Matthew 3:8
8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
It's been my observation that the matter of repentance can become a murky thing, a mixture of conviction of sin, guiltiness, some crocodile tears, confession of sin, restitution at times, vows to forsake sin, recommitment to Christ, and so on. Repentance, like the matter of love in Christianity, has been made synonymous with its effects. Love produces obedience; it produces joy; it produces "holy habits" of life. But love isn't these things; it exists prior to them and gives rise to them - like an apple tree exists prior to the fruit it produces. An apple is not an apple tree. Likewise, repentance gives rise to confession of sin, holy sorrow over sin, a forsaking of sin, etc. Repentance precedes these things, causing them, but should not be mistaken for them.8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
Why? What's the problem with mixing up repentance with the fruit it bears in a believer's life? Well, before I address this question, let me clarify what I mean by "repentance":
A change of mind; taking a new direction in one's thinking; adopting new beliefs and forsaking old ones about a particular thing.
Often, in the thinking of Christians, repentance is coupled to the notion of sin: Repentance is always specifically from sin. But one can read in the OT that God "repented" a number of times. He couldn't, obviously, be repenting from sin, however. No, He merely "changed His mind" - as newer translations often now render the term "repent."
So, again, why is it important to be clear and confined in the definition of repentance? A story from my experiences as a discipler may help illustrate the danger of a murky definition of repentance:
I had a former, long-time Catholic man join one of my small-group discipleship cells. At the end of each discipleship session we would share together about personal struggles and pray for one another. The former Catholic fellow was always very quick to divulge his sin and to seek our prayers on his behalf in overcoming them. But every week he would share with us failure in the same arenas of his life. The same sins, week after week, month after month, plagued his life. He was always very ashamed of his moral failings, even shedding tears at times over his sin, assuring us that he wanted desperately to be free of his sin. But nothing changed, despite our regular and concerted prayers for God's intervention in the fellow's life.
It dawned on me, finally, that our end-of-session prayer time had become this former Catholic fellow's new confessional. His habit in the confessional had been to divulge his sin, receive absolution, perform the penance the priest handed out, and then go right back to doing whatever he wanted. Real repentance and concrete change wasn't the goal of the confessional, as far as this guy was concerned. It was a kind of religious purifying procedure that could be performed over and over - like washing one's hand whenever they got dirty. The idea that this fellow should have a genuine, heart-level correction to his thinking - repentance - about his sin was quite foreign to him. As a result, nothing changed in his living. Why would it? His confession of his sin was never actually springing out of true repentance from the lies, the self-deceptions, that produced the sin in his life. When I suggested this to him, he immediately agreed that this was, unwittingly, what he had been doing.
Here, then, is why guilt, confession and tears over one's sin must never be confused with, or for, repentance: None of these things constitute a change in one's thinking, a change of mind, about one's sin. One can feel intense guilt and shame about one's sin and remain unaltered in one's thinking and desire to indulge in that sin. One can confess to wicked thinking and living, weeping, even, over it, and be fundamentally of the same mind about that wickedness, deep down wanting and intending to return to it in time.
But Christians are very quick to think that if a fellow believer has confessed their sin and sorrowed over it, that believer has truly repented of their sin. When Christians do this, they mistake the effects of repentance for repentance itself and so may be entirely deceived about what the confession and tears really mean. Worse, when they try to help this sort of believer deal with their sin, they are looking for the wrong thing entirely, urging confession and sorrow, but neglecting repentance - the changing of the person's thinking about their sin - entirely. But, if a person's thinking about their sin has not truly altered, if they haven't seen the lies in their thinking upon which all sin rests and with the light of God's truth, cut them out of their belief system, they will inevitably return to those sins, now not only false in their confession and sorrow over their sin, but learning to live in hypocrisy which grows easier and easier to do with repetition.
Often, the problem, too, is that Christians mistake the relief of a guilty heart that has confessed to sin, with the peace of God. They think that, because they feel so much better having confessed their sin to another, something spiritual, something of God, has occurred. They take this feeling of relief as God's "stamp of approval," the "peace that passes all understanding." Even though at the core of their heart they intend to return to their sin, they feel divinely-confirmed in their confession of their sin - hypocritical though it is - because of the sense of relief from guilt that it provides. But divine peace and a sense of relief are not the same thing; a relieved conscience has nothing necessarily to do with God at all. Pressed by a guilty conscience, unbelievers will confess to wrongdoing and feel the same relief that a Christian does. Obviously, though, what the unbeliever feels is not the "peace of God," their sense of relief is not in any way indicative of things made right between them and their Maker. The same holds true for the guilty Christian, as well.
I have not been exempt from a very confused conception of repentance. All of these errors of thought about repentance I have held in the past, living in the compromise and hypocrisy that always results. But as my understanding of repentance has been refined and clarified by God's word and by the Spirit's work in my life, the necessity for confession and sorrow over sin has diminished. As real repentance has occurred in my life, these other things have not been as necessary. This, too, helps to distinguish repentance from guiltiness and confession. Where real repentance happens, confession and sorrow over sin become the exception rather than the rule.
As the verse at the beginning of this post indicates, repentance bears "fruit" - the "fruit" of conviction of sin, of confession of that sin and sorrow over it, and a changed life, but it is separate from and coming before these things. Have you made the mistakes I have, mixing up all of these things together, thinking that their inter-relationship makes them synonymous, and going awry spiritually as a result? I hope and pray not.
2 Corinthians 7:10-11
10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
11 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.
Revelation 2:4-5
4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first...
James 4:6-10
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
More to come later.
Last edited:
