Repent (It is not optional)
This is a long post on repentance. It should have been posted in the Articles part of this blog instead of Pages. But here it is. If you want to read my ideas on repentance in more ‘bite-sized’ chunks, skip this post and instead read “Repent (it is not optional) parts 1, 2, and 3. They contain the same material as this post, but broken up into 3 segments. Sorry about the length. There is so much to write about repentance. It is critical to our life with and in Christ. No repentance, no salvation!
So, here goes:
When I hear that word – Repent!!! – I think of the old-time preachers in the pulpit yelling at the congregation, running through a long list of sins, telling them to ‘repent’ of these sins, and scaring them to death with eventual hell-fire and damnation if they don’t. That type of preaching is out of style today, at least in the churches I am familiar with (and if that is all the preacher means by ‘repent’ it probably should be). In fact, in many churches I suspect the message is the opposite. “God loves you so much that you can do whatever makes you feel good, except don’t be a mean person”. Or at least “You deserve death, but out of His love for us and His grace you are saved if you believe”. The word ‘repent’ is never mentioned. But ‘repent’ is critical to our entire relationship with Jesus, even to our salvation. And no concept in our walk with Christ is more misunderstood, or overlooked. What follows is my attempt to make sense of repentance for my life. It is the concept that ties together for me the fear of God, godly sorrow, God’s love for me and my love for God, humility, value and acceptance, salvation, sin, the Kingdom, and holiness.
Before I dig into repentance, and there is a lot to this subject (my understanding is just scratching the surface), I have listed some of the highlights of what I have written below. So here they are:
1) The first command of Jesus in the Gospels is not praise, grace, or love; it is ‘repent’.
2) Jesus links repentance with the Kingdom of God as in “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Gospel”(Mark 1: 15) and “Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 7: 17). So repentance and the Kingdom of God are related. And, as Jesus makes clear, ‘repent’ and ‘believe’ are two sides of the same coin. In fact, by understanding repentance we can better understand what Jesus means by belief or faith.
3) Repentance is deeper than just turning away from a particular sin. Repentance requires us to solemnly, seriously, and publicly (at least to a small group of trusted Christian friends) determine to no longer find our ultimate value, acceptance, and connection in the kingdom of self (aka the kingdom of the world, the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of death, etc) but in the Kingdom of God. We don’t just repent of what we do; more fundamentally we repent of who we are. We shouldn’t say “I repented”; rather, we should say “I am repentant”. We cannot do this in our power. We can only do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, for many of us it necessitates some degree of healing, which can only be done by Jesus. Therefore, repentance is a gracious gift from God.
4) It is possible (even likely in the case of most Christians) to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior at some point in our life and still continue finding our ultimate value and acceptance in the kingdom of self. We cannot be citizens of two kingdoms; dual citizenship is not allowed. And there are only two kingdoms. You live right now in one or the other. If I have not repented (and continue to repent every day) I am a citizen of the kingdom of self, the world, darkness – whatever you want to call it. And like all kingdoms that kingdom has a ruler and it is not Jesus.
5) Without repentance we do not belong to Jesus. We have chosen self as the object of our worship. No matter how often we confess our sins or confess Jesus as Savior, without true repentance, the root of sin – that is, self – still dominates our lives. I can confess in Sunday morning worship (in the 30 seconds we are given) that I lied during the past week. But without repentance, I am still a liar.
Repentance is trusting Jesus for the ultimate value and acceptance that I need to live. In the famous passage on the requirements for salvation in Romans 10 (“if you confess with you mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”) Paul goes on to say that “Anyone who trusts in Him will not be put to shame”. What are we trusting Jesus for? Life! He is the only source for our ultimate ‘life’. We must repent to believe this fact.
Without repentance there can be no humility. And without humility there can be no repentance. Pride is the worship of self (living in the kingdom of self); humility is the worship of Jesus (living in the Kingdom of God). Repentance is the turning from the former in order to embrace the latter.
