Chapter 7 - REPENTANCE NOT TO BE REPENTED
OF
In any discussion of the nature and
importance of repentance it would be a great
mistake to overlook the fact that children of
God may have as much occasion to repent as any
one else. For we should never forget that, after
all, saints are sinners. This may seem to be a
strange paradox, but both Scripture and
experience attest its truthfulness. The closer a
believer walks with God, the more he will
realize the incurable corruption of his Adamic
nature. New birth is not a change of this
nature, nor is sanctification a gradual process
whereby this nature is purified. New birth is
the impartation of a new nature altogether, and
practical sanctification is produced by the
indwelling Holy Spirit, through the cleansing
power of the Word of God, bringing the whole man
into conformity to Christ. By the Spirit's
power, in the yielded Christian, the old nature
is kept in the place of death.
But through the infirmity of the flesh we do
fail again and again -- yea, will always fail if
we turn the eyes of our hearts away from Christ.
Hence the need of daily, and constant,
self-judgment which, we have seen, is the true
meaning of sincere repentance.
Failure, too, may be collective as well as
individual, and thus will call for collective
repentance. So God of old sent His prophets to
Israel and Judah to show His people their sins
and summon them to national repentance. In the
same way, in the New Testament, He calls upon
churches to repent, when failure and sin have
marred their testimony. We shall see this in the
letters to the seven assemblies in Asia, as
recorded in the Apocalypse, a section of Holy
Writ which we will examine in a separate
chapter. At the present time I would ask the
reader to consider with me the case of the
church of God in Corinth.
We learn from Paul's first letter to this
group of believers that it was a church that
came behind in no gift, a church characterized
by great activity and zeal, but sadly divided by
party spirit. Human leaders were being unduly
exalted one against another. Sectarianism was
rife. This had not led to actual separations
into opposing denominations as today, but in the
one assembly there were conflicting schools of
thought. Heresies abounded, and Christ was being
dishonored.
We are not surprised that there followed, in
the wake of all this carnality and worldliness,
positive indifference to moral evil which had
found a lodgment in the church itself. One man
among them, and he in all likelihood a person of
some prominence, had flaunted the laws of common
decency and had entered upon an incestuous
relationship with his father's wife, that is, of
course, with his stepmother. Thus the grace of
God was being turned into lasciviousness. The
adulterer's course was condoned and his evil
life exonerated on the specious plea of the
liberty of the dispensation of grace.
The infection was spreading through the
church, like leaven in a lump of dough. Others
were being contaminated by this vicious example.
Instead of dealing with the matter as a grave
offense against the Christian moral code, the
Corinthians actually gloried in their tolerance
and the evil-doer was permitted to sit unrebuked
at the sacred table of the Lord. It was a
condition calling for drastic action, but so
blind were the members of Christ's body to the
affront thus offered to their Head, that they
did not even pray that the wicked man might be
taken away from among them.
Are there not many churches today similarly
affected? Is it not sadly true that in many
places discipline in the house of God is
practically unknown? Are not adulterers,
drunkards, extortioners, profane persons, and
blasphemers permitted to retain membership in
Christian churches and to defile the assemblies
of saints by partaking of the communion feast
unchallenged? Is not this one of the main
reasons why it is becoming increasingly
difficult to reach the unsaved with the Gospel?
While it is no valid excuse for any man to offer
as a reason for rejecting Christ, yet is it not
a fact that these hypocrites are everywhere
stumbling blocks in the way of the unregenerate?
What need there is of a call to repentance being
sounded out in the church, as well as in the
world!
In the particular case before us, when news
of the unholy condition prevailing in Corinth
reached the Apostle Paul, he wrote an indignant
letter of protest calling upon them to judge the
matter in their local assembly and to purge out
the old leaven by putting away from among
themselves the wicked person. There probably
were intimate friends and others linked with
this man who might attempt to shield him, but
there must be no temporizing. The evil would not
admit of delayed action. Something must be done
at once to cleanse the church of its leprous
state.
