Easy Expedience of Repentance – Part Two

Romans 2:4-5 “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

The church elder replies: “That would be true contrition. The fathers of the Jesuit church, by their superior wisdom, teach unanimously that it is an error, close to heresy, to represent contrition as essential and to maintain that the shallow remorse of sin arising solely from the fear of hell, which keeps someone from sinning openly, is not enough without the sacrament of sacred church rites. So profitable is this doctrine that our church fathers have released us from the troublesome obligation of loving God, which is the privilege of the evangelical as distinguished from the Jewish law. One authority says, ‘It is reasonable that by the law of grace in the New Testament, God should do away with the irksome and difficult duty which was attached to the rigorous law of exercising an act of complete contrition (repentance of sin) in order to be justified, and that he should institute church sacraments and rites to make up for our defects and to facilitate obedience.

Hebrews 5:14-6:1 “Solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God."

“O Father,” Pascal bursts out, “I am horrified at these statements. You site them without and sign of disapproval. The liberty you take to corrupt the most sacred rules of Christian conduct extends even to the entire subversion of the divine laws. You violate the great commandment. You stab piety in the very heart. You take away and quench the spirit which gives life. You affirm that the love of God is not necessary to salvation. You even assert that ‘this exemption from loving God is a great benefit which Christ has brought to the world.’ All this is the very acme (culmination) and depth of impiety. What! The price of the blood of Christ obtains exemption from loving him! What strange theology we have in our days! You destroy what the apostle John says, that he that loves not abides in death! Even the declaration of Christ himself you take away: ‘He that loves me not keeps not my commandments’- (John 14:23-24). In this way you make those who never once loved God in all their lives worthy of enjoying his presence forever! Surely this is the mystery of iniquity now brought to completion.”

Acts 17:30 “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”

“O, my good Father, at last open your eyes. Let these latter examples undermine your confidence by their sheer extravagance. I wish this for you with all my heart and in all brotherly love, pray God that he would condescend to show you how false and dangerous is such teaching (of “cheap grace”). Instead may he fill with his love the hearts of those who dare to dispense others from this obligation.”

Revelation 3:3 “Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.”

May we keep the message of the gospel humble, keep it simple for all to understand, and keep it about Christ, our Lord, King of the kingdom, Savior of the world. May we, the children of God, stand up and stand firm when it is not, for Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, & the Life eternal.

Blessings, Brian