Chapter 14
The Contradiction of Repentance

If any man would come after Me, let Him utterly contradict himself...

No doctrine, without exception, has ever been more misunderstood and misapplied to the greater harm of more souls than the doctrine of repentance. Like every other thought that we bring to Christ, our thoughts on repentance are wrong. And not by just a little.

My thoughts are not your thoughts, declares God. By how much?

For as the heavens are higher than the earth... By precisely an entire immeasurable universe of difference.

Has Isaiah convinced you of that yet? I hope so. Because if you think that somehow, this is the one subject where you and God surely do think alike, then you may as well just go ahead and slap Isaiah and call God a liar.

Go ahead and tell God that on this particular subject, His thoughts are not higher by a heaven than yours. I’m sure He’ll be excited to find that out. And while you’re at it, be sure to remind Him that He’s God, and so are you.

Recall what it means to be wise and prudent. To be wise and prudent is to contradict Christ. To be wise and prudent is to think that you know the truth before Jesus tells it to you. To be wise and prudent is to think that someone other than Jesus has the very same information that He does. To be wise and prudent is to believe that truth has not been hidden. Not from you. That you have found it with your very own investigative powers in other sources outside the words of Christ and His apostles. Perhaps in the words of one of those Old Testament prophets that also talked a lot about repentance. Like Moses. Or Elijah. Or John the Baptist.

Did you think that John the Baptist was a New Testament prophet? Think again, says Jesus:

John’s was the last voice of the Old Testament. Not the first voice of the New. Jesus’ was the first voice of the New. And the only voice of the New. In the Old Testament, everybody else’s voices were simply dark echoes of His. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. Now it’s Jesus’ turn to speak.

John himself warns his followers not to give equal weight to his words and the words of the Christ Who would follow him:

He that speaketh the words of God is not John’s reference to himself. It is his reference to Christ. Don’t compare His word with anyone else’s word. Not even to mine, warns John. Everyone else must decrease. Christ must increase. He alone, uniquely, speaketh the words of God.

Christ’s words are not to be compared with anyone else’s words, because Christ Himself is not to be compared with anyone else. Unlike any who came before Him, God has given Him not just a portion of His Spirit, but the fullness. This is God Himself, come in the flesh.

“But,” some would protest, “you do err by holding far too low a view of the Old Testament. Remember that Paul said, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), and because the New Testament had not yet been compiled at the time, Paul was obviously referring strictly to the Old Testament. So, the Old is, by this word, equally applicable with the New.”

Well, according to Jesus Himself, the Old Testament is divided into the law, the prophets, and the psalms (Luke 24:24); excluding the psalms, let’s examine the other two. Do you think that Paul was telling young Timothy that the “ministry of death and condemnation” contained in the law was profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction?

Apparently, this same Paul is of the belief that the law was the administration of mere angels (Acts 7:53) in the hand of a mere man, but the gospel, by contrast, is the administration of the Holy Spirit Himself:

Or do you think the scripture that Paul was referring to for correction and instruction was that for which one would be “cursed” if he didn’t “continue” in all of it?

Cursing goes a little beyond correction, wouldn’t you say? I correct my sons and daughter, but I’ve never even come close to cursing them. And seeing that the law entered that the offense might abound (Romans 5:20) (the offense, of course, being sin), you’re likely to find very little instruction in righteousness where sin abounds. Those two would sort of be at odds with each other, don’t you think? You would undoubtedly find a lot of grace where sin abounds, but that grace would neither be in the law nor of the law.

And if all the scriptures, including the law, are good for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction, then you’ll probably need to quickly find the nearest qualified Levite and start making some major changes.

And how could the law be used for instruction in righteousness when the righteousness of God exists independently of the law?

But if the law does not work for instruction in righteousness, what of the prophets of the Old Testament? Is our doctrine, reproof, and instruction to be found solely in their words? Not according to this same Paul:

When you read these things that I am writing, says Paul, you will recognize, for the very first time, a wisdom never before given to the sons of men, hidden in God from the beginning of the world, but now revealed to Christ’s holy apostles and prophets, to the intent that now, not then, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. The manifold wisdom of God is known for the very first time, by the church, through the New Testament gospel. And it has never been known, and cannot be known, by anything else or through anything else.

Do you think that Paul was referring to only the Old Testament scriptures when he said to Timothy, But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15)?

Do you think he was saying that not just Timothy, but every young Jewish boy had, there in the Old Testament writings of the law and the prophets, that which was able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus? If that was so, why did Timothy, or the other Jews, or we, or anybody need the preaching of the gospel at all?

There was, and is, no understanding of saving faith in Christ to be had in the law alone, apart from the New Testament scriptures. The gospel and its scriptures alone reveal the righteousness of God, for the very first time ever.

Now, and only now, is the righteousness of God, without the law, manifested. The law and the prophets are the gospel’s intelligible witnesses only after the gospel has been declared. Not before. Never before. Even the witnesses themselves, by their own admission, did not understand whereof they witnessed:

Paul declares:

Therein, in the gospel of Christ, and nowhere else, clearly for the first time, is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. Again: the law and the prophets are only the clear and intelligible witnesses of the righteousness of God after the proclamation of the gospel, not before.

To blanketly say that all scripture, without regard to where in the order of revelation it was proclaimed, is equally profitable for instruction, reproof, doctrine and correction, is to make the words of Moses and the law compete with the words of Christ and the gospel. And they do compete:

Compiled or not, Paul is obviously referring to his own writing, and the writings of the other holy apostles and prophets that were then circulating. Jesus had already commanded the publishing of the Gospel to all nations (Mark 13:10). There is no way, no how, that Paul is telling us to give equal heed to the New and Old Testaments. Holding that erroneous view is how many get themselves and their followers into deep trouble.

Concerning both the law and the prophets, both Moses and Elijah, God Himself would speak to you with an audible voice:

To be wise and prudent is to trot out your “Moses-said-in-Deuteronomy” verses or your “remember-John-the-Baptist-said” passages to offset and oppose what Jesus and His apostles have clearly said to the contrary. To be wise and prudent is to listen to anyone other than Christ and believe that you have found the truth.

Rightly dividing the word of God is not adding Jesus’ words to Moses’ and Elijah’s words, dividing by three, and giving everybody an equal place at the table. Jesus is the one and only Lord. He didn’t just say some words like everybody else. He is the Word! Unlike anybody else! And do you remember what God’s attitude toward the wise and prudent is? From the wise and prudent, God has sworn in his wrath that aletheia will remain hidden forever. Don’t be wise and prudent. Not even once.

Be a babe. If you’re a wordless babe when you come to Jesus, having given up your own words that always, by default, contradict His, Jesus promises to ‘unconceal’ to you what He has hidden from everyone else since before the foundation of the world. And in the very words that are by-design-guaranteed to look foolish to all the wise and prudent around you, you will joyfully discover the utterly and always-contradictory wisdom of God Himself.

Hear ye Him, and no one else, commands the Father.

Expect contradiction ahead, and nothing else, says the Son.

Because contradiction is the only kind of word Christ will ever speak to you, fully expect your definition of repentance to be a contradiction to His definition of repentance. If you don’t, you’ll still have yours when you finish, but you’ll miss His altogether.

The word used in the New Testament for “repentance,” metanoeo, means to “think differently, or to think afterwards, or to reconsider.” In other words, “to change your mind.”

But change your mind about what? That’s the question. No one changes his mind about nothing. If someone says to you, “I changed my mind,” you never simply say, “That’s great. Glad to hear it.” Instead you always ask, “About what?”

And the only answer to that question that you would never get in return would be, “Nothing. I just changed my mind.” On the contrary, the response to your question would always be a description of what they used to think in contrast to what they now think. A change of mind is always attached to two ways of thinking: the former and the current.

What has been added to that simple Bible-word definition of repentance as “a change of mind” is the assumption that if a man really changes the way he ‘thinks’ on a particular subject, he will also change the way he ‘acts’ in regard to that subject. This added notion of a change of behavior leads to the complete idea currently held about repentance: a change of mind that always results in a change of behavior.

But the question still remains: a change of mind and behavior about what? Reformed theology provides its answer: a change of mind and behavior, it says, about ‘sins.’

‘Sins,’ it insists, must be repented of and forsaken entirely before God will forgive you. It’s not enough to simply change your mind about sins. You must change your behavior as well. You cannot remain in sin. The road to hell, preachers of reformed theology assure you, is paved with the good intentions of the merely changed minds who lacked equally changed behaviors.

Sins must be utterly forsaken, they insist, before God will ever accept you into His kingdom. That is the unbendable, unbreakable prerequisite; the one unchangeable, unalterable requirement, they say, for any acceptance with God. Period. No exceptions. No repentance from sins – no acceptance with God; no repentance from sins – no salvation from Christ.

“Can sinners be saved?” they ask rhetorically. “Of course they can. If they repent of their sins. We are sinners as well,” they assure their hearers. “But we have repented and therefore God has forgiven us. If you repent and turn from all your sins like we have, He will forgive you too. But you cannot remain in your sins and be saved.”

And without the slightest deviation from that message, that’s exactly how they always preach it.

