Read online or click on the link below to download a PDF copy
Repentance
‘Repenting from evil deeds’ is listed as the first ‘basic teaching about Christ’ in Hebrews 6:1-2. Salvation from the judgement and the consequence of spending eternity in hell is by repentance for our sins and sinful lives and by believing that Jesus is the Son of God, who came as a man to be crucified and to die as a sacrifice in our place, and by accepting and committing our lives to follow Him as both our Lord and Saviour.
Belief in Jesus is not a mere mental acknowledgement of who He is, but a heart-felt commitment to obey Him as the Lord of your life.
James 2:19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.
John 14:21 Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
Regardless of wh at we may have done, God will forgive us of all our sins. We are all sinners, separated from God by our sinful nature and actions, and not deserving of salvation in ourselves, and there are no good deeds we can do to earn salvation.
Romans 3:10-12 As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous – not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”
Isaiah 64:6 We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
Our only hope is in repentance and turning to God in humility and by acceptance of and faith in Jesus. Repentance means a complete change of mind and heart. Genuine repentance must necessarily involve a decision to change one’s ways. This is far deeper than a mere regret regarding the consequences of one’s actions. A good example of repentance can be seen in the reaction of the crowd to Peter’s message on the day of Pentecost, where it says that Peter’s words ‘pierced their hearts’.
Acts 2:36-39 “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!” Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away – all who have been called by the Lord our God.”
In the New Testament the word “to repent” comes from the Greek word ‘metanoein’ meaning to ‘change one’s mind’, and by extension means to turn about, to express regret or to adopt another view. So repentance in the New Testament is not just an emotion but a conscious and very deliberate mental decision, an act of our will, to face and move in a completely different direction. A response to the gospel may be emotional, such as crying, weeping or wailing, but these emotions in themselves do not necessarily signify a change of heart and a decision to change one’s actions and to commit one’s life to obeying Jesus.
2 Corinthians 7:10 For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.
Remember that it is your repentance that releases you from guilt, and not whether the other person forgives you or not. But to genuinely repent is to do more than to apologize or to be sorry; it requires a definite change in your own mind and your consequent actions.
Matthew 3:8 Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.
Children are typically taught by their parents to apologise when they do something wrong. A child may apologise and ask someone to forgive them, but their regret may be more about getting caught than a conviction to change their ways. This is something they may still need to be taught, and punishment may be necessary to help them to change their ways.
John the Baptist and Jesus both preached repentance
John the Baptist’s role was to prepare the people to accept Jesus and to be a witness to Jesus. One can say that his work was to prepare the way, to show the way, and finally to get out of the way.
Matthew 3:1-2 In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
Mark 1:4 This messenger was John the Baptist. He was in the wilderness and preached that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.
Acts 19:4 Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.”
Acts 13:24 Before he (Jesus) came, John the Baptist preached that all the people of Israel needed to repent of their sins and turn to God and be baptized.
Jesus called everyone to repent and to turn to God. It is clear that repentance is critical for salvation. We cannot hang on to our sinful ways and think we can accept Jesus and His ways at the same time.
Matthew 4:17 From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
Luke 5:32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.
Luke 13:5 “No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too.”
The author of Acts also preached repentance.
Acts 26:20 I preached first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that all must repent of their sins and turn to God – and prove they have changed by the good things they do.
God always forgives when we repent
When we truly repent from a sincere heart God does not hold our sins against us.
Psalm 103:3 He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.
Psalm 103:10-12 He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
Isaiah 43:25 “I – yes, I alone – will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.
Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians church, also felt it necessary to reprimand them and to call them to repent and to change their ways.
2 Corinthians 7:8-10 I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while. Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way. For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.
The grace of God is not a licence to continue to sin
The sins that we all commit have separated us from God, and it took the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross to bring us back into right standing with God. This is something that we should not take lightly. To take this for granted, and to reason that since God will always forgive us for our sins, all we have to do is to ‘repent’ for them. This is a false doctrine. There have even been cults that have arisen that teach that since we are in essence spiritual creatures, it does not matter what we do with ‘in the flesh’ – with our bodies! True repentance leads away from sin, and teaches us to hate sine, just as the Father does.
