On Repentance...

As sin is separation from God, repentance then is returning to God. God says: “Return to me, and I will return to you” (Mal 3:7). When the prodigal son repented, he returned to his father (Luke 15:18-20). True repentance is a human longing to the origin from which it was taken. It is the desire of a heart that stayed away from God, and felt that it cannot go any further away.

For as sin is disputing with God, so repentance is reconciliation with God. This is what our teacher Saint Paul stated about his apostolic work, saying: “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading by us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God” but through it God returns and dwells in the human heart transforming it to a heaven. As for those non-repentant, how can God dwell in their hearts while the sin is dwelling therein? The Bible says, “What communion has light with darkness?”(2 Cor 6:14).

Repentance is also a spiritual awakening. The sinful person is unaware of his state. The Bible says to him: “that now it is high time to awake out of sleep”(Rom 13:11). By this context, repentance is the return of a person to himself. Or the return of ones self to its original sensitivity, the return of the heart to its fervour and the return of the conscience to its work. It is justly said about the prodigal son in his repentance: “He came to himself” (Luke 15:17). He then came back to his alertness, to his correct thinking and to his spiritual understanding.

For as sin is regarded as spiritual death, just as the Bible says about sinners that they are: “dead in trespasses” (Eph 2:5), then repentance is transfer from death to life according to the expression of St. John the Evangelist (1 John 3:14). St. Paul the apostle says about this: “Awake, you who sleep; Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph 5:14). St. James the apostle confirms the same meaning by saying: “he who turns a sinner from the ‘error’ of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins”(James 5:20). Repentance is resurrection for the spirit, because the death of the spirit is separation of the spirit from God, just as St. Augustine said:‘Repentance is a new pure heart, which God gives to the sinners to love Him with’. It is a divine act performed by God inside the person, according to His divine promise which says, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness.... I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.... and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgements and do them” (Ezek 36:25-27).

For more on Repentance, follow this link: https://www.copticchurch.org/Texts/Spirituals/Repentan.pdf