Proven Repentance

If we take the whole of Genesis 43 and 44, then this extended passage begins with the brothers pleading with Jacob to let them bring Benjamin down, to keep their word for the good of their family, and it ends with the son who was the biggest scoundrel pledging himself as a substitute for Benjamin, to save both him and his kinsmen. Here there is a more drawn out picture of the completion of the brothers’ turnaround.

• One people’s repentance must be pressed by God.

• One man’s repentance may be measured by man.

Doctrine. Repentance often requires the shaking of everything, and always takes the surrender of anything.      

One people’s repentance must be pressed by God.

Chapter 43 begins with Israel in denial—that is, Jacob, the father, wanting to hold out, coasting on the initial store of food they had gotten from Egypt, even though one son, Simeon was held captive there. Yet Jacob gives an oblivious order.

Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food” (vv. 1-2).

It took the scoundrel son to give him the reality check: ‘Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you’ (v. 3). In other words, you don’t get to decide that anymore. Either Benjamin goes or we all die. Jacob attempts to remain in denial, in the form of pouting over the past: ‘Israel said, ‘Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?’ (v. 6)

Losing control of the destiny of one’s people and place can shake a people back to God. Everything can seem fine and actual, full repentance can be delayed—until judgment on a people catches up. Famine is a terror unthinkable to most in the modern West.

Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field (Lam. 4:9).

But other ends of a people group are not so unthinkable; but, until then, we seek the comfort of denial.

The sons of Israel had shown a turn back in Egypt, under the weight of guilt. They spoke as if one man. But now, one literal man, Jacob (Israel) would speak for a people. In one sense that I will address in our application time, this kind of corporate repentance can be easier. But there is another sense—if we are talking about true corporate repentance—where the sins of a people are much more difficult to fess up to. For one thing, some are going to have to bear the burden more than others, and some will have to “go first,” in a sense, to model repentance. So, Judah steps forward.

Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice (vv. 8-10).

Another difficulty is seen in the next chapter, when the whole group agreed to the words: ‘Whichever of your servants is found with [the stolen cup] shall die, and we also will be my lord’s servants’ (44:9). So corporate repentance can be hard because one is binding his guilt to the group, who we could easily claim independence from.

But there are other reasons why a corporate turning is hard work. Any society—from a family to a church to a nation—is a crowd. And in any crowd is the promise of normalcy. Boice suggests in his commentary that, “They had grain. Perhaps things could get back to normal, they must have been thinking.”1 God shakes the false gospel of normalcy by squeezing his people again by forces of nature, the hostile will of man, and other circumstances. As God moves more and more against the people group, those reluctant can fall by the weight of that social pressure. So it was with Jacob, not enthusiastically, but truly: ‘And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved’ (v. 14).

Oddly, it may seem, but repentance also works by hope. In our study of Calvin’s doctrine of salvation, we saw that repentance is actually a fruit of faith and follows it. Why? Because true repentance must be spiritual, and one must be born again to produce any spiritual works. But in order for a work to truly spiritual, another ingredient is needed—HOPE. Calvin cited two Old Testament verses to make this point.2

“But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared” (Ps. 130:4).

“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” (Hos. 6:1).

Note that the word repentance is not mentioned in either of these verses. The point we need to catch is that these are examples of how the expectation—i.e. the hope—that God is merciful and would have mercy to them, is the ground of the prophet’s call to amend their ways. Now how did this family experience something like this hope? It was in the kind way that the steward of Joseph welcomed them back: ‘He replied, ‘Peace to you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks for you. I received your money.’ Then he brought Simeon out to them’ (v. 23). So God shakes us to our knees, but it is also, as Paul says, “God’s kindness that leads you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4).

The detail about the cup and claims to practice divination in the next chapter (44:5, 15) may have be a momentary cover for the fact that they may be questioning how he knew their birth order: ‘And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. And the men looked at one another in amazement’ (v. 33). On the other hand, it may be that Joseph wanted to raise their suspicions of his insight being into the mind of their God. Kidner says,

The mysterious accuracy of the seating order would have its part to play in Joseph’s plan, by increasing the brother’s uneasy sense of exposure to divine intervention.3

This would be especially convicting if a “pagan” had more familiarity with the true God than they who were supposed to own Him! Even the fact that ‘Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as any of theirs’ (v. 34) was part of the test, as Joseph surely wanted to see whether there would be the slightest eyebrow of envy raised—but just the opposite picture is painted here. Such a repentance takes the shaking of everything.

