Repent! What? It’s Not What You Think.
Something to Consider this Reformation Day, October 31 (also Halloween[i])…
When Martin Luther writes that the life of a Christian is solely and singularly the life of repentance (as he does in Thesis 1 of the 95 Theses, famously shared in an attachment to a letter from Martin Luther to Archbishop Albrecht von Brandenburg, of Mainz, Germany, on October 31, 1517), he started that Reformation Thing that rocked and still rocks the world[ii]. Thesis 1 states: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying, ‘Repent…,’ wanted the entire life of the faithful to be one of repentance.” Luther here is not saying that we need to be constantly feeling we are sorry for messing up (Contrition) and constantly saying we are sorry for messing up (Confession) and then constantly paying back the appalling state of our messing up (Satisfaction). He is saying, rather, we are freed by God by God’s goodness outside of any rule of law (that by definition exacts convictions of guilt or innocence and requires payment(s)) to acknowledge what we honestly know is true.[iii] This truth is that we are solely and singularly mortal (not a whisper of life after our heart stops) and (but) that God and God’s goodness is solely and singularly immortal and Who is in the business of giving life to everything and everybody, including, as is good news for mere mortals, the dead.
But this recognition of our mortality is not the end of the Repentance story or, to our point here, the story of what it means to be a Christian. It’s what we do with this recognition that becomes the story of our sin and salvation. Will we let this Immortal One give life to us outside of the Law? Will we let Gospel happen to us? We will not. It’s not that we cannot. It’s not that we are lacking abilities and need someone to assist (which is the normal and usual way we turn to Jesus and use him to give us that boost that we need). It’s that we will not. We do not want the assistance because (notice this please!) if and when we trust God we take ourselves out of having any agency or ability to determine our own destiny. So, we say no to Jesus. In fact, we did a pretty good job of that by killing him. Our sin is that we will not trust God to save us and simply give us life, no strings attached. Our sin goes way beyond, or deeper than, things done or left undone, mistakes or missed opportunities. Our sin is that we will never, ever, simply trust God to save us. But, save us, God does. And so, our salvation! God refuses to let our refusal get in the way of what God does: give life with no strings attached.
And because we will not trust God to give us life, no strings attached, we run around doing all kinds of hurtful things to others (and creation as a whole) to make us feel better about our life, our condition. We do things like put others down or take others out (sometimes wholesale, like genocide, and more often one person or relationship at a time) in order to feel better or superior to everyone else. And, on the other side of the coin, we do good things to others not simply because good things are good, but rather because they too make us feel better about our life, our condition.
So, the deep sin, the one that is the base-line, the fundamental confession, is that we will not trust God. And it is on top of this and, indeed, because of this, we have all these actions, sins, of thing done or left undone.
It’s not that it’s a bad thing to enumerate things done or left undone and ask for forgiveness. If more people did this the world would be a better place because a lot of relationships would be restored. It’s just that doing this kind of confession is not a Christian confession. It is not what makes a person a Christian. What makes a person a Christian is trusting that God, in Christ Jesus, forgives and loves you outside of any obeying or disobeying of any law or commandment(s). The forgiveness and love require nothing of you, not even your confession.
Well then, why confession!? Not to merit or earn the forgiveness and love. You don’t confess to not trusting the forgiveness and love in order to get the forgiveness and love. You confess to not trusting and wait to see what happens in this state of total vulnerability, this state of having nothing to bring to the table, this state of having no faith in God. What happens next comes out of nowhere. The forgiveness and love is given personally and directly to you, dependent on nothing but the One who gives it. “You are Forgiven,” you are told. And you believe this! And bam! You have faith!
