Dennis Tuuri

# Acts 26

Our focus will be on verses 18, 20, and 23. But we’ll read the entire chapter again this week.

Hear the command word of our savior. Acts chapter 26, beginning at verse one.

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, “Thou art permitted to speak for thyself.” Then Paul stretched forth the hand and answered for himself. “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, concerning all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews, especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews.

Wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among my own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most strict sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers. Unto which promise are twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come.

For which hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews? Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints that I shut up in prison. Having received authority from the chief priests, when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.

And I punished them often in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme. And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Whereupon, as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

And I said, “Who art thou, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest, but rise and stand upon thy feet. For I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister, and a witness, both of those things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them at Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coast of Judea and then to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day witnessing both to small and great, saying, none of the things and those which the prophets and Moses did say should come, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad.” But he said, “I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely, for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him. For this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.”

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, “Almost thou persuadeest me to be a Christian.” And Paul said, “I would to God, but not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up, and the governor and Bernice, and they that sat with them, and when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, “This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds.” Then said Agrippa unto Festus, “This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed unto Caesar.”

—

Let us pray. Almighty God, we stand to hear your command. We stand, Lord God, to be sent forth into this world with your instruction upon our hearts and our minds, committing our hands and our feet to walk in your ways and to do things relative to the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that you would illuminate this text for understanding by your Holy Spirit. We thank you that this book is unlike every other book. It must be spiritually discerned. It is not an intellectual endeavor, Lord God. And we acknowledge and confess and rejoice before you for that. And we pray that your spirit might speak to our hearts through it. Give your speaker wisdom and clarity of thought and speech, Lord God, that he might be as small a hindrance as possible to the pure beauty of your word.

Lord God, we pray also for the Sabbath school teachers, that they would be able to instruct children whose parents desire it in language that they can understand, that they might also this day rejoice in so great a salvation as has been affected through the work of our Savior. It is in his name we pray and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

—

That’s what we want. That’s what we rejoice in. That’s what we desire to be true of us experientially as we know that is definitively true of us who have been called to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s certainly what we hunger and thirst after in the context of our lives, individually and corporately. We hunger and thirst for the manifestation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in all things. We hunger and thirst for the justice and mercy and humility that comes from a world being converted and discipled to the Lord Jesus. We look for life from death.

We know that we live now in a cultural context of a nation and world that is moving increasingly self-consciously in terms of death away from the truth of the scriptures, away from the law of the King, the gracious King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and so increasingly to paths of destruction, death, and damnation. And we look at this world and we think, “Boy, things are in bad shape. What can we do about this?”

I want to just remind us that one of the verses we talked about last week is what I want to start with this week. And Paul said to those, I believe, members of the Roman court that surrounded him—not primarily to Agrippa, but to Festus and the other Romans—”Why is it incredible to you that God should raise the dead?”

And why is it incredible to us today that God should raise the dead of this culture and should bring this culture corporately also back to life, back to a belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and ways of life instead of ways of death? It does seem incredible to us, doesn’t it? But we admit it. We can make statements. We can all make good postmillennial assertions.

My talk today is on the relationship of repentance to postmillennialism, and it is on the relationship of repentance to this truth we’re speaking of—that we move in the context of a history that does indeed the scriptures tell us repeatedly move from death to life. And so we expect that to be true in our time as well.

I’m going to get the worst out of the way early in this talk. Quotes are hard to listen to and I don’t read them particularly well, but I just think this is such an excellent quote. I mentioned it last week. Probably most of you don’t have it. This is a quote from the appendix of *The Puritan Hope*, the appendix on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or the original title by John Howe who preached it was “The Prosperous State of the Christian Interest Before the End of Time by a Plentiful Effusion or Outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” And I just want to have a fairly extended quote. So bear with me. If you don’t understand this, that’s okay. I’ll try to put it in simple terms for myself at the end of the quote.

