APPENDIX B
The Bible Basis for Corporate Repentance
I. INTRODUCTION: A PROVEN PATH TO SOUL-WINNING!
A five-times divorcee with a heart like stone comes casually, flippantly
to Jacob’s ancient well. Casting only a side glance at the Jewish
Stranger, she makes sure she won’t notice Him.
But He notices her. Tired, hot, and thirsty as He is from His journey,
He does not sit in silence; He wants to win a soul. He knows precisely
the right way (often to us unknown) to arouse this worldly person whose
prejudice has already closed all doors — so she thinks.
And look what happens: in the space of a few minutes her cold heart is
melted, she is in tears of repentance, ready to receive joyous Good News
and start a genuine new Life as a missionary.
How can Jesus have such phenomenal, insightful power to win a
sin-alienated heart? We can carelessly answer, "He was divine, and
had something we don’t have!" But He tells us, "Greater
works than these shall [ye] do, because I go unto My Father." Now
we have come to the time when those "greater works" must be
done; the loud cry of Revelation 18 is long overdue.
Jesus wants a soul-winning evangelism explosion that will outdo anything
our denominational committees have dreamed of: a worldwide network of
humble church members who will learn from Jesus how to win souls as He
did at Sychar. His secret? We suggest: He had experienced corporate
repentance.
See Him there. Without approving of the lady’s sins, He understands
the inner pain of her beaten-down heart and thus has found an avenue
of entrance, touching a chord of music that
has been silent even through four or five marriages.
But was it really mysterious, what Jesus knew? Or can we learn the
secret from Him?
Shortly before, John had baptized Him. But that meant a prerequisite of
repentance on Jesus’ part, for the only people that John could baptize
were those who had repented. But Jesus never had sinned. Then how could
He let Himself be baptized? To be baptized without repenting would be
hypocrisy, for John’s divinely appointed mission was only "the
baptism of repentance" (Acts 19:4). John knew this, which was why
he refused Him the rite.
But here’s the wonder: the sinless Son of God lets Himself be lowered
into the water the same as any common sinner, making a public confession
of repentance. (It’s puerile to think the reason was He merely wanted
to show us the physical method — John could easily do that; or
was Jesus to make a "bank deposit" of "merit" to be
transferred to some disadvantaged people like the thief on the cross?)
Jesus actually did experience repentance. He had to, or
John could not have baptized Him; but His repentance was not for His own
sins, bur for ours. Therefore it had to be corporate. Totally sinless,
He was "made to be sin for us who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians
5:21). He identified with the human
race so closely that He felt that our sins were His own. How do you feel
about your sins? Don’t you want understanding and compassion? Sure. So
Jesus learned how to feel that burden in behalf of others, including
this five-time loser at the well.
Our problem is to understand why He was baptized, because that
experience prepared Him for the greatest three and a half years of
soul-winning ministry Heaven has ever seen. Now the earth must someday
soon be lightened with the glory of "the third angel’s message in
verity," when a multitude of all nations and tongues will join Him
in winning every "loser" in the world who will leave the door
open just a crack.
Rather than a few celebrities doing it on screen or through electronics,
that fourth angel’s ministry must be performed largely by humble
people communicating on a personal heart-to-heart level. Their
"training"? Seldom that of "literary institutions,"
but a clear knowledge of Good News better than for a century and a half
we have thought it is:
"The message of the third angel will be proclaimed. As the time
comes for it to be given with greatest power, the Lord will work
through humble instruments, leading the minds of those
who consecrate themselves to His service. The laborers will be
qualified rather by the unction of His Spirit than by the training of
literary institutions. ... The people will be stirred.
Thousands upon thousands will listen who have never heard words like
these. ...
"Servants
of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy
consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message
from heaven. By thousands of voices all over the earth, the warning
will be given. Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and
signs and wonders will follow the believers. ... A large number take
their stand upon the Lord’s side" (GC 606-612).
Ellen White wrote all this before 1888. When at last she heard the
"most precious message," she recognized the
"beginning" of its fulfillment. Then she added, "One
interest will prevail, one subject will swallow up every other, —
CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS" (Review and Herald Extra, Dec. 23,
1890).
The dynamite-like power is in that "precious message" itself
(Romans 1:16), as Jesus told His Twelve, "Don’t load yourselves
up with equipment. Keep it simple; you are the equipment" (Luke
9:3, Peterson). The 1888 Good News is the "beginning" of the
most efficient evangelism we have ever heard of; the program is
virtually self-propagating. When someone understands and believes it,
the message incarnates itself; he doesn’t need to be prodded into
"witnessing." All the devils in hell can’t silence him
because he is motivated by agape (2 Corinthians 5:13-15), and
since "God is agape," agape does the teaching
that is necessary.
How can a world-wide lethargic, lukewarm church be transformed into the
living fulfillment of those prophecies and prepare to receive the
multitudinous "woman at the well"? Ellen White has said the
Lord will only "work to bring ... in" His "My
people" of Revelation 18:4 when the church is beyond infecting them
with the popular disease of lukewarmness (cf. 6T 371; 4T 68).
The message to "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" is
dramatically linked in Revelation with the events of chapter 19. The
latter can never be fulfilled until the former is experienced. And that
takes some melting of hearts.
Our task in this presentation is to try to understand (a) the
"repentance" Jesus experienced, and (b) what He means when he
commands that "angel" of Laodicea, "Be zealous therefore,
and repent."
We suggest the answer may be: something implicit in "the message of
Christ’s righteousness" — corporate repentance, which
is: repenting of the sins of others, knowing that they could be your
sins, and would be your sins, but for the grace of a Saviour. You have
no righteousness of your own, not even 1%.
Corporate
Repentance - An Essential Scriptural Idea |
