What is Repentance?

“From that time on Yeshua began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Matthew 4:17

One of the core messages of Yeshua (Jesus) and seen as one of the most important facets of Christianity is repentance. Most are familiar with the term, but what does it actually mean?

The Definition

The word “repentance” comes from the original Greek work; “metanoia”, which means “after thought”, “to change your mind” or to “change the inner self” or sometimes “reversal of thought”:

“Usage: repentance, a change of mind, change in the inner man”. – Strong’s Concordance

“From metanoeo; (subjectively) compunction (for guilt, including reformation); by implication, reversal (of (another’s) decision) — repentance”. – Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

“metánoia – literally, “a change of mind” (“after–thought“); repentance. See 3340 /metanoeō (“repent”)”. – HELPS Word Studies

So, Yeshua is telling us to “have an inner change of mind”, “after thought” or “reversal of thought”, but what is he telling us to change our minds or have an afterthought over? Any Christian, and even many non-Christians are usually familiar with the fact that this repentance of our sins.

• “...Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Yeshua [the] Anointed for the forgiveness of your sins...” – Acts 2:38

Thus, we are to understand we should have a change of mind and reversal of thought in regards to our sins, this is further described in the scriptures to be a form of “Godly sadness” or “regret” over our sins, which is coupled with a change of the inner self, which in turn leads to happiness and freedom;

• “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death”. – 2 Corinthians 7:10

We note that it is contrasted with worldly sorrow. A healthy form of regret of our sins is an acknowledgement with responsibility and a desire to do better for God, and grants sense of renewal.

Worldly sorrow, which brings death, may mean a sorrow of self pity, selfishness, or merely being sorry that we were caught in wrong, but are not regretful in our hearts to move us to change. It may also refer to sorrow over the material fleshly things of this world, that is, being disheartened in our loss of our immoral lives, a longing for the wickedness and immoral conduct we should strive not to live in.

An example of this worldly sadness could be seen in Lot’s wife when fleeing from the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, a case where sorrow ‘literally’ lead to death.

• “Then YHWH rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from YHWH out of the heavens… But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt”. – Genesis 19:24, 26

Lot’s wife looked back, not for sadness over those dying, or the destruction in itself, but because she longed for the material and worldly pleasures of that city more so than the love of God, she longed for the city, even with its wickedness (which included rape, sex trafficking, theft and murder) to be preserved so that she could sate her materialistic, and perhaps even immoral desires (Luke 17:31-33). She loved the world with all its evils more than God and his righteous judgement, and thus her sorrow over its loss led to her downfall.

Thus, we are warned that we should strive for Godly sadness, which moves us to repent of our sins, misdeeds and mistakes, and not the sadness of the world which feels sorrow for itself in a self centered way.

What is involved in Repentance?

As already covered in the definition of the word, repenting is not just being sorry for what we have done, but it is coupled with action, a conscious effort to make a change within ourselves for the better.

When we repent of a “sin”, that is, something that God is displeased with, as made known to us in his word, the Bible, we approach God in prayer through the name and in faith of his Son, Yeshua the Anointed. For it is through him we have the freedom to approach God in prayer, for he is our mediator:

• “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man, [the] Anointed Yeshua”. – 1 Timothy 2:5

When we pray, we confess to God and his son Yeshua (Acts 7:60, John 5:22) the sins we have committed, and ask for his forgiveness through the sacrifice and name of his son, and truly believe that Yeshua’s sacrifice is the only way we can have atonement for our sin.

As an example, a person who committed theft may pray:

“YHWH God, I approach you in the name of Yeshua the Anointed one, to confess of my sin, I am sorry that I stole that item, please forgive me through the blood and sacrifice of your son, and help me to be a better person”.

(Note that this is not a specific prayer you need to say word for word, for prayers are not rituals or rites, in fact Yehshua speaks negatively such forms of ritualised and rote form of prayer (Matthew 6:7). God wishes us to “converse” with him, to speak from the heart, and not to pray with rehearsed scripts as if they were magical spells).

But this is only one component of our repentance. With our confession, we must strive to not commit such sins again, but to follow a life of righteousness and avoidance of sin. But if we do fall to the same mistake more than once, we need not panic nor condemn ourselves, so long as we retain the eternal “effort” in our fight against sin, God will always forgive us, that is the eternal guarantee of Yeshua’s blood, which affords for and covers our mistakes.

