|
How
does a right understanding of repentance affect our ministerial practice?
It could be argued that disagreement over repentance birthed the
most significant difference in ‘ministerial practice’ the church has ever
known. The very first of Martin
Luther’s 95 theses was this:
1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam
agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.
Here is a revolution. Once Luther recovered the true meaning of
repentance, (i.e. not penance but metanoia) an entire religious
paradigm was undermined.
1517 hardly represents Luther’s mature thinking, yet even here he
identified the doctrine of poenitentiae as foundational to the reform of
the church. In rejecting a ‘do
penance’ understanding of repentance (dominant since Jerome’s
mistranslation of Matt. 4:17) Luther obviated two errors. On the one hand he opposed the notion
of penance as a meritorious human work.
On the other, by calling all of life ‘repentance’ he prevented its
domestication into a ritual or single aspect of Christian
discipleship. Luther’s doctrine
of repentance was both humbler and grander than the penitential schemes
of Rome. For him, and then for
the reformation he spawned, repentance came to mark the entirety of
Christian experience (“the whole life of believers”). Yet it did so, not as the
pre-condition of this life but as its inevitable consequence (“the whole
life of believers”). A
recovery of the biblical meaning of repentance meant a twin emphasis on
the rejection of human merit and the embrace of total, life-long
transformation. For Luther and
the reformers, the true grace of God is both free and effective in its
generation of real repentance.
Yet even for a church that desires to be reformed and reforming,
an errant doctrine of repentance can easily slip in. Take, for instance, the evangelical
settings with which I am most familiar.
How often will an evangelist demand total life re-orientation before
conversion? Yet, surely this is
to demand the impossible, for, “without faith it is impossible to please
God.” (Heb 11:6). The irony is
that, just as a Roman view of poenitentia contained the two-fold
error of asking too much of the unbeliever and not enough of the
believer, this repeats itself in the evangelical experience. Here perhaps even the same evangelist
will later re-assure the ‘convert’ that their assurance lies safe in
their private work of ‘coming to Christ’. ‘Walking to the front’, ‘signing a card’ or ‘praying a
prayer’ has become the ritualized work of repentance – an evangelical
penance located in past experience.
And so repentance becomes the thing unbelievers do, but believers
don’t (for they already have).
This is of course the very opposite of the truth: No unbeliever
repents, but every believer does – constantly.
The rest of this essay will seek to uphold these two points
biblically before applying them specifically to the practice of
evangelism. It is hoped that the
lessons learnt there will be suggestive of applications in many other
areas of ministerial practice, not least preaching and pastoral care.
No unbeliever repents…
Nom. I
conceive that repentance consists in a man's humbling himself before God,
and sorrowing and grieving for offending him by his sins, and in turning
from them all to the Lord.
Evan. And
would you have a man to do all this truly before he come to Christ by
believing?
Nom. Yea,
indeed, I think it is very meet he should.
Evan. Why,
then, I tell you truly, you would have him to do that which is
impossible.
According to the
Apostle Paul, the unbeliever is dead in transgressions and sins and bound
to Satan (Eph 2:1-3). No exercise
of moral or religious effort can deliver such a person (Phil 3:1-9). The law, even the law of God,
is powerless to save (Rom 3:20; 8:3).
And so the unbeliever is sunk in sin and flesh, bound to Satan,
under the law’s condemnation, without hope and without God in the world
(Eph 2:12). There is nothing
within the unbeliever that will help them…
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5
made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is
by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with
Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7
in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of
his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that
no-one can boast. (Ephesians
2:4-9)
The Christian is one plucked from the deepest
pit and raised to the highest height in Christ. All this is by grace, appropriated ‘through faith’ and ‘not
by works, so that no-one can boast.’
Before this grace-through-faith salvation has apprehended us we
can do nothing but sin: “For everything that is not from faith is sin.”
(Rom 14:23).
It should now be abundantly clear why true
repentance is impossible before our conversion. Our flesh is not even inclined let alone capable of turning
itself – thoughts, desires, attitudes, speech, acts, habits – to the
Father. Instead it is God who
turns to us in Jesus Christ.
Before this we cannot turn.
He raises us, we do not climb, not even an inch. No unbeliever repents. Yet…
… Every believer repents – constantly
Ephesians 2 continues:
10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good
works which God prepared in advance for us to do.
