Footsteps #10

With Paul’s conversion, Christianity changed forever! His gospel insights into the life of Jesus through the prism of the OT are profound. His theology of conversion and repentance is thorough and fundamental to every believer in Jesus. I am repeatedly told by God that unless the old centre of my life (self) is displaced by His Spirit, my nasty life shall shortly terminate, and forever.

If Christ was God, His warnings are not to be dealt with like the latest football scores. “You must be born again,” Jesus said (John.3:3.) “Unless you repent you shall all perish.” (Luke.13:3) He meant it; 6 hours of hell on the cross bearing our guilt and sin show that He meant it. The word of Jesus public ministry was “repent” and He never ceased to say it. The repentance called for throughout the Bible is a summons to a personal, absolute, and ultimate unconditional surrender to God as Sovereign. Though it includes sorrow and regret, it is more than that. Before going further, it’s important that we clearly understand what repentance really means. In the OT, two Hebrew words help us understand repentance. The first is the word ‘nacham,’ which means to turn around or to change the mind. The second is the word ‘sub.’ It is used over 600 times in the OT and is translated by such words as “turn,” “return,” “seek,” “restore.” You see it very often in phrases like, “to turn to the Lord with all your heart.”

The NT has one-word ‘metanoia,’ which literally means “to change the mind.” Repentance fundamentally means to change your mind about something. It has to do with the way you think about something. You’ve been thinking one way, but now you think the opposite way. That’s repentance — the changing of the mind. Paul’s paradigm shift was a radical repentance. Metanoia was a military term that described a soldier marching in one direction and then doing an about-face. When it’s used in a spiritual sense, it means to change your mind. If you want more, listen to Dr David Jeremiah’s sermon on You Tube, “Turning point.”