The Grace Card

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:23-25 ESV)

Lutherans believe that, while God's Grace is universal and embraces all people, the Bible tells us this Grace can be appropriated by sinful human beings only through faith. (Romans 3:23-25 ESV)

The central tenet of Lutheran theology is justification by Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone. We get our identity as God’s people not by whatever we may or may not have achieved in our lives, but by the unconditional promise which God has made in Christ-- the Gospel message of what God has done and is continuing to do in our lives in a broken world, one in which the Gospel message defies human reason and cultural wisdom.  One in which sin and temptation and evil replicate and spread like the infectious diseases that they are.  One in which even “the umbrella of God’s Grace” (as many Lutherans are fond of saying) can be loosened from the grip of the faith needed to keep it upright.

Lutherans, as confessing Christians, join all other professing Christians as transgressing Christians. In sin we are born, in sin we must endure this life, and in sin we depart this life. We are carriers, so to speak, and in need of regular inoculations to keep our condition at bay. The means by which God dispenses His Grace to us could be considered the “shots” we need to stave off the very real possibility of becoming terminal-- we are saved by Grace (faith itself being a gift of that very Grace); not a “Grace card” to be used like a get-out-of-jail-free card in a game of Monopoly that covers those pesky little sins of omission/commission (like lust, gossip, selfishness, etc.), but through those means of Grace (Word and Sacrament; in other words, the Gospel) by which faith is created and/or strengthened and grasps God’s promise of salvation. Besides, such a Grace card is really played to cover that which Christ Himself covered for us already.

The Augsburg Confession speaks to our condition and warns quite plainly that “Rejected here are those who teach that whoever has once become righteous cannot fall again.” (AC XII)  It is for this very reason that Lutherans-- Christians-- must be properly taught what God in Christ has instituted so that we may be inoculated against our proclivity to sin: repent and be baptized, repent and partake in the Body and Blood of Christ at the Lord’s Table, and repent and confess our sins. For most Lutherans, all three are realized only in a corporate worship context.

Many a sermon speaks on the “the fruits of the Spirit” that are our good works, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a pastor mention the fruits of repentance. Article XII instructs us (my underlining and boldface):

Of Repentance they teach that for those who have fallen after Baptism there is remission of sins whenever they are converted and that the Church ought to impart absolution to those thus returning to repentance. Now, repentance consists properly of these two parts: One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ's sake, sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terrors. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits of repentance.

I believe it is just as incumbent upon pastors today (probably more so!) in the exercising of their duties and responsibilities as the stewards of God’s Word and the spiritual life (souls) of their parishioners to regularly remind all that God’s Grace is received only through true contrition and unquestioning faith (made possible only by the Gospel)-- in other words, with an unburdened heart. It is also just as important to remember and to teach/preach that Confession and Absolution, like Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and hearing the Word, are never to be perceived as pharisaical (i.e. matters of the Law).  

Confession and Absolution are really acknowledgments, first by the sinner (confessor), and then by God (Absolver), of the relationship between both parties-- from the onset, the sinner has no chance without Christ and God pronounces “saved” those whose faith claims His gift of salvation at the Cross, where the True “Grace card” was pinned for all humanity.