We now need to consider how we are to appropriate all that God has for us in Christ Jesus: In other words, how may these truths that we have considered objectively become ours experimentally?
We found in a previous lesson that the threefoldness of God is to be considered in connection with every act of God. We commonly speak of the three “persons” of the Trinity, for lack of a better expression; but this is misleading unless we are careful to remember that the Trinity is One Personality. We should never separate the threefoldness of God, but always think of Him as the One God, visualized in Christ, but also invisibly active in the Holy Spirit.
For the purpose of clear thinking, we will now speak of the activities of God the Holy Spirit in enabling sinful human beings to perceive and appropriate the Redemptive Work planned by God the Father and executed by God the Son. The Holy Spirit’s method, if we may use that word, is the same at each crisis of appropriation. There is always the “brooding process,” followed by man’s perception of need; then there is illumination concerning God’s Plan of Redemption executed at Calvary, to meet the need. This is followed by the quickening of faith in the needy one, and then the will is energized so that the choice may be made. The word “brooding” referred to, is suggested by the verb in the last phrase of Genesis 1:2. “The Spirit of God, i.e., God, the Holy Spirit, moved (Heb. brooded) upon the face of the waters.” Pastor Stockmayer in his Meditations in Genesis shows the analogy between the work of the Holy Spirit in connection with the reconstruction of the chaotic earth and His work in the ruined sinner. Concerning this preparatory work he says, “The Spirit of God prepares the way for the Word of God.” Before God speaks the word (vv. 3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24, 26), the Spirit of God must make ready His way. He hovers, He moves, He broods over that mass as a hen broods over her eggs. Before the sinner wakes up to grace out of the world of chaos in which he has been living, an uneasiness comes over him. It is the Holy Spirit brooding over him. Theologians name this “predestinating grace.” The teacher should explain that this preparatory work must be accomplished in those for whom we are praying. While we are praying and giving forth the Word of God in public assemblies or in personal conversation, the Holy Spirit is using our words and our intercession to bring about the uneasiness and sense of need that develops into what is theologically termed “conviction.” A convicted sinner must always be shown Calvary as meeting his need, and this the Holy Spirit proceeds to do- revealing a crucified Savior whose sin-bearing has made it possible for the sinner to pass from the sphere of sin into that of Eternal Life. Faith is so quickened that the Redemptive Work of Calvary seems no longer an historical event for sinners in general, but the sinner exclaims, “He died for me.” There is penitence and in some cases much emotion is manifested, but not until the energized will chooses to pass from the sphere of sin into that of Eternal Life, is the person truly regenerated. This act of the will is called repentance. It is a “right about face movement.”
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that repentance is an act of the will. In its beginning there may be no sense of gladness or reconciliation to God; but just the consciousness that certain ways of life are wrong, mistaken, hurtful and grieving to God; and the desire, which becomes the determination to turn from them, to seek Him who formed the mountains and created the wind, that maketh the morning darkness and treadeth upon the high places of the earth.
Repentance may be accounted the other side of faith. They are the two sides of the same coin; the two aspects of the same act. For purpose of clear thinking it is well to discriminate in our use of the words repentance and penitence, using the former of the first act of the will, when, energized and quickened by the Spirit of God, it turns from dead works to serve the living and true God; and the latter, of the emotions which are powerfully wrought upon as the years pass by the Spirit’s presentation of all the pain and grief which our sin has caused, and is causing to our blessed Lord. We repent once, but are penitents always. We repent in the will; we are penitent in the heart. (Rev. F. B. Meyer)
If the nature of repentance were better understood, Christians would not be troubled over certain passages of Scripture that are often quoted to prove that a child of God may lose Eternal Life: e.g., Hebrews 6:6. The teacher must dwell upon this subject sufficiently to enable the class to clearly perceive the difference between repentance and penitence. They must see that in the very nature of things, repentance, as has been defined, is an act that can never be repeated. The class will be helped to perceive this, if the teacher will exhibit a fifth piece of cardboard, uniform in size with the other four, but placed horizontally, instead of vertically, containing a cross in the center and at the left of the cross a black disc, above which should be placed the words “Sphere of Sin and Death.” At the right of the Cross a gilt disc should be placed, above which are the words “Sphere of Eternal Life in Christ Jesus.” (See Fig. 9.)
Proceed to show that when the sinner, who is within the sphere of sin and death, chooses to leave that sphere and enter the sphere of Eternal Life in Christ Jesus, he actually passes experimentally from one to the other; the cross standing as a gate which opens at his touch of faith to let him through, but which closes behind him and can never be opened upon the Life Side of the Cross to permit his return.
The members of the class must be able to perceive very, very clearly that when the choice is made, a measure of Eternal Life, God’s own Uncreated Life, comes into the spirit of man. He is now truly regenerated; i.e., born again. Let the class become familiar with the following definition of regeneration.
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