And those who hear that message always feel deep in their own hearts that indeed, that must, of necessity, be true. After all, that’s just common sense. God is holy and man is not. God would never allow that which is unholy into a permanent fellowship with Him, unless there was, beforehand, a total renunciation and forsaking of all sins. And that makes perfect sense.

That is, it makes sense until you see the publican in the temple. Then it gets a little confusing. Because the picture that Jesus shows of the two men who go up to the temple to pray is astonishingly contradictory to what all those preachers of “repentance of sins before forgiveness” are saying.

In Jesus’ story, it is actually the Pharisee, not the publican, who has changed his mind and his behavior about sins. In fact, his repentance from sins is exactly what he is so excited to tell God about. The publican, on the other hand, even as he prays, seems to be very much still in possession of his sins. In fact, that’s exactly what he is so distraught about.

And therein lies the contradiction between what reformed theology says about repentance and what Jesus says about it. According to reformed theology, it is the Pharisee who answers all of the questions about repentance from sins correctly. And according to reformed theology, it is the publican who answers all of them wrong.

Repentance-From-Sins-Before-Forgiveness says to the Pharisee, “You must not be like other men.” And the Pharisee answers happily, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.

“You must not be an extortioner, unjust, an adulterer or a publican.”

“I am none of those things,” the Pharisee joyfully assures Repentance-From-Sins.

“You must fast and tithe and frequent the temple as proof of your repentance,” says Repentance-From-Sins to the Pharisee.

I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess, the Pharisee replies. “And here I am at the temple, reminding you once again that all those things are true.”

“Then welcome to the forgiveness of your Lord. You may now, because of your repentance from sins, go down to your house justified,” says Repentance-From-Sins to the joyful Pharisee.

Repentance-From-Sins-Before-Forgiveness says to the publican, “You must not be like other men.” The publican answers in utter dismay, “I am now, at this very moment, worse than all other men. I am, even as I speak, an extortioner, unjust, and an adulterer. And I smite my breast because of who I am, not because of who I was.”

“Come back, then, only when you’re willing, like the Pharisee, to utterly forsake all those things,” declares Repentance-from-Sins to the publican. “Until then, because you have not repented and forsaken those things, you may go down to your house condemned. For everyone who repents and forsakes his sins shall be forgiven, and everyone who remains in his sins shall not.”

But amazingly, that’s precisely the opposite of the way Jesus tells it.

The notion of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” seems altogether reasonable to the reasonable mind.

And that’s precisely why it’s perfectly wrong by an entire universe: no contradiction whatsoever is required to believe it. It is exactly what you have always believed. And what you have always believed, without exception, is never right. As is the case with all aletheia, the ‘unconcealing’ concerning repentance is precisely the opposite of what you would ever have imagined it to be. Like all aletheia, this can only be known if Jesus reveals it to you.

Here is the astonishingly contradictory truth about repentance: there is not one single place in the entire New Testament where a sinner is ever called to repent of their sins before they receive forgiveness. Not one. I know you think there must be, but there isn’t.

There is indeed a New Testament call to repentance, but surprisingly, despite what you’ve been told, it is never a call for the unforgiven sinner to change his mind or his behavior about sins. It is always and only a call for the unforgiven sinner to change his mind about Christ.

Peter’s first chance to preach the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, as the Spirit, sent by the resurrected Christ from the Father, filled him, and for the very first time gave him the anointed words to preach to the sinful world.

And Peter stands up in their midst and boldly demands, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Now let me ask you a question: do you think that Peter was really saying, “Boys, you have to change your minds and behavior about sins. You can’t continue to believe that adultery, murder, stealing, and child molestation is OK. You must change your minds and your behavior about these sins before God will receive you in Jesus Christ. No repentance from sins, no forgiveness from Christ.”

You would think that since this was the very first opportunity for God to deliver His message through the disciples under the anointing of His Spirit, that He would have been sure to include the very most important part of the gospel message: repentance from sins. After all, according to reformed theology, that’s step number one. Every time! Without exception! No coming to Christ without it!

But astonishingly, as you read what Peter preaches to these men before he calls them to repent, you will find not a single mention of sins. Not one. No mention of adultery, or stealing, or homosexuality, or abortion, or lying, or pornography, or anything even remotely related to those things that the preachers of repentance from sins tell us are so critically important to God’s message to sinners. Absolutely nothing at all.

Oh, actually I take that back. He does preach against murder. But it’s only one murder in particular: the murder of Christ. Not the murder of Bob.

Now either God had a huge lapse of memory at a very inopportune moment, or repentance from sins wasn’t even in Peter’s talking points.

Which is it? Because repentance from sins, the very thing that all the preachers of reformed theology keep telling you is message number one from God to the world, is conspicuously absent here. The only repentance that Peter seems to be concerned about is a change of mind about Who Jesus is and a change of behavior in light of that.

In his very first opportunity to preach, the one that would set the precedent for all preaching to follow, Peter seems to want to talk exclusively about Christ.

“By wicked hands you have slain the Savior. I’m here to talk about that sin. That one sin. That singular sin in regard to that One single man. You don’t need to change your mind about many sins. You just need to change your mind about that sin.”

Repent, says Peter. “Change your mind about the Savior. About Jesus, Who is the Christ of God.”

And so it is with every other reference in the New Testament concerning the repentance to which God calls sinners. It is always a call to change your mind about Christ. It is never a call for the sinner to change his mind and his behavior concerning sins.

But didn’t Jesus say to the woman caught in the very act of adultery, Go and sin no more? Yes, He did. But not first. First, He said, Neither do I condemn thee. Last time I checked, if God Himself says to you, Neither do I condemn thee, you’re not condemned any more. Instruction to the already-saved is not a call to repentance before forgiveness. It’s direction for the already-forgiven.

Adultery stands in the very presence of Sinlessness. And Sinlessness says, Neither do I condemn thee. Some have actually suggested that Jesus would have condemned her, wanted to condemn her, wished He could condemn her, but could not, because there were not the two law-required witnesses. But that rationale would mean that every mass murderer whose crimes were unwitnessed would be innocent before God on judgment day.

Did anybody see these secret murders, rapes and child molestations? Well, if I can’t get two witnesses, you’re free to go.

God doesn’t need two witnesses. The Law needs two witnesses. Sin stood in the very presence of God and, without ‘repentance,’ was forgiven. And then, after she was forgiven, was instructed to Go, and sin no more. The preachers of repentance from sins have it exactly backwards. They have Jesus saying, Go and sin no more. And if you’ll do that, Neither do I condemn thee.

God has many instructions and repentances to which He calls the already-forgiven. Let him who stole, steal no more, and, Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. And many others just like those.

But no repentance from sins for unsaved sinners. None. Not once. And not ever. Here is the astonishing contradiction of repentance you could never have imagined before:

It is only the ‘unrepentant’ from sins – only the ‘unchanged and the still sinful’ – whom God ever invites to a justifying relationship with Himself. Who goes down to his house justified before God? According to Jesus, only the sinner goes home justified. And according to Jesus, the already-repentant-from-sins Pharisee always goes home condemned.

Jesus looks at sins and sinners totally differently than you would expect:

I am come to call only the sinners to repentance, says Jesus. But repentance from what?

Along with all the preachers of reformed theology today, the Pharisees were sure that God demanded ‘repentance from sins’ before He would receive a man in justifying forgiveness. And consequently, as they watched Jesus eating with publicans and sinners who obviously had not repented of their sins, they were confused. This was definitely not how it was supposed to work.

And when Jesus gave them His answer to their question about this seeming discrepancy, it was not at all what they expected to hear. And unless you’re God, it’s not what you expected to hear either.

Jesus explains to the altogether-astonished Pharisees that, unless you have a ‘physician to patient’ point of view, you don’t really have God’s point of view about sins at all. You just have your own.

My thoughts are not your thoughts, declares God. Not once. And not ever.

According to Jesus, God views sins exactly and only like the physician views sickness. And since He’s the only Expert in the room, whether you like it or not, agree with it or not, or think it’s accurate or not is wholly immaterial. God thinks it’s accurate. According to Jesus, that’s God’s one and only point of view on sins and sinners.

I will have mercy, and not sacrifice. I will have mercy and ouk [“a primary word; the absolute negative”], “no,” sacrifice, declares Jesus. This Doctor charges nothing in advance for His services. You don’t pay for God’s mercy with your sacrifice. Don’t you understand? says Jesus. I pay for God’s mercy with My sacrifice.

But go ye and learn what that meaneth. Jesus explains that, with God, sin is as a sickness and sinners are as the sick. And the very thing that makes the physician compassionate toward the sick is the same thing that makes God compassionate toward the sinful. The physician knows that men never choose to be sick. They don’t have to. Sickness chooses men. And likewise, God knows that men never choose to be sinners. They don’t have to. Sin chooses men.

Adam chose sin. By one man sin entered into the world.

Now sin chooses Adam. So death passed upon all men. Every time. Without exception. Adam had a choice. But absolutely nobody else does.

But the Pharisees who watched Jesus eat with the unrepentant sinners that day believed they were altogether more wise and prudent than Jesus. And so do the preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness.” Neither of them mind contradicting Jesus at all. Because they both know what Jesus obviously does not know: they both know that sin is really just a choice.