Psalm 5:4 O God, you take no pleasure in wickedness; you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked.
Isaiah 59:2 It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.
Jude 1:4 I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvellous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
If I am a Christian and I sin, am I still saved?
Yes, you remain saved! But to retain our relationship with our Father we need to obey God by confessing our sins to Him and asking His forgiveness, which He instantly and unreservedly gives us.
1 John 1:8-9 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
Though on salvation we have become a new creature, as if we were born again, since our sinful natures died with Jesus on the cross, the results or by-products of our former sinful nature still remain: sinful attitudes, behaviours, desires, habits, instincts, perceptions, feelings, tendencies, memories and thoughts, and these can lead us back into sin. As we mature and our thoughts and attitudes are transformed, we will, guided by the Holy Spirit, continue to discover things we need to change. This is no longer about salvation, but about becoming more Christ-like in every way.
Repentance is not only for our salvation, a once in a lifetime event, but a process whereby we are changed from being a sinner to a saint. That first act of repenting for our sins should set the pattern for a life-time attitude of repentance, since even after salvation, we still cannot live completely sinless lives. Repenting is a process. As we mature and become more like our Father (God), the Holy Spirit will continue to show us things that we need to repent for, and to change. This is an opportunity to purify our hearts and to get rid of the sinful attitudes, thoughts, habits and deeds that may be preventing us from drawing closer to God, and may even have served as an open door to demonic attack. We need to continually war against our sinful natures, and tendency to sin. Paul lamented that he too still struggled with his sinful nature.
Romans 7:18-19 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. (See Romans 7:7-25).
In the book of Romans we read that despite the fact that their ‘faith in Him is being talked about all over the world’ (Romans 8:1) Paul found it necessary to reprimand them for disregarding God’s kindness by being stubborn and from refusing to turn from their sins. Paul also found it necessary to write to the church in Corinth to correct some of their attitudes that were resulting in jealousy, quarrelling and tolerance of sexual immorality (1 Corinthians). In a follow-up letter (2 Corinthians) he expresses happiness that they had repented and changed their ways. The stopped quarrelling and tolerating sexual immorality in the church.
“Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way” (2 Corinthians 7:9).
“I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us” (2 Cor. 7:9). When Paul exposed their attitudes, they became sorrowful and repented; that is, they stopped their quarrelling and they stopped tolerating the sexual immorality. Their repentance, or changed attitudes, changed their behaviour.
In the book of Revelation we find that God tells 4 out of the 7 churches that it was written to, to repent. These seven churches have widely been understood to also refer to the church or churches at the end of the age, so we should take especial note of what was said:
Church in Ephesus.
Revelation 2:5 Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.
Church in Pergamum
Revelation 2:15-16 In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Church in Thyatira
Revelation 2:22 “Therefore, I will throw her (Jezebel) on a bed of suffering, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds.
Church in Sardis
Revelation 3:3 Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.
Closing
Here is a prophetic word from an internationally recognised prophet:
“If you happen to sin again, just repent again and again until you find you consciously and willingly overcome that sin in your life. You will never be sinless but you should sin less.
Everyone has regrets, but you do not have to dwell on them. Repent, receive forgiveness and move on. You cannot undo the past or make anything different, so beating yourself up will not change anything except to cause emotional damage. You need to know that you are valuable and precious to Me, says the Lord.”
Marsha Burns
So take comfort in this: Jesus loved us even before we came to know and to accept Him, and the sacrificial death of Jesus has paid for all our sins, so all we need to do is to continually return to Him in repentance, and to humbly ask His forgiveness again. Nothing has ever or will ever take God by surprise, so take comfort and joy in His eternal forgiveness.
Dr Brian Drury
