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II Corinthians 7:10-11
Excerpted from: Psalm 51 (Part Four): Psalm 51:13-19Now as we think about this, think about Paul's description of repentance here, recall that the Greek word for repentance is metanoia. It means a change in thinking, a change in mind—the -noia part of the word has to do with the mind—a change in thinking that spurs a change in behavior. It goes beyond just the change of mind. It goes to what that mind produces. And the mind produces good thoughts—if it is going in the right direction, if there is been a true change—the mind changes so it produces good thoughts, good intentions, good motives, and those things work out in action, in good behavior.
As we go on here, in verse 11 Paul lists seven products of true repentance, and this is a way, a kind of a rough gauge, if you will, that you can judge, you can evaluate how well your repentance is going on a certain thing. So, he lists here, as I said, seven products, seven fruits of repentance, of true godly repentance.
The first is diligence, as it is here in the New King James. It could also be translated as earnestness or eagerness. And this is an excited fervor and conscientiousness. Those two elements are there. There is the excitement and also the conscientiousness. So you are excited about being diligent, you are excited about getting to work on something. He does not say what it is that you are excited about doing and going to be conscientious about doing, but it is kind of understood that you are excited or diligent about doing righteousness. Doing what you need to to change.
The second word that he uses here is what clearing of yourselves. What is in italics. It has been added there, but it is probably a good addition. This means a yearning to be cleared of blame. A yearning, a great deep desire to have the guilt removed. It is a feeling in the pit of your stomach that you will not feel right until the record against you has been scrubbed clean. Now we know that the record has been scrubbed clean because that is exactly what Jesus Christ did. What was nailed to His cross? Well, it was not the law. But it was the record of sin of all humanity that was nailed to the cross. That was what was covered by His blood.
The third one is indignation. Indignation has to do with anger. This is a mental agitation, an emotional disturbance within our hearts, and it can be a feeling of horror or simply distress. And this indignation is inward, upon oneself because of one's sin and how unworthy one is and how corrupt one is. Because, you know, God peers down and looks into us and He sees everything about us, as it says in in Hebrews 4, and sometimes He lets us see what He sees and we go, "Oh! How terrible a person I am!" Horrified to see how wrong one has been.
What you are seeing there is how much you have covered up and deceived yourself about how good you are. Because each of us is rotten. I mean, human nature is rotten. Human nature is so self-centered, it wants everything for itself, and it is so willing to deceive itself. And every once in a while, God gives us clear sight so that we can see that, yeah, we have got a long way to go. That we are sometimes more like Satan than God and that we need to change our ways. And it horrifies us that those things could still be in us. And it is good that we can turn those into a kind of anger that, as Doctor Maas put it in an article, it was like Drano® that we use on ourselves to get rid of the sin. And so we allow that anger to scour our minds and our hearts of what is evil. Make everything flow nicely once again, if you will.
Let us go on to the next one, fear. This is the word phobos in Greek, the normal word for fear in that language. And it is talking about fear of judgment, fear of punishment. And this links with realizing what sin does. The wages of sin is death, and we fear the consequences of sin. And we also fear God, because God is just. He is also gracious and merciful, and He wants to lean to that side. But if we keep on … . . .
II Corinthians 7:11
Excerpted from: Psalm 51 (Part Four): Psalm 51:13-19As we go on here, in verse 11 Paul lists seven products of true repentance, and this is a way, a kind of a rough gauge, if you will, that you can judge, you can evaluate how well your repentance is going on a certain thing. So, he lists here, as I said, seven products, seven fruits of repentance, of true godly repentance.
The first is diligence, as it is here in the New King James. It could also be translated as earnestness or eagerness. And this is an excited fervor and conscientiousness. Those two elements are there. There is the excitement and also the conscientiousness. So you are excited about being diligent, you are excited about getting to work on something. He does not say what it is that you are excited about doing and going to be conscientious about doing, but it is kind of understood that you are excited or diligent about doing righteousness. Doing what you need to to change.
The second word that he uses here is what clearing of yourselves. What is in italics. It has been added there, but it is probably a good addition. This means a yearning to be cleared of blame. A yearning, a great deep desire to have the guilt removed. It is a feeling in the pit of your stomach that you will not feel right until the record against you has been scrubbed clean. Now we know that the record has been scrubbed clean because that is exactly what Jesus Christ did. What was nailed to His cross? Well, it was not the law. But it was the record of sin of all humanity that was nailed to the cross. That was what was covered by His blood.
