Corporate Repentance: And Producing It

By James Tarter

Corporate repentance: needed so much on earth, but so hard to get. We can easily see a great need for many nations and churches to repent in order to get healthy and stay healthy. If we have taken this need seriously, then most likely we have already found that real progress seems disappointingly hard or impossible. We can be greatly encouraged by seeing in the Bible that God plans to transform huge groups of people through His believers in Jesus: whole localities, lands, nations, and people groups. We can also see that this repentance begins with a great repentance of His people in these groups. Producing corporate repentance causes special problems that God wants to solve through His children learning to work with Him, with each other, and with His better ways of living in Christ Jesus. The repentance of both His people in a huge group and the whole huge group goes far beyond what we have seen up to now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781329974203

Book preview

Corporate Repentance: And Producing It

Corporate Repentance

And Producing It

Dr. James M. Tarter

Copyright Page

Sixth Edition

ISBN 978-1-329-97420-3

Copyright 2016 by James M. Tarter.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted to make copies for purposes consistent with furthering the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (1995 Updated Edition): 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation.  Used by permission.  (www.Lockman.org)

I call the New American Standard Bible the NAS.  I add boldface and underline to specific words and phrases in Scriptures to add my emphasis for discussion.

Introduction: Corporate Repentance

Many believers in the Lord Jesus in a spiritually sick land easily see their nation’s need to repent.  They value repenting: each saw that his or her former way of life was bankrupt, so that each one repented, wanting to get free and choosing to turn from that dead end.  Realizing that other ways also lacked life, each was freed to receive the blessing of fully believing and embracing God with His better ways to live.

However, these believers are often troubled with how hard it is to produce repentance of a group of people – corporate repentance.  A person can choose to repent himself, but God shows and we often realize that a group must repent for a good outcome on earth.  Producing corporate repentance causes special problems that God wants to solve through His children learning to work with Him, with each other, and with His better ways of living in Christ Jesus.

In this book a group is a people group, a whole land or nation (a land with its boundaries and sovereign government), a city or other locality, the Church in a land, a Church denomination, and a large church group or congregation.  A family or small group is not included with these groups: both are so small that one’s direct personal actions add many other ways to help most of the group or family to repent.

I carefully make this bold declaration to conclude this Introduction: Before Jesus returns, God will work through His people to produce an amazing corporate repentance in very many places.  What believers have produced for nearly 2000 years does not compare with what we believers shall produce as we follow His plans.  I have concluded this declaration from carefully examining Rom. 8, 2Chron. 7:14, Malachi, the Minor Prophets, and the rest of the Bible.  Readers of this book will see relatively concise Scriptural explanations for my conclusion.

Chapter 1: What Is Corporate Repentance?

A believer in Jesus in a spiritually sick nation easily sees the need for national repentance.  Too many people around him have a world-view, mindset, and set of values that retard a full relationship with God through Jesus, which is the way to provide what is truly good for many others as well as themselves.  But few believers realize all that God empowers us to do to help produce this corporate repentance.

If you have not already read the Introduction (the previous page), then you should read it now.  Many believers in Jesus have learned the meaning of personal repentance both Biblically and in his/her life.  If you have repented personally, then you know what it is, even if you have not precisely articulated it.  But knowing the precise meaning of corporate repentance can help us move into it, and not knowing its meaning can hinder producing it.  Getting exact about Biblical personal repentance can confirm truths about one’s own repentance and give true insight and direction for producing corporate repentance.

In Greek the word for repent is metanoeō.  Meta means after and implies change, noeō means perceive, and nous means mind.  Greeks regarded the mind to be the seat of moral reflection and therefore used mind as a natural extension of perception: we see this in the tight connection between the words noeō and nous.  Therefore to repent is literally to change the mind – or even better, change the perception.  Perceiving or seeing a sin like God sees it will stop it.

Applying this meaning of repentance