And he’s answering the question that I just raised, really—you know, how can we hope for things to get better and why don’t we think things will get better? And he says this:

“Indeed, the long continued restraints of the acts of absolute omnipotency make omnipotency even to seem but equal to impotency or weakness. And men expect as little from the one as from the other. God and man, really, is I suppose what he’s referring to there. When great and extraordinary things have not been done through a long tract of time, they are no more expected or looked for from the most potent cause than they are from the most impotent. And therefore, when any great thing is done for the church and interest of God in the world, it comes under the character: things that we look not for. Isaiah 64:3. Things that do even surprise and transcend expectations. Men are very unapt to entertain the belief and expectation of things that are so much above the virgin sphere of ordinary observation. We expect to see what we have then want to see, and men are apt to measure their faith by their eyes for the most part in reference to such things. Only that can be done which they have seen done. And men are hardly brought to raise their faith and expectation to higher pitches than this.”

So what we see is what we expect. That’s what he’s saying.

“I shall shut up the present discourse with desiring you to remind and reflect upon the tendency of all this, that our souls may be possessed with a serious apprehension, and then have a lively hope begotten in them of such a time and state of things to come wherein religion shall prosper and flourish in the world, though it now be at so low an ebb. I may say to you as Paul did to Agrippa: Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? Acts 26:8, the passage I referred to earlier. Why should it be thought an incredible thing that there should be a resurrection of religion? ‘Let the dead live; let my dead body shall they arise.’ He hath said it, who knows how to make it good—he who is the Resurrection and the Life. Isaiah 26:19.

And really, it would signify much to us to have our hearts filled with present hope, though we have no hope, as was formerly supposed, admitting that supposition, of seeing it with our own eyes in our own days. Such a hope would, however, not be unaccompanied with a vital joy. Abraham ‘rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad,’ though it was above two thousand years before. Plain it is, there is not a more stupifying, be-numbing thing in all the world than mere despair. To look upon such a sad fate and aspect of things through the world as we have before our eyes, to look upon it despairingly and with the apprehension that it will never, never can be better.

Nothing can more stupify and bind up the powers of our souls and sink us into a desponding meanness of spirit. But hope is a kind of anticipated enjoyment and gives a present participation in the expected pleasantness of those days, how longsoever they may yet be far off from us. By such a lively hope, we have a presentation, a feeling in our own spirits of what is to come, that should even make our hearts rejoice and our bones to flourish as an herb.

Religion shall not always be a glorious thing in the world. Always it will not always be ignominious to be serious, to be a fear of the Lord and to be a designer for heaven and for a blessed eternity.”

What is Howe saying? He’s saying in the context of his day and age—and how much more true in our day and age—that our tendency is to see God’s arm rather as short as our own arm is, and our arm is dictated by our experiences and our observation of the world round about us. The world round about us is in the death throes. We know that, and so it’s extremely easy to fall into despair and despondency.

And as Howe says, there’s nothing that so much enervates, drains the power and vitality off the Christian soul as despair and despondency about future events. And what Howe said was: even though it may take two thousand years—as it was with Abraham to Christ—for the manifestation of the kingdom of God to be present in this world, yet if we believe it to be true, and if we believe the scriptures do teach a movement in history from death to life, and we apply that to ourselves today, it gives us hope for the present as well as for the future. It’s a down payment, as it were, of hope—of what is to surely come to pass according to the word of God.

And I want us to have that hope. God wants us to have that hope deeply settled in our hearts. And I want to talk today about the relationship of repentance to that hope. How does this come about? How do things change? That’s what we want—change from death to life. How does it come about?

And I believe that this text, properly understood, directs our attention to postmillennial victory—if you want to look at it that way—to the very central core of the Christian faith, which is faith in Christ, which is tied inexorably to the doctrine of repentance. Repentance. And so that’s our topic for this particular message from Acts 26: repentance. And particularly, I’m not going to talk about it a lot, but the relationship of repentance to the postmillennial hope or victory.

