“Repentance” is a word we all know but do not all understand. It is not a pleasant word, but it, more precisely–the idea it carries–is the direction back to the right road.
In the wonderful book by John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, one temptation that befell the main character, Christian, was crossing a stile (a small, double-sided ladder used to climb over a fence) to travel what looked to be a more pleasant route known as Bypass Meadow. But, as Bunyan a long-time preacher and small church leader well knew, Bypass Meadows leads to bad ends, in the story to a prison known as Doubting Castle. After much suffering there, Christian and his travel companion escaped by use a hidden key he carried which were the promises of God. Once outside the prison, they hustled back from fear of being re-captured to the stile. There they went back over the fence to regain the straight and narrow road from which they had diverted. That is a picture of repentance.
Repentance in Calvin’s Book 3 of The Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 3 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is titled “The Mode of Obtaining the Grace of Christ: The Benefits It Confers, and the Effects Resulting from it” (from the Beveridge 1845 translation). Of the 25 chapters in such Book 3, five of them have been separately published since the early date of publication of the entire Institutes (1540) under various titles such as studied here as the Little Book. So in the study of the limited scope of the Little Book we are bereft of Calvin’s insights and commentaries in the 20 other chapters of Book 3, and the 65 chapters in the other Books of his Institutes.
One of the important missing themes in the Little Book is our present subject of “repentance.” Doing a word search of “repent*” in The Institutes yields a vast number of references: 339. Collecting all of them and cohering Calvin’s discussion of repent / repenting / repentance is beyond our scope here. Instead, given in two pdfs below are selected collections of Calvin’s discussions on “repentance” from Book 3:
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We should not miss the important connection between the presence of an extensive discussion of “repentance” in Book 3 with the title of Book 3 referencing “the mode” and “the benefits” of obtaining “the Grace of Christ.” Repentance is one key element.
Examples from the Bible of Repentance Leading to the Grace of Christ
There are many many example biographies in the Bible, both Old Testament and New, that shows repentance leading to Grace. Here are a select few. You are invited to make a mental note to see other examples in your regular reading and meditation; you will find a great many, so many that this topic is journal worthy for recording your observations.
The Publican and the Pharisee
Luke records a well known scene recounted by the Lord. In the Temple area of Jerusalem, the holiest center of Judaism, are two men from absolutely polar opposite standings in the religious hierarchy: a Pharisee and a Publican (aka “tax collector”). The Pharisee was representative of the highest, most religiously committed class of the Jewish people, living according to the strictest interpretation of the Mosaic Law. The Publican was in consort with the Roman government, collecting taxes, frequently in excess of that required to pay Rome its due to further line his own pockets above what he was to be rightly paid for his service to Rome; in the eyes of the Jewish people, he was the lowest of the low, a traitor, a criminal with legal powers of compulsion given to him by also hated Romans, and so an utter betrayer of the legacy of Judaism and the Law.
They were, quite amazingly, both praying at the same time, though not exactly in the same place. The Pharisee was right in the visible center of things, as he was of all men most entitled to be, dramatically public, almost as a stage performer, going about his prayers to God Who he so outwardly served. The Publican, being utterly downcast of his standing before God, as he inwardly grasped the Holiness of God and his own complete unholiness, stood afar off.
The Pharisee was praying looking into “heaven,” believing he was face-to-face with God, standing in a state of legal righteousness before Him. The Publican was looking down, as a criminal knowing his guilt does.
The Pharisee was formally praising God but inwardly he was praising himself. The Publican, by beating his chest, was crushed under the weight of his total guilt, enacting the grief of mourners in the presence of the dead.
Jesus must have shocked his audience in this telling because He ends the recounting by saying it was the Publican, and not the Pharisee, that went away justified by God. How could this be? It was that the Publican knew something true about himself, and about God’s Holiness, and the smallest hope of God’s Grace of forgiveness, to have presented himself in a state of repentance. The Pharisee, being the “great” man he saw himself to be in terms of religious practice (and The Religion Industry, TRI), then did not sense any need of repentance. Further, the Pharisee would have considered the Publican as one so evil as beyond reach of any act of repentance, whereas the Gospels later reveal it is the Pharisees who are both in need and are incapable of such repentance.
This contrast links back to the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5). The “beatitudes”–that each begin with “Blessed! are”–begin with those who are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the meek…who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matt. 5:3-6, ESV). These words tell us of the Publican’s heart, revealed by the Lord’s description of him.
David and King Saul
In the Old Testament there is another notable contrast of two men who overlapped in time but were opposite in their humility before God. King Saul had, finally, come to understand that David, from a different family, would be his successor king, instead of Saul’s own son Jonathan, or any other biological heir. This change in line of succession was usually the cause of great carnage as the heirs of the former king are banished or killed by the new king to secure the new king’s throne and own line of succession.
But once King Saul knew that David, in his time, would become King, it was Saul’s responsibility before God to accept it, as his son Jonathan did. But Saul not only would not submit to such determination by God, Saul did everything he could to kill David despite David’s loyalty to Saul and faithful military service on behalf of the King. We have only a glimmer of Saul’s possible repentance upon the sparing of his life a second time by David, then a fugitive under Saul’s judgment of death.
David was no sinless man, nor, later, a sinless King. We all know of his failures including the prideful numbering of Israel, and his adultery with Bathsheba that lead to the murder of her husband Uriah, a faithful soldier of King David. There were other examples. But, yet, God said that David was a man after God’s Own heart. And David is one of the leading human writers whose texts are including in the Old Testament, including much of the Book of Psalms.
