part 2 of 2
Repentance Precedes Forgiveness
Many cannot sense how they are in any way responsible for a sin that was committed by other people in another land in another age, nearly two thousand years before they were born. But here is the very heart of the gospel itself: the “good news” tells us that God forgives us that sin. But how can we receive forgiveness for a sin we don’t feel guilty of committing? The apostle John tells us that it is only when we confess a sin that we can experience Christ’s “faithful” forgiving and cleansing from it (1 John 1:9).
But to confess a sin without sensing its reality is mere lip-service, perilously close to hypocrisy. Skin-deep confession, surface repentance, bring skin-deep love, surface devotion.
Jesus teaches that we must feel we have been “forgiven much” before we can possibly learn to “love much” (see Luke 7:14).
Note how an inspired comment clearly involves us all in the guilt of crucifying Christ:
That prayer of Christ for His enemies embraced the world. It took in every sinner that had lived or should live, from the beginning of the world to the end of time. Upon all rests the guilt of crucifying the Son of God. (Desire of Ages, page 745.)
The world was stirred by the enmity of Satan, and when asked to choose between the Son of God and the criminal Barabbas, they chose a robber rather than Jesus. … Let us all remember that we are still in a world where Jesus, the Son of God, was rejected and crucified, where the guilt of despising Christ and preferring a robber rather than the spotless Lamb of God still rests. Unless we individually repent toward our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the world has rejected, we shall lie under the full condemnation that the action of choosing Barabbas instead of Christ merited. The whole world stands charged today with the deliberate rejection and murder of the Son of God. The word bears record that Jews and Gentiles, kings, governors, ministers, priests, and people—all classes and sects who reveal the same spirit of envy, hatred, prejudice, and unbelief, manifested by those who put to death the Son of God—would act the same part, were the opportunity granted, as did the Jews and people of the time of Christ. They would be partakers of the same spirit that demanded the death of the Son of God. (Testimonies to Ministers, page 38.)
These astounding statements deserve a second look:
- The guilt of crucifying Christ “still rests” upon the world, even upon “every sinner.” Even “ministers” and church members partake of this sin. Apart from the grace of God manifested through repentance, we each share the guilt.
- Without this grace, “every sinner” would repeat the sin of Christ’s murderers if given enough time and opportunity.
- The sin of Calvary is seen to be an out-cropping of a sub-stratum of sin which men are not aware of except by enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. At Calvary, every man’s sin is fully unmasked. We can’t “see” it until we “see” Calvary.
- In a very real sense we were each one at Calvary, not through pre-existence or pre-incarnation, but in the sense of corporate identity “in Adam.” If it is true that “upon all rests the guilt of crucifying the Son of God,” Adam likewise partakes of that guilt equally with us today. His sin in the Garden of Eden was to Calvary what the acorn is to the oak.
- The “righteous” in their own eyes, including “ministers” and “priests” of “all … sects,” are potentially capable of revealing “the same spirit” as was manifested by those who actually crucified Christ. This statement includes Seventh-day Adventists.
The Acorn Produces the Oak
Every one of us is born with the “carnal mind” which is “enmity against God,” and the little acorn of our “carnal mind” needs only enough time to grow into the full oak of the sin of Calvary. But he who has “the mind of Christ” will have the repentance of Christ. Therefore, the closer he comes to Christ, the more he will identify himself with every sinner on earth.
In order for Christ’s righteousness to cover our sin, the principle of identity must work both ways; whereas He identifies Himself with every sinner on earth, we must do the same. Until we do, all our claims to be “covered” with the righteousness of Christ are empty and futile. If we would accept the gracious provision that “in Christ shall all be made alive” we must recognize the equal truth that “in Adam all die.”
This simple truth found in the New Testament shatters selfesteem and complacency. Once let Paul’s truth of corporate identity be recognized, we begin to appreciate something of the guilt of the sins of the world and our smug superiority is melted down to deep contrition and love for “every repenting sinner” on the face of the earth. Immediately we feel in our hearts that we are “debtor both the Greeks, and to the barbarians.” The miracle of miracles takes place in our proud lukewarm hearts: we begin to love sinners exactly like Christ loves them.
