# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1857_S331
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 331 —

[continuing from the previous page] ...remark, that we must seize the
opportunity to refute the errors current in our time, and to prove
before the Christian Church that, for the sake of God's Word, we could
not go along with chiliasm, and that time could not be better redeemed
than by opposing the error just as it has expressed itself in our own
setting,

Resolved, to go through Pastor Gruber's letter sentence by sentence.

Pastor Gruber had, at the beginning of his letter, appealed to Luther,
particularly to his preface to the prophet Daniel, in support of the
claim "that the prophetic word is gradually unlocked to the Church in
its several parts, according to its need, and that therefore no
traditional exegesis of the prophetic word can take place."

To this it was replied: the way Luther's teaching is presented in the
letter can easily give rise to an error, which the Synod must address.
Luther did not say that light on the prophets comes gradually through
speculation, as Pastor Gruber's words seem to assume; rather, the
prophetic word becomes clearer through its fulfillment, not through
brooding over it. Before their fulfillment the prophets are not yet
unlocked. Luther says of the passage of Revelation cited:

"Here follows now how the papacy shall fall and perish. And these are
very secret and sealed words, which are difficult to grasp before they
are fulfilled. For just as all prophecies remain hidden even from the
devil himself before they are accomplished — as God says to Moses,
Exodus 33:20: 'You cannot see my face; you shall see my back, or
hindmost part' — that is: once I have gone and have done it, you may
look after me; but ahead, where I am going, no living person can see."
(See Commentary on the Prophet Daniel, 1530, Halle VI, 1469.) And
again (on Daniel 12:4): "Here the angel plainly says that this book of
Daniel shall remain sealed, yet not forever, but until the last time,
when it shall be opened and great understanding drawn from it — which
is what we are working on now, as said above (ch. 11:25), namely that
the prophecies cannot be thoroughly understood before they are
fulfilled; afterward, once it has happened, they then bear witness to
the deed, just as Christ, in Luke 24:27, after his death, first opened
their minds to understand the Scripture. And beforehand he said: 'This
I tell you so that when it comes to pass, you may believe,' etc."
(Ibid., p. 1484). — Luther therefore did not hold the principle
attributed to him here. Human effort cannot draw new mysteries out of
Scripture and discover them; only the old ones can be better
understood. Luther does not say: God enlightens as needed, but rather:
through fulfillment. This, however, is not what the chiliasts want. We
say: we do not wish to force a particular interpretation on anyone,
nor to construct one; but the chiliasts have an interpretation that
they wish to force on the whole world, and one that runs contrary to
the analogy of faith. One would think that if anyone, it would have
been Luther who obtained light, through fulfillment, on the prophecies
still to be fulfilled. But he did not obtain it.

[SCAN: a broad binding shadow runs down the left margin of this page and reaches the type area on the last lines. Every word is still legible on the sheet itself; no letter was supplied blind.]