It must not be denied simply that the Gospel is the preaching of repentance.
It must not be denied simply that the Gospel is the preaching of repentance.
§ 106. Just as we can by no means simply and absolutely approve of the opinion of these men, so also we do not dare to reject the position that the Gospel is the preaching of repentance simply and without any suitable clarification. For: (1) Christ divides the ministry of teaching which was committed to the apostles and their successors in the New Testament into the preaching of repentance and the preaching of the remission of sins (Luke 24:47); and He joins the two parts together with an unbreakable connection (Matt. 28:20; Mark 16:15).
(2) The Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the same more than once use this formula of speaking.4
(3) Dr. Luther by no means completely rejects this idea but only reproves its wrong interpretation. When Eisleben was building his Antinomianism from this proposition with his wrong understanding of it, Luther no doubt would have rejected it completely had he judged it to be a corruption of true and sound doctrine. Instead, he preferred to clarify it with a true and suitable explanation.
(4) The Papists would be given an opportunity to dishonor our churches by saying that we had left our Augsburg Confession and that we are nourishing a carnal security with the doctrine of the Gospel and are encouraging the license to sin in the bosoms of our people.
§ 107. Therefore we follow those who add a suitable and fitting interpretation of this proposition, an interpretation which Dr. Chemnitz (Loci, part 2, p. 566;5 and in Judicium de controv., p. 78) provides with great power and learning, and which includes the following points. (1) The Gospel is sometimes taken in a general sense to mean the sum of all doctrine that was taught and propagated by the ministry of Christ and the apostles (Mark 1:1; Acts 20:21). At other times it is used specifically and properly for the preaching of grace (Mark 1:15, etc.). Thus in a more relaxed and general sense the Gospel is correctly called the preaching of repentance because Christ and the apostles very many times in their ministry ordered people to repent.
(2) Since the Gospel announces grace not to secure hypocrites but to those who repent—that is, to those stricken with humility and contrition by the knowledge of their sins and by a sense of the wrath of God—the Gospel is not unsuitably called the preaching of repentance in this sense. The free promise of the forgiveness of sins requires repentance—that is, a humble and contrite heart—and yet the knowledge of sin comes from the ministry of the Law.
(3) By the very fact that it teaches that there is no other name given to men in which they can be saved except the name of Christ [Acts 4:12], the Gospel shows by antithesis that all things are included under sin.
(4) The Gospel teaches a certain explanation of the Law that we could not gather easily and clearly only from Moses; and in this sense it is not unsuitable to call the Gospel the preaching of repentance. The explanations which the Gospel added to the Law call us back to these main points: the perfect fulfillment of the Law is impossible for us; external, honorable discipline is sin in the reborn; there is a distinction between venial and mortal sin; the works of the reborn which are produced from faith please God even though they are imperfect and corrupted; how the promises about the rewards for good works become applicable to us.
(5) The Law rebukes every sin of unbelief, but the Gospel declares specifically that such unbelief which rejects the free promise of reconciliation and which does not believe in the Son is the greatest sin.
(6) The Gospel teaches how repentance is salutary, lest only despair come forth from contrition. Those are the points of Dr. Chemnitz.