What does repentance mean? ― Martin Lloyd-Jones

“What, then, does repentance mean?… Our word repent comes from a Latin word that means ― to think again. But the corresponding Greek word for repentance means ―a change of mind…

The world is as it is today because it does not think. What utterly ridiculous ideas people have of Christianity. They think that people are Christians because they do not think and are still behaving like children. “If Christians would only think”, people say, “and apply their minds to what is happening in the world, they would give up their Christianity”. But it is the exact opposite. The people who watch television by the millions, are they great thinkers? I wonder whether their minds are being tested as yours are as you consider these things. I am reasoning with you. I am appealing to you to think.

This generation that boasts so much about its intellect does not think. If it did, it would not believe all the advertisements on television. That is just psychology, subliminal thinking, and does not bring about active, conscious thinking. People are given information by constant repetition and absorb it without knowing it. This is probably the most drugged, deluded, controlled generation the world has ever known. This is the age of propaganda and of advertising and of the negation of thinking. Obviously, not everything that is recommended is bad. No, but whether good or bad, people will buy something if they are told sufficiently frequently to do so…

Furthermore, you must think again. In other words, repentance means thinking in a new way. This is what Peter was really saying. We only have a synopsis of his sermon here, his main points, but here is the way he undoubtedly put it: “You are looking at this man, and you are looking at us. Now you must not do that because that is just excitement. It is just rushing over in amazement. Stop! Think now! Take this miracle and make it the starting point in a process of thinking. You think you have thought, but you have not. So I want you to start thinking in an entirely new manner.”

That is the great appeal of the Christian Gospel. Our natural thinking is prejudiced, and that is why it goes wrong. We start with certain presuppositions that we take for granted and have never examined, and then we argue round and round in a circle. Most people today who are not Christians start by deciding there is nothing in Christianity. They have no reason for that decision except that they think it is the twentieth-century, grown-up thing to do. Then all their thinking is designed to prove that there cannot be anything in it.

I have often used this illustration. Matthew Arnold put it like this: “Miracles cannot happen; therefore miracles have not happened.” Of course, if they cannot happen, they have not happened. But the question is: Are they impossible? Matthew Arnold was thinking badly when he laid down his postulate and then reasoned from it. The Gospel tells us to come further back and to examine this first postulate. Is a miracle inherently impossible? Think again! That is exactly what Peter was getting these people to do. He said in effect, “Can you not see that this man here, whom you know so well, who was born lame and has never walked in his life, is now walking, leaping, and praising God? Can you not see that your thinking must have been wrong somewhere? Look at the facts staring you in the face. Here is a concrete event. Here is a revelation of the power of this risen Jesus and of God His Father. Think again. Start afresh."

 And this is still the great appeal made by the Gospel. In exactly the same way, it turns to modern men and women and tells them, “As you see life collapsing all around you, the call of the Gospel to you is to think again and to think in the light of the teaching of the Bible.” Men and women do not just start with their own thoughts or the cleverness of popular newspaper articles. They start with prejudices and then cleverly work them out. But that is not thinking. Start with the revelation of this book.
 

Start with this great message. Think through your whole position again in terms of this. That is what is meant by the call to repentance. So are you ready to reexamine all your thinking? Are you ready to test your presuppositions in the light of this contention? Are you ready to admit that there is at any rate the possibility that you might be wrong?

You now come to the point of saying, “Very well, I‘m prepared to listen.” That is the beginning of repentance. And is that not what is needed in this country and in every other country at this present moment? Men and women have never considered this message. They think they have, but all they have done is dismiss it. They have never faced it. They have never brought all their thinking to the bar of this Word. They have never really come with an open mind and given it an opportunity. The call to repentance is a call to men and women to say, “Perhaps we‘ve been wrong. Is there something to this after all?” That is the first step.

 But what are you to think about? First, you must think again about God. Maybe you do not believe in God at all. You say, “It was all right to believe in God until the middle of the nineteenth century, but science has put God out. There‘s no need of Him. I believe in a universe apart from God. In a sense, if I have a god at all, my god is the universe.”

 Are you prepared to think again about that? That is what these apostles pleaded with their contemporaries to do. Paul says to the Christians in Rome in essence, “Can you not see that God has left His mark on the whole of creation? The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20). They declare His Godhead and His creatorship. Can you really explain our universe without God? Does an original bang explain everything satisfactorily? Is it all an accident? Where did that matter come from that was exploded and dispersed in the big bang that scientists talk about? That leaves so much unexplained, and as you look at all the order and the design and the arrangement and the perfection in nature, and at providence and history and many other things, I ask you, are you comfortable with your neat little theories? Can you really explain the whole cosmos without God? I am simply asking you to be big enough to think again.” 

― Martin Lloyd-Jones, Authentic Christianity