(The Assistant Pastor at our church preached on repentance last week. Not sure which of these thoughts are mine and which are his, so I'll plagiarize right in front of everybody. Thanks, Mark.)
Last week I heard a sermon on Mark 1:15: “Repent and believe the gospel.” It stirred some basic truths in me, and it was good to hear them again.
First, to “believe” means that there is something outside myself that calls for my response. That means that the gospel has a separate identity from me, and is not something that comes into existence by my experience of it. The gospel in some sense leaves man out of the equation--though man receives its fruit, the gospel is really a covenant among the Persons of the Trinity that reconciles man to God. The Trinity acts upon its own counsels, and man’s response is to believe or reject. I find that a great comfort when I feel that I’ve failed as a Christian.
Second, is this easy believism or a legal fiction? No, because Jesus precedes the command to believe with the command to repent. The root meaning of repent is “change.” Therefore a command to repent presupposes that a man can change, or, better, that the gospel can change him. A man who is not changed by the gospel has failed to believe it. Belief brings change. The gospel is about the love of Christ. Love brings change. Christ call us to a beauty that only the imagination can reach. Beauty brings change. Repentance, therefore, grows out of the struggle and yearning to enter the future where Christ is.
Repentance breaks boxes--boxes not only of sin and addiction, but the boxes of self-interpretation that keep us from believing we can be more. Repentance is freedom.
(Picture: El Greco, The Trinity)
LIke the El Greco And I like this quote: "First, to “believe” means that there is something outside myself that calls for my response. " of course, I cannot help but here ERH saying, "I am addressed, therefore I respond."
ReplyDeleteThen these other thoughts start flooding. The Objective Reality of the gospel stands over and above me, and yet by the mystery of His grace penetrates my inner conscience at the same time. The Father created us in and through the Son by the "Inspiring" Spirt, thus He is beyond me yet penetrates me in a way that nothing within creation can do. I either turn toward the source of my being or a turn away toward corruption.