The Anatomy of True Repentance: No More Repent & Repeat! [Firebrand Big Read]
Photo by Pearl
Recently, I have noticed on my personal page that friends are posting more “Christian” related content on social media. I have both conservative and progressive friends. Surprisingly, it seems like my progressive friends post more often about their faith than my conservative friends. Never thought I would see that day! Progressives seem bolder about making faith claims than conservatives, at least on my social media. They have no problem publishing their opinion about every current issue, and in many cases, letting the reader know that Jesus shares their opinion as well. One brazen post really struck me. It proclaimed, "HATE IS HERESY"—yes, in all caps. In one sense, I was glad to see someone talking about heresy. That's a new one. And even more so, it was from a radically progressive Christian. (Maybe the Browns will win the Super Bowl this year!) However, the context was not in defense of orthodox, scriptural Christianity. No, the heresy was not Arianism, Sabellianism, or even Apollinarianism. It was a much older heresy, the heresy of hate.
I believe the person who posted the statement does not represent all progressives and had the best intentions, wanting the reader to grasp the importance of loving everyone. Now, as Christians, obviously, we are called to love. In fact, all of the law and prophets hang on loving God and our neighbor (Matt. 22:34-40). We affirm every scriptural injunction to love God and all people unconditionally, as Christ has loved. Surely, any teaching that promotes hate toward God and neighbor is truly a heresy. But this post did not have any qualifiers or objects, such as God or neighbor. It simply proclaimed that hate itself is a heresy, and his friends seemed to be in agreement, even after I offered the following critique.
The context of the statement regarded diversity and inclusion. Upon reading the post, two verses popped into my mind: Romans 12:9 and Hebrews 1:9. Hebrews 1:9, which quotes Psalm 45:7, reads, “You love justice and hate evil. Therefore, O God, your God has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else.” The verse is messianic, referring to Jesus Christ. Romans 12:9 admonishes that “Love must be genuine. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Genuine love actually hates evil. Here and in other places, Scripture declares that God “hates” evil, and we are declared to do likewise. Is all hate really heresy?
If God is good—that is, his essence is the highest goodness—then by nature he opposes evil. If God loves evil, then he cannot be good, nor would his “love” be true. Divine simplicity requires that all of God’s attributes are convertible and substantial in one divine being. In other words, all of God’s characteristics are in harmony with each other and coincide together, united, in one divine nature. For example, God’s love and justice are not opposed to each other. They seamlessly work together. Thus, God’s love is also perfectly good, holy, and just. Simply put, God's love, being good, holy, and just by nature, opposes evil.
The fact that God “hates” sin and evil, and we are called to “hate” the same, seems blasphemous to the modern, progressive Christian ear. Many progressives’ worldview is that love is love. You know, all you need is love! If God is love, then there is no place for hate, they infer. Though in light of such a glib, antinomian view of love, it is understandable how one can think that hate is heresy.
The trite platitude "hate is heresy" sums up the theology of some in the church today and is part of a larger problem. Of course, there are those progressives who, when cornered, would own that they "hate" racism or genocide, or that God "hates" sexism. However, on that day and on that particular social media site, when I challenged their "hate is heresy" banner with some of these examples, they refused to concede. I was told one can be against something without hating it. "Hate" is too strong of a word.
If we no longer have the moral fortitude to declare and actually hate evil, but embrace an all-embracing love, then we are no longer operating out of scriptural, divine, holy love. We are embracing a permissive, distorted type of love. This twisted invitation may welcome us to love sin, deception, perversion, abomination, and all forms of wickedness that the scriptures condemn. In fact, we no longer have to read the fine print of scripture that reveals God’s will regarding sin and righteousness. We can simply apply this newfangled, morally blind version of love as a hermeneutic for understanding both God and the scriptures, which is already being done.
In certain circles, the ultimate message of Christ and scripture is being reduced to this acquiescent account of love. Such pundits are propping up a knockoff, defective version of Jesus and the scriptures that are understood solely in light of this hermeneutic, with a disregard for anything in scripture that is contrary. Passages presumed to be hateful—such as those about hell, sin, repentance, and holiness—are ignored or compensated for by the assumption that the sole message of Christ and scripture is a type of love that embraces all people and their sin without the call to repent and believe. No more loving the sinner but hating the sin.
If hating sin is a heresy, then how will the church ever repent of sin? Along with hate, perhaps, repentance is another new heresy, since in order to repent truly, one has to hate sin. Yet, the gospel in sum is repent and believe (in Christ). Repentance is the first word of the gospel. John the Baptist ushers in Christ's ministry preaching repentance (Matthew 3). Jesus begins his ministry with a call to repentance (Mk. 1:15; Luke 5:32). In fact, God is calling “everyone everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). And of course, a call to repentance does not begin with John the Baptist. Throughout the Old Testament, the call to repentance is issued by the prophets and leaders of Israel (e.g., Moses, David, Jeremiah), and the response of repentance is observed by the faithful (e.g., Daniel 9, Ezra 9, Joel 2). Beginning with our baptism and into our sanctification, repentance is a core practice in the life of the people of God, and it involves a holy hatred of sin. Although God loves my soul, it is a fitting holy discomfort to know that God hates my sin, and that his goodness and mercy crushes my kingdoms and castles.
One of my favorite writers on repentance is the Puritan Thomas Watson. In The Doctrine of Repentance, he highlights one of the key features of true repentance, hatred of sin: “Sound repentance begins in the love of God and ends in the hatred of sin” (p.44). To hate sin, one needs to understand the true nature of sin: “He hates sin not only for hell but as hell”(p.45). Watson even prescribes the measure of our hatred: “[S]o we should hate sin infinitely more than ever we loved it” (p. 51). Nothing like a good, ruthless dose of sin-hating tonic served up by the Puritans to restore the health of the soul! How often do we hear clear, direct preaching and teaching of this caliber against sin? Many have never heard a sobering, convicting message on true repentance. And perhaps more do not know what true repentance looks like or even how to repent.
