Church of the Holy City

Repent and Believe!

Repent and Believe!
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
January 20, 2013

Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Mark 1:14-20 Psalm 62

Our Bible readings bring up difficult doctrines. The doctrines they bring up are sin and repentance. In our reading from Jonah, the inhabitants of Nineveh are told to repent from their sinful ways. They do repent and the destruction that had been looming over their city is withdrawn. In our reading from Mark, we have the whole of religion summed up in one phrase of Jesus, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). I interpret this to mean that through repentance, we are brought into good will and deeds. And believing in the gospel means to me that we believe in God. So doing good and believing in God are what this line means, and those are the sum of all religion. The Psalmist says essentially the same thing, “Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done” (62:12).
This Sunday I would like to look at two ways of looking at sin and repentance. I hope that these unpleasant topics will not prove to distressful to listen to. Before I talk about them, I should preface my talk by saying that God is a loving God, and everyone who wants to come into heaven will succeed. God wants nothing more than to have a heaven of people who love each other and who love God. In this way, joy flows through every heart to each other from God and back to God.
Sin is only what comes between this cycle of love and joy flowing from and through people to each other, from God and back to God. This is how this church understands the concept of sin. However, traditional Christianity sees sin differently.
Traditional Christianity sees sin as something caused by Adam and transmitted to the whole human race after him. Adam sinned by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eating the forbidden fruit caused Adam to be cast from the Garden of Eden, and death came to the human race. This is called “original sin.” Adam’s original sin is inherited by everyone who is born after him. So, according to traditional Christianity, you and I have Adam’s original sin in us. Traditional Christianity also teaches that Jesus died to take away this original sin. Jesus’ crucifixion was like the animal sacrifices that were performed by the Israelites. His death on the cross was like the sacrifices of atonement that take away the sin of the Israelites. Thus we have the line in the Catholic mass, “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” So, it is said, Jesus took away the sins of humanity through His crucifixion. But Jesus only took away the sins of those people who believe in this sacrifice. So traditional Christianity teaches that Adam’s original sin is taken away from those who believe that Jesus took it away on the cross. This is what being born again means. It means that the individual believes that Jesus took away their sins, and from that point on, their sins past, present, and future are taken away by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior, who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins, will go to the grave with Adam’s original sin inscribed on their soul.
This doctrine is explained most clearly in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In Romans 5, Paul teaches the following,
Just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
If the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Romans 5:18-19, 15)
We see in this passage this doctrines that condemnation came to all men through Adam, and that grace and salvation come to all men through Jesus Christ.
This church sees the whole sin and salvation thing differently. We even start from a different place. When I was teaching a student of mine kept asking me, “How could I be blamed for something that someone else did so long ago?” My response was that I agreed completely with that question. Like that student, I do not believe that I have to suffer for something that Adam did at the beginning of the human race. In fact, I do not even believe that the story of Adam and Eve is history. But that’s a whole different subject.
This church teaches that we are only responsible for what we do. Just as the Psalmist says, “Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done” (62:12). We are kept in spiritual freedom, and we can freely choose what we will do and what we will not do. This spiritual freedom comes from our spiritual environment. We are situated in between heaven and hell, and we are free to turn ourselves in either direction. Swedenborg writes,
So long as a person lives in the world, he or she is kept in the middle between heaven and hell, and in spiritual equilibrium there, which is free will (TCR 475).
Heaven flows into our heart with good and healthy loves, and hell flows into our heart with distorted passions and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Being in between heaven and hell, we are free to act upon heavenly or hellish loves. For who we are as people is a matter of what we love. If we love doing good things, and if we love each other, we are angels–whether we are on this plane of life or the next. If we love deliberately doing what is bad, and if we try to control and make life miserable for others deliberately, then we are hellish beings–whether we are on this plane or the next. We are what we love.
What we are doing in this world is choosing a community we want to live in in the next life. In the other world, people gather in like-minded communities. More accurately, I should say that people gather together according to what they love. As we make our choices minute by minute, day by day, year by year, we are acquiring spiritual companions who love the same things that we love. Swedenborg teaches that all who are living in this plane, are,
as to their interiors, joined with either angels of heaven or devils of hell. . . . After death every person betakes him or herself to his own, . . . and associates him or herself with those who are in a similar love; for love there joins everyone with his or her like (TCR 477).
Let’s consider what this means for our doctrines of sin and repentance. These ideas of spiritual freedom put sin and repentance in a more process-oriented mode. Whether a person has sin in his or her life is a matter of which spirits a person has chosen to associate with. It’s a fluid process. It’s a question of what kinds of spiritual influences a person is letting flow through their minds or hearts.
Repentance means that a person is allowing heavenly influences to flow through them in place of hellish influences. Repentance is a change of heart, it is a change of character, it is choosing spiritual company where love and joy reign. It means that we are becoming loving and joyful people.
A final question concerns whether repentance is for everyone. From a Biblical perspective, it’s hard to conclude that some of us are just fine without repentance. Mark 1:4 reads, “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus, in the same gospel says the same thing, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). There is no qualifier in these passages. The Lord and John don’t say, “Some of you need to repent for the forgiveness of sins.” It is an unqualified statement, “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Likewise, in John 3:1-9, Jesus says that we need to be reborn. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. . . . unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The first part of this passage seems unconditional, “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” I take being born again to mean repenting and living a new life. But maybe there is room for some widening of interpretation in the second part, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Maybe the teaching here is that we need to open our souls to receive inflowing love and truth from God in order to enter the kingdom of God.
However we interpret these passages, is seems that we all need to change somehow. Either to repent, or to make room for water and the Spirit in our souls. I can’t speak for others. I can see areas in myself that need reformation. I see myself as a work in progress. And I have hope that God, who has all power, can and will reform me and bring me into communion with Himself. One thing we can be sure of, God can and will reform everyone who is willing. Swedenborg writes,
All may be regenerated, each according to his state; for the simple and the learned are regenerated differently; as are those engaged in different pursuits, and those who fill different offices . . . those who are principled in natural good from their parents, and those who are in evil; those who from their infancy have entered into the vanities of the world, and those who sooner or later have withdrawn from them . . . and this variety, like that of people’s features and dispositions, is infinite; and yet everyone, according to his state may be regenerated and saved (TCR 580).
It is God’s will that everyone be as happy as they can be. It is God’s will to save everyone from sin. It is God’s will to fill everyone with His Water and Spirit and to give us all joy, peace, and serenity.
Jehovah, or the Lord’s internal, was the very Celestial of Love, that is, Love itself, to which no other attributes are fitting than those of pure Love, thus of pure Mercy toward the whole human race; which is such that it wishes to save all and make them happy for ever, and to bestow on them all that it has; thus out of pure mercy to draw all who are willing to follow, to heaven, that is, to itself, by the strong force of love (AC 1735).
It may not happen overnight. In fact, it probably will take a lifetime. But He who has all power wishes to “save all and make them happy for ever, and to bestow on them all that it has; thus out of pure mercy to draw all who are willing to follow, to heaven, that is, to itself, by the strong force of love.”

PRAYER

Dear Lord, you have called us into repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We pray that you shine a light on our souls and reveal to us aspects of our character that we need to reform. All the love and peace that we know flows into us from you. We ask that you remove all the blockage that would inhibit the flowing in of your divine love and wisdom. We pray that you form us into an image and likeness of you. We pray that you replace worldly and egotistic drives with heavenly and holy loves. We pray that you bring us into eternal union with you, our heavenly Father, and into heavenly joy forever.