Part 1

                  Implications and Presuppositions of Repentance

A superb verse of scripture for use in defining repentance is found in Ezekiel 18:21 & 31... “But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all mystatutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall KING OF KINGS” surely live, He shall not die..Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” The Bible lays it out just like it is, the man who does not turn from his wicked ways will perish. There are several different translations for that word perish from both the Hebrew and the Greek; From Strongs concordance we cite the word Abed, #6,. to lose oneself,  no escape or be void of, have no way to flee.#1478 to breathe out, expire or die; #5486-cuwph, to snatch away or to term­inate, consume.. Then from the Greek rendering we have #622 Apollumi which means quite literally or figuratively, to destroy, die; #2704, katapheugo, to spoil entirely, to literally destroy or figuratively deprave.

To me these defining statements of the word perish denote that unless a man repent of his sins and turn away from his old sinful nature he will die in his sins and be ever seperated from Yahweh. The first question that pro­bably comes to mind is, “Is there a way for man to repent?” The answer to this is yes, and the beginning of a penitent nature is to confess by mouth that you are a sinner. Real penitence or repentance is a burdening sorrow and deep contrition for sin, as an offense and dishonor to God and the vio­lation of His Holy Law. This is accompanied and followed by one ammending his or her life. Repentance is a change of mind and the way one lives his life, or a conversion from evil to good, from sin to God.. II Cor 7:9-10, “...for ye were made sorry after a godly manner..For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of:”  When man approaches the Throne of God's Grace in godly sorrow and with a heart broken because of his sins, his act of repentance is one that works out his salvation in fear and trembling, Philippians 2:12. Knowing this, you must also know that it is God who has appointed the individual to obtain salvation... I Thess 5:9, II Thess 2:13, II Tim 2:10 and John 6:44.

When Ezekiel wrote in 18:31..“Cast away from you all your transgressions..and make you a new heart,” he is calling for us to be obedient untoGod, also read Joel 2:12,. Luke 13:2-3, Acts 17:30!  When man repents and becomes obedient he is following in the way that Christ was with Yahweh.. Phil 2:5-8. Christ became obedient to God unto death, even the death of the Cross. That 5th verse is the key to that reading for it says to us that we are to be in our mind (humanity) as Christ was in His mind (humanity), we are to be obedient to Yahweh. In I Tim 2:5-6 we see further evidence of the obedience of Christ in His humanity.

There are those who say that God being who He is already knows of our many sins against Him, thus there is really no necessity of confessing to Him. It is suggested that they search the scripture and read I Kings 8:35-36; “if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them: Then hear thou in Heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servant, and of thy people Israel...” The command for His Israel people to confess is commanded from the Throne of God, and that con­fession is heard in heaven. Numbers 5:5-7 tells us that confession of sin and therefore repentance are linked with Gods plan of compensation awarded to the one sinned against. For the one who doesn’t find confession of sin acceptable, you must explain first to yourself and then to others what you plan to do with Romans 14:11-12.. .“every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Each man is accountable to Yahweh for his own sins, and the people as a nation are accountable for the sins of the nation and held to confession.. II Chron 6:26-27 and 7:14. As His people we are to confess Him as Creator and Life Giver, as Sovereign, Saviour and King. God’s word is certain and the will of God is sure and is so laid out for all to see in Psalm 19:

Standing firm and walking forth in the light of His glory we must take care that we restrain from being law-breakers, for law-breakers are Rebels and rebellion is the stand of Satan. I believe just as do most all Christ­ians, that my sins have been blotted out by the shed blood of Jesus Christ; and as a confessed law-breaker (sinner) I assume the responsibility for my actions knowing that nothing I have done can be imputed to God. Thus I must be affected by my sins accordingly and make confession to Him as required.

I believe that the following would make a good statement of fact as we consider what we have covered so far; “Yahweh our Elohim is creator and sustainer of all things and is perfect God. As such, He alone is the focal point of our love, honor, praise and obedience. He elected/chose us in all eternity to be His people who are sanctified by the working of God the Holy Spirit, and justified by the shed blood of God the Son Jesus Christ. We are to approach unto Him, humbly and upon our knees in honest confession and making true repentance of our sins. Righteous art thou O Yahweh, both when thou doest speak and when thou doest judge. If you would at this very in­stant bring forth justice and judgement to a sin struck universe, no iniquity could be imputed unto thee. Should I, who am chief among sinners, receive my just deserts and perish forever from before thy face, no iniquity could be imputed unto thee. When your final justice and judgement are worked out, all of creation will bow before you in love and adoration of your Sovereignty and Divine Majesty. We are the sheep of your pasture and are moved by nothing other than the effectual working of the Holy Spirit, working with our spirit in acknowledging our sins and repenting of them in the presence of your Grace and Mercy.”

