(Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.)
Does God forgive us based upon our repentance? We covered a couple of problems with such an idea in our previous post. This time around, I want to canvass what I would suggest is the real killer to the whole idea: it overturns justification by grace through faith alone.
What does God require of human beings? What does his law require (whether contained in the Mosaic law, the wisdom literature, the Prophets, the teaching of Jesus, the book of James or Ephesians)? The Bible has various ways of articulating it: God requires us to worship him alone—to seek his glory. God requires us to love him with all our heart, soul and strength. God requires us to keep his commandments and fulfil his law. God requires us to serve him—to live our lives in his service.
What, then, is sin? Again, there are various descriptions that each correlate to the above requirements: sin is to commit idolatry—to worship someone or something other than God; it is to rebel against God and to be at enmity with him; it is to break his commandments and to be lawless (for sin is lawlessness); it is to seek our interest ahead of the kingdom of God.
That is, sin and the law are opposites. God’s commands, exhortations, instructions and the like draw a picture of what he requires from human beings—what it means to be good. And those requirements are fundamentally the same no matter where you turn in the Bible. Paul and the Pentateuch are in fundamental agreement as to humanity’s obligations before God. Sin is to not discharge those obligations. Accordingly, it covers the full gamut of human existence: it involves both our treatment of God in our fundamental attitude and our specific acts in the way we treat others. It is all sin.
So what, then, is repentance? Repentance is to turn from sin and to turn to God. It is to stop doing what is wrong and to start doing what is right. It is to amend one’s ways. Just as godliness (or the law) and sin can be defined in many ways, so can repentance: we can stress the moral dimension of what we do, or the relational attitude of our stance towards God. But it is all of one piece.
As 1 John 4:20b says, “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen”. If repentance means to stop being God’s enemy and to start loving God, then that must also mean repentance means to start loving my brother or sister. And as 1 John 5:3a says (“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments”), so loving God also means doing what God commands. Even if you try and limit repentance to just turning from sin (and not sins) and turning to God (and not to godliness or to morality), then you are still forced, by the teaching of Scripture, to include the latter aspects in the former. Repentance means to stop doing wrong and to start doing what is right—both attitude and action, both God and our neighbour.
So do we really want to say that God does not forgive us until we repent in this robust biblical sense of what repentance is? For the Bible’s notion of repentance is, as I suggested in an earlier post, part of what theologians mean when they talk about ‘good works’. It is a good work to love God, to love one’s neighbour, to fulfill the law, to keep God’s commandments and to worship God. These are all ‘good works’—things we do that please God—and if they were done perfectly, they would lead to a judgement of ‘this person is righteous’ on the Last Day. Repentance means stop working evil and start doing good.
So do we really want to say that God’s forgiveness is conditional on us beginning to do good works—even if it’s “only” the good work of resolving to leave sin and to begin to love God? Why then the Reformation? Any Catholic worth their salt would be happy with a forgiveness from God that is conditional on us loving God first. Faith plus works (repentance) is the Catholic understanding of the basis of justification.
So let’s run through the issues raised half a millennium ago. How much repentance is necessary to meet the condition? How perfectly does God need me to love him before he will forgive me? Are they linked? To the degree that I love him, is that the degree he forgives me? Jesus stated in Luke 7:47b that “he who is forgiven little, loves little”. But it actually works the other way: “He who loves little is forgiven little”.
Or perhaps it will be suggested that there’s just some basic level of repentance that we need to meet and then we get full forgiveness. We can’t do repentance worthy to merit God’s forgiveness, but we can do repentance that is good enough, and God will treat it as though it has earned forgiveness; a mustard seed of repentance is enough. As long as we make just the first step away from sin to God—as long as we harbour just a small desire to be God’s friend, say—then that is sufficient. Here too the scholastics already own this ground, with the medieval view that God’s grace is shown by the way that he takes our inadequate efforts and treats them as though they are more than what they strictly are.
The Reformers considered this point to be so important that it was written into our confessions. Consider Article XIII Of Works before Justification from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church:
Works done before the grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School-authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.
