1. God's sovereign command
Chapter Five
5. THE REASONS ENFORCING
REPENTANCE
WITH A WARNING TO THE IMPENITENT
I proceed next to the reasons which enforce repentance.
1. God's sovereign command "He commands all men everywhere to repent" (Act 17.30).
Repentance is not arbitrary. It is not left to our choice whether or not to repent. It is an indispensable command. God has enacted a law in the High Court of heaven that no sinner will be saved except the repenting sinner, and God will not break his own law. Even if all the angels were to stand before God and beg for the life of an unrepenting person, God would not grant it "The Lord God, merciful and gracious, keeping mercy for thousands, will by no means clear the guilty" (Exo 34.67). Though God is more full of mercy than the sun is full of light, yet he will not forgive a sinner while he continues in his guilt: "He will by no means clear the guilty"!
2. The pure nature of God denies communion with an impenitent creature Till the sinner repents, God and he cannot be friends: "Wash, make yourself clean" (Isa 1.16); go, steep yourselves in the brinish waters of repentance. Then, says God, I will parley with you: "Come now, and let us reason together" (Isa 1.18); but otherwise, do not come near me: "What communion has light with darkness?" (2Cor 6.14). How can the righteous God indulge someone who still goes on in his trespasses? "I will not justify the wicked" (Exo 23.7). If God were to be at peace with a sinner before he repents, God would seem to like and approve all that he has done. He would go against his own holiness. It is inconsistent with the sanctity of God's nature to pardon a sinner while he is still in the act of rebellion.
3. Sinners continuing in impenitence are out of Christ's commission See his commission: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted" (Isa 61.1). Christ is a Prince