Luke 15[:7]: “Righteous persons need no repentance.”
Luke 15[:7]: “Righteous persons need no repentance.”
Some people explain Christ’s statement in Luke 15:7 in the same way, namely, that He is establishing a distinction between those who live righteously and sinners on the basis of the filth of sins into which the latter had fallen and again emerged. Nevertheless it still does not follow from this that those who remain righteous are wholly clean from all inner sins and the stains of infirmity, since all people must say: “Who will understand his sins? From my secret ones cleanse me” (Ps. 19:[12]). But it would seem more in harmony with the text if it said that this refers to the works-righteous hypocrites, such as were the Pharisees who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (Luke 18:9) and rejected the rest, being swollen by a persuasion of their own righteousness.
** Gregory takes this to mean “the lukewarm righteous who remain indolent in exercising the chief works; others take it to mean the swollen Pharisees who presumed that they alone did righteous works and needed no repentance,” according to Barradius (vol. 3, bk. 3, ch. 19; in Conc., ch. 94, p. 672). Others take it to mean “the righteous not absolutely and simply so called, since we all must necessarily pray: ‘Forgive us our debts’ [Matt. 6:12]. Rather, [it means ‘righteous’] in a certain respect, namely, such as those who do not wantonly, stubbornly, and mortally sin and cut away God’s grace, who indeed are not immune from sins but are of that type of sins which do not exclude God’s grace,” as Lucas Brugensis says (tom. post., on Luke 15). Or [it means] those who have embraced the truth and have forgotten those things which are behind them, who extend themselves to the preestablished goal, but who must nevertheless pray “Forgive us our debts,” and who do not need the sort of repentance as those who are sinners overtly (Bucer, on Luke 15; Salmeron, Barradius, and Beza on this passage). **