Questions on Veith
A good friend raised some excellent
questions on what Lutherans believe, which I would like to answer in a series of
posts
A good friend of Janet's and mine recently read
Veith's Spirituality of the Cross. She had a few
excellent questions after reading it and sent us an email with them. Since I
would be typing the response in an email anyway, I thought I would just post my
answers here in a series of posts - to share with all of you, and perhaps start
a discussion on any of these.
Here's her first question: The author talks about corporate confession and absolution, and he mentions in the appendix that some Lutheran church do private confession and absolution. Do you believe that any sins are forgiven at the moment of corporate absolution which were previously unforgiven in the life of a Christian?
The simple answer is no, Lutherans do not believe that confession is necessary to remove sins. The background (which I know my friend knows, but some of you may not) of this question has to do with the Catholic understanding of sin and confession that the Reformation ran up against. I'll do my best to summarize the views as I remember them.
Catholics believed there are two types of sins - mortal sins and venial sins. Mortal sins immediately condemn your soul to hell. You will go to hell unless you confess these to a priest and complete your penance - if you die in the middle of a murder, for instance, you go to hell. Venial sins are sins which harm your soul, but do not condemn you. They would be stains on your soul which you would need to work off in purgatory, but you wouldn't be lost in hell with no hope of exit. So when Catholics do private confession, they are essentially beginning the process of working their sins off. You tell a priest what you did, he tells you what you must do for penance, and then you're forgiven if you do your penance.
Essentially this means that for Catholics, their salvation is always in jeopardy. The moment you sin, you've gone back to a status of being guilty, and you'll remain there until you get to confess that sin and perform your penance for it. You're never more than one sin away from hell.
Luther came along and said that essentially there is only one type of sin - mortal sin. All sin condemns your soul to hell, and no amount of penance will wash it off. Even if you could wash it off, you'd dirty yourself right back up before you got very far - before Luther came to understand justification, he used to spend hours in the confessional, confessing every last little wayward thought or deed he had done, only to leave the confessional and think "that was a good confession I just had" and immediately run back inside to confess his pride over what a good confession he had. It was this obsession with his own sin that led him deeper into the Bible to find the real remedy for sin - Christ's death on the cross. By faith in Christ's atoning work, we are credited his righteousness and therefore are forgiven all of our sin. This is what is called "the happy exchange" - we give to Christ all of our sin and Christ gives us His righteousness. This exchange does not occur for only a set of confessed sin, but rather all of our sin. By faith in Christ's work we are truly forgiven of our sins and made right in God's eyes because of Christ's righteousness.
So why do we still have confession and absolution in our services? Even more to the point, why would we ever retain private confession and absolution if that was part of the Catholic process where we supposedly worked off our sin?
The answer also lies in Luther's obsession with his own sin. He understood that the Good News of the Gospel sounds too good to be true and our hearts are often troubled. We wonder, can it really be that God has forgiven my sins (especially this really big thing that I've hid from everyone else)? For burdened hearts who fear their sin is too great to be forgiven, it can be a great help to be able to speak to a pastor and tell them the sin with which they have struggled. To have another person, especially one who has been called and ordained, listen to their sin and then pronounce to them the forgiveness that Christ won for them on the Cross can be a powerful reminder of God's grace. The truth is they are no more forgiven than they were before they talked with the pastor, but their sin no longer weighs on their conscience. We should also be clear that the pastor himself does not forgive sins - he simply proclaims the forgiveness that Christ has given to this person.
Corporate confession serves the same function. We don't believe that by showing up on Sunday morning and reading our confession out loud together and hearing our pastor proclaim Christ's forgiveness we are forgiven of sins that were previously not forgiven. Rather, it serves the purpose of reminding the members of the church - first of their own sins, and then of Christ's forgiveness. In a way its a verbal enactment of the happy exchange - we are confessing that we have nothing to offer Christ but our sins, and the pastor is proclaiming that Christ has not only taken our sins from us, but He has also given us His righteousness.
