True Repentance

We need Christ’s righteousness to stand in the last days. An important step in obtaining this righteousness is repentance.

Matthew 4:17 says, “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Recorded in Luke 5:32 are Jesus’ words: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Another well-known repentance verse is Luke 13:3: “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Jesus repeats these words in verse 5.

Repentance is one of the responses we make to God. Response means that we are reacting to something. It is not something we come up with on our own. God takes the initiative, and we, then, respond to His initiative. Faith, obedience, confession, and submission are some of the other responses we make to God. Man is responsible to make these kinds of responses to what God does for us.

God Winked

“And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the 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.

God has winked at our ignorance in the past, but He is calling us now to repent, because the hour of judgment is at hand. It is God’s purpose to save people from their sins, to reconcile us to Him and to restore us in His image. All of our knowledge of God and His plan of redemption for us are really useless, unless they lead us to make a proper response. Repentance brings the Christian into harmony with the mind of Christ and His reaction to sin. As we have already read, Jesus emphasized repentance. The disciples emphasized repentance. Though their emphasis was to the nation of Israel, rather than to individuals only, the Old Testament prophets emphasized repentance.

Repentance Brings Joy

Jesus said, “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” Luke 15:7. What a wonderful thought! Repentance brings joy to God!

If we listen to the radio or read the newspaper, we learn of many distressing things that are occurring. If we watch the news on television, we see the reporting of a lot of evil things. We learn of murders, rapes, and accidents, yet we hear only a little smidgen of what actually goes on, but God sees it all. He sees all the evil, but we have the privilege of bringing joy to God when we repent.

Meaning of Repentance

What does repentance mean? The usual definition given is, “sorrow for sin and a turning away from it.” It definitely is that, but in my quest to understand the deeper meaning of repentance and righteousness by faith, I searched beyond that definition.

The English word repentance comes from the Latin word repoenitere.

A closer translation would be the English word penance. But that is not the Greek translation. The Greek word for repentance in the Bible is either metanoia or metanoeo. It is basically a combination of two Greek words—meta, which means “after,” and nuos, meaning “mind.” Repentance is literally “aftermind,” a changing of the mind that has entered onto a new path. It is a reformation or a revolutionary change of the mind. When one experiences repentance, every faculty of the mind is enlightened. The intellect is convicted. Every feeling is made sorry for sin, and the will is decided for Christ.

Repent—change your mind—is the cry that rings all through the New Testament. We are being called to bring our wayward minds back into harmony with God. This is what repentance is all about. The initial call of the gospel is to make a complete turn from self and sin back to God.

Repent or Penance

As mentioned before, the English word repent comes from the Latin word for penance. In the Catholic Douay Version of the Bible, Luke 13:3 is literally translated—“unless you do penance you shall likewise perish.” Penance emphasizes an emotional experience. It is remorse and grief over past sin. An emotional reaction is not enough. It may be a starting point, but it is not all. We need a basic change of mind and purpose. The Greek word calls for a change in our attitude and motive. The Latin word for penance calls for a superficial abasement of self.

We may deserve beating ourselves up, but that would not fix anything. This, certainly, is not what God had in mind. When God calls men to repent, He is not looking simply for an expression of grief or mourning over our past sins. He desires a change of the whole mind. Just as fear, though a good motivator, lasts for just a short time, this penance type of repentance—emotional grief—lasts only for a brief time. God has in mind a change of the mental patterns so the whole life is transformed, not just for a temporary time but for a lifetime—for eternity.

Without new mental patterns, human behavior and character are not really changed. Life is changed only when the attitudes are changed. True repentance goes right to the root of the problem; penance deals only with the leaves and the foliage.

Life-Changing

True repentance includes sorrow for sin, but it goes far beyond that point. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” 11 Corinthians 7:10. In this text, repentance is translated from the Greek metanoia, meaning “a complete change of heart,” referring to the change that actually makes a person a Christian. The change is to be permanent. The whole attitude is changed. The word repented is translated from the Greek word ametameletos, meaning the worldly type of regret or sorrow. It is a temporary, emotional reaction with no permanent change of mind.

Judas experienced that kind of repentance. He was very sorry, and he suffered such deep, emotional anguish over what he had done that he went out and killed himself. If he had just waited a little while, that emotional reaction probably would have gone away. It was a short-lived, emotional experience. That kind of sorrow, that kind of repentance, worketh death.

Keeping that in mind, let us look at Acts 11:18. “When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” When we compare the two types of repentance, we see that the worldly type of repentance presented in 11 Corinthians 7:10 worketh death, and the kind of repentance that God granted these Gentiles was repentance unto life.

