# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1858_S331
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Against Chiliasm etc. 331

certainly no worldly kingdom, but rather a divine and glorious one,
will have for a thousand years (where does the Apostle Paul say
anything about a thousand years?), for the blessing of the peoples —
and who then, together with him, will one day come to judgment. Löhe
also speaks here of our age not being the last one, but rather a
period which yet another will follow: a time of higher revelation for
the peoples, who would then, indeed, in part still be converted during
the thousand years — a highly questionable doctrine! — But let us set
that aside and look more closely at the matter itself. Christ's coming
in the clouds — visible — a partial resurrection, namely of the
deceased believers, that is, in glorified bodies — in addition, the
believers still present in the world are also transformed, laying
aside earthly flesh and blood, likewise glorified — all caught up into
the air — so that only the unbelievers remain on earth, and now see, for
a thousand years, a great kingdom of the glorified hovering in the
air: that will convert many; for such a spectacle surely converts more
powerfully than the wretched “homespun” preaching of the cross and of
the forgiveness of sins (?) — but as for those thus converted
afterward — do they too then go up into the air, or do they remain
with the unbelievers on the earth? — If the first is the case, then the
question again arises that already arose before, when the first went
up into the air: how, then, can a world of men still exist for a
moment, once the believers have all been caught up and away into the
air? Did not Sodom have to perish as soon as Lot had departed? And if
the second is the case, that the newly converted remain on earth, then
not all believers are glorified, so that some believers, after all, do
not have the “first resurrection,” even though they are supposed to be
living in the middle of its time.

Or otherwise: are those in the air supposed to associate freely and
continually with the unbelievers? What confusion that would produce,
and what a step backward for the blessed, to be cast back again into
the filth of this world! And what contempt it casts on the means of
grace of our time, if only then the glorified must preach grace
(against Luke 16), and afterward, on the whole, accomplish so little
that even their own airy kingdom must once again vanish! — And what is
one to make of this: that this kingdom in the air is supposed to be for
the blessing of the peoples (on earth), and yet be “no worldly
kingdom”? The peoples are indeed of the world, and if a blessing is to
befall them from the airy kingdom, then it must be in this world, and
worldly too. But perhaps by “not worldly” he only meant, for the time
being, to escape the damnamus [we condemn] of the Augsburg Confession?
— A vain effort! — But if it is called a divine and glorious kingdom,
how then can it last only a thousand years? How can one even speak of
“a” divine kingdom, as though there were several? Or is it supposed to
mean a perfectly divine and glorious form of the one eternal kingdom of
God — then that too has its difficulty: for if the full divine form is
already there, how can it still have to yield again to the devil? That
the church's forms now die off one after another and fall away comes,
after all, solely