What is godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10)?

But another thing is brought before us in the Epistle to the Corinthians. The turning of God brings into sorrow; 2 Cor. 7, The apostle's first epistle came with the power of the Spirit to their souls. It was not yet a full judgment of their state in the light, but the will being divinely arrested, there was grief in the sense of having gone wrong: conscience, not will, began to be at work; self may have partially mixed itself with it. Still it was godly sorrow, a broken will, brokenness of heart; the feeling - I have been following my own will, I have forgotten God. The illusion of a perverse will is gone, and the effect of having to say to God, the working of God's nature in us begins. It is not with fear where rightly felt; no thought that God will impute, condemn, but sorrow and grief of heart at the perverseness and delusion of self-will having been followed, This works a far more active deliberate judgment of evil, called repentance here. Godly sorrow worketh repentance which we shall never regret. The soul by being turned, having by the operation of God's grace been brought to grieve at having listened to will, now re-enters (or enters at first) into the natural effect and working of the new man at liberty. It judges with spiritual energy the whole evil as God judges it in principle. The sense of fault is not gone, but what characterises the state is judgment of the fault - of self as far as self is in it. The heart is clear of the evil when it judges it as God judges it, and separates it from itself as a thing external to itself as God does. And this is holiness, often deeper from better knowledge of self than before.

Verse 10. "For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation," etc. We have here a criterion, by means of which the quality of all real and lasting sorrow may be estimated. For grief may arise, and even reach a passionate extreme, and yet be as unproductive of any alterative effect upon its subject as the summer dew upon a rock. But of such self-allaying sorrow he takes here no account. There is a sorrow which is not only sincere, but which is "according to God," both in its producing motive and its aim. There is a sorrow also equally sincere, but "of the world." The root of the first is faith in God, and its cause the discovery, by whatever instrumental means, of a moral distance from its trust. "Surely when I was turned, I repented; when I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh" (Jer. 31:19), is the language of a heart into which God has freshly shined in the discerning power of His word. Wrong actions, or imaginings, are then judged justly in the light, and repented of sincerely by the soul that views them there. The distinction between sorrow and repentance is thus clearly marked. The first leads to the second. The one is transient; the other is of lasting operation and effect. Godly sorrow indicates a state of feeling; repentance is an active purpose of the heart, which grows, by its nature, to a habit. The former respects itself; the latter is the fruit of right-mindedness to God. Repentance cannot be repented of, since it is a turning from evil to good, and from oneself to God. It is, therefore, unto life and salvation in its very nature. It is an operative thing, and its effect is conversion in a sinner, and restoration in a saint. In either case its end is peace.

To return more immediately to the Psalm before us. The first essential to the restoration of a soul that has fallen into sin is an unshaken faith in God who does not change. "According to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies," etc. The godly sorrow, which is the parent of repentance unto salvation not to be repented of, is wrought by the Holy Ghost in the believer's heart, not so much by representing the intrinsic enormity of an evil act, as by recalling the mind. to a sense of its baseness in having thus wrought against the perfect goodness of the God of all grace. "Against thee, thee only," etc. To have to appeal to former mercies under a sense of personal delinquency enhances exceedingly the severity of self-judgment in the exercised spirit of the sinner, while it opens to the heart a view of the Divine nature in its infiniteness both of purity and love, which more than any other thing tends to render contrite and keep low the humbled yet confiding soul.

The second is the sorrow that goes with the fear of the consequences, and not because of the hatefulness of the sin itself. This is an entirely selfish experience, it is not "godly sorrow that works repentance to salvation not to be repented of," but it is the sorrow of the world which works death (2 Cor. 7:10). In this sorrow the devil seems very near to mock the soul in its distress, and increase its fears, as again and again the vow is made that, if the consequences can be escaped, that particular snare will be avoided in the future; he can mock confidently, for, he knows as long as the soul is self-centred there will be a return to the special besetment, as the dog returns to its vomit.

