The godly sorrow of repentance: Spurgeon's notes on 2 Corinthians 7:10

As we near Reformation Day (and as I prepare to preach on the same theme as Luther's first Thesis), it seemeth unto me that we all could profit from Spurgeon's sermon notes on 2 Cor. 7:10. To wit:

2 Cor. 7:10—“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”

     Time was when inner experience was considered to be everything, and experimental preaching was the order of the day.
     Now it is apt to be too much slighted.
     Introspection was formerly pushed to the extreme of morbid self-searching; yet it ought not now to be utterly abandoned.
     A correct diagnosis of disease is not everything, but yet it is valuable.
     A sense of poverty cannot by itself enrich, but it may stimulate.
     Sinners were unwisely influenced by certain ministries to look to their own feelings, many began to seek comfort from their own misery.
     Now it is “only believe.” And rightly so: but we must discriminate.
     There must be sorrow for sin working repentance.
     Upon this point we must—

         I.      REMOVE CERTAIN ERRONEOUS IDEAS WITH REGARD TO REPENTANCE AND SORROW FOR SIN.
Among popular delusions we must mention the suppositions—
            1.      That mere sorrow of mind in reference to sin is repentance.
            2.      That there can be repentance without sorrow for sin.
            3.      That we must reach a certain point of wretchedness and horror, of else we are not truly penitent.
            4.      That repentance happens to us once, and is then over.
            5.      That repentance is a most unhappy feeling.
            6.      That repentance must be mixed with unbelief, and embittered by the fear that mercy will be unable to meet our wretched case.

         II.      DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE TWO SORROWS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT.
            1.      The godly sorrow which worketh repentance to salvation is—
         Sorrow for sin as committed against God.
         Sorrow for sin arising out of an entire change of mind.
         Sorrow for sin which joyfully accepts salvation by grace.
         Sorrow for sin leading to future obedience.
         Sorrow for sin which leads to perpetual perseverance in the ways of God. The ways of sin are forsaken because abhorred.
This kind of repentance is never repented of.
            2.      The sorrow of the world is
         Caused by shame at being found out;
         Is attended by hard thoughts of God;
         Leads to vexation and sullenness;
         Incites to hardening of heart;
         Lands the soul in despair.
         Works death of the worst kind.
This needs to be repented of, for it is in itself sinful and terribly prolific of more sin.

  III.      INDULGE OURSELVES IN GODLY SORROW FOR SIN.
Come, let us be filled with a wholesome grief that we
            1.      Have broken a law, pure and perfect.
            2.      Have disobeyed a gospel, divine and gracious.
            3.      Have grieved a God, good and glorious.
            4.      Have slighted Jesus, whose love is tender and boundless.
            5.      Have been ungrateful, though loved, elected, redeemed, forgiven, justified, and soon to be glorified.
            6.      Have been so foolish as to lose the joyous fellowship of the Spirit the raptures of communion with Jesus.
Let us confess all this, lie low at Jesus’ feet, wash his feet with tears, and love, yea, love ourselves away.


[Spurgeon, C. H. (2009). My Sermon Notes, Volumes 3 & 4: Matthew to Revelation (pp. 245–246). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.]

Borrowed ethics question: how to respond to an associate pastor who confesses to homosexual "orientation"?

Mark Lamprecht poses a question, framed as coming from a faithful good-guy associate pastor:

As you all know I’ve served as a pastor here for several years. You also know that I have remained single the whole time. What I am about to tell you is not easy to openly admit.

The fact is that my sexual orientation…is…homosexual.

But please hear me out. I am fully convinced, and professes to you now, that theonly justifiable and acceptable sexual expression is heterosexuality within a heterosexual marriage, one man and one woman committed for life.

I have put specific guidelines in place to protect myself and the whole congregation. For example, I always leave the door open when counseling people. I am accountable to other pastors about this issue and I even have internet filtering software on my computer.

Finally, it is important for you all to know that I have not engaged in any illicit sex and have no plans to. I also meet with a Christian counselor about the same-sex attractions. Please stand with me in prayer on this issue. Thank you.

My first, non-serious response is "What — now they hold orientation-meetings for this?"

But here's my more-serious response. First, I acknowledge that there are many good ways to respond. Mine will feature the response that I think is (A) less likely to be given, and (B) probably more important than the likelier touchy-feeling good-sounding responses.

I think it's important to tell him that the first step in dealing with any problem is correct diagnosis of both the problem and the desired solution.