Works done before the grace of Christ are not pleasant to God. Why? Because they do not spring from faith in Jesus Christ. So a repentance that occurs before salvation is a repentance that occurs before grace is received. If it occurs either at the same time as faith or before it, then it can not be caused by faith. And whatever is not of faith is sin. And so, the article goes on to stress, such works do not make men or women fit to receive grace; they cannot form a basis for God’s grace. They are sin. So to say that God forgives because we repent—that he forgives because we try and turn from our sin and turn to him—is tantamount to saying that he forgives our sin because of our sin. That door isn’t just shut; it has been welded closed, and blast doors thick enough to resist a thermonuclear explosion have been placed in front, with the whole construction being guarded by sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. You simply cannot pass that way. When it comes to us and God, we repent because we are forgiven, not in order to win it. As Article XII Of Good Works makes clear, even our love for God as regenerate Spirit-led believers is so corrupt—so far less than the perfect repentance that we should offer—it merits damnation on its own terms. Only in Christ is our repentance acceptable to God. So how could our repentance be a condition needing to be met to be able to be united to Christ?
I gently suggest that people reconsider their view of what we are capable of doing as sinners. This is because behind the idea that God’s forgiveness is based upon our repentance is either a shrinking of the nature of repentance or a rejection of our inability to truly do something that pleases God in and of itself, and not only in Christ. We are either more confident in our abilities to please God than we should be, or we have reduced God’s demands down to a point whereby we think that even we can fulfil them.
The irony (as is often is the case) is that this was all clearly and helpfully addressed by Calvin in the Institutes centuries ago—in Book III chapter 3. Anyone wishing to grow in their understanding of this essential teaching could do much worse than carefully working over his treatment of the topic there. It is, I would argue, directly following in Calvin’s footsteps (even as he follows the teaching of Scripture), part of the glory of the gospel that it frees us from sin’s hold on us. Both sin’s guilt and condemnation, and its mastery of us is broken by the gospel. That means that repentance is not the precondition for the gospel, but its fruit. True faith produces repentance, just as it produces love. Because grace produces repentance just as surely as it produces a righteous standing before God, repentance is the surest sign that someone has been forgiven, and the absence of repentance removes any grounds we have to treat someone as a brother or sister in Christ. However, that correlation is not because our repentance causes God’s forgiveness, but because God’s forgiveness breaks the hold of sin upon us and so sets us on the path of righteousness. God’s forgiveness causes repentance, and that’s why repentance is the evidence of faith and of justification. Repentance is a gift of the gospel, not its precondition. It is part of the glory of the gospel. What God rightly demands of us but we could not do, he gives us to us when he forgives us and unites us with his beloved Son. We do not say no to ungodliness in order to prepare the way for grace but, as Titus 2:12 says, the grace of God “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness” (NIV). And for this, we praise God.
First Comment!
Ahem.
This brings this series to an end. I’d like to just add a quick addendum covering a couple of points that have come up in comments as the series has gone on:
1. It’s been claimed that repentance isn’t a fruit of faith, but part of faith, so we can say ‘God only forgives us when we repent’ and not deny the truth of justification by grace through faith alone.
The biggest part of my response to that is here in this post, but there’s also a version to Craig in the comments on post 4 and Alex in the comments on the previous post that cover slightly different ground.
I’d like to add two further thoughts about such an idea though.
First, if repentance is part of faith, then we cannot forgive non-Christians. As they lack faith, then they cannot have repentance either if repentance is part of what faith is. Only believers, who have faith, can repent, because repentance is faith (or at least part of faith).
The only way around this is to say that ‘repentance’ means something radically different when it has to do with God and you (it’s actually faith if you just screw your eyes up when you look at it) then when it has to do with you and me (then it’s nothing to do with faith because you can be still in unbelief and repent). The same word is used, but two different realities are hidden behind the same word.
Second, if repentance is part of faith, then it can only exist as a response to God’s promises of salvation in Christ. Only the person who is assured of forgiveness can repent. This seems to be the tack that John Bradford takes in a sermon that Sandy linked to many moons ago now: http://www.peacemakers.net/unity/jbsermonofrepentance.htm
The difficulty is that the Bible seems to have examples who repent without being given any clear promises and who don’t seem to be examples of faith. The city of Nineveh, which repented when judgement was announced and seemed to be given no promise of forgiveness in Jonah’s preaching, and (surprisingly given what an all around scoundrel he was) King Ahab in 1 Kings 21 who reacts similarly in response to a similar message.
Repentance seems to be possible without faith. It’s filthy rags as far as God is concerned, but people who don’t have faith in Christ Jesus can repent of their actions and manner of life, according to the testimony of Scripture.
