Lord Jesus, help us to not only have sight of our sin against God the Father and heaven, but help us to be more than sorrowful for our sin. Help us to be truly broken of our sin so much that we feel what you felt on the cross. Help us Lord to see what put you there, and to be sorrowful over the fact! Not just sorrowful for the consequences or punishment for our sin, but mostly sorrowful for sinning against our Father God. I love you Jesus! Help me on this blog today to speak to your followers as to convict of sin and yield true repentance.
(The Doctrine of Repentance: Chapter 3, pgs. 19-22
Ingredient 2: Sorrow for Sin
I will be sorry for my sin (Psalm 38.18). Ambrose calls sorrow the embittering of the soul. The Hebrew word ‘to be sorrowful’ signifies ‘to have the soul, as it were, crucified’. This must be in true repentance: ‘They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn’ (Zech. 12.10), as if they did feel the nails of the cross sticking in their sides. A woman may as well expect to have a child without pangs as one can have repentance without sorrow. He that can believe without doubting, suspect his faith; and he that can repent without sorrowing, suspect his repentance.
-Wow! That last line speaks volumes! If only we held to that in the body of Christ!
Martyrs shed blood for Christ, and penitents shed tears for sin: ‘she stood at Jesus’ feet weeping’ (Luke 7.38). See how this limbeck(old distilling apparatus) dropped. The sorrow of her heart ran out at her eye. The brazen laver for the priests to wash in (Exod. 30.18) typified a double laver: the laver of Christ’s blood we must wash in by faith, and the laver of tears we must wash in by repentance. A true penitent labours to work his heart into a sorrowing frame. He blesses God when he can weep; he is glad of a rainy day, for he knows that it is a repentance he will have no cause to repent of. Though the bread of sorrow be bitter to the taste, yet it strengthens the heart (Psalm 104.15; 2 Cor. 7.10).
This sorrow for sin is not superficial: it is a holy agony. It is called in scripture a breaking of the heart: ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart’ (Psalm 51.17); and a rending of the heart: ‘Rend your heart’ (Joel 2.13). The expressions of smiting on the thigh (Jer. 31.19), beating on the breast (Luke 18.13), putting on of sackcloth (Isa. 22.12), plucking off the hair (Ezra 9.3), all these are but outward signs of inward sorrow. This sorrow is:
(I) To make Christ precious. O how desirable is a Saviour to a trouble soul! Now Christ is Christ indeed, and mercy is mercy indeed. Until the heart is full of compunction it is not fit for Christ. How welcome is a surgeon to a man who is bleeding from his wounds!
(2) To drive out sin. Sin breeds sorrow, and sorrow kills sin. Holy sorrow is the rhubarb to purge out the ill humours of the soul. It is said that the tears of vinebranches are good to cure the leprosy. Certainly the tears that drop from the penitent are good to cure the leprosy of sin. The salt water of tears kills the worm of conscience.
(3) To make way for solid comfort: ‘They that sow in tears shall reap joy’ (Ps. 126.5). The penitent has a wet seed-time but a delicious harvest. Repentance breaks the abscess of sin, and then the soul is at ease. Hannah, after weeping, went away and was no more sad (I Sam. 1.18). God’s troubling of the soul for sin is like the angel’s troubling of the pool (John 5.4), which made way for healing.
But not all sorrow evidences true repentance. There is as much difference between true and false sorrow as between water in the spring, which is sweet, and water in the sea, which is briny. The apostle speaks of sorrowing ‘after a godly manner’ (2 Cor. 7.9). But what is this godly sorrowing? There are six qualifications of it:
I. True godly sorrow is inward
It is inward in two ways:
(1) It is a sorrow of the heart. The sorrow of hypocrites lies in their faces: ‘they disfigure their faces’ (Matt. 6.16). They make a sour face, but their sorrow goes no further, like the dew that wets the leaf but does not soak to the root. Ahab’s repentance was in outward show. His garments were rent but not his spirit (I Kings 21.27). Godly sorrow goes deep, like a vein which bleeds inwardly. The heart bleeds for sin: ‘they were pricked in their heart’ (Acts 2.37). As the heart bears a chief part in sinning, so it must in sorrowing.
(2) It is a sorrow for heart-sins, the first outbreaks and risings of sin. Paul grieved for the law in his members (Rom. 7.23). The true mourner weeps for the stirrings of pride and concupiscence. He grieves for the ‘root of bitterness’ even though it never blossoms into act. A wicked man may be troubled for scandalous sins; a real convert laments heart-sins.
-Wow again! Our sorrow for our sin must not only be godly, but be inward. Then Watson goes as far as to say we must be inwardly sorrow not just for our comitted sins but for the ones we even think of comitting.
II. Godly sorrow is ingenuous
It is sorrow for the offence rather than for the punishment. God’s law has been infringed, his love abused. This melts the soul in tears. A man may be sorry, yet not repent, as a thief is sorry when he is taken, not because he stole, but because he has to pay the penalty. Hypocrites grieve only for the bitter consequence of sin. I have read of a fountain that only sends forth streams on the evening before a famine. Likewise their eyes never pour out tears except when God’s judgments are approaching. Pharaoh was more troubled for the frogs and river of blood than for his sin. Godly sorrow, however, is chiefly for the trespass against God, so that even if there were no conscience to smite, no devil to accuse, no hell to punish, yet the soul would still be grieved because of the prejudice done to God.”(pg.22)
-Ouch! That’s awesome and so true. We should realize that true repentance has nothing to do with the consequences or penalty for sin, but for sorrow toward the one who sin is committed against: Holy Almighty God Himself! This really convicts me because I struggle with certain things and am sorrowful for how God will punish or chastise me or if I will be noticed. But in order for me to truly repent with Godly sorrow I must be sorrowful for the fact that I have sinned against God!
“‘My sin is ever before me’ (Ps.51:3); David does not say, The sword threatened is ever before me, but ‘my sin’. O that I should offend so good a God, that I should grieve my Comforter! This breaks my heart!
Godly sorrow shows itself to be ingenuous because when a Christian knows that he is out of the gun-shot of hell and shall never be damned, yet still he grieves for sinning against that free grace which has pardoned him.
III. Godly sorrow is fiducial(trustful)
It is intermixed with faith: ‘the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe’ (Mark 9.24). Here was sorrow for sin chequered with faith, as we have seen a bright rainbow appear in a watery cloud.
Spiritual sorrow will sink the heart if the pulley of faith does not raise it. As our sin is ever before us, so God’s promise must be ever before us. As we much feel our sting, so we must look up to Christ our brazen serpent. Some have faces so swollen with worldly grief that they can hardly look out of their eyes. That weeping is not good which blinds the eye of faith. If there are not some dawnings of faith in the soul, it is not the sorrow of humiliation but of despair.”
Fruitful Musings 