When the Bible talks about repentance, it may include confession, apology and changed actions but it also means much more. Metanoia – the Greek word translated as “repentance” in the New Testament – literally means a change of mind, a transformation of perspective.
Philip Melanchthon wrote in the Augsburg Confession that repentance has “two sides, a putting to death and a raising to life,” which he also called “contrition and faith.” Martin Luther argued fervently that it is not the quality of human contrition – our being “sorry enough” – that ensured God’s forgiveness; God gives grace freely. Yet Luther recognized that repentance leads us to turn to contrition and a new way of being, like the psalmist who cries, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
We can think of repentance, then, as a turn-around: a return to God and a change of heart. Simple – but not easy.
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “Turn, turn, turn: A time for faithful repentance” by Meghan Johnston Aelabouni in the September 2018 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession, 1530; and Philip Melanchthon, renewer of the church, 1560.
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