Harmony With God (Part 2 of 3)

By Zane C. Hodges [1]

Zane Hodges earned his Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary where he then taught in the New Testament Literature and Exegesis department for 27 years. He currently is a pastor at Victor Street Bible Chapel and conducts an extensive writing ministry under Kerugma, Inc. His other publications include The Gospel Under Siege, Absolutely Free!, and Power to Make War. His email address is zane3@ix.netcom.com

The Self-Righteous Older Brother: Repentance In Luke 15:25-32

As we have seen in part one of this three-part series, Luke 15 is not at all about the repentance of unsaved people. On the contrary, the chapter is about the repentance and restoration of Christians who have wandered away from their Shepherd and His flock (15:4–7), from their place and role in the Christian church (15:8–10), and from fellowship with God their heavenly Father (15:11–24) [2]. The final section of Luke 15 furnishes us with a vital and instructive postscript, or addendum, to our Lord’s teaching on Christian repentance.

As the older brother of the prodigal son returns from his work in the field, he hears the sounds of the celebration inside the house. Upon inquiring, he is told their significance: Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf (15:27). The older son is far from pleased with this information about his father’s party for his younger brother. In fact, he was angry and would not go in (15:28). As his subsequent words make plain, he is not really angry with his brother, but with his father for giving him such a lavish welcome.

In short, he does not share the joy that his father feels on this occasion.

The older brother thus represents a type of Christian whose attitude toward a wayward Christian brother is far less charitable than is that of God, his heavenly Father. The successors of the older brother in this parable have been numerous in the history of the church. Let us look at this brother’s attitude more carefully.

The father of the angry brother is gracious enough to come out to talk to him, and his dad pleaded with him to join in the celebration (15:28). Although he might well have ordered his son into the party, that would have been foreign to the whole tenor of the occasion. God Himself, of course, has no intention of commanding us to feel joy for the restoration of a wayward Christian brother, since true joy must necessarily be spontaneous. Needless to say, such joy must always spring from the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

We Shouldn’t Overestimate Our Service

The complaint of the older brother is very instructive. He begins with an assertion of his own faithful service to his father by saying, Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time (15:29a). Clearly this brother is quite self-satisfied with the performance of his duties on the farm. No doubt he had worked for his father for a long time, but we may be permitted to doubt the full truth of his sweeping claim that he never … at any time had disobeyed his father. True, he had never left home as his brother had done, but to claim that he had never violated a commandment from his father was no doubt going too far.

Christians who have long served God run a serious risk of falling into the psychological and spiritual trap in which this older brother was caught. We may sweepingly survey our years of service as praiseworthy while conveniently forgetting the numerous failures, large and small, that have occurred over those years. It is even surprising how committed Christians can sometimes rise to high levels of indignation about the failures of others in the church when, in fact, perhaps years ago they themselves exhibited the same or similar failures. In their criticism of others, they may exhibit a lack of patience or compassion of the type they themselves once needed both from God and from their fellow believers.

The danger of becoming self-righteous about our Christian commitment is quite real and our memories often conveniently block out recollections that might seriously puncture our self-satisfied perspective. Indeed, we can sometimes even forget our present deficiencies and failures!

We Should Not Criticize Our Father’s Actions

This attitude is bad enough, but the older brother now goes further with what amounts to an accusation against his father. For now this self-righteous man declares: [I did all this] and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends (15:29b; underlining added). Like almost all self-satisfied people, this brother feels that his father has given him less than he deserves. Not only has the fatted calf never been killed for him, he has never even been given a young goat for a party!

In the same way, self-righteous Christians often feel aggrieved that God has not blessed or rewarded them more lavishly than He has. In fact, if there is some hardship in the self-righteous person’s life, he is likely to feel that he deserves “better than this” from the God whom [he thinks] he has served so well!

Such people entirely miss the spirit that our Lord Jesus Christ enjoined on His disciples when He said: So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10). Obviously this is a far cry from the older brother’s arrogant criticism of his father.

There is a kind of irony in the fact that the older brother does not express a desire to make merry with his father, but rather he wishes to do that with his friends (15:29). He is way out of touch with his father’s heart on this occasion and he does not think in terms of sharing his parent’s joy, but simply doing something with people of like mind with himself. This is a tragic outlook indeed!

Sadly, the self-righteous Christian is often very much at home in the company of other self-righteous people with whom he can spend time commiserating about the low estate of the church, the faults of other believers, etc. Were God Himself to walk in on such a gathering, it would “spoil the fun” since the spirit of the self-righteous critic is truly a great distance removed from the spirit of a loving heavenly Father who longs for the return of His wayward children.

We Should Heed Our Father’s Gentle Rebuke

The father’s rebuke of his angry older son is gentle but firm: Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours (15:31). “Have you forgotten your advantages?” the father is asking. “You enjoy my presence at all times, and you are also my heir.” With these simple words, the father delineates the sharp contrast between his older and younger sons.

The younger son had left his father’s presence for a long time, accumulating all the pain and suffering that his prodigal lifestyle had wrought. Moreover, he had squandered his inheritance since the money he had asked for and used was the portion of goods that falls to me (see 15:12). The inheritance of the older son was still fully intact. There was no need for him to feel resentment and jealousy simply because his father was having a celebration for his repentant son. The disadvantages of those wasted years were very real for the prodigal son. The older brother was far ahead of the game simply because he had stayed home.

There is no reason for believers to resent a straying Christian who returns to the fold. Such Christians have sustained real and tangible losses that obedient Christians do not experience. They have thrown away “treasures in heaven” which they could have been accumulating during their wayward years. Moreover they have lost the personal experience of the presence of God, for although He has always been with them, they have not been with Him in the sense of enjoying His fellowship and instruction.

The longer a Christian lives his life apart from God, the more telling all these losses become. The solemn fact remains that, even after repentance, we cannot turn back the clock and relive those wasted years. It is well for the obedient Christian to recall these facts, since no amount of rejoicing about a brother’s return can erase that brother’s losses.

The father’s final words are: It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found (15:32). The words it was right translate a Greek verb that could also be rendered, “it was necessary.” The father is arguing that in the very nature of the situation joy is fully appropriate. “For your brother,” says the father, was as good as dead to you; you had lost him. But now your brother is alive and found—that is, he is once again a part of your experience. That this is an appeal to brotherly affection hardly needs to be said.

In fact, in referring to his brother, the older boy had called him this son of yours! And he had roundly condemned him because he had devoured your livelihood with harlots (v 30; underlining added). But how did he know for sure about the harlots? He had not even talked to his brother yet! His spirit towards this erring brother is harshly judgmental. He thinks the very worst of him and is utterly lacking in brotherly affection. He will not even call him “my brother”! His father’s words, your brother, gently remind him of this basic fact.

What the older brother sadly lacked was the perfectly natural feeling of joy that should come—not simply from recovering a son—but from recovering a brother as well. In the parable itself, this was in fact his only brother. How happy he should have been to see this brother walk back into his life, just as his father was so happy to see his son walk back into his. Joy was, after all, the truly natural reaction for both of them to such an event as this!

We Should Share Our Father’s Joy

The apostle John has reminded us that this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also (1 John 4:21). And he goes on immediately to say: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him (5:1). If a Christian truly loves his heavenly Father, he will also love his Christian brother, whom he recognizes as such—not by his obedient life—but by his faith in Christ for eternal life.

If love for the divine Begetter and His begotten child exist in the believer’s heart, he will naturally experience joy when a wayward brother returns to God’s flock. And in experiencing that joy he will “enter into” the very joy of God Himself. Or in other words, he will join the party!

The story of the self-righteous brother of the prodigal son carries a salutary reminder. Even those who remain in the Christian fellowship can get so out of touch with God’s heart that they miss God’s “feast of joy” when a backslider returns to the fold. But the same gracious Father who welcomes his prodigal sons and daughters home, also urges his self-righteous children to soften their hearts and join in the celebration.

Unless You Repent: Repentance in Luke 13:1-5

As we have seen in our previous sections, biblical repentance is not a condition for eternal salvation. Instead it addresses the need that sinners have (whether saved or unsaved) to repair their relationship to God in order to prevent, or to terminate, His temporal judgment on their sins.

The prodigal son, for example, found himself in dire straits in the far country (Luke 15:14–16), and his miserable condition prompted his repentance which led to his reunion with his father (15:17–21). He is a classic example of a Christian backslider who responds to the discipline of God in his life and returns to fellowship with his heavenly Father.

