Concerning Repentance – part 20
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 2 Corinthians 5:20b–6:1
Series: Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Click for audio of today’s devotion.
From the Confessions: The Defense of the Augsburg Confession
VIII. That canonical satisfactions are necessary for redeeming the punishment of purgatory, or that they profit as a payment to blot out guilt. Uninformed people understand it in this way.
Pulling It Together
The uneducated persons mentioned in this eighth statement in the list of false teachings are the very ones teaching those doctrines. Melancthon referred to them as “uninformed” since they relegated believers to a purgatory. Because it was taught in the schools that satisfactions are made to apply only to the punishment — instead of Christ being the satisfaction for sin — there had to be a place in the schoolmen’s minds where believers went when they died but had not yet paid the entire debt of their sins.
The Lutherans however, confessed that everything hinges on Christ. He bore our sin on the cross (1 Peter 2:24) so that we would be made “the righteousness of God.” This free gift of God (Romans 6:23) does not depend upon our righteousness or our satisfactions for sins. Our devotion and good works are not the point. Righteousness and salvation are not about our love, but instead, rest completely in God having loved the world so much that he sent his Son to be the propitiation for sin (1 John 4:10). God in Christ has reconciled us to himself. Do not receive his grace vainly by now trying to make satisfactions for your sins.
Prayer: Dear Lord and Savior of the world, move me to know your great love and be at peace in you. Amen
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Author
Rev. Dr. Mark E. Ryman has served as Pastor for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury, NC, since 2021. Previously, Pastor Ryman served congregations in North Carolina and Ohio, as well as a call to specialized ministry with Sola Publishing.
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