Only Lutherans Are Going to Heaven?

Do you think only Lutherans are going to heaven?

On the heels of my writing that the LCMS and those in our global fellowship are the only right teaching church, folks will hastily and uncharitably say things like, “I bet you think only Lutherans are going to heaven!” or “Pastor’s gonna be surprised that there aren’t only Lutherans in Heaven.”

Of course, that’s neither what I believe nor what I teach. We think of ourselves as smart and witty when popping off like that. “There you sit, like butter in sunshine,” encumbered in wit neither by speed nor sharpness. (Luther’s Works AE, Volume. 40, p. 252, © CPH, St. Louis, MO) It’s really just the rude and disrespectful talk over to which our sinful tongues are given. The eighth and fourth commandments warn us against such idle claptrap.

There will most certainly be Non-LCMS Lutherans in heaven. We trust here not in the false teachings of other Christian churches. Instead, we trust in the felicitous inconsistency. Luther coined the term, but we understand its use better from Francis Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics (Vol. I: p. 6, 72, 84, 87-91; Vol. II: p. 156 © 1950, CPH)

The felicitous inconsistency is a happy accident, a result differing from what false teaching is likely to deliver: unbelief and hell. The felicitous inconsistency is the teaching in Christianity that where the Word of God is heard, true faith may spring-up in contradiction of false teaching. This is no guarantee. It’s our hope and prayer that the Lord grants faith to those who hear and preserves them in that faith. This hope and prayer flies against the false teaching in heterodox churches. It isn’t a thing we ought to expect or into which we ought to place our trust.

Loving our family, friends, and neighbors requires us to encourage them away from false teachers and heterodox churches. Simply being in a “Christian” church is good, but it’s certainly not good enough. In love, we ought to want our loved ones to hear only right teaching. We should want the Word of God AND right teaching entering their ears and hearts together rather than simply hoping God will preserve them.

Even in orthodox churches like our LCMS churches, Jesus warning about wheat and tares still holds true (Matthew 13:24-30). There will still be unbelievers gathered with the faithful until the last day. Only then the Lord will finally sort us into the fire and into salvation. Fear not! If this worries you, that’s great news. The unbelieving tares don’t care about their salvation one bit. That’s not you.

All that being said, there will certainly be non-LCMS Lutherans in heaven. But, in heaven we will all finally be Lutheran. In heaven we will all finally trust in grace alone apart from works. We will never doubt the salvation won on the cross, delivered in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and sealed with us in the bodily resurrection. And, there will not be one unbeliever among us.

Hang tight, there’s more to be said about this felicitous inconsistency concerning the false teachers too. In Christ all will finally be one, just not quite yet.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
And
Mission Planting Pastoral team
Epiphany Lutheran Church, Bastrop, TX