Excerpt from The Doctrine of Repentance, By Thomas Watson. (Chapter 3, Ingredient 6)
The sixth ingredient in repentance is a turning from sin. Reformation is left last to bring up the rear of repentance. What if one could, with Niobe, weep himself into a stone if he did not weep out sin? True repentance, like aqua fortis [nitric acid], eats away the iron chain of sin. Therefore, weeping and turning are put together in Joe 2.12. After the cloud of sorrow has dripped in tears, the firmament of the soul is clearer: “Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (Eze 14. 6). This turning from sin is called a forsaking of sin (Isa 55.7), just as a man forsakes the company of a thief or sorcerer. It is called “putting sin far away” (Job 11.14), just as Paul put away the viper and shook it into the fire (Act 28.5). Dying to sin is the life of repentance. The very day a Christian turns from sin, he must commit himself to a perpetual fast. The eye must fast from impure glances. The ear must fast from hearing slanders. The tongue must fast from oaths. The hands must fast from bribes. The feet must fast from the path of the harlot. And the soul must fast from the love of wickedness. This turning from sin implies evident change.
There is a change worked in the heart. The flinty heart has become fleshly. Satan wanted Christ to prove his deity by turning stones into bread. Christ has worked a far greater miracle in making stones become flesh. In repentance, Christ turns a heart of stone into flesh.
“The soul must fast from the love of wickedness”
There is a change worked in the life. Turning from sin is so visible that others may discern it. Therefore it is called a change from darkness to light (Eph 5.8). Paul, after he had seen the heavenly vision, was so turned that all men wondered at the change (Act 9.21). Repentance turned the jailer into a nurse and physician (Act 16.33). He took the apostles and washed their wounds and set meat before them. Say a ship is going eastward; a wind comes which turns it westward. Likewise, a man is hellward bound before the contrary wind of the Spirit blew, turned his course, and caused him to sail heaven-ward. Chrysostom, speaking of the Ninevites’ repentance, said that if a stranger who had seen Nineveh’s excess had gone into the city after they repented, he would scarcely have believed it was the same city, because it was so metamorphosed and reformed. Repentance makes such a visible change in a person, as if another soul lodged in the same body.
A few things are required so that turning from sin is rightly qualified:
1. It must be a turning from sin with the heart.
The heart is the “primum livens”, the first thing that lives, and it must be the “primum vertens”, the first thing that turns. The heart is what the devil strives hardest for. He never strived for the body of Moses as he does for the heart of man. In religion, the heart is everything. If the heart is not turned from sin, it is no better than a lie: “her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense” (Jer 3.10) or as it is in Hebrew, “in a lie.” Judah made a show of reformation; she was not so grossly idolatrous as the ten tribes. Yet Judah was worse than Israel: she is called “treacherous” Judah. She pretended to be reformed, but it was not in truth. Her heart was not for God: she did not turn with the whole heart. It is odious to make a show of turning from sin while the heart is still in league with it. I have read of one of our Saxon kings who was baptized, who in the same church had one altar for the Christian religion and another for the heathen. God will have the whole heart turned from sin. True repentance must have no reserves or inmates.
“The heart is the “primum livens”, the first thing that lives, and it must be the “primum vertens”, the first thing that turns.”
2. It must be a turning from all sin.
“Let the wicked forsake his way” (Isa 55.7). A real penitent turns off the road of sin. Every sin is abandoned: just as Jehu would have all the priests of Baal slain (1Kng 10.24), so a true convert seeks the destruction of every lust; not one must escape. He knows how dangerous it is to entertain any one sin. Someone who hides one rebel in his house is a traitor to the Crown, and someone who indulges one sin is a traitorous hypocrite.
3. It must be a turning from sin upon a spiritual ground.
A man may restrain the acts of sin, and yet not turn from sin in a right manner. Act of sin may be restrained out of fear or design; but a true penitent turns from sin out of a religious principle, namely, love to God. Even if sin did not bear such bitter fruit, even if death did not grow on this tree, a gracious soul would forsake it out of love for God. This is the most kindly turning from sin. When things are frozen and congealed, the best way to separate them is by fire. When men and their sins are congealed together, the best way to separate them is by the fire of love. Three men ask one another what made them leave sin. One says, “I think of the joys of heaven;” another said, “I think of the torments of hell;” but the third said, “I think of the love of God, and that makes me forsake it. How shall I offend the God of love?”
4. It must be such a turning from sin as turns to God.
This is in the text, “that they should repent and turn to God” (Act 26.20). Turning from sin is like pulling the arrow out of the wound; turning to God is like pouring in the balm. We read in Scripture of a repentance from dead works (Heb 6.1), and a repentance toward God (Act 20.21). Unsound hearts pretend to leave old sins, but they do not turn to God or embrace his service. It is not enough to forsake the devil’s quarters; we must get under Christ’s banner and wear his colors. The repenting prodigal not only left his harlots, but he arose and went to his father. It was God’s complaint, “They return, but not to the most High” (Hos 7.16). In true repentance, the heart points directly to God just as the compass needle points to the North Pole.
“It is not enough to forsake the devil’s quarters; we must get under Christ’s banner and wear his colors.”
