Thankful for Repentance

I have often mused here on Confessional's Bytes what the world might look like without the grace of God being shown to everyone. As a former atheist I have had but a small taste of what such a world could be, since I worked extremely hard at pushing God out of my view.

Now that I am a Christian, due to nothing other than the unmerited favor of God and the faith He gave to me to receive the forgiveness of sins, I look back at the atheist I was and find nothing there but utter darkness and hate for God. I know from experience the truth that the world of the unregenerate person is filled with despair and hate for his creator.

God's Holy Word is given to bring us the Gospel. It is a gift which terrifies the conscience through the law, brings us to repentance, and offers the healing balm of the gospel message that we are forgiven because of Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

Repentance doesn't stop once we have been regenerated by God. Repentance is a gift from God and it continues to be so for the Christian, through out our entire lives. Read what Martin Luther had to say about this wonderful gift,  repentance:

Martin Luther

“3] This, then, is what it means to begin true repentance; and here man must hear such a sentence as this: You are all of no account, whether you be manifest sinners or saints [in your own opinion]; you all must become different and do otherwise than you now are and are doing [no matter what sort of people you are], whether you are as great, wise, powerful, and holy as you may. Here no one is [righteous, holy], godly, etc.

39] Of this repentance John preaches, and afterwards Christ in the Gospel, and we also. By this [preaching of] repentance we dash to the ground the Pope and everything that is built upon our good works. For all is built upon a rotten and vain foundation, which is called a good work or law, even though no good work is there, but only wicked works, and no one does the Law (as Christ, John 7:19, says), but all transgress it. Therefore the building [that is raised upon it] is nothing but falsehood and hypocrisy, even [in the part] where it is most holy and beautiful.

40] And in Christians this repentance continues until death, because, through the entire life it contends with sin remaining in the flesh, as Paul, Rom. 7:14-25, [shows] testifies that he wars with the law in his members, etc.; and that, not by his own powers, but by the gift of the Holy Ghost that follows the remission of sins. This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out the remaining sins, and works so as to render man truly pure and holy.

43] It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them [they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost]. For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present. For St. John says, 1 John 3:9: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, ... and he cannot sin. And yet it is also the truth when the same St. John says, 1:8: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. —Smalcald Articles III, III, 3, 39, 40, 43

Repentance "in Christians... continues until death." Indeed, we are "all of no account, whether you be manifest sinners or saints." Did you catch that?

Even though we think of ourselves as "saints" we must remember we are still sinners, "of no account," who live a life daily repenting of our sins and wrestling against them. If we have stopped repenting and striving against sin, then sin has the dominion over us. Sadly, in such a state, as we read in paragraph 43 from the Smalcald Articles, faith and the Holy Spirit have been "cast out" of the unrepentant. They have chosen to return to the state I describe above when I was an atheist who hated God. What a miserable state of affairs we are in when we have given sin and the devil full control over our lives by hardening our hearts against God and refusing to repent!

I am so very thankful to God that He grants us repentance. To Him goes all the glory. He provides His means of grace through which we hear the preaching of His law which shows us how rotten we are. Through  the hearing of His law we are driven to our knees and confess that we deserve His eternal punishment right now and forever. Christ then comes to us through His Word and Sacraments, offering His eternal balm to mend our broken souls. We hear the words of the pastor, standing in the stead of Christ, declaring the forgiveness of sins. We partake of the body and blood of Christ, "given for you," for the forgiveness of our sins.

How wonderful it is to receive God's mercy and grace through the means He provides to connect us back to the cross of Jesus Christ where His dear Son gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we could come to repentance today and receive the forgiveness of sins.

I am so thankful for repentance.