Ever since February I've been working on a book that's all about repentance. In February I intended for it to be around 80 pages, but the more studying I did, and in my own desire to be thorough (which often translates into being long-winded), I realized that an "essay" on repentance wouldn't cut it. And so I decided to write an entire book on the subject, which I hope will be the first in a four-part series on the Christian understanding of salvation. I've finished the first third of the book. It clocks in around 100 pages. Here's what I have so far:
Chapter One: Who Demands Our Repentance? In the first chapter--which is 12 pages long--I give an ever-so-brief sketch of the Judeo-Christian God, doing so (mostly) by tearing apart some modern conceptions of God. The four I look at are pantheism (and its cohort panentheism), deism, the "lovey-dovey" romantic God, and the God of the Health & Wealth gospel. With each of these I show how the Judeo-Christian God is similar in parts and wildly different in others. I conclude the chapter with an examination of God revealing himself to Moses at the burning bush, then defining himself both as a rescuer and as a promise-keeper by leading his people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.
Chapter Two: The Drama of God. In the second chapter--which is a whopping 30 pages long--I look at what's been called the story of God. There's Act I: Creation, followed by Act II: The Fall; then there's God's rescue operation set into motion, the calling of Israel, Act III. In Act IV we find Jesus walking around Palestine, preaching the kingdom of God and exorcising demons and healing the sick, eventually being killed and then rising from the dead. This is the inauguration of God's promises and the culmination of what he had always intended to do with Israel. In Act V, the Act which we currently find ourselves in, the kingdom of God is advancing. In Act VI, we find Jesus appearing, the great judgment, the recreation of the heavens and the earth, all of that. And Act VII is the act where mankind, so-to-speak, "begins again", fulfilling his original vocation as God's image-bearer. I hash all of this out in some detail, though I prevent myself from saying too much. I'm not writing a book on the drama of God, after all, but on repentance.
Chapter Three: The Call to Repentance. In the third chapter--which is 14 pages long--I look at several texts found in the New Testament emphasizing the necessity of repentance (over and against those who says that it's really not a big deal). I look at repentance in the life and message of Jesus. I look at repentance in the Acts narrative. I spend a considerable amount of time on the writings of St. Paul (who, for the look of it, doesn't have much to say on the subject; however, that's entirely not the case). Then I look at repentance in the later New Testament, Hebrews through Revelation. Finally, the icing on the cake: repentance in the apostolic fathers. A few mentionings from Clement of Rome and from the pens of a few others. The point I make is that repentance is a pretty big deal, and anyone who says otherwise has really not wrestled with the text as the text deserves to be wrestled with.
Chapter Four: Re:Defining Salvation. This is my least favorite chapter of all, if only because I feel like I have done a somewhat shoddy job and not tied up all the loose ends. Writing about salvation itself would (and will, eventually) take up its own book. In this chapter, which is 18 pages long, I focused on the death of Jesus and framing the atonement within that; I looked at propitiation/expiation and redemption/liberation. I examined the present aspects of salvation in contrast and conjunction with the future aspects of salvation; in other words, looking at how there is no real tension between "we have been saved" and "we will be saved."
Chapter Five: The Human Condition. Clocking in at 21 pages, this chapter is all about the current condition human beings find themselves in. I look at the legal ramifications of our condition-you know, guilty because of sin--and at the ontological ramifications of our conditions--being infected, consumed, indwelt with sin. Much of the chapter is devoted to mini-exegeses of selected texts (one from Romans 1-3, the other from Romans 7, and the final one being a sweeping look at Genesis 4-11). After all of that I define a few key terms to the best of my ability (evil, transgression, and sin).
The first third of the book is all about laying the foundation for understanding repentance. I'm of the conviction that you cannot simply leap into a subject and think you've gotten your point across. Everyone is so consumed with so many assumptions about everything that to assume that everyone assumes what you do is a ridiculous, illogical, and foolish assumption. (That's a lot of assumptions!) Everything I've written about so far in these chapters is, in my opinion, necessary to really grasping what repentance is all about. Now I'm faced with the most challenging part of the book: defining repentance. I've got seven chapters lined up:
(1) False Trails in the Quest for Repentance
(2) The Meaning of Repentance
(3) The Necessity of Repentance
(4) The Choice of Repentance
(5) Repentance & Faith
(6) Repentance & Loving God
(7) Repentance: Four Themes
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