Forgiveness Is Free; Sincerity and Repentance May Take Some Work

Easter should leave us all with fresh enthusiasm for the freedom from guilt and shame that Christ paid for on the cross. I hope the last few days have been filled for you with hearing the free grace of God preached and proclaimed. The forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, and not through trying to work off a debt or earn acceptance, is one of the greatest joys we will ever know.

However, when anyone preaches the free grace of God that removes all the guilt of your sins, sooner or later people get nervous and uncomfortable with this lavish, free forgiveness of every wrong. If forgiveness is that easy, then what will keep us from giving into temptations when they come up again? Some people start to think this is too simple to be true: that people could just take advantage of God and keep indulging whatever desires they wanted if this were so. Just run back to God afterward to say “I’m sorry,” and you’re in the clear. Some people mock Christianity for this very reason, thinking it is too shallow and naïve for letting people get right with God by just apologizing after they do wrong. This also convinces some Christians that it can’t be that easy, that there must be more required of us in order to prove our real regret and repentance to God.

But it’s not as simple as it appears. Forgiveness is free to everyone who confesses what they have done wrong and wants to be healed. But if you do not have a heart that is sorry for doing wrong, forgiveness is absolutely unaffordable. It is completely out of your price range if you aren’t sincere in repenting of sin. There’s no way for you to purchase it. What people miss when they mock the free grace of God in forgiving sins, or when they doubt it and try to earn forgiveness instead, is that God judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. He knows whether you mean it. He doesn’t need proof. He doesn’t weigh your efforts to earn forgiveness, but He does weigh the sincerity of your regret and desire to change.

The new covenant Christ brought about by His death and resurrection has been called the “covenant of grace,” compared with the "covenant of works" that required perfect obedience under the Mosaic law. Richard Sibbes describes the new measure of obedience: “The law is sweetened by the gospel, and becomes delightful to the inner man (Rom. 7:22). Under this gracious covenant, sincerity is perfection.” (The Bruised Reed, Ch. 6). God established a new covenant for exactly this reason: no one was capable of keeping the law without sin. But God does give us the ability to choose sides with Him against sin, and to renounce our sinful actions. The new covenant only requires that we sincerely turn away from sin.

 

The words used for repentance in Scripture contain the idea of turning away from one thing to embrace another. We turn from sin to God. We turn from evil to good. Kevin DeYoung described it like this: "Some of us become Christians and just go on our merry way, never thinking of sin, while others fixate on our failings and suffer from despair. One person feels no conviction of sin; the other person feels no relief from sin. Neither of these habits should mark the Christian. The Christian should often feel conviction, confess, and be cleansed." Or as DeYoung says more simply: "Repentance is more than a repeated apology." It must be a change of heart.

Luther’s first statement in the 95 Theses is: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

 

A life of repentance doesn’t have to look impressive outwardly to be sincere. Expecting people to give something up or do something difficult to prove their sincerity doesn’t guarantee sincerity. Yes, if you are sincere and really want forgiveness, you will probably be willing to make sacrifices to receive it. But insincere people are often just as likely to do this. This is exactly what the Pharisees and scribes did, and what Jesus rebuked them for doing. They had figured out that if they made all the right motions of worship, they could get a reputation for holiness and obedience without actually having to live by it. But it gave them no traction before God.

 

If you just go before God seeking forgiveness because you want Him to pay off your tab so you can go sin again without consequences, well, Jesus predicted rather terrifying things for those who thought this was working for them: “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:7-9)

 

This kind of insincere, two-faced worship is utterly rejected by God. No one sneaks a free pass on sin by just saying, “I’m sorry.” There is no way to cheat on this. Those who think the free grace of God is too simplistic misunderstand the importance of the heart. God is not after people who can make a good show of religious devotion. He is after people’s hearts.

 

The reason I say sincerity and repentance may take some work is that they don’t always come naturally after failing. Sometimes it is very hard to be ready to approach God with genuine sorrow over sin. All the wrestling and lamenting and self-reproach of so many remarkable Christians, from John Owen, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, Richard Sibbes, John Newton, Charles Simeon, Charles Spurgeon, and J.C. Ryle to John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, Jerry Bridges, and J.I. Packer is simply this: pursuing sincerity in repentance; working the heart toward devotion to God and away from the coldness and selfishness of sin. Not a bit of it is meant to earn forgiveness or prove ourselves. It is all directed at being genuine in heart and sincere in our affections for God.

