# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1859_S264
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

...live on, indeed, in their descendants, as their heirs) — that is: even faithful witnesses in those days left behind no proper children. This only heightens the majesty of that age. God did everything, from Pentecost on. It did no harm even when the apostles themselves were taken away. The stream had its everlasting source in God. To be sure, the church needed ministers then too; but — and this is precisely what lies in this passage — these stood in the right relation to the bride of the Lamb. When, however, the thousand years were completed, the noble grains of wheat — threshed out of the ears in persecutions, and not missed so long as the wheat-field was ripening toward harvest — proved just how necessary they had been.

They became the seed from which, in the time of the Reformation, the rich (?) fruit of the last days grew. So what remains today of the daughter of Zion — the night-lodge in the cucumber gardens, of which Isaiah 1:8 speaks — are such as have, as is said here, been left over as descendants of "the dead." (Cf. ch. 12:17: "with the remnant of her seed," and ch. 11:11: "the spirit of life from God entered into them.")

Let us now look at these words from another side. Each reader can then judge for himself which interpretation he wishes to hold to.

"The rest of the dead" ("the other dead") can also be understood in this way. Those who loved not their lives even unto death, and thereby lent the thousand years such a radiance, left behind them others who were indeed also reckoned to the church, but who were unwilling to sacrifice their lives for Christ's sake, and so did not hate them, as the Lord requires. These, too, had at last to die; but what did they then have? They simply did not live, while those others reigned with Christ. Yet for such people a time came once more — namely, when corruption, after those thousand years, rose to its very height. Indeed, for a short time they then found such demand for themselves as came out into the light of the world, and so could be called a life. Before that, their spirit never came onto the stage. But did they enjoy it? Ah, no — and that is why nothing at all is said about it.

Further, one can refer the "rest" to the enemies and persecutors. These were, in fact, such as remained over: for they had put the believing children of God out of the way, and could well rejoice in this, that they outlived the dead and, precisely because the dead were dead, no longer had to fear them. They regarded themselves as victors, and the dead as the vanquished. But it turned out otherwise. They, the living, were (according to a likewise not unusual Greek usage) "the rest of the dead" — that is, they had been left behind by the dead who had outrun them in the race, and so were themselves the vanquished. And at last they too had to die, without having, as those others had, the hope of life — until, after a thousand years, the Antichrist won the victory for them, and could play the part both of Julian the Apostate and of a Nero, with better luck than these had. But even for as long as they still lived, something was lacking to them