Next, it is important to tell him that he does not seem to have done either.

Third, by way of explanation, I'd point out to him that there is no help from God for an "orientation." The Bible doesn't know of such an "orientation." This may be why his only goal as to his "orientation" is that he "[has] no plans to" act on it — as I have "no plans to" visit Canada or live in New Jersey... though either could happen, and there's no moral or absolute reason why they shouldn't.

What do you do with an "orientation"? Since it is an un-Biblical category, forget the Bible. There is no forgiveness or redemption for an "orientation." So I guess you have to do therapy, or meditation, or yoga or something. No idea. Can't help you.

Or perhaps by "orientation," he is meaning to say "I struggle with sinful temptations to have sex with other men"? Okay, fair enough. Now we are getting somewhere Bibley.

But in that case, how do you say you "have no plans to" act on them? Picture a man standing up and saying he struggles with temptation to commit adultery with the senior pastor's wife, but he "has no plans to" act on it? Or that  he struggles with temptation to have sex with little children in the church Sunday School, but he "has no plans to" act on it? Or that he struggles with temptation to rape some women in the congregation, but he "has no plans to" act on it?

Well now, that's very different, isn't it?

No, actually, it is no different. It's just that, at the moment, the particular sin of homosexuality enjoys a martyred, romantic celebrity-status among sins. It's a special sin. People tempted to it are special cases.

But you see, while I believe that a certain amount of motivation behind evangelicals who (should know better but) give in to this trend is loving and compassionate, the net-result is actually disastrous and unhelpful.

"Disastrous and unhelpful" because, as I mentioned, God offers no help that I know of for dealing with "orientation"... unless you mean that orientation to sin which afflicts all natural sons of Adam (Rom. 8:7-8). Now, if it's a sin, like every other sin in being a sin, then we're on Biblical grounds. Now there is all sorts of help to be found in Scripture and in the truths of the Gospel.

But then he does lose his romantic, martyred status, and has to queue up with the rest of us plain old, garden-variety sinners, who don't go up to the pulpit and say we have a "polyamorous orientation" or a "hyper-acquisitive orientation," rather than saying we struggle with lust and covetousness. Why don't we? Because we know it! Unless we're far off from Biblical truth, we already know that there are only two kinds of people this side of heaven, viewed in one way:

1. People under sin's unchallenged lordship
2. People struggling with sin

There is no saint this side of heaven who doesn't struggle. Period.

So on the one hand, he has to give up his "Special Sin" card. He loses Tragic Hero status. He also mortifies the "no plans" out. Sin is to be mortified, and that means "deaditized." On the other, he gets to tap in to the same glorious Gospel help that all struggling saints have enjoyed for 2000 years. Gospel, repentance, forgiveness, regeneration, justification, mortification, sanctification, with the sure promise of ultimate glorification.

Hopeless pop-psychology for redemption in Christ. Not a bad trade, I'd say.

Postscript: as I've often said, I have great sympathy for anyone struggling with this sexual temptation as a temptation. I can only imagine how difficult it is, I know that. In fact, I think it's too difficult and too important to abandon such folks to pop-psychological mumbo-jumbo with a sprinkling of God-talk. They're sinners. I'm a sinner. The Gospel is for sinners like us.

That's terrific news, and it's the news we should stick with plainly, emphatically, insistently, and confidently.

I'll retire to Bedlam: Levi Johnston gets what Christians don't?

Ergun Caner reportedly makes scores of untruthful statements in public venue after public venue. He's caught out. Finally, he mumbles some generalities in public, but supposedly more in private — and that's supposed to be it? And folks who think it isn't are haters?

Francis Chan tells the world he's lurching off from his ministry on some sort of mission, giving bizarre reasons that just don't diagram. Call him on it in the same arena, and you're a hater?

Mark Driscoll does what he does publicly, and if Phil Johnson says something about it in the same arena without taking Mark to a Starbucks first, he's a hater?

Yet Levi Johnston, poster boy for why girls should never have sex outside of marriage, trashes the Palin family, and then has the moral sensibility to say this:

“I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize."

(Fred Butler sends me an additional link.)

So, this morally, spiritually clueless young derelict "gets" what hundreds, thousands of professedly Christian, professedly Biblically-instructed people don't: public sins should be confronted publicly and confessed publicly.

(Though, were he a Christian, I would urge him to specify and correct his lies about the Palins.)

I will, as I say, retire to Bedlam.

