Christians ever live in contrition and faith. Contrition, strictly speaking, is the terror we feel when God confronts our sins with His holy and righteous law. The law of God often descends upon us at the most inconvenient times, as King David found out when Nathan thrust his accusing finger at him: "You are the man!" ( 2Sa 12). The law swoops down and does us to death. Although he is a mighty warrior and anointed King, David himself is terrified that the Lord would take his life by this speaking ( 2Sa 12:13). There are many preachers of the law that can lead to contrition.

 

Tom Brown is cut to the quick when a new boy at Rugby school kneels down before sleeping and delivers his prayers much to the sneering contempt of his dorm mates. Brown had years before promised his mother that he would never stop praying while he was away at school, but his prayer life had atrophied and become quite sporadic. As he lay in bed after lights out he considered his situation: "Then the thought of his own mother came across him, and the promise he made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his head on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down gently and cried as if his heart would break...He had lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it?" (Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days). Tom Brown felt the deep shame that is contrition. The law had flooded into Tom Brown's life through his experience of the quiet faith of the new boy at the school. He wept upon his bed. Apart from Christ he could not bear it.

 

A personal earthquake that is off the Richter scale is not required for the law to do its work. The skittering leaf beginning its wind driven flight to join the moldering death that fertilizes the forest floor can chase us into the law's waiting maw ( Lv 26:36). The fall's rustling leaf reminds us that the fall of life also descends upon us as we age. Death is the ultimate preachment of the law. We too shall fade and become brittle like the leaf and our place will know us no more, blown away by the scudding winds of time. True contrition could be unbearable where there is no grace. Where God does not follow the crushing word of the law with the life-giving word of the gospel, despair is the only possibility. Apart from God's mercy the law will bring only death. Like Tom Brown we are left to cast ourselves upon the mercy of God. That is the only possibility for sinners.

 

Contrition through the law drives us to shelter in Christ. The alien work of God is the law. The proper work of God is to bring comfort to those who are troubled in their consciences because of their sin. God employs the law on us only for the sake of the gospel. The gospel is certainly the superior and superseding Word from God. This good news about Christ which pronounces us righteous in Him is what must follow upon the killing word of the law so that we might be raised from death to life. This dialogue must continue until we draw our last breath; from contrition to faith. Only those who are deaf to the real voice of the law can smugly go their way under the delusion that their own righteousness is sufficient before God. If that is true, Christ died for no purpose and why we live in contrition and faith.