WHAT IS REPENTANCE?

WHAT IS REPENTANCE?

Usually when I get close to the altar call, I end my sermons with the words: “Death is a certainty, but you never know what day will be the day you’ll take your last breath. The bible says that it is appointed for men to die once, but after death comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). What will be your judgement? Where will you spend eternity? You never know what tomorrow will bring, or if you will even see the day after. Therefore the Bible promises “Today is the day of salvation”. God loves you, and He’s waiting for you to accept His call. His arms are wide open, ready to embrace you now as you draw close to Him.” This is what I live for, to see people receive eternal life. Today, 80,000 people died, while 200,000 were born at the same time. There’s not a day that goes by without me thinking, how can I reach another one with the gospel? God has placed a priceless value on each and every soul, and he wants all people to get saved (1 Tim. 2:4). That’s why we see Jesus saying “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” as he began to preach (Matt. 4:17). THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF REPENTANCE So, what is repentance? In the Greek, the word for repentance is “metanoia”, which means “to change your thinking/ or heart after having heard about someone or something”. This goes along with the prodigal son who “came to himself” and thought “how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” (Luke 15:17). It was at that moment the prodigal son repented and returned to his father. Rom. 12:2-3 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Do you see how clearly repentance is connected to God’s grace? You see, by the years we have changed the meaning of repentance to something it is not. We have cooked up a religious stew and mixed grace with fear, punishment and self-performance. We have tried to scare and threaten people into heaven by proclaiming the “wrath of God”. We have taken bible scriptures such as Rom. 5:9, and quoted them “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from [God’s] wrath through him!” Unfortunately this verse doesn’t even mention “God’s wrath” in the Greek, it is something the translators just felt free to do. In the Greek it says, that we were saved from “wrath”, well, what wrath? Not the wrath of God, but the wrath of the devil (1 Thess. 5:9, Rev. 20:7). To the unbeliever out there, it doesn’t make sense the way we present the gospel. As if God was so hot with anger that He sent Jesus to save us from himself? Is God schizophrenic? Preachers has depicted the trinity as an angry Father, and a sweet Jesus.

The bible says that God was in Jesus reconciling the world to himself, demonstrating His love towards us while we were yet sinners. By time, we have sadly changed repentance from being “in awe of” God’s love, to being fearful of his wrath. To fear God is not to be afraid of him, but is instead “being in awe of him”. 1 John 4:8-10, 17-19 "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us." THE VULGATE The Vulgate is a late fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible that became, during the 16th century, the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible. The translation was largely the work of St. Jerome, who, in 382 AD, was commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina ("Old Latin") collection of biblical texts in Latin then in use by the Church. Once published, it was widely adopted and eventually eclipsed the Vetus Latina and, by the 13th century, was known as the "versio vulgata” It was during this time, the word “metanoia” was replaced with the word “paenitentia” where we get the word “penance” from, and penance comes from “punishment” or “penalty”. Do you see how the meaning of “repentance” suddenly changed from “changing your mind after having heard the good news of Jesus”, till “in your own self-effort punish yourself, in order to maybe receive God’s grace”? There’s one problem with “paenitentia”, and that is, that God’s grace is not based on your self-effort, it actually excludes your self-effort. In the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul dealt with those that added their own works to their repentance and said “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Gal. 5:4) Pretty strong wording! REPENTANCE IS NOT SELF-EFFORT Some mean that we “have to die from sin” as we repent, but that statement lifts up our own performance and achievements in repentance, and reduces the finished work of Jesus. Instead, by believing in Jesus, “we died to sin” in our identification with Christ death and resurrection, and when we see ourselves in Jesus, we live in holiness as a result of gratitude unto God. We don’t die to sin in order to receive Jesus, we change our thinking when we hear about what Jesus has done for us, and the forgiveness he’s offered us. That’s the moment we die from sin, by accepting his forgiveness. It’s a work God does in us, not a work we do ourselves. There is a supernatural transformation that takes place the moment we hear the gospel, and believe what Jesus has done for us. At that moment we accept what Jesus has done for us, and change our thinking to “I’m loved by God”, and confess our sin. As we understand that God demonstrated His love towards us while we were yet sinners, and as we receive God’s love, we can’t help but to give our hearts to Christ. As we give our hearts to Christ, God cleanses us from all unrighteousness and we die from sin. It is God that changes our hearts, instead of us, changing our own hearts. After an experience with God almighty, we don’t want to go back to our old nature, we now want to live for God! We have changed our thinking! Unfortunately we have put our faith in our own strength to change and repent, and reduced the power and love of God to change us. You have to understand that repentance is not “beating yourself down” in sorrow, sorrow is indeed a result of what sin does in your life though, but the gospel on the other hand, is much better than just a fearful message of repenting to God “or else” type of message.

REPENTANCE IS A RESULT OF GRACE

When Peter preached the gospel on the day of Pentecost, they that listened gladly received his word and were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls (Acts. 2:41).

Why is it that we don't see those kind of results in the church? Why is it that people don't give their life's to Jesus? Because we have changed our message and watered it down with our man-made rules! We have presented a gospel that is not intriguing to the listened, and far from true, and we have depicted God as someone He's not.

If only the church could have their eyes opened to the goodness of God, there wouldn’t be a church big enough to hold the crowds, their wouldn’t be an empty pew. People would come from every direction to give praise for God’s salvation (Rev. 7:10) Repentance is therefore not related to punishment, it is related to gratitude! Repentance is not as much of a decision, as it is a result of what God’s grace has done in your life. Repentance without grace won’t last very long, but God’s grace leads to a lasting “change of mind”. It leads to a lasting gratitude to God’s love! It is a result of what God has done on the inside of us as we put our faith in Him!

- Jakob Wendesten