Repentance

"'Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone,' declares the Sovereign LORD. 'Repent and live!'" (Ezekiel 18:31-32)

We all stumble and sin, even after we have been saved; some of us fall in "little" ways, others of us fall in what we consider "big" ways. But no sin is beyond the power of God to forgive. He forgave David's adultery as surely as He forgave Hezekiah's pride, and returned them to their former place before Him. How much more can we, as believers on this side of the Cross, trust that He will forgive us when we repent! For we know that all of our sins are paid for and washed away in Christ's blood; not that we don't still repent when we commit a sin, but that we can put our trust in the Lord Jesus and know that He is our Great High Priest, who offered up the sacrifice of His body once for all and now "ever lives to make intercession for us."

The Old Testament ritual of repentance and forgiveness can be seen in Leviticus 5:5-6: "'When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the LORD a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.'" In a way, this is the same thing that we do, in that we do confess our sin to God and there is a sin offering involved - but the sin offering is not lifted up by us, but by Jesus Christ, who lifted it up on the cross for His chosen ones. Therefore, by confessing our sins we now know that atonement will be made by our High Priest for our sin.

God is the One who gives a spirit of repentance. There can be no repentance in an unregenerate heart unless God first makes that heart alive, for one who is dead in their trespasses and sins cannot and has no desire to ask forgiveness of God. By our very act of true repentance, we know that He will respond to it with forgiveness, because it was He who made us to repent in the first place. There is no need to fret over whether or not God will remember our sin or not; is He not a "forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love"? Does He not "delight to show mercy"? He is holy and will not let the guilty go unpunished, yes, but all our sin has been fully paid for by the perfect Man, Jesus Christ, and if we believe on Him there is now "no condemnation" for us.

It's a paradox and a mystery: all our sin has been atoned for and removed from us, and yet because we still dwell in what Paul calls "this body of death," we still sin. There is no condemnation, yet we still must and do repent when we see our sin. We can't fully understand it, even as believers, but we can know this:

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (I John 1:8-9)