Regret, Sorrow, Repentance, and Belief. Matthew 21:32
Matthew gives us an extensive account of the last week, and it starts here in chapter twenty-one and goes through chapter twenty-five before we get into the arrest of Christ. So we have five chapters, most of which is not in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John we have a focus on what Jesus taught His disciples the night before He went to the cross in the upper room discourse. That upper room discourse takes us from chapters thirteen to seventeen. So that is ten chapters in the Gospels that focus on what is going on in just the last week of our Lord's time on this earth.
There is so much there. You can spend years just studying through these particular chapters; each one has different emphases.
What we see in this particular structure is that as Jesus has come into Jerusalem with the triumphal entry where His followers were singing to Him from Psalm 118, this is a recognition that Jesus is more than just a man, that he is the rightful Messiah, the King, entering into Jerusalem. They understand this. Matthew makes it clear by quoting from Zechariah chapter nine.
That takes place on one particular day, and then Jesus goes in and cleanses the temple. We have this in-your-face confrontation with the religious leadership, because all that is going on inside the temple—the money changing, the selling of animals for the sacrifices—is run by what is essentially an organized criminal effort by the high priesthood, the family of Annas. It was a moneymaking scheme. It was not concerned about worshipping God; it was concerned about increasing personal wealth.
The next morning we have the incident of cursing the fig tree. This was a training aid. The fig tree in the Old Testament often represented Israel, and He is depicting this judgment on Israel because of their lack of fruitfulness.
After cursing the fig tree Jesus goes the rest of the way to the temple. Matthew 21:23 NASB “When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, 'By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?'”
Jesus doesn't really answer the question. What He does all through this section in these confrontations is a major one-up on the Pharisees in terms of rabbinical methodology and theology. They ask Him a question and He returns the question. He raises a counter question that puts them on the spot. [24] “Jesus said to them, 'I will also ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things'.” He asks them about John the Baptist and this puts them on a spot. He concludes in v. 27 by saying, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things”.
But He doesn't stop there. As we read through the rest of the chapter and into chapter twenty-three we see that what Jesus is demonstrating in numerous subtle ways is the basis for His authority and His indictment of their fraudulent use of authority.
In the context of this, when comparing it to the other synoptic Gospels, Mark and Luke, we see the dynamics that are going on as Jesus comes into the temple. Mathew mentions just two groups when Jesus came into the temple: the chief priests and elders. They confront Him. Mark gives us a little more vivid look: “And as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him”. A third group is mentioned, the scribes. But then Luke puts it all together for us and says that it is as He taught the people in the temple and proclaiming the good news.
And now the chief priests, the elders and the scribes question His authority. Basically, who ordained you, what school are you from, in whose name are you teaching?
He
avoids their questions and immediately challenges them. Matthew 21:28 NASB
“But what do you think? ...”
It is interesting that in Matthew 22:17 the Pharisees set Jesus up and send some of their disciples and the Herodians to Him to ask Him about legitimacy of paying taxes. They say to Him, “What do you think?” This is typical rabbinical back and forth. Jesus is going to talk their language and He is going to best them at every turn in these next few chapters.
Now Jesus is going to give them a parable. A few points:
It introduces a man who is the owner of the vineyard. This man represents God the Father. He has two adult children. It doesn't say son in the Greek; it is TEKNON. It is a more intimate term for son but it avoids using the Greek term HUIOS, which is translated “son” in Son of God. Jesus is going to tell this parable and then go into the next parable, and the climax of the second parable is when the landowner sends his son [HUIOS]. So there is no mistake. When Jesus uses HUIOS there for the first time—He doesn't use it in the first parable—it focuses on His own claim to be the Son. There is no mistake who He is comparing that son in the second parable to; He is speaking of Himself. In the first parable He talks about two children.
The emphasis there is not on the identity of the two, other than they represent those who were sinners and then trusted in God and the promise of the Messiah, and those who didn't. The first person that was told to go to the vineyard and work says he won't do it, but then he does. That pictures the tax collectors, the sinners, who are initially rebellious against God and then are going to do what God says to do; and that, as we will see, is to believe in Him. They believed in the message of John the Baptist.
