09. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine 9. THE TRIAL OF OUR REPENTANCE, AND COMFORT FOR THE PENITENT
If any say they have repented, let me ask that they try themselves seriously by those seven adjuncts or effects of repentance which the apostle lays down in 2 Corinthians 7:11 :
1. Carefulness The Greek word signifies a solicitous diligence or careful shunning all temptations to sin. The true penitent flies from sin as Moses did from the serpent.
2. Clearing ourselves The Greek word is “apology.” The sense is this: even if we are very careful, the strength of temptation may still cause us to slip into sin. Now in this case, the repenting soul will not let sin lie festering in his conscience; instead he judges himself for his sin. He pours out tears before the Lord. He begs mercy in the name of Christ, and he never leaves till he has gotten his pardon. Here he is cleared of guilt in his conscience, and he is able to make an apology for himself against Satan.
3. Indignation For someone who repents of sin, his spirit rises against it, just as his blood might rise at the sight of a person he mortally hates. Indignation is being outraged in his heart with his sin. The penitent is vexed with himself. David calls himself a fool and a beast (Psalms 73:22). God is never better pleased with us than when we have a falling out with ourselves for sin.
4. Fear A tender heart is ever a trembling heart. The penitent has felt sin’s bitterness. This hornet has stung him and now, having hopes that God is reconciled, he is afraid to come near sin any more. The repenting soul is full of fear. He is afraid to lose God’s favor which is better than life. For want of diligence, he is afraid he might come short of salvation. He is afraid that, after his heart has been softened, the waters of repentance might freeze and he would harden in sin again. “Happy is the man that always fears” (Proverbs 28:14). A sinner is like the leviathan that is made without fear (Job 41:33). A repenting person fears and does not sin; a graceless person sins and does not fear.
5. Vehement desire
Just as sour sauce sharpens the appetite, so the bitter herbs of repentance sharpen desire. But what does the penitent desire? He desires more power against sin, and to be released from it. It is true that he has gotten loose from Satan, but he is like an escaped prisoner with a fetter on his leg. He cannot walk with freedom and swiftness in the ways of God. He therefore desires to have the fetters of sin removed. He wants to be freed from corruption. He cries out with Paul: “who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). In short, he desires to be with Christ, just as everything, at its center, desires to be.
6. Zeal
Desire and zeal are fitly put together to show that true desire pushes itself with zealous endeavor. How the penitent stirs himself in the business of salvation! How he takes the kingdom of heaven by force! (Matthew 11:12) Zeal quickens the pursuit of glory. Zeal, encountering difficulty, is emboldened by opposition and it tramples upon danger. Zeal makes a repenting soul persist in godly sorrow against all discouragements and oppositions whatever. Zeal carries a man above himself for God’s glory. Before conversion Paul was madly against the saints (Acts 26:11); and after conversion he was judged mad for Christ’s sake: “Paul, you are beside yourself” (Acts 26:24). But it was zeal, not insanity. Zeal animates spirit and duty. It causes fervency in religion, which is like fire to the sacrifice (Romans 12:11). As fear is a bridle to sin, so zeal is a spur to duty.
7. Revenge A true penitent pursues his sins with a holy malice. He seeks their death just as Samson was avenged on the Philistines for his two eyes. He uses his sins as the Jews used Christ. He gives them gall and vinegar to drink. He crucifies his lusts (Galatians 5:24). A true child of God seeks to be revenged most of all for those sins which have dishonored God the most. Cranmer, who had signed the popish articles with his right hand, was revenged on himself; he put his right hand first into the fire.62 David by sin defiled his bed; afterwards by repentance he watered his bed with tears. Israel had sinned by idolatry, and afterwards they offered disgrace to their idols: “You shall defile also the covering of your graven images of silver” (Isaiah 30:22). Mary Magdalene had sinned in her eye by adulterous glances, and now she will be revenged on her eyes. She washes Christ’s feet with her tears. She had sinned in her hair. It had entangled her lovers. Now she will be revenged on her hair; she wipes the Lord’s feet with it. The Israelite women who had dressed themselves by the hour, and lent their mirrors to pride, afterwards, by way of revenge as well as zeal, offered their mirrors to be used in the service of God’s tabernacle (Exodus 38:8). So too, those conjurers who used curious arts or magic (as it is translated in the Syriac), once they repented, brought their books and burned them by way of revenge (Acts 19:19).
