# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1859_S341
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On Advent Sermons. 341

...on account of their unbelief. Everything must depend, from the beginning of the world to the end, upon this bodily coming, through which clinging the bondage ceases, whenever and wherever and in whomever such clinging occurs. Therefore each person's time is fulfilled for him when he begins to believe in Christ as the one who was to come in former times and who has now come." (W. A. 12, 305 ff.) Accordingly, for all unbelievers among Jews and Christians their whole lifetime is, properly speaking, a time of waiting, on account of their unbelief; whereas for the believers of the Old Testament their whole lifetime was a time of fulfillment, just as it is still such for all believers now, although salvation, with respect to its perfect vision and undisturbed possession, will be fulfilled only in eternal life through Christ's other coming, according to his words: Look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near. Luke 21:28. Accordingly Dr. Luther describes the purpose of Advent briefly and clearly, in a way not easily found elsewhere, in these words: "Because salvation was in former times promised and believed, but is now fulfilled and has begun, one still keeps at this time the memory of the old promise and of the salvation that was then still to come; for since we live, as it were, between the two advents, we ought rightly to praise God's mercy, who once promised it, and God's truthfulness, who has kept his promise and will at last fulfill it in eternal life; for this is the time in which the goodness of the promise and the truth of the fulfillment meet one another, Ps. 85:11, and thus the present time comprises within itself both the future and the past." (Ibid., 1406 ff.) So he also says of the earlier ceremonies of Advent: "they were instituted and ordered in the best and most sincerely Christian spirit, to thank God for the incarnation of his beloved Son, our Lord Christ." (22, 800.) This goodness and faithfulness of God is further celebrated by the oldest Advent hymns, e.g.: Savior of the Nations, Come, etc.; From Adam's Time So Long Ago, etc.; Come Now, Jesus, etc.; God Be Thanked Throughout the World, etc. But above all, the Gospel for the first Sunday in Advent grants us, like the open portal of a lofty cathedral, a complete overview of all the glorious things that are to be preached during the Advent season; for it proclaims to us that everything that happened at Christ's entry into Jerusalem happened so that what was spoken through the prophet Zechariah 9:9 might be fulfilled: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, etc.; next, it also directs our gaze to the whole Church of God in the Old and New Testaments; for according to Dr. Luther's spiritual interpretation, the crowds that go before signify all the Christians and saints before Christ's birth, while those that follow after signify all the saints after Christ's birth; they all believe and cling to the one Christ. The former awaited him as one still to come, the latter received him in times now past, and therefore they all together sing one little song, praising and blessing God in Christ." (11, 61.) Accordingly, apart from the four Advent Gospels, in the afternoon