And in their collective wisdom, they know that anytime a man really decides that he wants to, he can simply quit choosing to do all those awful sins. He can repent from those sins. Turn and forsake those sins. Just like they have. In their minds, they are sure that their own justified relationship with God is the simple product of their own wise choices of non-sinful behavior. And they are very thankful that God has made them so wise. “Imagine someone thinking that sinners have no choice in the matter! Ridiculous!” And they can’t wait to get up to the temple to express their heartfelt gratitude: God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.

“Repent from your sins,” the Pharisee calls out to the world of sinners around him. “Choose as I have chosen. Do as I have done. Turn from your sins as I have turned from my sins and forsake your sins as I have forsaken mine. And if you do, God will receive you, exactly as He has received me.”

But Jesus says precisely the opposite.

Like it or not, agree with it or not, according to the unconcealment in Jesus’ words, sin is as sickness and sinners are as the sick. And the sick cannot heal themselves. They need a physician.

Listen carefully: if you really believe that men “choose to sin” and therefore can “choose not to sin” if they really want to, then according to these words of Jesus, you would also have to believe that men “choose to be sick” and therefore can “choose not to be sick” if they really want to. Because, according to the words of Jesus to the Pharisees, sin is as sickness and sinners are as the sick.

And if you’re really convinced that men “choose to be sinners,” then according the words of Jesus, you need to march right down to your local Children’s Hospital and demand that all those sweet little children down there who are “choosing” all that cancer and leukemia stop right now.

In fact, you’ll have to demand, in the name of Jesus, that they immediately repent from all their sicknesses and forsake them!

And while you’re there, with your most appropriate “repent from all of your sicknesses” voice and countenance, you can inform all those sweet little children that their doctor is so angry with them for “choosing” to be sick that he can barely restrain himself from coming down there and finishing the very job that their “chosen” disease has only begun.

And while you’re at it, you can read them some excerpts from your very favorite sermon: “The Sick in the Hands of an Angry Physician.”

But if you would never imagine to say that to all those poor “sick children,” then why would you think it perfectly acceptable, and even commendable in the sight of God Himself, to say it to all of those poor “sinful children”?

Do you not understand? Jesus says the whole world is God’s very own Children’s Hospital! And all the sinners in the world are God’s very own poor sick children!

And just as not a single one of those sick children ever “chose” to be sick, but rather sickness chose them, so also He knows that not a single one of His sinful children ever “chose” to be a sinner. They didn’t have to. Sin “chose” them.

And Jesus declares that the sinful, who are sick with the sin that they never chose, need a compassionate New Testament Physician like Him to heal them.

Not a wanna-be Old Testament prophet like you to condemn them.

Preaching “God will receive a man only after repentance from sins” is like telling those sick children at the Hospital that the only time at which the doctor will treat them is after they’re not sick any more!

You who preach “repentance from sins before forgiveness” need to either demand that the sick stop “choosing to be sick,” or decide to never again demand that the sinners stop “choosing to be sinners.” Be consistent. Either do it with both, or do it with neither.

You know why you keep demanding that others stop “choosing sin”? Because, like the Pharisee, you think that’s what you’ve done.

“Health is simply a choice,” you keep assuring all the sinfully sick around you. “You must choose to be well, like I have.”

And though you have neither the miraculous power of the Great Physician, nor an ounce of His divine compassion, you keep striding the halls of His Hospital, commanding every sick person you meet to Rise, take up thy bed and walk.

And when they don’t, instead of confessing that you’re practicing medicine without a license, you angrily leave them with your expert diagnosis: that they are really dying of cancer simply because they have “chosen to.”

You sir, are a fake and a fraud; you’re not a physician, you’re a patient! The real Doctor is on His way to mend and to heal without demanding payment in advance like you do. He will receive them with no sacrifice on their part, having paid for their treatment in full already.

And of this one thing we may be absolutely certain: the Administrator of this Gracious Hospital, Who loves the sinfully sick so much that He paid their hospital bill with His Son’s very own blood, will very shortly have Hospital Security permanently remove you and your violating ignorance from these premises once and for all.

Do you really know why Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance?

Because there are no righteous. No, not one. And that includes, or rather excludes, even you, sir. (Romans 3:10)

In God’s eyes, there are only two kinds of people in this world: sinners, and sinners who lie about being sinners. Sinners who smite their breast and admit it, and sinners who smite the breasts of other sinners, and deny it.

For you who preach that a man must “repent and forsake his sins before God will receive him,” I have only one question:

Have you repented and forsaken your own sins?

You who preach repentance from sins, do you ever still sin yourself?

Because if you do, your diagnosis of everyone else around you is seriously flawed.

If we find out that you do still sin, then I’ll need to ask you on behalf of all the sick sinners of the world, what happened to all that repentance you preached to everyone else?

What happened to all that utter forsaking of sins that you said was an absolute requirement before God would receive you?

By the way, that rat of an apostle John has already outed you. He says you definitely do sin:

And as my dear mother used to remind me frequently, “Son, if you say you have no sin, you may deceive yourself, but you definitely deceive no one else.” And if you say you have no sin, John says the truth of God is not in you. That’s just John’s way of saying, “You’re a freakin’ liar.” John’s always been nice like that.

I’m not understanding this. Maybe you can explain it to me:

According to your “repentance from sins” message, God won’t receive all those sinners out there in the world without an utter forsaking of all their sins. Right? Do I have that right?

Well that means that, if you who preach that message still have any sins of your own at all, either He hasn’t really received you like you say He has, or He’s receiving you while you still have sins.

Which is it? It has to be one or the other. It can’t be both.

You wouldn’t be running around telling other people that God requires them to do what you yourself have not really done, would you?

Are you saying that you forsook all those sins before He received you, and then you ‘un-forsook’ them after He received you? I’m assuming that any sins you still have aren’t new ones that you invented after He received you. Right? Any sins that we would find that you have now would be the same old sins that you had before you say He received you. Right?

So, answer the question: do you, or do you not, ever still sin?

And if you do ever still sin, do you at the same time still go around telling everyone else that God would never, under any circumstance whatsoever, receive them without an utter forsaking of all their sins?

Either your doctrine of “repentance from sins” is erroneous and you were wrong about God’s pre-reception requirements, or you yourself are rejected by it because of your remaining sins. Which is it?

Were you wrong before, or wrong now?

And if you who preach repentance from sins still sin after you have come to Christ, how is it that you could still be thinking about, or, for crying out loud, still talking about, anyone else’s sins but your own? Shouldn’t you be just totally beside yourself with shock and surprise that any of those sins that you thought you forsook before He forgave you are still there?

This wouldn’t be an example of that bizarre logic that says, “I don’t want to tell sinners that Christians still sin, lest sinners use that as an excuse to keep sinning,” would it? God forbid! Because there’s a word for those who require one thing from others publicly, but another from themselves privately. And no, it’s not the word Christian.

“So you’re saying that no repentance from sins is necessary for God to forgive me?”

You better hope so, sinner.

You who preach that a man must forsake all his sins before he comes to Christ, do you really think that in God’s eyes, one sin is greater than another? That what you count as your well-hidden, insignificant, small and occasional sins, are somehow acceptable with God, but those that you count as someone else’s open, significant, big-all-the-time sins are not?

Do you really think that God employs some kind of sliding scale on which He grades sin, from good to bad and from better to worse? That yours are the ‘good’ sins at the top of the scale and those ‘other kind’ are the really ‘bad’ sins at the very bottom?

You who preach “repentance and the forsaking of all sins before God will receive a man,” do you not know that if you break the law yourself, in even one tiny part, you’re guilty of breaking the whole law?

You who preach “repentance from sins,” do you not know that the singular purpose of everything the law says is to get you, the one who still has any sins of his own, to shut up and quit talking about anyone else’s sins?

What things soever the law saith. That means everything. Everything the law says, without exception, every jot and every tittle, has only one goal in mind: to produce in you a completely “muted guilt.”

It saith to them who are under the law. That’s you.

That every mouth may be stopped. That’s your mouth.

And all the world may become guilty before God. Again, that’s you.

“Not one single word out of you, sinner,” says the law.

“Especially about someone else’s sins.”

And do you not understand that if we can still hear you talking about anyone else’s sins when you still have even the ‘smallest’ sin of your own, then the very law by which you are condemning them obviously still hasn’t done it’s work in you?

Because if it had, you’d shut up and be guilty like everybody else.

But if we can still hear you talking about someone else’s sins, then we know with absolute certainty, by the sure testimony of the very law by which you are judging them, that you’re either sinless or you’re a hypocrite.

Which is it? There is no third category for the one whose mouth is still moving.

And John, the rat, has already given you up: we know you’re not sinless.

Do you not know that unless you are exactly, precisely, completely, without one single tiny flaw, as sinless as Christ Himself, you fall short, and you and get lumped right in along with all the rest of the sinners? right along with all those sinners that you couldn’t imagine spending even one minute of your time with? much less, like Jesus, actually inviting to dinner?

Do you not know that Jesus said that there is only one ‘worst kind’ of sinner: the sinner who insists he’s not a sinner at all? (Matthew 23:12–39)

Do you not know that Jesus said it would be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for that kind of sinner? (Mark 6:11)

Do you not know that that’s the only kind of sinner who cannot go down to his house justified? ever?