The first thing that true repentance pre-supposes is the recognition and acknowledgement of God’s claim upon us. Because Yahweh is who He is and what He is, the source of all moral and spiritual excellancy; and because we as His creatures are completely dependent upon Him, entitles Him to be loved with all our hearts, worshipped with full adoration and served with joyous and perfect un-remitting obedience. All of those who fail to fully recognize this will remain under or in the power of sin nature II Cor 4:3-4! Ephesians 4:18 testifies that because some are unable to confess their sins and repent, they find themselves alienated from a godly life. Before we can repent we must recognize that there is sin in our lives. We must then acknowledge that sin and make our confession of it and the effectual claim of God on our lives takes over.

True repentance presupposes approval of God’s law and it’s requirements for our lives. Romans 7:11-13 tells us that the law of God is holy and nothing un-just or evil can proceed forth from that law just as nothing un-just or evil can proceed forth from God.. .Isa 51:4-5.

Any who would teach an up-heavel or abbrogation of the Royal Law of God are guilty of attempting to cast a shadow upon the Divine Character of Yahweh. The Social church tells us that we are no longer under the law and that the law was nailed to the Cross with Christ. It has always been my understanding that when God does something it is forever.. .Mal 3:6 “For I am Yahweh I change not..” If man chooses to release himself from the law of God he is trying to say that God has released us from the penalty of the law and will look the other way as man does as he pleases. The Bible tells all of us that God is immutable and that not one attribute of His is chan­ged or cancelled out. If the Love, Mercy and Grace of God are still intact then so are His Justice, His Wrath and His Judgement.

The pastor and the teacher has a responsibility to serve God and not man. There has been no reprieve issued to cease teaching the law, it is a full  time job, 7-days a week 365-days a year and no concessions have been made. Jesus Christ came and died a most horrible death, and this was not done to procure an abatement of the law. The Son did not die for us simply to have the Father slacken the reigns of government where lawlessness is concerned. II Peter 3:9-10 and Hebrews 2:2-3.. .God is not slack and the vision is un­changed, just as the law is unchanged.. .Matt 5:17-18.

*There are many consistancies between the Pharisees of Christs’ day and the Pharisees of the Social church of today, and the abolition of God’s law is but one. The greatest comparison of then and now could possibly be made in this area of thought; “Teaching for commandments the traditions of the Elders.”*  The Pharisee sect of the Judaic/Rabbinical society in Judea at the time of Christ compares closely to the Judeo/Christian society of todays America. Neither believes that repentance or a penitent spirit is necessary unto salvation, and for them it may not be too far from the truth. They believe that God’s law is no longer in effect and that man is to govern himself while the scripture teaches that the Royal law is still very much alive and that Repentance is for those under the law. Now since the law only applies to Israel, repentance unto salvation is only for Is­rael. Do you see the implication involved here? If the law was given to Israel, (Exodus 19: says that it was), and if Repentance is conditional for those upon whom the law is set, then it has to presuppose that salvation and eternal life can not be applied to any other nation of people outside of the Israelites. Before we proceed down the present path we need to look back to the words man/men and Adam in the book of Genesis and know that the words Adam and man/men in the so called New Testament scripture hold the exact same meaning and all that applied to the old testament Adam/man/men is applied to the New Testament Adam/man/men and their progeny through the elect seed line out of that Caucasian line.

