Both Jews and Greeks Must Repent

True Repentance and Confession (Lecture 1)

Through this lecture we will speak about true repentance, and in the final part we will deal with confession as written in 1 John. I hope that this lecture will be a precious time for all you pastors who have spent time and money to travel all the way to Korea.

The Apostle Paul Preached That Even Jews Who Served God Must Repent

The repentance that churchgoers commonly think of is different from the repentance that the Bible speaks of.

In Acts 20, when the Apostle Paul was being led by the Holy Spirit to Jerusalem, he stopped at Miletus and summoned the elders of the church in Ephesus to come to him. When they arrived, Paul said to them:

“You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time,serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews;how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house,solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Knowing that bonds and afflictions awaited him in Jerusalem, Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders as if leaving his last will and testament. What he had earnestly testified to both Jews and Greeks was “repentance toward God” and “faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

At that time, the Jews were those who claimed to believe in God, while the Greeks were Gentiles who did not even know of God’s existence. Paul said that both Jews and Greeks alike must turn from their wrong way of life and turn to God.

We can understand that the Greeks, who did not know God at all, should repent and turn to God. But it seems hard to understand at first that the Jews, who acknowledged the existence of God and lived serving Him, also had to turn to God. Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul said that even the Jews must repent.

This teaching about repentance is very meaningful and is something we must deal with deeply and carefully.

The Two Pillars of Faith: Repentance and Belief

If we were to summarize the work that Paul did in one phrase, it would be: he testified of repentance and faith.

The life of faith consists of two things: repentance and faith. If either one is missing, faith cannot be formed. In true faith, repentance must be present, and following that, faith must come.

Repentance and faith were not first mentioned by the Apostle Paul. In Mark chapter 1, we see that Jesus Himself spoke of them first:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

When Jesus began to teach the people of Israel, He told them to repent and believe in the gospel. Repentance and faith are so important to the life of faith that we can even say they are the entirety of it. Among these, let us first speak about repentance.

Not Turning from “Bad Behavior” to “Good Behavior”

What does repentance mean?In the dictionary, repentance is defined as “a religious or spiritual act of turning away from sin.”

Then what is sin?

Let us suppose that from this place where we are gathering, we want to go to Seoul. Whenever we travel somewhere, we must have a clear destination. Our destination is Seoul. The next important thing is to know exactly where we are right now—whether we are in Busan, in Daegu, or somewhere else.

Even if we are in Busan, we must know whether we are on Haeundae Beach or here at BEXCO where we are meeting. Once our destination is set and we know our starting point, we can find the way.

Likewise, in order to repent—that is, in order to turn from sin and go to God—we must know exactly what our starting point, sin, is.

People usually think of “sin” as acts that cause harm or loss to others—for example, theft, rape, or murder. The Bible does not call these “sin” but “transgressions” or “crimes.” Sin and crime are different.

Because many people mistake crimes for sin, they think that turning from bad behavior to correct and moral behavior is repentance. But turning from “evil deeds” to “good deeds” is not repentance.

The repentance that the Bible speaks of is “turning from sin to God.”

My Heart Was Still in the State of Sin

Let me share my own story. I was what people call a “born-into-the-church” Christian. From my mother’s womb I was taken to church, and I was carried on my older brothers’ backs to Sunday school. Naturally I learned about God and lived far from things like alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling.

When I was five years old, I fell seriously ill. The doctor said that if I did not undergo surgery immediately, my life would be in danger. But because we had no money, we left the hospital as we were. Every dawn my mother carried me on her back to an elder of the church in the next village to receive the laying on of hands and prayer, and at home we used folk remedies, making medicine for me to drink.

After some time I miraculously recovered. From then on my family would often say to me, “God saved your life. You are a chosen person. God has given you special grace. You must not live carelessly.” Growing up hearing such words, I naturally thought of myself that way as well.

When I was in middle school, our family was so poor that we often could not pay my school tuition on time, and I was sometimes driven out of class. Korea is prosperous now, but fifty years ago when I was a student, most people lived in poverty, and our family was even poorer than most.

In my class there were about 65 to 70 students, and out of them around five could not pay tuition because of poverty. During class the head office manager would come into the classroom and say:

“Those whose names I call now, please stand up.”

My name was always among them.

“Those who have been called, leave your books on your desks and your bags where they are, and go out through the back door. Go home and bring your tuition.”

We were thrown out in the middle of class. But no one who was sent out actually went home, because we knew very well that our parents had no money to give us for tuition. We did not want to go home and trouble our mothers’ hearts, so we, the few who had been driven out, would go to the hill behind the school and spend time playing there.

