Do Lutherans Believe in Life After Death?

While there is much we do not and cannot know about life beyond the grave,
Lutherans do believe that life with God persists even after death. Judgment is both a
present and future reality, and history moves steadily towards God's ultimate
fulfillment.

This of course is a great mystery, and no description of what life may be like in any
dimension beyond history is possible. Anxiety for the future is not a mark of faith.
Christians should go about their daily tasks, trusting in God's grace and living a life of
service in his name.

Of the Millennium

42. With the Augsburg Confession (Art. XVII) we reject every type of millennialism, or Chiliasm,
the opinions that Christ will return visibly to this earth a thousand years before the end of the world
and establish a dominion of the Church over the world; or that before the end of the world the
Church is to enjoy a season of special prosperity; or that before a general resurrection on
Judgment Day a number of departed Christians or martyrs are to be raised again to reign in glory
in this world; or that before the end of the world a universal conversion of the Jewish nation (of
Israel according to the flesh) will take place.

Over against this, Scripture clearly teaches, and we teach accordingly, that the kingdom of Christ
on earth will remain under the cross until the end of the world, Act 14:22; John 16:33; 18:36;
Luke 9:23; 14:27; 17:20-37; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 12:28; Luke 18:8; that the second visible coming
of the Lord will be His final advent, His coming to judge the quick and the dead, Matt. 24:29, 30;
25:31; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Thess. 2:8; Heb. 9:26-28; that there will be but one resurrection of the dead,
John 5:28; 6:39, 40; that the time of the Last Day is, and will remain, unknown, Matt. 24:42;
25:13; Mark 13:32, 37; Acts 1:7, which would not be the case if the Last Day were to come a
thousand years after the beginning of a millennium; and that there will be no general conversion, a
conversion en masse, of the Jewish nation, Rom. 11:7; 2 Cor. 3:14; Rom. 11:25; 1 Thess. 2:16.

According to these clear passages of Scripture we reject the whole of Millennialism, since it not
only contradicts Scripture, but also engenders a false conception of the kingdom of Christ, turns
the hope of Christians upon earthly goals, 1 Cor. 15:19; Col. 3:2, and leads them to look upon the
Bible as an obscure book.

A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod