by Kenneth Sheets
Most people tend to associate repentance with some sort of outward expression, some kind of visible, external activity, which indicates what has happened on the inside. They see it as outward proof that a person has actually “believed,” and thus, some kind of outward expression of repentance has come to be understood both as a necessary proof of salvation and a necessary element of salvation. Outward manifestations cannot be trusted, however, since virtually any external action or activity may be “faked” to the degree that all human observers are misled. Repentance must be defined as God designed it and as He represented it in the actual words He used to describe it in the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture.
The Hebrews used the word “shūv,” which means “to turn, to turn around,” especially with the idea of reversing one’s direction, that is, one is walking, going, a certain way and then “shūvs,” “turns,” to go a different way, usually the opposite of the way he had been going. Though this seems to necessarily involve a visible external change, the ancient Hebrews recognized something not recognized by many in our modern day: a person does externally what he actually believes internally. This is a crucial point, because the typical person thinks that he or she can believe one thing and do another, that is, people do not recognize that, to some degree, what they believe on the inside is inseparably reflected by what they do on the outside. Certainly, an individual may lie and misrepresent what is actually in his heart, but the misrepresentation is only in the eyes of humans; in reality, the lying and misrepresentation are an exact reflection of his inner person and nature.
Thus, to the ancient Hebrew, in the context of one’s relationship to the design of God for life, the true “turning” of repentance is an inward turning which will be manifested externally in some way, but the external is not the measure of the internal, because the externals that man associates with “turning” can be faked and used to deceive other humans. This is why God “looks on the heart.” The “heart,” the “inner man,” seen and known perfectly by its Creator, cannot be faked; it cannot represent itself in one way when it is actually another.
The Greeks used the word “meta-no-eō,” which means “to change (one’s) thinking,” and describes the condition that a person has possessed a certain mindset or pattern of thinking, and, usually as a result of having received evidence that he needs to think differently about a matter, he “changes his thinking” on that matter. This correlates perfectly to the Hebrew concept of “turning,” that is, a change in thinking results in a change in action. In the Biblical realm of salvation, the unsaved person has been thinking along a certain way, but not in accord with God’s design, that is, he has not “believed,” has not “caused firmness,” to God’s criteria for life, and the effects of his internal non-belief are manifest in his external practice.
Certainly, some who have “changed their minds” may continue for an unspecified length of time in individual violations of God’s design which have become habitual, but their thinking, their perspective, regarding life and all that it involves has changed. They have “turned”
from not causing God’s design to be firm
to causing it to be firm,
that is, they have turned
from not “having faith,”
from not “believing,”
to “having faith,”
to “believing.”
This then is the essential tie between repentance and faith: they are two ways of looking at one and the same action. When a person goes from non-belief to belief, he is turning, changing, his thinking from non-belief to belief. This an internal activity and its outward manifestation may not be immediately obvious to those who look on the outside for evidence.
Accordingly, when proclaiming the necessity of repentance and faith, the proclaimer should take the hearer back to the foundational perspective of the person of God and creation. Then, he can build upon that foundation to give the hearer an understanding of the nature of “belief,” “causing firmness” to God and His design, but the hearer needs evidence that he needs to “change his mind,” needs to “repent,” needs to “turn” back to God. One primary aspect of evidence is to demonstrate to the hearer that if every human were truly honest, each would admit to the existence of the great volume of evidence that his or her way, his or her thinking, is actually very destructive, not only in terms of their interpersonal relationships but also in their relationship to God Himself.
The Creator designed and created human life to be a wonderful, joyful experience, but man has rejected God’s way, the criteria of His design, in favor of his own way, the criteria of his own human design. Man’s rejection of God takes its ultimate form when he does not change his way of thinking about these things, especially his thinking about God’s provision of His Son to provide a means of reconciliation for man. Man does not naturally think that he needs reconciliation to God, so he does not accept God’s Son as the means of reconciliation. Continuation in this rejection is a demonstration that one does not “believe” God in the matter, that is, that he is not “causing firmness” to what God has said. It may be that he does not think God’s way is valid or that it is not the only way of reconciliation, but regardless of the reason, man must change his thinking, his mind, in the matter; he must change his thinking to correspond to that which God has revealed.