The second son who says he will do it but then doesn't do it is a picture of the religious leaders. There is external observance being given to obedience but there is no heart reality, no faith or belief.
Verse 29 describes the first son who says initially, “I will not”. But then the text says he regretted it and went. What I am focusing on is understanding these words that we translate as remorse, regret, and which we confuse often with the concept of repent.
The word for regret in v. 29 is METAMELOMAI, which is an emotional term. It emphasizes just emotional remorse. In this case the emotional remorse does result in a change of behavior, and so METAMELOMAI, while it is different from METANOEO, can be part of the process of turning to God in obedience.
We come to the end of this section and Jesus confronts the religious leaders: Matthew 21:31 NASB “Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first” … He is asking them to make the decision. He is not going to hit them with the conclusion. It is very subtle: Which one really obeyed the father? And they are forced to admit that the first one did. They are indicting themselves.
Jesus does the same thing in the second parable; He uses the same technique. He gives the story and then asks: What happened to these rebellious, wicked tenant farmers? Then they have to announce a judgment, which is the judgment that will come upon them: Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.”
The implication is that He is talking about salvation here because they haven't believed, whereas the tax collectors and sinners believed.
Matthew 21:32 NASB “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him ...”
They were not believers, they did not believe; that indicates that we are talking about eternal destiny here.
The tax collectors and harlots believed. They believed John the Baptist and so they are justified; they are saved. “... and you, seeing {this,} did not even feel remorse [METAMELOMAI] afterward so as to believe him.”
The point is that here we have this word METAMELOMAI, which is primarily an emotional term for feeling sorry or having remorse, and often we think that just being sorry for something or having remorse doesn't cut any ice with God, and that is true. But that doesn't mean that it can't be used by God. So we will look at what the Bible teaches about repentance and remorse.
As we get into this there are some questions that we should focus on.
a) Is repentance the same as regret and sorrow? Sometimes people use those words interchangeably.
b) Is sorrow necessary to repent? Is it necessary to be sorry for your sins or to be sorry you rejected Jesus? Is there a necessary role of emotional remorse in order to be saved?
c) Does sorrow or remorse necessarily lead to repentance? (Sometimes it does, but is it necessary?)
d) Is it important to teach repentance?
The Gospel of John uses the word faith 86 times but the word repentance is never used.
Luke 24:46 NASB “and He said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, [47] and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem'.” What does He mean by that?
2 Peter 3:9 NASB “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
So from those two passages it looks like repentance is not just some secondary doctrine that shouldn't be addressed but one that should be taught and proclaimed. We have to understand it though.
In his Systematic Theology Lewis Sperry Chafer stated the following:
Therefore it is as dogmatically stated as language can declare that repentance is essential to salvation, and that none could be saved apart from repentance.
What does he mean by that? He is just saying his conclusion from the previous passages. So we have to understand what the Scripture says and teaches.
Whenever you get into a conversation with anybody it is always important to define the terms. The way the word METAMELOMAI is translated into the Russian language a word is used that means to have remorse or to be sorry, so they get very confused. What may surprise you is that when you look at the word repent in an English dictionary it has the same meaning in English. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the verb "repent" means to feel or express sincere regret or remorse about something.
If we look at the Bible and we are just studying the English text, and we take that and apply that to what we read in the English, then we are going to come out with the same idea that the Russians have, i.e. that there has to be this emotional element or we are not saved.
The Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives as the first definition; to turn from sin and dedicate one's self to the amendment of one's life. So again, if we are reading in the English Bible and read that Jesus said we have to teach repentance it appears that what we have to teach is for people to turn from sin and dedicate themselves to a new life. That is going to lead to a lot of confusion and seems to contradict a lot of Scripture.
The second meaning listed in Webster's Dictionary is that it means to feel regret or contrition or, secondly, to change one's mind. That gets closer to the meaning of the Greek term.
So people bring this baggage with them when they read the English word. That is why we have to go back and look at what is said in the Scripture.
