7 Things Everyone Needs to Know about Repentance

To dive into what the Bible teaches about repentance,
we need to understand both why it is needed and how it is possible—but first, we need to define it. To repent is to turn away from sin with disgust, sorrow, and a resolve not to repeat the offense. In this definition, we begin to see why repentance is necessary: we must repent because of our sin. The Bible says “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Any thought, word, or deed that goes against God’s holy and perfect standard is sin, an act of defiant rebellion against our maker and the way he created us to live and flourish. We wrong God and completely ruin our relationship with him through our sin, which is why repentance is necessary. We must turn from our sins and turn to God in faith; we must ask God for forgiveness for our sins and cast ourselves on his mercy if we are to have any chance of salvation from his just retribution.

If we understand and feel the holiness of God, the awful nature of our sin, and our need for repentance, we will be driven to ask the practical question, “how do I repent?” How is it possible for sinners to change their ways? Anybody who has tried to break the power of sin over his or her life through sheer effort and will power knows the futility of such an endeavor. The more we try to be perfect, the better we will understand what it means to be completely righteous. The better we understand what it means to be completely righteous and worthy of God’s love, the more we see the myriad of ways we fall short. The apostle Paul explains it like this: “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his [God’s] sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).

The more we try to follow God’s law to be justified, or declared righteous, the more we will see sin rooted deep in our mind, body, and soul. This is bad news. The solution comes through repenting of our sins, but we aren’t capable of doing it on our own. Sin has such complete and powerful control over our lives that we cannot turn from our sin by our will power. Jesus explained this vividly when he said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).

How then can we be set free from sin and enabled to repent? This is only possible through the work of the Holy Spirit, who must first regenerate us. Regeneration means a “new beginning;” it is what Jesus called being “born again” (John 3:3-5). Regeneration is an instantaneous, subconscious work of the Holy Spirit in which new spiritual life is imparted to those dead in their sins. This work of God, an undeserved act of grace, mercy, and love, is what allows us to consciously repent of our sin and turn to Christ in faith.

It is important to understand this if we want to grasp the nature of repentance. Yes, repenting is something that we consciously choose to do, but that should not lead us to think that it is our contribution to salvation. Repentance, like all aspects of salvation, is by grace; it is a gift, undeserved and unearned, yet freely given to sinners in an act of unfathomable mercy (Acts 5:31, 11:18; 1 Timothy 2:25).

Before we go further, it is worthwhile to dig a little deeper into the meaning of repentance. The word itself “means a change of heart either generally or in respect of a specific sin.” This meaning is shown clearly by the way Paul uses the word in his defense before Agrippa:

Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. (Acts 26:19-20, emphasis added).

In these verses, Paul is explaining the origin of the message he has been preaching, for which he is on trial. His message and mandate come from heaven. What is that message? The gospel message, Paul says, calls sinners to repent and turn from their evil ways towards God. The image of turning from sin vividly conveys the truth about our spiritual lives. Without repenting of our sin, we are headed down a path towards Hell. Repentance is the act of stopping in our tracks and turning around to head the opposite direction. We stop walking in darkness, about-face and head towards the light. We put an end to our sinning and start living holy and righteous lives. Paul says that before repenting, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked… and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Notice how Paul describes sinners as walking in their sin. A life of rebellion against God is not stationary; it is headed down the path to eternal damnation. Only by repenting of our sins can we change the direction we are walking in our spiritual lives and begin on the path to eternal life.

This imagery is found throughout the Bible. There are only two paths, or two directions, that a person can walk in life: either they are going towards the one true God or they are fleeing from him in sin and unbelief. One of the most memorable places that the Bible explains this is Psalm 1, which contrasts a righteous man with a wicked man. A person who does not “walk” in the counsel of those who are evil, but rather delights in meditating on God’s word, is blessed.

Those who “walk” in the way of the wicked are not blessed but cursed. The Psalmist says, “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalm 1:5-6). There are only two ways we can travel in this life. We can journey down the road of the wicked or of the righteous. The wicked will be punished for their sins in the final judgment because they never repented. Only those who repent of their sins and walk the narrow path have hope of God’s forgiveness (Matthew 7:13-14).

So far we have focused on the call to repent of our sins, but even if we do turn from sin there is still a problem. How is it possible for God to forgive sinners who have violated his holy nature and law? God cannot overlook sin or ignore it without compromising his justice. The answer to this dilemma comes, in part, by understanding the other side to repentance. If repenting is turning away from sin, in the act of repenting we are necessarily turning towards something or someone else. Christians turn away from sin in repentance and at the same time turn towards Christ in faith. It is because Christians have faith in Christ that God can forgive sinners without contradicting his perfectly just nature.

Footnotes

• Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. IV, ed. By Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1967) 626.

