# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1860_S148
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

148 Survey.

proper being and citizenship in heaven, how should the church then not continue on into the world to come, which is her proper place? On the other hand it lies clearly before us that the kingdom of God has already taken its beginning with Christ's first coming. The kingdom of God, says Christ, has already come unto you, Matt. 12:28; it does not come with outward signs, but is already in the midst of you, Luke 17:20-21. The parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13 all refer to what our dear opponents call the "church age." To that age alone apply, for example, the parables of the mustard seed and of the leaven.

These parables of the kingdom alone are sufficient to rouse one from the dream of a thousand-year kingdom still to come. What is asserted about the peculiar properties of this kingdom, which men adorn so fantastically, stands in direct contradiction to what is stated in the parables about the character of the kingdom of God throughout the whole time up to the last judgment — the point which, according to Apoc. 20:15, lies after the thousand-year kingdom. From Christ's first appearing until the time when the wicked are cast into the furnace of fire, v. 42, 47 — that is, during the thousand-year kingdom as well — there will be weeds in the kingdom of God: sons of the evil one, those who practice wickedness alongside the good fish, rotten ones alongside the sound, evil alongside good; throughout this whole period the influences of Satan will continue, he will be unceasingly bent on sowing weeds. This is a stumbling block that no effort of our opponents will remove from the way. The groundlessness of the expectations regarding an outward restoration of the Jews, which go hand in hand with that view of the thousand-year kingdom, and out of which men prophesy that "the world's central railway station" will in future be in Jerusalem, has already been demonstrated earlier in these pages. We note here further that the correct consequence drawn from these views has recently produced, in Berlin as well, a sect that has arisen — the "Christian Israelites" — who make enrollment in the "Book of Life" dependent on undergoing circumcision. If all the promises given in Scripture to Israel belong to the Jews, if they alone are the priestly people, and all others are, so to speak, mere helots in the kingdom of God, then it is of course quite natural that one should make use of the means already offered in the Old Testament in order to escape from this degrading condition. Or are the Gentile Christians under the New Covenant supposed to be placed even lower than the proselytes from heathenism were under the Old Covenant — proselytes to whom circumcision opened access to all the rights of the people of God?"

Survey.
From Freimund's Wochenblatt.

— — From all that we have considered thus far, there emerges the undeniable perception that our time is a time of great decision,