A Fresh Look at Repentance
The customary definition of repentance is that it is turning around and going the other way. That, however, is not repentance, but the result of repentance. Just as a doctor deals with causes, not symptoms, repentance corrects the fundamental problem, the cause of our bad behavior, rather than addressing the behavior itself. God knows that if we just try to do right we will fail, but if we are made right, we will do right.
What then is repentance? The Greek word for repentance, metanoia for those who like to know, is made up of two words. Meta is a preposition that means with or after, after in this case. The noia part of the word means mind or thought or thinking. Repentance actually means to change one’s mind, that is, to think in a new way. It is how one thinks after he has changed his mind, which is repentance. Turning and going a different way is conversion.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of how we think. Prov. 23.7 says, “As one thinks in his soul, so is he.” The word soul is very significant in this verse. The soul (Hebrew nephesh, Greek psyche) is the psychological (from psyche) aspect of man, who is spirit, soul, and body, not just soul and body as we are often taught (see 1 Thess. 5.23 and Heb. 4.12). The soul consists of intelligence, mental condition, emotional nature, will power or lack of it, personality, temperament, and so forth. It is a fact that all of us have an unconscious set of beliefs and feelings that govern how we feel and act, no matter what we may say we believe. Intellectual acceptance of a proposition as true does not necessarily mean feelings and behavior in line with that proposition. Usually our unconscious psychological governor comes from early childhood experiences, during which one felt loved or unloved, accepted or rejected, secure or insecure, valuable or worthless, important or unimportant, and so forth. A small child does not deal with such matters rationally, but emotionally, and the feelings he has during this time of his life determine what is fundamentally true for him about himself and the world around him, and God, too, if he is exposed to that concept.
In addition to this psychological conditioning that we all undergo, we are all born sinners. We are children of Adam, and are thus born with a fallen nature. It is a certainty that we will sin. A baby does not sin because he is too small to know right from wrong and is not accountable for his actions, but he nonetheless does many things that are sinful in themselves would be sin in him if he were older. In fact, a baby is just about totally self-centered and does not care whom he inconveniences to get what he wants. That is the nature of sin, and as the child grows and learns right from wrong, he will do wrong and will be accountable at some point. Sin itself is based on how we think. What underlies this approach to life is a way of thinking, the belief that if we live for ourselves and run our own lives, we will be happy and fulfilled. The history of the world is ample testimony to the futility of that approach.
In Is. 55.8-9 God says that he does not think the way we think. In Phil. 2.5 Paul tells his readers to have among themselves the way of thinking that Christ had. In Rom. 12.2 he says that we should not be conformed to this age, which thinks self-centeredly as we have just been describing (see Eph. 4.17-18), but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12.2).
All of these teachings of the Bible taken together indicate that we need repentance, a change in the way we think. We need to have God’s thoughts and the way of thinking that Christ had. What is that way of thinking?
Phil. 2.5-8 tells us that the Lord Jesus did not think in terms of running his own life, but of obeying his Father; not of getting, but of giving; not of being served, but of serving; not of saving his life, but of laying it down. He himself said in Mk. 10.45, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” We really are quite remarkable creatures: we try to use even God for our own desires. We act as though we believe the purpose of God in existing is to make us happy and comfortable, rushing in to fix anything that comes up to disturb that condition. The Bible says that we exist for God, not he for us (Col. 1.16). This matter of selfishness is one aspect of the change in our thinking that is needed. Most people will testify that unselfishness produces more satisfaction that selfishness does.
The other aspect has to do with the truth. Those unconscious feelings and beliefs on which our lives are based may well be lies. Probably everyone has some measure of deceit in this regard, and those who are living primarily by lies are reaping a bitter harvest. The person who feels deep down that he simply is not good enough to be loved will go through life feeling unloved no matter how much he really is loved. And he will never experience the love of God, who certainly loves him, so much so that he gave the Lord Jesus to die for him.
In addition to these fundamental lies, we have a spiritual enemy called Satan who operates by deceit. His power has been broken by the Lord Jesus (Col. 2.15, Heb. 2.14, 1 Jn. 3.8), but he is still allowed to do his evil work. He is the cleverest of liars (Jn. 8.44), and that is how he goes about achieving his ends. He or one of his demons is there when that little child feels unloved, telling him that he really is unloved because he just does not measure up. Something is wrong with him.
He lies to us all through our lives, telling us if we just had so and so, or could do such and such, or could be this or that, we would be happy. The fundamental and much more subtle lie in this approach is that happiness is a proper goal. It is not. If we live to be happy, we will probably be unhappy. If we live as God intended for us to live, trusting and obeying him, living to know him and to do his will, in all likelihood we will be happy. Happiness is a result of doing what is right and is not a proper goal.
Satan tries to lie to us about God and our relationship with him. The Bible calls Satan the accuser of the brothers (Rev. 12.10). That includes the sisters. When we sin, if we confess it to God he forgives us. In fact, all of our sins were died for nearly two thousand years ago, and they were all forgiven, including the ones we have not yet committed, when we received the Lord Jesus. Yet Satan will remind us of some sin, in the distant past or more recent, and tell us that we have gone too far. God just cannot forgive us anymore. That is a lie. The story was told of one woman who said she had committed some sin as a girl and had asked God every day for years to forgive her. He forgave her when she became a Christian. He no longer remembers the sin she is asking forgiveness for, according to the Scriptures (Is. 43.25, Jer. 31.34).
So clever is the devil that he even uses Scripture to try to deceive us. When he tried to tempt the Lord Jesus to sin at the beginning of his earthly ministry, he told him that he could jump off the temple, for God had given his angels charge of him so that he would not be hurt, and so prove who he was to Israel. He also told him that if he, Jesus, would worship him, Satan, he would give him all the kingdoms of the world. Thus he could become king without going to the cross by giving in to one of these temptations. The Lord Jesus knew how to use Scripture to defeat the temptations, and did so. A prime example of Satan using Scripture to deceive Christians is his use of the unpardonable sin. Many people believe they have committed it and have no peace or hope, though they do not even know what it is. That is the devil’s lie. The unpardonable sin was blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, accusing the Lord Jesus, during the days of his earthly ministry, of working by the power of the evil spirit, not the Holy Spirit. That sin can no longer be committed because the Lord Jesus is no longer here in the flesh.
We need to repent, to change our basic way of thinking from living for self to giving self, from believing that happiness is our proper goal to believing that knowing, trusting, and obeying God is our proper goal, from unconsciously believing long-accepted lies about ourselves to believing what God’s word says about us (this last aspect may take the help of a Christian counselor). If we think rightly, we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds and we will feel well and behave well. As one thinks in his soul, so is he.
Copyright © 2002 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.
Scripture quotations from the Old Testament are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version. Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.
