Repentance and Forgiveness (Acts 3:19)

Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

First off, one must ask, is it repentance that wipes out sin, or faith? The 21st century mind likes to know such things. Such thinking would have been foreign to the early church. People with faith in God repent of their sins and turn to God. People who repent of their sins and turn to God have faith. Sometimes I think we try to separate the wetness from the water in our theological musings.

Not only is it important to understand that faith and repentance go hand-in-hand, but we should also feel the freedom to call someone to repentance, as did Peter in this passage. If someone is sleeping around, drinking heavily, and blaspheming God with his life, there would be nothing wrong with telling him that he needs to repent and turn to God. In fact, it may be somewhat ridiculous to tell him that he needs to believe in Jesus. That would be meaningless to him and would be likely to evoke a response of, “I already believe in Jesus.” We might say something like, “You believe that He exists, but you don’t truly believe.” This makes sense to us in our Christian thinking, but is not likely to get far with the person we are trying to reach. What we are thinking is that by this man’s lifestyle we can clearly see that he does not believe that God is watching him, that he does not like what he sees, and that someday God will judge him for his actions. This man does not have a changed life that results from true belief. In other words, he has not repented. Telling him to “repent and turn to God” seems like a pretty clear way to explain to him his need and the lack of Jesus in his life!

The promise attached to repentance is astonishing: “that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” This “refreshing” is not that life will be easy and that God is going to pour material blessings into your lap. The believers in the early church knew and expected suffering. Such thinking was foreign to them. The refreshing spoken of here is utter and complete forgiveness. Sins would be wiped out, destroyed, demolished, and dealt with forever. True repentance requires an acceptance of the gravity of our sinfulness and when God brings us to this point of brokenness, then, at that point we can grasp the great value of a clean slate with God.