# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1863_S180
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

180 Testimony against Chiliasm from the Norwegian Lutheran Church.

reign with them, and with the believers who are then still living, for a thousand years. For it would be an incomplete confession, just as also the second article of the Apostles' Creed — "from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead" — would be incomplete if Christ also came a thousand years before the Day of Judgment; and it would be a falsely-believing confession, just as also the explanation of the third article of the Apostles' Creed — "and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead" — would be false if really all, or many, of those who have died in blessedness were raised a thousand years before the Day of Judgment. Now if all the dead are to be raised on the last day, then every Chiliast, if he dies before the Millennium, excludes himself, and excludes all who die before that time, from participation in the Millennium; so this kind of Chiliasm is directly contrary to the Symbols and to Article 17, and, since these agree with Scripture, directly contrary to Scripture as well. But, it will be said, there still remains the possibility of a thousand-year kingdom for all believers who will be living when Christ comes the first time, and this would make the confessions incomplete, in that only one coming of Christ would be taught instead of two — one, to reign with the believers on earth for a thousand years or some fixed time, and one, to raise up all the dead and hold judgment. But apart from the fact that this would be not merely an incomplete but fundamentally a false confession, since it would confess and demand faith in only one coming of Christ when in reality there were two, the "view" that the believers who are living will first reign on earth with Christ for a thousand years still belongs to those "Jewish opinions" condemned in Article 17, "that before the resurrection of the dead, mere saints, godly persons, shall have a worldly kingdom." But if one confines one's "chiliastic hopes" merely to an outward state of victory and glory on earth for the believers, for a thousand years or a longer time before the Day of Judgment, without a visible coming of Christ, then such a "hope" would conflict with the explanation of the Small Catechism on the fifth, sixth, and seventh petitions. For as long as we pray these petitions, and must thereby confess that we have to strive against sin and temptation, or are exposed to "all manner of evil," etc., indeed are in a "vale of tears," from which we pray that he, "when our final hour comes, deliver us" — so long can there be no talk at all of an outward state of victory and glory on earth; for then we would no longer need these words. But to "hope" for a time on earth in which it would be senseless and untrue for a Christian to use these words at all must necessarily conflict with the Catechism. Consequently all such "hopes" conflict with the Symbols.

But even if we had never had a single word on this in our Symbols, still I ask the K. T.: is it not clearly taught in Scripture that the believers shall be raised on the last day? John 6:39, 40, 44. In any case it is taught in these passages that the believers, on the last