“Well, are you saying that I can just go out and commit adultery all I want to, and murder as many people as I want to, and God will forgive me without any repentance from sins?”

No, of course that’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying you already commit adultery all you want to, and you already murder as many people as you want to. I’m saying you’re already a serial adulterer. And you’re already a serial murderer. You forget that God counts your lust as adultery and your anger as murder (Matthew 5:22, 5:28).

“Well, grace is not a license to sin!” you may protest.

Really? Then what are all of yours? Unlicensed sins?

Grace may not be a license to sin, but sin is certainly a license to grace.

And if it’s not, you’re in deeper trouble than you can possibly imagine, sinner.

I’m going to show you that if you preach “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” then you have it exactly backwards: that it is the very presence of sins, not the absence of sins, that attracts God to you in the first place. That sinfulness is actually the only prerequisite for God to receive a man into a loving relationship with Himself.

Do you really think that some sins of the flesh will buy you a seat in hell, but others won’t? That their large ones will, but your small ones won’t?

Let’s follow that line of thinking to its absolutely absurd and illogical end. May I get just completely ridiculous with you for a moment?

If you’re going to condemn anyone to hell over unrepented sins of the flesh, you must condemn not just some sins of the flesh, but all sins of the flesh. Come on! Be consistent! Don’t be a hypocrite by consigning some people to hell because of their sins of the flesh, while at the same time giving others a free pass. Don’t just pick on the homosexuals, and the abortionists and the pornographers and the other easy targets. Don’t be afraid to call them like you actually see them. If you’re going to include anybody’s sins of the flesh as condemning them to hell, go ahead and include everybody’s sins of the flesh. Do it right! Do it completely! You’ll feel much better if you just get consistent about the whole thing. And it will be far easier than you think. You can just start with the really obvious ones.

In the most absurd scenario I can imagine, using your own logic and your own sliding scale of “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” would there be any sight, anywhere, that would beg more for the outright condemnation of hell itself than the overweight preacher who stands in his pulpit and rails on the sins of the flesh in others? Under your definition, the fat preacher is the very poster-child of what he insists cannot even exist in the kingdom of God: that is, one who claims the forgiveness of Christ while at the same time practicing his sin.

Your absurd “repentance from sins before forgiveness” standard could most easily and effectively and un-hypocritically be applied right there. You who preach “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” it’s time to call a spade a spade. Don’t call it a “a spatulous device for abrading the surface of the soil.” Just call it a spade.

Call a hypocrite a hypocrite. Don’t call a fat preacher who rails on sins of the flesh in others anything other than the hypocrite that he really is. Come on! This is the perfect place to begin being consistent in your condemnation. Just start with all the fat preachers in the world. You know the ones. Those who insist that others must “repent of all their sins of the flesh before God will forgive them,” while at the same time being obvious-to-everyone sinful over-eaters themselves.

These would be the perfect target for a genuinely non-hypocritical approach to your doctrine of “repentance from sins before forgiveness.” And to be perfectly fair, you would need to get just as serious with the fat guys as you do with all those “other kind” of sinners you’ve been picking on.

To follow your “repentance from sins before forgiveness” approach to its absurdly illogical end, you would want to start by telling them that there weren’t any fat preachers in the Bible. According to Paul, No, not one. And you could quote an Old Testament scripture to prove your point.

Following your illogical logic, you could inform them that being fat is a wickedly unnatural state, and that babies, being born fat, are indeed the verifiable proof of original sin. And you could remind them that, just as surely as God loves the righteously skinny, He at the same time surely hates the sinfully fat.

And pressing your absurd logic even further, you would want to immediately move to get some laws passed against all those corpulent doughboys who preach against the sins of others while obviously still indulging themselves.

You could lobby Congress to pass a law that unless you had 0% bodyfat, it would be illegal for you to preach sermons about anyone else’s sins of the flesh. You could authorize the “pinch-an-inch police” to enforce your new law. And while you were at it, you could get some legislation passed to shut down all those abominable and nefarious Mexican food restaurants that openly promote such licentious and sinful behavior. Of course, only the righteously skinny Congressmen and Senators would support you, but hey, that’s what God raised ‘em up for. To turn America from its sins!

“With my own eyes,” you could testify before Congress, “I’ve seen those fat preachers in those restaurants of ill repute, right in front of God and man, eating those chimichangas slathered with guacamole, sometimes two at a time. And enjoying their weighty and wayward wickedness right in front the whole world. Sporting themselves in their feasts, glorying in their shame. And actually praying God’s blessing upon themselves and their co-miscreants before they sinned together!”

And following your absurd line of logic to its most unnatural end, of course, you couldn’t stop with just the fat preachers. In order to be consistent, those of you who preach “repentance of sins before forgiveness” would need to include everybody over the 0% mark, even if it was your own mother, as strictly consigned to a heavyweight’s hell.

In fact, to do it right, you would probably need to start your own First Church of the Sanctified and Skinny. Then you could be unwaveringly non-hypocritical in your message of “repentance from all sins of the flesh before God will forgive you.”

An utter forsaking of sins could be an utter forsaking of all junk food. Under penalty of excommunication, no more twinkies for the true disciples. Your repentance message could come complete with a special “God’s True Repentance Diet” specializing in only low-carb righteousness.

A calorie count could take the place of confession. And sins could be measured by the pound. Instead of an altar at the front of your church, you could have a scale. As the weight went up, proportionately, the righteousness would go down.

No fat people in your church, you could preach. And definitely no fat people in your heaven.

And the walls of your church could be covered with mirrors so that you and your followers could always admire your own righteousness as you passed by.

Of course, you would do it with the lights off. You always look so much skinnier in the dark.

“God doesn’t accept their kind,” you could assure all the other skinny saints as you pointed to all those outside your church who were so obviously overweight and so obviously unrepentant.

And that would be a real and unhypocritical call to “repentance from sins before forgiveness.” Unfortunately, a preposterously absurd one.

I’m going to show you that Jesus only invites the publicans and sinners to eat with Him. By His very own admission, His only goal is to hang out with the big fat sinners. And with Jesus, the bigger, the better.

The doctrine of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” causes you to be more concerned about looks than you are about life. More concerned about appearances than about reality.

Imagine a wife with her children in a hospital waiting room, anxiously awaiting news about her very ill husband. The doctor finally emerges from the emergency room, approaches the nervous family with a broad smile and announces cheerfully, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

The wife, heartened by the doctor’s surprisingly cheerful manner, smiles back and says, “What’s the good news?”

The doctor replies, “I apologize. Actually I have woefully understated myself. It’s not good news. It’s great news!

“You know that crooked nose that your husband had? It’s straight now! Perfectly so! We brought in our top plastic surgeon and got it fixed up beautifully. And that bald spot he had? Gone! Our top hair transplant doctor gave him the finest, fullest, healthiest head of hair you’ve ever seen. And that extra weight that he had around his midsection? Gone as well! Our excellent weight specialist took care of that!”

“That’s wonderful,” beams the wife. “And the bad news?”

“Oh,” replies the doctor. “The bad news is... he’s dead.”

“But,” he says, smiling even more broadly, “He never looked better!”

Sinners are dead. And the dead are not supposed to look good. They’re supposed to look dead for goodness’ sake! Why are you trying to make the dead look good?

Why would you want to put braces on the teeth of a cadaver? Sure, he may have straight teeth when you’re done, but you’ll never see him smile. He’s dead!

And unless you’re a mortician, you shouldn’t spend even one minute of time worrying about how the dead look.

You know what they do with people who dress up the dead and pretend they’re alive? They put them in a special place where they can get some help for that problem.

And do you know where they put the people who talk to the dead as though the dead can actually hear them? That’s right. Same place. Next room over.

Stop worrying that somewhere out there, sinners are sinning. Sinners sin. That’s what sinners do. That’s why they’re sinners, for goodness’ sake. Let them sin. What do you expect them to do?

God is not in the business of making the dead look better. God is in the business of making the dead alive. You need to be in that business with Him.

It is both a ridiculous waste of time and a psychotically dangerous practice to try to make the dead look better before they’re alive. You can make the dead look better later. After they’re alive.

Stop marching around with your signs, protesting the sins of other sinners.

“Can you believe what these dreadful sinners are doing this time?” you ask your fellow protesters.

“These dead people are acting like they’re actually dead for goodness’ sake! And that’s totally unacceptable!”

Next time you want to protest about some sin that sinners are sinning somewhere, take your signs, go down to your local graveyard and march around there. That audience will hear you exactly as well as the other one does. In case your forgot, the dead are deaf.

“Repentance from sins before forgiveness” turns you into a ‘Martha.’ In the presence of the Resurrection Himself, you’ll still be voicing your concern over how the dead smell.

One minute before Jesus raises her brother Lazarus from the dead, Martha is complaining that he stinks. Well of course he stinks, Martha. He’s dead for goodness’ sake! And one minute after Jesus raises him, he still stinks. Only now, that terrible smell of death is the wonderful smell of life (John 11:39).

The dead stink. Every time. All the time. Without exception. Let them stink!

