# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1864_S367
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Correspondence from Germany. 367

Note. a) As the disciples thus stand and marvel (for the like of this
had never before been seen of any man's body — that it should lift
itself up into the air, like a bird), two angels step up to them and say
to them: They should go back home; there was nothing more to be seen
there; the Lord would not come again upon earth from now on, until he
should come to judge the dead and the living. Then he would come down
again in a cloud, just as he had now gone up in a cloud. L. 13, 1308.

Dr. Luther says: These risen saints have gone up to heaven with the
Lord Christ, into eternal life; just as, before the Flood, Enoch, and
three thousand years after the beginning of the world, Elijah, were both
taken up alive by God into heaven; for God has always wished to keep a
sure testimony of the resurrection from the dead within his Church.
(Ibid. 1030.)

b) Philip Melanchthon reports that this company of the high, holy
fathers and prophets (see v. 3) went up to heaven with the Lord. Jonas,
sermon in Best of Pulpit Orators I, 151.

Jude v. 15 speaks so certainly of the last day, as though he already
had it before his eyes, when he says: The Lord comes with many
thousands of his saints, that is, with such a multitude as cannot be
numbered. For this must be said only of the last day, on which he will
come with all his saints to hold judgment; for before now he has not
come with many thousands of saints, but has come alone into the world,
not to judge, but to give grace. (1 Thess. 3:13, 2 Thess. 1:10.) L. 9,
1333.

c) Among the testimonies of Holy Scripture concerning Christ in the
appendix of the Symbolical Books, this testimony of the angels is also
listed under VII, as proof that such a communication of the divine
majesty happens without mingling, destruction, or denial of the human
nature, even in [its state of] glory.

────◆◆────

Correspondence from Germany.*)

Breslau, September 29, 1864.

For the purpose of discussing the pending difficult points of
controversy, a pre-commission of twenty members had been called
together ten days before the opening of the synod, to which I belonged,
along with Pastor Lohmann and others. Without delay, the theological
question of church and ministry was made, before anything else, the
subject of the deliberations. With complete calm, and without any
excitement of passion, the theological discussion was carried on by
God's grace from both sides; with earnestness, and without reservation,
the truth was borne witness to by us. For four full days the discussion
first

*) We share here two letters from our dear Brunn, in which he reports on the course of
the recent Breslau synod. The first is addressed to the Rev. Dr. Sihler, the other to the
editor of this paper. The Editor.