# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S311
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The So-Called Millennial Kingdom. 311

The passage in question reads, in verses 22-24: "For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own
order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his
coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the
kingdom to God, even the Father."

In context the passage speaks only of the blessed resurrection. It
says: even so shall all be made alive in Christ. The whole chapter deals,
both before and after, only with the resurrection of believers. "Paul,"
says Bengel, "speaks here of the Christians, whose firstfruits is Christ.
And these, just as they all die in Adam, so shall they all be made alive
in Christ. Scripture deals everywhere with believers, and therefore
principally only with their resurrection, and with the resurrection of
the ungodly only incidentally." Accordingly there cannot be three orders
or classes. Those who partake of the blessed resurrection, which alone
comes into consideration here, are fully comprehended among those
"who belong to Christ." The apostle meets the impatience which cannot
understand why so long an interval should lie between the resurrection
of Christ and that of his believers — an interval which gave no rest to
the saying that even a head does not fail to draw its member after it.
To this he opposes the thought of a twofold order. With the resurrection
of the believers is here joined the (unmentioned) resurrection of the
ungodly, which is passed over in silence. Bengel acknowledges this,
showing himself more sober here than the present-day representatives
of chiliasm: "At the same time the ungodly will also rise, but these do
not belong in this blessed reckoning." The end follows immediately upon
the resurrection. The apostle has already indicated the close connection
by his very choice of the particle.*)

Further, the resurrection of believers is to take place at the coming,
the parousia, of Christ. We have already shown that in the whole New
Testament there is only one coming of Christ, and that with it, according
to the teaching of the New Testament, is bound up the resurrection both
of the pious and of the ungodly, and the end of the entire present course
of the world. The author of the newest and most extensive commentary,
Osiander, to whom the exposition of the Corinthian epistles owes so
much, feels compelled to acknowledge this. But because he, a
Württemberger, will not let go of chiliasm, he sets forth the opinion that
the coming of Christ must "be thought of not as an act concluded in a
single moment," but rather as a period of time, whose beginning the
resurrection treated of in Apocalypse 20:4-6 would constitute. But if
one does not venture to assume a twofold parousia, one will not be able
to extricate oneself from this difficulty by such a means.*) For

*) Bengel: ἔπειτα denotes more disjunction, εἶτα more conjunction. The disjunctive
force of τοῦ ἔπειτα and the conjunctive force of τοῦ εἶτα are clear from vv. 5, 6, 7. For
the twelve are conjoined with Cephas by εἶτα; the five hundred are disjoined, and from
these James; but the apostles are conjoined to him, by εἶτα.