So that’s where we want to go. And I want us to look at the outline, remind us of where we’re at. Again, we keep reviewing this text over and over. And your outline looks a little odd today because it’s an outline within an outline—that’s what I’ve done for you there. In the context of the outline, there is a sub-outline in the middle. And that’s really what we want to talk about primarily. But let’s remember where we are in the context of the flow of this presentation.

I believe the height of Paul’s ministry—his witness and testimony to the truth of how the world works, of what Jesus Christ has affected, and Paul’s particular mission that God had sent him on—this is kind of the height. I think this is the salvation discourse. I believe for the book of Acts, and there are two chapters left. I believe they’re more or less appendices, so to speak, but everything is really laid out for us right here. And that’s why we’re spending so much time on it.

Remember that we have Paul being accused, coming before a Roman court, coming before also King Agrippa, whom Rome had announced to be the king of the Jews—the hereditary Herod line, much revealed in prophecy relative to the latter days. Here we have both those—the Jewish nation and the Roman world—represented together. Throughout this book, we have had pictures of the gospel going out to all the world in the very opening scenes.

You remember how does Acts open? “When will the restoration of the kingdom of Israel be affected?” And Jesus says, “Well, it’s not for you to know the times and seasons, but this message will be preached for…” And I think what he’s saying is that’s how this comes to pass—the restoration of the kingdom, the visible manifestation of the kingdom to Israel, those who rule for God, those who struggle successfully with God, so to speak, understand humility to him, move in terms of victory and life. That’s Israel—the true Israel, the church of Jesus Christ.

The kingdom is restored in an external, visible fashion through the proclamation of the gospel and obedience to our Savior’s words. You know, first to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, uttermost parts of the earth. And then in Acts chapter 2, the Day of Pentecost. Remember the whole world is assembled, typically so to speak, in those elements of the Jewish church from all over the world to hear that first presentation of the gospel of Christ.

Ethiopian eunuch—we’ve had lots of presentations here to the whole world by way of picture or symbol. And that’s what we have here again. The message is taken to a symbolic representation of all the world. And so Paul gives his testimony, his witness, his defense—supposedly—but he really puts Herod and the Romans on trial themselves and produces an evaluation on their part in response to his message. He’s not being evaluated according to the charges. He addresses those. But what Paul does is what we always should do as well: to press the evaluation home to people that we speak with, that they might hear the truths of the gospel, no matter what the setting. Even though they may think they’re trying us, we do a jiu-jitsu move, so to speak, and turn it into an evaluation of their relationship to God in Christ or lack thereof.

And at the end of this closing discourse, we have the evaluation made, and both Festus and Agrippa do not repent and so continue on the road to damnation. And they do that through diversion. But anyway, he presents the testimony in Acts 26 of his mission and his ministry and how he’s gotten there. So he gives the unexpected respect and joy.

First, we noted that a couple weeks ago. He talks about how he is happy, he is blessed—the same word as in the benedictions or the beatitudes rather in the book of Matthew. He is blessed because he can declare his own innocence, he can involve himself in self-defense, and particularly because he does this in the context of a theocratic representation of the world.

Agrippa was required to know the scriptures and rule based upon them. That was one of the requirements in Deuteronomy 17 for kings of Israel. So he is a theocratic representation of the world, and we should be happy in our day and age to have men who acknowledge the truth of the scriptures. And that’s what we want for—eventually, this is what we want to see. We want to see when there are conflicts relative to church issues, and if you’re hauled before apostate church officials or the civil state, you want to be able to make your defense based upon the written word of God, which is what Paul does.

And so Paul’s message here is a typical one for us as well. Paul asks for patience, and patience is a big thing in terms of the dialogue and reflection required and pictured for us in the context of this text. Patience.

His defense ends with the recording of his pre-conversion life and the issues at hand. He says that from his youth the Jews know it. They’ll testify that he lived a Pharisee. He was aligned with the religion of the Old Testament. He did have zeal without knowledge, however. And he talks about the sinfulness involved in what he did.