These are the blessed fruits and products of repentance; and if we can find these in our souls, then we have arrived at that repentance which is never to be repented of (2 Corinthians 7:10). A Necessary Caution For those who have solemnly repented of their sins, let me speak to them by way of caution. Though repentance is so necessary and excellent, as you have heard, take heed that you do not ascribe too much to repentance. The papists are guilty of a double error:
(1) They make repentance a sacrament. Christ never made it so. And who may institute sacraments but the who can give virtue to them? Repentance cannot be a sacrament because it lacks an outward sign. And a sacrament cannot properly be sacrament without a sign.
(2) The papists make repentance meritorious. They say it merits pardon ex congruo (altogether fittingly). This is a gross error. Indeed repentance prepares us for mercy. Just as the plow, when it breaks up the ground, prepares it for the seed, so when the heart is broken up by repentance, it is prepared for remission – but it does not merit it. God will not save us without repentance, nor will he save us for repentance. It is a qualification, not a cause. I grant that repenting tears are precious. They are, as Gregory said, “the fat of the sacrifice;” as Basil said, “the medicine of the soul;” and as Bernard said, “the wine of angels.” Yet, tears are not satisfactory for sin. We drop sin with our tears; therefore they cannot satisfy. Augustine said it well: “I have read of Peter’s tears, but no man ever read of Peter’s satisfaction.” Only Christ’s blood can merit pardon. We please God by repentance, but we do not satisfy him by it. To trust in our repentance is to make it a Savior. Though repentance helps to purge the filth of sin, it is Christ’s blood that washes away the guilt of sin. Therefore, do not idolize repentance. Do not rest on this: that your heart has been wounded for your sin. Rather, rest on the fact that your Savior has been wounded for your sin. When you have wept, say with Peter: “Lord Jesus, wash my tears in your blood.”
Comfort for the Repenting Sinner
Let me in the next place speak by way of comfort. Christian, has God given you a repenting heart? If so, know these three things for your everlasting comfort:
1. Your sins are pardoned
Pardon of sin circumscribes blessedness within it. (Psalms 32:1). Whom God pardons he crowns: “who forgives all your iniquities, who crowns you with lovingkindness” (Psa 103.34). A repenting condition is a pardoned condition. Christ said to that weeping woman, “Your sins, which are many, are forgiven” (Luke 7:47). Pardons are sealed on soft hearts. O you whose head has been a fountain to weep for sin, Christ’s side will be a fountain to wash away sin (Zechariah 13:1). Have you repented? God looks at you as if you had not offended. He becomes a friend, a father. He will now bring out the best robe and put it on you. God is pacified towards you and will, as with the father of the prodigal, fall upon your neck and kiss you. Sin in Scripture is compared to a cloud (Isaiah 44:22). No sooner is this cloud scattered by repentance than pardoning love shines forth. Paul, after his repentance, obtained mercy: “I was all bestrewed with mercy” (1 Timothy 1:16). When a spring of repentance is open in the heart, a spring of mercy is open in heaven.
2. God will pass an act of oblivion
He forgives sin in such a way that he forgets: “I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). Have you been penitentially humbled? The Lord will never upbraid you with your former sins. After Peter wept, we never read that Christ upbraided him with his denial of him. God has cast your sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). How? Not as cork, but as lead. The Lord will never in a judicial way account for them. When he pardons, God is as a creditor that blots the debt out of his book (Isaiah 43:25). Some ask the question, whether the sins of the godly will be mentioned at the last day. The Lord said he will not remember them, and he is blotting them out, so if their sins are mentioned, it shall not be to their prejudice, for the debt-book is crossed.
3. Conscience will now speak peace
O the music of conscience! Conscience is turned into a paradise, and there a Christian sweetly solaces himself and plucks the flowers of joy (2 Corinthians 1:12). The repenting sinner can go to God with boldness in prayer and look upon him not as a judge, but as a father. He is “born of God” and is heir to a kingdom (Luke 6:20). He is encircled with promises. He no sooner shakes the tree of the promise than some fruit falls from it. To conclude, the true penitent may look on death with comfort. His life has been a life of tears, and now at death all tears will be wiped away. Death will not be a destruction, but a deliverance from jail. Thus you see what great comfort remains for repenting sinners. Luther said that before his conversion he could not endure that bitter word “repentance;” but afterwards he found much sweetness in it.