Rome would say it’s the tinder for sin, but not sin in and of itself, so go ahead and book a cruise on the Lust Boat. No harm; no foul, right? Wrong. It is sin, but then we have the curious case of Luther’s Explanation to the 6th Commandment: “We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.”
Why aren’t we told to lead a sexually pure and decent life ins what we say, do, and think? I think it’s because of the nature of sin and is informed by what sins Luther would leave out of the confessional. Curious? Read on.
Why not confess sins of thought in regard to the 6th Commandment in the confessional?
Luther says in his explanation of the 6th Commandment that we are to lead “a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do”. It troubled me that ‘think’ was not included there because Jesus Himself says that even to look at woman in lust is to commit adultery, i.e. even to think about it. And in hearing confessions of young men, what do you think they most often were overburdened by?
Luther is most instructive here: “Especially noteworthy is his declaration that is not necessary to confess and inclination to pride unless one has yielded to it, since we are constantly inclined in that direction; we ought therefore to mourn over it in secret and confess it before God. He maintains, moreover, that acedia (disinclination to that which his good – indolence) being a spiritual infirmity, is not a proper subject for the confessional but, but is to be made known to God alone, who is the only one who can provide a remedy” (Theology of Luther, Vol 1, Köstlin, 204-5).
It seems to me that what Kostlin says Luther taught about pride and laziness would apply to lust as well. It is still sin that need be confessed, but it need not be brought into the confessional. Indeed it is part of the confession that “we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment” that we daily make in saying “forgive us our trespasses”.[i]
As somewhat of an aside, having read Bayer’s Martin Luther’s Theology ©2003, Althaus’s The Theology of Martin Luther ©1966, and Köstlin’s two volume The Theology of Luther ©1897, I can opine as follows: the first identifies itself as “A Contemporary Interpretation” and it is with all the prejudices the term ‘contemporary’ has. The second is many times more thorough, and the last is the best.
Perhaps more instructive still is that when I was at seminary (1979-83) we were never assigned to read any book even like these. The first was given to be by a son of the congregation while he was at seminary in the early aughts. It was assigned reading for him. The second is studied at Walther Theological Seminary. The last I read because it sat on my shelf, for the most part unused, since 1987.
On the basis of reading the latter two, I’ve had to wonder why were never, in my recall, directed, recommended to read either and I’ve been led to modify my thinking about what Luther actually taught and, more importantly, how he ‘did’ theology. Finally, on the basis of reading the first, I’ve had to modify my thinking about Concordia Ft. Wayne Seminary, and I now advise those inclined toward seminary to go west young man to Decatur.
[i] A reader contacted me as follows and I think it’s worth repeating. It’s for all of you who might have been screaming at your screen, “What about the Large Catechism, you idiot!” His point reinforces what I say that lust is still sin, but shows Luther did include it in his Large Catechism which I had forgotten about. The reader writes, “I don’t think this contradicts your assessment that Luther would have considered lust an unfit sin for the confessional, but he does include “thought” in the explanation to the 6th Commandment in the LC: 1, 219. “Let me now say in conclusion that this commandment demands not only that every one live chastely in thought, word, and deed in his condition, that is, especially in the estate of matrimony, but also that every one love and esteem the spouse given him by God.”