To make this very practical, how did Christ love sinners? If He were to come into our churches today, we might be scandalized.
He “recognized no distinction of nationality, or rank or creed . . ., His gift of mercy and love … as unconfined as the air, the light, or the showers of rain that refresh the earth.” He “came to break down every wall or partition.” In Christ’s example “there is no caste, a religion by which Jew and Gentile, free and bond, are linked in a common brotherhood, equal before God. No question of policy influenced His movements. He made no difference between neighbors and strangers, friends and enemies. … He passed by no human being as worthless, but sought to apply the healing remedy to every soul. … Every neglect or insult shown by men to their fellow men, only made Him more conscious of their need of His divine/human sympathy. He sought to inspire with hope the roughest and most unpromising.” (Ministry of Healing, pages 25 and 26.)
This is exactly the kind of practical love that corporate repentance produces in any human heart that will receive the gift. The “injection” of Christ’s corporate repentance produces a love that permeates His body, the church. No longer are we hopeless to “reach” the sinner in modern times whose particular evil deeds we do not understand and pride ourselves on not having committed. Corporate repentance enables us to bridge the gap that insulates us from needy souls whom Christ loves, but for whom He can exercise no healing ministry because we as His instruments are “frozen” in our unfeeling impenitence.
Like Christ “who did no sin” but knew repentance, so we can feel a genuine compassion in behalf of others whose sins we may not personally have committed, either for lack of opportunity or for lack of temptation of equal intensity. Forthwith we begin helping them. Our work for them “comes alive,” and we find our efforts become effective. Love is freed from the chains of our impenitence and immediately goes to work just like Jesus did. Our experience of repentance has produced a revolutionary change in our feelings toward “every sinner.” Of each one we genuinely feel, “There but for the grace of God am I!” Make no mistake about it: he will immediately sense the reality of our identity with him in exactly the same way that sinners sensed the reality of Christ’s identity with them.
Why Only a Perfect Person Can
Experience a Perfect Repentance
One more thought before we close this chapter. The more nearly perfect a person is, the greater will be his experience of repentance. Only a perfect Being can experience a perfect repentance. This is why only Christ is the perfect Example of corporate repentance.1 Never before in world history and never since has a human being offered to the Father such a perfect offering of repentance in compensation for human sin. Because of His perfect innocence and sinlessness, only Christ could feel perfectly the weight of human guilt.
Ellen G. White has beautifully expressed this truth:
Through Christ was man’s only hope of restoration to the favor of God. Man had separated himself at such a distance from God by transgression of His law, that he could not humiliate himself before God proportionate to his grievous sin. The Son of God could fully understand the aggravating sins of the transgressor, and in His sinless character He alone could make an acceptable atonement for man in suffering the agonizing sense of His Father’s displeasure. The sorrow and anguish of the Son of God for the sins of the world were proportionate to His divine excellence and purity, as well as to the magnitude of the offense. (Selected Messages, Book 1, pp. 283, 284.)
It is no accident, therefore, that only the 144,000 who are “without fault before the throne of God” (Revelation 14:5) will be’ able to approach unto Christ’s perfect example of corporate repentance, although sinners by nature.
At every advance step in Christian experience our repentance will deepen. It is to those whom the Lord has forgiven, to those whom he acknowledges as His people, that He says, “Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight.” Ezekiel 36:31. (Christ’s Object Lessons, pp. 160, 161.)
Repentance is associated with faith, and is urged in the gospel as essential to salvation. … There is no salvation without repentance. No impenitent sinner can believe with his heart unto righteousness, … As the sinner looks to the law, his guilt is made plain to him, and pressed home to his conscience, and he is condemned. His only comfort and hope is found in looking to the cross of Calvary. (Selected Messages, Book 1, pp. 365, 366.)