11 Repentance That Sings. Bryan Chapell

BRYAN CHAPELL

Imagine a junior league coach instructing his young pitchers as they watch game films of some historic major leaguers: “Now, men, watch Luis Tiant closely. He’s a very fine pitcher. When he starts his windup, he pivots on one foot, and then, to gather momentum, he actually turns his back on the batter before spinning around to deliver the pitch. See how he turns his back to the batter? Don’t do that!”

“Now,” says the coach during the next film clip, “I want you to see the windup of Fernando Valenzuela. He faces the batter as an all-star pitcher should. Watch him. Watch how, when he is right at the apex of his windup, he looks up in the air and rolls his eyes back in his head before delivering the ball. See how he takes his eyes off the plate? Don’t do that!”

Finally, as the last clip rolls, the coach says, “The pitcher I really want you to watch is Dwight Gooden. This is a straight-ahead, eyes-on-the mitt, great pitcher. The mechanics are great. The form is great. His windup is picture perfect. See how he tries to be perfect with each pitch? Don’t do that either. It will eat a hole in your soul, as Dwight Gooden learned through much heartache in his life.”

This imaginary pitching coach speaks with real wisdom not only about the mechanics of pitching but also about the nature of the human spirit. His words echo what Jesus also teaches about how the pursuit of self-perfection can assault the soul. We are not accustomed to thinking this way. We understand how sin can become a harsh taskmaster and place us under bondage by its allurements and compulsions. However, we do not usually consider that vigorously striving after holiness apart from the provisions of our union with Christ can be just as enslaving.

If we fail to understand how we rely on God’s grace alone to make us right with him, our Christian walk necessarily becomes a showy parade of pride in spiritual gifts and achievements, permeated with envy of others’ accomplishments. Such pride and envy will also create an insatiable appetite for spiritual experiences that will prove we have met, or can gain, God’s approval. Jesus wants to liberate us from the unappeasable demands of personal merit. Thus, he must turn us away from the mistaken belief that the perfection of our performance will gain his favor. To do so he introduces us to a rich young man who wants to use his “major league” religious performance to gain God’s favor:

Mark 10:17–22

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.1

This account of the rich young man may seem a strange place to learn the nature of repentance. We typically think of this young man as one who refuses to repent. Yet by this inverse image we are able to distinguish what true repentance must be and, perhaps, may see enough of ourselves mirrored to seek a new path toward God. Acting virtually as the “coach” of our repentance, Jesus uses this encounter to say to us, “See? See how this young man strives to make himself right before God? See how he uses his words and his actions to convince himself that he deserves what God grants? Don’t do that! You need to repent of all confidence in your accomplishments—as well as all fault in your failures—to know God’s grace.”

Repentance that rests on grace alone is not easily reconciled with our instinctive patterns of thought, so Jesus arrests our attention with the surprising way that he responds to the young man’s request. Jesus’ words trouble us because they initially seem to affirm the young man’s suspicion that we earn God’s favor with our good deeds. However, Jesus uses the desires and claims of the young man to reveal to him—and to us—the anemia of human goodness even when it engages in religious exercise. Against the background of the cross, and with the example of the young man, Jesus tells us that though the outward form of our spiritual observances may be great, and the mechanics of our religious performance seemingly perfect, they still lack what is needed for spiritual health.

This lesson is particularly apt for those whose religious exercises are conscientious and disciplined. Especially in church settings where we consistently teach the importance of obedience to God, there can be a strong inclination to see what we do so meticulously, strenuously, seriously, and sacrificially as what secures our standing with God. It will not. While God requires and blesses our obedience, we do not secure our eternal relationship with him by our actions. Even words of repentance will not heal when they become only a religious ritual we repeat to make ourselves right with God. Why? What keeps well-intended religiosity from qualifying as biblical repentance? We learn the answer by identifying what is missing from this religious young man’s heart even as he bows before Jesus and calls him “good teacher.”

A Loathing of Sin’s Evil

Jesus works in behalf of this rich man by causing a number of powerful spiritual truths to converge that should make the man perceive the depth of his spiritual poverty. Jesus points first to the uniqueness of God’s holiness.

The Holiness of Our God

The young man runs up to Jesus and addresses him as “Good teacher” (v. 17). To this courteous greeting Christ offers a troubling but instructive rebuke: “Why do you call me good? . . . No one is good—except God” (v. 18). True repentance always begins by understanding the astonishing truth of this simple statement: only God is good. There is none like him. No one is comparable. No one measures up. Between his perfection and our performance there is a gulf unbridgeable by human means. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so far is God’s goodness above our own.

Jesus’ words echo the experience of the prophet Isaiah, who saw a vision of God on his throne above the earth (Isa. 6:1–8). Though Isaiah’s world was falling apart due to the corruption of the people of Israel, God remained undiminished, even untouched by the deterioration of human affairs. The essence of our God’s holiness is that he is wholly other. He is separate from anything that would sully his glory or diminish his perfection. He is majestic, elevated, high and lifted up. He is not entangled by his creatures’ failures. He is not tainted by earth’s stain. He is pure. The radiance from that purity is so brilliant that even the heavenly hosts cover their eyes and themselves in his presence. They want neither to see nor to be seen in the intensity of the blinding and burning illumination of God’s holy glory. Nothing created, either in heaven or on earth, appears as virtuous in the presence of this glorious holiness. Only God is truly good.

