| Why Repent?? |
| Why Repent?? |
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Yes, Why SHOULD You Repent? I grew up in a VERY conservative church. Repentence was the core of the teachings. Everyone was 'sinful'. Believers repented and confessed their sins, finalizing it with an immersion. After that, they didn't feel so bad, and could pray that God would forgive their continuing habit of sinning. Looking back, few of us Christians would have EVER noticed a large theological 'repentence-desert' just east of Acts and west of Revelations, with yet another desert in the gospel of John. Paul? Mentioned it all of 3 times. John? Nope. Peter? Once. James? Nope. Jude? Nope. Hebrews-guy? Twice. Well, who thought repenting was important? That would be the synoptic gospel writers, and Revelations. Else you get a pretty big yawn. Surprised and getting suspicious? Grab your OT, for goodness sakes guys! The NT fulfilled the OT, so you'll certainly find plenty of personal repentence there in the OT, right? Well, kind of. Ezekiel (18:21) assures the readers that they won't die with personal repentence. But wouldn't you know it, John has Jesus using the passage (ch 8) but leaves out repentance. Gosh darn it. When Mark and mystery man 'Q' started up with John-the-B slurping down honey, and demanding 'repentence', WHERE did he get 'repent' from? Jesus' tastes seemed to favor BBQ fish, but he too preached repentence. WHERE did Jesus get that idea? As believers, of course, 'WE' both know JohnB and Jesus got it from God, right? But that's a little too easy an answer. Both JohnB and Jesus attracted large crowds who apparently saw the need for repentence, being immersed in the dirty Jordan river (so dirty, the jews proscribed it for purification!). WHERE did the crowds get that expectation? JohnB's crowds were so large, Herod felt the need to get rid of JohnB (Josephus). No, dear reader, repentence didn't just pop out of nowhere. The crowds didn't suddenly discover 'sin'. Are you thinking 'miracles'? Wrong ... JohnB didn't even do miracles (Joh 10:41). No, the obvious answer is 'apocalysm'. The final end had come. Since the times of Isaiah, Daniel and Enoch, the Kingdom of God was prophesied and the end was now emminent. Purification was needed. Judgment would be meted out in awesome quantities, and only personal repentence could help. But there's an odd pattern. Most of these writings show up likely AFTER the fall of Jerusalem, and destruction of Israel. Take a look at Acts, where Luke reports that Paul said he taught the importance of repentence. He told King Agrippa that he preached repentence to Jerusalem, Judea, and then the gentiles, saying 'they should repent and turn to God and do works consistent with repentence' (Acts 26:19). Are we talking about Mr Faith-and-Forget-Works Paul? Yep, sure enough. Ignoring that Paul said he never spent much time in Judea, Paul sounds like he had BECOME John the B (see matching at Luke 3:8)! OK. Let's summarize the evidence so far. (1) JohnB and Jesus say repentence is critical to being saved. (2) Jesus says he got everything from the Father (God) and (3) Paul, Jesus' brother James, John, James' brother Jude, Hebrews-guy, and Peter (Mr On-That-Rock) can't quite talk about it. In fact (I hate to point this out), the ONLY people who DO emphasize repentence are the people who DIDN'T walk with Jesus (Mark, 'Q', Luke/Acts, and the mystery-man who wrote Revelations). Getting a little bit MORE suspicious? Now, we both KNOW, per Jesus, that repentence is not enough. You need to believe. You need to believe WHAT? This is where the story gets even stranger. Jesus never really spelled out what the large repenting crowds were supposed to believe! Mark 1:15 says 'the good news'. We ASSUME that the belief was supposed to be in Jesus as the messiah, but per Mark, that was Jesus' little SECRET until the end. So, WHAT were the repenting crowds supposed to believe in? Think, guys, think!! Now, if you're a good NT reader you know they were supposed to believe 'in Jesus' name'. What's that? If you read some of the more esoteric commentaries, you'll find there's no known examples of this phrase in the greek, outside of the NT. The closest you can get is in early banks, 'name' was short-hand for 'account'. That's it. Calm down. Yes, you can STILL repent. If you read this far, you're probably wondering where this discussion is leading. I'll let you figure that out! Here's the main clue ... without repentence, judgement would be unbelievably awful. And, in their generation. They needed a savior. What could it be?? OK. Extra credit clues: Jesus' disciples were simple fishermen. But at Pentecost, they expected Israel would be saved. Who taught them that?? And why would Bethsaida, Corizon and Capernaum be destroyed. Think, guys, think!! No, Jesus and JohnB didn't know Philo. |
| Copyright ©, 2008, dmbarnhart |
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