The Process - 2 Corinthians 7:8-11

7:8-10 - When Titus gave Paul the good news that the Corinthian saints had accepted his counsel to repent seriously and were not angry, for the most part, Paul was very relieved. He loved the Corinthians and probably knew many of them personally because he had spent so much time there on his first mission. When you love someone but are in a place of authority over them, it can be easy to reward and encourage them, but it is very difficult to rebuke or chasten them. We don’t want to treat those we love harshly, we don’t want them to get defensive or to strain our relationship with them. That’s what’s hard about loving those you are in charge of, correction must come sometimes and many times it’s not taken well and the relationship may suffer.

 

Paul acknowledges that sending a harsh rebuking letter to the Corinthians was hard to do, but he had to do it. He points out to the people the contradiction that he love them but also sent them a letter that “made you sorry… now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance.” He doesn’t “rejoice” because he upset them, but because they accepted his counsel and repented. The people didn’t get defensive because they felt “godly sorrow” which “worketh repentance to salvation.”

 

What is “godly sorrow?” First, let’s think about what godly sorrow isn’t. Godly sorrow isn’t being sorry that you got caught. We can see someone’s source of sorrow by who they are angry at when a wrong comes to light. For instance, many times in my life I have been on the receiving end of blame and anger when someone else’s transgressions come to light. Like when I got divorced, my ex-husband blamed and hated me even though I wasn’t the one who walked away. I’m not saying that I was the perfect wife, far from it, but I tried really hard. But his blaming me for not just putting up with his crap tells me that he wasn’t truly sorry for what he had done, but sorry he got caught and couldn’t continue living his life the way that he was. This isn’t a perfect example, I’ve just been on the receiving end of this situation so often, not only from my ex but my dad as well, that I’ve come to almost immediately recognize how likely someone is to change based on who they blame for their problem.

 

Self-blame doesn’t have to be demeaning or destructive, it can be as simple of recognizing that you got yourself in this situation and it’s up to you to change it. This is what I’ve encountered when I’ve been “made sorry” because of something that I’ve done. I think that having so much blame placed on me for other people’s shortcomings has really helped me avoid the same pitfall in my own repentance process. The IM comments on the difference saying, “worldly sorrow is a feeling of regret over being caught in a misdeed or having to face unpleasant consequences.”  Every time when someone has blamed me for their problems, it’s never been about the real issue, but about how much more difficult their lives are going to be because I either was enforcing the consequences of their behavior or I was the easiest target for their anger.

 

On the other hand, the Corinthians heard Paul’s difficult to hear counsel and took it to heart, doing some self-reflection and repenting. The IM quotes President Ezra Taft Benson as teaching, “Godly sorrow is a gift of the Spirit. It is a deep realization that our actions have offended our Father and our God. It is the sharp and keen awareness that our behavior caused the Savior, He who knew no sin, even the greatest of all, to endure agony and suffering. Our sins caused Him to bleed at every pore. This very real mental and spiritual anguish is what the scriptures refer to as having ‘a broken heard and a contrite spirit. Such a spirit is the absolute prerequisite for true repentance.” I’ve experienced this many times, the soul crushing realization that I caused the Savior pain, that I’ve done it repeatedly and that I was snotty and rude about it. I never want to feel that again, and many times my main motivation for abstaining from a certain misdeed is solely because I don’t want to cause the Savior any more pain.

 

Experiencing godly sorrow doesn’t mean that the repentance has to be perfect either though. We make mistakes, we backslide a little bit sometimes, but if it is still our true desire to do better, then that is godly sorrow, and that effort is accepted of the Lord. Paul defines the difference perfectly, noting that “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” The word ‘sorrow’ has a pretty bleak connotation but it doesn’t have to be like that, it can be as simple as recognizing a wrong, not wanting to do it anymore and making that changes. The article about this chapter from gospedoctrine.com quotes Orson Pratt as teaching, “it would be of no use for the sinner to confess his sins to God unless he were determined to forsake them; it would be of no benefit to him to feel sorry that he had done wrong unless he intended to do wrong no more; it would be folly for him to confess before God that he injured his fellow man unless he were determined to do all in his power to make restitution. Repentance, then, is not only confession of sins, with a sorrowful, contrite heart, but a fixed, settled purpose to refrain from every evil way.”

