Repentance

But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. ACTS 26:20

The first sermon in Catherine Booth’s book Godliness is on repentance, and the placing is deliberate. She believed that the greatest weakness of the evangelism of her day was not that it preached too little of Christ, but that it offered Christ to people who had not the slightest intention of giving up their sins. They were told to believe, and they believed, and nothing happened. She had spent years talking to such people after meetings, and she had come to a firm conclusion about what had gone wrong.

What repentance is not

She began, characteristically, by clearing away counterfeits. Repentance, she said, is not merely conviction of sin. Multitudes have been convinced of sin — have known, clearly and painfully, that they were wrong — and have gone on exactly as before. Nor is it merely sorrow for sin. She had seen people weep bitterly and still hold on to the very thing that made them weep. Nor is it a promise to do better. Every drunkard, she observed, has promised his wife he will stop.

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 2 CORINTHIANS 7:10

All three — conviction, sorrow and resolution — belong to repentance. None of them is repentance itself. What, then, is it? Her answer in Godliness was plain: “Repentance is simply renouncing sin — turning round from darkness to light — from the power of Satan unto God.” It is a turning of the will. It is the moment when a person stops negotiating with God about the terms and lets the thing go.

The point of controversy

The most searching part of her teaching was her insistence that repentance is usually about one thing. Most people who come to God are willing to give up a good deal. What they are not willing to give up is the one thing the Spirit has actually put His finger on. She compared it to a child who will do a hundred and fifty things his mother asks, and not the one she is asking now. He is still a rebel until he yields on that point.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. ISAIAH 55:7

She put it in a single line that her hearers did not forget: “It is your Isaac God wants.” Abraham might have given up everything else he owned, and it would have meant nothing if he had kept back Isaac. The rich young ruler had kept the commandments from his youth up and went away sorrowful, because the one thing asked of him was the one thing he would not do. For some it is a habit; for some a relationship; for some a way of earning money; for some a grudge. Whatever it is, the person usually knows exactly what it is, and it is often the very thing they have not mentioned to their minister.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. PROVERBS 28:13

Why she would not say only believe

This conviction shaped her whole method with enquirers, which she set out in the address Dealing with Anxious Souls. The worst thing a Christian worker could do, she thought, was to rush a half-awakened person into saying they believed, and send them home comforted while they still clung to their sins. She wrote of “God’s unalterable condition of pardon” as “the forsaking of evil,” and warned that there can be no conversion without conviction of sin. Much of the spurious Christianity she saw around her, she was sure, had been manufactured in precisely this way.

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. LUKE 13:3

This was controversial even in her day. Critics accused her of preaching works, of putting a condition before grace. Her answer was that she was preaching nothing Paul had not preached: repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. The penitent does not save himself by renouncing sin. He cannot even break its power. What he can do is stop wanting to keep it, and then Christ does the rest. She illustrated it with the man with the withered hand. Christ supplied the power; the man supplied the will. Stretch forth thine hand (Matthew 12:13) was a command he could not obey by himself, and could obey the moment he was willing.

A needed caution

There is a danger in this teaching, and she saw it herself. A sensitive person can turn repentance into a new form of self-examination and never get past it — always wondering whether they have repented enough, or felt enough, or given up enough. Some of her letters came from exactly such people. Her answer to them was tender and clear. If you see sin, if you hate it, if you would be rid of it this moment if you could, that is repentance, and you need not wait for any particular feeling before you come to Christ. The feeling follows the surrender. It does not precede it.

It is also worth saying, as she did not always say, that repentance is itself a gift. It is the Spirit who convicts, the Spirit who turns the will, and the goodness of God that leads us to repentance in the first place (Romans 2:4). Repentance and faith are two sides of one turning, not two stages to be completed in order.

Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? EZEKIEL 18:23

Come for love

For all her severity, the note on which she ended her sermon on repentance was not threat but love. She told of a rough, convicted man who stood at the back of a meeting where others were kneeling to be saved, and said he would not go forward for a hundred pounds. William Booth asked him quietly, “Will you go there for love?” After a moment he wiped his eyes and went. That is where repentance comes from in the end. Not from fear of hell, though she preached hell without apology, but from the discovery that the Father has been waiting all along.

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee. LUKE 15:18

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask God directly: what is my Isaac? Then be quiet long enough to hear an answer you may not like.

2. Distinguish, in your own experience, between being sorry about a sin and having renounced it. Which describes your relationship to your most persistent failure?

3. If there is something that needs to be put right — a debt, a lie, a wrong done to someone — take one concrete step to put it right this week.

4. If you are prone to endless self-examination, stop asking whether you have repented enough. Ask only whether you are willing, and if you are, come to Christ now.

5. When you next speak to someone about Christ, do not be afraid to speak of sin. Speak of it as she did: in order to speak of love.

A PRAYER

Father, I have been sorry for my sins many times, and I have kept them. I have wept over them and gone on with them. That is not repentance, and You know it.

Show me the thing I have been holding back. Give me the grace to lay it down, not because I am afraid, but because You have loved me.

I cannot break its power. I can only stop wanting to keep it. Take my willingness, small as it is, and do what I cannot.

Here I am, Lord. I have sinned against heaven and before You. Receive me for Jesus’ sake. Amen.