Saints in Heaven

[Kotton]

Greeting Group:

I'm in the Lutheran Learship Training Institute. One of our classes is called Cross Ways. Yesterday I was informed by the teacher, using the book, that Lutherans do not believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul was just talking about a vision he had, not death. Furthermore when we die the spirit simple goes to sleep until resurection day. Of course we don't know we have been asleep so we think we go directly to heaven. However that is not true. There are currently no Saints in Heaven. The only people in heaven are Moses and Elijih and maybe Enoch. Everyone else is asleep.

Now I've always thought we believed that our spirit goes to heaven upon death and waits there for our body. I'm trying to find official information about our belief. I see in the Smalclad articles 230:9 that "saints in heaven may make intercession for the church in general (but we are not to pray to them nor ask for thier intercessions). From that I infer that the writters of Smalclad thought the Saints were in Heaven, not asleep.

The teacher went on to say that When Jesus told the thief on the cross "today you will be with me in paradise". This was not a promish of Heaven but simply a way of saying today you and I will be in the land of the dead. Further more when Jesus went to preach in hell after his victory on the cross, He preached to no people, for there are no people in Hell, only to The devil and his co-horts, and he actaully did not preach to them, just kind of told them he had won.

At any rate, Can anyone help me out on our belife in what happens after we die????

 

[Melethiel]

That's definitely not a Lutheran teaching...as the Smalcald Articles state, we believe that the saints who have passed away are in heaven praying for the Church, and furthermore we confess during the Liturgy that we are praying together with all the hosts of heaven. And turning toward Scripture, we find St. Paul writing that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."

That sounds like an Adventist belief.

 

[Kotton]

That's definitely not a Lutheran teaching...as the Smalcald Articles state, we believe that the saints who have passed away are in heaven praying for the Church, and furthermore we confess during the Liturgy that we are praying together with all the hosts of heaven. And turning toward Scripture, we find St. Paul writing that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."

That sounds like an Adventist belief.

Thank you, I'm glad I did not immagine that that is what we believed for 60 years.

 

[RadMan]

That's an odd choice for LLTI to have since the LCMS and ELCA already have a prison ministry program. Wonder why your group uses them since they are more cross demoninational?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

There was an offhand comment by Luther somewhere, but then, he was a bit of an offhand guy. Pay it no heed- we believe that the dearly department are living a spiritual existence with God until the resurrection of their bodies.

 

[Kotton]

Thanks everyone for your help. Radman, I'm not sure what you mean- LLTI has little to do with prision ministries. It is a class to produce decons and Parish assistance. I've had quiet a bit of theological problems with Cross Ways, with is a two year Bible study. Some days it sounds more like the Jesus Seminar than like something the LCMS would endorse. For instance the book of Daniel was actually written after all of it's supposed prophesy and is about some other evil king but the author had to pretend to be talking about things that happened years before. Also a number of the books of the new testement were not written by the people who are preported to write them, but by some other folks, who may or may not have know the important person, such as John or Paul, but pretended to be that important person in order to have the church think what they were writing was important. The teacher said it was not important who wrote the texts and they were not ment to be deceptive, but rather the writters really thought they were writting what the real guy would have said He said he found that this was encouraging as it lets him know when he writes his sermons heis just as inspired by the Holy Spirit as the writters of the scriptures. I'm finding it very Odd!!!

 

[Edial]

Greeting Group:

I'm in the Lutheran Learship Training Institute. One of our classes is called Cross Ways. Yesterday I was informed by the teacher, using the book, that Lutherans do not believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul was just talking about a vision he had, not death. Furthermore when we die the spirit simple goes to sleep until resurection day. Of course we don't know we have been asleep so we think we go directly to heaven. However that is not true. There are currently no Saints in Heaven. The only people in heaven are Moses and Elijih and maybe Enoch. Everyone else is asleep.

Now I've always thought we believed that our spirit goes to heaven upon death and waits there for our body. I'm trying to find official information about our belief. I see in the Smalclad articles 230:9 that "saints in heaven may make intercession for the church in general (but we are not to pray to them nor ask for thier intercessions). From that I infer that the writters of Smalclad thought the Saints were in Heaven, not asleep.

The teacher went on to say that When Jesus told the thief on the cross "today you will be with me in paradise". This was not a promish of Heaven but simply a say of saying today you and I will be in the land of the dead. Further more when Jesus went to preach in hell after his victory on the cross, He preached to no people, for there are no people in Hell, only to The devil and his co-horts, and he actaully did not preach to them, just kind of told them he had won.

At any rate, Can anyone help me out on our belife in what happens after we die????

Oh, being absent from the body is definitely being present with the Lord in the most literal sense.

In other words, there will not be even an instant when one is dead (away from the body) and not present with the Lord.

The transition will be instantaneous (for the believers).

And since the Judgement Seat of Christ (v.10) is in Heaven, we will go to Heaven (to be with the Lord).

2CO 5:6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

And there will be a judgement of our works in Heaven that we did while in the body. The bad works will be judged by being burned up and the good works remain as the rewards in Heaven.
Believer will not lose salvation for bad works at the Judgement Seat of Christ, he will just have less rewards.
But that's another text in the Bible.

Welcome to TCL.

Ed

 

[Tofferer]

The teacher said it was not important who wrote the texts and they were not ment to be deceptive, but rather the writters really thought they were writting what the real guy would have said He said he found that this was encouraging as it lets him know when he writes his sermons heis just as inspired by the Holy Spirit as the writters of the scriptures. I'm finding it very Odd!!!

I'd call it a faulty hermaneutic. Based upon the best available documentary evidence, we can be certain of the authorship of every book of the New Testament with the exception of Hebrews. However, because it does in fact conform to the general style of the Apostle Paul, there is a certain amount of assurance that he likely wrote it. I think your instructor should probably go back to school.

 

[Lupinus]

Upon death we go to either Heaven or Hell, soul sleep is not an official or even common Lutheran belief.

 

[DaRev]

Here is the official teaching of the LCMS:

http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2670

It is obvious that whoever is teaching you is not Lutheran and has no clue what the true Biblical teaching is.

 

[Mankin]

I personally believe that but no I do not think Lutherans hold that belief.

 

[seajoy]

I personally believe that

What makes you believe that?