Repentance is a great word, says one; it is altogether contrary to the bent of the human will. Man may make efforts, but he will never repent. Only grace gives real repentance, which, when used in its proper sense, means simply and invariably the judgment of self. Now to this, man will never bend. Amends he may offer; he may endeavor to do good, and repair the evil; but to own self wrong, without qualification, reserve, or endeavoring to move the blame on others, is never the nature of man, but the result of the working of divine grace, and true therefore of every soul that is truly renewed. It is impossible for a sinner to be brought to God without repentance. Faith, no doubt, is the spring of all; it alone gives power by the revelation of grace in the person and work of Christ; but repentance is the invariable consequence or concomitant.
Repentance is the judgment we form, under the effect of God’s testimony, of all in ourselves to which that testimony applies: it is the estimate man forms of sin, of his own ways as a sinner, on reflection, through the light of God penetrating into his soul, and some sense of goodness in God, and setting up withal divine authority there. This may be through divine warning, as in the case of Jonah, or the lamenting of a John Baptist announcing that the ax is laid to the root of the tree. It is always mercy. He gives repentance to Israel, grants repentance unto life: His goodness leads us to it. 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. So it was with the prodigal son, and with the Ninevites. But faith is the only and necessary 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 man should repent and turn to God, it was wrought by a testimony of God, and a testimony believed. Now, this testimony is the testimony to Christ Himself. Repentance, as well as remission of sins, was to be preached in His name.
The true working of the gospel in the heart is to bring first of all to repentance. 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 at 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. 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.”
We cannot preach the gospel too clearly or too fully—grace abounding where sin abounded; grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life—but the effect of this gospel when fully received, the effect we ought to look for in souls, is repentance, as the present first effect: and it will be a deepening one all through our course.