Repentance and Restoration: January 2007

The idea conveyed in this term is of great importance from the fact of its application not only to man but to God, showing how God, in His government of the earth, is pleased to express His own sense of events taking place upon it. This does not clash with His omniscience.

God’s Repentance

There are two senses in which repentance on the part of God is spoken of.

1. As to His own creation or appointment of objects that fail to answer to His glory. He repented that He had made man on the earth and that He had set up Saul as king of Israel (Gen. 6:67; 1 Sam. 15:11,35).

2. As to punishment which He has threatened, or blessing He has promised. When Israel turned from their evil ways and sought God, He often repented of the punishment He had meditated (2 Sam. 24:16). On the other hand, the promises to bless Israel in the land were made conditionally on their obedience, so that God would, if they did evil, turn from or repent of the good that He had said He would do, either to Israel or, in fact, to any nation (Jer. 18:8-10). He would alter the order of His dealings towards them, and as to Israel He said, “I am weary with repenting” (Jer. 15:6). In all this, the responsibility of man is concerned, as well as the divine government.

But the unconditional promises of God, as made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are not subject to repentance. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). “God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it?” (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Malachi 3:6). And this must hold good in regard to every purpose of His will.

Man’s Repentance

As regards man, repentance is the necessary precursor of his experience of grace on the part of God. Two motives for repentance are presented in Scripture: the goodness of God which leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4) and coming judgment, on account of which God now commands all men to repent (Acts 17:3031). It is distinctly of His grace and for His glory that the way of return to Him is granted (Acts 11:18), in that He has approached man in grace and by His glad tidings, consequent on His righteousness having been secured in the death of Christ. Hence God’s testimony is “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).

Concise Bible Dictionary

Down in Achor’s trial-scenes
Self is judged, the guilty found —
Faithful there the Father makes
Achor His correction ground.

“Vale of trouble,” “door of hope,”
Through the valley drawn by Thee,
Learning from Thy pleadings there
Love’s alluring ministry.

Chastened, Father, and restored,
Oh, what joy on Thee to wait!
Entering into Thy blest ways,
Entering by the Shepherd’s gate.

Father, thus each son received
Profits by Thy jealous care;
Each partakes Thy holiness,
Each Thy faithful scourgings share.

Achor-valley, “open door,”
Scene of One from God who died;
Dying, living, “Door of hope,”
Opened by His riven side.

Achor’s loved ones “sing,” “rejoice,”
Sing of Jesus’ precious blood;
Praise the Father’s “Door of hope,”
Magnify the Lamb of God.

C.F.C., from The Christian Friend 1882:293-294

Allow me to present to you my thoughts on repentance, as I believe Scripture presents it to us. The character of the gospel now commonly preached calls for a distinct scriptural statement of what it is.

What Repentance Is Not

Repentance is not conversion. That is in no way the meaning of the word. Conversion is the turning of the heart and will to God through grace. Repentance is not faith; that, in its true force, is the divinely given perception of what is seen through the revelation of it to the soul by testimony in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Repentance is literally an after or changed thought, a judgment formed by the mind on reflection, after it has had another or previous one; habitually, in its use in Scripture, the judgment I form in God’s sight of my own previous conduct and sentiments, consequent on the reception of God’s testimony, in contrast with my previous natural course of feeling. Of course, this may be more or less deep. Repentance is not the sorrow itself: that works repentance if it is godly sorrow. Nor is repentance regret or remorse, words used sometimes one for another, but not in Scripture. Judas had remorse and hanged himself, not repentance. Godly sorrow works repentance never to be regretted. Repentance is the judgment we form, under the effect of God’s testimony, of all in ourselves to which that testimony applies. Hence, repentance is always founded on faith: I do not say the faith of the gospel. That may be its source, but we may repent through the testimony of God to the soul, and afterwards receive those glad tidings. Conversion itself may follow repentance, that is, conversion as the full, deliberate turning of the heart to God. “Repent,” says Peter, “and be converted” (Acts 3:19). Conversion is the turning of the will to God. Repentance is the changed thought or judgment we have of things, bringing in with it often, when it concerns self, the sense of a change of feeling.

