Acts 11:18
Earlier this year, 26 year old Joe Page from Brightondid something extraordinary. Page had cheated on his girlfriend but very soon afterwards realised how big a mistake he had made. Desperate to get his girlfriend back, he stood in the centre of Brightonwearing a sandwich board which read, “I cheated on my girlfriend. I am humiliating myself to show I am sorry.” Whatever you think of Joe’s actions, the celebrity status of the story brought the issue of Repentance into the news. It’s a welcome reminder for us as Christians of the word Repentance. Probably because sin is such a small deal to us today, repentance from sin is most never mentioned. That’s a huge shift from the attitude of our forefathers. The Bible is replete with references towards repentance. The early Church Fathers Tertullian and Ambrose both wrote treatises on the topic of repentance. Our Fathers in the Reformed Church spoke much of our need of Repentance. The Puritan Thomas Watson and the Scottish Father John Colquhoun both wrote books called, ‘Repentance’. It was while reading Thomas Watson’s book on repentance I unpleasantly realised how little emphasis I was giving to repentance in my personal walk with God and therefore how little I was preaching the Doctrine of Repentance.
Bearing these things in mind, I decided to spend the next 5 Wednesdays reflecting with you on the Doctrine of Repentance. I want to look at this doctrine through the helpful definition afforded to us by the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q & A 87 – “What is repentance unto life? Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.” Tonight I want to focus on the first clause of the answer – repentance unto life is a saving grace. How important and crucial repentance in the Christian life is!
Repentance in the Bible and in our Catechisms doesn’t appear from nowhere, parachuting in as a take-it or leave-it spiritual discipline. In both cases it is an essential saving grace. We see that in the four contexts in which repentance is dealt with in the Shorter Catechism. First, repentance and the Law of God; secondly, repentance and the wrath of God; thirdly, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and lastly, repentance and the diligent use of the means of grace.
1. The Law of God – back in Q. 3 of the Shorter Catechism we are asked, “what do the Scriptures principally teach”, to which the answer is given, “the Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man.” The second of these, ‘what duty God requires of man’ is picked up again in Q.39 – ‘what is the duty which God requireth of man?’ to which the answer is given, “The duty which God requireth of man is obedience to his revealed will.” Obey the revealed will of God, whatever that is, and you have fulfilled every duty which God requires of you. But what is this revealed will? The next 25 catechism questions and answers refer to what that revealed will is – it is the moral law as summarised in the Ten Commandments. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus tells the Rich Young Man who comes to Him that “if you want to enter life, keep the commandments”. Sin is when we transgress or we fail to live up to the standards of the Ten Commandments – we lie, steal and cheat; we worship idols, break the Sabbath, dishonour our parents and so on. Repentance unto life is framed in the context of a broken law – that broken law which is summarised in Q.82 of the Catechism, “no mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word and deed.” We break God’s Law; we fall short of God’s Law and repentance operates in this context of broken law. Repentance isn’t for the perfect person, but for sinners – for people like us who break the Law in thought, word and deed. Do we sin either by breaking God’s Law or failing to live up to God’s Law? Repentance is for you!
2. The Wrath of God – we learn in Catechism answer 84 that “every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, both in this life and in the life which is to come.” Post-modernism as a philosophy has eroded the doctrine of sin by relativising everything – there is no such thing as sin. We call it ‘lifestyle choice’ or ‘indiscretion’ or perhaps even ‘weakness’. But the consistent teaching of Scripture is that God is angry with sin – for example in Romans 1:18 we read, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men”. Our transgression of, and want of conformity to the Law of God, the duty which God requires of us, brings His sure and certain wrath and curse. As you read through our working definition of the doctrine of repentance in A. 87, you will notice that there is no mention of the wrath of God – the motive for repentance isn’t the wrath of God, rather it is the mercy of God – and yet, repentance breathes in the atmosphere of realising how serious a thing sin is – not so much because of its effect on us, but because of the offence it causes to the holiness of God. Again, do you think God smiles at our sin like some Cosmic Santa Claus – does He wink at it and laugh – or does it make Him angry and full of wrath? Repentance is for us.
