# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 03 27_S123
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

123

for that was the core of all papal lies, that the Mass-sacrifices offered by Roman priests on the stone altar, which were measured by number and meted out to the buyers of such new sanctuary, took, in thoroughly antichristian fashion, the Savior's place, and made repentance and faith, which one certainly cannot measure, superfluous. Therefore it could also "measure" "them that worship therein" (namely in such a temple, at the Roman idol altars), while it is God alone who knows and numbers those who worship in spirit and in truth. — We Germans are reminded in this verse already by the wording "miß" [measure] of the Roman missa or Mass, and the Holy Ghost indeed foresaw that also, when such revelation proceeded from Him.

But if one now applies this verse to the true temple of God, it has the following sense: God's Word will remain the scepter also under the papacy, to which all the world is subject: although there will be a time in which the members of Christ will have to take note especially of the word: "Awake, thou that sleepest," etc.; yet there will then also be, in concealment, a temple of God, in which the true altar, Christ, gathers His worshipers through faith. This will indeed need the measuring line of Holy Scripture: for who would easily find the narrow way, when all the world gives out the broad way for the right road?

V. 2. Although in this verse also such hints are to be found that one might take it, at least at the beginning, for a further description of the antichristian kingdom, such as would be given in the person of the Antichrist himself, as one might refer, for example, the casting out of the inner court, that is, of the forecourt, to the contempt of those who stand in the Church in the place of the laity; yet we have here for the most part a quite unvarnished judgment upon the Roman Antichrist, which the angel gives into the record in his own person. It reads thus: "the court which is without the temple" (that is, the forecourt) "leave out," etc. — that is, while God, as was said before, gathers through His Word a little flock of the elect, the ruling visible Church, however much it boasts of being within, is made manifest in the light of this Word as a mere forecourt outside the temple. That, however, belongs to the Gentiles. Thus the very same people who make so much boasting of their temple, altar and worship, who have remaining holiness to sell, are base heathen, and indeed not such as of old were allowed to wait before the Holy One in the temple until the Gospel was preached to them also, but hardened apostates, who cannot do without the light, who rather hate it, who willfully stay afar off and are therefore judged of God. And as God shuts them out from His communion, so they then also prove themselves true heathen and publicans, who do not belong to the temple of God: for they "tread under foot the holy city," lay waste the sanctuary and make of Jerusalem a heap of stones. That shall last as long as God shall give the papacy room: "forty and two months."

One might say that at this very place the angel lays aside the mask which he had, so to speak, borrowed from the devil as a homeopathic physician, before it suited the latter to see his secret wiles discovered; here he lifts the veil of holy irony, and the lightnings of divine wrath upon the Roman Antichrist shine forth from his unveiled countenance. For while this second verse still admits, to be sure, of the ironical interpretation and one can accordingly take it so: Whoever is not a priest anointed by the Pope, the people in the forecourt, who may not themselves offer Mass-sacrifices, is also not holy, is counted out and esteemed equal to the heathen; the laity let that suit them also and therefore come in throngs ("tread under foot") to Rome (into "the holy city"), to let themselves be pronounced holy and blessed there by the holy father and his clergy —, with the third verse all irony ceases, and the very form of the speech gives us to know that the Angel of the Covenant, the Son of God Himself, unveiled reveals the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

V. 3. "And I will give power unto my two witnesses" —: By these two witnesses the Jesuit Bellarmine, a chief champion of the papistical camp in the 16th century, understands Enoch and Elias. These are to walk upon the earth in sackcloth at the time when the Antichrist comes (the papists, namely, are still waiting for it). So lucid does the antichristian crowd make Scripture with its dreams, especially when it is a matter of hiding itself from the light of the divine Word. But these two witnesses are all steadfast, faithful confessors of the truth of the Gospel, whom the LORD raised up in earlier centuries to contend against the Antichrist, before he received the death-wound through the blessed Dr. M. Luther. The number two points to this, that Law and Gospel belong to the full testimony of the truth, but shows also at the same time that a witness never remains alone, but when he witnesses to the truth, children of the truth and of the light are at the same time begotten, who day after day proclaim the praise of God. Since John Huss and Jerome of Prague stand out most highly in the company of witnesses of which the speech here is, and so to speak close the train, one may well assume that the LORD had them in mind in "these two witnesses."

"and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days" —: these are the 42 months, reckoned in days. Hereby it is shown, "these two witnesses will appear within the time of which shortly before the speech was, that is, under the papacy. — When the angel proclaims the destruction, he reckons by months: for the visible condition of the Church is always changeable, even when the god of this world rules in the temple. But now the count is by days, as proof that what fills up those months and from God alone under the semblance of the ruling pomp that appropriates to itself the name of the Church. Worthy of its notice may be regarded precisely the testimonies which, unbroken like one day after another, lead the stream of apostolic preaching in the narrow valley and often also under the earth through the mountains, which indeed confine its course but cannot stop it. Also the reference to the difference of day and night is not to be left out of account. To the papacy falls only the night, that is to say: it rules only in the darkness of this world. Therefore it runs its course under the moon, which stands in the heavens at night-time. But as there is no unbroken series of nights, but days fall between, so there are in the midst of the papacy days, and indeed as many as come to the 42 months. In these the Antichrist has no part, but they belong to the witnesses of Christ, who therefore properly alone come into consideration in those dark times and give the Church a history. — Already the ancients at this place called attention to the fact that from the time when Huss and Jerome of Prague began to contend against the Antichrist until their death about exactly 1260 days have elapsed, one proof more that these two witnesses here especially enter into the perspective of the prophecy and, as it were, as the most distant mountain peaks bound the prospect which at this place is opened to faith into the region of the invisible Church, hidden from the world.

"clothed in sackcloth" —: for they preach repentance and must mourn over the decay of the Church. Christ's bride, who has found a mouth in them, since before she seemed to slumber voiceless in the vault of the grave, is in their days like Rachel only, who weeps for her children.

V. 4. "These are the two olive trees" —: for as they themselves are anointed with the Holy Ghost, so the fruit of their lips is the oil of grace, with which the Comforter heals the burning wounds of troubled sinners.

"and the two candlesticks" —: as those who in the midst of the darkness of the papacy walk in the light of the Word of God and show many the way that leads to the eternal light. To John Huss and Jerome of Prague this designation fits also in so far as they had to die at the stake.

"standing before the God of the earth": Although one can refer this to the true God, who, because He has created the earth, will also preserve His witnesses upon it in spite of all hostile power, yet it is also obvious to understand these words, in contrast to v. 13, so that they are an allusion to the reigning idolatry, which has set up on earth another god than the "God of heaven," who later, according to v. 13, comes again to honor. This is precisely so great a wonder, that these two witnesses stand before the god of the earth, that is, the Antichrist, and are preserved so long from his wrath as the LORD wills.

V. 5. "And if any man will hurt them," etc. —: Here the power of their testimony is described. The Word of God is in their mouth, but that is for all its adversaries