There are jams you can't pull yourself out of

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Sunday,
May 28, 2010

There are jams you can’t pull yourself out of

Point 7. The third type of repentance in the Church age believer’s life is the turning away from human viewpoint (lies, evil) and turning toward divine viewpoint (grace and truth), resulting in living a new life of fellowship with the Trinity.

Repentance - metanoia - in the New Testament means a change of mind for the better.

Eph 6:17
And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

The Holy Spirit probes the deep things of God (1Co 2:10). The word of God probes the deep things inside us (Heb 4:12).

The word of God cuts to the heart of the matter: we still think wrong after salvation.

The truth is usually not what we had in mind - literally! -when we first hear it.

We stop relying on our decisions, our resolutions, our mental effort - and we start relying on the truth itself to set us free.

A change of attitude toward doctrine is the basis of reversion recovery, Rom 2:4-5; Rev 3:19, 2Ti 2:25.

Like the shepherd in the wilderness, the grace of God aggressively seeks out the lost one to save and, later, to restore him or her.

Grace provided and demonstrated first by God leads to repentance in the heart of a man afterwards.

The verb in verse 25 for “may grant” is in the aorist active subjunctive of didomi meaning “to give”.

to give something to some one -- in various senses
1. of one’s own accord to give one something, to his advantage; to bestow, give as a gift: Mat 4:9

2. to grant, give to one asking, let have: Mat 12:39
3. to supply, furnish, necessary things: Mat 6:11
4. to give over, deliver,
a. to reach out, extend, present: as Mat 14:19

c. to give to one’s care, entrust, commit
 

didomi is a grace verb!

Here we have didomi followed by a noun - metanoia - that means an action or an effect (repentance), and the noun denotes something to be done by him to whom it is said to be given.

Here in 2Ti 2:25 the noun in question is the accusative of metanoia. Repentance is “done” by the one to whom God gives the conditions and the ability to proceed.

According to Thayer, the Greek construction we have here should be translated “to cause to”:

“If perhaps God may cause them to repent, thereby resulting in a precise and correct experiential knowledge (epignosis) of the truth or doctrine”.

This change of mind, in respect to a revealed truth from the word of God, is called in 2Ti 2:25 “repentance”. The grace of God provides the conditions necessary for it to occur.