REPENTANCE AGAIN

Some say I talk too much about repentance. I say I don’t talk about it enough. The bible seems to be comfortable talking about it. It uses the word in the verb and noun forms almost fifty times. A sister concept, ‘to confess’ used another 25 times. To be sure the idea of repentance is strewn throughout Holy Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. If the Bible assumes that we are a race gone astray in sin (and we are) and that God has provided a way of getting that sin forgiven (and there is) then repentance is the mechanism whereby those two realities are reconciled to one another. Let me emphasize: there would be no need for repentance if 1). we were not sinners or 2). if God was not a gracious forgiving God. Repentance exists because we need forgiveness and God is a forgiver. Repentance is not an option but an integral part of of the Christian life. The pushback against making too much of repentance is because many think talking about this truth encourages men to sin. Give a man an ‘get out of jail card’ and he will not be so afraid of jail in the first place. But the analogy really falls apart at many levels. Repentance is not a get out of jail free because it does not expunge the consequences of sin. Repentance does not remove sin at every level; and it certainly does not take away past memories. Repentance removes guilt. Now that a big thing, to be sure. When a guilty sinner repents and believes the gospel God immediately takes the guilt of that sin and reckons that guilt to the account of His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ then becomes the guilty one and the sinner is now seen as righteous before God. This transaction is both the glory and the mystery of the gospel. This has caused many to call this exchange a ‘legal fiction’ because, as they say, no man can assume the guilt of another. Ezekiel 18 says that ‘the soul that sins it must die.’ According to the ancient prophet every man is guilty for his own sin and is held liable to pay its penalty. What the gospel says is that if the sin is legitimately transferred to the account of an innocent victim and that victim is willing to take on the sin and suffer its penalty, and if that victim has the right to atone for that particular sin, then that sin can be legitimately atoned for. So we ask the question, does the gospel meet all these requirements? First, can sin be legitimately atoned for by another victim? A quick reading of the Old Testament proves this is so. The first seven chapters of the Book of Leviticus detail all the sacrifices that were authorized in the Old Covenant. Notice how often we find the phrase ‘and it will be forgiven him’ (see Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13, 16, etc.). The death of an animal atoned for the sin of the one bringing the animal to the altar. In the mind of God guilt may be transferred to a substitute and forgiveness granted the petitioner. Second, we ask, ‘was Christ willing to take upon Himself the sins of others?’ The answer is ‘yes’ and that comes in His own words. He said, ‘My Father loves Me because I lay down my life that I many take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.’ What makes Christ’s sacrifice infinitely superior to that of bulls and goats is that Christ exercised his free when He offered Himself as a sacrifice. He was not forced to die by a will stronger than His own. Hebrews 10:10 reminds us; ‘by that will (the will of Christ) we have become sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’ The third question is this, ‘did Christ have the right to die for the sins of men?” One cannot substitute His life for another man if the offense is against a third party. John sins against Mary, and thus John’s guilt is against Mary. If Tony comes along he cannot pay the penalty for John and hope to appease Mary. The guilty party must pay the debt to the offended one. Thus Dickens’s brilliant substitute of Sydney Carton for the life of Charles Darnay, in A Tale of Two Cities, though a beautiful picture of self-sacrifice, falls short at the point of atonement. But when Christ dies for a sinner He IS the injured party and therefore can atone for the sin committed against Him. Christ is God in the flesh and it is against God and God alone that man has sinned (Ps 51:4). When then is repentance? Technically it is a change of mind of the offender. A sinner admits that He has sinned against God, He admits that it is a capital offense worthy of condemnation, and He believes that Jesus Christ is both the willing sacrifice and the One duly qualified to forgive that sin. Repentance is entire readjustment of the sinner’s attitude so that he now believes that his sin is worthy of death, that God has the right to punish that sin, and that Jesus is the only ordained atonement for that sin. Stubbornly refusing to acquiesce to this wonderful plan of salvation is the antithesis of repentance. To die in that state of mind is to die in a state of open rebellion that merits eternal punishment. Because we all stumble in many things (James 5:2), repentance is to be a constant visitor in the life of the Christian. A Christian will be a repenter his entire life through. This was Luther’s point in His opening Thesis when he noted that ‘the whole of one’s life is a life of repentance.’ This ‘repentance is a change of mind that causes the sinner to agree with God. That is, repentance is a renewed mindset that acknowledges that God’s ways are right and determines to live by those ways. This idea of agreeing with God is at the center of the most famous verse on repentance in the Bible; 1 John 1:9. The verse, quotable by many, says ‘if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ The word confess means to ‘say the same’ or simply, ‘to agree’. Biblical repentance is the Christian’s constant conviction that God is right and that sin is wrong. As a result we must be repenting often because it cleanses the soul as additives in gasoline cleanse the fuel injectors in an engine. Without repentance a thick film of spiritual apathy can overtake the believer and before he knows it he can sin without feeling remorse of any kind. When that happens God must then come and do a radical cleanup which generally involves the pain of chastisement. Repentance keeps the soul sensitive to God and keeps us thinking upon the holy character of God. Most of all, repentance causes us to acknowledge the beauty of Christ’s atonement so that we run to it often for spiritual cleansing. May I ever be found talking much about repentance. It is my daily meat.