We need a better understanding of the word “repent”. If you look up the definition of repent in the dictionary it says, “to feel or express sincere regret or remorse about something bad or wrong that one has done.” While we can be remorseful before God for our sinning ways that won’t change our eternal destination. I always thought to repent meant to turn over a new leaf and stop sinning but that’s not it either. Repent also doesn’t mean to start doing good works. While all the things mentioned above are good things we should do to please God that won’t get us into heaven either. The biblical meaning of “repent” is a voluntary and sincere change in the mind of the sinner to turn from his sin and the only way to do that is to turn to Jesus. Anything other than that is still sin. We’re specifically talking sin (singular), the one all-important sin, which is the rejection of Christ.
In the Bible when it calls for sinners to repent it means to accept Christ, to turn to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. To turn “from” sin means to turn “toward” God and his Christ. That one little word “repent” sums up our mission in life. It’s what God put us here on earth to do. Repentance brings true conversion of the soul. It’s the only thing that will. All the other stuff we should do but it’s just icing on the cake. The act of “turning to” Christ we call faith. Man’s great sin, the only sin which God will not forgive, is the rejection of his Son Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. To reject Jesus is a spiritual death sentence that will result in the Judge incarcerating us in hell without parole.
2 Peter 3:9 – The Lord id not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Acts 3:19 – Repent therefore and be converted. that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
Luke 13:3,5 – (Jesus speaking) – Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
Hebrews 11:6 – But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Romans 5:1 – Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
All men sin and one of the spiritual laws of God is, “the wages of sin is death.” God is referring here to only one sin, the great sin, the sin of rejecting of Jesus Christ. All other sins can be forgiven but the wages of rejecting Christ (the great sin) is spiritual death in the lake of fire for eternity. Spiritual death is the total separation from God forever. When Adam disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden it was a sin because it was a rejection of God’s law, God’s authority. Adam’s sin of rejecting God has been passed down to all men by the spiritual law of imputation because Adam is our patriarch, the first man and head of our family. Imputation is when something done by one person is added to the account or ledger of another. As the head of our household, Adam’s sin has fallen on all men who came after. We’re all born with the sin of rejecting God (Jesus) already on our books. The only way to clear our slate is to come to “repentance”, to stop rejecting Jesus Christ (by turning to our Lord and Savior).
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 – Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Romans 4:23-25 – (about Abraham) – Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him (righteousness), but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
The spiritual law of substitution allowed Jesus to be our substitute, to die in our place on the cross, to redeem us from our sins. The wages of sin required by a just God is a sinless blood sacrifice. Since all men sin God had to come to earth himself in the incarnation of Jesus to offer himself up as a sacrifice in our stead. Jesus’ death became the permanent substitution for all men on the cross, past, present and future. Because Jesus took away our sins on the cross we are reconciled to God if we have faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Where once we had enmity with God we now have a restored fellowship with God through our acceptance of his Son Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:20-21 – Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on God’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Ephesians 2:13 – But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:16 – (about Jesus) – And that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.