Repentance and Restoration

1001-10P 1

REPENTANCE AND RESTORATION

(John 21:15-19)

SUBJECT:

F.C.F:

PROPOSITION:

INTRODUCTION:

A. Have you heard the term “Donatist” before? It sounds like some kind of dental specialist. But it was actually a reactionary movement in the church about 1700 years ago.

During the final, widespread persecution of the early church, Christians were required to turn in copies of the Scriptures. The Roman authorities reasoned that if it could destroy the Scriptures, it would end Christianity. Some clergy gave in and handed over copies of portions of the New Testament. These compromisers were called “traitorium” from which we get our word “traitor,” which literally means “to hand over.” After the persecution ended some of these “hander-overers” were restored to the church, even as bishops.

One group refused to recognize these fallen bishops. In Carthage in North Africa, these purists rejected Caecilian as bishop because he had been consecrated as bishop by Felix who had been guilty of “traitorium.” So they elected their own bishop, named Donatus, creating a rival church, a “purer” church. They believed, in fact, that they were the true church and that the catholics were apostate because they forgave fallen leaders.

Later, St. Augustine weighed in and came out against the Donatists. He taught that the church was always a mixture of the pure and the impure, and there was no need for a rival church of only the pure. One of the chief concerns of the Donatists was that the Sacraments delivered by these fallen priests and bishops would not be valid. No, said Augustine, the sacraments were not effective because of the priest’s righteousness, but because God’s righteousness operates through them. He was the first to call the sacraments, “visible signs of an inward grace.” Eventually Augustine’s view prevailed, and the Donatist movement lost steam, and finally disappeared altogether.

B. Is the church permitted to restore fallen leaders, leaders who have compromised in public scandal or some lapse of faith? It seems like an odd question, especially in view of our Scripture for this evening. Peter’s “traitorium” was to deny Christ three times. He had denied his faith in and disowned Christ. I’m not sure it gets more serious than that.

Our focus is on our Lord’s kindness, both in his confrontation and his consecration of Peter.

I. CHRIST’S KINDNESS IN HIS INTERROGATION.

A. Jesus was not too polite to ask Peter hard questions.Instead, he asked Peter the hardest question he could hear: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Again, the possible meaning of “more than these” that makes the most sense is “more than these other disciples love me.” Bible teacher John Murray notes: “It may be that Christ is asking Peter whether, in light of what has since happened, he still thinks that his love exceeds that of all the others.” (870)

B. “Simon, do you love me?” When it had become apparent that Jesus was not going to defend himself, that he was not going to suddenly rise up and call down fire from heaven to consume his enemies, but had surrendered to arrest and to trial and probably to execution, Peter gave him up. Perhaps it was not in that moment of decision a mere matter of fear and of saving his own skin. Perhaps it was a denial of Jesus’s whole plan of suffering and sacrifice. He had been calling his disciples to the same, though they had not wanted to hear it. And now he solidified that call with his own example and sealed it with his own death. “Simon, will you still follow me now that you know what following me will truly involve?”

Again, John Murray says it clearly: “His actions showed that Peter had not wanted a crucified Lord. But Jesus was crucified. How did Peter’s devotion stand in the light of this? Was he ready to love Christ as He was, and not as Peter wished Him to be? That was the question, and it was an important one. Peter must face it and answer it.” (871)

Jesus showed great kindness in not sugar-coating, ignoring, or soft-peddling the matter. “Do you love me more than these?” Are you all in with this?

Peter had once declared his intentions. He had publicly and deliberately rejected this way. He had denied Jesus’s purpose and plan. And now Jesus was giving him a second chance, a chance to undo and to redo. Peter’s failure, his apostasy, his rejection and denial need not have the last word.

