Make It Right

"He repented!"

"No he didn't."

"He stopped committing the sin."

"But he didn't make it right."

That's a tightly condensed summary of an argument I had with a friend some time ago. It recently popped back into my mind as I thought about what makes for true repentance. Real repentance is not just a matter of walking away from some sin you committed. There must also be reparation. You must clean up your mess as best you can.

An easy example is robbery. Suppose a man robs a bank and takes away $50,000. Afterward he feels remorse, pleads with God for forgiveness, and resolves never to rob again. And, in fact, he follows through on his resolution. From that point forward he leads an honest life and never steals a penny. Has he repented? It depends. What did he do with the $50,000? If he kept it, spent it on himself and avoided the consequences of his act, then he never really repented at all. He must bring the money back and turn himself in to the authorities. If a man can repair the damage done by his sin but refuses to do so, he has not repented but merely felt remorse.

A good example of incomplete repentance occurs in George MacDonald's The Minister's Restoration, where a narcissistic seminary student, James Blatherwick, toys with the emotions of Isy, a sweet and good-natured servant girl. Isy adores James, and he welcomes the attention. He even jokes with her about marrying her someday, though he is confident that the social gulf between them would prevent that from happening. Then one day when they are involved in a moment of great emotional intensity he suddenly takes her into his arms. MacDonald writes, "At the moment when a genuine love would have stopped, in order to surround her with arms of safety rather than passion, he ceased to be his sister's keeper." Afterward James is deeply ashamed, and though he knows he ought to marry Isy, he leaves her instead and cuts off all contact with her. He "repents" only in the shallow and inadequate sense that he does not keep fornicating with her or with anyone else. But he does not make it right; he does not take her hand in marriage. He does not even send her any letters. His "repentance" consists of abandoning Isy to her shame and disgrace while going on to bigger things in the ministry. It is not until a few years later that he discovers he is a father.

Sometimes it is not so easy to know what to do (return the money, marry the girl) to make reparation for your sin. Evangelist Luis Palau tells of the time he stole a set of colored pencils from another boy when he was just 10 years old. For years (decades?), that theft weighed on his conscience, and so as an adult he tracked down his victim and, yes, gave him some colored pencils. The guy just looked at him funny. Some of our sins and their consequences have washed so far down the river that our attempts to make restitution are more symbolic than anything else. But it is still worth the effort. Even a symbolic reparation says, "I take seriously what I did wrong, am sorry for it, and would make it right if I could."

A friend of mine has a violent past and has spent a lot of time in prison for it. He's a Christian now, and God in his grace has taken away the rage that fueled his brutality. Knowing him now you would not guess he's an ex con. The effects of his violence are far down the river of history, but he does his part to "make it right" by volunteering in a prison ministry and telling his story to inmates at chapel services. Along the same lines I think of a woman at the first church I pastored who raised huge amounts of money for the annual "Hike for Life" that supported local pregnancy centers. Becky became a Christian in her 30s; before that she had had three abortions. She told me that she knew that she would see her children in heaven, and that they had forgiven her - but she still wanted to do whatever she could to save other babies from the fate that befell her own.

Making it right is biblical. In Luke 19 a tax collector named Zacchaeus comes to Christ and shows he is serious about repentance by not merely shunning extortion in the future but by preparing refunds for past acts of fraud. "Look, Lord!" he says. "Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus responds (not by saying "Stop trying to earn salvation with your good works!" but rather), "Today salvation has come to this house" (Luke 19:8-9).

In Ephesians 4:28-29 Paul tells thieves not to steal and potty-mouths not to say bad words. But he goes beyond that. A former thief should do more than just not steal, he should "labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." And people who formerly cursed blue streaks should now learn speech that is "good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

Repentance is more than just stopping what is bad. You also need to fix it, make it as right as you can, and start doing the opposite good.