From its Greek and Hebrew perspectives, the word “repent” is most commonly known as metanoeo and nacham, which define it as “to think differently or to change your mind” and “to experience sorrow for an action,” respectively. These definitions line up with the majority of scriptural references regarding repentance and how most people understand the word repent.
Many people believe the act of asking God for forgiveness is part of the repenting process. Though one can ask God at any time for forgiveness, which may be a part of their repentance process, the core understanding of the word “repent” goes well beyond an expression of remorse or sorrow.
The question that needs to be answered in looking at these definitions are: “To what are we to change our minds? What are we supposed to think differently about?” In other words, what should our thought process be instead of the one we have that has caused us to feel sorrow for our actions?
The answer to these valid questions can be found in understanding the lesser-known Hebraic word for “repent” that has eluded traditional Christian teachings. This is the word shub, which is also referred to as shuv or shoov
According to the Greek to Hebrew Dictionary of Septuagint Words, when the word “repent” is being used in a verse in which the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Heaven is mentioned, shub is the type of “repentance” being referred to. For example, when both Jesus and John the Baptist state, “Repent, for the kingdom of God/Heaven is at hand,” they are using the word shub (Matt. 3:2, 4:17; Mk. 1:15).
In these cases, shub is defined as “to turn back to a previous state or place” and “a returning to one’s place of residence where one sits.” The “previous state or place” that this definition refers to is the origin of your existence in spirit form within the mind of God. This state is described in the following verses:
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jer. 1:5).
“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).
HUMAN ORIGIN VERSUS SPIRITUAL ORIGIN
According to ancient Hebrew thought, another way to describe this type of repentance is “to destroy a way of thinking that has taken you captive in order to return to a place of thinking where freedom is present.”
We are taught to believe our lives begin at conception. From a biological perspective, this is true, yet this is not where our spirits first began their existence. In fact, at your natural birth, a process of captivity instinctively begins, in that it keeps you from having knowledge of your true origin.
When we are born in the natural realm, this is our second birth. Remember that pivotal statement Jesus made in His conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-8? According to the majority of Bible translations, Jesus stated, “You must be born again to enter [and see or experience] the kingdom of God.”
In some translations of the Bible, instead of the term “born again,” you will see “born anew” or “born from above.” The Accurate New Testament
The term “born again” implies that you must have been birthed before. For anything to happen “again,” the same thing must have taken place before. Did Jesus indicate to Nicodemus that he must be born again in the flesh? This is what Nicodemus thought, but Jesus quickly ruled that out by saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh and what has been born of spirit is a spirit” (Jn. 3:6).
Living our lives from the reference point of natural birth will always lead to the greatest form of ignorance, which is lack of knowledge regarding your original self. It is a level of unconsciousness that will result in a life filled with what I call “spiritual amnesia.” This is the primary reason God commands humanity to repent, not just by the traditional application of expressing sorrow, but by positioning oneself to change one’s mind or to think differently. The only way we will have the ability to think differently is by experiencing and taking on the mindset and thought-life that comes from God.
“Truly, then, God overlooking the times of ignorance, now He strictly commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).
The ultimate purpose of being born again is to re-member or reacquaint yourself back to the mind of God, which the Bible refers to as “the secret place” where you were first created in spirit form. This is the place you need to return to gain the original memory that God has about your life. This is the secret place where the mysteries of the kingdom of God are revealed to you. The secret place is the place where you were first created within the mind of God, the place that is currently hidden from you due to your natural state of thinking.
“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place [In the mind of God!] when I was woven together in the depths of the earth [within a mother’s womb]. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them” (Ps. 139:15-17, words in brackets added).
When we think about a womb, we think about the biological place within a woman where the creation of life takes place. Spiritually, God also has a womb within His mind that, according to ancient Hebrew perspective, is referred to as a matrix. A matrix is defined as an environment where something is developed. Scripturally, this environment is referred to as the loins of the mind (See 1 Pet. 1:13; Eph. 6:14). Truth is produced in the loins of the mind of God. Since God is a God of truth, the only thing that can come out of Him is
The Greek perspective of “loins” is the word osphus,
“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness”(Gen. 1:26a).
When God came up with the idea to make mankind, it first happened within the loins of His mind.
A womb is a place where life begins through conception, growth, and ultimately, the birthing process. Naturally and spiritually, the womb is a sacred place. Whether male or female, every human being has a spiritual womb. The reason for this is because of the gift of creativity and God’s desire for us to birth or “bring forth” what has been housed in His mind that He desires to transfer to your mind. Thus you become pregnant with the ideas of God. In ancient Hebrew thought, this place is known as the cheder or the nuptial chamber of the mind where the seeds of God’s ideas are purposed to impregnate you so that you can birth them out in your life.
THE BIRTHRIGHT OF THE FIRSTBORN
There are five scriptural references where God required the firstborn that came out of the womb to be separated as His. In each of these cases, instead of wombs, they were called matrixes (See Ex. 13:12, 14, 34:19; Num. 3:12, 18:15 KJV). Fundamentally, this is still God’s desire and requirement. Since you were originally born (firstborn) in Him, this is your original identity that He desires to see lived out.
A biblical example of this truth is found in the story of Jacob’s life and encounter with God, which is filled with profound insights. The highlights of Jacob’s story can be found in Genesis Chapter 25, verses 19-34. Jacob’s life began with his mother Rebekah being informed by God that she had two nations within her womb:
“And the LORD said to her: ‘Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger’ “(Gen. 25:23 NKJV).
