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DOGMATICS 2
LESSON: INTROCUCTION
> DR. DAVID SCAER: I'm Dr. David Scaer and I've been a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary for 39 years. Ten of those years were in Springfield. Before I came to the seminary, I was a pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Gillespie, Illinois and then Trinity Lutheran Church in Rockville -- in Rockville, Connecticut.
When I was also -- when I was at the seminary in Springfield, and that was for ten years, I also was an instructor of religion at the University of Illinois in Champaign. And so I got a wide experience in teaching.
If I had to characterize my own teaching and my own interests, I have moved away from the traditional way of doing dogmatics by separating out Bible passages to demonstrate particular doctrines.
And my real interest has been in attempting to put theology on a biblical basis, especially to bring it back to the gospels. And in order to do this, there are a number of things which I have written. And you may be able to -- you may have already come across some of these things. I've written a commentary on the epistle of James and on the Sermon on the Mount and really the entire Gospel of Matthew, the discourses, of Matthew's discourses -- the discourses in Matthew.
I've enjoyed my work which I have done here at the seminary. And while I'll be doing the area of Christology, my colleague from St. Louis, Dr.Maxwell, will do the area of justification. And it's the sincere hope of both of us that you can see not only how Christology and justification are related to one another -- and I think that's very important. Because they are.
I hope this is accomplished by what we do today. But I hope it lays down a pattern that the doctrines of the church are not isolated autonomous singular things but they are all part of a whole. And that what we do here in the classroom today is something which is not only relevant for the practical life of the church, you're dealing with people, you're ministering to their needs and their preaching, but this, the theology, the preaching of theology and the practice of theology, is really not different things but only one thing.
> DR. DAVID MAXWELL: And I'm Dr.David Maxwell. And I'm on the other end of the spectrum from Dr.Scaer. I've been at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis for a little less than one year. So I'm just starting. Before that I was an assistant pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Elkhart, Indiana. I also had the opportunity to do my PhD at Notre Dame and after that taught at Notre Dame for a year. So I have had some experience teaching Roman Catholic undergraduates, which was very interesting.
And I am recently married. And I have two stepsons who are 11 and 7 years old. And I would say that my interest is somewhat similar to Dr. Scaer is that I also want to keep theology together from flying apart. But I'm coming at it from a slightly different perspective in that my area is actually early church, which is a time before they started separating theology into different articles of doctrine as if Christology and justification had nothing to do with one another. They hadn't really thought of that idea yet. They just really thought of it as the same thing. So I'm very much looking forward to our time together. And I hope that Dr. Scaer and I are able to show you the riches that Christ has for us.
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DOGMATICS 2
LESSON 1
> Hello, Dr. Scaer. My name is Nick and I'm very excited to be starting this course. I can tell by the materials provided to us, the syllabus, the reading list and such that this unit on Christology is going to be of vital importance to us in our ministries. But Christology is a new term for me, even if it is easy for me to identify its root. So to begin the course, can you give me a short working definition of Christology?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: Many of the courses that you'll be taking in preparation for the ministry end with the word ology. Anthropology is the study of man. Theology is the study of God. Sacramentology is the study of the sacraments. Christology is the study of the person and work of Jesus Christ and is at the center of the curriculum.
There will be many new terms that you'll become acquainted with for the first time in this program. At first they'll sound strange, but as time goes on, you'll become very familiar with them.
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LESSON 2
> Dr. Scaer, my name is Eric. Like Nick, I'm also very pleased to begin this course. We've had several dogmatics classes now and so I know that courses in systematic theology address specific topics or doctrines. We've been studying so many important doctrines that at times it is difficult to determine whether certain teachings are for lack of a better phrase more important for us and our parishioners to fully comprehend.
So let me ask you: Among various Christian doctrines, where do you rank Christology in importance?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: That's a very good question, Eric. And I'm not so sure that there will be complete agreement on what the answer will be. But the most important course, not only in the systematics, the area which we're studying now, but also in your entire theological program will be the cross in Christology. The reason for this is that every Sunday, if that is when you complete your program, you will be preaching to your congregation. And for whatever other purpose, your sermon might have the -- really the final and ultimate purpose of all preaching is preaching about Jesus Christ. And it will be in this particular course that you will become acquainted with who he is and what he has done for us.
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LESSON 3
> Dr. Scaer, my name is David. I can tell already that this course is going to be very helpful. It seems to me that it's important to start with the basics. So I have this essential first question: How do we know about Jesus? Or to put the question in a more formal way: What are the major sources for Christology?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: This is a question that not only concerns Christians but also those that are outside the church. It's a question that comes up frequently around Christmas and Easter in popular magazines. It's also been a topic of the DaVinci Code. The question is answered in this way: We know about Jesus through the holy scriptures, particularly the New Testament, and even in a more defined way, through the gospels.
These writings were written by men who actually knew Jesus. So we not only look upon the scriptures as the word of God but we also look upon the scriptures as historical documents written at particular times and situations about a particular man called Jesus.
