Chapter 9: True and False Repentance Of this you will be just as conscious as you ever were of a change of views and feelings on any other subject. Now, can you say this? Do you know, that on this point there has been a change in you, and that old things are done away and all things have become new.
2. Where repentance is genuine, the disposition to repeat sin is gone.
If you have truly repented, you do not now love sin; you do not now abstain from it through fear, and to avoid punishment, but because you hate it. How is this with you? Do you know that your disposition to commit sin is gone? Look at the sins you used to practice when you were impenitent how do they appear to you? Do they look pleasant and would you really love to practice them again if you dared? If you do, if you have the disposition to sin left, you are only convicted. Your opinions of sin may be changed, but if the love of that sin remains, as your soul lives, you are still an impenitent sinner.
3. Genuine repentance worketh a reformation of conduct.
I take this idea to be chiefly intended in the text, where it says "Godly sorrow worketh repentance." Godly sorrow produces a reformation of conduct.
Otherwise it is a repetition of the same idea; or saying, that repentance produces repentance. Whereas, I suppose the apostle was speaking of such a change of mind as produces a change of conduct, ending in salvation. Now, let me ask you, are you really reformed? Have you forsaken your sins? Or, are you practicing them still? If so, you are still a sinner. However you may have changed your mind, if it has not wrought a change of conduct, an actual reformation, it is not godly repentance, or such as God approve.
4. Repentance, when true and genuine, leads to confession and restitution.
The thief has not repented while he keeps the money he stole. He may have conviction, but no repentance. If he had repentance, he would go and give back the money. If you have cheated any one, and do not restore what you have taken unjustly; or if you have injured any one, and do not set about rectifying the wrong you have done, as far as in you lies, you have not truly repented.
5. True repentance is a permanent change of character and conduct.
The text says it is repentance unto salvation, "not to be repented of." What else does the apostle mean by that expression but this, that true repentance is a change so deep and fundamental that the man never changes back again? People often quote it as if it read, repentance that does not need to be repented of. But that is not what he says. It is not to be repented of; or, in other words, repentance that will not be repented of so thorough, that there is no going back. The love of sin is truly abandoned. The individual who has truly repented, has so changed his views and feelings, that he will not change back again, or go back to the love of sin. Bear this in mind now, all of you, that the truly penitent sinner exercises feelings of which he never will repent. The text says it is "unto salvation." It goes right on, to the very rest of heaven. The very reason why it ends in salvation is, because it is such as will not be repented of.