The new hymnal has changed some references that were in TLH. "Remission of sins" is a phrase that we are no longer very fond of: "forgiveness of sins" is the preferred way to say it. The reason given was that "remission" is a word that people associate with cancer, a word that indicates the disease is gone, beaten back, but may return. We want to talk about forgiveness of sins so that we know the sins are defeated and fully paid for.
Okay, I see that point. I agree.
But isn't there a place for talking about remission of sins too?
In this life, we are weighed down by the Old Adam. The sinful nature continues with us until we assume room temperature. Sins do go into remission. They are beaten back. But sometimes they return. Sometimes they return overwhelmingly. Sometimes the doctor (the Seelsorger) must apply massive doses of medicine (the word and sacraments) to heal us again.
The word "remission" has fallen into disfavor because of the recognition that sin is not fully defeated. Maybe it's the distinction between justification and sanctification? We dare not think that keeping the sin in remission is something we do, something to which we contribute. But yet it seems very real that "remission" is a picture of how we struggle with the sinful nature until he is fully defeated in our death.
Boy, I think we need both words: forgiveness and remission.
Friday, March 14, 2008
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I completely agree, especially after reading Forde's On Being A Theologian of the Cross.
ReplyDeleteThat, and I'm leery about chunking out any vocabulary the church has used for a very long time. Perhaps it is not a good use of words, however I think that it should require many long hours of wrestling with these topics before deciding to simply throw them away.
The church has a language. You don't throw parts of that language away lightly. And I think we too often find a "problem" with something and have a knee-jerk reaction to it that (given time and meditation and discussion and really thinking it through and reading Scripture) we may realize that it's still a good and salutary word that is used in certain circumstances.
Unless one really, honestly doesn't believe sin goes into remission. In which case, the problem is not with the word but with their theology. In which case, my reply would be, "Have you ever read the Psalms???"
Our pastor pointed this out to us a few weeks ago in Bible class and he is in agreement with you.
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