St. Paul teaches ... in Rom. 3:10-12: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong. And in Acts 17:30, Now he commands all men everywhere to repent. He says all men,?? that is, excepting no one. Such repentance teaches us to acknowledge sin, that is, to acknowledge that we are all utterly lost, that from head to foot there is no good in us, that we must become altogether new and different men. This repentance is not partial and fragmentary like repentance for actual sins, nor is it uncertain like that. It does not debate what is sin and what is not sin, but lumps everything together and says, We are wholly and altogether sinful. We need not spend our time weighing, distinguishing, differentiating. On this account there is no uncertainty in such repentance, for nothing is left that we might imagine to be good enough to pay for our sin. One thing is sure: We cannot pin our hope on anything that we are, think, say, or do. And so our repentance cannot be false, uncertain, or partial, for a person who confesses that he is altogether sinful embraces all sins in his confession without omitting or forgetting a single one. Nor can our satisfaction be uncertain, for it consists not of the dubious, sinful works which we do but of the sufferings and blood of the innocent Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. - Martin Luther
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 12:00:03 +0000
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