And why do this often? Not because you continue to do bad things, but because you are in a constant state of managed doubt where you keep trying to tell yourself you are off the hook and have a future, even eternally, but you never are convinced or sure and you need to be told again, by someone else, not yourself, that it’s all good. That you are fine. You need to be brought to faith in God again. Not faith in your faith. You have faith in your faith all the time and it’s not certain. It’s that “managed doubt” I mentioned. You need faith in God. And somebody must give it to you because all you can do and will do is have faith in faith. And this “somebody” is actually God. Yes, it’s the Pastor who declares “you are forgiven,” but, behold, the Pastor speaks God to you!
If you confess in order to get the forgiveness and love you are doing something that no card-carrying Christian today would admit to doing, yet we do it all the time by saying that in order to get salvation we must have faith. Most Christians would not say something must be done in order to receive forgiveness and love, in order to receive salvation. This kind of thing, we would say, is what’s called a “works righteousness” kind of thing. It’s a thing that says it’s what we do, our “works,” not what Christ does, that makes us righteous (saved: “right with God”) Yet, while saying this, we insist that only those with faith in Christ are saved.
This, it seems to me, is where most Christians are today. In other words, a person has faith in faith, not faith in God. Of course, Christians who say you must have faith, you must believe in Christ, to be saved, would not say they have faith in faith. But that is what is going on. We rely on faith. We don’t rely on God. We rely on faith. Our focus is not the faithfulness of God, but rather our faithfulness to God. Again, we would not say this. We insist it’s God that is their focus. We sing songs like “Great Is Your Faithfulness” and love God for God’s faithfulness to us. But then ask if we trust God enough to save us if we denounce God, turn our back on God and never again give God the time of day again. Hmmm…..then we are not so sure. Indeed, how can we be sure? Do you mean that we have to depend upon God to decide what will become of us?
It is this surety, this certainty, of salvation that broke things open for Martin Luther. Certainty of salvation was possible, but only when the focus was on God’s word to us (God’s promise) and not on our word to God (our promise). Certainty is possible when faith is in God, not faith in our faith.
How can our faith be the definition of our relationship with God but yet our faith does not determine our relationship with God?
I found something recently that does a really good job of answering this question:[iv]
“Phillip Cary aptly sums up the problem when he distinguishes what he calls a ‘Protestant Logic of Faith’ from a ‘Lutheran Logic of Faith.’ He formulates two syllogisms. For absolution, the Protestant Syllogism looks like this:
Major premise: Christ promises absolution of sins to those who believe in him.
Minor premise: I believe in Christ.
Conclusion: I am absolved of my sins.
The Lutheran Syllogism:
Major premise: Christ says, ‘I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
Minor premise: Christ never lies but only tells the truth.
Conclusion: I am absolved of my sins.
In the Protestant logic, the promise is the general rule (A [leads to] B): ‘If you believe in Christ, Christ will absolve you of your sins,’ making faith the condition for what is promised to become a reality. In the Lutheran syllogism, the promise is a concrete one, spoken in a concrete situation of encounter ‘I and you/your sins.’ There is no condition on the part of humans, rather the ‘condition’ lies on the part of Christ: in his promise and faithfulness. There is no mention of faith in the Lutheran syllogism, but the minor premise is an expression of faith. The believers do not reflect on themselves and their faith but look to Christ and recognize his reliability. That is faith”[v]
A Christian confession states that we will not trust that God simply gives us life with no strings attached. We do not believe being a Christian means God gives us a second chance (or more!) to do the right thing to complete and honor the Law so we are then Right with God. We believe being a Christian means God gives us No Chance of living in the Law or completing the Law so that we are Right with God because God is Not the Law and God gives the Rightness with God to us outside of any respect for the Law.
So, all this church talk about the church being for “imperfect people” (one billboard advertising a local church near my home says “No Perfect People Allowed!”) is true enough, but beside the point. Everybody is imperfect, and saying, confessing, imperfections gets you nowhere with God even though it can get you everywhere (improve things) with persons, including yourself, to whom your imperfections have harmed. No, don’t just name imperfections. Instead, go for the jugular. Get to the heart of the matter: name your unbelief. Name your guilt, surely. But don’t stop there. Go deep. Name your unbelief: you will not believe God loves and forgives outside any perfecting of the imperfections. You will not believe the Gospel.
