I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:7
If you’re like me, the final phrase, “who need no repentance,” seems puzzling. We might object, “But doesn’t everyone need to repent? Isn’t everyone a sinner in need of repentance?” We might assume that Jesus must be referring to people who falsely believe they’re righteous and mistakenly think they don’t need to repent.
We question this final statement because of our understanding of righteousness and repentance. However, we need to consider how Jesus and the leaders he was speaking with used these terms.
This entire exchange began when the religious leaders criticized Jesus for associating with “sinners.” Though they called certain people “sinners” they didn’t believe that only those individuals had made moral mistakes. Instead, they used this term to refer to people who blatantly violated Moses’ Law and made little or no effort to do what was right.
On the other hand, the righteous were not people they believed were entirely without sin. Instead, they were individuals who were generally striving to do what was right. For the religious leaders, the world was divided into the righteous and sinners, which was about how people lived in general rather than a declaration of whether they had ever done something wrong.
Jesus uses these terms in the same way. He explains himself by telling them the parable of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep. At the end, he makes this statement about the righteous who need no repentance. Even if we recognize the common usage of “the righteous” was not synonymous with sinless, we still need to examine our assumptions about repentance.
We often associate repentance with feeling sorrowful for our sins. If that’s the core definition, then everyone should repent, meaning we all should feel bad about our mistakes.
However, the fundamental meaning of repentance is to change one’s mind. Repentance isn’t primarily about feeling bad about sin; it’s about turning in a new direction.
Now, we can understand what Jesus meant. Those who strive to live righteously don’t need a change of mind. Their mindset is already aligned with doing what’s right, even if they can’t do it perfectly. They do wrong but they don’t need to repent, change their mind, because they are consciously aiming to do right.
When we encounter scriptures that talk about the wicked and the righteous, they’re not referring to sinners and the sinless. Instead, they’re talking about those who are, as Jesus says, either seeking the things of this world or the kingdom of God. Jesus uses these two broad categories frequently: those on the narrow path or the broad way, the wheat and the tares, or the sheep and the goats.
Jesus called people to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). Those who place their trust in his good news make a change of mind (repent) in the very act of turning to belief. They are the righteous who don’t need repentance.
His original point, to those who questioned who he was associating with, was that he came specifically for those who are “sinners”. He seeks out those crassly living ungodly lives, for they are who he came to help.
Leave a Reply