3/15/18
Kolb, Robert. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.
Augsburg Confession XVII, “Concerning the Return of Christ to Judgment” p. 50.
Apology to the Augsburg Confession XVII, “Christ’s Return for Judgment” p. 233.
Article 17 of the Augsburg Confession teaches that Jesus “will return on the Last Day to judge, to raise all the dead, to give eternal life and eternal joy to those who believe and are elect, but to condemn the ungodly and the devils to hell and eternal punishment” (Kolb 2000, 50). The article rejects the idea that the condemned will cease to exist or that before the end all ungodly people will be destroyed.
In the Apology Melanchthon notes that “the opponents accept article seventeen without qualification” (Ibid., 233). The article is then restated in brief.