# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1863_S181
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Testimony against Chiliasm from the Norwegian Lutheran Church. 18

should be raised on that Day; and exceptions, as with Enoch and Elijah, or with those who were raised together with Christ, only confirm the rule, whereas the claim that, for instance, the martyrs or other believers should be raised by the thousand a thousand years beforehand would turn the exceptions into the rule. — Chiliasm must therefore be rejected wherever it speaks of a resurrection of believers before the Day of Judgment. I likewise ask K. T. this: is it not clearly taught in Scripture that I should expect the coming of Christ to judgment at every moment, be always ready, indeed long for it and strive after it (see Matt. 25:13, 31; Mark 13:26, 33, 37), just as we see that the apostles and all the believing fathers did? Will K. T. answer us quite simply whether she believes that the apostles, and we with them, err in regarding this as clearly and definitely taught by the Lord himself? But if she, as I believe, answers that a believer, according to Scripture, should always be ready, always believe, indeed wish and pray that the Lord would come soon, then must not every so-called "real conception" of "the thousand-year kingdom," or whatever else it may be (for instance, the conversion of the Jews), which is interposed so that I cannot possibly expect him to judgment until this has first necessarily come to pass, stand against the rule of faith — and so either this faith be erroneous and false, or that conception be false, a fable and a human invention? And should there be darker prophetic passages in Scripture which might "seem" to give room to such a conception, then, with an eye on the clear passages — to which the darker ones must always yield — I must answer that it only "seems" so to our poor unbelief and blindness, for God cannot contradict himself and speak at one place directly contrary to what he has taught as clear as the sun at another. So long, then, as neither K. T. nor anyone else can say: It is not clearly taught that we should always expect Christ, that "real conception" remains impossible. I further ask K. T.: does she not believe that it is clearly taught in Scripture that believers here on earth should always be under the cross, "fearful within, embattled without," and that, though in all this they abundantly overcome through him who loved them, they must nevertheless always call this life a "vale of tears," exposed to "manifold evil," cross, and tribulation? But if she answers, as I believe, yes to this — that this is clearly and definitely taught in Scripture — must not then she, and all who believe it, maintain that the "hope" which expects an outward state of victory and glory, peace and joy in the last time, stands directly contrary to this, and so can only be false daydreams outside the Word of God, indeed against it? For then the believers would not weep and wail while the world rejoices, but the reverse: they would be joyful and rejoice, and the world would weep and wail over its subjugation. And are not all such "hopes" merely Jewish notions of a visible, outward