Repentance unto life

This week's questions

What is repentance unto life? 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 endeavour after, new obedience.

Question 87

Of the three things Question 85 named, faith came last week; this week is repentance. From next week the catechism turns to the third, the outward and ordinary means, which the church calls the means of grace.

Seeing our sin, seeing his mercy

Repentance, like faith, is ‘a saving grace’, a gift of God. In the first proof text the church in Jerusalem, hearing from Peter what had happened in the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, glorified God that he had granted even the Gentiles "repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18): the catechism's phrase is theirs. Paul, too, hopes that "God may grant them repentance" (2 Timothy 2:25).

Repentance begins by seeing two things together. The first is our own sin, as the crowd at Pentecost saw theirs:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Acts 2:37

The Larger Catechism describes this as ‘the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins’ Larger Catechism, Q. 76, as does the Westminster Confession WCF 15.2: not only fear of what sin brings on us, but seeing how ugly sin itself is before God.

The second is God's mercy in Christ. In the next proof text God calls:

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.” So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. And He relents from sending disaster.

Joel 2:12-13

When Ephraim moans, "Restore me, that I may return", God answers that his heart yearns for him, his precious son (Jeremiah 31:18-20). Whoever sees only sin despairs; whoever sees only mercy makes light of sin. Those who see both return to God. The prodigal, remembering his father's house, came to his senses and went home (Luke 15:17-20). The English pastor Matthew Henry writes there, "To look unto God as a Father, and our Father, will be of great use in our repentance and return to him" Matthew Henry.

Turning to God

Seeing both, we grieve for our sin and hate it. Ezekiel tells the people to whom God gives a new heart, "you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and abominations" (Ezekiel 36:31). In another proof text Paul counts what godly sorrow produced in the Corinthians: "what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal" (2 Corinthians 7:11). The verse before sets this sorrow beside the sorrow of the world, and contrasts where each one ends (2 Corinthians 7:10).

At the heart of repentance is the turn itself: not only away from sin but ‘unto God’. And it comes ‘with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience’: not a sinless obedience, but a settled purpose and real effort to stop doing evil and learn to do right (Isaiah 1:16-17). A new obedience takes a lifetime, and so does repentance. The first of Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses calls the whole life of believers a life of repentance Ninety-five Theses, 1, and the Heidelberg Catechism speaks of the dying of the old man and the quickening of the new Q. 88.

The Westminster Confession teaches that everyone is bound to make private confession of his sins to God, praying for pardon, and that one who has given offence to a brother or to the church ought to be willing to declare his repentance to those offended WCF 15.6. Repentance begins before God and reaches to our neighbours. Yet repentance is not to be rested in ‘as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof’, though ‘none may expect pardon without it’ WCF 15.3.

Churches differ on how and before whom sins are confessed. In the Catholic and Orthodox churches a believer confesses to a priest and receives Christ's forgiveness through him, and this is kept as one of the sacraments; Catholics call it the sacrament of penance. Lutherans teach that ‘private absolution be retained in the churches, though enumeration of all offenses be not necessary’ Augsburg Confession, 11, and describe repentance as contrition and faith 12; Luther's Small Catechism gives confession two parts, confessing our sins and receiving absolution Small Catechism. The Reformed confess directly to God, heed James's "confess your sins to each other and pray for each other" (James 5:16), and bring heavy burdens to a pastor. These differences, and the forgiven life, are taken further in Sin, repentance, forgiveness, in the New Believers course, and What is repentance?; see also repentance.

To ponder this week

Is there a sin I am sorry for only because of what it costs me? What would turning from it to God look like this week? This is not a call to berate yourself but an invitation back to the God who is gracious and compassionate. Read Joel 2:12-13 slowly and tell God about that sin. If something needs putting right, take one step; if you are unsure how, talk it over with your pastor. Learn Question 87 by heart.

Practice