6) Therefore, without repentance there is no Kingdom life: no indwelling Holy Spirit, no transformation, no power, no authority, and no salvation. Many of us think of salvation as “when I die I am going to heaven and not hell”. But Jesus tells us that heaven is here, now. He calls it the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew. Salvation, rooted in the Greek word Sozo, means, among other things, to be healed and made whole. We attach to it the words ‘freedom’ and ‘life’, even the ‘abundant life’. That is the Kingdom life. It begins now, not in some distant future. If we have not chosen that life now, when it is freely offered, but instead chose the other kingdom, why should we expect to enter heaven (i.e. the Kingdom of God) when we die if, through lack of repentance, we have rejected Heaven while we were alive. Jesus tells us this in Luke 13: 22-30 and Matthew 7: 21-24. The ones He sent away are the Christians (or who thought they were – a not inconsiderable number of people in our churches today I am guessing) who went through all the motions but who never repented and entered His Kingdom, becoming His subjects, and therefore were never known by Him. These passages have always made me uncomfortable. “Surely they don’t apply to me” I thought. Now that I understand them better I appreciate what Paul tells us in Philippians 2 – “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
7) The lack of preaching and teaching on repentance, upon which our entire Christian walk depends, is perhaps the primary reason why the Church in America is so anemic and why most Christians are indistinguishable in word and deed from the world around us.
There is much more to repentance. If you want to stop reading this post now, you will have gotten the bare bones of what I have written. If, after reading the rest of this post, you want to read more about repentance from a pastor who has studied repentance in the context of Scripture for over 60 years, check out the book ‘Repentance – the First Word of the Gospel’ by Richard Owen Roberts. You can order copies on Amazon. It rocked my world and helped me bring into sharper focus and integration ideas I have been wrestling with and teaching for several years.
Repent!!! – The Way to Restoration
The first command of Jesus’ public ministry was not praise, love, or grace, but “Repent”. (The first word of the gospel is “Kingdom”). In Mark Jesus says “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1: 15 NKJV). In Matthew, after Jesus returned from the temptation in the desert, we read the words that inaugurated His ministry: “From that time on Jesus began to preach – Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 4: 17 NIV).
It is interesting to me that in both passages Jesus coupled “repent” with the Kingdom of God/heaven (Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew and the Kingdom of God in Mark, Luke, John and the Book of Acts. Matthew is making the point that the Kingdom, which is here now although not in its fulness, is heaven. We don’t have to die to enter heaven – we have the privilege of entering heaven now – “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth at it is in heaven”). And it is no coincidence that in Mark, Jesus ties the word ‘repent’ not only with the Kingdom of God but with ‘believe’. As I discovered, repent and believe (or faith) are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. First, lets look at why Jesus tied ‘repent with ‘Kingdom’.
What is Jesus telling us by coupling these words – repent and the Kingdom? I think in these few passages and in many other places in Scripture (e.g “Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness”), God is telling us what “to repent” really means. It means, I believe, to turn from finding my ultimate value, acceptance, comfort, connectedness in the kingdom of self in which I worship ‘me’ (and where Satan is the ruler) to the Kingdom of God, where I will find these things (constituting life and freedom) and worship the real King, Jesus. And what I take from the ministry of Jesus is that if I have not ‘repented’ in this sense, I do not belong to Jesus, even if at some point in my past I confessed Jesus as my savior.
This is almost exactly the opposite of the sermon I heard preached last Sunday, which is probably similar to many sermons preached all over America that day. “The Good News (the Gospel) is that Christ died for you, your sins are washed away, confess Him as your savior, and you will be saved” -- the gospel of sin management. Period. It is not an incorrect message, it just leaves out the first command of the Gospel of the Kingdom – “repent”.
