The Characteristics of True Repentance

There is both indifference and hostility toward repentance even though it is a centerpiece of truth. Now, before the lesson, Jon, here we are again with a new year stretched out in front of us. And as our listeners gear up for 2022, what would your prayer be for them in terms of their spiritual health and spiritual growth? Well, I mean, obviously there's the general prayer that the people of God would grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That's obviously our goal, that believers would go from being spiritual children who know the Father to spiritual young men who know sound doctrine to spiritual fathers who know him who is from the beginning, the deep knowledge of God. We pray that the believers who are listening to this ministry and a part of our family would find the Word of God to do its wonderful work in growing them into Christ's likeness. That is our prayer.

But as a part of that prayer, I would be more specific and say this. It seems to me that we all have to agree that things aren't going to get better. You can't turn this thing around. This is the Titanic, and there's a rip in the side of the cultural ship, and it's going down. We need to be manning the lifeboats in that sense, not rearranging the deck chairs. There's no sense in rearranging the furniture.

There's no sense in being preoccupied with superficial things, even good things, but not the most urgent things. If the ship is sinking, the most urgent thing is to cry out to people about where to go to be delivered from the impending doom. And as I was saying yesterday, it's time for us to proclaim eternal judgment is coming, and it can't be avoided unless you put your trust in Jesus Christ. The Church needs to stop trying to court the world and make the world feel good and accommodate the world and develop a kind of quasi-Christianity that is acceptable to the doomed people of the world and declare to them that they are headed for eternal judgment. That judgment is imminent, and it is everlasting, and we need to cry out to them with a level of desperation as they sink into the darkness and warn them the only rescue is through the salvation that's offered in Jesus Christ.

He's the only lifeboat that can deliver you from the inevitable doom. That's right, salvation in Jesus Christ, the only way to permanent peace and everlasting joy. But what does it look like to receive salvation, and how can you make sure you're preaching the same gospel our Lord did? Find out now as John begins his lesson on the characteristics of true repentance. There seems to be today a great indifference toward the matter of repentance. In some cases, there is even a hostility toward the issue of repentance. It is not fashionable to preach a gospel that demands that men and women turn from sin. That kind of preaching is very rare today and very often frowned upon. There is both indifference and hostility toward repentance, even though it is a centerpiece of the Christian gospel. But to put it in perspective, that's not anything new. This disinterest, this assault on the doctrine of repentance started long ago.

In fact, we can go back, for example, to the year 1937...1937, some 60 years ago. And in 1937, there was a formidable preacher in America by the name of Dr. Harry A. Ironside. Ironside wrote a book called, Except You Repent. And in it he said this, the doctrine of repentance is the missing note in many otherwise orthodox and fundamentally sound circles today. Further, he said, there are professed preachers of grace who, like the antinomians of old, decry the necessity of repentance lest it seem to invalidate the freedoms of grace, end quote.

Ironside was recognizing in his day the dangers of an incipient easy believe-ism. He said there were preachers of grace, and certainly grace is a good subject to preach, who were like antinomians. That's a word that refers to people who have a low regard for the law of God. They were like antinomians of old and they thought that if you preach repentance, you're somehow invalidating the freedoms of grace. And so, for the sake of grace and the preservation of grace, they eliminated repentance, believing it to be an intrusion. Since that time, in the thirties until this very day, there has been a continual effort to strip the gospel of repentance. In the pragmatic movement, which is inimitable to our times in the eighties and the nineties, this has also occurred because too much preaching about sin and repentance tends to irritate people and drive them away from responding to the gospel.

And so, repentance has fallen on hard times, in spite of the fact that it is at the very core of our Christian faith and at the very core of our salvation personally. In fact, if you go to the beginning of the New Testament and start reading, you read a few chapters and you arrive at the first preacher, or maybe better, the last preacher of the Old Testament, the first preacher in the New, John the Baptist. And he has a simple message. It goes like this, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That was the one word that dominated John's preaching. And when the Jews came to see him, he preached repentance and said, bring forth fruit unto repentance.

