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‘Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.’
Act_2:38
I. Respecting its nature.—To repent is an altogether different thing from doing penance. Nor is repentance to be confounded with remorse. Repentance is the tender-hearted sorrow for the sin itself.
II. Its necessity.
(a) Our Lord plainly teaches its necessity.
(b) Repentance is essentially connected with forgiveness of sin. We are never told in Holy Scripture that God forgives the unrepentant. If a man is content with his sins, vexed perhaps at the consequences, but quite unhumbled for the sin; if he neither sorrows for it, nor acknowledges it, nor humbles himself before God for it, and is simply troubled because it has disgraced him, how can he expect forgiveness from God?
III. In what way is repentance to be found?—It is the same with repentance as it is with faith, or hope, or holiness, or obedience, or purity. It is the action of man, yet the gift of God. There is in it a union of the Divine and human element. In repentance there is perfectly clearly the action of man; and accordingly man is called on as a free agent to repent. On the other hand, it is described as being as distinctly a gift of God, as if man had nothing whatever to do with it. It is a gift for which we ought to thank God as much as for pardon, or new birth, or holiness, or any other of the multiplied blessings which He in His mercy has bestowed on us in Christ Jesus.
IV. What, then, is our practical conclusion?—Two things seem perfectly clear.
(a) First, we are not to wait till we are aware of having received some supernatural gift or supernatural impression, and then begin to repent as the consequence of such a gift; but we are to begin to act exactly as we are on the command which bids us repent.
(b) But it also teaches us that we must not expect by any will of our own to soften the heart of stone.
—
Canon Edward Hoare.
Illustration‘We cannot control the Spirit of God. He works when He wills, how He wills, and where He wills. The Spirit of God, when He convinces a man of sin, wakes up sins long forgotten, and makes him feel their burning sting. Just as when a man is drowning, they say his whole life flashes before him like a panorama. Pictures of all he has done from childhood float before his mind’s eye.’