On the level of experience, repentance is not at all difficult to describe. One would be hard-pressed to find a better definition of repentance than that which is given by the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 33, question and answer 89. “It is a sincere sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins, and more and more to hate and flee from them” (Confessions and Church Order, 121).

There are three outstanding parts to this teaching of the Catechism about repentance. Repentance is, first, a sincere sorrow of heart. This particular part of the explanation reflects the first of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses. Sorrow of heart over sin is the opposite of the Romish teaching of indulgences that repentance is a deed to be done, or a gift to be offered to God, by which the faithful obtain forgiveness.

Second, repentance is a fundamental orientation toward God. True repentance cannot be merely a sincere sorrow of heart over sin. It cannot be a sincere sorrow that is self-motivated. It cannot be a sincere sorrow of heart that one is ashamed of himself. It is not that the sinner is sorrowful over the consequences of his sin, the suffering of some kind of evil because of his sin. Nor is it that the sinner is sincerely sorrowful for his sin in the expectation that in the way of his sorrow God will grant him assurance of pardon. The Catechism is definite on the exact orientation of this sincere sorrow of heart. It is God-centered. The cause of this sorrow of heart is that “we have provoked God by our sins.” This sorrow reckons with sin as displeasing in God’s sight, contrary to the glory of his infinite holiness.

The third part of repentance, according to the Heidelberg Catechism, is “more and more to hate and flee from them.” This third part adds to the first part. Repentance is both sorrow over sin and hatred of the sin. Repentance sees sin not as a friend whose loss must be grieved. Much less does repentance see sin as something to be accommodated or sheltered. Sin is the mortal enemy to be driven out and destroyed. This third part of repentance also includes fleeing from sin. The representation of the Catechism is powerful. It pictures sin as a dreadful, corrupting power that is constantly working to overcome the believer. Knowing its awful power, the believer out of his sorrow for his sins and hatred of them must flee from them. Those sins call to him, but he will not listen. They seek to take him into their grip and dominion, but he cannot allow it.

It is evident in this teaching of Lord’s Day 33 that true repentance is a great mystery. As a mystery it can be compared to the mystery of the cross of Jesus Christ. As a mystery it partakes of the same offense as the cross. As a mystery repentance is not at all according to man’s mind or thought. Repentance is not acceptable at all to the flesh. Like the cross, true repentance is completely contrary to the pride of man. It is beyond all the reasoning and understanding of the natural man. The natural man will always and inevitably distort and corrupt the precious doctrine of repentance to make it what it is not. In doing so he is sure to incur the wrath of God for abusing such a magnificent and glorious gift.

What is the mystery of repentance?

Repentance is a glorious shame.

Repentance is the life that confesses only death.

Repentance is the valuable and precious gift that results in deep sorrow and grief.

Repentance is the fruit of the cross that declares the believer unworthy of it.

Repentance is the good that denies all good of the believer.

Repentance is the shame that cannot flee from God but must come into his presence with its shame over sin.

Such is the paradox of repentance. It is that the repentant sinner comes into God’s presence and should in God’s presence declare why he has come. “I am unworthy.” “I am dead, devoid of life.” “I am a sinner.” “I am ungodly.” “I have transgressed all thy commandments and kept none of them.” “I am a debtor.” “I am thine enemy.” That penitent sinner continues. “I deserve thy indignation, judgment, and wrath.” “I am unworthy of thy mercy and grace.” “I have forfeited thy peace.” “I deserve to be cast out of thy sight.”

The paradox of repentance continues to speak after such a manner before God. There are things that repentance will not say before God. “I come in my penitence.” “I come in my faith.” “I come with my worship, my devotion, my commitment, my loyal service.” Repentance is the good that can only speak of the evil that belongs to the believer. It is the good that denies all good to the believer. Repentance speaks after the manner of Psalm 51:4: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”

What is it that makes repentance so paradoxical? What is it that makes repentance so great a mystery?

It is that repentance is the intrusion of a completely foreign, seemingly destructive power into the nature of the elect, the power of a broken heart. It is the power of circumcision, the power of the circumcision of the heart, far deeper than any physical rite with its physical effects (Deut. 30:6, 8). It is the power of baptism, not the washing away of the filth of the flesh but the washing of the heart as the power of regeneration that brings with it true conversion (Ezek. 36:25–26, 31). It is no moral improvement but a thorough renovation.