Repentance and the Unsaved

But the call to repentance can also be addressed to an unsaved audience who is either experiencing, or about to experience, the temporal judgment of God upon their sins. Perhaps the classic biblical example of this is the case of Nineveh, recorded in the book of Jonah. So far as the statements of that book are concerned, the issue was God’s temporal judgment: Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown (Jonah 3:4).

Nineveh’s repentance was impressive, to say the least, and involved everyone in the city, since this was commanded by the king and his nobles (3:7ff). There is not a word in the book of Jonah about the eternal salvation of the Ninevites,still less is there any suggestion that God’s favor to them on this occasion was based on His free grace. On the contrary, the book of Jonah declares unmistakably: Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it (3:10, underlining added).
None of this is contradicted, of course, by the statement of Jonah 3:5 that, The Ninevites believed God. As the context shows, they were believing the divine message proclaimed by Jonah: Yet forty days and Ninevah shall be overthrown (3:4).

When we come to the New Testament we discover that the doctrine of repentance is no different there than in the Old Testament. In fact, both the preaching of John the Baptist and of our Lord Himself takes the Old Testament doctrine for granted. Only when we realize this simple, but obvious, fact can we read a number of New Testament passages with clarity and precision.

The Warning of Luke 13:1–5

We find such a passage in Luke 13:1–5. On the occasion described there, the Lord Jesus is informed (though of course He already knew) about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices (13:1). The Roman governor had evidently executed certain persons from Galilee, quite possibly in the Temple itself where they had come to offer sacrifices to God. A ruthless act of this kind is completely consistent with the known character of this infamous Roman official.

Our Lord’s response to this is striking. So far from expressing outrage at the governor’s action, He takes it for granted that the disaster had occurred as a result of the sinfulness of those who had been killed. His words are a transparent appeal to all those listening to him to turn from their sins to God, for He says, Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish (13:2–3, underlining added).

This statement by our Lord is immediately followed by another statement, which also refers to a temporal calamity. Jesus says, Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt at Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish (13:4–5, underlining added). Here too there is an evident appeal to turn from sin to God in order to avoid His temporal judgment.

We say that this is evident, but the point is sometimes overlooked. The word perish, used in 13:3 and 5, has sometimes suggested to readers a reference to eternal judgment (as, e.g., in John 3:16). But the Greek word employed here (apollumi) could mean simply “to die” in normal Greek usage and was in fact freely used in the language in that sense. The context of our Lord’s statements here shows plainly that this is how He was using it on this occasion. The Galileans and the men on whom the tower of Siloam had fallen had all died. Unless the audience repented, they too faced the prospect of physical death as judgment.

Moreover, the cases cited by Jesus suggest a calamitous death.

The Tragedy of 66-70 AD

There is no reason to doubt that the Lord refers here to the impending tragedy for the nation which came to pass in the Jewish war with Rome in the years AD 66–70. Pilate’s brutality to the Galileans was but a faint “foretaste” of the thousands upon thousands of deaths that this war would bring. Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, places the number who died at 1,100,000, primarily Jews. [3]

The collapse of the tower of Siloam was likewise a mere shadow of the destruction that awaited the city of Jerusalem in that war. Our Lord and Savior stands here as a prophet greater than Jonah who foretells the divine wrath which must fall unless Israel repents! His words focus on temporal judgment!

Repentance Can Prepare for Faith

To be sure, a repentant attitude on the part of Israel could prepare them to exercise faith in Christ for eternal life. This had indeed been the goal of John the Baptist’s preaching, just as Paul states in Acts: John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus (Acts 19:4). But repentance itself was related to the need of the nation to avoid the calamities of AD 66–70 toward which its sinfulness was driving it.

It follows from what we are saying that repentance from sin can be a useful step in a sinner’s life that can prepare him for eternal salvation. If the repentance toward God is genuine, then the heart is potentially open and responsive to a message of grace. In this sense, John’s ministry was one of preparation for faith in Christ, precisely as Paul says it was.

Other Preparations for Faith

But it is equally true that other things may prepare us to be receptive to grace as well. In John 4, which does not refer at all to repentance, it was the frustrating emptiness of the Samaritan woman’s pursuit of satisfaction that made her a ready candidate for the water of life. In John 9, it was the blind man’s release from his lifelong disability that prepared his heart for faith in Christ. Here too there is no mention of repentance.

