Download discussion questions: Mark 1:1-15
Listen to John Piper on Simeon
[Because of a computer malfunction, this essay is abbreviated to a few notes.]
In the passage (Mark 1:1-15) John the Baptist and Jesus each begins public ministry with a call to repentance. What does it mean to repent and believe? How does that apply to believers?
In the past three weeks we have considered Augustine on joy, Owen on spiritual mindedness, and Jonathan Edwards on beauty. After all these positive themes, how does repentance form a part of the Christian life?
Introduction
Recall John Owen’s admonition:
“To keep our souls in a constant state of mourning and self-abasement is the most necessary part of our wisdom . . . and it is so far from having any inconsistency with those consolations and joys, which the gospel tenders unto us in believing, as that it is the only way to let them into the soul in a due manner.”[1]
John Piper has an interesting paraphrase of Owen’s words: “If you don’t keep yourself in a self-abased, mourning frame, you won’t be as happy as you should be.”[2]
Brief Biographical Sketch
Charles Simeon (1759-1836) was an Anglican pastor with evangelical theology (think of a conservative pastor in a liberal, mainline denomination today). He was a pastor for almost fifty years in a church where most of the people did not want him to be pastor.
In 1782 the bishop appointed Simeon as curate-in-charge at Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge, near the University. This was not a welcome event to the congregation: like most church congregations at the time, they wanted a preacher who would entertain, instead of one who issued serious exhortations to repent and believe, as Simeon did.[3]
How does a person survive in such a hostile environment? What advice would Simeon receive today? Most likely he would be encouraged to work on improving his confidence and self-image, to develop a positive attitude, even to remember how valuable he was to God.
Simeon had a different approach, summarized by John Piper:
Those two things were the heartbeat of Simeon’s inner life: growing downward in humility and growing upward in adoring communion with God.
But the remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable. Simeon was utterly unlike most of us today who think that we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can. For him, adoration only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin. So he actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining corruption as a Christian[4]
How does that description compare to our thinking about repentance?
Ongoing Repentance
In Mark 1:15 both repenting and believing are present tense verbs suggesting continuing actions. No one would suggest that belief is a one-time action. Neither is repentance. Both are ongoing actions throughout the Christian life. Both verbs are commands (imperative mood) and continuous (present tense). Repent as a present imperative frequently appears in the New Testament (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Luke 13:3, 5; see also “repent” in Acts 26:20 as a present infinitive).
Simeon did not use grace as an alternative to repentance, but rather the highest motivation to repentance:
Instead of accounting our acceptance with God a reason for putting off [i.e., getting rid of] this disposition of mind, we should regard it rather as a motive to still deeper humiliation.[5]
He certainly was not making the mistake of thinking his repentance had anything to do with his righteousness before God or the forgiveness of his sin:
He has not appointed repentance to atone for sin… It is only the blood of Christ that can cleanse us from sin… But repentance is necessary in order to prepare our souls for a worthy reception of his divine mercies, and for a suitable improvement of them.[6]
Consider Dante’s conception of purgatory. The story applies to repentance in this life. He describes “the ones who are content to burn because they hope to come, whenever it may be, among the blessed.” (Inferno, I, 118-120).[7] Even in Dante’s medieval understanding, the point of purgatory (or our repentance) is not to atone for sin. Repentance (like Dante’s purgatory) helps to remove the lingering effects of sin, obstacles that hinder our fellowship with God. “Hurry to the mountain and there shed the slough that lets not God be known to you” (Purgatorio, II, 122-123).[8]
Without recognizing and repenting of our sin we can fall into the danger described by C. S. Lewis:
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.[9]
Without ongoing repentance we are likely to minimize our sin and trivialize the compounding effect in our lives.
Deep Repentance
James makes a statement that sounds harsh to our modern ears:
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. James 4:8-10
Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. … Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.[10]
Simeon knew that repentance was not a light, frivolous, trivial activity, yet his repentance was not a state of perpetual gloom with a morose countenance. In contrast, his strong confidence in the forgiveness provided by Jesus’ work made him all the more desirous of repentance to draw nearer to God:
With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God’s having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself.[11]
What would it mean not to forgive ourselves? Is that too harsh? Is it more harsh than the exhortation from James?
Genuine Repentance
Repentance must be sincere and not superficial.
It must be ingenuous. There is a sorrow, like that of Felix or Judas, that arises from convictions of the natural conscience, but which ends in despair.[12]
Sincere, “ingenuous” repentance grows out of sorrow over sin, not sorrow over pain, embarrassment, consequences, etc. “Sorrow” only over pain can result in sin management, being more careful, not getting caught, rationalizing our sin, explaining it away.
