Repent!
According to the gospels, it was what both John the Baptizer and Jesus proclaimed (Mark 1:4-5, 14-16).
How do we hear this biblical exhortation?
In the tradition in which I grew up, the term was a command, a demand. It was about changing wrong behavior—sins. It was commonly described as “an about face.” It implied a sense of sorrow and regret, of guilt and shame for the sins. The demand carried a tone of condemnation with the threat of judgment. It was a prerequisite to being forgiven.
This concept of repentance is reflected in how John used the term (Luke 3:1-14). He called people to change their behavior, demanding the people to show evidence of repentance in changed behavior—“Bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). This demand reflected the Hebrew word for “turn” which is commonly translated as “repent.” It echoed the historian’s language “turn from your wicked ways” (2 Chronicles 7:14). John’s demand for repentance was laced with condemnation. He called the people “you brood of vipers” (Luke 3:7). It communicated guilt and shame. John's message was proclaimed with the threat of judgment—“who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Luke 3:7).
This understanding of repentance reflects the transactional nature of merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking. If we will repent, then God will forgive. If we will change our ways—i.e., turn from our sins—then God will accept us.
It’s easy to see why we hear “repent” as a demand filled with condemnation and the threat of judgment. It reflects how John used the term. It reflects how the world trained us to think—merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking.
This understanding of repentance is not what Jesus proclaimed.
Jesus’s message of repentance was a part of his proclamation of the good news of the kingdom. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:15). Jesus’s message was that the kingdom was here, now, in their (our) midst—the meaning of the word translated “has come near.” It was a present reality, not some distant hope. It was something that could be experienced and participated in and contributed to here, now.
Because the kingdom was here, now, in their midst, Jesus called the people to repent and believe. “Repent and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). His message was not a demand filled with condemnation, driven by the fear of judgment. It was an invitation to experience the kingdom. As such, it was rooted in grace—in what God had done and was doing—rather than in merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking and functioning.
The Greek word Jesus used did not reflect the Hebrew concept of changing one’s behavior—turn. Rather, the word meant “to think with a different mind.” Jesus called people to change the way they thought, not what they did. Unlike John, Jesus’s focus was not on behavior. Rather, Jesus addressed the source of behavior—how one thought. A change in thinking would then produce a change in how they lived and what they did.
Thinking with a different mind—what I refer to as thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God—would allow them to recognize the kingdom that was already in their midst and thus experience it for themselves. As long as our thinking is shaped by how the world trained us to think—merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking—we will not be able to recognize the kingdom that is before our very eyes.
Jesus’s invitation to think with a different mind was paired with the call to believe—“believe in the good news” of the kingdom (Mark 1;15). In popular religious culture, to believe is an intellectual concept—a cognitive function. It means to accept a fact as true. The dominant religious culture in American Christianity emphasizes believing certain things—about the Bible, about Jesus, about Jesus’s death on the cross, about our sinful nature, etc. These beliefs are prerequisites to being “saved,” i.e., a Christian. (By contrast, Jesus taught us to believe something about God, specifically, about what God is like—a God of self-giving, faithful love who lives out of a servant spirit, a God who loves us and works for our good.)
The New Testament concept of believe—reflected in Jesus’s invitation to believe—carried a significantly different meaning. To believe something was to accept it as true and then build one’s life upon it. It was more than a cognitive exercise. It was a posture of faith that stakes one’s life on something as true. To believe was to allow what was believed to shape one’s life.
Jesus’s invitation was to believe the good news of the kingdom. It was to believe that the kingdom was indeed here, now, in their (our) midst. It was to allow that belief to shape their lives. To believe the good news was to embrace it, allowing that good news to shape how they lived. It was to accept the reality of the kingdom by embracing the ways of the kingdom as their own.
Jesus’s invitation to repent and believe had no hint of condemnation, no threat of judgment, no transactional nature in it. It was not about changing one’s behavior. It was an invitation to allow the character of God and the ways of God to shape how they thought. It was an invitation to embrace, experience, and participate in a different way of life known as the kingdom of God.
Jesus’s invitation to repent and believe is captured in his invitation to his first disciples, “Follow me” (Mark 1:17). The call to be a follower of Jesus is a call to learn from him this different way of thinking, to learn from him the ways of God—i.e., the ways of the kingdom, to learn from him this different way of life.
Thankfully, Jesus’s
invitation still stands today. Repent and believe the good news!
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