# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1864_S362
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Proposal and Specimen for the Preparation of a Bible Commentary etc. 362

manifest proofs, and let himself be seen among them for forty days and
spoke with them of the kingdom of God.

Notes. The Lord, over the course of those 40 days from the resurrection
to the ascension, taught them everything they needed and strengthened them
in faith, and reminded them of what he had told them beforehand, so that
they no longer doubted concerning his person, however hard that was for
them to accept. L. 22, 476. The Lord Christ likewise set many such texts
and histories before his disciples — as with the brazen serpent, John 3:14–15 —
during the 40 days he went about with them.
Cf. Hoeck, unpublished sermon, p. 106.

At these conversations of Christ with his disciples the saints who had
risen from the dead were also present, as J. Jonas preached of this:
These saints, who rose again with their bodies (since Christ was the
firstborn from the dead), are held by some teachers — and the text of
Matt. 27:52 agrees, speaking plainly of saints, that is, not of the fewest
of the saints — to have been the highest, holiest, most eminent fathers
and patriarchs from the beginning of creation, namely Adam, Seth, Enos,
Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, likewise Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and other such holy matrons.
And of this same opinion — that these are the saints who went out of
their graves, bodies and all, from among the dead — is also the Reverend
Dr. Martin [Luther] and Dr. Philip Melanchthon, in many of their writings
and consolations which they gave forth from Easter Day on; as he,
Dr. Ph. Melanchthon, also reports, that this company of the high holy
fathers rode up to heaven with the Lord, since this conversation of the
forty days was never without the presence of the holy angels.

Now if this conversation had been held only with the apostles, Mary,
and the others, for that long, sweet span of time (namely, the forty
days), it would still have been, and is, a beginning of the eternal and
heavenly life and being, the like of which is nowhere else in all of holy
Scripture so plainly reported. Ah, dear God, if we were to give the
simple a comparison or example, it would be all the sweeter and clearer
for it. What a devout and God-fearing heart one would find, were it
possible that St. Augustine or Dr. Martin Luther should rise from the
dead, and were such a God-fearing person allowed to speak with him not
for forty days, but for a single little hour — he would give all his goods
for it. Best of Pulpit Orators I, 150.

Verse 4.

And when he had gathered them together, he commanded them that they
should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the
Father, which, said he, you have heard of me. ᵇ

Notes. a) It appears altogether ridiculous, indeed unbelieving and
offensive, in the eyes of the Jews, that the Lord should thus leave and
set aside Jerusalem, the priesthood, and everything belonging to the
government, and on that account take no account of it,