Now, Titus 2:11-15.. .the grace of God may have appeared to all men as it says here, but it was understood by a few and not by all. It was embraced by many men, but not by all man like creatures. Christ came to redeem His people and cause them to conform to His image, for we must eventually be as Him. Gal 4:4 tells us that Christ was made under the law so that He might redeem them that were under the law. If the Social church is not under the law then those who embrace it are not under the law and therefore outside of the redeeming grace of God and Christ. The modern church says that Christ came for a people that are not the same as those who received the law at Sinai and to this I say search the scripture! Verse 14 Of Titus chapter 2 says that Christ died for us that He might save/redeem/buy-back us from iniquity/our sins and to purify unto Himself a peculiar people. This peculiar people spoken of here in Titus are the same peculiar treasure in Exodus 19:5.. “ye shall be a pe­culiar treasure unto me above all people” and Deut 14:2.. .“and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth”. Deut 26:18 reminds us of “his peculiar people” as does I Peter 2:9 and we find Israel the peculiar treasure in Psalml35:4 and in Eccl 2:8. If those in the Social church are happy in their present state of being oblivious to the truth of scripture then so be it, they evident­ally are not a part of Yahweh’s Peculiar People/Treasure.    *(What we find implied in the first part of this paragraph is the fact that the social church gospel says this; "Since the advent of Christ some 2,000 years ago we are no longer under the law but are under grace. This leaves the Christian in a quandry because it places him under the laws of man rather than the Law of God. Is it this way because the church doesn't understand God's Royal Law Word or that they find it more restricting than man's law? Do you worship in a church that has cancelled out the Law of God for the 'Traditions of the Elders' or, mans law? If so, you had better turn to God in Prayer and get out of that church!)* 

True repentance pre-supposes a broken hearted acknowledgement of our failure to keep God’s holy law. When God the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and our hearts and shows us the supreme excellency of Yahweh and His law word, He makes us aware that He, Yahweh, is to be the focus of our praise and our love. We will only become a truly penitent spirit in the moment that God the Holy Spirit convicts us and makes us become aware of the depth of our sins, and not when some preacher begs us to walk the aisle and find Jesus..(I thought it was man that was lost and needed finding, not Jesus!). Our spiritual destitutation apart from Yahweh, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is best seen in Isa 64:4-7. Not one single solitary soul does possess the strength or the know-how to even call upon the name of Yahweh much less lay hold of Him of "his own will". Psalm 34:17-19 tells us of the one who is truly repentant.. “The righteous cry out, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of ALL their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.” God the Holy Spirit breaks your old heart of stone and places there-in a new heart of flesh, it is He who turns us toward our life-giver and Saviour. .John 6:63-65, Rornans 8:14-26.

Face up to the truth of human nature, man is happy living in sin and he does not have the slightest intention toward change, nor does he possess the power of will to change. It is God the Holy Spirit who helps us defeat our self and infirmities and causes us to seek the face of Yahweh. God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us because it is out of character for us in our sin-nature to do so. The Holy Spirit bearing witness with out spirit brings us to the place or point where we are to be placed as the sons of God. Jesus Christ said, and John wrote in 6:63 that it is God the Holy Spirit who quickeneth/makes us alive. When Matthew wrote in 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit" he alludes to the fact that true repentance is made with a distressed or broken heart and in vs5 where he says “Blessed are the meek” he writes of those who have humbled themselves in body, soul and spirit before Yahweh. Then in vs8 when he writes “Blessed are the pure in heart” he is clearly addressing those who have been convicted of their sins or broken hearts because of the knowledge of sin and have repented or have turned away from the old sinful nature.

Scripture gives us many implied reasons as to why man should and must repent; We have lost all sense of God’s Sovereignty, We have ignored His claim upon us as our creator and life-giver, We have denied the holiness and glory of His very Being, We have denied His law word as His Will for our lives, and the list goes on and on. Knowing all of this we must surely ask ourselves, “Have I gone so far in my sin that there is no way back?” II Sam 12:7-14 relates Davids sin in the death of Uriah to gain his wife Bathsheba, did David go too far with coveteousness and murder? I would say no, not with the many scripture references in the New Testament of Christ as the son of David or as the greater David or of Him having come from the seed of David.. .read Rev 22:16.;

We must understand that just like David, “in our sins we have treated the King of all Glory with utter contempt. As law breakers we stand accused and convicted as rebels and sinners. The sins of man from, from the first man Adam until right now are so great that only the death of God the Son, Jesus Christ, could make restitution for us. Acts 5:30-31 tells us that God raised up Jesus from the grave and placed Him in the exalted position at His own right hand to be a Prince and Saviour and give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. We see here that Repentance is pre-supposed for Israel and is most certainly implied in the written word.

PASTOR RICK GIESENSCHLAG

CHRISTS’ CHURCH MILITANT

Copyright @ 2002 a.d.