Do We Have to Repent More Than Once?

Some Christians believe, that when we are baptised, we only need to confess and repent of our sins once, and then we are covered for life, no matter what lifestyle we live. This matter is also closely related to the idea of “once saved always saved” of which I made an an article on which can be read here:

Once Saved Always Saved?

As I have already covered the topic of OSAS, I will be addressing directly the question of “how many times do we have to repent or confess?”.

To answer this question I’m going to bring out several direct examples from the Bible on the matter:

• Acts 2:38: “…Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Yeshua [the] Anointed for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
• 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
• 1 John 2:1: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Yeshua [the] Anointed, the righteous”.
• Luke 17:3: “So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.“
• Matthew 18:21-22: “Then Peter came to Yeshua and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Yeshua answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
• Revelation 2:3-5: “You [in the Christian Congregation of Ephesus] have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place…
• Revelation 2:14-15: “Some of you [in the Christian Congregation of Pergamum] hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. In the same way, some of you also hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans! Therefore repent! Otherwise I will come to you shortly and wage war against them with the sword of my mouth.”
• Revelation 2:20-23: “You [in the Christian Congregation of Thyatira] tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants to be sexually immoral and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Even though I have given her time to repent of her immorality, she is unwilling. Behold, I will cast her onto a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer great tribulation unless they repent of her deeds. Then I will strike her (Jezebel’s) children dead, and all the Congregations will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds“.
• Revelation 3:3,19: “[To the Congregation in Sardis] …remember, then, what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know the hour when I will come upon you… [To the Congregation in Laodicea] those I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent“.

So we can see here, that at baptism, Christians are required to confess their sins before God in the name of Yeshua for forgiveness. However, other scriptures also detail commands to those who are believing Christians, baptised in Yeshua, to also keep on confessing and repenting of their sins.

Yeshua makes an example of forgiveness and repentance in that we as Christians should strive to be like Yeshua himself, and in turn, his and our Father, Yah (Matthew 5:44-45). He says that we should forgive a brother or sister of their sins up to 77 times (Matthew 18:22), which poetically means “an infinite number of times”, but this forgiveness is said to be “conditional based upon their repentance” (Luke 17:3).

Thus we can see already, Christians are being encouraged to not only continually forgive, but to continually repent. As Yeshua is teaching us to be like him and his Father, we can then logically deduce that ‘they view us’ in the ‘same way they wish us to view others’, in that they wish us to continually repent before them to receive forgiveness, just as we should do so with one another.

John also makes the statement to his brothers, his “little children”, that they should heed his warnings to “not sin”, yet he follows with “but if we do sin, we can still rely on the mediator, the Anointed Yeshua” in order to seek repentance.

And again, we see God and his Son Yeshua send an angel to John in the book of Revelation to tell him that even though the Congregations had for the most part been loyal Christians, they had fallen into sin and had abandoned their love, and thus are told they should “repent” or he will “remove their lampstands”, “strike them dead” and “repay them according to their deeds”.

Besides the clear warnings of being “struck down” and repaid accordingly to their evil deeds, of note is the mention of their “Lampstands”.

Lampstands in the Bible have a history of symbolising something being in a holy place. In the Old Testament, lampstands were inside God’s temple. Thus if Christians fall into sin, they must turn around and repent of them again, or they will no longer be “in Yeshua” or the Congregation, which makes up the Spiritual Temple of New Jerusalem and the Faith (2 Chronicles 4:7, 1 Corinthians 3:16, Revelation 1:12, 2:5).

This shows that a one time confession of our sins at baptism is not enough, but that we must ‘keep on’ repenting and confessing of any sins we fall to. Living in an ‘active lifestyle of repentance’.

Now, this does not mean we have to develop Obsessive Compulsive behaviour and keep praying every second of the day for our sins. Each Christian may approach the matter as they see fit, for that is the freedom of the Anointed. Some Christians may pray once a day, or a week, saying to God; “please forgive me of the sins I have committed today/this week”, others may simply wait until they have committed a sin by breaking one of God’s laws, and then pray for forgiveness in the moment.

I personally am in the middle of the road, in that I pray for repentance when I know I have committed an obvious sin, but also in my casual prayers to God throughout my week, I may at times say “and please forgive me for my sins, of both which I know I commit and those I do not know I commit”.

The point being is that we don’t need to be paranoid or ritualistic with our confession, but only that we be honest hearted in our efforts. Repentance being an ‘attitude’ toward sin, and a ‘way of life’.

