The Nature of Sin, Pt 13: Repentance

Isaiah 30:15                           This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

Luke 5:31-32                         Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Acts 3:19                           Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

Romans 2:4                     Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

Jeremiah 31:19                 After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’

Romans 2:5                      But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

When I was young God was spoken of rarely, but I recognize now that God was calling me even then.  My parents were extremely moral, honest, and honorable and in that sense Godly values were commonplace.  As I entered young adulthood I began to be aware of a greater good and began to investigate church.  Without really realizing it at the time, I was looking for God.

Those early sermons and homilies I heard were often about this thing called repentance of which I knew nothing.  I got the idea that repentance was telling God I was sorry for something I had done, but I have learned since repentance is so much more than that.  I often hear people define repentance as regret or remorse which is in line with my early understanding.  In the new Testament though the more precise definition is to ‘change one’s mind’ or to ‘turn away’.  The idea here is to turn away from the evil one has been doing and turn back to God.  Often sorrow is involved, but the tricky thing is that true repentance is hard to determine.  I remember one time being caught shoplifting at the local ‘five and dime’.  These stores were like 7-Eleven before there were 7-Elevens.  My parents were called, I was completely embarrassed and humiliated, and tears flowed freely.  This episode is burned into my memory.  But you see, there was little repentance:  I was expressing sorrow at being caught, not true sorrow at the deed.

I have written before about Godly moral character and the existence of an absolute moral code.  Yes sin has existed almost since the beginning, but also since the beginning has been the sense of right and wrong.  This is what our conscience is all about.  When Jesus, or the prophets, or the apostles called people to repent it is assumed that they knew what repentance was.  This is why repentance is a great weapon against sin.

But also since the beginning Satan has been working to defeat God’s plan for the salvation of His people.  One of the ways he has been doing that is to deceive people as to what sin is.  Don’t get me wrong:  There is no battle between good and evil going on.  God has a plan for the salvation of His people, and Satan is fighting against it, but God wins.  But Satan wants to ‘take out’ as many people as he can before he is thrown into the lake of fire.

One of Satan’s great weapons is the redefinition of things.  Where once murder was considered immoral, now abortion is considered ‘reproductive right’.  Where once homosexuality was considered unnatural, now it is redefined as ‘personal choice’.  Where once work was considered necessary if one were to eat, now laziness is rewarded by big government.  The point I’m making here is that one is disinclined to repent of something that person doesn’t consider sinful.  People are prone to rationalizing away their guilt before God by claiming their particular set of circumstances gives sufficient reason to justify their sin.  But God is having none of this.  Just because people deceive themselves does not negate the existence of an absolute moral code.

So then, how is repentance a weapon against sin?

Repentance is the deeply-felt recognition of having defied God by embracing something He despises.  At its root is the realization of having saddened God.  In other words repentance elevates God and lowers one’s own pride and arrogance.  The reason repentance is a weapon against sin is that it turns one’s heart back to God.  True repentance makes no excuses, offers no rationalizations, refuses to shift blame, and ultimately recognizes that whatever the sin has been that it has been a turning away from God.  Yes, this is not a very pleasant experience, but there is sweet relief on the other side.  There can be nothing sweeter than the feeling of contentment with God.  I liken that feeling with the times I have sat on my porch during and after a light spring rain and find myself content with the rightness of the world.

This sort of contentment leads to a determination to pursue more righteousness and purity.  It is kind of like being in a positive feed-back loop:  repentance leads to contentment, which brings a peaceful union with God, which facilitates greater purity, which brings greater contentment, and so on.  The end of this is a holiness and closeness to God we wouldn’t have thought possible at the beginning.  We believers are guaranteed entry into eternity, but we have to live in these earthly tents until then.  Repentance is the beginning of the road to sanctification, and if through repentance we become daily aware of our sin, then we have access to the refreshing and energizing reality of God’s grace.

The ultimate result of God’s grace is His forgiveness.  We’ll talk about that next week.