Principles of living a set apart, godly life [10] – Repentance [8 of 12]

 ‘Metánoia’ is the noun that corresponds to the verb ‘metanoeó’ that I mentioned in the previous post. ‘Metánoia’ refers to someone who has ‘a change of thought and perception afterwards’ – an ‘after-thought’. It occurs twenty-two times in the New Testament and it presents the same themes as the verb ‘metanoeó’.

In Matthew’s gospel, when John the Baptist rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism, he criticised their presumptions. ‘Therefore construct fruit suitable to a change of thought and perception afterwards, and so do not think to say within yourselves, ‘We possess Father Abraham’, (Matthew 3 v 8, 9a). See also Luke 3 v 8. We see here the differentiation between the thought itself and the behaviour that follows. John describes the behaviour as the ‘fruit’ or produce of thought. Thought that exists within us is thoroughly carried across to the other side and manifest in our observable actions or behaviour. 

John the Baptist says, ‘Indeed, I immerse you within water penetrating towards a change of thought and perception…’ (Matthew 3 v 11). The ‘thinking and perceiving afterwards’ is the ‘seed’ of the ‘fruit’ of behaviour. Thus, ‘John came to be within the wilderness immersing and heralding immersion, a change of thought and perception afterwards penetrating towards a sending away of no share and self-forfeiture’, (Mark 1 v 4). See also Luke 3 v 3. Paul also testifies to this process, ‘Then Paul said, ‘John baptised an immersion into a change of thinking and perception afterwards, telling the people penetrating towards the coming after him in order that they entrust, they exist, within Jesus’, (Acts 19 v 4). The ‘thought afterwards’ penetrates into a change of behaviour and entrustment in the Messiah to the point of obedience.

This thinking and perceiving after hearing the gospel is necessary because of our natural ignorance and the mistaken patterns of thought that arise from the energies within our fleshly constitution. These fleshly patterns of thought lead towards insensitivity and unresponsiveness to God, and leads some to conclude that God approves of them. But Jesus said, ‘I have not come to summon judicially approved by God, on the contrary, those falling short and widely missing the mark, penetrating towards a change of thought and perception afterwards’, (Luke 5 v 32).