Chapter VI
CHAPTER VI: CONCERNING THE EFFICIENT CAUSE AND INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE OF REPENTANCE
The efficient cause of repentance.
§ 35. The principal efficient cause of true and salutary repentance is God alone or, what is the same, the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and does not act in the work of conversion with a separate power but with the same power that is of the Father and of the Son. Thus it amounts to the same thing whether you say that God is the cause of repentance or that this work must be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. That is why the work of conversion is particularly attributed to the Holy Spirit in some statements of Scripture, because the ministry of the Word through which God works repentance in the hearts of people is called “the ministry of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:8). And as the work of creation is attributed to the Father and redemption is attributed to the Son, so sanctification is attributed to the Holy Spirit, though the Son and the Holy Spirit have not been excluded from creation, nor the Father and the Holy Spirit from redemption, nor the Father and the Son from sanctification.
Therefore we are displeased with Bucanus’s statement (Loci theol., locus 30, p. 291): “The principal cause [κύριον αἴτιον] of repentance is God; the contributing cause [συναίτιον], the Holy Spirit.”1 But the works of the Holy Trinity toward things outside [ad extra] are undivided. As there is one divinity of three persons, so also there is one power and working [ἐνέργεια].
Notwithstanding, from the following passages of Scripture it is proven that the true God alone is the principal efficient cause of repentance. (1) Passages in which the work of conversion is attributed in clear language to God. “Hear me, O Lord, that this people may learn that You are Jehovah and that You have turned [converteris] back their heart” (1 Kings 18:37). “Convert me, O Lord, and I shall be converted, for after You converted me, I repented” (Jer. 31:18–19). “Convert us, and we shall be converted and saved” (Lam. 5:21). “I will give you a new heart. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). (Just as a sheep which once has been carried off into the byways of errors cannot of itself and of its own powers return to its path and rejoin its flock, so also we cannot of ourselves return to the way of salvation. Thus Christ commends Himself to us by the very sweet picture of Himself being the shepherd who seeks out the scattered and wandering and, in fact, lost sheep.) “God has exalted Him” (Jesus) “with His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). The church praises the beneficence of God because “He gave repentance unto salvation even to the Gentiles” (Acts 11:18). “When we were dead in sins, God made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). The apostle commands the minister to be patient with those who resist, “if perhaps God may give them repentance, that they may recover themselves (ἀνανήφωσιν) from the snares of the devil” (2 Tim. 2:25–26).
** “Behold, I will give of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and bow down before Your feet and know that I have loved You” (Rev. 3:9). **
(2) Passages in which the work of conversion is attributed in particular to the Holy Spirit. “My Spirit will not dispute with men forever, for they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3). The Holy Spirit certainly intended to work repentance in the hearts of people through the Word, but since they all followed the pleasures of the flesh, they stubbornly despised the admonitions and reproofs of the Holy Spirit. “I will give you a new Spirit” (I will renew you unto repentance through the Holy Spirit) (Ezek. 36:26). “The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment” (John 16:8).
(3) Passages in which the power to convert oneself is removed from the powers of man. “Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil every day” (Gen. 6:5; 8:21). “Your eyes have seen the great signs and wonders, but to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear” (Deut. 29:3–4). People are said “to sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79), to be “darkness” (John 1:5; Eph. 5:8), to be “dead in sins” (Eph. 2:1). How, then, can they convert themselves to light and spiritual life by their own powers? Christ says, “No one comes to Me unless the Father draws Him” (John 6:44, 65). “We are not sufficient to think anything from ourselves, as coming from ourselves,” etc. (2 Cor. 3:5).
(4) Passages in which the work of conversion is attributed to the ministers of the church, for God does this through their ministry. John the Baptist “will turn the hearts of the Israelites to the Lord” (Luke 1:16). The Lord says to Paul: “I will send you to the Gentiles to open their eyes that they may be turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:17[–18]). “We are ambassadors in the name of Christ, for God is exhorting through us” (2 Cor. 5:20).