But the issue immediately is raised in the context of his opening discourse—the issue is the hope of the resurrection. The hope really of the Pharisaical, strictest branch of the church at that time—the old church in Jerusalem, the hope of the fathers, the hope of the twelve tribes, the hope which should be the hope of King Agrippa himself, the hope that is related to the scriptures in the Old Testament, and finally the hope that is plausible even to those unbelieving—that God should raise the dead.

So Paul in those first few verses talks about the central issue being the hope of the Old Testament, that hope being fulfilled in the resurrection of Messiah. So the hope is linked to resurrection. That’s the centrality of his message. And it is consistent with the Pharisees, if they’re true to their outward claim to believe the scriptures. The Pharisees were the party of the resurrection. It was consistent with the ancient fathers, the Patristic fathers. It’s consistent with the tribal formation of the history of Israel as well as the twelve tribes representing the church at that stage in history. It’s consistent with kings. It’s consistent with the scriptures. And it’s consistent with natural reasoning even to the man who has not the revealed word of God. He knows from the world that there is a God and that God has all power, and it’s not a hard thing for him to raise Messiah from the dead.

So Paul talks about his past and it recently brings up the relevant issue of the hope of the resurrection. Paul then speaks of his past suppression of this truth himself. How he thought it good to persecute Jesus and those who follow Jesus.

Paul’s conversion is then demonstrated in verses 13-18 by a sovereign God. That conversion moves from death to life. And it moves in terms of—the first aspect of that is the realization of his persecution of Jesus Christ through his persecution of the church. So the judgment, the light that comes upon Paul, is a judgment light. We just—I think in one of the opening responsive readings we talked about that light. God’s light comes in, burns up people. We need protection from the bright sun. That’s why shade is also pictured in a good thing. We think about light as being a good thing. It is. But too much light burns people up. You go out on the beach this past summer and spent too much time without protection. You ended up with a sunburn. That’s a picture of God’s judgment—the searing heat of God’s approach to his people.

And so when the light dawns upon Paul, it is first a light of judgment and an evaluation. Yet it brings him to a self-consciousness relative to his persecution of God. So God brings Paul to a self-consciousness of his own sin in terms of his conversion by this sovereign God.

We talked there about the importance of the identification of Jesus Christ with his church. Spoke about that last week. That judgment light then moves to resurrection. It doesn’t just involve death or conviction of sin. It involves a raising up. And Jesus says, “Stand up. I’m going to send you out.” So he raises him up.

And that resurrection involves with it a call to ministry, to service. Under power is the word used there—of a minister, an underling, so to speak, someone who operates under the power of another. And all Christians are called to be ministers under the power and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. God—Jesus tells Paul that he will protect him as Paul performs his ministry to the people. So we are all raised to serve. We’re all brought from death to life of the Lord Jesus Christ to serve him and will be protected by him as we minister in the context of our particular callings.

Paul then speaks of his post-conversion life and this—the relationship to his trial. He speaks—he says that he’s been obedient, he’s been faithful to his calling. “God’s called me, King Agrippa. And as a result, I’ve been faithful to follow that calling out. I’ve been faithful in not just going to the places that were safe. I went everywhere that God told me to go. I went to Damascus. I went to Jerusalem. I went to Judea. I’m going to the Gentiles.” Faithful in terms of the extent of where he goes, and faithfulness relative to the message.

And the message is repentance—to turn to God and to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. And that brings us to what we want to focus on today. That is a further discussion of what repentance involves with it. So that’s what we’re turning now to a consideration, particularly in verses 18, 20, and 23.

So if you look in your passages of scripture, I want us to see a correlation here between these three verses. Remember, this is the immediate context—for this is what Paul has been raised to do. His ministry is involved in this thing. And so if we’ve all been raised to service in Christ, this truth of what his ministry is, his message is to the nations also is our message. Okay?

