The Responsibility Of Our Calling

A CALL TO REPENTANCE

It’s good to know we can come back to the Lord and start over again. One failure does not make us a flop. We can recognize our mistakes, return to the intersection where we made the wrong turn, and take the better path.

When James spoke of turning back someone “from the error of his way,” he was speaking of repentance. The same word is found in Jesus’ conversation with Simon Peter: “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have [turned back] to Me, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32).

James was not referring to people here who are sorry only because they were caught in a particular sin. He was talking to those sinners who have strayed and who truly come back, who turn from “the error of [their] way.” Repentance is the key that opens the door of restoration with God.

The Lord Jesus told the greatest story ever to illustrate true repentance. You may know it well. It is the story of a young man who wandered from the truth. The bright lights of the big city held a fascination for him, so he took his inheritance and left home. He thought he would find a good time, but all he found were hangovers, rip-offs, and unemployment lines when he ran out of money. Ending up in a pigpen feeding swine (not an ideal job for a nice Jewish boy), he decided to get up and go home. His turning back—his repentance—involved three steps. First, he changed his mind. The Bible says, “He came to himself ” (Luke 15:17). This change of mind brought about a change of his will, his volition. He said, “I will arise and go to my father” (v. 18, emphasis added). Then his actions changed: “He arose and came to his father” (v. 20).

Repentance is a change of mind that brings about a change of the will and results in a change of action, a turning back. When we, like this boy, see the error of our ways and turn back to God’s path for our life, we will find our heavenly Father responding the same way he found his father: no pointed fingers of accusation, no arms crossed in disgust, and no clenched fists. Just open arms, wide, loving, and forgiving open arms.

A CALL TO RESUSCITATION

Returning to James’s statement, he said whoever “turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death.” James was referring here to physical death, not eternal death, not eternal separation from God. The Bible calls it “the sin leading to death.” The apostle John described it this way: “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death” (1 John 5:16). At times when a believer becomes rebellious and refuses to repent, God will take him or her out prematurely through physical death. That’s why, when we can bring our brothers and sisters back to Jesus, we just might be saving them from death.

Remember Ananias and his wife, Sapphira? Their story, recorded in Acts 5, is a classic example of this “sin unto death.” The church was in its infancy, and this couple lied to the apostles and—worse—to the Holy Spirit. God struck them dead on the spot. He didn’t take their lives in order to get even with them. In His mercy, God dismissed this couple from earth in order to keep them from further sin and to protect the witness of His infant church.

Because Moses sinned in the wilderness when he struck the rock instead of just speaking to it, he was not allowed to enter the promised land. Moses died on Mt. Nebo after viewing the long-promised land from a distance. The Bible clearly says there is a sin unto death.

When Christians fall out of the will of God and refuse to repent, God often chastens them, sometimes even with death. This course of action is not for us to judge, but we can trust that God knows the motives of a person’s heart: “The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

A CALL TO RESTORATION

James was clear: when we are involved in this ministry of reconciliation and restoration, we “cover a multitude of sins” in the process. The person who repents and returns to the Lord has the promise of having his or her sins covered. This is made possible for us at an extraordinarily high cost: the blood of Jesus shed on Calvary’s cross for our sins. King David expressed our heartfelt feelings at this point: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1).

When a Christian repents of his sin and turns back to God, he finds complete restoration, and his transgressions are removed “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). God cannot and will not see our sins after we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. In David’s powerful, penitent prayer, we read that it was not his salvation he longed to have restored, but his joy. “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” was his passionate desire and plea to God (Psalm 51:12).

It is a wonderful privilege to know that God calls upon us and allows us to be His agents in helping others in the restoration process. Look again at the promise that closes James’s book: “If anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”

And with this statement James abruptly ended his letter. James’s closing stands in stark contrast to the encouraging and loving way that Paul, Peter, and Jude, for example, ended their New Testament epistles. I think that James’s ending is rather abrupt because he was a practical man. Having told us what we ought to do, James said in effect, “Now get on with it! Just do it!”