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Vicarious Satisfaction in Lutheran Catechisms, Confessions, and Hymns

Post category:Atonement Reconciliation
Reading time:2 mins read

By T. R. Halvorson Lutheran Orthodoxy teaches that a vital part of the work of God in Christ is atonement by vicarious satisfaction. Vicarious satisfaction is attested in Scripture, the Lutheran confessions in the Book of Concord, explanations of the Catechism, Lutheran hymns, the liturgy, the Sacraments, and so on. Nevertheless, the atonement is in controversy in Lutheran circles. The adversaries deny vicarious satisfaction. They substitute a general amnesty that is announced in a bloodless absolution. According to them, the cross would not have been necessary had sinners only believed that God can and does just “up and forgive.” In…

Atonement in Lutheran Orthodoxy: Abraham Calov

Post category:Atonement Reconciliation
Reading time:3 mins read

Atonement by vicarious satisfaction is at the center of all Christian doctrine. It is the foundation of the forgiveness of sins, justification, and faith. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession says, “We are justified only when we receive Christ as the Atoning Sacrifice and believe that for Christ’s sake God is reconciled to us. Neither is justification even to be dreamed of without Christ as the Atonement.” The importance of the atonement cannot be calculated. Therefore it is the principal target of attack. It is a unique object of derision. It arouses the fiercest resentment and opposition, a concert of…

Post category:Atonement Reconciliation
Reading time:3 mins read

By Johann Baier Edited and annotated by C. F. W. Walther Translated by Theodore E. Mayes Foreword by Jack D. Kilcrease Biographical introductions by Timothy R. Schmeling & Martin Noland C. F. W. Walther selected Johann Wilhelm Baier’s Compendium Theologiae Positivae as the basis for the first dogmatics used to prepare pastors for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Walther edited Baier’s Compendium and annotated it with excerpts from Luther and orthodox Lutheran theologians. Baier-Walther’s “On the office of Christ” (Vol. III, Cap. II. Sectio III, De officio Christi) is both an antidote to errors about atonement in Lutheran circles and evidence of the doctrine of the…

Second Edition of Atonement in Lutheran Orthodoxy: Johannes Quenstedt

Post category:Atonement Reconciliation
Reading time:3 mins read

Johannes Quenstedt’s De Officio Christi is an antidote to errors about atonement in Lutheran circles. Lutheran Orthodoxy teaches that an indispensable part of atonement is vicarious satisfaction. Adversaries deny vicarious satisfaction. Their errors existed already in Quenstedt’s time. While teaching the orthodox truth, Quenstedt thoroughly refutes the adversaries from Scripture. Robert D. Preus says, “Quenstedt was the Thomas Aquinas, so to speak, of Lutheran Orthodoxy, the last great representative. … [H]e was fair and meticulous in his work and drew from the best which his precursors had to offer. … Quenstedt’s systematic section on the Atonement actually presents nothing but exegesis of…