5. True turning from sin is such a turn as has no return.
“Ephraim will say, ‘What have I to do any more with idols?’” (Hos 14.8). Forsaking sin must be like forsaking one’s native soil, never more to return to it. Some have seemed to be converts and seemed to have turned from sin, but they returned to their sins again. This is a returning to folly (Psa 85.8). It is a fearful sin, for it is against clear light. It may be supposed that someone who left his sin, felt his sin bitterly in the pangs of his conscience. Yet he returned to it again; he therefore sins against the illuminations of the Spirit. Such a return to sin reproaches God: “What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?” (Jer 2.5) Someone who returns to sin, by implication charges God with some evil. If a man puts away his wife, it implies that he knows of some fault by her. To leave God and return to sin is to tacitly asperse the Deity. God, who “hates putting away” (Mal. 2.16), hates that he himself should be put away. To return to sin gives the devil more power over a man than ever. When a man turns from sin, the devil seems to be cast out of him; but when he returns to sin, the devil enters into his house again and takes possession, and “the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Mat 12.45). When a prisoner has broken out of prison, and the jailer gets him again, he will put stronger irons on him. The one who ends a course of sinning, as it were, breaks out of the devil’s prison. But if Satan takes him again by his returning to sin, Satan will hold him faster and take fuller possession of him than ever. Oh take heed of this! A true turning from sin means divorcing it, so as never to come near it any more. Whoever is thus turned from sin is a blessed person: “God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities” (Act 3.26).
“A true turning from sin means divorcing it, so as never to come near it any more.”
Use 1. Is turning from sin a necessary ingredient in repentance? If so, then there is little repentance to be found. People are not turned from their sins; they are still the same as they were. They were proud, and so they still are. Like the beasts in Noah’s ark, they went into the ark unclean and came out unclean. Men come to ordinances impure and go away impure. Though men have seen so many changes without, yet there is no change worked within: “the people do not turn to him who strikes” (Isa 9. 13). How can those who do not turn say they have repented? Have those who still have their leprosy on their forehead washed in the Jordan? May not God say to the unreformed, as he once said to Ephraim, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone” (Hos 4.17)? Likewise, here is a man joined to his drunkenness and uncleanness: let him alone; let him go on in sin. But if there is either justice in heaven or vengeance in hell, he shall not go unpunished.
Use 2. It reproves those who are only half-turned. And who are these? Those who turn in their judgment but not in their practice. They can only acknowledge that sin, like Saturn, has a bad influence on them, and they weep for sin, yet they are so bewitched by it that they have no power to leave it. Their corruptions are stronger than their convictions. These are half-turned, “almost Christians” (Act 26.20). They are like Ephraim, who was a cake baked on one side, but raw dough on the other (Hos 7.8)
They are half-turned if they turn only from gross sin but have no intrinsic work of grace. They do not prize Christ or love holiness. Those who only act civil are like Jonah: he had a plant to protect him from the heat of the sun and thought he was safe; but a worm quickly appeared and devoured the plant. So men, when they are turned from gross sin, think their civility will be a cover to defend themselves from the wrath of God. But at death, the worm of conscience arises, and strikes this plant, and then their hearts fail, and they begin to despair.
They are half-turned if they turn from many sins, but are unturned from some special sin. There is a harlot in the bosom which they will not let go of. It is as if a man were cured of several diseases, but has a cancer remaining in his breast that kills him. It reprimands those whose turning is as good as no turning, those who expel one devil only to welcome another. They turn from swearing to slandering, from profuseness to covetousness, like a sick man that turns from a tertian fever to a quartan. Such turning will turn men to hell.
Use 3. Let us show ourselves penitents by turning from sin to God. There are some persons I have little hope to prevail with. Let the trumpet of the word sound ever so shrill, let threats be thundered out against them, let some flashes of hellfire be thrown in their faces, and they will still have another play at sin. These persons seem to be like the swine in the Gospel, violently carried down into the sea by the devil. They would rather be damned than turn: “they hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return” (Jer 8.5). But if there is any candor or sobriety in us, if our conscience is not in a deep sleep, then let us listen to the voice of the charmer, and turn to God our supreme good.
How often does God call upon us to turn to him? He swears, “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked: turn, turn from your evil ways” (Eze 33.11). God would rather have our repenting tears than our blood.
“Turning to God is for our profit. Our repentance does not benefit God, but ourselves.”
Turning to God is for our profit. Our repentance does not benefit God, but ourselves. If a man drinks from a fountain he benefits himself, not the fountain. If he beholds the light of the sun, he is the one refreshed by it, not the sun. If we turn from our sins to God, God is not advantaged by it. It is only we ourselves who reap the benefit. In this case, self-love should prevail with us: “If you are wise, you will be wise for yourself” (Pro 9.12).
If we turn to God, he will turn to us. He will turn his anger from us, and turn his face to us. It was David’s prayer, “O turn to me, and have mercy upon me” (Psa 86.16). Our turning will make God turn: “Turn to me, says the Lord, and I will turn to you” (Zec 1.3). The one who was an enemy will turn to be our friend. If God turns to us, then the angels are turned to us. We will have their tutelage and guardianship (Psa 91.11). If God turns to us, all things will turn to our good, both mercies and afflictions; we shall taste honey at the end of the rod.
Thus we have seen the several ingredients of repentance.
