Britainhas a population of just over 60 million people. Every inch of its countryside has been thoroughly mapped and investigated. People have lived here for tens of thousands of years. You’d think there would be little left to discover in Britain– but you’d be wrong to think that. Earlier this year, cavers in the Applecross district of Wester Ross discovered a huge underground cave. The 600 foot long cave has been described as ‘possibly the most beautiful’ inScotland. It contains stalactites nearly 7ft long. People have been living on top of this cave for thousands of years without knowing of its existence but it’s literally, as old as the hills.
The Biblical Doctrine of Repentance is very nearly as old as the human race itself, and yet for many of us, myself included, it remains an undiscovered network of beauty and wonder. Perhaps because the Doctrine of Sin has been so downgraded in our thinking the Doctrine of Repentance has also been ignored – after all, what need is there to repent of something which isn’t wrong? But there can be no serious discipleship in the Christian faith without serious repentance.
The Shorter Catechism is a beautifully worded summary of the Biblical Doctrine of Repentance. Last week, from Q and A 87, how repentance is a saving grace, we learned about the connected contexts in which repentance lives – the contexts of the law of God, the wrath of God, faith in Jesus Christ and the diligent use of the means of grace. But what are the motives for repentance? What factors drive us to our knees and onto our faces; what things cause us to turn with grief and hatred of our sin from it unto God with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience? After all, it must take strong motives to make us turn away from self and towards God; from sin towards holiness? We read of two: first, a true sense of sin and secondly, an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. These two pillars form the temple of motive for the believing Christian in our fight for repentance.
[A] A True Sense of Sin
Going back to my home village keeps my feet very firmly on the ground. One of the people I often meet in my home village is my teacher from when I was in Primary 2. When I became a minister she reminded me of a time in her classroom when she asked the class to think of a word which begins with the letter ‘S’. I was only 6 at the time and when it came to my turn to say a word beginning with the letter ‘S’ I said ‘Sin’. I’m sure if Sigmund Freud had been my teacher he’d have had a few things to say about my state of mind! Over the years, to my shame and not my honour, I’ve been infected with the post-modern view of sin. Perhaps, like me, you feel a little uncomfortable and a little primitive to talk of such a thing. And yet, without a true sense of sin, as the Shorter Catechism puts it, there can be no repentance. In Psalm 51, having committed adultery, murder and deception, David repents out of a true sense of his sin when he says in vs. 4 – “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”. He knew that sin is ultimately committed against the person of God – an affront to who He is. Therefore, whatever it means to have a true sense of sin must bear reference not merely to the impact sin has upon us, but more importantly, the offence it gives to God Himself. It is we sense what sin means not to us, but to Him that we gain a truer assessment of its true severity. A true sense of sin therefore comprises two elements: first, a sense of sin and secondly, the severity of sin.
1. The Sense of Sin – how do we sense sin such that it presents a true reflection of sin’s deformity and ugliness before God? Whilst next week we’ll be looking at the grief and hatred we feel towards our sin, I want to talk about how we detect sin in such a way that it leads us to repentance. There are two areas in which we sense sin: first, the sight of sin and secondly, the feeling of sin.
a. The Sight of Sin – the sight of sin is no reference to our physical vision. Rather, it is the awareness of how malign a thing sin is in the eyes of a holy God. We’ll come back in a moment to its offence to the holiness of God, but how we gain the sight of sin is by meditating upon who God is and who we are by comparison. There is a way whereby we gain a sight of sin by means of a disturbed conscience. We sin and our consciences are seared within us – we go through the same torture as the Psalmist in Psalm 32 whose bones are wasting away through his all-day groaning. But conscience is an unreliable guide –especially in days when social conditioning works against the standards of God’s Word. The most reliable way to see our sin is over against God’s Word itself. It is, to use James’ analogy in James 1, to have the Bible as our mirror; to use the analogy of Hebrews 4, to have the Bible as the sword; to use the Psalmist’s analogy, to have the Bible as our Light. It is as we measure ourselves up against the standards of the Word of God we get a sight of the true sense of sin. But in particular, it is as we measure ourselves up to the perfection of Christ in the Scriptures we realise how far short we fall. The sight of sin is the awareness of how we transgress the love of Christ, the compassion of Christ, the holiness of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the delight of Christ. Do you have a true sense of sin in terms of seeing your reflection in the mirror of Christ’s Word and Life? Do we realise the offence of iniquities in thought, word and deed?
b. The Feeling of Sin – the sense of sin is no mere cognitive awareness that we have sinned against God – nor even a mental assent to how offensive sin is to God. Rather, the sight of sin’s ugliness before God translates into a feeling of pain at how much we have offended Him. That feeling isn’t primarily concerned with how we have let ourselves down; nor is it concerned with the legal implications of its actions – rather, it is concerned with how it has offended the person of God. John Colquhoun writes, “the true penitent loves God supremely and therefore his sins are a heavy burden to him.” What grieves us in evangelical repentance is that we have sinned against the God we love and who loves us. What one of us would consider it normal behaviour to steal from our parents; to lie to our children; to kill our spouses? Would doing these things not grieve us more than breaking a speed limit or forgetting to insure our cars? Of course they would because they are sins against those we love and who love us. The grief of our sins against God and His love will cause us to cry far more bitter tears of repentance than any legal or natural awareness of sin will. We will feel evangelical repentance, repentance unto life, more than any other form of repentance. It will penetrate our bones and cause the kind of groaning of which Psalm 32 speaks.
