Thrice-Fold Repentance

"Repent Ye..."


Repentance is to change your mind; it is to change one's mind on the Person of Christ. One may believe that "Jesus" is a good man or a good teacher, and the next day one may, in his own power, decide that "Jesus" is God's Son. If this is your definition of repentance, you are wrong in many things, and may yet be in your sins.
Repentance is a change of mind, but the penitent has changed his mind about himself in relation to God's Son. The fruit of that changed mind is a change in his thinking, in his feelings (or affections or emotions), and his actions. Both writer and reader continues to sin, but we are broken afterwards. Though we may falter in our actions, we should never falter in our affections or thinking.
Some believe that repentance should not be preached. That is an odd and non-biblical belief. Christ preached repentance, and He commanded "that repentance and remission (and in that order) of sins be preached in [H]is [N]ame among all nations..." Luke (24:47). We find the Apostles obeying the Master's command in their preaching.
Isn't it sad that many of today's preachers will quote Matthew's closing words of Christ; "Go ye therefore..." (Matt. 28:19) as well as Mark's, "Go ye into all the world..." (Mark 16:15) but they never site Luke's closing words (already quoted above)? What are they doing when they avoid the doctrine of repentance? They are subtracting truths from God's Word (Rev. 22:19) and making God's Word their own personal perversion. (Many of these same preachers argue over different versions of the Bible when the original manuscripts themselves would become perversions in their hands.) For what other reasons would these "ministers of righteousness" (2 Cor. 11:15) avoid the doctrine of repentance? If they held to this doctrine their churches, or rather, their businessess, would begin to decline in profits/people/numbers. When a man avoids this doctrine he is either ignorant of biblical teachings or he is a wolf in sheep's clothing (Acts 20), or he may himself have been deceived. Regardless of the reason, the minister is "without excuse".
When one speaks of repentance one must understand that repentance is 3 fold. When a person repents they do so in there intellect, affections, and actions; otherwise it is not biblical repentance and it never will be biblical repentance- no matter how hard and how long these "angels of light" proclaim it to be !!!
Does repentance save? No. However, one will never be saved without it. Christ came to save [H]is people from their sin (Matt 1:21), and not while they continue to bathe and bask in it!
The preachers will insist that only "belief" should be preached. 100 years ago that would be acceptable when the steel-spined of old knew what "believe" meant. Today "believe" means only head-knowledge or intellectual ascent. The writer's definition of believe is "to love Him, to trust Him and to Obey Him." The scriptures teach us that all 3 are necessary to be eternally saved (1Cor. 16:22, Matt. 11:28, and Hebrews 5:9 respectively). Does not common sense insist upon this definition?
We have sinned against the holy One in a 3 fold manner, and therefore we must repent in a 3 fold manner. If this does not make spiritual sense to you, then I would counsel you to kneel down and do the true saints' "first work".

Except ye repent; ye shall all likewise perish.


Buried in Christ,
St. Loder