The aim of
the gospel is conversion, a complete turnaround of life. On one side, this
turnaround requires us to leave our life of sin, what we call repentance. On
the other side, this turnaround requires entering the kingdom of heaven, what
we call faith. When the gospel message pierces our hearts, it gives us this
dual-sided response where we want to be done with our sinful life, and we want
to enter into the new life of fellowship with God.
When Jesus gave
us the Beatitudes, he indicated a change of heart that felt its poverty of
spirit, mourned its sinful condition, meekly acknowledged its own inability to
fix what was wrong, and so hungered and thirsted after the righteousness of God
revealed in the gospel.[1]
This transformation of heart is summarized as repentance in relation to the sin
we are leaving behind, and faith in relation to the righteousness of faith we
are entering into.
In this post,
I want to focus primarily on the place of repentance, and how this response to
the good news makes people want to leave their sin, not justify it, or remain
in it.
The place of
repentance in responding to the gospel is expressed like this: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.”[2]
When Jesus commissioned his disciples to also proclaim the good news of his
kingdom, we read, “So they went out and
proclaimed that people should repent.”[3]
When religious leaders challenged Jesus about what he was doing in spending so
much time with “sinners,” he declared, “I
have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”[4]
After Jesus secured
our salvation through his death, burial, and resurrection, he commissioned his
disciples to take this good news of the gospel throughout the whole world. He
told them, “Thus it is written, that the
Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”[5]
Not only did Jesus proclaim this, but he led his disciples to understand that
their participation in making this message known was part of what God had
written in his prophetic word.
The very
first time Jesus’ disciples preached the gospel, Peter concluded his message
with the instruction, “Repent and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”[6] Later,
the apostle Paul identified that a significant part of his ministry was, “…testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of
repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”[7]
You will recall that it was Paul who declared, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”[8]
Because he believed the good news was for all people, both Jew and Greek, he
called both Jews and Greeks to the repentance and faith that would bring them
into God’s gift of eternal life.
These
Scriptures show that repentance is a significant part of our experience of
faith. It is the side of our conversion where we let go of the old in order to
embrace the new. It is letting go of the sin that has caused our spiritual
death, so we can take hold of the life that is given freely to all who put
their faith in Jesus Christ.
Repentance as good news
Repentance
will sound like good news or bad news depending on a few things. If we hate our
sin, and hate what sin has done to us and people we love, and the ugliness of
sin feels oppressive to us, and we despise the darkness that sin has brought into
our lives, then hearing that we can come out of sin through repentance is good
news.
However, if
we love our sin, and we love the feeling of sinful pleasures, and we love the
excitement of constantly trying new things in our own strength, and the feeling
of independence that makes us believe we are in charge of our own destinies,
then hearing the call of repentance from sin will sound like bad news.
If repentance
sounds to us like a wonderfully simple way out, an undeserved blessing of God’s
grace that we could come out from under our sin through repentance instead of
through works, and we hear the invitation of repentance as a powerful message
of grace pouring into our hearts, telling us of this wonderful gospel that sets
people free from sin when their faith repents of the sinful life they are
living, then repentance will feel like very good news.
However, if
repentance sounds like a good work we must perform, where we are required to
muster the strength to stop sinning, and we must tell God we are perfectly
sorry for all our sins, and we must promise that we will never do those sins
ever again, then the oppressive weight of turning away from sin in our own
strength will not sound like very good news at all.
If the thought
of knowing the true God of heaven, the God who created us in his own image and
likeness, who has loved us with an everlasting love, who so loved the world
that he sent his Son to die for us so people from every tribe and nation could
believe in Jesus and have eternal life, if the thought of knowing this God is
such an irresistible longing within us, then hearing that we can know God by
repenting of the sin we are in, rather than fixing the sinfulness of our deceitful
and wicked hearts, is very good news.
However, if
the references to God in his creative genius of calling the whole universe into
existence, and all the intricate weaving together of the redemptive work of God
that prepared the world through covenants with Abraham, and Israel, and
advertised the coming redemption through the orchestrating of the prophets
singing hope to the generations of God’s people, and all the detailed accounts
of Jesus coming into the world, suffering on our behalf, rising from the dead,
going to prepare a home for us in heaven, if the thought of knowing this God is
nothing to us in comparison to our perception of pleasure from sin, then we
will not consider it good news when someone tells us we must repent of our
sinful pleasures in order to escape the judgment of God against sin.
