02.17. Repentance - 02 - What Produces Repentance?
Repentance – 02 – What Produces Repentance?
(a) The prime prerequisite to repentance is a sense of sin. If one repents of sin he must first have realised that he is a sinner. Many need to begin here. So long as sin is lightly treated, so long as it is thought of as the result of weakness merely, repentance cannot be expected.
(b) Now, since sin is committed against God (see our second lesson on "Sin and Its Cure"), belief in God is obviously a condition of repentance. It is "repentance towards God" (Acts 20:21) which is required.
(c) "The goodness of God," says Paul, "leadeth thee to repentance" (Romans 2:4). This implies belief in God and a recognition of our indebtedness to him for the blessings of life. Our homes, daily comforts, health, preservation from harm and evil, church fellowship, school privileges, the Bible revelation, gospel overtures--all these are evidence of God’s goodness to us.
(d) "Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation" (2 Corinthians 7:10). "Godly sorrow" is "sorrow according to God" (margin)--i. e., according to the will of God, of the fashion required by God--and is contrasted with "the sorrow of the world," which does not issue in turning from sin to serve God. Some believe this verse has explicit reference to the difference between "repentance and remorse, between sorrow for sin and sorrow for its consequences." Judas and Peter furnish examples of the two kinds of sorrow.
(e) The thought of judgment to come leads often to repentance. So with the men of Nineveh (Luke 11:32; cf. Jonah 3:4). See also Acts 17:30-31.
The foregoing Scriptures will serve to explain two others, in which it is stated that God gives or grants repentance (see Acts 5:31; Acts 11:18). God gives it by furnishing all the motives to repentance. His supreme agency in this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, in which God’s love is revealed. The heart of the conscious sinner is melted by the story of redeeming love, and he is led to determine on a better life. Repentance is none the less man’s own act. The command to repent implies this. Men are consistently spoken of and to as if they were able to repent, and were responsible to God and justly condemnable if they did not. God "commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent" (Acts 17:30). Jesus upbraided "the cites wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not" (Matthew 11:20). This could not have been so, if these cities were passive, and only waiting till God directly gave repentance. See also Luke 13:3; Acts 2:38, etc.