Biblical Repentance: Lost in Translation?

Recently a non Free Grace pastor warned me that I would be disciplined by the church if I tried to explain the right and wrong definitions of repentance to people in the congregation. He didn't want me to clarify the word repentance because he thought it might offend someone. But the Bible says: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth...” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

I'm convinced that a great need exists in the church today to clearly explain exactly what biblical repentance is (from the Greek) and also clearly explain what it's not. This need exists because the word “repentance” in our English New Testament is really not the best translation of the original Greek word metanoia.

   
Many Bible teachers agree that the word repentance is really not the best word to translate the Greek word metanoia. For example, notice the following statements:

• “The problem is not preaching repentance; it is giving a wrong definition to the word. Down through the centuries ‘repent’ has come to mean a far different thing than when it was spoken by John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, and Jesus Christ Himself.…If you look up the Greek word translated ‘repent’ in the King James Bible and used by Jesus, Paul, John and others in the New Testament, you will find that the [Greek] word metanoeo [which is simply the verb of the noun metanoia] means to think differently or afterwards, that is, to change the mind.” (Curtis Hutson, Repentance: What Does the Bible Teach? [Murfreesboro: Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1986], pp. 3-4.) 

• “Modern [Bible] translators…generally translate metanoia as repentance. While this is an improvement over the Latin translation ‘penance,’ it is in most cases, as we shall now see, a poor reflection of its meaning in the NT.” (Bob Wilkin, “New Testament Repentance: Lexical Considerations,” bible.org/seriespage/new-testament-repentance-lexical-considerations.) 

• “the English word repentance derives from the Latin and does not express the exact meaning of  [the Greek word] metanoia.” (Wendell G. Johnston, “Repentance,” Don Campbell, Wendell Johnston, John Walvoord, John Witmer, The Theological Wordbook [Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000], p. 296.) 

• “The word ‘repentance’ is not the best translation [of metanoia]. A better translation would have been ‘to change your mind.’” (James A. Scudder, Forever With God [Lake Zurich: Victory in Grace Ministries, 2010], p. 40.) 

• “As we said earlier, repentance is the translation of the Greek word metanoia, which means ‘change of mind.’...Repentance is a vital ingredient in saving faith....If one asks, which comes first, faith or repentance, it depends how one defines repentance. If one sticks with its biblical meaning - ‘change of mind’ - then one can only say that they come together. But if one defines repentance, as ‘turning from every known sin’ (as some Puritans were inclined to do), one can see the endless confusion that will emerge if such ‘repentance’ is demanded prior to faith. The result has been doom and gloom, being never quite sure they are saved, owing to a fear they have not repented enough.” (R. T. Kendall, One Saved, Always Saved [Chicago: Moody Press, 1985], pp. 193-194.)

• “In the English Bible the word [metanoia] is translated ‘repentance,’ but this rendering hardly does justice to the original, since it gives undue prominence to the emotional element.” (Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996], p. 480.) 

• “[The word] ‘Repentance’ suggests primarily sorrow for sin; metanoia suggests a change of mind”. (George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993], p. 36.)

• “the rendering found in many of our [Bible] translations, namely, ‘Repent’ - thus A.V., A.R.V., R.S.V., etc. - is probably not the best.” (William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1973], p. 196.)

• “It is evident that repentance is a mistranslation of metanoia. This fact was never more apparent than during the English and American revisions of the King James version of our Bible. Frequent debate centered around this word and it was the opinion of many that a suitable English equivalent should be sought for the Greek expression. It was agreed, however, that no one English word was sufficient to convey all that lay in the Greek. And, although it was admitted that the translation was poor, it was felt that the common term should be retained in the hope that it would come to convey all that its Greek derivative expressed. Several English words were suggested to the revisers, among them resipiscence (derived from a word meaning ‘to come to one's senses’), but manifestly none of them was appropriate. It seems to be the present task of the expositors, then, to pause at the reading of this word [repentance] and reiterate all that it is really intended to mean.” (William Walden Howard, “Is Faith Enough to Save? Part 3,” Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 99 [January 1942]: p. 96. Cf. Larry Moyer, Free and Clear [Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997], p. 86.)

• “Repent (metanoeite). Broadus used to say that this is the worst translation in the New Testament. The trouble is that the English word ‘repent’ means ‘to be sorry again’ from the Latin repoenitet (impersonal). John [the Baptist] did not call on the people to be sorry, but to change (think afterwards) their mental attitudes (metanoeite) and conduct. The Vulgate has it ‘do penance’ and Wycliff has followed that. The Old Syriac has it better: ‘Turn ye.’ The French (Geneva) has it “Amendez vous.” This is John’s great word (Bruce) and it has been hopelessly mistranslated. The tragedy of it is that we have no one English word that reproduces exactly the meaning and atmosphere of the Greek word.” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures of the New Testament, commentary on Matthew 3:2.) 

• “It is a linguistic and theological tragedy that we have to go on using ‘repentance’ for metanoia. But observe that the ‘sorrow’ has led to ‘repentance’ and was not itself the repentance.” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, commentary on 2 Corinthians 7:9.) 

• “It is unfortunate that [the Greek word] metanoeo is translated ‘repent’ in the English Bible, for the English etymology denotes more the idea of penitence as sorrow, or worse, the [Roman] Catholic doctrine of penance, than it does the more accurate ‘change of mind.’” (Charles Bing, Lordship Salvation: A Biblical Evaluation and Response [Xulon Press, 2010], p. 69.)

• “Here, now, we come upon the practical and all-important point of this inquiry. For, putting these words, Metanoia and Repentance, side by side, is there not, on the contrary [to what some say], a most radical divergency between them?....At the best [the word Repentance] can only hang on the skirts of the great Greek expression [Metanoia]....How did such an extraordinary mistranslation get into our New Testament?...We feel prepared, at least, to say, with regard to the present subject, that the necessary employment of a paraphrase should not be an occasion for hesitation in making so important an alteration. We can leave it to the candid reader to judge which is the most [or least] objectionable; a resort to a paraphrase which really translates, or the preference for a technical word, to say nothing of an uncertain one, which is always in need of translation. Better, even, were the bald phrase ‘change of mind,’ with an explanation which would give it fullness and dignity, than the misleading rendering we have to put up with now.” (Treadwell Walden, “THE GREAT MEANING OF THE WORD METANOIA: LOST IN THE OLD VERSION, UNRECOVERED IN THE NEW," The American Church Review, Vol. 35 [July 1881]: pp. 148, 149, 153, 155; cf. Walden, The Great Meaning of Metanoia [New York: Whittaker, 1896], pp. 14, 15, 24, 29.)

In conclusion, it can be said that the English word repentance does not exactly express the meaning of metanoia. Therefore, in order to “accurately handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), it's necessary to explain the meaning of repentance much like Ezra and the Levitical priests explained the Pentateuch to Israel: “They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read” (Nehemiah 8:8, HCSB).