He was followed by the one he told the people was coming, the Messiah Jesus, and Jesus' message was the same as John's. Jesus came and preached, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He called sinners to repentance. In the fourteenth chapter of Acts, there's a sweeping ministry of Paul that begins and Paul, like Peter, preached repentance. You find it all through the book of Acts.

Paul wrote the book of Romans in chapter 2 verse 4, talked about repentance, wrote to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 7, talked about repentance. It was the message not only of the gospels and the message of the book of Acts and the message of Paul, it was also the message of Peter in his epistle, 2 Peter 3.9, the Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance...for all to come to repentance. Repentance is a requirement.

In fact, Jesus said in Luke 13, He said it twice, once in verse 3 and again in verse 5, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish...perish. And repentance then is a crucial element. We cannot understand the gospel.

We cannot rightly believe the gospel. We certainly cannot proclaim the gospel unless we understand the matter of repentance. And the widespread diffidence toward repentance causes me to want to draw repentance, as it were, up out of the darkness a little bit and shine the light on it so that we can understand the centrality of it and the significance of it. When you go back in the history of the church, and I'll give you a little bit of a flow so that you know I'm standing in some fast company when I exalt the doctrine of repentance. When you go back in the history of the church, you find a great concern about the matter of repentance. It was clear, for example, in the second century, in the year 150 when a man named Clement lived, he wrote an epistle, a second of his epistles that he wrote. And in this epistle he expressed his grave concern about the doctrine of repentance being at the center of the Christian gospel. Now he was only about 50 years after the writing of the last New Testament book, which would have been the book of Revelation written in about 96. So 54 years later or so, Clement writes this, "'Let us not merely call Him Lord, for that will not save us. For He says, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will be saved, but He who does what is right.

Thus, brothers, let us acknowledge Him by our actions...by our actions.'" And that's exactly the issue. There must be something in the life that is dramatically different.

It's not enough to say something. There must be a turning. There must be a change. It was in the middle of the seventeenth century in the 1640s that we move to another monumental moment the century after the Reformation began. And the great minds of the church got together to form what is known as the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In the seventeenth century they wrote that catechism.

It was edited and updated through the years. A 1674 version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks this question, what is repentance unto life? This is what they said in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Here's the answer. 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 does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience, end quote. That is just a great statement.

I don't know how one could improve on it, even though it is in excess of 300 years old. The Westminster Shorter Catechism then asked two further questions. What is the turning from sin which is part of true repentance? The answer comes, the turning from sin which is a part of true repentance consists in two things. One, in turning from all gross sins in regard of our course and conversation, that's your life and speech.

Two, in a turning from all other sins in regard of our hearts and affections. So, said the catechism, a true repentance consists in turning from external sins of conduct and turning from internal sins of affection and hard attitude. Then the question came, does such a truly...does such as truly repent of sin never return again unto the practice of the same sins which they have repented of?

That's a good question, isn't it? Is this like a once for all thing and once you've repented you never go back and here's the answer. Such as have truly repented of sin do never return unto the practice of it, so as to live in a course of sin as they did before. And where any after repentance do return unto a course of sin, it is evident a sign that their repentance was not of the right kind. Two, some have truly repented of their sins, although they may be overtaken and surprised by temptations, so as to fall into the commission of the same sins which they have repented of, yet they do not lie in them but get up again and with bitter grief bewail them and return again unto the Lord.

It's a great definition, great statement. Repentance then summarizing consists chiefly of two things, turning from sin and forsaking it and turning to God. We know that someone has truly done that because it shows up in their life, in their course and conversation on the outside, in their affections and in their heart on the inside. Do they ever sin the sins of which they have repented?

Not as a constant course of life. If they do, then their repentance was not of the truest word. But it is possible, as so well said, for some to have truly repented of their sins and still be overtaken and surprised by temptations so as to fall into the commission of the same sins which they have repented of, yet they do not lie in them but get up again and with bitter grief bewail them and return again unto the Lord. That's repentance.

You can't preach the gospel without preaching that. There is no gospel without repentance. The great British Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, wrote this, where mourning for offending God is lacking, where it's absent, there is no sign of any good will yet wrought in the heart toward God, nor of love to Him without which God will never accept a man.