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:9-10)

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. (Luke 18:13-14)

This is the Gospel. Don't let anyone talk you out of it. Sometimes this may cost us much in tears, the dismantling of pride and self-admiration, admitting our faults, humbling ourselves to apologize to others, and destroying the illusions of our own goodness. But it has this precious difference between it and the futile pursuit of earning forgiveness: this working of the heart into repentance is accepted by God even at its most feeble, as long as it is genuine. You don’t have to try to work up a pure heart to be accepted. Those who truly desire to change, even if they are powerless to make any progress, are accepted by God, and then He provides the power for change Himself.

 

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. 'My son, give me thine heart' (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad!

(Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 110, HarperOne edition, 1954).

 

Jesus is a greater Saviour than you think him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest. My Lord is more ready to pardon than you to sin, more able to forgive than you to transgress. My Master is more willing to supply your wants than you are to confess them. Never tolerate low thoughts of my Lord Jesus.

(Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, August 22).

Penance Is Not the Same as the Mortification of Sin - One Punishes, the Other Purifies

I gladly proclaimed in my previous post that God does not demand penance after you sin. It is simply not true that “you should feel bad about yourself for a suitable and respectable period of time before you are permitted to be hopeful and encouraged again.” Put another way, you do not have to punish yourself in order to gain God’s acceptance again. He is not waiting for you to work off a debt. God is ready to embrace you again right now. The only thing you must bring is a heart that is sorrowful over sin and repentant.

But we have to be careful that we understand what that means, or we could easily throw out a great deal of Christian teaching and literature that emphasizes the mortification of sin or mourning over sin, thinking that stuff is all the same as penance. What I have described as 'penance' is not how everyone would use the term, but it is the most common perception today. In contrast, the mortification of sin or the pursuit of holiness is not self-punishment, but a quest to purge the heart of sinful desires. Quite a few Christians have written powerfully over the years of the need to prick our own consciences and rend our hearts over the wrong desires within us and the sins we are prone to commit. Richard Sibbes, in his immensely comforting work The Bruised Reed, nonetheless says:

There is a dangerous slighting of the work of humiliation, some alleging this for a pretence for their casual dealing with their own hearts, that Christ will not break the bruised reed; but such must know that every sudden terror and short grief is not that which makes us bruised reeds… but a working our hearts to such a grief as will make sin more odious unto us than punishment, until we offer a ‘holy violence’ against it. (Sibbes, Chapter 2)

By ‘humiliation’ Sibbes does not mean ‘embarrassment’ or putting ourselves to shame. He means the work of humbling ourselves; the act of putting off all of our pride and our desire to look good, and instead being very vulnerable and honest before God about our faults. (This is, in fact, how 'penance' has been understood by some saints in Christian tradition, but it is so often interpreted as I have described it so far that I think it is clearer to draw the distinction between penance as self-punishment and mortification of sin as purification.) One of the things that transformed Martin Luther's understanding of Christianity from a religion demanding we work off our sins under the fear of punishment into embracing the Gospel of justification by faith alone was learning from Erasmus "that the Greek word metanoeite meant ‘to repent’ not ‘to do penance’” – for example, in Matthew 4:17. "[T]his insight was reflected at the first of his 95 Theses." (See Timothy George, Erasmus Before the Storm.) 

 

How is this different than punishing ourselves over sin? The difference is easy to miss, but is crucial for your faith and your joy. First, the difference is the order in which things happen: the common understanding of penance is that after you turn away to sin, you are expected to do something humbling and uncomfortable for a suitable time before you are fully accepted by God again and all is forgiven; but with repentance, God accepts you immediately when you come to him seeking forgiveness, and He restores you completely. Then you can continue the work of humbling your heart and learning to hate the sin. But you are not expected to put yourself through a ritual of shame and self-punishment first before God will receive you back. He receives you back first.