That’s what the dead do. Even the newly alive from the dead stink. Even in the very presence of Jesus they stink. Stop worrying about the stink. And stop talking to the dead as though they can hear even a single word you’re saying.

The only word that God ever says to the dead is Come forth. Before that, He says absolutely nothing. And neither should you. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your “Let’s get you all dressed up and pretend you’re really alive before Jesus gets here” comments to yourself. Even though they can’t hear you, those kind of comments irritate even the dead.

Jesus didn’t command them to loose him and let him go before He raised Lazarus from the dead. And He’s not saying that to you either. Stop trying to reform and rehabilitate the sinful world around you. Don’t waste one minute of your time trying to get everybody in the graveyard all gussied up to look like they’re alive before Jesus makes them so. Let them be dead until He makes them alive.

And remember, it’s Lazarus who gets raised from the dead. Not his clothes. We’ll get him a new suit later. Stop shopping for the dead!

The doctrine that says that “sinners must repent from their sins before God will forgive them” is a confusion of cause and effect. You don’t get clean so that you can take a bath. You take a bath so that you can get clean. You don’t get well so you can go to the doctor. You go to the doctor so you can get well. You don’t get skinny so that you can go on a diet. You diet so that you can get skinny. And you don’t repent because you’ve gotten dirty with sin. You repent of having ever imagined that you were clean in the first place.

That’s real repentance. And that’s the only repentance that God ever calls a sinner to. He calls that kind of repentance, repentance from dead works (Hebrews 6:1). And astonishingly, repentance from dead works is not a repentance from sins at all. It’s actually a repentance from righteousness.

The primary argument for “repentance from sins before forgiveness” comes from Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. Most people are familiar with it, and thousands upon multiplied thousands of sermons have been given to prove that the wayward son in the parable, who represents sinful man, must forsake the pigpen of his sins before his father, who represents God, will ever receive him back in forgiveness.

But let me show you why the one thing this parable could never be about is “repentance from sins before God will receive you.”

Did you see that? The very first two sentences that introduce us to the parable tell us already, before we even read the parable itself, that what follows could not possibly be about repentance from sins.

And here’s the reason why:

When Jesus heard the scribes and Pharisees murmuring, do you think that He would have turned to them and said:

Don’t worry boys. Just give me about two minutes, and when I get through with this parable, these sinners will know beyond any doubt that God will never receive them unless they first repent and forsake all their sins.

Do you know why He couldn’t possibly have said that?

Because if He had, the Pharisees would have cried out, “Too late!”

“It’s too late to tell them ‘now’ that God will never receive them unless they first repent!

“Because You’ve already received them, before they repented!

“That’s why we’re so upset! You’ve ‘already’ received them. You’re ‘already’ eating with them. And they haven’t even repented yet!”

The word “receiveth” in the Greek is a powerful word. It means to “eagerly await, or warmly welcome.” It’s the very word used to describe those who eagerly anticipate the promises of God and those who wait in eager hope of the return of Christ.

Do you not understand that Jesus is God in the flesh? And that if Jesus eagerly receives sinners and eats with them before they repent of their sins – like He does right here before the incredulous eyes of the Pharisees – it’s because God the Father eagerly does the same?

Where’s all that “repentance from sins before God will receive you” in what Jesus is doing here? Where’s the utter forsaking of sins that you told everyone was absolutely necessary before Christ would receive you? “Repentance from sins before God will receive you” is obviously not Jesus’ message as far as these Pharisees are concerned.

That would have undoubtedly been the Pharisees’ message to these publicans and sinners, but not Jesus’ message.

If God is already eating with you, then He’s already received you. No question about it. And in that case, the Pharisees have it exactly right: just like these publicans and sinners, you’ve already been received before you repented of your sins.

Otherwise, if this parable was really about the necessity to repent and forsake your sins before God will receive you, what the heck are the scribes and Pharisees so upset about?

Do you think that when Jesus got through with this parable, the Pharisees said to Him, “Alright, finally! It’s about time! At last, you told these sinners what we’ve been trying to tell them the whole time! That they have to repent and forsake all their sins before God will receive them! Good job Jesus!”

Nope. Too late. Too late for the parable to ever mean that. Jesus has already received them before they repented. And the Pharisees know it. And they are livid about it.

Most people don’t know that this parable is really about two sons, not just one. But when you make it about “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” you must make it about only one son. The sinful son. The other son in the story, the stay-at-home obedient son, becomes a meaningless footnote or an afterthought at best.

But when you understand what the parable is really about, you’ll be able to keep both sons directly in your line of sight at all times, exactly like Jesus did when He was telling it.

So here’s what the parable of the prodigal son is really about:

The younger son, the prodigal, does indeed represent sinful man: that’s the publicans and the sinners that Jesus is already eagerly receiving and with whom He is already eating.

The older son, the one who stayed home, represents those who trusted in themselves that they are righteous and despise others because of their works: that’s the scribes and Pharisees who are murmuring and complaining about everybody’s sins but their own.

And the real subject of the parable is not the two sons at all. Like all the parables of Jesus, the real subject of the story is the father and his relationship with both sons. And the father in the story represents God.

And because this story is spoken directly to the scribes and Pharisees while in the presence of the publicans and the sinners, the object of the parable is to contrast the grace of God that is being received by the sinful publicans with the grace of God that is being rejected by the self-righteous Pharisees.

That’s the real point of the parable. It’s not about the need to repent from ‘sins.’ It’s about the need to repent from ‘righteousness.’ The sinful publicans, like the prodigal son, have already repented and forsaken their own righteousness. Their obvious sinfulness makes it easy for them to do so. The Pharisees on the other hand, like the not-prodigal son, still have their own righteousness, and they’re not about to forsake it! Their not-so-obvious sinfulness makes it impossible for them to do so.

This parable is God’s defining word on who will receive His grace and who won’t receive His grace, even though everyone is offered it. And here’s the My thoughts are not your thoughts truth that you never even imagined before:

From the prodigal, we learn the astonishing fact that sin actually weakens resistance to the grace of God and causes sinners to receive it. Just like the publicans and sinners are receiving it right here.

And from the elder son we learn the astonishing fact that self-righteous obedience actually strengthens resistance to the grace of God and causes the self-righteous to reject it. Just like the scribes and Pharisees are rejecting it right here.

Simply said: only sinners receive grace. And non-sinners reject grace. That’s the message of this parable. Think in those terms now as you read it. Watch the sinful son receive the grace of his father, and watch the non-sinful son reject it:

In the preaching of “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” much is always made about the younger son “coming to himself” in the pigpen, as though that is where the real repentance has occurred. But think about what the younger son actually said when he came to himself:

“My life is terrible. The workers back at my father’s house have it better than I do. I know what I’ll do: I’ll go back and tell my father I’ve sinned against both heaven and him and ask him for a job.”

And you call that repentance?

“My life sucks” is not repentance. If it was, every lottery ticket bought would be an act of divine contrition.

“Others have it better than me” is not repentance. Otherwise, envy would be the prerequisite virtue for all repentant acceptance with God.

And a concocted scheme to tell your potential employer exactly what he needs to hear so that he’ll be convinced to give you a job is not repentance either.

Otherwise, the offer of “will work for righteousness” would get the party started in heaven.

Armed with the scheme of trading his works for his father’s benefits, just like all the rest of the hirelings back on the farm, the prodigal begins his journey back home.

Don’t even begin to imagine that Jesus tells this story as if the father who is running to the son already knows what is in the mind of his son.

If you do, you’ll attribute to the father’s knowledge exactly what Jesus purposely excludes. You’ll have the father looking at the boy as though he already knows what the boy is thinking. And Jesus is careful to let you know that he doesn’t.

The “repentance from sins before God will receive you” viewpoint imagines that the father in the story is responding to some change of mind that he already knows about in the son.

But Jesus is careful to have the father’s attitude toward the son be totally independent of anything that the son is thinking. His compassion is kindled toward the boy simply at the sight of him while he is still yet a great way off. That’s a critical element of this story. The father does what he does before he knows what the son is thinking. For all the father knows, the son may be coming to ask for more money.

Jesus carefully tells the story in such a way that the father knows nothing of what is in the mind of the son. He doesn’t need to. His love was never dependent on what the son ever thought anyway.

And if you want to really screw up your theology and utterly destroy the real intent of the gospel message of Christ, just have the love of God be contingent on, or responsive to, anything outside of the love of God itself.

If you make the love of God dependent on anything that man brings to God, you’ll screw up the message beyond repair.

Listen carefully: the only thing man ever brings to God, just like this son does in Jesus’ story, is a “will work for righteousness” bargain. The only thing that man ever brings to God, just like this son does, is his best Monty-Hall-like, “Let’s make a deal.”

And this is the entire point of Jesus’ story: it is only the sinner who can ever be convinced that God rejects his offer of works. The self-righteously obedient, as we will see with the elder son, cannot be convinced at all.

You don’t somehow, with repentance from sins, ‘get’ God to love you. He’s not waiting at home for you to show up with your proofs of repentance. He’s running to you. He already loves you. Just like this father already loved his son, independent of anything the son would ever do or had ever done.

That’s how fathers already feel. Every time. Without exception.

For whom did He die? The godly or the ungodly? Christ died for the ungodly.

