The necessity of repentance is the cross of Jesus Christ. That the cross of Jesus Christ is the necessity of the believer’s repentance is the heart of the preaching of the gospel in the passages from Acts 2–3 considered in the previous article.¹ Why must those who heard the preaching repent of their sins? Why the command of the gospel to them to repent of their sins? Because Christ gives repentance. He is the savior who gives repentance as part of his promise “unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39). The necessity of repentance is that God sent Christ “to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities” (3:26).

This necessity of repentance must therefore be carefully and clearly distinguished from that necessity of repentance which is legal, that is, according to law. The principle difference between repentance of the gospel and repentance of the law is that repentance of the law is according to the principle of the law: “Do this and live.” Two other features must be added to the repentance of the law. The first is that the repentance of the law must be perfect before it can be accepted by God for salvation. The second is that repentance is a condition that man must fulfill prior to the grace of God in forgiveness. According to this legal, conditional manner, repentance is what man must do in order to receive something from God. As a legal obligation laid upon man, it must be his to perform as his own agent or as his own work that he alone performs. Repentance according to law must be seen as a fundamental doctrine of the heresy of Pelagius, what God requires of a man to perform; for repentance must be man’s to perform, God’s grace waiting upon man’s work.

In complete contrast to repentance as necessary according to the law is the necessity of repentance according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ is that Jesus Christ is the complete savior who gives all of salvation, including repentance. He is the one who turns his people away from their iniquities. He is the one in whose name repentance is preached. He is the one who pours out his Spirit upon his people as the Spirit of repentance and supplication.

That repentance is the necessary fruit of the cross is the public, emphatic declaration of Jesus Christ from the cross. He signified this necessity of repentance according to the gospel in his word of glorious triumph, “It is finished.”

This glorious word from Calvary’s cross does not merely look back at the work of atonement. Indeed, the word of Christ does indicate that he fully accomplished his glorious work of atonement, shedding his blood for the covering of the sins of all the elect given him by the Father. His word is also the declaration that he fully established with his suffering and death the ground for every blessing of salvation to be given to his elect. But the word spoken by Christ from his cross also declares something about the future. It speaks of an end achieved. What was truly finished? What was the goal that was accomplished at the cross? The goal of the everlasting salvation of all the elect for whom Christ died. In that cross of Jesus Christ is the salvation of all his own, given him by the Father. In that cross are their eternal life and their everlasting glory in that life. In that cross is all the way to that eternal life of heaven, from their regeneration to their glorification. In that cross is every part, every aspect, every feature of that salvation. In that cross are their justification and sanctification, their faith and repentance, and all their perseverance in the same. In that cross is every good work that they shall perform to the glory of the God of their salvation. The word of Christ, “It is finished,” is the victory that overcomes the world, the victory that lives in the hearts of God’s people by faith.

Including repentance. Including especially repentance. Crucifixion with Christ is the mortification of the old man (Rom. 6). It is the triumph over sin exclaimed by the apostle in Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ.”

The Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 16 shows that repentance is the necessary fruit of the death of Christ on the cross.

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)

“By virtue thereof…” All the repentance of the believer is by virtue of the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross. The Reformed confession gives this explanation in its second section, “Of Man’s Deliverance,” and that as prior to the third section, “Of Thankfulness.” Before any good works and before the working of true conversion by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, all the believer’s repentance is found in the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross. That is, the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross are the necessity of all the believer’s life of repentance.

As the mortification of the old man is the necessity of the cross of Jesus Christ, declared as an article of faith by the Heidelberg Catechism in its second section, all the believer’s life of gratitude is the fruit of the death and resurrection of Christ. It is the necessity of the mortification of the old man in the believer. It is also the necessity of all the good works of repentance that proceed out of his true conversion.

