Christ's First and Last Subject

Spurgeon argues that because repentance was both Christ's opening and closing message, it must be the spiritual alphabet's first and last letter — a Gospel grace born at the foot of the cross rather than at Sinai, and produced only by divine grace since no unaided human heart can transform itself any more than a river can leap backward up its own waterfall. He breaks true repentance into four ingredients — illumination (seeing one's sin as God sees it), humiliation (acknowledging the justice of deserved judgment with no boasting left), detestation (genuinely hating sin rather than merely regretting its consequences), and transformation (a complete change not just in outward behavior but in the very desires of the heart, so the penitent no longer wants to sin) — and pairs it with three inseparable companions: faith (born simultaneously with repentance, like twins who cannot live apart), confession (which gives voice to repentance's wordless groans), and the peace that follows once sin's troublesome weight has been turned out of the heart. He closes by insisting, somewhat surprisingly, that repentance is actually sweet rather than merely bitter, since repentance joined to hope in the cross is "next door to Heaven" even while repentance without that hope would be unbearable, and he pleads with every hearer to repent now, warning that the heart unbroken today will be broken forever under judgment if it continues to resist.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on August 19th, 1860.