 

7:11 - Paul lists several characteristics that the godly sorrow had wrought in the Corinthians, and some of them don’t make sense to me, but let’s see what we can come up with:

1.       Carefulness – This could mean that the people were making conscious decisions to choose righteously. This is part of the conscious competence process. You know what to do, but it isn’t second nature yet so you have to make purposeful decisions.

2.       Clearing of yourselves – This could mean anything from being forgiven for their past transgressions through repentance to moving things out of their lives that caused them to make wrong choices previously. It’s one thing to say you want to be better, but it’s important to intentionally create an environment where that betterment is possible. It’s like if you want to stop drinking, so you don’t keep alcohol around in your house “just in case.” It’s temptation waiting to happen. Change is hard enough without having to battle your own environment.

3.       Indignation – This is the main one that made no sense to me, why could indignation be a characteristic of someone who is repentant? The article paraphrases this as “now they had a horror of sin.” I think back to the situation with my high school friend telling a dirty joke that would have been funny back in the day. When I was older and trying to be better, I was disgusted by the joke, it wasn’t funny and I didn’t like it. This is just an example of how Jesus changes who we are as we move through the spiritual growth process. This is really an advanced level because it means that the appeal of the sin isn’t there anymore. Sinful actions don’t offer an emotional reward like they did previously. It’s a big step.

4.       Fear – This is a tough one because “fear is the opposite of faith,” and I really oppose a fear based relationship with God. The article interprets this to mean “not they feared the consequences of sin.” When I hear this phrase, I think of avoiding the fire and brimstone aspect of punishment, but really a more applicable way to fear the consequences of sin could be being afraid to make the Savior suffer anymore for our sins, so we avoid them. I know that I’m very sensitive to when the Spirit leaves me and because I always want him with me, I avoid sin. I could say that being afraid of losing the Spirit is a motivator to keep the commandments.

5.       Vehement desire and zeal – The article says, “now they were consumed with desires for righteousness and a zeal for Christ.” Instead of being self-serving, we become Christ-serving, which serving others and doing so with a good attitude. Some synonyms for “vehement” are passionate, fervent, and intense. If we have a passionate desire for righteousness, that is our main motivation for all our actions, thoughts, and behaviors. We go into every situation asking ourselves, “what would Jesus do?” And that’s an excellent way to decide what to do and we also feel like doing what the Savior would do is rewarding and it brings us happiness and joy. This is a testimony to the power of God because logically, it doesn’t make any sense for happiness to be the result of avoiding hedonistic behaviors. But because it is the result, we can conclude that God is real and that he is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving.

6.       Revenge – Again, a very odd characteristic to develop from repentance because we are told time and again “vengeance is mine saith the Lord,” and “forgive and forget,” so how can revenge be a good thing in this context? The article says, “now they had slain their sins and taken revenge upon the adversary.” From this perspective, this principle could follow the lines of “the best revenge is living your best life.” The vengeance isn’t centered on the person who wronged you, in this case Satan who wants you to be miserable, but focused on moving passed all the hurt and difficulties caused by Satan’s convincing us to do wrong.

 

This was a fairly non-descript verse, but I feel like it explained a lot of ways that we can recognize in ourselves in ourselves how the atonement is working in our lives. And it explains a lot about the process of perfection, first we have to make conscious decisions to do the right thing, and over time we become clean and unaccustomed to wickedness. We grow from just wanting to avoid punishment, but to actively desiring the companionship of God and a passion for doing His will. In doing this we will have our revenge on Satan by living our best lives. It’s a beautiful concept and a fairly straight forward plan that builds on where we are and allows us space to make mistakes and recover from them.