We are all born into the kingdom of self; also known as the kingdom of the world, the kingdom of darkness, or the kingdom of death. Jesus provided an alternative: the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven; also known as the Kingdom of light, the Kingdom of life, the Kingdom of Righteousness. So there are two Kingdoms. I will call them the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of self. By the grace of God and the death and resurrection of Jesus, believers now have access to the Kingdom of God. But dual citizenship is not allowed. As Richard Owen Roberts points out “repentance is not the entry ticket into the Kingdom of God, but it is a condition of citizenship.” When we turn away from the kingdom of self and turn toward the Kingdom of God (this is why I think repentance is sometimes defined as ‘turning around’, doing a 180) we are saying to God “I no longer want to find my ultimate value and acceptance in the kingdom of self (in idols like sex, power, money, prestige, knowledge, work, family, accomplishments, etc); I want to find my ultimate value and acceptance in Jesus – I want to submit and surrender to Him; I want to live in His Kingdom to serve, obey, and follow Him. This is true repentance.
Of course, when we hear the word ‘repent’ we immediately think of sin, and so we should. “Perhaps the most popular subject of all time is the subject of sin. It is not only frequently spoken of but regularly practiced by an overwhelming majority of the world’s people” (Richard Owen Roberts, ‘Repentance’). HaHa, that’s a good one.
So here I’ll add a few more words to the ‘most popular subject of all time’. As I see it, and as I think Paul sees it, the sin in our lives can be broken down into Sin (capitol ‘S’, singular) and sins (small ‘s’, plural). Paul lays this out for us in Romans 1. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things (some translations say ‘worshiped and served the creature’) rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1: 25). In other words, they worshiped idols, rooted in the worship of themselves. Theirs was a kingdom of self. Therefore, Paul is telling us that ‘self’ is the root of sin and evil (pride can be defined as putting ‘self’ on the throne of your life. Same thing). Throughout the Bible God makes it clear that the worship of idols is Sin. God hates Sin. In one of many, many places where Scripture speaks against idols, God tells Moses “if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking Him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess” (Deuteronomy 4: 25, 26).
Paul goes on to describe the consequences of Sin. “Because of this (‘this’ being the worship of the creature or created things – worship of self), God gave them over to shameful lusts…furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God…they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil…they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1: 26 – 31). In this passage Paul is comprehensively enumerating ‘sins’. As he points out, ‘sins’ are the manifestation or by-product of ‘Sin’, the worship of self. In other words, choosing to live in the kingdom of self. Self-worship, aka living in the kingdom of self, is the root (Sin) and the fruit of that root is all the other ‘sins’ and evil.
Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change in belief and behavior. The fruit of repentance is a more righteous life, a life in which we sin less. Sin and repentance are closely coupled.
Ok, that makes sense to me. But I can’t just wake up one morning and say, in my own power “I want to repent”. There is one more aspect of Sin that needs to be mentioned to understand repentance, as I see it. It is this: the basic, most fundamental human need that transcends and underlays every dimension of our humanity is the need for acceptance, value, and connection. God made us this way for Himself. We are created to find our needs met in Him. But as we read in Genesis 3, Adam rejected God, rejected self (shame), feared rejection, and rejected others. This spirit of rejection, including the fear of rejection, devaluing, and disconnection has driven the human race ever since. We turn to idols, counterfeit Gods as Tim Keller calls them, to find this acceptance and value that each human being so desperately needs to live. It is sad, but true (and certainly true in my life) that most people do not turn to God first to fulfill these needs; after all, we inherited this spirit of rejection, part of which is the rejection of God, and the notion of unregenerate human beings that “I can do it on my own” – pride. And so Sin is a part of our lives from the day we were born. We find our value in one or more of the almost infinite number of idols that the human race has created and release evil into the world. But we are so deceived, that even when it begins to become apparent that the idol is not going to provide fulfillment but death and destruction instead, we cling to that idol believing that if we commit to it a little bit more things will turn around and we will be ok.