And Peter’s reply is not at all boastful. He no longer appeals to what can and would do, but to what the Lord knows. “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

C. You may have heard that John uses two different words for love in the questions of Jesus and in Peter’s responses. They are the Greek terms “agapao” and “phileo.” And students of Scripture have long puzzled over these words. Some have suggested that the first word “agapao” refers to a stronger kind of committed and unfailing love while the second “phileo” refers to a more casual love of companionship. The first two times Jesus asks if Peter loves him “agapao” with a faithful love of unshakable commitment. Peter answers with “phileo” a lesser kind of love, expressing his humble honesty. The third time Jesus asks if Peter loves him with this lesser love “phileo” and Peter for a third time admits that he loves Jesus with the “phileo” or lesser love.

The problem is that these two words do not really carry that sharp distinction and are used almost interchangeably in the New Testament and elsewhere in John’s gospel. So, while this sound good, it is not really supported by the language used. Rather, John has already demonstrated a love for using various synonyms for stylistic reasons.

The point is that Jesus helps Peter face his failure squarely and gives him a change to declare his recommitment and restored love and loyalty for Jesus.

II. CHRIST’S KINDNESS IN HIS REPETITION.

A. And Jesus asks him again, and again, a second and a third time. Now there can be no real question as to the meaning and purpose of this. How many times had Peter denied Jesus, rejecting him and his purposes? Three times. Bible teacher Don Carson draws the connection: “As he has disowned Jesus three times, so Jesus requires this elementary yet profound confession three times.” (678)

This is not at all to rub it in, even though Peter is pained by the connection. He feels deeply the weight and the shame of his failure, and Jesus kindly leads him to this place of true repentance. 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

B. One of the positive effects of this triple question and triple affirmation must have been clear notice to the other disciples watching on. As John Murray observes: “He has three times denied his Lord. Now he has three times affirmed his love for Him, and three times he has been commissioned to care for the flock. This must have had the effect on the others of a demonstration that, whatever had been the mistakes of the past, Jesus was restoring Peter to a place of trust.” (875)

This forever answers, I think, the question “can a fallen leader be restored?” And it forever rebukes the rigorousness of the unforgiving Donatists and all who follow their example of judging and condemnation. We aim for repentance, not perfection.

C. What is the Christian faith and the Christian gospel after all? Is it the promise that if you try hard and try harder and try hardest of all you can finally measure up and merit positions of respect from which you can look down upon others? Is the church a hospital for sinners or a showcase for saints? Is the church where all the good people get together and show off and celebrate our goodness? Will we ever arrive in this life at the place where we can finally say, “I’ve made it!”? Or is the Christian faith the slow and painful process where we realize more and more the depths of our sin and then lean harder on Christ with a more desperate trust and a deeper gratitude? Is growing in Christ continually achieving and arriving at a higher place where we can say, “Okay, Jesus, I think I can handle this now. Thanks for all your help in the past.” Or is it the continual discovery of new continents of our lives where we have not been trusting Christ, and then turning them over to his wisdom and wise working? Christians are not those who get it right: but they do gradually get it righter by God’s grace.

John Wesley, founder of Wesleyan and most Methodist churches was a powerfully self-driven man. While students at Oxford John and his brother Charles founded the “holiness club,” in which they committed to follow a very rigorous program of spiritual devotions accounting for every minute of every day. Later, they also devised what became known as “the doctrine of Christian perfection,” by which they declared that it was the duty of every Christian to pursue spiritual perfection, and that some, perhaps many would arrive at it in this life. The problem came with the definition. At first they declared that this perfection was just as it sounded: never sinning again. But that was too difficult. So they revised the meaning: “never knowingly committing sin.” After a time, Charles came to John and said, “If that’s what it means, then I don’t think I’m perfected.” So they revised it yet again: “Always acting out of the motive of perfect love.”

Many have pointed out that never knowingly committing any sin would be actually easier than their last proposal because it would require only perfect actions and not the deeper, perfect motive from the heart of love.