When people
argue that there is no remedy for certain sins because the power of sin seems
so irresistible, and when they seek to rewrite the Bible to condone their own
sins because the thought of salvation from their sin seems repulsive to them, they
are not proving that they love sin because of some genetic disposition. Rather,
they are proving what God’s word already says, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and
people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”[9]
The issue in
people justifying their specific sins as irresistible is not one of genetic
disposition, but of heart disposition. People love their darkness because their
works are evil. They do not want the light of the gospel to shine into the world
because they do not want their sin exposed for what it is. They do not want a
Bible that speaks of salvation from sin, but of a God who loves people just as
they are in their sin. They want a faith in a man-created Jesus who requires no
repentance from sin. They want a Jesus who comes into the world as our friend,
to love us, and to make us feel good about ourselves here in the world. They do
not want a Savior who delivers from sin.
On the other
hand, when anyone comes under the conviction that whatever they are doing is
sin, and yet they know the irresistible power of sin that they cannot break in
their own strength, the thought that they could come to the Lord Jesus Christ
in a faith that repents of the kingdom of darkness on one side, and enters the
kingdom of light on the other side, is wonderful news. This faith does not imagine
that repenting is a good work, but one side of the gift of grace. God causes us
to despise our sin, and long to be with Jesus in his kingdom.
A stolen lesson from time
I think of
the thief on the cross who changed his mind about Jesus. Jesus did not preach
the gospel to him. Jesus did not tell the man to repent and believe the gospel.
We do not know what this man already heard about Jesus. There was enough that
he knew Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, the King of the Jews. He mockingly
hoped that Jesus was able to save himself, and save them in the process, but he
did not ask for that in faith, or in any kind of repentance over his sin.
Matthew’s account
of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus gives some indication of what
these two men would have learned even if that was the first time they had heard
of him.[10]
They heard many passersby say things like, “You
who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If
you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”[11]
They would have heard the religious leaders mocking Jesus, but with the
information included, “He saved others;
he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from
the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him
now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”[12]
We also learn
from Matthew’s account that, in the early hours of the ordeal, both “the robbers who were crucified with him
also reviled him in the same way.”[13]
The two robbers initially agreed. They mimicked whatever mocking they heard
from others. This means they had heard that Jesus claimed he could rebuild a
destroyed temple in three days, he claimed to be the Son of God, he saved other
people, and he claimed to be the King of Israel.
Luke’s gospel
adds a description of what happened later on in the painful hours of the
crucifixion. We read that, “One of the
criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save
yourself and us!’”[14]
However, we then read, “But the other
rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same
sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due
reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”[15]
This second
robber expressed his understanding that the two of them were under the just
sentence for their crimes, while Jesus had done nothing wrong. At the very
least, after what he had heard from everyone else, he concluded that they were
all wrong, and Jesus was innocent of their accusations.
We discover
that this was not mere belief about Jesus, but something had taken place within
his soul that turned his beliefs into faith. In such a short time, with so
little information about Jesus, he had the faith to ask him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your
kingdom.”[16]
The robber
admitted he was guilty and Jesus was innocent. But then he revealed what else
he had come to believe. He believed that Jesus had a kingdom, and he believed
that Jesus’s crucifixion would not end in death. As Jesus had once told his
disciples that Lazarus’s sickness would not end in death,[17]
meaning that even though Lazarus would die, that was not the way it would end,[18]
so this robber understood that, even though Jesus was clearly dying, and was
doing nothing to save himself, that death would not be the end of the story. Jesus
had a kingdom, he would “come into”
his kingdom, and the thief wanted Jesus to remember him at that time. The fact
that this man knew that he too was dying indicated that he expected that both
he and Jesus could share life in Jesus’ kingdom after they both had died.
Jesus’
response to this man’s expression of faith was, “And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in
Paradise.’”[19]
Jesus clearly recognized that this man wanted to be with him in his kingdom. Although
the thief did not confess sin any further than to say that he deserved the just
sentence of crucifixion for his thievery, Jesus saw the repentance in his
heart. The man’s faith in Jesus may not fit any detailed statement of beliefs,
but it indicated an understanding that he wanted to be in Jesus’ kingdom rather
than his life of sin.