Before the purity of God’s nature, all human righteousness withers into inadequacy. Many sensed this anew at the national clergy conference hosted by the Promise Keepers movement in February 1996. Forty-five thousand church leaders gathered in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. During one of their meetings a conference leader led the clergy in an antiphonal recitation of the angelic chant of Isaiah 6: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” As the forty-five thousand voices filled the stadium with the resounding proclamation of the holiness of God, some got out of their seats and knelt on the ground. Others fell face-downward in recognition and honor of the majesty of God’s holiness.

These church leaders’ worship demonstrated why true repentance starts with recognition of the holiness of our God. We cannot rightly perceive the greatness of his goodness without apprehending the puniness of our own. Such a realization causes us to fall down in humility before God as did psalmist and apostle when apprehension of God’s unique goodness tore from their hearts this assessment of humanity: “There is no one who does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:12; cf. Ps. 14:3). Only God is good.

The Reality of Our Sin

Jesus knows that the young man will not apprehend the significance of God alone being good, so he engineers an exchange that should clarify the truth. To the young man’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies, in essence, “Keep the commandments” (Mark 10:18–19).

Jesus’ response startles us. It sounds as though he is telling the young man that good works really do forge the path of salvation. Before we go further, we have to ask, did Jesus really believe that our deeds would save us? The answer lies within the passage. The account begins with the words, “As Jesus started on his way . . .” (v. 17), and by its end we learn where he was going. “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he [Jesus] said, “and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise” (vv. 33–34). Christ’s plan makes it clear that he did not believe that our works would save us. He knew that he had to die for that. Jesus’ instructions to the rich young man do not reflect a plan of salvation but underscore the Lord’s plan of revelation—to help the man see himself.

The young man asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The question itself reveals a certain amount of hubris. We cannot do anything to inherit something. What we inherit comes to us by virtue of our birth and what someone else has done (which is a vital spiritual truth for those who believe that we inherit heaven as a result of our rebirth and what Christ has done). But Jesus plays along with the pretentious question by offering a preposterous answer.

Jesus says, “If you want to get eternal life from a holy God on the basis of what you do, then keep all of his commandments.” That is to say, “If you really think that it’s all up to you, then the way that you gain eternal life is plain: be perfect!” Samuel Bolton explains the rationale of Christ’s strategy:

When men will be saviors of themselves, when they look for righteousness by the law, Christ bids them go and keep the commandments . . . and this He does to humble them and bring them to Himself. But if men are humble and broken by a sight of their sins, then, without mention of the law at all, He comforts them with the free promises of grace, saying: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will ease you.”2

The young man’s proposal to justify himself before God is plain to Jesus and clarifies why Jesus must speak to him in such an abrupt manner.

Even more preposterous is what the young man says next. To Jesus’ proposal that he should keep all the commandments, the young man replies, “Teacher, . . . all these I have kept since I was a boy” (v. 20). We must consider these words in the light of those preceding. Jesus has just said, “Only God is good.” Now, what does the young man reply only seconds later? “I am, too”!

With his claim to have kept all the commandments, the man elevates himself to the stature of God. In doing so, he has committed the worst sin possible for a Jew: he has broken the first commandment against having other gods. Yet because he does not perceive how preposterous is his claim to have achieved the holiness that God requires and alone possesses, the man remains unaware of the horror of his wrong. The words of the book of Revelation well apply to this man:

You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. (Rev. 3:17)

The rich young man’s words and actions remind us that, without apprehension of God’s holiness, we cannot see the reality of our sin. True repentance must include awareness of the magnitude of our spiritual destitution; therefore, real repentance must begin with recognition of God’s incomparable and unachievable holiness.

When we do not apprehend the true nature of our wrongdoing, we do not hate it sufficiently to seek its expulsion. True repentance requires grief and remorse that cries out, “How could I have done such a thing? Please, God, take the guilt and presence of this evil from my life!”

Without such a loathing of the sin that has been magnified by God’s holiness, not only will we fail to repent; we will not even see our wrong. Steve Brown, the wonderful radio preacher of grace, recently reported the reaction of a man to a sermon in which Steve confessed to being “a sinner as much in need of God’s pardoning grace as anyone else.” Said the man afterwards, “All my life, I’ve heard pastors and missionaries say what awful sinners they are, but you are the first one I believe . . . because you seem to believe it.”3 Confession of such need of grace will not come until we begin viewing our lives from heaven’s holy perspective.

Few of us will believe that we are in dire need of repentance if we base our understanding of our own need on comparisons to the obvious failings of others. It is the comparison to God’s holiness that makes what is minor in the world’s eyes wrenching to the Christian heart. That is why Paul would say, late in his ministry, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1 Tim. 1:15). As Paul grew in Christ, he became increasingly aware of his sinfulness before a holy God.4 The more our understanding of God matures, the more we recognize our need of repentance.

