Back to the Garden

The late Scottish theologian, James Torrance, notes the nature of "evangelical repentance" in his book Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace. Few distinctions in theology are more important for our understanding of worship than that discussed by Calvin in book 3 of the Institutes, between what he calls “legal repentance” and “evangelical repentance” in his critique of the medieval sacrament of penance. Legal repentance says: “Repent, and if you repent you will be forgiven!” as though God our Father has to be conditioned into being gracious. It makes the imperatives of obedience prior to the indicatives of grace, and regards God’s love and forgiveness and acceptance as conditional upon what we do—upon our meritorious acts of repentance. Calvin argued that this inverted the evangelical order of grace, and made repentance prior to forgiveness, whereas in the New Testament forgiveness is logically prior to repentance. Evangelical repentance, on the other hand, takes t...