Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

How Do I Repent?

What exactly is repentance? Our Lutheran Confessions have much to say about this, since it was a primary area of difference between Lutherans and the Church of Rome in the 16th Century. In general, our Confessions stress that 1) there are two parts to repentance, the confession of sin and faith in the Gospel -- but faith in the Gospel is the most important part; 2) a changed life (fruits/good works) should follow repentance.

From the Augsburg Confession, Article XII

It is taught among us that those who sin after Baptism receive forgiveness of sin whenever they come to repentance, and absolution should not be denied them by the church. Properly speaking, true repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, or terror, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the Gospel and absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ), and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest. Amendment of life and the forsaking of sin should then follow, for these must be the fruits of repentance, as John says, "Bear fruit that befits repentance" (Matthew 3:8).

Rejected here are those who teach that persons who have once become godly cannot fall again.

Condemned on the other hand are the Novations who denied absolution to such as had sinned after Baptism.

Rejected also are those who teach that forgivenessof sin is not obtained through faith but through the satisfactions made by man.

From the Small Catechism, Article V

What is Confession? Answer: Confession consists of two parts. One is that we confess our sins. The other is that we receive absolution or forgiveness from the confessor as from God Himself, by no means doubting, but firmly believing that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven.

What sins should we confess? Answer: Before God we should acknowledge that we are guilty of all manner of sins, even those of which we are not aware, as we do in the Lord's Prayer. Before the confessor, however, we should confess only those sins of which we have knowledge and which trouble us.

What are such sins? Answer: Reflect on your condition in the light of the Ten Commandments . . ..

Large Catechism - Confession and Absolution

Note, then, as I have often said, that confession consists of two parts. The first is my work and act, when I lament my sin and desire comfort and restoration for my soul. The second is a work which God does, when he absolves me of my sins through a word [the Gospel] placed in the mouth of a man. This is the supassingly grand and noble thing that makes confession so wonderful and comforting. In the past we placed all our emphasis on our work alone, and we were only concerned whether we had confessed purely enough. We neither noticed or preached the very necessary second part; it was just as if our confession were simply a good work with which we could satisfy God. Where the confession was not made perfectly and in complete detail, we were told that the absolution was not valid and the sin was not forgiven . . ..

We should therefore take care to keep the two parts clearly separate. We should set little value on our work but exalt and magnify God's Word. We should not act as if we wanted to perform a magnificent work to present to him, but simply to accept and receive something from him.

Smalcald Articles, Part III, Article III

St. Paul teaches the same thing in Romans 3:10-12: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong." And in Acts 17:30, "Now he commands all men everywhere to repent." He says, "all men," that is, excepting no one who is a man. Such repentance teaches us to acknowledge sin -- that is, to acknowledge that we are all utterly lost, that from head to foot there is no good in us, that we must become altogether new and different men.

This repentance is not partial and fragmentary like repentance for actual sins [individual sins that we commit], not is it uncertain like that. It does not debate what is sin and what is not sin, but lumps everything together and says, "We are wholy and altogether sinful." We need not spend our time weighing, distinguishing, differentiating. On this account, there is no uncertainty in such repentance, for nothing is left that we might imagine good enough to pay for our sin. One thing is sure: We cannot pin our hope on anything that we are, think, say, or do . . . Nor can our satisfaction [that which satisfies God's justice] be uncertain, for it consists not of the dubious, sinful works which we do but of the sufferings and blood of the innocent Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

In the case of a Christian such repentance continues until death, for all through life it contends with the sins that remain in the flesh. As St. Paul testifies in Romans 7:23, he wars with the law in his members, and he does this not with his own powers but with the gift of the Holy Spirit which follows the forgiveness of sins. This gift daily cleanses and expels the sins that remain and enables man to become truly pure and holy.

Apology - Article XII

We say that after penitence must come good fruits and good works in every phase of life. There can be no true conversion or contrition where mortifying the flesh and good fruits do not follow. True terrors and sorrows of the soul do not permit the indulgence of the bodly in lusts, and true faith is not ungrateful to God or contemptuous of his commandments. In a word, there is no penitence inwardly, which does not produce outwardly the punishing of the flesh. This, we say, is what John means when he says, "Bear fruit that befits repentance," and Paul when he says, "Yield your members to righteousness (paragraphs 131-132).