The concept of repentance is found throughout the Bible, examples being Luke 13:5, Luke 17:4 and Acts 2:38. Repentance has been taken to mean the confession of sins. It has been assumed that in order to become a Christian, a person must first repent, typically through the recital of what is known as a Sinner’s Prayer. Interestingly though, the Sinner’s Prayer is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. This is proof that the Sinner’s Prayer is actually a man-made concept established by the church.
The Bible does mention confession in relation to sin and guilt in Leviticus 5:5, but that was the Old Testament law which the New Testament has superseded. The New Testament actually states that the Old Testament was the ministry of death in 2 Cor. 3:7. Now we have a new and better covenant (Hebrews 12:24).
I think Romans 10:8-10 is probably the main New Testament text for confession:
8 But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Romans 10:8-10 nkjv
The prominent Word of Faith preacher, Kenneth E. Hagin, often quoted this text in his books on faith; Hagin did this to illustrate the importance of belief and confession with the mouth going together as a means of having faith. But this concept has been misused into becoming a formula with which Christians can make anything happen in their life, if they claim it by confessing that they have it. This often results in a repetitious, cold recital of words from a script without any feeling.
I would say that confession is an expression of the heart. Matthew 12:34 says, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” The Living Bible puts it this way, “For a man's heart determines his speech.” When you believe something in your heart, you are likely to express it verbally. When the disciples were in the boat with Jesus and the boat started taking in water because of a storm – the disciples cried out, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38 NIV). If the heart is full of fear – you will speak fear; if the heart is full of confidence – you will speak confidence.
Returning back to the confession unto salvation in Romans 10:10 – I don’t think that needs to be some set script that a person recites; it could be nothing more than an expression of, “Wow! I’m saved!” Confession is simply expressing in spoken words, what is in your heart. In fact, the Greek word translated “confession” actually means to say the same as.
The Greek word translated “repent” means to change one’s mind or to think differently. It is assumed that confession somehow goes together with a change of mind, but this is not necessarily the case.
The term “repentance” is used most often in church in relation to confession of sin. There is growing controversy in the church at the moment regarding confession of sin. Notable Christian grace preachers are standing by the conviction that 1 John 1:9 was not written to Christians and that the concept of confession from sin is nothing more than a misnomer; these grace preachers include Steve McVey, Joseph Prince, Bertie Brits and Bob George. It is not very practical to have to live your life constantly analysing things to see if they are sinful or not; then, having to beg God for forgiveness every time you have done something that you consider to be wrong. There are many Christians who believe that when they sin they come out of fellowship with God, and therefore, they must repent in order to get back into God’s favour and blessing. The great news is that through Christ we can now live in unbroken fellowship with Him.
10 He died once for all to end sin's power, but now he lives forever in unbroken fellowship with God.
Romans 6:10 TLB
Repentance is nothing more than a change of mind. There is something cold and mechanical about having to ask God to forgive you every time you succumb to a bad habit, get angry, swear or look adoringly at a member of the opposite sex. When Christianity becomes all about being saved from hell and not sinning – it becomes distorted, fear-based and loveless. It is only when Christianity becomes about love and a relationship with God that it becomes living and active. If you decide to live your life a certain way, to do or not do a certain thing, do it because you want to and you know the consequences of indulging or avoiding that thing. Don’t try to live your life a certain way just because someone else, or the Bible, says that it is good, bad, right or wrong. When try to you live your life by a set of rules, you engage the mind and disengage the heart. People live their life by rules when they allow fear and guilt to control them. When you live by love, you allow your heart (and intuition) to dominate you.
When a person truly repents, they come to the sudden realisation of how what they are doing, or not doing, affects their life and perhaps the lives of others around them. But if a person knows that something is bad for them, like smoking for instance, asking God for forgiveness every time you smoke is not really repentance – it is more like a means of being absolved of guilt.
I have found that every action is first determined by a desire. Every desire is determined by a thought. Behind every wrong behavioural pattern are a pattern of wrong thoughts. When the focus is on behaviour modification, the result is a suppression of desire and a futile attempt to control behaviour, which never works. To focus mainly on controlling behaviour and action is like focusing on the fruit, rather than getting to the root.
It helps enormously when we approach things at the level of thought. If we can control our thinking – we can control our lives. However, it is not that easy in that thoughts arise from the subconscious mind, often unannounced. I have struggled with anxiety most of my life, and I can vouch for the difficultly in trying to substitute negative thoughts with positive ones, as recommended by many self-help books.
In order for repentance to benefit us in some way, we need to get a revelation of how a pattern of thinking affects us. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, but it would appear that government health warnings that smoking can kill – does not seem to do the trick. In my previous blog entry, The Fear Factor, I discussed the way in which the church attempts to use fear in order to try to control people and to instil disciple in people. Fear is not always an effective weapon in the struggle against wrong behaviour, if it was, all of our prisons would be empty!
In a previous blog entry entitled The Ticking Time bomb Analogy, I discussed the way in which life circumstances can literally explode in our lives at certain times. It seems that our stubborn beliefs and attitudes can become fertile ground for negative circumstances to grow from a small seed to something big. It is often only at that moment when something begins to adversely affect our lives, that we suddenly wake-up and notice it. But at that moment, of course, it is often too late to do anything much about it. If only we could become aware of these things earlier so that we could “nip them in the bud”.
Repentance, a change of mind, does come to us freely and spontaneously at times. You can suddenly become overwhelmed with a sense of sorrow at just how your angry outbursts are affecting your partner, for instance, and you want to do something about it. More than anything though, just check on the inside and see how it feels when you hold onto a certain belief – does it bring you peace or stress? In this way, you engage the heart rather than the cold, mechanical and loveless pursuit of following rules. There seems to be something really powerful about noticing the affect that a stressful thought has on you, how you feel on the inside and how you treat other people as a result. It is this realisation that seems to have the most power in affecting real change on a heart level. Just by knowing something is good, bad, right or wrong does not always seem to be effective in altering a person’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour.
This repentance, a change of mind, can be triggered as a result of a traumatic experience – such as divorce. It would be wonderful if there was a process in which a person could expedite this process of repentance by focusing on the way in which they feel when they think a certain thought; with the knowledge that this seems to be the best way to change a person’s thoughts, attitudes and desires, and therefore, behaviour. Otherwise, without such a method, we are left to allow the tragedies and struggles of life to simply shock us into thinking and behaving correctly.
Inquiry through the use of The Work is the best way that I know of when it comes to establishing a change of mind which is effective and lasts. Just four questions and a turnaround is the best means of performing surgery on those thoughts that are spreading throughout all areas of your life and affecting everything you do, just like a cancer. If you are new to The Work you can find out more, I would recommend that you check-out Byron Katie’s official website at http://www.thework.com.
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