Why is this necessity so important? Why is it so important to know that the source of all the believer’s repentance is the cross of Jesus Christ? As stated previously, it is important to know in order to safeguard against all legalistic errors about repentance. The believer must be able to distinguish his repentance as the gift of God the Holy Spirit working that death of Christ in him from all false repentance that is the believer’s work and his doing. In this knowledge he is equipped to give all glory to God in his repentance, reserving none for himself. In this knowledge he is also equipped to truly rejoice in his repentance, knowing its value as God’s gift to him of grace alone through the cross of Christ. He is also comforted to know that God has respect to his own work in the believer, to bestow grace upon grace. Thus is the believer rescued from wondering whether his repentance is “good enough,” which must truly lead only to doubt and to the foolish attempt to make his repentance more pleasing to God by adding more of his own efforts and works.

The necessity of true repentance by the cross of Jesus Christ is also important for its strength in the believer’s heart and mind. The believer must know that his repentance is itself partaking of the wondrous, supernatural power of the cross. When he comes before the cross of his savior by faith, the believer must know that his sins, so heinous in the sight of God, made Christ’s sacrifice necessary. Through the gospel of the cross, the believer must learn the hatred of God against sin that was expressed in the wrath of God borne by the savior in that glorious sacrifice. From the deep wrath of God shown in the punishment of his only begotten Son, the believer must learn to loathe and abhor himself as the sinner. As much as the Christian spends his life growing in the knowledge of what the cross signifies about his sin, the fruit of that knowledge is his deepening and growing sorrow over his sins and his depravity.

This strength of repentance is the strength of weakness. The glory of repentance is the broken spirit and the contrite heart. The victory of the cross in the believer is his godly sorrow that he has broken all the commandments of God and is still inclined to all evil. By, with, and in the death of Christ on the cross is the believer’s death to sin. It is death. It is pain. It is sorrow and shame. It is wretchedness and misery. It is emptiness and desolation. It is a broken spirit and a contrite heart. It is utter and complete self-denial, self-abhorrence, and self-loathing. It is the inability to find anything good in oneself but only great evil. It is the understanding that in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good thing, leading him to cry out, “O wretched man that I am!” (Rom. 7:24).

It should be evident also how true repentance is first as the necessary fruit of the cross of Jesus Christ. It is death that must precede resurrection. It is the emptiness that must come before fullness. It is crucifixion before resurrection. It is woe before weal. It is poverty before riches. It is also first as servant before master. It is death for the sake of life. It is emptiness for the sake of fullness, crucifixion for the sake of resurrection, woe for the sake of weal, sickness for the sake of health.

However, true repentance does not end with the life of forgiveness and salvation. The new man does not end the old. Both repentance as death and quickening as life must always be present together in the believer. He is at the same time dead and alive. He is at the same time poor and rich, sick and healthy, empty and full. He lives in the doctrine of the three things that are necessary to know for the comfort of belonging to Jesus, his faithful savior. This is the paradox of the Christian life represented as a beautiful thread running through 2 Corinthians. Second Corinthians 4:11–14 is but one example of this thread. The presence of both together in the life of the Christian is also powerfully represented in so many of the psalms. In the same psalm there is weeping and lamentation as well as joy and praise. Psalm 40 has in it verses 3–4 as well as verses 11–13, words of gladness and joy in salvation as well as words of humble pleading for mercy for the guilty.

What must be noted in the above truth so powerfully represented in scripture is that repentance over sin is not combined with joy and gladness over salvation to bring about a balance. It is not joy tempering sorrow or sorrow tempering joy. Repentance remains forever repentance. It remains self-abhorrence, self-loathing, and self-denial as long as the child of God lives on the earth. His growth is not that he repents less and less, having less and less to be sorrowful about. His growth is growth in repentance. Just as he grows in the joy of his salvation, so he grows in the knowledge of his sin and misery. As he grows in the awe and wonder of what his savior with his precious blood has done for him, the child of God must also grow in sorrow over his sin, which made the shedding of his savior’s blood so necessary.