God has many ways of bringing men to Himself. Deep soul-thirst, or a sense of gratitude for some mercy of God, or repentance from sin are three obvious ways in which men are drawn to faith in Christ for eternal life. But none of these “routes” to faith should be mistaken for a “condition” for eternal life. Faith itself remains the one and only condition for that absolutely free gift.

Ready to Believe

It is often overlooked that the Philippian jailer was prepared for the saving message of Paul by the wonderful mercy of God in keeping all the prisoners in the jail and thereby preventing him from taking his own life. Paul has no need to speak to this man about repentance, for his question (What must I do to be saved?) shows he is ready to believe (see Acts 16:27–31).

And when a man or woman is ready to hear the message of grace—no matter how God has worked to prepare them for that—then there is no need to speak to him or her at that point about repentance. Instead one may simply say, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31)!

Repentance and the Day of the Lord: 2 Peter 3:9

So far we have reached two fundamental conclusions about repentance. These are: (1) that repentance is not in any way a condition for eternal salvation; and (2) repentance is the decision to turn from sin to avoid, or bring to an end, God’s temporal judgment. All the statements about repentance by the inspired writers of Scripture are consistent with these two basic principles, whether or not the repenting party or parties are saved or unsaved.

With this in mind, we can get a fresh perspective on a famous text related to the consummation of this age.

The Devastating Tribulation

In 2 Peter 3, the apostle addresses the issue of the delay of our Lord’s Second Advent. He notes that scoffers will come in the last days who make light of the Second Coming by saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation (2 Peter 3:3–4).

As part of his reply to this, Peter points to the flood of Noah’s day by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water (3:6). This allusion to the flood carries us back to Jesus’ words in the Olivet Discourse, where He states:

But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be (Matt 24:38–39).

As is plain from these words, the Second Coming will be attended by devastating judgments comparable in scale to the flood of Noah’s day.

This same point is made by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:2–3,

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains on a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.

Besides this passage just quoted, it so happens that 2 Peter 3:10 is the only other New Testament text to affirm that the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. Thus Matthew 24, 1 Thessalonians 5, and 2 Peter 3 all agree that the eschatological period in view arrives at a time when normal life on earth has not been disrupted and that it occurs as a surprise to the world as unexpected as the arrival of a thief.

Among other things, this shows clearly that none of the devastating judgments that belong to the Tribulation period have occurred prior to the day of the Lord. I have argued [4] that the “two witnesses” described in Revelation 11:3–13 carry on their ministry during the first 3½ years of Daniel’s seventieth week and that the judgments of God on the earth begin immediately at the commencement of this period. [5] Thus the advent of the day of the Lord must be placed no later than the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week. Therefore, even within the initial 3½ years of this period, it is plain that the judgments will cause literally billions of deaths. [6]

The Compassion of God

This grave and solemn fact prepares us to appreciate the real thrust of Peter’s argument here. His point is that the delay of the Second Coming is due to God’s compassion for a world that will be swept by an almost incomprehensible number of deaths. Therefore, in 2 Peter 3:9 the apostle speaks as follows:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

There is no reference here to anyone’s eternal destiny, although of course most of those who die under the judgments of the Tribulation will be unsaved. But the assertion about God’s longsuffering is simply a statement about God’s compassion toward sinful humanity. God would much prefer that “all” people in this sinful world should turn to Him in repentance, than that their unrepentant state should require—at last—the outpouring of the dreadful final judgments of this age. He therefore “tarries” in order to extend to mankind still further opportunity to repent of their sins. He really does not want anyone to perish (that is, to die) under these judgments.

As we have previously seen in our study of Luke 13:1–5, the word perish (Greek = apollumi) is a perfectly good word to describe physical death. We need not invest it here with any other meaning than that. The fact is that the principle articulated by Peter in this text is also clearly stated in the Old Testament. Thus in Ezekiel, we hear God saying:

“But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all my statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die…. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” (Ezekiel 18:21, 23). 

“Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live” (Ezekiel 18:30b–32).

Clearly in these Ezekiel passages, the issue is one of life or death, in which it is evident that repentance followed by obedience (= “the fruits of repentance”) can avert physical death and extend physical life. A compassionate God is never anxious to deliver sinners to their death, no matter how wicked they are. Thus, says Peter, He graciously delays the advent of the Day of the Lord, extending sinful man’s opportunity to repent and avoid the judgment of death. The same doctrine that Peter teaches in 2 Peter 3:9, Paul teaches in Romans 2:4–5. Indeed, Peter no doubt has Paul’s teaching in mind (see 2 Peter 3:15).