When Repentance Is Not Needed

The force of the word is clearly seen by contrast: “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). Where there is nothing to judge, repentance has no place; where sin is, this judgment of one’s own state is called for. So the Lord came to call sinners to repentance. Again, the Lord upbraids the cities where most of His mighty works were done, because they repented not. Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had seen them. Is it not a practical change and self-judgment on the testimony before them? We see by many of these passages it refers to their previous state of sin. So Acts 8:22: “Repent  .  .  .  of this thy wickedness.” In 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 they sorrowed to repentance; godly sorrow worked repentance. Here they were converted long ago and had believed long ago. But they had been in a bad state and had repented. How it showed itself may be seen in verse 11: “For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge.” Now these I admit are the proofs and fruits of repentance, how it showed itself. Still they teach us what it is.

Repentance and Self-Judgment

One text remains which gives its character and full force to repentance: “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). He looked, not merely that crimes and wickedness should be judged, but that a man should judge all his state in the light of God’s own presence, and in reference to His divine character and authority over him, and in the thought of His goodness. This is true repentance: man judged and judging himself in the presence of God, to whom he belongs and to whose nature he has to refer with mercy before Him. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ meets this, because there God has judged sin according to His own nature and authority, and His love is perfect, and we are reconciled to God according to that nature and righteous claim. But this requires a word of explanation. It is not that repentance comes first by itself and then, in an absolute way, faith, but that repentance, the judgment of what we are before God and in God’s sight, is one great effect of the truth; it refers to God as the God with whom we have to do; whereas faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is faith in that sovereign intervention of God in which in grace He has met our state in the gift of His Son. Repentance is not a change of mind as to God, though this may produce it, but self-judgment before Him, the soul referring to Him who is over us, with whom we have to do. It is not that repentance precedes faith. We shall see that it is not so, but it is first the heart returned into divine light, and then faith in the blessed intervention of God that fitted the state it finds itself in.

Repentance and Goodness

Practical repentance then is the estimate a man forms of sin, of his own ways as a sinner, on reflection, through the light of God penetrating into his soul, with some sense of goodness in Him, and setting up withal divine authority there. This may be through divine warnings as in the case of Jonah, or the lamenting of a John the Baptist announcing that the axe is laid to the root of the trees. It is always mercy. He gives repentance to Israel, grants repentance unto life: His goodness leads us to it. That is, instead of visiting sins according to man’s desert, He opens the door to return to light and grace through grace. Hence, when grace is fully announced, when the truth is there, repentance is on the footing of God’s perfect revelation of Himself in grace, in Christ. Repentance was to be preached in His name, and remission of sins. In coming to God it is always the first effect in the soul when it is real, and the turning of the will to God, and faith in the redemption and forgiveness the gospel announces comes after. Hence it is said, “Repent and be converted.” “Repent and believe the gospel.” This shows us how faith is necessary and the only source of repentance. It is by the testimony of the Word it is wrought. Be it prophets, or Jonas, or John, or the Lord Himself, or the apostles, who taught that men should repent and turn to God, it was wrought by a testimony of God, and a testimony believed. Now in our time, this testimony is the testimony to Christ Himself. Repentance, as well as remission of sins, was to be preached in His name. It is by the revelation of God, whether in judgment or in grace. In any case, it is through grace working in the heart that repentance is wrought.

Repentance and Grace

When the prodigal came to himself, he repented; he is converted when he said, “I will arise and go to my Father”; the gospel is realized when he meets his Father and gets the best robe. But he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and there is always in true repentance some sense of goodness. “How many servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare.” There would be no returning if there was not hope — it may be very vague — but still a hope of being received and goodness trusted to. Even the Ninevites say, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?” In the gospel the full grace of God is made the very ground of a call to repentance, still in view of judgment. Now He calls all men everywhere to repent, seeing He has appointed a day wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He has ordained. Goodness leads to it, the door to flee is open, but to flee from the wrath to come, to flee to God, who assures of forgiveness in coming through the perfect work of Christ.