I too must recognize that true repentance will not come until I believe that I am the worst of sinners. This does not mean that I have committed the most heinous of crimes. Rather, I must acknowledge that with the privileges, position, background, and knowledge God has given me, my sin is a greater betrayal of my Savior than the actions of those who act in ignorance and disadvantage. None of us can truly repent or become spiritually mature until this realization and humility grips us.

The Evil of Our Righteousness

To make us realize how great is our need of repentance, Jesus gives us a special perspective in this passage. To expose this young ruler to the depth of his sin, Jesus, who knows that the young man will not face his sin, confronts him with “the evil of our righteousness.” The early American evangelist George Whitefield first used this phrase to confront the self-righteous with the inadequacy of their own goodness to qualify them for heaven.

I rediscovered the arresting power of Whitefield’s phrase when recently talking with another pastor in an airport restaurant about the nature of true repentance. When I said, “George Whitefield taught that we need to sense not only the evil of our sin but the evil of our righteousness,” a woman listening nearby turned to us. “Oh no!” she said. “Do you mean that I have to feel guilty for good, too?” I smiled and said, “No, that is not really the point, but God wants us to know that our good works are not good enough to make him love us. That is why we need Jesus no matter how good we think we are.” The goodness in our good works can be truly good and a blessing to others. There is a danger in making people think that there is nothing they can do that will please God or help others. Still, there is never sufficient goodness in our best works to make them truly holy by God’s ultimate standard.5 That is why our best works still fall short of qualifying us for heaven.

A problem of wealth? Jesus must make plain to the rich young man the inadequacy of our best works for building a ladder to heaven. When the man says that he has kept all the commandments, Jesus probably at least raises a mental eyebrow and observes the situation. Here is a man who has just blasphemed God by claiming to be as holy as he; yet this blasphemer thinks he is good enough for God! So if he really thinks that he has fulfilled all of God’s law, what can Jesus require that will make the man realize that our goodness, even remarkable goodness, falls short of all the holiness God requires?

Jesus indicates that the man lacks only “one thing” to gain what he desires. Then Jesus indicates the magnitude of that one thing. Jesus says that the young man must “go, sell everything you have and give to the poor. . . . Then come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). By his appearance and responses the young man has made it plain that he is living for himself. When Jesus identifies this “one thing” lacking, the man readily recognizes what Jesus requires. He requires everything.

We should not interpret Jesus’ words as meaning that all wealthy people must give away all their money in order to gain heaven. While Jesus makes clear that wealth can be a stumbling block to our trusting in him (v. 25), God also grants wealth for his purposes (e.g., 1 Chron. 29:12–14; Prov. 22:4; Luke 8:3; Acts 16:14–15). Before we give all our wealth away (for in comparison to most of the world, virtually everyone in North America is “wealthy”), we should recognize the danger of inverting the message of this account. Were we to teach that any great act of human effort or charity qualifies us for heaven, then we would fall into the error of the rich young man’s perspective.

Christ’s message to this young man is that nothing we can do will give us standing before God; nothing we can do is enough. Even if the man were to sell all he has and give to the poor, he still must continue to “follow” Jesus. And if the rich young man were to follow Jesus, where would that road lead? It would lead to a cross in Jerusalem where Jesus will show that his resources alone can pay what God requires.

A rite of passage! Even marvelous obedience does not contain sufficient goodness to merit God’s acceptance. This understanding matures our repentance as we realize that if even our best works fall short of God’s holy requirements, then our faults are all the more despicable.

One of the things my father taught all his sons was how to use a crosscut saw. His daddy and his daddy’s daddy had taught their sons, and my father was not going to let this rite of passage for rural Southern manhood end with him. One brisk fall morning we began sawing on a log that we did not know had a rotten core. When we had just sawed partially through the log, it split and fell off the sawing frame. The timber hit the ground so hard that a large piece was sheared off the rotten log. In my childhood imagination the unusual shape of the sheared piece looked like a horse head. It so captured my interest that I took it home with me after that day of sawing.

For my father’s next birthday, I attached a length of two-by-four board to that log head, attached a rope tail, and stuck on some sticks to act as legs. Then I halfway hammered in a dozen or so nails down the two-by-four body of that “horse,” wrapped the whole thing in butcher block paper, put a bow on it, and presented it to my father. When he took off the wrapping, he smiled and said, “Thank you, it’s wonderful . . . what is it?”

“It’s a tie rack, Dad,” I said. “See, you can put your ties on those nails going down the side of the horse’s body.” My father smiled again and thanked me. Then he leaned the horse against his closet wall (because the stick legs could not keep it standing upright), and for years he used it as a tie rack.

Now, when I first gave my father that rotten-log-horse-head tie rack, I really thought it was “good.” In my childish mind this creation was a work of art ready for the Metropolitan Museum. But as I matured, I realized that my work was not nearly as good as I had once thought. In fact, I understood ultimately that my father had received and used my gift not because of its goodness but out of his goodness. In a similar way our heavenly Father receives our gifts not so much because they deserve his love, but because he is love.

