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Repentance: Judgment and Grace

For the last week at College we have had the privilege of hearing Dr Mike Ovey lecture on the subject of repentance. I’ve really enjoyed the series. Although there has been plenty that I haven’t followed, a few things have really deepened my understanding of repentance - particularly the strong link in the scriptures between repentance and faith, as well as the reality that the central sin from which all humanity must repent is idolatry. There’s heaps that I could blog about, but honestly you’d be better off buying the MP3’s from the college. Instead I thought I’d share one of the insights Dr Ovey shared regarding the preaching of hell and repentance.

There are a number of ways to repent, and not all repentance is Godly repentance. Judas, for example, experienced something of repentance (Matt 27:3), but this was not repentance that lead to life and restored relationship with God. Rather, it was repentance out of a despair at the fear of God’s judgment. The point was made that if our preaching features only the judgment of God, presented apart from his grace toward those with penitent faith, we might inspire fear and remorse among our congregation, but not genuine, godly repentance.
Instead we should strive for a presentation of both the judgment of God, and the grace of God in the gospel that allows for true repentance. For only when there is hope of forgiveness and restoration is there a possiblity of this kind of repentance. These two ideas may not necessarily appear with equal weight every time we speak of the gospel, but as we survey our preaching over a period, if both are not present, then something is amiss.

© 2008 the fountainside..