In the closing chapters of Luke’s gospel, Jesus says that this message will be taken to Jew and Gentile alike, and the message is repentance and faith in Christ—consistent with this. So it’s really the commission that we all have as we go forth individually and corporately.

And what is the message in verse 18? It tells us this is what Paul is supposed to do. He’s to open their eyes. He is to turn them from darkness to light. Or let me stop here for a moment. We can use that kind of language. Paul does. Paul says that he did these things. We can use that language, but only if we recognize that it is God sovereignly working through Paul. Paul can do nothing in and of himself, only as he is in Christ. And God is really working through Paul. Paul said, “Nevertheless, not I who do these things, but it’s God that works in me.”

But we can use the language that Paul is doing these things, and we are as well. As we recognize and remind ourselves again and again that it’s not us, it’s God who works in us through Christ. Okay?

So Paul opens eyes, he turns them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. So there’s three particular things that he relates to us there: opening of eyes, turn them from darkness to light, and turn them from the power of Satan unto God.

And the end result of this is that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith which is in me. All the thing that drives this. And if I have time, we’ll talk about it today. If not next week. About what’s called in theological terms the *ordo salutis*—the order of salvation. What is the order, the logical order, theological order of faith, regeneration, repentance, sanctification? How do all these things fit together?

But let me just mention here at the outset that the core of this is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless God regenerates us, we can’t be turned away from sin to life. We none of us repent. None of us express a sorrow for sins until we’ve been regenerated and have faith in Christ. We’ll talk about that later a little more. But see, dead men don’t repent. Dead men just lay there. Okay?

And so it’s God’s regeneration, his sovereign call. It’s his sovereign regeneration of us that leads us to repentance. Calvin asserts—and I’ll talk about this later, perhaps next week, perhaps more from the pulpit. He may not get to it today. I don’t know. We’ll see. But Calvin says that unless we have faith in Christ, we’re not going to come to repentance. Unless we believe the gospel, unless God has regenerated us, brought us from death to life, and given us faith in Jesus, we’re not going to really repent.

Unless we know the goodness of Christ out there for us. And so Calvin says that faith in the gospel of Christ must precede repentance. You think of it the other way around, but the faith is laid for us in knowing what Christ has accomplished. And God revivifies us to a knowledge of that and a belief in that and regenerates us, and as a result of that then we enter into a full contrition of sins and turning to God in good deeds.

Well, the point I want to make is that Paul says he has this threefold ministry resulting in these effects. The threefold ministry is to open eyes, to turn from darkness to light, and to turn from the power of Satan unto God.

Then later on in verse 20—Paul goes on to say… Okay, that’s verse 18. And remember in verse 20, he says in verse 19 he says, “So I did this, that I was supposed to do it.” So he’s going to recapitulate here what he’s just been instructed by Christ, because he’s saying what Christ told me to do, I did that very thing.

So verse 20, he’s telling us how he fulfilled this command of Christ to open eyes, to turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. And how he expresses it in verse 20—as he reworks it, as he talks about where he went to—and then he talks about the message. And the message is that they should repent, turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. Again, a threefold element.

Now you know I’m talking about a threefold distinction here, but recognize you can’t really tear these things apart one from the other. We’ll talk a little bit here about this. But repentance is tied to conversion and turning to God. They’re really the same thing. And bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance or fit or compatible with repentance. Of course, obviously it all revolves around repentance. So, but nonetheless, it is put in this threefold order: repent, turn to God, do works worthy of repentance.

Now, then he goes on in verse 21 to say, “This is why they accused me.” And then he says in verse 22 that he’s really saying nothing other than what the Old Testament scriptures said—the prophets and Moses. And then again, he recapitulates that message in christological terms referring to Jesus in verse 23.

So look at verse 23. What is the message? “That Christ should suffer, that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and he should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.” Again, threefold order: suffering, first to rise from the dead, show light to the people.

