Copyright © 2026 Michael A. Brown
‘The
kingdom of God is near. Repent and
believe the good news!’
(Mark 1:15)
‘Nevertheless,
God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord
knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord
must depart from iniquity.”’
(2 Tim. 2:19)
Reading:
Luke 15:11-32
A
positive and powerful concept
Together with faith in God through Jesus, repentance
is one of the two foundational keys in conversion to the Christian life and to
continuing to walk with God in a life of obedience and submission to him.
This primary need for repentance
was emphasised by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:1-2), by Jesus himself (Mark 1:15
above) and by the apostle Peter:
‘Repent
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins.’
(Acts 2:38)
It is inferred as being foundational in 2
Timothy 2:19 (above) and, in Hebrews 6:1-2, repentance is the first of the
several foundational teachings mentioned:
‘Therefore
let us… go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance…’ (underlining my own for emphasis)
Repentance has two essential
elements. Firstly, turning away from our
sin and unbelief, and, secondly, turning towards God with faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ:
‘I
have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance
and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Acts 20:21)
We repent from sin and unbelief,
and we turn towards God in faith on the basis of what Jesus did for us,
carrying our sins away on the cross and making it possible for us to have a new
life in him.
Since repentance involves turning away
from sin and the problems and bondage that it causes, into a life of freedom
from habitual sin, and also involves entering into a covenant relationship with
God with all the blessings of salvation in his kingdom that this can bring us, repentance
is seen biblically as a very positive and powerful concept. It is God’s patience and kindness which leads
us to it (Acts 11:18, Romans 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9).
Indeed, as Jesus repeatedly said, the angels of heaven rejoice over one
sinner who repents and finds freedom in Christ (Luke 15:7,10).
Repentance involves the whole person
Repentance involves the whole person, and
this is typified in the story Jesus told about the young man who, after
receiving his inheritance, left his family and went far away, and wasted
everything he had in wild and profligate living (see the Parable of the Lost
Son in Luke 15:11-32).
a.
Repentance involves our mind
The Greek word used for repentance in the
New Testament is metanoia which literally means to ‘perceive afterwards’
and so implies a change in the way in which we think about something,
specifically in regard to sin and the way in which we live our lives. So repentance is essentially coming to
think about things and look upon them the way God sees and thinks about them
from his perspective (cf. Rom. 12:2).
We realise that he is right and that our own way or way of thinking has
been wrong. We realise that our
wilfulness and sin have separated us from God and that we have made a mess of
our life (Isa. 59:2). We begin to think
differently about our lifestyle which has been opposed to the ways of God.
So we repent when we get to the point
where we can see that we have been wrong, and we desire to change; when we get
to the point where we no longer want sin (or a particular sin), its shame and
its consequences in our life; when we are prepared to forsake it, and when we
no longer want to stay as we are or to continue on in our own ways in our
present lifestyle; when we have understood the destructive effects of our own
sin and selfishness on the life of someone else, and we are ashamed of this. Instead, we want to return to God and learn
to walk in his ways and in the freedom and blessings of his kingdom, getting
our life into alignment with his word and doing what is right in his
sight. We forsake our old way of thinking
and living, and we begin to think and live according to the mind and will of
God. Luke tells us that the lost son
‘came to his senses’ (Luke 15:17).
After the wayward manner in which he had lived his life, he finally came
to his right mind and wanted to change.
b.
Repentance involves our conscience
In coming to his right mind, he became
aware in his conscience that he had sinned against both God and his own father,
and he acknowledged this: ‘I have sinned...’ (Luke 15:18). He experienced what is called
conviction of sin. He felt
ashamed and embarrassed about the things he had done and the way he had lived,
and he saw the inward corruption of his own sinfulness. The guilt and shame of this conscious
awareness then created sorrow in his heart.
When we become aware of sin within ourselves and see it as God sees it,
we see just how repulsive and destructive it is and we realise how displeasing
it is to God. So we lose our desire for
it and we want to be free from it; we repent from it.
c.
Repentance involves our heart
Our heart expresses repentance as sorrow
for sin:
‘Yet
now I am happy… because your sorrow led you to repentance… Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to
salvation.’ (2
Cor. 7:9-10)
We can sense the sorrow and shame in the
lost son’s heart when he acknowledged to himself that he had sinned against
heaven and against his father, and he was no longer worthy to be called his
father’s son. He was remorseful
over what he had done (Luke 15:18-19).
d.