A Christian is a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) and out of that new
identity flows a new life lived to God (Rom 6:10-11). “God’s kindness leads you to
repentance.” (Rom 2:4) Yet this
is not simply a one-off turning, but an all of life revolution. In view of God’s mercy we offer
ourselves as ‘living sacrifices’ (Rom 12:1). The paradox ought to be keenly felt – alive yet always
given over to death for others.
(2 Cor 4:11). Paul tells
us that our ongoing transformation will happen first in our thinking (Rom
12:2; cf Rom 6:11) as we allow the gospel to shape our
understanding. Then our lives
will be transformed in line with the metanoia (literally ‘change
of mind’) which the gospel brings.
(Rom 12:3ff; cf Rom 6:12-14).
Therefore “the whole life of believers should be repentance.”
A definition
Here we are using a working definition of repentance as ‘change of
mind.’ Perhaps we can flesh this
out a little.
The Greek word metanoia (repentance) can
helpfully be seen as short-hand for Romans 12:2 ‘metamorfou/sqe th/| avnakainw,sei tou/ noo.j’ (Be transformed by
the renewing of your minds). Metanoia
is the change of mind or heart that is born of the gospel and
intrinsic to saving faith. It is
necessarily transformative wherever it is exercised.
Thus a simple equation of repentance with ‘turning your life
around’ is inadequate and quite unhelpful. Repentance begins in the mind or heart. It is an epistemological term
first. It is about transformed
thinking before we ever consider transformed living.
In the LXX the verb metanoew is most often used to describe
the LORD’s relenting – ~xn (naham - to have compassion). That is
to say, repentance is the LORD’s change of heart with regards to His
people. Thus it certainly does not mean the
LORD putting away sins and turning to righteousness! In all other instances the verb occurs
in the context of a change of mind. When we come into the New Testament
we see no reason to see any change in meaning. Both etymologically and in the context of the Hebrew
Scriptures, repentance ought to be first thought of as a renewal of
thinking. The ‘fruits in
keeping with repentance’ (Matt 3:8; Luke 3:8) will involve all manner
of moral action yet all this is the organic development of a transformed
understanding.
None of this is meant to diminish the miracle that occurs wherever
such repentance is seen. To say
that ‘repentance is transformed thinking’ is not to say it is ‘only’
a change of mind for two reasons.
First, it always issues forth in tranformed living wherever
it is genuine. It is the
inevitable counter-part of true faith.
There is simply no such thing as an impenitent believer or a
repenting unbeliever. Faith and
repentance are, in this sense, inseparable. Second, our enmity with God was centred precisely in the
mind (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:21; Rom
8:6-8). We are ‘blinded’,
‘enemies in our minds’, and ‘hostile to God.’ The understanding is not our least tainted faculty but the
most. Therefore repentance is
always miraculous. In fact a
renewal of our understanding is the greatest revolution
imaginable. Paul describes it in
Romans 12:2 as metamorphosis!
The one other Pauline usage of this word gives us a clue as to how
such metamorphosis occurs:
And
we, who with unveiled faces all contemplate (katoptrizo,menoi) the Lord's glory, are being transformed (metamorfou,meqa) into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor
3:18)
‘Metamorphosis’ is here a present, passive indicative. That is, it is wrought upon us as an
ongoing reality and Paul tells us how.
Through the Spirit and as we reflect on the glory of Christ, we
are transformed. Again the
understanding is central. But
from the understanding comes ‘ever-increasing’ Christ-likeness. This is the repentance the unbeliever
knows nothing of, yet it is the repentance that the believer constantly
exercises.
In the next section of the essay we will apply these things to our
practice of evangelism.
Application to Ministerial Practice:
Evangelism
Our gospel proclamation to unbelievers is an excellent test of our
grasp of repentance. As we bring
the Word of grace to the unbeliever there is a tremendous danger that the
covenant love of God will be presented as a conditional contract: “If you
turn your life around, God will forgive you.” Think of a typical gospel tract in which the final page calls
for a response. This is of course
absolutely right since evangelism is irreducibly a summons to Christ the
Lord. Yet, in all this, the
impression can be readily given (and sometimes even intended) that change
of life is a pre-condition for salvation. This would be a kind of "repent, then
believe" ordo salutis. Such practice inverts the Gospel
in which Christ meets us exactly in our sin and does so unconditionally
and with no respect to our capacity for Him or His new life. (Romans
4:5).