There is also a lot of confusion among theologians. Lewis Sperry Chafer defined repentance as a change of mind. So when we read his quote above when he said that repentance is essential to salvation, when we understand repentance to mean change of mind or change of thinking he is absolutely correct.
Charles Ryrie said that it means to change one's mind. Numerous others who have done studies of this come to that same conclusion, that repentance (METANOEO in the Greek) means to change one's mind.
Another theologian who is popular among a lot of southern Baptists writes, “Repentance means to be sorry for or contrite over one's sins so as to change or to be penitent”. (Penitent comes from the same Latin word as doing penance)
Another evangelical scholar by the name of Millard Ericson says that repentance is godly sorrow for one's sin in connection with a resolution to turn from it”. So repentance means to turn from sin but you have to have something called godly sorrow. “Godly sorrow” is a biblical term, but what does that mean?
Louis Berkhof, a Reformed theologian, says that repentance is the “change wrought in the conscious life of the sinner by which he turns away from sin.”
What you hear from a lot of these is that the object of repentance is sin: you turn away from sin. But the word repent is a word that most of the time doesn't have an object with it in the Scripture. The word doesn't necessarily apply to any specific object. It just means a change of mind. You have to look at the context to see what you are changing your mind about and what you are changing your mind for. But we have so many people who have heard all the erroneous stuff that they just read it into the word whenever they see it, and the result is that there is a tremendous amount of confusion about what the Scripture says.
The idea of penance came into Christianity as a result of a poor translation by Jerome. He translated the word repent by the Latin phrase meaning doing acts of penance. That emphasizes works. And unfortunately when the Englishman John Wycliffe in the fourteenth translated the Latin into English because he didn't know the original languages did the same thing. He translated repentance as doing penance. That means somehow making up for your sin, doing some sort of works salvation.
Scripture says that there is only one condition for salvation: faith alone. Genesis 15:6, talking about Abraham says, “Abraham believed the Lord and he [the Lord] imputed it to him for righteousness”. It is not what Abraham did; it is what Abraham believed. It wasn't faith plus anything.
John 3:16, “whosoever believes”--there is no “and repented”. Two verses later we read: “He who believes in Him is not condemned”. There is no mention of repentance, sorrow, remorse or anything like that.
Ephesians 2:8, 9 NASB “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, {it is} the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” What is the condition? To be saved through faith—no mention of repentance.
In Romans chapters one through four Paul gives the most detailed explanation of the mechanics of salvation. He goes back to Genesis 15:6—by faith alone. He only mentions the word repent once in the second chapter, and there it is almost a synonym for faith; and that is an important thing to remember. In a number of passages in the New Testament faith is not mentioned, repent is mentioned. In other passages it is clear it is faith. If we are going to see how repent fits in belief it is the change of mind from not believing something to believing something. It is not something that is in addition to faith; it is something that is part of shifting from unbelief to belief.
There are two words that are often confused in every day language. The idea of translating METAMELOMAI as sorrow is part of it. The first word that we see in this parable that we have been studying in Matthew 21 is the word METAMELOMAI. It is translated there as regret and translated as relent. It is an emotional word; it is not a synonym for METANOEO.
The second word is the noun METANOIA, meaning repentance. META is a prepositional prefix that means after, and then NOIA is the word from NOUS for mind. So it literally means an afterthought, to think again, or literally to change your mind.
In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians he has to rebuke them for their licentious attitude and their lax attitude towards sin in the congregation—sin so well-known and so perverse that it shocked even the unbelievers in Corinth that they would put up with it and allow it to go on. Paul is probably alluding to that in the seventh chapter of his second Corinthians epistle. He is writing to believers, so the issues have to do with spiritual growth and the spiritual life, not getting saved.
2 Corinthians 7:1 NASB “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” The point that he is making here has to do with spiritual cleansing: recovering from carnality, recovering from sin. He uses the phrase KATHARIZO, the same as in 1 John 1:9--“cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. In the final prepositional phrase, perfecting holiness, the word for perfecting is EPITELEO, which is a form of the word TELEO, which means to mature, not perfect in the sense of flawlessness but to bring to completion, to bring to maturity or completeness. That is what Paul is talking about.
