part0008

Repentance is not the event in which a person twists the arm of a reluctant God to forgive. God forgave even before you were born. [1]

Realising this; understanding the goodness of God, is what persuades us to change our minds about Him and ourselves. In a very subtle way traditional teaching on repentance actually promoted the idea that our repentance leads God to goodness, that something we do, persuades God to forgive! It is the exact opposite of what Rom 2:4 declares. The goodness of God leads us to change our minds. He has always been and always will be good. He took the initiative to do exceedingly more than what we deserved.

He forgave humanity while we were dead in our trespasses and sins. If one died for all, then all have died. [2] He is the last Adam - the last of that race of humanity that stood guilty and condemned before God. In His death, sin and guilt met their final end.

His resurrection is the beginning of a whole new creation, a creation that stands blameless and innocent before its Maker. For in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. [3]

The good news does not proclaim the possibility of righteousness ... it reveals or unveils it! The good news is the declaration of God’s faith, which awakens our faith.

Repentance is not part of a series of steps in which you make your own salvation real. No! The moment you see, the moment you agree with God, concerning the success and reality of what He did on your behalf, is the moment of faith in which you yield your mind to the persuasion of God.

Repentance is often thought of, not only in terms of an initial response, but also in terms of an ongoing process of dealing with sin.

How does one deal with sin, destructive thoughts and habits, after the initial moment of faith? As we saw earlier, the concept of repentance was initially invented as a deterrent to sin, based on a mindset that if it is difficult to gain forgiveness, then people will be less likely to sin. That way of thinking has proved itself ineffective over and over again. True metanoia is indeed the answer to a victorious life, but it is very different from the common understanding of repentance.

The major fault God found [4] with the old covenant is that there was a continual reminder of sin. This meant that the worshippers never enjoyed relationship out of a pure conscience. Even if, a moment ago, they brought a sacrifice to take away sin, they would still be conscience of the fact that it wouldn’t be long before another sacrifice would be needed ... their consciences were never ‘perfected’.

Many doctrines have simply replaced animal sacrifices with activities of repentance and confession, which is no improvement on the old covenant because the same reminder of sin remains.

Since the law has [only] a shadow of the good things to come, and not the actual form of those realities, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, once purified, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

But this man (Jesus), after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:1-4, 12, 14 HCSB)

God had a much better relationship in mind. He designed a way in which sin would be dealt with so completely and finally, that it would never again interrupt His fellowship with man.

Instead of multiple sacrifices, many reminders of sin, and a never ending cycle of sin and repentance and confession, this plan would be centred on:

In this one man, in this one event, all sin of all men and in all time would be dealt with, with such finality that God would never think of sin again! [5]

It is in understanding the success of what He has done, and our personal inclusion in that achievement, that we discover a clean break with sin and the joy of living with a clear conscience.

For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him]. Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:10, 11 AMP)

The Christian life has often been portrayed as a continual attempt to die to sin. But notice that the death He died, He died ONCE and for ALL, so that the life He lives would be occupied with the living God, not obsessed with trying-not-to-sin.

When it says that you should ‘consider yourselves also dead to sin’ it uses an accounting term: to reckon yourself dead, is to make a sum to which there is only one logical conclusion. When He died, that old me that had a relationship with sin, died with Him. In another place Paul expresses the magnitude of this conclusion as follows: if one died for all, then all have died.

You could not and cannot die to sin through your own efforts and discipline. Neither is it your regret or the sincerity of your confession that will accomplish this separation from sin. It is not the depth of your sorrow, but the clarity of your insight that will set you free from destructive habits and thoughts.

Repentance has often also been portrayed as the regret we feel when realising how wrong we were. Judas realised how wrong he was, yet his regret alone did not prevent him from committing another sin - he hung himself. [6]

Obviously, when one is presented with the truth about God and about oneself, one might regret the waste and the hurt caused through ignorance. The difficulty that the lost son faced in the pigs den also caused him to regret his bad decisions, but regret alone has no power to transform one’s life. And surely, the event that caused a more permanent change in the son’s mind and life, was meeting with his father and realising the true character and attitude of his Father. It was the party, not the pigs den that revealed the Father’s heart, and had a greater effect on him ‘repenting’ or changing his mind about the father ... and about himself.