Speaking of Repentance

"In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person- and he would not need it."

-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp 57.

We discussed repentance last night in our small group. Specifically we discussed Jesus' fulfilling a void that needed filled because of our sin but could not be filled by a sinner. We had some great conversation about the old and new covenants, the scarlet thread of blood throughout scripture as a penalty for sin and the fact that Jesus sits as mediator today. We have a 2L law student among our bunch and he added his insight on the legal terminology... which was great to hear.

We read Hebrews 9 and 10 last night together and discussed the fact that one of the values for our continual repentance isn't that we crucify Christ over and over again but rather that we inflate or enhance the value of that sacrifice in our lives. Every time we confess a sin and acknowledge it being covered by the blood, we're able to see better just how much we fall short and therefore how much more we have to be thankful for Christ's sacrifice. It seemed to be a pretty cool thought for each of us that even the concept of repentance is designed for us to make much of God and for his glory to be magnified in our own eyes.

In general people tend to stay away from stuff like sin, repentance, redemption, blood, sacrifice, High Priest, etc. We experienced a group last night where these topics brought us to a better walk with Christ and allowed us to more fully appreciate (or at least again be reminded of) the power of his sacrifice on that cross for our sin. It was a great meeting.