One man’s repentance may be measured by man.

What will bring a single scoundrel to repentance? This is exactly what Joseph wanted an answer to. It did his heart good to see his brothers again, and to see them getting along with Benjamin. But it wasn’t enough for him, and for good reason. Sometimes repentance can be partial, or insincere, or simply uninformed. Round two of the exam would commence (44:1-2).

Then he commanded the steward of his house, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack, and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph told him (vv. 1-2).

There are seven proofs of true repentance here.

First, true repentance humbles the man to the dust: ‘They fell before him to the ground’ (v. 14): Job said, “therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).

Second, true repentance sees one’s own guilt as supreme—as the guilty that Jospeh was looking for stepped forward, ‘And Judah said, “What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves?’ (v. 16a). As Paul called himself “the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15), or the tax collector “beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Lk. 18:13).

Third, true repentance acknowledges that God’s charge is the one behind my guilt: ‘God has found out the guilt of your servants’ (v. 16b)—“Against you, you only, have I sinned” (Ps. 51:4).

Fourth, true repentance doesn’t project that guilt onto others: ‘behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found’ (v. 16c). There is no more, “The woman whom you gave to be with me” (Gen. 3:12).

Fifth, true repentance grieves the devastation that one’s sin has caused to others: ‘Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol’ (vv. 30-31).

Sixth, true repentance accepts that the punishment for sin is just: ‘For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life’ (v. 32). This repentance confesses, like the Prodigal, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Lk. 15:18-19)

Seventh, true repentance is willing to bear the burden to make things right.

Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father (vv. 33-34).

This is a fruit of repentance, as those John the Baptist called for in the Gospel. There are other fruit of repentance, but to give oneself to ensure good faith moving forward is chief among them.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Correction. In speaking of this repentance in both corporate and individual terms, we are equipped to avoid two more ditches. There is viewing sin and repentance only ever in light of one and never the other. On the one hand, corporate repentance can be called where the one calling is only looking to denounce others in the corporate.

In light of the first World War and the march of liberalism that surrounded it, J. Gresham Machen explained that,

Attention to the sins of other people is, indeed, sometimes necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppression of the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace, has its dangers. It joins forces with the collectivism of the modern state to obscure the individual, personal character of guilt.4

In one sense it is easier to repent for “national sins.” C. S. Lewis wrote a whole essay on this. He said,

“The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing—but, first, of denouncing—the conduct of others.”5

Lewis adds to this that the typical younger person is not called on to mortify his flesh against his patriotic instinct, but is tempted to point a finger, even if secretly, against sins he already projects on his neighbor, especially on his ancestors, or those neither he nor his neighbors were there to commit.

But on the other hand, corporate repentance (for reasons that we’ve seen) is also hard. We don’t see those as sins for the same reason that fish don’t feel wet or talk much about water. God brings nations to nothing because of such things that are so normalized. Like Jacob, we must not only mouth words about our culture’s treasured sins. We must do differently, to the degree it is within our power, to speak and work against them.

Use 2. Admonition. God is depicted in certain places in Scripture as far more fierce than Joseph ever was in this whole testing. Joseph tested and had power to kill the body. God both tests and brings the soul to His court. He says to His own people,

For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me (Hos. 5:14-15).

He makes chosen vessels out of scoundrels, but He shakes their whole world to bring them to their knees. If this all happened to the people of God—the house of Israel—then, the church is always to be on alert, “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and iif it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who jdo not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Pet. 4:17)

As John the Baptist said to prepare the way of the Lord, so we must constantly hear: “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Mat. 3:8).

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1. Boice, Genesis, III:1022.

2. Calvin, Institutes, III.3.2.

3. Kidner, Genesis, 216.

4. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 64-65.

5. C. S. Lewis, “Dangers of National Repentance,” in God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 190.