Repentance Could Lead to Salvation

Of course, when sinners turn away from their sins to God, they are in a responsive mood toward the Lord and may well go on to salvation. But it would be a serious mistake to mix up the grounds for obtaining God’s mercy that extends physical life with the grounds for obtaining eternal salvation.

Eternal salvation is always conditioned on faith alone and does not depend on how much or how little a sinner may have repented of his sins. To introduce repentance as an essential precursor to saving faith is false theology. Despite the efforts sometimes made to avoid saying so, if repentance from sin were an essential precursor to salvation, it would also be a separate condition in addition to faith. Some forms of theology try to collapse repentance into a redefinition of faith (as though it was “included” in faith), but this is a theological undertaking for which there is not a shred of support in Scripture.

God therefore does not want anyone to die under the judgments of the Tribulation. If mankind were to repent and turn from their sins to Him, they could avert the devastating consequences that the end-times will bring. Of course, knowing mankind, even a worldwide repentance would undoubtedly fade with time, and the eschatological judgments would finally come. Nineveh, for example, repented in Jonah’s day and was spared, but ultimately it perished under God’s wrath as the prophet Nahum correctly foretold.

Finally, were there to be a worldwide repentance sufficient in scope to postpone the eschatological day of temporal wrath, such a situation would be an excellent climate in which to preach the Gospel of God’s saving grace. And no doubt there would be multitudes of converts. But even so, not even one of these converts would be saved by their repentance, but every single individual would be saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone!

The message of eternal salvation would still be:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).

New Birth, Forgiveness and Repentance

According to Luke 24:47, our Lord commanded that repentance and remission [forgiveness] of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. This mandate is definitely carried out in the book of Acts, as is made clear by Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; and 8:22 in which both topics—repentance and forgiveness—are mentioned together.

In addition, repentance by itself is mentioned in Acts 11:18; 13:24; 17:30; 19:4; 20:21; and 26:20. Forgiveness by itself occurs in Acts 10:43; 13:38; and 26:18. It will be noted that the last two references (Acts 13:38 and 26:18) occur in close proximity to two references to repentance (Acts 13:24 and 26:20). Repentance and forgiveness are quite closely tied in the book of Acts, a fact that conforms to the mandate our Lord gave in Luke 24:47.

What are we to make of this interesting connection?

The Silence of the Fourth Gospel

We have already noted that the Gospel of John is completely silent about the subject of repentance (see the discussion in Part 1 of this article [7]). But it is often overlooked that the Fourth Gospel is almost equally silent about forgiveness.

I say almost, because there is one reference to forgiveness in John’s Gospel, and it is found in John 20:23. In the statement made there, Jesus is speaking to the apostles after His resurrection and He says, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Obviously, whatever this text means (and we will return to it later), [8] it does not plainly declare that forgiveness of sins is received by faith alone. And since John 20:23 is the only reference, we may also say that nowhere in John’s Gospel is forgiveness of sins ever offered on the basis of faith alone. But by contrast, eternal life is offered on that basis over and over again!

Let us therefore restate what is obvious from these facts: (1) John is not interested in the subject of forgiveness in his Gospel apart from the one unusual passage referred to above; and (2) he is not interested at all in the subject of repentance. Of course, he was interested in these subjects as such, but not for the purpose for which he wrote his Gospel. That purpose was to bring people to faith and eternal life (John 20:30–31).

We might therefore legitimately conclude from this that in terms of man’s eternal destiny, the real issue is not forgiveness but eternal life. This inference is confirmed by John’s own description of the final judgment of the lost in Revelation 20:11–14.

The Final Judgment

In John’s well-known description of the final judgment, we do not even find a reference to sins, much less a reference to unforgiven sins. Instead, we are told, the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books (Revelation 20:12; underlining added). To be sure, the works of unsaved people contain innumerable sins, but it is still significant that John does not refer to sin per se, as we will point out in a moment.

Yet even though unsaved people are judged on the basis of their works, they are not condemned to hell on that basis! On the contrary we read, And anyone not found written in the Book of Life
was cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15; underlining added). People go to hell, therefore, because they do not have life!