And whom does He receive? The godly, like the Pharisees, or the ungodly, like the publicans? For scarcely for a righteous man will one die.

And when does He die? While we are godly or while we are sinners? While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The word “commendeth,” sunistao, means “to stand together.”

When did God, with His love and compassion, “stand together” with us? When we were sinners or when we were non-sinners? The astonishingly contradictory answer is, while we were yet sinners.

Right in the big middle of our big sinful mess. Just like the father in the parable. Not when there was a change in us. Not when there was even a glimmer of hope for a change in us. Not when we were bathed and washed and clean. But while we were still dead and dirty in sins. That’s when He loved us and saved us, says Paul. It’s all and only about His love for us. It’s never about our love for Him.

Who has he made alive together with Christ? You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.

And why did He make us alive together with Christ? For his great love wherewith he loved us.

And when did he make us alive together with Christ? Even when we were dead in sins.

And for what ultimate purpose did He make us alive together with Christ? That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

The dead don’t change. The dead can’t change. The dead are just dead. Only the living can change. And the dead don’t repent from sins. The dead can’t repent from sins. The dead are just dead. Only the living can repent from sins.

The father runs to the boy, the boy doesn’t run to the father. The father falls on the boy’s neck. The boy doesn’t fall on the father’s neck. And the father does all that without knowing one single thing that the boy is thinking, before he hears one single word.

Get your sequence right. The father falls on his neck before the boy speaks.

This is how the father already felt. This is how the father has always felt. He hasn’t changed His mind. He didn’t have to.

Those who preach a “repentance for sins before forgiveness” would actually have the father repenting in this parable: as though the father is determined to change his mind and his behavior toward his son if he hears certain words of repentance from the son, and equally determined not to change his mind and his behavior if he doesn’t.

Do you understand how backwards that is?

These preachers have the father saying, “I’ll receive him if he’s repentant, and reject him if he’s not.” And they have God saying the very same.

But Jesus tells it exactly backwards from that. Before the son says even one word, the father has already fallen on his neck. Before he says a word. Too late to find out what’s in the boy’s mind. The way Jesus tells it, the father doesn’t even care what’s in the boy’s mind. The way Jesus tells it, the only thing that’s important is what is in the father’s mind.

The phrase fell on his neck, and kissed him ought to tell you everything you need to know about what God thinks about sinners before they repent of their sins: the Greek could actually be translated, “fell violently on his neck and kissed him over and over again.”

Do you think that before Jesus began to eat with the publicans and sinners in the presence of the Pharisees that day, He interviewed each one of them to make sure repentance from sins was really on their minds?

Now before we pass the gravy, I need to know what you’re thinking. Have you forsaken your sins? Have you turned your back on all your wickedness? Because if you haven’t, we need to tell the waiter to take the biscuits back.

From the Pharisee’s point of view, it appeared that Jesus didn’t even care what was on the sinners minds. It appeared to the Pharisees that Jesus was saying, Lunch is on me. I’ll pick up the tab.

And the Pharisees were right. That’s exactly what Jesus was saying. Like all the physicians in the world who heal the sick, Jesus renders His service with no thought of payment in advance. It’s called grace.

That’s how God feels about sinners. Before they repent. That’s the only way God feels about sinners. Before they repent. He is mad about them. Not mad at them. He is crazy for them. Not crazy against them. He is eager for their company. And eager to tell them so!

The love that God feels for sinners is beyond human comprehension. It’s beyond explanation. For God so loved the world is the most astonishingly contradictory phrase ever uttered in the history of the world. It is the complete and utter and absolute contradiction of everything you would ever naturally think about God and His attitude toward unrepentant sinners.

Have you not seen Christ on the cross? Who do you think He was there for? Repentant sinners or unrepentant sinners? That’s the price that God paid for the dinner that every sinner is invited to. He paid for it in advance of the invitation. And He insists that you not even leave the tip.

Do you not understand? When He hung on the cross, there were no repentant sinners! No, not one!

The cross alone demonstrates how God feels about unrepentant sinners.

And if you portray God as feeling any other way about unrepentant sinners than the way Jesus just portrayed Him here, you have utterly contradicted Christ Himself. And on judgment day, much to your dismay, He will utterly contradict you.

And if you fail to preach a God who falls violently on the necks of even the vilest sinners that you can possibly imagine, and kisses them over and over again, before they repent, then you’re not preaching the God that Jesus preached here. And on judgment day, you will find it is only your dirty neck that He has not fallen upon.

And if you’re preaching a God Who so loved the world on Friday evening that He gave His only begotten Son to die for their sins, but by Monday morning was so angry with the same world that He could barely restrain His hand of judgment for the very same sins He died for on Friday, you’re not preaching the Father that Jesus preached. And on judgment day, you’ll find out too late that that was an unimaginable error in judgment on your part.

If you preach the repentance and forsaking of sins before God will receive a man, where are getting your information? The one who preaches “repentance from sins before forgiveness” is Moses. Not Jesus.

Those who preach “repentance from sins before forgiveness” are disciples of Moses. They are not the disciples of Christ. Unlike Jesus, they are always eager for the company of their fellow Pharisees. Unlike Jesus, they are never eager for the company of unrepentant sinners.

By an entire immeasurable universe of difference from those who preach “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” Jesus was always eager for the company of sinners. How can we know that for sure? Because in the world that Jesus was eager to come to, that’s all there were. Just sinners. Nobody else.

Do you not understand? In this world, if Jesus doesn’t eat with sinners, He dines alone.

This is the only information that Jesus gives about how God feels towards unrepentant sinners. This is it. Like it or not, this is the only accurate picture that there is. Study the photo. See the Pharisees on the far right? Yeah. See the publicans and sinners on the far left? Yeah. Where is Jesus in the picture? That’s right: exactly where you would never have imagined Him to be.

The Father runs to unrepentant sinners, falls violently on their dirty necks, and kisses them. Over and over and over again. Before they say a single word. He simply cannot contain His love. And if you’re not telling it like that, you’re not telling it like Jesus tells it.

And if you want to go around telling the sick that this Physician wants his payment in advance, you better make sure you never get sick. Because you have no earthly idea what this Physician charges for His services. Your repentance from sins is not the price for His services. You don’t have the price. You never did and you never will.

As the boy begins his scripted speech, his father cuts him off mid-sentence and commands his servants who have run with him, “Put the best robe on his body, and put the ring on his hand, and put the shoes on his feet.”

Put the robe right over his dirty body.

And put the ring right on his dirty hand.

And put the shoes right on his dirty feet.

No need to clean him up before we do that. We can clean him up later.

The very thing that the preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” think God wants so desperately to talk to sinners about, is the one thing that Jesus has the father in the parable never even mention to his son: not a single word about his “sins.”

Do you not find that remarkable?

Don’t you find it remarkable that in a parable that’s supposed to be all about repentance from sins, the only thing that the father never even mentions is the boy’s sins? Why, it’s as if he doesn’t even care about the boys sins. It’s as if that’s the very thing farthest from his mind.

The absence of any mention of sins from the father in the story undoubtedly left the Pharisees astounded. And probably the publicans and the sinners too.

But that’s the only way Jesus intended to tell it: not one word about sins.

It may come as a complete shock to you, but that’s always been God’s approach to the sinner. God, by the Holy Spirit, never speaks one single word to any sinner about his sins.

Never once does He speak to any sinner about his ‘sins.’ Not one word. When the Father comes running in His compassion to violently fall on the neck of the vilest of sinners, ‘sins’ is simply never the subject. And when you make sins the subject, you screw up the message of Christ beyond repair.

Jesus said, when the Spirit is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

Not ‘sins,’ but “sin.”

No matter what your preacher tells you to the contrary, the Holy Spirit never convicts any sinner of his ‘sins.’ Not once. Not ever. No exceptions. Because any discussion of ‘sins’ always brings with it condemnation. Always. Without exception, condemnation is the singular subject of sins. Yet God sent His son not to condemn the world. Do you think He sent the Holy Spirit to do what Jesus didn’t do? That would be impossible. The Holy Spirit comes to continue what Jesus started. And if Jesus, at His Father’s sending, came not to condemn the world, that’s precisely and only what the Holy Spirit continues to do. To not condemn.

Why does the Spirit never speak to the sinner about sins?

Because that part has already been taken care of. There is one who already speaks to the sinner about his sins. He speaks eloquently and convincingly about the sins of the sinner. His name is Moses. No need for the Holy Spirit to speak about sins, because Moses, through the law, has already done that. Thoroughly and completely. Remember?

Everything the law says is about sins. And everything the law says is to convince you that you’re already guilty of those sins. In fact, your inability to stop sinning is the very basis on which the law convinces you that you’re a sinner in need of the saving grace of Christ:

The law concludes all under sin in order that grace may be given to all them that believe. Them that believe what? That believe they cannot repent and turn from their sins. That believe that the law has concluded them under sin. That believe that only Christ can save them.

Your inability to repent of your sins, to forsake and turn from them before you come to Christ, is the only thing that convinces you that you need Christ at all. It’s your failure at trying to quit sin, not your success, that makes you know you need Christ. If you could turn from your sins before you came to Christ, you wouldn’t need Christ at all. Just ask the Pharisee.