 

The second difference is in how God helps you during the process of restoration. With repentance and the free gift of forgiveness made possible by Jesus taking your place on the cross, God embraces you as soon as you turn to Him in regret and then He helps you do the work of searching and purifying your heart. You get restored first, and do the work together. The idea of penance, however, is generally that you have to prove your repentance by working your way back into God’s favor. Instead, the Gospel ensures you don’t face your sins alone. God never stands far off, as if to say, “You got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out.” God is your Savior. All He wants you to do when you get yourself into a mess is to cry out to Him and plead for His mercy, because He loves to be merciful to you and show His goodness. In Psalm 50 the Lord tells Israel that all their burnt offerings don't please Him nearly as much as this:

"Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Psalm 50:14-15).

Third, penance implies that if you make yourself feel bad enough, or punish yourself enough, God will forgive you. This is a gross perversion of the Gospel. God does not forgive you because you have beat yourself up enough to convince Him you’ve paid for your mistake. God forgives you because Christ already took the punishment for your mistake. There is nothing more you can add to that. Your efforts to “work off” the guilt of your sin are pointless, and worse, they are prideful or distrustful. Either you doubt that Christ’s death really paid for all your sins, and therefore think you have to do more to pay them off (as if the cross wasn’t enough), or you have a prideful desire to be independent, which makes you resist the idea that you can’t add anything to Christ’s sacrifice. You want to pay some of the debt yourself so you feel like you earned your way and did your share.

 

The Gospel doesn’t leave you any room for this: it proclaims that Christ’s death once for all was a total satisfaction of all judgment and punishment for all our sins. You can’t wear it out, no matter how many times you fail and sin. But you also have to accept it as a free gift, one you didn't do anything to earn. You can’t pay your own way. The only way to receive forgiveness is to be completely dependent on God to give you what you don’t deserve, all because He is that glorious and generous.

 

You can't make yourself more accepted by God through acts of penance than you are already accepted through Christ. Instead, you can embrace God's gift of forgiveness and then sincerely pursue the humble grief over sin and prayers to be healed that will lead to mortifying (killing) the desire for sin, replacing it with a desire for holiness and deeper intimacy with God. There is no shame to fear in this pursuit of holiness, because Sibbes also wrote: "if we have this for a foundation truth, that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us, there can be no danger in thorough dealing. It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell."

You Do Not Need to Punish Yourself Over Sin

This morning I linked to an article full of wise, helpful, and encouraging things you can do in the moments after you have failed and fallen into sin, so that you can receive God's grace and focus on making sure you resist temptation next time. For some, just the use of the word "encouraging" related to what to say to someone after sinning seems out of place and inappropriate. There is a common attitude that if you have fallen into sin, you should feel bad about yourself for a suitable and respectable period of time before you are permitted to be hopeful and encouraged again. I am thankful to say that's not how God deals with us. Further, it doesn't even work.

God Does Not Demand Penance
 
God does not expect penance, a specific time of self-punishment and self-denial set aside to suffer for your sins. You aren't required to do something before you can be accepted and forgiven. Before the coming of Christ and His placing Himself between our sin and us, taking the full weight and punishment of our guilt on the cross, there was a system in the Hebrew temple for bringing sacrifices before God to atone for the guilt of sin. God set that up through Moses, but He was teaching the people and preparing them for something better: one sacrifice that would take away the guilt of sin forever. The offering of doves and goats on the altar never actually removed the guilt of sin; it was symbolic. (See Hebrews 10:1-18). It pointed the way to the real sacrifice that removed all guilt: Christ. (Hebrews 9:11-15).
 
Now that Christ has borne our guilt and iniquity, and taken all the penalty of sin onto Himself, there is no purpose for sacrificial offerings anymore. (Hebrews 9:25-28). "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." (Heb. 10:14). "Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant." (Heb. 9:15). "He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself." (Heb. 7:27).

Therefore, there is nothing at all to pay. No penance is needed to compensate for sin. Christ already paid it. And as Charles Spurgeon brilliantly said, God is not unjust: what has been paid already, He will never demand to be paid twice. You are not expected by God to take part in paying some of the penalty for your sins. Not even an ounce.