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LESSON 4
> Thank you for your response to David. That certainly makes sense. But I have a question about how others respond to what the sources say about Jesus. I'm serving in an inner city church in Los Angeles. Many of my congregation's members are converts from other denominations, Baptists, AME and a number of Pentecostal churches. Of course I know that all Christian churches have a prominent place for the person of Jesus. But it would help me to communicate more clearly with my parishioners if I knew this: Does each church or denomination understand the person of Jesus in the same way?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: It's difficult to answer that question in regard to a particular person, whether a person coming from another denomination has the same understanding of Jesus that we Lutherans do. This can only be determined by conversation. And one should not jump to conclusions without speaking to the individual.
But in a general sort of a way, Lutherans have a different understanding about Jesus than other churches. The churches that you mention, the Baptist church, the AME church and a number of Pentecostal churches are generally put into what we call the Reform category. And they do not see a close association between Jesus as divine and Jesus as human. And now, they see Jesus as divine. But they do not see that his divinity is being -- as being God is something which is always accessible through his humanity.
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LESSON 5
> Thank you for that response. I appreciate both of the questions David and Nick asked. But I have to admit that a different question occurred to me with regards to sources.
How would you describe the relationship between Christ and the scriptures? Do we believe Christ first? Or do we accept the scriptures before we believe in Jesus?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: This perhaps is the most profound question and also a question in which not everybody in the Lutheran Church would agree. When this question was asked of the late great theologian Karl Barth who lived in the last century, he answered this question by saying "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so."
So this is a question which not only concerns those students who are studying theology, but it's a question which children can think about. I'm not so sure that we can answer this question whether we accept the scriptures first or whether we accept Jesus first. This is not an either/or question. If we understand the scriptures as the voice of Christ in our midst, if we understand that Christ himself is the author of the scriptures and the content of the scriptures, then we will believe scriptures and Christ at the same time.
It is not that we accept the scriptures first and then come to believe in Jesus or that Jesus is somehow independent of the scriptures. But these are two co-terminus experiences.
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LESSON 6
> Thank you. You've stated quite clearly that scripture is the primary source for Christology. But that has me wondering: Is the Old Testament different from the New Testament in what it says about Jesus? In other words, can we construct a Christology from the Old Testament? Are certain books of the Bible more important than others for Christology?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: I think it's appropriate, David, that with your name you would ask this kind of question. Because we look upon Jesus as the true David modeled after the first one.
Now to these other questions quite specifically -- and that is: Is the Old Testament different from the New Testament in what it says about Jesus? It certainly is. The word Christ -- when we say that Jesus is the Christ, we mean that Jesus is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. Without accepting the Old Testament, you could never confess that Jesus is the Christ. What the Christ does and what the Christ is, that's all defined by the writers of the Old Testament.
But then comes the question: What is the purpose of the new? If we did not have the New Testament, we would not know that the Christ about which the Old Testament speaks is the person of Jesus.
There was a certain anticipation in the Old Testament about Christ. And that is in pious -- pious homes and certain situations, people actually thought that certain historical figures were actually the Christ. They looked upon Moses that way. They looked upon David and Solomon that way.
And of course their hopes and expectations were disappointed. As these expectations were disappointed, they were focused into the future. Until Jesus came along who was the perfect fulfillment of all their hopes.
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LESSON 7
> Hello, Dr. Scaer. I haven't yet introduced myself. I'm Joshua. And I serve a congregation in rural Wyoming. I really like what you've had to say about Christ being the author and the content of the Old Testament as he is the New. In past classes we've certainly explored how scripture communicates truth about Christ. Some of what we've learned leads me to want to ask you: What does all this have to do with what is called Messianic prophecies and typology?
> DR. DAVID SCAER: Josh, it's -- you really have an appropriate name, also, to ask this kind of question because I'm assuming your name is Joshua, which means God saves, which is the same name as Jesus, that Jesus has. Now, the question -- your question has two parts. That is what about Messianic prophesies and what about typology? There are certain sections of the Old Testament which the church has recognized as being more explicit in predicting and describing the future figure who'll come to redeem God's people Israel.
We know them in Genesis 3. That the seed of the woman will defeat the seed of the serpent. There's the explicit prophesy that the Messiah is going to be born in the city of David in Bethlehem. These are called direct Messianic prophesies.
Typology has to do with those figures in the Old Testament which have certain characteristics which resemble Jesus and which Jesus will bring to perfection. Let's just take the most important one. And that would be the figure of Moses.
Moses is the person who established Israel as God's people. It was Moses who brought the word of God to God's people. It was Moses who served as the redeemer of God's people in bringing them through the Red Sea and saving them from the Egyptian forces.
We should be very careful about using the term typology as if we are putting something into the Old Testament that's not there. I'm very uncomfortable with the phrase typology because it leaves that kind of impression. Rather, we should see the entire Old Testament not only as the inspired word of God given us by the Holy Spirit, but also the place from which Christ speaks to us. And when he speaks to us, he speaks about himself. And therefore, we should be ready and willing to find Christ in all places of the Old Testament.