The word Jesus used when he said, “repent” has been mistranslated in the minds of most Christians their entire lives. It does not mean feel sorry. It does not mean confess. What it actually means changes everything about what Jesus was asking people to do in Matthew 4:17.
The Greek word metanoia; meta means beyond, noia means mind. A complete transformation of the way you think. Not an emotional response to sin, but a fundamental restructuring of “how you see everything.” Jesus was not asking people to feel bad. He was calling them to think differently about reality itself. Most Christians have spent their entire lives treating repentance as an emotional transaction. I feel sorry, therefore I have repented, but if metanoia means transformation of the mind than repentance is not something that happens in a moment of guilt. It is something that produces a permanently new way of seeing.
Here is where it went wrong. The Latin word penitencia which early translators used for metanoia means to feel regret; to do penance. When the New Testament was translated into Latin, that single choice replaced a word about the transformation of the mind with a word about emotional feeling. Most western Christianity has been working from the Latin concept ever since. Then Romans 12:2 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word transformed is “metamorpho,” the same root as metanoia. The same restructuring.
Paul was describing repentance without using the word. A persons whose mind has been genuinely renewed does not just feel differently about sin; they see differently, want differently, think differently. Jesus opened His entire ministry with one word, Repent! If metenoia means “tranformation of the mind,” then the first thing Jesus called humanity to was not an emotional response to sin. It was a cognitive revolution. A complete restructuring of how they understood God themselves and reality.
In John 17:2-3, Jesus declares that the Father has given Him authority over all humanity to grant eternal life. He defines eternal life not just as everlasting existence, but as intimately knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ. Can you imagine knowing God our Creator intimately forever? “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent forth.”
In order to transform our minds and hearts, we have to continually study the Word of God, the Bible of Holy Scriptures and restructure how we see ourselves and reality; especially how we walk with God. We grow in knowledge understanding and wisdom. We sin. In order to control ourselves and to not be controlled by sin, it takes work on our part. Studying the Bible is the ‘way’ to know God.
Always Christian with love at Anne Fisher Foundation. Women Protecting Women and Children.