Peter experienced that kind of repentance, and it was life-changing for his whole lifetime. It was a permanent change. It changed his whole mind, his personality, and his conduct. When we present the everlasting gospel, we need to be careful to which kind of repentance we lead people. Both involve the element of sin but bring about different reactions and affect people for different lengths of time. The effect is either a temporary thing or a permanent, long-term change of mind. We are leading them to one or the other, and we need to be careful which one it is. If a man is very sorry about his sin, it may bring death and not salvation, as in the case of Judas. It may bring deep remorse and grief but no decisive break from sin.

Look Forward

We must be not only sorry for sin but, by the grace of God, we need to do something about it. Repentance in the world only looks back in sorrow. True repentance not only looks backward, but it also looks forward—forward to a life lived in the power of God where sin is not only grieved over but is actually overcome and forsaken.

In Exodus 10:16, we read: “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.” Pharaoh, when confronted with tragedy and pressure and plagues, confessed to Moses, “I have sinned.” His response was due to fear. No change of mind actually took place in him, as later confirmed by his actions. Obviously, it was not a genuine repentance, because he turned right back on the commitment he had made to Israel and attacked them. Character is not changed by temporary, emotional concern. Sorrow for past sins is only part of the total experience of repentance.

Paul, in Acts 26:20, stated: “But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judæa, and [then] to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” John the Baptist declared, in Matthew 3:8: “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” Many times, in revival and evangelistic efforts, a call is made for an emotional response, rather than a turning of the whole life away from sin and back to God. No wonder the commitments do not last!

Beating up one’s self, trying to punish one’s self, or going around in a state of dark distress is not the answer. It may be the natural response, if we are truly sorry, but if it goes on too long, it actually is a sign of not understanding and trusting the love and the power of God. When guilt becomes more distressful than we can bear, we need to go to the Psalms and read some of the experiences David went through. Christianity is not to be a religion of continual guilt but of peace and strength. That guilt should drive us to the Saviour so He can give us victory and newness of life. As we saw in Acts 11:18, repentance is unto life. It purges us of guilt and of the sin that caused the guilt. It does not increase.

Cost of Repentance

Often men rejoice in the fact that God has done it all; however, He expects a proper response to what He has done. We are called to trust Him as Saviour and enthrone Him as Lord. Many people like the Saviour part, but they do not like the Lord part, but we have to have both. It is a complete package—Saviour and Lord.

Repentance is the most costly business in the world. It cost God everything to forgive man, and it costs man everything to be reconciled to God. We have to give up our own strength and depend on God. Human pride just hates that idea. A special gift from God is needed before we can even realize the necessity of it, and there are sins of which we are not aware that must be brought to our attention before we can repent of them. We have to know with what we are dealing. We have to understand the guilt before we can go to God in repentance or for repentance, either one, and receive forgiveness.

Sometimes we do not even see what is in our life as sin, until God points it out. The present-day conscience has been trained to be quite easy on sin. It is difficult these days to even make people feel guilty. People seem to think—and some churches teach—that you can drift right into heaven—sins and all. The cross, of course, reveals otherwise. It shows that God cannot and does not take sin lightly. Someone has to pay the price and bear the judgment. Only as we study the cross can we get a right perception of sin and its cost, the sinfulness of sin. Repentance comes from continually thinking of that theme of the cross.

The Experience

Just because we understand what repentance is does not necessarily mean that we can experience it in its genuine form. So how do we repent? Well, the natural man has no power to make the change that true repentance brings unless God works in him and leads him to it. We read, in Romans 2:4, “Or despiseth thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” So it is the goodness of God that actually leads us to repentance.

Ellen White quoted Psalm 51:1–14 and then wrote, regarding that Psalm, “A repentance such as this, is beyond the reach of our own power to accomplish; it is obtained only from Christ, who ascended up on high and has given gifts unto men.

“Just here is a point on which many may err, and hence they fail of receiving the help that Christ desires to give them. They think that they cannot come to Christ unless they first repent, and that repentance prepares for the forgiveness of their sins. It is true that repentance does precede the forgiveness of sins; for it is only the broken and contrite heart that will feel the need of a Saviour. But must the sinner wait till he has repented before he can come to Jesus? Is repentance to be made an obstacle between the sinner and the Saviour?

“The Bible does not teach that the sinner must repent before he can heed the invitation of Christ, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ Matthew 11:28. It is the virtue that goes forth from Christ, that leads to genuine repentance. Peter made the matter clear in his statement to the Israelites when he said, ‘Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.’ Acts 5:31. We can no more repent without the Spirit of Christ to awaken the conscience than we can be pardoned without Christ.

