The True Meaning Of Repentance

“Salvation by works is the self-admittance that you are forever cursed.”

What does is it mean to truly repent? What does it mean to repent of a certain sin?

Believe it or not, this is not a widely known or even thoroughly explained concept in the church today. Growing up in the apostolic church, my mom would always tell us kids, “You need to repent!” I was always under the impression that repentance meant telling God that you were sorry, and that you would try not to do it again. I was actually 37 years old when I finally became aware of the true nature of repentance.

I was alone in the hot tub one night, listening to a certain podcast, nothing even remotely Christian in nature. The male host was explaining how he came to repent of having had a hand in the murder of at least six of his children, and being in his late forties, how he wondered who they could been or what they could have achieved. “Murder?” I was taken aback. He went on to explain that in his naive and promiscuous youth he had gotten several different women pregnant who later on, sometimes with or without his consent, had gotten abortions. The host later went on to describe how his lamentations caused him to weep uncontrollably and that he now, over two decades later, finally understood the magnitude of what he had done, and asked the Lord Jesus to forgive him. He said it changed his life.

While I sat there and contemplated what I was hearing, I too began to to wrestle with the realization that I too was complicit in the same described act of self-professed infanticide; an abortion that I myself most definitely had a hand in. If you set all other factors out of the equation aside, abortion is one hundred percent killing a baby. Period.

One would think this realization would have weighed me down immensely and placed a mountain of guilt and remorse on my shoulders. But, no, actually just the opposite. Yes, while I wept and mourned the loss of a life that could have wonderfully altered my life and the world forever, I immediately asked God for forgiveness and right then and there and I felt a literal “weight” LIFTED OFF of my shoulders, like I had instantly become ten pounds lighter.

But what had actually occurred in this spiritual transaction? Did telling God I'm sorry create this new found liberation? No, think about it. It was the realization that consent to the abortion of my unborn son was a form of murder that was the revelation. IT WAS THE CHANGING OF MY MIND.

Now this concept seems like an elementary one to grasp, in retrospect. But believe me, the mechanics of this spiritual principle are beyond the doctorate and post-doctorate level in theory and application.

The blood of Jesus comes into play only after TRUE repentance. Imagine being on trial for murder. You are found guilty and the judge sentences you to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But what if the judge said that there was a way that you could walk out of that courtroom today a free man, never to see the inside of a murky jail cell again? Would you be interested?

And what if all you had to do to be free from this whole mess was to CHANGE YOUR MIND about what you had done; to truly make a 180 degree turn away from your previous way of thinking, perceiving, and believing about the crime you committed, and walk away with a new understanding of how it affected you and the world around you. The only caveat is that he would be able to tell, with one hundred percent accuracy, if you were not sincere in any way, shape, or form, and that you would be sentenced to DEATH if you didn't comply with the 180 degree mandate from the court. Would you do it? COULD you do it? Not so easy now, is it?

Most Christians today would rather take a plea deal, lesser sentence with maybe 7 years probation and a million hours of community service or something of that nature in lieu of actual full repentance. They would seek to repent 170 degrees and fulfill the rest of the sentence through good works. This is inherently the wrong way to think about this. Salvation by works is the self-admittance that you are forever cursed.

The Bible tells us, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” (Titus 3:5). It is by true repentance and the mercy of Jesus Christ alone that we are saved. Anything else belittles the finished work of the cross and stands to make a mockery of the Father for sending his only Son to die for us IF HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO.

On top of that, how many many works is enough? How many “volunteer sessions at the shelter” wipe out one false accusation? Or what amount of donation to the “church ministry fund” dissolves the stain of extra-marital adultery? It can't be known, because the record of amounts doesn't exist. Anyone doctrine that says otherwise can likened to the six feet and mask-up rules during COVID; just arbitrarily made up. There is no scriptural evidence that even remotely begins to answer that.

And what is the definition of a curse? A curse can be defined as a “solemn utterance, judgment, or consequence, intended to bring harm, divine punishment, or ruin upon someone or something”. Therefore, if you believe that you have to work for you salvation, and the measurement of works is completely and utterly unknown, in essence you are saying that you are forever cursed because no amount of works can ever knowingly be enough.

Furthermore, the Bible tells that Jesus became the curse so that we could enter into the blessing. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us...” (Galatians 3:13) In doing so, Christ took the curse of sin upon HIMSELF though the crucifixion to set ALL believers free. The truth is, we can't even come close to the magnitude or scope of His sacrifice by anything we do on this earthly plane, and thankfully, we don't have to. All we have to do is CHANGE OUR MINDS.

Job Ramirez