Invalid forms of Repentance

Are there invalid forms of repentance? Most certainly! What are these invalid forms?

Inauthentic or Hypocritcal Repentance

We do not want to fall into the habit of this form of “fake” repentance. This form of repentance is merely being “sorry in word” and not in deed or heart. For example, if a man made a lifestyle or purposeful habit of sleeping with prostitutes, but said “well, yes I do like to sleep with prostitutes, but I always say sorry to God and repent afterward, so it’s ok!” This is NOT repentance, do not fall into this trap, for this is in part what we are warned about in the book of Hebrews:

• Hebrews 6:4-6: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age—and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame.”
• Hebrews 10:26-29: “…if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins

We need to be aware, that repentance is not a “get out of jail free card”, it is not an enabler of sin. With repentance, as we discussed earlier, involves “a change of the inner man”, as such with repentance we do our utmost to “avoid” sin, we do not seek out sin expecting to be forgiven merely by a statement of “I repent”, for that is not true repentance.

Think of it this way, you have been bought a brand new expensive pair of shoes by someone who noticed you were poor and only had old and torn up shoes. You may go outside and step in the mud by accident, and now they need washing. The person who gave you those shoes may be a little disgruntled at your carelessness, but they would typically not be seething at you, perhaps this person even helps you clean them because he or she cares about you and the gift they have bought you, and wants to show you how to take care of them….

However, what if you purposely kept stepping in the mud whilst saying “it’s ok, you’ll clean them right?”. I think it’s obvious that person would not remain your friend for long, and you’d not expect anymore gifts from them in a long time until you changed your attitude.

The same can be said with our repentance. Never do we want to be labelled as “crucifying the son for ourselves”.

Repentance of Works

A repentance of works is believing that “works” can save us from sin, as opposed to faith in Yeshua’s sacrifice through genuine repentance.

• Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast”.

Bear in mind, I am not saying “works of faith” or “obedience to the Lord” is not needed with faith to be saved by Yeshua. This is something I covered in my other article, that our faith should also be “with works of faith”, which is obeying Yeshua’s commands:

Faith or Works?

So, what does it mean to be trying to “save ourselves through works”? Well, for one, it may mean that we feel we don’t need the blood of Yeshua to be saved from sin, that being a good person and a believer in God is enough. But another form of the false “repentance of works” is thinking we can “make up for sins” by works. What would this look like?

An example; a person may have stolen something, committed fornication, adultery, or perhaps even killed someone. When they get back home they regret it and think “I shouldn’t have done that…”, but instead of confessing before God through Yeshua in repentance, they say “I know, I’ll give to charity this week to make up for it” or “I’ll donate some money to the congregation to pay for my sins!”. This would be thinking we can “save ourselves” through our works, and is the very thing Paul was speaking against in regard to our salvation coming from faith in Yeshua, and not from ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, if you feel you want to make up for something you’ve done, go ahead and make someone’s day better! But don’t think that alone will absolve you of your sin, you ‘must’ approach God through Yeshua in confession.

Can we be condemned for not repenting of sins of which we don’t actually remember or know we have done?

A form of paranoia some may fall into, is panic over the idea that they can’t remember all the sins they have committed and thus don’t know if they have repented of them all or not. However, the words of the Bible can comfort us in this regard:

• John 9:41: “Yeshua said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin...”
• 1 John 3:19-20: “This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything”.

As we can see, both God and his Son know our hearts, they know if we are doing our best before them to do what is right and repent of our sins. So no, we do not have to worry about such things. But if it serves to further comfort you, one can always pray to God and simply ask that He forgive them of all their sins that they were not aware of committing or cannot remember. Remember, God and His son Yeshua are looking at our hearts, repentance is about the inner person, and not formulaic action or a form of ritual which requires us to recall every single sin we have ever committed in life to confess of individually in order to attain repentance.

Conclusion

So, wrapping things up, we have learned from the scriptures, that to repent, is to approach God through Yeshua and faith in his sacrifice in prayer to confess of our sins, and to then to endeavour to dedicate ourselves to avoidance of those sins.

If you are curious of just what those sins are specifically, then I recommend my other article and video on Salvation:

What Must I Do To Be Saved?

Thanks for taking time to read. All the best, and I pray Yah’s blessing upon your efforts in pleasing him.