The Works of

Rev. Prof. Dr. F.N. Lee

Luther’s Jenseitige Eschatology

Extract from Luther’s Jenseitige Eschatology – To read the full text, click “Download” below.

Jenseitig!   Unlike the theologically-impoverished English language, German has a fine word to describe “the life hereafter” alias “the life after death.”

Jenseitig — “on the other side of”; or “hereafter in the next life.”   And that, notwithstanding the paucity of German compared to Dutch and English books thereon in modern theological literature after Kant and the Aufklärung or so-called ‘Enlightenment.’

Indeed, even the great Protestant Reformer Martin Luther is sometimes wrongly regarded as an advocate of soul-sleep, and occasionally even of postmortal annihilationism — just like conditional immortalists such as the Anabaptists, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the so-called Jehovah’s witnesses.   Yet a careful study of his writings teaches exactly the opposite — viz., Luther’s keen awareness of ongoing human conciousness also between death and resurrection —  and beyond, unto all eternity.

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