“Godly sorrow produces repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:10)

Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. If you have one particle of real hatred for sin, God must have given it to you. “The goodness of God leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4).

When God supernaturally changes a sinner into a saint, they are given saving repentance as a gift (2 Timothy 2:25). Until then, every sinner has common repentance. Like Judas before he killed himself, every sinner feels guilty about something. A talented minister can get many sinners to come forward in an altar call because they feel guilty, but common repentance never results in lasting change, because there’s no saving faith connected to it.

Saving repentance is inseparable from saving faith.  When sinners savingly repent of sin, they have one eye on sin and the other on the cross, or even better, they fix both eyes on Christ and see their sins, in the light of His love. Just as there are common versions of repentance and faith, there is a common version of sorrow. “Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). In Christ’s parable, three out of four categories of listeners that supposedly believed the Gospel, were not saved (Mark 4:3-20).

When God saves someone, they always bear axiomatic fruit worthy of repentance, and this is the way you can distinguish saving repentance from the common repentance of Judas. Those who are saved, “repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:20 NIV). For more on this subject click here.

Saving repentance is continual. Believers repent until their dying day. Every time a saint sins, he feels godly sorrow and repents. Godly sorrow grows as the saint matures, and it’s so sweet, that we thank God we’re permitted to enjoy and suffer it until we enter our eternal rest.

.