REPENTANCE BEGINS IN THE MIND

The way that God works upon the heart of man is always from the mind outward to the fingers. God always causes us to understand something before we do something. Doing without understanding is a robotic exercise that undermines the entire Christianity experience which has as its primary goal to know God (John 17:3). But knowing God without acting upon that knowledge is equally problematic. It reveals a heart that cares little for God’s will while confessing to know Him. What kind of King seeks to be known by subjects that do not honor him? Like ear muffs, knowing and doing are truths that always come in pairs. A deep and abiding knowledge of God always leads to profound changes in behavior. Christianity is built around this paradigm. As an example, think about faith. We are commanded to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is a work of God in us that causes us to trust God because He is worthy. It is not a moral entity. Rather it is the instrument that attaches us to a willing and able Savior. But the faith that alone saves us, says Luther, is never alone. Faith always manifests itself in a radical change of life. This is exactly the way we should view repentance. When most of us think of repentance, we immediately think of turning away from certain sins in our lives. We see repentance as a change in specific behavior. But a careful study of the word of God demonstrates that repentance has as its core meaning a change of mind. In other words repentance is more about what we know than what we do. The Greek word is metanoia, which means simply 'a change of mind.’ Now that definition has been taken to an unholy extreme by some who advocate that repentance is only a change of mind without any implications for life. They tell us that if one merely has an orthodox view of God and Christ he has repented. A cursory reading of the New Testament shows us the utter bankruptcy of this idea. As we said earlier, where the mind is convincingly changed, the behavior will follow along. However, we cannot make the opposite error and believe that repentance is only about behavior. The word itself reminds us that repentance is first and foremost a complete change of mind about something, a radical shift in world view. In other words, the chief emphasis on the notion of repentance is not that of confessing particular sins and vowing to do better the next time but in understanding the great truths about God and Christ and sin and salvation. As we look at some New Testament texts we will see that this is so. Take, for example, Peter’s Pentecost sermon recorded in Acts 2, We all know that at the end of that discourse Peter calls upon his Jewish audience to “repent every one of you for the forgiveness of sins” (vs 38). What exactly is Peter calling them to repent of? Lapses in their moral character, specific sins of adultery or covetousness? Both the audience and the message give us a clue. Remember that Peter is speaking to a Jewish mob who had just crucified its Messiah. Led by blood-thirsty leaders, the people came to believe that this Jesus of Nazareth was a fraud deserving of death. In some cases the Jews refused to look at the prophetic Scriptures; in other cases some were simply ignorant. Had they known who Jesus was, as a Jewish apostle would later say, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” The great sin of the Jews in the courtyard that day was not a specific moral failure. Their sin was that they missed their Messiah. Rather than coronate Him they shamefully murdered Him. The content of Peter’s sermon confirms this. When he stands up to preach that sermon his chief aim is to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the long predicted Christ. He begins by defending the strange events that are taking place by quoting Joel chapter 2 which forecasts an unusual outpouring of the Spirit in the days of the Messiah. The text quoted ends with the gospel appeal that all who will call upon the Lord in that day shall be saved. Peter then begins a cogent defense of Jesus being the true Messiah. He notes that Jesus actually performed those signs that had Joel predicted (2:22). But the more cogent proof that He was the Messiah of God was His resurrection. He goes on to quote Psalm 16 which details the resurrection of the Messiah who God could not leave in the grave because He was the Anointed One (2:27). Peter rejects any idea that the psalm spoke of David because David’s body did corrupt in the grave and everyone could visit his tomb right there in Jerusalem. Only the Messiah would be spared bodily corruption and Jesus, whose tomb was now empty, was that very man. Peter finishes the redemptive story by quoting Psalm 110 where the Messiah is elevated to the place of glory. This means the resurrected Christ was in heaven and therefore it was He who had sent the Holy Spirit down to fill the disciples on that Pentecost day. It was this ascended King of kings that the Jews had crucified. Verse 36 states their sin clearly; they had murdered the very Christ of God (36). When they heard this the crowd fell to pieces. What could be worse to a Jew than murdering the Messiah! Worse yet, the one they murdered now sat at the right hand of God as their judge. Naturally they cried out, “What shall we do?” It is then that Peter gives then the answer. They are to repent and be baptized in His name. No one in the crowd is thinking about repenting of breaking the moral law. They are repenting for something far deeper, their willful ignorance of the Messiah. In