Just as every coin has two sides, every Christian’s conversion is comprised of two sides: repentance and faith. To understand repentance completely we must study not only what we turn from but who we turn to and how. When we repent of our sins, we must turn in faith to Christ alone for salvation. Faith consists first in the knowledge that we are sinners in need of redemption. Faith trusts that Jesus Christ is the only person who can offer forgiveness because he died for our sins so that God might reconcile himself to us. As Jesus himself taught, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Furthermore, true faith knows that our greatest need, the need for our sins to be forgiven, is met through the atoning death of Christ.

Finally, faith trusts in Christ. That is to say, faith is not only intellectual and emotional, but it is also a matter of the will. As one theologian put it, faith is a “surrender of the soul as guilty and defiled to Christ, and reception and appropriation of Christ as the source of pardon and spiritual life.” Faith is to give ourselves over entirely to Christ, to admit our helplessness to save ourselves and to lean solely on his righteousness for our salvation. This surrender in faith leads to a change in the way we live. True faith always results in growing holiness and fruitfulness (James 2:14-26).

When repentance and faith are joined in the Christian life, we have the fundamentals of sanctification. God’s work of sanctification, our growth in holiness and being conformed more and more into the image of Christ, is made evident in our life in two actions. First, putting sin to death, or in other words, repenting of our sin and working to stop sinful behaviors and thoughts. Second, putting on the new man or woman that we are in Christ, by faith. Paul gives a great description of these two fruits of sanctification in Colossians 3:1-17. He starts off this section with an exhortation, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God… For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1, 3).

In a spiritual yet very real sense, when we become Christians we die with Christ and are resurrected with him. Our sinful and earthly selves were nailed to the cross with Christ when we repented of our sin. Elsewhere Paul writes, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing” (Romans 6:6). Just as we die with Christ because we are united to him, the Bible teaches we are raised with him to newness of life. That is why Paul exhorts us to “seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1). It is because faith unites us to Christ in his resurrection that we not only repent of our sin, but increasingly grow in holiness and righteousness by the gracious work of God in our hearts, minds, and souls.

Footnotes

• Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 505.

We know that repentance is a total change of spiritual direction, turning away from sin towards Christ in faith. To go deeper into understanding repentance, it is helpful to break it down into three aspects. First, we will look at the intellectual component of repentance, that is, the way our minds are involved in repenting. For the next two sections, we will study the way repentance engages our emotions, and finally, how it impacts our will. To begin, let us consider how our minds are involved in repenting. Simply put, to repent we have to know the following to be true:

• “I am a sinner.” This may seem overly obvious, but it is the starting point. If we don’t think we sin, then there is no point in repenting.
• “I am guilty before God and deserve to be punished for my sins.” If we believe we are sinners, we know that it is God we have sinned against. In rebelling against God’s authority and law, we become guilty and deserve his just punishment.
• “I am helpless to save myself and need God to show me mercy.” If we believe that salvation is something we can or must accomplish on our own, then repentance is unnecessary. Why lower ourselves to beg for forgiveness if we can fix the relationship on our own? Repentance flows out of an understanding that our only hope is that God forgives us despite our sin.
• “God is merciful and will pardon me for my sins.” If we don’t believe God is merciful, then repenting would be vain. Only if God is a loving God who delights to show mercy does it make any sense to repent. True repentance cries, like the psalmist, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness, that you may be feared” (Psalm 130:1-4).
• “Repentance is a gift from God, given through Christ.”The Bible teaches that “God exalted him [Jesus] to his own right hand as the Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel” (Acts 5:31). As we have seen above, repentance is a gracious gift of God.
  

In order to truly repent, we must believe that these are all true. If we don’t believe any one of them, the concept of repentance or the reason to repent quickly disappears. Yet repentance is not a purely intellectual act, to be real and meaningful it must engage our emotions as well.

Has anyone ever told you they are sorry, but you can tell by the tone of their voice or body language that they don’t mean it? Almost everyone has been on both sides of this scenario. What this demonstrates is that we all know true repentance is felt. It isn’t just about saying the right words or merely acknowledging wrongdoing. Repentance flows out of real shame and sorrow. For the Christian, repentance will flow out of an understanding of the seriousness and severity of our sins. The more we grasp the holiness, perfection, and righteousness of God in addition to his love, goodness, and kindness, the better we understand how ungrateful, wicked, and prideful we are when we sin. The better we understand how heinous our sins are we will feel guilt and shame.

We cannot repent of our sin without first experiencing the humility of grasping, even just a little, how awful it is to disobey and disrespect God. True repentance can only happen when we humbly come before God with genuine sadness for our sin to ask for forgiveness. There is a great example of this in the Bible. The Bible contains two letters by Paul to the church in Corinth. In the first letter, one of the main things that Paul does is to call out the sins of the Corinthian church. The list is not short but it is quite colorful. Suffice it to say the Corinthian church had some clear and severe issues.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we learn how his readers responded to his rebuke. Paul writes, “yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Cor. 7:9-10). The Christians in Corinth felt sorry. They mourned over their sin, and as a result they went to their knees in repentance. Paul is happy that they mourned not because he gets to say “I told you so” to the groveling Corinthians, but because their emotions led them to Christ. What Paul calls “godly sorrow” leads to salvation because it finds forgiveness in Christ alone.