“Christ is the source of every right impulse. He is the only one that can implant in the heart enmity against sin. Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness, is an evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts.” Steps to Christ, 25, 26.

I would encourage you to read the entire chapter entitled “Repentance” in Steps to Christ. Through the Holy Spirit and the Word, we realize our need to experience the true repentance to which His goodness will lead us. It should bring us to cry out, “What must I do to be saved?”

As long as we are satisfied with our own good, abilities, and moral achievements, there will be no true repentance. When we do not see that self is an idol, how can we repent of it? We have to see it; otherwise there is no repentance. If we do not see that self and not God is the center of our lives, how can we repent of it? We have to see our need.

The law and the gospel must be presented together, because the law exposes our guilt and our need. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” Romans 3:19. Modern-day psychologists tell us that it is not good to feel guilty, but if we do not feel guilty, of what use is the promise in 1 John 1:9? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If we do not ever feel guilty, we might as well throw that promise out the window. It is worthless to us, because we will not know what to confess. That promise has a condition: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. There is no use giving someone the good news, unless they have the bad news first!

Present and Future

If repentance is only concerned with our past sins, then it would seem that the time to repent is after we sin. This seems to be the standard understanding in the Christian world—after we sin, we repent of it. That is the way we operate. But if repentance includes man’s identification with God’s attitude towards sin, the primary time reference is the present and the future. The Christian will appraise his thoughts and motives before committing the outward action of sin. We come to see our sinful tendencies as they are in the present with a view of what their possible future actions could be. We learn to detect and judge the very seed of sin. Just as the oak is in the acorn, the sin is in the seed thought. It starts with a little seed thought in the mind.

Sin is not simply an act. It is an attitude of transgression and rebellion, of selfishness. For example, sin is hatred. Repentance treats hatred as it would the end result of it—murder. The Bible tells us that the end result of hatred is murder. (See 1 John 3:15.) Sin is deceit; it is crooked thinking, and repentance reacts to deceit like it would to dishonesty or embezzlement, because that is the end result. True repentance deals with the sin before it becomes an actual event or even a mature thought in the mind. That is the kind of repentance to which we need to come. It is the state of mind that sees the seed of murder already planted in envy and hostility. Adultery is already in the experience of lust.

To stand in the last days, we need a repentance that does not wait until after the fact. We need a repentance that nips the sin in the bud, before it ever turns into a mature thought. The time for Cain to repent was when hatred began to rise in his heart against his brother, not after he killed him. The time for Esau to repent was when he began to give priority to carnal things, not after he sold his birthright. The time for Pharaoh to repent was when he first started to resist the Lord, not after his first-born son was dead. The time for Judas to repent was when he first began to doubt Jesus, not after he was trying to give back the 30 pieces of silver to the Jewish leaders.

Repentance conditions the mind to discern wrong thoughts before they become mature thoughts or deeds. Christ’s call to repentance is a call to think like Christ does regarding sin.

“Not even by a thought did He yield to temptation. So it may be with us.” The Desire of Ages, 123. God intends that repentance will lead us to discern His attitude and react to it. “Blessed [is] the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:12–15.

In verse 12, we see that “the man that endureth temptation” is blessed! This is not just a passive putting up with temptation, as we may think of enduring as meaning. This is an active, staying power that makes us triumphant over temptation. By faith, we believe that God is with us in the process of overcoming and that gives us a hearty steadfastness that will not submit to defeat. It gives us confidence to believe that we can overcome this temptation, knowing that Christ is with us.

We are told, in verse 13, that God is not the one that tempts people. If He is not the one, from where does temptation come? Well, verse 14 explains that “every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust.” Mark 7:21–23 gives further understanding: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these things come from within.” All of these things defile us, and they come from our own lusts.

Natural Desires

The word lust is defined as “desires or cravings or longings.” In the Bible, lust can be good lust or bad lust. In Luke 22:15, desire is the same word. God has put desires in us for food, for comfort, for social activity, so it can be for good, but Satan, the tempter, knows how to play on our weaknesses. He knows how to entice us in those areas where we are weak so the desires become sinful indulgences. He tries to move us to fulfill those natural desires in an evil way. That is how he works.

When these natural desires first begin to head in the wrong direction, when our thoughts first start to become evil, that is the time to repent—not after they become mature thoughts or even actions. When those seed thoughts begin to germinate and mature, they need to be nipped right then, just as quickly as we can discern them. Evil thoughts are like snowballs rolling down a hill. The farther they go, the faster they go; the bigger they get, the more destructive they are when they hit us. We need to stop them when they are still moving slowly enough that we can control them, before they get big and out of control.

