Article February 15, 1982 Issue

Repentance and the kingdom of heaven

FORD H. JOHNSTON

"Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."^{Matt. 4:17.} Christ Jesus taught the "good news" that the kingdom of heaven is within us, within spiritual consciousness; that harmony, health, and happiness come from God and are governed by God; and that man cannot be separated from Him. This being so, what does repentance have to do with the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus knew that the human consciousness needed to awake from a false, material sense of being. To see, to live, to have the joy of true spiritual being, we must break the mesmeric beliefs of sin and mortality—resist them, overcome them, and replace them with the understanding of God's kingdom. Hence the need for the baptism of repentance—a radical change of thought, a new way of life.

Repentance, as Jesus used the word, has a more compassionate and inspiring meaning than mere self-condemnation and penance. Christian repentance calls for purification from sin and evil beliefs and a heartfelt acknowledgment of the forgiveness and presence of God that results in reformation. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, points this out in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Every pang of repentance and suffering, every effort for reform, every good thought and deed, will help us to understand Jesus' atonement for sin and aid its efficacy; but if the sinner continues to pray and repent, sin and be sorry, he has little part in the atonement,—in the at-one-ment with God,—for he lacks the practical repentance, which reforms the heart and enables man to do the will of wisdom."^{Science and Health, p. 19.}