# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S521
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

510 DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND IMMORTALITY

to its Maker; in others it is pictured as the passing of
the “I,” the total person, to the eternal realm.

4. The Scriptures affirm the continued existence of
all men with their personal identity intact between
death and the resurrection, and thereafter. They teach
that upon death believers are in the hands of God and
that they are with Christ. Those who have rejected
Christ will be condemned by the judgment of His
Word. (John 12: 48)

5. The Scriptures teach concerning the resurrection
that “all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and
come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrec-
tion of life, and those who have done evil, to the resur-
rection of judgment” (John 5: 28-29). Believers there-
fore “await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will
change our lowly body to be like His glorious body.”
(Phil. 3: 20-21)

6. The Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions
compel us:

a. To reject the teaching that death terminates the
existence of man so as to preclude the possibility of the
persistence beyond death of his personal identity be-
fore God.

b. To reject the teaching that at death man is annihi-
lated in such a way as to preclude even for the grace
and power of God the possibility of his physical resur-
rection, or of his final and eternal judgment.

c. To reject the teaching that the “last things,”
namely, the eschatological acts of divine judgment and
salvation, are fully realized and consummated only
within the realm of earthly history, so as to preclude
a life or death to come.

d. To reject the teaching that the resurrection should
be conceived in such a way as to exclude the body (in
effect the gnostic heresy that matter is essentially evil
and that only the “spirit” is capable of being saved).

e. To reject the teaching that the soul is by nature
and by virtue of an inherent quality immortal, as the
pagans thought and as is taught in a number of fraternal
orders today. This concept denies the Christian Gospel
of the resurrection of our Lord and of the resurrection
of the believers through Him alone.

f. To reject the teaching that the soul “sleeps” be-
tween death and the resurrection in such a way that
it is not conscious of bliss.

7. When Scripture talks about death, the condition
of the believer between death and the resurrection, and
the resurrection itself, its primary purpose is to pro-
claim to the Christian what great things God has done
for him through Jesus Christ. Through this witness,
God offers to believers the sure hope of everlasting life
with Jesus Christ. Thus the Holy Spirit creates in the
believer joy and hope in the face of the last enemy,
death. This is our Gospel hope.