This is opposed to a worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow happens when someone is sad they got caught, not that they sinned. Worldly sorrow is what Cain exhibited after God told him his punishment for killing Abel would be to wander the earth. Cain was very sad to hear God’s judgment against his sin, but he wasn’t sad he murdered Abel. When Cain heard God’s judgment, he immediately said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear” (Genesis 4:13). He is sad about the sentence, not the crime he committed. This is radically opposed to true, godly repentance which is sorrowful for the sin itself because it is an affront against God. This is a healthy sorrow which drives a sinner to repent and find forgiveness in Christ Jesus through his atoning death. In sum, Christian repentance isn’t a formula; when a Christian tells God they are sorry, they mean it.

In addition to the intellectual and emotional aspects of real repentance, there is a volitional component. To put it another way, true repentance must engage and alter our will. That is to say, repenting of a sin includes changing sinful behavior. The fact that true repentance means we act differently is obvious if we think about it. Imagine that a neighbor, unprovoked, smashes your car windshield one morning. You would be angry with them! However, if they came to you with tears in their eyes, admitted they were wrong, and asked for mercy, then in true Christ-like manner you would forgive them.

Their repentance, as far as you could tell, would seem genuine. But imagine the day after you have your windshield repaired you walk outside to find that your neighbor has, once again, smashed it! You might suspect that their initial repentance wasn’t genuine, and you would be right to do so. Real repentance acknowledges wrongdoing, truly feels remorse, and results in changed behavior. The Apostle John explains this at length:

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.— (1 John 3:4-10)

In a nutshell, John is teaching that Christians repent of their sins and do not continue in them. This is not to say Christians become perfect or never repeat a sin. As we will see in the next section, repentance is an ongoing part of the Christian life. However, John does teach us that Christians will put sin to death and grow in holiness throughout their lives as the Holy Spirit sanctifies them. Christians are not sinless, but they do not make a practice of sinning.

Practicing righteousness, as John puts it, is a mark of a Christian who has truly repented of his sin. It is clear that repentance is more than intellectual and emotional; it alters our will. Repentance is a gracious gift of God, an intellectual understanding of the nature of our sin, a hope for forgiveness in Christ, an emotional response of sorrow at our sin, and a turning from sin to Christ in faith so that we might pursue holiness and obedience to God all the days of our lives.

The life of a Christian begins with the Holy Spirit giving us repentance and faith so we turn away from sin and towards Christ for salvation. We cannot end our discussion of repentance here, however, because repentance is an essential part of the whole Christian life, not just something that starts it off. Though all of our sins are forgiven when we repent and become Christians at conversion, that does not mean we no longer need to ask God to forgive us when we sin.

It may be helpful to think of repentance as a seed. When the Christian life begins, the Holy Spirit freely and graciously regenerates or gives new life, which comes with the gifts of repentance and faith. At regeneration, the seed of repentance is planted, and throughout our lives, it grows and produces fruit. As the Puritan theologian Thomas Watson put it, “Repentance is a continuous act. The issue of godly sorrow must not be quite stopped until death.” Repentance begins at conversion and continues through life as we are sanctified. Real repentance happens when we know intellectually that we have done wrong, feel shame and sorrow at our disobedience to God, and seek to turn away from sin and live holy lives. This is an ongoing, lifelong practice in the Christian walk.

Repentance is integral to the Christian life for many reasons. When we repent the Scriptures give us great confidence and comfort that we are forgiven. Because Christ died in our place for our sins, God accepts us: “[God] does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities… as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103: 10, 12). God will never hold back forgiveness; he never harbors a grudge or waits to get revenge on us for our rebellion.

If we have faith in Christ, our sins are placed on him, and his righteousness is freely given to us; our sins have been completely removed, forgotten, and covered. Repentance gives us peace with God. What a great blessing, not only objectively in regard to our status before God, but subjectively in regard to our relationship with God! When we repent we know that we are forgiven, and our guilty consciences are relieved; the tears of shame and sorrow that we shed for our sin are wiped away.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). When we repent we experience the truth of Jesus’s teaching. Those who repent, even as they mourn their sins, will know the blessing and comfort of God found in Jesus Christ, the savior of our souls. To experience the richness of the comfort of God, we must continually discover, lament, and confess the sins of our heart, mind, and body. When we come before the Father, through Christ the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us, we will find not only forgiveness but joy and love eternal. Christian, do not be slow to repent. Do not be afraid to ask God’s forgiveness; it is yours, freely given in Christ Jesus.

Footnotes

• Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, (The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1999), 69.