Great statement. If you don't see mourning for offending God in the life of an individual, says Goodwin, there is no sign of any good will yet wrought in the heart toward God, nor of love to Him. So where you have true repentance, there is bitterness and there is sadness.

Moving a few hundred years later, we come to the great preacher of London, Charles Spurgeon, and he said it as strongly as possible. Listen to what Spurgeon said from his pulpit about repentance. There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin and a turning unto righteousness in real act and deed in everyday life. Repentance, to be sure, must be entire. How many will say, sir, I will renounce this sin and the other?

But there are certain darling lusts which I must keep and hold. Oh sirs, in God's name, let me tell you, it is not the giving up of one sin nor fifty sins, which is true repentance. It is the sole renunciation of every sin. Now remember, this repentance is not something that you can do on your own.

It is a grace that God grants. Second Timothy 2 25 says God grants repentance. Acts 11 18, Peter said that God had granted repentance to the Gentiles.

It is the grace of repentance that God works in the heart that is the companion to belief. From His first message to His last, Jesus Himself called sinners to repent. He called sinners to turn from their sins. It was more than just that they would change their mind about who He was, it was that they would turn from sin and follow Him. And then when He gave the Great Commission, we're familiar with Matthew's account of the Great Commission about going into all the world and baptizing and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you.

We may even be familiar with Mark's version, but it's Luke's version of the Great Commission that's important for us. Luke 24 47, Jesus said, repentance should be preached. When you go, preach repentance. Preach repentance.

Call on sinners to turn from their sins. Religion without repentance is meaningless. Repentance is absolutely at the very heart of the Christian gospel. Now for just a few moments, let me talk about repentance by way of a biblical understanding. There's several things to think about. Number one, repentance is an element within saving faith.

I tried to say these things in a brief and concise way that it captures the idea. It is an element within saving faith. It is not the same as believing. There are people today who would want to take repentance and make it nothing more than a synonym for believing.

They think it means nothing more than just changing your mind about who Jesus is and now believing that He's God. But repentance is not just another word for faith. It's not just another word for believing. But it is inseparable from believing. It isn't the same as, but it is inseparable from. They go together, as the theologian Louis Berkov said, as complementary parts of the same process. They're back to back like two sides of a coin. They are inseparable, but they are required for true salvation. What does repentance mean?

What is it? It is as an element of saving faith best understood to be a turning. It literally means to have an afterthought and be thinking one way and change your thought.

That would be the simplistic meaning of the components of the Word. However, the biblical meaning is much beyond an afterthought. Even secularly it came to mean a turning, a transition, a stopping and going in the opposite direction. And from a biblical standpoint, it always appears as a specific turning from sin toward God...turning from sin toward God. It is a changing in your mind about your life, about your sin. It always speaks of a change of purpose, a change of direction specifically connected with a turning from sin toward God, from sin toward righteousness. In the sense that Jesus used it, He was calling for a repudiation of the old sinful life and a turning to God for a new and righteous life. In 1 Thessalonians, there's a very simple and straightforward expression of repentance in chapter 1 verse 9 where Paul commends the Thessalonians as true believers because they turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God.

They turned to God which meant they turned from the evils of idols to serve God. That's repentance, it's turning from sin to God. It is an essential element of saving faith, though it is not the faith itself, it is an inseparable component in saving faith. Secondly, it is a redirection of the will. The best way to understand it, I think, now that you know it is an element of saving faith, is to see it as a redirection of the will.

Faith apprehends something as true. Repentance redirects the will where the will has anchored after sin, where the will has pursued lust, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes of pride of life, where the will has been driven toward those things that fulfill the flesh, those things that allure in the world. Where there is real repentance associated with saving faith, the will is completely redirected. It is not just being sad about your sin. It's not just feeling sorry that you got caught. There is in genuine repentance remorse. There is in genuine repentance a bitterness and a sorrow and a hatred of sin, but there is also a redirection of the human will. That is to say, you could be very sorry about your sin, very sad about your sin, feel awful about your sin and just sort of wallow in that. That does not constitute repentance. Repentance is when the will is redirected and all of a sudden the dominant choices and the purposeful choices of life are toward righteousness and virtue and what is good and holy, just and pure. That's repentance. It is an element of saving faith in that it is a sorrow over sin. It is also a redirection of the will in that that sorrow turns into the longing to make choices toward righteousness. Some people say, well you know, if you tell sinners to repent, if you preach repentance, you're asking them to do something they can't do. And so they say, you know, are you asking people to do some pre-salvation work to get their life in order so that God will save them?

