Confession and Absolution (part two)
Week 41
Posting every Tuesday at 3PM CST
Absolution, or the Power of the Keys, is an aid against sin and a consolation for a bad conscience; it is ordained by Christ in the Gospel [Matthew 16:19]. Therefore, Confession and Absolution should by no means be abolished in the Church. This is especially for the sake of timid consciences and untrained young people, so they may be examined and instructed in Christian doctrine.
But the listing of sins should be free to everyone, as to what a person wishes to list or not to list. For as long as we are in the flesh, we will not lie when we say, “I am a poor man, full of sin”; “I see in my members another law”; and such (Romans 7:23). Since private Absolution originates in the Office of the Keys, it should not be despised, but greatly and highly esteemed, along with all other offices of the Christian Church….
We must constantly maintain this point: God does not want to deal with us in any other way than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. Whatever is praised as from the Spirit— without the Word and Sacraments— is the devil himself. God wanted to appear even to Moses through the burning bush and spoken Word [Exodus 3:2–15]. No prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments ‹or the spoken Word›. John the Baptist was not conceived without the word of Gabriel coming first, nor did he leap in his mother’s womb without Mary’s voice [Luke 1:11–20, 41]. Peter says, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” [2 Peter1:21].
Smalcald Articles III VIII 1–2, 10–13