D. And all such talk about perfection is completely wrong-headed anyhow for the important fact that it takes our focus off of Christ and places it onto our self instead. It is fraught with the danger of self-delusion and self-deception, refusing to take into account the Bible’s dire warnings about the deceitfulness and stubborn dedication of the heart to self that we must fight every day. And, as we would expect, it must necessarily dumb-down and diminish the perfect standard of God’s law. Yes, God will perfect us someday, but that will require the entire death of the old life, including the death of the body, physical death.

So Peter’s failure was not surprising. And the sobering truth is that it was not his last failure, either. The Old Peter came back in a serious way when he fell into the hypocrisy of the Judaizers and had to be confronted by the Apostle Paul, which Paul records in Galatians 2.

III. CHRIST’S KINDNESS IN HIS RESTORATION.

A. The happy thing in all of this is that Jesus restores the fallen.And isn’t Peter’s experience helpful? Who could fall deeper and harder than Peter fell? And yet the Lord graciously restored him.

In my work as an officer of the church and a member of our presbytery, I sometimes have to deal with disciplinary cases. We have to inquire and confront those who have strayed or fallen and apply the biblical remedy of discipline. Sometimes that involves formal citations and charges and trials before church court, a session or a commission of the presbytery. And in the extreme, in order to be faithful to Christ, the head of the church, we must excommunicate those who were formerly members or officers of the church.

But the ultimate goal, of course, is restoration and reconciliation. It is to hear the kind of humble repentance that Peter offered, and then gladly to restore that member back to faithfulness.

B. Jesus clearly restores Peter. Three times Peter had said, “I’m out of here. I want no part of this.” And three times Jesus said, “Feed my lambs, Tend my sheep, Feed my sheep.” The variations are probably stylistic and we should not read too much if anything into them. The astonishing point is that Jesus has just now ordained Peter to a higher calling and to a greater responsibility! Previously, Peter was an evangelist, a “fisher of men.” Now he was to be an elder and pastor of the flock. He had previously been called to catch people as a fisherman. Now he was ordained to care for God’s people as a pastor or shepherd. As F.F. Bruce observes:“Now to the evangelist’s hook there is added the pastor’s crook, so that, as had often been said, Peter proceeded to fulfill his double commission ‘by hook and by crook.’” (405)

C. And even though he continued to stumble, Peter never turned back. He continued to proclaim Christ and his gospel and to care for those who came to Christ for salvation, so that at the end of his life he could write to encourage other elders and pastors as he wrote in I Peter 5:1-4: “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”

CONCLUSION

Do you find this helpful and encouraging? I certainly do! I do not believe in any way in the doctrine of Christian perfection, and my life is a smudgy denial of it. I am a sinner, saved by grace, but a sinner still, constantly in need of grace.

Wesley’s fear, I think, is that if we relaxed the standard and accepted the reality of indwelling sin we would naturally accommodate that sin into our lives making peace with it instead of fighting it. And that certainly is a danger. Rather, recognizing sin and hating sin is calculated to keep driving us to Christ to rest in his grace and forgiveness and to focus on him alone with gratitude and love and, yes, obedience! We should be always despairing of self and always hoping in Christ.

I close with a story. I had a telephone conversation this week with a woman I had never met before. She had read something in one of my sermons that was on the internet and was intrigued by something I’d said.

She explained that her now-deceased mother had grown up in a religiously conservative area like ours, that she felt herself to be a terrible sinner but could never rise above that to accept the grace and forgiveness of God. And so she was frequently depressed and despondent. And would I agree that it was her conservative religious background that had caused her problems?

I suggested something different. It sounded to me like she had not come to terms with her sin deeply enough. Her sin was unbelief, born of pride. She thought that she was such a great sinner that not even God could forgive her, that the blood of Christ was not enough to cleanse her and to restore her. And that stemmed not from thinking too little of herself but too much of herself—and too little of Christ.

Jesus Christ is kind enough to confront, to convict, and even to condemn—that we might continually repent and be renewed and restored.

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15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

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