The Third Thesis (of the 95)

Most people on this Reformation Day will not read the 95 Theses that Luther posted on the door of the Castle Church.  If they have any contact with them, it will be with the first thesis.

1.  Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.

Here Luther reminds us that repentance is needed constantly in the Christian life because of the persistent flesh and the resulting sin.  The second says:

2.  This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.

Here, Luther begins to show where he is going in these theses.  He intends to show how confession as it was being practiced led people to only believe they were forgiven if their prescribed penance had been performed well enough.  Forgiveness, as the priests administered confession,  rested on one’s own works of satisfaction rather than Christ’s death and resurrection.  This could not continue

But it is the third thesis that could bring reformation to our own Lutheran Church of today, or at least parts of it.  It states:

3.  Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.

Here Luther makes clear that true repentance always comes with outward manifestations.  Luther’s concern was not truly with penance or satisfaction itself but its place in the rite of confession.  If it was was attached to confession, it was fine.  There it served as a test of true contrition (Thesis 12) and that was appropriate in his mind.  The problem was when penance and satisfaction were pronounced after or with absolution.  This gave the impression that absolution was conditionally given based on the work yet to be done by the individual.  In this place, it robbed Christ of his glory and the one confessing sin of a clear conscience.

But let me return to the thesis itself.  Inward repentance always has fruit.  The thief returns the goods.  The erring spouse seeks reconciliation.  The gossip seeks to set the story straight.  You get the idea.

Many Lutheran pastors I know are hesitant to confess the heart of this thesis.  They believe as soon as a sin is confessed it must simply be absolved.  They shudder at the idea that they might seek evidence of true repentance.  They think that somehow that would weaken the absolution they seek to deliver or think that since we cannot ever fully know whether contrition is sincere that they should not even try to figure it out.  Therefore, they send away the adulterer without ever having come clean to their spouse.  They send away the swindler with all his profits in hand.  They send away even the murderer without having turned themselves into the proper authority.  They often sanctify this response by hiding under the confessional seal.

But Luther in this thesis simply rephrases John the Baptist who told the Pharisees  to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” before welcoming them into the water.

Now obviously sometimes contrition is obvious and the fruits of it are already manifest.  In this case of course the pastor simply absolves the person delivering to them a clear conscience in Christ.  But where that is not already present, the good pastor  seeks and even requires works in line with repentance before delivering absolution.  For absolution without true contrition works nothing.  The law must humble before the Gospel can raise up.  And the pastor is called to both works, law and gospel.  As long as penance is placed with confession and not absolution, it is a useful tool to judge true contrition.  While it is true that the pastor can never know with certainty whether true contrition is present, he often knows well when it is not, especially when no fruits of repentance are present.  And in those cases, he does not quickly absolve, but tests the nature of the contrition by asking about what the manifestations of that contrition are. 

Then after this comes the joy of every pastor: to deliver a clear conscience to the person with the word of absolution.  May this word of Luther, a word he brings from the inspired words of John the Baptizer, reform the Church today.