So what I’ve done on your outlines there is to show the relationship of each of these first terms, or at least to show what I believe is a relationship. If we want to understand what Paul’s message is—and I mean it’s critical, folks. This really should inform our gospel message presentation to the world. This is at the height of, at least I believe it’s the height of, the book of Acts—the height of missionary activity. This is what missionaries should say. This is what we should say as we make a defense of the faith, the reason for the hope that’s in us.

The hope that’s in us—resurrection again. And Paul says at the center of that is the simplest statement: that he preaches repentance, turning to God, works worthy of repentance—compatible with repentance. And I think there is a relationship between that and the death of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then the shedding, the taking of light to the Gentiles. And I think you can relate that as well to verse 18: to open eyes, turning people from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.

And in your outlines, I’ve got these little symbols there on the side: a negative, a positive, then a righthand caret mark—because they didn’t have an arrow. Well, the idea of that is that the message central to Paul’s message—and this is why it’s related to the postmillennial hope—is that repentance involves a negative side to it, an opening of Paul’s eyes to the realization that he was persecuting the Lord Jesus Christ and persecuting the church, a conviction of sins.

Repentance involves a sorrow for sins. Repentance involves identification with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death. Okay? And then on the positive side, repentance also involves, and our message of faith in Christ involves, a turning from darkness unto light. It’s not just a realization of sin and death and judgment. It is that, but it’s a movement on the positive side from darkness to the light of God. So it’s a movement to God.

Repent—in the second iteration in verse 20—and turn to God. You see, now repent involves that turning, but he uses two terms to talk of the two aspects of it here. And repentance is based upon, not just the death—it’s not identification with just the death—it’s identification with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see?

And that’s the second term in verse 23. Okay, so you go from “light turning from darkness rather to, from opening your eyes, turning from darkness to light” in verse 20—this in the summation passage—to “repent, turn to God,” and then in terms of the glory Jesus Christ—that the scriptures taught that he must suffer, he must die for sins that we’ve been made aware of, and be raised from the dead, the first fruits. And that resurrection of us is identification with Christ and our repentance and our conversion and our faith in him in terms of the new life.

So repentance, faith in Christ, involves a negative aspect, a positive aspect, and then the third aspect—which is quite important for our purposes today. He says that they should have their eyes open, to turn them from darkness to light, that they may be turned from the power of Satan unto God.

And so, having described the operative principles—as I think Jay Alexander says—of the world, the transition of one world to another: of conviction of sins, opening eyes to sins, turning from darkness to light. He then speaks in terms of the rulers of the two kinds of humanity in the world: the power of Satan and God.

You know, it’s interesting. Some commentators have pointed out how he doesn’t say “from the power of Satan to the power of God.” And one reason may be for that is that while that’s implied—that we do turn to the authority and structure and power of God’s kingdom—but we don’t just turn to that. We turn to a personal relationship. To use a modern evangelical term, but nonetheless a good term. We turn to relationship to God himself, not just his power. See, we don’t have relationship with Satan. We’re under his dominion. But the difference is we’ve been turned from the power of Satan to God.

You see his power and authority but relationship as well. He is our exceeding great reward. Okay. The point is that third aspect talks about a change of dominion from one king to another and pictures the change of the movement of the world as it goes from death to life. And then gospel going out to all the world.

And if you understand that correlation—and Paul’s summation of it in verse 20—that means that works meet for repentance are related to that taking of that message out as men are changed from the authority and power of Satan to relationship and authority and kingdom of God. You see the change?

So, and then in the third manifestation in verse 23, the third reiteration of the message: “show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.” We’re going to talk next week about light to the Gentiles. But, you know, it doesn’t ever say “light to the Gentiles only” here. It talks about “light to the people,” the Jewish people, and the Gentiles. You see, everybody is being woven together into one church here. More about that next week.

But I believe that threefold pattern then shows us that the purpose or what is also involved by way of implication of repentance are the works worthy of repentance or fit with repentance, which involves turning people—ourselves and others—from the authority of Satan to the authority and relationship to God. And that has to do with—based on the death and resurrection of Christ—and then taking that message to send light unto the people, to the Gentiles, which takes us back to the beginning of the cycle.