The firstborn son always had the birthright – special privileges from the father, which included a double portion of the estate as an inheritance. In other words, the favor of the father was always given to the firstborn son as a legal continuation of the family. This prohibited a father from playing favorites among his sons by trying to give the birthright to anyone other than the firstborn (See Deut. 21:15-17).
This is important because the same principle applies today. Every human was first conceived and birthed in the mind of God before the foundations of the world.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:3-5 NKJV).
The mystery of God’s will in terms of the inheritance of spiritual blessings for our lives can only be revealed from the mouth of God.
“Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself” (Eph. 1:9 NKJV).
“In Him
Returning to the story of Jacob, you’ll remember that later in his life, he had a direct encounter with God, in which God changed his name to Israel. A major principle that we must capture from Jacob’s encounter with God is not that his name was changed from Jacob to Israel; the important thing is what these names mean. Jacob is defined as “a heel holder,” which is a description of what happened at his birth when he grabbed his twin brother’s heel [Gen. 25:26]. Israel is defined as “one who prevails with God.”
The significance of this event of Jacob grabbing the heel of his older brother parallelled another event when Jacob deceived his brother, Esau, out of his birthright [See Gen. 25:29-34]. In other words, this heel grabbing symbolizes the second born (your natural birth) hindering the walk and birthright of the firstborn (your spiritual origin and birth), which when experienced you also “prevail with God.”
This is a portrait of our natural or physical birth hindering our true, spiritual beginning. Only our spiritual beginning gives us access to our birthright in God. We can’t experience the power of God until we get access to our first-birth environment (the womb or matrix of God), which contains the information that we need to prevail with God. Jesus was naturally born (second birth) on the earth but was spiritually conceived in the mind of God (first birth). This principle applies to us as well.
It’s important to note that when your biological parents conceived you, God also saw two nations or kingdoms locked up inside of you! Until we experience a true repentance, a returning to our place of true spiritual residence, we will always be torn between two kingdoms: the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. When we destroy our former way of thinking, we can then focus on one kingdom, which is God’s purpose for us.
When Jesus said, “Repent [shub], for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” the life-changing depth of what He was saying was that a person could achieve an inward relationship with God in the most intimate and personal level. Experiencing God inwardly is what gives life to the potential for us to bring to a reality Jesus’ precedent-setting statement: “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). To be perfect is to bring something to completion. If we understand the word “perfect” in this way, we see that Jesus is urging us to be brought to the end state for which we were created. This is only brought about through the discovery of the inner self that is contained within the kingdom of God that lies within every person.
As noted before, initially, every human being was conceived in the mind of God from before the foundations of the world were ever created (See Ps. 139:16; Eph. 1:3-4). When we are naturally born into this world, we are born without the awareness of the beginning of our existence. Fundamentally, we are born without an awareness of our original memory.
THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF REPENTANCE
At its core understanding, the ultimate purpose of repent (shub) was to begin a process of introducing you to the mindset of God within your mind. Your sole purpose in life is to re-member or reacquaint yourself with the mind of God, within your mind so that God can reveal what Jesus called “mysteries” to you. This is your soul’s ultimate purpose!
It is the place where the mysteries of the kingdom are revealed to you, according to Jesus’ words:
“And He said to them, ‘To you, it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables'” (Mk. 4:11).
“And He said, ‘To you, it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But to others, I speak in parables, so that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand’ “(Lk. 8:10).
From an Aramaic perspective, the words for repent and repentance are tab and toubo.They are described as acts that are required in order “to return to the place of your original existence.” The only way to understand this “original existence” or this “place” of origin is for God Himself to tell you about it.
It is a place of being where we have been before, but our natural mind has no recollection of it until our spirits connect with God’s Spirit to re-mind us of our original existence. It’s the place where your belief system is accurately re-paired and re-structured according to God’s original intention and design.
It is an inner system restoration that comes from the original Manufacturer of your life according to the original specifications for your life! This is where optimal performance now becomes possible! It’s the place where you discover the original hard drive for your life! Until then, you are operating on a bootlegged system.
This place of origin is where all other forms of knowledge are completely removed in order to get this level of knowledge. It’s the place where time stands still so that your future may be revealed to you. It’s the place where blessings are held in disguise until the mask of traditional religion is removed so that you may put on and experience the face or presence of the kingdom of God within you.
Instead of continually learning about God and the Bible from human perspectives and indoctrination, we can actually learn from God so that He can teach you about Himself and give you His interpretation of the Scriptures and how He wants you to apply them to your life. This is the ultimate purpose of repentance.
A process of repentance should not be limited to experiencing sorrow, misery, or shame but should be understood as the beginning of a process in which you return to where you originally came from, which is the mind of God within your mind. This is where you discover the wholeness and completeness of “the Real You” and “the Real God” so that you can thrive in both these understandings.
“The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness, but is long-suffering toward us, not purposing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
When Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” He was saying that now there is an original system of learning available, which is designed to govern your mind! It resides within the kingdom of God within you! It transcends traditional religious means. It’s a place that you need to seek out. To get to this level of “re-member-ance,” according to Jesus, you must “seek first the kingdom of God,” “for behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Matt. 6:33; Lk. 17:21).
This post contains excerpts from Chapter Four: Repent, and Chapter Five: You Must Be Born Again from my book The Mystery of the Kingdom of God Revealed.
In part two of this blog-post, we will explore the connection between the repentance process of John the Baptist’s pre-resurrection baptism and Peters’s post-resurrection baptism experience.
Respectfully,
Julio Alvarado Jr.