Death until Resurrection by Joseph Saligoe

Author:Joseph Saligoe [Saligoe, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781725253414
Publisher: Wipf and Stock
Published: 2020-04-23T00:27:48+00:00

Luther in 1532 to 1535

This book will now be shifting gears due to the amount of repetition seen. There is a value to repetition in that it increases the chances that the message is eventually understood. “As an educator no less than a theologian [Luther] knew that the ‘hammering process’ of constant repetition was necessary to achieve the desired end. . . . His repetitiousness at such times seems to have been largely the result of an intensity of conviction.”349 Repetition is a fairly common literary device used by specific scriptural writers, not to mention the Bible as a whole. Althaus describes Luther’s view of how a divine message can break through into someone’s thoughts, as follows: “He knew very well that God’s speaking is always a spiritual and inner moving of the heart, always a matter of God reaching in and touching the heart at just that moment. It is by God’s will, however, that this inner spirituality is completely bound to the external word preached and heard by human beings. God speaks directly to the heart only through the external word; and in this direct communication he says nothing else than what the external word says.”350

One day Luther said the following to some friends as they were perhaps sitting at a table talking: “‘Whosoever keepeth my saying shall never see death.’ Luther expounded this passage of St. John thus: we must die and suffer death, but whosoever holds on God’s Word shall not feel death, but depart as in a sleep.”351 [82 occurrences]

Luther also told his friends the following: “If there were no hope of the resurrection, or of another and better world, after this short and miserable life . . . to what purpose should we hear his Word, and believe in him? . . . Therefore it is most certain, that we do not die away like the beasts that have no understanding; but so many of us . . . sleep in Christ, shall through him be raised again to life everlasting at the last day.”352 [83 occurrences]

The year 1532 encompassed many instances where Luther mentioned “death as sleep” due to the death of a very important person, and because he lectured on Paul’s resurrection chapter in 1 Corinthians. Luther gave two speeches in 1532 for the funeral of Duke John, the Steadfast, who had organized the Lutheran Church in the Electorate of Saxony as a model that was later implemented beyond Saxony. The first one was delivered on August 18, 1532 (on 1 Thess 4:13–14), published the same year, and included fifteen instances. However, the second speech on 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 included only one mention of “death as sleep.” Due to several modern writers (e.g., Lohse) pointing to Luther’s apparently contradictory comments made regarding the death of Urbanus Rhegius in 1542 (e.g., “he is still living and functioning in death”), it is necessary to see the repetition of “death as sleep” in the 1532 funeral speech. However, a quick rundown of only brief phrases around each keyword will be provided as follows (in chronological order):

1.

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