2. Repentance can’t be reduced to ‘desire for reconciliation with the person offended’ without cutting out of the core meaning of the word almost all of the Bible’s interest in how we live and what we do. The prophets, Jesus, the apostles all preach repentance, and it means an awful lot more than ‘wanting to be reconciled’.
In fact I would say that the desire for God to forgive us is more appropriately seen as part of the Bible’s definition of faith – that once we see that we are condemned and hear that God extends a pardon, we want that pardon and believe God when he promises to give it. “Wanting forgiveness” is part of a reformed definition of faith – which is why people have to recognize that they are sinners before faith is possible.
This then leads to a final thought for those with enough endurance to get this far.
I don’t think our response to the gospel, as it is portrayed in Scripture, is fundamentally about wanting to be reconciled at all. We talk in those personal categories all the time because we’re all post-60’s relational kind of dudes.
But the younger son in Luke 15 wasn’t really interested in being reconciled to his father. He doesn’t say, “My father and I are estranged, and I desire to fix the relationship.” It’s far more selfish than that. He says, “This is dumb, if I go to my dad I won’t be reconciled – I’ll be a servant – but I’ll be much better off.”
Mat 13:44-45, Lu 14:28-33 seem to indicate something similar. It’s a calculation about what is truly and your own best interests.
At the point of conversion, God doesn’t come to us (at least primarily) and say, “Do the right thing, be reconciled to me who you offended.” He comes to us and appeals to our self-interest, “Choose life! You’re under condemnation so receive forgiveness! You will die but here is a promise of resurrection from the dead!”
The gospel isn’t for good people who want to do the right thing. It’s for sinners whose first thought is ‘what’s in it for me?’ And it meets us at that point. It’s accommodated to us.
Now when we receive the gospel, God gives us more than what we want, he gives us what we need, and so reconciles us. But I’m not sure that’s the heart of the gospel as it comes to us.
“You have a problem, this is the solution” isn’t just Luther’s and Calvin’s take on the gospel, it’s profoundly biblical as well.
Hi Mark,
I am making this comment without having read all the other posts, so my apology if I am going over stuff that has already been covered. I heard people make a distinction between “repentance” as a prelude and prior to faith in the gospel and that this “repentance” acts like faith whereby it is an intellectual assent, a changing of one’s mind, a turning to accept God’s promise of salvation in the gospel. This type of “repentance” is different from the “repentance” which flows out of faith and is the fruit of faith. So in Acts 26:20 Paul says: “…I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” So my question is this: Is Paul drawing out a distinction between a repentance involved in hearing the gospel and a subsequent and different act of repentance which flows out of faith and is the fruit of faith? Or are they one and same reality, both concieved of as the fruit of faith?
Hi Steven,
No probs. You aren’t and it wouldn’t matter if you were.
So we have a ‘repentance’ that is essentially ‘faith’ and it is the precondition for forgiveness from God, and a ‘repentance’ which is not essentially faith (because we don’t have faith in each other) and is the precondition for forgiveness from us?
My problem with this is that we then have two different kinds of repentance, and when we say ‘God only forgives us when we repent’ we mean something like ‘God only forgives us when we have faith’. But when we say ‘therefore we can only forgive each other when we repent’ we mean ‘we can only forgive each other when we repent’.
Intellectual assent to the truth of what the word of God declares, changing one’s mind about whether one is a sinner or not, turning to accept God’s promises of salvation in the gospel. If those three things are not ‘faith’ then what on earth is left for the word ‘faith’ to mean? If those three things are ‘repentance’ (or at least one of two different repentances) then faith is the Chesire Cat, slowly vanishing, beginning with it’s tail and finishing with its smile.
Occam’s razor applies here for me. Don’t needlessly multiply repentances. Try and find one meaning that basically captures the concept, and pick up exceptions as the need arises. And if you have to have two different concepts, try and use two different words.
My concern with having two repentances like this, is that they’ll tend to bleed into each other. Faith becomes repentance (first sense) which will mean that it’ll tend to be thought of as repentance (second sense) which means we’ll start by saying, “God only forgives those who want to be reconciled” and finish by saying “God only forgives those who obey him” – and you can see a classic example of this from Alex in the previous thread. If even Alex (and I say that in all seriousness) can end up saying that faith and obedience are interchangeable, then I think most other people will blur faith and repentance (second sense) too.