When we turn to the second letter we are
relieved to learn that something was done, and
done immediately, after receiving the first
Epistle. The adulterer was excommunicated, but
not in any spirit of self-righteousness on the
part of his brethren. The whole company, with
very few exceptions, bowed before God and owned
the sinfulness of their former indifference to
the evil, and judged themselves for abetting in
any degree the gross violation of decency that
they had tolerated so long.
It is heart moving to read the Apostle's
stirring words regarding their action and its
result. In chapter 2 he opens up his very soul
to them and shows them how deeply he had been
exercised in this matter and how hard he found
it to be obliged thus to censure his own
children in the faith. He was no cold, legal
judge. He wrote as a broken-hearted father whose
anxiety was great lest he might wound more
deeply where he meant to heal. Hardly had the
first letter gone forward until he had such
serious misgivings that he almost regretted
sending it (2 Cor. 7:8); but he rejoiced to know
that they had taken it in good part and had
acted resolutely upon it.
The offender had been disciplined, and
proving refractory and unwilling to end his
unholy relationship, had been put out of the
fellowship of the local church. Now in the
outside place, shunned by his former associates
as a veritable moral leper, he had come to his
senses. He was literally convulsed with sorrow
over his wicked ways, and had manifested sincere
repentance, turning from his sinful life and
walking again in rectitude before God. Now,
writes the Apostle, "Sufficient to such a man is
this punishment, which was inflicted of many; so
that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive
him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one
should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm
your love toward him" (2nd Corinthians 2:6-8).
As Christ's representative, he assures them
that, if they now see their way clear to forgive
their erring brother, they may be certain that
he joins as heartily in that forgiveness as
before he was intensely in earnest in demanding
his excommunication (2:9-10).
Church discipline should always have in view
the restoration of the sinner. It is not simply
a question of keeping the good name of the
church free from reproach, or of maintaining the
honor of the Lord; the real object is the
recovery of the one who has gone astray. How
often we forget this! We either condone evil by
failing to take proper disciplinary measures, or
we become so severe and self-righteous that we
drive the disciplined one farther away instead
of solicitously looking for evidence of his
repentance in order that we may restore him to
fellowship.
The way in which the Spirit of God wrought in
the souls of these Corinthians is brought out
clearly in chapter 7. Note the Apostle's words,
as we read verses 9-12: "Now I rejoice, not that
ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to
repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly
manner, that ye might receive damage by us in
nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to
salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow
of the world worketh death. For behold this
selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly
sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea,
what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what
zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have
approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.
Wherefore, though I wrote unto you, I did it not
for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for
his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care
for you in the sight of God might appear unto
you."
What an insight all this gives us into the
real condition brought about by the reading of
Paul's letter. And how it emphasizes the reality
of their repentance. In fact, the more we weigh
each word and study carefully these strong
expressions, the more we will be able to fathom
the depths of the self-judgment produced in the
hearts and consciences of these early
Christians. Theirs was indeed a complete change
of attitude as a result of hearing the Word of
God and being searched through and through by
it.
In an earlier chapter, when we were
attempting to point out the distinction between
penitence and repentance we referred to 2 Cor.
7:10. Let us note it more particularly. "Godly
sorrow," we are told, "worketh repentance to
salvation not to be repented of." This is sorrow
produced by the Spirit of God, as distinguished
from the sorrow of the world which is simply
remorse because of the dire consequences
following upon evil ways. It is sorrow according
to piety, the penitence that a pious person
feels when aware of having grieved the God whom
he loves, and whom he desires above all things
to please.
Note the terms used to depict this exercise.
He tells them they "sorrowed after a godly
sort," because they entered into the mind of God
in regard to the sin that had so defiled His
house. "What carefulness it wrought in you,"
exclaims Paul. Like the Israelites who searched
their houses for every possible bit of leavened
bread in order that they might put it away and
properly keep the feast of the Lord, so they had
looked into this question with most meticulous
care, dealing with it in the spirit of men who
would have everything now suited to God's holy
eye, that fellowship with Him might be renewed.
"Yea, what clearing of yourselves!"