Is this call to repentance a call to people to stop sinning on the spot and if you'll just stop sinning and start doing what's right, God will save you? Not on your life. Who could do that? Can the leper change his spots?

No. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Nobody's going to change that.

No human, you can't do that. Repentance is not a pre-salvation attempt to set your life in order. Repentance is a component of saving faith which, like saving faith, is a great gracious work of God. But we call on sinners to repent because that work is not apart from their response.

We call on them to believe, we call on them to repent because that's what the Bible tells us to do. We give invitations to sinners to turn their back on their sin and to embrace Christ with wholehearted devotion. Now this redirection of the will has some components. First of all, it's intellectual.

It is intellectual. It begins with a recognition, and I want you to get this because it's very important. It begins with a recognition of sin as an affront to God. You're not going to get redirected until you understand the seriousness of sin. And by that I don't mean just that sin messes up your life and goofs up your life and creates complications in this world and causes stress and anxiety and all that, although it does do that. You really will come to a true repentance when you understand more than the personal consequence of sin when you understand the divine consequence of sin, when you understand that you are an affront to a holy God and there are immense consequence to that effrontery. That's what has to be contained and understood and proclaimed in the gospel, that a sinner is not just messing up his own life and Jesus can fix it, but a sinner has put himself in enmity with the holy God and the consequences are frightening and terrifying. When I begin to understand intellectually that my sin is my sin and it is an affront to a holy God and that I am personally and singularly responsible for my guilt.

Don't blame anybody, no one is to blame but you. When I come to the recognition that I am a sinner and that that has immense and eternal consequences before holy God and I want to avoid those consequences and I want blessing for cursing, then I'm intellectually prepared for repentance. Then it becomes emotional. It goes from being intellectual to emotional. It produces sorrow and shame and then that begins to move the will. Then it becomes volitional. It finally brings about a turning as God works it in the heart, a willingness, not only a willingness but I believe a determination to abandon stubborn patterns of sinful disobedience and pursue the will of God, pursue the will of Christ.

And as such, it produces a transformed life. Coming up to the modern time in history, we read from Martin Lloyd-Jones, repentance means that you realize you're guilty, vile, a sinner in the presence of God, that you deserve the wrath and punishment of God, that you are hell bound. It means that you begin to realize that this thing called sin is in you, that you long to get rid of it, that you turn your back on it in every shape and form. You renounce the world whatever the cost, the world in its mind and outlook as well as its practice and you deny yourself and take up the cross and go after Christ. You're nearest and dearest and the whole world may call you a fool or say you have religious mania.

You may have to suffer financially but it makes no difference. That is repentance. It launches you into a new disposition and a new life. And it's possible because of the cross, isn't it? Join me in prayer. Father, we realize that repentance is not something we just did when we were saved, but it's an ongoing reality in our lives. As the Catechism says, there are times when we are tempted, we are surprised and we fall back into the very patterns of sin we had repented of, but we hate those patterns and we rise again and return to You. Thank You for working that work in our hearts through the cross, through faith in the crucified Christ that that repentance becomes a transforming repentance and we're made into new creations and old things pass away and everything is new. I pray for the repentance of those who have not yet truly repented, who have not abandoned everything and willingly forsaken all for Christ, that they would do that. Thank You that You receive repentance sinners through the sacrifice of Your Son who died for the repenters. Bless us now as we contemplate this great reality of the cross.

You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur. His lesson today showed you the characteristics of true repentance. And now friend, a quick reminder, this is the last day to make a tax-deductible donation for 2021. Know that any financial support you send will translate into verse-by-verse teaching in your community and in so many other neighborhoods around the world. So before 2022 begins, consider making a donation and helping us take biblical teaching to spiritually hungry people every day of the new year.

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