The Repentant Life

Catechism Class. LD32 Q87

1st Corinthians 6:9-11  

Our catechism class deals with REPENTANCE.  Christians will agree that you cannot come to Christ without acknowledging that you are a sinner, repenting of your all sins and trusting Christ.  But there are some who believe that no further repentance is necessary.  That is untrue.  The Christian life is a life of repentance.  The Christian who thinks that when you are converted you no longer sin is living in total delusion.  We are forgiven, but we are not yet perfect.  That is still to come. 

The Heidelberg Catechism is arranged into three sections, Guilt, Grace and Gratitude.  Sin, Salvation and the Believer’s Thankful Response, – the Christian life. The catechist places Q87 in section 3, our grateful response, emphasising that repentance is on ongoing aspect of our Christian lives is one of the evidences of conversion, a grateful response to God’s work in us. So he asks this question:-  

Q.87 Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and impenitent walk of life?  The Catechist’s answer is an unequivocal NO. 

By no means. Scripture says that no unchaste person, idolater, adulterer, thief, greedy person, drunkard, slanderer, robber, or the like shall inherit the kingdom of God.  

The catechist references our text. (1st Corinthians 6:9-11) where Paul drew up a list of the sins that were most prevalent in Greek society, and warns that those who practise them would never have any place in God’s heaven:-  Impure and Immoral People!  Idolaters!  Homosexuals! Thieves!  Drunkards!  Revilers!  No-one who practiced these sinful lifestyles could be members of God’s kingdom, and they could never be in heaven. And the list is not comprehensive, for Paul says here: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? – and he has already told us that unrighteousness is the common descriptor of every man or woman.  Romans 3:10-11  

And to all Christians, Paul says, do not be deceived! Don’t be fooled by the modern softening of attitudes toward sin and sinful lifestyles.  Sin brings upon us God’s condemnation. 

Paul makes the most interesting and important point of all. “And such were some of you!” In the Corinthian Church there were people who had once engaged in all the vices of the pagan Greek world. But they had experienced the life changing power of God! God had brought them from darkness to light, from death to life.  Paul remarks on the change in their lives, Ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.  How glorious a change the grace of God makes in a sinner’s life! We are not what we ought to be, nor yet what we will be, but we are not what we were! 2 Cor. 5:17 

The Christian life is a life of self-examination, humble acceptance of our tendency to sin, prayerful resistance of temptation, and heartfelt sincere repentance before the Lord.  

Please Read: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:5, 6; 1 John 3:14.