Why are we so idolatrous? (I suppose Calvin and his followers would say “I told you – we are totally depraved”. True, but is that the whole story?. I don’t think so.) Most of us have been wounded: abused, devalued, dehumanized, rejected, abandoned, belittled, beat up, or deeply shamed at some point in our younger lives. Here are some actual examples: the woman whose father often threw her down the stairs when she was young. The 6-year old girl who was sexually abused by a neighbor and never was allowed to talk about it. She suffered horrifying dreams well into her adult years. The boy who was beat up daily in the fourth grade on the school playground on his walk home from school because he was the new boy in the class. The 60-year old woman whose mother committed suicide by shooting herself in the abdomen when the woman was a little girl because she didn’t want to grow old. The 60-year old woman suffered intestinal bleeding her whole adult life. The woman whose husband sexually abused their young daughter when the mom was out of the house, but who discovered the abuse when she got home and has lived with a crushing sense of shame and guilt for years. These are real situations. There are as many of these stories as there are grains of sand on the beach or stars in the sky. These wounds go deep; sometimes they have been buried in our hearts and we are no longer aware that they exist.
These wounds do two things to us: First, they are powerful drivers to find our value and acceptance in something outside of ourselves. We will be valued, we will be accepted, we will overcome the terrible pain and rejection, and we will do it in our own power. And so we enter the kingdom of self and begin to live a life of Sin. In my life I compensated for these wounds with scholastic and athletic performance and later with more destructive behaviors. Others turn to more dangerous ways of dealing with the pain, for example drugs or alcohol, other addictions like food; they can become angry, abusive, or violent.
Second, these wounds open a door for Satan to indwell our hearts. This demonic infiltration constantly fills us with shame, guilt, and a voice that repeats over and over in various versions of the same theme – “you are not good enough, you are unworthy”. And out of these choices – survival really for most of us – we harm ourselves, those we love and who love us, and release evil into the world. The idols that we turn to tell us “we will totally fulfill you, but you must totally surrender to me”. When we ‘totally surrender’ we worship the idol and self; not Jesus. The kingdom of self has a king – every Kingdom has a king. It just isn’t us, no matter how much we think it is. The king of the kingdom of self is Satan and we are enslaved to him. It makes no difference how often we have accepted or decided for Jesus, how often we attend church and confess our sins. If the root of Sin, which is self, is untouched, if we have not repented, we do not belong to Him. Are we totally depraved? Well, yes. But there is grace.
In the Kingdom of God there is healing. I don’t see how a wounded person (and who isn’t) is going to get to the point where they would say “OK, Jesus I will give all of these idols up to live with you” without these wounds being healed first, or at least for healing to begin. We all believe that these idols have kept us alive, even if we have been deceived. I believe that healing is an integral part of my choosing the kingdom, which is why Jesus made such a big deal about healing and deliverance.
And so, because of our basic Sin nature, the spirit of rejection inherited from Adam, and the woundedness that most of us have experienced, we Sin and we commit sins. We look for and find our value, acceptance, and connectedness to others in the world in idols. We are very good idolators, and for most of us, we can’t imagine life without our own particular idol or no matter how much we want to live life without that idol, we cannot. We are not free.
Jesus promises us healing. As we cry out to Jesus for the healing our our spiritual and emotional wounds, he promises to meet us. Something happens. We are given the grace to enter His Kingdom manifested in the confidence, the trust, the belief that we are on the right path, even if we are not fully healed in that moment. And as Scripture says “We are born again”. But does everyone who cries out and enters the Kingdom get this spiritual and emotional healing? Does everyone with depression, anger, unforgiveness, shame, etc. get healed? I am not wise enough to answer this question definitively. Who is, except Jesus? In the little time that I have been around healing prayer I have seen incredible spiritual and emotional healing. I have seen some healed (or who have claimed healing) immediately. I have seen some, touched by Jesus, begin to heal, and then continue to be healed over days, weeks, even years. But, I believe that when we truly repent and enter the Kingdom of God, we begin to heal in some fashion from these deep wounds. That healing can continue for the rest of our lives and beyond. But healing begins now, because ‘now’ we have entered heaven.