But, of course, what then?! Where does that leave you? Does it get you anywhere with God? Again, does confession merit anything? Of course not. And that is the point. It gets you nowhere because you ARE nowhere. You have nothing to bring to the table. And when you Are There, Nowhere, there is nothing left for you but God. Exactly. Exactly. You are in God. Let’s call it Faith (naming no trust in trust leaves you only trusting God. It’s what confessing No Trust is) and call it a day.
Do we see how it is that Repentance is, then, as Luther named it, the thing that defines the Christian? It’s Repentance that brings you, willy-nilly (a great non-word to describe something happening outside any agency of our own!), to faith.
And despite all the rhetoric (and things in the Bible like 1 and 2 John that talk so much about love and things like old camp-fire songs that still hang on like “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.”) about how love is what makes us Christian, if we want to define ourselves as Christians, we need to go to Faith. Love is not over-rated and unneeded. Please, bring it on! People are dying for lack of it! But it’s not what makes us Christian. It’s faith, it’s having nothing but God in Christ Jesus. And it’s Repentance that will bring you there.
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[i] The term “Halloween” comes from “All Hallows Eve,” or, the evening before “All Hallows” or All Saints Day (Nov.1), the day when the Saints and other revered dead are remembered in the Roman Catholic tradition (and other Christian traditions as well). In Wittenberg, Germany, the home of Martin Luther, All Saints Day was a big deal because on that day the 17,000 or so relics of the Christian faith that Frederick III (aka “Frederick The Wise”), Prince-Elector of Saxony, Germany, owned were hauled out and displayed so people could pay money (“indulgences”) to see them and thus liberate themselves (and others they could name!) from years in Purgatory after they died. The growth in popularity and fascination with the spookiness and celebration of the dead that All Saints Day and it’s Eve, Halloween, brought have nothing to do with what we in the church celebrate as October 31 Reformation Day except it may have been because of that next day’s 17,000 relics display that Luther chose to date his introduction (by letter if not by church door posting, see below) his Theses Against Indulgences as October 31.
[ii] You know that popular picture of Luther literally nailing a copy of his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg Castle Church Door on Oct. 31, 1517? Scholars question the accuracy of that, but they do not question the letter Luther wrote to his local Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, dated that day, with the 95 Theses attached and ready for a university style Disputation (which, by the way, never happened!). That actual letter is today archived in Sweden!
[iii] This “outside of any rule of law” is not to be seen as a throwaway phrase. It is quite the contrary. It is the epicenter of the distinction between Law and Gospel, the two theological words we give to the two ways God communicates to and with us God’s One Word of Life. Those two ways are Demand (Law) and Promise (Gospel). Demands (Law) are made and give us civil community instead of civil strife (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and, by default, expose our failure to live civilly with each other or live in trust of God. Promise (Gospel) is made to give us the relationship with God regardless of our relationship (obedience, disobedience) with the Law. So to say “outside of any rule of law” does not mean there is no Law. It means God gives laws, but God is not the Law. God is Life Outside of Any Measurement or Metric of law’s obedience or disobedience.
[iv] I have been reading, very slowly, (I have read chapter 4 three times and now into the fourth) Oswald Bayer’s newly translated into English book, Promissio. Theodor Dieter has an extensive essay in the recent Lutheran Quarterly (Autumn 2025) laying out Bayer’s content and argument in Promissio. See note below. And, incidentally, is there anybody out there who might want to read and talk together about Bayer’s Promissio. By “talk” I mean by email or FaceTime or Zoom? Drop me a note through my contact info at www.religionlesschristian.org.
[v] Promissio as Oswald Bayer’s Key to Luther’s Reformational Theology, Theodor Dieter, Lutheran Quarterly, Volume 39 Number 3 Autumn 2025, pp. 280-281. Lutheran Quarterly, 2025 by John Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.