Paul corrected the Corinthians church and they felt bad, it made them sorry. His purpose wasn't to make them sorry, his purpose was for them to change. That often happens in life. We do something foolish, bad, and somebody corrects us. We feel embarrassed, bad, and that may be part of the reason we eventually change.
The second word that Paul uses here is the word translated regret is the word METAMELOMAI.
2 Corinthians 7:8 NASB “For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it--{for} I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while--” He is not remorseful over the fact that they felt sorrow. Then he says, “though I did regret it.” We have all had that experience, especially if we are parents. You don't regret disciplining your children, but you do, you didn't really feel good about it. But it was the right thing to do. We have all had those mixed emotions.
2 Corinthians 7:9 NASB “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to {the point of} repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to {the will of} God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.” The word sorrowful is the Greek word LUPEO. It is used of Jesus when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane anticipating what is going to happen the next day at the cross, and He is going through emotional turmoil. Paul is not rejoicing that they were sorry but that their sorrow led somewhere. It led to repentance, a change of mind, a change of behavior.
Then he says, NASB “... according [KATA = according to the standard of something] to {the will of} God”. You were sorry because you were made familiar with God's standard. When they saw their behavior in contrast to God's standard they had remorse. I would paraphrase it this way: “For you were made sorry according to the standard of God's character.”
The New King James Version puts it this way: “For you were made sorry in a godly manner”, a preposition plus a noun in the Greek. Godly is an adverb modifying the noun sorrow. An adverb and a noun cannot properly grammatically translate a prepositional phrase. This is a poor translation.
God doesn't have a sorrow but this is a sorrow that is according to God's character, according to God's standard. And the reason was so that they wouldn't suffer loss in their spiritual life.
2 Corinthians 7:10 NASB “For the sorrow that is according to {the will} {of} God produces a repentance ...” He doesn't say it always does, he doesn't say it is necessary to; he is saying in some case when we are confronted with God's standard and this is what we have done, we don't feel so good. That may go so far as to being remorseful—feeling bad about it but it never leads anywhere. Sometimes we don't feel bad about it. We just say, “You are right”, and then we change.
“... without regret, {leading} to salvation [the end result is spiritual growth, maturity], but the sorrow of the world produces death.” It is not to be regretted. In other words, we are not to regret [METAMELOMAI] that this happened. The sorrow of the world produces death. That is not the end result. We can have this sorrow, everybody is that way, but if we just are feeling sorry and having remorse for sin without it leading to a change of thinking and a change of living in accordance with the Word, then the result is that we are just like the world; it just produces carnal death, we are just trying to impress God by feeling bad.
To paraphrase that, Paul is saying: “For according to the standard of God's character produces a change of mind leading to salvation [spiritual growth], but the sorrow of the world produces [carnal] death”.
2 Corinthians 7:11 NASB “For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.”
They had remorse according to God's character, which led to a change of mind. Then he goes on to mention the diligence it produced in them. It got them fired up in the right way in their spiritual life.
Remorse in and of itself is not bad, but it is not sufficient for anything spiritual.
In some cases remorse leads to change. It is like 2 Corinthians 7 and Matthew 21; it is part of the process and it does lead to change. But also observe, a change of mind does not necessarily lead to permanent change, or even change for a few hours. Luke 17:3, 4 NASB “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” Jesus isn't questioning the sincerity of his repentance.
Repentance isn't a one-shot thing that lasts forever. We may repent of a sin a million times in a lifetime, all legitimate, and God is going to forgive us every time. But repentance is a change of mind; it is not generating some sort of sorrow.
Repentance is Scripture basically means to have an inward change of mind or thinking towards something. Sometimes it is toward God, sometimes toward Christ, and sometimes towards sin. But nowhere in the Bible are we to change our mind about sin in order to be saved. We change our mind about Jesus in order to be saved. We trust Him as our savior.