Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1938 · 37th Convention, St. Louis › Page 230
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1938, Page 230

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

230 Intersynodical and Doctrinal Matters

3. A third non-fundamental doctrine on which the Declara-
tion of the American Lutheran Church representatives report is
the “assumption of a physical resurrection of the martyrs.” The
Declaration does not state that this is the doctrine of the American
Lutheran Church. It merely declares that, if any one teaches this
physical resurrection, the American Lutheran Church is not ready
to deny church-fellowship merely on that account.

In regard to this assumption of a physical resurrection of the
martyrs before Judgment Day the Missouri Synod teaches that
this is a misinterpretation of Rev. 20:4, since, according to the
statements of the Scriptures and the confessional writings there
will be only one resurrection, and that on Judgment Day. Your
Committee finds that the synodical fathers have declared that this
erroneous assumption need not be divisive of church-fellowship.
(Lehre u. Wehre, Vol. 18, 1872, p. 74 ff.)

4. The fourth point in the teachings concerning the Last Things
on which the Declaration of the American Lutheran Church repre-
sentatives reports is the thousand years of Rev. 20. This Declara-
tion is willing to leave the time of the fulfilment of these prophecies
(whether in the past or in the future) undecided. It demands of
those who place the thousand years in the future that they profess
the truth that the Church on earth, until the return of Christ for
Judgment, will continue to be a kingdom of the cross and that
all Christians should be prepared for the coming of Christ at
any moment.

In regard to the fulfilment of these thousand years in Rev. 20
and the question as to whether they lie in the past or in the future,
Synod has allowed the right of different interpretation of this
passage, provided such interpretation is not out of harmony with
the analogy of faith and no chiliastic associations are involved.

In all other parts of our teachings concerning the last times
the American Lutheran Church representatives agree with us.
Their Declaration repudiates chiliasm by emphasizing that the
Church will continue to be a kingdom of the cross until the end
and by asserting that “Christians must at all times be ready for
the return of Christ.”

(c) In the fundamental doctrines discussed in the Declaration
of the representatives of the American Lutheran Church we note
in connection with the doctrine of the Church that they declare
it permissible to speak of “a visible side of the Church” when
defining its essence “if by this visible side nothing else is meant
than the use of the means of grace.” While the Declaration of the
American Lutheran Church representatives, in accepting our Brief
Statement, also accepts the doctrine of the Church as the invisible