a
believer one who is constantly crawling off the altar, or is he one
subject
to other forces attempting to pull him away from the altar while he
maintains his integrity to stay on the altar and in communion with the
Lord?
I opt for the latter.
Repentance loses all meaning when we define it as being characterized by
joy. Repentance involves sorrow. Sack cloth and ashes. What is that
all
about? James 4 properly describes the mourning that should be involved
in
repentance. John wants to dismiss it because it is written to
Christians.
Well, if a person finds himself to be a sinner, whether he calls himself
a
Christian or not, he needs to repent, and James tells him how. The
admonition is that we are not to be joyful when we see that we are
sinners.
This goes right along with 1 Cor. 5 when Paul speaks of the Corinthians
being puffed up. They had a sinner in their midst, and they were puffed
up,
patting him on the back and telling him that he is saved and accepted by
God.
When Luther wrote what is known as the 95 theses, he was dealing with a
corrupt system in the church, a corrupt system of penance and
indulgences.
The whole thing is poorly written and difficult to understand by those
not
familiar with Roman Catholicism and the historical situation of penance
and
indulgences. His leading sentence is the most ambiguous of all, saying
that
Jesus was calling for the entire life of believers to be one of
repentance.
He never really defines what he means by that. He defines only what he
does
not mean. Namely, he says that repentance does not mean the sacrament of
penance, nor does it mean only inner repentance of the heart.
I truly think that Luther did not fully grasp what repentance was because
he
had one foot in the Roman Catholic Church and one foot in Jesus Christ.
Now
others take his statements to argue that repentance is joy, and
repentance
is a constant work in life. I would hope Luther would object to the
modernizing of his statements. Perhaps he would, because he ends his
thesis
by warning against those who avoid the cross and proclaim peace, peace.
His
last thesis was: "And let them thus be more confident of entering heaven
through many tribulations rather than through a false assurance of
peace."
I like this statement much better than all the commentary on what he
might
have meant by his first statement that Christ's command to "Repent" was a
call for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. It now
occurs to me that perhaps what he really meant was that one's whole life,
not lifetime, but entire body, soul, and spirit, was to be one of
repentance. If this is what he meant, then I would feel compelled to
revise
some of my words in my previous post. Perhaps my objections should be
more
directed toward the modernist's interpretation of Luther rather than
toward
Luther himself.
David Miller.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lance Muir
To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 6:54 AM
Subject: [TruthTalk] Fw: Fw: Continuing repentance
----- Original Message -----
From: Debbie Sawczak
To: 'Lance Muir'
Sent: February 21, 2006 14:23
Subject: FW: Fw: Continuing repentance
In other words, David does not seem to have taken the point about penance
and our modern psychological equivalent.
And probably both views of repentance are true--both kinds are happening.
The constant re-orienting, the constant checking the compass and
correcting
for deviation on the one hand, and the punctiliar turnings on the other.
D
From: Debbie Sawczak [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 1:57 PM
To: 'Lance Muir'
Subject: RE: Fw: Continuing repentance
I understand what he is saying about the one-time turn, but I don't think
this is what Victor/Luther meant. They mean something more like that
funny
little cliche people used to say about Romans 12:1: the problem with a
living sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar. In other words,
we
tend to actually turn off the track, and have to turn again in order to
get
back onto it. Not the track of salvation or reconciliation, but the track
of
living (proceeding with our fifth act of the play, as it were, making our
way through life in this world) out of our relationship to Christ,
oriented
to him. I would even say that sometimes, our turning off the track is a
stumbling into the morass of self-willed morality.
Is JD also making the point that repentance is not a mournful act? Am I
understanding him aright? If so, I heartily agree. Repentance is not the
same as remorse or regret. Turning back to the right direction, turning
back
into harmony and intimacy with Christ, is surely a joyful act!
D
From: Lance Muir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 1:16 PM
To: Debbie Sawczak
Subject: Fw: Fw: Continuing repentance
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Lance Muir
Sent: February 21, 2006 12:39
Subject: Re: Fw: Continuing repentance
David writes: If we really were suppose to be in a constant state of
repentance, this last phrase has no meaning. Is such were so, we should
then all be sad, mourning, without joy.
I have found, over the years, that Daivd does not appreciate a difference
between "confessing" and "repenting." The comments of James 4:8 have
to
do with "repentance," in the mind of David and that is why he says what
he
does in the above. He does not seeem to consider thte fact that James is
a
leter written to those who have already "turned around." If you are
always respenting, then, you are always in sorrow.
If repentance is more than the point in time we turn around, if it
extends
to the walk extending from this "repenting," how is it possible that
repentance is not on-going?
John
----------
"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may
know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6)
http://www.InnGlory.org
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