So, on Acts 26:20 Paul isn’t saying two different things – repent and turn to God – but one, the ‘turn to God’ is a quick explanation of what ‘repentance’ means. The works he speaks of are then the works that are produced by repentance, as repentance is fundamentally a matter of the heart (however much, in this series, I’ve stressed that it has to be something we do in concrete actions to try and get people to think hard about repentance). So it’s one thing on view here – turning to God, that produces a changed life and very different behaviour as its fruit.
Calvin’s take on this is basically mine, so I’ll let him say it. From chapter three of book three of the Institutes and I’ve broken it up to make it easier to read:
Hi Mark,
I’ve only just come across this series, and have been working to catch up from the start! Great stuff, crucial topic, very stimulating (though I’m not yet convinced about the relationship you’re suggesting between forgiveness and repentance). Thank you.
I admit that I haven’t read all the comments, and I haven’t even read the last three posts yet. So I may have missed the answer to my question (might even have missed it in the stuff I did read!), but…
I was wondering if I could ask you for your working definition of both ‘forgiveness’ and ‘repentance’.
Thanks,
Geoff
Hiya Geoff,
Welcome to the conversation. You’re welcome for the series, it’ll be interesting to hear what your conclusions are, if you find yourself in a position to give them. Glad it’s stimulated your thinking on the topic. You might want to scan over the conversation under post 4 with Craig Schwarze as well, I suspect he’ll have raised issues that occur to you too (or at least that you’ll enjoy reading).
Definitions? Well….okay. I don’t really ‘do’ definitions, not the way most Evangelicals do. I’m committed to a different view of how we come to know things than what I think is the approach that relies heavily on definitions to do the heavy lifting. For me, definitions are only of minor benefit in coming to understand a concept, and often hinder understanding by creating an illusion of knowledge that is only skin deep.
My way of arguing in blog posts reflects, at least in part, this rejection of thinking-by-definition – which I suspect is an element of what makes them stimulating/exhausting/irritatingly long and inconclusive (pick the adjective of choice).
I can offer some ‘working definitions’ – things that I think should account for about 80-90% of the data and so have some use as a way into thinking about the issue. But if you come back and say, ‘that definition is wrong because it doesn’t bring out these aspects sufficiently’ I’ll do a virtual shrug and try and find a definition that covers those bits and add it alongside. Definitions for me don’t ‘capture’ the concept, they ‘point’ to it. They’re not the final word, they’re a starting word. With those qualifiers, here’s some definitions I’ve offered over the course of the conversation either in blogs or comments:
On repentance:
From post 5:
From post 8:
There’s also some discussion with Craig about repentance as ‘turning towards the other person’:
http://solapanel.org/article/forgiveness_and_repentance_part_4/#5106
And Alex as repentance as a component of faith that starts here: http://solapanel.org/article/forgiveness_and_repentance_part_7/#5181
The first comment at the end of the final post (top of this thread) picks up whether repentance is part of faith, and whether it is nothing more than ‘a desire to be reconciled’.
to be concluded with a short comment…
concluding…
Finally, just above your comment, in answer to a question about whether there are two repentances, one of which is something that more or less comes before faith and includes faith within it, and in that I quoted Calvin from Chapter 3, Book III of the Institutes as speaking for both of us:
For ‘forgiveness’ my working definition has been something like, “absolving someone of the debt that they have incurred against you by their actions”. It is more ‘transactional’ than we tend to prefer – I like trying to highlight aspects that are relatively neglected (tied to why I don’t like definitions) – but a lot of work was done around this kind of idea from my end of the conversation to keep some distance between forgiveness and reconciliation as I think we often just blur them into each other.
Hope that helps.
Hi Mark,
As many others have noted in the comments sections, thanks for taking the time to answer my queries. Much appreciated.
I agree that trying to define things too tightly can be unhelpful at times, and understand what you’re saying. But I also think that definitions can be a crucial part of theology, and can help us make sure we’re agreeing / disagreeing about real, substantive issues (rather than just about what word we use to describe a particular reality).
I’m reminded of the opening paragraph of JC Ryle’s ‘Knots Untied’: “It may be laid down as a rule, with tolerable confidence, that the absence of accurate definitions is the very life of religious controversy. If men would only define with precision the theological terms which they use, many disputes would die. Scores of excited disputants would discover that they do not really differ, and that their disputes have arisen from their own neglect of the great duty of explaining the meaning of words.”
Anyway, thanks for providing those definitions even though it goes against the grain – and sorry for making you rehash stuff just because I hadn’t gotten to it yet!
There’s a couple of aspects of what you’ve argued for that I’m still not sure about. For now, I’ll just pick up on one.
