On a flight to Israel a few years ago a conference president saw me reading the book Corporate Repentance. [1] He asked, What is corporate repentance? At the time the best response I could offer was: I don’t know, that’s why I’m reading the book. Little did I realize that the biblical concept of corporate repentance was the key to authentic interaction between such diversionary peoples within the church.
There is a yearning in Evangelical circles for such authenticity in church life. God meant for Seventh-day Adventists to lead the way. Now it seems that scholars such as Mark J. Boda are writing about the biblical doctrine of repentance in order to lay a foundation for such an experience within the Christian church. [2]
Jesus intends for the Laodicean church to be the leader demonstrating genuine social interaction in the world. It is the consequence of heeding His appeal to “be zealous therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:19).
Righteousness that is motivated by self-centered fear of hell and hope of heavenly reward produces division in the church. Its fruit is a critical spirit, judgmentalism, and elitism. For example, a worldly adorned woman went to church on Sabbath morning and the “greeters” immediately tagged her with a “visitor” sticker so that everyone would know she wasn’t one of them.
A. T. Jones, one of the Lord’s “messengers,” sensed the self-inspired mainspring of the work when he said: “Why should we not honor Him instead of ourselves? Shall I not honor Him instead of myself? It is not individual confession that is wanted so much as a General Conference confession. It is a General Conference clearing of ourselves that is needed.” [3]
An individual concern for our own salvation is good. If one is preparing to die, by all means, make confession of personal sin; but it will never produce a body of believers who stand united and face their final examination before translation at Christ’s second coming. Jesus says what is needed is for “the angel [the leadership] of the church of Laodiceans” to “be zealous therefore, and repent.” Jones captured the idea with his expression, “a General Conference confession.”
We are all born into this world with an innate, natural self-love. It is this sinful nature which has the potential of producing all the sin that exists in the world from A to Z. If it were not for the restraining powers of God’s grace, any individual saint or sinner, would, given the right circumstances and opportunity, commit the crimes of another. [4] In the cosmic Day of Atonement, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring this to our attention so that we may intelligently confess such unknown sin by appreciating how much it cost the Son of God to die for that sin on His cross.