Repentance involves our will and leads us
to action
However, words, feelings and thoughts were
not enough for the lost son. He had come
to the end of himself, and so, realising that he had been wrong and knowing
that it was his self-centred waywardness that had separated him from his father
and made a mess of his own life, he humbled himself and said, ‘I will set
out and go back to my father.’ (Luke 15:18). He got up and did something about his sin and
broken lifestyle. He took responsibility
for his actions and his wrongdoing. His
convicted conscience and repentant heart moved him to go and confess his wrong
to his father, and to put this broken relationship right.
e.
So repentance involves turning around and
walking in a new direction
This is the essence of the Greek word epistrepho,
used in Acts 11:21 where it says that ‘a great number of people believed and
turned to the Lord.’ It literally
means to turn around and face the other way, implying a decisive act as the
consequence of a deliberate choice. We
turn away from darkness and come to the light.
We turn away from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18 and cf. 1
Thess. 1:9). So it says of the lost son
that he ‘got up and went’ (Luke 15:20).
He forsook his sin and turned his back on his broken lifestyle, leaving
it behind. True repentance results
in real, concrete, positive changes in our behaviour.
f.
Repentance brings us into a restored
relationship with God
The repentant son returned to his father
to be reconciled to him and to live with him (which is symbolic of coming into
God’s kingdom and thereafter living our life in fellowship with him). When we
turn to the Lord and forsake our own way, he has mercy on us and freely pardons
us (Isa. 55:6-7). This young man
experienced the deep love and compassion, and the complete forgiveness and
acceptance of his father: ‘…his father saw him and was filled with
compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed
him.’ (Luke 15:20). Genuine
repentance on our part results in our experiencing not rejection by God, but
his deep love, compassion and total forgiveness, giving us a new start in life.
Believing but not repenting?
‘The
Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and
forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.’ (Luke 24:46-47)
To neglect to preach about repentance is
tantamount to preaching only half a gospel, and in fact it is no gospel at
all. This is not the message of the
kingdom of God. The forgiveness of sins
should not be emphasised at the expense of teaching repentance from sin. People who respond to a message which
involves forgiveness and believing in Jesus, but which is weak on the element
of repentance, may well continue to struggle with sinful habits in their
personal life until they understand their need to forsake sinful habits they have
become consciously aware of.
We live in a day when the preaching of
repentance is a necessity. Preachers
should not baulk from doing this because of the fear of people’s response to
it. The chaotic condition of morality in
society, the headlong pursuit of self-centred, carnal and hedonistic pleasures,
the disregard towards and the utter dismissal of the things of God from
people’s lives and thinking, our iniquity and waywardness which grieve the
heart of God: all these things make preaching repentance a necessity. As society around us continues to degenerate,
it simply begs the question of where people will end up in life (let alone in
eternity!), and where will society end up, if there is no repentance?
If we really do want to have victory
over sin in our life and to live in the joy, peace and blessings of God’s
kingdom, then our primary need is to repent of sin and to forsake both it and
any lifestyle habits associated with it (Isa. 55:7). It is not God’s will that we continue in a
sinful lifestyle, because in Christ we have died to sin and been raised into a
new life grounded in the power of his resurrection (Rom. 6:1-7). He wants us to be free from the power
of sin and from the grip it has on us.
So the person who has been stealing must
steal no longer (Eph. 4:28). The person
who used to lie habitually should now speak truthfully (Eph. 4:25). We should renounce sexual immorality of any
form and live a pure life (2 Cor. 12:21, Eph. 5:3-7). Drunkenness must become a thing of the past
(1 Cor. 6:9-11). We must rid ourselves
of bitterness, rage, anger and slander (Eph. 4:31). And so on...
