The apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ were specially charged to preach “repentance and remission of sins” (Luke 24:47). Some of us are apt to overlook the first part of this commission in our eagerness to get to the second. This is a most serious mistake. It is our truest wisdom to keep close to the actual terms in which our blessed Lord delivered His charge to His earliest heralds. Do we give sufficient prominence to the first part of the commission? Do we preach repentance?
Our Lord preached repentance (Mark 1:14,15) and He commanded His apostles to preach it; they did so consistently (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30,31; 20:21; 26:20). With the example of our Lord and His apostles before us, may we not ask whether we preach repentance as we ought? No doubt it is very important to preach the gospel of the grace of God in all its fullness, clearness, and power. But if we do not preach repentance, we will seriously damage our testimony and the souls of our hearers. What would we say if we saw a farmer scattering seed on a hard road? We would pronounce him out of his mind. The plow must do its work. The ground must be broken up before the seed is sown; and we may rest assured that, as in the kingdom of nature, so in the kingdom of grace, the plowing must precede the sowing. The ground must be duly prepared for the seed or the operation will prove altogether defective. Let the gospel be preached as God has given it to us in His Word.
What is this repentance which occupies such a prominent place in the preaching of our Lord and His apostles? We are not aware of any formal definition of the subject furnished by the Holy Spirit. However, the more we study the Word in reference to this great question, the more deeply we feel convinced that true repentance involves the solemn judgment of ourselves, our condition, and our ways in the presence of God; further, this judgment is not a transient feeling but an abiding condition, not an exercise to be gone through as a sort of title to the remission of sins, but the deep and settled habit of the soul, giving seriousness, tenderness, and profound humility which should characterize our entire lives.
We greatly deplore the light, superficial style of much of our modern preaching. It sometimes seems as if the sinner were led to suppose that he is conferring a great honor upon God in accepting salvation at His hands. This type of preaching produces levity, self-indulgence, worldliness, and foolishness. Sin is not felt to be the dreadful thing it is in the sight of God. Self is not judged. The world is not given up. The gospel that is preached is what may be called “salvation made easy” to the flesh. People are offered a salvation which leaves self and the world unjudged and those who profess to be saved by this gospel often exhibit a great lack of seriousness in their Christian lives.
[Editor’s note:Perhaps this reminds us of some modern evangelism which says, in effect, “Accept Christ and enjoy good fellowship”; “accept Christ and play better football”; or “accept Christ and solve all your problems.”]
Man must take his true place before God, and that is the place of self-judgment, contrition of heart, real sorrow for sin, and true confession. It is here the gospel meets him. The fullness of God ever waits on an empty vessel, and a truly repentant soul is the empty vessel into which all the fullness and grace of God can flow in saving power. The Holy Spirit will make the sinner feel and own his real condition. It is He alone who can do so; but He uses preaching to this end. By preaching, He brings the Word of God to bear upon the conscience. The Word is His hammer wherewith He “breaks the rock in pieces” (Jer. 23:29); it is His plowshare wherewith He breaks up the “fallow ground” (Jer. 4:3; Hos. 10:12; Matt. 13:23). He makes the furrow and then casts in the incorruptible seed to germinate and bear fruit to the glory of God.
Let us be careful that we do not draw from these remarks that there is anything meritorious in the sinner’s repentance. This would be to miss the point completely. Repentance is not a good work whereby the sinner merits the favor of God. True repentance is the discovery and hearty confession of our utter ruin and guilt. It is the finding out that my whole life has been a lie, and I myself am a liar. This is serious work. There is no flippancy or levity when a soul is brought to this. A repentant soul in the presence of God is a solemn reality.
May we more solemnly, earnestly, and constantly call upon men to “repent and turn to God” (Acts 26:20). Let us preach “repentance” as well as “remission of sins.”
(From “The Great Commission” in Miscellaneous Writings, Vol. 4.)