Continuing upon the subject of repentance...
The repentant man grieves over his sins:
The repentant man grieves over his sins:
What is the nature of this godly sorrow? Why does it produce repentance? First of all, it is the opposite of “the sorrow of the world [which] produces death.”...The world’s sorrow may be bitter and intense, like that of Esau in Hebrews 12:16, 17; but it is unlike David’s godly sorrow, which was directed to God in deep contrition,
regret, confession and repentance. (52)
Second, this godly sorrow is not merely a regret of sin because of its unpleasant consequences, it is a sorrow for sin as sin, “not only for the guilt of it, but the loathsomeness of it; not only for the ill it does to ourselves, but the dishonor and wrong it does to a holy gracious God.” 74 Thomas Boston, “The Necessity of Repentance,” Repentance (MacDill AFB, FL: Tyndale Bible Society, n.d.), 37. (53)
The repentant man also hates his sins:
True repentance includes hatred for sin along with the hatred of self for sinning. (54)
And why does the repentant believer hate his sin so? (1) Because it is an offense to his holy, majestic and loving Father in Heaven; (2) Because of what it did to his beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, in His death on the cross; (3) Because it grieves the
Holy Spirit Who dwells within Him; and (4) Because of its destructive effects in the believer’s life. (55)
Five things in the believer stir up the self-loathing of repentance. (1) The great and gross sins in the life that deeply wound and defile the conscience, like Peter’s denying of Jesus, which made him weep bitterly. (See Acts 2:36, 37.) (2) The spiritual awareness of the extent of sin in his inner life, that moved Isaiah
to say that “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (64:6). (3) The sinful pollution that cleaves to the faithful performance of all our duties before God (Isa. 64:6)....(4) The aggravations of sin (Luke 15:18). When the penitent believer considers “with what bent of affection he has sinned, the light, the many mercies, vows, and resolutions, &c he has sinned against, he cannot but loath himself as a wretched self-destroyer.”83 (5) Instability and inconsistency in doing what is good... 83. Boston, “The Necessity of Repentance,” 43. (57)
The repentant sinner turns from his sins...and to God:
True repentance is a turning...Whatever sense of shame, guilt and sorrow one may have over his sin, if it does not move him to turn from his sin to God, it is nothing....(1) True repentance does not omit any sins. It turns from ALL abominations, from EVERY idol; even the most cherished shall go. It declares: “what more have I to do with idols!” (Hos. 14:8). (2) True repentance avoids all appearances and occasions of sin. (58)
First, we must “cast away” from us ALL our transgressions. This “casting away” of our sins means more than to cease from these sins in our behavior while possibly harboring them in our minds....This casting away involves: (1) “[A] dissolving of that union which is between sin and the soul,”87 therefore the Lord calls upon us to rend our hearts (Joel 2:13) and to break up the fallow ground and not sow among the thorns (Jer. 4:3). (2) When a breach takes place between a person’s sins and his soul, when his heart is broken in contrition, he loathes and abhors his sins AND himself for committing them....(3) He who abhors his sins and who loathes himself for sinning, will cast out and away that which is abhorred and detested, because those sins are “abominations” to God. 87. William Greenhill, An Exposition of Ezekiel (Edinburgh; Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1645–1667] 1994), 467. (59-60)
Second, we must make ourselves “a new heart and a new spirit.” (60)
After pointing out that the return Ezekiel is calling for is addressed to the covenant people of God and is a call to return from backsliding away from God, to the reformation and revival of spiritual life, and not a call for actual regeneration of the soul, which is the work of God, not man, Shedd explains: "God does not, [in Ezekiel 18:30–31], command man to quicken [regenerate] himself; to create life from the dead; to command the light to shine out of darkness; to call things that be
not as though they were, 2 Cor. 4:6; Rom. 4:17. In [vs. 31]… he exhorts regenerate but backsliding man, as he does the church at Ephesus to “repent and do the first works,” Rev. 2:5." 89. W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3 vols. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1980), 2:493. (61)
How does one, therefore, make himself a new heart and spirit? Answer: to apply himself diligently as a believer to those external means of grace, e.g., the reading of the Bible, the preached Word, and prayer. God makes effective these means of grace in the creating and nourishing of faith, repentance, and obedience. (62)
Repentance has two sides to it. It turns FROM SIN TO GOD. (63)
The believer returns to God as: (1) His Lord and Master to whom he owes obedience: “I considered my ways, and turned my feet to Thy testimonies” (Ps.
119:59)....(2) The One in Whom his heart rests and finds happiness....(3) The God whom he loves and whom he loves to serve with all his heart and soul....(4) The living and life-giving God Who is His Savior in Jesus Christ, in Whom alone he rests for eternal salvation: “Come, let us return to the LORD…He
will heal us” (Hos. 6:1). (65)
The repentant sinner purposes and endeavors constantly to walk with Him...in obedience...in all ways:
Being reconciled to God in Christ, the believer is reconciled to the entire Law of God,
which he now loves because it is the revelation of the character and will of His Redeemer: “Therefore I love Your commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem right ALL Your precepts concerning everything, I hate every false way” (Ps. 119:127– 128; emphasis added). (66)
This obedience of the heart and life to the entirety of God’s moral demands on His people revealed in His Word is “the crowning act and the grand test of genuine repentance.” 100 Shaw, The Reformed Faith, 157. (67)
He has a fixed purpose and determination to walk with God in obedience to His Word, having been brought to that purpose and determination and sustained in it by the power of the Spirit—“The LORD is my portion: I have promised to keep Your words” (Ps. 119:57). (67)
Inseparable from such a purpose is the actual endeavor to walk with God in obedience, because “purposes, without endeavours, are but like blossoms without fruit which can never prove one to be a true penitent.”104...Depending upon the Lord to givehim strength (Phil. 4:13), the believer aims at nothing less than perfection
of life before God, and so he exerts effort and diligence in working toward that end, in the practical outworking of his purpose in his every day life. 104. Fisher, Fisher’s Catechism, 162. (68)
It is a resolution that he immediately puts in execution without delay, like the prodigal son who said, “I will arise and go to my father,” and immediately arose and went to his father (Luke 15:18, 20)....And having put his purpose into immediate operation, he constantly endeavors to walk with God in obedience. (69)
The focus of the believer’s holy purpose and endeavors is constantly to walk with God....Christians are to walk AFTER God in imitation of His character as revealed in His Word; BEFORE God, conscious of the protection and care of His presence and providence; UNDER God in glad submission to His sovereignty over us; and WITH God in daily, conscious, worshipful fellowship with Him as friend with Friend. (69-70)
Our daily walk with God has several consequences. It produces practical godliness in our lives and prepares us for faithfulness amid the trials and pains of life. Because we become like that which we worship, if we walk closely and obediently with God in Christ, we will become godly and Christ-like in our characters and behavior. Our walk with God does not conclude at death, it intensifies; for to be absent from the body in death, is to be at home with the Lord in Heaven. (70)
The truly repentant person walks in fellowship with God day by day in all the ways of new obedience. Why is our obedience to God that grows out of our fellowship with God called by the Catechism new obedience? It is because this obedience flows from his new heart (Ezek. 36:26–28), is influenced by new motives, e.g., the grace
of God (Tit. 2:11–12) and the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14, 15), is performed in a new manner, i.e., it is performed in complete dependence upon the strength of Christ (Phil. 4:13), with delight (Isa. 64:5), and with the whole heart (Ps. 119:69), and is directed at a new end, i.e., the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). (71)
Traits of true repentance:
The apostle Paul enumerates seven traits of true repentance in this verse: earnestness, vindication, indignation, fear, longing, zeal and avenging of wrong. (72)
Repentance is necessary for salvation. Is is also meritorious?
The gospel of Christ is not only a gospel of grace through faith, it is also a gospel of repentance. “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:15). “And He [Jesus]… said to them… ‘I tell you… unless you repent,
you will all likewise perish’” (Luke 13:2–3)....As these verses show, repentance is an essential part of the gospel of Christ. Just as the salvation offered in the gospel cannot be enjoyed apart from faith in Christ, so its blessings cannot be enjoyed
without repentance. (74)
“If you wish to inherit the blessing, you may; but there is only one way in which you can—the way of faith, repentance, and obedience.” 117. John Brown, Hebrews (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1862] 1972), 643. (75)
Repentance, which is absolutely necessary in all who are saved from sin, neither has nor creates any merit with God. It constitutes no basis or cause for the forgiveness of any sins in the repentant one. (75)
Repentance unto life and faith in Christ are twin gifts of God, both contained in the gift of the new heart in regeneration. They cannot exist apart from each other, one does not precede the other in the regenerate person. They may stimulate each other, but as soon as a person begins to believe in Jesus he also begins to repent
of his sins. (79)
“[T]here can be no embracing of Christ with the heart, as a whole present Saviour, unless sin be felt to be in itself a present evil; and there be a genuine desire to avoid it as well as its penalty.” 127. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 658. (80)
Proofs of repentance:
The Bible commands us to “bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance” (Matt. 3:8). This fruit will include holiness of life and obedience to God from a loving heart for Him; for repentance is a turning from sin to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with Him in all the ways of new obedience. (80)
(1) Sincere repentance always leads to confession of sins, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” ....
(2) Sincere repentance will be prompt in compensating for our sin and in remunerating and settling any issue or injury or cost to another because of our sin, wherever it is practicable or necessary. ...
(3) Sincere repentance is watchful against any recurrence of the sin repented of: “For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you, what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter” (2 Cor. 7:11). (81-82)
Conclusions:
As there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation; so there is no sin so great, that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent. Praise the Lord! (83)
If you do not truly repent, you will perish eternally!
If you do truly repent, you will never perish! (84)
First, sorrow for sin, as offensive to our merciful and gracious Redeemer (Zech. 12:10). Second, hatred of your sins as abominations before God (Revelation 2:6), completely, constantly and vigorously. Third, a fixed purpose and earnest desire to turn from all evil and to all duty, “guarding against present sins, and the occasions of these we are in hazard of; honestly endeavouring after it [repentance] in the use of [the means of grace], and labouring to remove the hindrances to a holy life.” 133. Boston, “The Necessity of Repentance,” 79. (86)
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