Repentance

Matthew 9:13  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, TO REPENTANCE (KJV/NKJV)

Most Christians have heard of the above verse from Matthew but they typically only hear it taught or remember the verse through the word “sinners”.  Many recent Bible translations such as the NIV leave out these critical words that detract from the message.  They understand that Jesus came for us sinners, but they don’t truly grasp that He came to call us sinners TO REPENTANCE.  The verse takes on a whole different meaning when the repentance part is included and understood.  

 The bible is perfectly clear that Jesus did not come to give sinners a free pass to heaven.  But this is exactly what is being taught by most churches, especially all the large popular ones.   Not understanding what repentance really is and our clear call to exercise it, is leading the majority of Christians down the broad path which leads to destruction.  Jesus said that only those that followed the NARROW path and enter through the SMALL gate will enter heaven.  He went on to say in Matthew 7 that the majority of professing Christians will not enter the kingdom.   If repentance is not understood or practiced actively in a Christian’s physical life, there is a very good chance they are not going to enter heaven.

Many key provisions of God’s instructions like righteousness and grace are taught in error to excuse sin.  But repentance has a special place in the apostatizing of the church — it is simply not taught about at all.   This is a grievous error and helps explain the general state of apostasy in the professing church and the worldly lifestyles that most Christians lead.  Repentance is a critical truth that must be grasped for anyone to abide in the vine of Christ and be saved.  The NON TEACHING on repentance is a byproduct of the fact that SIN (and its consequences) isn’t taught anymore in the vast majority of churches.  If we are taught correctly that our sin indeed matters to our salvation, then repentance would certainly be taught.  

Jesus and all the prophets and the Apostles all taught repentance.  Jesus did many miracles and the people saw these miracles and still did not repent.  Hear what Jesus said about these cities and the judgment that will come upon them.   Without repentance our faith is dead, of no effect and totally in vain.

Matthew 11:20-24 Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. ²¹“Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²²But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. ²³And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. ²⁴But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

Consider a sampling of other scripture that shows the proactive teaching of repentance as central to the gospel of Christ.  We must turn away from our sinful nature and turn to God with full trust and surrender.  That is repentance.

Mark 6:12 So they went out and preached that people should repent

Acts 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent

Ezekiel 18:30 Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin

2 Kings 17:13 Yet the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments.  All the prophets had the same message, REPENT or TURN FROM EVIL.  Jesus did not change this message but he provided something far more greater than a message.  He provided the means to be successful at turning from evil.  That is the true nugget of wisdom in the Good News.

Almost all the warnings about false teachers warn about doctrine that says your sin doesn’t matter after you believe in Jesus.  The devil loves deceiving people about this and getting them to believe they shall not surely die by disobeying God.  Woe to them.  It is very unpopular to teach the truth about God, but instead false teachers yearn to please men instead of God and those living in sin and following the ways of the “world”, heap upon them preachers who teach them what their itching ears love to hear.   Hosea said God’s people will be destroyed for lack of knowledge.  Not having true knowledge about sin and repentance has and will continue to destroy many.  Galatians 1:6-9 teaches that there is only one gospel, and if any gospel message leaves out the doctrine of repentance or faith or both, you can be assured it is a false gospel. 

What is Repentance?

I think most Christians would say the repentance means to confess your sin to God.  Others will more correctly answer that repentance is a turning away from sin and towards God.  There has been a lot of misunderstanding and confusion over what the word repentance means.  Repent, taken in context of salvation means a true change of heart and turning away from sin and towards pleasing God.  Repentance is part of God’s provision of grace to us.   He is the initiator of repentance but we must step out in real faith and surrender our hearts to Him.  True repentance is best understood by tying it to what Jesus said was the foremost commandment, or later called the Royal Law.

Matthew 22:35 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, and with ALL thy soul, and with ALL thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang ALL the law and the prophets.”

When we give God our whole heart we put to death our flesh nature and our led by the Spirit of God that comes into us, the Holy Spirit.  The whole heart means ALL, 100%.  Anything less is not true repentance and we harbor idols in our hearts.   If we do not repent we do not fulfill God’s law, we practice sin or said another way commit lawlessness.  Once we fully repent, the power of God comes into us and circumcises our heart and so long as we are led by the Spirit we will purify ourselves of all sin and idols.  Paul told us in Romans 8:14 Those who are led by the Spirit of God those are the sons of God.

If we are not led by the Spirit of God, we are tares and deceive ourselves about our faith.  Jesus cannot be our Lord, we have not repented or if we had, we have fallen away from the faith.  Paul confirmed that repentance is a change of heart.  Not a partial change of the heart, but a radical change of heart.

Romans 2:5-8 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, ⁶who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS:  ⁷to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; ⁸but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.

Our hearts must be circumcised.  That is the sign of our covenant with God, when two are made one in the flesh.  We must repent of our sinful nature and surrender so the Lord can give us a new heart.

Colossians 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Subsequent to this writing, I did a much better job of speaking to the truth of God’s Foremost Commandment.  Click the link to access the post.

Jesus is coming for a pure and spotless bride.  He is not coming for a bride that loves sin and practices lawlessness.  The scriptures are absolutely chock full of passages that consistently state this in clear terms.  If our sins are not blotted out, they are remembered and we will not be spotless and will not enter the kingdom of God.  To sincerely repent, we must not only avoid our sin, we must HATE SIN.   The flesh, our unrepentant heart is hostile to God and cannot please Him period. 

Being a new creation in Christ is evidence we have made the turn, we no longer pursue the lusts of the flesh but instead pursue the fruit of the spirit.  When our old man is dead, we have been crucified with Christ and practicing righteousness becomes easy.  We are told that by the Apostle John, that if we love the Lord, we will obey His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome.  They are indeed burdensome when we are walking in the flesh but that burden becomes light and the yoke becomes easy as Jesus told us, WHEN we are truly abiding in Him.  This is what grace enables, our salvation, by giving us the power to defeat sin in our lives. 

Repentance from Sin is the beginning of our transformation.  When Jesus first started his earthly ministry, he picked up where John the Baptist left off, preaching REPENTANCE.

Mark 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,  and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Repentance is required for sins to be forgiven. It is not simply enough to believe Jesus is God or to proclaim the obvious (that God already knows) that he is your Savior and your Lord. Without true repentance, one will remain dead in their sins and they will perish. Consider what Jesus said about the topic.

Luke 13:3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.  The context of this verse was Jesus having just been told about some Galileans who Pilate had killed. Jesus then asked  the crowd if they thought  those killed were worse sinners than the other Galileans that were not killed.  We perish because without repentance, there is no change of heart, there is no rebirth and transformation.  We remain dead in our sins and a slave to our fleshly sinful nature.  We will be powerless to obey God’s law and will be lawbreakers and evildoers.    Jesus is coming for a PURE and SPOTLESS bride, not a bride that simply believes He is Lord and Savior. 

Please see my post Christians Do Not Break God’s Law

Luke 24:46-47 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  Jesus told this to the disciples after his resurrection and right before he was to ascend back to heaven.  Repentance for the forgiveness of sins WILL be preached to all nations.  Is it still being preached?  When I have heard about it preached at all, it has been in the context of a ONE TIME, as the lead in to saying the ONE TIME sinners prayer.  The little prayer some pastors use, in some cases has the congregant say “I repent of my sins”.  Yet the sheep are not being taught the truth that we must crucify and put to death our body of death by the power of God.  That is what following Jesus means.

We simply cannot serve two masters.  We are slaves to the one we obey.   Repentance is part of God’s provision of grace.  If and when we stumble, if we have repented and God has our whole heart, we will be chastised by God and disciplined.  The Holy Spirit does this work in us and when we respond, we confess our sin and we are cleansed anew.  But there is a big difference between stumbling or making a mistake versus practicing sin and taking pleasure in our sin.  If we do any of the latter, we are not Born Again and are lacking in true repentance.  The deception in the church and in the pulpits of today is destroying God’s people.  Most are holding on to a false security about their salvation.

God is merciful however.  He is patient beyond belief and if we turn back to Him with our whole heart, like the Prodigal Son did, God is there to take us back and rejoice with us.

 Luke 15:7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.  I love this verse and there is some powerful meaning in the verse as well.  First I want to point out that some people need no repentance.  Who are these people?  These are people who have been purified and who have stopped sinning by walking fully in the Spirit.  Going forward, repentance is only needed when we sin.  While most of us do continue to sin, this verse points to the aim of perfection which is attainable via the grace of God.  In fact that is the will of God, that we be sanctified meaning pure and spotless.  1 Thess 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

Secondly Jesus said there will be great joy in heaven over a single sinner who repents.  If one repents, he turns from his sin and defeats it.  That is why Jesus came to defeat the works of the devil, which is sin.  1 John 3:8-9 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.  Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

Summary

1. Repentance is required for us to be cleansed and purified in God’s eyes — have our sins forgiven.

2. Repentance begins the process to transform us (sanctify us)into the image of Christ and make us pure and spotless

3.  Repentance is initiated by God but we must in our hearts make the choice to live for Him and repent.  If we choose to remain in our sins, we shall die.  God must have all our heart.  Anything we love more than Jesus is an idol and this makes us unworthy for the Kingdom of God.  That is the very thing(s) we need to turn from and surrender it to God.

4.  Confessing ones sin but continuing to live in those sins is not true repentance in any way shape or form.  We cannot live with two natures and serve two masters.  This is playing religion, honoring God with our lips and not our hearts.  True repentance leads to change and putting to death the deeds of the flesh.

5.  Repentance is both turning away from sin, but also turning towards God.  Anything besides being led by the Spirit of God is a works salvation. 

Precusor to Repentance:  Hate Your Sin

We will not repent until we come to the point of desperation where we hate our sin.   I pray that all of us will examine ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we have unrepented sin.  This is the godly sorrow Paul spoke about.  

2 Cor 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death

Consider some examples of what was said about hating and mourning over our sins.

Psalm 38:18 For I will declare my iniquity; I will be in anguish over my sin

Joel 2:12 Now, therefore,” says the LORD,  “ Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”

James 4:8-9 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Until and unless we go through this kind of process to hate sin and weep over it, we have not repented.  It is much more than confession.  We have to hate SIN as God hates SIN.

We have much to look forward to on the other side of true repentance.  Following the false teachings of men will keep us in bondage to sin and to Satan.  Many of our brothers and sisters are under a  delusion that their sin does not matter to their salvation and that the whole gospel is John 3:16 or Ephesians 2:8-9.  We must instruct them gently and pray as Paul told Timothy that God will grant them repentance.  To not repent is to perish and that is not God’s will or desire for anyone.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance

If the false teachers of today are not challenged and continue to tell people their sins do not matter and do not teach true repentance, souls will perish.  Jesus will tell these people Depart From Me I Never Knew You on the last day.  We cannot compromise the truth and call it Love, fellowship, unity or whatever.  People that are living in sin need to know the truth and the consequences of believing a lie.

May God Bless You Richly!

Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,