LESSON FOURTEEN
REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION

Matt. 3:2 And saying, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

MAN’S REPENTANCE

Man’s repentance is the result of the Spirit’s sanctifying work. When the Spirit comes to enlighten man, seek man, and convict man concerning sin, concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment, He causes man to repent and turn to God.

THE MEANING OF REPENTANCE

The Greek word for repentance means to have a change of mind issuing in regret, to have a turn in purpose. Therefore, to repent, as taught in the Bible, is to have a change of mind. It is not to improve or reform oneself nor to forsake the evil and turn to the good, as people generally believe. Since the fall of man, man’s mind has been turned against God and directed toward many persons, things, and matters other than God. Furthermore, man is controlled by his mind, doing the desires of the thoughts (Eph. 2:3). The desires of man’s thoughts, whether they are good or bad, are always contrary to God and are directed toward persons, things, and matters other than God. Because of this, man also behaves himself in a way that is contrary to God and is thus directed toward persons, things, and matters other than God. Therefore, man should repent and have a change in his mind so that his conduct and behavior may also change accordingly. (Truth Lessons, Level 1, Vol. 3, ch. 29)

I want to see that each of you is fully enlightened by God. If you go to Him again and again, He will shine upon you. He will enlighten you. He will bring you into the light. He will expose you to the uttermost. Then you will repent to the uttermost and even weep before the Lord. You will tell the Lord, “Lord, I am so dirty and sinful. I am rotten and corrupted.” Spontaneously, you will make a thorough confession to the Lord. You may confess to such an extent that you would forget to eat. While you are driving to your office, you may still be repenting to the Lord with tears. I wonder how many of us have passed through this stage. (The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups, pp. 87-88)

THE TWO ASPECTS OF CONFESSION

Confessing Sin to God

Dealing with sin includes several things. First, we should confess our sins both to God and to man. To confess our sins to God is to come before Him and to confess everything that we have done that offends Him. Every sin that we commit offends God, whether the sin is against God or against man. When confessing sins to God in this way, we cannot be general; we cannot only confess in principle that we have sinned greatly. We must be specific and specifically confess our sins one by one. We cannot just bring a bag of sins, throw it down before God and forget it. We must open the bag of sins before God and mention each sin. As we have said before, we must open the bag and thoroughly confess each sin one by one.

Confessing Sin to Man

Most of our sins offend people, so we should not only confess our sins to God, we should also confess them to man. We confess our sins to God because every sin we commit offends God. But the sins we commit do not only offend God, they also offend man. If we offend God, He immediately forgives us when we confess our sins to Him. But God cannot forgive us in place of the people we have offended. (Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2, ch. 24)

THE RESULT OF REPENTENCE To Receive Forgiveness of Sins

The Lord’s gospel causes man to repent and to receive forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47; 3:3; Acts 2:38). In order to give man the grace of forgiveness, God must first give him the heart of repentance (Acts 5:31). Unless a man repents of his sin of being against God and turns to God from within his heart, he will neither believe in the Lord Jesus nor be able to obtain God’s forgiving grace. If a man wants to be forgiven, he must repent. He must repent of his dead works (Heb. 6:1) and turn back to God.

To Receive Life

In the Lord’s gospel the purpose for man to be forgiven of his sins is that man may receive His life (Col. 2:13). Therefore, if a man desires to receive the Lord’s life, he must repent (Acts 11:18). Man must see that his life is corrupt and that his living, which is outside of God, is evil. Seeing this, he is convicted and he loathes himself. As he repents and turns toward God, he is forgiven of his sins and thus obtains the life of God.

To Receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit and the Divine Inheritance

In the Lord’s gospel the purpose for men to receive forgiveness of sins is also that they may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) and the divine inheritance (Acts 26:18). When men repent and turn toward God so that their sins are forgiven, they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and the divine inheritance. The Holy Spirit, who is the processed Triune God becoming the all-inclusive Spirit, is given to men at the time of their repentance to be the all-inclusive blessing of God’s full gospel (Gal. 3:14) that they may enjoy all the riches of the Triune God. The divine inheritance is the Triune God Himself with all that He has, all that He has done, and all that He will do for His redeemed people. This Triune God is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 2:9) to be the portion of the saints (Col. 1:12). The Holy Spirit, who has been given to the saints, is the foretaste, the pledge, and the guarantee of this divine inheritance (Eph. 1:14), which we are sharing and enjoying today as a foretaste in God’s New Testament economy, and will share and enjoy to the uttermost in the coming age and in eternity (1 Pet. 1:4).

References: Truth Lessons, Level 1, Vol. 3, ch. 29; Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures, Vol. 2, ch. 24; The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups, msg. 8