It should be no surprise that, in a church
community which is weak on teaching and practising repentance, we might find
people who are still struggling with various sins and/or sinful attitudes in
their lives. A lack of repentance in any
given area of a person’s life simply leads to ongoing problems and bondage to
sin in that area. It is quite simply
self-deception to think that we can walk closely with God in our life, and yet
at the same time to not deal with any sins that we are consciously aware of, through
confession and repentance. We cannot
keep a foot in each of God’s kingdom and Satan’s dominion; it does not
work. We cannot talk the things of God
and yet walk in sin. God does not agree
to live with our sin, he comes into our life in order to deal with it and to
free us and cleanse us from it. It is
the person who confesses and renounces their sins, who is the one who prospers,
not the person who holds onto and conceals their sins (Ps. 66:18, Prov.
28:13). It is the person who has clean
hands and a pure heart who will be able to consistently dwell in the presence
of the Lord and walk closely with him (Ps. 24:3-4).
The apostle Paul reminded the believers in
the church in Corinth about the importance of repentance, when he rebuked them
for the sins and behaviour that were wrecking the life of their church. He told them not to deceive themselves in
this regard – people who do not repent from their sinful lifestyles will not
inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10).
At the end of two long letters to them, he challenged them:
‘Examine
yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in
you – unless, of course, you fail the test?’ (2 Cor. 13:5)
For Paul, if Christ really was living in a
person, then this experience of a new life in him ought to issue forth in
real-life repentance from sin:
‘I
am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will
be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the
impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.’ (2 Cor. 12:21)
To say that we have been ‘saved from sin’
through Christ has practical meaning when we consider specific sins in our
lives. For example, have we been truly
set free by Christ from resentment and unforgiveness, or do we still harbour
these in our heart towards someone? Do
we really want to be set free from sexual lust, or do we still enjoy giving
place to unclean thoughts in the secret places of our heart? Have we stopped lying, cheating and
gossiping? As believers, we may well
love righteousness, but have we yet learned to hate wickedness within ourselves
and therefore to rid ourselves of it? (cf. Heb. 1:9). We are only saved (or delivered) from
specific sins (such as those mentioned above and others) when we are willing to
address them in ourselves, and to repent from and forsake them. And, of course, this means that ‘being saved
from sin’ becomes an ongoing experience in our life as believers, as we face up
to overcoming specific issues from time to time and find true freedom from them
in Christ.
True faith and repentance go together;
they are two sides of the same coin. Put
another way, repentance is the fruit of true faith and a true understanding of
God’s word. The proof of real faith is a
spirit of repentance – the willingness to humble ourselves and admit when we
are wrong, and to confess this to God; the willingness to apologise and to put
things right, and so on. Hence, because
having true faith involves coming to see things from God’s perspective and
therefore beginning to think in a new way, it can be expected that a believer
will begin to repent from and forsake sin, not only from acts of sin in outward
behaviour, but also from hidden sins in the heart.
As someone once said, the seal of
genuine repentance is a corrected life.
What transforms us is the willingness to actually put things right. Repentance is not talking about the need to
change, and neither is it simply feeling bad about our sin and wanting to
change. Repentance lies in doing it and
actually changing. When we are truly
repentant, we do not seek to justify ourselves or our sin, and we do not seek
to blame others. We are remorseful, we
accept that we have done wrong, and we take the necessary steps to actually
change.
So repentance should touch every part of
our life as we face up to dealing with personal sin and issues in our life –
our general behaviour, our heart attitudes, our relationships, the kind of
language we use, the way we talk about other people or the way we treat them,
our morality, our bad habits (including our secret ones), what we watch on TV
or on the internet, the kind of music we listen to, and so on.
When the wealthy and corrupt chief tax
collector Zacchaeus became a believer, he confessed to Jesus his sin of
cheating people out of their money, gave half of his possessions to the poor,
and also promised Jesus that he would repay money four-fold to those he had
cheated. Jesus saw these acts of
confession and restitution as a practical expression of genuine repentance and
salvation (Luke 19:1-10, cf. Eph. 4:28).
Similarly, John the Baptist expected the priests of his day to produce
fruit in keeping with repentance (Matt. 3:8).
In our own day, neglecting or not having
the courage to teach on repentance may perhaps indicate that sin and its
destructive effects (and indeed the eternal consequences of unrepentant sin)
are not being taken seriously, or perhaps points to a fear of people’s response
to the message of repentance. However,
such neglect reflects a lack of God’s love and his concern for people. Because God loves people, he wants them to be
free of their sin and its destructive effects, and so they should hear – and
have the right to hear, and indeed need to hear – teaching on repentance. The love of God and the message of his
kingdom are firm – believe AND repent. It
is repentance that leads a person into the true freedom of a changed life and
into the blessings of living in God’s kingdom.
