Corporate Preventative Repentance
We all should know what “repentance” is. Some of us have heard of “corporate repentance”. For instance, the year 2020 brought questions of corporate repentance into the spotlight. Is this a biblically valid form of repentance for the church? When should this be employed by a church? Should this be public or not? And so on the questions have gone. But what about “preventative repentance”? Have you heard of this before? Not many have.
“Preventative repentance” is an act of God’s mercy when He convicts or calls out your sin and the ensuing consequence but then gives you the opportunity to repent before facing the consequence, which could lessen the consequence if you do or worsen it if you don’t. Hence, you can repent to prevent your sin’s consequence. “Corporate preventative repentance” is when this is applied to a group, not an individual.
Seeing this in Scripture
In my morning Bible reading through Zephaniah, during my first pause and reflection I wrote in the margin of chapter 2:1-3: a picture of corporate preventative repentance.
“1 Gather yourselves together; gather together, undesirable nation, 2 before the decree takes effect and the day passes like chaff, before the burning of the Lord’s anger overtakes you, before the day of the Lord’s anger overtakes you. 3 Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, who carry out what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be concealed on the day of the Lord’s anger.” (Zeph. 2:1-3, CSB)
This passage gives us a good example of what corporate preventative repentance looks like.
Before the consequences of your sin are levied upon you…
Gather together
Seek God
Seek what’s right in His sight (righteousness)
Seek humility
…and God may withhold it altogether or reduce the brunt of it.
Corporate preventative repentance wasn’t new for God’s people in the Old Testament. For example, consider one of the most quoted OT verses, 2Chronicles 7:14. Whether we realize this or not, the passage this verse is nestled in is about corporate repentance.
“13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.” (2Chron. 7:13-15, ESV)
A New Testament cross-reference for this Zephaniah passage that came to my mind was 1Corinthians 10:1-13. Notice how Paul begins and ends.
“1 Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them, since they were struck down in the wilderness. 6 Now these things took place as examples for us, so that we will not desire evil things as they did. 7 Don’t become idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party. 8 Let us not commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in a single day twenty-three thousand people died. 9 Let us not test Christ as some of them did and were destroyed by snakes. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and were killed by the destroyer. 11 These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall. 13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.”
Paul addresses the church (the group), not solely individual believers. So his warning and instruction are for both, the individual and the group. And if you caught it, what Paul writes here is preventative—here’s what those of old did, learn from their mistake, don’t be prideful, take God’s way of escape when He presents it.
Therefore, merely from these few references, there is biblical precedence for occasions when the church (the group) does need to corporately repent to God because the people were complicit in a sin(s) or in a series of decisions going their own way and not God’s direction for His glory. What mercy from God! Why would a group of believers not want to do this when God extends the opportunity to lessen their deserved consequences? It is to our benefit that we do. This is evident in Zephaniah and the correction and warning from Paul in 1Corinthians. Paul even follows this up in his second letter by commending them for their corporate repentance.
“8 For even if I grieved you with my letter, I don’t regret it. And if I regretted it—since I saw that the letter grieved you, yet only for a while— 9 I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn’t experience any loss from us. 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death. 11 For consider how much diligence this very thing—this grieving as God wills—has produced in you: what a desire to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what zeal, what justice! In every way you showed yourselves to be pure in this matter.” (2Cor. 7:8-11, CSB)
Conclusion
I’ll conclude with briefly addressing how you can know when a church (or group) needs to do this.
Following the example of when God extended this to His people in Scripture, a good way to determine if “corporate preventative repentance” is appropriate is to ask the question:
Was the leadership or a sizable portion of the membership involved in a sin or misdirection where the consequences will impact the whole group?
If the answer is yes, then this corporate repentance is an appropriate response before those consequences are levied upon the whole church.
Don’t be prideful in your individualism. Let’s learn from those before us about repenting as a group to prevent further consequences when God extends us mercy to do so. As Paul said, “these things took place as examples for us, so that we will not desire evil things as they did.”