And so those sins have been covered and Christ, of course, bore them away. They are no longer in force, as I mentioned before in David's psalm, those were erased from His Book. God has the obvious power to do this. But though we know this mentally, we know the Scriptures that say that this happens, we sometimes continue to hold the guilt. And so there is this feeling in us in true repentance to get it totally out of our hearts and minds. And there are ways that this can be done to to rid oneself of guilt and of course a lot of it has to do with our letting it go and trusting God that it has been forgiven and then we can take steps forward to produce something that will help us to mitigate the feelings of guilt that we have.
The third one is indignation. Indignation has to do with anger. This is a mental agitation, an emotional disturbance within our hearts, and it can be a feeling of horror or simply distress. And this indignation is inward, upon oneself because of one's sin and how unworthy one is and how corrupt one is. Because, you know, God peers down and looks into us and He sees everything about us, as it says in in Hebrews 4, and sometimes He lets us see what He sees and we go, "Oh! How terrible a person I am!" Horrified to see how wrong one has been.
What you are seeing there is how much you have covered up and deceived yourself about how good you are. Because each of us is rotten. I mean, human nature is rotten. Human nature is so self-centered, it wants everything for itself, and it is so willing to deceive itself. And every once in a while, God gives us clear sight so that we can see that, yeah, we have got a long way to go. That we are sometimes more like Satan than God and that we need to change our ways. And it horrifies us that those things could still be in us. And it is good that we can turn those into a kind of anger that, as Doctor Maas put it in an article, it was like Drano® that we use on ourselves to get rid of the sin. And so we allow that anger to scour our minds and our hearts of what is evil. Make everything flow nicely once again, if you will.
Let us go on to the next one, fear. This is the word phobos in Greek, the normal word for fear in that language. And it is talking about fear of judgment, fear of punishment. And this links with realizing what sin does. The wages of sin is death, and we fear the consequences of sin. And we also fear God, because … . . .
II Corinthians 7:9-11
Excerpted from: Psalm Genres (Part Six): Penitential PsalmsDoes not Paul say that godly sorrow produces repentance? That is II Corinthians 7. Let us look at that, just three verses. I am not going to spend a lot of time here, but I want you to note what Paul says this produces. Once God forgives you, once you have repented in dust and ashes and tears and all these things, what actually godly sorrow produces in the person, how it changes from sorrow to something else. So starting in verse 9, Paul writes,
And so this is the kind of thing that David is longing for in Psalm 6. He knows that if he sorrows in a godly way and that he changes, there is going to be a great benefit on the other side, and he wants those things. He wants the clearing. He wants the vindication. He wants the zeal. He wants all of those things because that is a far better place to be than in this burdensome position where sin is just weighing down on a person.
II Corinthians 7:9-11
Excerpted from: Have You Become an Example to All Who Believe?So the remorse of our sins or failing to keep our words should lead to change in behavior. Many people only regret the consequences of their sin or broken word or being caught, similar to worldly sorrow. Compare Peter's remorse and repentance with Judas' bitterness and suicide. Both denied Christ. One repented and was restored to faith and service. The other took his own life.
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Elisha and the Shunammite Woman, Part II: Serving God's Children
Guilt: Our Spiritual Pain
Unity and Personal Responsibility
What Does 'Examine Yourselves' Mean?
What Does 'Examine Yourselves' Mean?
Bible StudiesParables of Counting the Cost
Parables of Luke 15 (Part Three)
EssaysRepentance: The Genuine Article (Part Two)
Soldier On! (Part One)
The Word of the Hour
SermonsFear is a Double-edged Sword
Lamentations (Part Three)
Lamentations (Part Three)
Ecclesiates Resumed (Part Eighteen)
The Fruit of Repentance
The Fruit of Repentance
A GPS for our Spiritual Pilgrimage
Godly Sorrow
Anger (Part 1)
Unity and Our Responsibilities
A Contrite Heart
A Contrite Heart
Repentance and Righteousness (Part 1)
House of Mourning
Those Who Mourn
Those Who Mourn
Displaying Virtuous Character
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