We gain a true sense of our sin through sight and feeling. Can we understand how grievous our sin is before the face of our God who has revealed Himself in the written Word as the Living Word?
2. The Severity of Sin – having sensed sin in our lives by seeing its reflection in the Scriptures and by feeling its offence against God, we must understand against what we are sinning which makes sin so severe. If we view ourselves as sinning merely against our own standards then we might repent – but our repentance will be no different from the New Year resolutions of millions. If we view ourselves as sinning merely against a set of standards given by God then we might repent – but our repentance will be merely legal and not borne out of love or desire in any way. Neither natural nor legal repentance is true repentance unto life and a saving grace. Rather, to go back to King David’s confession in Psalm 51:4 – ‘against you, you only have I sinned’; our sin is against God Himself – sin against a person. As we think through what this means, I want to see three aspects of the severity of sin – a sin against each person of the Godhead – sin against the holiness of God; sin against the Horror of the Cross and sin against the heart of the Holy Spirit.
a. Against the Holiness of God – in Isaiah 6, the prophet is given an awesome vision of the holiness of God. Isaiah sees the exalted throne of God, the train of whose robe fills the temple. He sees a myriad seraphim flying before God’s throne crying out to one another, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty’. He feels the shaking of the ground and He sees smoke billowing through the temple. His knees buckle beneath him as his eyes behold the holiness of the King, the Lord Almighty. By contrast, Isaiah sees himself as a man of unclean lips who dwells among a people of unclean lips. He sees the ugliness of his sin played out against the dazzling holiness of God Himself and he falls down in repentance unto life. Whenever we sin, let’s remember the holiness of the God against who we are sinning – so holy that even the mighty angels must hide their faces from Him.
b. Against the Horror of Calvary – in Zechariah 12:10, God is prophesying a time when the people of David will look on the one they have pierced and they will mourn and grieve bitterly. They will mourn because they have pierced him – their sins have nailed Him to the Cross. Can we conceive of how horrific the sufferings of Christ onCalvary’s Tree were? His physical appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man; His soul was crushed by the infinite wrath of an all holy God.Calvary was a horrific, terrifying place – a place of torture and death. And Christ bore it lovingly for us. Whenever we sin, let’s remember the horror ofCalvary and that it is sins like the very ones we are committing which nailed Him to the tree.
c. Against the Heart of the Holy Spirit – in Romans 1:4, the Holy Spirit is called, ‘the Spirit of Holiness.’ His name is ‘the Holy Spirit’ not just because He Himself as God is thrice holy, but because His work in us sanctifies us and makes us holy. His sanctifying work of holiness within us is with the purpose of making us more like Christ. His fruit of love, joy, peace, patience and so on, is the antithesis of the works of darkness. The heart of the Holy Spirit so overflows with love for Christ that to sin is to grieve Him. Whenever we sin, let’s remember how we are grieving the heart of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
“A true sense of our sin”, according to the Scottish preacher John Colquhoun, “is an affecting sight and feeling … of the exceeding sinfulness or malignity of sin. It is a sense not only of our evil doings but of the evil of our doings.” If we have a true sense of our sin, then surely we have a strong motive for repentance – for turning away from that which grieves God and back towards Him!
[B] An Apprehension of the Mercy of God in Christ
I wonder what kept the Prodigal Son away so long? Was it merely because he’d spent all his money or was it because he thought his father harsher than he actually was? Had he known that his father was ready with a warm embrace, had the ring of sonship ready for him and had fattened a calf for a banquet, I’m sure he would have returned far quicker than he did! In the same way, the chief motive for our repentance unto life, and what makes it so different from any other kind of repentance, is that we are motivated by the mercy of God in Christ. This is Gospel-motivated evangelical repentance – that God will show us mercy as we return to Him from the far-off countries of our sins. There are three aspects of the apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ I want us to focus on: first, the attitude of God; secondly, the action of Christ and lastly, the attraction of the Holy Spirit.