We know that
God uses this testimony to assure people of what it means that we are saved by
grace through faith, and not of any kind of works at all.[20]
It confirms that even baptism is not a good work that saves us, although it is
a necessary expression of the obedience of faith for anyone who is not being
put to death at the moment of their conversion![21]
My point is
that, when people understand the ugliness and deadliness of sin, the good news
that their repentance will get them out of the condemnation of sin in a way
that no amount of good works could ever accomplish, is wonderful news.
Good news for all sinners
The proud in
spirit, those who love the pleasures of sin, will never think that the gift of
repentance is good news. They will never have the faith that they can repent of
their life of sin, and enter the life of righteousness by faith, because they
have no desire to be done with sin. They know they were born in sin, but they
love the darkness because their deeds are evil.
On the other
hand, there are those who also know they were born in sin, and that they have
found no remedy to sin, and yet they rejoice at the sound of the gospel. There
are people so beaten down by the hopelessness of religion, and their constant failure
to live up to some system of good works, that hearing the gospel tell them they
could come into the kingdom of heaven through repentance, rather than through
good works, is the best thing they have ever heard.
When Jesus' ministry
was characterized by his proclamation, “The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the
gospel,”[22]sinners
heard that they could come into the kingdom of God through repentance and
faith. Neither repentance or faith is a good work, and neither is able to exist
without the other. Repentance without faith in Jesus will not get us out of our
sin, and faith without repentance will not get us into the kingdom of God.
Instead, it is the experience of faith that causes us to repent of the sinful
life we are living, and enter into the kingdom of God by faith, that shows the
power of God working for our salvation.
God’s word to
his people tells us that, “He has
delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of
his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”[23]The
redemption we honor in Jesus Christ is that which delivers us “from the domain of darkness,” meaning everything
to do with our sin, and transfers us from there, “to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” Repentance is the
acknowledgement that we want to leave the domain of darkness, and faith is the
acknowledgement that we now want to live in the kingdom of God.
I say these
things to clarify that there is no such thing as a Christianity that tries to
live in God’s kingdom without leaving behind our sin. Neither is there a
genuine relationship with God that keeps trying to deal with sin, but apart
from faith in Jesus Christ as our only hope of salvation.
In Jesus’
day, when sinners heard the gospel, the call to repent and believe the gospel,
they understood that they could enter the kingdom of God if they would repent
of the kingdom they were living in, and believe in the gospel that was the
power of God unto salvation. No sinner who was willing to repent and believe
the gospel was ever left in the domain of darkness; and, no sinner who repented
and believed the gospel added any good works to the work of redemption Jesus’
completed on the cross.
Ultimately,
the reason it is such good news to repent and believe the gospel is that
repentance cuts our ties with that which destroys us in sin, and faith takes hold
of that which is freely offered in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must leave the old
to enter the new, simple as that. The fact that God’s grace makes us alive so
we can do so, magnifies his glorious good news all the more.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Matthew 5:3-6
[2]
Matthew 3:2; 4:17
[3]
Mark 6:12
[4]
Luke 5:32
[5]
Luke 24:46-48
[6]
Acts 2:38
[7]
Acts 20:21
[8]
Romans 1:16
[9]
John 3:19
[10]
Matthew 27:38-44
[11]
Matthew 27:40
[12]
Matthew 27:42-43
[13]
Matthew 27:44
[14]
Luke 23:39
[15]
Luke 23:40-41
[16]
Luke 23:42
[19]
Luke 23:43
[20]
Ephesians 2:8-9
[21]
Romans 1:5; 16:26 (Paul’s expression of “the obedience of faith” distinguishes
the obedience associated with faith as different than the obedience associated
with the law, and settles that obedience does belong to faith, even though that
obedience does nothing to earn our salvation. This is consistent with Ephesians
2:8-9 showing that we are saved by grace, through faith, without any works, and
Ephesians 2:10 showing that God expects his workmanship, the people he saves,
to do the good works he prepared for us.)
[22]
Mark 1:15
[23]
Colossians 1:13-14
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