What are your thoughts about this hymn? I'd like to know.
Authoritative information about the hymn text 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus, with lyrics, MIDI files, PDF files, printable scores, audio recordings, piano resources, and products for worship planners.
hymnary.org
Before one is saved they are at enmity with God. “the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God.” (Romans 8:7) Elsewhere we are told that unbelievers store up wrath on the day of wrath. "But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God," (Romans 2:5) This indicates that repentance is required because we have a sin nature.
The Apostle, in Romans 2, isn't talking about unbelievers, but believers. He had been talking about unbelievers in the previous chapter, concerning the deeds of the pagans; but he has now shifted, moved, to address Christians living in Rome, "Who are you to pass judgment when you do the same things?"
Paul was using the unbelieving pagans to draw out a point to his readers, the point wasn't to say, "Look at how icky the pagans are" but rather to point out that we are all sinful.
It's possible that the Apostle is specifically addressing Jewish believers in Rome, given the theme(s) of the epistle. Talking about pagan idolatry and wickedness, but also will talk about how those to whom the Law was given (Jews) are in no better position before God than uncircumcised Gentile pagans. For the Apostle will go on to say, "All have sinned and fallen short", Jew and Gentile. The Jews are condemned under the Law because knowing it they disobey; and Gentiles are condemned by the Law for they still violate the Law. Thus the Law kills all, the Law cannot provide righteousness for anyone. Everyone is guilty, for sin came through Adam to all men--Jew and Gentile--so all are sinful. And so Christ has made righteous satisfaction justifying all (see Romans 5:18). Thus Paul appeals to before the giving of the Law, to Abraham, for whom "faith was credited as righteousness", for there is a righteousness apart from the Law, the righteousness which God gives and which is received, passively, through faith. So that God freely justifies us through faith, reckons us, declares us righteous on Christ's account which is given to us through faith.
Paul will go on to say that God's grace triumphs over our sin, "Where sin abounds, grace super-abounds", but that this is no excuse to keep on sinning, "Shall we go on sinning? No!" For, he says, if we have died with Christ in our baptism, then we have been raised with Christ to new life, a new life from God with God, and that we are to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, as slaves of righteousness.
God's grace is no excuse for sin, though God is always more gracious than we are sinful, but rather God's grace is occasion for what St. John the Baptist called "works worthy of repentance". So the Apostle will, elsewhere in Philippians 2, say, "Have this same disposition in you that was in Christ Jesus", and will even in Romans (chapter 12) write that we must submit ourselves as living sacrifices and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (which, I would argue, is repentance,
metanoia).
Repentance is the cross we carry as Jesus' disciples.
Repentance isn't about our justification, but rather our sanctification.
God freely justifies us by His grace. Justification is God to man, unilaterally: God says we are forgiven and we are forgiven, God says we are righteous and so it is so; because it is a righteousness received, passively, through faith. It is Christ's own righteousness.
Justification is complete, perfect, finished--Christ rendered us justified on Mt. Calvary, and we receive it through faith. In Word and Sacrament God justifies us freely, as the perfect and finished work of Christ is declared to us, imputed to us.
Sanctification is incomplete, ongoing, it is the work-in-progress of our daily conversion, the daily continued work of God in us to conform us to the image of Christ, the good work which He began and says He will finish on the Last Day. To that end our sanctification means repentance, it means new obedience, it means taking up our cross and following Jesus.
It is not our sanctification that makes us right with God, but our justification.
We are right with God entirely by the finished and perfect work of Christ. Our sanctification is not about who we are before God (Coram Deo) but who we are before our fellow man (Coram Mundus). It is not God who needs our good works, but our neighbor.
Repentance, therefore, is not what justifies; but is part of sanctification. Though repentance does ready us to hear the Gospel, for the harshness of the Law which is set against us in the weakness and wretchedness of our sin declares us condemned sinners, storing up for ourselves wrath for the day of wrath (there's Romans 2:5); but the Good News of God is Jesus Christ and what He has done, who by His righteous obedience satisfying the entirety of the Law in order that we, through faith, should be reckoned righteous before God for Christ's sake.
Repentance therefore is the honest confession of who we are as we gaze upon the Law as a mirror, and we are struck by the contrition and grief of this brutal reality; and we fall to our knees naked and empty with nothing to offer God. But God, who is infinitely rich in mercy, grants to us the super-abundance of His riches of grace so that we are wealthy beyond measure in Christ through faith.
-CryptoLutheran