What about physical healing? Jesus promises physical healing in the Kingdom of God as well. I know (and you know) that not everyone who is physically sick gets healed. I have wrestled with this question in my mind for years – are all who enter the Kingdom of God, who truly repent, physically healed? Here is my imperfect answer. More would be healed if more of us truly repented. But we live in a fallen world. The Kingdom of God is here, but not perfectly. There is still the suffering, pain, anguish, and death associated with disease like cancer. Kingdom people and non-kingdom people alike suffer and die. But I have seen this: some Kingdom people do get physically healed and some of these healings are nothing short of miraculous. Some Kingdom people do not get physically healed in this world, but the presence of Christ in the midst of their suffering and the suffering of their families, is powerful. In His Kingdom, there is spiritual, emotional, and physical healing and wholeness. Period. It might not take the form I expect or want. It might not occur in the time framework I pray for. But it will occur. My job, as directed by the Holy Spirit, is to pray, expecting this physical healing. And for my prayers to be effective, for my prayers to be answered, I must be a repentant, Kingdom man because answered prayer is conditional: it is dependent upon my being known by Christ. He is the mediator. He will not know me in this way unless I am His subject, living in His Kingdom.
Now we are ready to look at repentance again. When we hear the Good News preached, when the Holy Spirit touches us with Godly sorrow at how our Sin (sins) breaks God’s heart, and when we confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, we can be brought by God to a place where we are required to make a decision about which Kingdom we will live in. As I said, I think it is entirely possible to confess Jesus as Savior, but refuse to abandon my life in the kingdom of self. It is just too comfortable, too secure, too exciting, too addictive, or too much fun to give up. This then, is a life without repentance. And it is a life without Jesus.
We belong to Jesus when we have decided to live in the Kingdom of God. We enter that Kingdom by choice. Scripture is clear – we need to chose, we have responsibility. Jesus clearly tells us to store our treasure in Heaven, not in the world; to chose the right gate, the one that leads to life. Jesus tells us to first seek His Kingdom and His Righteousness; to ask, seek, and knock and the door (to the Kingdom will be opened). And Jesus tells us in Revelation 3 that He will knock but we must open the door. Implicit in His command to ‘repent’ is our role in this decision. This decision must be solemn, serious, and public. We must clearly understand what we are leaving behind – certain friends, behaviors, types of books and movies, pornography, drugs, ways of talking, and even ways of thinking. We have decided – these things must go. We have changed our mind about what is valuable in our life. But more importantly, we have changed our mind about where we will find our value and acceptance. We will look for, relentlessly seek, and cry out for righteousness and holiness in Jesus. He will be our value, our acceptance, and our connectedness to others. When we choose the Kingdom of God, we choose to place ourselves under the authority of the King. The Kingdom is not a democracy; we surrender and submit to Him joyfully and obediently.
However, as I said above, while we are required to make a decision, we cannot just decide. We are too messed up. Repentance is a gift from God and it is accompanied by the grace of God. Lets look at His grace and this gift as it applies to repentance.
First, Jesus is the door into the Kingdom of God. We enter through Him. Before Jesus lived, died, and rose again, people were dead in their sins and transgressions because there was no alternative to the kingdom of self. There was no other kingdom to turn to. They were stuck. The law just convicted the Jews of Sin and sins. It didn’t offer an alternative. The same is true for unbelievers today.
Second, we cannot earn entrance into the Kingdom. In our own power, we can never be good enough. And how can we enter the Kingdom of God if we are living in the kingdom of self (hence, the need for repentance)? But Jesus paid the price for our entry. When we believe in Jesus, and we do need to confess Him and Lord and Savior (while this confession is necessary, it is not sufficient for salvation), we receive the right and privilege to enter into the Kingdom through the door (Jesus) because of what He did on the cross alone – not because of anything I did or ever could do. Grace !!
