Repentance involves the moral judgment of ourselves under the action of the word of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 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; I am undone"; and in that touching utterance of Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." (Isa. 6:5; Luke 5:8.)
O 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; the Holy Ghost its power of application and enjoyment. All this is blessedly true; 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; or that a man could make a fortune by a deed of bankruptcy filed against him. 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 Jews and Gentiles, the solemn duty, of repentance.
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 depth 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 Christendom's false teaching on the important subject of repentance, we must not run into the mischievous extreme of denying its abiding and universal necessity. (Matt. 4:17; Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; Acts 20:21; Rom. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9.)
Oh! come to the Saviour, He's calling to-day.
How long wilt thou linger? His voice now obey.
He's speaking from heaven, in love to thy soul;
His blood He has given: wilt thou be made whole?
No need now to labor; the work has been done;
To be in God's favor, believe on His Son.
Christ's death has secured salvation all free;
The cross He endured for you and for me.
And Jesus is coming for all who believe;
The Star of the morning, His own to receive;
O sinner! confess Him, the throne-seated Lord;
And thou shalt be with Him, where He is adored.