The Preaching That Promotes Repentance

In practice, the true working of the gospel in the heart is to bring first of all to repentance. As we have seen, warnings such as Jonah’s may lead men to repent, or a John the Baptist ministry. But the fullest gospel does the same. It brings into the light though it tells of love, for God is both, and that love makes us judge ourselves when God is really revealed. It cannot be otherwise. If men have been already exercised, the preaching of a simple and clear redemption will, through grace, give peace. It answers the soul’s need, which, having already looked to itself, is now enabled to look to God through Christ, learns that God is for it, and learns divine righteousness. If a man has not been previously exercised, wherever there is a true work, the effect of the fullest grace is to reach the conscience, to lead to repentance—not to give peace as the first thing, but to bring the soul into that light, in which it discovers that state which makes it need a peacemaking for it. It has lived without God, perhaps openly flown in His face, and it does not merely discover He is holy and good, that is, change its mind as to God and learn to love Him, but it casts its eye on itself, on its past ways, has a reflective afterthought in which it judges itself in the presence of God so known, judging sin by the great work which has put it away. It repents. The soul feels it has to do with God responsibly, has failed, been evil, corrupt, without God, is humbled, has a horror of itself and its state, may fear, will surely hope, and eventually, if simple, very soon find peace. But it will say, “Now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” If there is not this — though the degrees of it may be various, as the form it takes in the soul — there is no true work wrought. If revivals (so called) be examined into, it will be found that previously exercised souls have become happy if a plain gospel has been preached. Those who have not and rush into peace are found after all to have no root at all. And if there be a superficial work and hasty peace, the work has to be done afterwards of reaching the springs and foundation of the conscience, and often through much sorrow.

We cannot preach the gospel too clearly or too fully, grace abounding where sin has, grace reigning through righteousness, but the effect of this when fully received, the effect we ought to look for in souls, is repentance — I mean the present first effect. It will be a deepening one all through our course.

J. N. Darby, excerpted from

Collected Writings, Vol. 10:221-226

“God  .  .  .  commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). When God commands all men to do something, it is important for all men to understand and obey. In this issue we focus on what it means to repent, what leads to repentance, and what the results are for one who, in faith, obeys the command.

In order not to offend people, it is easy to try and present the gospel message, avoiding the matter of repentance. May the Lord help us to understand that no matter how carefully we lead up to the point, we still must present to them the need to repent. Their consciences must be reached with the sense of their guilt and need before God. They must know that, while God loves them, they have come short and do not measure up to God’s holy requirements.

While much of the issue concerns the “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” that takes place in the salvation of the soul, it is important to see the need of it in the life of the believer. Job was a believer when God wrought the repentance recorded in his book. Peter was a believer when he denied the Lord and needed to repent and be restored. But whether we need to repent as a sinner or a saint, when we obey, the result is always for our blessing. God, in the greatness of His love, works to bring us to repentance so that He may bless us.

Repentance is a familiar word. Would that its true importance were as well-known! Yet, it is certain that unless the sinner repents, he will inevitably perish eternally. This is as true as the words of Christ can make it: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Tremendous fact! Our heart deeply sympathizes with many honest souls in their difficulties about repentance and would help them a little from that word which, if received by simple faith, removes a host of difficulties.

Job’s Need of Repentance

In seeking to do so, I would take up the case of one soul that experienced genuine repentance. We shall find it in Job 40 and 42. It will serve to bring out very clearly what repentance is — its order — and what brings it about. Job was seeking to justify himself—to extol and hold fast his own righteousness. Take one or two passages. Job 27:6: “My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.” Again, “Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity” (ch. 31:6). Here, undoubtedly, Job had not yet learned the great lesson; his heart was not yet humbled nor broken down. With him it was still “my righteousness” and “mine integrity.” Himself was his great theme. That will never do before God. The light of His presence must destroy all our pretensions to goodness and righteousness — our place before Him is prostration, low in His presence. Oh, how important for the sinner to know this! The unsullied light of that presence reveals to the conscience the true condition of things, as we shall see that it did in Job’s case.

“Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram; against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God” (ch. 32:12). How solemnly true is this of man in general! An insubjection to God, and an exaltation and justification of self is what characterizes man in general. Job justified himself rather than God. In chapters 38-40 the Lord Himself answered Job, and this proved effectual in opening his eyes to see his true condition, which laid him low in the dust before Him.

What Produced the Change

Here I would notice what produced this wonderful change in Job. From one who could speak of his own righteousness, he became prostrated in the presence of God, crying out because of his own personal vileness. It was the reception into his soul of that Word which made known the light of the nature of Him who spoke it — which made known to Job, in true and solemn character, the depravity of his own nature and the rebellion of his own heart against God. It was not a preparatory work on the part of Job, but the result of the entrance of that Word which gives light — the nature of God — and exhibits the darkness of man’s nature.

God had taken Job in hand and addressed him personally, and consequently all his self-righteousness fell to the ground. The stronghold of his legal heart was broken in upon and demolished. The Word, quick and powerful, against which no legal fortress can stand, penetrated Job’s heart, laying bare its secret springs, opening up to him the corrupt fountains of his nature, spreading its depravity before him.

This was undoubtedly that which produced his repentance. The Word of God, received into the soul, ministers light and discovers all the darkness and sin which reigns there, in view of what God is, as the One who is essentially light. Hence there is a work of self-judgment effected, which prostrates the soul before God and leads it to cast itself upon His mercy.

It is very blessed to notice this with Job: “Then Job answered the Lord, and said, Behold I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further” (ch. 40:35). And again, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (ch. 42:56). Here God’s end was so far reached. Job had learned himself — he was humbled—the blessed fruit of the work of God in him. He was brought to repentance, that is, to form a correct judgment of himself in the light of God’s presence and His heart-searching, soul-subduing Word. God’s truth had done its work with Job. He owns himself vile. He abhors himself and repents in dust and ashes. What a moment for Job! His self-righteousness was gone, and the spirit of self-vindication, making way for that healthy and divinely wrought exercise of soul, in the light, under a sense of sin, called repentance. Blessed work of God! The deeper the better, most surely.

The Blessed Consequence

Now Job becomes a blessed subject of the fullness of God’s bounty and grace. God, with an unsparing hand, heaps rich blessings upon him, and he is blessed. This is so with every soul that has repented—that divine work in the soul, which is never known apart from the quickening operations of God’s blessed Spirit. The fullness of God’s Christ is the blessed portion of such. All things are theirs in Christ.

Repentance, then, is no human preliminary; it is no preparatory work on the part of the sinner to conversion, but rather the result of the reception of the testimony of God — which is faith — and the quickening of the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit, which ever accompanies true faith.

It is the natural order of God’s most blessed work with and in the soul of the sinner. The Word is applied and received. If this reception is real, it is life to the soul, and as a consequence, repentance is wrought — that holy recognition of the righteous judgment of God upon all pertaining to the old man in us, which ends in the renewed and delivered soul rising up and breathing the atmosphere of the new creation, where all things are of God. In every case where the work is real, the hearty reception of the Word must come first (I do not say the full testimony of God as to accomplished redemption). God’s solemn testimony with respect to man’s state, as in the case of Job, must be received, and when fully and simply received, it is life to the soul, which results in a perfect abhorrence of self, and the renunciation of all self-righteousness, and the confession of personal vileness. “Behold, I am vile” is the solemn consciousness of the soul.

Peace With God

Then peace with God is the result of knowing that Jesus “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” — that the work is finished, and redemption an accomplished fact, and the Accomplisher Himself seated in brightest majesty at the right hand of the throne of God. Hence the need of preaching a full gospel; that is, the testimony that God has given with respect to man, and that which He has given of His Son — once in death, but now raised and glorified — which, when simply believed, is life and peace.

