Justin Martyr on Repentance

[Teflon93]

If you haven’t read Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho” I highly recommend it. Here we have an early 2nd century ECF definitively defending Christianity to a Jewish interlocutor.

He also demolishes the case for “once saved, always saved” some 1,400 years before the heresiarchs formalized the heresy (too bad they didn’t read Justin!).

Here’s a money passage from the end of the Dialogue:

Chapter 141. Free-will in men and angels

Justin: But that you may not have a pretext for saying that Christ must have been crucified, and that those who transgressed must have been among your nation, and that the matter could not have been otherwise, I said briefly by anticipation, that God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know by whom they are created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless we repent beforehand. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not sin;’ that is, having repented of his sins, that he may receive remission of them from God; and not as you deceive yourselves, and some others who resemble you in this, who say, that even though they be sinners, but know God, the Lord will not impute sin to them. We have as proof of this the one fall of David, which happened through his boasting, which was forgiven then when he so mourned and wept, as it is written. But if even to such a man no remission was granted before repentance, and only when this great king, and anointed one, and prophet, mourned and conducted himself so, how can the impure and utterly abandoned, if they weep not, and mourn not, and repent not, entertain the hope that the Lord will not impute to them sin?

And this one fall of David, in the matter of Uriah’s wife, proves, sirs, that the patriarchs had many wives, not to commit fornication, but that a certain dispensation and all mysteries might be accomplished by them; since, if it were allowable to take any wife, or as many wives as one chooses, and how he chooses, which the men of your nation do over all the earth, wherever they sojourn, or wherever they have been sent, taking women under the name of marriage, much more would David have been permitted to do this.

When I had said this, dearest Marcus Pompeius, I came to an end.

My question is this:

Is Justin Martyr correct?

If not, where does he err?

If so, by what lights do those who proclaim “once saved, always saved” place themselves above him, the Apostles, and David, beloved of God?

 

[CentralFLJames]

If you haven’t read Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho” I highly recommend it. Here we have an early 2nd century ECF definitively defending Christianity to a Jewish interlocutor.

He also demolishes the case for “once saved, always saved” some 1,400 years before the heresiarchs formalized the heresy (too bad they didn’t read Justin!).

Here’s a money passage from the end of the Dialogue:

My question is this:

Is Justin Martyr correct?

If not, where does he err?

If so, by what lights do those who proclaim “once saved, always saved” place themselves above him, the Apostles, and David, beloved of God?

Not only is Justin Martyr correct - he is teacing the core truth about forgivness of sin being MUCH more than just saying a short personal prayer like:
“sorry Lord - please me forgive me for having yet another adulterous affair last Saturday. I promise to try to do better this week but I know you forgive me and will do so again if I happen to do it again…”. Right…

I am really waking up to the old Catholic teachings that we don’t really hear too much from the podium even in the Catholic Church. And that is the ABSOLUTE need for REAL LIFE CHANGING REPENTANCE AND DOING REAL PENANCE. If a person in grave sin seeking forgivness is not shedding real tears and really worried and upset about the gravity of their offenses to God and the damage to self and is not going to the confessional after FIRST doing lots of soul searching and prayers and being sincerely remorseful - their repentance is an insincere sham and they are still in their sins. Sin is not easy to cast off. God can of course forgive any sin in an instant (through the proper authority of The Church). But anyone who presumes to God’s Mercy and sins while thinking God will forgive it is really in grave trouble spiritually and it going to have an extremely hard time repenting from that kind of spiritual mindset and abuse.

The idea that sins are cast off just as easily as saying “oops, sorry Lord” just does not cut it; much less so any notion of auto-forgiveness in the perverse OSAS sort of fundamentalist mindset.

Sin sticks to a person like ticks do to a dog - and keep right on sucking blood in just the same manner. It takes determined and authentic penance to get the proper interior change to repent from sin before it can be forgiven and to let God exorcise it from our soul and start healing up our wounds. Even forgiven sin will often linger in its effects - in same grave cases all our lives as a continuous sort of life-long penance where we offer up the personal consequences we bear for past sins to God as thanks for his mercy.

I am very disturbed that the “easy forgivness” mindset of Protestantism has worked its way into the thinking of many Catholics who come in contact with this thinking in the workplace and with their Protestant friends. I am very concerned about what this is doing to people’s souls and suspect very many are living with sins that are not properly repented of and not forgiven. I really would like to see The Church start a campaign on penance and repentance and get people sobered up and really focused on this as a core discipline.

James

 

[Teflon93]

Amen, James—Justin Martyr’s invocation of David is right on. David’s penance was poured out through the Psalms. And he was especially beloved of God!

If sin were easy to conquer or no big deal, Christ’s sufferings were unnecessary. One thing I find non-Catholics to completely misunderstand about the sacrament of penance and reconciliation is that the prayers they so deride—the Our Father and the Hail Mary—are to be recited before leaving the sanctuary, usually in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament or an image of Christ or Mary. It is an invitation to realize what has been done for us and to rekindle the gratitude we should have. “Christ was tortured to death for me and yet I turn away from him through sin. How could I do such a thing to him who has done so much for me?”

Justin got it. The question remains, “Do we?”

 

[MarcoPolo]

But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so.

This part also seems to support the Molinist view of predestination as I understand it. And it also razes Calvin’s double predestination. So often you’ll hear a Calvinist/Reformed claim that we are clay for God’s purposes and that He creates evil people is a given.

 

[Teflon93]

This part also seems to support the Molinist view of predestination as I understand it. And it also razes Calvin’s double predestination. So often you’ll hear a Calvinist/Reformed claim that we are clay for God’s purposes and that He creates evil people is a given.

Right, which makes God therefore the author of sin, just as Erasmus warned Luther it would.