A new measure. The “great disproportion” between our good works and God’s holiness never goes away in this life. Our works will never earn God’s affection, just as they will never merit his pardon. Our best deeds will never be sufficiently free of the contamination of human motive and imperfection that they are acceptable to God on their own merit.6 As the authors of the Westminster Confession wrote,

As they are wrought by us, they [our good works] are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment. . . .

Believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in Him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblameable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that He, looking upon them in His Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. 7

Not only do our good works not pardon our sin; they are, in fact, so mixed with our sinfulness that, if God did not act in love, they would actually be subject to his judgment. This understanding of the “evil of our righteousness” gives us a new measuring rod for our sin, which we would not dare to use were we not certain of God’s grace.

If even our good works are blameworthy, then what is the true character of our sin? The answer can only be that it is utterly abhorrent to God—and should be to us. We cannot repent until this reality has hit us. John Colquhoun, in his classic description of the means of spiritual growth, wrote that true repentance is characterized by “a sense not only of our evil doings, but of the evil of our doings; not only of our sin but of the exceeding sinfulness of our sin.”8

The repentance that enables our progressive sanctification does not come without our learning to loathe the evil of our wrongdoing. This loathing becomes the true attitude of our hearts as we meditate on the holiness of our God, the reality of our sin, and even the evil of our righteousness. These are the graces of perception that God supplies in his Word to break us from our affection for the sin that so easily entangles us (Heb. 12:1).

God wants us to understand the true malignancy of our sin—the problem is too severe to be remedied by our goodness. Even if the extent of the disease is not readily apparent to human eyes, the Bible’s analysis of the seriousness of our condition should cause us to examine all the arteries, vessels, and capillaries of the way we live. As we test all our relationships, patterns of speech, entertainments, habits, and even religious practices, we progressively discover the cancerous cells that threaten our spiritual health. These discoveries will create healthy dissatisfaction with our level of personal goodness even as they turn us toward the true means of our ultimate healing.

A new discernment. A friend told me recently of his pastor’s response to a sharp criticism. The pastor’s response to his critic was, “I will listen to every word that you have to say and take it to the Lord for examination. I want to be corrected if I am wrong.” Remarkable to the man who reported this to me was his pastor’s greater desire to discern the possible evil in his own heart rather than to dodge blame or reproof. This is the mark of a repentant heart: it recognizes the awfulness of sin (even hidden sin) and listens to the prompting of the Spirit and the counsel of others to see “if there is any offensive way in me” (Ps. 139:24). The unrepentant person cannot face sin, and therefore seeks to blame others, minimize the sin, or deny its presence. The repentant person sees sin as it truly is—an assault on the peace and purity of the soul—and thus is thankful for correction.

The benefits of repentance for the relationships of our lives were reflected in a recent letter from Ugandan missionary Rick Gray. He wrote of an event in his life that demonstrated the necessity of discerning the contaminating evil even in a work as noble as translating catechism lessons:

I need to be aware of my subtle tendency to make ministry an end in itself: whereby I do things so that I can feel good about myself. . . . Another peril of ministry becoming too activity-focused is that it causes me to lose sight of Jesus, and to lose the sense of His Spirit’s leading. While checking the 1st draft of the “Katekisimo” [catechism] I became intent on finishing a certain amount of pages per day. One afternoon as time was ticking away, and my dear Mubwisi co-translator struggled to come up with just the right Lubwisi word to express the English meaning, I grew impatient with him. I became harsh and unsympathetic to his inability to go faster. My penchant to get the job done blinded me to Christ’s presence with us, and deafened me to the Spirit’s conviction of my sin.

Unless I maintain a Jesus-centeredness in the midst of ministry, I will be unable to love people well and bring glory to God. Only as I realize my self-worth is determined by how awesome is the Savior’s love for me, and not by how productive is my work for Him, will I be free from my drivenness and need to accomplish tasks. When I gaze upon his nail-pierced hands and believe they are actually reaching out to embrace me, then I am empowered to reach out with similar compassion and care to those around me. 9

The understanding that we should desire repentance because it removes contaminants from our relationship with God and with others helps distinguish false from true repentance. False repentance is less concerned with the spiritual contamination of sin than it is with the personal consequences of sin. True repentance is chiefly concerned with the wrong we have done to our Savior and to others. Repentance of the first kind is self-preoccupied; true repentance is a selfless seeking of spiritual fellowship and renewal. False repentance flees correction; true repentance seeks it.

A Longing for Sin’s Cure

Because true repentance makes us sense the depth and awfulness of sin, it naturally leads to the next element of repentance that is missing in the rich young ruler’s responses. If our sin is truly abhorrent to us, then we want to be rid of it. We long for a cure to the disease of sin. At least two attitudes characterize this longing: a desire to offer confession and a desire to receive grace.

