I am an Old Earth Creationist who has had two children baptized in the LCMS, so I am a fan of the denomination. So far as I can tell the great majority of the church (leadership) seems to hold to the view that there was no physical death before the fall of Adam. Now, a lot of conservative denominations in the United States lean that way these days, but I find it surprising that they do. The reason is simple: It appears that Martin Luther himself did not hold that view.
Here are some examples (from here) of things Luther wrote which pertain to the subject of death before the fall of Adam…
“…man[, unlike “cows, pigs, and other beasts”] is a creature created to inhabit the celestial regions and live an eternal life when, after a while, he has left the earth. For this is the meaning of the fact that he can not only speak and form judgments (things which belong to dialectics and rhetoric) but also learns all the sciences thoroughly”
Page 46 Luther’s Works, American Edition, volume I, or AE I
But it gets better, and more explicit…
On Page 92 he posits that the Tree of Life was put in the garden to keep Adam and Eve in
“full bodily vigor, free from diseases and free from weariness”.
This fits what I said in “Early Genesis, the Revealed Cosmology”. Freedom from physical death was not baked into the cake of the world before the fall, it was something available due to access to the Tree of Life.
On page 57…
"“Adam was not to live without food, drink, and procreation. But at a predetermined time, after the number of saints had become full, these physical activities would have come to an end; and Adam, together with his descendants, would have been translated to the eternal and spiritual life. Nevertheless, these activities of physical life – like eating, drinking, procreating, etc. – would have been a service pleasing to God; we could also have rendered this service to God without the defect of the lust which is there now after sin, without any sin and without the fear of death. This would have surely been a pleasant and delightful life, a life about which we may indeed think but which we may not attain in this life….”
and also on that page
"“Adam had a twofold life: a physical one and an immortal one, though this was not yet clearly revealed, but only in hope”
There is more, but surely that is enough to make my point. Martin Luther did not believe in the doctrine that there was no physical death before the fall.