Heretofore they had been tacitly condoning the
offense, thus linking the Name of the Lord with
sin and permitting that to continue among them
which rendered His dwelling place unclean. For
the assembly of God is in His house, and He has
said, "I will be sanctified in them that come
nigh me." He is the Holy and the True, and, if
He is to manifest His gracious presence in the
midst of His church, it is our responsibility to
so behave ourselves as to make Him feel at home
among us. Have we not all sinned terribly here,
and does not our failure explain why the
testimony of the churches generally is so
powerless and so little is accomplished in the
way of winning the lost to Christ?
"Yea, what indignation!" In Ephesians 4:26 we
read, "Be ye angry, and sin not." An old
Puritan, commenting on this command, wrote, "I
am determined so to be angry as not to sin;
therefore to be angry at nothing but sin." The
enormity of the sin had so impressed the minds
of the Corinthian believers that they looked now
with utter detestation and abhorrence upon that
which previously they had weakly excused as
though after all it were a matter of small
concern one way or another. Low thoughts of sin
come from low thoughts of God's holiness and
righteousness. Sin seen in the light of what He
is will fill the soul with indignation and
horror. Nor will it be indignation against some
particular person, but against the sin itself
and against ourselves that we should ever have
thought lightly of it.
"Yea, what fear!" We are warned against the
fear of man that bringeth a snare. On the other
hand, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil and
every evil way. This reverential, not slavish,
fear had laid hold upon these saints. "The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Hence
they now put away folly and iniquity and
undertook to clean house, as we say, in order
that God might be glorified in their assembly.
"Yea, what vehement desire!" Another
translation renders this, "Yes, what intense
yearning!" meaning, yearning to do the will of
God. Where this is found He will unquestionably
make known His mind and guide aright.
"Yea, what zeal!" In this they but imitated
Him who could say, "The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up." To be zealously affected in a good
thing is commendable and pleasing to God, as
lethargy in regard to spiritual responsibilities
is most offensive in His sight.
Yea, what revenge!" It was not that they were
intent upon wreaking vengeance upon the wretched
man and his guilty paramour who had brought such
dishonor on the Name of the Lord, but they
visited upon the offender that retribution which
God had commanded by His Apostle, that he should
be delivered "unto Satan for the destruction of
the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the
day of the Lord Jesus." It was love, not
revengefulness, that so dealt with him, for
things had come to such a pass that temporizing
would only have bolstered him up in his iniquity
and would have been the ruin of their Christian
fellowship and testimony. Put outside, back as
it were into that world that lieth in the wicked
one, he was in a place where he could realize
the dreadful state into which he had fallen.
Sifted, like Peter, in Satan's sieve, the chaff
would be separated from the wheat and eventually
his soul restored.
Thus in all things they had approved
themselves to be clear in this matter. Their
repentance was deep and real, and their behavior
manifested it. Oh, if similar repentance were
but characteristic of our churches today, what
might God yet do, in the way of revival and
blessing among His own and the awakening of a
lost world!
The first step toward such a repentance would
be our facing conditions, as they prevail on all
sides, in the light of the unerring Word of God.
Instead of sitting in Judgment on that Word, we
should let it judge us. This would in turn
produce that godly sorrow which results in
repentance not to be repented of. Then indeed
would come that revival for which many have been
praying, and others debating about, but which
cannot be looked for until we "search and try
our ways, and turn again to the Lord." We cannot
expect blessing so long as He has to say to us,
as to Israel of old, "I have written to him the
great things of my law, but they were counted as
a strange thing" (Hosea 8:12).
In the history of God's people of old we read
of many dark days when the Word was forgotten,
the house of the Lord neglected, and idolatry
had displaced the worship of Jehovah. But time
after time God granted revival to His people. In
every instance this was the effect of a return
to His Word, producing individual and national
repentance, apart from which there could be no
revival. These things were written for our
learning. May we have grace given to take the
lesson to heart and, wherein we have sinned, to
confess and judge our evil ways, and to turn
again to the Lord, who "delighteth in mercy,"
and is waiting to hear the cry of a repentant
church.
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