This is precisely what we might have concluded from the theme statement of the Fourth Gospel: but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:31; underlining added). It is also evident in John 5:24 where our Lord states that the believer shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life
(italics added). We conclude, therefore, that the possession of life is the critical issue between God and man in terms of eternal judgment. There is no final judgment to determine one’s eternal destiny if he already possesses life.

But sin is not the critical issue. Why not? John’s own writings tell us why. According to John, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29); and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2). The hymn writer was correct when he said that “Jesus paid it all”!

So marvelously complete and full is the sacrificial death of Christ for our sins that it satisfied fully God’s justice and no man is condemned to hell on the grounds of his sins. But by the same token, the cross of Christ does not automatically regenerate men and women. They still need to obtain life and this is available to them on one basis only: faith in Christ.

But then, one might ask, why do men’s works come up at all? The reason must surely be that at the final judgment mankind will get a full and fair hearing. Since multitudes have supposed that they can reach heaven by their works, these works will be examined on that day. But as Scripture already informs us, no man can be saved by his works (Ephesians 2:8–9; Titus 3:5; Romans 3:20).

The outcome of the final examination of the works of the lost is a foregone conclusion. Any claim to God’s salvation that is based on the deeds a person has done will be swept away by the contents of the books that are opened at the judgment. Man’s one last hope will rest in the Book of Life, which will be duly consulted even though those being judged do not have their names written there. But the absence of their names from its pages is the basis on which the lost are cast into the lake of fire.

Thus one can see that the issue at the final judgment is not man’s sin, since Christ has atoned for that in its entirety. Instead, the issue is whether someone can make it into the kingdom of God on the basis of the works they did on earth, apart from the miracle of new birth that comes by faith alone. But as the Lord Jesus informed Nicodemus, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).

Forgiveness and Final Judgment

It should be carefully noted, however, that we have certainly not said that man’s sins are already forgiven on the basis of the cross. To say so would be to fly into the face of many Scriptures. But the question arises, how can this not be so if in fact Christ has already atoned for the sins of all humanity? This is a good question that deserves our attention.

What is involved here is what may be described as a “category error.” Most Christians tend to place eternal life and forgiveness of sins into the same category. But this is a serious mistake.

It is not at all hard to see how the propitiation Christ made on the cross can satisfy God’s righteous judgment without automatically imparting eternal life to the unsaved person. Satisfaction for sin and the impartation of eternal life to a dead sinner are clearly separate and distinguishable actions.

But for most Christians, an unforgiven sin means a sin not paid for, and therefore it seems to follow that if all sin has been paid for, it should all be automatically forgiven. But this line of reasoning is deeply flawed and unbiblical.

Its first and foremost flaw is this: all sin IS paid for! But since that is true, forgiveness cannot be the remission of some unpaid penalty. In the same way, unforgiven sin cannot be sin for which we must pay as well as Christ. That would be double payment, and it would call into question the efficacy of the cross.

Let us emphasize this point. The Lord Jesus Christ is not just potentially the propitiation for the sins of the world. He IS that (1 John 2:2). Or as Paul puts it, God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them (2 Corinthians 5:19; underlining added). From the standpoint of God’s righteous demands as the Judge of all humanity, all humanity’s sin was paid for by Christ and none of it remains as an issue in man’s final judgment. None of it! Not one single bit!
We must conclude, therefore, that forgiveness is also not an issue at the Final Judgment. People do go to hell unforgiven, but they do not go to hell because they are unforgiven. Just as sin itself is not an issue at the Final Judgment, neither is forgiveness an issue there.

What Is Forgiveness?

What then is forgiveness? Let us now make a simple statement: Forgiveness is not a judicial issue between man and God, but a personal issue between man and God.

An illustration may help here. Suppose I go to court on charges of stealing someone’s car. The judge before whom I stand does not concern himself with the issue of forgiveness. As a judge, his only concern is with the question of guilt or innocence. He will either clear me or condemn me.

But suppose it was the judge’s car that I stole? As an individual he can choose to forgive me, or not to forgive me. But whether he does or not, the decision has nothing to do with his role as a judge. It is purely a personal matter between him and myself.

In the Bible, forgiveness is always a personal matter—whether between man and man or between man and God. Let us consider the interesting passage in Luke 17:3–4 where we read:

Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, “I repent,” you shall forgive him.

Here it is quite evident that there is no issue of “penalty” in the legal or judicial sense of that word. The issue is purely one of personal harmony between the offended party and the offender. That harmony has been disrupted by one brother’s sin against another, and upon the offending brother’s repentance harmony can be restored by the offended brother extending forgiveness.