Our biggest difficulty in accepting this is usually that it simply seems too easy. We find it hard to believe that after we've done something shameful or hurtful, God forgives us completely for free. It simply makes more sense to our worldly minds that we should have to pay to get it. Otherwise, can't we just take advantage of God's kindness and do whatever we want? No, because God does expect a couple of things, things that are impossible for people trying to take advantage of His kindness. They are not penance or payment. They are regret and repentance.

Instead, Bring a Broken and Contrite Heart

David makes it clear: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalm 51:17). The only thing you must bring is a heart that is sorrowful over sin and repentant. You don't have to do something to be forgiven. But it is necessary that you feel something and believe something. If you regret your sin and desire to be healed, you're ready to come to God. But if you are making a show of asking for forgiveness, while smirking on the inside that you're getting away with something, you're in serious trouble. (I examined what it means to have sincere repentance here.)

If you have any doubt that having a repentant heart is enough to be healed even from serious or destructive sins, consider when David wrote Psalm 51. It was after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah, a faithful soldier serving David, murdered in order to cover it up. Christ did not die on the cross only for little sins. He paid for it all.

Even knowing that, many of us still feel that some period of shame and penance is needed just to be decent and respectful. It feels scandalous to turn around and embrace God's mercy so quickly. It doesn't seem to take sin seriously enough. Part of this is a confusion of emotions. Feeling ashamed and beating yourself up isn't helpful or necessary, but it is perfectly appropriate to feel sorrow and to mourn over sin. We should take the evil of sin seriously, and give thought to how we have dishonored God and harmed or betrayed others by choosing to sin. Sometimes our heartbreak over sin should be very deep and intense, leaving a lasting impact that makes us see sin more clearly and be repulsed by it. But that should not mean we sit far off from God, feeling ashamed to enter His presence until we have grieved long enough. You can remain sorrowful and regretful over sin without waiting before receiving the gift of mercy and comfort from God. The only thing we should slow down for is making sure our heart is actually repentant, so that we come to God sincerely.

How Long Does God Imply We Should Wait Before Seeking Forgiveness? 

If that doubtful feeling that it's not okay to ask God for forgiveness right away still lingers, consider this: God's ordinary way of dealing with us when we confess our sins is immediate acceptance and restoration.

The prodigal son returns home, and doesn't even get the words "Father, I have sinned..." out of his mouth before his father grabs him and embraces him. When he does make his plea to be accepted as a servant and work for his bread, his father ignores it completely and immediately restores him as a son and celebrates his return. (Luke 15:11-32). This is Jesus describing God the Father's heart for sinners.

Stop and reflect on how overwhelming this love and acceptance is: the father doesn't even pause to talk it over. He rushes on so that they won't waste a moment when they can be comforting each other and taking joy in being reconciled again.  

 

It is very important to the Lord that you not be in doubt about His love and His readiness to accept you. The Gospels and letters in the New Testament are full of invitations to come and be healed. God's love is so great that He does not want His children to bear the sorrow of their sin alone; He comforts us even over our sins against Him. This is what Paul tells us to imitate in how we forgive others. "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness." (Galatians 6:1). He tells the Corinthian church, regarding one who had been confronted about sin, "you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him." (2 Cor. 2:7-8).

Paul even says that forgiving everything and releasing this person from sorrow is necessary "so that we would not be outwitted by Satan[.]" (2 Cor. 2:11). Keeping people divided by sin and unsure of forgiveness is a demonic mission. One of the biggest problems with thinking you need to put yourself through a period of isolation and shame after having sinned, beating yourself up about how bad you are, is that it does nothing to make you stronger in resisting sin. Instead, it cuts you off from the source of your strength and resilience. Letting this person linger in sorrow any longer is dangerous: it makes him vulnerable. We can't afford to lock ourselves in a dungeon away from God until we feel we have suffered appropriately for sinning. What we need in that very moment is His strength to lean on.

God does not stand far off when we have sinned. He is right next to us, longing to pick us up again. Jesus displays His heart and empathizes with our failures: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:15-16). Don't hesitate. Run home with confidence.