The Response of the Repentant

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”—2 Corinthians 7:10

While a Christian is still in the world, there will always be the problem of sin. Once Christ returns or we go to be with Him we will be done with sin, but until that time we struggle. We all sin, but one key difference between the believer and the unbeliever is how we deal with it. For the unbeliever, sin, if it is even called “sin,” is nothing more than a genetic anomaly, a behavior that can be corrected with medication or some type of behavior modification, if anything needs to happen at all. But for the believer, sin is rebellion against Almighty God. Sin is not just falling short of God’s perfect standard, but the erroneous belief that we can have something outside of God’s perfect plan for us. In other words, it’s the belief that God doesn’t want or understand what’s best for us, we do. But choosing to believe THAT is choosing to believe a lie.

In his or her heart, the believer knows sin is rebellion against God Himself as the Spirit of God awakens the conscience by means of panic, fear of judgment, or a sense of distance from God. For both the believer and the unbeliever there is conviction of sin (Romans 2:14-15). For the unbeliever there may be grief, but it is a worldly grief. What is worldly grief? It is grief over being caught in the sin. But, for the believer there is godly grief, which is not sorrow for being caught; rather it is sorrow at having disappointed and turned against the one who gave Himself for us. And rather than let evil continue growing, the believer erupts in sorrow, confession, and a true desire for heart change in the face of God because Christ by His atoning sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from the dead made this available to us.

Worldly grief produces no heart change, which means that sin is allowed to continue, thus resulting in death. But godly grief produces the desire to put sin to death in our flesh, because Christ died for that sin. Although sin still manifests itself while we have these fallen fleshly bodies, we are to consider ourselves dead to sin’s power because, by our faith in Christ, we have been crucified with Him on the cross, and risen again to resurrection life through this same faith! Thus, when we sin, we feel an overwhelming sorrow. Though we know our relationship with God can never be broken, the fellowship we experience can be. Because of His Spirit within us, whenever we do sin, we experience a heartbreaking loss of fellowship with the divine Son of God. And it’s grievous to our spirit, because once we have entered into fellowship with Him, there is nothing greater than knowing and being known by Him. The only way that intimate fellowship can be recaptured is through confession, restitution (if possible), and a deliberate turning from that sin as the sinner turns back toward God.

Godly grief leads to salvation. Although we have sinned, there need not be despair and hopelessness because God has paid the price for that sin through Jesus Christ. But worldly grief leads to hopelessness, despair and death because no atonement has been made. And there will constantly be the reminder that the opportunity for salvation was rejected because sin was deemed more desirable than a Savior.

May we each ask God for a tender, sensitive heart that is quick to repent. May we ask that He, by His Spirit, cause us to grieve over our sin, and may we continually confess our sins to Him, asking for His forgiveness in order that we might continually put sin to death in our mortal bodies, living by faith in and through our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us. Amen.