the place of repentance

Yesterday, I wrote about the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, and how that process in Nature is a metaphor for the reality of spiritual regeneration, in the life of those who receive Christ and, thus, they are "born again": they become a "new creature" in Christ.

I alluded to the cocoon as being a kind of death-chamber for the caterpillar.  Indeed, it is.  This morning, I saw repentance in a new light, which I need to go back and relate that to the caterpillar and its cocoon.

I used to think of "repentance" as a state of mind, or, one could even say, a state of being, which expresses remorse concerning one's past sins; and which, consequently, entails a radical change of mind and of lifestyle, that is, one which embraces godliness.  In so far as that definition goes, it is all true.  But it does not go far enough.

Repentance is, as it were, a place, not where one merely feels the guilt and shame of one's sins and, in view of that, determines to change one's ways and to live a more godly (or, at least, a less sinful) life.  No, repentance is not that place.

Let me direct your attention to the image I selected for this essay.  Actually, I wanted to find (and I did find) a far more shocking, even appalling, image to represent the "place" of repentance (although, while I want to teach, yet, I do not want to offend, you, dear Reader).

In as few words as possible, let me say, that "Repentance is the place of one's own death".  It is not a place where you go to pray.  It is a place where you go to die.  Period.  And to die really, to die totally.  Moreover, it is a place where you are willing utterly to die, because, you have come to utterly loathe your own person, that is, the person you have been.  You've come to that "place," where, there, you see not only that the person you have been is unworthy to live any longer; but you finally understand that that wicked person is -- who you are.  So, you don't want that person to live any longer.

Before I go any further, let me say, that I am not talking about physical death, but spiritual.  SUICIDE is NOT what I'm talking about.

I'm convinced, that the vast majority of those who profess to be Christians, notwithstanding they may indeed have once come to that "place," where they viewed themselves in such light, yet, after a season of prayer and perhaps of shedding some tears, they arose from that place still un-dead.  They did not die, at the place of repentance.  They confessed.  They wept.  They prayed.  They resolved.  But they did not die, because, they were not willing to die.

I wanted to display a picture of a half-rotted corpse cast upon a trash heap in the middle of nowhere, to represent the "place of repentance".  I wanted (and do want) you to understand that the place of repentance is not in a church, nor even in prayer; you can "return" still alive in yourself, from either of those "places".  Rather, the place of repentance is a "place" from whence "you" can never return.

Thus, the picture, at the top of this page, represents the "place of repentance".  For the caterpillar, the "place of repentance" is its cocoon.  Realize, that the creature which emerges from the cocoon is not the same creature that entered into that place of death.

Now, I want you to look closely, in your mind, at Calvary.  There stand three crosses.  And the symbolism involving three crosses, is purposeful.  It suggests that: 1) the man of flesh, in every case, must perish; 2) the unrepentant thief died in his sins; 3) the repentant thief also died in the flesh, but he received new life in the spirit before he died in the flesh; and, lastly, 4) Christ also died in the flesh -- though neither in, nor for, his own sins.

What, then, does the death of Christ -- in his flesh -- mean?

Yes, of course, we understand that, in his death, Christ suffered the wrath of God, as the penalty of sin.  In that sense, we also understand that Christ's dying for us, was substitutionary.  In other words, Jesus took our place in Judgment; God judged our sins in the person of Jesus Christ.  True enough, thank God.

But that is not all that is meant by Christ's having died in the flesh.  That death -- his death -- was not only substitutionary in the sense that Jesus stood in the Judgment for us.  But, in truth, Jesus stood in the place of death itself, for us.  Jesus died in the flesh, in my place, and in your place.  Calvary is not -- as most suppose, the place where we may be forgiven of our sins, merely.  Oh, no!  How many have been invited to "kneel at the cross"?  The Roman soldiers who crucified Christ did so much as that, while they gambled for his garments.

But if Calvary avails me of any real benefit at all, it is only when I confess and believe and embrace the reality, namely, that Calvary is where I died, literally, albeit in the person of Jesus Christ:

"For ye ARE dead, and your [new] life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3) 

"I AM crucified WITH Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me..." (Galatians 2:20) 

"Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ..."  (Romans 6:11)

Calvary is the place of repentance.  And we are called to go there, not to pray nor to weep, but to die.
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But crucifixion is not a sudden death; it is slow, and agonizing.  Let me tell you what I heard, this morning, in the "storm," about coal.

Few, these days, have ever handled coal.  Of course, everybody knows what coal looks like.  But few have actually handled it, and fewer yet have used it for heat.  But I remember throwing chunks of it into the fire, in so-called pot-belly stoves.

If coal is anything at all, it is dirty.  Just being in the same room with coal gets one dirty; its unavoidable.  And coal is black and dark.  You won't find any piece of coal that's not solid-black, through and through.  That's us, our "old man".  Black and dirty, through and through.

It wasn't always that way, coal.  It started out, in fact, as organic (living, vegetable) matter, of the earth.  Imagine, if you will, a tree, which once was green, alive and strong.  How can such a thing be turned into coal?  Let me explain that process, by showing you how charcoal is made.  Here is a photo of a woman making charcoal:

The process of making charcoal simulates the process whereby coal is made in Nature.  Organic material, under great pressure, generates a lot of heat as it decomposes.  (Notice, if you will, the smoke arising from holes in the mound, in the above photo.)  But because such decomposing organic material is buried and thus confined, there is not sufficient oxygen to support combustion (flame).  Fire (flame) requires oxygen.

In the case of charcoal, heat is applied to pieces of wood which are enclosed (buried) in some manner, so as to prevent igniting that wood; which process, after some number of hours, turns that wood into charcoal.  Volatile oils are thus driven out of the formerly 'green' wood, and the remaining cellular material can afterwards still be burned, though now without generating an excess of smoke and fumes -- as would otherwise be the case with 'green' or even with unseasoned wood.  The 'greener' the wood, in fact, the less well it burns.

Death by crucifixion, is like making charcoal.  One who is crucified (the 'green' wood), suffers agonizing pain (pressure and heat, in making charcoal).  Yet, the soul that is crucified, is thus "confined" (cannot escape the process of crucifixion).  The spirit of the individual (like the "volatile oils" in wood), is slowly expressed (driven out) from the body, by the 'heat' of crucifixion.  So that, when crucifixion is completed, there remains only the body; similarly, as in making charcoal, there remains only the 'body' of the wood, without the volatile oils.

Now, here's the beauty of this message.  Whereas, living (green) trees do not make good firewood; neither can an un-crucified soul be set on fire with the Holy Ghost.  A man or woman who has not come to acknowledge and to accept -- as a real fact -- his or her own death, in Christ, will not, indeed, cannot burn with holy spiritual fire.  Self-will (the "volatile oil") must be driven out; and that happens neither quickly nor easily.  So, God must allow the "saved" person to be subjected to "heat" and "pressure" (suffering), for a season, until that person comes to the "end" of himself or herself.

The cross of Christ is the place of repentance, the place where one goes to die, to self-will and worldly ambition.  The soul which "is crucified with Christ," is brought at length -- through suffering and sanctification of the spirit, to acknowledge and accept Christ's death as his or her own death, in fact.

As fuel for fire, coal burns clean and hot, in contrast to unseasoned wood.

The person who understands that he truly died -- in the person of Christ, when he was crucified, is one whose self-will or worldly ambition will not hinder the Holy Ghost from setting him on fire for God.  He or she will then burn, clean, and hot, for Christ and by Christ and to Christ -- with none of the smoke and stench of disobedience or of self-glorying.