Here's her first question: The author talks about corporate confession and absolution, and he mentions in the appendix that some Lutheran church do private confession and absolution. Do you believe that any sins are forgiven at the moment of corporate absolution which were previously unforgiven in the life of a Christian?
The simple answer is no, Lutherans do not believe that confession is necessary to remove sins. The background (which I know my friend knows, but some of you may not) of this question has to do with the Catholic understanding of sin and confession that the Reformation ran up against. I'll do my best to summarize the views as I remember them.
Catholics believed there are two types of sins - mortal sins and venial sins. Mortal sins immediately condemn your soul to hell. You will go to hell unless you confess these to a priest and complete your penance - if you die in the middle of a murder, for instance, you go to hell. Venial sins are sins which harm your soul, but do not condemn you. They would be stains on your soul which you would need to work off in purgatory, but you wouldn't be lost in hell with no hope of exit. So when Catholics do private confession, they are essentially beginning the process of working their sins off. You tell a priest what you did, he tells you what you must do for penance, and then you're forgiven if you do your penance.
Essentially this means that for Catholics, their salvation is always in jeopardy. The moment you sin, you've gone back to a status of being guilty, and you'll remain there until you get to confess that sin and perform your penance for it. You're never more than one sin away from hell.
Luther came along and said that essentially there is only one type of sin - mortal sin. All sin condemns your soul to hell, and no amount of penance will wash it off. Even if you could wash it off, you'd dirty yourself right back up before you got very far - before Luther came to understand justification, he used to spend hours in the confessional, confessing every last little wayward thought or deed he had done, only to leave the confessional and think "that was a good confession I just had" and immediately run back inside to confess his pride over what a good confession he had. It was this obsession with his own sin that led him deeper into the Bible to find the real remedy for sin - Christ's death on the cross. By faith in Christ's atoning work, we are credited his righteousness and therefore are forgiven all of our sin. This is what is called "the happy exchange" - we give to Christ all of our sin and Christ gives us His righteousness. This exchange does not occur for only a set of confessed sin, but rather all of our sin. By faith in Christ's work we are truly forgiven of our sins and made right in God's eyes because of Christ's righteousness.
So why do we still have confession and absolution in our services? Even more to the point, why would we ever retain private confession and absolution if that was part of the Catholic process where we supposedly worked off our sin?
The answer also lies in Luther's obsession with his own sin. He understood that the Good News of the Gospel sounds too good to be true and our hearts are often troubled. We wonder, can it really be that God has forgiven my sins (especially this really big thing that I've hid from everyone else)? For burdened hearts who fear their sin is too great to be forgiven, it can be a great help to be able to speak to a pastor and tell them the sin with which they have struggled. To have another person, especially one who has been called and ordained, listen to their sin and then pronounce to them the forgiveness that Christ won for them on the Cross can be a powerful reminder of God's grace. The truth is they are no more forgiven than they were before they talked with the pastor, but their sin no longer weighs on their conscience. We should also be clear that the pastor himself does not forgive sins - he simply proclaims the forgiveness that Christ has given to this person.
Corporate confession serves the same function. We don't believe that by showing up on Sunday morning and reading our confession out loud together and hearing our pastor proclaim Christ's forgiveness we are forgiven of sins that were previously not forgiven. Rather, it serves the purpose of reminding the members of the church - first of their own sins, and then of Christ's forgiveness. In a way its a verbal enactment of the happy exchange - we are confessing that we have nothing to offer Christ but our sins, and the pastor is proclaiming that Christ has not only taken our sins from us, but He has also given us His righteousness.
Posted: Sun - March 6, 2005 at 11:12 PM | | | | | | |
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Highlighted posts
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Mar 22, 2005 08:26 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Mar 22, 2005 08:26 PM
Search
The Tip Jar
Counter provided by
Brought to you by
