When a mother witnesses her child selfishly snatch a toy from his friend, she leaps to restore order and makes two demands, “Give it back” and “Tell him you’re sorry.” The first instruction is a matter of restitution. The offending child must make his friend whole again by returning the item taken. The second, however, is more nuanced. In one respect the mother is teaching her child how to conform to social norms. Young or old, you are expected to apologize when you’ve done something wrong. For most moms, however, that’s only a secondary objective.
The truth is a “sorry” can actually make matters worse when it’s delivered with an expressionless face and emotionless voice. And while saying, “Will you forgive me?” is preferable to “I’m sorry,” in the end they are still just words. Real repentance consists of more than terminology. Genuine contrition is a matter of the heart.
Through experience adults become more skilled at measuring the validity of one’s “pardon-begging,” but it’s far from perfect. After all, “who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11).
Though you may not be able to precisely know another’s heart, the Bible does provide Christians a reliable metric when it comes to repentance, but it comes with a twist! With true repentance, God is at the center and not the offended party. Society (and our sinful nature) puts the aggrieved party on the judge’s bench, where that person will adjudicate the sincerity of the offender’s apology. But the paradigm changes entirely when God serves as the Judge.
Two of the greatest trespasses a man could ever commit was perpetrated by King David. He slept with another man’s wife and, on learning she was pregnant with his child, had her husband killed. When confronted, David fell to pieces in guilt and declared, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13). Psalm 51 records his unfeigned lament which includes, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Ps. 51:3–4).
If ever there were sins against another man, it would be the ones David committed, yet in this model of repentance he was laser focused on how he had offended God. Whether you’re the offender or the offended, this is instructive. Real repentance is oriented to God because all sin, at its root, is a violation of God’s law. Just like the mother teaching her son to apologize, we know how to try to reconcile relationships with each other, but the deepest, best and purest repentance is one that sees how above all he or she has sinned against God.
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. (2 Cor. 7:10-11)
According to this passage, true contrition is one that leads to regret-free salvation that ends in being proven innocent. The only way in which a person can be saved and declared innocent after doing something over which he grieves, is to be forgiven in Christ. Put differently, a man could express his remorse with the grandest of gestures or grovel in the lowliest of ways, but if he does not perceive his offense first and foremost as one against God, then it remains within the boundaries of the human relationship. It is worldly grief because it never pierces heaven!
You currently are (or soon will be) an offender or one offended. Regardless, orient your situation to God. Let your response reflect the knowledge that He sits in the Judgment Seat. As the offender, make your repentance true by seeking His forgiveness before and above anyone else’s. If you’re the one offended, recognize that the wrongdoer will answer to God for his actions, not you. In either case, deliverance is found in God.
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. (Acts 3:19–21)