Bible Repentance: Path to Love - Robert J. Wieland

Repentance and a New Life
Repentance is thus not only a sorrow for sin,
but a genuine abhorrence of it. It is an actual
turning away from sin, an awakened hatred of it.
The law alone can never impart this phenomenal
reaction; it must be combined with grace in order
to be effective. “The law worketh wrath” and
imparts a terror of judgement, but grace works the
kind of repentance that makes “old things” to pass
away; “behold, all things are become new” (2
Corinthians 5:17). Sin that was once loved is now
hated; and God’s righteousness is loved.
In this way, repentance is always associated
with “remission of sins,” that is, sending them
away (Luke 24:47). In fact, the New Testament
word for “forgiveness” implies a separation from
sin, a deliverance from it. Repentance makes it
actually impossible to continue in sin. The “love of
Christ supplies the new motivation for a
phenomenal change in the life (2 Corinthians 5:15,
16).
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