He Will Surely Find Me

What is this page about?

This page is not an argument. It is a record. It shows what one old Christian tradition, the Lutheran church, says about death, in its own words.

What does the Lutheran church teach about death? What is death? What did Christ do about it? Where is a Christian after he dies? What is he still waiting for? What can he hold on to? May he be sad?

And if all this is true, how seriously should you take a person who uses death to threaten you?

The last question is the reason for this page. In some churches death is used as a threat. “Give, or see what God takes.” “You question the pastor? Remember what happened to the last person who did.” But everybody dies, the loyal people and the difficult people. And people who hear that kind of preaching are not often told what the old church has said about death itself.

The Lutheran teaching is four words: a real enemy, already beaten.

Take away the first two words, and you will tell widows not to cry. Take away the last two words, and you have a religion that can be run by fear.

The short answer

1. Death is an enemy. “The last enemy that will be abolished is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26) It came into the world through sin (Romans 5:12). Nobody has to call it beautiful. Luther did not. He called it “that dreadful enemy”.

2. Christ has beaten it. Luther’s catechism says that Christ

has redeemed me … from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil

Martin Luther, Small Catechism

In simple words: has bought me free from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil

It also says that when Christ rose, he “swallowed up and devoured death”. In simple words: he ate death up. The comfort stands on what Christ did. It does not stand on how strong your faith feels.

3. A Christian who dies is with Christ at once. Jesus said to the man who was dying next to him: “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). The body rests in the grave. The soul is with the Lord, and it is awake. Lutherans do not teach purgatory. (Purgatory is the idea of a place after death where souls are made clean by suffering.) And they do not teach that the soul knows nothing.

4. The body will be raised. The catechism says that Christ “at the last day will raise up me and all the dead”. Heaven after death is real. But it is not the end of the story.

5. Baptism is the thing to hold on to. When your conscience accuses you, the catechism tells you to say: “Nevertheless I am baptized”. In simple words: “But I am baptized.” Baptism is something that God did to you. It does not change with your feelings.

6. You may be sad. “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) Christians are sad when someone dies. But they are not sad like people “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

7. So the threat does not work any more. Christ died to free people “who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). In simple words: people who were slaves all their lives because they were afraid to die. And Jesus said: “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” (Matthew 10:28)

What did Luther really say?

People often quote Luther’s sentence about the plague as if he did not care. He did care.

Just before the sentence, he says what he will do. He will ask God for protection. He will clean the air and take medicine. He will keep away from places where nobody needs him, so that he does not catch the plague and give it to others. Then he says:

If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me.

Martin Luther, 1527

In simple words: If God wants to take me, he will certainly find me.

And then he adds: if my neighbour needs me, I will go.

So there are three ways.

• Not this: panic. You are afraid to die, so you run away from people who need you.
• Not this: showing off. You refuse medicine and call it faith. Luther said that this is testing God in a wrong way, and that it kills other people.
• This: faith. Be careful. Be useful. Then stop worrying, because your death is in God’s hands and in nobody else’s.

In the same letter he also said that most of God’s holy people have been afraid of death. He did not blame them for it.

Which sentences are really Luther’s?

People often put words into Luther’s mouth. Here are five sentences.

The three false sentences all make Luther simpler than he was. The real Luther took his medicine, wept for his daughter, and still said that death had lost.

Where you are, and what you are waiting for

The Lutheran teaching about what happens after death is short, because the Bible’s teaching is short.

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is a Lutheran church body of today. It says the middle step in one line:

at the moment of death the souls of believers enter the joy of heaven.

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

In simple words: When believers die, their souls go at once into the joy of heaven.

Luther liked to call death a sleep, as the New Testament does. But he explained what he meant. He said that the soul “does not sleep in the same manner. It is awake.”

People forget the last step. The Christian hope is not only to go to heaven. It is the resurrection of the body. Job said it long before: “After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh” (Job 19:26). This is why Paul calls death the last enemy. A day is coming when death will be gone.

What to hold on to at three o’clock in the night

Suppose that you are very ill. A thought comes: how do you know that you are really a Christian? You have doubted. You have done things that you are ashamed of. You are afraid, and real believers are not afraid.

Many churches would tell you to look inside yourself. Did you really mean it? Do you feel peace?

