature of the Son of Man is one nature. 14. In the union of persons and the communion of natures are found and declared propositions, which are called personal, by which the matter of the one nature is enunciated about the matter of the other nature; e.g. God is man, man is God, and similar ones. And those are propositions which are not merely verbal, but greatly real. 15. Also those propositions, in which the matter of the other or of both natures are enunciated about the matter of the persons, in this way they are possible to be referred to this place; but they are rightly distinguished from those persons. 16. Further, from the communication of natures flows the communication of attributes, through which it happens that when the two natures are compared to each other, that which pertains to one of them in itself and formally, also agrees truly with the other of the natures. 17. Three settled classes of the communication of attributes are accustomed to be named, and the first one is indeed named, that by which God appropriates to himself what is of the human nature, and the man, what is of the divine nature. 18. Those proclamations pertaining to the first genus of the communication of attributes are those by which the attributes of the human nature are denominatively declared about the concrete things of the divine nature and on the other side the attributes of the divine nature are denominatively declared about the concrete things of the human nature. 19. Truly those proclamations, in which either the subject is the concrete thing of his nature, to which proclamation it formally pertains, or the subject is the concrete thing of the person, and the proclamation is the attribute of the nature of the other; they differ indeed from those, which pertain properly to this genus of the communication of attributes, however they are able to be referred to this in this way. 20. The second genus of the communication of attributes is that by which the divine perfections, and from this the resulting authority and power, honor and highest glory, are communicated in the abstract to the human nature of Christ. 21. And thus those proclamations apply to this genus of the communication of attributes, in which the divine perfections, indeed those involve, which consider some operation in its formal conceiving, however not something, which opposes the truth of the human nature; and if also the power and divine glory denominatively and immediately are said about Christ according to the human nature; truly the rest of the divine perfections, which are from him and formally do not consider the operation, they involve however something repugnant to the human nature, not indeed immediately, but mediately by another attribute of the first genus, and they are said about Christ denominatively according to the human nature. 22. The third genus of the communication of attributes consists in this, that the operations pertaining to the office of Christ are not only and solely of a certain nature, but of both commonly, in so far as both bring together to that, which is his, and thus both do with the communication of the other. 23. Therefore these propositions pertain to this, of which the predicate is an operation pertaining to the office of Christ; however the subject is the name of the concrete thing, either from both, or from one nature pointing to the person of Christ; and on the contrary those things, in which the name of the office itself in the concrete thing is said about the person of Christ. Section Two On the states of humiliation and exaltation. 1. Although the communication of attributes is the personal union conforming to an undivided connection, and included in this is also the communication of majesty, however that majesty was not always exercised by him in a particular way, but it was done in this way that Christ was first humbled, then he was exalted. 2. And thus the humiliation of Christ applies to his human nature, and it consists in this, that Christ for a time rejected the fuller use of the divine majesty, which in the personal union the human nature accepted the communication of, and as a worthless human he lived, like those who were under the divine majesty. 3.. Especially the conception of Christ and his birth, education and visible conversation among humans, and then the passion, death and burial are to be seen in this manner. 4. The state of exaltation is that Christ according to the human nature, putting off the infirmities of the flesh, took up and asserted the full use of the divine majesty. 5. The beginning of this state of exaltation is the descent into hell, together with the true and glorious resurrection from the dead. The ascension into heaven followed. And then the sitting at the right hand of the Father completed the state of exaltation. Section Three On the office of Christ. 1. It is certain that the Son of God did not assume human nature from a certain necessity and not without reason, but by the grace of some end, and indeed, that in the assumed human nature, and through it, he made the salvation of human sinners. 