Jonah 3:10 - Homiletics

Man's repentance and God's.

The simplicity with which this great fact is recorded is quite in accordance with the usual style in which the Old Testament is written. Inspired men wrote of God as they would have written of a great king. Thus only, indeed, can we receive or communicate intelligible ideas regarding the Supreme. It is easy to criticize such statemants as that of this text by nailing them "anthropopathic;" but the fact is that it is not degrading but exalting the conception of God to attribute to him, not merely reason and will, but the capacity of the highest, purest, and tenderest emotions.

I. HUMAN REPENTANCE THE CONDITION OF THE DIVINE .

1 . Repentance involves the turning with loathing from the paths of sin. Yet this is very difficult to account for. How, why, should those who have addicted themselves to sin, because of its pleasantness or its profitableness, regard it in a quite different, a contrary light?

2 . Repentance involves an apprehension of the majesty and justice of the moral law. Whilst men look earthward they will never repent, i.e. of sin itself; but when they direct their gaze heavenward, and perceive the splendour and beauty of an eternal, an inflexible law of right, thou, by comparison with that, their own sin seems odious and degrading.

II. DIVINE REPENTANCE IS THE RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN .

1 . The repentance attributed to God does not involve any real change in the character or the purposes of God. He ever hates the sin, and pities and loves the sinner; this is so both before and after the sinner's repentance.

2 . Divine repentance is therefore the same principle acting differently in altered circumstances. If the prospect of punishment answers the same purpose as that intended by the punishment itself; there is no inconsistency in its remission; for punishment is not an end, it is only a means to goodness, to the reign of the law of righteousness.

3 . Divine repentance is apparent in the forgiveness and acceptance of the contrite sinner.

4 . And also in the moral influence which it exercises over the hearts of those who are reconciled. Gratitude is excited, love is awakened, consecration is elicited, obedience is confirmed.

APPLICATION . It is to be observed that these great principles of the Divine government are exhibited in all their power in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the cross God summons mankind to repentance; in the cross God shows how he himself can repent.