Faith, repentance, preparationism, Spurgeon

We find it awkward sometimes to express the absolute necessity of repentance. I work at this very topic, at length, in the manuscript of my upcoming book. The issue is this: do we have to repent, to get saved?

Some would say "Well duh, of course we do."

To that, others would reply "So then, someone who is a slave of sin and dead to God has to go over all his sins — which he loves and in which he walks — and decide he doesn't want to do them anymore; THEN he turns to Christ; THEN he believes; THEN he is regenerated and gets saved? How is that not synergism? How is that not works-righteousness? How are we not saving ourselves?"

Is that what we want to say? Do we want the people to whom we tell the Gospel to stay away from Jesus, looking within themselves, working to convince themselves that they really do hate sin, and that they really do want to break with it, so that they can then — after that, after killing sin within themselves by themselves — and only then come to Jesus?

Enter Spurgeon, with his 6/13 am Morning and Evening reflection on Revelation 22:17, quoted as “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Spurgeon makes this plea (emphasis added):

Jesus says, “take freely.” He wants no payment or preparation. He seeks no recommendation from our virtuous emotions. If you have no good feelings, if you be but willing, you are invited; therefore come! You have no belief and no repentance,—come to him, and he will give them to you. Come just as you are, and take “Freely,” without money and without price. 

I think Spurgeon is absolutely right. A lot more could be said (and I do, in the book), but this hits at the heart of it. At bottom, we're not trying to get people to repent, per se, or to claim to have faith, per se. We're trying to get people to Jesus.

"Whoa," you say. "They can't get there without repentance and faith."

Totally agree. But take a look at what Spurgeon says. He never denies the necessity of repentance and faith. But he addresses the hesitating person, and says in effect, "You don't feel faith in yourself? You don't feel repentance in yourself? Don't let that stop you. Come to Jesus. Bring those lacks to Him. Go to Him, He's what you need."

The reprobate person with neither faith nor repentance will snort, and stay where he is.

But what if one does come? To "come," as Spurgeon says, he must see his need of Jesus. He must see that he can't stay where he is. He must see Jesus as being who he needs. He must have confidence (faith) that Jesus alone can give those things. And, in coming to Jesus, he must turn from where he is presently.

And what is that but faith and repentance?

Luther and Packer on repentance

"When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance" (Martin Luther, thesis #1 of 95)

"Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged" (Keep in Step with the Spirit [Revell: 1984], 104)

Sin and repentance: equally notorious

Charles Spurgeon, from pages 13-14 of his Lectures to My Students:

As John Angell James remarks, "When a preacher of righteousness has stood in the way of sinners, he should never again open his lips in the great congregation until his repentance is as notorious as his sin."

This is spoken of pastors, but shouldn't it apply all around? Shouldn't the sphere of confession and restitution at least equal breadth and depth of the sphere of infamy and scandal?

"Sins" and "mistakes"

I'm thinking along the lines of today's Pyro post — sin, repentance, forgiveness, and All That. The Willises find themselves dealing (again!) with how to respond to ex-Governor Ryan, now that he has "apologized."

Or has he?

Three times Ryan refers to the crimes that sent him to jail as "mistakes." Straight-up, that's not a good sign. One of the first and surest signs I remember indicating that The Nameless One had not even driven his El Camino in the same county as repentance was his repeated reference to his abuse of Monica Lewinsky as a "mistake." At the time, I scoffed, "'Mistake'! If he thought that was Hillary at the time, only to discover to his horror that it wasn't, that would be a 'mistake.' This wasn't a 'mistake.'"

When you add up some figures and accidentally get it wrong, that's a mistake. When you reach past the dented soup can to get the next one, and find out later that it was beef broth instead of chicken noodle, that's a mistake. If you tell everyone to turn to verse one when you should be saying verse twenty-one, that's a mistake. When you click "No" instead of "Yes" and lose a document you've worked on for four hours, that's a mistake.

Is sin a mistake? Well, in the sense of Oh dear God help me I should not have done that!, yes, it is a mistake. It is The Wrong Thing to Do. It is Something I Never Should Have Done. Yes, sin is a mistake.

Eve was indeed mistaken to believe the Serpent. Adam was indeed mistaken to follow his wife into sin to keep peace at home (or whatever lame excuse he made to himself). Cain was mistaken to think that murdering his brother would make him feel better in the long run.

