# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1859_S235
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Twentieth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John. 235

The 20th chapter accordingly has two parts:
in the first, verses 1–10, the curtain is, so to speak, rolled up;
in the second, verses 11–15, what was hidden behind it appears.

Verses 1–10. Just as the span of time that stretched out, from chapter 1 to the close of chapter 19, gradually before our eyes like a curtain falling, is now suddenly rolled back up again from beginning to end.

From this it already follows that much here is gathered together in a few words as though into a ball of yarn. In order to accommodate ourselves to this manner of presentation in our book, we must remember that we are not, as has been said, being surprised in this way, and held up in the course that the clock of time prescribes for us, for the first time. In chapter 12, for instance, the very same thing happened to us. The prophecy, before it proceeded further, let us look back over the whole past. In chapter 13 it was the same again. Can it then surprise us if now, at the transition out of all time into blessed eternity, a little halt is likewise made and a survey undertaken — especially since one does not see the curtain fall so quickly, but rather, as we read in Matthew 25:5, "the bridegroom" keeps us waiting a little upon himself?

St. John, then, now reaches back a good way, as one is accustomed to say, and in his contemplation goes back to the very beginning of the New Testament. For we may not draw his following discourse any more narrowly, since it is, as has been said, the last retrospect that he makes before the end. This is also borne out, as we shall see, by its content.

Although there would be no need of this at all, since everything earlier is gathered together in one sum, the whole stream flowing as it were into the ocean, and therefore no regard needs to be paid to the particulars, even to what immediately preceded — still it must give us especial joy that the following résumé stands at the same time in the closest connection with the very victory-celebration of the Reformation just concluded. For if we look for a moment right into verse 9, we see there Luther's mighty testimony blazing like the fire on Elijah's altar. From this it becomes clear that, in a manner similar to chapter 12, the history of the church of the New Testament is led back again so far only for this reason: that the Reformation might appear once more, at the close, as a renewal of the kingdom of the risen Christ that has spread over the whole earth since Pentecost, and that the church of all ages might, in this form, go forth to meet her bridegroom. A glorious seal upon our church! What else is thereby said, but this: that she need not fear the return of Christ and the judgment; that she stands, as she has always stood, even in the light of eternity — indeed, that in that very light she hails as her own origin the fire that fell from heaven (verse 9)?

Verse 1. "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand."

The angel is, as follows from what has been said above and from the context in which alone we can grasp this difficult chapter