Third, as I pointed out above, healing is essential for most of us to be able to turn from the kingdom of self to enter the Kingdom of God. For most of us, without the healing of those deep wounds, frequently coupled with deliverance, we will never be able to relinquish our grip on the kingdom of self. By the grace of God, Jesus heals us when we open our hearts and minds to Him. I cannot heal myself. I cannot bring myself back from that place of spiritual or emotional death. I cannot resurrect myself! I am thinking primarily of emotional and spiritual healing. All the broken people I mentioned above have received significant healing from Jesus. It drives me crazy when I meet pastors who pay lip service to healing; who dismiss healing as a ‘nice to have but not necessary’ part of the Christian life or that it ended with the Apostles. “Why bother with healing, we are all going to die anyway” is the line that shows the ignorance of life in the Kingdom of God and God’s eternal purpose. For most of us, there will never be repentance without this type of healing; healing is essential. And therefore, without healing there will be no salvation.
Fourth, as I said above, repentance is a gift of God. It is pure grace. “Repentance does not come from within us. It is not a natural trait that lies dormant, just waiting to be aroused and utilized. It is not imparted to us by parents or other relatives. It is not a learned response that we can gain from books or good teachers. It does not rub off on us when we are among repentant people. There is only one source of repentance. It is a gift given by God” (Richard Owen Roberts, ‘Repentance’). There is mystery here. I know in my own life, God drew me into a place where I had to make a choice. Perhaps this is the message of Luke 15 (lost sheep, lost coin, lost son). God searches for the lost (and I was lost). We are so overcome by His love and sacrifice, that when we understand what He has done, we turn to Him. But in the stories in Luke 15 of the lost sheep and lost coin, the lost one is required to repent.
Scripture is clear. We need to choose. When God draws us to Himself, heals us, and demonstrates His love for us by placing the open door of the Kingdom before us, we need to choose to walk though the door. And if we do, we need to be very deliberate about what we are choosing and what we are giving up. We are trading the life of self for the life in the Kingdom of God. We are repenting. As Oswald Chambers says over and over again in ‘My Utmost for His Highest’, we must give up the right to ourselves; we must give up our rights to self to take on the mantle of the adopted son.
Fifth, while it is true that we must choose, we are not alone. Paul clearly tells us this in Philippians 2: 12, 13 “continue to work out your salvation (Kingdom life) with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (NIV translation). That same passage in the Amplified Bible captures Paul’s intent this way “work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). Not in your own strength, for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you (energizing and creating in you the power and desire), both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.” Isn’t that great! By His grace, and because of His great love for us, He helps us with our repentance. We are not alone.
Sixth, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Jesus makes a strong connection not only between repentance and the Kingdom but also between repentance and belief or faith. Really, repentance and belief are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other and belief cannot really be fully understood apart from repentance. In order to repent, I must believe that Jesus is who He says He is, that He can be my value, acceptance, and connection – all of which I need to live as a child of God – and that His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, is a present reality that I can enter. In part, this is what faith is all about. It is a gracious gift from God. If I don’t believe these things, there is no alternative to my life in the kingdom of self, no place to turn to, no possibility of repentance.
There can be no true faith without repentance. When we repent, we enter into a personal, deep-spirited, intimate relationship with the King unavailable apart from repentance. We are His. He knows us and we come to know Him. The eyes of our hearts are opened and we are given the confidence that He is trustworthy. Now, and only now, all the intellectual ideas about faith that we had when we lived in the kingdom of self are spiritually understood in our hearts. As Paul says “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10: 10). It is in our hearts that we first live in the Kingdom of God. Our confession arises out of this heart change. This is the beginning of true faith. And it is grace.
