The Grace of Repentance
“When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”” (Acts 11:18 ESV)
I believe strongly in what is called the “Doctrines of Grace”. That is, I believe that God alone is the ultimate factor in choosing who to save. We are all utterly corrupted by sin to the point that none of us will ever seek after God on our own or do anything good (Romans 3:10–12). We only ever act according to our sinful nature. And that nature only ever desires to do evil. God in his mercy provides the opportunity to be saved to all. His hands are stretched out in entreaty to every single human being that has ever lived, urging them to come and be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Yet, God has chosen a people for himself before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). And for those whom God has chosen, he does more than simply offer salvation. As RC Sproul famously put it, God does not merely throw out a life preserver to drowning mankind. Man has already drowned. Instead, “God dives into the water and pulls a dead man from the bottom of the sea and then performs a divine act of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He breathes into the dead man new life” (Chosen by God, 2011). If we believe that God alone can save, then the doctrine of repentance takes on a whole new meaning.
Repentance is Granted, Not Earned
“…correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,” (2 Timothy 2:25 ESV)
If we are truly “dead in our trespasses…” (Ephesians 2:5), then we cannot repent. Dead men don’t do anything. So how can we be saved? God must bring us to life. God takes that dead heart of stone, gives us a new heart, and breathes the life of his Spirit into us. At the same time, though logically after this, we have faith in Christ and repent. Where did that repentance come from? Did we work that up in ourselves? Decide on our own that we hated our previous sins and now only desired to live according to God’s Law?
That must surely seem ridiculous. If no one seeks after God, no one does good, then we certainly will not on our own suddenly decide to seek after God, hate evil, and do good. No, the power for this transformation must come from outside ourselves. And this is what we see all through the Bible.
The Gentiles are Grafted In
The first verse I quoted above from Acts 11 comes after Peter has seen his vision and gone to preach at the house of Cornelius. When he returns, the Jewish Christians confront him because he has stayed with Gentiles and eaten with them — something forbidden under Jewish law. When Peter explains to them how the Holy Spirit was poured out on Cornelius the same as on the day of Pentecost, they fall silent. They have no more objections because clearly this is a work of God. And then they glorify God because God has “granted repentance” to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
This is a major turning point in redemptive history. In the Old Testament, we have examples of strangers coming from the surrounding nations to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Women like Ruth the Moabitess and Rahab of Jericho trusted in God and were grafted into Israel. One of David’s mighty men, Uriah (who was the husband of Bathsheba) was a Hittite, one of the nations driven out of Canaan by Israel. Yet he serves God and is grafted in. But these examples are few and far between, exceptions rather than the rule. Yet here at last comes the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, “In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). And how did this happen? Because God granted repentance to Gentiles.
Lydia’s Heart is Opened
In Acts 16:14, Paul reaches Philippi on his missionary journeys. Here he meets a woman named Lydia, one who was a worshipper of God. Many Jewish worshippers of God heard the message of Paul and tried to kill him for it. Yet in Lydia’s case, something quite different takes place. She hears Paul and is baptized with her household. Paul stays with her for some time. What makes the difference in Lydia’s hearing the Word where so many others rejected it? We are told, “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul”. Who gets the credit? Not Lydia. She hears the Word, but her hearing is not the ultimate cause of her salvation. God is the ultimate cause. It is God who opens her heart.
The Spring of Sin
I recently heard a pastor make a moving speech about how he struggles with a certain sin daily. He has refrained from ever committing this act of sin but is constantly in a battle with the temptation. But his problem is clear in the fact that he does not view this temptation itself as sin. He sees his struggle as just part of living in a broken world where his desires are disordered. He feels very alone in his struggle to not commit any overt act of sin and sees this as a struggle he will face all his life.
What this man needs is the grace of repentance. Since he does not see the inward desire itself as sinful, he cannot repent of that desire. Yet Jesus clearly teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount that it is not just the act of adultery that is sinful, it is the lust in the heart. It is not just the act of murder that is sinful, it is the unrighteous anger in the heart.
In fact, the reason Christians can enjoy a hearty ham sandwich is because Christ declared all foods clean. What is Christ’s reasoning for this shift? “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” (Mark 7:21–23 KJV) You see it is the evil thoughts in the heart that is the spring of wickedness. Our actions only demonstrate what is on the inside.
The Grace of Repentance
If we want to overcome sin, we must not be satisfied with simply putting to death the deeds of the flesh. We must fight this monster Sin in his own home — our hearts. Only as we root Sin out of his stronghold, will we be victorious. We have many means of grace available to us to press the fight. We have prayer, the Word of God, the Sacraments of Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper themselves help us in the war against Sin. But one of the chief graces that we need is the grace of repentance.
There are not many prayers that we may pray with full assurance that God will answer “Yes” every time. But this we can rest assured of: No prayer for more of grace has ever been turned away. God has never heard the cry of anyone longing to put to death sin in their life and sent them away empty-handed. And this prayer in particular is one our Father delights to answer, “God forgive me!”
Our problem does not lie with God, it lies within ourselves. Like Adam hiding in the Garden with a fig leaf covering his nakedness, we stubbornly refuse to admit our sins. Yet God has promised to sanctify us. When we identify our sin as Sin, we are assured that Christ has already purchased the victory for us. We are assured that it is God’s will to sanctify us. And we know that if we ask anything in his will that we have what we ask for (1 John 5:14).
By understanding that repentance is a gift of God, we can readily see how to advance in sanctification. If I am not yet sanctified in an area, I can ask God for the grace of repentance. I can ask knowing that he is eager to answer me. My sanctification is no longer some struggle I may fight on my own, it is the work of God in me! This is great news, for God is mightier than my sin.
So, let us pray for the grace of repentance. May God show us the sin in our own lives so that we may turn from it and follow him instead.