All of the above is the reason that repentance must not be seen as a deed or a collection of deeds or merely certain works to be performed. Much less can the above be a reason that repentance should be thought at all to be that deed, or collection of deeds, which makes their doer to be repentant and therefore fulfilling a condition in order to obtain salvation or assurance of salvation.

Why must repentance be instead understood and confessed to be what the Heidelberg Catechism describes in Lord’s Days 16 and 33 as the mortification of the old man, as “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)?

To answer the question it is profitable to consider the first of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

The above statement, heading the list of Luther’s theses, was fundamental to the aim of his theses posted for disputation: the end of the sale of indulgences by the church. What Luther found so hateful about the sale of indulgences was that it proposed a monetary substitution for true repentance.

Pope Leo X had authorized the sale of indulgences to raise money for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The pope had personally authorized John Tetzel to offer indulgences. The supposed ground for the selling of indulgences was the understanding that the purchase of indulgences with money was the same as doing a deed of repentance. It was a monetary substitution for the act of acknowledging sin and was the denial of some earthly possession as signifying true repentance. The pretended biblical ground for granting remission of sin for such deeds was the Latin Vulgate’s translation of Matthew 4:17, “Paenitentiam agite,” literally translated into English as “Do repentance.”

Luther’s first thesis drove to the heart of this erroneous translation of Matthew 4:17 as the foundation for the support of the system of indulgences. Repentance is not a deed undertaken, performed, and then finished to a level of satisfaction. Never must the believer say, “I’ve finished repenting.” Never must he say, “I did my repentance.” Never must he move on from repentance, as if he completed that which was required of him. Repentance is not a deed but “the entire life of believers.”

But there is more to this first thesis than what is to be the character of the life of believers. The thesis also teaches concerning the will of Christ for believers. Exactly where in this thesis Luther addressed the commandment of “our Lord and Master Jesus Christ,” he did not express its relationship to believers as a command. He did not write, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he commanded that the entire life of believers be one of repentance.” But Luther wrote, “[Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ] willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Why must the entire life of believers be one of repentance? Because Christ wills it and because Christ works it! The command of Christ is the gospel that he graciously gives what he commands. He gives it of himself. He works it by his grace and Spirit, causing the fruit of his cross to flourish in his redeemed people.

The truth that repentance must characterize the entire life of the believer is taught powerfully by Christ himself in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18). The point of the parable is the contrast between the Pharisee and the publican. “[Jesus] spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others” (v. 9). The parable’s description of the Pharisee in his prayer is the comparison “unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” The rebuke of that self-trust is the humble, repentant prayer of the publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (v. 13).

Self-trust in self-righteousness Jesus made clear in the prayer of the Pharisee. In this short prayer the pronoun I is spoken five times. The Pharisee speaks of his righteousness in terms of his own works. It is clearly the prayer of a legalist.

As clearly as the prayer of the Pharisee is self-centered, self-righteous, and legalistic, this prayer is clearly also a prayer whose character is repentance, albeit in a horribly twisted manner. This “repentance” goes down to a separation of identity. Though God is thanked for this separation, this separation is not self-loathing or self-abhorrence. It is thanksgiving for not being “as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican” (v. 11). This “repentance” is fasting, withholding food from oneself as an expression of sorrow over sin. This “repentance” is the parting with one’s wealth and goods. “I give tithes of all that I possess” (v. 12).

Brought before God in this prayer is the doing of repentance. Much like the money used to purchase indulgences, this repentance is not of “the entire life of believers.” It is not the mortification of the old man as “sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins.” It is not repentance according to the gospel of Christ but repentance according to law.

In the sharpest contrast to this perverse prayer of the Pharisee is the repentant prayer of the publican. He has nothing good of himself to bring before God. Of self-righteousness he will not speak. He will not speak of his going up to the temple to pray. He will not speak of his prayer. Before the presence of God’s holiness, he cannot speak of himself as having done any good. The publican must stand afar off, not even daring to lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven. He must smite upon his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

(To be continued)