The Legalistic Degradation of the Gospel | thebereancall.org

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"Manifest in this trade [the sale of indulgences] at the same time was a pernicious tendency in the Roman Catholic system, for the trade in indulgences was not an excess, or an abuse [to Catholic traditions], but the direct consequence of the [legalistic] degradation of the gospel. That the Reformation started with Luther’s protest against this traffic in indulgences proves its religious origin and evangelical character. At issue here was nothing less than the essential character of the gospel, the core of Christianity, the nature of true piety. And Luther was the man who, guided by experience in the life of his own soul, again made people understand the original and true meaning of the gospel of Christ. Like the 'righteousness of God,' so the term 'penitence' had been for him one of the most bitter words of Holy Scripture. But when from Romans:1:17 he learned to know a 'righteousness by faith,' he also learned 'the true manner of penitence.' He then understood that the repentance demanded in Matthew:4:17 had nothing to do with the works of satisfaction required in the Roman institution of confession, but consisted in 'a change of mind in true interior contrition' and with all its benefits was itself a fruit of grace."

-- Herman Bavinck, (1854-1921, professor of systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam beginning in 1902)