In the later Judaism the idea of repentance is not indeed lost sight of, but, in Pharasaic circles at least, external acts of penitence, such as fast- ing, have usurped the place of the inner spirit, and to these acts the idea of merit has attached itself. In the preaching of the Baptist it again emerges in its pristine moral purity, as the one condition of escape from approaching judgment (Mt S"'-).
There are two words in the NT which convey the idea of repentance, luravoeiv and iinrrpiipuv, though, as we shall see, the idea appears also under other forms of expression. The.se words derive their moral content not from Greek but from Jewish and Christian thought, nothing analogous to the biblical conception of repentance and con- version being known to the Greeks. If respect be had to their literal meaning, the first presents repentance in its negative aspect, as a change of mind, a turning from sin ; the second, in its posi- tive aspect, as a turning to God. Both have, Low-
226 REPENT, REPENTANCE
REPHABI, VALE OF
ever, much the same content of meaning. Christ began His ministry with a call to repentance (\ft 4"). The call has as its motive the nearness of the kingdom, particijiation in which requires as its condition the new disiu>sition (Mt 18'). It is addressed, not as in the ()T to tlie nation, but to the individual ; and not merely to those guilty of flagrant sin, but to all (Lk 13^). The inner and radical character of the change required is illus- trated by the figure of the tree and its fruits. The first four Beatitudes may be taken as descriptive of elements in a true repentance. Poverty of spirit, sorrow for sin, meekness, hunger and tliirst for righteousness, are all characteristics of the soul that is turning from sin to God. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus draws a picture of tlie true penitent. Such is assured of the for- giveness and welcome of the Father, whose love, indeed, has anticipated his return, and gone out to seek and save (Lk 15^). That God accepts the penitent follows at once from His own nature, and rrom the moral appropriateness of a humble and contrite spirit. The Father cannot but rejoice over the recovery of a lost son (Lk 15-^) ; and the spirit of the publican in the temple as plainly carries with it justification as the spirit of the Pharisee condemnation (Lk 18"). Of fasting or other external accompaniments Christ knows nothing.
Although Christ began His ministry with the call to repentance, it cannot be said that it appears in His teaching as the fundamental re- quirement. Exhibiting the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and revealing the love of the heavenly Father, He requires rather /at</i in His message, leaving the particular form of the re- sponse to be determined in correspondence with each man's character and history. Repentance accordingly falls into the background before the wider idea of faith (Lk 1^). In the apostolic speeches in Acts, and in the Apocalypse, repent- ance most frequently appears in its ethical sense ; but side by side with this use we have that which treats it as a result of Divine activity — an experi- ence rather than an act (Ac 3'^). In the latter case the idea of repentance passes into that of con- version {iTTiiTTpiipeadai, the conversio intransitiva of theologians as distinguished from conversio transi- tiva), the ethical activity of the individual being subordinated to the Divine causality. The problem of the relation of the two sides, which exercised the Church later, giving rise to such conceptions as virtus indeclinabiliter et insupcrahiUter, gratia co- operans, etc., is not raised in the New Testament.
In the Pauline Epistles repentance is considered more as an experience than as an act, and this experience is described in a manner peculiar to the apostle as a death and resurrection with Christ, or as a putting off of the old man and a putting on of the new. The believer is buried with Christ in baptism, and raised with Him into a new life in the Spirit (Ro &^-, Col 2'=). The result of this new creation is a new walk and conversation ; sin is in its principle destroyed. In this profound concep- tion, which also gives its content to the apostle s idea of faith, the place of Christ in the experience of conversion, together with a certain mystical element in that experience, comes to expression.
The word 'repent' does not once occur in the Johannine writings, having dropped even from the Baptist's preaching. The idea is not, however, absent, but appears under the form of the new birth, which takes the place of the Synoj)tic ^fTdvoia as the condition of entrance into the king- dom (Jn 3'). The causality of the will here wholly disappears, together with those psj'chological ele- ments characteristic of repentance as a process of turning, and the new life stands out as the result
of a transcendent and mysterious act of God's creative power (Jn 3"). The n.atural and the super- natural, the fleshly and the spiritual, are opposed in a way that excludes all mere renewal, or any transition from the old life to the new. The human and ethical side, however, linds expression in the idea of faith, which here, as in the NT in general, implies an active turning from sin to God (Jn 4'"- 9=«, 1 Jn l^).