The Reformation sought to change the nature of confession. For the church in Luther’s day, penance was an act of satisfaction to pay for the temporal penalty of sin. If you did the right things, showed enough contrition, and received sufficient priestly absolution, you could earn certain benefits in the world to come or reduce the debt of punishment from loved ones in purgatory. Luther wrote 95 theses in many ways to correct this idea, which was present in the Church of the day.
It’s not that Luther denied confession or absolution; he denied that such acts were earned and could be performed without faith. Luther even says in Thesis 24, “Most people are necessarily deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty.” The people were deceived in the 16th century by the shiny offers of charlatans and false teachers; by the promise of eternal life, and by the emotional appeal that if we gave money to the work of the Church, we could diminish the years of torment of grandma or uncle or cousin or brother who had died.
These shiny relics were false measures. The result was that the people took their eyes off Jesus. They looked to penance to give them something only Christ could give. It is easier to trust in my own actions than in the work of Jesus.
But beloved, we are only freed from our sins when we come to Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith. We can be as contrite as Judas, as fervent as the Pharisees, as zealous as the revolutionaries in Jude’s day, as fanatic as the wise of this age, but if we do not trust in the finished work of Jesus for us, we are of all people most to be pitied.
These promises may appear to be high and noble; it may be appealing to the flesh, it may seem easy to achieve forgiveness or remission of sins, but they are empty promises. The Reformation argued that only one High-Priest could truly forgive; only one High-Priest could give you eternal life, only One High-Priest could snatch you from the gates of hell, and his name is Jesus. Solus Christus; Christ alone!
We are anti-penance Protestants! We trust in the work of Christ to cover our sins, and we confess our sins on this Reformation Sunday precisely because we know that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins; without Christ, our self-formed confessions would only get us the favor of man; but with Christ, our confessions put us in the favor of God. And that is why we come to worship—because the favor of God rests upon us.