There is nothing mysterious about the process just described. All of us understand it instinctively in human relationships. We are not judges sitting in a courtroom and issuing judicial edicts against our sinning brothers. We may indeed exact a personal penalty from our sinning brother. This may take the form of refusing to speak to him, refusing to socialize, cutting off financial or other support, or any number of other things—but all of these are personal actions, not legal decisions.

The same is true in man’s dealings with God. At the level of personal harmony with God, forgiveness repairs the rupture caused by sin. Someone has said, appropriately, that forgiveness removes the estrangement between God and man which man’s sin has caused.

Yet as we all know, truly born-again people can become estranged from God by pursuing a sinful path. But when they repent and return to God (as the Prodigal Son returned to his father), they are forgiven and their harmony with God is restored. The father of the Prodigal Sin forgave his repentant boy and the two went into the house and had a joyous party together!

Conclusion

Repentance and forgiveness of sins, therefore, are not issues in the Final Judgment of mankind. Sin itself, as such, is not an issue either, because Jesus’ death on the cross completely satisfied every judicial demand that God had in connection with man’s sin.

But the cross does not automatically regenerate men. It does, however, make regeneration possible. In the same way, since God’s judicial demands against sin have been met, the cross makes possible the repair of the personal barrier between sinful men and a holy God. If that barrier is to be repaired, if harmony is to be restored between the wayward sinner and his Maker, the straying sinner is called upon to repent and to seek forgiveness. When forgiveness is received, God and man can have fellowship with each other.

The forgiven man is not only saved from eternal hell. He is in personal harmony with his God.

Harmony with God

We are now ready to make a new statement about repentance. Repentance is indeed a decision to turn from sin in order to avoid, or put an end to God’s temporal judgment. But we can also say this: repentance can and should lead to harmony with God.

Of course, this is an obvious lesson in the classic story of the Prodigal Son. This son’s repentance occurred in the far country, but it led him back to his father and finally into the splendid reunion party which they enjoyed together. The Prodigal Son had done more than escape from the woeful conditions (= chastening) into which his sin had led him. He was now in harmony with his father, from whom he had so long been separated.

But the father of the Prodigal Son also had a specific role in this restoration of harmony between himself and his son. What did the father do? He forgave, and he forgave completely, generously, and without reserve. He forgave the way God forgives!

Let us think about these issues in somewhat more detail.

Repentance and Remission of Sins

As we noted in the previous section, after His resurrection our Lord and Savior announced to His disciples that repentance and remission [forgiveness] of sins should be preached in His name to all nations (Luke 24:47). What message is this? Basically it is a call to the people of all nations to find harmony with God through Jesus Christ.

How does man’s eternal salvation relate to this message? Very simply: God will not forgive the sins of those who are still unsaved. God cannot have true harmony with the unsaved.

This is different, of course, than putting an end to His temporal judgments. Let us here remember the Ninevites. They repented and, as a result, God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the evil that he had said that He would bring upon them, and He did not do it (Jonah 3:10). There is not a syllable here about forgiveness. All we are told is that God rescinded the pronouncement that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days (see Jonah 3:4).

Did any of the Ninevites get saved? We are not told. Yet it is evident that by sparing the city God gave the Ninevites a renewed opportunity to come to know Him. It seems highly probable that many of them did get saved (cf. Matthew 12:41; Luke 11:32), but if they did they needed more information than is recorded in the book of Jonah. Of course, it is quite possible that Jonah gave them such information, but if so this has no role in the subject matter of this book.

And equally, neither is forgiveness part of Jonah’s subject matter. We really do not know how many, if any, of the inhabitants of that city found harmony with God. All we know is that for the time being their city was not destroyed, although later on it was destroyed as the prophet Nahum predicted. Forgiveness is not an issue in Jonah.

Of similar significance is our Lord’s treatment of the potential repentance of Tyre and Sidon, as well as of Sodom. In the case of Sodom it is even stated that if it had repented it would have remained until this day, that is, its destruction would have been averted (Mathew 11:21–24; see also Luke 10:13–14). The Son of God thus knew an “alternate history” for Sodom right down to the His own time, had that city repented. But these texts do not discuss the eternal salvation of the citizens of the cities in question.

