# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 02_S74
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

74

V. 2. The great voice of the strong angel is an image of the world-shaking power with which Christ breaks forth unrecognized. No people of the earth can escape the pangs which accompany the appearing of the LORD. He gives All something to guess at, and All must also notice this much, that a riddle is set to the whole world. But further they notice nothing; this teaches

V. 3. No one knows where this is leading. In heaven, that is to say among those who are first aroused by the stirring of all powers to wait for the things that are to come; that he who sent them knows the answer, from whom it comes, needs no mention — no one sees through the plan which the LORD has devised. Although there also all the angels take part in what goes on, yet it has not been revealed to them; they only desire to look into it. On earth no sage fathoms it. Under the earth there lies buried no one either, who might have left behind so wise a word that his writings could help to solve the riddle.

V. 4. Even he who clings to Christ with [illegible]em faith has only tears of longing for light, since even to him the ways which the Lord goes with his children in what is to befall them conceal impenetrable darkness. The tears are at the same time a sign that the congregation of God has most cause to lament with the prophet (Isaiah 45, 15): "Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour!" She sighs deepest under the weight of the judgments of the LORD. Yea, she sighs alone. She represents the LORD in the world and against the world. Just as Christ therefore suffered alone while Jerusalem rejoiced; so judgment begins at the house of God. But that is a severe trial for the weakness of believers. Then the light of faith wraps thick darkness about itself, as when the sun lost its shining, Luke 23, 45. Then even the dearest children, in whom Christ has gained a form, cry out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The LORD meets their weakness

V. 5 with the remembrance of His strength. An Elder directs the sorrowful heart to the Lion of Judah. — Not that we see the outcome and look into the secrets of God's government, but that Christ has come and has taken the power from the devil, shall be our comfort. An Elder — the preaching of the Word of God lifts up the mourning congregation. — Gen. 49: "a young lion" — Christ remains in all eternity equally strong; he does not grow old. In the bloom of manhood he accomplished in the flesh the work of our redemption.

Very comforting is the last word: "to loose the seven seals thereof." For the very times in which the course of events takes a turn, such as is understood under the seals, faith has special need of the assurance that they are in Christ's hand. It receives it here in an expression such as no human wisdom [illegible] could. He breaks the seal! One can only repeat the word. Every interpretation dies on the lips. The purest glow of poetic speech, which breathes here, lets one feel that it comes from the mouth of him who is "like a refiner's fire" (Mal. 3, 2.) "come to send fire on the earth" (Luke 12, 49.)

V. 6. "A Lamb as it had been slain"

The strength of Christ comforts not when we regard it apart from his form of suffering, wherein he has blotted out our sins. The Lamb — the blood of Jesus Christ makes the brilliance of heavenly glory bearable.

Of the number seven the necessary has already been remarked. Horn is as much as power and might. The meaning is: Christ, as he is among the Elders, that is, as through the preaching of the Gospel he lives as the Crucified and Risen One in the hearts of believers, and with the triune God makes his dwelling therein ("in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts") extends with his power through all times, and this his might is perfect. Seven single horns, because at particular times Christ's power again and again breaks forth. In between, the devil tries his power, as best he can. For example, when Jerusalem is destroyed, the one horn thrusts the Jewish people to the ground. Then the heathen rage. Again a horn, which bores the Roman empire into the ground. A third, which makes an end of the papacy, etc. Until the seventh day, that is, until the end there is still one horn left. Christ's might is not broken.

To this correspond the "seven eyes": for next to might the wisdom of this world sets itself against Christ. But though all schools perish, Christ emerges again and again.

"The seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth," let the fulness of the wisdom of Christ and the treasures of his knowledge, which the "seven eyes" first of all represent, appear as an open fountain, from which all the world draws by faith, because with open eyes it is to flee all false wisdom and every leaven of erring doctrine.

V. 8. ff. Amid songs of praise and prayers of His own, who through Him have become kings and priests and hold fast the promise that they shall be kings on earth, however little, now that the old earth still stands and unrighteousness rules upon it, it has the appearance that they are so: for still the saying holds: "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" — the Lord conducts his government.

Whoever has a mind to, let him write more about it. For this time I kiss my King's sceptre and rejoice that this is a chapter which the LORD himself has sufficiently expounded, but chiefly that I can keep silence and let the LORD reign. HE will also do it well! Press the seal of thy faith with a comforting Amen upon it, thou who hast been able to read so far.

How in Germany those who within the Lutheran Church are regarded as pillars, (Gal. 2, 9) teach concerning the Church, and regard the Augsburg Confession.

The Superintendent at Catlenburg in Hanover, Mr. A. F. O. Münchmeyer, who at the last Leipzig Conference took the lead before others and together with others signed the letter of admonition addressed by the Conference to our Synod, has published a writing under the title: "Das Dogma von der sichtbaren und unsichtbaren Kirche." Göttingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht's Verlag. 1854, 181 pages. This little book we find noticed and reviewed in the "Sächsisches Kirchen- und Schulblatt," edited by Prof. Dr. Kahnis, in the 81st and 82nd number of last year's volume. We communicate the following from this review:

"The author has treated the doctrine of the visible and invisible Church with a view to the next Leipzig Conference, for which a discussion of the same subject has been put in prospect." The author concedes, not only that "the doctrine of Luther concerning the nature of the Church remains essentially the same from his first appearance as Reformer to his last years of life," according to which doctrine, namely, the invisible Church "stands everywhere in the foreground"; but also that "the same form of the Dogma (the doctrine of the Church) is found in the Lutheran Symbols." "It is, according to Münchmeyer, beyond all doubt that the Church of which the seventh Article of the Augsburg Confession speaks can be only the so-called invisible Church. To be sure, the hypocrites and wicked are also called members of the churches in outward communion of the marks of the Church, yet this denotes no true membership, if by the Church the Body of the LORD is understood. The godless are indeed members of the devil. Therefore the Apology concludes: Since the Church, which is surely Christ's and God's kingdom, is distinct from the devil's kingdom, the godless, who are in the devil's kingdom, can surely not be the Church, although in this life, because the kingdom of Christ is not yet revealed*), they are among the true Christians and in the Church, and have therein also the office of teaching and other offices."

This concession, however, Mr. Superintendent Münchmeyer does not make because he himself accepted this doctrine of Luther and of the symbolical books, held it to be scriptural and believed it, but solely for the sake of the sincerity and the justice which he recognizes himself to owe to God and his opponents. However praiseworthy and gratifying this rare honesty is, so sad is it that Münchmeyer, as a Lutheran bishop, who has sworn a solemn oath, not only himself according to the Symbols of our

*) That is, invisible.  Ed. of the L.