Foreword.
In this third volume of the Dogmatics, the doctrines of the Christian life, of the means of grace, of the Church, of eternal election and of the last things are presented. In editing this volume, too, I endeavored to offer a dogmatics that is "modern" in the right sense. In the Foreword to the second volume I have declared in more detail what I understand by a "modern" or "up to date" dogmatics. A dogmatics that rightly claims this predicate must have two main characteristics. First, it must draw Christian doctrine from Holy Scriptures alone, rejecting all human speculation, because Holy Scriptures, as the inspired and infallible Word of Christ, are the only source and norm of Christian doctrine until the Last Day. On the other hand, it must present the doctrines of Christ found in Holy Scriptures in the closest connection with the events of the Church, not only of the past, but especially of the present, and assert them in the face of contradiction.
The fact that the doctrine of the Christian life or, what is the same, the doctrine of sanctification and good works occupies a wide space is justified not only by the manifold forms of a Christian life as described in the Scriptures, but primarily also by the fact that the relationship between the Christian faith and the Christian life taught in the Scriptures
is not only shifted, but mostly completely reversed, especially in the present time. All who, with Rome, the Calvinistic Reformed, the Arminian Reformed, and the more recent Lutherans, partly limit and partly directly reject the satisfactio Christi vicaria, necessarily place sanctification before justification in some way or form, because they assume a deficit in the atoning work of Christ. By this reversal of the relationship, they lose both justification and sanctification.
The doctrine of the means of grace occupies the widest space. Several reasons led me to offer here rather too much than too little. First, we live in the United States in a Reformed environment, and even the newer Reformed of the various trends separate "spirit" and "grace" from the means of grace on the same principle and with the same arguments that once moved Zwingli and comrades to separate from the church of the Reformation, and caused Calvin and his successors to maintain the separation. The evidence for this has been abundantly adduced. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that modern "experiential theology," which, after praising the inspiration of Scripture and the satisfactio Christi vicaria, is advocated precisely by "positive" Lutheran theologians of the present day, walks entirely along Reformed lines. Schneckenburger has already pointed this out, though not in a consistently accurate manner.1) The "faith in salvation" is not to come into being through the word of the gospel alone and to have its object in the word of the gospel, but is also to be generated and maintained by the so-called "historical" efficacy of Christ, which is conceived alongside the word of Christ. Ihmels also thinks in marked contrast to the Reformation's "understanding of revelation,"
1) Comparative Presentation of the Lutheran and Ref. Doctrinal concepts I, 264-287.
which he calls "intellectualistic.": "Even today, the only real faith in Jesus Christ is that which is imposed on man by his very appearance. 2) Thirdly, the Christian, and especially the Christian theologian who has been active in practical pastoral care, knows how difficult it is — even with objectively correct doctrine of the means of grace — for a conscience struck by the law of God to hold fast in faith to the grace offered in the means of grace. Think of Luther's lamentations in which he expresses how difficult it becomes for him in the challenge to refrain from all processes in him and outside of him and to cling in faith to the promise of grace in the Word of the Gospel alone. And yet this is the only way that can deliver us sinners from doubt and despair in the midst of temptation and the distress of death.
In the doctrine of the Church, it was first necessary to contrast the Roman and false Protestant "institutional concept" and to establish that the Christians are the church and therefore also the original owners of all spiritual goods and rights that Christ has given to his church here on earth. On the other hand, it had to be shown that in the Christian church there is absolutely no room for human doctrines and human rule, because Christ alone teaches and rules the church by means of His Word. The public ministry is not of human but of divine order, but beyond Christ's word it has nothing to teach or command.
The presentation of the doctrine of eternal election naturally takes into account the doctrinal controversy that has troubled the Lutheran Church in America and beyond for decades. I have repeatedly convinced myself anew that the doctrine of the eleventh article of the Formula of Concord,
2) Zentralfragen 2, 1912, p. 89.
which holds universalis gratia against Calvinism and sola gratia against Synergism, and which has therefore been called "untenable ground" by both sides, accurately reflects the doctrines of Holy Scriptures.
In the doctrine of the last things, chiliasm and the general conversion of the Jews have been treated in more detail, because there is an occasion for this in the present time.
The fact that this third volume appears much later than had been anticipated is partly due to the war conditions that have occurred in the meantime.
St. Louis, Mo. in March 1920.
F. Pieper.