The Handmaiden to Repentance (Examination and its Goals)

Repentance

    Repentance must be like breathing to the Christian --- it is a matter of living. But is repentance supposed to feel difficult? Is it supposed to feel like a summer sun beating down on the head --- constantly, oppressively, hatefully? If we feel that way we only show that we have yet more sin to kill, because it is necessary to Christian life. In our lives repentance must occupy a permanent place. We affirm that when we say 'forgive us our sins'  from the Lord's Prayer --- it occupies a place in the everyday words of Christian prayer (and as Packer says, "the Christian is wisest and sanest when he prays"). It is stretching before working out -  to avoid repentance only hurts us.

The Handmaiden to Repentance

    To be repentant everyday leads to a greater awareness that we are sinners. However, for consistent repentance there must be a consistent tendency of examination in every Christian. Examination is the handmaiden to repentance. We examine until we see our sin --- then we repent. We examine to get away from the natural tendency of complacency, the complacency that destroys the foolishness that is natural to us (Prov 1:32). But I ask, "Can there be complacency in repentance?"

    "I am satisfied with my repentance" --- that sounds odd. Yet we can become slothful if we do not consistently press toward greater recognition of the seriousness of sin, particularly the seriousness of our sin (logs before specks; cf. Matt 7:4). Complacency is thinking that we are standing firm (1 Cor 10:12), to think more highly of ourselves (Rom 12:3) or to think we are something when we are nothing (Gal 6:3). Complacent people are sick people. 

The Purpose of Examination

    So what is the role of examining in repentance? Is it only to see our sin and repent or is there some greater purpose? I think there is more to it. It protects oneself from a false sense of assurance. The unexamined person is someone accepting a prize they haven't earned. The point of 2 Cor 13:5 ("Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves") is to test foundations. We tend to think we are safe and spiritually secure based on false criteria, but our foundations are constantly under the weather and winds of our circumstances. Therefore we must continue to revisit our foundations. So there are two ends: examination for the sake of a repentant attitude and avoiding false assurance. Examination must be based on Scriptural categories, otherwise one arrives at false assurance as surely as those who worship idols arrive at death (Ps 115:8). 

Two Asides   

NOTE: if my examination yields pride, I am doing something wrong; if you watch the news and think that everything is fine you probably aren't properly watching it. 

NOTE: is not rebuke for the purpose of getting someone to re-examine a crime scene in their life that they believe is 'case closed'? And the hearts of all people are every changing crime scenes, new events and felonies daily committed. 

False Criteria, False Assurance

    Colossians speaks of regulations which look, feel and smell winsome but, like a dream, are insubstantial. What does false criteria give birth to? It can give birth to an excessive sense of self and the self's experience ("such a person goes into great detail about what they have seen" - Col 2:18b). It can also give birth to a lack of substantial godliness ("[this wisdom is] lacking any value in restraining sensual indulgence" - Col 2:23). It can and it will, because it is against the grain of God's way. By contrast, to see Christ (Col 3:1-3) makes us see sin, particularly our sin (Col 3:4ff). So if examination if done at all it leads away from complacency and away from false assurance. If done well it leads towards repentance and a greater recognition of our sin. 

The Third Goal

    What then shall we say is the goal of examination? Is it simply to be more and more overwhelmed by our sin, hunched over by the escalating weight upon our backs? No, not that; that is only appealing to the masochistic Christian (of which we can all be - there is a false assurance in that Christian who daily beats themselves up and feels better for it). I think an additional goal is true assurance, but this assurance arrives to us by its own path, its own method. When I repent I hope for forgiveness as a man declaring bankruptcy 'sues for mercy.' What we find at the end of examination is our sin, leading to repentance, and that results in the ever-wondrous surprise of pardon. To see the depths of sin more clearly is then to see more clearly the brilliance of that love which beckons us "Come forward!" for there is no throne of judgment for those who come by Jesus (we approach the throne of grace - Heb 4:16). He gives eternal forgiveness and he is the Renewer of all Hearts who come to him - better, he gives us new hearts if we ask. 

Double Humiliation

    This pathway of true pardon is approached, strangely (and yet not strangely), by a double humiliation, both of which occur at the point of examination. On one hand, we reckon ourselves properly, as those who are destitute of good (apart from what God himself is making in us). We see that we are short of the mark of perfection - worse, we return good for evil. We sin actively by bitterness in word, self-seeking in act, and the pitch-black darkness of our thoughts. More, when do we love God "with all heart, soul and mind" (Matt 22:37-40)? This biblical criteria levels all our pride; we are silenced by it and held as accountable to God (Rom 3:19). We are found as people at a store without the money to pay for what we have taken. This is the first humiliation. 

    The second humbling is by kindness. Are you in continual shock that God continues to love us, we who are wayward and foolish and unloving and stubborn and rebellious --- all this although the Holy Spirit lives in us? Yet God in Christ always welcomes us despite our sin, loves us, and does not let us leave without knowing that we are certainly "beloved" and cared for. And his love is expressed perfectly in the cross (Rom 5:8). He knew us then and loved us; he knows us now and still loves us. So then we are like miners, digging down deep into our heart's deep darkness, in the dirt, the grime, choking and revolted. But there, at the bottom, in the soot of our humbling, behold, there is the stunning, solid, golden assurance we seek, that treasure without price - Christ. This is the second humiliation, and it is a happy one.

Conclusion

    "What qualifies a soul for [God's purifying work] is not innocence but repentance. It is the difference between an impenitent and a penitent sinner" (Sayers, Purgatory, VIII, footnotes). Better said, the Christian is "pardoned yet penitent" (William Grimshaw). Penitence is arrived at by a consideration of ourselves, according to our sin, and then the daily repentance, and consequently the recurrent joy of seeing Jesus - the more deeply we see our sin, the more deeply we see Christ. However, we wade through a daily tide of humbling to reach this joy. So brave the tide.

Four applications:

1) Think more clearly on sin, and particularly your sin (cf. Ps 106 for a great mediation on this). Our hearts are natural inquisitors --- if you must be inquisitor, be one to yourself.

2) Be "always arriving" to this realization, never thinking of getting away from the "wretched man that I am" that Paul says, for it leads to "thanks be to God who gives the victory through Jesus Christ. No war, no victory; no race, no crown; no cross, no empty tomb (Rom 7:25). 

3) It is an easy point, but hard in practice: be persistent in righteous living. Christian life, it is said somewhere, is a marathon, not a sprint. As I have learned, from as unlikely man as Albert Camus, "it is merely a matter of persistence" (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 29, 39). The principle of walking is true, whether one walks toward heaven or hell --- it is a matter of persistence. God keep us on the road to life and walking on it, not stopping to sight see. Persist in this good thing and God will bless you. "In the path of righteousness of life, and in its pathway there is no death" (Prov 12:28). 

4) "One look at sin, ten looks at Christ" (McCheyne). The Bible says much of repentance; it says more on Christ's love. Perhaps better said, all passages on repentance will lead to the love of Christ. Don't stop halfway (cf. Ps 126:4-6). The Devil loves the deception of false assurance; he equally loves the despair of incomplete examination. We start looking at ourselves, but we don't end by looking at ourselves - we end with looking to Jesus. Be like the Psalmist, and be satisfied with seeing his likeness (Ps 16:15). 

Enjoy seeing Jesus - he always enjoys seeing you.

At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been pleasant to me (Jer 31:26)