# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1860_S276
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

276 A Scriptural Proof against the Union.

for Satan's release to lie. According to the word of the Lord in John 12:48, "he that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day," the judgment upon the ungodly belongs to the last day. This too the Chiliasts assign to the absolute end.*)

It is also of decisive significance that the rest of Holy Scripture knows nothing at all of a resurrection of the righteous before the general resurrection, that Scripture everywhere knows only one resurrection, so that the Apocalypse, with its teaching of a twofold resurrection, would contradict the analogy of faith and would thereby deny its own canonical character. Already in the foundational passage, Daniel 12:2, some arise, manifestly at the same time, to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting contempt, and there is no trace of a twofold resurrection, of a long interval of time between the resurrection of the righteous and that of the wicked.

(To be concluded.)

A Scriptural Proof against the Union.
(From Zöller's tract: That the Prussian Union Is Sin.)

2 Corinthians 6:14: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what partnership hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what fellowship hath light with darkness?"

I recently read a letter, written by a believing pastor of the state church to a schoolteacher who, burdened in his conscience by the Union, had written to him asking for counsel. The answer was: what Paul, in the passage just cited, says of belief and unbelief, of light and darkness, refers to the relation of the Christians at Corinth to the heathen there, that is, to the relation of Christians to heathen in general; but in the case of the Union what is at issue is the relation of Lutherans to the Reformed, that is, of Christians to Christians; consequently this passage is no proof at all that the Union is sin. The view of this pastor concerning the interpretation of this passage of Scripture is not an isolated one; on the contrary, it is shared by many pastors and laypeople standing within the Union. But it is fundamentally false, and because many a soul is thereby led astray and confirmed in error, I will try, dear reader, to lead you into the correct understanding of these passages of Scripture,

*) It is remarkable how Bengel distinguishes himself from the present-day Chiliasts by his freedom from bias. In the Gnomon he makes no attempt whatever to force his Chiliasm against the plain wording of the other sayings that contradict it, but rather states without further ado what runs counter to Chiliasm. Thus he remarks, for example, here: "On one day will be both the resurrection and the judgment. The mention of the last day has great significance both for believers and for unbelievers." He expresses himself just as impartially on 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16.