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As we have seen, repentance is a work of grace. That means it begins with God, is accomplished by God, and bears the fruit God intends. Repentance is a work of God, more specifically, of the Holy Spirit. Certainly we are commanded to repent, and to practice repentance from our sins every day of our lives. But we cannot do this apart from the work of God’s Spirit in our lives. What does this mean?
First, the Spirit must teach us the Law of God (Ezek. 36:26, 27). Unless the Spirit opens our hearts and minds to the truth of God’s Law, we’ll never be able to appreciate the standards of holiness and justice God has declared for us. The more we turn to the Law of God, meditating on it day by day (Ps. 1), the greater will be the likelihood that the Spirit will use the Law to reveal some heretofore unacknowledged sin in our lives. For the Spirit to do His work of teaching us the Law of God, we must position ourselves before it regularly.
Second, the Spirit then, having shown us the Law of God, convicts us of any situations, sentiments, thoughts, or practices in our lives that are contrary to the holiness of the Law of God. We will know that we have been convicted of something when, like a defendant hearing the judge read the jury’s verdict, we are suddenly hot with shame, embarrassment, fear, and dread. We’ve been discovered. The facts are known, and we are found wanting before the Lord. The feeling of conviction is unpleasant and unmistakable, and the Spirit of God has been given precisely to bring us to this point.
Immediately, however, the Spirit takes up another work in us. He begins to make us willing to do what God wants, to live as He desires, to make ourselves pleasing to Him Who loved us so much as to give His Son for our redemption (Phil. 2:13). We cannot will ourselves to desire God’s way; only the Spirit can do that in us, and He will only do it when, having convicted us of our sins, He sees that, in the depths of our souls, we are grieving and ready to follow a different path.
Finally, the Spirit of God enables us to declare our repentance to God. This involves, first, confessing our sin – agreeing, as it were, with the Spirit concerning what He has made known to us about our transgressions of God’s Law. With confession then must come a declaration of repentance: “I repent of this sin, and I desire to follow a different path.” Confession and repentance are acts of obedient faith, wrought within us by the Spirit of God. As often as sin is discovered within us, confession and repentance are in order.
Without repentance there is no saving faith; in a believer, where there is no repentance, there will be no growth in the good works that characterize true repentance. And without that growth – growth in holiness – we may not expect to see the Lord, to know the righteousness, peace, and joy of His Kingdom, or to be a blessing to others as God intends. Repentance is a work of grace, a work of God’s Spirit. We must labor to understand repentance, put ourselves in the conditions where repentance can occur, and seek the Spirit of God to work within us that conviction, grief, willingness, and resolve that lead us through repentance into the fuller enjoyment of our walk with Jesus Christ.
Repentance is the starting-point for faith – for faith that issues in salvation, and for faith that grows in salvation day by day. Seek the Spirit, and plead with Him to bring the grace of repentance more consistently and more powerfully into your life.
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VP Repentance