mind and conscience intensely occupied with the problem of sin, repentance, and forgiveness, and
struggling for emancipation from the fetters of tradition. They might more properly be called "a
disputation to diminish the virtue of papal indulgences, and to magnify the full and free grace of
the gospel of Christ." They bring the personal experience of justification by faith, and direct
intercourse with Christ and the gospel, in opposition to an external system of churchly and priestly
mediation and human merit. The papal opponents felt the logical drift of the Theses much better
than Luther, and saw in them an attempt to undermine the whole fabric of popery.. The irresistible
progress of the Reformation soon swept the indulgences away as an unscriptural, mediaeval tradition
of men.^189
The first Thesis strikes the keynote: "Our Lord and Master when he says, ’Repent,’^190 desiresthat the whole life of believers should be a repentance."^191 The corresponding Greek noun means
change of mind (metavnoia), and implies both a turning away from sin in sincere sorrow and grief,
and a turning to God in hearty faith. Luther distinguishes, in the second Thesis, true repentance
from the sacramental penance (i.e., the confession and satisfaction required by the priest), and
understands it to be an internal state and exercise of the mind rather than isolated external acts;
although he expressly affirms, in the third Thesis, that it must manifest itself in various mortifications
of the flesh. Repentance is a continual conflict of the believing spirit with the sinful flesh, a daily
renewal of the heart. As long as sin lasts, there is need of repentance. The Pope can not remit any
sin except by declaring the remission of God; and he can not remit punishments except those which
he or the canons impose (Thes.5 and 6). Forgiveness presupposes true repentance, and can only be
found in the merits of Christ. Here comes in the other fundamental Thesis (62): The true treasury
of the church is the holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God." This sets aside the mediaeval
notion about the overflowing treasury of extra-merits and rewards at the disposal of the Pope for
the benefit of the living and the dead.
We have thus set before us in this manifesto, on the one hand, human depravity which
requires lifelong repentance, and on the other the full and free grace of God in Christ, which can
only be appropriated by a living faith. This is, in substance, the evangelical doctrine of justification
by faith (although not expressed in terms), and virtually destroys the whole scholastic theory and
practice of indulgences. By attacking the abuses of indulgences, Luther unwittingly cut a vein of
mediaeval Catholicism; and by a deeper conception of repentance which implies faith, and by
referring the sinner to the grace of Christ as the true and only source of remission, he proclaimed
(^189) Jürgens (III. 481) compares the Theses to flashes of lightning, which suddenly issued from the thunder-clouds. Hundeshagen (in
Piper’s "Evangel. Kalender" for 1859, p. 157), says: "Notwithstanding the limits within which Luther kept himself at that time, the Theses
express in many respects the whole Luther of later times: the frankness and honesty of his soul, his earnest zeal for practical Christianity,
the sincere devotion to the truths of the Scriptures, the open sense for the religious wants of the people, the sound insight into the abuses
and corruptions of the church, the profound yet liberal piety." Ranke’s judgment of the Theses is brief, but pointed and weighty: "Wenn
man diese Sätze liest, sieht man, welch ein kühner, grossartiger und fester Geist in Luther arbeitet. Die Gedanken sprühen ihm hervor,
wie unter dem Hammerschlag die Funken."—Deutsche Gesch., vol. I. p. 210.
(^190) Luther gives the Vulgate rendering of μετανοει̑τε, poenitentiam agite, do penance, which favors the Roman Catholic conception
that repentance consists in certain outward acts. He first learned the true meaning of the Greek μετάνοια a year later from Melanchthon,
and it was to him like a revelation.
(^191) "Dominus et magister noster Jesus Christus dicendo ’Poenitentiam agite,’ etc. [Matt. 4:17), omnem vitam fidelium poenitentiam
esse voluit." In characteristic contrast, Tetzel begins his fifty counter Theses with a glorification of the Pope as the supreme power in the
church: "Docendi sunt Christiani, ex quo in Ecclesia potestas Papae est suprema et a solo Deo instituta, quod a nullo puro homine, nec
a toto simul mundo potest restringi aut ampliari, sed a solo Deo."