A Desire to Offer Confession

Again Jesus indicates what true repentance requires by making clear what the rich young man will not offer. In his professing that he has kept all the laws, the rich man displays not only his ignorance of the real requirements of the Law but also his lack of desire to open his heart to God. When the Spirit has truly touched our hearts regarding the presence and awfulness of our sin, confession leaps to our lips. We see our sin for the spiritual poison that it is, and we long to spit it out. This young man indicates no such longing. He desires to receive reward rather than to offer confession (Mark 10:17). True repentance is not so much asking, “What honor do I get from my faith?” but rather, “How may I give myself in humility to God?” The heart that is most spiritually sensitive and committed is simultaneously most aware of its need of grace.10

During the Great Awakening, when the Spirit of God revived much of our nation’s early faith, Jonathan Edwards was presiding over a massive prayer meeting. Eight hundred men prayed with him. Into that meeting a woman sent a message asking the men to pray for her husband. The note described a man who in spiritual pride had become unloving, proud, and difficult. Edwards read the message in private and then, thinking that perhaps the man described was present, the great preacher made a bold request. Edwards first read the note to the eight hundred men. Then he asked if the man who had been described would raise his hand so that the whole assembly could pray for him.

Three hundred men raised their hands. Each had been convicted by the Spirit of their sin, and now they longed to confess. A repentant life is so characterized. Rather than hiding sin, or minimizing it, or blaming others, the repentant heart longs to confess.

Humble acknowledgment of our wrong characterizes the prayer times of the repentant life. We do not hide from God matters large or small, obvious or obscure. We not only want to confess to God the sin we are aware of; we pray for his Holy Spirit to reveal the things hidden from our own consciences so that we might confess them as well (Ps. 19:12–14). True repentance is evident when we are as much concerned about deep and hidden sins as we are about the faults that others can observe. The repentant heart desires full confession. It is more concerned about relationship with God than about reputation among men (Ps. 51:4–6).

A Desire to Receive Grace

If we know that our best works will not merit pardon for sin, and we long to confess wrong so that we may be rid of it, then what ultimately must we seek? We ultimately seek grace. Unlike the rich young man, who wants to “do” something so that he can broker his good works into spiritual blessing (Mark 10:17), the repentant heart senses its unworthiness and yearns for God to fix the damage to our souls that we cannot fix.

A Christian friend told me recently that he and his wife had discovered that their daughter had disobeyed them and handled the family car in a way that caused an accident. The daughter could not afford to pay for the repairs or the traffic ticket. So the parents paid for the repairs and the fine with the agreement that their daughter would pay them back over time. The parents did not need her money but hoped that making her responsible would help teach her lessons needed for her own safety and maturity.

The payback system required some discipline and diligence from the daughter, and she struggled to keep the arrangements. The parents had to keep reminding her of her obligations, which frustrated the daughter as well as the parents. Finally, after one of the reminding sessions, the daughter exploded: “Daddy, don’t you and Mom know that I realize what I did was wrong? I know I was irresponsible. I know it is my problem. I wish you all would just get off my case so that I could figure out a way to fix this.” Replied her father, “Honey, what I really want you to figure out is that by yourself you can’t fix this.”

Our heavenly Father’s words are quite similar. Because we too easily echo the words of the rich young man—“What must I do . . . ?”—God replies, “What I really want you to know is that what you ‘do’ will never be enough to fix your situation. Your sin is too great and your abilities are too limited for you to fix the mess of your life. You need my grace. You must turn away from all of your own resources and trust that only what I provide will fix your situation.”

A willingness to rest. We can mentally assent to these truths about grace without applying them to the ways we actually deal with guilt. The failure of grace to affect our hearts may be evident in our very words of confession. What we consider “our repentance” may simply be a good work that we are trying to offer God as a way of brokering our pardon. We can find ourselves saying, in effect, “See, God, I feel real guilty. I got down on my knees, prayed the prayer for pardon, and tried to make things right. I said and did what you wanted. Now are you happy?”

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any single component of such repentance, unless we are trusting that offering such a plea to God will make him forgive us. If we view repentance in this way, we make repentance itself a work. In effect, we offer God the bribe of our contrition for his forgiveness. While contrition is necessary, the degree and duration of our remorse is not what earns our pardon. We have already seen that no human activity is without stain before God’s holiness. This means that even the “work” of repentance cannot merit forgiveness.

Repentance is not so much a doing as a depending. It is not so much a striving for pardon as a posture of humility. In true repentance we confess our total reliance on God’s mercy. We acknowledge the inadequacy of anything we would offer God to gain his pardon. In true repentance we rest upon God’s grace rather than trying to do anything to deserve it. We lean heavily on the words of Isaiah: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (Isa. 30:15).11

Reliance on God alone for mercy is the essence of repentance. We can make a grave mistake by overemphasizing the human-action implications of “repentance” supposedly derived from the biblical term’s historical origins. The Hebrew word we translate as repentance means “to turn.”12 If we are not careful, we may press this vocabulary insight to imply that repentance is primarily a turning from doing bad things to doing good things or, at least, saying the right things to God. Repentance is not a work of turning to new behaviors or to any conjured phrases or emotions in us. The songwriter reminds us, “Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God; not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.”13 Such human efforts cannot be our basis for being made right with God.

Repentance is not a turning from one category of works to another; rather, it is a turning from human works entirely to God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says this beautifully in answering the question: “What is repentance unto life?” The answer:

Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.14

New obedience follows true repentance, but we put no hope for pardon in what we do. Repentance is not real if we have no intention of correcting our ways, but the correction is not a condition of our forgiveness.