So I don’t know if that’s been clear or not, but basically what I’m trying to say—and I spent a little more time on it than I would otherwise because I want to make sure you understand that this is how I understand these texts. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that there is this relation. Well, I know there’s a relationship. Whether or not it’s pointed out in these texts or not, I’m not sure, but I think that the texts themselves, for this threefold repetition of three elements, shows us, talks to us about the relationship of repentance to this movement of the world itself from death to life.

All of this is—which is to say that really, all I want to leave you with today is this: as we look for that hope, that glorious hope in our day and age, and as we look for a change in our lives—when will I ever learn how to live in God? as Ben Morrison sings—or when will we ever learn to be more consistent in our faith and our obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ? When will this world begin to make manifestations of a godly order?

The way that is accomplished is through repentance. That’s what my point is. Repentance is the key to the outward movement of the preaching of the light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which moves both individuals—men and nations—and disciples them away from the power of Satan to relationship and authority of the kingdom of God. That is the works comparable or fitting for repentance.

And if you’ve been moved through an identification, through God’s sovereign call of you and a regeneration of your life, to where you now have life from the dead yourself, that—if you’ve moved in terms of identification with Christ’s death, sorrow for sin, awareness of sin, a repentance, a contrition for that sin, and identification with Christ’s life, vivification, life from the dead, movement back toward God—now, instead of just a repentance for sins in its simplest sense.

Then what you are called to do—to manifest that, to bring forth works that are related to that repentance—is to preach that gospel in your life and with the people you know and out into your various spheres of influence. That’s the way the world will move from darkness to light. That’s the way it’ll move from death to light: through a preaching and application of the doctrines of repentance. That’s my central text. That’s my central point. That’s what I want you to leave here with.

And let’s talk a little bit more now about what repentance is, because if it’s so critical in the movement of history, it’s pretty critical that we understand it. And I think most of you do pretty well, but I think it’s good to reiterate these things and to remind us what it is and in some cases what it isn’t.

Now, it’s an interesting thing that in the very providence of God, the languages that were used to write the Old and New Testament give us a real good picture of one of the essential teachings of what repentance is.

In the New Testament, the word that is used here—repent in verse 20—to repent means to change one’s mind or to have a change or transformation of purpose. And it comes from two words, the second of which is “mind.” The first of which is “to change” or “to think again”—”after” could be another word, “to think of it.” So it’s “think of an afterthought.” Repentance is like an afterthought, or a change of mind. Okay?

Well, in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew, this change of mind is certainly talked about in various texts. For instance, in Joshua 24, we read, “Incline your heart unto the Lord your God,” speaking of your heart and its essence of your being. Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord.” Jeremiah 4:14, “Wash your heart from wickedness.” Hosea 10:12, “Break up your fallow ground.” Okay, so there are symbolic expressions of repentance consonant with a change of mind or attitude or purpose in one’s life.

But in the Old Testament, the word that is used—the word for repentance in the Old Testament—is not a word that has to do with the mind. It has to do with one’s actions. It means “to turn” or “to return,” to turn and specifically to turn away from evil and also to turn toward the good. And so you have in the Old Testament this representation of the central word that’s used relative to repentance or conversion as being “to turn.”

And in the New Testament, which involves physical action, the word can also be interpreted when you return to a country from someplace else. Same word—you’ve “repented.” Well, in the New Testament the word repent has to do with one’s mind or purpose.

And if you put those two things together, that’s what the Bible teaches about repentance. It involves a contrition, but it also involves a vivification—to use old-fashioned terms. It involves a change of purpose, but it also involves a change of action. You see, so it does involve both the heart and the mind and the emotions, so to speak, and also the will. It involves both of those things.