A line that stood out to me in your definition of repentance (from post 5) was “Recompense is an essential part of repentance.” It’s at this point that I think definitions are crucial. If that’s how we define repentance, then I absolutely agree with your conclusion. ‘Repentance’ is a work, and the gospel is that we are justified and forgiven apart from works. Hence forgiveness does not require repentance – defined in this way.
However, without sitting down and working out a definition, I’d always thought of repentance as involving (but not necessarily being limited to) the realisation that you’ve done the wrong thing, then saying sorry and seeking forgiveness.
As an example, imagine a situation between two family members, where one (X) has wronged the other (Y). X comes to Y and says, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I shouldn’t have done it. Please forgive me.” Is that not repentance? If not, what do we call this? (Genuine question)
Let me try to take the next step…
Y replies, “Well, thank you for saying sorry, but you really hurt me. Before I forgive you, you will need to DO something to make it up to me.” To me, that is not forgiveness. It is not the cancelation of a debt. On the contrary, it’s asking for the debt to be paid. It’s certainly modelled on not what God does with us.
Now imagine a different reply. Y says, “Yes, I forgive you.” End of story. In that case, there IS forgiveness, because the debt has been cancelled. Y is showing mercy and grace. X has not DONE anything to earn forgiveness. It has been given as a gift. And (as everyone who’s had to forgive something serious will know) it will be costly for Y to give this gift (as it was VERY costly for God to forgive us).
One more step that might draw out what I’m struggling with here.
It’s common to hear a prayer after an evangelistic talk that goes something like this: “Dear God, I have rejected you and ignored your will for my life. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you that Jesus died for my sins. Please help me to live with Jesus as Lord. Amen.”
What’s going on in that prayer? The first two sentences express repentance (as I’ve understood it). The third asks for forgiveness – but not because any recompense has been made or anything has been DONE. It’s asking for the GIFT of forgiveness. It’s seeking mercy and grace.
If my definition of repentance is valid, then it’s about saying, “I did the wrong thing, I’m sorry, and I need forgiveness.” Logically, then, if you are not repentant – if you don’t accept that you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness – how (why!) will you ever come to faith in Jesus?
So, could we say, “We are NOT forgiven BECAUSE OF our repentance, but repentance (recognition of wrongdoing) is (logically) a necessary step in order for us to come to faith in Christ and so to be forgiven”?
Then again, maybe all that just shows that I haven’t properly understood what ‘repentance’ really means. Hence the need for definitions.
Or maybe there are more serious problems with the direction I’m heading…
Many thanks again for your hard work with this,
Geoff
Mark (and anyone else reading this),
The above sentence: “It’s certainly modelled on not what God does with us.”
shold have said, “It’s certainly not modelled on what God does with us.”
Cheers,
G.
Hi Mark,
As the others have said – thanks for this series. And yes I enjoyed your dialogue with Craig S.
Calvin is quite happy to define faith: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.v.iii.html
“Now we shall have a proper definition of faith if we say it is a steady and certain knowledge of the Divine benevolence toward us, which being founded upon the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ is both revealed to our minds and sealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”
I don’t mean to sound grumpy but the lack of a working definition of ‘faith’ has made it very hard to follow what you mean by the distinction between faith and repentance.
So perhaps a clarifying question: in your mind, is the ‘acceptance’ of God’s promises an aspect of faith or repentance?
Hi Geoff,
You’re welcome. It was time well spent, because this was a humdinger of a contribution you offered in response – really opened some new and important issues up. Thank you.
I hate having to disagree with Ryle, but I’ll dissent a bit from the great bishop. If our goal is to avoid religious controversy, then yes, accurate definitions is a great way to get there. But I’m not sure that’s a good goal to have. (Although there’s a huge sub-category of religious controversy that we should avoid, and which Paul calls on us to eschew. I try and avoid those like the plague.)
The Bible from almost the start to almost the end is a story of religious conflict. If definitions are the ‘high road’ to the word of God having its way in our hearts and lives, then why doesn’t Paul start every epistle with accurate definitions of the disputed terms? Why does Jesus teach in parables?
The Bible is fairly parsimonious in the definitions it offers, I’d suggest. And it certainly never does anything like, “Now, with this issue, we need to remember what x is, if you remember our definition from earlier….”.
“The Bible’s method” (heh) just isn’t like a lot of what we do. I’m not saying we can’t do that, I don’t think the Bible prescribes an epistemology or an educational theory. I’m just saying I think I can point to some important things to say that my approach has some validity.