God is calling the church to restore the teaching, preaching, and practice of true repentance to its proper place in the Christian life, front and center. Here we will examine seven essential parts that make up the anatomy of true repentance:
The Gift of Repentance: Repentance is a gift of God's grace. It is wrought in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. The gift of repentance comes from God's goodness, which leads us to find repentance (Rom. 2:4). Since it is a gift, it comes from God and comes on God's terms, not our own terms. However, we must seek it with all that we have and not quit until we receive it. Ask, seek, and knock (Matt. 7:7-12). Seek it with a broken and contrite heart, prayer and fasting, and the light of the Spirit of Truth (Psalm 51). Often, finding repentance is difficult because we fight God and want to hold onto our sin. We want things our way, but repentance is on God's terms.
The Divine Perspective of Repentance: We need to see God’s perspective on sin before we can truly repent. God is not interested in our opinion on sin. In 1 John 1:7-9, we are called to confess and forsake our sin. The Greek word for confess is homologia, which means to “say the same thing.” In confessing our sin, we are saying the same thing that God says in his Word about our sin. Sin is rebellious, wicked, and deserves eternal punishment. We cannot fall into the temptation to pet our sin, cover it up, make excuses for it, dress it up, or minimize it. Let the Spirit call the balls and strikes, not you. Two things need to occur before we can see and say what God’s Word does about our sin. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to convict or show our hearts the evil of our sin in relation to the utter holiness of God. Conviction is how the Spirit produces the fear of the Lord in our hearts. Conviction is also one of the primary missions of the Spirit of Truth (Jn. 16:8-15). We must be willing to love the truth more than our own self-righteous ideas and actions. Receiving conviction is not easy. It will shatter our flesh! A broken, humble, and open heart will allow the light of the Spirit to reveal the righteousness of God and expose our sin so that we can see sin the way God does. Convicted of the truth in light of his holiness, we come into agreement with God’s Word. The Word produces a godly sorrow in our heart, not a “worldly sorrow” that regrets being caught or the consequences of sin (2 Cor. 7:10). We are then able to see the sin (conviction), feel it (hatred), and call it (confession) as God does.
The Willingness for Repentance: Although repentance is a gift, we have our part in the matter. We need to be willing. God doesn’t force us. He works “within us to will and do his pleasure,” but we must surrender our will to his will (Phil. 2:13). Even if we are bound in sin, we need to at least desire to repent and cease from sinning. In line with good Wesleyan thinking, repentance is from God, but it involves all of us. Scriptural repentance commands "rend your heart" (Joel 2:13). That statement is a second-person-singular command: “(you) rend your (own) heart.” You have a part to play in the process. Think of it this way. You are sick. There is healing at the hospital. But you have to be willing to go to the hospital and allow them to treat you. You do not heal yourself, but you must be willing to be healed, or you will not be. The question is, do you really want to be made whole (Jn. 5:6)? Various means of grace convey this gift of repentance: prayer, fasting, and reading the Word that illuminates and convicts through the Spirit of God.
The Ceasing of Sin in Repentance: Pray for a true desire and willingness to cease from sinning, full stop. There can be no internal bargaining with our sin. No hiding it. No cherishing it. No rationalizing it. There needs to be a total death to it. When we rationalize sin, we leave a backdoor open for it to creep back into our lives. The vicious and damning cycle of repent and repeat must be broken. Breaking the cycle of repent and repeat was what Christ intended when he said, “Go and sin no more” (Jn. 5:14; 8:11). Pray for an unyielding heart that grants sin no permission because the heart has learned to love God and hate evil. No compromise! Sin is not the norm for the believer, but righteousness is.
The Turning of Repentance: The Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means a mind that has changed direction. One’s mind no longer follows self but follows God. A repentant mind is one that focuses on, thinks on, and obeys God rather than on the devil, the flesh, and the world. Only the power of Christ’s blood can forgive, break the power, and remove the presence of sin. In this regard, repentance is not only a clear final breaking point with sin, but it is also a lifestyle. We must walk continuously in the light, so that the blood of Jesus can continually keep us clean from all sin. We must continually turn away from sin and turn towards God. Wesley recognized both a legal repentance regarding conviction and turning from sin and an evangelical repentance involving a life change from “all sin to holiness.” Following our clear break from sin, we will be unlearning old patterns of sin and learning new patterns of righteousness. We will no longer trod on the old, worn neural pathways to hell. We are called to renew our minds with the Word of God, which will create new neural networks, as we train our brains for righteousness.
The Inner Witness of Repentance: The scriptural and Methodist doctrine of the inner witness of the Spirit regarding salvation applies to every work of grace that God performs in us. Every gift from God is promised by God, delivered by God, received by surrender and faith, and witnessed to by the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit is how we know that we know the work of God in us. God will bear witness to his work of repentance in our hearts. When I was a young believer, I struggled in this area because I never knew if I truly repented. True repentance will yield an inner witness of the Spirit that confirms the finished work in our hearts.
The Fruit of Repentance: True repentance is evident inwardly by the Spirit in the heart and outwardly by the Spirit through the fruit of the Spirit. John the Baptist preached about the fruit of repentance in Matthew 3. If we have truly repented, then it will be evident by our actions. The goal is holiness or holy living. Wesley claimed that holiness is “perfect love excluding sin.” This means both that we will no longer continue to sin and that we will walk in the fruit of righteousness and love.
Peter J. Bellini is the Professor of Church Renewal and Evangelization in the Heisel Chair at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He also serves on the Editorial Board of Firebrand.