In biblical repentance we turn to God alone—relying on his mercy and grace—not to anything in us or done by us in order to secure his mercy. These truths also indicate that, while Scripture commands us to identify our sin and sorrow for it, neither the accuracy of our identification of the sin nor the degree of our sorrow for it compels God to forgive us. There is great comfort in this for the conscientious believer who recognizes that we are always inaccurate (or incomplete) in our perception of sin and never adequate in our remorse for it.

We can confess whatever our heart knows to be our sin, with the confidence that God’s heart is large enough to cover what we are unable fully to expose (Ps. 19:12–13). In so doing we even confess the inadequacy of our repentance, with the confidence that we can rest under the broad mantle of his grace. Like the man who cried to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief” (Mark 9:24), we should be able to say to God, “I repent even of the inadequacy of my repentance, in order that I may rely solely on your mercy.”

Remorse precedes true repentance. Changed behavior follows true repentance. But this necessary prelude and postlude of true repentance are not themselves the essence of repentance. True repentance is a denial that anything in us ever would or ever could satisfy God’s holiness or compel his pardon. We humbly concede that we can offer him nothing for what he alone can give. Then we rest in his promise to forgive those who humbly seek him. Remorse for our sin makes us repentant; but it should also make us so aware of the inability of our hearts adequately to register what God requires that we do not trust our sorrow to make us right with God. Similarly, while our gratitude for God’s pardon should make us “endeavor after new obedience,” the very source of our gratitude—awareness of the awful shortcoming of all our actions—keeps us from trusting in our obedience to make us deserving of God’s forgiveness.

A desire for renewal. Repentance, therefore, is fundamentally a humble expression of a desire for a renewed relationship with God—a relationship that we confess can be secured only by his grace. We long for his pardon, presence, and Spirit to repair the damage our sin has caused to our relationship with him. Through this we learn another mark of false repentance: a primary concern with bartering away the consequences of sin. True repentance, though certainly not desiring to face those consequences, willingly accepts them if they move us closer to fellowship with and understanding of our God. This is so because biblical repentance is primarily concerned with the renewal of our fellowship with him.

True repentance that springs from a desire for renewed intimacy with God is never the fruit of fleeing the punitive God of our imaginations. Mindful of God’s love, we approach him with humility but also with deep longing. Repentant hearts cry out to him as for a distant loved one, “Let me draw near to you, my Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. How I yearn for the reality of your love afresh in my life. Please do not persist in anger for my sin, but let me know your unfailing love” (see Psalms 84 and 85). Only awareness of unfailing divine love can produce what the repentant heart seeks when it prays, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Ps. 51:10–12).

Repentance confesses to God, “God, forgive me. The allure of this temptation was more real to me than the beauties of your promises and presence.” Repentance implores God, “Please graciously restore the reality of your care into my heart and life so that your love will be so precious that I cannot further exist with my betrayal of you. Help me to meditate more upon the character of your love revealed by Christ’s sacrifice than upon the circumstances of my life that make me doubt you.” Repentance petitions, “God, I want to seek you the way simple people do when they say that they know you are near by the way that your Word has become alive in their souls.” None but the biblically repentant heart seeks after God with such unashamed love.

A Loving of the Savior

To love God as fervently as biblical repentance requires, we must know his character. So we are also led, in this account of the unrepentant rich man, to see deeply into the heart of our Savior. This revelation only makes more sad the preoccupation with self that keeps the rich young man from giving himself to the one who is love.

True repentance (which the rich young man lacks) demands apprehension of the ugliness of sin, but it also requires seeing the beauty of the Savior. Even if our wrongdoing is abhorrent to us, we still will not turn to the one who can deal with it if he is no more attractive to us than our sin. This is why Paul reminds us that “God’s kindness leads you toward repentance” (Rom. 2:4). If we perceive God to be only an ogre in the sky waiting to pounce on those who do not properly bow and scrape, then biblical repentance—requiring a love response to God—is impossible. Thus, to make true repentance not only possible but desirable, the Gospel of Mark lets us peek behind the curtain of the Savior’s thoughts so that we will know his character and desire his fellowship.

Delight in His Vision

In view of the young man’s blasphemous boasts, few verses are more precious in Scripture than the one that describes Jesus’ attitude toward him. How does Jesus react to the rich man who has just refused to acknowledge his sin and has portrayed himself as being the equal of God? Allowing us to see behind the Savior’s eyes, the Bible says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him” (Mark 10:21). This revelation of the undeterred heart of our Lord should serve as a magnet to our souls when we have wandered from his ways.

I remember the night in high school when I stayed out too late, well beyond my curfew. I had been having fun with my friends, and the time got away from me. I was wrong, and no excuse would make my actions right. I did not want to go home because I thought that I knew what was waiting for me there. An arms-crossed, toe-tapping, voice-raised, punishment-dispensing set of parents would be at the door. Knowing that each minute of further delay was digging me deeper into trouble, I still didn’t rush to go home. I simply could not motivate myself to go and confront the anger that I was sure was waiting for me.

