As we approach Reformation Sunday, I thought I would reread the 95 Theses posted on the castle church. Often the only one’s content mentioned is the first. But I wanted to comment on the Third:
There is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work various mortifications of the flesh.
In our effort to guard the gospel, we often move away from this truth. We are so fearful that people will think that the can earn absolution that we often do not care if there is any fruit of repentance at all. But these mortifications of the flesh are the normal result of true inward repentance caused by the working of the law and the knowledge of the beauty of the gospel. One who is repentant of sin does want to leave it behind. In the words used in liturgies often considered pietistic by many Lutherans today, the truly repentant man seeks to amend their sinful life. He does not seek to do a work to prove his repentance or earn forgiveness. True repentance simply works this fruit in his life. The one who has stolen makes things right. The one who has hurt the reputation of his neighbor seeks to restore it. The one who broken the law turns himself in. Not to earn absolution, but because true repentance has been worked in him by God through his word.
This is particularly important in the case of marriage and reconciliation. Way to many people leave their marriages for unbiblical reasons and then later claim repentance in order to remarry someone else. But such action is not true repentance where reconciliation is still possible. If you are sorry you left, you return. If reconciliation is not possible, you remain single. Yes, it is a hard word, but it is Jesus’ Word.
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife.
It is just what true inward repentance does. It works outward mortifications of the flesh.
