# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1863_S185
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Testimony against Chiliasm from the Norwegian Lutheran Church. 185

...but at best only "seem" to demand it. And when K. T., following the
"hyper-Lutheran" Guericke, relates that "chiliasm has never been
church-belief or church-doctrine, while on the other hand a sober, worthy
chiliasm has never been normally rejected and does not even seem
objectionable (!)," all of this is nothing but self-contradiction; for if
the "chiliastic hope" is clearly taught in Scripture, then it is both
church-belief and church-doctrine, for the church shall and will always
both believe and teach what is clearly revealed therein, and it holds good
equally, even if it has not been confirmed "normally" in a symbolical book.
Otherwise the pure doctrine of the Lord's Supper would perhaps not have been
church-belief and church-doctrine before it became known in 1530? But if,
on the other hand, that chiliastic hope is not taught in Scripture but only
so "seems," and instead in reality contends against clear words of Scripture
concerning the coming of Christ to judgment, concerning the cross and
tribulation for believers until the end of the days, etc., then all such
hopes are equally objectionable, even if they "seem" ever so "sober" and
worthy to "hyper-Lutheran" doctors, and as resting on a genuine scriptural
foundation, and even if the church has never normally rejected them — this
makes no difference, for what is not taught in Scripture, but contends
against clear passages, is equally false, whether the church has rejected
it or not. Or should perhaps the doctrine of Arius have seemed less
objectionable beforehand, because it had not yet been "normally rejected"
by the church, or all the lies of the papacy have been more "justified"
earlier, before the Reformation rejected them, or the doctrine of
conversion after death, or of the inspiration of the Symbol, be "relatively
justified" or more permissible in the Norwegian church, because its
confessions have not normally rejected these "views"? By such talk one
sets the church above Scripture, as though it did not speak clearly enough
to tell us what church-belief and church-doctrine ought to be, or what
unchurchly "hope" and dreamy notion is, but only became intelligible and
"transparent" once the "development" of the church had opened and
explained it and had normally decided what faith and doctrine is, or what
is objectionable or "seems" to be. Yes, so the pope in Rome says too, and
many of the great, newer Lutheran theologians seem more and more to agree
with him on this, when they speak of "the open questions" which only the
normal judgment of the church can decide. Then — full stop. Then the
matter is clear, then the question is no longer open, but "closed" and
locked shut, for then the church has spoken, and the doctrine is
consolidated and ecclesiastically fixed — but until then, wholly opposed
views and conceptions are relatively justified! Just so with us too, says
the pope; but more on this later.

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