And so those two—the two languages that God has sovereignly used to describe repentance in the scriptures—help us to understand at its essence what it is. Calvin in his Institutes said this:

“I am aware of the fact that the whole conversion to God is understood under the term of repentance. And he says that he notes this twofold language thing I’ve just mentioned. He says the Hebrew word for repentance is derived from conversion or return. The Greek word from change of mind or intention. The meaning is then departing from ourselves, we turn to God and having taken off our former mind, we put on a new mind.

In this account, in my judgment, repentance can thus be well defined. And here is Calvin’s definition from his Institutes: It is the true turning of our life to God. A turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of him. And it consists in the mortification of our flesh and of the old man and in the vivification of the spirit.”

He goes on to say:

“That in that sense we must understand all those preachings by which either the prophets of old or the apostles later exhorted men of their time to repentance. For they were striving for this one thing: that confused by their sins and pierced by the fear of divine judgment, they should fall down and humble themselves before him whom they had offended and with true repentance return into the right path. Therefore, these words are used interchangeably. In the same sense: turn or return to the Lord, repent, and do penance. Matthew 3:2. Once even the sacred history says that penance is done after God, where men who had lived wantonly in their own lust, neglecting him, begin to obey his word and are ready to go where their leader calls them.

And John and Paul use the expression ‘producing fruits worthy of repentance,’ for leading a life that demonstrates and testifies in all of its actions to a repentance of this sort.”

So that’s kind of how Calvin summed it up in terms of mortification and vivification. Again, in Ronald Wallace’s book *Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life*, he sort of sums up Calvin’s teaching on repentance and he says:

“Repentance should be used to cover the whole response of the man of faith to the gospel in outward life, in mind, heart, attitude, as well as in will. Yet repentance is a conversion of life which involves a transformation not only in external works but in the soul itself. The whole habit of the soul has to be changed before fruits worthy of repentance can be brought forth in the outward life.”

Now I’m going to read the definition of repentance from the Westminster Larger Catechism, question number 76. And this is their definition of repentance. And you know, it’s typical Westminster stuff—it’s kind of chock-full with stuff that you got to then think about in small bits. The catechism says this:

“Repentance unto life is a saving grace wrought in the heart of a sinner by the spirit and word of God, whereby out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, and upon the apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ, such as our penitent, he so grieves for and hates his sins, as he turns from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.”

Read it again. Repentance unto life. And now they say “unto life” because there is a “sorrowing unto death.” Second Corinthians talks about that. We may speak of that in a couple of minutes. But suffice it to say they’re trying to—I think I mentioned this before. They used to talk in terms of evangelical repentance as opposed to legal repentance—people being not just sorry for the legal effects of what happened to them or whatever, but an evangelical repentance, a true repentance unto life, a suffering unto life.

“Repentance unto life is a saving grace. It’s the grace of God that accomplishes this. A dead man can’t repent, as I said before. And so it’s God’s regeneration and his grace that brings us the knowledge of what repentance is. And it is a saving grace wrought in the heart of a sinner by the spirit and word of God. So it’s in the heart, the innermost being, a change of mind or heart.”

“When thereby out of the sight and sense not only of the danger but also the filthiness and odiousness of his sins. So sight and sense and apprehension—not only of the danger of his sins but also the filthiness and odiousness of his sins.”

Now that’s important because again, it’s not enough just to fear the danger of our sins, the effects upon them. If all repentance was dreading punishment and an awareness of punishment, then the people that are damned in hell would be full of repentance, because they certainly know the judgment of God upon them. Judas knew the judgment of God in some way upon him as well. But he didn’t have repentance delight. He had a sense of the terribleness of his sins in terms of their penalty. But he did not have a sense of what the confession says is the filthiness and odiousness of his sins. Okay.

So repentance involves a fear of the punishment of but also a sense of the filthiness and odiousness of one’s sins. “And upon the apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ such as are impenitent. He so grieves for and hates his sins. He’s sorry for his sin and he hates his sins as that he turns from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.”

So it involves a change in mind. It involves a change in actions or outward activity as well.

So that’s the Westminster confession definition of repentance.