Concerning Repentance – part 32
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Luke 10:10–16
Series: Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Click for audio of today’s devotion.
From the Confessions: The Defense of the Augsburg Confession
Because God truly quickens through the Word, the keys really remit sins before God, according to this verse: “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). Therefore the voice of the one absolving must be believed as though it were a voice from heaven. Absolution may properly be called a sacrament of repentance, as the more learned scholastic theologians also say.
Pulling It Together
Here is one of the surest and most obvious ways that the Lord’s Prayer is answered. We pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As God wishes to forgive sinners for Christ’s sake, he sends pastors to call them to repentance, who then speak to them the words of absolution. There! See it? God’s will was done on earth, as it is in heaven. Our sins are truly remitted, canceled, and forgiven on earth through the absolution so that they are also canceled before God in heaven. Your pastor is a messenger sent by God. Believe that you are truly forgiven in heaven when you hear such words as these on earth: “I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Prayer: Keep me in faith, Lord, that I may believe in your mercy and grace until that Day. 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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