Some people have real sensitive consciences or even oversensitive consciences. They easily feel guilty. There is good news for such people. Ellen White wrote, “There are thoughts and feelings suggested and aroused by Satan that annoy even the best of men; but if they are not cherished, if they are repulsed as hateful, the soul is not contaminated with guilt, and no other is defiled by their influence.” Review and Herald, March 27, 1888. That is good news, is it not? In other words, we are not guilty for evil desires, if we nip them in the bud as soon as they start to come up.

It is never wise to wait until evil thoughts have brought a harvest of evil actions before we repent. Many of us would probably say, “But my thoughts are out of control before I even realize what is happening.” That may happen, but the kind of repentance that we need to stand in the last days can be ours as a gift from God. It is not something that we can grit our teeth and muster up on our own. Acts 5:31 tells us: “Him hath God exalted with his right hand [to be] a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”

The Gift

God gives us repentance. We know from James 4:2 that “ye have not, because ye ask not.” We really need to be asking for this gift. We need to ask for the fast-acting repentance that picks up on the seed thoughts before they can germinate.

Look at Acts 11:18 from a different angle. “When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” God gave repentance even to the Gentiles. It is a gift. God gives it. We need to be asking for it.

It is a gift from God, and as we read in Luke 15:7, it brings God joy when His gift is accepted. It is like the little child who asks his dad for some money so he or she can buy him a birthday present. It is dad’s money, but he is happy to receive the gift!

Change of Thoughts

Repentance is a change of thoughts. “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Revelation 3:14–17. We know that Laodicea is the period of church history in which we live. Laodicea does not know its true condition, so that is a real danger for us.

The problem with Laodicea is that most Laodiceans are not willful, out-in-the-open sinners. Most of the Laodicean sins are in the thoughts. Laodicea does not know her true condition; she feels no need, and she is rather proud of herself. Historic Adventists are in great danger of those Laodicean characteristics. We can become proud of the knowledge that we have. Most of us study God’s Word more than the average Christian. Laodiceans know more about the kingdom of God than others, and they think they know God better than other people. They are more sincere and knowledgeable than others. Laodicea’s self-sufficiency and self-exaltation is difficult to detect. Laodiceans have learned to cover it up. Men in their self-sufficiency and self-esteem depend on themselves instead of on God.

For about 6,000 years, men have been trying, without God, to be like God. We are about to see the climax of that condition, and it is not going to be a pretty sight. One of the main things from which Laodiceans need to be saved is their own self-dependence. There is great danger in forgetting that we are dependent on God, every moment, for everything—just as Jesus was. We tend to easily forget that.

A self-sufficient life is the most perilous way a person can live. Self-sufficiency could actually be more dangerous than sins of the flesh. Usually, when we have sins of the flesh, we know we are guilty. We feel guilty. But when we are self-sufficient, we do not always know it. We do not repent of sins we do not know we have or acknowledge we have.

The Pharisees were not willing to see themselves in the light of Christ. Their superiority complex made repentance impossible for them. If someone had approached the majority of Pharisees and told them they needed to repent, they would have asked, “Of what? We did not do anything.” They did not realize their true condition.

Compare to Christ

Job 42:5, 6 says, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes.” True repentance comes from comparing ourselves with Christ. We cannot know what we are really like from inside ourselves. That knowledge comes from a comparison between Christ and us. It comes from within the circle of God’s presence and love. We are not to be comparing ourselves among ourselves, which Paul says, in 11 Corinthians 10:12, is not wise. But this is often what we do. We can always find people who make us look pretty good, but try comparing ourselves to Christ and see how good we look. Such a comparison leads to real repentance.

We need to ask God daily for that kind of repentance. When we get up in the morning, we need to tell God that throughout the day our thoughts may run wild, but that our desire is for Him to show us as soon as they start to go that way, so we can stop them immediately. That is the kind of repentance, the kind of experience we must have. Our thoughts must be as pure as were Christ’s thoughts. Not even by a thought did He sin. Before long, we are going to have to stand in the last days without the safety net of a Mediator in heaven. We are going to need an experience in which our thoughts do not go in the wrong direction, because there is coming a time when we can repent all we want, but when there is no Mediator, repenting will do us no good. Before that day comes, we must have an experience of purification, even of our thoughts, to enable us to stand in that day. We need to be praying for it. We need to be learning of it every day. We need to be ready now, because we do not know how much time we have left.