First, repentance is the mystery that it is because it is the power of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is the power of his death as the radical separation of his body from his soul, for the latter to enter into paradise even as the former entered into the grave. It is the power of his death as his separation from his earthly walk and ministry in the likeness of sinful flesh, having finished the work that his Father in heaven gave him to do. When Jesus proclaimed, “It is finished,” that finished work accomplished by him at the cross included the finished completion of the repentance of every member of Christ in his blessed body. His death is their repentance. Their repentance is the glorious, necessary, Spirit-wrought fruit of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Their repentance is the realization of the effectual power of Calvary’s cross.

This power of the death of Jesus Christ that is true repentance is shown in a line that runs through the Heidelberg Catechism. The source of that line is found in question and answer 43:

What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?

A. That by virtue thereof our old man is crucified, dead, and buried with Him; that so the corrupt inclinations of the flesh may no more reign in us; but that we may offer ourselves unto Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving. (Confessions and Church Order, 100)

The necessity of repentance is described powerfully in question and answer 86 as the work of the crucified and risen Christ in the heart:

Since then we are delivered from our misery merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works?

A. Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit after His own image; that so we may testify by the whole of our conduct our gratitude to God for His blessings, and that He may be praised by us; also, that everyone may be assured in himself of his faith by the fruits thereof; and that by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ. (Confessions and Church Order, 120)

Not only does this doctrine of the Catechism explain that repentance is the necessary result of the renewal of Christ after his image; it also teaches that this repentance is part of “the whole of our conduct.” It is not an action to be taken up here and there, upon some occasion. Much less is it some kind of introductory matter to be left behind once accomplished for the sake of some perceived benefit. In the words of Martin Luther’s first thesis, repentance must belong to the entire life of believers. Question and answer 89, explaining conversion as the fruit of the work of Christ alone, identifies repentance as “the mortification of the old man,” the power of the death of Christ already explained earlier in the Catechism, question and answer 43. “It is a sincere sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins, and more and more to hate and flee from them” (Q&A 89, in Confessions and Church Order, 121).

Second, repentance is entire, heartfelt agreement with the living and holy God according to the truth of his holy will revealed in his law. It is agreement with all the requirements of God’s holy law. It is agreement with the full penalty of that law. It is the deeply humble recognition that as totally depraved sinners the repentant ones personally deserve all the punishment pronounced in the law of God against them for their sin. Repentance finds everything within only condemnable.

True repentance, as agreement with the living and holy God, goes further. The law is no cold, abstract code of conduct, determined by some distant legislative body, the enforcement of which belongs to an objective, impartial judiciary. God’s law is the expression of his holiness, how the creature that is man must live as honoring and glorifying the God who has made him. Every transgression against God’s law is an avowed insult against his infinite glory and holiness. The sinner provokes God to his face, incurring his just displeasure. True repentance, therefore, is such an agreement with God that the sinner must hate, loathe, and abhor himself as a sinner.

Repentance, as the character of the entire life of believers, is expressed in their hearts and on their lips. It was the testimony of Job, the saint tried and tested by God and vindicated by God before Satan. Note Job’s word upon being shown the glory of God: “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee?” (Job 40:4). “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). Repentance was the testimony of Isaiah before the presence of the Lord’s glory: “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:5). Seeing the holiness of Christ exhibited in the miracle of the great catch of fishes, Peter testified, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). It was the testimony of the publican in the temple of God in Jesus’ parable: “The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner” (18:13). The apostle Paul, being slain by his sin occasioned by the commandment, gave this testimony as regulative for the church: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).