Christian Truth, Vol. 17:227-230

In John 21:1-19, we have three distinct kinds of restoration — namely, restoration of conscience, restoration of heart, and restoration of position.

Conscience

Restoration of conscience is of paramount importance, and it is impossible to overestimate the value of a clear conscience. The believer must walk before God with a pure conscience.

At the sea of Tiberias, it is evident that Peter possessed a good conscience. He had fallen in a shameful, grievous way and denied his Lord with oaths and curses. Yet he was restored. One look from Jesus had broken his heart and drawn forth tears. Yet it was not his tears, but the love that drew them forth, that was the ground of his thorough restoration of conscience. The everlasting love of Jesus, the efficacy of His precious blood, and the prevailing power of His advocacy gave Peter boldness and liberty on this occasion in John 21.

The Lord Jesus knew all about their fruitless efforts during the night, the toil, and the empty net, and He was there on the shore to kindle a fire and prepare dinner for them. The same Jesus who had died on the cross was now there to minister to their needs and to restore them from their wanderings.

When Peter heard that it was the Lord, he could not wait for the ship or for his fellow-disciples — he was so eager to get to His blessed Lord. He flings himself boldly into the sea, in order to be the first to get to the risen Saviour. Here, indeed, is a perfectly restored conscience — a conscience basking in the sunshine of unchanging love. It is evident from 1 Corinthians 15:5 that Peter had had a personal visit with the Lord after His resurrection, and as a result, his conscience is clear. Peter’s confidence in the Lord was unclouded, and He can approach Him with joy and boldness.

Heart

However, the heart must be restored as well as the conscience. Our conscience may be clear as to certain acts that we have done, but the roots from which those acts have sprung may not have been reached. The acts appear on the surface of daily life, but the roots are hidden down deep in the heart — perhaps unknown to others and even to ourselves, yet thoroughly exposed to the eye of Him with whom we have to do. These roots must be reached, exposed and judged before the heart is in a right condition before God.

Let us mark the delicate way in which the Lord reaches these roots in Peter. Not until “they had dined” is the subject raised. Nothing was presented to cloud the joy of the meal and the love that had prepared it. But after all this had been enjoyed, the Lord takes up Peter’s case and the root of his failure. That root was self-confidence, which had led him to place himself above all the other disciples. This root had to be exposed. Three times Peter had denied his Lord, and three times the Lord now challenges his heart with the question, “Lovest thou Me?” The question goes right to the bottom of Peter’s heart, for the root must be reached if any permanent good is to be done. If this is not attended to, the root will spring up again and again, with its sorrowful fruit. All this could be avoided if the roots were judged and kept under.

It is hard to know our roots, for they are often very deep. Pride, vanity, covetousness, irritability, ambition — these are some of the things over which we must continually exercise self-judgment. We may have to lament over the occasional failure, but we must maintain the fight and through Christ gain the victory.

Position

When the conscience is thoroughly purged and the heart with its roots judged, there is moral preparedness for our proper path. The Lord’s perfect love had restored Peter’s conscience, and His threefold questioning of him had opened up the root in his heart. He now gives Peter the sweetest pledges of His love and confidence, for He entrusts to him the care of all that was dear to His loving heart in this world — the lambs and sheep of His flock. Then, in one brief but comprehensive word, He opens up to him his proper path. We have here, in two words, the path of the servant of Christ: “Follow Me.” If we want to follow Jesus, we must keep the eye continually upon Him. We may be tempted, like Peter, to turn about to see what this one or that one may be doing, but then we hear the correcting words, “What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” This should be our all-absorbing business, although a thousand things may come to distract and hinder.

There is great danger today of following in the wake of others and of doing certain things because others do them. All this must be carefully judged, for it will come to nothing. What we really need is a broken will — the true spirit of the servant that waits on the Master to know His mind. Service does not consist of doing this or that, or going here or there; rather, it is simply doing the Master’s will, whatever that may be. Let us only be sure of what He has told us to do, and do it. His words ring in our ears, “Follow thou Me.”