There was no incentive to turn from my wrong when I believed that my return home would only commence my punishment. When I finally did go home, an upset mother and father met me as I expected, but their reactions were a surprise. Though they told me that we would have to deal with the wrong the next morning, they hugged me and told me how happy they were that I was safe. Though I had sinned against them, they said and showed that they loved me. I may have missed a curfew a few times after that, but never by so much. And never again did I fear going home.

Because I knew my parents’ love even in their correction, I matured under their care. This is our heavenly Father’s intention also. He encourages us to turn to him in repentance, not by promising that there will be no correction for our sin but by showing us his heart through the ministry of Jesus. This account paints the rich young man’s sin darkly so that the love of Jesus will shine more brightly. He is able to love even those who arrogantly resist his will. He can know the worst of our sin and still look at us and love us. Because God’s character never changes, he looks at us in our sin and still loves us. His arms remain open, and his ears are still attentive to our cry. He may be angry at our rebellion, but he is never angry at our return (2 Chron. 30:9; Isa. 44:22; Jer. 3:14, 22; 4:1; Joel 2:12–13; Zech. 1:3). His kindness draws us back to him and away from our sin.

Delight in His Path

The quality of the love in Christ’s arms is revealed not only by the look in his eyes at this stage of his journey but also in his sacrifice at the journey’s end. The beauty of our Savior shines in both the love he showed and in the life he shared. For our blasphemies and pride, for our rebellion and arrogance, he would surrender himself to die (Mark 10:33). The beauty of love displayed in our Lord’s willingness to walk this path encourages us to walk with him just as he encouraged the rich young man to do.

My first date with my wife came when I was on an outing with her family. As the new, single minister of their little country church, I was invited to the family’s picnic. We went to a restored Victorian-era village known as Elsah, Illinois, snuggled into the bluffs along the Mississippi River.

Though the October air was cool, the day was bright, and after our lunch the young woman I had just met offered to show me the village, which she had already visited many times. Against the brilliant hues of the fall leaves in the sunlight, this beautiful blonde with green eyes in a red sweater asked me, “Would you like to take a walk with me?” It was not a difficult question to answer. I said, “You bet!” Her beauty made me delight to follow her.

Jesus reveals a different kind of beauty about himself, of course, in this passage as he shows his love for the unlovable. Still, seeing our Lord’s loveliness of heart, we know what the young man’s response should be when Jesus says, “Follow me” (v. 21). The natural response of one who has seen the beauty of the Savior is to follow him.

We delight to walk with our Lord down the path of life because through our repentance we have understood how altogether lovely he is (Song 5:16). Our obedience is not the foundation or condition of God’s receiving our repentance; it is the natural outflow of a heart that has experienced his grace. Our new willingness to follow Christ helps reassure us that we have experienced the transforming power of grace. Our delight in walking with him validates love for him in our hearts even amid remorse for sin against him. Thus, though there may be many stumbles and setbacks along the path, true repentance leads naturally to new obedience.

Though the Bible does not teach that obedience is a condition of God’s pardon, it cautions against thinking that God will forgive where there is no real change of heart. God is not waiting for us to fix our lives before he forgives us, for then none would be forgiven; but he does not promise forgiveness where repentance is not sincere. While we should not delay repentance until we have corrected our sin, we also should not think that God will accept repentance from a heart still in rebellion against him. If repentance is only a tool to manipulate God into averting the consequences of our wrongdoing, without any real intention of changing our ways, then we should remember that God will not hear those who cherish sin in their heart (see Ps. 66:18; James 4:6).

Still, God is pleased to receive sincere confession “although accompanied by many weaknesses and imperfections.”15 He will forgive even though we remain susceptible to temptation and may repeatedly fail to do what he—and we ourselves—desire (see Gal. 5:17; Rom. 7:19–25). Through repentance God provides the spiritual nourishment we need to walk his path, even though we may need to partake of that sustenance many times. What will keep us returning to the table of repentance is delight in the fare that our Lord spreads for us there—his pardon, his grace, his tutelage, his love, and our joy.

Delight in Him

The reason we should keep on the Savior’s path despite the stumbles that distress us is evident in the mental state of the rich young man as the story ends. As he leaves without repentance, there is something else missing from his life: he has no joy. “He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:22).

We ought to ask, “Why did he go away sad? He still had all his money.” The simple answer is that he did not have Jesus. By not being willing to leave his other god, wealth, the young man kept himself from fellowship with the Lord. He denied himself the blessings of walking with his Savior.

In terms that we wish the rich young man would understand, songwriter Lynn DeShazo describes the repentant heart’s perception of Christ:

Lord, you are more precious than silver,

Lord, you are more costly than gold,

Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds,

And nothing I desire compares with you.16

Repentance that renews precious fellowship with our incomparably wonderful God ultimately furthers our joy. Just as we cannot enter into true repentance without sorrow for our guilt, we cannot emerge from true repentance without joy for our release from shame.

Neither of these emotions merits forgiveness or makes repentance work, but repentance operates effectively only within the environment of a conscience filled with both of these natural responses to grace. This is why, after his sin with Bathsheba, David confesses to God, “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,” and prays also, “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. . . . Restore to me the joy of your salvation. . . . O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise” (Ps. 51:4, 8, 12, 15). Thus, the repentant life is characterized by each of the following: an apprehension of the destitution of all our works; a confession of wrong with a willingness to turn from it; and, an appreciation for the pardoning grace of God, which results in joy.