3. Faith in Jesus Christ – in order to escape the wrath and curse of God due to us on account of our sin, God requires three things from us: first, faith in Jesus Christ; secondly, repentance unto life and thirdly, the diligent use of all the outward means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption. Faith is the channel by which we are united to Christ – as A. 86 tells us, “faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel.” Repentance lives and thrives in an atmosphere of humble dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel. Repentance and faith go together as a holy duet making salvation melody before God. It is impossible to have faith without repentance unto life – the true Christian who rests upon Christ for salvation will also exercise repentance unto life. This works in direct proportion – the more faith the more repentance. The bitterest tears of repentance are shed by the maturest Christian. But likewise, it is impossible to have repentance unto life without faith – the person who does not know Christ and rest upon Him for salvation cannot exercise repentance unto life. He may exercise some kind of repentance – a natural repentance where he has disappointed himself; a legal repentance because he is afraid of God’s wrath; but not the kind of repentance unto life spoken of in Q. 87. Faith and repentance are Christian bedfellows. And, in this respect, there are two further sub-points I want to mention:
a. The Gospel and Repentance – Whilst I love the expression, ‘repentance into life is a saving grace’, I think I prefer the title the Edinburgh preacher John Colquhoun gave it – ‘an evangelical grace’. Repentance has far more to do with Gospel than with Law (if it is possible to make such a Law/Gospel division). We’re going to come back to this in later studies, but I want us to understand that in the New Testament, what causes Christians the most grief isn’t their transgressions against a set of standards we call the Law; but their transgressions against the grace of God. That’s why Paul spoke of himself as the chief of sinners, not just because he had been a murderer and violent man, but because he was still sinning against the magnitude of the grace which had been shown him in Christ. The puritan Thomas Watson writes, “repentance is a pure Gospel grace. The covenant of works admitted no repentance; there is was, sin and die. Repentance came in by the Gospel”.
b. The Giver of Repentance – when we ask the question, ‘who believes in Christ’, we must answer, ‘we do’ and yet we also know that the only reason we believe is, according to Ephesians 2:8, that God has given us the faith as a gift of His grace. Likewise, when we ask the question, ‘who repents’ we must answer, ‘we do’ and yet again we know that the only reason we repent is because God has given us a repentant spirit. As we shall find out in later studies, there are many different forms of repentance and not all of them worthy or right, but this one, Gospel repentance unto life, this saving, evangelical grace, can only be given to us from God. In Acts 5:31 and in Acts 11:18 the repentance of Israel and the nations is spoken of as a gift of God. God even gives us our repentance lest we should boast in how penitent and contrite we are. John Colquhoun writes, “The Holy Spirit … implants the principle of it in the heart … and converts the principle into a habit. True repentance is not a work of nature but of grace; not of a man’s own spirit, but of the Spirit of Christ.” That’s why we may pray not just for a spirit of faith but also a spirit of repentance because both are God’s to give to us.
4. Diligent Use of the Means of Grace – to escape God’s wrath and curse we are also called to the diligent use of all the outward means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption – the means of grace – detailed for us in A. 88 – “the word, sacraments and prayer.” We might think that there is a Christ + element to our definition of salvation here – Christ + Bible study; Christ + prayer; Christ + baptism/communion. But we’d be wrong to think that. Certainly, we are commanded to study the Bible; we are commanded to pray on all occasions; we are commanded to be baptised and to take communion – but none of these are considered works we do which bring merit. Rather, they are spoken of as means by which God distributes to us the grace which He has for us in the Gospel. In Christ we are justified – how does He communicate that justification to us – through the word, prayer and the sacraments; in Christ we are adopted – how does He communicate that adoption to us – through the word, prayer and the sacraments. That’s why we devote so much energy to these foundational and ordinary means of grace. No man ever understood or lived his status as justified in Christ with no Bible, no prayer and no sacraments; no man was ever secure as a daughter of the living God without reading and understanding the Bible; without speaking to her heavenly father in prayer; without the communication of grace in the sacraments. Repentance thrives in the context of a well read Bible; calloused knees from prayer; the blessings of the covenant being applied in baptism and the strengthening grace of God being given in the Lord’s Supper. It is when we are closest to God in His Word, Prayer and Sacrament that we are closest to the place of repentance.
See where repentance unto life fits into the scheme of Biblical, Reformed theology. Repentance unto life is core to who we are as Christians. If we read our Bibles, it is close to us; it is even closer at the Lord’s Table; as we grow older, we become more aware of our need of repentance unto life. The maturest Christians I know are those who are the most keenly distressed by their own sins – the mourners Jesus calls blessed in the Beatitudes. Much of what we heard tonight might be new to us – it has been to me as I studied – but tell me, are we better for and closer to Christ for having forgotten the Bible’s teaching on the Doctrine of Repentance?