You need to repent, not from sins, plural, but from only one sin, before you come to Christ. And that one sin is the one and only subject of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes to reprove the world of only one sin. It’s the only one God ever talks about to the sinner: it’s the sin of not believing on Jesus. Of sin, says Jesus, because they believe not on me.

Why? Because that’s the only sin that will keep the sinner out of heaven. Unbelief is the only sin for which God will reject you. And if you want to add any other sin to the list of sins for which God will reject you, be extremely careful. Because I’m going to show you later that, when you do that, the only sin that gets added to the list that keeps people out of heaven is the very one you don’t want added under any circumstance: your own.

Repentance from this one sin that keeps men out of heaven is called repentance from dead works (Hebrews 6:1). And repentance from dead works is the one and only repentance God ever calls the sinner to.

There is only one living work: the work of Christ on the cross. Everything else is a dead work. Even, and especially, “repentance from sins” is a dead work. In fact, “repentance from sins before forgiveness” is the very deadest work of all of all dead works.

Why? Because “repentance from sins before forgiveness” always creates a self-righteous Pharisee. Each time. Every time. Without one single exception. The Pharisees tell you they have repented from their sins, while in reality, they have only hidden them.

Do you not understand that if repentance from sins is necessary before God will receive you, then under that premise, you must never sin again? Not ever. Not even once. Otherwise, where did all your repentance from sins go?

But if you repent of your unbelief in Christ, you must simply continue believing.

Which of those two repentances do you think you can actually accomplish?

Which of those two repentances would keep you from becoming a hypocrite, like the Pharisee always becomes? The Pharisees declare that they have repented from their sins, but secretly, exactly like all those who preach “repentance from sins before forgiveness,” they are still full of sins. Every time. Without exception.

This is where your understanding has gotten muddled: everybody knows that the law condemns sinful works. But what few seem to understand is that grace condemns all works. Even righteous works. Most especially it condemns righteous works.

Why? Because God knows there really are no righteous works. No, not one. Everybody is a sinner. And all those who pretend they are not sinners merely have ‘pretend’ righteous works. There was only one righteous work and it wasn’t the work you did.

All are concluded by God Himself to be unbelievers. “Concluded,” sunkleio, “shut up together” in unbelief. Unbelief is the sin. The one sin.

Everybody is shut up together as sinners. Big sinners with little sinners. ‘Bad’ sinners with ‘good’ sinners. Sweet little old ladies and the muggers who mug sweet little old ladies. All shut up together in unbelief. All the chickens, so to speak, in one coop. And in this coop, sins are not the sin. Unbelief is the sin.

When you call men to repent of their sins before forgiveness, you create by your calling a self righteous, lying, hypocritical, sin-hiding and boasting Pharisee.

When God quickens you, makes you alive with Christ, you will either be dead in sins, right along with everyone else, equally guilty as everyone else, even the very worst kind of sinner you can imagine, or He will not quicken you at all.

You’re in the same room with all the rest of the sinners. There is only one room. It’s the “sinners room.” There is no “righteous room” down the hallway to the right. Check all the Holiday Inns you want. God never booked one.

And everybody in the room is dirty. And the only ones in the room who are dirtier than anyone else are the ones who think they’re in the wrong room.

If He does not put the robe and the ring and the shoes over your dirty body, your dirty hands, and dirty feet, He will not put them on you at all. If He has not received you while you are yet dead in sins, He has not really received you at all.

So, back to the father’s house they go: the father, the servants, and the still-dirty son wearing his new robe and his new ring and his new shoes right over all the dirt. And it’s not the father that has somehow changed his mind about the son because the son changed his mind about his sins. It’s the son who has now changed his mind about the father, because the father never changed his mind about the son because of his sins. And that’s repentance.

That’s repentance from dead works: changing your mind about the Father, because He never changed His mind about you. Thinking before He came and fell on your dirty neck that He would only receive you as a repentant-from-your-sins hireling to work for His favor. But discovering through His astonishingly gracious approach to you, by the kisses you can still feel on your dirty neck, by the robe and the ring and sandals over your dirty body, that He only bestows His favor on you if you don’t work for it.

If Jesus had portrayed God in the same way the preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” do, He would have had the father stay put instead of running eagerly to meet the son. And the father’s arms would have been crossed instead of open. And there would be a scowl on his face instead of a radiant smile. The same scowl they keep assuring you that God has on His face toward sinners right now.

And the father would have warily listened to the son, with a great reluctance to believe anything that one who had done so much wrong would say. And instead of unashamedly proclaiming his own love for him by falling on his dirty neck, he would have loudly proclaimed his anger over the fact that the boy still had any dirt on his neck at all. Just like the preachers of repentance from sins loudly proclaim God’s present anger over all the present sins of sinners.

They tell this story as if the father was pretty upset about his son’s sins. And to hear them tell it, the son shouldn’t even have thought about coming home unless he could have convinced the father that all of his sins had been left far behind him, way back there in the pigpen.

But here’s the confusion that actually lies underneath all that kind of thinking: the preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” think that all of those “pigpen” sins of the flesh are the very worst kind. That those are the ones from which God always calls a man to change his mind and his behavior. They always imagine that the sins of the flesh are the really big sins.

But in a universe of difference away from the way they think, God thinks the big sin is the one that the prodigal was bringing with him after he left pigpen: the “will-trade-my-works-for-righteousness” sin.

The pre-pigpen sins are the publican’s sins of the flesh.

The post-pigpen sins are the Pharisee’s sins of the spirit.

In an utter contradiction to what you’ve been told, Jesus has no trouble at all with the sins of the publicans – but the sins of the Pharisees will kill Him.

Let me ask you this: who do you think crucified Jesus?

Was it the publican? The harlot? The thief or the murderer? Was it the adulterer? The pornographer? The homosexual? The abortionist?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no.

None of the above.

It was the self-righteous sinner. Not the unrighteous sinner.

Sinners never bother Jesus. He’s actually very excited about their company. He wants to sit down with them in a very intimate way. And actually eat with them. And talk with them. And look them right in the eye and communicate the love of His Father to them in every way that He can.

And if you think He doesn’t feel that way, it’s only because you think you’re not one of those dirty sinners.

And if you think you’re not one of those dirty sinners, that’s the very thing that makes you self-righteous.

And if you’re self-righteous, it’s you, not the dirty sinners, who are holding the hammer and nails.

“But what,” you may ask the father of the prodigal, “will you do with all the ‘sins’ of this wayward son?”

“Well, first of all,” the father would answer, “we’ll just cover them up.

“We’ll put the robe and the ring and the shoes right over the dirt.”

Because agape, “the love of God,” shall cover the multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

If there is no multitude of sins, there’s no need for the love of God to cover them.

“And second,” says the father, “we’ll have a party. One like you’ve never seen before. And we’ll invite everybody. We’ll even invite the very angels of heaven. The angels are always ready for a party like this one.”

“And how long will the party last, father?” you may ask.

“The party will continue as long it takes for the guest of honor to be convinced that we’re celebrating not because he’s changed, but because we always loved him even when he wasn’t changed.

“And the party will continue until he knows that we loved him when he was still dead in trespasses and sin. That way he’ll never fall into that terrible trap that others do, thinking that we love him because he changed.”

“But what of the dirt?” you might inquire.

And the smiling father would answer, “After the party, we’ll wash off the pig.”

Being loved while you are still dead in sins, and being found while you are still dead in sins, and being quickened while you are still dead in sins, and acknowledging that it’s all and only because God loved you just like you were before you repented of your sins – while you were still dead in those sins – that, and that alone, is real repentance.

Do you not understand? If the condition on which God receives you is your repentance from sins, you can never be sure that He will continue to receive you if you ever find another sin in yourself.

And that’s where I find most people today. With most people that I talk to, I find that God never even got a chance to receive a real sinner. They only showed up as a repentant sinner. They showed up cleaned, washed, scrubbed as shiny as they could get by their own “repentance.” They had been told that God rejects real sinners. And when they finally do get real, and discover that they still have sins, they either become a lying sin-hiding hypocrite of a Pharisee, or they simply leave, believing that God rejects them now because they’re really still a sinner.

But here’s the truth of it: you never found God. You weren’t even looking for God. You were looking for a job. You were looking for bread. “Will trade work for benefits.” That was your only scheme. It was all about you. It was never about Him. “Save me. Bless me. Heal me. Help me.”

There is none that seeketh after Him. That includes you.

But on the other hand, He did come seeking after you. He didn’t want your bread. Or your blessings. Or your healing or your help. And He sure as heck didn’t want your repentance from your sins. He cut you off right in mid-sentence of your little well-rehearsed will-trade-works-for-food repentance speech. You didn’t even need to convince Him. He was already convinced before He got there. He didn’t need to change His mind about you. He was just waiting for you to change your mind about Him.

You wanted what He had. But He just wanted you. Dirt and all.

Listen carefully: you thought your sins had separated you from Him. He thought your separation was the sin.

How was God, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself? Was it by imputing their trespasses unto them or by not imputing their trespasses unto them?

How is it that God was in Christ not imputing their trespasses, but now in the Church, He is imputing their trespasses to them? In Christ He was reconciling the world even with their trespasses. How is it that He is now, in the Church, rejecting the world because of those same trespasses?

