The Necessity of True Repentance

By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, D.D.*

BY the necessity of repentance, is meant the need that a sinner has of it, as that which is indispensably requisite for him. A sinner must either repent or perish. He acts most unjustly, as well as unreasonably, if he continue impenitent. Besides, he is under infinite obligations to repent. Now true repentance is necessary, or indispensably requisite, chiefly on the following accounts:

1. It is necessary, because the Lord in his holy law, hath peremptorily required it. It is one of the duties, required in the first commandment of the moral law.† It is more expressly commanded, both in the Old Testament, and in the New. “Thus saith the Lord God, Repent and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (Ezek. xiv. 6). God “now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts, xvii. 30). True repentance then is necessary, for it is peremptorily commanded by the Lord. It is a duty, from the performance of which, no individual can plead an exemption; an exercise, which on no account whatever, can be dispensed with. All are commanded to repent, and therefore all are bound, in obedience to the Divine command, to exercise true repentance. This high command was often repeated, not only by the ancient Prophets and John the Baptist, but by our Lord Jesus Himself and His Apostles.

2. True repentance is indispensably requisite, because all have sinned. All men are sinners, and therefore all need repentance.

*Dr. Colquhoun was an eminent minister of the Gospel. He was minister at Leith and was the author of many books highly appreciated by the Lord’s people. We have already given extracts from his work, View of Evangelical Repentance.—See Magazine, xxxv. 149, 187, 256, 299, 340; xxxvi. 212.

†In the Larger Catechism of our Church, we are taught that, ‘Believing and trusting’ in God, ‘being careful in all things to please him, and sorrowful when in any thing He is offended,’ are among ‘the duties required in the first commandment;’ and that ‘unbelief, distrust,—incorrigibleness,—and hardness of heart,’ or impenitence, (according to Romans ii. 5. there quoted), are among ‘the sins forbidden’ in it. Larger Catechism, Quest. 104, 105.

A sinner cannot otherwise be saved from the love, and power, and practice of sin, than by being enabled to repent of sin. He cannot serve the Lord acceptably, except he turn from all iniquity to Him. Nor can he have communion with Him, but in proportion to the degree of his repentance, for having sinned against Him. The law as a covenant of works, condemns every sinner who is under it; and consequently it can justify none, who has but in a single instance transgressed it. The unnumbered multitude of a sinner’s transgressions, though it cannot add to the certainty, yet will add to the greatness, of his condemnation, and should therefore add to the depth of his repentance. Could a man be found, who had but in a single instance, failed of yielding perfect obedience, even such a man would need repentance. He could not be saved without it. How necessary, then, is repentance for that sinner, whose iniquities are more in number, than the sand on the sea-shore!

1. To repent of sin is needful, because all the children of Adam, have destroyed themselves by sin.—“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself” (Hos. xiii. 9). “Return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity” (Hos. xiv. 1). The dreadful curse of the violated law, is denounced against the impenitent sinner. “The wrath of God abideth on him.” Death in all its extent closely pursues him. Everlasting destruction awaits him. His judgment lingereth not, and his damnation slumbereth not—” (II. Pet. ii. 3). That great and terrible God, whom he has, times and ways without number, insulted, is at once the witness, the judge, and the avenger, of all his crimes. The sinner cannot hide so much as one of his transgressions, from God’s omniscient eye. He cannot resist His infinite power, nor endure His fiery indignation. Can his hands be strong, or can his heart endure, when this most tremendous sentence shall sound in his ears, Go, “ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?” These are the words of Him who hath said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Now except the sinner repent, he shall inevitably and eternally perish, under the endless execution of

that unspeakably dreadful sentence. After his hard and impenitent heart, he treasures up unto himself, wrath against the day of wrath” (Roms. ii. 5). Ah! secure sinner, you have departed far from the Lord; your soul is pledged, that you will return to Him by repentance. But if you return not, your precious pledge is lost,—irrecoverably lost. To this point, the all important matter is brought;—Repent, or perish for ever. How shall you be able to grapple, through all eternity, with almighty vengeance, with the overwhelming wrath, not only of God, but of the Lamb? (Is. xxxiii. 14). This gracious and compassionate call, is now addressed to you, “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Ezek. xviii. 30).

1. True repentance is necessary, because God has pledged His faithfulness, that He will execute the tremendous sentence of His violated law, upon all who live and die impenitent.—”Except ye repent,” says the Lord Jesus, “Ye shall all perish.” Without evangelical repentance, salvation is impossible; damnation is inevitable. “God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, He will whet his sword; He hath bent His bow and made it ready” (Ps. vii. 11, 12; ix. 17). “Hath He said and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” (Numbs. xxiii. 19). If the sinner, then, do not turn from his sins by sincere repentance, God has pledged His faithfulness that he shall perish. Either his iniquities or his soul must go. To turn to the Lord, or to burn in the fire of His fierce indignation, is the awful alternative. Happy should the impenitent sinner be, if his transgressions would part from him at the grave; but, they shall lie down with him in the dust (Job, xx. 11): or if they should lie down with him there, and would never rise again; but God has said That, he “shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing” (Eccles. xii. 14). Nothing can be hid from the omniscient Judge. Nor is he capable of forgetting the least insult, that ever the impenitent sinner offered to his glorious majesty. All are open and go before to judgment. As God is true and cannot lie, the finally

impenitent sinner shall spend all eternity, in “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” “The smoke of his torment, shall ascend up for ever and ever.” If there is any meaning in words; if any idea of eternal torments, can be conveyed by human language; then, the wicked “shall go away into everlasting punishment” (Matt. xxv. 46). “Consider this, ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Ps. l. 22).

1. To repent of sin is indispensably requisite, because God’s determination to execute upon impenitent sinners, the awful sentence of his violated law, is highly just and reasonable.—Every sin, because it is committed against the infinite Majesty of heaven, is objectively an infinite evil. But an infinite moral evil, justly deserves an infinite natural evil, or in other words, an infinite punishment. And seeing a finite creature, is incapable of suffering an infinite punishment, except in an infinite, or which is the same, an eternal duration; it is just, it is reasonable, that the punishment of the finally impenitent, should be eternal! God’s resolution, then, to execute this most dreadful punishment upon such a sinner, is most equitable and reasonable. Besides, every sinner who persists in impenitence, excuses himself, and by excusing himself, he condemns God. “Wilt thou,” said the Lord to Job, “disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?” (Job. xl. 8). Why does the sinner transgress the law of God, if he does not account it too strict? Does he say that he has not transgressed it deliberately, but only through inadvertence? Then why does he not repent? His vindication of his continuance in sin, implies at once, an unjust censure of the law of God, as incompatible with his happiness, and an injurious censure of the justice of God, in condemning sinners to eternal punishment. Now, should the Lord save the sinner, who thus persists in condemning him, he would seem to plead guilty to the charge. Every hope which a sinner cherishes, of salvation in impenitence, proceeds on the blasphemous supposition, that God, in order to favour an impenitent rebel, will consent to his own dishonour. Except a sinner, then, in the

exercise of true repentance, be disposed from his heart to say with Daniel, “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee; but unto me confusion of face, because I have sinned against thee” (Dan. ix. 7); he must become a sacrifice to the injured honour of the law, and the justice of God. Nothing can be more equitable, nothing more reasonable.

(To be continued).