§ 36. The following statements of the ancients should be placed here. Ambrose (on Luke 22): “Those at whom Jesus looks deplore their sin. Peter denied and did not weep because the Lord had not looked at him. He denied a second time and did not weep because the Lord still had not looked at him. He denied for the third time, and Jesus looked at him, and he wept very bitterly.”
Augustine (or Fulgentius, as some want) (De fide ad Petrum, ch. 31): “Hold firmly and do not doubt that no man here can repent unless God has enlightened and converted him by His free pitying, for the apostle says, ‘If God may perhaps give them repentance, that they may recover themselves from the snares of the devil’ [2 Tim. 2:26].” [Augustine again] (Enchir., ch. 82): “The mercy of God is necessary not only when repentance happens but also in order that it may happen; otherwise the apostle would not say, ‘If God may perhaps give them repentance’ [2 Tim. 2:26]. Also, in order that Peter might weep bitterly, he sent the Gospel ahead and says, ‘The Lord looked at him’ [Luke 22:61].”
** [Augustine again] (on Psalm 84): “Did not He who has called you back again Himself bring it about that you were converted?” Cassiodorus (on Ps. 32:8): “You see that sinners do not have understanding except when the Lord, appeased, forgives the converted.” **
Gregory (on Ezekiel, homily 8): “Who infused this” (repentance) “within Mary Magdalene inwardly except He who kindly received her outwardly? Who urged her to tears through the Spirit of compunction except He who externally accepted her to pardon in the presence of those who were reclining together?”
Ephraem (De compunct. cordis, 1, toward the middle of ch. 6): “We neglect praying to Him, and we delay calling upon Him, but He Himself loves us and has mercy on us. He Himself illumines the eyes of our mind, and He Himself offers us the grace of His compunction.”
Anselm (Enarr. evang., f. 291): “Of our own selves we have the resources to fall into sin, but of our own selves we do not have the resources to rise back up to forgiveness.”
Bernard (on Song of Songs, sermon 3): “He who has given the will to repent must also add the power to restrain oneself, etc. Without Him I can do nothing—nothing, I say—because [I can] neither repent nor restrain.” Bernard repeats this (De 7 panib., sermon 2, col. 180): “It was the third mercy of God that He visited and cleansed my heart, that what had been sickeningly sweet before might become bitter.”
Gerson (De remed. contra pusill.) “No one should presume that he wants or is able to rise up from his sins of himself or to beware of sins, for this comes only from divine grace. Therefore let everyone beware of a sign of such great arrogance.”
Bede (commentary on Ezra, bk. 3, ch. 23): “Through the Holy Spirit the devotion to repent is infused in us and the gift of pardon is granted to those who repent.”
Granatensis himself acknowledges this and thus writes (Memorale vitae Christian., bk. 2, ch. 2, p. 66): “A person who is born bent or humpbacked from the womb of his mother can discover no medicine nor natural power by which he can be restored to natural erectness. So also, since our will is born with this spiritual hump or curve, there is no one who can rectify it and lift it up to God in such a way that it loves God above all things, except God Himself, who created it. Therefore just as a person cannot acquire this love which transcends all things without God, so also he cannot grieve over all things without the special gift and help of God, for the one thing depends upon the other.”
[Granatensis again] (Conc. 1. Pasch., from the Meditat. of Augustine):
I recognized You too late, O true Light. I recognized You too late, for a great dark cloud came before the eyes of my vanity which caused me not to see the light of truth. I recognized You too late, O ancient Truth, because I was blind, loved my blindness, and was walking to darkness through darkness. But You, my Illuminator, sought me, though I was not seeking You; You called me, though I was not calling You. You cried out with a loud voice and said, “Let there be light in the inner parts of this heart!” and there was light, and the great dark cloud which had covered my eyes left. I saw Your light and recognized the darkness in which I had been, etc.
(With this comparison between creation and conversion he clearly teaches that true and salutary repentance is the work of God alone.)