"No Salvation Outside the Church" in Light of Luther's Dialectic of the Hidden and Revealed God (Martin Luther‪)‬

Ralph W. Klein has been a seminary professor for four decades. A great deal of his scholarship and teaching has intentionally addressed the life and mission of the church as well as the academic context. This exploration of Martin Luther's theological insights and their contemporary implications is intended to celebrate Klein's commitment to the gospel, his sensitivity to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, and his conviction that theological scholarship can focus on practical questions of faith and of the church's calling in the world. The claim that there is "no salvation outside the church" has been an integral part of the Christian tradition since the time of Cyprian in the third century. While it continues to be affirmed within the Christian community, it also has inspired substantial debate. Its theological, missiological, eccle-sial, and ecumenical implications are varied, and it presents the contemporary church with complex challenges as the church strives to carry out God's mission in the world. The assertion is consistent with Luther's evangelical perspective. At the same time, Luther's dialectic of the deus revelatus and the deus absconditus provides contemporary theologians with resources to amend and reinterpret this assertion.