Guy Duininck: You Should Repent if You Have Been Sinning
— from "Must We Confess Our Sins?"
In view of everything we have learned about I John 1:9 and what the apostle John really meant by his words, “If we confess our sins,” one of the questions we must address is, “If a believer has been sinning consistently or is engaged in a persistent lifestyle of sinning, what should they do?” The short answer to that question is a strong, “They should repent!” Before a believer can truly repent, however, they must understand what it means to, “repent.”
The English verb “repent” found throughout the New Testament comes from the Greek verb metanoeō. The verb metanoeō means, “to change one’s mind for the better; to think differently after, to feel a moral compunction, to reconsider.” In contrast to the Greek word pronoeo which means, “to perceive something beforehand,” metanoia signifies, “to change one’s mind or one’s purpose after perceiving something.” Most often in the New Testament, metanoeō signifies a person’s change of thinking and their decisive change of living away from a life of sin and sinning and toward a righteous and God-pleasing life. This change of lifestyle happens after they realize the error in their thinking and the wrongness in the way they have been living.
The English noun “repentance” found throughout the New Testament is translated from the Greek noun metanoia. The noun metanoia means, "to perceive afterwards.” It comes from the word meta, which means, "after, implying a change,” and the word noeo, “to perceive,” which derives from nous which means, "the mind, the seat of moral reflection.” In the New Testament, the noun “repentance” most often characterizes that change in a person’s thinking and that turn in their living that occurs after reflecting upon their life and realizing that they way they are thinking, speaking, and acting are not in accord with God’s will and are sinful.
According to Strong’s Dictionary of New Testament Words, the Greek noun metanoia (repentance) represents, “the change of mind that results when one has begun to abhor their misdeeds.” It also says that metanoia, “embraces the recognition of sin and sorrow for those sins and the change of mind and actions that follow.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon says that the Greek verb metanoeō can mean, “to feel sorry for what one has done; to feel sorry for offending another; to be conscious of sins and be sorrowful, desiring God’s pardon.” It can also mean, “to heartily amend one’s conduct in a way that shows a true heart and mind change and an abhorrence for sin.”
It is very important to understand how the words "repent" and "repentance" are typically used in New Testament Scriptures; especially their connection to the issue of sin and sinning. A right understanding is especially important in this current hour because some ministers are suggesting that, “to repent,” simply means, “to change one’s mind,” or, “to renew one’s mind with truth.” Some say that repentance simply means, “to change your mind and believe the gospel.” Others describe repentance as, “accepting God’s forgiveness, His love, and His grace,” or as, “learning the truth about who God really is.”
Although, “changing one’s mind” is certainly an important aspect of repentance, the majority of the time the words “repent” and “repentance” are used in the New Testament, they are used to refer to that change of thinking and change of living away from a lifestyle of sinning and toward a righteous life that pleases God. The preponderance of the use of the words “repent” and “repentance” in the New Testament Scriptures to describe turning away from sin and turning toward a righteous life suggests that to characterize “repent” and “repentance” as simply, “changing one’s mind,” or, “renewing one’s mind in truth,” or, “learning the truth about who God is,” is a significant theological mistake.
It is important, of course, that believers renew their minds. And it is certainly true that believers need much revelation of God’s truth. This is something that the apostle Paul prayed almost endlessly about for believers and for the church. But to equate “repent” and “repentance” with, “changing one’s mind,” or, “renewing one’s mind in truth,” is an error because it divorces these words from their primary use in the New Testament Scriptures—to represent the strong heart and mind decision a person makes to turn away from sin and sinning and the action they take to turn toward God and toward righteous living after they realize that the sinful life they are living is not the kind of life they should be living.
The words "repent" and “repentance,” then, as they are used in the New Testament, most often describe a person’s heartfelt, determined, and willful turning away from sin and sinning and turning toward God and righteous living which began with the sobering realization that things were not right in their life and that things were not right between them and God. This decisive change of living from sinning to godliness represented by the words "repent" and “repentance,” is used both of sinners turning to God in response to the gospel message (found mostly in the gospels and the book of Acts), and of believers making decisive changes from a lifestyle of sinning to a lifestyle of godliness.
