---

The gospel of Jesus Christ began with the Baptist preaching repentance along with faith (Matthew 3:2). Jesus began His preaching with the same themes; and here we find them the staple doctrines of Paul's ministry (Matthew 4:17). These two are not the highest of the graces. Repentance was not required of man in paradise, nor is it enjoined upon angels and saints in heaven. There is a higher grace than faith, viz., charity. Repentance and faith are the lowest steps of the ladder by which we must ascend; the two-leaved gates by which we enter the temple. The teacher does not begin with science but with rudiments. The physician does not say to his patients, Be healthy; he requires them to submit to a course of medicine. It is after this manner that our Lord deals with man, and this in thorough accordance with our nature. As sinners we have to start from the low ground of repentance and faith, that we may rise to love, obedience, holiness, and heaven.

I. REPENTANCE TOWARDS GOD.

1. If men have sinned, it needs no argument to prove the necessity of repentance. Should some proud formalist or self-righteous Pharisee demur, I affirm that such have the greatest need to have their hearts melted.

2. As to the nature of repentance it is —

(1) A true sense of sin; not a mere fear of the consequences of sin, as when a man gets himself into trouble by a wrong act, and is vexed with himself for being so foolish. One may do all this, and yet love the sin as much as ever. Cain was not a penitent when he said, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." The true penitent regards sin as disobedience to the law of love, and grieves over it as giving offence to God who has shown him such kindness. He sees it to be injurious to his own best interests and those of his fellow men. Sometimes the repentance begins in a sense of some particular sin; but it does not stop there. Show the physician an outward symptom, and he may have to follow it to its source in a deeply seated distemper. In other cases, penitence begins in a deep sense of the evil of sin generally, and the depravity of our nature.

(2) An apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. Despondency, or despair, is not repentance. The showers are always lightened by sunshine from heaven, and the tears run down the furrows made by smiles. The proper attitude of the penitent is that of the woman who was a sinner — not mourning in empty solitude, but seeking out Christ, coming to Him in holy boldness, pouring out his sorrows to Him, and laying his sins upon Him.

(3) Earnest and determined purpose to give up sin. This is μετανοία — the change of mind in which true penitence is consummated. There are other and lower kinds of repentance, such as Pharaoh's, when the plagues were upon him; but when they passed away, his repentance also passed away. Such as Judas's, who returned the thirty pieces, but who went out and hanged himself. Genuine repentance always carries with it reformation. At this point faith joins on to penitence. We turn to God through faith, and obtain strength to accomplish our end.

II. FAITH TOWARD THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

1. There is an idea that faith is a very mysterious exercise — visionary, unreal, inexpressible, and inexplicable. But there is no operation of mind more simple in itself, or which man is called on more frequently to employ. The boy believes in the love of his father, the pupil in the knowledge of his teacher, the youth in the trustworthiness of his friend, the farmer in the seasons, the patient in his physician, the merchant in the correspondence between demand and supply, and the scholar in the value of research. Now change the object: let it be a faith, not in an earthly but a heavenly Father; not in an erring human teacher, but a Divine and infallible one, etc., and it becomes the faith that saves.

2. What is faith as an exercise of the soul? Is it an act of the head, or the heart, or of both? I answer that these phrases need to be explained. "With the heart man believeth" (Romans 8:10), but in Scripture the word stands for inward thought and feeling of every kind, and includes all the purposing and sentiment which pass through the mind prior to action. The Old Testament word for faith is "trust" or "confide." The faith that saves is more than a mere intellectual judgment — it is trust, it is confidence, i.e., an exercise of the will, choice. So then faith consists of a consent of the will to the assent of the understanding — the two in combination raising feeling according to the nature of the truths apprehended and believed in.

3. It is the fundamental truth of the gospel and of all Scripture that the sinner is justified by faith. It is belief in Christ that brings relief to the soul of the sinner. The condemnation is felt to be lying upon it; the curse of God, revealed against all disobedience. But here in Christ is obedience, to meet our case as having no righteousness; here is suffering, to stand for the suffering which we have deserved: "There is therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." But it does more than deliver us from condemnation. What a power there is even in our earthly faiths — as when men sow in the assurance that they will reap after a long season, and labour in the confidence of a distant reward! What an efficacy in the trust which the child reposes in the parent, which the scholar puts in his teacher, which the soldier places in his general! As it walks on courageously, faith discovers an outlet where sense feared that the way was shut in and closed. To it we owe the greatest achievements which mankind have effected in art, in travel, in conquest. But how much more powerful is faith in God! It is no doubt weak, in that it leans; but it is strong, in that it leans on the arm of the Omnipotent. It is a creature impotency, which lays hold of the Creator's power. "We are justified by faith" (Romans 5:1); "It purifies the heart" (Acts 15:19); "It worketh by love" (Galatians 5:6); "It overcometh the world" (1 John 5:4). It is by it we are lifted above the trials of this world and prepared for death and heaven.

III. THE RELATION OF REPENTANCE AND FAITH TO EACH OTHER. Theologians have disputed as to whether faith or repentance comes first. It is urged that there can be no repentance till the soul has turned to God by faith, and, on the other hand, that there cannot be forgiveness, which implies faith, without repentance. Really the two come together; there is never faith without repentance, nor repentance without faith. Each tends to produce, and in fact implies, the other. The sinner will not be apt to have faith till he sees his sins; and, on the other hand, faith in the holy God will constrain him to repent. Sometimes the one of these is the stronger, and sometimes the other. There are cases in which the sense of sin is so deep that the person has difficulty in appropriating by faith the mercy of God — has only, as it were, a glimpse of the sun through a thick cloud. In other cases faith looks so intently on the light that it does not notice the darkness.

2. The difference between them is indicated in the text. Repentance is "toward God"; faith is "toward the Lord Jesus Christ." Both are toward God; but the one looks more toward God, whose law has been broken; the other toward God in Christ, who is reconciling the world unto Himself. Repentance looks primarily and mainly to the sin; faith to the salvation provided. The one looks down to the sins in the soul, like as Israel, when bitten by serpents, may have looked to the wounds in their prostrated bodies; the other looks to the Saviour lifted up, as Israel looked to the serpent of brass. The one looks back upon the past, mourns over it, and turns away from it; the other gazes forward into the future, and prompts us to go on in the path which leads to purity and to heaven.

3. Each serves a purpose. Faith brings us to the mercy seat; but it is to confess our sins and to find relief in consequence. Repentance acknowledges the guilt, and would break the hardness of the heart, which, however bruised, will not be melted except under the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Repentance is the ploughing of the ground which needs to be torn up, while faith sows the living seed which strikes out roots and grows in the pulverised soil. If either were alone, it would not accomplish its intended end. Repentance by itself would be despair, and would prostrate the energies. Faith, if alone, might be tempted into vainglory, and land us in difficulties and inconsistencies, and we should fall into the mistake of the person mentioned in ancient fable, who in looking up to the stars fell into the ditch. Faith is the sail that catches the breath of heaven, while repentance is the ballast which gives us stability in the voyage; and by the two we are made to pursue the steady course. The Christian character is the strongest when the two are happily combined — when the firm and the flexible are united; when the bones are clothed with muscle and flesh. It is the most lovely when the darker hues of penitence run through the brighter colours of faith.

(J. M'Cosh, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house,

WEB: how I didn't shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house,