Remission

See FoROrvENESS. BEMPHAN.-See Rephan. RENDING OF GARMENTS See MouRNlNO. REPENT, REPENTANCE (ddj, 3ie>, /lo-oi-oeii', trurrpi<t>eiv, ficrafifKtffBat ; cnl, ^erdvoia, ^iriorpo^i)). — The usual meaning of nij) (? from an onoiiiatopoetlc root signifying to pant or groan) is to change one's mind or purpose out of pity for those whom one's actions have affected, or because the results of an action have not fulfilled e.\pectation.

In this sense repentance is attributed not onlj' to man, but to God (Gn 6', Ex 32"). With reference to sin, orj) is found only in Jer 8' and Job 42". The idea of repentance from sin is in other cases ex- pressed by the verb Did 'to turn.' Though the change in the direction of the will is here in the fore;;iouiid, a change in inner disposition is always presupposed.

The turning from sin is einphatical"ly a matter of conduct, but it is also a matter of the heart (Jl 2"), and it has as its elements enlighten- ment (Jer 31"), contrition (Ps 5V-). longing for God's forgiveness, and trust In God (Hos 14^). In their direct amieals to the people, the prophets naturally think of repentance In a purely etuical vou IV.— 15 way as a function of the will : Ezekiel even calls upon them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit ( Ezk 18^').

But retlexion on the facts of experience quickly leads to the discovery that the will is not the only, or even the main, factor in the case. Beliiiid the will lie the spiritual forces that move it to action, and behind theso again, God. Moreover, the new lite, which is the positive side of repentance, cannot be called into being by the mere fiat of the will.

The spiritual facts and forces, in and through which God ia working, thus advance into the foreground, and the pro](het8 are led from the causality of the will to tue causality of God, from the etliical to the religious standpoint. God Himself creates the new heart (Ps 51'", Ezk 36'-*''-) ; His law converts the soul (Ps 19') ; His people turn when He turns them (Jer 31").

In despair of a generation bound by the tradition and habit of evO, Jeremiah looks into the future for some new maiiifesUition of Divine power, w hich shall effect a radical change in the inner disposition of the people (Jer 31^). Beyond a genuine repentance the prophets know of no other condition attaching to God's forgive- ness and favour (Dt 30'^-, Jer 17*. Ps 32=). And the idea of repentance is set up in its moral purity, everything merely external and statutory being stripped away.

In primitive Hebrew religion the otlender brought a gift to God to appease Him ; he fasted, rent his garments, and by an attitude of mourning and humiliation sought to make his prayer for pardon impressive and effectual. But of all this the propliets and psalmists will hear nothing. God does not desire such things (Hos 5» 6', Is I"-, Jer G" 7-"'- 14'-, Ps 50'»). The .

sacri- ficial forms with which atonement was associ- ated are ignored as worthless or condemned as noxious (Am 5=', Mic e"*-, Jer 7'^''-, Ps 40« 51'«). The sacrifice pleasing to God is that of a broken and contrite heart (Ps 51'"-). No attempt is made by the prophets to take the sacrificial system into the service of a purer faith, whether by a process of moral reinterpretation, or by going back on an original but forgotten meaning.

In process of lime the system was to some extent ethicised ; but its atonement (which presupposed repentance in the transgressor) was available only for sins of inadvertence (Nu 15-''- *■). The place of repentance as condition of forgiveness is not due to any idea of its meritorious character. The idea of merit — ivhich never attaches itsalf to a genuine moral act, but always to some external form or accompani- ment-is foreign to the spirit of the OT.

If God forgives, it is because it is His nature and pre- rogative to do so (Is 43^) ; and that He will not reiect the praj'er of the penitent is accepted as self-evident to the moral sense. 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^). LiTERATiTtB. — Works on 07* Theology by Schultz and Smend : on NT Theulony by Weiss, Beyscblag. and Holtzn^ann ; Sieffert, DiJi npucMen i/u'ot.

Forschnnijeii Tiber Biume undljlaube; Creraer, Bifj.-thenl. Wurterlmch ; Wrede,art. * fj.iTcc>oicc Siunesanderung?' in ZUclir./. XT Wmenicha/l, i. (1900) p. 66 ff. W. MOBOAN.