Pensees: Repentance

Repentance

The Christian’s desire to overcome indwelling sin is a mark of his true faith. Unfortunately, dealing with sin is too often explained in terms of “victory” or “putting off.” These terms are helpful, but there is another oft-forgotten method for dealing with our internal and persistent bent toward ungodliness: routine repentance.

In the Christian environment here in the United States, the notion of routine repentance sounds like a foreign language. We have been so beset by decisionism and easy-believism that we think of repentance as an action that occurs during a crisis moment in our spiritual life when we are either converting to Christianity for the first time or arresting a long-cherished trend of backsliding. Unfortunately, pastors fail to preach repentance in a regular and systematic way to their believing congregations. I would submit to you that one way we grow in the Christian life is to begin thinking of repentance as a way of life, not just a singular action.

I am told that believers in Russia refer to themselves as “Repenters.” If this is true, there is valid biblical reasoning to substantiate such a name for God’s people. Though it is too often forgotten today, in the past it was considered to be a necessary emphasis of routine preaching.

Repentance Should Be Routinely Preached

The Westminster Confession of 1644 states:

Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof is to be preached by every minister of the Gospel, as well as that of faith in Christ.

The Biblical history of preaching consistently shows an appeal to the Covenanted people of God to repent. Consider these verses:

Isaiah the preacher cried, “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).

The prophet Joel called for internal repentance. “Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments.Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity (Joel 2:12-13).

Ezekiel issued this statement: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel” (Ezekiel 33:11).

Even under the Mosaic Covenant, the preachers of the day preached to the hearts of individuals. They looked for Job-like responses to the revelation of the glory of God: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes”(Job 42:5-6). Self-abhorrence and self-abnegation are rarely even suggested in these days of pop-psychology. We want to pamper people’s egos and turn our counseling sessions into pep rallies. We don’t want to say, “Tear your clothes, and despise yourself for your uncleanness” (Leviticus 13:45). At the very least we should insist that believers, upon hearing the Word, ask themselves the tough questions.

I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ (Jeremiah 8:6).

I think this is because we really do not see repentance as an “evangelical grace.” By “evangelical grace,” the authors of the Westminster Confession were stating the Scriptural teaching that those who have really become partakers of the gospel have also become — necessarily — partakers of the will to repent. And that is all of grace.

Salvation pardon doesn’t come without repentance. Again, notice how the Westminter Confession puts it:

By it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature, and righteous law of God; and upon the apprehension of His mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with Him in all the ways of his commandments. Although repentance be not to be rested in, as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ; yet it is of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it. As there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation; so there is no sin so great, that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent.

Now here is the real kicker! This is where today’s Christianity goes astray. Immediately following the above statement on repentance, the authors add this very important sentence.

Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (Westminster Confession of Faith, XV/I - v)

In other words, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him” (Colossians 2:6). The way you started is the way you keep going. You started by repenting, you persevere by repenting as God’s Spirit illumines you with fresh knowledge from the Holy Word. We cannot possibly know all of our particular sins when we first believe. We learn of them as we increase in knowledge and the authors of the Westminster Confession are right to insist that believers should repent of their particular sins, particularly.

Repentance and the Renewal of the Mind

The relation between repentance and the renewal of the mind or inextricably linked. Speaking of the New Testament usage of repentence, B.B. Warfield said,

Here it prevailingly stands for that fundamental change of mind by which the back is turned not upon one sin or some sins, but all sin, and the face definitely turned to God and to His service, - of which therefore a transformed life (epistroh) is the outworking. (Biblical Doctrines)

As believers who take seriously the injunctions of Scripture to be renewed in our minds (Romans 12:1-2, Colossians 3:10), seeing it as a progression of sanctification, the call to “turn” from sin as soon as one is convicted of it seems to mesh perfectly with the process of transformation. Transformation is a process, and repentance is part of the process.

Baptists have historically held to the same high view of repentance as our Presbyterian brothers. The Second London Confession of Faith (the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith) and the 1742 Philedelphia Confession agree with the 1644 Westminster Confession.

From the Philadelphia Confession:

Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation 1. Such of the elect as are converted at riper years, having sometime lived in the state of nature, and therein served divers lusts and pleasures, God in their effectual calling giveth them repentance unto life. (Titus 3:2-5)

2. Whereas there is none that doth good and sinneth not, and the best of men may, through the power and deceitfulness of their corruption dwelling in them, with the prevalency of temptation, fall into great sins and provocations; God hath, in the covenant of grace, mercifully provided that believers so sinning and falling be renewed through repentance unto salvation.
(Eccles. 7:20; Luke 22:31, 32)

3. This saving repentance is an evangelical grace, whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth, by faith in Christ, humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrency, praying for pardon and strength of grace, with a purpose and endeavour, by supplies of the Spirit, to walk before God unto all well-pleasing in all things.
(Zech. 12:10; Acts 11:18; Ezek. 36:31; 2 Cor. 7:11; Ps. 119:6, 128)

4. As repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives, upon the account of the body of death, and the motions thereof, so it is every man’s duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly.

5. Such is the provision which God hath made through Christ in the covenant of grace for the preservation of believers unto salvation; that although there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation; yet there is no sin so great that it shall bring damnation on them that repent; which makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary. (Rom. 6:23; Isa. 1:16-18, 55:7; Luke 19:8; 1 Tim. 1:13, 15) emphasis mine

The trusted Spurgeon referred to repentence as a “saving grace.” In other words, repentence — true repentence — is a gift from God, not something that can be stirred up by man’s free will.

Spurgeon’s Catechism

Q. What is repentance to life?
A. Repentance to life is a saving grace (Acts 11:18), whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sins (Acts 2:37), and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ (Joel 2:13), does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it to God (Jer. 31:18-19), with full purpose to strive after new obedience (Ps. 119:59).

A godly sorrow for sin that works repentence (2 Corinthians 7:10) is a work of grace in our hearts that teaches us to deny ungodliness and to live soberly in this present evil age (Titus 2:11). It is not a one time action at the beginning of one’s Christian walk, nor is it the rare event that is only necessitated by grievous and scandalous sins. Where grace is active in a believer’s heart, it is a way of life.

I think pastors should call for repentance regularly. Apparently, our forefathers thought so too.