C. H. Mackintosh, adapted from

Things New and Old, Vol. 7:61-68

Repentance is God’s claim upon people, and if in preaching I merely say, “God loves you, and you are a poor sinner; here is grace for you” (and that I surely would say), and then leave repentance out, it is leaving the man’s conscience out.

J. N. Darby, from Notes and Jottings 

In Numbers 19 we have a most instructive ordinance of God, peculiar to the Book of Numbers. “This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke” (Num. 19:2). What the great atonement day is to the center of the Book of Leviticus, the red heifer is to the Book of Numbers. Each seems characteristic of the book wherein it is given, which shows how systematic are the order and contents of Scripture.

Provision for Defilement

We have here a provision distinctly for the defilements which are met with as we journey through this world. This is of vital importance in practice. There are many souls disposed to make the atonement do all the work. There is no truth more blessed than the atonement, unless it be His Person who gives that work its divine value, but we must leave room for all that our God has given us. There is nothing which so tends to make a sect as to take truth out of its proportions, treating a part as if it were the whole mind of God. Thus it will not do to confine the saint then even to Christ’s atoning work, which has forever abolished our guilt before God, not even if we add to this that we know that in Him risen we are placed in an entirely new position, a life where evil never enters. Both most true and precious, but are these the whole truth? Certainly not, and there is no course more dangerous than to construe them as the whole truth. They are as precious as they are needed for the soul, but there is really no part of truth which is not needed.

By Blood and by Water

The red heifer teaches the children of Israel that the work of the day of atonement had not so completely dealt with all sin that they might treat daily defilements as immaterial. It is impossible to exaggerate the value of the shedding of Christ’s blood for our sins. It does give us to have no more conscience of sins. We are justified by His blood, and with Christ we have died to sin; we are alive to God in Him. But though this is all quite true (and was then set forth as far as types could, although imperfectly, when we look at an Israelite), such grace is the strongest motive why we cannot tamper with what is defiled. The very fact that we are cleansed perfectly before God is a loud call to us not to endure a blot before men. It was to guard His people from soils by the way that God gave here a provision so remarkable. A red heifer was to be brought, a striking picture of Christ, but of Christ in a way not often spoken of in Scripture. The requirement supposes not only the absence of such blemishes as was indispensable in every sacrifice, but also it must have never known the yoke, that is, the pressure of sin. How this speaks of the antitype! Christ was always perfectly acceptable unto God. “And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face” (Num. 19:3).

The blood was taken and put seven times before the tabernacle, for it is the blood that makes atonement and vindicates God wherever the thought of sin occurs. But its special use points to another feature, for purification for sin is spoken of again. “And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn. And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer” (Num. 19:56). Then we find the ashes of the heifer laid up in a clean place. “And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation; it is a purification for sin” (Num. 19:9). In what sense? Simply and solely with a view to communion — of restoring it when broken. It is not at all a question of establishing relationships (that was already done), but on the ground of the subsisting relation the Israelite must allow nothing by the way which would spoil the holiness that suits the sanctuary of Jehovah. This was the point.

A Thorough Realization of the Offense

This shadow of good things demanded separation from anything inconsistent with the sanctuary. While traveling through the wilderness, they were exposed constantly to the contact of death. It is death that is here brought in as defiling in various shapes and degrees. If one touched the dead body of a man, he was to be unclean seven days. What was to be done? “He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean” (Num. 19:12). It was not permitted to purify one’s self on the first day. Why not at once? It was ordered not for the first but the third day. When there is defilement on the spirit, when anything succeeds in interrupting communion with God, it is of deep moral importance that we should thoroughly realize our offense.

