True Repentance
"Let one of your brothers remain confined . . . and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me."
GENESIS 42:19-20
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True Repentance
Joseph practices the true, proper, and perfect use of the Law on his brothers. For this means leading them down to hell, mortifying and confounding not with a view to their destruction but rather for their life and salvation. For the Law was not given to the end that it should kill, although it really does kill when it works wrath and reveals sin. But it does not kill in such a way that one must remain and perish in death, as Judas and Saul perished, but only that it may perform its function. To this the promise must be added, lest despair follow, just as these brothers will finally come almost to the point of despair. Had they not heard the statement (Genesis 45:4) "I am Joseph," it would have been a trial unto death. But Christ does not seek this. No, He seeks humiliation, contrition, and condemnation unto life. Accordingly, true repentance is not contrition alone; it is also faith, which takes hold of the promise, lest the penitent perish. But these brothers have not yet arrived at perfect knowledge of sin. Therefore Joseph will continue to plague them. They must be put through the mill even more.
GENESIS 42:19-20
+
True Repentance
Joseph practices the true, proper, and perfect use of the Law on his brothers. For this means leading them down to hell, mortifying and confounding not with a view to their destruction but rather for their life and salvation. For the Law was not given to the end that it should kill, although it really does kill when it works wrath and reveals sin. But it does not kill in such a way that one must remain and perish in death, as Judas and Saul perished, but only that it may perform its function. To this the promise must be added, lest despair follow, just as these brothers will finally come almost to the point of despair. Had they not heard the statement (Genesis 45:4) "I am Joseph," it would have been a trial unto death. But Christ does not seek this. No, He seeks humiliation, contrition, and condemnation unto life. Accordingly, true repentance is not contrition alone; it is also faith, which takes hold of the promise, lest the penitent perish. But these brothers have not yet arrived at perfect knowledge of sin. Therefore Joseph will continue to plague them. They must be put through the mill even more.
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