How can this be? Again, the distinction between David and Saul, as between the Publican and the Pharisee, was and is repentance. When Nathan the prophet came to David with a ‘story’ about a rich ruler who sought a lamb to slay to feed his guests, instead took a pet lamb of one of his subjects, despite having a vast flock of lambs of his own. King David sitting as judge rose in anger, as we all would, and declared the guilt of such cruel ruler. And Nathan then said to David, those penetrating words: David…”you are that man.” David then recognized that he was that rich and utterly unfeeling ruler having many ‘lambs’ who instead took the one precious ‘lamb’ (Bathsheba) of one of his servants (Uriah), even to the point of killing the ‘lamb’s’ owner. That led David to repentance, and a return to Grace, though much sorrow followed in his life.
“Repentance” in the Bible
The original manuscript (mss) words in Hebrew and Greek that are translated most-often by the word “repentance” are given below.
New Testament: Greek metánoia (META-noye-ah), Strong’s G3341
Given below are key verses (from the ESV) of where the New Testament (NT) Koine Greek word of metanoia is translated as repentance. The word means, literally, to change one’s mind. That seems simple as it does not call for some great acts of penance and self-flagellation. But changing one’s mind, truly, is truly a most-difficult action, especially for embedded perspectives, opinions, and behaviors.
Old Testament: Hebrew šûb Strong’s H8740
The imagery of repentance in the Old Testament (OT) is far richer than just the occurrence of the translated word itself. There are many occasions whereby God’s people fell into trials and even captivity from which they cried out to God for deliverance, often in the humility of powerlessness, and the recognition of having fallen away from God by its pursuit of idols, or by bare neglect.
The root meaning of the primary Hebrew word is “to turn back,” even the idea of a complete 180 degree change, as a returning to a place where a departure from a correct path began, like the Pilgrim going back to the stile. That is a hard thing to do because such departure, at the time, as those things typically appear, looked to be a good idea, even a better way. The Book of Proverbs can be viewed as a whole as a father instructing his son exactly on such departure temptation by the recurring contrast between the “wise man” and the “fool.” What’s really the difference? Wisdom is about making choices, and in particular “good” choices based upon the understanding of where each choice will lead, even if known only in broad-brush terms. The wise man foresees where such departure will go, and anticipates its full measure of consequences, and (importantly) chooses not to so turn away from the right path. The fool either has no such wisdom to restrain himself, or hearing of it chooses to ignore it, and follows impulse, feelings, false promises, short cuts, or whatever other lure, like bait on a hook, leads him.
Given below are the principal occurrences of the Hebrew word translated “repent*” (from the ESV) in the Old Testament:
The Great Old Testament Story of Jonah
The story of Jonah is almost universally known, but known as a story about a man eating fish (actually it was a mammal) who actually did not “eat” the man (Jonah) but spat him out as disgusting morsel not worth digesting. But he deposited him back on the shore of Israel from which he had paid his fare to sale away as far as possible from there.
But the real story of Jonah is repentance. First is Jonah’s repentance. Jonah had been clearly instructed by God to go to Nineveh, capital of the hated and mighty Assyrian Empire and preach that they should repent. Jonah loathed this assignment, partly because all Israel hated the Assyrian people because they were non-Jews and a rapacious military power seeking conquest and enslavement of all its neighbors and beyond.
As a second point, it is certain that going to such city and preaching that the God worshipped by Israel was the One True God would be viewed as a hate-deserving message, even seditious, by the Assyrian people and leaders.
Finally, Jonah might have feared that God would use Jonah and that message of repentance to cause the Assyrians to repent, and so escape what otherwise would have to be God’s ultimate judgment and condemnation.
So, Jonah, as the ultimate example of a fool, thought he could solve all these downsides of obeying God’s direct command by getting on a ship bound for the furtherest reaches of the then known world, Tarshish (likely what we know as Spain, at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea).
After his ride ‘home’ by the sea creature, and God’s repeating His command to go to Nineveh, Jonah repented at his impulse to flee his assignment, as he did indeed go to Ninevah and did speak as instructed the very words of God. But he did so with as much reluctance and passive-aggressive mentality as the most recalcitrant teenager who ever lived. Jonah seems to have sought to give the worst evangelistic message in the history of the universe, almost to the point of defying God to cause such words to create repentance by the least likely people. (It is almost humorous to read the story of Jonah’s evangelistic ‘campaign’ in that city; he was likely the most-reluctant preacher in history).
But in a miracle far far greater than the great sea creature, those words were used by God and true repentance of the Assyrian people did occur.
It was Jonah himself who struggled doing repentance that was the subject of his assignment from God. We get a closing view of Jonah’s sorrow for a small plant that had provided him some shade by virtue of a one day growth than he did the vast number of Assyrian people who had genuinely repented of their having been worshippers of pagan gods. God had to speak to Jonah yet a third time to lead him to a repentance of heart, not just of body but of his words of despair over plant that died overnight.
The Message of Jonah by the Mouth of Father Mapple
In the American classic novel Moby Dick there is an extended scene of mariners about to ship out in search of the great whale are in attendance at a chapel service seeking assurance that God would return them home safely.
There they hear a message from a Father Mapple based on the text of Jonah about repentance. Such writing by the author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville, is obviously not Scripture, but it is so beautifully and powerful written it is worth reading to gain the imagery of what it might be like to flee from God and later turn in repentance.
Father Mapple’s message from the pen of Melville is Chapter 9 of Moby Dick and can be read here:
Dr. RC Sproul gave a message on Father Mapple (Melville) including an extensive reading of the text, and is available here:
Finally, the classic movie of Moby Dick (1956) has Orson Welles playing the role of Father Mapple, that can be seen here: