Repentance is the Willful Choice to Turn from Sin and to - TopicsExpress



          

Repentance is the Willful Choice to Turn from Sin and to God “For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” (I Thessalonians 1:9-10) It is often alleged by those belonging to the easy believist persuasion that repentance is nothing more than “feeling sorry for sin” or “realising that you need Jesus.” Defining repentance as the turning to God and away from sin is considered by these folks to be “works salvation.” They will readily agree with the first half of the common definition given, that repentance is “a change of mind…,” but they will refuse to accept the last half of this common formulation, “…that leads to a change in direction [i.e., to God and away from sin].” Yet, is their approach to repentance really scriptural? It’s easy to simply define something you disbelieve in (and often, as I’ve seen from experience in dealing with them, fail to understand) as “works salvation” or “adding to grace.” It’s a whole different ballgame, however, trying to get around the plain, scriptural message of repentance as more than just “a change of mind,” but as the conscious choice on the part of a lost sinner to reject the sin that has captivated them for so long, and to choose instead the God Whom they spurned all their lives. Indeed, this is what we see in Scripture – that repentance unto salvation is an act of the will that requires the conscious choice by a lost sinner to reject sin and turn to God. As shown previously, sin is what separates us from God in the first place. A lost sinner cannot be reconciled to God through salvation without first dealing with the reality of the fact that sin is what is keeping them from being right with God. Now, there are many, especially Old Testament, passages used by anti-biblical repentance folks to try to define repentance merely as “a change of mind,” one that does not imply or demand “a change in direction.” Many of these involve places where God repented of something. For instance, passages such as God repenting of His stated decision to destroy Israel after the Golden Calf incident in Exodus 32; the Lord repenting of making Saul king over Israel in I Samuel 15:35; or Jonah 3:10 where God repents of His judgment of destruction upon the city of Ninevah, are often used to make the case that repentance means nothing more than “changing one’s mind.” There are two problems with this argument, however. First – trying to point to God while defining a normative definition of repentance *as it relates to dealing with sin and salvation* is misguided. God cannot sin, and therefore does not need to turn from it,; neither does God need to be saved. However, the scripture repeatedly tells us that repentance is necessary for salvation of the souls of men. Drawing a definition of repentance solely from how it is expressed by God will completely miss the point of what it says about those of us who are NOT God, and about whom the Scripture presents a whole separate vista with respect to the concept of repentance. Their argument here is almost one of comparing apples to oranges. Second – even if we were to grant that the sort of repentance that applies to God is normative for man, we would STILL see that the argument that repentance is merely “a change of mind” and not coupled with “a change in direction” is refuted by the passages that the anti-biblical repentance folks rely upon. Reread each of the passages mentioned above from the Old Testament. In each one, we see that, really, God did more that just “change His mind.” There was a corresponding change in the projected action that God said He would do. He stated that He would destroy Israel and make a new nation out of Moses; when He repented of this, He refrained from that course of action – His choice was followed by a definite consequence and action. When He repented of making Saul king, He acted to eventually remove Saul from the kingship and replace him with David. When God repented of His judgment upon Ninevah, He went from a place where He was going to destroy the city to one where He spared it. In each case, the change of mind was followed by a definite action that was in line with and the natural consequence of the change of mind. God’s repentance, as with that of man, is a change of mind (at least from man’s perspective – I’m not going to get into a discussion about whether God *really* intended to actually do these things to begin with, or was using these to test his servants, etc. etc.) that corresponds with a change in direction. That this same definition applies to man’s repentance is shown in the passage I started this post with, I Thessalonians 1:9-10. It should be obvious that this passage, with its description of the Thessalonian believers as ones who had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,” is not talking about saved people who have backslidden and are now getting right with God. No. The Thessalonians were pagan people living in a pagan society. When Paul preached Christ to them, they rejected their culture with its pagan trappings and turned to God. What’s more, their turning to God was not just one of mental assent – it was accompanied by fruits meet for repentance, the serving of the living and true God, rather than dead idols of wood and stone. The subsequent change in their lives verified the reality of their repentance – it showed that it was more than just “feeling sorry for sin,” but positively choosing to turn to God and away from that sin. Now, sorrow for sin, a brokenness that comes with the dawning realisation of what sin has done, how it offends God, how it separates us from our Saviour – this can be the first step toward genuine repentance, “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” (II Corinthians 7:10) Yet, this sorrow is not itself repentance. The verse says that it “worketh” repentance. It works toward or brings about repentance, but is not the very thing itself. Repentance is not just “feeling sorry for sin” and cannot be expressed unto salvation merely by telling God “I’m sorry.” An insightful illustration of the reality of repentance as a definite choice of the will can be seen in the coming of the rich young ruler to Jesus. Here, we see a young man who “realised he needed Jesus in his life.” This was why he came to the Lord asking how he could have eternal life (indicating that he knew he did not have it – so this was no “backslidden believer”). Jesus instructed him to obey severl of the laws in the Ten Commandments, omitting the one (about covetousness) that was the heart of this young man’s sin problem. The young man was willing to do, and indeed claimed to already be doing, these commandments. However, when Jesus dealt with his covetousness by instructing him to turn away from the money and wealth that he loved more than God, the young man balked and went away, remaining unsaved, “And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.” (Mark 10:22) This is a perfect illustration of what I’ve been saying about repentance. This young man had a choice to make. He could choose God or his wealth. He could hang onto that which was an idol in his heart, or he could turn to God from that idol to serve the living and true God. In this case, the young ruler made a willful choice to hang onto sin and refuse to trust on the Lord. But if he had gone the other way, if he had rejected his covetousness and chosen the Lord instead, this would have been just as willful of a choice on his part. He wouldn’t have “fallen into” it. It wouldn’t have been an “accident.” The fact of that young man’s continuance in sin and being under the wrath of God was due to his conscious choice to hang onto and love his sin (covetousness) and the material wealth which facilitated that sin. If he had turned to the Lord, it would likewise have been a conscious choice to choose God over His sin. This doesn’t mean that he would have been saved by the fact of giving away his wealth and following Jesus – those would have been the natural consequences, in this case, of his exercising faith in the Lord and turning to Him in repentance. Scripturally, there can only be one conclusion – repentance is a turning to God and away from sin. Again, it does not mean that someone becomes sinless, nor does it mean someone has to “stop sinning” before they can be saved. Instead, it means that it is a choice of the heart, the will, the mind, to reject sin and trust the Saviour instead. Without making that choice, one cannot be saved.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 02:15:02 +0000

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