So much unsubstantiated nonsense!
@ Willie - sorry about repentance in the OT. I am not dragging my Hebrew lexicon into bed with me, its enough having the Greek one here. So we will deal with the Hebrew concept of repentance, esp. Where God is concerned in another post.
@ those who erroneously believe that repentance means "change your mind" in the Bible.
So repentance means "change your mind?" what sources do you people have, besides a link to a faulty website with a link to another website that does not correctly reproduce what is in real Lexicons!
So again: Bauer BAGD
Metanoia:
1. Change one's mind. Hv 3,7,3; m11:4, Diod. S 15, Hann 35, 151, Mithrid 58, 238, Stob, Ecf. II 113, 5ffW; PSI 495, Jos, Vi 110, 262.
(I don't know about you, but I don't know a single one of those early Christian writers. No citations of Bible verses! NONE!)
2. Feel remorse, repent, be converted, (in a variety of relationships and in connection with varied responsibilites, moral, political social or religious.
(Quite a few non-biblical citations,) then:
Matt 11:21, Luke 10:13 - in sackcloth and ashes.
"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." Matt 11:21, cf Luke 10:13
Matt 3:2, 4:17 Mark 1:15 - As a prerequiste for experiencing the reign of God in the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus.
"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt 3:2
"and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is" Mark 1:15
So John the Baptist and Jesus are saying - change your mind about the kingdom of God?? Not likely!! They are telling people specifically to turn from their wicked ways.
Context, my friends!! Context.
Here is what is happening in Mark 1. They are not getting baptized because they "changed their minds"!! They are confessing their sins! Why? To be forgiven their sins!!
"John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." Mark 1:4-5
Oh, I can hear the objections already! But this was John the Baptist, not Jesus!
"From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt 4:17
Folks, we don't get into the kingdom of God by changing our minds. We get into it by repenting of our sins, and THEN following Jesus. Skip TRUE repentance, and you have lost the message of the gospel. Then others might say - "Well, things changed after the cross. In Acts, they only changed their minds.
Except what does Paul clearly say that the gospel is??
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" 1 Cor. 15:3
Getting back to Bauer,
Mark 6:12, Acts 17:30, 26:20 -As the subject of the disciples' proclamation
"So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent." Mark 6:12 What should they repent of?? That people should change their minds??? Or that people should repent of their sins?
"The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31
Even on Mars Hill, in Greece to the philosophers, Paul tells people to repent! The Greek society unlike the Hebrew society, was not based on a system of sacrifices for sin. Yet even here, Paul preaches repentance for sin, not changing their minds!
Then there is Paul preaching to King Agrippa, in the hopes of saving him, and also being released from a long stint in prison. What does Paul say??
"Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance." Acts 26:19-20
Repent - turn away from sins - and then yes, turn to God! But also note repent here means "performing deeds!" Oh dear - is Paul preaching a works/righteousness gospel? Is this some bad combination of law and grace? Or is this the FULL gospel? I think the latter.
My goodness, I am barely into the definition of repentance, and so far, it is all about turning away from sin. And never about "changing ones mind."
I think this post has gone on long enough. But if anyone wants, we can continue to read each subdefinition under Bauer, on page 640.
2. Feel remorse, repent and be converted.
Such as:
- Failure to repent leads to destruction
- Repentance saves
- The reason for repentance - "I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced." 2 Cor. 12:21
- Since in metanoia, the negative impulse of turning away is dominant
- repent with the whole heart.
But I won't get into all the support verses, I think I have shown enough the Biblical and exegetical meaning of metanoia.
Repentance is always tied to confession of sins, and turning away from them in the New Testament. There simply is no where it says "change your mind." Just because "noia" or "mind" is in the word metanoia, doesn't mean that it means "change your mind."
In fact, I have often wondered as I heard this definition of the word repentance, how meta, which means "with or after" depending upon the case, ties into the word "change." Well in fact, it doesn't! Metanoia, may have those two root words, but in Greek, sometimes a prepostion intensifies a noun, like "mind" and sometimes it just becomes something completely and utterly different. In the case of metanoia, it becomes something totally different. It seems to me like people are playing fast and easy with the true defintion of repentance. And that mind is not the meaning, but rather turning away from sin and evil.
And no, Grace777 this has nothing to do with religious upbringing, and everything to do with proper exegetics in the Greek. And that includes, context, context context!
The context of the New Testament, was Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. Jesus was the final sacrifice for sin. The entire Jewish religion was founded upon sacrifice and that is the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
Part of being born again, is that God gives us that grace to repent from our sins. No repentance, no grace. And certainly no watered down, repentanceless salvation, or changing one's mind!
So what does the Greek conclusively prove? That "changing ones' mind" is a much later definition of repentance, and every single example of repentance had to do with the gospel of salvation from sin. Sin is what destroyed the relationship in the Garden of Eden, between Adam and Eve and God, and that has never changed.
Sin is still the source of all our problems, and we do need to turn away from sin. This hypergrace gospel is a false gospel preaching a false repentance, one which misses the entire point of what Jesus came to do. The hyper-grace repentance leads people away from God. Because, unless you turn from your sins you cannot turn to God. In fact, it scares me that so many people here are preaching this false message of repentance.
Jesus did not come to change people's minds.He came to save us from our sins, and to bring us into the Kingdom of God.
There is no such things as repentance without including the word - sin. Context dictates that in every passage where repentance is mentioned, we don't have to look far to find out that the Bible is talkin about turning from sin.
Context, in terms of the whole Bible, is that God prepared a people who understood sacrifice for sin, so that when the Messiah came, they were prepared to repent and turn from their sins. Context, means we can't change the word "repentance" to make it comfortable for people in our society, who do not want to change their lives, to walk away from what they were, and instead walk towards Jesus. You simply cannot not omit repentance for sins from the gospel, or you are preaching a false gospel.
*A Greek Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature." Third Edition Revised and Edited by Frederick William Danker, based on Walter's Bauers' German version and edited by Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, and on previous English Editions by William Arndt, William Gingrich and F. W Danker, pges 640-641.
