John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.--_Mark_ i. 4.
God and man must combine for salvation from sin, and the same word, here and elsewhere translated _remission_, seems to be employed in the New Testament for the share of either in the great deliverance.
But first let me say something concerning the word here and everywhere translated _repentance_. I would not even suggest a mistranslation; but the idea intended by the word has been so misunderstood and therefore mistaught, that it requires some consideration of the word itself to get at a right recognition of the moral fact it represents.
The Greek word then, of which the word _repentance_ is the accepted synonym and fundamentally the accurate rendering, is made up of two words, the conjoint meaning of which is, _a change of mind_ or _thought_. There is in it no intent of, or hint at _sorrow_ or _shame_, or any other of the mental conditions that, not unfrequently accompanying repentance, have been taken for essential parts of it, sometimes for its very essence. Here, the last of the prophets, or the evangelist who records his doings, qualifies the word, as if he held it insufficient in itself to convey the Baptist's meaning, with the three words that follow it--_[Greek: eis aPhesin amartiôn:--kaerussôn Baptisma metauoias eis aphesin amartiôn]_--'preaching a baptism of repentance--_unto a sending away of sins'._ I do not say the phrase _[Greek: aphesis amartiôn]_ never means _forgiveness,_ one form at least of _God's_ sending away of sins; neither do I say that the taking of the phrase to mean _repentance for the remission of sins_, namely, repentance in order to obtain the pardon of God, involves any inconsistency; but I say that the word _[Greek: eis]_ rather _unto_ than _for;_ that the word _[Greek: aphesis],_ translated _remission_, means, fundamentally, a _sending away,_ a _dismissal;_ and that the writer seems to use the added phrase to make certain what he means by _repentance;_ a repentance, namely, that reaches to the sending away, or abjurement of sins. I do not think _a change of mind unto the remission or pardon of sin_ would be nearly so logical a phrase as _a change of mind unto the dismission of sinning._ The revised version refuses the word _for_ and chooses _unto,_ though it retains _remission,_ which word, now, conveys no meaning except the forgiveness of God. I think that here the same word is used for man's dismission of his sins, as is elsewhere used for God's dismission or remission of them. In both uses, it is a sending away of sins, with the difference of meaning that comes from the differing sources of the action. Both God and man send away sins, but in the one case God sends away the sins of the man, and in the other the man sends away his own sins. I do not enter into the question whether God's aphesis may or may not mean as well the sending of his sins out of a man, as the pardon of them; whether it may not sometimes mean _dismission,_ and sometimes _remission_: I am sure the one deed cannot be separated from the other.
That the phrase here intends repentance unto the ceasing from sin, the giving up of what is wrong, I will try to show at least probable.
In the first place, the user of the phrase either defines the change of mind he means as one that has for its object the pardon of God, or as one that reaches to a new life: the latter seems to me the more natural interpretation by far. The kind and scope of the repentance or change, and not any end to be gained by it, appears intended. The change must be one of will and conduct--a radical change of life on the part of the man: he must repent--that is, change his mind--not to a different opinion, not even to a mere betterment of his conduct--not to anything less than a sending away of his sins. This interpretation of the preaching of the Baptist seems to me, I repeat, the more direct, the fuller of meaning, the more logical.