I’m happy to give definitions, despite what I said. I’m not happy to have definitions do the heavy-lifting the way Ryle wants here.
Let’s talk about the reality or the concept in various ways and from some different approaches and see what light that sheds. Along the way we can throw up some definitions that seem to help make sure we’re somewhere on the same page. And then let’s go back to talking about the thing in a range of ways to test our understanding of it. That’s sort of where I’m coming from.
Great pick-up. I’m surprised it took until now for someone to call me on that. Yars, that was a naughty sentence – it was true in the sense that Mt 5:30 is true, not 1 John 3:4. If I was to try and give a ‘proper’ (highly precise and accurate) definition of repentance I wouldn’t say something like that, it would be more something like ‘an intention to recompense to the degree possible is an essential part of repentace’.
If the activity of recompensing is repentance, then I haven’t repented until I’ve completed the recompense. And I can’t repent towards God because it’s impossible to recompense God. That’s clearly wrong.
But let me give an example. Say you deliberately cripple me. It was your intention and you succeeded. I’m permamently in a wheelchair. And you happen to be a multi-millionaire. You come to me, very sorry for what you’ve done, and clearly and genuinely desiring to be reconciled.
But you have no intention of trying to give me assistance to get the help I need now. You’re sorry. You want to be reconciled. But you have no intention to deal with the consequences your sin has had on me.
Are you repentant? I would say, ‘clearly not’. And my deliberately inaccurate and provocative statement was designed to put that shot over the bow.
Repentance is not just ‘relational’ – to do with your and my estrangement, it is also ‘responsible’ – to do with coming to terms with my actions and way of life and repudiating and changing to a new way.
continuing…
Sure. No problem. But that covers a relatively small portion of the biblical material. Here I’m with Calvin:
Calvin’s not just talking about the prophets and apostles telling people to get right with God by saying ‘sorry’ and asking for forgiveness. It includes that, but stretches out to include the putting off of sinful thoughts, desires, and actions, and putting on the new life of Christ – love, gentleness, purity, self-control, holiness and the like. All of that is ‘repentance’ for us. And if it isn’t, then you need a whole new term to describe that. For then repentance has no moral content or implications, it is purely about our relationship.
If I’m a nasty piece of work in my relationship with people, repentance isn’t just saying sorry and asking for forgiveness. It’s also trying to stop being a nasty piece of work, and trying to make amends when that nastiness has harmed others. I’m not arguing for something less than what you want. I’m arguing for something an awful lot more.
It’s probably repentance. But if the person keeps doing it, say seven times a day, day in and day out, and comes saying those words, would you still call it repentance? If your spouse committed adultery seven times a day, day after day, and sincerely says this throughout would it be repentance? (Genuine question). Does repentance for you have any moral content (any focus on my actions) as part of its essence, or is all about seeking to repair the relationship?
I would suggest that an extra sentence needs to be in that statement either explicitly or implicitly: “I don’t ever want to do that to you again, and I want to try and make it up to you.” If that’s cut out of the content of repentance, I don’t think I recognise it.
Sure. But even at my most mischevious I never went there. What I tried to argue (implicitly) is that most of us, even though we seem to have dropped it from our speaking and thinking (I think because of some paranoia about moralism), still have some moral content to repentance. You haven’t repented if you don’t intend to address the consequences of your sin on other people.
Now, if that’s the case, then my argument isn’t quite as malevolent as you seem to be suggesting. If I can’t forgive until you repent, I need some indication that you will address the consequences of your sin on me. I need an indication that you will ‘make it up to me’ as best you are able. Once you’re there, then the somewhat commercial and corrupting nature of making forgiveness conditional on repentance becomes clear, I hope.
Now, if it is possible for you to repent and have no intention to make it up to me, then your criticism here is spot on. I can make my forgiveness conditional on your repentance because you can repent of your sin against me and not have any intentions of addressing the harm you caused me. I agree that solves the problem I set up. I won’t necessarily get anything out of your repentance, because your repentance won’t affect how you live or treat me. I have problems with your view of repentance though.
to be concluded
concluding
No, I’m with those who have rejected this idea – Scott Newling in his Briefing review of Tim Keller’s book (IIRC), and Fiona Lockett in her similar critique on her blog. It didn’t and doesn’t cost God anything to forgive us.
