Do Penance, What?!? Part 1

by Aaron
If most people know anything about the Reformation and church history, they think of Martin Luther, church doors, nails, grace versus works, indulgences, and a whole lot of fiery debates. Many today that look back on this movement think Protestants and Catholics were just splitting hairs on issues that today we could just live with. What most people miss is that there were, and I would say still are, some good reasons to vigorously disagree with poor theology.
 
The thing I would like to explore in this blog is the idea of penance versus repentance, but it is going to take us a long time to get there because I have to explain a lot of stuff first. The Protestant Church, after the Reformation, started translating and releasing Bible versions that went back to the best copies of manuscripts available. Today our translations are very good and also refer to the best available manuscripts. The Catholic Church, after the Reformation, stood firm in their longstanding use of the Latin Vulgate (a translation of Jerome, an early church father). (Please understand that this is a very simplistic rendition of many debates and things you probably would get lost in and not care much about.)
 
People in our Gospel Class like to ask, “Why does the Catholic Bible have extra books?” The answer is that before the Reformation, the extra books (Apocrypha) were not considered to be within the canon of Scripture. (Again, many people would like to disagree on this point, but I think history can prove me correct in this.) Please note these extra books were not considered bad; Luther even said they were useful and referred to them, but he did say they were not on par with Scripture. After the Reformation, the extra books became a way to distinguish ‘their’ Bible from ‘the other’ Bible (again, a simplistic interpretation).
 
Today, the five most popular Catholic approved Bibles are: Douay Rheims, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition, and the New Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition. Some of these are good translations, and the Catholic Church has made some strides forward as the Vatican has now called for translations from the original languages in Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spirit. The Church has encouraged the use of more modern translations that utilize the best and earliest manuscripts, but—and this is why I write this as my “Part 1” of the blog—they still hold to an archaic translation of certain verses that skew the idea of grace.
 
For Luther, one of the largest issues he had was with the Catholic Church’s translation of Acts 2:38 and Matthew 4:17. We will explore this more in Part 2 of the blog. Luther noticed that the Catholic Church, in using Jerome’s translation, used the words “do penance” instead of the more proper “repentance.” I know, both of the words sound vaguely familiar to each other, but they are completely antithetical in terms of the Gospel (the Gospel being the good news that Jesus has come to restore and renew us through His own death and resurrection).Luther said that Jerome’s translation misled people into thinking that people must atone for their own sin when Jesus clearly died to pay that penalty before God, once and for all.
 
When the Reformation was in full swing, the Catholic Church shut down any conversation about the topic by saying in 1546, “If anyone shall not accept all these books in their entirety, with all their parts, as they are read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition as sacred and canonical…let him be anathema (meaning “let him be accursed, or excommunicated,” 4th session, 1546).
 
At that time, the Catholic Church also showed disdain for the original Hebrew and Greek translations when they came out with what is known as a polyglot (meaning using several languages). This allowed the reader to compare the text in multiple languages side-by-side. There was Hebrew on one side, Greek on the other, and in the middle, Jerome’s Latin translation. The Catholic Church had this to say about the polyglot: “We have put the Latin translation of St. Jerome [the Vulgate] between these versions, as though between the synagogue and the Eastern Church, placing them on each side like the two thieves, with Jesus, that is the Roman or Latin Church, in the middle” (16th Century Complutensian Polyglot).
 
Pretty far reaching comparison, huh? I know, it sounds like I am bashing on the Catholic Church, but that isn’t my intent…really. I want to give you the historical background for what next week’s blog will cover when we talk about one of the main schisms of the Reformation, and to help us realize that today we are no different in how we let our personal biases influence what we believe as truth. Maybe, at some future date, I’ll even show you some ways the Reformers did this, too.
 
For now, simply keep in mind that repentance is what Jesus calls us to—to repent of our self-righteousness and pride, to turn from ourselves and to Him. Matt 4:17 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”