So repent and live the blessed and free life that God
wants you to have
a. All people everywhere are commanded
by God to repent
(Acts 17:30), but it is also an exhortation and an invitation extended to us by
him. This is because, in the work of
Jesus on the cross, God has done what is needed to bring people out of the
spiritual darkness and bondage to sin in which they live, into a life of
freedom in his kingdom (John 8:32,36).
There is no need for people to remain in their present state anymore,
and the way is open into his kingdom.
Jesus took our sin upon himself, so we do not need to carry on in it any
longer! God yearns for us to know him
and his life and blessings, so he commands, exhorts and invites us to do what
we need to do, to take this step and repent.
b. Repentance not only means accepting
Jesus as our personal Saviour, but also recognizing him as the Lord and Master
of our life. It involves submission to
him and surrendering our life to him, so that we can follow him and live our
life under his caring authority. It
means learning to know the word of God and aligning our lifestyle and choices
to reflect a true understanding of the word of God in practice, which will then
bring us into the blessings of living in God’s kingdom.
c. If the Christian life can be
likened to a race (see 1 Cor. 9:24-27, 1 Tim. 2:5, Heb. 12:1), then faith in
Jesus, relationship with God, forgiveness and repentance from sin
together represent the starting line of this race. Repentance is not simply a hurdle that
we face for the first time somewhere further round the track.
Furthermore, rather than being something that we do
only at the beginning of our Christian lives, repentance is an ongoing and
integral part of the Christian life, and, without it, it is impossible to
experience the full blessings of life in the kingdom of God. For as long as there remains sin in our
lives, then there will be a need for repentance. The believers in no less than five out of the
seven churches described in Revelation chs.2-3 were exhorted to repent from
various specific issues (see Rev. 2:5,16,21; 3:3,19).
d. Repentance is the key to living a
clean life, free from sin. The repentant attitudes of a new way of
thinking and living should characterise our life in an ongoing way (Rom.
12:2). Repentance involves becoming
consciously aware of specific sins in our heart and life, confession of such
sins (1 John 1:7-9, Jas. 5:16), turning away from them, and taking whatever
steps or measures we need to take in order to ‘pluck out our eye,’ as it were,
and get such sins out of our life (cf. Matt. 5:29-30). When David became aware of the sinful, inward
corruption of his heart, he repented and asked God to cleanse him thoroughly
(Ps. 51:1-12).
Out of love for God, repentance is determining to live
in the light of the revelation and understanding that we have received from
God’s word in any given area of life, and to forsake our old way of thinking
and living in regard to that area.
So to live a life of true freedom
and blessing in Christ, the practice of repentance needs to become deep,
thorough and ongoing in every area of our life.
Repentance, rejoicing and refreshing
God loves and delights to live with his
people in covenant relationship, and to manifest his presence amongst us, and
repentance is the key to experiencing this blessing.
When the prodigal returned and was
reconciled to his father, his father not only accepted and embraced his son, he
also forgave him completely and then demonstrated his joy in their renewed
relationship by putting on a feast and celebrating that ‘the lost was now
found.’ He put a new robe on his son, a
ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, and killed the fattened calf to
feast and celebrate (Luke 15:22-24). He
gave him a new start in life. This
is a picture of God’s extravagant grace towards us. There is rejoicing in heaven over just one
sinner who repents! (Luke 15:7).
The apostle Peter outlined the link
between repentance, forgiveness and the empowering and refreshing presence of
the Holy Spirit being poured out upon us:
‘Repent
and be baptized... for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit…’ (Acts
2:38)
‘Repent,
then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of
refreshing may come from the Lord...’
(Acts 3:19)
Such an experience of the manifest
refreshing presence and power of the Holy Spirit is the covenant promise of God
to all of his people who live in repentance:
‘I
will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will
be my people.’ (2
Cor. 6:16)
This experience of a renewed spiritual
life with the forgiveness, freedom, joy, praise and empowerment of God’s
presence that comes with it, was the ongoing experience of the early church in
the book of Acts, and it can be our experience too! It is the blessed life into which
repentance brings us.
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