Elements of Repentance

Thomas Watson, a Puritan preacher and author wrote a book on repentance that is very helpful in understanding this often-misunderstood doctrine.   Watson says repentance involves six things.  First is seeing your sin.  Sometimes I don’t see own my sin without help—my wife or someone else sometimes must point it out to me.  You can’t repent of sin you don’t acknowledge.  Second, repentance involves sorrowing over your sin. 

Second Corinthians 7:10 tells us, “¹⁰ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. ¹¹ For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.”  You sorrow over your sin when, by God’s grace you see it accurately for what it is—an offense against the God who created you, sent his Son to die for you and has called you his child and friend.  Sometimes this sorrow can be intense, but a couple of words of caution here that are not original with me.  First, sorrow does not always indicate repentance.  We can be remorseful over our sin because the consequences are negative and we can cry in anguish because sin hurts us or because we got caught.  That kind of grief is not an expression of our deep regret that we have grieved our Father.  Second, we must never believe that God is pacified by our remorse—as if a few tears over a sin equates to repentance—they don’t.

After seeing and sorrowing over our sin, we must confess our sin and be specific.  “I committed adultery in my mind in the way I looked at that woman.”  “I don’t just dislike that man or feel annoyed with him, I hate him—it’s a murderous rage.  This requires a level of humility that makes you willing to be completely honest and vulnerable before God.  A fourth element of repentance, Watson says is feeling shame over our sin.  Now, this is a bit controversial in our era where in the west shame has become a dirty word.  But shame in and of itself is appropriate if you have sinned.  Think about it relationally.  God is a Person—a Person you want to please.  If you strike out against God—who has done so much for you, isn’t shame a normal, healthy response?   Adam and Eve had the sense to feel shame when they sinned.  Watson calls shame a “sweet mercy,” implying that shame is an expression of God’s grace.  He also says that “blushing is the color of virtue” which is Biblical.  The prophet Jeremiah is speaking in relation to the centuries of sin that Judah has committed and in 6:15 he says, “¹⁵ Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush…”   Again, experiencing shame is not the same as actively shaming yourself.  That is—you artificially generating the shame instead of experiencing it as the natural response to your sin before God.  Shaming yourself sounds like, “I can’t believe I did that? [Which is a VERY prideful statement!]  It was so evil and wicked.  I am such a jerk.  God must just hate me now.” 

Fourth, Watson says repentance involves hating your sin.  Again, this is not a hatred we try to stir up within us.  As we meditate on our sin and experience godly sorrow, we come to hate our sin.  In other words, our attitude toward our sin is 180 degrees different than at the moment we committed it.  We didn’t hate it then or we wouldn’t have done it.  Again, Michael Horton is right when he said repentance involves “a revulsion of the whole soul"  toward our sin.  Finally, as a result of all that, you do what comes naturally—you turn from your sin.  Turning from your sin—producing the fruit of repentance is the logical outcome of experiencing sorrow, shame and hatred over your sin.  You’d have to be a masochist NOT to turn from something that brings you deep sorrow, makes you feel ashamed and is something you hate.  I hope you can see that repentance is not something you do from sheer willpower and grit.  Think about it—if you know that some behavior or attitude is sinful, but it doesn’t bring godly sorrow and shame and hatred, what good is willpower going to do you except put you under the law for a sin that part of you still loves?  Likewise, if you experience genuine sorrow over sin, feel ashamed for doing it and have come to hate it, why would you really need willpower and grit?  Finally, we must remember that repentance is a life-long process and anything we do for a lifetime, we want to accurately understand.