Seventh, repentance is an attitude, not an action. It is not so much that I am confessing individual sins, which I am doing, but it is more about my attitude toward life. Repentance is not so much about repenting from my sins. Repentance is repenting from who I am. This is the heart of repentance. I am repenting of my whole nature. I am crying out to God for a radical makeover. And while I am the one who needs to ‘repent’, I can not do this in my own power. How can I change my basic nature? Only the Holy Spirit can make this transformation. So, here is the crux of repentance: I have to do it, but I can’t do it. Great! What do I do with this? I asked God. He told me “get over it. These are both true at the same time. You don’t have to understand.”
Repentance is a journey. I suppose it is the journey of sanctification, a journey toward holiness. You repent, enter the Kingdom, and then you repent every day for the rest of your life. I don’t say “I repented”; I say “I am repentant”. If you are like me, some days ‘one step forward, two steps back’ and on good days ‘two steps forward, one step back’. I am constantly battling the enemy who keeps trying to drag or draw me back into the kingdom of self, sometimes with surprising success. Repent, repent, repent, and keep on repenting. We are not alone. We have the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of God and we have power. Use it. Tell the enemy “leave, you foul spirit”.
Eighth, there is another mystery in repentance. As I turn away from the kingdom of self to the Kingdom of God I receive healing and wholeness, a transformed heart or at least a heart in the process of being transformed. I receive the indwelling Holy Spirit and accompanying power and authority, spiritual gifts, and the abundant life, which is a life of freedom, peace, and joy. I find the true (not false or counterfeit) value, acceptance, and comfort that I need to be fully human. If you asked me to define ‘salvation’ I would say “all of the above”. All of these things are given to me, by God’s grace, when I live or do my best to live, in the Kingdom of God. But ultimately, these are not the reasons I choose the Kingdom. I choose the Kingdom of God because I come to a point in time or a place in my life where I realize how the life I am living grieves God, how it breaks His heart; how my life of Sin is against God’s name, God’s person, and God’s holiness. God’s love draws me, my Sin (and sins) creates in me sorrow, and the life on the other side of the door excites me and gives me hope. And truth to tell, there is fear also of the consequences of being unrepentant. So, I enter. I repent. The mystery in all of this is that while repentance is not about ‘using’ God to get what I want/need, it kind of is. It is about seeking and claiming the abundant life and spiritual gifts that Christ died to give to His children, His beloved. So, it is all about God, but it is also about me and my needs. Both, at the same time.
Friends, there is an urgency to repentance that I touched on at the beginning of this post. It is about salvation. Most of us probably think of salvation as meaning “when I die I will go to heaven and live for eternity with Jesus and my friends and family who went on before”. The Bible tells us that there is truth in this notion, although heaven will not ultimately be in some spiritual place in the sky but here back on a restored earth. But what Jesus also tells us is that this heaven is here, now. It is the Kingdom of Heaven aka the Kingdom of God. This present reality is not here in its fullness. But it is here and it is heaven. Jesus is calling us to decide for and enter heaven now, in this life. Once we are ‘in’ heaven, we will live in it for eternity. It starts now and lasts for eternity.
Now to the urgent part. (What you are about to read is really controversial, even more so that what I have written above. I think it is important to say and I think it is backed up by Scripture, although I am not sure I am completely correct. Read what I write in the following paragraphs and ask God for His view on these ideas). Jesus makes it clear (at least it is clear to me) that we are called to enter heaven in this world. That is the reason why He makes such a big deal of repentance. If we do not repent and enter His Kingdom now, in this world, I think He is telling us we will (or could) be out of luck later. Just like the Kingdom, salvation is not a future reality. It is a present reality accessed by repentance. But salvation will not be available at any time in the future. It is available ‘for a limited time only’ as the commercials used to say, and it is totally dependent upon repentance and belief. No repentance and belief (turning from the kingdom of self to enter the Kingdom of God); no salvation.
I think Scripture backs this up, although these are passages you will rarely hear preached. They fly in the face of the comforting notion that if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior at any time in your life, you are saved. If this acceptance was rooted in true repentance, then yes, you are saved. But if it was not, if you accepted Jesus and then continued to find your ultimate value, acceptance, and comfort in the kingdom of self (secretly saying “I am ok, I am saved. I accepted Jesus when I was 16, or whenever) then you are not yet saved. And I believe most Christians today fall into this category. Maybe I am wrong, but as a population, we Christians are indistinguishable from the world around us. And this should not be the case if we are all saved, living in the Kingdom of God.
