Lutherans who follow what is known as the “historic one-year series” heard this past Sunday of our Lord’s transfiguration, occuring at the end of Epiphanytide, preparing us for the beginning of Pre-Lent. Other Lutherans who follow newer lectionaries will celebrate Transfiguration in a few weeks. Just as the voice of God the Father at His baptism directed us to Jesus as the Son of God, so now at the Transfiguration, God the Father once more indicates that this Jesus is the beloved Son of God, whom we are to hear, and in so doing indicates to us the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Emmanuel Press is happy to announce yet another book that directs us to the Triune God revealed to us in Christ’s Transfiguration. Volumes 1 and 2 (bound into one) of Baier’s Compendium Theologiae Positivae (Compendium of Positive Theology) are hot off the presses, completing the text of this systematic theology. In the future, we plan to print the helpful index volume for this work.
Out of print for over a century, the Baier-Walther is a confessional Lutheran dogmatics work in Latin and German that was the basis for Francis Pieper’s well-known Christian Dogmatics. But unlike Pieper, Baier-Walther is marked by concise definitions and sizeable quotations of orthodox Lutheran theologians from Luther through the end of the 17th century. In addition, Baier-Walther gives a sampling of 19th-century theologians (e.g. Hofmann) as a contrast to the classical, Lutheran orthodox position on many doctrines.
Volume I-II of this, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod’s first dogmatics text, includes: The nature and constitution of theology; Natural theology; Revealed theology; The principle of revealed theology, Sacred Scripture; God; His existence, essence, and divine attributes; The mystery of the most holy Trinity; Creation; Angels; The image of God granted to man in the first creation; God’s providence; Eternal beatitude; Eternal damnation; Temporal death; The resurrection of the dead; The last judgment and the consummation of the age; Sin in general; Sin of origin; Actual sins; Temptation.