Unlike us, he doesn’t struggle with forgiveness. The ‘cost’ we pay for forgiving is real (I’ll put my hand up) but that’s because we’re deep dyed sinners who can be forgiven a simply unimaginable debt and still turn around and demand justice over a real, but vastly smaller debt (that’s a good description of me, sad to say). To draw any comparison at all between us and God at that point is fundamentally ungodly and flies in the face of multiple passages of Scripture that do the exact opposite.
Now, to be able to extend forgiveness and uphold justice an unimaginable cost was paid. But that’s because God is also upholding justice and not just forgiving us personally, but as a Judge declaring us in the right.
But the cost is not at the point of extending the forgiveness to you and me. At that point, God forgives sincerely and from the heart and without even a hint of reluctance or struggle.
This is great stuff, Geoff. It covers some similar ground that Fiona raised (on the thread for post 6) but with a whole fresh slant.
I think there’s repentance and faith in that prayer too, but not quite the way you see it.
Let’s assume you’re right. “I did the wrong thing. I’m sorry.” Those are ‘repentance’. Then, as you say, ‘if you don’t accept that you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness – how (why!) will you ever come to faith in Jesus?’
Can you see the problem? What is the relationship of faith and repentance now? I’ve argued that faith produces repentance. Some have argued that faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. It’s also been argued that repentance is part of faith. How have you constructed the relationship?
Repentance leads to faith. Until I repent, I won’t have faith, but true repentance will necessarily produce faith. (I’m assuming that you don’t think someone could genuinely repent – accept that they are a sinner in need of forgiveness and be genuinely sorry – and not come to Christ in faith when they hear the gospel? You can’t have a genuine repentance that leaves the person condemned?)
So justification by grace through faith alone, really means justification by grace through repentance, and its consequence, faith. Are you happy with that?
Let’s return to the prayer. ‘I did the wrong thing. I’m sorry.’
I think the first of these would have historically been seen as connected to faith. When we believe what God says, that we have nothing we can look to save us, then we are in a position to look to what Christ has done for us, and we want what he offers. I don’t think that’s really ‘repentance’ – that’s ‘faith’, or at least a necessary part of faith.
The second would depend a bit on what’s meant by the statement. Saying ‘I’m sorry’ can be an apology, an expression of our emotional state to our own actions, or a way of saying ‘I’m in the wrong’ or even ‘please forgive me’.
If it’s the first two it’s repentance, if it’s the last two it’s another way of expressing faith – of expressing that stance that says, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling’.
That’s been pretty long, so let’s leave it there and see where you want to take things next. But it was a great start, so many thanks.
Hello Jeremy, and welcome along,
You’re welcome, and I’m glad you enjoyed it, I think Craig did something quite substantial there.
Yep, and in my view every definition he offers should be carefully marked and mulled over. He gives several definitions throughout the Institutes, and each one brings slightly different things to fore. And each one is very valuable.
No, I think being grumpy about that is a fair call. I’m very sorry about that. I kind of assumed that ‘faith’ was something (maybe one of the few things?) that could just be assumed as ‘common ground’ for ‘the core Sola readership’ (my hypothetical equivalent of ‘the ideal reader’). So it didn’t need a definition, or even explicit discussion. Sorry that’s made things harder.
Definitely faith. Ooooh so much faith and not repentance that it’s hard to express it. Make that an aspect of ‘repentance’ and I’ll just give up now and go and join Pelagius and his merry band. Because if that’s under ‘repentance’ then he was right after all.
Let me try and give some definitions of faith. The definition you quoted is very important to me. I’m also happy with Grudem’s threefold:
1. believe the truth of what God’s word declares
2. approve the truth of what God’s word declares (necessary in light of James 2:19)
3. personal trust in Christ
That was in his Systematic Theology that someone by email encouraged me to read. I think Grudem and I agree basically about what repentance and faith are (but would probably have a lot to talk about when it came to their relationship with each other and to our reception of forgiveness).
A bit more fully: ‘trust’ is a common synonym for ‘faith’ for me, I’ll also take ‘assurance’ and ‘belief’ and ‘being convinced of’. It can be spoken of as being directed at who God is, who Christ is, at what God’s promised, and at what Christ has done (or at what God has done in Christ).
However exotic my view (which I think is actually just Calvin’s) of ‘repentance’ is, I think my view of ‘faith’ is fairly humdrum for other evangelicals. But perhaps you could flush out the issue with a few more directed questions?
