And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. —Acts 17:30
We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are... rebels who must lay down our arms.* —C. S. Lewis
Repentance is the first bit of firm ground underfoot, the only one from which we can go forward... repentance is the only starting point for spiritual growth.* —Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Not long ago a movie appeared on television entitled "The Candidate," starring Robert Redford. Although I missed a good portion of the film, I turned the set on in time to catch the rather intriguing conclusion. The setting was inside an enormous arena where a political congregation had come to cheer on their candidates. The place was jam-packed and rippling with energy and anticipation. The viewer was made extremely tense by a periodic scan of the candidates on the platform through the cross-hairs of a scope on a high-powered rifle. Finally, the inevitable occurred as several politicians were felled by an assassin lurking in the rafters.
The ensuing footage captured one of the most unbounded displays of mass hysteria I've seen filmed. Security guards were swept along helplessly in the raging torrent of terrorized humanity. Scores of people were mercilessly trampled to death in the every-man-for-himself stampede.
Heaving officials beaded with perspiration called on Redford, the Candidate, to "say something" to calm the people as they desperately fought for the lives of the downed politicians. Manning the podium, Redford scanned the vicious currents and whirlpools of the crazed arena. Finally, overwhelmed by the sight, he began a cynical monologue capitalizing on earlier campaign rhetoric. Pounding the podium, he yelled into the microphone in order to surface above the deafening crowd: "We're OK! There's nothing wrong with us." All the while the, cameras delivered closeups of bodies crushed in the scramble, screaming women, fistfights and general hysteria as every technique was employed to save one's own skin. Although the story was political, I couldn't help but see a spiritual parallel.
The word "sanctuary" carries two distinct meanings:
Webster's New World Dictionary elaborates—
Fugitives from justice were immune from arrest in churches or other sacred places—immunity from punishment or the law…[1]
While many clergymen today are willing to talk about sin or sinners they are usually hesitant to speak at them. The underlying thought is probably that their presence in the congregation is as much as can be hoped for, a critique made by Malcolm Muggeridge:
One of the most effective defense systems against God's incursions has hitherto been organized religion. Various churches have provided a refuge for fugitives from God—His voice drowned in the chanting, His smell lost in the incense, His purpose obscured and confused in creeds, dogmas, dissertations… in vast cathedrals, as in little conventicles… one could get away from God.[2]
As long as the sinner frequents the bars and brothels he is easy to identify, but as soon as he begins to attend church services, no one dares call him a sinner! The church sanctuary has in fact become a marvelous hiding place for sinners. Knowing that the minister will not point a finger at his sins, the sinner finds protection. So long as we preach about sin rather than at sin, organized religion will not ultimately minister at the personal level. As C. S. Lewis has said, "…Corporate guilt perhaps cannot be, and certainly is not, felt with the same force as personal guilt.[3]
Personal guilt was more difficult to hide during New Testament times, primarily as a result of the emphasis of early sermons. Although the particular design of these sermons varied, the overall fabric was identical. As we look at a sampling of excerpts from four of the New Testament's most prominent preachers, note the lack of modern camouflage in their message, and the recurring theme of repentance.
PETER
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. —Acts 2:37-38
But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. —Acts 3:18-19
JOHN THE BAPTIST
Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" …But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance." —Matthew 3:1-2,7-8 (NASB)
PAUL
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. —Acts 17:30-31
Whereupon, 0 king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: But [I] showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. —Acts 26:19-20
JESUS
Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. —Mark 1:14-15
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish. —Luke 13:5
Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee Chorazin! woe unto thee Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. —Matthew 11:20-21
Although a great deal of attention is given to the theme of repentance by the New Testament writers, it is never mentioned as an end in itself. Rather, repentance is a means to salvation. It is what Solzhenitsyn refers to as "a clearing"[4] of the ground. Repentance is the condition of, or the prerequisite to, salvation. Jesus makes this clear when, in Mark 1:15, He exhorts the people to repent and believe the gospel. Repentance alone will not save you; but unless you repent you cannot be saved.
One of the most astonishing things I have read in recent years was a Christian book on the plan of salvation which actually suggested that repentance was subordinate to faith. Here is the result of the Commercial Transaction Theory: salvation is totally God's responsibility—He's done everything—He's paid for your sin; therefore, just simply accept what's already been done. They come to Christ to get; to receive an unconditional gift. This was most certainly not the case in biblical times. This current type of teaching will never result in sinners realizing their sin and coming broken and contrite to the foot of the cross like the convicted publican.
The tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified… He who humbles himself shall be exalted. —Luke 18:13-14 (NASB)
Here a man encountered his own sin; he didn't refer to himself merely as a sinner but rather as the sinner. The man was ashamed to even lift up his eyes. As the realization came into sharper focus, he cried out to God for mercy! The men of Jerusalem responded in similar fashion to the anointed preaching of Peter.
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." —Acts 2:37-38 (NASB)
What a rare sight! How often has modern preaching affected men to the point they were pierced to the heart and came asking how to be saved?
Our trite little formula of "just accept Jesus" has produced countless spiritual stillbirths and inoculated millions of others against the true gospel. The question, "Will you accept Jesus?" implies some doubt about His acceptability! We must remember that Christianity is, in essence, a relationship between a man and his God. We have broken the relationship. We have left God in the act of rebellion to pursue our own idea of happiness. Surely if we are going to be reconciled to God after all this, it must be on His conditions. There seems to have been an inversion of biblical injunctives. It is not whether we "accept" Christ, but whether Christ accepts us. That is the crucial issue. Will Christ indeed accept us the way we are as so many today imply? Will the King of Kings come to rule over a moral garbage dump? The notion that the sinner's condition is irrelevant at salvation shows how little we know of our responsibility in salvation, as well as God's character.
C. S. Lewis asks:
When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? …Does any woman regard it as a sign of love in a man that he neither knows nor cares how she is looking?[5]
The Lord Jesus refers to man's solemn responsibility in salvation with His warning to would-be disciples:
For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' —Luke 14:28-30 (NASB)
One of the greatest deterrents to the conversion of sinners today are the "half-built-Christians so evident across our land. From the very beginning they were instructed by pastors, priests and laymen that they were acceptable to God the way they were. Thus the idols which remain in their hearts (presumably to be dealt with later) bring ridicule to God's name. Where does the Bible teach that a turning from or a forsaking of all known sin is not an absolute essential condition of salvation? The popular theory that the sinner is "clothed with Christ's righteousness" to cover up the actual presence of ongoing sin, makes God appear as the biggest dupe in the universe! If God cannot have fellowship with unrighteousness, and we are leading unrighteous lives (except for Christ's righteousness), then we can only conclude that God's relationship is actually with Himself! The notion that God enjoys fellowship with those who are sinners by glancing at Christ's righteousness beside him is unrealistic.*
The question of whether repentance is, equal or subordinate to faith is open to interpretation. Is repentance issued as an invitation or a commandment? If repentance is an invitation, then our response is relative; if it is a commandment, then our response must be absolute. If repentance is a commandment of God, then it is ludicrous to think we can give it a subordinate status. No commandment of God is less important than another. We must keep them all. The following reasons show that repentance is a commandment and not an invitation.
If we really believed that repentance was a commandment rather than an optional invitation, this would drastically alter the complexion of today's Church. We would recognize that those who refused to repent were just not "growing in the Lord," but were actually guilty of disobedience.
Christian speaker Winkie Pratney often refers to the Japanese surrender in the Pacific at the close of World War II. The formal surrender took place aboard the battleship Missouri, between the Japanese admiral and General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific. As the highly decorated admiral, replete with all the regalia of war, offered his hand of surrender to the American general, MacArthur replied, "Your sword first please, sir."
We must also surrender our weapons of rebellion before we can hope to be reconciled to our former enemy. For as long as we cling to our selfishness, we indicate our intention of entertaining a prolonged conflict. When we acknowledge sin as willful defiance and lawless rebellion, we also acknowledge that a surrender rather than a cure is needed. "That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." (Romans 3:19)
If a love of sin remains in the heart, the sinner remains unrepentant.* The individual whose heart is full of pride is unwilling to be known openly for what he or she really is. As long as denial and deception are present, no repentance has taken place. Those who cling to their opinions, habits and possessions simply do not mean business with God. They self-righteously display a token commitment while tailoring doctrine to suit their conduct. Painstakingly they construct excuses to conceal their love for the world, apparently unaware or unconcerned about the warning of scripture:
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. —Galatians 6:7 (NASB)
We must come to God with empty hands and broken hearts, for God will not play games with the religious trifler:
Repent, andturn yourselves from all your transgressions …Cast away from you all your transgression… —Ezekiel 18:30-31
No attempt must be made to conceal any selfishness, for God declares in His Word that "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper" (Prov. 28:13). In keeping one you might as well keep them all; for in desiring to hold on to your sin, you indicate your intention to continue battle.
True repentance involves our entire personality in a confrontation with sin. We must first see our sin through God's eyes for the abhorrent thing it is; only then will we be able to hate our sin with a righteous passion. Given our tendency to hold on to sin we love, this thorough hatred of sin must precede a genuine forsaking it.