The Form for the Administration of Baptism, in the first of “the principal parts of the doctrine of holy baptism,” declares powerfully that this sacrament teaches lifelong repentance:

This the dipping in or sprinkling with water teaches us, whereby the impurity of our souls is signified, and we admonished to loathe and humble ourselves before God, and seek for our purification and salvation without ourselves. (Confessions and Church Order, 258)

The same teaching is presented in the Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, in the first part of true examination:

That every one consider by himself his sins and the curse due to him for them, to the end that he may abhor and humble himself before God, considering that the wrath of God against sin is so great, that (rather than it should go unpunished) He hath punished the same in His beloved Son Jesus Christ with the bitter and shameful death of the cross. (Confessions and Church Order, 268)

Take careful, thorough notice of the doctrine of repentance taught in the above. Indeed, these passages show that repentance must be the character of the entire life of believers. But they also speak with one voice of the proper object of repentance: one’s own person. That proper object is not the particular sins committed by the sinner. The proper object is not even the sinner’s depravity, the power and principle of sin that dwells in the regenerate as long as he lives on the earth. The proper object of true repentance is the person who is the sinner. He is the transgressor because of his transgressions. He is the totally depraved because of his depravity. He is the one who has incurred the wrath of God because of his sins and his depravity. He is the one who is wretched and miserable, who cries out, “Woe is me!” He is the one who stands in the presence of God to say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

This self-imputation of sin and depravity is part of the deep mystery of true repentance. That the sinner should take the side of God against himself. That he should loathe and abhor himself, as God in his holiness loathes and abhors sin. That he should judge and condemn himself before the throne of God. That he should humbly acknowledge that, indeed, he is worthy of the full punishment of all his sins and of his depravity.

The mystery is that he does not attempt to minimize or excuse his sin. The mystery is that he does not try to hide his sins under some superficial goodness. The mystery is that he does not try to present to God some kind of a balance, some good to set over against the evil. Yes, a sinner having some sins and maybe even some depravity. But also look and see! Here is some repentance. Here is some faith. Here are some good works and obedience. The mystery that is true repentance will bring nothing before God but the wretchedness and misery of sin.

The mystery of true repentance has indeed learned to express itself after the manner of the first section of the Heidelberg Catechism. Out of the law of God, repentance has learned the true knowledge of the greatness of its sins and miseries. Repentance has learned its entire incapability of doing any good and its inclination to all wickedness. Repentance has learned never to reason away or argue against the justice of God but to submit humbly to it. Repentance has learned what is truly due for its disobedience and rebellion: the just judgment of God’s law, being accursed by God forever.

What makes this true repentance such a mystery is that it is repentance according to the gospel of God in Christ Jesus. It is the gospel that is represented by the passages heading this article, Acts 2:38–39 and 3:19, 26. This gospel of repentance may be boiled down to this: repent of your sins because Christ gives repentance. What a mystery!

This repentance according to the gospel is wholly foreign to an attractive, popular repentance that is far more widespread, a repentance that is legal in nature. This legal or legalistic repentance is found throughout the children of men. It is the repentance of political leaders who know they need to produce public apologies to rescue their offices or their careers. It is the carefully crafted apology of a minister or a consistory that has been advised by a higher power that an apology is the only way to escape further trouble from a potential protestant or from a broader assembly. But it becomes evident that the repentance is not true. Sometimes the way the apology is written or spoken betrays a refusal to acknowledge the real wrong that was done. Sometimes it betrays contempt for those truly wronged by further insulting them, often blaming those wronged, that they fail to understand or have evil motives. Such apologies sometimes show false repentance, with their makers continuing on in the very things for which they apologized.

We have all been trained in this way of legal repentance. It has been inculcated into us by our parents and teachers. It is the practice of our society for the repair of relationships that have been damaged by wrongdoing. It is part of the practice of counseling, sadly too often forgetting what true, gospel repentance is.

What is this way, the way of legal or legalistic, false repentance?

It is the way of giving to get. It is the way of doing something good to get something good in return. Its way is very clear: you got yourself into this mess; you need to get yourself out. You need to be sorry. You need to change your behavior. You need to explain yourself to the people whom you have wronged. You need to ask their forgiveness. Only in that way can you undo the damage you caused. Only in that way can you regain the trust you have lost. Only in the way of your apology can you heal the breach that you broke.

This legalistic repentance is no mystery at all. It is merely the practice of law. The token of repentance is put forward by way of an apology. So often the apology is not only expected to be accepted, but also acceptance is required. The apology must be received with gratitude. The matter must not be spoken of or brought up again. The relationship must be restored. The wronged must forget the wrong. If the wronged do not forget or cannot forget, then often the force of law passes upon them. They are obligated to forget. This is simply the way of the world, no mystery at all. It is the way identified by Christ in Matthew 5:46: “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?”

(To be continued)