On Going Repentance

What better way to end this series on repentance than on Good Friday and a fresh self-examination, confession of sin to your great High Priest and renewed commitment to His will?

This is week twelve of a series on repentance. What have we seen?

Repentance involves sorrow over sin, renouncing of sin and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ. The call to repent is as urgent as the call to believe, for it is ultimately one and the same call. Every time you look at a coin, think of conversion. The heads represents faith as we look toward Christ alone. Tails represents repentance as we put sins in the rear view mirror.

Jesus warned “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5), so we can conclude that without debate, repentance is part of the gospel message. So Jesus preached: “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

The Apostles preached repentance from sins throughout Acts, along side the call to trust Christ, so we expect and find that repenting has the same results as believing: forgiveness, eternal life, knowledge of the truth and salvation.

We discovered upon close examination of the Scriptures that repentance must be granted by God to be exercised by man, being first a gracious work of God, by His Spirit, in the heart of His people (2 Tim. 2:25). God gets all the credit and glory.

But what must we turn from? Beyond unbelief, we are to turn from all known sin at the time of our conversion. True believers hate all sin. Though we still commit sin, we no longer love sin. It makes us sad because God has made us new creatures in Christ.

Repentance involves our emotions as well, sensations such as grief, shame, sorrow and a tearing of the heart. In giving up sin, we experience real pain that anticipates eternal gain, as repenting is always mingled with faith, not despair or hopelessness. It is a spiritual circumcision, where there is sharp pain and yet great gain to be forever marked as one of God’s people, now free to obey Him.

Finally, given that all things good and right can be faked, we considered the tragic examples of counterfeit repentance found in Adam, Esau, Pharaoh, Saul and Judas.

Louis Berkof, in his Systematic Theology, provides a good summarizing quote to this point: “True conversion is born of godly sorrow and issues in a life of devotion to God (2 Cor. 7:10). It is a change that is rooted in the work of regeneration, and that is effected in the conscious life of the sinner by the Spirit of God; a change of thoughts and opinions, of desires and volitions, which involves the conviction that the former direction of life was unwise and wrong and alters the entire course of life.”

But to date our focus has been on initial repentance at conversion, simply because of the biblical emphasis. But what about those of us who have already discovered Christ and divorced sin? Do we as believers still need to repent? Is it a “one and done” – or is there more? Is there a lifestyle of repenting just as there is a lifestyle of believing?

The simple answer is this: You and I only need to repent if we sin. Stop sinning and you can stop repenting. Doesn’t that clear it up!

The balanced, biblical Christian life is not all joy and celebration, it is also equal parts sorrow and mourning. Not just abundant life, but also daily dying to sin. Not only running toward the prize, it is also fleeing from youthful lusts.

We are like the raccoon who finds himself suddenly and surprisingly both part of a new pursuit and part of a chase. Once the hounds strike his trail and open the chase, is Mr. Raccoon running to the safety of a tree or from the dogs? Yes!

He is drawn to the safe haven of a sturdy tree. The tree calls him and fills him with longing. Rest assured, with the dogs in hot pursuit, he simply can’t wait to get there!

Raccoon would never intentionally run toward the dogs or hang out with the dogs. He would be ripped to shreds. No, he is also running from something. This analogy pictures the real Christian life. Sin pursues us and we run from it toward the safe haven of Christ and heaven.

Job was a believer who was continually “fearing God and turning away from evil.” He later repented in dust and ashes, as a believer. King David, a man after God’s own heart, teaches us how believers confess sin and repent of it in Psalm 51. Ezra the godly priest learned of the exiles intermarriage, tore his robe, pulled his hair from his head and beard, sat down appalled and prayed a prayer of repentance (cf. Ezra 9:6). The prophet Daniel, as faithful and godly as they come, is found confessing the sins of Israel and Judah that led to exile and captivity as a representative of his people (cf. Daniel 9:3-6).

Consider Jesus’ exhortation to the church in Ephesus: “Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).

Ponder Christ’s exhortation to the church at Pergamum: “Therefore, repent; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth” (Revelation 2:16).

And of course there’s the rich and robust example of the ongoing repentance of the Christians in Corinth described so beautifully in 2 Cor. 7:5-11. Time and space fails us to unpack it. The MacArthur Study Bible summarizes it well: “Repentance is at the very heart of and proves one’s salvation: unbelievers repent of their sin initially when they are saved, and then as believers, repent of their sins continually to keep the joy and blessing of their relationship to God.”

We will stumble. We will blow it. When we come around to repentance, 2 Cor. 7:5-11 is what it looks like.

As Puritan pastor and author Thomas Watson wrote long ago, “A broken heart and a broken Christ do well agree.”