Saul

For you felt a godly grief…For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10

I was listening to tearful Christian mother whose barely-adult daughter was in jail, guilty of some serious crimes. “The problem is,” the mother said, “<daughter> has always repented so well. We saw some problems, but we believed her when she tearfully repented and promised never to do it again.”

In today’s verses, Paul commends the leaders in the Corinthian church for repenting. And not just repenting, but repenting correctly. We don’t see this kind of repentance very often. And some of the reason for this is that in our love for the repentor and our desire to see restoration, we accept “worldly repentance that leads to death”.

We begin by naïvely accepting the general goodness of the repentor as a substitute for true repentance. Maybe we assume a divine calling or accountability to a group of leaders as a guarantee against falling into sin in the first place. Then we mistakenly assume that the repentor’s sorrow and confession will provide the power to produce change. Or we accept the repentor’s defensive attitude when we doubt their ability to change.

Israel’s first king, Saul, is a perfect example of someone who puts on a good show of repentance, but doesn’t change. As anyone familiar with the mentality and tactics of the abuser knows, false repentance is a common ploy abusive people use. They can be very convincing—and they can even convince themselves that they have changed. What they did was wrong, but they are finished with it forever. If their victim will only forgive them, all will be well. So now it’s their victim who bears the brunt of making things right again. (more…)