Saul was mistaken to think he could be excused for doing a priestly act. David was mistaken to think he could run through the Top Ten and break every one because he was a king (or, again, whatever he told himself). The Jewish leaders were mistaken to think that getting Jesus lynched would solve their problems. Pilate was mistaken to think doing what he knew to be unjust was a good idea. They all were mistaken to think that their actions solved the "Jesus problem."

So yes, sin is a "mistake." It is always a "mistake," because it is always the wrong thing to do.

But sin is never just a mistake.

"Sin," the Holy Spirit tells us through John, "is ἀνομία," it is lawlessness. That is, it is thinking and acting as if the Law of God does not apply to me, as if I am a law unto myself. I consult myself and my feelings, tell myself that this is a good thing to do, and I do it. I act as a god.

When I call my sin a "mistake," I'm insisting that I'm really basically a good person. Why, I would never do something really wrong! I also say that what I did was not that big of a deal. It was just a slip, a goof, an oopsie. Anyone could do it. And I try to evade any consequences. I mean, good Lord, don't make a federal case out of it! It was just a mistake.

A repentant man does not view, nor approach, nor deal with his sin that way. He deals with it as sin, something done deliberately, inexcusably, and culpably. He blames only himself, he agrees with God in damning it (and himself for committing it), he judges it, and he deals with it as God lays out for him to do. The scope of his sin is the scope of his repentance. He takes full responsibility, names it, claims it, disowns it, begs forgiveness of God and all the wronged, and does anything and everything he must to make it right.

(Here's the irony: many people who would do most or all of that with a mere mistake, insanely won't do that with a sin.)

Sigh. Well, there's a lot more to unpack there. I guess I'll have to do (at least) one more post unpacking sin and repentance and forgiveness.

UPDATE: the timing of this post is interesting, in unintended. Did you know it's the eve of the tenth anniversary of The Nameless One's impeachment?

Bad love, bad end - and the Cross

So you're reading along in the story of King Solomon in 1 Kings, and it's pretty glorious reading. Good King David has a wonderful son, a godly man actually visited by Yahweh Himself. He asks for wisdom, and is given it in such a way that he stands head and shoulders above all the wise men of the East in his day. His works and his writings and his reign are glorious, blessed, and happy. What an idyllic scene.

And then you hit this:

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love (1 Kings 11:1-2)

I say "you hit this," but really, it hits you. What depressing reading.

But what a solemn and needed warning. Was any man ever so blessed as Solomon? God had visited and spoken to him, not once but at least twice (1 Kings 11:9). Yahweh had blessed Solomon in every way imaginable: spiritually, psychologically, materially, socially, martially, politically (1 Kings 10:23-29). Solomon was in the best shape a mortal could be in. He was poised to be the greatest mortal ruler in all history.

And yet, what was the outcome? What was the result of Yahweh graciously meeting every one of Solomon's needs? Did this abundance of blessing produce godliness, holiness, contentment?

No.

Solomon's heart was weaned away from God by love — by love for the wrong women.

I wrote this in my Bibleworks notes at this point:

Listen up, my soul. You dream how great everything would be if only, if only, if only? Look at Solomon. Fear.

Nor was this simply a matter of folly. It was a violation of a specific command from God. What Solomon did was not merely stupid; it was immoral. It was wrong. It was wicked.

It was a sin against God.

Solomon could not have known all the misery that would come from his actions. But he knew it was rebellion against God. And, knowing that, he knew all he needed to know.

And so, for Solomon, healing could not come merely from regrets, nor from an inner, nagging, horizontal sense of guilt. He'd not deal with his acts merely by thinking of how he'd shamed his father (though he had), nor how he'd failed his nation (though he had), nor of how he'd made a fool of himself (though he had).

Solomon would need to see what he did as God saw what he did. He would need to see it first and foremost as a sin against God, as wrong because God said it was wrong. It was a crime against Heaven, it was rebellion against his King.

Solomon would need to come where his father did. David wronged his wives, he wronged his children, he wronged his nation, he wronged Bathsheba, he wronged Uriah.

Yet — though not denying any of that — what did David write, when brought to true repentance?

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment (Psalm 51:4)

What made David's sin sin, and not just mean or bad, was God. God said it was sin. That, and not human consensus nor enlightened self-interest, is what made it sin. As D. A. Carson has often said, in every sin, God is the most offended party.

Solomon would need to confront his sin in that dimension. Then he would need to go back and tear down all the works of his sin. He would need to tear down the idols, the altars, the dark and noisome fruits his rebellion had borne. He would need to "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance" (Matthew 3:8).