One time, as I sat on that hill, a thought came to me: “Poverty really makes a person miserable.” Because of poverty we were thrown out in front of our classmates, our self-esteem fell, and we developed an inferiority complex. I wanted to escape from poverty.

“I have no inheritance, no strong background. The only way to escape poverty is to study. From today on, I must grit my teeth and study hard.”

I imagined the happy future I would gain through hard work and study:

“If I graduate from a good university and get a good job, I can earn a lot of money and do the things I want to do.”

My thoughts continued to flow: I imagined living in a nice house, driving a nice car, meeting a good woman, getting married, having children, and going on outings with them on weekends.

“Then what after that?”

As I kept thinking about life, my thoughts flowed in a direction I had not expected.

“I’ll live like that… and then I’ll die.”

Suddenly I felt an emptiness.

“So the end of my life is death.”

Once my thoughts reached that point, many questions arose.

“If I’m going to die anyway, is there any need to struggle so hard to succeed?”“What will happen after death?”“Does God really exist? If He does, then heaven and hell must also exist—where will I go?”“What if I live believing I’ll go to heaven, but in the end God says He doesn’t know me?”

Until then I had thought poverty was the hardest and most painful thing in my life. But that day I realized something more difficult than poverty: it was vagueness—having nothing certain, everything being unclear.

After that, I read a book on “the philosophy of life,” but that vague emptiness did not disappear.

Time passed, and when I was twenty-six, something happened. A man who had been my friend through sports—and who had his own philosophy of life and was living in the world of gangs and fists—completely changed one day. I could clearly feel that such a change did not come through persuasion but through some power or force.

This man, who had never gone near a church and yet knew that I was a “born-into-the-church” Christian, asked me:

“Hey, are you saved?”

“I almost died of a serious illness when I was five, but I recovered through prayer, and since then I’ve believed in God. So of course I’m saved.”

“Do you have sin in your heart?”

“Who doesn’t have sin? Everyone commits sin while living.”

“Why did Jesus die on the cross?”

It was something I had heard ever since I was carried to church on my brothers’ backs.

“Of course, He died for our sins.”

“If Jesus died for your sins, why do you still have sin?”

At that moment I realized that there was a problem with my faith.

Jesus had been crucified, but my heart was still in the state of sin and had not been freed from it. Until then I had never truly repented, so the Word I knew in my head had not become power in me to free my heart from sin.

Because There Has Been No Repentance, People Have a Heart Different From God’s

If repentance does not come first, the gospel cannot truly come into our hearts, and we cannot enjoy true freedom from sin. Today there are many churches that preach a gospel in which repentance is missing.

Because of this, no matter how much they say that Jesus washed our sins, people only understand it in their heads, and their hearts are not set free from sin.

Many churchgoers have not been freed from sin, yet they hide that fact and think, “If I just keep living the life of faith, it will work out somehow,” and simply go on. They spend 10, 20, 30, even 40 years sitting in church like that—and then go to hell.

Jesus was killed by those who thought they believed in God well—the Jews. They thought of themselves as descendants of Abraham, but Jesus said something very different to them:

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father….” (John 8:44)

He said they were children of the devil. The Jews could not accept these words.

Not only that, but Jesus said that the tax collectors—who attached themselves to Rome and sucked the blood of their fellow countrymen—and the prostitutes—who used the bodies God had given them as instruments of pleasure—were better than those Jews.

“… Truly I say to you that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:31)

These were unbearable words. The Jews thought, “A person who says such things must be killed.”

If Jesus had spoken as many pastors do today—telling the Jews that they would be blessed—He would have been welcomed. But He told them that they were children of the devil.

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father….” (John 8:44)

What are these desires of the devil, which human beings want to do? That is sin.

The sin that the Bible speaks of is not simply immoral or unethical behavior. To truly repent, we must first know what sin is. Only then can we turn from that sin.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people left the church. Why did this happen? If their hearts were the same as God’s heart, even if someone told them to leave, they would not. Because they had never repented and still had a heart different from God’s, they left.

Such people may seem zealous in attending church, but when the opportunity comes, they will choose the world.

Jesus knew that tax collectors and prostitutes realized they were wrong and could turn their hearts to God, whereas the Jews, who thought they served God well, would not repent.

So to the Jews who considered themselves descendants of Abraham while actually having a heart different from God’s, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil.” He was saying that they too must repent. Otherwise, they would have nothing to do with God.

Repentance is not what people commonly think it is—asking forgiveness for lying or for hating someone, and trying to turn away from those actions. True repentance is turning from the fundamental sin, from the desires of the devil who is the root sinner.

In the next message, we will speak about sin in more detail and more concretely.