Has He committed unto us the same word of reconciliation, or a different word? The word of “repentance from sins before He will receive you” is a word not of reconciliation, but of rejection.

How is it that the father said nothing to his sinful son about his sins and yet that’s all you want to talk about to a sinful world?

How is it that you preach, in His name, to the very world that He came not to condemn because of their sins, a message that says He will talk to them about nothing else until He first talks to them about their sins?

The law condemns. And that’s good. God does not. And that’s better.

In this process of reconciliation that began in Christ when the world was still dead in trespasses and sins, who do you think is really finding whom?

Do the dead find the living or do the living find the dead?

If ‘he’ lose one of them, said Jesus. Who lost whom? To hear the shepherd tell it, the sheep didn’t lose the shepherd. The shepherd lost the sheep.

Until ‘he’ find it, said Jesus. And who finds whom? To hear the shepherd tell it, the sheep didn’t find the shepherd. The shepherd found the sheep.

If ‘she’ lose one piece, said Jesus. Who lost whom? To hear the woman tell it, the coin didn’t lose the woman. The woman lost the coin.

Till ‘she’ find it, said Jesus. And who found whom? To hear the woman tell it, the coin didn’t find the woman. The woman found the coin.

And do you think in the parable about the lost son that Jesus suddenly reverses that order and has the son finding the father? Although it may be hard for you to understand, to hear the father tell it, the son didn’t lose the father. The father lost the son. And likewise, to hear the father tell it, the son doesn’t find the father, the father finds the son.

And here is exactly why that must be true:

How could you have possibly lost the Father? Before Jesus came and told you for the very first time ever, you didn’t even know that there was a Father.

You only knew that there was a God. But “Gods” don’t come looking for sons.

Only Fathers come looking for sons.

Who came to seek whom? There is none that seeketh after Him. Sent by the Father Himself, Jesus comes to seek the lost.

The father found the son. And found is the operative word here:

Real repentance is my change of mind about being found.

Not my change of mind about being lost.

“Repentance from sins before forgiveness” seems to think that it’s a revelation from the Holy Spirit that you’re dirty. But that revelation is from the law, not the Spirit. The revelation from the Spirit is how the Father feels about you in spite of the dirt. And that’s where the real “change of mind” occurs.

I change my mind about God, only after I see that He never changed His mind about me. Not even when I was lost in my sins.

We love him, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). That is repentance.

The apostle Paul echoes those words, “that I may be found:”

My own righteousness is by the law. And the law demands repentance from sins in order to be reconciled to it. But Paul categorically rejects that kind of repentance. To be found, not having my own rightness which is of the law, but to be found robed only in His rightness, given to me as a gracious gift from my Father, while I am still the dirty and sinful prodigal.

That is the only repentance to which God ever calls the sinner.

Back at the house, the party is in full swing when the elder brother comes from the field. He hears the music and dancing and inquires of the servants what’s going on inside. When he finds out his brother has returned and his father has thrown him a party, he is angry. The father comes out and entreats him to come in.

And here’s what the older brother, who represents the Pharisees, says in effect: “I never disobeyed you even once in all these years, and yet you never even gave me even a skinny goat to celebrate with. But when your other son comes back, the one who wasted all your money on harlots, the sinfully sinful sinner, you kill the fatted calf for him. And that’s not fair.”

And the father says to the son, “Everything I have is yours.”

“Here’s the problem with that,” replies the angry son to the father in effect: “You’re giving to my worthless, sinful, harlot-loving brother, for nothing at all, the very same thing that I’ve already earned from you with all my good works.

“And I’m not coming in to your party. I’ll never come in to your party. I don’t even want to breathe the same air as that freeloader. If you’re going to give it to him because of your grace, and not to me because of my works, I’ll pass on your offer altogether. You and your other son, the sinful one, can just keep your ‘gift.’ I’ll pass!”

The very thought of grace angers the self-righteous. To the self-made righteous, grace seems to be a most unjust idea. If you work hard for something, why should those who work not at all receive the same reward as you? That’s not fair. And consequently, the self-righteous are continually angry with sinners. And that’s the very reason the self-righteous always interpret this parable from Jesus as God’s demand for repentance from sins.

The God that they preach, they are happy to say, is very angry with sinners. Just like they are on His behalf. The Old Contract, with Moses on the mountain, with the thick dark clouds and the lightening and the thundered commandments, suits their view of God perfectly.

But this picture that Jesus paints, of a father who falls violently and passionately on the dirty neck of the sinful son, kissing him over and over again, is, in their way of thinking, revolting. It is utterly preposterous. God is nothing like that, they would insist. The very idea that God would give away His love for free to the obviously undeserving is an utter revulsion to their own righteous sensibilities.

Jesus described this kind as those that trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despise others.

Listen carefully: those who trust in themselves that they are righteous always despise others. That is their very identifying mark. That’s how you can spot them. Every time. Despising sinners is their highest calling and their greatest joy. It is the very well-deserved badge of their own hard-worked-for and hard-earned righteousness.

In their eyes, it is not only the right of the elder brother to despise the sinful younger brother, it is his righteous duty before God to do so. In their minds, it is the righteous indignation of God Himself against sin that they feel whenever they behold the sins of the wicked around them.

Like the Pharisee in the temple praying, all of their own wonderful goodnesses are joyously magnified when compared to all the terrible badnesses of the wretched publicans and sinners around them.

And mark this well: whenever you find someone who despises sinners, you may know without question that they always trust in themselves that they are righteous. Always. Even if they deny it, and especially if they deny it. The one always marks the presence of the other. These two go hand in hand, everywhere together.

Whoever trusts in himself that he is righteous always despises others. And whoever despises others always trust in himself that he is righteous. They are the two sides of the one and same coin. One is the root, the other, the fruit. The presence of either proves that the other exists, even if, for social convention or the approval of men, it is well hidden and unseen.

But don’t sell them short. For those who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others, their thankfulness to God that they are not as other men are is deeply sincere and heartfelt.

They despise the notion that God would lavish His love on the so obviously undeserving. And like the elder son, they would be more than a little angry with God if they thought that He failed to recognize just how hard they have worked for Him and just how different they are from all the sinners around them.

They are very keen that God should visit his judgment on this sinful world and its abundance of sinfully sinning sinners. They are sure His hand of calamity for the insufferable sinners around them can barely be restrained. And they can hardly wait for God’s commendation of their righteous behavior on judgment day. On that day, they are sure they will shine. They are not sinners. And God is justly proud of all their hard work. And so are they. Of that much, they are certain.

But unfortunately for the elder son, and for the Pharisee, and for the preachers of repentance from sins before forgiveness, the fatted calf and the joyful celebration with the father and access to all that the father has will only be obtained by grace. Or it won’t be obtained at all.

The parable of the prodigal son for the first time ever lays bare the astonishing truth that only sinners ever receive all that the Savior has for them. Because they are willing to receive it by grace and not by works. The already-righteous would love to receive it as well. Just not by grace. Never by grace.

If they receive anything by grace, it would mean, no matter how hard they had worked, no matter how different they had made themselves by their own sweaty efforts, that in God’s eyes, they would be deemed no better than the worst of the worst of the sinners. And for the already-righteous, that is an utterly intolerable thought.

“Say anything you want to about me,” says the older brother, “but never, never say I’m like your other son. Don’t even mention him and me in the same breath. Unlike him, I have always kept the rules. I have gotten my righteousness the old-fashioned way. By my repentance from sins, I have earned it!”

Imagine if it had been the older brother instead of the father who had met the prodigal when he was yet a long way off. He would have had quite a different message for that harlot-loving sinner. For that homosexual. For that pornographer. For that child molester. For that terrorist.

He would have assured his younger brother that his father was unimaginably angry with him for his sins. And that his father had thought many times to come and utterly destroy him right there in the pigpen of sins. And that his father would never receive him unless he stopped at the local Holiday Inn to ‘forsake’ all his dirt before he met him.

And he would have assured him that, without a doubt, what his father had always really wanted instead of a “sinful harlot-loving son like you” was an “obedient rules-keeping son like me.”

“Repentance from sins before God will receive the sinner” is the elder brother’s kind of theology. The “fall violently on the dirty neck of the sinner and kiss him over and over again before he even says a single word” is the father’s kind of theology.

Your Heavenly Father has dirt on His face from kissing all those dirty sinners that He has received before they were clean. And here is His question for you:

Do you have any dirt on your face from kissing dirty sinners in his stead?

He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. The word of reconciliation is the “come home, dirt and all” word. It’s the “not imputing their trespasses unto them” word.

But if you don’t have dirt on your face from kissing dirty sinners on His behalf, don’t worry about it. You’ll still have some dirt on your face when you stand before God on judgment day. And it’ll still be the dirt from a pigpen. Only then, it’ll be your pigpen. But unfortunately, none of your dirt will be on His face. Yours, sadly, will only be on your own.

Repent of your righteousness first. We’ll talk about repenting of your sins later.

After the party, we’ll wash off the pig.

And the publicans and sinners rejoiced that day to hear Jesus tell the parable.

And the already-righteous, repentance-from-sins-before-forgiveness Pharisees went away angry. And plotted together how they might crucify Him for it.