Hence the Cross of Christ, where sin was not bruised, wounded, beaten, nor injured. Christ did not feel faint for our sins. He did not get a headache for our sins. He did not catch a bug for our sins.

Christ died for our sins, and made an end of our sins, and destroyed the works of the Devil. In Him, we die to sin, and must reckon ourselves dead to sin.

In Christ, then, we find not only forgiveness for our sins, though (thank God!) we do find that. We find severance from our sins. We find liberation from our sins. In Him, we die to sin, and live to God. No one who lives on in his sin — whether its guilt or its power — can say he has encountered the Cross.

But who who encounters the Cross finds freedom both from sin's guilt and its power.

I close with the words of D. A. Carson

There are plenty of lessons. Be careful what, and whom, you love. Good beginnings do not guarantee good endings. Heed the warnings of God while there is time; if you don’t, you will eventually become so hardened that even his most dire threats will leave you unmoved. At the canonical level, even the most blessed, protected, and endowed dynasty, chosen from within the Lord’s chosen people, is announcing its end: it will fall apart. Oh, how we need a Savior, a king from heaven! (For the Love of God : A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word. Volume 1 [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1998], October 8)

Amen.

Forgiveness, abortion, and other sins

Craig said this in a recent post:

But what if you've had an abortion? You've done a terrible thing. But healing and restoration can be found in Christ. Don't justify your own actions, look to Christ for justification.

I agree, and think it merits a word of expansion.

God forgives the sins of repentant believers.

It was God who said this:

He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion
(Proverbs 28:13)

And this:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace
(Ephesians 1:7)

And this:

...and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem
(Luke 24:47)

God forgives sins, there is forgiveness for sins; it is sinners who are declared righteous in and because of Christ.

God doesn't forgive mistakes, errors in judgment, bad choices, regrettable decisions, regrets. Genuine confession of sin doesn't include a "but" or "if" or "because" — as in "I did this, but I had no choice," or "if that was wrong, I'm sorry," or "I did that because my lover / partner / parent...."

Confession of sin is specific and unqualified. If it was a sin, you didn't have to do it. If it was a sin, you shouldn't have done it. If it was a sin, there is no excuse for it. If it was a sin, you would not do it again, offered the opportunity, God helping you.

If you imagine that you had to do it, that there was an excuse for it, that it wasn't really all that bad, then you don't see it as God sees it yet.

If your sin leaves you with a wrong that you should right, but you are unwilling to right it, then you don't see it as God sees it yet.

In those cases, your action isn't really a sin, to you. It is, at worst, an "oops." But Christ died for sins, not "oopses," since "oopses" don't really require forgiveness.

And the truth is, you don't really think it was even an "oops," do you? You still think you had a good reason to do it. It wasn't really bad, like what bad people do. You just have this guilt-feeling, and you'd like it to go away. So you run to the "forgiveness" button.

Or worse still, some Christian is talking to you, and trying to bring you to see it God's way (which is really a very loving thing to do), and you want him to stop bugging you about it.

So you tell him you're forgiven and he should forgive you too. That should shut him up.

Yet you really aren't forgiven.

Because you don't think you've really sinned.

And God only forgives the sins of repentant believers.

Repentance: a minority opinion

I mean to write more on this, and probably at Pyro. But I thought I'd throw out this brief thought for the weekend.

I've heard a lot of my fellow-Reformeds rail against explaining "repentance" as "a change of mind."

Not me. It is a change of mind. That's exactly the significance of the Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia).

What I think the critics of this explanation should do is say, not "It does not mean a change of mind," but "It does not mean a merely superficial adjustment of opinion." What they say, and what they criticize, are two different things.

Let's say you smoke cigarettes. I ask you what you think about it on Monday. You say, "I see nothing wrong with it." Then I ask you on Friday, and you say, "I've changed my mind. It's a loathsome and destructive habit, and I must stop immediately."

Then I check back two weeks later, and you're still smoking like a factory, without a single attempt to stop.

My conclusion: you adjusted your opinion superficially, but you didn't really change your mind about smoking. Because a real change of mind issues in a change of behavior, however imperfectly and however gradually.

The mind is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23). It is how we are renewed (Romans 12:1-2).

Perhaps a better explanation would be: repentance is a fundamental change of mind from ungodly beliefs to God-honoring beliefs, which issues in appropriate fruits of attitude and behavior.