This seems the meaning of its being done on the third day. It was to be no mere sudden feeling that one had sinned, and there was an end of the matter. The Israelite was obliged to remain till the third day under a sense of his sin. This was a painful position. He had to reckon up the days and remain till the third, when he has the water of separation first sprinkled on him. A hasty expression of sorrow does not prove genuine repentance for sin. We see something like this with children. There is many a one who has a child ready enough to ask for forgiveness or even own its fault, but the child that feels it most is not always quick. A child who is far slower to own it may, and commonly does, have a deeper sense of what repentance means. It is right and becoming that he who is defiled (that is, has his communion with God interrupted) should take that place seriously. This I believe to be the general meaning of the Lord’s ordinance here. Of course, in Christianity it is not a question of days, but of that which corresponds to the meaning. There should be time enough to prove a real sense of the evil of one’s defilement as dishonoring God, and not the haste which really evinces an absence of right feeling. He who duly purified himself on the third day was in effect purified on the seventh day.

A Sense of Sin and Grace

Thus, first of all, the defiled person has a sense of his sin in the presence of this grace that provides against it by washing on the third day. Then, he has at last the precious realization of grace in the presence of sin on the seventh day. The two sprinklings are the converse of each other. They set forth how sin had brought shame on grace, and how grace had triumphed over sin. This seems the meaning, and more particularly for the following reason. The ashes of the heifer express the effect of the consuming judgment of God on the Lord Jesus because of sin. It is not simply blood, showing that I am guilty and that God gives a sacrifice to put it away. The ashes attest to the judicial dealing of God in the consumption, as it were, of that blessed offering which came under all the holy sentence of God through our sins. The water (or Spirit by the Word) gives us to realize Christ’s having suffered for that which we, alas! are apt to feel so little.

For Matters Small and Great

There is another thing to notice in passing. The water of purification was not merely wanted when one touched a dead body, but in different modes and measures. Touching a dead body might be called a great case, but the institution shows that God takes notice of the least thing. So should we —at least in ourselves. “Whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man; or a grave, shall be unclean seven days” (Num. 19:14-16). “The bone of a man” might be a much lesser object, but whatever defiles comes into notice and is provided for in Christ our Lord. It is not only grave matters that defile, but little occasions, as men would say, which come between us and communion with our God and Father. At the same time, He provides the unchanging remedy of grace for every defilement.

W. Kelly, adapted

“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Repentance involves the moral judgment of ourselves under the action of the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the discovery of our utter sinfulness, guilt and ruin, our hopeless bankruptcy, our undone condition. It expresses itself in these glowing words of Isaiah, “Woe is me! for I am undone,” and in that touching utterance of Peter, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Repentance is an abiding necessity for the sinner, and the deeper it is the better. It is the plowshare entering the soul and turning up the fallow ground. The plowshare is not the seed, but the deeper the furrow, the stronger the root. We delight in a deep work of repentance in the soul.

We fear there is far too little of it in what is called revival work. Men are so anxious to simplify the gospel and make salvation easy that they fail to press upon the sinner’s conscience the claims of truth and righteousness. No doubt, salvation is as free as the grace of God can make it. Moreover, it is all of God from first to last. God is its source, Christ its channel and the Holy Spirit its power of application and enjoyment.

God Commands That Men Repent

But we must never forget that man is a responsible being — a guilty sinner — imperatively called upon to repent and turn to God. It is not that repentance has any saving virtue in it. As well might we assert that the feelings of a drowning man could save him from drowning. Salvation is wholly of grace; it is of the Lord in its every stage and every aspect. We cannot be too emphatic in the statement of all this, but at the same time we must remember that our blessed Lord and His apostles did constantly urge upon men, both Jew and Gentiles, the solemn duty of repentance (Acts 17:30).

No doubt there is a vast amount of bad teaching on the subject, a great deal of legality and cloudiness, whereby the blessed gospel of the grace of God is sadly obscured. The soul is led to build upon its own exercises instead of on the finished work of Christ — to be occupied with a certain process on the depths of which depends its title to come to Jesus. In short, repentance is viewed as a sort of good work, instead of its being the painful discovery that all our works are bad, and our nature incorrigible. Still, we must be careful in guarding the truth of God, and, while utterly repudiating false teaching on the important subject of repentance, we must not run into the mischievous extreme of denying its abiding and universal necessity.

C. H. Mackintosh