Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 540
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 540

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

DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND IMMORTALITY 509

8:11; 1Cor.15:51-54). Finally, the New Testament
affirms that the physical bodies of the departed faith-
ful will be glorified. (1 Cor. 15:51-54; Phil. 3: 20-21)

Il. The Concepts of Soul, Death, and Life
After Death in the Christian Tradition

The whole Christian tradition expresses in its doc-
trinal treatises, its hymns, and its liturgies the convic-
tion that believers continue to exist after physical
death. Sometimes these expressions employ the body-
soul language which is so characteristic of Christian
piety today; sometimes one finds unitary language. Thus
Clement of Rome (A.D.95) uses Biblical unitary Jan-
guage when he says that Sts. Peter and Paul went im-
mediately to the holy place after their death (1 Clem.
6:1-7; see also 50:3). Irenaeus (ca. A.D. 175) employs
the body-soul pattern of language and speaks of souls
of Christians going to “invisible places designated for
them by God,” where, after the resurrection, they will
receive bodies, “just as the Lord Himself.” (Adversus
Haereses 5:31; see also Martyrdom of Polycarp 17:1)

Martin Luther reflects the variety of Scriptural lan-
guage when he speaks of death and of the condition of
the departed faithful. In some passages he speaks of a
distinction between body and soul (W. A. 36, 241),
while in other passages he affirms the unitary nature
of man also in the state between death and the resur-
rection (W.A., Tischreden [Ser. 2, vol. V, No. 5534],
218 f.: 43, 218). Thus he can speak both of the whole
Abraham being with God and of the “soul” of Abraham
resting or serving God (W.A. 48, 480). He also re-
peatedly expresses his faith that the body will be raised
on the last day. (W.A. 12, 268; 36, 605)

The Lutheran Confessions, the normative statement
of Biblical doctrine for Lutherans, speaks, like Scrip-
tures, of man as having a body and a soul (Formula of
Concord, Epitome IX, 1: Large Catechism, Baptism 45;
Smalcald Articles, Part III, Art. I, 11). But the refer-
ences cited here clearly teach that man’s body and
soul are integrally united; both are corrupted by sin
and subject to death (F.C., Epit. I, 4: S.D. 1, 2. 46£.;
S.A., Part III, Art. I, 11). Together they constitute
man’s essence or nature (F.C., S.D., I, 2). According
to the Athanasian Creed the rational soul and the flesh
are one man, as God and man are one Christ (35).

The Confessions agree with Scripture and the all
but unanimous tradition of the church in assigning sig-
nificant theological meanings to death. The Confessions
rule out the contemporary view that death is a pleasant
and painless transition into a perfect world. For them
death is destruction: the destruction of the sinful flesh
so that believers may arise completely renewed (Apol-
ogy XII, 153; F.C., Epit. I, 10). Death is also the divine
eternal judgment on body and soul—a horrible and
frightening prospect to contemplate — except for those
who live in Jesus Christ.

The Confessions affirm the persistence of personal
identity beyond death. For example, the Smalcald
Articles refer to the saints “in their graves and in

heaven.” (Part II, Art. II, 28; II, III, 26; see also F.C.,
S.D. I, 37; Apology XXI, 9)

The Lutheran Confessions permit the use of the
expression which is so deeply embedded in Christian
piety: “The soul of the departed has gone to heaven to
be with its Maker.” But they require that this phrase
be used in a context which includes a true, Scripture-
based understanding of the meaning of death, of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of the nature of man’s
eternal existence.

Concerning the resurrection of the flesh, the Con-
fessions are crystal-clear. The Formula of Concord
speaks of our flesh rising (F.C., S.D.1, 46). The Large
Catechism affirms that “our flesh will be put to death,
will be buried .. . and will come forth gloriously and
arise.” (Creed, 57)

The Orthodox Lutheran dogmaticians of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries follow the general lead
of the Confessions on these topics. They also stress the
once-for-all character of Christ’s resurrection and the
full enjoyment of bliss which awaits the believer at
the Last Day. Leonard Hutter (1563—1616) writes that
the essential blessedness will not be achieved until the
resurrection in Jesus Christ. He asserts that “the souls
of... the believers in Christ are in the hands of God,
awaiting there the glorious resurrection of the body
and the full enjoyment of the eternal blessedness”
(Compendium Locorum Theologicorum [Leipzig: C. L.
Jacob, 1747], p.644). Martin Chemnitz likewise con-
fesses his faith in eternal life through Jesus Christ.
(De Duabus Naturis [Leipzig, 1600], p. 176)

Francis Pieper writes in a similar vein: “Holy Writ
reveals but little of the state of the souls between death
and the resurrection. In speaking of the last things, it
directs our gaze primarily to Judgment Day and the
events clustering around it.” (Christian Dogmatics,
trans. Walter W. F. Albrecht, III [St. Louis, 1953], p.
511)

Reflecting Dr. Pieper’s position, John Theodore
Mueller declares: “The Christian hope of eternal life
(John 17, 3) must... not be confounded with the pagan
doctrine of the immortality of the soul.” ( Christian
Dogmatics [St. Louis, 1934], p. 639)

Il. Summary Observations

1. The Scriptures describe man’s being in a variety
of ways. For example, they describe him as consisting
of body and soul; of spirit, soul, and body; and as a
unitary being. Since all these insights are Scriptural,
they need to be affirmed and defended, as they have
been throughout the history of the church.

2. The Scriptures declare that sin is the cause of
death — temporal, spiritual, and eternal. Natural man
is corrupted by sin in body and soul and is completely
subject to death. Death is the destruction of the flesh
(natural man), and it is this destruction which makes
it possible for the believer to rise completely renewed.

3. In some Scripture passages death is described as
the departure of the spirit or the return of the spirit