The Lutheran answer is to look outside, at something that happened. Luther’s Large Catechism says it like this:

when our sins and conscience oppress us, we strengthen ourselves and take comfort and say: Nevertheless I am baptized; but if I am baptized, it is promised me that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body.

Martin Luther, Large Catechism (1529)

In simple words: When our sins and our conscience press hard on us, we make ourselves strong and take comfort. We say: “But I am baptized. And if I am baptized, God has promised me that I will be saved and have life for ever, in soul and in body.”

Paul connects the two things in Romans 6:3-5. People who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. They will also share his resurrection.

This answer does not argue with the accusations. It changes the subject, from you to Christ. A Lutheran funeral begins in the same way. The first thing that is said over the dead person is: this person was baptized.

Outside, or inside?

Here are five things that a person might say on a sick bed. This page made them up. Is the speaker looking outside, to Christ? Or inside, to himself?

The “inside” sentences stand on things that can change by the morning. The “outside” sentences would be just as true if the speaker felt nothing at all.

You may be sad

If the dead are with Christ, should a Christian cry at a funeral?

Jesus did. He stood at the grave of his friend Lazarus. He knew that he would raise him in a moment. And he wept.

When Stephen was killed for his faith, “Devout men buried Stephen and lamented greatly over him.” (Acts 8:2) In simple words: men who loved God buried him and cried loudly for him.

Luther buried two daughters. Magdalena died in 1542, when she was thirteen. Three days later he wrote to a friend:

Although my wife and I ought to rejoice on account of her happy end, still the tenderness of the father’s heart is so great that we cannot think of it without sobs and sighs, which tear asunder the heart.

Martin Luther, letter of 23 September 1542

In simple words: My wife and I should be glad, because her end was happy. But a father’s heart is very soft. We cannot think of it without crying, and the crying tears our hearts.

He did not decide that his faith had failed. His heart was broken, and he was sure that she was safe. Both were true together.

In that same year he wrote the funeral service again. He took out everything that was done to help the dead person, because Christ had already done it. In its place he put

comforting songs of the forgiveness of sins, of rest, sleep, life and resurrection.

Martin Luther, 1542

In simple words: songs of comfort about the forgiveness of sins, about rest, sleep, life and rising again.

The funeral remembers the person and preaches Christ. So the sad people have something to hold.

You may be afraid, and you may be sad. Christ’s promise stays sure, even when your feelings do not.

When death is used as a threat

For his last twenty-five years, Luther lived outside the protection of the law. The emperor declared this in 1521, and it was never taken back. Anyone could have killed him.

A year later he wrote about the day of his trial. He said that he had gone there ready to meet

as many devils … as there were tiles on the house-roofs

Martin Luther, 1522

In simple words: as many devils as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses

He wrote that God has made Christians “joyous lords over all the devils and death itself.” In simple words: happy masters over all the devils and over death itself.

His best-known hymn ends: “The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still.” In simple words: they may kill the body, but God’s truth still stays.

He also said where the terror of death comes from. He wrote that it is the devil who makes people stare at sudden deaths and at the anger of God, until they are too afraid to think.

To be fair: Lutherans do preach about death and judgment. They call that the Law. It is God’s honest word about sin and where sin leads. But the Law has a purpose. It sends people to Christ. And the Gospel always follows it: the good news of what Christ has done about it.

Three questions show the difference between the Law and a threat.

Law, Gospel, or threat?

Here are five sentences that a church might hear. This page made them up.

Check it yourself

Here are five things. The first takes ten minutes. The last is the most important.

1. Read 1 Corinthians 15, the whole chapter. Christ raised, the dead raised, the last enemy, and the question, “Death, where is your sting?”
2. Read John 11:1-44 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Jesus weeps at a grave, and Christians are sad with hope.
3. Read Luther’s Small Catechism on the Creed and on Baptism. It is free at bookofconcord.org. Fifteen minutes. It was written for children.
4. Read Romans 6:1-11 and Hebrews 2:14-15. Baptism and the death of Christ. Freedom from the fear of death.
5. Write down what you want people to read and sing at your own funeral, and give the paper to someone. Do this one. Luther’s advice was to think about death while it is still far away.