Clara sat across from me with a damp wad of tissue balled up in her hand. Her husband, Justin, had cheated on her several months before, and she was in that in-between space where she didn’t trust him but didn’t want to leave.
Recovering from an affair is no light matter. It can be done, but even the best-case scenarios are fraught with difficulty. Clara and Justin’s situation was a best-case, as he was deeply sorry, had ended contact with the other woman, and was fully immersed in a recovery program that included counseling, an accountability partner, and a group support. After a few months of separation, he’d gone away to a recovery center, and the plan was for him to now return home to rebuild the marriage. They would have joint and individual counseling during that process. Everything was in place.
But it was still hard.
“I forgive him,” Clara said wistfully, “but trust and reconciliation are different matters. How can I know if he’ll do it again?”
“You can never know for sure,” I said, “but if his repentance passes the biblical criterion, you’re as safe as you can possibly be, given the circumstances.”
“How do I know if his repentance is real?”
I directed Clara to an amazing story woven into the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians. It spotlights the issue of repentance and gives us clear direction in understanding its fruits.
The Letter of Rebuke
As the apostle Paul roamed the ancient world planting churches, he learned that the brethren in Corinth had become spiritually lax. When a certain man brazenly carried on an illicit relationship with his mother-in-law, the elders of the church did nothing. Even the surrounding Gentile tribes disapproved of incestuous adultery, and the Corinthian Church didn’t seem to mind at all.
Trembling, Paul wrote the leadership a letter of rebuke, outrage burning through his pen in such language as “Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). (Whoa, Paul, tell us how you really feel!)
It worked. The Corinthians repented deeply of their cowardice and passivity. So powerful was the Spirit’s work on their hearts that Paul regarded the congregation as a paragon of true repentance. Let this be a lesson to us that biblical, Spirit-led rebuke is an act of redemptive love.
What jumps out from Paul’s recounting of the story is his description of the Corinthians’ repentance:
“You sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:11).
Fallen nature bends like a crowbar toward self and sin, and only the blowtorch of God’s Spirit can make it malleable enough to bend toward righteousness.
What a boatload of complicated words! Paul pulled out all the literary stops to explain the dazzling phenomenon he saw. But the passage serves as more than a good vocabulary lesson. It’s a guide for us today. How do we know if a person is truly sorry? If we are truly sorry? Paul has given us a checklist:
- Diligence (spouden): This means speed, or haste. The Corinthians didn’t dawdle or procrastinate.
- Clearing (apologian): This can mean a speech in defense of something. They defended the wronged.
- Indignation (aganaktēsin): This simply means intense displeasure at what they’d done.
- Fear (phobon): Panic (or terror) set in as they realized the seriousness of the situation.
- Vehement desire (epipothēsin): They yearned and longed for things to be set right.
- Zeal (zēlon): They felt a fervent—even jealous—zeal for God’s glory.
- Vindication (ekdikēsin): They were driven to avenge the wrong done—by them.
Don’t Just Save Face; Turn About-face
The lesson leaps out from the list: True repentance is a radical about-face.
Instead of being quick to condemn others, we’re quick to admit our own faults.
Instead of defending ourselves, we defend the person wronged.
Instead of being displeased with others, we’re displeased with ourselves.
Instead of fearing what others may do to us, we fear our own natural apathy.
Instead of yearning for our own protection, we yearn to protect those we wronged.
Instead of zeal for our own glory, we cherish zeal for the glory of God.
Instead of vindicating ourselves, we vindicate the person we harmed.
Nothing—nothing—can change the direction of human nature like the gift of repentance (Acts 5:31). Fallen nature bends like a crowbar toward self and sin, and only the blowtorch of God’s Spirit can make it malleable enough to bend toward righteousness. But once He breaks through to a person, watch out: profound changes take place.
Because Justin evidently and consistently met every criterion for true repentance, Clara could confidently rebuild her marriage. The couple ultimately became infidelity recovery coaches. The road to recovery had bumps and potholes galore, but it brought the couple to a good, stable place and a healed marriage.
Then There Was Luke and Olivia . . .
Olivia (Liv) had developed an emotional affair with a coworker, scheduling a liaison time and place, when Luke saw her texts. Ultimately Liv couldn’t deny the facts, so she confessed the matter . . . or seemed to. Luke later found evidence of other relationships; in fact, he discovered a pattern of cheating. He brokenheartedly confronted Liv again.
Utterly broken, Liv worked on a recovery strategy with a professional, with Luke signing off on the steps. He hoped that their marriage could be healed. Unfortunately, only a few steps into the process, Olivia decided she knew more than everyone else. And, not surprisingly, she failed every criterion of the 2 Corinthians test.
She exercised no diligence in repairing what she’d broken.
She defended herself, claiming Luke’s deficiencies had caused the affairs.
She felt no particular abhorrence of what she’d done.
She lacked a proper fear of God and her condition.
She had no yearning to repair her marriage, only to repair her own reputation.
She glorified herself as a know-it-all.
She was vindictive against people who’d called her out.
The contrast between the humility of Justin and the recalcitrant pride of Olivia couldn’t have been starker. Luke couldn’t conscientiously stay, and the marriage failed.
A Life Tool
People we love will cause us pain, and we will cause them pain! Sometimes the harm will go over the tolerance threshold into a relationship-breaking level. Hard conversations will need to take place. We will be placed where, for sanity and stewardship’s sake, we must determine the risk level in rebuilding broken trust. Some bring into such predicaments a haphazard “faith” divorced from reason and evidence. But we can exercise more wisdom and prudence than that, for God has given us a very clear and detailed picture of true, biblical, healing repentance. Use it!
