This Thing Called Repentance
On my prior post, New Creation Righteousness, I wrote:
The issue for that unsaved man is not the forgiveness of any particular sins. And the issue does not have anything to do with him repenting enough so God will take him in. The crux of the problem is his nature. As a sinner, he is a child of the devil and a child of wrath who hasn’t the ability nor the right to ask a thing from God.
A reader commented:
Jesus did preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 4:17) as did the Apostles (Acts 2:38, 3:19) as should the church (Luke 24:47). I don’t think it’s possible to view being born again apart from concomitant repentance.
The reader’s comment implicitly begs the question, what exactly is this thing called repentance? If you wandered back into our little Chevy Chevette church, the preacher there would tell you that repentance means the confessing of your sins and that you are a sinner. We see that in practically all of our “sinner’s prayers” that we hear in church every Sunday. Here are two such prayers “ripped from the headlines”:
Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for me. I open wide the door of my heart, and ask that you come into me now. Be my Lord and my Savior. Wash me in your blood, forgive me of all my sins and eradicate my past. I turn my back on the world. I turn my back on sin, the devil and demon forces, and I embrace you today, Jesus. I believe with all my heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, and that he died on Calvary’s Cross for me. He was buried, and on the third day, he came out of the grace alive. Now I confess with my mouth, that Jesus Christ is my Lord, and I am saved! … In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
In both of these prayers, the pray-er pleads the forgiveness of his sins as part of his petition to be saved. Is this “confession” of one’s sins, this so-called “repentance,” actually necessary to be saved, especially in light of Romans 9.10 which says,
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (NASB)?
The Greek for the word “repent” is metanoeo (phonetic). The word means “to change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude.” And that is all it means. Here is a note from Louw & Nida’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament on metanoeo:
Though in English a focal component of repent is the sorrow or contrition that a person experiences because of sin, the emphasis in metanoeo and metanoia seems to be more specifically the total change, both in thought and behavior, with respect to how one should both think and act. Whether the focus is upon attitude or behavior varies somewhat in different contexts. Compare, for example, Lk 3:8, He 6:1, and Ac 26:20.
Significantly, Moulton and Milligan’s Vocabulary of the Greek Testament shows that metanoeo was used in Greek secular literature. One example says, “if you persist in your folly, I congratulate you; if you repent, you only know.” I can’t imagine reading some kind of “God, I am a sinner and forgive me of my sins” into that little note.
In Jesus’s wilderness experience, we have an object lesson in “repentance”:
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him. (Matthew 4.8-11, NASB)
If Jesus had bowed His knee to Satan, He would have declared a new lord to Himself and He would have become part of Satan’s own kingdom. (Thank God He didn’t, huh?)
We understand that the unregenerate man is under the authority and jurisdiction of the devil:
to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me. (Acts 26.18, NASB) (emphasis supplied)
When the unregenerate man, by nature a child of wrath living in the lusts of the flesh and indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and who is also energized by Satan, comes forward and declares Jesus his Lord, he has repented in every sense of the word.
Peter,
I hope my comments aren’t a bother to you, although I do appreciate the thorough responses you undertake. If you ever need me to pipe down, just say the word.
As for this post, I agree absolutely with your conclusion. The repentance required in salvation IS the change from one lord to another. One can’t truly confess Jesus as his or her Lord without having gone through that blackbox change within his or her own heart (he or she could vacuously mouth the words like those prayers you mentioned often encourage). That change is the repentance called for in my citations of NT gospel preaching.
slw, one thing I like about the blog is comments. Keeps me and everyone else on their toes. Keep it up and thanks.
Yes a change of lords which changes ones spirtual nature from spiritual to Spiritual.