Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
"Corporate repentance" is a million miles away from a mere committee action, or a four-color advertisement promoting it as the latest "groupthink" strategy. That would never help, for there are many who because of ingrained "loyalty" will jump on any new program that is promoted by "groupthink," for they want to be "in" and thought well of. A "corporate confession" would accomplish nothing. As we near the end of time, the Lord cannot be satisfied with such a superficial work.
The word "corporate" has nothing to do with the organization of the hierarchy. Repentance is a gift of the Holy Spirit, not a constituency vote. The work of repentance is always individual and personal, but the word "corporate" is simply the proper term to describe how each "member of the body" relates to the Head and to one another (1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4).
Corporate repentance is personally repenting of the sins of others as though they were our own, feeling the pain and guilt of other members of the body, which we realize would be ours but for the grace of Christ.
This is how the "message of Christ's righteousness" becomes relevant. His righteousness must be imputed 100 percent, for we do not have even 1 percent of our own. We share the corporate guilt of the whole world--but for the grace of Christ. No one of us is innately better than another. As Luther said, we are all made of the same dough. Every lion in Africa is by nature a man-eater, but few get "the opportunity" to eat human beings. We can say that lions share a corporate nature.
The Lord Jesus calls upon "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" to "be zealous and repent" (Rev. 3:14, 19). While such repentance is always personal, it is also "of the body," and therefore "corporate."
The repentance of ancientNineveh at the preaching of Jonah is an example of national repentance, led by "the king and his nobles" (Jonah 3:5-9). A repentance of the church today as a body would be denominational. The Lord will give the gift, and His honor requires that He have a people who respond, both leaders and laity (cf. Zech. 12:10- 13:1).
--Robert J. Wieland
From:"Lightened With His Glory,"1991.
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