1972), 92 – 93.
The Call to Repentance
truth" (2 Tim. 2:25). If God is the One who grants repentance, it cannot be viewed as a human work.
Above all, repentance is not a presalvation attempt to set one's life in order. The call to repentance is not a command to make sin right before turning to Christ in faith. Rather, it is a command to recognize one's lawlessness and hate it, to turn one's back on it and flee to Christ, embracing Him with wholehearted devotion. As J. I. Packer has written, "The repentance that Christ requires of His people consists in a settled refusal to set any limit to the claims which He may make on their lives."17
Repentance is not simply a mental activity; genuine repentance involves the intellect, emotions, and will.18 Geerhardus Vos wrote:
Our Lord's idea of repentance is as profound and comprehensive as his conception of righ teous ness. Of the three words that are used in the Greek Gospels to describe the process, one emphasizes the emotional element of regret, sorrow over the past evil course of life, metamélomai; Matt. 21:29 – 32; a second expresses reversal of the entire mental attitude, metanoéom, Matt. 12:41, Luke 11:32; 15:7, 10; the third denotes a change in the direction of life, one goal being substituted for another, epistréphomai; Matt. 13:15 (and parallels); Luke 17:4; 22:32. Repentance is not limited to any single faculty of the mind: it engages the entire man, intellect, will and aff ections. . . . Again, in the new life which follows repentance the absolute supremacy of God is the controlling principle. He who repents turns away from the ser vice of mammon and self to the ser vice of God.19
Intellectually, repentance begins with a recognition of sin — the understanding that we are sinners, that our sin is an affront to a holy God, and more precisely, that we are personally responsible for our own guilt. The repentance that leads to salvation must also include a recognition of who Christ is along with some understanding of His right to govern people's lives.
Emotionally, genuine repentance often accompanies an overwhelming sense of sorrow. This sorrow in and of itself is not repentance; one can be sorry or ashamed without being truly repentant. Judas, for example, felt remorse (Matt. 27:3), but he was not repentant. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful (19:22), but he was not repentant. Nevertheless, sorrow can lead to genuine repentance. Second Corinthians 7:10 says, "The sorrow that is according to the
17. J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1961), 72. 18. Cf. Berkhof, Systematic Th eology, 486. 19. Geerhardus Vos, Th e Kingdom of God and the Church (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972), 92 – 93.