Hello, let me preface this by saying that I do not have as much knowledge of the bible as many on here, despite being raised in a Christian home. I have recently been considering dedicating my life to God, but I am having some trouble. First, I understand that repentance is a necessary part of salvation, but what exactly is that? Is it simply acknowledging that I am a sinner and completely unredeemable by my own merit, or is it actively trying to turn from sin and live a holy life despite the fact that I will certainly sin again whether I want to or not? I know this sounds bad, but what if I don't really want to stop sinning? I mean, if I could snap my finger and not sin anymore without any struggle or temptation I would do it in a heartbeat, but what if I would rather just take the easy way and keep doing what I've been doing? I guess what I'm asking is, if I intentionally and habitually sin am I not saved? I have heard people say different things on the topic, and I'm not really sure who to believe. I guess my personal feeling is, if I truly had the love of God in my heart I wouldn't want to sin anymore. Does anyone have a definitive answer? I am confused. Thank you in advance for any light you can shed on the subject.
In Lutheran thought we use language such as daily drowning ourselves in repentance. Repentance isn't a singular, individual act, or a moment in our lives; repentance defines Christian spirituality. It regards the Christian life as a life of the Cross, of dying to ourselves in repentance. Repentance, we might say, is a lifestyle. We use the idea of "drowning" rather specifically, as it hearkens back to our Baptism, because Baptism for the majority of Christians is how they first became Christians; and in Baptism we died together with Christ to be raised up together with Him to new life (Romans 6:3-8)
So what is repentance? The Greek word translated as repentance is metanoia, the word is a combination of the prefix
meta, meaning to change, and the word
nous meaning "mind", also "understanding", as in our thoughts, ideas, our way of thinking.
In the beginning of Mark's Gospel we read the following:
"
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news!'" (Mark 1:14-15)
There's a story concerning the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who lived and wrote in the latter part of the 1st century and is one of our most important sources for the Jewish-Roman War that resulted in the destruction of the Jewish Temple in the year 70. Josephus was actually in the Roman army, and thus was on the other side of the Jewish-Roman conflict than the Zealots, the Zealots being the religious-political faction in Judea who believed in armed conflict with Rome to reclaim Judea from Roman occupation, among whose ranks was one of Jesus' own disciples, Simon Zealotes, that is, Simon the Zealot who left the Zealot Movement to follow Jesus.
So the story goes Josephus came across a young Zealot, and said to him, "Repent, and follow me." This wasn't a call to come and worship Josephus or anything crazy like that, it was instead Josephus saying, "Change the way you're looking at things and doing things and come do things my way."
In the Gospels Jesus is calling people to come and follow Him, yes quite literally, but consider the Lord's teachings on the kingdom of God. Jesus in preaching the kingdom is not talking about "going to heaven", or about starting a militant movement on earth, but talks about the reign and kingly authority of God and what it looks like, usually in ways that are sharply contrasting with the ways in which power and politics work in the world. Jesus' language of the kingdom is at odds with both Roman imperialism and the revolutionary sentiment of Zealotism. Instead Jesus speaks of God's reign, God's kingdom, as where the first shall be last, where the greatest among us will be our servant (original Greek: "slave"), He says the kingdom is like a mustard seed, a very small seed but that grows into one of the largest shrubs. Jesus speaks of a great banquet where the banquet holder invites many, but they refuse to come, and so instead the lame, the crippled, the blind are invited instead and the originally honored are left on the outside. Jesus is really proposing a very upside-down way of looking at things, and is calling people to come and join Him, to follow Him, to come and be part of this kingdom of God thing and that means changing, rearranging how we see the world.
If we see through natural eyes we see that might makes right, we see that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We might, like Jesus' disciples, see a blind man and ask, "Who sinned to make this happen, this man or his parents?" Because those who are life's "losers" seem to be cursed by God, and those who are well to do, in charge, and with power seem to be blessed by God. But instead Jesus turns that on its head, saying, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God." and "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Jesus says, "You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, but I tell you do not resist an evil person, if someone strikes you on the one cheek, turn and offer the other." And "You have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemy, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you."
Is repentance confessing our sin, turning away from sin? Yes. In repentance we confess that we are indeed truly sinful, and in need of God's mercy. But repentance also means that we must understand that we can't continue living the way we think we ought, or thinking in the ways we think we should, but instead must turn and do things Christ's way, that is, to do things God's way. And very often that looks very different than the how things are, and how we perceive things. Repentance is a lifelong endeavor, it is the continual calling of our Lord saying that the kingdom is near, to repent and follow Him. Repentance is the continued call of the Lord to take up our cross and follow Him.
Our repentance doesn't save us, because our works don't save us. But repentance is part what it means for God to be saving us. There is no Christian life apart from repentance, repentance is the daily call of Christ to come and die, to come and take up our cross, to come and be His disciple. And if we are a Christian people, we hear the Master's voice, the voice of the Good Shepherd, and we die at His command--hoping, believing, trusting in the mercy and grace of God, because there is life, resurrection, and mercy from God freely and forever.
-CryptoLutheran