1. Repentance is not Confession.
Most of what Christians term
repentance is actually confession – the agreement with God that our thoughts,
motives, actions or inactions have violated the law of God. For a person who is
saved, confession of one’s sins will always bring forgiveness (1 John 1.9), but
confession alone will not bring salvation to a lost person.
In fact, the only effective
confession for a lost person is not a confession of sin but the confession that
Christ is Lord (Rom. 10.9).
This may be a bit confusing at
first, but I pray that when we get into the true meaning of repentance, this
idea will become more understandable.
2. Repentance is not Remorse.
Perhaps it might be better to
say that remorse is not repentance. Remorse is typically an element of
repentance and a lack of sorrow for one’s sins would bring suspicion on a
person’s sincerity in repentance.
Nevertheless, to define
repentance simply in terms of sorrow for one’s actions or failures does not
adequately define the word repent as it relates to salvation. Here is an
example.
Matt. 27:3 Then Judas, which
had betrayed him, when he saw that he (Jesus) was condemned, repented himself,
and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
(KJV)
Judas was sorry for having
betrayed Jesus, but he did not repent, for had he done so, he would certainly
have been forgiven.
In the NKJV, the verse says
Judas was “remorseful.” In the ESV, verse three says Judas “changed his mind.”
The Amplified Version expands
on the meanings of the words even more:
When
Judas, His betrayer, saw that (Jesus) was condemned, (Judas was afflicted in
mind and troubled for his former folly; and) with remorse (with little more
than a selfish dread of the consequences) he brought back the thirty pieces of
silver to the chief priests and the elders.
According to Strong’s
Concordance, the word used in this verse for repent means “to take care
afterward.” This is what happened to Judas.
After Judas recognized the
consequences of his actions, he was sorry for what he had done. Things did not
turn out as he had hoped or planned. He even acted on his sorrow in an effort
to reverse the effects of his former actions. But this was not repentance that
leads to salvation because Jesus said in…
John 17:12 While I was with
them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them,
and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the
Scripture might be fulfilled.
According to Alfred Barnes, “True
repentance leads to the Savior; this led away from the Savior to the gallows.”[1]
The repentance of Judas was in
reality only remorse – sorrow that led him away from Jesus and to commit
suicide. He is the real-life example of what Paul would later write in his
letter to the church at Corinth.
2 Cor. 7.10 Godly sorrow brings
repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow
brings death.
3. Repentance is not Resolution – an effort or determination
to do better in the future.
All of us can relate to having
failed on multiple occasions when we resolved to overcome some personal failure
or shortcoming in our own power. Just think of how many New Year’s resolutions have
ended in failure. Someone said, “A New Year’s Resolution is a to-do list for
the first week of January.”
That is about how effective our
efforts are at eliminating sinful behavior by resolution.
Thomas Watson wrote in 1668,
“Self-love raises a sickbed repentance. But if he recovers – the love of sin
will prevail against it. Trust not to such a passionate resolution; it is
raised in a storm – and will die in a calm!”[2]
4. Repentance is not Penance – an activity performed to try to
atone for one's own sins
When you study the meaning of
the English word “repent,” you learn that it is a compound word made up of “re”
and “pent” – thus it means to do penance again. The English word does very
little in helping us to understand the biblical meaning of the word.
I am sure most of us have had a
similar experience following an awareness of sin in our lives. We first feel
great remorse and regret – wishing there was some way we could take it back
(and probably hoping that our sin is never discovered).
Since we can’t, the next thing
we do is think of some way we can make it up to God – maybe by doing a series
of good things that will balance out the bad. One writer identified such acts
of obedience as “currency by which we pay God back for his gift of the
forgiveness of our sins.”[3]
The Roman Catholic sacrament of
penance is the process by which the Church absolves a penitent sinner of his
sin by requiring him to (1) confess that sin to a priest, (2) demonstrate
adequate sorrow over that sin (usually by a prayer) and (3) endure any temporal
punishments (such as repeating prayers or performing works of service) levied
by the priest in order to make satisfaction for that sin before God.[4]
This is a typical pattern that
we have learned through generation after generation of misunderstanding the
meaning of repentance.
·
We
confess our sin to God
·
We
tell Him how very sorry we are for having failed Him
·
We
promise never to do it again or that we will be very good in other ways from
now on
We repeat that process over and
over. Thus we do repentance – or rather re-penance – which is not repentance at
all.
Notice that in each of these
cases, the focus is on our sin with very little focus on Christ except as the
One who can give absolution. Since that is where our focus is, we continue to
return to our sin and fail time after time, in spite of our confession, our remorse,
our strong resolution, and our repetitive penance.
However, the original meaning
of the word repent had nothing to do with sin directly. In fact, if you do a
word search of the Bible, you will never find the word repent directly
connected to the word sin. The Bible never uses the phrase “repent of your
sin.”
Such a statement may come as a
surprise to most people, but I pray you will continue to follow this series on
repentance and hopefully come to realize the true meaning of the word.
[1] Pierce, Larry. Online Bible
Edition, Version 4.30, Sep 6, 2013, 07.29, Copyright © 1992-2013
[2] Watson, Thomas. The Doctrine of Repentance. Nook Book
created by Lulu.com. 2013. p 11
[3] Riccardi, Mike.
"Repentance versus Penance." For Our Benefit. N.p., 13 July
2010. Web. 20 Feb 2014.
.
[4] Ibid.
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