WHEN THE SICK KNOW THEY ARE SICK, THEY SEEK A PHYSICIAN!

Repentance is a change of mind, and is more than a mere intellectual change or a mere mental affirmation.  It is deeper than that.  This change is effected by the Spirit of God in the very heart of the person, in the very depths of his soul.  The person's whole being is affected by this new outlook.  It involves a different attitude about God, sin and self.  The sinner must see himself as God sees him.  Isaiah had a clear vision of God and His holiness, and thus had a clear vision of himself:  "Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips" (Isa. 6:5).

 

The change of thinking involved with repentance relates especially to sin.   Consider Luke 5:29-32: 

 

"And Levi made Him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them. But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against His disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.  I came not to call the righteous (self-righteous), but sinners to repentance."

 

All men are sick with sin (Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:10-12; 3:23) but the Pharisees and scribes did not recognize their own sinfulness.  They were self-righteous.  They were not actually righteous, but they thought they were.  They saw themselves as righteous.  The Lord's point was simple:  No one will go to a physician unless he realizes how sick he is.  No one will go to the Savior unless he realizes how sinful he is.  The same point is made in Luke 15:1-7.  The implication in both Luke 5 and Luke 15 is that repentance involves a recognition of one's own sinfulness.  The person who considers himself as righteous has not repented and the Savior of sinners cannot help that person. 

 

Another example of repentance is found in the parable of the prodigal son.  The term "repent" is not used (though it is used in the first two parables of Luke 15) but the idea is certainly found in Luke 15:17.  The wayward son "came to himself."   He changed his mind.  He recognized the foolish and sinful way in which he had been living.  He went to his father. He did not change his life. He came in rags and in his filth. The father is the one who clothed him and fed him. He came to himself and said, "I am unworthy." He simply came to his father. He came in his poverty.  He came in his sin.  He came just as he was.  He did not even change his clothes or take a bath.  However, his inner attitude had totally changed.

 

Repentance also involves a change of mind concerning false objects of trust in which the sinner once put his confidence.  If a sinner is trusting in his own good works, or his religious, his law keeping ability, or anything else, then there needs to be a complete change of mind to realize that none of these things can save him. Instead all his confidence must be in Christ and Christ alone.  "It is asserted that repentance, which is a change of mind, enters of necessity into the very act of believing on Christ, since one cannot turn to Christ from other objects of confidence without that change of mind" (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, Vol. III, p. 378).