other words, they are to change their minds about who they thought Jesus of Nazareth was. Rather than seeing Him as a insurrectionist charlatan they must now bow to Him as their Lord and Christ. And to prove their repentance is real they are to be baptized in His name (a public avowal of their new relationship to Him). As Peter concludes his sermon three thousand people who had once considered Jesus to be a charlatan now trust Him as their Savior. They have indeed repented of their former view of Him and on that basis they are saved. A similar message by Peter is found in Acts chapter 3. As in the previous chapter the sermon is precipitated by a miracle, this time the healing of a lame man. Again Peter is preaching to Jews (3:12). And again the thrust of his message is the same. He proves to them that the Jesus whom they crucified is the one who raised the lame man. This He is able to do as the resurrected and exalted King. As the crowd listens Peter exhorts them to repent (3:19). And what were they to repent of? Not of their impurity or idolatry, but their rejection of the Messiah. In other words, they were to repent of the way they viewed Jesus. They were to change their mind about Him. Let us look at a few more biblical texts. Probably the greatest example of repentance in the Old Testament is by the Old Testament figure Job. The Holy Spirit specifically notes that Job was the greatest example of ethical purity in his generation (see 1:1 & 1:8). He was blameless and upright. No one measured up to his godliness in all the earth. The rest of the book chronicles the suffering of this man for no other reason than Satan’s malice. The rest of the book is given over to unkind and uninformed advice given by his three friends. As the book draws to a close one is likely to think that Job will be exonerated. But instead God comes storming out of a whirlwind and pummels Job with a series of questions that daze him like a brutal left upper cut. God does this not once but twice. Why is God being so hard? Is not Job a model of piety? What would Job need to repent of? But Job does repent and deeply, not once but twice. His repentance comes after he sees God for who God is. God comes out of a whirlwind (38:1) and Job melts before the Creator crying out, “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer You?” (40:3). The godly man suddenly cannot speak. But God is not through. He comes out of that whirlwind again (40:6) and this time His questions are more pointed. By now Job is completely undone. This righteous man has seen God and now sees his utter filthiness before God. He then speaks these famous words: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees You, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5). Here we must pause. What was Job repenting of? Surely he had no moral shortcomings. But what he had was a wrong view about God. Job must repent for not knowing God; he must change his mind about God. His response reminds us of another prophet who will melt before God when confronted by One who is high and lifted up in the Temple (see Isaiah 6). We see, therefore, that repentance is an entire, life-changing perspective on God Himself. One more quick illustration and then I’ll be done. The church at Ephesus in Revelation 2 was by all accounts a good one on the outside. God praised her for her works, her patience, and her steadfastness against evil. In addition that church persevered and had patience for Christ’s name sake and had not grown weary (2:3). Yet with all these virtues God commands them to repent. Why? Not because of any specific moral failures in the external realm but because they had “lost their first love.” In other words the church at Ephesus had forgotten who Jesus was. They did many things well, but they had not correctly known and loved the Savior. For this God calls them to repent (2:5). Need more be said? Repentance in all these texts has reference to one’s view of God and Christ, and not to some specific sins of the flesh. This is not to say that the Christian never repents of his specific sins. Indeed he must. Texts like 2 Corinthians 12:21 (fornication), Revelation 9:20 (idolatry) and Luke 17:3 (specific sins done against a brother) affirm that repentance, or a turning away, is to be practiced by Christians as they fall short in specific areas of their lives. But it seems that the core meaning of repentance is exactly what the word metanoia connotes, having a profound change of mind about who God is. Repentance must begin in the mind because sin begins in the mind. What we get wrong in the noggin we will eventually get wrong in the hands and feet. The application is simple. While it is important for the Christian to repent of daily deeds of the flesh, it is far more important for the Christian to hone and shape his thinking about the very person of God and about His salvation wrought in Jesus Christ. In a shallow, illiterate, blip-crazed culture like our own, this is the great need of our day. We must come to know God in all His profundity, in all His sublimity, in all HIs holiness, in all His wrath, in all His mercy. Christians, it is right and proper for you to repent of your individual sins against God. But to whom are you repenting? This is the larger question. Perhaps your repentance should take the shape of knowing God as you ought to know Him. Perhaps a visit from the whirlwind would be good for all of us. And when you come to know God you ought you will be well on your way to living that holy, pure and acceptable life that need not be repented of.