"Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation" (2 Corinthians 7:10). As I read this passage, I find myself examining my own ministry and asking, "Have I cut short the gospel Jesus preached, the gospel of repentance? Have I essentially taken scissors to my Bible and removed the higher cost of following Christ? Have I lowered His standard by telling people to just believe and be saved?"
Have we cut short genuine conviction for sins? Have we jumped in and offered salvation to those who have not actually repented, who haven't sorrowed over their trespasses, who have sought faith so they could merely hide their lusts behind it?
We constantly hear exaggerations about the numbers of people who come to Jesus through various ministries. Christians report that scores of people were saved as they preached in prisons, schools, and other venues. They say, "Everybody in the place gave his heart to Jesus. When I finished preaching, they all came forward for salvation."
All too often, what actually happens is that everyone simply repeats a prayer. They merely pray what they're told to pray and many do not grasp what they're saying. Then most go back to their heathen ways!
Such people never experience a deep work of the Holy Spirit. As a result, they never repent, never sorrow over their sins—and never truly believe. Tragically, we have offered them something Jesus Himself never offered—salvation without repentance.
I believe the church has even taken the feeling out of conviction. Think about it—you hardly ever see tears on the cheeks of those who are being saved anymore. Of course, I know tears don't save anyone, but God made us all human, with very real feelings. And any hell-bound sinner who has been moved upon by the Holy Spirit naturally feels a profound sorrow over the ways he has grieved the Lord.
The apostle Peter felt this kind of godly sorrow when he denied knowing Jesus. Suddenly, he was flooded with the memory of what Jesus had told him: "Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept" (Mark 14:72).
In 2 Cor. 7, Paul is addressing the church and rejoicing that they (Christians) "were grieved into repenting" (7:9). This "godly grief" is not the repentance, but produces a repentance that leads to salvation (7:10). And the repentance this godly grief produces in the church is earnestness, an eagerness to clear themselves, and indignation and punishment (7:11). Paul is describing the church's reaction to a serious problem he had written to them about (7:8).
ReplyDeletePaul's former letter could have been one not included in the N.T., and about a problem we thus know nothing about. Or it could refer to his first letter to the Corinthians, and to a problem like that in 1 Cor. 5:1f. where a man (in the church) is living (in sexual immorality) with his father's wife (his step mother). And the church's response is arrogance (5:2) rather than mourning (godly grief). So Paul says the man should be removed from their church, to impress on him the seriousness of his sin, so that (if he then mourns and repents by stopping that sin) he might be saved in the final day (5:5). The church is itself in danger also due to its arrogance, which includes boasting (5:6). But this evil leaven will leaven the whole lump (church) if they continue to accept it and tolerate it (and even boast about it). So they must drive out this evil person (5:13). In 6:9 he asks them if they don't know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.
If this is the case (or even if it's some similar problem addressed by another letter), after Paul's letter the church has now begun to mourn and is not only full of godly grief, but has been led to repentance, to do something, to discipline the evil person. 2 Cor. 2:4-7 suggests the man himself repented and turned from his sin, so the church that punished him should now rejoice that he has repented unto salvation and should forgive him. Paul in 2 Cor. 7 is also rejoicing that the church itself has mourned and repented by taking earnest action against the man, so the whole lump (church) is not itself in danger of not inheriting the kingdom. And Paul is glad that the church has taken him seriously and has not thrown out his teaching for them.