Thus repentance and remission [forgiveness] of sins are related to each other, but they are still separate considerations. Repentance moves man (as it did the Prodigal Son) in the direction of forgiveness.

Forgiveness for Cornelius

Unlike the book of Jonah, in the book of Acts forgiveness is very much an issue. Indeed, the classic case of forgiveness for Gentiles is nothing less than the famous story about Cornelius, the Roman centurion.

Cornelius was clearly a man who repented well before his conversion to Christ. This is manifest from the fact that we are told that he was a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously, and prayed to God always (Acts 10:2).

Let us remember that Cornelius was a pagan Gentile, but obviously at some point in time he had turned away from his paganism in order to seek the God of Israel. He did this, in fact, with a diligence that might well have put many a Jewish person to shame. Thus he was ready for the message of the Gospel, which however he still needed to hear.

This is where Peter comes in. This great Apostle was to be God’s messenger to Cornelius to show him how to be saved (see Acts 11:14). According to the angel’s own words, therefore, the issue to be addressed by Peter would be the issue of his salvation.

The message Peter subsequently gives to Cornelius and to his assembled friends reaches its climax with these words:

And He [Christ] commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive the remission [forgiveness] of sins (Acts 10:42–43).

The believing response by Cornelius and his friends was immediate (10:44). The repentant centurion now became the forgiven centurion. His repentance had led him to salvation and to harmony with God.

Cornelius, the Gentile Model

Readers of the book of Acts often forget that the inspired author necessarily condenses his material and selects what he includes in accordance with his purposes in writing. The speech of Peter in the household of Cornelius (Acts 10:34–43) takes us less than two minutes to read aloud! Obviously, on this momentous occasion Peter did not speak for less than two minutes. The speech is highly compressed to bring out what Luke desires to bring out.

Did Luke himself think that Cornelius received eternal life on this occasion? Of course he did. That was a part of Luke’s theology as is made clear in Acts 13:48 where he writes, And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Did Peter mention eternal life to his audience on this occasion? There is not a reason in the world why he should not have. But for Luke, the major point to be made is forgiveness.

Why? Well, for one thing, Luke’s obvious purpose in telling the Cornelius narrative is to establish the fact that God has accepted believing Gentiles as fully as He has accepted believing Jews. This point is made when Peter defends himself at Jerusalem (Acts 11:4–17). Accordingly, forgiveness is stressed in the Cornelius story to highlight the fact that these Gentiles were completely accepted into God’s fellowship. That they also had received eternal life Luke evidently expected his readers to know.

But if God had accepted them, the Jewish church must do so as well. If Gentiles were in fellowship with God, they could also be in fellowship with their Jewish brothers in Christ.

Cornelius thus stands before us in Luke’s narrative as a classic case of Gentile conversion. Some time before Peter came to him, he had turned away from his paganism and that repentance had put him on the road to a saving encounter with the God of Israel. But the salvation he receives in Acts 10 is by simple faith, and not only does he receive eternal life, but also the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:43–44).

This is precisely what happens to all of us at the moment when we trust Christ for salvation. Cornelius is the model for our own experience of God’s grace.

In Cornelius’s case, repentance from his paganism prepared him for the moment of his conversion. So too, of course, many Gentiles in our own day and time turn to God from broken lives, or unsatisfying experiences, or false religious ideas, long before they come to understand God’s saving grace. They may even start going to church, praying and reading their Bible. Thus, although repentance saves no one, it can prepare a person to receive the message of grace with openness—just as Cornelius did in Acts 10.

—To be continued—

Notes

1. Editor’s note: The CTS Journal reprints this important book, in three installments, by permission of Kerugma, Inc. and Redención Viva, P.O. BOX 141167, Dallas, TX 75214. We give special thanks to Zane Hodges for the content of the book.
2. Luke penned Luke-Acts to the same man, Theophilus, so not only Acts, but also Luke, was written for Church-Age believers.
3. Josephus, The Jewish War, VI. 420–21.
4. Zane C. Hodges, Power to Make War (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1995), 46ff.
5. Ibid, 46-50.
6. Ibid., 85-90.
7. Cf. Zane C. Hodges, “Harmony with God, Part 1,” CTS Journal 8 (July-September 2002): 4-8.
8. Cf. Zane C. Hodges, “Harmony with God, Part 3,” CTS Journal 9 (January-March 2003).