So, what are these scary passages? Check out Luke 13: 22-30. Jesus is answering a question about who is going to be saved. “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us’. But He will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say. ‘we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets’. But He will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you came from. Away from me, all you evildoers!”
I believe Jesus is telling us that entering the door is something we choose to do in this life. That is why He mentions eating and drinking with Him and walking with Him in the streets. Those are things we do now, in this life. And it is the door to the Kingdom of God, not the other door, the wide door that leads to the kingdom of self or death (Matthew 7: 13), that we are commanded to choose. The door to the Kingdom (Matthew 7: 7, 8 will not be open forever. At some point it will be closed. Times up. Who are the people standing outside knocking on the closed door? Those who supposed themselves Christians because they ‘ate and drank with Jesus’ and He was taught in their churches. But Jesus did not know them? Why? My opinion is that they never repented, never chose to live as His subjects in His Kingdom when they had the chance. Up until the very last moment, they chose life in the kingdom of self, and lived as subjects of the other king. They were truly evildoers because it is out of a self-centered heart that evil is released.
When does the door close? Good question. My opinion is that the door closes when we depart this earth. If salvation begins now, and repentance is necessary (along with belief) to be saved, and we don’t repent in this life where heaven is freely offered (well not ‘freely’. It is offered at a ghastly price), what changes when we die?
Matthew 7: 21 – 23 makes the same points. Jesus says “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ (they confessed Jesus as Lord at some point in their life), will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven”. “But only he who does the will of my Father” to me most plainly means “who does the will of my Father, here, in this life, now”. Jesus goes on to say “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ (again, clearly in this life). Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers!”
Who are these people who confessed Jesus as Lord and who prophesied, cast out demons and performed miracles in His name? Clearly people who had some power but who did not belong to Jesus. They supposed they did, after all they had confessed Him as Lord. But He says, No! I never knew you. My understanding is that they were men and women who had confessed Jesus as Lord, but who never repented in this life and continued to live their lives finding their value and acceptance in the kingdom of self. “On that day” means, I believe, the day when they are held accountable for what they did in this life. What percentage of Christians in America are living the same kind of lives? 10%, 30%, 70%? I don’t know, but I suspect it is not an insignificant number.
I close this blog on repentance with a quote from ‘Repentance – The First Word of the Gospel’ by Richard Owen Roberts:
“The biblical teaching on the mandatory nature of repentance may be considered hard by some, but it is the only road that Christ mapped out to eternal glory. Whether you like it or not, repentance is a mandatory part of any hope of eternal life.”
Summary
The first word of the Gospel is repent. Repent is tied to Kingdom and belief. Most fundamentally we don’t repent, we are repentant. To repent means to turn away from finding our value, acceptance, and connection in the kingdom of self (where pride reigns) and finding these things instead in the Kingdom of God. Repentance is a gift from God, but we have to ‘repent’. Repentance is not the same as confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior. If after doing that we do not repent, we are not saved. I can confess Jesus as Lord, and not repent; I can confess my sins and not repent. For example, I can confess that I lied, but after the confession still be a liar. Repentance is not just about repenting from what I have done; it is repenting from who I am. To truly repent, I need the Holy Spirit. This is why Paul said “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2: 12, 13). For the majority of us, true repentance is not possible without emotional and spiritual healing. The church that downplays at least this type of healing is a church where true repentance is not preached and salvation is out of reach for most people.
Finally, what are some of the marks of repentance? The top two are humility and the unoffendable heart. In later blogs, not yet written, I will discuss how we repent and some marks of the truly repentant heart, including humility, without which repentance is not possible, and the unoffendable heart.