Corporate Repentance - Robert J. Wieland

force. The church is a "body," and its organism is
its vital functioning capacity. The individuals
comprising this body can repent as a body because
each member is integrally one with every other
member.
As we have seen, metanoia (Greek for
repentance) literally means "perceptive
afterthought." It cannot be complete until the close
of probationary history when history's guilt is at
last discerned. So long as there is a tomorrow
which will provide further reflection on the
meaning of our "mind" today, or so long as
another's sins may yet disclose to us our own
deeper guilt, our repentance must remain to that
extent incomplete.
But it will grow, for "at every advance step in
Christian experience our repentance will deepen"
(Christ's Object Lessons, page 160). The High
Priest who is cleansing the heavenly sanctuary has
not abdicated His work. His people may fail to
learn their lessons, but He will bring them back
over the same ground to test them again and again
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