Repentance That Sings

If we could see the dimensions of spiritual illness as plainly as we can the effects of physical disease, then perhaps the nature and effects of repentance would be more obvious to us. On November 8, 1995, Dan and Carol Walker welcomed to the world a newborn son, Joel Daniel. Just ten or fifteen minutes after the newborn had finished his first feeding, he turned completely blue and went limp in his mother’s hands. Carol screamed, “What’s wrong with my baby?”

A nurse took Joel Daniel from his mother’s arms and ran with the newborn to the nursery to try to restore his breathing. Carol later wrote, “Dan, myself, and others in the room began praying earnestly that our boy would live. Each passing moment seemed like an eternity. We wanted the miracle of life for our son! The next minutes and hours we continued to cry out to God on behalf of our firstborn child. Finally, the nurse came in with the words, ‘Your son is alive.’”

Due to a rare disorder that kept a valve at the base of the child’s esophagus from operating properly, his life had been in greater danger than anyone had known. This one episode did not end the danger. After repeated crises, the parents desperately wanted the surgery that would provide a cure. Despite the difficulty such early surgery would be for them and their baby, Carol and Dan longed for it. When the day of the surgery came, friends gathered with the parents in the baby’s hospital room to await the outcome. Again, prayers were earnestly offered for the health of the child. Finally, the doctor came to report that the surgery was over, and that Joel Daniel would be fine. The small crowd in the room cheered, and burst into spontaneous singing of the Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

praise him all creatures here below,

praise him above, ye heavenly host:

praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.17

When they perceived how great was the physical danger, these parents longed for a cure. Then, in recognition of their personal helplessness, they called for the one who could help. They put themselves entirely in the healing hands of another, and, when help mercifully came, they were filled with joy.

When the attack of sin on our soul is as real to us as such a physical attack on our bodies, then how we are to seek God’s help and respond to it will be clear. In the light of God’s holiness, we will perceive how awful is the disease of our sin and how helpless we are against it. Then we will cry out to God for the help that he alone can give. And when his mercy has made us whole, recognizing how great is our rescue we will experience overwhelming joy.

Viewing the spiritual dynamics of repentance through the analogy of a physical healing corrects some common misconceptions of what God expects of us. No one doubts that God expects repentance, but what characterizes a repentant life? As most would expect, a repentant heart expresses an honest loathing of our spiritual disease and a longing for God to heal our relationship with him. But surprising as it may seem, a life characterized by repentance also exhibits joy. When we have seen the malignancy of the sin in our soul and have perceived how freely God’s mercy flows to remove it from our lives, we naturally exhibit joy.

The evidence of complete repentance is not the stereotypical gritted teeth and grinding resolve or even groaning and groveling. The reverberations of repentance sound more like singing. Yes, God can lead us through a dark night of the soul to enable us to see and to grieve for sin. And as we wrestle against our pride and rebellion to find rest in the mercy of God, we may know great pain. But when we have understood, trusted, and received the freeing grace of repentance, rejoicing fills our hearts. Without this joy that is our strength, the new obedience that should be the fruit of true repentance is impossible. Like the rich young man we, too, go away sad and unwilling to follow Jesus. By contrast, biblical repentance renews in us thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s mercy. Knowing his pardon, we delight to serve him with a childlike love and a willing mind. Repentance renews our joy.

2 Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom (1645; repr. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1978), 107–8.

3 Steve Brown, commencement address, Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO, May 1989.

4 Paul’s self-assessment as he progressed through life was first that he was the “least of the apostles” (1 Cor. 15:9), then that he was “less than the least of all God’s people” (Eph. 3:8), and finally that he was the “worst of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:16).

5 B. B. Warfield, “Miserable Sinners Christianity,” The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1931), 126–32.

6 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3.15.3.

7 Westminster Confession of Faith, 16.5.6.

8 John Colquhoun, Repentance (1826; repr. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1965), 17.

9 Rick Gray, World Harvest Mission and Mission to the World prayer letter, summer 1999.

10 G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957), 117.

11 Even the faith through which God saves us is itself not a work. Rather, it also is a resting in Christ. The Westminster Shorter Catechism describes it thus: “Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel” (Q. 86).

12 The New Testament term is metanoia, which means to change one’s mind. However, the biblical context for the term implies more than simply thinking new and right thoughts that God will honor because we are now doing (or even thinking) good stuff to make up for the previous bad stuff. Metanoia is a total change of personal orientation, a grieving for what formerly brought us gratification and a looking away from anything in us to merit God’s forgiveness as we depend instead on his mercy alone.

13 Horatius Bonar, “Not What My Hands Have Done,” The Trinity Hymnal (Philadelphia: Great Commission Publications, 1998), no. 461.

14 Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 87.

15 Westminster Confession of Faith, 16.6.

16 Lynn DeShazo, “More Precious Than Silver” (Mobile, AL: Integrity Music, 1979).

17 Thomas Ken, “Doxology,” Trinity Hymnal, no. 731.

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