# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 02 27_S105
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
Rev. of John, Chap. 14, v. 6. 7.
„God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure.“
Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Volume 11.  St. Louis, Mo., February 27, 1855.  No. 14.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 Cents. Only the letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the Editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Contributed by Pastor Röbbelen.)

The Revelation of St. John.

The Ninth Chapter.

Luther: „In the 9th and 10th chapters the real misery begins, for until now the bodily and spiritual tribulations have been almost a jest compared with these coming plagues. As the angel also himself indicates at the end of the 8th chapter, three woes are to come, which woes the other three, that is, the fifth, sixth and seventh angels, are to carry out, and with them the end of the world. Here both spiritual and bodily persecution come together; of these there are to be three, the first great, the second still greater, the third greatest of all.

Now the first woe is the fifth angel, Arius, the great heretic, and his companions, who plagued Christendom so dreadfully in all the world that the text here well says the pious people would rather have died than have seen such things, and yet they had to see them, and not die. Yea, it says that the angel out of the bottomless pit, called Destroyer, is their king, as though they would say, the devil himself rides them. For they persecuted the true Christians not only spiritually but also bodily, with the sword. Read the history of the Arians, and you will well understand this figure and word.

The second woe is the sixth angel, the shameful Mahomet with his companions, the Saracens, who with teaching and with the sword laid a great plague upon Christendom. Alongside and together with the same angel, that such woe may be the greater, there comes thereto the strong angel with the rainbow and the bitter book, that is, the holy papacy with its great spiritual show, who measure and take in the temple with their laws, thrust out the choir, and set up a masked church or outward holiness.“

So far Luther. We now first take up chapter 9, verses 1—12. These contain a prophecy of the Arian heresy, as we know. Let us see whether everything fits.

V. 1. „I saw a star“ etc. —: that is, a teacher of the Church falls from heavenly wisdom to reason.

„The key of the bottomless pit“—: false doctrine has its well in the kingdom of darkness. Whoever teaches falsely unlocks it with the help of Satan. But he is in this only a tool; the work does not end with him.

V. 2. „and there arose a smoke out of the pit — and the sun and the air were darkened“—: the sun is the LORD Christ, who was obscured by the lie of Arius that Christ is not true God. The air is faith, which does not remain pure when Christ's honor is diminished.

V. 3. „out of the smoke came locusts“ etc.: indicates the multitude of false teachers whom Arius drew after him.

„as the scorpions“—: for false doctrine poisons the soul and bites the conscience, because it leads away from Christ and His righteousness to works of one's own.

The locusts may also be interpreted as the infernal spirits, to whom power is given over the souls of those who depart from the truth.

V. 4. „that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree“—: the Arians let the Word of God stand according to the letter, and also they were so hemmed in by the testimony of the orthodox that their speeches could not rob simple children of God of faith in Christ; those who were seduced to their false doctrine had not „the seal of God in their foreheads“, and so had already been without the Spirit of God even while the pure confession was still in the field.

The grass here is the pasture of the divine Word. „Green thing“ means the tender shoots, „tree“ the fruits of faith.

V. 5. „that they should not kill“ — indicates that no bloody persecution is meant, but a plague of souls.

„tormented“—: for pain of soul, also bodily unrest and anguish, was the consequence of the dominion of the Arian abomination.

„five months“—: a definite time, which, compared with the time given in the 10th chapter, is eight times as short as the papacy. Now the Arians arose with the fourth century and vanished in the fifth from the Roman empire. After that, 800 years fall to the papacy, as indeed it fits if one places its beginning in the eighth and its end in the sixteenth century. But this poison tree reaches somewhat further with its roots as with its crown. The Arians lost only in the eighth