Spurgeon here speaks of those who preach in order to awaken
‘frames and feelings as a preparation for Christ’:
They do in effect say, "Unless you have
felt so much depression of spirit, or experienced a certain quantity of
brokenness of heart, you must not come to Christ," instead of
declaring, that whosoever will is permitted to come, and that the true
way of coming to Christ is not with a qualification of frames and feeling
and mental depressions, but just as you are. Oh! it is my soul's delight
to preach a gospel which has an open door to it, to preach a mercy-seat
which has no veil before it; the veil is rent in twain, and now the
biggest sinner out of hell who desires to come, is welcome. You who are
eighty years of age, and have hated Christ all the time, if now the
Spirit of God makes you willing to come, Christ seems to say,
"Suffer the grey- headed to come unto me, and forbid them not:"
while to you little children, he stretches out his arms in the same
manner…
Some may object and say ‘such preaching will engender the
impenitent ‘faith’ which was ruled out earlier in the essay.’ To respond: this danger is only
present where salvation is spoken of in mechanical or impersonal
terms. If salvation is conceived
and presented as an abstract ‘forgiveness of sins’ or ‘eternal life’ then
impenitent ‘faith’ is a great danger.
But then this is not actually faith in the biblical sense. “Faith in the Son of God” is a
fellowship with Christ so deep that we live and die with Him. (Gal
2:20) Salvation is being ‘in Christ’. The gospel call is a call to a Person
– a Lord. When Christ is
the One we summon the world to, then impenitent faith is
inconceivable. Yet when we call
people to Him, we call them as they are – helpless, hopeless, unprepared
sinners.
How do we model this in our evangelism?
First, the dominant emphasis of our speaking must be the divine
initiative more than the human response.
The call to ‘repent and believe in Christ’ is undoubtedly of the
essence of evangelism since the Lord, by word and Spirit, summons the
world to faith. Yet if human
response is made the emphasis we are in danger of throwing the unbeliever
back on themselves. The task of
the evangelist is not predominantly to tell their audience to believe in
Jesus. Rather they are so to
speak of Jesus that their audience do believe in Him. In this way we preach for
transformed minds – as Christ is placarded before the world.
Second, as we summon people to faith in the Lord Jesus, His
Lordship will stand in stark contrast to the circumstances of their
lives. At Corinth the gospel
encountered “the sexually immoral… idolaters… adulterers…
male prostitutes… homosexual offenders… thieves… the greedy… drunkards…
slanderers [and] swindlers.” (1 Cor 6:9-10). In practice, few of us (to our shame) know of this kind of
evangelism – mission that reaches far beyond the comfort-zones we enjoy
in our protected churches. Yet
the gospel is precisely for sinners. And at the same time the gospel
transforms. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1
Cor 6:11) Church should be the
place where notorious sinners can be welcomed and hear the name of the
Lord Jesus. It should also be the
place where, by that same name, transformation occurs.
As to the nature of the gospel call. Spurgeon said it best:
Do not
attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other than you
really are, but come as you are to Him who justifies the ungodly. …The
Gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not
otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once for salvation. God
justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up where you now
are; it meets you in your worst estate. Come in your disorder. I mean, come
to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus
just as you are: filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come,
you that are the very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare
to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over
you, pressing upon your bosom like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask the
Lord to justify another ungodly one.
Conclusion
Perhaps the example of Zacchaeus will
helpfully summarize this discussion
(Luke 19:1-10). Here the
Lord freely offers fellowship to a despised white collar criminal and out
of this free grace is birthed a stunning change (v8). In our church experience such change
might be a long time in coming and be a complicated matter indeed. The couple sleeping together, the
addict, the transexual, the mason, the estranged spouse, the muslim, will
all bring with them difficulties and attachments that will take a long
time to work through. Yet if we
are committed to an understanding of repentance as has been outlined
here, sinners will be embraced as sinners and called into fellowship with
Christ. Then, in the context of
their on-going discipleship, they along with the whole congregation will
be called to work out their salvation more and more. But the immoral are not called to
chastity. The drunkard is not
called to sobriety. They are
called to Christ, just as they are. In time – in Christ – they will be lead to freedom.
There is one stumbling block which we must put in
people’s way – Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor 1:23). May He be the sum and substance of our
gospel preaching. And let us
determine to clear away every other stumbling block to faith in Him. (Rom 14:13; 1 Cor 8:9).
Back to other papers
|