To begin this process, one must take a long and thoughtful look, first, at what sin has done to God and, second, at His loving and merciful response to us in spite of the abuse He has suffered. The Bible tells us that it is "the goodness of God (that) leadeth thee to repentance" (Rom. 2:4), not fear or force. The love of God displayed on Calvary was the greatest possible force to subdue the human heart, and for those who fail to receive the knowledge, the message of scripture is solemn.
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. —Hebrews 10:26-27 (NASB)
SEEING OUR SIN—"Repentance is always difficult; not only because we must cross the threshold of self-love, but also because our own sins are not easily visible to us."[6] However, when we release ourselves to the control of the Holy Spirit, He releases us from our subjective shells so that we are able, perhaps for the first time, to view sin from God's objective vantage point.
Once job had a vision of himself in relation to God's loving kindness when he declared:
I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes. —Job 42:5-6 (NASB)
From this elevated perspective we are able to see the true nature of sin and its fraudulent pleasures.
But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" —Luke 5:8 (NASB)
HATING OUR SIN—While it is virtually impossible to hate our sin before we see it exposed, once we do see and recognize its diabolical qualities and truly repent, we actually do detest that for which we once held a strange fascination.
"Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning." —Joel 2:12 (NASB)
During the course of his investigation into the causes of the religious superficiality in many of the churches of his day, American revivalist Charles Grandison Finney noted this characteristic of true repentance:
The individual who truly repents, not only sees sin to be detestable and vile, and worthy of abhorrence, but he really abhors it, and hates it in his heart… You do not now abstain from it through fear, and to avoid punishment, but because you hate it… in relation to God, he feels towards sin as it really is. And here is the source of those gushings of sorrow in which Christians sometimes break out when contemplating sin. The Christian views it as to its nature, and simply feels abhorrence. But when he views it in relation to God, then he weeps.[7]
This seems indeed the sorrow which produces a genuine repentance.
For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret… —2 Corinthians 7:10 (NASB)
FORSAKING OUR SIN—As mentioned earlier, the entire personality is involved in the act of repentance. Our minds, enlightened through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, are able to perceive sin stripped of all pretense. Emotionally we respond to this understanding with considerable revulsion, pain and sorrow. But the final and crucial stage involves our will in the actual severance and forsaking of sin. This stage will always follow if repentance is genuine. If we have not truly seen our sin, or if we have seen it and yet love it, there is little chance that it will be forsaken.
If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and do not let wickedness dwell in your tents. —Job 11:14 (NASB)
The scope of our repentance must be infinite. We cannot run away even from ancient sins; we may write off other people's sins as ancient history, but we have no right to do it for ourselves.[8]
Restitution in all applicable cases is an important corollary of repentance and is usually a fairly reliable indicator that a genuine repentance has occurred.[9]
As we close this chapter, noting the tendency of human nature to take the easy way, we will look briefly at what repentance is not.
Catholic confession booths and Protestant altars have been the, cathartic contact points of sinners for centuries. The problem all too often is that sin is confessed because the guilt of sin is making life uncomfortable and not because it is an offense to God. Many people attend church on Sunday morning not because they want to honor God's name, but because the lingering guilt of sin might spoil their afternoon.
Sin is often confessed complete with a fervent display of emotions, not because the sinner wants to turn from the sin which he detests, but to obtain relief from the emotional burden which accompanies it. Although God wants to hear our sincere confessions, their root cause is what He desires to eliminate. In other words, the Bible requires that we not only confess our sin but that we turn from it as well.
Although remorse, sorrow and contrition are involved in a repentant attitude, they do not in themselves comprise biblical repentance. Many have wept at church altars only to arise unchanged and eventually engage in the same sins over which they wept. Unfortunately, tears have such a powerful effect on most of us that our tendency is to conclude genuine repentance must have taken place. It has often been said that heaven is full of repentant sinners, while hell is full of remorseful ones.
Whenever we realize the truth about our sin and yet decide to remain unchanged, rejecting the ramifications of true repentance, great frustration results. We feel remorse and sorrow; we hate ourselves. Remaining unchanged and trapped between what we know is right and what we still wrongly love, we slowly experience the death of our personalities. This is the very opposite of the godly sorrow which "produces a repentance without regret" ultimately freeing us from our bondage.
Repentance, then, is an intelligent choice to renounce our selfish motives in life as we are humbled by an encounter with the cross and gently wooed and convicted by the Holy Spirit. Our entire personality is involved in a change of opinion, a change of feeling and, finally, a determined renunciation and forsaking of all known sin. This is the first and only proper step for all who have been involved in a persistent rebellion against God and His kingdom.