Forgiveness Part 2

Repent and Be Saved.

“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).

The Greek word translated rebuke in this passage means to admonish or censure. We should advise fellow believers when we think the way they’ve treated us is contrary to God’s word (see also Matt 18:15-17). Repent means to change one’s mind or reconsider, and has to do with the way we perceive things. In each of the 34 times the word repent is used in the New Testament, people are being admonished to change their perception in light of what they’ve been taught and admit they’re sinners. Forgive means to lay aside or leave alone.

A Tragic Misunderstanding

Somehow we’ve come to believe that repent means to stop doing something, and if we don’t stop doing it, then we haven’t repented and therefore don’t qualify for forgiveness. If that’s true and the required salvation sequence is to repent and be saved, then none of us is saved, because none of us has stopped sinning. All of us are living in deliberate and open sin because in each human life there is observable behavior that violates God’s word, and is knowingly and willfully repeated. It’s not that we discover one sin in our behavior and root it out only to be made aware of another. We deliberately repeat the same sinful behavior over and over. If we could progressively root out and eliminate the sins in our lives we could eventually stop sinning and wouldn’t need a savior.

When John the Baptist warned the people of Israel to “repent for the Kingdom is near (Matt 3:2)”, he wasn’t telling them to be on their best behavior because the King was coming. He was telling them to reconsider their need for a savior while they could. When Peter admonished the Jews at Pentecost to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins so they could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) he wasn’t saying, “Clean up your act.” He was telling them that as soon as they changed their perception about who Jesus was and what He had done they would be forgiven. When the evangelist tells his audience to “repent and be saved… he’s not telling them to become good enough to someday be accepted by the Lord. He’s admonishing them to realize they can’t be good enough and ask the Lord to take them right now just as they are.

So What Does That Mean?

The word repent means to change your mind, not your behavior. That’s why the Lord said, “If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” It’s also why in Matt 18:22 He corrected Peter “not 7 times, but 70 times 7.” Both passages cover repetitive commission of the same sins as well as sequential commission of different ones.

We’re not sinners because we sin, rather we sin because we’re sinners. It’s our nature. When we say the sinner’s prayer, we’re admitting that we can never meet God’s requirements and need someone to intercede for us. We ask the Lord Jesus to intercede and be our Savior. He agrees to do this, not because we promise never to sin again, but because we admit we can’t stop sinning.

When Will We Ever Learn?

In the Old Testament the emphasis was on obedience. The principle was behave or you won’t be rewarded. And even with the threat of eternal punishment people couldn’t be good enough for God. In the New Testament the emphasis is on faith. Now the principle is behave because you will be rewarded and people still can’t be good enough. In the Millennium the emphasis will be on experience. The principle then will be behave because you are being rewarded. Satan is bound, Jesus lives among us and rules the world, the curse is removed, and a Utopian life is at hand. All of man’s excuses for sinning are gone. And at the end of that age, the people that God hasn’t supernaturally perfected will rebel against Him. The underlying message of the whole Bible is that there is no circumstance in which mankind can achieve the standard God requires. Living in sin is a state of being, not just a state of rebellion. That’s why we need a Savior.

Please Forgive Me

Just as repent doesn’t mean, “I’ll never do it again,” forgive doesn’t mean, “It’s OK to do it again.” Remember forgive means to lay aside or leave alone. Neither word is behavior driven. Both are perception driven. Jesus doesn’t condone sin, but if we’ve accepted His remedy and confess (1 John 1:9) He chooses to leave it alone. He’s done that for us because we asked Him, and now He asks us to do likewise for each other.