This scripture shows us very clearly what genuine repentance really is. It is not exactly sorrow for sin, though godly sorrow of that sort is an ingredient of it. Verse 11 shows what repentance involved in their case, and with what zeal and fear they cleared themselves. Repentance of a right sort is repentance to salvation; that is, it means deliverance from the thing repented of. Mere sorrow for sin, when confronted with its consequences, is the kind of which the world is capable, and it only works death and not salvation. Judas Iscariot is a sad example of this.

(Vv. 8-11.) He recognises that the first epistle had made them sad, and this he had regretted: but since hearing from Titus the effect it produced, he no longer had any regrets. For he now learned that it had wrought repentance, and that their sorrow was after a godly sort, not the hopeless sorrow of the world that works death. Thus Paul can rejoice, not indeed for the sorrow, but in what the sorrow produced. This sorrow was but for a season; it was a sorrow according to God; being sorrow of a godly sort, it wrought repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; and it brought forth fruits worthy of repentance set forth in the earnest way in which they dealt with the matter and cleared themselves from evil. Moreover they had not only dealt with the actual evil, but had cleared themselves of their own laxity. How different the sorrow of this world as seen in the solemn case of Judas, whose sorrow instead of being for a season is for eternity; instead of being godly was only of man, and instead of working repentance, led only to death.

Further, we have precious light from God here as to that great work in the awakened soul, repentance. it is quite distinct from regret or change of mind. Even sorrow however deep is not repentance, though sorrow according to God works it out. Again, it is not correct to confound repentance with conversion to God, which is surely a turning from sin with earnest desire for holiness. Repentance is the soul as born of God sitting in judgment on the old man and its acts, its words and its ways. And as repentance for remission of sins was to be preached in Christ's name, so He was exalted to give both. It is not a changed mind however great about God in Christ, which is rather what faith is and gives; it is the renewed mind taking account of the man and his course according to God's word and nature. Hence it is said to be not about God, but "toward God" or Godward; for the conscience then takes His side in self-judgment before Him, and all is weighed as in His sight. It is of course of the Spirit, not intellectual but moral. "Surely after that I was turned, I repented." It follows conversion and consequently that application of the word which arrests the soul by faith, though it be not yet the faith of the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, which brings into peace.

Here of course it is the repentance of saints who had sinned. But it is the same principle, and in contrast with the world's grief which, knowing not God, gives itself up to despair and works out death. However overwhelmed may be the believer, God takes care that there shall be enough hope in His mercy to guard from the despairing fear which Satan wields for his deadly purposes.

There is a very definite difference between repentance and sorrow for sin; in the former the will is identified with the new man and his judgment - in sorrow, even godly sorrow - for often we are merely disappointed in ourselves - this is not always yet the case. I mourn, grieve over my failure, would desire to be free, but would not give up, as to my inmost will, what holds me in bondage. Self has still power on the side of evil, over the will.

The Greek word signifies an afterthought, a change of mind on reflection; but the question is, a change of mind as to what? Not, I distinctly say, as to God, though true knowledge of God gives us, on reflection, a just judgment of self, involving, I believe, a sense of God's claims upon us, and our responsibility, which is a different thing from knowing Him; and thus a true judgment of all our past ways. Godly sorrow is not this, but it works it. In repentance the bent of life is changed by the apprehension of God.

The repentance and salvation spoken of there are the repentance and salvation of Christians. The believers at Corinth had grievously erred, and the apostle Paul had written a letter of faithful remonstrance. This letter (the First Epistle to the Corinthians) had produced the desired effect. Godly sorrow had taken the place of shameless glorying in evil, and this sorrow for their sin had wrought repentance in that it had led the Corinthian believers to turn from their evil course and clear themselves from the wrong that they had countenanced. Thus repenting, they were saved from going further down the hill of declension. In this way "repentance to salvation" was wrought by their godly sorrow. It shows that when a believer sins, his repentance should be as real and as practical as one expects a sinner's repentance to be at the first. It is a good thing to be so anxious to be clear of sin, and to be kept from grieving the Holy Spirit, that it can be said of us, as of the Corinthians: "Ye sorrowed after a godly sort. What carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter" (2 Cor. 7:11).