For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:10
Glorious Repentance
Once again, recall John Owen: “… the only way to let [those consolations and joy] into the soul in a due manner.”
Simeon, writing a century and a half later, made a similar observation:
I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time I had such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark [boat], if I had not ballast at the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary size.[13]
Simeon’s picture is of a sailing ship with tall masts with billowing sails to catch the wind. But the wind could topple or capsize the boat unless there was ballast. The weight deep inside provided stability for the power of the winds to drive the ship safely. Too often, as Piper says powerfully in his sermon, we continually want to “throw the ballast overboard” and get rid of any thought of our sin or (in Simeon’s words) our vileness before God. As a result, our worship can become nothing more than good feelings, “emotional froth”[14] that doesn’t last. That level of response to God cannot sustain us through difficulties.
Piper comments:
If Simeon is right, vast portions of contemporary Christianity are wrong. And I can’t help wondering whether one of the reasons we are emotionally capsized so easily today — so vulnerable to winds of criticism or opposition — is that in the name of forgiveness and grace, we have thrown the ballast overboard.
We lack “greatness and weight of spiritual issues”[15] in favor of Christianity-Lite. We need ballast to anchor our worship in something other than our emotions and feeling good about God. The ballast of humility and a sense of our unworthiness magnifies the greatness of God’s grace and love for us. Without repentance we may be taking our sin lightly, resulting in a superficial appreciation of the grace God has shown us.
Spiritual Repentance
A final warning from Simeon:
Remember not to address yourselves to the work of repentance in your own strength. For it is God alone who can give it to you.[16]
Our sin is so subtle and twisted that there is a danger of pride in how well we are repenting! We are a mess.
The response Simeon offers continues to be helpful today:
For nothing except a view of Christ dying for us can ever completely break our obdurate hearts….On the one hand, we are humbled by a sense of our extreme vileness. On the other, we are overwhelmed with a sense of the Redeemer’s love. The combination of these two effects constitutes that real shame and sorrow which may be described as “evangelical [gospel] repentance.”[17]
This “view of Christ dying for us” can happen during our “remembrance” as we receive Communion. The tension Simeon described can provide the ballast to give stability to our exultation in God and His love for us. May our repentance weave together our sense of the weight of our sin and an overwhelming sense of the Redeemer’s love.
[1] The Works of John Owen, ed. William Goold (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), VII, p. 532;
quoted in John Piper, Contending for Our All (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2006), 103.
[2] John Piper, “The Chief Design of My Life: Mortification and Universal Holiness; Reflections on the Life and Thought of John Owen” audio at 1:01:00: https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-chief-design-of-my-life-mortification-and-universal-holiness . Retrieved April 14, 2018.
[3] http://www.simeontrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=310 retrieved April 25, 2018.
[4] John Piper, “Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering; Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon,”
https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/brothers-we-must-not-mind-a-little-suffering
[5] Charles Simeon, “Repentance” in Evangelical Preaching: An Anthology of Sermons by Charles Simeon, James M. Houston, ed. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1986), 115.
[6] Charles Simeon, “Repentance” in Evangelical Preaching: An Anthology of Sermons by Charles Simeon, James M. Houston, ed. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1986), 117-118.
[7] Dante Alighieri, trans. Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander, The Inferno: A Verse Translation (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), 11.
[8] Dante Alighieri, trans. Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander, Purgatorio: A Verse Translation (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 37.
[9] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2009), 132; Kindle Edition location 1709.
[10] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2009), 56-57; Kindle Edition location 855.
[11] John Piper, “Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering; Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon,”
https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/brothers-we-must-not-mind-a-little-suffering
[12] Charles Simeon, “Repentance” in Evangelical Preaching: An Anthology of Sermons by Charles Simeon, James M. Houston, ed. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1986), 114.
[13] John Piper, “Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering; Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon,”
https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/brothers-we-must-not-mind-a-little-suffering
[14] I am indebted to C. S. Lewis for the phrase “emotional froth” although I am using it in a slightly different sense than his original intention.
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 49.
[15] J.I. Packer, “Introduction: Why Preach?” in: The Preacher and Preaching, ed. by Samuel T. Logan Jr. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1986), 7. Quoted by John Piper, “A Passion for Christ-Exalting Power,” http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/a-passion-for-christ-exalting-power (accessed January 17, 2014).
[16] Charles Simeon, “Repentance” in Evangelical Preaching: An Anthology of Sermons by Charles Simeon, James M. Houston, ed. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1986), 120.
[17] Charles Simeon, “The Means of Evangelical Repentance” in Evangelical Preaching: An Anthology of Sermons by Charles Simeon, James M. Houston, ed. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1986), 122-123.