1. The Attitude of God – in Jeremiah 3, God accuses His people of ‘living as a prostitute with many lovers’. Such was their idolatry and syncretism that they were unfaithful to God. Their loyalty to God was in the dust and they had transformed holiness into shame. And yet, in vs. 22 God says to them, “return, O faithless sons; I will cure you of your backsliding”. See the mercy of God – that even though they had acted as whores with many lovers, their spiritual husband was willing to take them back and love them freely. His attitude towards them was one of mercy and grace; of love and forgiveness. I have said it before, and I say it again, the first instinct of God, if we may speak about such things, is towards loving mercy. How harsh our view of God if we think that He will cast us off as Christians and never show us mercy! Rather, He will move towards us before ever we move towards Him. And so, in Jeremiah 3:22, the invitation of God to His wayward people is met by their enthusiastic reply, “yes, we will come to you, for you are the Lord our God.”
How many broken relationships there are because of a refusal to accept or to show mercy! A child gets into trouble but doesn’t want to tell his parents because he thinks they won’t show him mercy. He is so afraid that he runs away – in his hour of greatest need he runs not towards them but away from them. And all the time, his worried parents pray for their child’s safe return. As Christians, one cause of backsliding may be that we have committed sins and we think God will punish us and not show us mercy. And so, rather than running to him with our guilt and shame, we run away – and all the time, the mercy of God is available to us – His embrace is waiting; a ring for our finger and the fattened calf of celebration. God is full of mercy and abounding in love for us. So we run to Him in repentance with our sin and, whilst never taking it for granted, expect His mercy to be shown us.
2. The Action of Christ – the Cross of Christ is the centre-piece of all our spiritual experiences of God. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself there. But who was He reconciling? For whom did Jesus die? And, to go back to Q and A 87 of our Catechism, for whom is repentance unto life? The answer to all three is ‘sinners’. We learn that God demonstrated His love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The Physician is for the sick – the Healing is for the blind – the Cross is for sinners. For whom did Christ die if was not we sinners? For whom did He shed His precious blood if was not for the race of mankind lost? The promise of 1 John 2:1 is that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One, and He is the propitiation for our sin.
Repentance unto life is for sinners. Perfect people need not apply – only sinners. Have we sinned – the blood of Christ has been shed for us and He invites us to come and wash ourselves clean? Have we transgressed – He was wounded on account of our transgressions? What do we do with our sins? We take them straight to Christ; plead for His forgiveness and without ever taking it for granted but always being amazed at its freeness, expect His mercy to be shown to us.
3. The Attraction of the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit dwells within us – we each are temples of the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Holiness who works with us to sanctify us and prepare us for glory. His work is to produce holy Christians set apart for God. If He is within us, He draws us towards Christ and not away from Him. He is the Spirit of Jesus and He is the comforter, who comforts us by pointing us towards Christ. To stay away from Christ requires us to actively suppress the inward call of the Holy Spirit to return to Him. It really needs us to close our ears to the Bible both read in private and preached in public; to close our hearts to both individual and corporate prayer and to deny the efficacy of the sacraments. It takes more energy to hold a spring down than to let it bounce. Can a true Christian suppress forever the Holy Spirit within Him drawing Him back to Christ for mercy and forgiveness? I don’t think so – rather, the Holy Spirit will bring to her remembrance the promises and invitations of Scripture – ‘return, O faithless ones, I will cure you of your backsliding’; ‘come, though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as the snow’; ‘I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’. The attractive power of the Holy Spirit will continually remind us of the mercy of God towards us in Christ – He will bring to our memory the sheer wonder of who Christ is and the infinite value of knowing Him.
The mercy of God in Christ is a most powerful incentive for prodigals to return home. His mercy is like a cash machine network in Australiawhich, earlier this year, was giving out free money. A computer glitch meant that people could withdraw as much as they wanted without it showing on their statements. You can imagine that long queues built up at the 40 ATM’s in question. The Good News of the Gospel is that there is free mercy available to us in Christ. Evangelical repentance will always be met with the forgiveness and mercy of God – not because God is soft on sin but because our sinful debt has been paid by Christ. If we only knew how ready God was to show us mercy, we’d be like the church father Tertullian who once said, “For sinner as I am of every day, I was born for nothing save repentance.”
And so, as we close, we ask how this affects our experience of the Communion weekend? How do these two foundational motives for repentance unto life change the way we think about the bread and the wine? Simply this: before we eat and drink, we are commanded to examine ourselves with a view to this kind of evangelical repentance. Now is the time to meditate on the holiness of God, the horror of Calvary and the heart of the Holy Spirit that we may gain a sight and have the feeling of the deformity and offence of our sin. Now is the time to consider the merciful disposition of God towards us; the gracious offer of the blood of Christ towards us; the attraction of the Holy Spirit towards Christ in us so that we may come in heartfelt repentance and proclaim the Lord’s Death until He comes. Who knows, between now and Sunday, we too may discover a hitherto unknown wonder of the Christian faith – the beauty of repentance unto life based upon a true sense of sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ.