2. And thus Christ the God-man wished to explain the cause of saving humans by three chief offices; 1. that the way of escaping from the state of sin might be shown to human sinners and the salvation which follows that escape, which office is called the prophetic office; 2. that the price of the redemption for the fallen human race itself was paid by God and he reconciled them, which office is called the priestly office; 3. that he rules humans adhering to him, defends them and then makes them saints, which office is called the kingly office. 3. So that it may be understood more distinctly, it is known that Christ is the most excellent prophet of all, and that he most clearly revealed to humans the will of God about salvation, that he equally taught and proved what he said, thus indeed, so that by the spoken word he gives authority and divine efficacy. 4. Then in the prophetic office of Christ it is perceived, how equally the human and divine nature apply, because it was characteristic of each one. Certainly according to the human nature Christ during the whole three years of ministry also taught by the highest living voice, and ordered the celebrating of the sacraments in the church, and obtained servants of the word and sacraments for the church, however according to the divine nature he joined the infinite power and authority of God in the word and sacraments instituted by him. 5. However now, or in the state of exaltation, when Christ does not perform more fully himself, personally and visibly, the ministry of teaching, he teaches through his servants, and now the prophetic office is seen to coincide with the kingdom of grace. 6. The priestly office consists in this, that Christ mediates between God and humans, mutually dissenting from him, holding the middle part, thus indeed, so that reconciling with God for humans, he offers a sacrifice and a requests. 7. However the sacrifice of Christ shows on account of the sacrifices of the Old Testament priests, that these were of that type and shadow and they needed to be repeated frequently, however the sacrifice of Christ is an antitype and contains in itself the atoning power, and it is an infinite power, and it needed to be completed only once for all. 8. And then, when in other sacrifices victims were offered, which were distinct from the priests themselves, Christ once for all sacrificed himself, at the time when he subjected himself willingly to suffering and death and thus offered himself to God as the victim for sins, not his, but of others, and he atoned for the sins of the whole human race. 9. By that sacrifice or his suffering and death Christ is commonly said to have made satisfaction for us, and although the satisfac- tion of Christ is connected to the priestly office, it also touches the most perfect completion of the whole divine law which Christ did for us. 10. However Christ satisfied the whole holy Trinity, and made satisfaction for all men, equally for the elect and the reprobate. 11. Truly Christ, our priest, offers prayers, or intercessions, for all humans, but in this way, so that while praying for the impious he looks for their conversion, and while interceding for the pious he improves their steadfastness and their increase in faith and sanctity. 12. However the two natures meet at the priesthood of Christ, when with the sacrifice, also he is involved with the intercession; and indeed he applied to the sacrifice of the human nature that which was his, when Christ went to meet his enemies, when he carried the suffering and death; truly the divine valor and infinite virtue, was added to the passion and death, so that it was sufficient for the expiation of human sins and for placating God. As far as the intercessions of Christ are concerned, an act of his praying, seen in him, pertains formally to the human nature, while the merit and valor of those acts of praying result from the divine nature. 13. In the state of exaltation, it is confessed that Christ does not perform a further sacrifice for us, but rather he exhibits to God a formerly completed sacrifice and daily he intercedes for us; although that intercession is not done in the form of a servant or a humble form, as he was on earth. 14. The kingly office of Christ is triple: the kingdom of power, grace, and glory. 15. The kingdom of power is that by which Christ powerfully rules this universe, and preserves it and governs it most providently, and therefore all creatures are subjects to him in this kingdom. 16. The kingdom of grace is that by which Christ collects the militant church through word and sacraments, preserves it, and abundantly gives it spiritual goods. And so faithful humans, who make up the church militant, are subjects in this kingdom. 17. The kingdom of glory is that by which Christ gloriously rules the church triumphant and he fills all with eternal happiness, and therefore blessed humans are subjects in this kingdom. 18. And Christ indeed, although by the power of the personal union was made king from the uterus, however in the state of exaltation at length thus he fully begins his majestic reign. -------------------------------------------------------------- This text was translated by Rev. Theodore Mayes and is copy- righted material, (c)1996, but is free for non-commercial use or distribution, and especially for use on Project Wittenberg. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary. E-mail: smithre@mail.ctsfw.edu Surface Mail: 66000 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA Phone: (260) 452-3149 Fax: (260) 452-2126 --------------------------------------------------------------