Repentance is essentially just another word for faith. Consider this parable:
Matthew 13:44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Note that he his whole value system changed when he recognized where his treasure lay.
Luke 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
One who loves the world cannot claim to love God.
1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Your posts are all off base because you see faith and repentance as two entirely separate things.
Obedience, likewise, is faith. As a man is composed of clay and breath, so faith, divorced of works, is dead:
James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit [breath] is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Hello William,
I’m glad we agree that the heart of the matter is whether faith and repentance are two things or the same thing.
I’m not sure that the four passages you quote, or their broader context, really help your assertion that repentance is another word for faith, and that obedience and faith are the same thing. They all indicate that the two are linked and that a true repentance towards God cannot exist except as a product of faith, and that faith does not exist except where it results in repentance towards God.
So Matthew 13:44. There is nothing here to say that repentance is faith. Faith changes a person’s whole value system, as you say, when one realises where one’s treasure lies. As a consequence one acts. Faith (seeing the treasure and wanting it) leads to repentance (selling everything and buying).
You could treat this as a literal and precise description of all the details of salvation, and not as a parable, and so press the fact that the man doesn’t get the treasure until he buys the field, and so say that the man saves himself by buying the field. That seems an overly wooden way to read the parable.
The basic point is that reception of the gospel by faith changes everything – all your eggs are in Christ’s basket, and it’s a total commitment. That’s part of a biblical view of faith, and it’s a biblical view of repentance.
Neither faith or repentance are half-hearted, in two minds, kind of things in the Bible. But that doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
Luke 14:33 similarly seems fairly straigthforward to me. One can’t follow Jesus if one loves anyone or anything even remotely as a rival to him. That hardly means that loving Jesus is the same thing as trusting him, or that Jesus saves me because I first loved him, rather than I loving him because he first loved me and saved me.
It simply shows that one cannot be Jesus’ disciple is one does not love him first and foremost. And I strongly embrace that. The question for me is whether sinners are capable of loving God first before they receive God’s grace, or whether the grace of God (that we receive by faith) changes our heat so that we now love God.
That issue, when seen in its reversed mirror image, also counts for 1 John 2:15. You seem to be implying that the love of the Father only finds its home in me because I first do some housecleaning and get rid of the love of the world first.
I receive the Father’s love by turning away from the love of the world.
I’d say rather that the love of the Father, when it makes its home in me, (when I receive it by faith) tosses out the love of the world that had been squatting there. So I can’t love the world and have the love of the Father in me.
But that doesn’t mean I have to get rid of the love of the world first before I can embrace the love of the Father. It just means they are incompatible. Which I fully uphold.
And James 2:26 only works for you if you ignore what it says. If faith without works is dead, like a body without the spirit is dead, then faith and works are two different things, in much the same way that a body and its spirit (or breath on your view) are two things.
If faith and obedience are the same thing then faith without works isn’t ‘dead’, it’s impossible. My view is that faith must lead to works, must lead to obedience – which is exactly James’ point. A faith that doesn’t lead to obedience isn’t saving faith at all, it’s the dead ‘faith’ of the demons.
James’ whole argument of rejecting a faith without works as ‘dead’ (as opposed to being a contraditction in terms) completely repudiates your equating the two terms.
And, as just one example to counter you, I’d put up Romans 4:1-5. Here Paul contrasts the person who ‘works’ – obeys God’s commands – and so receives their righteousness as their due (their wages) with the person who ‘does not work’ but trusts God who justifies the ungodly.
There is simply no way that this contrast between ‘working’ (obeying) and ‘not working’ (trusting) can be reconciled with a view that says that the two are the same. Especially when Paul is so provocative as to say that God justifies the ungodly (i.e. the disobedient).
Thank you for raising such an important issue, but I think you’ve profoundly misunderstood the Scriptures on this and (it seems from your blog) a range of important imatters.
>>>…The question for me is whether sinners are capable of loving God first before they receive God’s grace, or whether the grace of God (that we receive by
faith) changes our heat so that we now love God…
Neither one follows the other… they are simultaneous, because they are two facets of the same thing.
>>>…so we can say ‘God only forgives us when we repent’ and not deny the truth of justification by grace through faith alone…
Um, the problem is that “justification by grace through faith alone” is simply NOT TRUE. By elevating your dogma to “Truth” you resist and reject James who says that one is NOT justified by faith alone but by faith AND corresponding actions.
http://net.bible.org/search.php?search=repentance and faith&mode;=&scope;=